#in being problematic asshole joints

[cappurrccino]

I want to rip my entire left arm off at the shoulder and clean the joints out like it's a roller ball mouse

[necrotic-nephilim]

@an-android-child listen your argument is perfect because all jokes aside when you're discussing a character like Bruce Wayne who's existed for nearly a century of on-going content there is going to be so many versions of him that it's hard to discussion him as a whole because you have to pick some sort of baseline. what is to me a terrible father figure based on the canon content I consume could be a great father figure based on the canon content someone else consumes so he's always fluctuating and changing. and while yes I prefer and think it's more "in-character" for Bruce to be flawed I can't discredit the opposite argument because something something the inherent nature of the art of comic books as a medium. HOWEVER COMMA

when we are discussing *Batcest*? There is *no* version of Batcest ships involving Bruce -BruDick, BruTim, BruJay, BruSteph, etc- where I think Bruce should be a good person. like my personal vision for *any* of these ships is built on the foundation of how terrible Bruce is to all of them. My Batcest ships are dependent on my Complicated Asshole opinions about Bruce. I think if healthy Batcest floats your boat I am cheering you on bc I totally get it, happy married couple BruDick does pretty well fit their vibe sometimes (particularly if you're using a Pre-Crisis or Rebirth framework where they get along The Most) but I want them unhealthy and toxic about each other. Dick and Bruce are That Couple™ who break up and get back together so often you have to text to ask them if you should send them joint or separate invitations to your Christmas party and by Christmas the relationship status has changed again. They are *so* deeply devoted to each other. They'd die for each other. They'd try to kill for each other and have the other half stop them. They also are only on speaking terms every other week. and 99% of the time Bruce *is* the problem. he's incapable of treating those he loves kindly because his hyper-vigilance is what drives him as a person.

and then with BruJay, honestly what better ship than those two, to depict the dynamic of loving someone to the point of possessive devotion but also wanting to change quite literally everything about them. Jason needs Bruce to be willing to break his moral code to prove he loves Jason. Bruce needs Jason to be a version of himself he's not anymore. they're so possessive of each other. they also can't stand each other because Bruce won't let himself believe anyone but him can be right about these things. i think BruSteph falls into a similar vein tbh, though with Steph i think she's less about wanting to change him and more about just wanting to push back and change how he sees *her*. someday I'll convince this fandom to ship BruSteph more tbh bc i think it's *rife* with problematic dynamics of Bruce being the Worst to her bc of all the power dynamics and her refusing to just take it, pushing back against him.

and then. and then BruTim. not to have favorites but if a ship has Tim it's going to be a favorite. these two are terrible for each other. i think viewing their history through the lense of shipping is so fascinating when you consider Tim's choices and how he feels Batman needs Robin. imo BruTim is one of those ships that's codependent on a past history of BruDick, even if it was one-sided. because if Batman needs Robin and Bruce and Tim end up in a weird relationship, that means the need for Robin relies on Bruce's need to be kinda Weird about Robin. is it consensual? yes. but consensual in the way of Tim considering the risk/reward ratio of essentially being a lamb to slaughter for Bruce. offering himself up in that way because if it's good for Gotham, he'll sleep at night. and then of course you add the respect Tim has for Batman and how Bruce takes advantage of that (sometimes even in canon) to get Tim to do what he wants. it's willful codependence on Tim's side, and Bruce just accepting this random kid as the next Robin and them slotting into a Weird partner/mentor/mentee/lovers/therapist relationship. and Tim being the first Robin Bruce has to have parents that are alive and he has a decently healthy relationship with, there's no pretense of it being father/son or Tim being a ward like with Dick or Jason. there's less of a reason for Bruce to need to hold himself to a "fatherly" standard around Tim, which i think shows in a lot of Tim's comics. so they're more openly Weird with each other and i like that a lot.

anyway sorry for infodumping on you but your comment gave me a chance to just run my mouth about dirtybadwrong fun ships. so ty this was delightful to get into.

If you want to be bothered. Maybe this for dick and Bruce???

i ALWAYS want to be bothered these are always the highlight of my day tbh you're a delight for letting me just yap <3

Dick. For the canon isn't real square I am Specifically talking about the Tom Taylor Nightwing run. Usually I ignore bad runs but given this one is ongoing (though about to end THANK GOD and get replaced by Dan Watters who i have high hopes for since i adored his Sword of Azrael (2022) run but i digress) so I counted it. Especially since it's so debated if that run is bad or not, for some reason. I'm a 90s Nightwing truther. I love Dick so dearly and tbh recently I've been more enamored with him the more I read his Discowing era, I didn't used to be as big of a Dick stan as I am these days.

Bruce. Honestly where do you even start with Bruce. I want to fist fight him and also patch him up. He got me into comics and superheroes as a whole but I roll my eyes whenever he shows up in a story. He's a bastard and usually not a good father but also complex and should be dissected under a magnifying glass. I love him dearly. He's also just the worst. I think that's why I love him. I'm always a fan of unabashedly Complicated Asshole Bruce who's generally not always the best person, particularly not to the Batfamily and that being the driving force of his relationships with them, especially in shipping.

And for bonus points, Tim. Because know above all else, I'm a Tim Drake kinnie /deg. He's been my number one for a decade and I've yet to uproot him from my brain. He's literally the Worst half the time and I love him for it. And the canon isn't real refers to Tim Drake: Robin because... that sure was a comic. And that's about all I can say about it. Pre-Flashpoint Tim I miss you so dearly. I think it's fun that I want to put him in a blender and drink the juice but also want Nothing Ever to happen to him.

[hardtchill]

Ok Sonnett, O’Hara, Morgan, are they anti vax too? Racist? What’s the deal with them? Why are they problematic?

Sonnett, O’Hara, Morgan, Horan, Campbell and Ertz are the people whose knee joints either don't work or only work when a game is being broadcasted. They are not anti-vax that's Mal and Trinity.

Additionally, Ertz is a blue lives matter hero (also has the white savior complex).

O'hara decided that kneeling wasn't effective anymore because that was her job to decide.... Also found it very important to share that nugget of wisdom in an interview (with a white reporter who couldn't ask critical questions to save her life).

Morgan decided that cop propaganda was smart during a time when cops were killing black people in the streets. Also very much into only kneeling when she gets attention for it. Monday night game on Twitch? She be standing honey.

Campbell, Sonnett and Horan are mostly your average ignorant and privileged white assholes who just don't care. I'm sure they have done other shit but i can't really recall at this point.

[mysterylover123]

Mysterylover watches MHA: “TDBKDK Family Dinner #2: Anime Version”

So yes last episode we did cover the first half of the family dinner. Now we’re covering part 2. BTW this music is BIZARRE. Why are we recapping all this angst with triumphant music?

Anyway so let’s talk about this arc in general. Since I already posted about the manga chapter, I’m not sure what to add about the anime episode other than “hey, music choice” or “line delivery”, but I’ve reread this arc a lot so I feel like I wanna analyze it instead.

3. Let’s talk about Bakugou. Bakugou’s arc throughout most of the series has been all about learning to care for other people. Learning the “save to win” part of things. He comes to the internship wanting to find “what he was missing”. In the climax, he rescues Natsuo from Ending. But the odd thing is, Bakugou already showed in the Joint Training arc that he was capable of saving people now. So it wasn’t that he needed to learn to save.

What Bakugou got from this arc, many fans believe, was the realization that he mistreated Deku and needed to make amends. All Might at the start of the arc points out that Bakugou is like Endeavor. This comparison was probably one Bakugou was making since the Sports Festival when he overheard Todo’s Backstory Confession to Deku. And here, Bakugou witnesses exactly what being an obsessive, violent asshole who pushes their loved ones away to become the top pro will end up with.

Complete alienation. A family who will never forgive him.

And Bakugou, I believe, wants Deku’s forgiveness and friendship back. He pushed Deku away - he admits to bullying him and hurting him in Chapter 284. And he’s trying to atone for his actions. From this arc, Bakugou learns that he needs to make things up to Deku. He doesn’t say so explicitly, but that’s what most fans take from it. 

Endeavor can never truly make it up to his family, it seems, for all he did. Natsuo will never forgive him, Shoto probably won’t either. Now, currently in the manga Endeavor’s actions have spiraled out to pretty much destroy hero society thanks to Touya, so he’s become even more of a cautionary tale for Bakugou.

What makes that even more interesting, though, is that Bakugou and Midoriya are two halves of one whole. So the same person who is an interesting foil and cautionary tale for Bakugou has to be one for Midoriya too. Given Deku’s current arc in the manga - pushing everyone who loves him away in an obsessive quest to be the best - it’s clear that Deku could maybe have benefitted from comparing himself to Endeavor too.

This hard-hitting examination of his own flaws is what makes Bakugou so compelling, especially in recent times. Unlike Endeavor, who seems to keep floundering back into the same mistakes, Bakugou just keeps improving. 

Shoto and Midoriya mostly got New Cool Moves out of this arc, and less on the Character Development scale. Deku’s conversation with Shoto about being a “nice person” was something a lot of the fandom eviscerated him for back in the day (before the arc had wrapped) since Natsuo overheard it and felt bad about it. 

Deku is a very forgiving person, I’ve never seen him hold a genuine grudge (he’s currently on a quest to save the Supervillain who kidnapped his soulmate, which is about as forgiving as you get). But while holding grudges can be bad, Deku’s mindset may also be problematic. Being too forgiving of evil done to you and others can also cause problems. Deku’s advice to Shoto was well-intentioned, but it had the unintended side effect of guilt-tripping Natsuo and making him feel like a bad person.

Interestingly, even though Deku is the unofficial Todoroki Family Counsellor, he’s never really been able to help Shoto and the fam get through their trauma all on his own. “It’s your Power” was a great moment, but in the aftermath Shoto wasn’t sure what to do with it. He needed to go work through his own problems afterwards. Deku can’t magically fix all the Todo family’s problems, even though he’d like to. To some degree, given the Sports Fest and this arc, it seems like Shoto may need the help of both Halves of the Wonder Duo.

Fighting Bakugou forced Shoto into the position where he had to face his past trauma. His fight with Inasa revealed that he still holds resentment against Endeavor, and that resentment wasn’t something he could - or should! - just be zen about. So what’s Bakugou’s approach to being harmed by someone?

Bakugou has channeled his anger over Shigaraki abducting him into productive motivation. Maybe I’m letting my recent FMA binge watch bias me as to how the story is going to go, but my guess is that the message may be something like Winry’s story there. No need to forgive people who’ve done something terrible for you; instead, learn to channel anger into motivation and power. That seems to be how Bakugou is handling Shigaraki, and maybe it’s how he can help Shoto handle Endeavor too.

Well, that’s not so much clear in this arc, but anyway. Back to Deku and Kacchan’s story. So Deku pretty clearly holds nothing against Kacchan for mistreating him (look at how cheerfully he interacts with him in this arc! Very, very shippy stuff, they’re every bit the Old Married Couple here). So if Bakugou needs to make amends to Deku, and Todoroki needs to channel his anger, what does Deku need to do?

Given the most recent arc, it’s clear Deku needs to learn to rely on other people. That’s his overall arc. In this arc, we see him doing the Evacuation portion, using BlackWhip to save lives. But we also see Kacchan saving Natsuo and Shoto beating Ending. When the Trinity work together as a team, they surpass the #1 pro. That’s probably why they weren’t able to do so before Natsuo was taken.

Deku needs Kacchan’s strength and confidence. Shoto needs Kacchan’s ability to channel his anger. Kacchan and Shoto both need Deku’s kindness and compassion. Deku and Kacchan needed Shoto’s cautionary tale to mend things with each other. Together, of course, they are the best trio. Who win, rescue, and save together. 

in other words, The trinity need each other. Duh. 

[tsukishumai]

Hii! I’m not sure if requests are still open, ignore this if they aren’t! But I was wondering if I could get #23 from general with Aone? Thank you!! ❤️

Thank you for the request my love! <3

Send me a prompt + your fav character here :)

23. “Hey, look at me. Focus on me, alright?”

Word Count: 1.2k+

Warnings: slight cursing, das it.

A/N: TY FOR THIS REQUEST but i have never written for Aone, nOR do i have any idea HOW to but i tried my best, I’m just rly hoping i didn’t butcher this & i hope u like i anyway :(

Most people have the wrong impression of Aone Takanobu.

You couldn’t really blame them. Just shy of 6’4”, Aone was one of the tallest people in your school, nearly always looking down on anybody that tried to speak to him. He never slouched, always keeping perfect posture, eyes set dead straight as he walked down the halls with an air of command. Maybe it was the fact that he had no eyebrows, but his expression always seemed to be fixed in a scowl. His aura was intimidating, as is expected if one were to be the new Iron Wall. But in the hallways of Date Tech, he wasn’t “Aone, the Iron Wall”. He was just Aone.

As much as you hate to admit it, you weren’t immune to the dangers of gossip. People talked, and Aone wasn’t the type to talk back, allowing the words spoken behind his back to stain his image.

That Aone guy, he’s really scary.

I tried to talk to him once, and he just glared at me.

Sheesh, I wouldn’t want to be caught alone in the room with him.

Knowing there was such a person in the volleyball club, it nearly turned you away from signing up for the manager spot. But everyone needed to be in a club, and you had experience managing your middle school volleyball club. To be frank, you didn’t really want to put the effort into something new. So you sucked it up, and walked into the gym with your application in hand.

In your mind, Aone Takanobu was the leader of the volleyball club. He was probably the one that commanded all his teammates what to do, all of them just mere pawns in his large hands.

Instead, what you’ve come to discover is that Aone might actually just be a glorified babysitter.

Futakuchi is a handful. You had expected that much. His problematic quips never failed to serve as the spark that ignited the rage in Kamasaki-senpai’s heart. Their yelling always bounced around the volleyball gym, throwing out curses and insults until Moniwa forced Aone to intervene.

There was something almost ironic at the thought of Aone Takanobu being the peacemaker. But after weeks and months of after school practices, games, and team bonding activities, you kind of wanted to scoff at ever thinking Aone was anything but peace.

Aone doesn’t say much, but that’s because he doesn’t have to. His intentions are always clearly plastered on his face, and he was as easy to read as an open book. You’ve learned that his lip twitches when he’s upset, and his nose crinkles when he’s disgusted. His mouth pouts a little bit more when he disagrees, and the skin on his forehead is relaxed when he’s satisfied.

His actions are never tainted with any hidden agenda, only ever doing what is correct. That is probably why, even though Futakuchi was made captain, the whole team trusted Aone to be the one to support them.

As a manager, it’s normal for you to pay close attention to your members, right?

Of course you would pick up on little aspects of Aone’s personality. You know he’s respectful with the way he tends to feed the stray cats that littered around the school. You realize he’s gentle when he offers to help the struggling old lady cross the street. (You also learn he’s kind of sensitive about his intimidating looks when she declines his outstretched hand, looking almost fearful at the tall young man attempting to aide her to the other side.)

He shows you that he’s calm and composed every time he’s on the court, and you learn that your kind Aone can actually be ruthless in the way he stuffed the ball back into his opponents face.

Wait, your???

You’ll never forget, however, when Aone decided to show you a lesson in kindness.

Futakuchi was being such an insufferable asshole all practice, you weren’t sure what his endgame was by being such a prick. But it riled you up enough to insult his volleyball skills, and the hotheaded captain wasn’t about to give you the last word.

Maybe it was the volleyball devils down below that compelled you to call his serves “weaker than the joints on his grandmother”, but it was that phrase that had you at the other side of the net, ready to receive one.

The other members could only watch in abject horror as Futakuchi’s angry swing botched the serve, but your stupid pride made you attempt to dive for it anyway. The ball landed on your fingers with just the right spin and strength, and you felt intense pain shoot through your left hand as you heard your finger dislocate with a pop.

You let out a strangled hiss, landing pathetically on your knees while the rest of the Date Tech volleyball team run to your side.

Somehow, Futakuchi made it to you first, looking as if he wasn’t sure whether to laugh, or be concerned. “What the hell, L/N? All that talk and for what?”

“Fuck off, Futakuchi,” you cursed, gripping your wrist with your right hand. You look down at your left middle finger, ugly and crooked and already starting to swell.

“Oh, damn,” Futakuchi’s expression dropped, inspecting your finger. “I think it’s dislocated.”

“I heard it pop,” you nearly whimpered, holding it out for the others to see.

Some boys grimaced, and others simply shook their head at your antics. But in the middle of the crowd, a hand shot out to make way, Aone shoving past his other teammates.

Wordlessly, Aone knelt down in front of you, taking your hand gently into his. He brought it up closer to his face, assessing the damage before positioning his hands around your middle finger.

“Hey, look at me,” he said, his deep voice immediately shushing everyone around him, “Focus on me, alright?”

The shock of Aone speaking will never go away for you, and you were a little embarrassed at the effect his voice had on you. You couldn’t do anything but stare into his eyes, mouth slightly hung open as you vaguely hear him counting down.

“One, two, three.”

In a split second, he pops your finger back into place, and you yelp at the pain. Aone doesn’t let go of your hand, holding it tightly in his as he rubbed his calloused palm along your arm in a soothing pattern. It felt like forever until the aching subsided, the only thing keeping you grounded was the hands of the deceptively tender middle blocker.

Aone stood you up after a few minutes, never letting you out of his hold until he was sure you were stable. He whipped his head to Futakuchi, eyes narrowing slightly at the brown haired captain rubbing sheepishly at his neck.

“Right, you should probably go and get some ice for that,” Futakuchi mumbled, “Sorry about that, L/N.”

“Don’t do that again.”

Aone was not a many of many words, but the ones he did speak always knew how to silence a room.

He turned around and walked you all the way to the nurse’s office, never once leaving your side until you were checked over and cleared to go. His hand lingered on yours on the way back, and you liked the way they nearly engulfed yours.

Yes, you’ll never forget the day you learned about Aone Takanobu’s kindness.

Because it was also the day you learned that you might just be in love with him.

[ming-sik]

Crawling out of my shack in the woods after a month to argue as the guy cited in Egg's initial response, I disagree with a lot of your points here!

So this is a point that's more explicitly argued in my posts but to repeat it here, our joint argument is basically that Ferdinand's flaws, as told by the narrative, are only the ones Myne points out, which is as you say "just being an asshole". He's prickly, isolationist, arrogant, and self-destructive. These are flaws that she picks up on and his cruelty is something that she's aware of. Other than that, basically every sympathetic character is in the "well he's a jerk, but you have to admit he's earned it by being the most competent guy ever", a Ferdinand fanatic, are jealous of him Bezewanst-style, or are Veronica/Georgine who hate him for being born. We do not have any sympathetic characters as far as I know who hate Ferdinand for an error he made or an act of cruelty that the story doesn't think is justified. This is why I don't accept the argument that it's just Myne being an unreliable narrator, because no characters conflict with her view of him. I mean, what older nobles? Elvira the fangirl? Sylvester who's shredding himself with guilt over not doing enough to protect his baby brother from Veronica? Hirschur who still views him as her student after a decade? The entirety of Dunkelfelger's knights who orchestrate the entire marriage in an attempt to save Ferdinand because they like him so much? What characters dislike Ferdinand or find him unimpressive?

The problem is that the narrative is wrong! Ferdinand is a profoundly reactionary and selfish character who is frequently unnecessarily cruel and tends to stand by while people are suffering. This is not a moral judgment of Ferdinand if he were a real person or saying that fans of Ferdinand are Bad People, which is the reason Egg's citing villains they like, to clarify that this is a criticism of the way his actions are treated by the narrative and not a call for everyone to stop liking Ferdinand because he's problematic.

If Ferdinand being an insufferable bastard meant that a lot of people from his student days disliked him, people who were portrayed sympathetically rather than as bitter haters who just couldn't keep up with him(friendly rivals like Heissheitze don't count, we are looking for conflict caused by Ferdinand being an imperfect and morally dubious guy where he is not the obvious hero), that would be an excellent way to raise the stakes and establish conflict if those people couldn't be ignored, and so Ferdinand's help was useless because Elvira thought he was a loser and therefore had to be convinced by other means to take in Myne as her daughter because they couldn't just cheat it by having Ferdinand there. Same with the gray priests resenting him from his inaction and cruelty. Antagonists who aren’t flat villains who hate our protagonists for completely valid reasons are vital to a story that wants to have complex interpersonal drama which is unfortunate because AOB has very few of them.

I want to stress that this is not meant to be an attack on you but yeah I really disagree with your take on Ferdinand's trauma because that just straight up is not how trauma works. How affected you are by your trauma is not measured by how mentally strong or "sentimental" you are, and in fact Ferdinand's mental strength is very obviously a trauma response. He was forced to grow up extremely fast and reacted to being hurt and betrayed by closing off his emotions and becoming attached to viewing himself as a cold, calculating genius who didn't need anyone else... none of which are uncommon as responses to his specific type of traumatic childhood! Repressing/compartmentalizing trauma is not not being traumatized, it's just a different expression of it than more widely known reactions. Even his passivity makes perfect sense, he's internalized that he's the only person who will ever be in his corner so outside of deferring to authority figures when he deems it useful, he doesn't give a fuck about his underlings, let alone anyone else. It's actually pretty harmful to think about trauma in terms of sentimentality because it makes traumatized people who don't want to feel weak feel as though actually processing their trauma or accepting that it affected them instead of insisting that it doesn't matter to them would be admitting weakness. Personally I am not that interested in a Ferdinand recovery arc because I find him much more compelling as an antagonist but the reason Ferdinand's recovery arc felt so flat to me is that he didn't actually process any of that, he just falls in love with Myne and kinda sorta admits that a lot of people actually care about him without really acting on that.

And he's never forced to because as you say he's usually right! He never just makes a stupid mistake or misinterprets a situation or lashes out irresponsibly or gambles on a risky play that goes completely south. There can be no true character arc because those need conflict and for the story to admit that the way Ferdinand is currently is flawed, which it can't, because his entire character is being the supergenius Lord of Evil! "Makes zero mistakes" is one of his only character traits!

This is despite the fact that Ferdinand is in fact abusive. Like he's not an asshole uni professor because he's not teaching university students. He's a primary school teacher screaming that a 7 year old should be expelled from the school because he slacks off in class too much. He's a boss demanding you perform hours of difficult unpaid labor completely outside your job description or else you'll be fired when that would get you kicked out of your house. He stands by while orphans starve to death and the gray priests are killed or sold as slaves because he doesn't want to stand up to the High Bishop. He participates in slave trading. He kills people! Again, this is not a criticism of you for liking him, it's just admitting the actual facts of the actions Ferdinand takes in the story! It is alright to like a character who has a cool motive but has still committed murder, it's just frustrating as people who want to engage with Ferdinand as he is, a deeply flawed character who would rightly be disliked by a lot of characters which could potentially create really interesting conflict, only to have the story just continue to pretend that all that is either totally fine because he had a sad backstory or just inherently endearing. As you say, the story expects us to love him! It doesn't WANT to deal with any of the conflict Ferdinand should generate because then he wouldn't be the perfect badass whose badassery is justified by his tragic backstory.

And to repeat one more time, I am not saying that Ferdinand needs to fix himself or that he needs to become a totally healthy guy. I'm not even saying he needs a character arc, or that he can't just refuse to unpack anything outside of forcing Myne to marry him. What we're saying is that the story downplaying those flaws, refusing to create conflict based on them where Ferdinand is allowed to be wrong, and then acting like he's had a character arc when he hasn't means that Ferdinand as a character falls way short of his potential. Both of us have gotten pretty tetchy about it at this point because we've had interactions where people have just refused to admit that we dislike Ferdinand for any reason other than pearl-clutching prudish terror at a character who isn't perfect when we're arguing for literally the exact opposite!

I can't speak for Egg obviously but the thing I find interesting about traumatized people who are also terrible is seeing them pushed into situations where their worst qualities are dragged out or where their coping mechanisms are pushed to their limit, and then seeing what they do next. Do they break? Do they try to escape? Do they double down? Do they maybe even try to grow? I just think there's no fun in a character having a maladaptive coping mechanism if we conveniently only see them in situations where their maladaptive coping mechanism is either helpful or used to generate sympathy for them. This would be even more true if I liked Ferdinand because the more I like a character the more I want to see them be put in situations where they have to use their character traits to extricate themselves from a sticky obstacle or overcome a foe that’s difficult for their specific character. Instead Ferdinand either sweeps every obstacle placed in front of him or Myne takes care of it for him without him ever having to do more than go along with her plans.

We may be at odds here because I’m a sadistic tyrant who wants to do this to every character I like

but I hope you can at least appreciate why we find the kid gloves the narrative treats Ferdinand with and the way it prevents him from having his flaws explored or challenged irritating.

Thoughts on ferdinand?

Short answer: Don't like that guy.

Beyond this point is the body of the post where I may rail on your favorite character. This post is clearly-labeled and easy to avoid. If you choose to read on despite me making it clear what my opinion is, you do not have to right to vague me in a condescending manner as you may or may not have done with another post of a similar kind. Just avoid this. It's not that hard. I'm making the fandom ecosystem a little more varied, is all. Us Detlinde fans, Sylvester lovers, and Raublut sympathizers have had to sit and bear with it as the fandom paraded our faves and hurled shit at them. If we have had to endure that, surely you can endure One (1) post that criticizes your fave who is widely loved by everyone else and is also put under a cut. Don't start insulting me for criticizing a character when you've gotten mad at me for responding to insults with anger.

Surely a fandom that condescended to us for reading something we disagree with will understand the point I am making here :)

Aight now that that's out of the way, I can finally get to the meat of the post for all the big-brained people who chose to continue.

Reasons why I think Ferdinand sucks have been touched on in these posts (A B) so I don't really have all that much to say about that outside of reiterating what those posts said.

I tried, y'all. I tried so hard to like him. Everyone else loved him and I wanted to see what they were seeing.

But I couldn't.

He's an abusive jackass who doesn't see that the people around him do love him, can't be allowed near children, doesn't bother lifting other people up he just expects them to be already good. His memory trip with Myne changed nothing about how he saw her or other kids “her age”. He doesn't even seem to like most parts of her, he just seems to like that she's on his level and that she'd protect him.

And the problem is that. I wouldn't hate him nearly as much if only the story or the fandom acknowledged his dickishness. It's not that I'm unfamiliar or can't handle heavy topics, either— I am a victim of lifelong abuse in a country that's been on fire for as long as it's existed. I Been Knew, buddy.

Vincent Nightray from Pandora Hearts is a misogynistic little prick who lies and tricks and betrays people to get to his goal. He may or may not also be a transphobic allegory. But I love him! He's one of my favorite characters from the manga! How could this be? Because his flaws matter. Because both the story and the audience understand that he's not just the poorest little man. He kinda is, but I love him because he's a messy character full of flaws. It makes him interesting. Also because his struggles and storyline involving guilt and suicidal ideation resonated deeply with me.

I absolutely fucking adore Sohma Akito from Fruits Basket. She is so fucking abusive to so many characters and… the story knows that! It acknowledges that! She's, like Vincent, a fucking mess! But the way her backstory explains her entire thing but doesn't excuse it, the way she's such a realistic exploration of abuse both as perpetrator and victim, is so interesting! She's so interesting! Fruits Basket as a whole is just. It's good. It's excellent. It even has a counselor and an artist analyzing the symbolism, art direction, and psychology of the characters on YouTube. You should give that podcast a listen. It's by the channel ThoughtBubble. (Ferdinand's “trauma” could become a realistic exploration of the consequences of such a fucked up life, how he passes on the hurt to the younger generation, if only the story let it but… everyone just uses that trauma card to woobify him and excuse him and go “oh poor Ferdinand” on him like a pity party, which I don't like. Again, the potential is there and I could like it, but the way the fandom treated his trauma is so viscerally off-putting to me that my faith in his potential plummeted and I “hate” him by their definition instead)

How about Orochimaru? Irredeemable terrifying bastard villain WHO TRAFFICKS AND EXPERIMENTS ON CHILDREN. There's discussion of how the military state exploited him and he went off the deep end and it was excused when it still benefited the state but became a crime as soon as it became for himself, but largely people agree that he cannot be excused. And he's one of my favorite fucking characters.

Shimura Danzo? Y'all don't need a primer on that fucker everyone hates him he's terrible he's problematic and I love him. One of the characters of all time.

How about Senju Butsuma? Specifically, the rendition of Senju Butsuma in a fic written by my friend. He's still abusive, he literally has a scene of beating the crap out of his sons on-screen in the fic— that scene triggered me by the way but it just goes to show how well-written it is, my friend the author specifically mentioned that he didn't want to trivialize abuse but also didn't want to turn it into a sympathy-bait pity party for the Senju brothers— and? He's my babygirl. He's everything.

Prospera Mercury? Fucking war criminal milf with Issues? She uses both her children as weapons even as she claims she's doing it all for one of them? Massacres people? And? I love her????? She's so messy she's got Problems she's not good for her daughters. And that makes her infinitely delicious. Easily one of my favorites of all time.

So it's not that I hate characters who are jackasses. It's not that I hate flawed, messy characters. I love them! I love them even when canon doesn't. I love them even when the fandom doesn't. I would never try to excuse or absolve them (I mean, I'd like to see any of you try to excuse Danzo??) I try to give these characters the justice they deserve when I'm discussing them with people. But I… can't do that with Ferdinand. Any discussion of his character in a way that doesn't fit their very narrow view of “the biggest victim in the world who is also the strongest most badass man ever” immediately gets clotheslined into “hate”. Even the mildest of criticisms, even the most politely-worded posts get misinterpreted, misconstrued, and ultimately declared as senseless petty hate. Heck, even people who like him a lot get shunned and ostracized from the fandom if their interpretation is too different from the Fandom Majority's! So yes! By the fandom's very definition, I hate him! I hate him most immensely! I hate the parts of him that the narrative and the fandom choose to highlight as opposed to the more interesting bits! I hate that he takes up all the oxygen in the room whenever anyone discusses Veronica's abuse and her victims! He's not the only victim, but everyone acts as though he is!

So yes, tldr: I hate him. If only he could've been written by a better author like Mochizuki Jun or Takaya Natsuki. Fuck, even as much as I gripe about Arakawa Hiromu, even she could've handled him better.

[finnicks]

Bonkai

I ship it so fucking hard.

1. What made you ship it? They have such great chemistry. Look, I know that Kai has physically hurt Bonnie and he’s a fucking asshole, but their chemistry was so fucking good I kept rewatching season 6 for them. They have such great potential—here’s Bonnie with a powerful witch and here’s Kai with a powerful witch who doesn’t think he’s an abomination (until he starts obviously shooting her with crossbows, and even then, her believing he’s a piece of shit isn’t tied into how he was born but his decisions). 

I think if Plec knew how to write romantic relationships without adding in abusive tendencies (and then not being able to narratively acknowledge and unpack them), Bonkai would’ve been super interesting if Kai had played the manipulative card and pretended he was stuck in the prison world, got closer to Bonnie by pretending he wasn’t the reason why they were stuck there, and played her like a fiddle and ended up falling for her would’ve been great. But Kai is as subtle as a sledgehammer to the face.

I also like that Bonnie was finally given the opportunity to have her PTSD and feelings explored because of him. I know that’s probably a problematic thing to like, but I like the fact that the narrative actually acknowledged it. Kai and Bonnie both had their PTSD explored in season 6, and I think that if Kai was able to be someone who could grow from understanding he was a shithead and that he treated Bonnie wrongly, they could’ve developed a great bond in terms of supporting one another.

I think Bonkai isn’t boring. Bonnie would give Kai the affection and acceptance he’s sorely lacked, and I think Kai would give Bonnie that person in her corner who goes and sets things on fire and puts farting cushions on people’s seats bc someone upset Bonnie two days ago.

If they worked out their joint trauma (and Bonnie got to explore her trauma in relation to him), I think that Bonkai would be a great ship for one sole reason: I fully believe Kai would make Bonnie laugh.

2. What are your favorite things about the ship? The potential, from the personal character potential and the magical potential. Can you imagine Kai learning how to control his siphoning and Bonnie trusting Kai to siphon her without taking away all her magic? They’d make such a great magical team. 

I also like how they’ve grown up differently. Kai grew up in a house that openly practiced magic and lived by the magical rules first, the human rules second, while Bonnie grew up in a house that predominantly was normal first and magical second. Kai embraces his magic but doesn’t embrace his humanity while Bonnie embraces her humanity and was only at the beginning of embracing her magic when they met.

I also just enjoyed their sexual chemistry and the fact that they look good together. What? I’m shallow. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ 

Is there an unpopular opinion you have on your ship? It is abusive considering Kai does physically assault Bonnie while in the prison world. That’s not forgivable, and something that I would need him to acknowledge was wrong and actually be sorry for and learn from. While Bonnie obviously did get him back for it, I have a problem with this show and fandom romanticising white men who physically assault their female romantic partners (or potential romantic partners) and call it love/ full on ignore it. I ship this ship and I've written fic for them (and want to write more), but I do acknowledge Kai hasn't treated Bonnie well and try to explore this.

ship ask game

[skellebonez]

So...how did MK break the news to everyone (including Red) that he and Red were gonna be parents?

OK so. I’ve been skirting around this in my prompt fills because... I kinda don’t completely know yet? I have a basic IDEA of what happens in what I have been calling the “Rainy Talks AU” (because I know this is going to be canon divergent once season 2 comes out and it started with that fic I am still writing) but I’ve been writing by the seat of my pants.

I’ll put this under a read more since it is pretty long, but here’s the basic outline for “MK and Red Son Decide To Have A Child”.

So this doesn’t exactly go the traditional way of “everyone we’re having a baby in 8 months”, this is more a “we’re making plans to have a baby and we’re telling specific people at specific times because we have issues to work around here”.

For Red Son, he and MK talk out most of their joint decisions well in advance in this AU. When they have something big, like getting married, they talk out exactly what they both want and come to an agreement on who they trust more to make the final decision (usually it’s both of them). They decided very early after being engaged that they both absolutely want at least one child. It’s the when and how they get caught up on, because of Red Son. As excited and willing as he is, he’s also incredibly nervous because unlike MK at this point he doesn’t really have a lot of a support structure behind him in his family life and he keeps forgetting that MK’s friends are family are HIS too now. Ultimately, he puts his trust in MK and asks that he just remind him to stop overthinking the family stuff until he starts being more comfortable.

Wukong learns after MK hears Red call Wukong “Dad” by accident (in this AU, Wukong has legally adopted MK as his son because “MK’s parents are assholes”). MK tells Wukong “so we’re thinking of having a kid” and Dadkong mode kicks in. He had already wanted to renovate the Shame Temple so he could try to spend time with everyone again at this point, now he makes it his mission so MK doesn’t have to fly over molten lava WITH A BABY. He is so excited and while his parenting advice isn’t the best since he’s used to helping raise baby monkeys and not... well, babies, he’s going to be the biggest support the two have until Mystic Monkey Business calls him away. The man cries when MK sends him pictures of Xiaodan and he is incredibly upset that he has to wait to meet her because he is so happy to be a grandpa.

Bringing this back to Red, he learns once the renovations to the temple are completely done. Mac had to leave a few days before it was finished and MK and Wukong finished the last room which just so happened to be a nursery and he puts 2 and 2 together that MK is ready whenever he is and it does not take long after that.

Pigsy, Tang, Sandy, and Mei all learn when the two gather them together at Pigsy’s restaurant after it is 100% confirmed they WILL be having a kid. Everyone is ecstatic and Pigsy and Tang are just as proud to be grandpas as Wukong and Mei is honorary Auntie. Sandy is designated “fun uncle” and he absolutely knits them cat themes baby stuffs.

Poor Macaque though... they meant to tell him, honest they did. He was supposed to learn when he and Wukong built the nursey with MK. MK even wrote him a draft message to send him while on that Mystic Monkey Business. He just... kinda forgot to finish it. So he learns when he comes back and “WHY DOES MY MATE HAVE A BABY” happens. He’s happy for them once the shock leaves his system.

But then we have the problematic part. DBK and PIF. Their relationship with Red in this AU is strained, to say the least. They’re not exactly happy that Red decided to gallivant off with peasants, let alone with the Monkey King’s successor. They were decidedly not happy when he actually started fighting them, even if he made it a point to try reasoning with them first. But they could never bring themselves to physically harm him, he is their son, and even as emotionally abusive as they are in show that’s too far for them (at least that’s the logic they are using, I also see them as stand out assholes even for demons because of their dialogue and actions in the racing episode). Then they start to realize just how much they fucked up their relationship with their son when they received not a formal invitation to their wedding but a personalized letter from Red Son begging them to just stay away and not to attack because Red Son does not beg like that and he is actually scared of them. At first they’re angry. Then they’re just... sad.

They don’t come to the wedding... but they don’t attack either. No one says anything if they saw the large form of a bull demon watching from the top of a building in the distance or if they noticed the wind was oddly calm for this time of year.

Their attacks start to wind down too. No one says anything but they notice.

Red sends them letters every time something major happens, because he wants to at least not keep them in the dark about his life. He never gets a reply back. But those days are calmer than usual, strangely.

He tells them he has a daughter now. He had a request in the letter but he scratched it out on both sides so they couldn’t read it. There are water stains on the page.

They send him a package. They have Monkey King open it, to be safe. It’s a protective charm. It’s written in his mother’s hand. They don’t attack anymore.

Their relationship is strained but ironically it’s the best it has been in centuries. And Red Son doesn’t know how to feel about that.

[stilemawillow]

MTIJ | Ch.6 It’s Not All About The Embarrassment

|mtij masterlist|

pairing: levi ackerman x reader (eren jaeger x reader)

word count: 3.2k

summary: a girl with a variety of hidden complexes has to live with a french asshole for nine months. easy? on the surface. problematic? definitely. romantic? not too much, or at least they’d make it a point to say so everytime when asked. the end? please, their dynamic isn’t as simple as that.

The sensation of wanting to do something and not being able to do it because of your pissy nature was angering. I wanted to do something and rub it in the intern’s face because, having prevented a minor mental breakdown of mine or not, he stayed the guy whom I'd have an everlasting quarrel with - a feud so persistent even a nuclear bomb would deal it no damage. It had taken exactly two minutes into our hug for me to regain my composure and go back to being myself, except he knew he'd done something for me and now I couldn't be a bitch to him.

I could, naturally, ignore the unwritten laws on the topic of that and try, but there was another obstacle standing in the way of that - namely the fact I was locked in the bedroom and Eren was sitting on the bed with his shoulders shaking with the urge for him to get up and pace around. The raven had spun the key on us about five minutes ago, stating the one rule which could get us out was to fix whatever problem we had.

He was probably in the hallway, listening for any potential screaming he'd have to put an end to if things took a turn for the worse. I could bet he'd taken his tea along because he'd sensed, as was correct, it would take some time for me and Eren to get over our respective worries - having fucked-up major time on his side and having overreacted too much on mine.

"Eren," I started warily, croaking voice doing nothing for the gentleness I wanted to inspire, "just hear me out, okay?" He took a deep breath and nodded from the bed, I couldn't even see his eyes but I knew he was nervous as hell. I inhaled prior to speaking and it made my lungs wheeze. "I'm sorry for overreacting, I just got defensive. I forgive you for saying everything you did. It wasn't a lie, it just wasn't your place to share it with a stranger. And lashing out at you isn't the best way I could've dealt with it." I was pulling and pushing at my fingers, trying to figure out how their joints worked and maybe dislocate them along the way in case Eren didn't accept my apology.

"I'm really sorry for speaking like that of them, (Y/N). I took some time to think why I did it and it's just..." He was staring at his feet so intensively it made me want to check them for any holes. My thoughts were racing - even in emotional moments I had to connect the string connecting Eren's thoughts sometimes, it wasn't that rare an occurrence taking into account he often couldn't voice them himself. I was struggling and then I realised it – the only reason he had for dropping the truth about my parents – and it was currently standing in the hallway, monitoring us.

"... the intern?" I almost expected him to reply but he didn’t. What reacted as a result of his mention was my boyfriend’s whole body as it flinched. I’d hit the bull’s eye. Eren muttered a low ‘yes’, to which I kept going, voicing what he didn’t have the bravery to say. "You wanted him to think worse of our family so he doesn't attach?" Another shameful ‘yes’, another twitch of my lips. "So our relationship stays as it is during his internship?" A quieter ‘yes’, so ashamed of its existence it wanted not to be audible at all. Unfortunately for his pride, I wasn’t done – there was still the finishing touch, the true motive the brunet would most of all hate to be revealed. "All of that because you were afraid I may prefer him over you."

There was no ‘yes’ this time, no vocal confirmation. And to think it was physically possible to bow your head down so much. He’d reached the ultimate point of regretting his behaviour because hearing it from my mouth had made him reflect on it and it hadn’t helped the fact it sounded kind of childish. It sounded exactly like the thing he’d done when we were still kids, telling another boy who had a crush on me that there was a monster in my house and he shouldn’t go there. Eren hadn’t changed much in that aspect – and it was yet another part of him I loved. So I went up to him and called his name, and when he flinched once more I was smiling.

"I love you." I stepped forward and cupped his face, hugging him and feeling his arms loosely drape themselves around my waist. For a second there I’d seen him sit on the bed, an eleven-year-old with gleaming eyes, stubbornly screaming at me that he hadn’t scared off the other boy out of jealousy, he’d scared him off because he didn’t like seeing other boys around me, because they wouldn’t treat me well and they might pull my hair or be mean to me. I had hugged him back then too, with the quiet response that jealousy was exactly that. 

"I love you, too." He murmured against my chest, making my smile turn into a grin. I took a seat on his knee and he pulled my legs over his, making me look like a cradled baby.

"I know." My teasing tone wasn’t entirely ruined by my weak voice and it didn’t fail to make Eren laugh because it reminded him of his favourite movie saga. We’d set up a ritual at this point – when the situation was bad and we were telling each other we loved the other after the worst had passed, one always had to land Han Solo’s line. Eren uttered another apology out of shame and I snorted. "Stop apologising, it’s forgotten. Water under the bridge and all that."

"But I don’t like it, I mean, him. He looks better and he’s living with you and…" The brunet couldn’t even finish out of a lack of things to say, or the fact they were too many to choose from. I removed my hands from his neck and met his gaze – a dark teal with sparks of blue – so then insecurity. I began fiddling with the teal boxers poking from under the black shirt and he held my waist, rubbing halting circles there like the motion would calm him too. 

"Listen here, he might be hot but he’s an asshole. And what if we’re living together – I see him as a nuisance I’d have to feed for nine months." My exasperated explanation made Eren’s face contort in further insecurity – this time just a bit fake because I could see the corner of his mouth twitch in amusement. I gave his shoulder a weak slap and his eyes could be seen calling me out on the fact I’d used the adjective ‘hot’ to describe my father’s intern. "The fact I called him hot means nothing. I’m dating you because you’re kind, dumb, generous and selfless, not because you’re a popular testosterone bag that has the right set of genes to make girls swoon." He snorted with laughter and I could distinctly hear the intern choke on his tea outside – probably out of shock over the sudden cackling.

"In fact," I poked Eren’s chest once he’d stopped laughing, "you were always cute, but I never thought you handsome before I actually got to know you. I couldn’t understand the girls when we entered high school, all they needed to fall in love with you was a pretty face and, what, really bad grades? My particular type is raven-haired short guys with dangerous glares, you know." I chuckled and Eren pouted, long fingers giving a warning squeeze to my waist. If I provoked him a bit more there would be consequences but who was I to care about that? "Fine, since you’re my boyfriend you have to be my type. I’m forbidden from liking other things on the menu. You know I’ve always fancied bad boys, they always think of hilarious nicknames. Princess has to be my favourite since, as we all know, I am of royal descent."

Eren cursed, half-angry, half-laughing and the raven was heard choking once more on his beverage. I was over here having the time of my life, almost sending two males into cardiac arrest at once. I smirked when Eren pushed me back against the bed and then I was wheezing when his fingers came to tickle my sides. I pushed against his chest and his arms, tried to catch his wrists – all in vain. The former member of the rugby team had more strength and agility than I’d given him credit for. The torture ended about five minutes later, when I could no longer breathe and only produced short-lived ragged inhales and painfully croaky exhales.

Eren took pity on me and, as the very childish boyfriend he was, decided to go for the lesser evil and drop his whole weight on top of me. I gave a last wheeze and passed out – or at least in my dreams, because I only snorted in reality at his nose burying itself in the crook of my neck as my legs wrapped around his torso. I took a minute to calm my breathing and started playing with his hair once that was checked off the list, making him hum against my chest like a cat. The thought made me snort as I kept scratching the brunet’s scalp.

"Babe," Eren called for my attention, making me hum, "is he really your type?" His question made my hum turn into a thoughtful one, then I gave a slight nod even though he couldn’t see me.

"I think that’s really my type. I was seven when my parents’ marriage was shaky, and my mother drew lots of men’s portraits to distract herself." He’d heard of that period, was almost present during it because I met him shortly after, still he probably regretted having brought it up. "I stole one of those portraits from her trash bin. The man on it had raven hair and terrible clothes, his features were all sharp and strict and, at a first glance, you’d think his eyes were real. For me they were, and even though they glared, I found them reassuring." Eren hummed and I contemplated stopping the story there, only to realise my boyfriend was the only person besides Annie who deserved to know it. 

"I thought I'd found my guardian angel. I would bring him everywhere with me because he helped me calm down. He walked me to elementary school, attended every event my parents couldn’t and, most hilarious of all, he taught me how to cook. I loved him and I thought him real but around the time high school began I realised I had to let him go because he was fictional and I didn’t want to be a weirdo. He served his purpose and now he sits with my old textbooks in the attic." The story was done and Eren was quiet until he wasn’t.

"He seems a lot like Levi, doesn't he?" I gave a small ‘maybe’ and Eren hummed as my fingers kept running through his locks. "That's why you act like that around him." He probably knew my brows had furrowed in bewilderment. "Do you listen in Psychology once in a month or something?" Eren propped himself on his elbows and looked down at me as I blinked at him, still confused.

"... no? I only cram before tests?" The question marks made my boyfriend grunt in exasperation, shaking his head and telling me I was in denial as I waved my hands around. "But I just admitted I don't listen in Psychology!" My exclamation made him sigh.

"Your attitude towards Levi is based on denial. Because of his resemblance to the portrait, you do your best to antagonise him so you don’t attach to him on a deeper level. That’s the subconscious working its magic because you don’t want to consciously admit the feelings you had for the portrait would project on him without a concrete reason aside from his looks. It’s basically a defence mechanism." His lecture made me blink blankly, his innocent look after he’d stopped talking almost made me sigh. His attitude was childish but when he did a thorough analysis of my behaviour he didn’t realise he sounded exactly like our twenty-six-year-old teacher.

"You listen to Mr Smith once and this is the result." I patted his head with a sigh and he shrugged. "You might as well be right since I can’t argue. But Psychology isn’t everything so I’m allowed to say I also act like that towards him due to other factors as well. You know, because I’m such a complex person." Eren chuckled at my sarcasm and I glanced around his relatively messy bedroom, with the pile of socks stuffed next to the wardrobe and the wall behind his ‘gaming station’, which I called simply the desk supporting his computer and PlayStation 4, painted by the forms of R2-D2, C-3PO and the Death Star. Man, my boyfriend was a nerd. And next to the desk lay the bag of his present, still unwrapped.

"You still haven’t opened your present, let’s go that." Eren gasped at my suggestion and jumped off me fast as lightning, I’d almost had any time to let go of his waist. He took the bag and impatiently pulled out its contents, gently laying them on the floor and focusing on each one separately. He was from those weird people who didn’t pull them out of the bag and react to them one by one. He made an overjoyed sound that kind of got stuck in his throat due to his sickness – I approached him just as he was getting hyped at what I thought were the socks I’d gotten him. I sneakily turned on his computer and waited for the screen to load – gaming computers really were another thing. 

"You actually bought me five pairs of socks! I love them! And the Bring Me The Horizon T-shirt, I thought it was no longer in stock! Babeeeeee, I love youuuuuuuuuuu." He’d stood up to give me a hug when I clicked on the folder I’d hidden deep into his drive, his arms wrapped around me from the back and he made a puppy-like sound at my actions. "What are you doing?"

"Well, I kind of have one more present for you. Or two. You like?" He stared at the files and then his eyes widened when he realised what I meant. His arms almost squeezed the air out of my lungs and then he was bouncing up and down in excitement. I knew I was in trouble when it halted.

"(Y/N)! How many fucking times have I told you to stop buying me expensive things!" The use of my name was crucial when it came to the scolding – it meant he was serious about it. Had he used my pet name, it would’ve been a joke I could brush off. The fact he was serious, however, didn’t mean I wouldn’t try the same tactic I always did.

"Until Dawn wasn’t expensive at all." I objected, making him snort so vehemently it blew a whole strand of my hair in the air. His arms let go of me and I turned to face him, leaning against his desk and waiting for him to argue, which he obviously did.

"Bloodborne, however, is! Pair them together and you get lots of wasted money on me!" His words made me pout as I rolled my eyes at his childish antics. He just had to refuse when I wanted to spoil him. In fact, aside from the actual rough patches our relationship had had, our most serious arguments always regarded the fact I loved him too much to give him something cheap and he thought himself too cheap to be bought by overly expensive presents. He’d always preferred genuine simplicity to luxury but I wanted to give him the best of both worlds and he was angry he was taking it only to realise it didn’t align with his morals. 

"No, I get a scolding." I huffed when Eren stared at me pointedly and muttered a ‘that too’, to which I began whining, knowing I’d once again win the argument. Because I had an ace up my sleeve. "Come on, Eren, it’s literally your eighteenth birthday, I had to buy you something big. You’re almost a legal adult, not to mention I’m not giving you sex, I have to entertain you otherwise." The wink I gave him at the end made him redden and splutter, then I watched his defence crumble and seized the opportunity to slide my arms round his neck. "Soooooo, let’s call a truce and I’ll be watching you kick ass in the games later? And you love me so much you’ll be thankful and accept your present without further nagging?"

"Deal, but you’ll be a playing too." I smirked when he accepted the truce, wrapping his arms around my waist and pulling me into him. Sick or not, my boyfriend was the epitome of the word ‘attractive’. 

I remembered our first kiss briefly, him having saved me from yet another horde of bullies in elementary school and being just a bit shorter than me. I recalled his messy hair and the emerald glimmer in his determined hues, then the bruise on his cheek and how I’d stated I had to give him something for defending me again. He’d refused any material present I could buy and, in the spur of the moment, I’d decided that a kiss on his pouting mouth had been the best second I could think of. I’d left him so red it made me panic whether I’d done something bad and then he said he wanted another peck so I’d grinned and given it to him. Because, you know, friends often did that.

"Thank you, (Y/N). Not for the present. For being my girlfriend." There were moments like this, when his eyes got so soft and the look he gave me was so loving I could barely handle it. Moments I almost felt like I didn’t deserve, because he was too good to be true, too good to be with me – better than the best I could wish for. Except, here came the banger – all my life until now I’d wished for him. I felt the tips of my ears burn in embarrassment at his loving gaze, then I tiptoed and hid the adoration I held behind a wide smile.

"I didn’t know you could be so romantic, Mr Jaeger. Give your girlfriend a kiss if you’re so thankful for her." He immediately complied, barely holding back his own smile. His hands were strong as they held me and he smelled, despite his dishevelled condition, of pine, chocolate and deodorant. I realised two sick people kissing wasn’t the best idea in the world but neither of us cared about that – the least I’d give my sick boyfriend on his birthday was a kiss.

Or a ten-minute make-out session and a few hickeys. When the intern let us out of the bedroom, he watched my dopey grin and Eren’s bruised neck, and we could both tell he felt like he was watching over a pair of stupid toddlers.

tag list: @unloved-cadillac​

[a-crimson-lion]

I Need To Stop Reading Into Things…😂

Yet again for @kiricookie .

[Check out this post first.]

So… we’re here again. Lord forgive me, I’m back on my bulls***.

Okay, jokes aside, I really should stop doing these things, but I am a stubborn individual. Plus, I wanna see how our notes compare, and try to have more civil discussions on the internet than I see on average. I’d reblog, but again, your post is already long as is (not incredibly long, but still), and I’d rather not occupy dashboard space more than I need to.

Alright, I think I’ve said my piece. Let’s talk about your post…

Oof. Starting right in the heart of the issue, really.

I am aware that Izuku is… incredibly likeable. I am aware that some of his issues, while perceived by some as noble, are heavily problematic and probably need to get sorted out before the boy gets a close audience with death. I am also aware that some of his habits are less than courteous in some circumstances, though like you said, Izuku has the benefit of having no malicious intent when it comes to these actions, even if they can come off as annoying.

Now, regarding Katsuki’s snail pace development… I get what you’re trying to say, but that doesn’t make it come off as any less frustrating...

As much as I want to believe that Katsuki’s upbringing in society is what’s stunted his growth so badly, I wish the narrative was more willing to show it. All we’ve gotten of Katsuki’s past are flashbacks from Izuku, remarks during the visit to the Bakugo household, and the “raised with violence” line from the Remedial Course arc. Now this understandably paints a pretty terrible picture, but uh… what has Katsuki done to try to fix it? How has Katsuki tried to demonstrate that his upbringing wasn’t justified? Why is he imitating the behaviors he supposedly despises, that supposedly keep him held back, instead of trying to find a workaround? I’ve only seen a few growth/redemption arcs of antagonistic characters, but even if the arcs took long, there was always an ultimate reason for doing so. And Katsuki doesn’t have that. At least, not yet.

It’s been implicitly established that Katsuki’s growth will be the mother of all slowburns. I’ve mentioned it in this old post of mine, but this is doing Katsuki no favors, at least for me. Now don’t get me wrong, I love myself a flawed character, but there’s only so much I can stomach before a flawed character becomes less “flawed” and more “asshole.” I personally believe that his true growth doesn’t get started until “Deku vs. Kacchan 2” (Episode 61), but if we really wanna consider that “Bakugo’s Start Line” (Episode 8) is his… well, start line, then that only makes it worse. Because again, his character arc is, as we’ve established, slow. But the fact that it’s slow enough for several other character arcs to transpire (Shoto, Tenya), as well as slow enough to allow “background characters” some significant development and return to relevancy (Eijiro, Hitoshi), I start wanting to stop holding my breath for his arc’s supposedly inevitable conclusion. Now I know you personally consider the suspense a positive, but it’s the opposite for me. I’d chalk it up to impatience, but again, MULTIPLE character arcs have transpired, and a few have been far more believably gradual compared to Katsuki’s.

While it is impressive that Katsuki was willing to pour out his feelings to Izuku, I’d like to argue that it wasn’t as… well, sentimental. Remember that society and Izuku’s peers before UA regarded him as the lowest of the low. The weakest, the most worthless. “The pebble in the path.” Considering that Katsuki lost the Training Exercise AND technically got outsmarted by Izuku, who was considered this until VERY RECENTLY, I’d imagine that’d be one hell of a blow to his ego. It is still significant that he’s willing to talk to Izuku about this, but it’s not exactly because he’s humbling himself. It’s because he’s begrudgingly admitting that he’s not the best, and it’s been well established that he HATES not being the absolute best. And I don’t know about you, but suddenly getting your high expectations crushed after years of nothing but “positive reinforcement” should not be made as big of a deal as it is here. I’m not saying to get over it, because you’ll never get over it, you have to live with it and learn from it, but don’t make it seem like it’s the end of the world and a half like Katsuki did in that scene. Plus, didn’t he essentially reaffirm that he was going to do what he planned to do from the start of his tenure at UA? I mean, good on him for his dedication, but you’d think the guy would want to take a step back and actually try to learn from others if they were so impressive.

Now, the DC Superhero franchise falls in and out from my radar at times, but I don’t think Katsuki and Batman are a good comparison for the point you're trying to make. Yes they both use violence, and yes they’re both intimidating, but for entirely different reasons. Batman uses fear tactics because he finds them efficient; I don’t know what they’re doing with his character nowadays, but from what I can gather in his earlier incarnations, Batman’s not out for blood. Vengeace, sure, but he doesn’t waste time getting there beating the snot out of his enemies. He takes care of them, sends them off, and keeps on trucking. Before they tried making him even more edgy, he didn’t kill and he kept away from firearms because he was well aware of any issues he had. He may not be a goodie two-shoes like most heroes, but he does show definitive empathy in some of his earlier incarnations. Remember, Batman was the kid who lost his parents to injustice. That was his entire reason for taking up the cowl, for becoming more than Bruce Wayne. In the Justice League Unlimited Episode “Epilogue,” he has the option to kill Ace, a teen villain with dangerously growing psychic powers. He doesn’t do that. He takes the seat next to Ace as she begins to die. He offers his support as Ace has to confront the terrifying realization that she is dying. He’s helping another scared kid, because he knows what it’s like.

That’s heroism. That’s Batman.

Katsuki’s motivations and actions aren’t as sympathetic. Him lashing out isn’t for anything strategical; early on in the series and even after his “Start Line,” up until the Endeavor Agency Arc, I believe, Katsuki’s sole motivations are victory and bloodlust. Even if it seems like he’s growing more chivalrous with his resolve, he backslides so many times back into the angry loudmouth trope its hard to want to keep hope, because if he can backslide multiple times before, what’s to stop him from backsliding again? It ruins the suspense for some people. And people are intimidated by Katsuki, but that’s because he’s borderline unhinged. I’d be scared s***less too if a pyrokinetic powerhouse was gunning on me with his eyes glowing like the fires of Hell as he radiated killing intent (an exaggeration, but still). I have yet to see Katsuki use this intimidation “tactic” of his beyond the fact that he appears to be enjoying it, either.

Alright, enough of that, let’s analyze that penultimate question: why hate Katsuki? If you asked me early on, I would say that yes, I don’t like him because he hurts Izuku. But as I’ve continued looking throughout the series, I now say that I don’t like him because, contrary to what he says, virtually everything is handed to him. Most of the time, its people mistaking his battle thirst as chivalrous determination, whether it be against a villain or just a standard opponent. He never tries to make himself any more “likeable,” and while Class 1-A is quick to call him out for this in the USJ Arc, by the Sports Festival they’re all flocking to him, and I have yet to understand any proper reasoning for this. It’s less like Katsuki proving there’s more to him than meets the eye and earning the respect of his peers, and more so that people latch on to the abstract concept of Katsuki’s coolness and strength, and he just begrudgingly tolerates them from there.

I mean, Eijiro was wholeheartedly against Katsuki’s actions during the Battle Trial, yet by the USJ the difference is night and day, and it doesn’t help that he’s interpreting Katsuki’s desire to beat up villains as “faith in his classmates.” Shoto was abused by Endeavor, so the fact that he can’t at least draw some comparisons between Katsuki and his sperm donor is slightly concerning, and while I want to chalk it up to his stunted social skills, I feel like Hori and/or his editors trying to shove in a friendship to increase their overall likeability (especially Katsuki’s) is more likely. Don’t even get me started on the hoops they jump through in the Joint Training Arc. Not even gonna touch that…

Okay, finally made it to the last paragraph. So, here’s something about me you may or may not like: I don’t like people dying, good or bad. Unless their actions are comparable to that of Satan, or at least close, then they shouldn’t get the axe. Why?

Because a dead person can’t change… and a dead person can’t suffer.

Believe me, even though I’ve fallen off the bandwagon a long time ago, I want Katsuki to change for the better. And he can’t do that if he’s dead. The manga’s most recent arc has been hella frustrating because of that, and no spoilers, but the two deaths that did occur did not leave me in high spirits. Hawks, Shigaraki, you both are on thin f***ing ice I swear. So no, lucky for you, I do NOT want to see Katsuki dead just because he happens to be an ass. What I wanna see is proper repercussions that go beyond being a villain hostage and having everyone else’s potential trauma downplayed for the sake of giving Katsuki more sympathy points.

Also, I’m well aware Katsuki’s death would absolutely ruin Izuku. I am also well aware that it is one of the few concrete facts I hate with nearly every fiber of my body. Not because of what it says about Izuku…

...but because I am sick and tired of Katsuki continuing to be the arrogant s*** he is, whether it be his genuine feelings or merely a front. I am sick of the fact that for as smart and aware that someone like him is, he still insists on trying to act like a badass when there is no need or overall expectation to do so. I am sick that he continues to decide to put himself and others in jeopardy, all for the purpose of maintaining his ego. I am sick that he gets all this support, all this help, and yet his development is still worse than a snail’s pace, and the narrative continues to keep letting him off with love taps and leaving him unfairly unprepared for the kill shot.

...maybe Katsuki deserves to get better. But is this really the best way to do it? Really?

Thanks for listening. Hope you got something from all of that.

-Crimson Lion (24 August 2020)

[tomurakii]

Have y’all ever seen a fic where you think it seems pretty cool, but then you see Monoma Neito buried deep down in the tags, or “past Monoma Neito/[main character]” and you just KNOW it’s gonna be a Monoma hate fic.

Or you start reading something but then there’s like ONE interaction where they write Monoma as some kind of dumb, selfish, insulting brat and have all the characters calling him a psycho and you just have to stop reading???

I literally CANNOT handle fics that have people characterising him like that, is this what it means to have a problematic fav? People just terribly characterising them and making them the antagonist in every situation? Thanks but I hate it. Like he’s ALWAYS the abusive ex or the manipulative predator or the pathetic, self absorbed idiot and he would literally NEVER be ANY of those things! Monoma is smart, he’s capable, he’s self aware, he’s considerate of his classmates, he has feelings and he isn’t just an asshole for no reason!

He recognised that Bakugou had changed in the joint training session, he hadn’t been just blindly hating them, he had valid reasons! He based his opinions on what he saw, and the fact was that all anyone sees of 1-A is them being cocky (Bakugou during the sports festival), insane (also Bakugou during the sports festival), causing trouble for the school (going after Bakugou after he got kidnapped, etcetera), and getting so much fame and attention that Monoma knew his class had earned too.

He comforted Tokage after she lost her match in the joint training arc, he’s considerate and he builds up his classmates because he knows they deserve it! He’s cooperative, he confronts people when they’re shitheads and provokes people for strategy but that is IT! He revealed his backstory and he talked about how he isn’t ashamed of his quirk or the things he has to do to be successful, he isn’t insecure and pathetic, he’s capable and he’s working hard to do well with what he’s got.

Just because he isn’t self-sacrificing and one-track-minded doesn’t mean he isn’t a good hero and a good person, he’s just smart. He finds the balance between getting results while doing as little as possible because he doesn’t need to over exert himself like an idiot, and he knows that! He doesn’t feel the need to be the best, and that fact makes him more stable than the majority of other characters!

Literally just,,, do a bit of research on a character before you write them, it isn’t difficult. I just want people to stop mindlessly making him the villain just because he was mean to Bakugou a couple of times. He’s not a bad person, he’s a logical, observant, confrontational and resourceful person. I know a lot of people like that IRL, and those are character traits of a hero. A real one, who notices when things are wrong and does whatever it takes to help.

Everyone’s always whining about how Bakugou has depth, why can’t they accept that Monoma is well designed and multi-dimensional too?

[vvatchword]

Twilight hot take

Just saw some shit about how we should start canceling Twilight again and I’m so tired

I was working at Wal-Mart and met a lot of ladies who came out all excited to get the books--they were so cute and happy and wearing special shirts. Later found out a friend was hiding her love of Twilight from me because I was posting a lot of Twilight hit-pieces. And the more I thought about it, the more I realized, jesus fuck, what I’m doing is wrong. I’m finding something that makes people genuinely happy and I’m actively trying to take a shit on it.

I think Twilight-hate falls in this very specific area of human behavior I like to call, “pretensions of personal value without offering effort.” I’m sure there’s a far better way to refer to it. But basically, have you ever met a friend who rolls the fuck out their eyes when you say you like a Coldplay song, or that you watched the latest Will Ferrell movie, or that you love cheap hamburgers from that nation-wide joint down the street? They believe that what you like defines your value. If you like something cheap, enjoyed by masses, and common, therefore, you are also cheap and common. And maybe you are also a WHORE 

Simultaneously, they believe that just by the virtue of LIKING something--just by Existing in the same place as a piece of entertainment and Enjoying it--they are somehow touched by its quality as well.

This is not how likes and dislikes work. I don’t know if you’ve noticed this, but liking or hating something takes NO EFFORT WHATSOEVER. It is the boneless posturing of the immature or the lazy asshole or both. You know what gives you value? Doing. You know what takes nothing? Having a feeling about a thing, usually out of the ether. Even if you have a more knowledgeable take on a field, it’s not the only acceptable way to like something, and I hate gatekeeping almost as much as I hate poseurs.

Nor is this how entertainment works. You can like Milton and Twilight at the same time.You can switch from your Indie bluegrass group to a Taylor Swift song and have the same amount of fun. You can also be a prostitute, fuck twenty people a night, and you’re still valuable as a human being. I mean seriously, sometimes things are popular for a reason. (I accidentally typed that as “poopular.” I want you to know this if you are this hipster person from the example so you can use it next time you’re being an asshole.)

Entertainment is successful when it entertains. Entertainment is successful when it takes your mind off your pain. And, given that life is an incessant misery machine, if you try to steal someone’s happy place, you are fucking evil and need to ask yourself where the fuck you went wrong. (The answer to that is usually “high school.”)

Huge asterisk:

It is absolutely not wrong to criticize our entertainment. In fact, I celebrate the people who do. We need to consume intelligently; we need to recognize where we’ve erred and victimized someone else. But I also think it’s not that far of a step when you start becoming Arbiter of Appropriate Entertainment, and oh boy does that go some gross-ass places. Entertainment WILL include bad shit because human beings are complicated garbage fires FULL of it.

Moreover, the more I read Twilight hit pieces back in the day, the more over-the-top hate was dumped on it, the more I started thinking about OTHER entertainment that is equal to or worse than Twilight is in almost every conceivable way. I started wondering if the people who hated Twilight are actually readers at all. Or are they all just jumping on the Twilight hate boat to effect intelligence?

Dare I say--most entertainment has problematic elements. But we’ve all decided to just belly-flop on this one specific thing, then? For what? What does the belly flop do? It doesn’t stop Twilight from being appealing to certain subsets of the population for very specific reasons. It doesn’t stop Twilight from existing.

Are we trying to change our behavior or are we trying to hurt other people?

We can criticize entertainment and not be assholes.

Thank you for coming to my TED Talk.

[kichimiangra]

"You are a bad person if you like content creator A. B, and/or C and you are also a bad person if you enjoy content X, Y, and Z!"

*me, slowly turns to face you, every joint in my body cracking and aching*

Me: "Siiiiiigh.... what did B do now?"

-------

Like no really I am getting tired of seeing posts on my dash that say I'm bad if I enjoy some content some creator makes because the creator is bad or problematic.

Attack the creator or show for it's badness but I am sick of posts that say I'm bad for enjoying something. Just let me enjoy things. I'm sorry that the world isn't a perfect place where assholes are legally not allowed to have talent and make stuff. But hell that asshole made something that made me happy for 10 minutes and apparently being a bad person is a complete mood killer.

[enchantedisabella]

Modern Greek Gods

my ig is vivacityandvellichor

Apollo: patron god of memes/vines. absolutely has a meme acc with over a million followers. you think peter parker, a fucking gen z meme legend, isn’t his illegitimate child? that he made just to spite athena with spiders? you are w r o n g

Zeus: the one those Straight White Guys (ew) pray to. often they place maga hats at his altar but even Zeus isn’t that much of a douchebag to support tr*mp and he burns them and strikes those guys with lightning at once. he’s that kind of dad that refuses to vaccinate his kids tho (sigh)

Athena: literally the inventor of just fucking shitposts that mess with your head and are filmed by Apollo saying shit like ‘i have faced God and stepped over Her heaven to get to my throne’. probably runs a shitpost acc and a feminism acc at the same time with wildly different posts, but everyone knows it’s her. there’s even accounts comparing her captions on her different accs bc one will be like ‘big mood gonna go die now bc for some reason i didn’t want the tide pod challenge to die and I DID IT wtf is wrong w me im begging for the sweet release of death’ and the other will be like ‘systematic oppression is only beneficial to straight white males who will continue to oppress poc, women and lgbt+ if they don’t recognise their privilege’

Persephone: kindest person ever. except when you try her, karma’s gonna be a bitch to you. usually she just stays home and plays with her cats, probably spends half her life as a stalker on tumblr or running an aesthetic ig, and the other half baking muffins to throw in the face of her enemies but also to give the best ones to her mom. is definitely taylor swift reincarnated, there’s no doubt.

Demeter: andrea swift reincarnated. that soft friend who will go batshit crazy if something happens to her precious daughter. 100/10 has a very good mother-daughter relationship. hates gossip column blogs but loves it when the tea is served for someone that deserves it. (kanye anyone?)

Aphrodite: works at buzzfeed, no doubt. one of those fashion bloggers with a ridiculously huge influence over celebrities even though all they do is post outfit combinations and promote products, and always has steaming hot tea to serve on every website available. loves dishing out to demeter and gets along surprisingly well with apollo who is also invited to those premieres with her (though for different reasons ofc). runs the most colourful ig acc ever, has an insane amount of followers. wakes up with perfect hair and no one knows how.

Poseidon: youtuber. one of those annoying ones who always say to subscribe to their channel before really doing anything much or saying anything worthwhile? like, why not say it at the end when people actually know what your content is about??? always gets invited to those youtuber conventions but hellaaa problematic. not a total dirtbag, supports feminism and everything, but he just has an overall toxic personality. athena stays tf away. somehow is actually lowkey hot tho and has had flings with every other well known celeb who lives near him.

Hades: HIGHKEY anime stan. pretends to like shit like my chemical romance but actually jams to one direction when alone. video games and pokemon go is their life 24/7, but they still try to hide the fact that they waste their (probably few) remaining days on it even tho everyone already knows. has tried tiktok once and went viral for being hilariously fucking bad. definitely has a meme face. apollo once made a meme out of hades’ face to spite him but it actually also went viral and now hades is known as the ‘pikachu corndog guy ’ around the internet. sometimes ppl ask for selfies on the street and he h a t e s it. will flip them off but can’t swear without sounding like a twelve year old who hasn’t gone through puberty.

Dionysus: is incredibly good at tiktok. once did such a smooth pop and lock with six of his nymphs that it went viral. can shuffle up the stairs like hell was freezing over but he didn’t give a shit. runs those eating asmr accs that’s mainly just him stirring drinking wine super loudly until he passes out (somehow still gets a staggering ton of views), but before that, poseidon makes sure to film all the stupid shit he says to put it on his youtube channel. athena’s sometimes there too and uses his overconfident phrases for her shitposts. needless to say, dionysus is a legend on stan twitter.

Ares: will Fite you. is literally the equivalent of a human trash can. people do put maga hats at his altar and he fucking wears them like the fucking trashbag scum that he is. athena plots different strategies to kill him and has polls for the best ones on her story. Straight White Guy trashhhhhhhhh. nobody likes him. he runs an ig acc with maybe four followers at best, and they’re all just all his other own accs that he uses to anonymously harass athena so she can’t shove his own failures into his face. she always knows it’s him, though. people beat him into pulp on online arguments but he refuses to admit that he’s wrong. gets a kick out of harassing people on the subway. athena refers to him as ‘it’ every time she talks about him because she says that subhuman feces should be referred to by the correct pronouns.

Hephaestus: that one sleazy guy at school who’s best friends with hades but isn’t as bad as asshole ares. knows that ares is morally wrong, but still is kind of ok with him unlike everyone else. wouldn’t go so far as to like him tho. that geeky guy who always gets invited to parties. nobody knows how, but he’s in the ‘popular’ crowd, but often overlooked. some people think that it’s because he does all his hw for them, but actually, hephaestus is that guy who’s sleazy and cheap but really slick and conniving. can get himself into any club. that guy who only uses social media to stalk others, and he follows like 1000+ people but nobody will follow him. kind of a douche but not so much to become revolting. haaaaaates poseidon bc they’re both toxic af and recognise it in each other but not in themselves. that guy who apologises for a racist thing from eight years ago that’s been brought up. actually means the apology but doesn’t have much empathy.

Hera: rules wattpad and i mean rules it. her stories basically win every bad boy x good girl cliché award ever. terrible grammar but somehow has a shit ton of votes and comments. has had a string of shitty boyfriends but only has eyes for zeus, the most problematic guy ever whom she keeps on returning to. she blogs about all her relationship failures mostly because she’s too hooked up on zeus, and all her ten million followers tell her to get some therapy or help but she never does. queen of falling into toxic relationships and honestly athena hates her personally but feels really sorry for her. probably doesn’t understand feminism all that much but still wants equal rights for everyone. doesn’t care if you’re lgbt or a diff race, and i don’t mean accepting i mean she literally does not give a flying fuck. one of those ppl who is ‘fake woke’ bc they actually do have good morals at heart but say things like ‘i don’t see colour’ only for athena to reply scathingly w things like ‘you actually do, you just don’t want to acknowledge your own white privilege by admitting it bc to admit it is to admit that you actually have been born w an upper hand’. def is one of those straight white girls who actually are decent and try their hardest to understand racism but just can’t get it. vents on wattpad yet somehow only gains followers.

Artemis: ah, saved the best for last. arty is a fucking queen, she’s the one who consistently burns tr*mp on twitter and challenges views. probably an actual activist irl who is v well known and promotes herself through ig. is probably best friends with taylor swift and emma watson. probably lowkey has the best singing voice and is actually an artist using music to protest. is mutuals with her feminist acc with athena on instagram. probably best friends w her and they do everything together, run a joint private finsta with a fairly small following of 500 people but post the most aesthetic bff photos.

[dracota]

Rant about the word smudging.

It’s a white marketing scheme to sell stolen goods.

Because holy crap does no one remember that in the 90’s the original term for it was a word that started with a ‘ch’ and was very long? I remember this because the little tags had this name on them with the phrase “also called ‘smudging’-“ with more reasoning after it. (The word smudge is French in origin and is probably a bad translation. Smoldering seems like it would have been more accurate of a discription/translation. I wonder if it happened during what was called the French and Indian war in US history?)

So apparently white people couldn’t pronounce the real & original name the kits were called and thus couldn’t or wouldn’t ask for it because they didn’t want to embarrass themselves by saying it wrong. So people were not buying the kits. People can’t make money off stolen goods from closed cultures if no one buys them.

New age shop keepers dropped the original name and just called it smudging. Because they couldn’t sell it otherwise. I was literally told that by a new age shop owner who was white. (I don’t think I have ever been to a new age store that wasn’t owned by a white person.)

Yes I’m white & no I couldn’t pronounce it either as a teenager & I can’t even try now because I cannot find the name anywhere. I never bought a kit because I only wanted the abalone shell & I wasn’t going to spend $60-whatever on it for a large shell with what I thought was incense that I was allergic to. The tiny kits that had shells that were about 2-3 inches long cost $32 each. At this time I had seen abalone shells that size sold a seaside gift stores for $2-$3 each, so no I was not wasting money like that.

And then I found out about it being stolen and then that the name was lost. I have a note somewhere with the name from when I wrote it down once. I even found ithe name online a few years ago on an old geocity site. No idea beyond starting with CH and it being very long. This was still before you could take pictures with your phone.

It still bothers me that the Name was lost. It was lost because people wanted to make money and their pricey item wasn’t selling because nobody could ask for it because they couldn’t pronounce the name of it.

Like literally right away (and this was before texting or the internet was the way it is today) it became super popular because of marketing changing the name. An easy name means it’s easy to ask for.

Additional frustration for me is that this happened when people were pushing for Native artist recognition. At least in some areas of the west coast where I lived. I remember in the 80’s when I was little it was super important in Oregon because no one wanted knockoffs. This was still way before cellphones were a thing. So you couldn’t spot check of the local artist was truly local and you had to trust the little shops if you couldn’t buy directly from an artist at their own booth/shop. I remember people trying more after the Free Willie movie first came out.

And then The Craft came out in the 90’s and people started looking for the incense with the pretty shell and how is it pronounced again? I assume that because people were starting to try and support Native creators to be legitimate that they assumed that the new age stores were sourcing the items from Native creators. Because that is what the new age stores I went to implied.

Yeah. My frustration with knowing that a Name was lost because of greedy white people wanting to make a quick buck on top of lies and theft.

It’s a white marketing scheme to sell stolen goods.

It’s a white marketing scheme to sell stolen goods.

It’s a white marketing scheme to sell stolen goods.

If the fact that it’s stolen goods or that it’s stolen goods from a closed culture is not stopping people? I honestly don’t expect that finding out it’s a marketing scheme will stop people. People tend to avoid things when they find out about marketing schemes and I hope it helps to make people realize how horrible it is. But I can’t get my hopes up for a sudden change any more than I can get my hopes up that that ‘ch’ name will be found again.

It feels like if people started correcting others with the correct name then it would turn people off of it a bit more. Because people don’t like to be told they are wrong.

“Oh no, there’s no such thing as smudging! It sounds like you’re actually talking about ‘this’ and it was stolen from a closed culture! See?”

Lots of people loose interest in things when treated as such. So why not this? It’s how things ‘fall out of fashion’. Just add a “well, actually” when they push back at the right time to really drive in the bad feelings and soon people will associate that feeling with the word.

It’s like the people that steal from closed cultures don’t like being told their wrong. But they also don’t want to used the wrong name for things that they are using to seem like they know what they are doing or talking about. Correcting them is a big hit.

An untranslated original name is one way to do that. Then if the word smudging get used in place of it? There the chance to correct them.

Finding an original untranslated name is problematic phrase in itself. There are hopefully many. But lots of Native people used the word smudging today. So it’s a super problematic thing for me to suggest. I just don’t have better words for why I am suggesting it.

It’s also not a cure all and I will assume other people have mentioned trying this. I just think as a white suburbanite that has seen things change because of names that this would be effective. It’s giving people ammunition for shutting down assholes in a polite way. Make websites and blog posts about it to take back the google searches. If marketing helped make this monster then it can help kill it. Grassroots marketing and word of mouth is a bit more trusted.

Tiny secondary story but in art there is a smudging stick that it just rolled up paper for smudging lines for shading and such. No burning and it is super messy when using charcoal. Please imagine the dual confusion of teenage me happily handing one to a friend that asked if anyone knew how to smudge & if they had a smudging stick with them and having no idea why my friend had no idea wtf I was handing them. They also look like weird joints but I didn’t know that at the time. I also was so confused about smudging to clean things because it did not compute.

[tessatechaitea]

The Ray #1

In 1994, I had no idea who Christopher Priest and Howard Porter were so I have no idea why I purchased this comic book.

Although (continuing the thought from the caption which is just me saying, "Fuck the format! I can do what I want!") I was in my early 20s in 1994 so I was probably into that edgy fascination with freaks and body deformity. I hadn't seen Tod Browning's Freaks yet but I'm sure I would have jumped at the chance if I'd known about it. It's the only reason I can figure why I bought a comic book about a character I knew nothing about. Because it looks like he's a hero with a deformed baby leg. I probably picked it up off the shelf and yelled, "Fuckin' A, dude! Look at this ganky bastich!" It was 1994 so obviously I was emulating Lobo in my every day life. Some of you might be thinking, "Ugh! You're so gross and problematic!" But I'm just being honest! I was a young man, masking like crazy in order to hide my vulnerabilities so I wouldn't be crushed by social interactions and existential threats to my psyche. I had to act tough to survive the crazy streets of Santa Clara, California! Back then, Silicon Valley wasn't like it is now! In 1994, hulking techno-nerds were roaming the streets with razor sharp circuit boards looking to cut the genitals off of anybody who criticized the Neo-Geo CD home gaming console. If you looked at them funny, they'd challenge you to a game of Cyberball and you'd better hope you won because they were also obsessed with Mortal Combat and if you lost, the last thing you'd hear would be a bunch of techno-nerds screaming "Finish him!" before you found yourself upside down gagging on the filthy water of an unflushed public toilet. The early nineties were some rough years! Especially when you were into heavy metal! People think grunge and rap killed metal but think about what people thought was "rock and roll" during the early 90s: Warrant's "Cherry Pie" and Extreme's "More Than Words." I mean, Feetal's Gizz! Metal was dead long before grunge and rap came by to fill its grave. Anyway, you could totally be into freaks in the early 90s because the Internet didn't exist so your opinions weren't reaching anybody outside your small circle of friends. All the other people of the world who didn't know you at all didn't have a way to tell you you were a piece of shit because of one single thing that comprised the myriad facts of who you were. Fuck you, Internet! No, no! I'm sorry! Don't be mad at me, Internet! I can't live without you! Also, maybe I just bought this comic book because the cover was shiny and embossed and growing up in Santa Clara was so boring that it made this comic book looked exciting. The issue begins with The Ray battling Brimstone. Remember him from Legends?

Brimstone is as big as Godzilla and he's already killed hundreds of people, judging by the apartment buildings he's smashed.

I don't know who The Ray is or where he's from. What part of the United States of America uses slang like "gaffle," "put my serve on," "zoom this buster," "bone out," "feebs," and "rot." Is this just Christopher Priest trying to mimic youth speak? I would expect this kind of thing from an aging comic book writer like current Neal Adams but Priest was in his early thirties when he wrote this. Maybe The Ray is from another Earth and Priest's theory was that slang words would obviously differ between Earths. But not so much that you couldn't get the gist of what he's saying. Except for "gaffle." I don't know what the fuck he wants to do to Brimstone when he says he's going to gaffle him. I know what I would mean by it but that doesn't seem appropriate in this situation.

Oh wait. The Ray was just writing fan-fiction about himself.

So the Brimstone fight didn't really happen. Or it did happen but The Ray is using it as fodder to write comic books about himself. So he's like Clark Kent writing articles about Superman? At least writing comic book stories about your own adventures isn't unethical. Fucking Clark Kent. What kind of a journalist uses his soap box to simply promote himself? No wait. Journalists fucking suck. I despise journalists for the same reason I despise police officers. If you're just letting your profession go to shit because a bunch of people are abusing their positions of power and not actually doing the public service they're supposed to be doing, you're just as bad as the worst apple in the barrel. There's a reason that whole apple/barrel thing is still a saying even though nobody really associates apples with barrels anymore. Maybe The Ray isn't writing comic books although it seems like the super edgy postmodern take a writer in the 90s would think was fucking mind blowing. We got Kyle Rayner, comic book artist, as the new Green Lantern. Why shouldn't we also get a comic book writer in there as well? Or The Ray might just be writing stories for his college paper which would mean he's just as unethical and terrible as Clark Kent, I suppose. But in an amateurish way. The Ray (whose name is Ray Terrill so it was lucky he got light-based powers) stops trying to write and decides to tell the readers about the last few days. He's a young guy who works at a fast food chicken joint and has just leased his first apartment. It's a piece of shit with some garbage and/or artistic sculpture in the middle of the room but he doesn't have any credit or money so he's stuck with it. I bet there are corpses under the floor boards as well as other things too boring to mention (but which I'll mention anyway) like rats and cockroaches and dried semen stains.

This is Ray's narration of the place which I read after I wrote the previous paragraph. Was I writing comics and named Christopher Priest in 1994?

The Ray spends all day handing out flyers to Clucky Chicken while standing right outside Clucky Chicken. Is that what flyers are for? To remind people about the thing they can totally see right in front of them? I guess they could be coupons. While he's handing out flyers, his super cool cousin Hank stops by to gaffle some swang all up in through him.

This must be Earth-15 where they say things like "Yo trip dat frum, golderboots!" and "Swank on into my PQs, Flub Daddy!"

The Ray is disappointed that he's a man now because responsibility sucks. Kids can't stand curfews and rules but man is it sweet to be able to come and go as you please (within curfew, of course!) while doing whatever the fuck you want and not worrying about money for food or rent. The Ray can't even fuck his girlfriend because she saw him in the chicken suit and is all, "Oh, um, I just came by to say I can't come by! Bye!" The Ray can travel at the speed of light anywhere he wants while carrying other people. That makes sense because comic books. He takes his cousin Hank Fonzerelli to see a volcano shaped like a hand in Hawaii only to discover that it's another Brimstone. It's activated by a henchman of Darkseid while The Ray and Hank are checking out a surf competition or a luau. It's at this point when The Ray gets back to the beginning of the story where he was failing to stop Brimstone from destroying a city. As he picks the story back up, Superboy arrives to save the day. Not the boring Superboy who used to be Superman and learned a terrible secret about himself on his sixteenth birthday about an extra candle. The new Superboy who arrived on the scene after Superman died. He might also be boring but I wouldn't know having never read any comic books about him. The new Superboy is an arrogant dick and The Ray hates him. That's probably why The Ray winds up killing him. Or he thinks he killed him. Everybody reading the comic book probably thought The Ray killed him too (because we were all dumb-dumbs who actually believed DC Comics had killed Superman off for good. Why wouldn't they?! He was a big boring boy scout whose powers kept fluctuating because editors and writers thought the problem with writing Superman stories was that he was too powerful. But the real problem with writing Superman stories was that those same writers and editors were unimaginative assholes who didn't actually understand Superman. Why else would Superman have died from a fist fight?! Seriously, Dan Jurgens. What were you thinking?! Superman should never have been killed because he encountered something more powerful that could just beat the shit out of him. Superman should have been killed because of a philosophical or ethical dilemma where he realized the only way to save the world was to allow himself to die. He should have been Jesus but instead he was just Apollo Creed. Who I think was a metaphor for John the Baptist? The issue ends with the narrator letting the readers know that Superboy isn't actually dead and why would the idiots think he'd be killed in The Ray when he was currently starring in his own popular monthly comic book? Stupid dumb comic book readers! But the narrator also mentions that The Ray is out of power (I didn't know he had to recharge) and Brimstone is kind of mad. Then he's all, "If we were you," (I don't think a proper editor in 1994 would have allowed a writer to use the plural pronoun "we" as a non-specific gender singular pronoun so now I'm picturing the narrator as a small group of old people), "We'd be back here in 30 days!" And I guess 22 year old me agreed with them because I purchased Issue #2. The Ray #1 Rating: C. C is average, right? I didn't find anything I particularly loved about this issue but I also didn't find anything I absolutely hated. Except for Superboy but I think I was supposed to hate him so that's a positive critique. I probably purchased the next issue because I wanted to find out what happens to Hank Fonzerelli. What a cool dude! The letters pages don't have any letters but it does have a story by Brian Augustyn about how Christopher Priest changed his name from Jim Owsley. It also explains that Priest's idea for The Ray was to have a teenager suddenly have to deal with god-like powers while still being a teenager. I think before this that was called "Spider-man". Except for the god-like powers! Those were more spider-like powers.