#don’t do this to your leftist audience pls

[danandfuckingjonlmao]

i’m just now watching the video and haven’t been on here at all bc spoilers but i gotta scream this into the void or i won’t make it through the video: DO NOT DO THIS TO DIL WE CANNOT RECOVER FROM COP DIL 😭😭😭

[hotforhandman]

Are the Villains “right”?

Okay, so I was scrolling through the bnha spoilers tag whilst procrastinating work and I’m really not living for the vibes there. My biggest issues fall into two main camps: “this arc is going to be the end of the League”, and “Villain stans are hypocrites with no reading comprehension for condemning the Heroes’ behaviour”, and I believe both of these statements can be addressed simultaneously, whilst also giving me a convenient excuse to not write. So without further ado,

Part 1: Themes

Right from the very beginning of the series, literally the first line, one thing is made blatantly clear: This series is not going to be about good guys and bad guys. “All men are not created equal” is not a line that implicates an inherent divide between good and evil, unless you’re an actual eugenicist. And pretty much every important character is designed to criticise a different aspect of the established system.

Izuku: The Quirkless are worthless. Not explicitly, but... everyone knows it. 

Bakugou: If you have a good Quirk, you are praised and treated as special, and as a consequence you’re never expected to learn and grow as a person. 

Shoto: Dedicating your entire life to becoming strong to the detriment of your own health is the best way to climb to the top. 

All Might: You don’t have to worry about anything. A Hero will save you. 

Shinsou: If you have a Villain’s Quirk, you’re going to be a Villain, no matter the quality of your personality. 

Kirishima: If you’re not flashy, there’s no point even trying.

Hawks: Similar to Shoto, if you show natural promise then it’s acceptable to groom you as a weapon. 

I’m sure there are others that I’ve missed. Each of these characters’ individual developments have been focused around them overcoming these ingrained ideas and growing and succeeding despite them - with the exception, perhaps, of Hawks. So if several of the major Hero characters are designed to illustrate and criticise the established system, what about the villains? I guess if the Heroes are stories about people succeeding despite what the world tells them, then the Villains are stories about what happens when they don’t. 

Spinner: Mutants are second-class citizens and should be treated as such. 

Toga: If your Quirk is considered to be bad or gross, then you should be punished for wanting to use it. 

Twice: The world won’t make space for your special needs. 

Magne: If you don’t fit the mould of what people want you to be, you won’t be respected.

And Shigaraki: It’s not our responsibility to help you. If you weren’t saved, that must mean you’re not worth saving. 

The one thing that both the Heroes and the Villains have in common is that they are tools to show the audience the flaws in BNHA’s society. It’s canon that Quirks appeared suddenly, and though by the time BNHA is set in, society has tried to adapt to fit it and is making some progress towards being functional, it’s clear that it has a long, long way to go, because it’s failing so many people. (Draw some parallels to real life, hm?). BNHA’s overarching themes of individual worth not being more important than collective good and how rules and structure created in good will can result in a lot of pain and abuse are, first and foremost, exemplified in the characters themselves. I like to tell people who find Shigaraki’s motivations vague and uncompelling that Shigaraki doesn’t need to have a point, he is the point, and this is exactly the reason why. 

I also believe that this is primarily why for Horikoshi to end the League here would be, frankly, terrible writing. We have engaged with the LOV more than pretty much any other Shonen villain group I can think of, almost any villain group at all. We’ve seen them develop as much as we’ve seen the heroes develop, especially in Shigaraki’s case, and to have Shigaraki only be their ‘first-year villain’ or whatever would be disrespectful, wasteful, and thematically inappropriate. To have a more classic, pre-developed villain whose villainy seems to stem from some inherent evil characteristic like AfO or Overhaul would ultimately defeat the story of how the worst villains are created by flaws in the system, not born. 

Part 2: Fan Response

Sometimes I can’t believe I still have to reiterate this to people, but it is possible to stan a character whilst simultaneously recognising that they are flawed, often critically so. When did we move from adoring villains to saying if you like this character you must be an inherently bad person because of this list of bad things they did? 

The thing is that the vast majority of ‘opinions’ on fan blogs are... poorly thought out and shallow, to put it lightly. When it’s 2am and I’m answering an ask about my opinions on x plot point, it’s not gonna be well thought out and thoroughly researched. I’m probably a bit tipsy, kind of tired, and just typing out whatever my initial response is. And really, if I reblog a bit of art with the caption ‘Shigaraki did nothing wrong’, do you really think I’m being serious? A lot of what we say is hyperbolic and meant to either be funny or to evoke an emotion, not because we actually believe it. 

That being said, the League in particular, I believe, resonates with a lot of people in the current political climate. A group of outcasts with characteristics considered undesirable by the wider population coming together and genuinely caring about one another whilst they aim to completely eradicate the system that hurt them? As an angry, marginalised leftist in a society that seems increasingly determined to wipe my chances at a good life out without blinking an eye, hell yeah that resonates with me. Being able to crumble the cripplingly complex and morally vile system I live in to dust and starting over is one hell of an appealing power fantasy. Does that mean I think murder is okay? Obviously not. It’s a fantasy. If there’s one place where I can live out those fantasies without consequences, it’s here. In fiction. And so it seems really stupid to me to be confronted with the idea that if I like a fictional violent radical I’m accused of condoning murder and kidnapping. 

Part 3: Are the Heroes right?

So a lot of the posts I saw that aggravated me were framed like 'how can the villain stans think Miruko and Gran Torino's behaviour is worse than Shigaraki's?', but like... who was saying that?

I feel like certain people's views of the heroes versus villains debate falls under the same fallacies as a lot of political arguments- that is to say, if I'm criticising one side, I must be defending the other. Which is... just blatantly untrue. When we say that the heroes' consistent dehumanisation of a man who is, first and foremost, a victim of significant grooming and abuse throughout his life, is gross and cruel, and that this attitude is mirrored in an awful lot of the hero-villain interactions implying a certain level of empathetic alienation and lack of accountability, we're not saying they shouldn't be trying to take Shigaraki down. Of course they should, he's going to decimate hundreds of thousands of innocent lives. But, like, does that mean they're exempt from all criticism? Should we be excusing the cruel and dismissive attitudes of the heroes and ignoring the behaviours of their side that lead to further 'villainisation' of marginalised people just because they're responsible for saving lives? No. Because once again, one of the key themes of BNHA is that neither side is perfect, and neither side is right.

Mass murder is wrong. So is systemic cruelty towards the oppressed. You don't have to approve of one to criticise the other. So next time you see one of those posts and jump to the conclusion that villain stans have no reading comprehension, pls remember these points.

Anyway, that's my little rant. Sorry.

Tl;dr, villain stans aren't stupid or glorifying murder, we're just capable of criticising more than one type of bad behaviour.

[janiedean]

Janie, what is it like to be queer in Rome/Italy? Can you write about that please? Is it like an okay/safe thing to be out and open about it? Does it make a difference if you are pe a woman or a man? Are there out people like 'idols' in the italian media? Thank you!

uhm man count that I can’t answer a lot of that because I’m not queer so I like, don’t personally know how it’s like on a personal level but what I can say objectively is:

it tends to be better in large cities than small towns but anything tends to

it’s not unsafe to be queer in the sense that you don’t risk going to jail or getting fired (unless you’re in the private sector and your employer is an asshole) and the likes. whether it’s safe to be **out** is an entire other question because I mean there’s areas where it’s not a problem, there’s places where being gay if you’re a man is seen as weakness still (I mean find openly gay people in the places in the south where the economy is all mafia, then we can discuss it) and then... I mean if you live in a large city it’s a lot less of a problem to be out. also you could be out with your friends but not your parents or all your relatives, depends on the place/area/situation. like for example my parents give zero shits about it so if I wasn’t straight I could tell them and they’d go like yeah okay fine whatever, a... uhhh.... former friend’s parents sent him to have an exorcism when they found out he didn’t like women and I’m 99% sure that it’s the reason why since then he’s been completely impossible to deal with (I mean he’s turned into a radical catholic rightwinger who likes lepen and I haven’t talked to him in years) and we live in the same city/went to the same school sooo....

regarding how people take it... eh, depends more on background rather than age. like at the place where I teach at most of the volunteers are people older than fifty who do it as post-pension work and none of them has a problem with that but it’s all leftist people who use their spare time working with migrants, my grandmother is ninety and uber catholic but she’s always been a pretty open person and a while ago she was talking about... like, this famous singer who was gay but not out died at like fifty-something and left all to his *manager* who was most probably the boyfriend, and his family wanted to contest it and she was like ‘but if he was with the other guy why should they have it’, then she has some retrograde ideas about it also such as people should worry about POVERTY rather than gay marriage but it could be worse, and then I met people my age who were raging homophobes and like my grandmother’s sister is... not really tolerant in that sense. depends.

it’s... sort of more obvious with men because like let’s just say that if you’re two women there’s a lot of stuff that other places might be seen as pda which here is just *friendly*, but like see the thing is that before fascism we never had laws against sodomy and the likes bc there was more urgent stuff to discuss and during fascism obviously being gay was a huge no and you’d get sent to confinement if it was found out but since making a law against sodomy implied that handsome MASCULINE italian ***men*** could actually be gay and that just wasn’t a thing they would openly admit they never made one, so like... people just pretend to not see it now as they did back in the day and with women it’s easier to disguise it. with men there’s the... thing where you’re supposed to be a REAL MAN TM WHO WOULD NEVER LIKE OTHER MEN still in a lot of places so it’s a lot more scandalous if it makes sense?

I mean, I never heard of lesbian kisses being cut from prime time movies but they aired brokeback mountain without the m/m scenes and a kiss from how to get away with murder not even last year because OMG MEN KISSING IN PRIME TIME HOW HORRIBLE (even if then in prime time you see naked women all the time) so... there’s that too

and since the church is what it is and has influence still same sex unions have just been approved and in a completely ridiculous way so... I mean last I know if you do polls around, more than half of the population would be okay with gay marriage but not with adoption SOOOOOO just deduce what you’d like

also there’s a national attitude to scream a lot when something related to that happens and then it dies down. like the first gay pride in rome brought a month of polemical stuff with the church bc OMG HOW DARE YOU, for the second they protested one week and then... it’s happened for years and no one really cares least of all the church. once in a while a famous singer or actor comes out and there’s OMG WAS HE REALLy in tabloids and the week later everything is forgotten. like the singer I mentioned above in relation to my grandmother, it was obvious he was gay irl and he still sold records, and we have some out lesbian singers who haven’t had a problem with their career for that. and some of our most artsy/quoted film directors are gay/were gay and had no problems finding work (I mean ferzan ozpetek has gay/bi/queer people in every movie of his around and he still gets a lot of audience sooo, and sure as hell visconti made movies all his life xD). admittedly I think that in the arts camp is more accepted/no one cares, but that’s another problem in itself

so tldr it’s a complicated question so now I’ll just reply again directly to the questions very quick

Is it like an okay/safe thing to be out and open about it? - depends on where you live, your family’s background and what are you queer for - some people could be fine with having gay kids but not trans kids WHO KNOWS. larger towns are a safer bet. anyway you don’t risk jail or violence (USUALLY) or losing your job or the kind if you’re queer IN GENERAL

Does it make a difference if you are pe a woman or a man? - yes and women tend to have it easier when it comes to Expectations TM and men have the issues mentioned above because people feel it as more ‘in your face’, if you look at anti-gay propaganda it’s all men in the pictures or at most trans women (bc it’s seen as unnatural that someone who was born a man would actually be a woman in a... more violent way I suppose, idk if I’m explaining myself sorry), not lesbians or trans men

Are there out people like 'idols' in the italian media? yeah actually there’s plenty - like I mentioned before ferzan ozpetek (the director) and tiziano ferro (the singer - who has been out for years but everyone suspected it before),  gianna nannini is a singer who’s... I think she’s either lesbian or bi but anyway she’s definitely into women, carmen consoli is another singer who I think is lesbian, franco zeffirelli is gay, valentino and dolce & gabbana also are gay and out, there’s a few out politicians (nichi vendola, anna concia and alfonso pecoraro scanio plus vladimir luxuria who’s actually a trans woman) and a few tv presenters that I can think of. let’s just say all these people (except the directors probably) came out after becoming famous bc it’s generally not a good idea for your career unless you market yourself that way. and then there’s renato zero who says he’s heterosexual but he’s an lgbt sex symbol and his most famous song is about three people going at it and it was out in... I think the LATE SEVENTIES so *shrug*

about how it feels sorry I can’t reply to that directly because I’m not queer so :/ if anyone wants to reblog or weigh in pls go ahead because I exhausted everything I can reasonably say on the subject xD