#bullshitting my way through academia

[probablynottola]

If I wrote fanfiction like I write academic papers

"From Trent Crimm, The Independent to Trent Crimm, Interdependent. How a late-in-life queer awakening disrupts the linear neoliberal atomized ethos" Abstract: The allegory of Trent torching his career for Ted represents the potential of the disinvestment in the linear career dream that provides a cruelly optimistic (Berlant, 2011) attachment to individual fulfillment, which is fundamentally opposed to a queer mutualistic radical futurity. What Ted provides for Trent is a peek into the possibility of collective support and an alternative to a hyper-individualistic focus, represented by his former work at "The Independent". One could argue that only arriving at a "Trent Crimm, Interdependent", does the queer post-scarcity utopian possibility of interdependency realizes itself"

[court-jobi]

For Your Eyes Only

💥Poll Reveal: Birthday Special💥

Pairing: Bakugou x tattooed!reader (fitting theme for biker!reader, no?)

Words: 2.2k

Rating: 18+ (heavy smexy insinuations near the end)

Warnings: NSFWish, reunited lovers, partial undressing, body worship, tattoos, possessive!Bakugou, basically foreplay, implied sexual touch, reunited and it feels so good

Summary:

Someone's missed their Pro-Hero while he's been off lighting up villains for seven weeks straight. The meantime does gives you the brilliant idea for a gorgeous new tattoo, though... all for your darling hero as a birthday present while he's away on mission, so you can keep the freshly inked secret close to your chest. Pretty nice surprise waiting for Bakugou to unwrap when he gets home, yeah?

A/N: Remember THIS POLL? Y'all gave me some splendid direction, thanks so much to everyone who voted! Might still very well run with some leftover ideas and make another fic for our other recipient (Birdie Boy Hawks), but hope you enjoy the winner~

For my My Hero Academia Masterlist, check it out here!

Read on Ao3

"Ready for a surprise?"

Shrugging off his shoulder strap, Bakugou stares after you in snarky disbelief. He hasn’t even taken his shoes off yet, dammit. Still, he can’t help but smile.

"Hmm a surprise, huh? Takes a lot to surprise me, sweet thing…"

"Oh, I think I've done it this time,” you swing your hips on your way to the kitchen. “You haven't noticed it yet in all our calls- though I guess you haven't really had much chance to, lately."

"Tch– don't remind me,” he toes off his travel shoes by the table. “This whole ‘secret agent’ bullshit took way longer than I thought it would- been dying to get back to you. Haven't talked to you in days, or had decent reception enough to look at a photo in weeks; forget anything else. Speaking of…c’mere you.”

Bakugou slinks towards you, though you back up away from him, tugging your yukata taught from the back so he couldn't make a grab for it.

“What’re you runnin’ way for, heh??”

"Not letting you spoil it so fast there, babe~!”

You hop onto the kitchen counter with a couple careful adjustments to the overlapping ends of your robe, –sweet, sexy appeal coating your words.

"If you're gonna unwrap it, you've got to have a good view."

Bakugou teased the tip of his canines with an appreciative chuckle.

"You're my present, are ya?"

"Something like that."

Bakugou eyed you over with sneaky wonder. What on earth could you be hiding. 

His attention trailed down your legs- socked, but otherwise bare. He steps closer to you, wedging between your legs with a forceful jut of his hips, and cups your jaw into a long, starved kiss. You won't be getting out from under his grasp anytime soon, he's makin’ damn sure of that. 

It’s not your first kiss since Bakugou’s arrival through the door, but deeper than that quickie peck you'd given him at first sight. You’d hugged him tight around the neck in perfect bliss after such a long separation– only to dart away, killing any of his plans to never let you go. 

That long-awaited kiss of greeting was kept painfully brief by Bakugou’s standards– followed immediately by your retreat to the kitchen, where you’re now acting the most secretive you ever have in your entire relationship. 

He'd be crushed if he wasn't so confused. 

Parting, he rumbles directly into your waiting mouth.

"What are you up to, pretty?"

"No funny business. Just a great surprise." 

You’re toying with his hoodie’s knotted ends, cinching and uncinching the knots and seeking shy permission to strip him. Bakugou lets you, shedding his pullover that reeks of airport and leaving him in the black compression shirt he could trademark- wrinkled, half-rucked up his abs, and perfect.

To his surprise, you seem pleased enough with this level of undress and stop tugging on him altogether. At the moment where he’d expected you to slip his pants loose next, you merely push him back into place between your knees. Doing so allows the space to scoot just so towards the edge of the counter. 

You brace back on your palms, posture up and cutting your sights down to where his hands trail across your waist: he’s calculating your moves for hints, few as they are.

"Go on and open it."

Bakugou's brow still worked together as he fought his edging smile. 

What on earth could this be? His first best guess would be something sexy to wear, but he honestly finds that pointless since nothing lasts that long on you, anyhow. A laced-up view would be the most mouthwatering sight for the man who’s been starved of you for seven straight weeks… but he reckons this has to hold bigger shock factor. 

Following your lead and gentle instruction, Bakugou sweeps an eager hand back with a jerk to untie your sash and then bends over to divide the curtain of your kimono to your hips, granting him the sweet heat of your calves, knees, thighs, and-- 

Bakugou's jaw goes slack.

Atop your left leg, creased at the flesh of your hip lay his intended surprise: a fully realized tattoo of gorgeous black and grayed ink. 

The center of it all bore a gorgeously stylized pawprint -left empty of pigment for contrast- digging in slightly to the flesh, deliciously possessive, as if the full body were howling its word of ‘mine’ into the night. 

Claiming its territory. Guarding its beloved.

Naturally, the design didn't stop there. The paw and its indentions laid surrounded by a burst of swirls and sparks resembling firework patterns: some as sunbursts, some as residual trails of light intermixing with haze. The most notable hailed the shape of ‘Dynamight’s fanned accents– mimicking the rays of the earth’s brightest star– known by just about every folklore believer for strength and victory.

This shading is impeccable: saturated to perfection and a gorgeous display of artistry. There are billows of ombre smoke that spread throughout the design, creating a nebulous effect throughout the background, leaning into uncanny imagery of a certain someone’s quirk.

Each element features his take on ‘lucky charms’~ branded right there on your skin. 

The symbol was divine… and for a man with a faster tongue unafraid to speak his mind, Bakugou has no words.

Dumbstruck and in utter awe, Bakugou's fingers trail in slow motion towards your newest addition of skin ink. He releases a breath he hadn't realized he was holding back, crouching subconsciously to one side, revealing more and more skin with the lift of the kimono. The hipband of your underwear cut off the very spiky peak of a spark, but it didn't hide much of the body of the tattoo- all was plenty visible from the hip, down your thigh.

You sneak in a cautious breath with proud anticipation, drinking in Bakugou's every soft reaction. A little huff escapes your nose seeing your partner’s mouth hung open from the moment he locks sight of your leg– sights which have never parted since. 

Not to speak, not to swallow, barely to blink.

"Happy birthday, Katsuki~" you nearly sing.

Finally, Bakugou tears himself from his trance to lock into your brilliant eyes, their bright points muted in this low light by the kitchen window.

"When-- hah- ho-?"

"You were gone almost two months, honey," you reminded with a twinge of sultry pride. "Once you got orders on the op, I booked the outline, then another session for the fill. Healed up just in time for you to come crashing in the door."

With your non-balancing hand, you twine your fingers over his, swiping over the lower half of the tattoo. The movement matches the curve of the curling tufts of smoke laid there.

Bakugou follows as you move his hand along by your guidance, leading him lazily until you trace it down to the bottom, not wanting to cover up anything.

Taking a slow knee to study it with careful hands cupping your thighs, you coo light in your chest with a loving stroke on your hero’s arm as Bakugou gets comfortable on his knees.

"This-- this is days worth of work, for you.." Bakugou muttered breathlessly.

"‘Bout three full days, start to finish. Larza did such a good job, didn’t they." you beam, crediting your artist. With a little sparkle, you hedge your newly revealed excitement, "--Do you like it?"

Bakugou's squint through his surprised joy was adorable- though he'd deny ever resembling anything close to the word.

"Sweet’eart... S'fucking gorgeous."

His weak slack-jawed look turned into a grin, which drives up into a breathless laugh. 

But Bakugou is not done marveling yet…

You rake through his wild hair lovingly, doubling the intimate experience. 

“Three days,” he husks, "That's a long time, angel. You stayed so still for this one- there's not a stroke outta place."

Recounting each of your other tattoos that lie either on both your arms or other bits of tender skin, this piece held significantly more ‘natural cushion’ to work with.

"Probably hurt the least of any of them, honestly. M'not gonna lie n’ say it was a breeze near the hip..but hell, was the finished product worth it."

At this, Bakugou finally shows an emotion other than ‘want’- a flash of concern tents his brow and firms his lips as he lifts up to you.

You could laugh about it now; all discomfort is long gone after the insanely prickly healing process.

"Not too much of course! Just the usual. But the itching- oof, that wasn't funny. Had to hide out here for the first two days- couldn't wear any clothes over it yet. Just me, your pillow, my Kindle, and a vat of lotion to keep me from going out of my mind from the blistering. N’ I couldn’t handle talking to you, or else y-"

“-You faked a head cold, you crafty little DUMBASS!!” 

Bakugou pieced together your ‘random’ excuse for those days when he’d tried to touch base with you.

The sidenote of spending that much time alone -wearing next to nothing- sends Bakugou reeling into lust again in a heartbeat; all while you giggle at your successful ruse. 

Gifts to your lifemate have all carried meaning and touched on every part of his identity. Whether it was a symbol of your connection, or a splurge that he’d been pining for but far too tight-fisted to award himself, you stepped in and would take extra care into a special, well-thought out present on these occasions you felt were worth celebrating– even if he’d sooner forget. 

Bakugou’s arrival home landing on his birthday was a true afterthought to him; but not to you. 

Your skin laid newly adorned with more stunning art– but more notably, laid nearly bare under his hands. Right where he craved them, and right where he could smell your very essence - just a little closer. 

It’s no secret how much he loves every inch of you -inside and out- and in every curve and crevasse… and it’s here that his brain clicks together why you’d sat so precariously on the counter now.

Bakugou thanks you with his whole chest, the lovesick aura glowing even more beautiful with its rawness.

"This is absolutely beautiful- I love it, baby,” your striking boyfriend declares the impact your gift has had on him, "Fuck me, this is-- first the rings, then the new gauntlets, now this?"

"Well, anyone can see those first two in broad daylight,” you sass… then softer, “This one's just for you, Kats..."

"Damn right it is," Bakugou leans down, eyeing you before laying a euphoric kiss on the tip of your hipbone.

Heated lips kiss the same spot again, slower this time. Then another, further down. And again, and again- covering the art with wet lovemarks. You've moisturized the tattoo expertly, treating it with an essence of mango and verbena filling his senses– and a light coconutty taste, as he'd learned from the last time you'd gotten one done on your shoulder. 

Passing over the wolf’s claws, Bakugou bared his teeth ever so much, rumbling a happy growl to make you laugh- then moan. Pleasure, adoration, obsession.

With a flash of crimson up to you,  Bakugou hungered low and deeper still,

"Sounds like torture, angel. Don't know how you invite that sorta pain over and over…” 

Affected by his slow worship along your leg, you subconsciously tuck that leg in; anything to give him more space to cover, make sure nothing is missed.

“I keep tellin’ ya, it's not too bad. You’d look pretty hot with some ink, yourself.”

While the man disagrees with a playful sarcasm, his respect for both your thoughtfulness -and pain tolerance- is enough to get him hard.

Bakugou fantasizes about the whole process: taking a wildly rapid pen to you, laid on your side naked from the waist down, drawn u[on as a living, breathing canvas… all with the sole intention to be marked for his eyes only, forever. 

Three whole days.. Bakugou mulls over the work you’ve done. The statement you’ve made with this gift. The proud look in your eyes that doesn’t regret a single stroke, and has chosen to celebrate its claim on your body by giving him full rights to every inch of you…

“Wasn’t even ‘ere to hold your hand through it…” Bakugou offers sweetly. He would have been at your side, had he not been off saving the world yet again. 

A touch of dominance comes through his observation, eliciting a delightful reaction he knows will follow. You affirm; giving a sweet, pliant moan of agreement, while you shake your head in a ‘no’ for your past loneliness. You’re ordinarily plenty self-sufficient even in his absences, but play the role of the left-behind lover adorably well.

While one powerful hand teases needy fingers over the seam of your underwear with the intent to rip them off and another reaches for your ankle with plans to chuck it over his shoulder, the birthday boy relishes in the sights, sounds, and feel of you already–

“...I should make up for your troubles now, shouldn't I?” Bakugou rumbles like spring’s telltale thunder in front of your core, ready and waiting to taste, “Gotta thank you properly, yeah?"

[bambisnc]

     the prettiest to me . . . ♡

### . STARRING ⌢ s.jh ⋆ hurt/comfort + 0.8k // use of "girl" + unspec. insecurities + vaguely academia/official setting implied ˖ ✧ REQ : ✩

🗨️ .. ⌞ XOXO ⌝ guys ur all The nicest n prettiest ppl. btw + [m.list]

you didn’t hear him at first. the sound of your own thoughts, heavy and cacophonic successfully drowning out everything else. the only thing you had wanted was to get home as soon as possible, to be away from the weight of the tiring day.

away from the whispers. away from the way your reflection in the glass window seemed to taunt you, reminding you of every insecurity inducing aspect of yourself that you’d been trying so hard to ignore.

and then, a voice cut through the muted hum of conversations and soft shuffles of people leaving the room, shattering your daze.

“y/n.” 

shin junghwan's voice is soft when it calls out to you. soft enough that you can pretend to just not have heard it. you’ll deal with him later, when you’re more coherent and there aren’t tears threatening to tip over the second you dare to blink. you resolutely continue walking towards the door. 

but then, a surprisingly strong grip on your wrist causes your movements to stop and in one swift motion, you’re all but pulled back, ending up face to face with him.

“i’m talking to you.”

his intense gaze is fixed on yours and you find yourself almost incapable of breaking away. before you can even begin to muster up some sort of a defense, make some kind of excuse if nothing else, he speaks up. 

“you’ve been ignoring me. blowing me off whenever i tried to say something to you. d'you really forget how long we’ve been friends for? of course i noticed how stressed you’ve been these days. i ... i don’t know what it is exactly that’s troubling you but please, please let me help.”

to be fair, you hadn’t meant for it to get this bad. it had been easy enough to brush questions off at first, to wave away concerns with a vague laugh. you knew lying to him was out of question though. he knew you too well. so, fine, yes, maybe you were avoiding him.

however, being backed up in a corner like this by shinyu, the least confrontational person you knew, was apparently jarring enough for you to end up mumbling out your thoughts. how you didn’t feel comfortable with your appearance, how you ended up overhearing some .. comments which only further fed your insecurities and led to you not really knowing what to do with yourself. 

when you finally allow yourself to look up and gauge his reaction ... the way his grip on your wrist loosens abruptly, the absolute shock on his face almost makes you laugh.

“... seriously? from – from all the things i thought you would be upset about ..,” he steps back slightly, his tone incredulous as he studies your entire profile, “i really didn’t think it would be your appearance..

..i don’t get it. you have to know whatever that person said was absolute bullshit, right? you’re – you’re literally perfect. trust me when i say that i, of all the people possible, i would know better. how could i not?

“wait, but-,” you try to interject, but your attempts are to no avail.

“i swear to god, the only flaw you could possibly have is that you don’t see how amazing you are. but- y/n …,” he sighs, shoulders dropping slightly, “i just wish you could see yourself the way i see you. ”

“junghwan.” your voice is slightly shaky, unsure. “look, i… i do appreciate the sentiment really, but… what – what did you mean by that .. emphasis?...”

“...”

“junghwan?”

his voice is steady as he answers, albeit quiet, “right. i knew this would happen one day. i like you. a lot. have, ever since i met you actually.”

“oh.”

“you don’t have to say anything,” junghwan rushes to add, “i don’t expect an answer, really. i just… i just want you to stop being so hard on yourself. please.”

“... no promises," you say after a pause. “... but i swear i’ll do my best.”

“i’ll be here to remind you, then. as many times as you want.” he leans in, silently seeking permission before pressing a featherlight kiss to your forehead.

“shinyu, i…,” you can’t help but falter slightly, the warmth emanating from him making it a little more difficult to search for the right words. “just- wait for me okay? i clearly have things to work through. but i don’t want to lose you.”

“you won’t,”  he promptly reassures, “you’re stuck with me forever.”

that finally gets a laugh out of you. “that’s perfect, then.”

junghwan cups your face in his hands, allowing your forehead to rest against his. “hey." "i’m looking at you right now,” he murmurs, voice barely more than a whisper. “and you’re the prettiest girl in the world.”

𐙚 . regulars : none yet! ⋆

[@bambisnc] 2k24

[olderthannetfic]

https://www.tumblr.com/olderthannetfic/768731859531235328/im-a-cis-woman-who-sometimes-likes-to-roleplay-as?source=share

yeah, anon, along with people pointing out that drag is a thing that exists and most drag queens/kings identify as cis outside of that performance (though plenty don't), there's also all kinds of sexual roleplay that doesn't involve wanting to be that thing 24/7. lots of people love to play "doctor" who have no desire to actually go to medical school and become real doctors, because the sexy version is fundamentally different from the non-sexy one. why would playing with gender be any different from that? of course it's true that some people do try those things on as kinks and then it awakens something in them - in the same way that most of us who are into anime knew a "guy" who really liked crossdressing cosplay and would always jump at the chance to do it, and now that person is, well, no longer a guy. sometimes it can be a way to try on an identity that you are considering but not yet sure about. likewise, there are more than a few drag queens who end up realizing that they are trans women down the line. but many more who don't! anyway, my point was that i went through this journey. i used to have a lot of fantasies about having sex as a man specifically, with both men and women - and i played with the idea that i might be trans or genderfluid. but for me, i realized that a lot of the appeal of it was that it was temporary, something i could turn on and off at will (and not just in the sense of gender-expression, but like a complete physical transformation). i wasn't interested in being a man if it meant i stayed a man. i still wanted to be a woman most of the time. (also, i identified as bisexual at the time and these fantasies largely went away around when i realized i was actually a lesbian. i'm not sure what exactly that says, maybe that it was more rooted in anxiety around women's expected "role" in sex than it was about actually wanting to be a man? maybe that the idea of being with a man was more appealing if it was gay, closer to the thing i really wanted? who knows) from when i've talked to trans people about this, a lot of them say it's easy for someone for whom the answer was "i'm trans" to in retrospect see signs everywhere - and therefore assume that the same signs mean the same to other people. and of course, they often feel like they lost years of their lives to an identity that didn't fit them - of course they want to save others from the same fate! but it's just that we all have a bias toward seeing the world through the lenses of our own experiences. that it meant one thing for them doesn't mean it means the same for you, especially in isolation. most cis people aren't totally wedded to everything about our genders, either, and a lot of us play around and experiment with gender in our own ways. (so basically, i see it as similar to those "comphet lesbian checklists" that were floating around tumblr a few years ago - yeah, a lot of those can be signs you might be a budding lesbian, but half the shit on that list is true for women who turn out to be completely heterosexual, too, a lot of it's just about the bullshit of female puberty) again, useful to think of it like anything else. religion is one that comes to mind: oftentimes, a strong hyperfixation on a particular religion or the culture surrounding it can be an early sign that you want to convert to that religion. lots of muslim converts, for instance, talk about being fixated on middle-eastern/north african culture or islamic history for years before they converted. but also, there are just as many if not more people where those hyperfixations turn out to be fleeting ones, or even where it remains a lifelong passion but is purely academic (you meet a lot of them in academia, naturally).

--

[transmutationisms]

I'm confused about your argument, if you don't think degrees should exist as a barrier for participating a particular profession then how you do believe a standard should be maintained? I'm getting an impression you've got all this experience and credentials in academia and are now basically coming out and saying it's all bullshit. And when we're talking about "cheating", do we mean like using accommodations that bend the rules or just not bothering to do the work at all?

ok you might want to read my last few reblogs, which go into some more depth on this. like ave said earlier, the university as it exists now doesn't exist to spread knowledge but to restrict it. so the idea that a degree granted in this system is primarily a means of ensuring 'qualification' is an idealist fiction. again and like i said earlier, a degree doesn't necessarily even line up with what job a person ends up getting---which should tell us a lot about what a degree actually communicates and the way 'being educated' is evaluated independently of the extent to which a person's degree actually taught them anything of value to a given profession. what a degree mostly signifies in actuality is that a person succeeded at being in school; there are many different ways this can happen (even at the advanced level---any academic can tell you, MAs and PhDs do get awarded to people all the time who are incompetent or produce shitty work). there are people with degrees whom i respect immensely, but i don't assume that an academic credential means a person is 'smart' or that their work is high-quality. like, ted cruz went to harvard and herman cain had an md; credentialled experts have fucked up the covid pandemic, produced the industry-funded work that justifies medical fatphobia, etc etc. none of this critique is a new position on my part.

fundamentally idgaf about cheating because i don't think it's unjust to cheat a system that is itself unjust. i don't think it's wrong morally to view a degree as a hoop you need to jump through in order to access certain jobs, and to do what you need to do in order to get through that hoop. in practice cheating is very often the result of students who desperately need eg to pass a class in order to keep a scholarship, who do not have the financial wiggle room to fail and are not being given options or support by profs or the institution. but tbc there is no way to crack down on cheating that only targets 'less sympathetic' cases!

[leashybebes]

(no pressure to do All of these, i just couldn’t pick which one was Most intriguing lol) 1, 14, 30, 36

okay, i went for number 1. two caveats: first, i only know UK academia and second, i really hope i didn't get my despair at the state of higher education on this too much. may or may not be based on real life meetings from hell that make me want to riot events

Tommy loves his job. He never expected to end up here - his dad thought college was an indulgence, never mind postgraduate study. The blow up when Tommy announced he was moving across the country to get his masters in archaeology was one for the history books, so to speak. But he's never looked back. He gets to work with painfully smart people who keep him on his toes, gets to see his students develop and grow, as people and as academics and as future archaeologists. He even enjoys marking essays, finding that the occasional gem which genuinely teaches him something more than makes up for the dozens of fairly formulaic answers. He has a reputation as something of a hardass, but he likes to think he's just giving them something to aim for. 

So yeah, Tommy loves his job. Or maybe it would be more accurate to say that he loves parts of his job. He loves his students, he loves around sixty percent of his colleagues, he even loves his poky little office. All-staff meetings where upper management reveal their latest insane plans for a restructure to take effect half way through the semester, gutting professional services for the third time in three years and piling yet more work onto academics instead… That, he doesn't love. 

Evan Buckley - professor in early years education, mouthy, heart of a golden retriever in the body of a man so attractive it makes Tommy want to chew his own fingers off - is seated in front of him and slightly to the left. He has his arms folded, and a frown on what Tommy can see of his heartbreaking profile for the first ten minutes of the town hall style meeting. After that, he pulls out his laptop and starts tidying up his resume. Tommy's sat next to his department head so he can't laugh out loud the way he wants to, and nor can he start doing the same.

He stares ahead instead, keeps quiet through the Q and A session because really, his only questions are what the actual, entire fuck, and when was the last time any of you chucklefucks set foot in an actual classroom oh my GOD? He lets the latest round of bullshit wash over him, almost taken by surprise when the meeting is called to a close. He rubs his hand over his eyes, exhausted and pissed off.

"Hey," Buckley says, and it takes Tommy a second to realise it's directed at him. "Wildcat walk out, or get a drink with me. Your call."

"Uh. Huh?"

"Well, they're determined to run this place into the ground. Figured I better shoot my shot before we're all out of a job."

Tommy's department head gives him a side-eyed glance and melts into the crowd, and Tommy finds his voice.

"Let's go with option B. Keep A on a back burner, though, you never know for sure."

Buckley grins, huge and bright. 

Maybe the all staff meetings aren't the worst thing in the world.

[autumnmobile12]

So I had a thought:

Dr. Garaki straight up says that due to his catastrophic injuries, Dabi shouldn’t have survived a month after escaping the facility and because of that, none of All For One’s cronies bothered retrieving him, and everyone involved was pretty shocked when he turned up years later for the villains’ social upheaval/anarchy quest.  The explanation we get for this medical improbability is he remained alive because of his absolute hatred for Endeavor and need for personal vengeance/validation.

Me:  “There’s no scientific or medical explanation that makes this remotely plausible outside of bullshit anime willpower and——*side eyes H.P. Lovecraft’s Cool Air*——You!”

Long story short, Cool Air is one of Lovecraft’s lesser known short stories about this guy Dr. Muñoz who is technically dead, but through sheer willpower, he’s able to keep himself alive, and through the use of a janky cooling system he keeps in his apartment (an air conditioner, it's an air conditioner) he’s able to keep his body from rotting.  The contraption fails one night, and in a desperate attempt to stave of the inevitable, he recruits his downstairs neighbor to keep him supplied with ice until they can get the machine fixed.  They can’t fix it in time, Dr. Muñoz dies, his horrible secret comes out, and that’s pretty much the plot.

To sum up, a technically dead guy who keeps himself alive through sheer willpower…and ice…?  And Rei’s Quirk is…

It’s still implausible because Lovecraft should never in a million years be taken with any kind of scientific/medical seriousness, but neither should My Hero Academia, so my new headcanon is Dabi's ice-Quirk manifested way earlier than everyone thought it did and Dabi just never noticed it and credited his survival to the aforementioned hatred and determination.

In short, Dabi is a Lovecraftian abomination.

...

And for good measure, when I re-watched Overly Sarcastic Productions video on Lovecraft to see their rundown on Cool Air, this description of Dr. Muñoz came up:

This shitpost is writing itself.

[ryan-nugenthopkins]

"What electives did you take in your undergrad? I know there's some requirements for English in American -" "I took ballet," Jeremy blurts out. "For my art elective." Dr. Ullmark blinks. Rubs his eyes. "Ballet," he repeats. "I played hockey in undergrad," says Jeremy meekly. "Goalie. The - the ankle flexibility -" "Yes, I can see the value of... dance, for netminding," interrupts Dr. Ullmark, but there's the start of a smile dancing on his lips. "I'm not sure how useful ballet will be for Scandinavian poetry, but I'm sure we can make it work together?" Jeremy's fucked. In more ways than one.

Dr. Linus Ullmark is in… a state of a transition. Being a sessional lecturer at a school better known for its biology programs than its literature research is fine for now. He just needs hear back on that professorship in Ottawa. Or the applications for positions back in Sweden. Or even that research fellowship in Norway, of all places. Until then, he’ll grit his teeth and keep teaching introductory comparative literature at Boston University, because something better is bound to come eventually.

It’s only classic for administration to drop a random TA into his lap after he’s specifically said that he doesn’t need one. It’s even better that this Jeremy Swayman is a PhD candidate from the natural sciences faculty, and likely can’t tell expressionism from surrealism. But making ends meet as a grad student is difficult enough, and if the paycheque isn't coming out of his research grants, Linus really wouldn’t mind an extra body during seminars. All the guy has to do is sit in on lectures and answer student emails. How bad could it be?

Two things go wrong at the very start — Jeremy knows less about literature than Linus could even fathom, and he is painfully earnest about trying his best to be a good TA despite this fact. At least he’s cute, even if Linus would prefer maybe 40% of his current energy.

It's fine. Linus just needs to get through this semester like a professional.

Jeremy Swayman is a PhD student studying Environmental Science at Boston University, and he’s damn good at it. It’s a shame that living in Boston is as expensive as it is, but he’s been able to supplement his scholarships with teaching labs around the department for the past two years of his degree. But when his usual positions fall out from under him, the university presents him a TA position in the Literature department, of all things. Jeremy can’t do anything but lie egregiously about his qualifications and accept it. How hard could an introductory comparative literature course be to bullshit, anyway?

Of course, it then goes to shit almost immediately when Dr. Ullmark clocks him as embarrassingly underqualified. But he hires him anyway, and Dr. Ullmark has a quiet but wicked sense of humour, and is ever so patient when walking through the course assignments with him, and doesn’t laugh meanly at his attempts at pronouncing the author names on the reading list, and —

Jeremy may be falling a little too fast. For an Arts prof, of all people.

As the semester begins, will Linus and Jeremy figure out how to run the course together despite their differences? And is something else brewing on the horizon?

Academia AU Swaymark for @ullybug :3

[heaven-s-black-box]

No Second Chances- Al Haitham x Azar's daughter! wife!Reader

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Recovery date: April 26th, 2024

Description: Hello sorry if I'm bothering you but I got an idea from this video. (https://youtu.be/ZcMI-CQcZ_c?si=Ri1SQU-0DO6PMtIV) What if the reader is the biological daughter of Azar and is currently married to Alhaitham and they have a toddler who's almost two years old and the reader wants nothing to do with Azar because of what he did though she was willing to try and keep a somewhat healthy relationship with him because at the end of the day Azar was still her father and her child's grandfather, the reader is a gentle, humble and soft-spoken woman who does try to avoid confrontation.

Notes: This work was recovered in conjunction with an anonymous researcher, we thank them for their contributions. This one was a little hard to write, so I'm sorry if it's not very good.

Word count: 640

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Al Haitham is not known for his empathy. He comes off as cold, he is calculating, and he doesn’t care for other people's bullshit. Those traits serve him well, they keep him out of trouble and on time, and they make it abundantly clear what he thinks of people.

He can count on one hand the people he tolerates excess complaining and illogical arguments from.

“You don’t have to see him,” Al Haitham whispers into the quiet room, tightening his hold on his wife.

She stops squirming, finally, but he knows she’s not done. He’s proven right when she fights against his hold to turn towards him and he opens his eyes to find her staring into his. Y/n places her hands on his chest, above his heart, and takes a deep breath. He can feel the pounding of her heart.

“I want Ehsan to know his grandfather.”

“He will.”

“Beyond what the history books will say,” Y/n sighed.

Al Haitham bit back a sigh. He couldn’t say he agreed with her, Azar hadn’t even been particularly present in her youth, but he understood what she was trying to do. When Azar had come to their wedding, she’d been ecstatic. When Ehsan had been born and he’d sent flowers, she’d started planning a day to bring him by the Academia. To her, Azar’s absence had always been explained and was never malicious so she was willing to give him a chance in her life.

That illusion she’d created, that her father carried, was now teetering after the recent events with the Akasha terminal. It was always so fragile, and now she was looking for a way to break it completely.

“It’s making you anxious,” Al Haitham said instead, resting his chin on her head and rubbing a hand up and down her back. “You hardly ate today.”

“I want my father to meet his grandson at least once, and you and Cyno went through all that trouble-”

“Y/n. We don’t care.”

She lowered her gaze, staring at her hands as she drummed her fingers against his chest. Al Haitham slid his hands around her waist to hold hers and placed a gentle kiss against her ring.

“Ehsan has a wonderful family already.” He nudges her chin up. “And if you tell any of them I said that I will put salt in your coffee.”

Y/n cracked a smile, and Al Haitham put his chin back on her head while wrapping his arms back around her.

“Get some sleep,” he whispered. “You can decide in the morning.”

---

Y/n took a deep breath before nodding at Cyno who opened the interrogation room door and let her in. She stepped in, fiddling with her fingers, and stared at the floor as she made her way to the empty chair. Azar watched her with stern eyes, hands folded on the table.

“I hear you’re being sent to Avidya forest.”

“Yes.”

Taking another deep breath, Y/n pressed her palms flat against the table and squeezed her eyes closed before meeting Azar’s eyes.

“Good luck.”

She got up from the chair and headed back towards the door.

“Is that all?” Azar asked, frowning.

“That’s all.”

“How’s Ehsan?”

Y/n stopped with her hand raised to knock for Cyno.

“He’s good, very smart… like his father. I think it would be better if maybe you take some time to think about things and then, if you want, we’ll come visit.”

“But he’s my grandson,” Azar snapped, making Y/n tense up and dig her nails into the palm of her hand.

“You’ve never met him, and the idea of seeing you makes me so nervous that he gets worried. So, for my son’s sake, goodbye,” she breathed, the shaky exhale causing her shoulders to relax as she knocked on the door.

[twosides--samecoin]

X6-88 thoughts/Overthinking Bethesda's writing:

I've side-eyed a handful of X6-88's statements ("Greed and materialism don't exist in the Institute.", "In the Institute, mental disorders are a thing of the past.") and wonder about the veracity of those claims.

I'd ask him to define what a "mental disorder" is. The World Health Organization says a mental disorder is a "clinically significant disturbance in an individual's cognition, emotional regulation, or behaviour". Surely in emulating human life, the Institute understands mental disorders are kind of two sides of an evolutionary coin.

After all, in humans, anxiety is a survival response.

It's 98798745 BC. The wind shifts through tall grass. Something rustled in the grass yesterday and then it popped out and ate your hunting partner. For the rest of your life, you get a little freaked when the tall grass moves. It's 2024. You get chest pangs and feel annoyed when your mom's number shows up on your cell phone, because her pattern of behaviour is to ask a lot of uncomfortable, invasive questions and she frequently derides your life choices. You let it go to voicemail, because that's the one way of figuring out what she actually wants without having to endure too much bullshit to learn the purpose of her call. That's anxiety.

If you want a Synth to have authentic feelings such as worry or a "gut feeling" that gives them pause (and the Institute does want their Synths to assimilate with humans in 2288), that means even a series of zeroes and ones telling the Synth to pause before walking off a cliff needs to be interpreted and expressed to the outside world as anxiety. I wonder how many Synths were deemed defective because the Institute basically trained their self-aware AI to have anxiety disorders?

And hey, X6 contradicts the statement, whether he knows it or not: "I recommend a mental health examination when you return to the Institute."

X6, what's the purpose of a mental health examination? Who gets selected for one? Why would someone be recommended to take one? What happens when the assessment is conducted? What kind of data is expected from something called a mental health examination? Yes or no, is it fair to say mental disorders could be detected with such a test? Is a mental health examination routine for humans and Synths? Because lemme tell you buddy the existence of the mental health examination tells me the opposite of "mental health disorders are a thing of the past".

If escapee synths can harbour trauma, perhaps X6 views that phenomena as a defective unit. Or believes "runners" should be anxious, because they're in trouble. Could also be he's hearing one set of truths and he isn't privy to data that would show otherwise. Part of his mission might be to tell the Sole Survivor certain things about the Institute to further convince the SoSu to succeed Father's leadership. Maybe it's a 'perfect world' belief, or what he chooses to tell himself; if one wears the affect the party line expects of them, it becomes a hell of a lot easier to ignore feelings of doubt.

X6 doubts very little about the Institute, except when the Sole Survivor causes him to doubt their appointment as Father's successor.

One of my journalism profs said "Science is a knife fight". Academia would love you to think it's all for the greater good, but many big science scandals of the 20th/21st century were greed-driven.

"Materialism" must also be quantified and defined. You might hear, "They're so materialistic," normally framed as an insult-observation toward someone we perceive as valuing physical goods above all else.

"Materialism" is a philosophical thought that centers around the assertion that all things - ideas, expression, products, actions, you name it - have causal relationships with matter.

Matter can be literally anything. Your stomach grumbled because your body is sending you signals to indicate it needs fuel. The dog barks because wants to alert you to something. You cry because it's the body's response to releasing stress. You have memories because of a network of synapses and neurons that the brain developed to retain information.

It's basically a boring way of saying, "Things happen because Stuff exists, and Stuff exists because Things happen". Marx and Engels based their writings on the relationship and interactions between Stuff & Things. The worker gets a job at the factory because they need money to pay the landlord. The factory exists to produce Stuff. The factory cannot produce Stuff without the labour of the worker. Conditions at the factory can make it hard for workers to produce Stuff. Labour movements exist because workers can withhold their labour if working conditions fail them. And so on!

I think it's ontologically untrue to say the Institute isn't materialistic; one reason they made synths (among others) was because they needed materials. Gen 1/2s scavenged the Commonwealth and carried out experiments. SRB Coursers like X6-88 go to the surface to recover escaped Synths that they view as property.

The Institute is materialistic, not because they're all concerned with designer bags or whatever the fuck X6 was referring to by saying they weren't greedy/materialistic, but because they absolutely do have a causal relationship where the collection of matter, human or otherwise, directly influences their ability to continue their research.

Anyway I don't think he's a liar per se, I just think he's inhaling the Institute's Costco pack of Capri Suns like they're fucking oxygen tanks

[serasarahhhh]

Author: Maxine Pairings: BakuDeku Rating: R Chapters: 5/? Notes: Spoilers for the entirety of BNHA, volume 42, and chapter 431 in particular. Summary: Izuku getting his Brand New Super Suit doesn't turn out quite like Katsuki planned, but he'll be damned if he's going to let that ruin everything. It's fine. Everything is fine. He's just going to have to find another way to make that dumb oblivious nerd stand by his side for the rest of their lives. ~~~~~ CHAPTER 5 “Kacchan, what did Sero mean?”

Ugh, fuck.

“Hah?”

“The other day. He said–”

“I know what he said,” Katsuki mutters.

Izuku’s eyes are wide again. Katsuki hadn’t realized he’d backed away until Izuku moves forward, and this stupid dance they’re doing needs to fucking end already. Push and pull, back and forth.

“So…what did he mean??”

“Izuku…”

“Kacchan, please.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Katsuki insists, head twisting to the side.

“I think it does,” Izuku pushes. “Because you keep saying you didn’t want me to join your agency–”

“I don’t. I didn’t.”

“But you haven’t been happy either. Since then, since I said no. So you obviously wanted something.”

“Izuku.” There’s something desperate in his tone now. Almost pleading. “Fucking leave it alone. I’m happy now, alright?”

“But Sero said–”

“Forget Sero, fucking hell. I – what would’ve been so bad about joining my agency anyway?!” Katsuki finally snaps, and Izuku’s brow pinches inward.

“…Nothing, Kacchan.”

“Bullshit.” It tears out of him without permission. Everything from that stupid fucking day, the total rejection he’d been blindsided with. He digs a hand back into his hair, needing something to hold onto. “You didn’t even think about it, Izuku, not for one second. Just an immediate no, what the fuck was that?”

“I…”

Words keep spilling out of him. Shit he hasn’t wanted to acknowledge out of fear that any of it is even the slightest bit true.

“I get that – that there’s probably some kinda…toxic garbage mixed up with the idea of working under me, but–”

Izuku sucks in a breath, his face going pale. “Kacchan, no.”

“But I thought–”

“KACCHAN. It’s not that at all–”

“Then what?!” Katsuki demands. “What was so wrong with the idea that you couldn’t even fucking consider it??” Continue reading at AO3. Through chapter 5 now posted!

[artsycervidae]

I finished my short story. It's set in the Boku no Hero Academia universe, but the cast consists of OCs. Heed the trigger warnings; this is intended to be a thriller/horror, so it's exploring heavy themes. Though these are also themes touched on in the series itself, tread with care.

TRIGGER WARNINGS: Graphic imagery, Unreliable narrator, Ableism (internalized and external), Chronic illness, Attempted murder-suicide, Attempted suicide mention, Severe depression, Animal death, Familial Abuse (specifically child abuse at the hands of the mother), Codependent relationship between family members, Longstanding acts of harm/sabotage, Quirk eugenics, Stalking, Organized crime, Body horror, Theft of personal belongings, Abuse of prescription drugs, Dosing/poisoning of someone's food

     Sato Hikaru came to consciousness unwillingly. He was at first aware of the coldness tickling his feet and legs, so he balled up to retain what little heat he insulated beneath seven layers. It didn't matter-- he was awake now. The blurry red digits on his alarm clock seemed to glow through his eyelids even when he rolled to his other side; the room was devoid of personal affectation, so the light bounced off the bare, eggshell walls. He flopped back over and stared back at the clock. 4:16 am. He supposed that was early enough.

     Hikaru pat blindly for his laptop, found its power cord, and carefully pulled it toward himself along the floor. Still partly under his mountain of blankets, he logged onto his email and went into the drafts where he had prepared a sick note: something believably miserable about being unable to eat or sleep, but still coherent enough to assert he could work remotely. Mysterious pain and nausea wasn't uncommon given his medical history; so long as he didn't wear thin on his coworkers' graces, nobody would begrudge him for staying home. His agency performance reports were already encrypted and attached so that he only had to send them. Then he went into the work calendar and helpfully logged his absences ahead of time so that he could receive meeting notes. Each and every sick day had to cause as little disturbance as possible.

     One of the benefits of being under the Hero Public Safety Commission's employ: as an office-holding, audit-accurate salaryman, there was a benefit of the doubt afforded to him automatically. This was further buttressed with behavior. He had never before been tardy-- ever. He didn't play hooky like others had. He attended mandatory dinner parties. He was civil, clean, and convenient. Unfortunately, not everyone could be relied upon for such predictability.

     When the streetlight directly outside his window elbowed its way through his curtain, he picked up his phone and texted his mother to give her the same overnight illness excuse-- this time, embellishing a sleepless night of 'work catch-up' spent with his nose to the grindstone. Then he abandoned his phone beneath the blankets, slipping from his cocoon to pluck pajamas out of a nearby heap of clothing. The truth about his work was that all this and next months' assignments were drafted to near completion, sitting prettily on his harddrive for the chance to defend his reputation. There were some bits and pieces of information left blank for future application, but all the mundane busy work had been taken care of two weeks prior, during a particularly animated frenzy to get as much bullshit out of his way as possible. So long as he drip fed his supervisor with satisfactory and timely submissions, he could continue to devote the rest of the month entirely to his true work.

     In the bathroom, he unscrewed the hoses from to the faucets, rolled them up, and properly stored them on the hooks he installed in the corridor. That way he could close the door as he readied for the day. Not that he needed the privacy. He no longer shared this space with anyone, and didn't intend to make room. He just liked to see closed walls on all sides of him and know he was secure, if only in the bathroom and at his most vulnerable.

     Once he was cleaned and dressed comfortably, Hikaru replaced the hoses then wandered the darkness of his apartment. He unconsciously stepped to the side of the bundled cords lining the hallway, placing his bare feet one after the other to avoid tripping on or dislodging anything. He started by staking out the living room, which was furnished. The locks on his front entrance were still engaged. The door to the patio (which was more like a windsill with how narrow it was) was locked and shuttered. A laundry pole scavenged from the trash was jammed solidly into the track for additional security. Even so, he didn't relax. He always acted with a vague image in his mind of what would happen if he lowered his guard.

     This brought him to the 'study,' the spare bedroom that all the hoses and cords fed into; also a room which his mother always insisted he keep available for her. Nevermind that she hadn't been in Japan for longer than twelve combined hours in the last two years since she ran off. Sato Hanami was probably already planning how to make her next escape: they were supposed to go shopping and grab lunch together before she moved on to her next event... but before she could cancel plans on him, he left her high and dry first.

     The last night they were really together was meant to celebrate his acceptance into medical school. They had arrangements at a fancy restaurant, tickets to a theater play, and each other... but he couldn't appreciate it. Frankly, the cracks in their foundation preceded that night. Hikaru, for a long time, had felt his mother was keeping more from him than the potential identity of his father. Despite the unanswered questions and sidestepped conversations, he respected his caretaker's authority and secrecy even when it involved him. But he was freshly eighteen and due his own share of responsibility and respect.

     That was the night he told her he knew he had a Quirk. Rather than react with equal enthusiasm, bafflement, or disbelief, she nervously batted the subject around. It may as well have been a typhoon on the other side of the world. Then she 'innocuously' got up to use the restroom at some point. Hikaru waited-- their entrees going cold on their plates-- for twenty minutes before he realized she was gone. She picked up his phone call, already in the cab and babbling some story about being summoned to America: she was to co-host a lucrative wellness tour with her longtime friend. She was on her way to dine with ultra rich celebrities interested in the procedure of her treatments. When he tried to insist to her again that he needed her to guide him, to help him understand what he was now and how to handle it, she snapped: "Don't tell me about it! Shut up." It took him aback so much, he obeyed automatically. She nervously filled the silence, "... Besides, it's taken so long to show itself, it's bound to be a busted one." Each insistence was another stab to the heart, and he quietly assented until she ended the call with a small silence and an exasperated sigh: "... Work hard, no matter what, okay? I can only stay away so long."

     So befuddled and frustrated was he, that he went home and sold the furniture from their bedrooms. He was so disgusted with her. With himself. She loved him as any mother loved her son, but she especially adored when he ached for her approval to the point of hysteria. She did this often, especially when it came to his school career-- dangled a tantalizing prize in front of him before throwing it over the ledge, hoping he would jump off after it as some extravagant expression of devotion. Needless to say, his grades were flawless. But this was different. His mother overshot her mark; he knew something she hadn't, and she ran instead of taking him seriously. Instead of doubling his efforts to gain her attention, he stopped playing her games.

     He never told her about her former bedroom. Nor did he share that he'd dropped out of that medical school and began his career as a desk jockey for the government. She had been told, surely: a career change wasn't as easy to hide as a personal interest or private thought. Shortly after he began working is when her checks started coming in. It was their first line of communication since she 'fled' Japan, and he let them pile up in the cubby he kept by the door.

     He waited for her to be the one to message him first-- those first weeks had been filled with playing a façade for the world, succumbing to depressive crying and anxious fits when he was safe at home. When she finally texted, it took all his willpower not to respond immediately. Not that it mattered: he would soon learn that she never stayed anywhere for long. Even if she remained in the country, she was skipping like an airborne stone across the surface of the globe.

     He almost envied her freedom of movement. She seemed so unrestricted, though he knew she was with Iwamoto Kaede: she was his mother's 'dearest confidant,' fellow wellness guru, and probably the one who Hanami convinced to accompany her, expanding their 'career' to the horizon. Hikaru still harbored both gratitude and a grudge for that. He never liked the way Kaede hovered around their lives, as if being a close friend and neighbor wasn't enough.

     But with her gone, his surveillance had to be careful. They operated from her 'empty' apartment, though Hikaru knew there was someone in there at most times of day. He'd never heard or seen them, but he knew they were there as surely as he knew his organs existed despite hiding inside his body.

     His mental fortitude nearly unraveled with the isolation. For a while, he was convinced that he was the one Hanami was running from. Why else would she have left in such a nervous hurry? It wasn't that he was unimportant to her-- it was that he was dangerous.

     She was scared of him. Of what he could be. And rather than discourage him, this fantasy instilled him with autonomy and independence. He made changes to his life. He reflected on himself.

     After confirming the integrity of his lair, he stopped outside the study door and stared at the doorknob. He had to shed the alibi of that cowardly man: someone who went straight to work and then straight home, who bought all his necessities once a month without fluctuation, who was always the one apologizing when someone deemed him inconvenient. He took a deep breath, squared his shoulders, and entered.

     His eyelids fluttered rapidly, adapting to the lilac-blue lightboxes. Plastic tarp crinkled underfoot. The only similarities this room held to an actual study were the row of composition books stacked against the wall, various pens of many colors contained in a nearby cup, and the apartment's provided router installed into the ceiling corner. Otherwise, it resembled mostly a greenhouse: rows of potted, pooled, and hanging plantlife filled the room wall to wall with very little space for their caretaker to tiptoe through.

     Hikaru went to the notebooks and selected the topmost one, plucking a blue pen from the cup. Then he cast out a gentle "Good morning," to his companions. He worked his way through the nursery, weaving between leaves and stepping over water hoses. The plants were weeded and inspected. He was only making the first subjective notations before he got into the real work: the testing and sampling, which gave him concrete results. Numbers to back up his theories.

     Blackout curtains kept anyone from asking questions about the artificial lights that stayed on all day and night, and he budgeted all other use of his electricity by charging everything at work on the occasions he went in. He was running dangerously low on battery packs. Perhaps on his next commute, he would stay the night with the excuse of making up for his absences. At least all the work that mattered was on paper: untraceable, easy to take with him anywhere, written in shorthand, ready to be burned at a moment's notice-- the greatest complications were his rebellious carpal tunnels, which would inconvenience him during productive flows. He began to wear wrist braces regularly. Despite how long he coasted under the radar, people eventually noticed. By then, however, he was as good at lying as his mother-- even better at omissions and excuses.

     He was lucky his wrist began to cramp when it did, for once. He put his work down and meandered, loosening his brace to hang by his thumb. Sighing, he rolled the joint in slow circles and stretches. He was caught between the study and hall when he heard the front doorknob click. His skin jumped as the intruder's entrance was abruptly stopped by the other locks. "For the love of--" a familiar voice uttered from outside before Hikaru could bolt for the matches and set the building aflame. Then the doorbell began ringing.

    "Coming!" He hollered to his impatient guest before racing clumsily for his bedroom. He snatched up his phone after flinging the blankets aside. Several missed texts. A couple missed calls. All from Mom.

     He couldn't believe it. His head buzzed, nearly afloat with fear and excitement. What was she doing here? What was he going to do about this? He couldn't think-- didn't have the luxury. His body moved of its own accord. Once he passed the study threshold, he had to revert to Sato Hikaru again. Above all else, he knew he must keep these lives separate. He walked to the front door and unlocked the chain, the deadbolt, and the barrel bolt. The knob, of course, had already been unlocked via a spare key.

     He opened the door right as Hanami's finger hovered over the bell button again; she startled and her filtered mask shifted on her grinning cheeks. "Hikaru," she sang out, "you're still in your pajamas! Did you oversleep?" As she was saying this, he squinted against the sun blazing behind her shoulders. Had he truly been making observations and notes into the afternoon?

     "Mom, what are you doing here?" He asked, and although he treated her with a consciously cordial distance, he wanted to welcome her back home with an embrace. Two years ago, he would have been desperate for her to show up out of nowhere like this. It wasn't hard to feign illness-- he was trembling, physically fighting himself as he stepped aside to let her in. "Did you come here from the airport on your own? Haven't you been keeping up with Japanese news? It's dangerous to go around alone--"

     "What? Nonsense," she replied, shifting her convenience store bags into her other arm. "All Might may be retired, but he was still the number one hero, and always will be in my mind so long as he lives." The irony of those words: invoking a hero whose presence had never once shone light onto their horrible situation made Hikaru frown.

     "But the random sightings of those things-- those Nomu--"

      "I won't be listening to any paranoid drivel, Hikaru. If I want that, I'll turn on the TV." (His armpits prickled-- he had sold that long ago for money, for his nursery. He wondered when she would notice all the empty spaces in their home.) She moved to pat his face, but he swiftly stepped to her burdened side in an attempt to take the groceries. "Oh-- dear, you don't have to do that." The gesture successfully distracted her and she took command by moving into the kitchen, setting down her bags and removing her mask. "Wow, it's so dark in here." But when she flicked at the light switch, it didn't turn anything on. Nor did it obey when she aggressively tried three more times.

     "I don't have light bulbs, Mom. Migraines."

     "Right," she seemed only marginally discomforted by how poorly she fit back into this life. She returned to her bags, rifling through them in search of something. "I thought you would be hungry. You work so hard and rest so little when you're unwell... even as a kid, you were always sneaking out of bed, trying to squirrel yourself away in dark, quiet places to read. Oh!"

     She turned around with a paper packet. A chill rooted itself along the curve of Hikaru's spine at the sight of it. This could spoil the whole visit. "For you," she said, amiable and at ease. "You've got the flu, right? I talked to a doctor friend of mine-- this will help you sleep it off. And probably help with those migraines!"

     "Thank you," he said softly, trying to seem more pleasantly surprised than quietly horrified. She must have sensed his cautiousness-- there was always the chance he wouldn't let her touch him again, so this was her thinking three steps ahead of him. He didn't expect her to go so far as to procure him a prescription or behind-the-counter medication. It was too obvious, too dangerous... unless it wasn't. He wanted to take a look at it, but she didn't hand it to him either. Rather, she set it in front of her with the produce and pantry goods.

    "I brought you tea, too."

    "Thanks, Mom." Under the guise of setting up his electric kettle, he watched her unpack dinner ingredients. "... How was Sydney?"

     She stuck out her lower lip in theatrical disappointment. "I was in Sydney last week, dear. I came in from Paris." He knew it would hurt her feelings if he wasn't obsessing over her every movement. They had to watch out for each other-- nevermind that she was the one who left him.

     "How was Paris?" he smiled, glad to gave gotten a reaction from her that wasn't completely staged.

     "Boring. I missed you the whole time."

     The sincerity softened and humbled him. "I've missed you too, Mom." ... Was he being too cruel? The fact she showed up in a time of need meant she was trying. She was even filling the quiet for him, breaking the ice by launching into a story about a little Parisian café she frequented with Kaede.

     When he tried to fall into routine next to her, she looked at him. "Go sit!" she insisted, and he remembered his white lie. He continued to watch her work from the couch, his arm stretched along its back. She cracked open the window curtain first for some natural light to see by. Then she spoke to him as she washed, cut, and assembled ingredients. "As I was saying, Kaede's daughter was recently engaged, so we had a drink to celebrate. We also got them a nice bottle of dinner wine," she gave a little chuckle, "they might have need for it. Kaede said that their first goal after the wedding is to start growing their family."

     "Give the couple my congratulations," Hikaru said warmly, though he hardly knew Kaede's daughter or her partner. He doubted they were real.

     "Have you been seeing anyone?" his mother asked suddenly and shamelessly.

     "No, Mom," he sighed. "I'm busted and broken, remember?"

     "You're not--!" she argued defensively, rounding about and casting a vicious gesture with an unsheathed knife. The motion had been so abrupt that they both felt the air crackle. A past recrimination lingered unspoken before she turned back to chopping vegetables. Hikaru could have pressed it. But the last thing he needed was an explosive argument-- much less the forced, heartmelting reconcilation in its aftermath. He resisted the urge to needle and squirm under her skin, to annoy her the way she annoyed him now.

     "... No, I'm not seeing anyone. I'm Quirkless, so I'm at a disadvantage."

     "So what? What does that have to do with dating?"

     This was the invisible wall they broke their noses upon. Although her Quirk was supposedly dubbed "Empathy," sometimes it felt Hanami was anything but. Or perhaps she relied too much on the Quirk to bother with context anymore. She needed only touch someone and she would be granted the knowledge of their emotional state, their physical well-being, and their memories. Her Quirk appealed to human desire-- to be immediately understood, to have needs and wants realized without the work of expressing it. It couldn't hurt that she was a natural beauty: petitely formed, clear-skinned, dark-lashed, and pouty-lipped. Meanwhile, her son was comparatively average: soft-bellied, beetle-browed, pockmarked, and gloomy-faced. Even though she was over fifty, she had an uncanny knack for makeup and lighting. She looked like a movie star in public, while people barely spared Hikaru anything longer than a brief glance. He struggled to explain this concept, despite appreciating his privacy. "Mom, I have boring looks, a boring job, and boring hobbies. On paper, I'm Quirkless; even if I found someone I was comfortable telling personal information to--"

     "Hardly personal," his mother muttered.

     "--then it's not like anyone would have an optimistic view of me. The only people who make me feel wanted are the ones who like me... at a disadvantage."

     Hanami paused. Strafed past the implication. "Well... I'm your mother, so it's my job to make sure you're happy and settled in life. Someone who can't give you the support you need in this time of your life isn't worth your time anyway."

      He stared at her. She was too engrossed in measuring out bouillon. He understood the message: he just didn't know what she expected him to say. *'Sure, Mom. After all, that's what the people watching us want, isn't it? They want whatever I have. They want what my father had.'* He wondered if she was really giving up, or if she had simply forgotten all the pains and suffering he'd been through.

     Well, he still remembered the innumerable meetings with Quirk professionals. His world had flipped upside down with every sheepish diagnosis, every nuanced discussion that Quirks were still actively studied, that humanity learned more every day. She wanted to be sure: It was imperative that every doctor that saw him support her alibi. And her scheme worked. Each one said the same thing: Quirkless kids were becoming more common, and it was possible to be born with an 'average' amount of toe bones and still be Quirkless. It wasn't a direct correlation after all-- human evolution was messier than that.

     When the children at school sensed an otherness in him, the bullying began. Then the constant moving. Then the sicknesses. His immune system succumbed to the stress, weakening his body so that he couldn't leave bed. His primary sickbed companion besides his mother was his childhood friend-- an adopted Shiba Inu named Koyubi.

     Every morning, when there were only doctors' visits and existential crises to awaken to, he could only be comforted by her immediate presence on his stomach. Her square head tucked perfectly into the groove of his arm, and her worried little brows puckered anytime his breathing went shallow. Hanami hated the dog to be on their furniture, but Koyubi's unwavering faith in him made it easier to live. He would pat the empty space at his side, specifically reserved for the canine. She never bounced or jolted him-- her clambering was sweet and polite, and she wanted nothing more than to rest with him... So constant was her loyalty that she too became sick. She must have contracted something from him, his mother said, and she quarantined them both. Then Koyubi died in the other room, when she ought to have fallen asleep next to him.

     Surely Hanami remembered the suicide attempt of his adolescence shortly after, when he was sick and tired of being sick and tired. It wasn't about the dog-- not entirely. His world was shrinking, his future slipping through his fingers like sand before he had the chance to appreciate it. He could feel himself, as a tangible thing deteriorating, eroding. The suicide attempt and depersonalization, followed by long sessions of therapy and reduced freedoms, was never in the past for him, even after he persevered through the worst of it... As a child, he had already grappled with the harsh truth that nobody's life was really their own.

     He couldn't bring himself to believe Hanami would actually forget any of that. She had seen his suffering through it all. Everything she did, she did for him, because she loved him and wanted him to be safe and happy.

    But then, if she loved him so much, why did she let him believe he was Quirkless for so long? Why was it that when he confronted her with the truth, she ran, absconding across the globe to get away from him? Why did it take him 'falling ill again' to draw her back into his life? He once believed she was his greatest advocate. But that was wrong-- he held no possession over this woman until he uncovered her most shameful secret: it had always been his life in her hands, and she wasn't used to the roles being reversed.

     "What about that girl, Izumi?" His mother asked, apparently stubborn on this particular subject. "The one who gave you the spider plant?"

     "Mom, we were just schoolmates. I haven't spoken to her since graduation." Of course, because Hanami had never cared to actually learn the inner workings of his life, this was a huge leap in logic. Izumi was his only friend when he rejoined society. Everyone else greeted Hikaru politely and that was all-- his desk had been empty for the majority of his transfer. It may as well have remained that way. But she had gotten him a small plant as a 'welcome back' gift, though they had only met at the beginning of their term. She offered to help him catch up on assignments before finals, not that he needed it. His mother's carrot-and-stick approach to childrearing had elevated him to an intelligence above his peers.

    But he never forgot the kindness with which she offered him help. Almost every day, she would coast by his desk and make her offer. She didn't put it upon him or assume, and neither did she feign blindness to his hardship. He had secretly used Koyubi's ashes as fertilizer for her plant, which felt right to him at the time; taking care of something else made him want to kill himself less. Koyubi lived on through the spider plant. What it represented to him became something irreplaceable: it wasn't just for him to nurture, nor was it a distraction from his compulsive mental unraveling. It was a seed of thought, germinating into a tangle of unburied lies.

     That plant was still alive and well in the study. He had taken care of it religiously, hoping to dry and press its blossoms to show his appreciation to Izumi. But rather than sprouting tiny bone-white flowers, it had produced a bud that opened and dropped a little calcium deposit on his floor. He asked Izumi about it, whose psychometric Quirk could identify small objects. He told her he found it not far from the potted plant, but she laughed and shook her head. 'Your puppy was probably teething nearby and the tooth came off into a chew toy,' she said with an assuring smile. 'I didn't know you had a dog!'

     After that, he could never have a normal relationship with her-- much less a romantic one. She knew too much.

     "Well. What about your neighbor down the hall? Watanabe?" She snapped herb leaves into the steaming Dutch oven. "You two seemed close." By which she meant, she had become envious that her son was outgrowing her company. And still, she was expected to shrug him off onto someone else.

     "Watabe?" Hikaru corrected. "She moved away before you left. That's why she brought me that peace lily." The flower had been her grandmother's. At first Hikaru was against accepting such a gesture, but Watabe made it clear that it would mean more for him to have it. 'Really, I have a rotten thumb,' she'd said, by then fatigued. Life and its hardships was slowly sapping her natural warmth and loveliness. 'I'm so busy putting things in storage and helping my family arrange the funeral-- I'm already killing it with my negligence.' She hadn't been wrong, so he accepted the lily. He never saw Watabe in the halls again, but returned the flower to its former beauty and health in her honor... and over time, in place of the stamen, a meat-encrusted phalange grew from the pale cupped petal.

     "Whatever happened to that lily?" His mother asked, suddenly deciding to give a shit about the mundane details. She took the opportunity to take a good look around the apartment, faltered, the corners of her mouth twitching down. "What happened to the TV?... Where are all your plants, Hikaru?"

     He slowly rose from the couch, wiping his clammy hands onto his fabric pants. "... I sold the TV. The plants are in my office, Mom."

     "Oh!" She was surprised and almost let it slide, but now the gears in her head were working. She returned to the soup and stirred up its contents. "... All of your plants? Do you have the space for that?" Even though he couldn't see her face, he could envision her eyes darting as she fumbled with the impossibilities. If she wasn't regretting her actions now, she never would.

     May as well get it over with.

     "My home office, Mom."

     She paused for a moment. "Oh. Do we share a bedroom again? We haven't done that since you were--"

     "No, Mom. I have my room and my office. That's it." He hesitated before awkwardly muttering, "Well, the bathroom and hallway and--"

     "Where am I meant to sleep then." It was a question, but spoken with such seething vitriol that Hikaru could only sigh. It was as he thought: she wouldn't reconsider her behavior. Not now. Not ever.

     "Did you really leave for two years and expect me to keep that absence open for you?" He wasn't talking about the room.

     Hanami wouldn't deign to respond. Once again, asking for her thought process was taken as a passive aggressive barb. She slowly opened the cupboard where the bowls were stored. She spooned out soup then brought the servings to the wall-attached bar table, which separated the kitchen and the living room. Hikaru circled the couch to the two stools, but Hanami remained standing on her side of the bar.

    "Well... you can just throw them out. Make room for me." She stirred her spoon around the bowl and dipped her head low enough that Hikaru felt safe glancing past her.

     The paper package was open. He hadn't been watching close enough.

    "Hell no."

     Her head jerked up again at that. Her eyes boggled out with such nausea, a coldness washed plunged down on his head. "Why can't you convert it into a bedroom again?"

     "I got rid of the bed. I need somewhere to do my work, Mom."

     "Why can't I share your room then?"

     "I don't have furniture in there either."

     "What?!" She shook her head in disbelief. "Why would you do that?"

     "Because I could!" He nearly lost control of his volume. He cleared his throat and mimicked the way she formed an endless spiral in the soup, just so she could see how stupid she looked. "I'm not a toddler anymore, Mom. I'm a grown adult and I want my space. I haven't been cashing your checks, either. You can take those back. I got a job so I can support myself."

    "But your sicknesses--"

     "Don't start," he warned her. And for once, she seemed to listen. After all, he hadn't had a real sick day since she'd been gone. Without her anxiety polluting his life and body and decisions, he had gained his strength back all on his own and lost his parasitic neediness. He was thinking clearly for once about all the things his mother said that didn't make sense. All the things she did-- supposedly for his benefit-- that only made him worse.

     "You wouldn't have to anymore," she insisted. "I make enough that you don't have to work at all!"

     "I like to work."

     "We could move out," she decided then and there, "find a seaside condo!"

     "I like this apartment."

     "Most men would like for their rich parent to take care of them, you know," she teased, as if comedy could make this any less uncomfortable for him.

     "I don't. It's embarrassing."

     "Your disrespect is embarrassing."

     An awkward quiet punctuated her bluntness. Hanami smoothed her cinnamon-hued hair down and came out with her concerns. "Maybe... you could at least convert it into a bedroom for a roommate. It doesn't have to be for me."

      "Mom," he groaned, inwardly rolling his eyes and dropping his shoulders.

    "You don't have any friends to rely on if things go badly Has anyone at work even messaged you to make sure you're well?"

     "What does it matter to you?"

     "I'm your mother," she said, as if that meant anything. Her face slacked, and she looked at him solemnly. "I love you... I know we've had our fair share of secrets between us, but that doesn't mean you can do this alone. It's been just you and me for as long as you've been alive, Hikaru. I've kept you safe for this long, suppressing that Quirk of yours so that there's no target on your back... Doesn't that mean anything?"

     He should have known better than to hope. Of course this wasn't about them-- it was always about her. If she did the minimum what she was told to do (such as raise a boy with a rare Quirk and encourage his reproduction) without cooperating with demands, then she couldn't be blamed for anything. Her conscience was clean now that he was an adult: she meant to leave him on his own. Hikaru stood with his untouched soup. "Thanks for the dinner," he said dryly. This was the final mercy he would give her. She had pushed them to this breaking point-- but he cared for her so deeply that if she backed down now, he would at least pretend to forget. He couldn't forgive her, but he could spare her.

      She didn't take the hint. "Hikaru, tell me what's going on. Why are you acting so cold to me? Don't you love me anymore?"

     "Let's not keep secrets then," Hikaru began, his voice aloft with unrestrained bitterness. "Since you're so willing to make amends, I have questions of my own. What are you hiding?" As he moved, so did she. She rotated her body so that he was never behind her, turning fully from the table as he approached the sink.

     "What?" Hanami cocked her head.

     "You never did ask about my Quirk. You didn't even want to know how I found out about it. The first thing you did was get as far from me as possible." He dumped the soup down the drain slowly. The overcooked vegetables plopped and disintegrated into a mass, clogging progress. "... I'll get to the heart of it. I know you're scared of what I could be. So I have to wonder..." He looked her in the eye. "Who was my father?"

     Her breath hitched, and with a glistening in her eyes, she whispered, "Don't ask me that."

     "Why can't I know?"

     "It's for your own good."

     "I don't want my own good. I want the truth."

     "Then it's for my own good!" she cried. "Do you want to hurt me?" Her voice had sharpened to a sleek edge, defensiveness creeping into her words.

     "Fine then. Dad's off the table." He stepped closer and noted how she didn't shrink away. She was scared, but not of what he could do to her. She believed she had him outmatched if it came to a physical altercation. But she still held back, giving him the upper hand somehow... "Tell me about you, then."

     She blinked innocently. He went on. "I know Empathy isn't your real Quirk. I know that Sato Hanami only officially existed at all twenty-one years ago. And that her entire history is fabricated." Sato Hanami, as an identity, was only a little more than a year older than Sato Hikaru. "Whoever falsified your information did a messy job. I'm surprised I'm the first one in the HPSC to notice... but I guess they have more 'friends' to wave those concerns off for you."

     She didn't answer for so long that he wondered if this was how she planned to salvage this nightmare: to get her purse from off the kitchen counter first, bid a farewell excuse for her next event, and she would be gone. Maybe for another year or two. Maybe for only an hour, returning at the ripe opportunity to find Hikaru in the throes of regret, malleable and desperate.

     Hanami squeezed the countertop edge until her knuckles paled. "... Why are you doing this?"

     "Answer me or get out."

     He saw her consider it. Saw her eyes flicker to the door before she heaved a sigh. "... Think carefully about whether you want this or not."

     Hikaru dropped his bowl into the sink with a clatter, and before he could grab her and force her out of his apartment, she started: "My name used to be Kumagai Misato. You probably know me better as Vitality." This made him sink into the counter himself. He stared at her, trying to recognize the former hero. She stared back, knowing he wouldn't.

      His suspicions had been off. Perhaps it was his bias. He'd assumed she'd been a villain, or some no-name civilian snatched from her home. The fact she used to be so high-profile gave him further reason to hesitate. But he'd had enough of her kicking out his every attempt to gain freedom. "It's nice to finally meet you, Kumagai," Hikaru said dryly. "When were you planning to tell me that my Quirk is an offshoot of Biohack?"

      "Don't act like this." She couldn't look at him. She was staring right past his elbow, to the cold stove and its unwanted nutrition. "I still raised you. I'm your mother, and I'm due that respect at least."

     "... Someone changed your appearance. So they didn't want you to be recognized."

     Her lips twisted in mock dismay. "Give me some credit... I didn't want to be recognized." Her eyes briefly glanced to the leftover soup on the stove. Hikaru drew the connection between her plastic surgery and the readily available prescription pad: hot anger washed down his body, realizing that she had means of subtlety which she never shared.

     Their blood relation couldn't be argued. The confirmation of her true Quirk suddenly filled in part of the puzzle for him: like Empathy, Biohack allowed its user to interphase with a living thing and procure a mentally itemized list of its target's components, statuses, and logistics. The most outstanding and vital difference was that Biohack operated on a cellular level: Vitality couldn't produce or evaporate new matter, but could 'persuade' microscopic lifeforms to override their natural lifespans.

     With a power like that, given enough work and resources and practice, she could probably help cure cancer. She could be tinkered upon and made into a walking bioweapon. Instead, she was playing a pretend game of house, a warden's simulacra of a mother, soothing yet antagonizing a child's pain, snipping the wings of his unpracticed ability. "And I bet Kaede is your handler. Or," and his eyes narrowed at her, "your work driver."

     Hanami-- Kumagai, whatever-- smiled. He steeled his heart against her approval. "Technically she was our handler. But there's no point in keeping a close eye on a Quirkless citizen." Just like that, the power structure changed. He realized now that his biggest mistake was confiding in her back then. "Relax. I'm not going to tell her."

     "How can I trust you?"

     "Because I still haven't told her all this time," Hanami--Vitality-- huffed. "Because I've been doing all I can to keep her away from you as you figure yourself out."

     Hikaru tried not to find himself distracted. Just because she was being cooperative now did not absolve her of past actions. "... How many of our family members are our actual family?" Not that blood relation meant much to this witch, but not everyone was as callous as his mother.

     With another twisted smile-- so proud, but so resentful-- she said, "You've been quietly mapping your way out of the dungeon. Good boy. It's good to know how many soldiers you'll have to fight through to get out. The answer is: none of them... they've never been our allies."

     He had guessed as much. Before Hikaru had become 'reclusive and unfriendly' in his spiraling health, the Sato family gatherings were mandatory; he had assumed his 'relatives' grew tired of accommodating his needs. Not that he would attend again, if given the chance. Now he knew 'reunion' meant submerging himself into a pit of vipers. The only thing that made such events tolerable had been his mother: the one who always made sure there were wheelchair options, who held his things when he became winded, and who knew when to guide him somewhere dark and quiet when the onslaught of stimulation drove him to silent suffering. Little acts of consideration held the stretched seams of their bond together.

     "They're not so smart." He couldn't help commiserating with her, maybe out of some misplaced sympathy still clinging to the wrinkles of his heart. "I always got the feeling they never knew exactly what you told me about my dad."

A 'second-removed aunt' would suggest his father died before he was born, and then suddenly a 'distant cousin' around his age would insist they had known of him after Hikaru's birth. It was a gas leak, someone recalled, and another would wonder if it was an explosion, and someone else would combine the theories to a gas-based explosion. Their dodginess always put the spotlight on his mother.

The only thing Hikaru knew for certain was that even if he asked his own mother about his absent parent, it would produce nothing helpful. She would either clam up completely, overwhelm herself with her own crying, or refuse to answer anything with any certainty. She was like this with everyone, and for the longest time, because he never wanted to hurt her, Hikaru let that sleeping dog lie.

Until she hurt him first.

Before he could open his mouth to ask how she met his dad, she moved. He moved too. In that second his mother lunged for him with an arm outstretched, he reeled back wildly across the counter. His hand found purchase and he swiped out at her with the chef's knife. "Stay back!"

Neither of them harmed each other. As seasoned and experienced as she had been, his mother chose not to strongarm him. All she'd had to do was knock the knife from his hand and seize him. She could inflame the cells in his lungs, turn the water vapor into a pathogen (depending on how good she was), and give him pneumonia. She could make his bones porous and let his legs snap under his own weight. Or maybe she could just flip a switch in his head. He truly didn't know what kind of person Vitality had become in this new life... he didn't know what she was willing to do to survive.

Instead of doing anything of the sort, she looked at the knife. And then she burst into tears. He stood there as she sank down to her knees, bawling like a child. All the while, she babbled on about how she never wanted a motherhood like this. She loved him, she was trying so hard, and she was sorry that she failed him. She was frightened that any day, the people watching them would realize they'd been conned. They would come to take Hikaru away, and she was powerless to stop them. The world would only get worse.

"I'm sorry," Hikaru said, crouching next to her. He left the knife on the counter and scooted closer. His mother was so slim. She had curled her arms around herself so tightly that she seemed to be crushing herself down smaller and smaller. In his mind, he held her and hid his face in her hair as she cried. They were both victims of their mutual circumstance...

'This is exactly what she wants.'

His insides felt hollow when he caught himself. He nearly fell for it. She could have done anything in that moment's weakness. Immediately, he pulled away and got back to his feet to look down on the sight. From an elevated view, he could see all the moving parts. The abandonment, the big fight, the melodramatic apologies. The medicated soup neither of them ate-- for after all, she never intended to dine with him. This was not a meeting of equals. His mother could have simply left the packet on the counter... but she had to take control of him. She needed to have control of something.

He began to clean around her, letting her sit and sob on the kitchen floor. He couldn't build up the strength to abandon his post, so he took his time tossing out the food, tidying the dishes, and putting things away. Eventually her wet hiccupping stopped, and he glanced her way before a horrible nausea rolled his stomach. She watched him with an openly curious expression, her nose and cheeks pinkened. Her eyes shone with tears, yet there held in them a sharpness... a bitterness that he had not done the proper thing and comforted her, like any son would do. She hated that he didn't trust her.

A dim memory flashed before him: fat baby hands patting her back as he sang to her her, 'It'll be okay, it's all okay,' in an astringent waiting room. She held his little hands and squeezed them. He took one back to cover his mouth as he coughed. And then that same glimmer of inspiration appeared in her eyes.. The recollection blended with all the other examinations he had undergone, though he knew without doubt this was one of the first ones. This was the important one, he realized by way of hindsight: it decided their entire, mangled future.

He wished he was capable of Empathy instead. If only he could tell when she was lying to him and when she was sincere. For so long, he battled with the idea that his suffering had been at the hands of his mother. His mother, the one who worked harder than anyone else to keep him comfortable and safe, she who had never before left his side. Had she been protecting him, or was that an excuse to keep misery as her company?

He knew the night would be cold. He began to fill his electric kettle with water, preparing to make her a large serving of tea to keep her warm on her way to the airport. "I can't let you stay here," he told her. "Especially not if Kaede is expecting you at your next charity dinner." He didn't want to go out... but he still ought to protect what mattered to him, so he planned his route back after accompanying her to the train station. He was loathe to give up his sentry, terrified that by drawing him away from the apartment some fiend would infiltrate his privacy, but... he still loved her, even after everything she had done.

She could be so quiet when she wanted to be. If he hadn't turned to prepare her tea at the table, he would never have caught her in the hallway, staring at all the cords and hoses. She reached for the door that his other self hid behind.

He must have scared her. It was one thing to grab for a weapon, any weapon, in the face of potential danger. It was another to vault over the bar, graceful and gravely swift. Without thinking, he grabbed her by the wrist. She let him yank her, and did not scream or cry or wrench herself away. In that instant, he felt something slam into his sternum-- a sudden ghost pressure that made him release her and stumble back. They froze again, caught in another disjointed conflict. They watched each other, more or less unmoored as they processed everything. She had felt the hand-laid mental wall he built up against her, knew now what he was capable of. Whatever fears he was feeling, whatever his problems might be, she was no longer privy to them. He had categorically shut her out, compartmentalized into a 'public' personal file that only knew Hikaru to be a sleep-deprived workaholic.

"Please leave it alone," he requested. "That's private."

---

Hikaru began to cough during their walk. Softly at first like clearing his throat, but the fits soon became frequent. Hanami seemed to consider offering her tea, but decided against it. Instead, she gestured vaguely with the thermos he gave to her: heads up. He was grateful for that-- after all, they now had company. Two people were behind them. The lurkers from Kaede's apartment he assumed, and supposed another two would be waiting for them at the station. He kept his mask on, and they didn't dare to speak or even look at each other as they walked, instead pretending to ignore their invisible surveillance.

It took all his self-restraint not to turn on her in their last seconds. The vile desire to hurt her as much as she had hurt him still hummed just under his skin. He considered shoving her onto the tracks just before the train pulled in-- causing a scene that would force the faceless henchmen to react. He wondered what would happen if he ever needed to run. He considered what it was like to destroy yourself completely, to be reborn anew... how would he leave everything he knew behind and try to get out of reach before the walls shrank in on him?

"... I never knew what to do with you, you know," Hanami murmured under her breath, so that only he could hear. "You were always the kindest, smartest kid I knew. Kids half your age could hurt your feelings... I knew if anyone else got a hold of you, they would render your heart into pieces and you wouldn't stand a chance."

"Thanks for the vote of confidence," he muttered back.

"You're welcome," she said, and they were quiet again until the train pulled up. "The tour will last another year. You have until then. Goodbye." How considerate of her, to keep it brief. To buy him time. But as she stepped into the train, his heart stopped in his chest, and he found himself calling to her.

"Hey."

His mother glanced back. Either time slowed, or she sustained this gaze for several deliberate seconds. He couldn't tell. He stepped past the yellow line and wrapped his arms around her body. She tensed, then relaxed, settling her arms over his shoulders. With his face so close to her ear, he asked, "... Your doctor friend... they're the same one who did your surgery, aren't they?... Who are they?"

She pulled away and scrutinized him. Then tilted her head forward, as if to ask one final time if he was certain he wanted to know. He didn't budge.

She slipped out of his hug, brushing his hair from his face using her wrist. His nausea settled only fractionally. "Body Shop," she said in English. Then she turned and walked back into the train, the doors closing between them.

As the train pulled away, Hikaru felt it take a piece of him with it, unraveling his insides like a busy spool. When he saw the three figures stand and close in on the woman before he lost sight of her completely, his head spun with delirious rage and fear... even though he knew she wasn't so easy to corner. She would squirm out of the pan before determining whether it landed her in the fire or not, and deal with the consequences then. Before her absence took more than he could stand to lose, he cut her free, turned, and walked away.

---

He made it home after dark, just in time to fall into an uproarous hacking, his bones aching for relief, muscles burning with exertion. He wheezed air into his lungs laboriously and went straight to the kitchen sink for a drink of water. There, he found the disembowled paper bag next to the sink, right where it had been forgotten.

He grabbed it, sought identification to no avail, then tore open the rest of its contents. All the medicine was gone. He took a moment to stare down at the mess, considering what might have happened if he just pretended he hadn't noticed. Would she have eaten if he did? Or was all of her effort for him and only him?

He couldn't return to his work. The chance of contaminating his specimens was too great. He would have to finish scrawling his reports and measurements down by his dying phone's flashlight, away from them all... to be alone was torture, but he wasn't as selfish as his mother was.

So he went back to the bathroom and scrubbed down. Spending that energy was necessary, but his strength waned. By the time he was in his hazardous material suit, his throat was scratchy and his body was shivering. Hikaru weakly approached the study, opening the door slowly so as not to overexert or jostle himself. He picked up his notebook and looked out over the room.

The spider plant hung overhead, a small tarp catching Koyubi's puppy teeth as they bloomed and fell. Arms protruded from garden pots with fingers lifting and curling with invitation. Brown-eyed Susans rolled around with no particular field of vision and blunk their yellow-petaled eyelashes now and again. A human spinal column-- or at least, a rope of nerve tendrils soon to become a spine-- braided its length along a custom trellis. A brain floated in an artificial pond like a lily pad, the stem rooted to the muddy bottom. Organs grew in wall-mounted, and tight-lidded aquariums: the brackish water beheld lacy scum and mold rings diversifying into innumerable flora and bacteria, converging into a singular whole.

Any sane person would have thrown the plants out immediately and never so much as looked at a cactus. But using his Quirk made him feel better; even the most vicelike grip on his brain now was lessened by the presence of his plantlife. It was as though there was something excessive in him, poisoning him, and by nurturing his garden to its anatomical apotheosis, there was less of that something. It was rewarding. It was euphoric. The only thing he wanted to do was grow, study, and learn. He was good at it, and it presented a puzzle in a language only he could parse.

But he knew it was a two-way street. He couldn't risk getting all of them sick, or all his hard work would be for nothing. "Goodnight." His farewell sounded tinny in the confines of his hood as he shuffled out the door.

By the time he was tucked into bed, Hikaru's chills were so severe that the shivers shook his handwriting. He could only reflect on his previously collected data and marvel at the possibilities of his Quirk. The variables were endlessly fluctuating: all his creations were vulnerable to soil composition, water levels, light intensity, bodily fluids... he reread the section regarding biological material. Hindsight and obsessive studying had cast light some of the mystery.

According to the Quirk singularity theory, the combination of hereditary genes could combine into more complex, powerful Quirks. A lineage of autonomic-override Quirks, such as his mother's, could lead to interesting combinations. But he couldn't explain the plants... the only inheritance that remained of his father, the most nebulous aspect of his power.

Hikaru understood why someone would want his Quirk. Growing bodies came incredibly naturally to him. Over time, as sweat and skin mixed into the nutrients, the microscopic formula became stronger. Semen, as awkward and uncomfortable a phase it had been, worked fractionally better than sweat or saliva. Blood was easier to extract though, and paper cuts were easy enough to explain.

But the more ineffable aspect was the proximity to his plants: the way he knew they were sick or dying, because then he too would wilt. His strength correlated to theirs. There was more to his Quirk than merely imbuing it with his essence... if it were so simple, then he wouldn't be a hostage in his own life.

The spider plant's first blossom was the revelation: he was as much a victim as his mother, and the things he did to explore his options came from a need to save himself. He wasn't proud of it, not entirely. But he also hadn't hurt anyone. He had taken hair from strangers' sweaters, stolen misplaced beverages, and even gone so far as to filch used dental picks from the trash, for their saliva. Was it such a crime to be thorough? Were people really so fond of their discarded napkins and bandages? He had to be sure-- he had to prove to himself that there was a rhyme or reason to his experiments, so he randomized the test subjects. He wanted to see how precise his Quirk could be.

Thanks to all the groundwork, he had a project and a hypothesis. Could he be criticized for being thorough? And given tonight's revelations... it would be possible.

In another life, maybe his mother could have trusted him. They could have talked it over together, and maybe he wouldn't have to do this. The only way he could think to trace back his Quirk to a different progenitor-- without anyone knowing anything about what he had done or planned to do-- was to recreate his and his mother's and dissect the differences.

In a matter of time, Hikaru would know whether or not he could grow a Quirk. He would find out more about this 'Body Shop,' and he would escape the confines of his cage.

One day. One day.

[hel-phoenyx]

"No offense, Tyrfing, but you really are a fucking idiot."

I tense up, hit right in the heart by the harsh words. Not that I'm not used to it, but still, it's painful to hear.

Next to me, Brynja, always a sweetheart, frowns and lifts a hand.

"If you may, Kriss, I don't think those words are necessary, that's my..."

She pauses, but Kriss doesn't leave her time to notice that hesitation.

"Then you're fucking an idiot, Brynja, what do you want me to say ? An idiot in love, in denial and deep in emotional repression while he wants to be deep in several people !"

... Always the roughest words to say, huh Kriss. My sister, talking like the worst vulgar man sometimes, something she developped to protest against our parents' strictness ; junior already knows three hundred curse words. At ten. Luckily there's Gustav to tell him not to use them.

I've been used to that way of being since a long time. That doesn't mean it's enjoyable.

Brynja tries to interject again, but Kriss cut through that attempt.

"So. Let's rewind. Mister is in love with Kaizarz since fucking childhood. Has a thing for Oli and Domhildr from the times he was in high school and trying to be an ace in the hole, always overcompensating for the fact parents asked him to live up to the high IQ diagnosis. Which I still think is bullshit."

I cringe hearing that. yeah, I'm considered a gifted child, but must you really remind me of the times I was too proud of it-

No time to protest, she's still talking and I know her well enough to remember an interruption would just make it worse.

"Fucked Meili in the house thinking I wouldn't hear them and realised at this moment, at least I hope, that he had a crush on him since the whole homoerotic academia rivalry. Had an ambiguous relationship with Bryn here on the side while homoerotically hitting it up with the biggest bastard this world have ever seen, who only has for himself saving my life once to the point I made the mistake to name my son after him. Not to add the biggest crush this poor Hector had on you-"

"Wait Hector has what-"

"BUT ! Kriss cuts me with an agressive move of the hand. Mister is now 26 and still hasn't act on those feelings to the point I am HAPPY to hear you fucked Brynja the first time you saw her after ten years of long-distance situationship ? And y'all still think I can't call you a dumbass ?"

"You said an idiot," I sigh, pointlessly. Not like she would listen to me, anyway.

Kriss frowns.

"Same difference. Not everyone has a background in litterature, you little bitch."

"That's rich coming from the woman in STEM. Weren't you complaining about your sexist boss a minute ago ?"

"I find complaining about you more amusing, at least I can laugh in your face. Your love and sex life is a mess, Tyr, you know that ?"

I roll my eyes.

"Well, it was, until a recent date, almost non-existent. Why do you think I downloaded Tinder."

"Didn't you uninstall it after finding your precious Domi on it ?"

"Oh, shut up. And I didn't, I just closed the fucking app !"

Brynja has a little laugh.

"Well, it feels good to be back in known grounds..."

"Yeah, happy to see you too, Brynja. Finally someone with enough common sense to tell Tyr he's fucking everything up."

"Do you really have to gang up against me ?"

Kriss has a mocking smile.

"That's sisterhood and womanly solidarity, bitch."

"I am your fucking BROTHER !"

"And she's fucking my brother, at this point I can call her my sister-in-law. When do you introduce me to the others, by the way ?"

"You'll do well to remember who set you up with Gustav-"

"Alright, that's enough," interjects said Gustav with a laugh, coming in the living room with his hands full with a plate of tea and biscuits. "Let's not ruin Brynja's return and Tyr's milestone in his thesis."

Thank god for that man. He kisses Kriss on the cheek and instantly my sister loses the sneering to a much more tender expression. It's so weird how it's the same woman that was shooting point blank at me a minute ago.

Brynja takes my hand with a smile while the two lovebirds married for ten yers gush around each other.

"You know, Tyr, maybe I can help you with that."

".... You're not.... Put off ? By me being poly."

It was, still is, one of my biggest fears. That one of them wouldn't accept it and I would have to make choices.

But she just shrugs.

"Well, I may be monogamous in a strict love sense, but I am not exclusive, you know. It's just... Since him, I haven't found anyone else to..."

Her eyelids are trembling. I figure it's best I take control of the conversation again.

"I'm... Glad it suits you. I want you happy, you know."

"I know, Tyr. I wouldn't have loved you all these years if you didn't."

A hand brushes next to an eye before she smiles again.

"Maybe I can return the favor. You deserve that and so much more."

[mrawkweird]

Well, we are officially living in a post My Hero Academia world now, so I'm gonna say my piece on the best stage I got. Hopefully without any spoilers.

Man, it's bonkers that it's been 10 years, mostly because it started the year before I graduated school, so in a way it's the first anime I got to get enamored with as an adult the same way I would as a child.

The series took over the world and was briefly just THE anime for a bit but I think it's important that we realize that it did that without trying reinvent the wheel, in fact the series revels in references to it's inspirations. The stand out feature of the series was it's optimism and that optimism wasn't unfounded, the author like Deku got to stand shoulder to shoulder with his own heroes almost like a self fulfilling prophesy.

The series was another reminder that western media can be just as influential on anime as anime is to western media. Not to mention another case where a fanboy got to work with and be acknowledged by the entity he was a fan of.

Now the series isn't perfect, I defiantly think the biggest problem came from the ever encroaching importance of the Todoroki family which feels like it took over whatever story that wasn't about Deku or the villains. My friend even pointed out that the initial idea of Deku, Iida and Uraraka as a friend group seemingly disappeared to make way 1A's big 3. Sorta robbing screentime from the rest of the class.

(went from Ash, Misty, Brock to Yugi, Kaiba, Joey)

That being said, I still love this series, hell, it's been way more influential on me than I probably even realized. When Sonic Frontiers came out and I got to do all that crazy anime bullshit I didn't think, "Damn, this shit's like Dragon Ball" I thought "Damn, this shit's like My Hero Academia." It is one THE shonen for me now.

(The 100% part of the Overhaul fight really is just like the bosses in that game though)

In the end MHA through all it's flash serves to remind us. That being a hero is more than a cool costume, more than a awesome power, and more than beating a bad guy. It's about someone who tries to help someone else out even if everyone thinks that they can't.

Something even as cynical as The Boy's can affirm to that

The series has always been about this one moment

This isn't just the moment where Deku starts to become a hero, it's the moment where All Might reaffirms that he IS one.

#Mirko&Nagant4OnesJustice3

Down the line people might see something that reminds them of the hero's journey and say "This is the next My Hero Academia". They sought the dream and achieved the reality that others will now dream of. Now onto the loosely adapted live action movie to really cement their legacy.

[misterbitches]

was cookin up some critical bullshit in my drafts on my phone at the hairdresser for wtpr. i'm putting of ep 9-10 though bc i'll miss it and i know it's canceled for mourning this week (and rip to the dead, this world....my god.)

long roundabout thoughts but i wanted to articulate something i've been milling around for a while.

so i'm thinking of this post—which i love dgmw—and our ideas of critique, social progress via culture when it's devoid of political economy, and the influence of the New Left (good and bad) on cultural reception for people with more "progressive" beliefs. those in the west, particularly america and the uk, young/er (18-35), who watch these dramas tend to have at least liberal sensibilities, may know a lot about social inequality, and probably know a little about fiscal inequality.

they probably don't really know the histories of these countries, the influence their country has had on them (or like...direct involvement aka south fucking korea) and within texts, critique, academia the west, particularly america, reigns supreme. it also assumes a blanket agreement of socioeconomic pain ie patriarchy will look the same in south korea as it does in america just with a different race(1).

i'm going to be following this paper "Under Western Eyes: Feminist Scholarship and Colonial Discourses" as a guide about this pattern and consequential affect and orientation of discourses/interest then circle to wtpr. later if i'm still feelin' it and bored i'll write more about what i think of the show (outside of just romance) specifically. "those “who ground themselves in the basic analytic strategies of traditional marxism,"—i follow this and replace this with cultural/media literacy and analytic for the purpose of what i will write about—"also implicitly create a "unity" of women by substituting "women's activity" for "labor" as the primary theoretical determinant of women's situation.(2) Here again, women are constituted as a coherent group not on the basis of "natural" qualities or needs, but on the basis of the sociological "unity" of their role in domestic production and wage labor.'" In other words, Western feminist discourse, by assuming women as a coherent, already constituted group which is placed in kinship, legal and other structures, defines third world women as subjects outside of social relations, instead of looking at the way women are constituted as women through these very structures. Legal, economic, religious, and familial structures are treated as phenomena to be judged by Western standards. It is here that ethnocentric universality comes into play."

so, or because, if we know that the majority of people are not bible thumping weirdo dumdums, a huge portion of us non-white, and most not rich and many poor, which is extremely relevant, why do the questions on if a piece of work has "bad" things in it, and someone is concerned about its content and how it is handled, offend us?

disclaimer: i don't know how to use commas but i use them a lot. also i'm dyslexic/dyspraxic so whatever sucker chooses to read this...sorry in advance. also i edit my shit a lot.

why is every single response to "xyz does this unacceptable thing that plagues society" or questions what we have been lead to believe is something unacceptable, or questions if something that should be neutral used in a harmful manner is unacceptable; why is it when people present a problem they have with something, pedestrian as it may be, the response is: "it's not real life" or "life is complex and not black/white" or "that's not the point of art" or, the worst iteration, the "puritan" as pejorative but referentless (when puritan ideology works as cover for imperial colonial domination because we are all obsessed with sex, it is immersed in our lives, we are never without it so it's not even true because it is about the purpose and harm but that is never mentioned because overwhelmingly those terms are dictated by white people, become implicit, then expressed by non-white people), the idea that the slogan acab includes fandom cops (dpmo), and that somehow those questions lead to some sort of censorship that's outside of the censorship that's happening right now. that the mere questioning or belief will orient you to hitler instead of the real orientation to nazism that is zionism and is happening right now.(3)

to me the concern over the perceived lack of media literacy from people who believe themselves to hold oodles of it is always explained through being allowed to enjoy as replacing and superseding what the point of culture and even being a fucking artist is. the whiteness, hypocrisy and silliness of that idea. allowed enjoyment is then translated to this white fear of the returning puritanism. if one is interested in some form of social progress, if one even proposes they are on the left, that fear largely sits outside of deeper sociopolitical turmoil, political economy, and consequences and rests more primarily in facilitating its ability to exist at an alarming rate instead of culture as an [increasingly and purposefully poorer] reflection, simulacra, intermediary (4) (that now simultaneously helps warm the planet).

and sure many can locate some sort of reason in what colonialism did on our imaginations but it's always tied to capacity of harm, some sort of free primitivity of the colonized that will be continuously crushed if anyone questions the terrors whiteness/racial capitalism exploited, roided up, then released to destroy my people's lives and have what seems to be an infinite effect on human relations. for example, one can "focus[es] on the fact of the marital exchange of women before and after Western colonization" but what do we extrapolate from that "rather than the value attached to the exchange in this particular context." at the point where the value in context is ignored, then one can only extrapolate that we, the colonized [women], are so mired in colonization that our own problems shaped by what existed and what was forced upon can only be undone via intellectual will. regardless, whether youre the 'i want to enjoy bla bla escapism' type or 'i am i guess a leftist and i can use that to support my words' type, through this lens it's about what white fears of lack of enjoyment/(supposed) purity needed for art does. whether you view it in the flat way or a deeper manner, making everyone go along with rigid lines of question that have a questionable argumentative response to defend why they should be allowed to sanction any curiosity that could be used for poor aims is not only controlling and fucking ridiculous, it's anti intellectual, ahistorical, purposefully ignorant of material reality, and dishonest. and also so fucking white.(5)

we have to reframe this shit for 2025 because fandoms created around an interest and connecting us via our identities become more and more detached, circulate more empty signifiers, exhaustingly repetitive analyses, misdirection and anger than action, the worse this evil world gets. for the past two years these responses have apparently been adequate enough for people though they do absolutely nothing for anyone since no one learns goddamn anything. because life and the world has noticeably and demonstrably gotten even worse since 2020. and people do not want to question themselves, their desires, their interests.

now that isn't to do with the way fandom responds to specifically asian media but cultural work and media as a whole. however, though i don't think western asian drama fans harbor an intentionally paternalistic instinct, i don't think they realize how they view the global south. oh so coincidentally, the countries that america/the west has ever so sweetly groomed/pillaged (SK/ROK/NK) while being the pillager (Japan), or shaped and pushed horrendous ideology to be the terror of that region, peoples, and distinct threat to world liberation (""""ISRL""""), or used as an outpost for that consistent pillaging and penal colony (Australia/NZ) feature heavy indigenous and asian populations. curious what's going on there?

and our best introduction to them is through what? cultural production? consumption? why's that? if people even read this...do you know what the summer of terror is? are you aware of the reason behind plastic surgery's popularity? korean culture's rise, its soft power, hegemony, and the academic influence that has solidified it as non-hegemonic, revolutionary even, to neutralize racial capitalism and make it seem like advancement? not sure if the majority of these western fans realize how much sinophobia and anti communism (and subsequently anarchism) they have grown up with.

what's so fascinating to me about this for wtpr in particular is that the source material is a trash romance novel. people like to say that women's interests are derided because we are women(6) instead of questioning why the fuck we are peddled garbage and forced to buy it. twilight is fucking racist, anti abortion, anti indigenous, mormon garbage and yet the issue of twilight, or boy bands, or or or is now that these are Girl Hobbies and, since no one likes girls, that must mean it has to exist. and also that fandom is labor and should therefore be respected and not critiqued or...something.

my question is: WHY THE FUCK AREN'T WE QUESTIONING WHY THIS IS A DESIRABLE TROPE FOR WOMEN? (/people). this obsession with edgy toxicity as an ability to tell "complex stories". for romance with dumdums, just because it exists and women may have the desire to read about it or have a fantasy does not make that fantasy neutral. it doesn't make the value added to that fantasy neutral. "such simplistic formulations are both reductive and ineffectual in designing strategies to combat oppressions. all they do is reinforce binary divisions between men and women." there's a failure to syncretize our reality with the structures we live in, to balance personal responsibility and liberation. it isn't to throw your hands up and reify with "no ethical consumption" level of poor analyses and obfuscatory bullshit. because that is actually the norm. even the "green flags" can be "red flags" and the misidentification rests solely on the ML's actions completely outside of context. so what the fuck does matter then? and what is the purpose of presenting a piece of work that touches on the increasingly vague "social issues" (following a nonprofit model of solving the world)? like does hong hee joo's womanhood matter or not here? (7) what this asinine line of thinking also does is have us miss the gaps where people try to ameliorate or the achievements when they do.

for example hong hee joo is, imo, a strong female character because of her context. if she were a cold and rich FL with less problems, had more space to learn ad grow and become analytical, but made some of the choices that hhj made, we could judge her more harshly as more of a victim. but in the show she does the one thing a woman can do to win my heart: burn their life for their freedom. which, imo, is the highest form of liberation for everyone and every gender. it's not a popular one, it's one that is concerned with [racial] capitalism and imperial colonial domination, that understands it is what makes our lives as women humiliating and deadly. those reasons aren't even reflected in this drama, they can't be, but why is that spirit not a popular trope? why is it that we barely see the world capitalism? imperialism? colonialism? i reckon the dramas now that approach japan have watered down a lot of the language and expressed the tension moreso through interpersonal rships.

people believe that others are asking for this perfection but they're not. the issue isn't really the existence, it's the VALUE WE PUT ON IT. how we prioritize it. we can understand this with certain parts of gender and heteronormativity but when it comes to realms where certain men are overwhelmingly the problem and benefit the most from recreating that problem which is an ideology that involves women and may give us some fiscal or social gratification, pleasure, or benefit from the most dominant group in the category of women we balk at interrogation. this is what happens when we shirk curiosity and strike down every attempt at earnest conversation and concern.

it's also showing a lack of ability to process the types of people engaging with these discourses. why are we not able to tell who means what with what they say/don't say? is a black 15 year old posing this 'green/red flag' question the same as a white 32 year old? what are their different and coinciding concerns that make them reach this conclusion? think about the enemies to lovers trope and what format it is typically seen in. in romantasy or whatever it is primarily through intense subjugation and fantastical repeats of colonization particularly through a racial labor-resource exploitative order. in regular between two disparate groups positioned as "oppressed and oppressor". would a black 32 year old artist's concern over this overused, poorly done, stupid, intentionally popular and promoted trope be too much is it the same as the spectre of some sort of pastor that's coming to get you through my objection? or does that pastor benefit from its constant production and clear pleasurable but socially unecessary and ideologically harmful value? so what is it about women's situation, now, in reality that make this—toxicity in relationships particularly men with women—an issue? why would one care that this is so popular and a repeated expression of what is peddled as neutral fantasy that is to make money and raise the power and value of a nation that suckles daddy america's teat? all this fear and ridicule of these questions that literally no one bothers to expand upon leads to is those same questions being asked, by different people, and people doubling down in their defenses because they're so invested in the white world's explanatory power and stasis. it shows that people are okay with thinking art is able to be neutral even if they are (supposedly) far from politically neutral. pop culture is important insofar as it is the representation of human life, but it also serves a propagandic purpose and you are silly to believe it is not. and i also have no time for wanting art that is not propagandic. like no one says you can't have a murder orgy or incest or dark themes. people question them because we live in a world with problems that exist today and the people most offended by these queries come from a place where we define the othered, “in a particular way prior to their entry into social relations" as benefactors of "first and third world power shifts" yet we fail to connect how those are related. where white ideas that trickled from intellectual sources diffuse into zeitgeist because white people's biggest issues appear on the screen and in stores. so the white supremacist ideological stronghold holds the cards in what is an acceptable discursive move and line of inquiry. "By focusing on the representation of women in the third world, and what I referred to earlier as Western feminisms' self-presentation in the same context, it seems evident that Western feminists alone become the true "subjects" of this counter-history"

what should be interrogated is no longer the system, value, bla bla because ultimately what people are saying, and want, is for "the new society [to] be structurally identical to the existing organization of power relations, constituting itself as a simple inversion of what exists." why the fuck is this okay with us? because if i truly touched upon what i think part of the flaws of wtpr are socially, particularly in this moment in context of sk, the us, and [racial] capitalist colonial imperial domination; our support of that hell colonial american outpost "isrl", our 700mill package to fucking taiwan(..literally everything we touch we kill including and primarily my fucking people and our indigenous family, our comrades...); why i mention them, what i think our future should hold and how we should interrogate and challenge ourselves in strategic participation and connection... would be simply too much. ("not everything has to be perfect" never said it should. so fucking what. i'm a goddamn artist, a good one, who wants a better world. who refuses to live like this so why the fuck are we not pushing for more, for different, for a deprioritization of the typical, for real rage and love and fun? why should i stay silent? i will not tell a lie! if i want a class war on screen then i want it. you're trying to imply something, trying to shake something anyway, but all you can fucking give me is more empire? and that's what's tripping you up... when we point it out?)

i can question if the person made the moves the right way but i cannot question if the value we put on its continued importance and existence is generative, helpful, able to sustain this beautiful world with its beautiful people that white people decided to take up the mantle as being the main destroyers of, if we want to sustain life and make good cultural work, put stake into our lives and try and gain any autonomy we can as artists and believe culture can help expose and open people up, encourage active change, understand the necessity of anger, violence, and sacrifice? people would call me crazy. they already will if they read this.

i just struggle with this because i cannot imagine saying that we are suffering as women, as people, as an earth but just wanting the earth to stay the same with you having certain spoils. if people can't even ask, even if it's annoying, even if they're young, bla bla bla or if people may say something that a conservative could say....well that's anything. conservatives, liberals, progressives and leftists seem to overwhelmingly agree that the UHC man should have gotten got. so clearly this is about our goals and why we think something is a problem, how that contributes to the future, as opposed to the simple words BEING POSED OR EXISTING. we know we live in a world that was intentionally fucked up by some of the worst human beings to ever grace this planet and form their evil racial ideology for exploitative gain yet we can miraculously decide when those ideas and systems leave our psyches for creation and when they come back. it's so curious.

i also want to mention that people keep using "morality" as a cudgel. like whenever people want to combat the questioning of this stupid ass bullshit we are peddled, people are being "moralistic" but—and idc what philosophers have to say—so are they. a moral judgement is something we make all the time. you are approaching it as a moral issue by either saying that there's no moral value on something therefore to judge it is bad but then can push that into a neutral space. and we aren't talking about morality really; it's about values.

but even if we were; i have 0 qualms believe that resistance is moral and just and i believe that if you aren't a race traitor you are a morally valueless human being. i do not eschew that. why should i? if you have thoughts, beliefs, and convictions and you love art and want a free world i don't understand why you would allow yourself to lie to displace potential un-enjoyment.

the thing i CAN see with the issue with the red/green flag thing or whatever thing annoys people when someone asks a question about media and they think that means they want to ban bad men(/people) in romance or something as if that isnt the fucking norm, as if we haven't been obsessed with contradictions, is characterizing everything as stock, rote. a green flag does this, a red flag does that etc etc but it just makes me laugh even more bc people fucking loooove astrology man but they wont question that lol

lil notez: 1. "race" which operates completely fucking differently in south korea or more racially-ethnically homogenous societies since almost everyone they see everyday is their race which is fucking why the misogyny, sexism, and patriarchy becomes so stark to western eyes 2. for ex to Be a Wife would put hong hee joo in that labor realm and therefore galvanize women to care about her/women's issues. which it has also not done in the history of ever because white women are terrible and not complex thinkers. 3. i shit you not someone told me when i was protesting the fact that they say i had to respect so called queer art that is loli, after articulating that i do not believe in the cops or censorship but do not believe we need to value that or pretend it is good, or something to be interested in and not question, that they didn't know why i believed what i did when i articulated my political orientation. then they were shocked that a black kid was about to get fucking deported from cornell for protesting a fucking arms recruitment convention at these loser factories called college. when black people are restricted movement in the united states of america you must know that we are already in fascism. george jackson fucking said it decades ago. (read blood in my eye). these people do not listen. 4. great piece to learn on the differences in artistic output and what we use it for. on chicago and nyc, on pontificating what web dubois meant by negro art (see my pinned which is embarrassing but oh well). obviously i lean completely towards this type of creation

5. for the "enjoyment" crowd i don't have much beyond: who the fuck are you to simply just enjoy shit? you've never done anything in your life. nothing is being taken away from you. you can still consume your garbage and be empty and purposefully numb and dumb. i have little to no respect for people that prioritize themselves in this world order.

6. which reminds me of "women's activity's being replaced by labor" that the paper mentions as a unifying force to make us a Class of Women, so if everything we do is labor then that means we must be the same, have the same interests, fears, and problems. thanks white, liberal, and marxist feminism! and yes i collapse all 3 atp idc abt accuracy lol

7. if there is no problem to be found but our reclamation of power or ability to do bad, make stupid choices, etc then there's no reason to despair about our place in the world. women just want that and though there may be pathways that make them more amenable to it no it's the ability to access this psychosexual fantasy that will open up the repressed women who use it as a tool of reclamation. or some bullshit. i can make their arguments really easily.

[mightyflamethrower]

In the wake of President-elect Donald Trump’s stunning victory over Vice President Kamala Harris, in which he secured the popular vote on top of an Electoral College landslide, Democrats have been hosting tough conversations about the future of the party in its relations to transgender issues, specifically transgenders operating in women’s spaces, including bathrooms, locker rooms, and athletics. While Democrats like Bill Maher, Ben Dreyfuss, and others have called for Democrats to move away from transgender advocacy, others like John Oliver have argued they should move even further left.

“The Harris campaign failed to formulate a response, especially when it’s pretty easy to do,” Oliver said in a recent segment on his show. “There are vanishingly few trans girls competing in high schools anywhere, even if there were more, trans kids like all kids vary in terms of athletic ability, and there is no evidence they pose any threat to safety or fairness.”

Author J.K. Rowling (the Harry Potter series) publicly called the comedian’s arguments “bullshit” and cited a plethora of anecdotes to support her case. She also made clear that her criticism of John Oliver stemmed from nothing personal.

“Nothing about this feels good, because John Oliver generously gave his time for my charity Lumos and I liked him very much when I met him, but God knows, if you ever need an example of motivated reasoning and confirmation bias, this video’s for you. An undoubtedly intelligent person spouts absolute bullshit to support something he wants to be true, but isn’t,” she said in a post on X.

“According to the UN, female athletes have lost nearly 900 medals to trans-identified men competing against them in women’s sporting categories. Girls have been ousted from teams to make way for boys. Women have suffered serious injury playing against trans-identified men,” she added.

J.K. Rowling cited the case of Payton McNabb, who suffered a severe head injury after a transgender athlete spiked a volleyball into her face during a high school match.

“Again and again I’ve come up against men who argue exactly what Oliver does here, using the very same talking points. With a straight face, the ‘believe the science’ guys will say ‘actually, we don’t yet have enough data to say whether men and boys are stronger and faster than women and girls’. The ‘be kind’ crew can’t see what the issue is. ‘Why are you bothered, it only affects a tiny minority of females?'” argued Rowling.

“To prove to their progressive credentials – and (coincidentally, I’m sure) indemnify themselves against repercussions from cultural elites in the media, academia and publishing who’ve showed themselves more than ready to kick people to the kerb for failing to mouth the approved mantras – people with a lot to lose are currently prepared to make idiots of themselves,” she continued. “They’ll stare unabashedly into a camera and insist that their audiences’ eyeballs are incapable of seeing what’s plain as day, and that there’s something wrong with the great unwashed for believing that girls are being robbed of opportunities and put at physical risk.”

Rowling concluded her post by calling on those like John Oliver to at least be intellectually honest by admitting that women will be hurt through the initiative of transgender inclusion.

“If you want to tell the world you’re happy to watch females suffer injury, humiliation and the loss of sporting opportunities to bolster an elitist post-modern ideology embraced by a minute fraction of the world’s population, fair enough; you’re allowed your opinion,” she concluded. “But if you’ve just told girls they don’t deserve fair sport, maybe rethink using all too real and common sexual predation against young women as a punchline for your ‘edgy’ closing joke.”

Sara Higdon, who identifies as transgender, thanked J.K Rowling for her insight.

“I’m trans, and a high performing former athlete, including 7.5 years in the army. Been on HRT for 5.5 years, and I can still prove that if I competed against women in sports, I still have an advantage. I was on path to prove it by breaking the female squat record until an old Army injury sidelined me. But I still perform in the 80th percentile on a spin bike after never riding before 2020,” said Higdon.