#its WILD to see this same discourse happening all the time

[chuplayswithfire]

Man, every time I see that there's some latest wrinkle in the story on the " Izzy fans get the most hate ever" discourse and I check it out, the answer is always just... the same basic shit that fans of characters of color and fans of female character s have been dealing with forever and half the time its the most basic shit.

Obviously no one should be getting anon hate, but no one WOULD receive anon hate if anon was turned off. Personally, turning off anon stopped the vast majority of the vitriol I received and all of the "death threats" (I don't take anonymous death threats all that serious tbh, whatever rocks your boat anon loser). There were a couple of accounts created specifically to get around my anon being turned off or to bother me without having skin in the game, but that seems rare and unlikely to be a repetitive problem. Turning off anon is the single most effective way of reclaiming your fandom experience.

The "don't tag hate" position has existed for as long as there have been tags on Tumblr. It's a position that I frankly think is not worth maintaining, considering that the tags are both a way to share with the wider community as well as a way to organize your own blog, and there's no way to forcibly distinguish between the two unless you're going to make custom tags for everything, which is not worth the energy for most people.

Especially when people can't even agree about what hate even is. Is hate talking about how you wish said character would die in the next season? Is hate analyzing the impact of a characters' actions? Is hate tagging the character for appearing in your art work but the art work isn't them sympathetic or happy?

The only thing people can do to have the tag experience THEYY want to see is block people whose posts they hate seeing. That's it. Attempting to control how other people use the tags is an exercise in futility.

It genuinely has me shaking my head that so many people are often talking about the horrendous abuses they experience as fans of Izzy and it's 1) the same type of anons that fans of Ed and Stede are receiving, 2) the same vaguely threatening statements from individual fans that fans of every other character sometimes receive, 3) grounded criticism of the character that the fans don't want to see.

Like... Sorry if this is your first time encountering toxic fandom but this is what every fandom is like, especially if you're a person of color or a fan of characters of color or a fan of female characters. You just need to turn off anon and block people. That's it. That's all you can do. People aren't enabling your mistreatment by continuing on with their regular blogging after advising you to turn off anon and block.

[renthony]

In Defense of Shitty Queer Art

Queer art has a long history of being censored and sidelined. In 1895, Oscar Wilde’s novel The Picture of Dorian Gray was used as evidence in the author’s sodomy trials. From the 1930s to the 1960s, the American Hays Code prohibited depictions of queerness in film, defining it as “sex perversion.” In 2020, the book Steven Universe: End of an Era by Chris McDonnell confirmed that Rebecca Sugar’s insistence on including a sapphic wedding in the show is what triggered its cancellation by Cartoon Network. According to the American Library Association, of the top ten most challenged books in 2023, seven were targeted for their queer content. Across time, place, and medium, queer art has been ruthlessly targeted by censors and protesters, and at times it seems there might be no end in sight.

So why, then, are queer spaces so viciously critical of queer art?

Name any piece of moderately-well-known queer media, and you can find immense, vitriolic discourse surrounding it. Audiences debate whether queer media is good representation, bad representation, or whether it’s otherwise too problematic to engage with. Artists are picked apart under a microscope to make sure their morals are pure enough and their identities queer enough. Every minor fault—real or perceived—is compiled in discourse dossiers and spread around online. Lines are drawn, and callout posts are made against those who get too close to “problematic art.”

Modern examples abound, such as the TV show Steven Universe, the video game Dream Daddy, or the webcomic Boyfriends, but it’s far from a new phenomenon. In his book Hi Honey, I’m Homo!, queer pop culture analyst Matt Baume writes about an example from the 1970s, where the ABC sitcom titled Soap was protested by homophobes and queer audiences alike—before a single episode of the show ever aired. Audiences didn’t wait to actually watch the show before passing judgment and writing protest letters.

After so many years starved for positive representation, it’s understandable for queer audiences to crave depictions where we’re treated well. It’s exhausting to only ever see the same tired gay tropes and subtext, and queer audiences deserve more. Yet the way to more, better, varied representation is not to insist on perfection. The pursuit of perfection is poison in art, and it’s no different when that art happens to be queer.

When the pool of queer art is so limited, it feels horrible when a piece of queer art doesn’t live up to expectations. Even if the representation is technically good, it’s disappointing to get excited for a queer story only for that story to underwhelm and frustrate you.

But the world needs that disappointing art. It needs mediocre art. It even needs the bad art. The world needs to reach a point where queer artists can fearlessly make a mess, because if queer artists can only strive for perfection, the less art they can make. They may eventually produce a masterpiece, but a single masterpiece is still a drop in the bucket compared to the oceans of censorship. The only way to drown out bigotry and offensive stereotypes created by bigots is to allow queer artists the ability to experiment, learn through making mistakes, and represent their queer truth even if it clashes with someone else’s.

If queer artists aren’t allowed to make garbage, we can never make those masterpieces everyone craves. If queer artists are terrified at all times that their art will be targeted both by bigots and their own queer communities, queer art cannot thrive.

Let queer artists make shitty art. Let allies to queer people try their hand at representation, even if they miss the mark. Let queer art be messy, and let the artists screw up without fear of overblown retribution.

It’s the only way we’ll ever get more queer art.

_

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[reblive]

An except from Eric’s journal that i’ve thought about often as of lately. I have no place to put my thought so I will speak on here. No intent for discourse, I just have no outlet to speak on this matter. If this is not the space for you, just don’t read it. I don’t really care to hear anything.

“Society may not realize what is happening but I have; you go to school, to get used to studying and learning how youre "supposed to" so that drains or filters out a little bit of human nature. but thats after your parents taught you whats right and wrong even though you may think differently, you still must to have more of your human nature blown out of your ass. society trys to make everyone act the same by burying all human nature and instincts. Thats what school, laws, jobs, and parents do If they realize it or not and them, the few who stick to their natural instincts are casted out as psychos or lunatics or strangers or just plain different. crazy, strange, weird, wild, these words are not bad or degrading.. if humans were let to live how we would naturaly it would be chaos and anarchy and the human race wouldnt probably last that long, but hey guess what, thats how its supposed to be!!!!! society and goverments are only created to have order and calmness, which is exactly the opposite of pure human nature. take away all your laws and morals and just see what you can do. if the goverment was one entity it would be thinking "hey, lets make some order here and calm these crazy fucks down so we can be constructive and fight other goverments in our own little so called self created "civilizied world" and get rid of all those damn insticts everyone has" well shit I'm to tired wright anymor tonight, so until next time, fuck you all”

In some way in pains me to see the way he felt about the world and the wrong doings of those around him. If you take a second to sit and read what he’s saying it’s like part of his authenticity comes out and then transitions back to switching to speak to the audience and how he wanted to be seen. I can’t always articulate in words the feelings I get when I think about him but it’s genuinely always painful. He was so hurt, and described his pain, but still shadowed his true feelings of distress for the audience. He cared about what other people thought about him even in his writings, and it’s so disheartening that he was that broken and plague by the environment he was in. I take time to consider how people cannot feel empathy for him and I understand it due to the situation at hand (obviously) however, considering how he was 17 years old writing this, he was just a kid. He was once how we all once were, innocent and compelled to continue on the paths of our lives the way that the nature of society intended us to. It really goes to show how fucked up he had it. This draws me back to the butterfly effect, was there one decision by himself, or inflicted upon him by others that brought him to where he ended his life? Empathy is a theme he seems to disregard in his journal entries, and quite frankly, all of media and the world deems him as un empathetic because of his writings. We didn’t know how he thought of himself in his head, we didn’t know the guilt, destruction, and true pain he went through that was genuine. I find this a reason why there is much more weight put onto him within his person. “It’s only a tragedy if you think it is, and then it’s only a tragedy in your own mind.” (7/29/98) I suppose this is how we all (who empathize with E&D) feel and can relate to.

Thinking too much about his pain these days and what he once was and how he became what he was. Being truthful and honest are two different things. Being truthful, factual, what he did was terrible. Being honest, feelings, I have so much pain in my heart for how he was feeling. There’s nothing anyone can do now (whom empathize)

[insaniquariumfish]

Kind of wild how the LGBT+ community went from "gender is a harmful and arbitrary social construct that is completely separate from sex and that should be done away with so people can be liberated from its oppressive nature" to "actually the concept of abolishing gender is bigoted and transphobic because people need gender or else they'll kill themselves and also gender is objectively real and innate and present from birth" in what seems like less than a decade.

Like my views as a gender abolitionist wouldn't exist if it weren't for all the "actually gender is just a social construct" discourse that used to take place. Never mind how utterly nonsense it is to claim that gender itself is fake and made up but that gender identity is real and innate. How can you innately identify as a made up social construct? If you were born and raised as the only human on a planet occupied by genderless robots, would you still feel like wearing dresses or shaving your legs or wearing cargo shorts or chugging beer at a sports bar affirmed your gender? Would you even have a conception of gender at all? No! Because it's a social construct! And if your response to this is to say, "well, I would still have sexual dysphoria, so I would still be transgender," then you are conflating sex with gender and therefore sexual dysphoria with gender dysphoria and therefore transsexual with transgender, when those are not the same thing. Another concept that I was only introduced to because of queer discourse!

It honestly feels like the queer community is shifting into some kind of bizarro backwards inverse version of itself at this point. This is far from the only example of a radical shift in the kinds of ideas that are being spread, legitimized, and accepted that I've seen. Shit that would garner praise ten years ago for being progressive and enlightened will now get you canceled for being a bigot. Things that were staples of a queer understanding of the world are now derided as hateful and phobic. And this isn't a simple case of "well the times change and what we used to see as progressive we now realize was still pretty messed up," like core and foundational ideas and concepts are being cast aside and swapped out for ones that are fundamentally incompatible with, and sometimes even the direct opposite of, them. What happened?

[1eos]

could you explain more on the gypsy rose and guy who attacked the judge comparison? (how it has textbook ableism, racism, etc) it sounds kinda interesting but i don’t know what’s going on much

THANK YOU FOR ASKING!!!!

for gypsy rose its just rampantttttttttt 'perfect victim'-ism. i believe there is a term for the phenomenon but basically its like everyone will have disdain for an abuse victim unless they're dead then they're a statistic they can use for their own purposes. her mother was abusing and drugging her for years and wouldn't have stopped until she was dead but bc gypsy fought back literally at all and isnt constantly talking abt how she's scum of the earth some ppl are acting like she's some awful evil person and not an abuse victim who acted out of desperation. felt remorse. went to jail and is still on parole. and its misogyny bc we're living in a world that at the same time OBSESSES over and heralds male serial killers as ~geniuses~ that could outwit cops 🧍🏾‍♀️ its always 'women should be armed' and 'if i were abused i'd kill them' and then a woman gets rid of her abuser and its think pieces on how no one should be happy she's no longer being abused and even though its documented that she exhausted every avenue and begged for help and wasn't believed that there was 'another way'. bc abuse victims should just die in the court of public opinion esp a woman

and with the man....first the fact that him attacking the judge was treated as a meme was very weird and a form of misogyny like why is a woman getting jumped so funny? the racism came in in the most expected way. ppl talking abt how he should be put down, insinuating all black ppl are violent monsters/beasts/wild animals. just nasty stuff. one black person does something awful and that means the whole population should be culled according to racists online you get it. also when he showed back up in court they literally had him in a muzzle. and its like.............yeah that's definitely a talking point in a paper. and the ableism comes in bc ppl found out he's schizophrenic and all of the ppl who think mental disorders mean you're just uncontrollably violent w no control were like 'i feel so bad for him he was off his meds' and that's the juxtaposition btwn him and gypsy rose like she fought in self defense and ppl think she's a monster and he is defended despite not fighting for his life. and i believe no problem the jail withheld mental care but then it came out allegedly even ON his meds he was violent towards women but bc he's a man he will always have more grace and some circles of men see manhood AS violence esp towards women so theyre gonna defend that behavior or at least make light of it. and then just say it was his mental illness bc ableism tells ppl that if you have a spooky disorder then you're just violent and

but at the same time if gypsy rose was black. for one she'd still be in prison :/ so many black women kill their abuse victims and end up dying in jail :///// and if the black guy who attacked the judge were white they'd be doing anythingggggggggggg to make him 'redeemable' in the media. and the ableism would probably be even worse as a means to say the violence just isnt his fault! and if the judge were a man it probably wouldnt have turned into a funny meme but if the judge were a black woman then the leagues of ppl defending her would not be there bc white women are seen as innocent victims who never deserve violence (which fueled the racism he experienced tenfold) whereas black women DESERVE to be hurt for their attitudes. theyd be finding reasons to justify it.

idk just seeing these conversations happen at the same time just showed, to me, exactly how different identities preload different kinds of discourse!

[oneshortdamnfuse]

I’m still reeling from the fact that anyone can think this is a logical interpretation of my post explaining that The United States and Israel are participating in genocide by mass starvation of Gazans which has been a tactic used in genocides throughout history including the Holocaust. The Holocaust prefaced the post to contextualize my knowledge of refeeding syndrome, which is a phenomenon I first heard about in studying the Holocaust. No implied or explicit connection was made between Jewish people and Nazis, which is a valid concern within any discourse involving Israel. That’s why this response is so completely and utterly wild:

So Israel (Jews) is (are) historically connected to (responsible for) the holocaust, uniquely obligated to do no harm, and fundamentally dishonest. Not knowing you at all, I’d like to hope that you never would have meant for your post to be read that way. But it is an extremely predictable reading of your post, even if not the intended one. You’re knee-deep in antisemitic tropes, and that is fundamentally counterproductive to what I will continue to assume is your guiding principle — social justice and bettering the world.

This, here, is disingenuous because if you go back and look at my post there’s no implication that I was conflating Jews, Judaism, or Jewishness with Israel. No claim was made by me that Israel is historically connected to the Holocaust and thus, as A State, they are uniquely responsible to do no harm. That is a very horrible statement to begin with because, as A State, Israel is obligated to do no harm along with The U.S. We have international laws “protecting” human rights for that reason. They were taken to court for a reason. The United States and Israel have also repeatedly lied over the course of the bombing of Gaza. To then say that I am positioning Jews as “fundamentally dishonest” is an extremely bad faith take.

The above statement was also not made by a Jewish person. I want to make that very clear because when a non-Jewish person gives uncritical support to Israel and conflates Israel with Jews, Judaism, and Jewishness, they are both empowering Zionists and antisemites to view Israel as another word for Jews (See: “Israel (Jews)”). It emboldens Zionists in their belief that Israel is above reproach because any criticisms of them are “antisemitic.” It also emboldens antisemites to view Jews as universally responsible for the State of Israel’s actions against the Palestinian people - a people, I must remind you, who are not a religious monolith. Palestinian Jews preexist the State of Israel. For this reason, the conflation of Israel (A State) with Jews, Judaism, and Jewishness is harmful and dangerous.

I am also not Jewish, so I understand that I can have blind spots on this issue. However, this “reading” of my post is not “an extremely predictable reading” nor was it “knee-deep in antisemitic tropes” given thousands of people DID NOT interpret it that way. If you think that, then you need to work on how and why you closely conflate any criticism of Israel as A State with antisemitism. Claiming “Holocaust Inversion” as a diversion from criticism of Israel when Israel as A State participates in a documented genocide and uses tactics common across genocides clearly demonstrates an unwillingness to engage with reality - that Israel is an occupying power that is attempting to ethnically cleanse territories they’ve occupied of Palestinians using methods common in genocide.

You cannot claim Holocaust Inversion any time someone makes a comparison between the impact of the Holocaust on its victims and the impact of modern day genocides on its victims, just because that genocide happens to be perpetrated by Israel (among many other actors such as The U.S.) To say that starvation negatively impacted Holocaust survivors even after liberation due to refeeding syndrome and that we can see the same thing happening to Gazans isn’t Holocaust Inversion. This does not place blame on Jews for the condition Gazans are in nor make them collectively responsible for that harm. Further, to argue that criticizing States as dishonest and participating in political games is not to accuse an entire ethnoreligious group of being dishonest and it would be foolish to even think that.

The ultimate point of my post was to talk about the historical consequences of intentional starvation and refeeding syndrome (which I first learned about in my study of the Holocaust), how intentional starvation is used by states to commit genocide as it is viewed as a “passive” consequence of political turmoil, and place blame on The United States and Israel for the current conditions Palestinians are suffering under. I don’t feel bad about saying those things and I’m not going to coddle anyone who objects to criticism of either State. If I implied or made any explicit connection between Jews, Judaism, and/or Jewishness and antisemitic tropes, then I’d take accountability for that but that’s not been proven in the response given and I don’t trust feedback from people defending Israel in any way.

[class1akids]

Do you watch the anime or any reactors doing the anime? Cause it’s interesting getting the anime only viewer perspective now that the manga has ended, it’s wild to see how their experiences turn out with hindsight. Like recently when the anime did the dabi copied shotos new move reveal so many of them were shocked. Both because they thought dabi had died, that shoto killed him with his final move, and because it just kind of springs up out of nowhere so many people thought they missed something or it was a flashback to their fight not realizing what was happening. And now that the heteromorph plot line is getting its focus it’s interesting how well they’re taking how it’s handled compared to how some people felt at the end of the manga about how it’s handled overall with no more story left to expand on it. On top of that a common consensus seems to be the idea the villains won’t make it but now given Dabis surprise return it’s given way to ideas that the world will get a quirkless ending and the villains will live, I wonder how shocked they’re gonna be that they were originally right and their new ideas forming are actually wrong. I dunno it’s just weird this is my first time watching an ongoing show knowing how it all ends.

No, I barely watch the anime, tbh. There is very little I enjoyed in the endgame truly, and much of it feels bitter in retrospect too. I also have zero interest in re-treading the same discourse we had during the manga.

I'll tune in for the Todofam stuff.

[webshootersandwingdings]

In case you didn't see, there's a rumor going around that a Captain Marvel game may be in early development.

As someone who is into comics and games, I feel particularly attacked by this lol. Carol Danvers is my favorite hero. A Carol game is my ultimate pie in the sky dream.

She has been playable in a number of games on console and mobile, but I unfortunately believe this rumor to be untrue.

Here's why:

I have a lot of thoughts and I like to type, so this will be needlessly wordy. Scroll to the bottom for my TLDR.

First of all, rumors like this spread all the time. People just make stuff up and other accounts will spread it like wildfire. It happens constantly in the world of gaming just as it does in film.

But I don't think Marvel is willing to gamble on Captain Marvel to this degree.

I will preface what I'm about to say with a gentle disclaimer that The Marvels was not a great financial success for many reasons. I personally was disappointed by it, and think it has a lot of issues as a film. And I overall am not a fan of the way Carol has been adapted in the MCU. But casual fans generally enjoyed it. Marvel, however, did very little to actually ensure its success. Not even considering the strikes, they put little effort into marketing, promoting, and merchandising it. They let it release with all its issues. Even if you love it, you can see where it's messy with rewrites and editing.

On the comics sides of things, Marvel again keeps setting Carol up for failure by giving her to writers who either are unfamiliar with her or outright misunderstand and even openly dislike her. They don't even promote her comics. The final issue of Wong's arc just released last week and Marvel social accounts didn't even include it in their "New Comics This Week" posts. In my opinion, that is egregious. It definitely gives fuel to the "They only keep a Captain Marvel title going for copyright reasons" fire. It's not a good look. But it does give the impression that Marvel has little faith in Carol Danvers. Or at least, inconsistent support.

Now, video games are at a point in history where they cost more and take longer than ever before to produce. Development cycles for a AAA big budget game can be 3 to 8 years. The cost to develop, in the tens of millions. Insomniac's Spider-man 2 reportedly cost somewhere around $300 million. Creating a game like that is a huge investment, which in turn means it's a huge risk. Marvel's biggest moneymakers have historically been Spider-man and X-Men, so it's no surprise they would look to those properties when considering video games. With the MCU and the increase in Avengers popularity, you see a focus on Captain America, Iron Man, and Black Panther titles. But Captain Marvel has never been one of these titans of profitability. The first Captain Marvel film was an outlier. But it's clear that whatever reasons people flocked to the theaters to see it then did not stick. It may have made some new Carol fans, but it didn't turn Carol into a pillar of the Marvel Universe. And even though all reasonably minded people know the misogyny rooted reasons for the manufactured hate on her, the fact remains...She is a highly contentious character.

Almost all female led projects seem to become punching bags for the "anti-woke" masses, but Carol was really the trailblazer in a way lol, sadly. In no small part because of the wild misinformation spread about Brie Larson. But dislike for the actress has been transferred to the character, as tends to happen. Again, incorrect and presumptive takes on sales and popularity have made most discourse surrounding Carol Danvers extremely prone to toxicity. There even tends to be issues with fans of other female characters, as if Marvel is only allowed to have so many women-centered projects. The point is, Carol is divisive in a way most male heroes are not.

The unfortunate reality is that there has been a growing movement in the last few years of the same level of toxicity in the gaming arena. Painfully often, you will see clickbait over the shape of female character's chin as a "lack of femininity". Clout chasers and outrage bait accounts are working tirelessly to tear down and decry female creatives, female characters, and women in general who do not fit their ideals. If a woman exists in a way that they don't like, they claim she has been purposely made unattractive to demonize heterosexual men. If a women is competent, she exists purely to emasculate men.

All is "woke" all is "DEI" all is" forced diversity" ....Essentially, buzzwords for "there's a woman in this who isn't sexually satisfying to me" . . . With this being the current state of gaming, how successful do you think a Captain Marvel game would actually be? Realistically? Marvel undoubtedly knows this. I would love a Captain Marvel game. But would the general audience? Would causal gamers?

TL/DR:

Games are very expensive and cost a lot of time and money to produce. That means they have to sell a lot of copies to make any money. Carol is a divisive character that has a lot of baggage attached to her name at this point because of toxic online discourse, and there is a subset of male gamers who are atrocious about women-led games to the point of rivaling even the most toxic mcu 'fans'. It would be a huge gamble for Marvel to invest in. And I don't see them doing it for lack of guaranteed sales. If they did, it would probably be a smaller-budget AA title or the game would be an ensemble deal with Carol as a part of a larger cast.

Speculation:

If this was 10 years ago, the obvious first women of marvel led game basically writes itself. A spy-thriller / shooter starring Black Widow would have been extremely safe, if a little lacking in innovative gameplay. Many games like that already exist, so putting a Marvel Universe coat of paint on the genre would have been too easy. Today, there really is no clear lead for a sure success. Any woman of the X-Men is high in popularity, but I assume most fans would rather have an ensemble game with other mutants rather than a Rogue or Storm solo game. The next most popular female hero is probably Scarlet Witch. But Marvel may be unwilling to have a magic based game so soon after Midnight Suns, and if they did you know they'd probably do Doctor Strange before her, despite the legion of vocal Wanda fans who would be willing to support it.

It sucks because even though it's 2024 it's very clear how male dominated Marvel products still tend to be. I would love a AA She-Hulk game that combined Ace Attorney like court room text based gameplay with side scrolling beat em up action...maybe even some dating sim elements. But after the She-Hulk show on Disney+, is Marvel ever going to invest in such a thing? With so much negativity and fake outrage surrounding almost everything starring a woman, what is Marvel willing to invest in?

In the past, Marvel has tried to prop up Carol as their Wonder Woman. But as I said, support for her has been inconsistent. Maybe it is that they know its a bad look for all their games to be male led and they want a competitor to the upcoming Wonder Woman game... but I feel skeptical.

Highly doubt anyone read all this, but it's nice to get my thoughts out in any case.

If Carol got a game, I would be beside myself with excitement. There'd be no living with me lol

[9w1ft]

I wasn’t. It just happened to be you just posted your tea post when I saw what she posted and made her statement once again. I really don’t know how can you all ignore stuff like that? I was a Karlie fan until yesterday I would defend her against everyone who spoke against her but i am not blind. I can call her out just like everyone else called Taylor for MH. Or any celebrity. This is not just about you this goes for all kaylor tumblr blogs. NO ONE SPOKE UP ABOUT IT!! NOT ONE! and no need to post this but we all know yall lurk twitter everyday because thats where u get the information and KK was heavily and rightfully cancelled for being a zionist and pro Israel.

well what karlie liked yesterday or posted to her stories a second ago certainly isn’t the way that i would have gone about it, if anyone needed to know my opinion, and frankly i was like ehhhh??? at any number of tweets i saw from celebrities yesterday, from hailey kiyoko to mark hamill to bernie sanders.. but it’s always like this.. public figures whose messaging goes through very weird calculations to become what it is. i assume it’s the same for karlie. but i’m letting it speak for itself.

in general world event days on twitter or instagram are full of american celebrities saying weird things and people taking stock of what everyone said.. and it’s just a lot to wade through for very little takeaway. sometimes when headlines from where i live become world news it’s weird to see the english speaking world talk about it and just say completely incorrect and wild stuff.. and for better or for worse i carry that awareness around when it happens with other places around the world and i just prefer not to contribute.

since you brought it up.. i’m not sure where the energy is coming from but twitter kaylors take ideas from tumblr all the time. maybe its hard to notice because a lot of times it goes uncredited. i do look at kaylor twitter because twitter is (or was) geared for searching real time information. tumblr is set up different and is better for different things so wouldn’t you say we both benefit from one another because of the differences in our platforms and the different value that comes from each?

i don’t want to host discourse about this topic so i’m not going to answer more asks on it but i did want to respond to something because i do understand a lot of people are hurt. i fully understand if that’s a dealbreaker for anybody in terms of following me and please just engage with stuff in a way that’s best for you.

[babybabymerrychristmas]

anyways reading that long ass post i forgot to talk about the joe aspect of it all but honestly i was thinking about how everytime something happens in the taylor dating universe, there are like the same 4 types of posts I see being made about taylor swift and honestly its like okay

i feel this getting rambly so like okay the reason people care about taylor's dating life is because taylor uses her dating life to her advantage. Even that famous quote of hers about the different language prescribed to different genders betrays a truth about her business practices that is obvious to anyone who paid attention during 2023 to her dating life and the truth of the matter is, taylor swift has and always will use her dating life to her advantage.

since folklore, starting with seven, taylor has voiced a story arc of her learning to accept her desire for attention. famous people want to be famous for a reason and that reason at its base level is attention or money, usually both. taylor's music pre-pandemic is very good girl era of her and post-pandemic, she has been slowly making music that is more and more disagreeable with the general public. she is more and more willing to portray herself as the villain because after 9 or 10 failed relationships, you have to start doing serious introspection.

it's extremely unlikely that anyone would be the perfect victim whose only problem was that "they loved too earnestly" in every single relationship they've ever been in. and ttpd exposes a lot of what most of the fandom knows to be true but doesn't want to accept for some reason and that is that taylor swift DOES use her dating life to her advantage. i personally dont see anything wrong with that because like duh, so does literally every other famous person out there? so many musicians sing solely about their dating lives and its only a problem when women accept that this is how they stay relevant in the media.

and like a consequence of taylor using her dating life to her advantage is that those people become public discourse. I think there is a reason why she doesnt say much of anything about her relationship with joe on any of these albums but especially ttpd because i do think that although taylor uses her love life to her advantage, she doesnt do so maliciously and has serious conversations with people about how much they care about being private with their love life.

the way she treats the joe relationship has stayed pretty consistent and she has only ever touched upon what in that relationship made her emotionally cheat and then date ratty in ttpd and thats probably all she will ever be comfortable doing because she knows she doesnt have joe's consent for their relationship to be used for her business purposes. i can see part of the reason why we only really get songs about them falling in love on every album is because that's a generic enough type of song that it doesnt say much beyond basic details of how they met and how he made her feel supported.

and so much of this album is taylor trying to come to terms with the fact that SHE chose her life with joe just as much as he did with her, which is why she ends up at "we both did nothing wrong" and "we just didnt know how to love each other correctly" several times on the record because SHE is just as much to blame for choosing to change herself for love. SHE made the decision to change her strategy when it comes to romance to hold onto the idea of what she thought it'd be like to be with joe.

and it's just wild to me to expect the fandom to not have opinions on quotes given to the public from the figures themselves about their feelings on the matter. like, i cannot make it any clearer that if a celebrity doesnt want you to know something, you wouldn't.

[beautifulpersonpeach]

another reason i'm happy for chap 2 is bts destroying all the narratives about them and women bpp. in the wild days of ✨discourse ✨ on tumblr, thank you for being the voice of reason. before i'd see people say bts avoids women because of armys, bts never works with women, bts hates women, bts has weird relationship with women, the relationships is weird because of armys. but what happened? rm worked with soyoon and now armys are listening to her music, became her fans, respecting her. jimin danced with women and nobody died. his female dancers are loved in fandom. suga has been working with women for a decade and the fandom never cared. all those bts - women theories and discourses just look so stupid now.

the same with the discourses about bts relating to other idols in hybe and general kpop. before covid bts played with txt and after covid in chap 2, bts returns playing with txt as their idol and comeback activities return to full. like normal like was always expected.

bpp my question is, where did these theories even come from?

***

Hi Anon,

It's funny, isn't it? I mean, on one hand there's always a faction of the fandom that believes the members belong to them and cannot date anyone (male or female), just as there is in every other k-pop fandom. But as you said, the talking points in certain k-pop spaces about ARMY's overall response to BTS working with women, being around women, having friendships with women, especially in contrast with how BTS relates to ARMY, has zero basis in reality.

Outside of the usual fandom tone-policing and checking y/n shippers (and taekookers), the whole idea of BTS - women - ARMY as a whole having any sort of weird relationship is a very recent thing too, because this is not a talking point I saw anywhere in the fandom before 2020. Going by some forums I was in at the time, I suspect this particular 'concern' was started by fans of other k-pop groups in 2020 and I'll just leave it at that. Like I vividly recall a Taemin stan telling me without preamble to wake up to the fact BTS is "kept away" from women. With BTS's long history of working with and interacting with women whether or not ARMY was in the picture, none of those theories made any sense to me.

It's such an odd thing to even debate or discuss given everyone can see with their own eyes how that dynamic has played out for the last 10 years. There's no conspiracy or anything to even theorize about, far as I'm concerned, because many of their female friendships and work relationships are well known.

Nobody lost their shit when Ryujin was spending time with BTS, when she filmed the reel with BTS, and afterwards when she talked about working with them. And I can list off 10 other women (at least) who this is true for too.

I hear you too about BTS working with other idols especially within HYBE. It's true that while touring in 2019 BTS was very busy and appeared 'removed' from TXT who where just ramping up, and that since 2015 BTS had focused more on curating their own content/variety shows given they'd been repeatedly disrespected and blackballed by the Korean media establishment. But they still interacted with other idols and after they clarified their plans for Chapter 2, just continued as expected. But somehow, the talking point of BTS feeling 'too proud' to interact with the rest of k-pop (by k-pop stans), that too took on a life of its own, and was made to seem more nefarious than it actually was. I still find a bit amusing tbh.

I think one reason these sorts of theories about BTS and the most innocuous things get obsessed over as fact by k-pop stans, is because for a group like BTS, those people have nothing else to say. There's very little you can actually hold against a group like BTS. And I'm not saying that just because I'm a fan. The fact is with the history most k-pop groups have, very few of them could last anytime at all in BTS's position with the amount of scrutiny on the group.

A second reason is k-pop fans relying on pre-conceived notions about a group they don't like, and then applying the worst examples of issues they've seen in their own or other k-pop fandoms, to BTS and ARMY regardless of whether it applies. For example, VIXX is in the news lately because a member worked with a broker to dodge military service in Korea, but before now that group was notorious for some of the most disturbing kinds of fan-service I've ever seen in k-pop.

Exhibits:

A female fan giving Hakyeon her thong to sign

(A lot of k-pop stans back then and today think this is cute, but imagine for a second if this was a BTS member and ARMY lmao)

*

The group members designing thongs and other lingerie for their female fans

(I mean, I can see how this could be a flex but imagine for one sec if this was in BTS's history)

*

And there's the group including a BDSM contract for their fans in their album

(Almost 10 years later and I still don't know what to say...)

*

Another example is members of Shinee saying point blank they can't talk about their dating life because their fans have told them they don't like it.

I mean, imagine if BTS did any of that today. Heck imagine if they did that years ago. K-pop stans are still making them pay dividends for War of Hormone and mixtape lyrics from 2015, even after a Women Studies professor vets their work, even after HYBE has female CEOs for their sub-labels, and even after on Blind in Korea female workers say HYBE is the best company in the entertainment sector to work for.

A lot of the talking points, criticism, or discourse around BTS sounds bonkers, especially if you know what else is going on in the industry, what other groups are doing or have done with nary a mention from the wider k-pop fandom.

It reminds me of how Jimin was getting flamed for missed insurance payments because someone stole his mail, while during the same day the news broke, Yang Hyun-suk (the guy who manages BlackPink and is debuting Baby Monster this summer) was in court after a former female trainee in his company claimed he threatened to kill her, gave her drugs, and pimped her out. If you took a look at the trending k-pop pages on Twitter or k-forums, you'd think Jimin was the one facing a sentence and not the guy that remains at the helm of YG.

Because as I keep saying, for many k-pop stans, the underlying issues are less important than who those issues are about. Apply the same thinking to the theories you see about BTS and women.

Even in the case of outright dating rumors in the past 10 years, the fandom didn't collectively lose their shit. Jennie's case being the exception because she had the double misfortune of triggering the most unhinged side of the fandom (taekookers) and belonging to a group whose fandom has some of the most extreme rivalries with ARMY, and so many from her fandom worked to disprove it as virulently as taekookers did. I consider Jennie an anomaly for that reason because there have been several examples over the years when nobody cared. For example when the dating rumors of Jimin with Seulgi from Red Velvet happened, the most people did was speculate and move on...

*

I've rambled lol, but anyway, what I mean to say is that agree with you Anon.

[necroromantics]

I am not trying to bring up anymore shit by any means, I just wish to say this anonymously. You have every reason not to reply to this ask or just delete it! I know that we are all tired of this drama by now, on both sides

I used to be a member of the server that Tulip was in, I left because the atmosphere (not really caused by Tulip since I left in early February to late January I believe?) was getting really tense for me because of discourse and drama talk

I used to be passive mutuals with Tulip and several others in the server and kinda considered them my friends. So now seeing all the drama happening now has been wild for me

Hey man I completely understand how weird it must be to see everything go down like this. I know theres been a lot of drama, especially regarding those two. I believe that everyone is free to have their own opinions and level of involvement in this all, and Im choosing to stay out of it as best as I can for my own mental health, and if its causing you any stress I highly recommend to do the same.

I think whats important is that Outkast and Tulip take some time to reflect on their wrongdoings, just as they expect others to, and to learn and grow from it. They're still human beings at the end of the day, so don't worry about picking sides or "turning" on them or anything that might be stressing you out yknow?

I know firsthand how tiring this drama is, so please make sure to take care of yourself first and foremost

[platypusmonstah]

C3E77

I don't ever participate in discourse or discuss anything plot-wise to any shows, movies, or any other entertainment media, because, well I just don't wanna. I try to keep my opinions to myself and just enjoy (or hate) things on my own.

Before I go into this I will admit, I am not a fan of Ashton, don't hate the characters, I am just indifferent to them. I don't care about the pity party we have been watching for the past 2 years, them being left behind, the savior complex, and whatnot. I admit, that I am not so versed in the punk scene and what it's about (I am pretty sure it's not about feeling sorry for oneself, but I could be wrong) so perhaps this is where my indifference comes from? I don't know, they are not my cup of tea that I would enjoy. I do admit that the character has changed since we first saw them, for the better.

That being said, Taliesin plays them VERY well. So much so that sometimes it is hard to see where one starts and one ends. You can't tell if a fuck up is from Ashton doing Ashton or Tal misunderstanding what's going on. I don't know.

Personally, I am a bit miffed (just a tiny bit, it actually kinda passed because, well, this show is not created for me, the whole thing is Matt building this for them so who the fuck am I to judge what they do, I'm just here for the wild ride), because yes, the 3rd campaign is 2 years in, but in-game its only been 80 days. They had that shard for 1 day. Just 1 day. They were about to go on a scouting mission on the fricking moon. This mission is not gonna be a big bad boss fight. So using the shard was not the number 1 priority. And even if in the end Fearne refused it, there are other party members, or even other characters that could have absorbed it. I digress.

I do think Matt went too easy on Ashton and Tal. Yes, he presented the red button, but that button was glowing and had multiple warnings pointed toward it. Whether he went easy because he was not prepared for this, or he went easy on it because he didn't want to fuck up the party and campaign, we will probably never know. It would have halted the campaign, had Ashton died. People are praising Taleisin for doing this, and how it was so brave, but I wonder if they would have thought the same if it backfired and Ashton died. Who knows.

The second half C3E77 was stressful af. There were a lot of instances in all 3 campaigns that were stressful and made me almost pull a Marisha and perch. Characters doing stuff that made you wanna throw something at them. And in the end was worth it. It helped the party, it pushed the story forward. This will also. What soured it this time for me, was the gloating at the end. Taliesin gloated, not Ashton. Ashton would have been dead dead had it not been for Fearne, FCG, and that ring. Tal gloating was jarring, and for that, I hope they gave him shit after the episode.

But ultimately I am happy it worked out in the end. Because if it didn't, I'd feel horrible for Ashley. She was the only one who knew what was gonna happen. She already had to choose once who lived and who died, and she felt like shit for weeks afterward. I don't even wanna entertain the idea of how she would have felt if Ashton died.

[semi-imaginary-place]

I watched Interstellar and 2001: A Space Odyssey

Interstellar: manifest destiny, exploration conquest, the white settler colonialism fantasy. something like 5% of oceans have been explored and you want to relocate planets smh. engineers and physicists are real scientists but the plant bio and ecology needed for successful agriculture is for the uneducated and stupid huh. "Blight" is wiping out all crop species. Either those crops got too specialized to survive without human care and herbicides, or like all angiosperms got wiped out in which case eat pine nuts or something. creative problem solving. Toxic masculinity? Why does only cooper have the redneck accent but none of his kids Good science tho like with the black hole or ammonia atmosphere. I do think sending your brightest minds into a death trap is a terrible idea like at that point you are breeding yourselves to be stupid. Most unrealistic part is that they don't have drones, they are sending inefficient humans to do things manually while amazon is over here navigating cities to deliver packages the same day No way they got video feed you know how much data that takes compared to audio or text Corn discourse. oh the corn discourse i could give here Grow some fucking algae. don't have bare soil. live underground with a hepa filter. i am going to scream. This film needs solar punk soooo badly. I am chewing on the screen for some sustainable farming. i going to beat the creators over the head with a science textbook. A captain going down with the ship. Why save humanity if other species or the integrity of earth can not be saved. Why is humanity's survival a priority. If Dr. Mann ran out of supplies how is he going to support a colony, even with the new ship. Ah he lied. Newtons 3rd law only getting somewhere by leaving something behind. Plan B. Cooper. No way he's alive in a black hole Space oddessy 2001 moment Wait wait. What did that equation do again? That was for plan A right? mass migration of humanity off of earth. Why did they need that equation again? I forgot. And this leads to saturn space stations? Sound track is great I cried at the point of the death bed reveal that they cant go to earth but i did not cry for the astronauts (also side note the soviets won this round cosmonaut is a better name), i cried for the Earth that had been exploited to the point of collapse and then abandoned. i mentioned this in an earlier post on "who turns off the lights", if humans had removed their influence and left the planet in joy for it to continue its existence without humans that would be one thing, but to destroy it and refuse to take responsibility for that like in the movie angers me. The Dust Bowl was a man made disaster. the dust bowl happened because of unsustainable agriculture (like unless american farmers switch to soil retaining practices and sustainable agriculture the US is going to run out of topsoil in like 100 years). modern pandemics both agricultural and human are caused by humans, the increasingly global range of markets means there's far more transmission of possible pathogen agents than ever before and due to changes in land use and human encroachment on natural areas (as well as displacement of wildlife ex: slash and burn) there's increased contact between wild animals and humans so more chances for diseases to jump. I've got complicated feelings on interstellar. on one hand it's a well made movie and the physics is surprisingly good, i can see why people like it. on the other hand i am opposed to some of the core ideas and fundamental concepts of the movie that i mostly feel disgust and despair towards it and humanity. All these planets and only 10 were worth investigating, 3 had promising data, and 1 was barely habitable and you're already giving up on earth which was doing far more than supporting 1 human. this reminds me of all those times "smart" people logic themselves to the wrong conclusion, like you can use logic and still miss the point.

Man and robot get lost together in a space time wormhole out by saturn guided by some mystery incomprehensibly advanced civilization? You know what 2001 space oddessy time. Never watched but ive read its tvtropes page and its ao3. 20min of a bunch of people jumping around in monkey suits Interstellar is paced like an action movie, a marvel movie, it ends up felling generic in a way? space odyessy is much slower paced and feels refreshing compared to modern high budget movies. Like the whole sequence with clavius I really liked. It was subtle information dense (even if the actors forgot they were suppose to be in 0 gravity sometimes). Like how the movie shows through character interactions that Dr. Heywood is a very important and influential man, how delicate soviet relations could be during the cold war, and that while loving, Heywood isn't often home to spend time with his daughter. and then we just don't know what happens to them Hal introduces themself as foolproof, incapable of error, and unable to lie Is this why when hal did indeed make an error and a small one at that it got caught in a desperate control loop as thing spiraled further from what was suppose to happen hal took more extreme actions which made things worse. Did the robit develop a sense of identity, stake everything on that sense of identity and then have a crisis when the fundamentals of that identity were challenged? A snowballing and compounding situation HAL purposefully brings up how suspicious the mission is to dave. Guilt? Confession? Trust with dave? And this of course is the moment hal makes a mistake while in the pits of guilt about deceiving dave and coming too close to spilling secrets, dave who seems to be forming a friendship with them. …and now im psychoanalyzing the robot. Steven universe style halman gem GASLIGHT Now is murder girlbossing or gatekeeping Why did hal respond to dave at all? Why not take control of Dave's pod? Hmm probably should have a manual override for that Given the conversation hal initiates earlier and how they had regressed to their first memory. I think hal played that recording for dave Much slower definitely weirder. Just had to add a giant fetus huh. i like this better than interstellar it is far more visionary. cornfield chase is still a banger.

[whatsupspaceman]

i feel like people Do often know how to do this, especially in academic settings, but internetism and just often being young makes people be very vocal about their bad literary takes. most of this kind of debate and discourse i see comes from teens ect who haven't maybe, gone through a queer history learning phase (which is not necessarily their fault, it’s hard to find it without actively seeking it out bc of queer history and knowledge being famously suppressed, but that's a whole different conversation). or even just ... gone through enough english classes. it wasn’t until mid and late high school when i remember first really diving into the weeds of cultural context of certain novels we studied. (like fahrenheit 451, or Seamus Heaney’s poetry, or the handmaids tale, or whatever lit your curriculum goes into) This happens so much with speculative fiction especially- where the time period of something like fahrenheit 451 isnt considered when someone reads the book, and they don’t understand how the fear of the cold war and culture of television at the time colored that fictional dystopia- and some of it seems ridiculous in the context of the 2020s. (Speculative fiction and dystopia is always always more about commenting on the current state of the world, not actually trying to predict the future)

Not that ignoring context isn’t a real thing and a problem on the internet (with lit and i see it SO frequently with film). But so often it just comes from a little echo chamber of folks talking about queer representation as something that must be explicit and stated out loud and confirmed every time.

It’s understandable how this came about too: when the history of queerness in film is inseparable from overwhelming censorship and how creators tried their best to work with what they had- leading to subtext (and bury/punish your gays) as the predominant way queer cinema could even be queer, now that we don’t “have” to follow the censorship of the Hayes Code in the same way, subtextual stories seem simply like the artists werent trying hard enough to show queerness, or they didnt care to, or subtextual narratives made on purpose get conflated with queerbaiting (another whole different post). This causes problems when critically viewing modern queer stories, as obviously, subtext stories are still very important (the problem comes when that’s all there is), and it causes problems when modern audiences look back with the cultural expectations of today’s representation to older works of queer literature and cinema and other media—

that’s what leads to queer folks today going: “well, why isnt dorian grey a fully fleshed out gay narrative?” or, “brokeback mountain is problematic representation because of its tragic narrative and punishment of queerness,” instead of viewing these stories keeping in mind how differnt it was when and where they came from, and knowing how groundbreaking these stories were for queer people within the context. Even something as modern as steven universe or legend of korra, are not excempt from the “modern-goggles”, where we see every queer story’s flaws in what it lacks in representation instead of the way they pave the way forward and outward. This mindset traps people into thinking the more critical we are and the more progress we make, that one day there will be “perfect” queer representation. But that’s never been the “goal” of queer representation.

It’s to be allowed to tell queer stories freely without the weight of potential backlash from being too queer, having to be censored or artists being punished for making art (like Oscar Wilde). To tell stories without the weight of backlash because it isn’t good enough representation that encapsulates every single queer experience. It’s the freedom to tell shitty queer stories and subtexual queer stories and stories about queer people who aren’t in healthy relationships or aren’t good people or have to even have happy endings. When we have a piece of queer media that’s just so fucking bad, but that doesn’t mean it reflects or says anything about “queer media” or queer people as a whole.

I hope sincerely that this tendency to beat up every queer story for its flaws without the historical and cultural context of why they have those flaws will die down, but I also hope it means we are moving towards the time where we have so much wonderful and wild and uncensored and diverse and varying queer media that it’s ok to have queer media that sucks, too.

it drives me bonkers the way people don't know how to read classic books in context anymore. i just read a review of the picture of dorian gray that said "it pains me that the homosexual subtext is just that, a subtext, rather than a fully explored part of the narrative." and now i fully want to put my head through a table. first of all, we are so lucky in the 21st century to have an entire category of books that are able to loudly and lovingly declare their queerness that we've become blind to the idea that queerness can exist in a different language than our contemporary mode of communication. second it IS a fully explored part of the narrative! dorian gray IS a textually queer story, even removed from the context of when its writing. it's the story of toxic queer relationships and attraction and dangerous scandals and the intertwining of late 19th century "uranianism" and misogyny. second of all, i'm sorry that oscar wilde didn't include 15k words of graphic gay sex with ao3-style tags in his 1890 novel that was literally used to convict him of indecent behaviour. get well soon, i guess...

[makeste]

BnHA 323: “I Don’t Know How to Explain to You That You Should Care About Other People”

Previously on BnHA: Kacchan was all, “Izuku, I’m sorry.” Bakugou Stans were all, “[sobs for a week straight and tearfully awards him the Nobel Prize for character development].” Deku was all, “[faints in Kacchan’s arms].” Iida was all, “[trying to decide if Ochako genuinely tried to kill him a few minutes ago].” Horikoshi was all, “NO TIME FOR HUGS WE MUST GET BACK TO UA.” The civilians holed up at U.A. were all, “WE TOOK A VOTE AND DECIDED THAT WE’RE ALL GOING TO BE JERKS ABOUT THIS AND MAKE A BIG FUSS ABOUT YOU LETTING DEKU BACK INTO THE SCHOOL.” Deku was all “[stands there looking like he expected nothing less and breaking my heart more and more with each passing moment].” Ochako was all, “that does it, looks like I’m gonna have to do something about this... next chapter, that is.”

Today on BnHA: Flashback!Rat Principal is all “I just want you all to know that I spent nine million dollars turning U.A. into a giant Battleship-style grid that can burrow underground and zoom around in a giant subway maze because Horikoshi lacks a grounded understanding of both civil engineering and economics.” Back in the present day, Jeanist is all, “EVERYONE TAKE HEED, MY COMRADES AND I HAVE DEEMED IT EXPEDIENT TO CONVEY THIS AUSPICIOUS YOUTH BACK TO THIS STRONGHOLD. WE ANTICIPATE THAT WE MAY DEPEND UPON YOUR GOODWILL AND ACQUIESCENCE TO THESE TERMS.” The civilians were all, “NO.” Ochako was all, “EMPATHY, MOTHERFUCKERS, DO YOU SPEAK IT?!” The civilians were all, “oh shit.” Anyway so Ochako is a giant badass, but I’m a little worried that she’s going to get struck by lightning. Please come down from there.

so before we start this chapter, I would just like to apologize for having not posted the ch 321 recap yet, and would like to reassure everyone, and especially Iida who is staring at me with Sad Wobbly Guilt Trip Eyes, that I will get to that as soon as I can

OMG FLASHBACK??

yes please Horikoshi please show us more of class 1-A and their Deku intervention strategy jam sessions

oh dear

Iida you are too pure and good for this cruel world. [sprays the U.A. civilians with a water bottle] NO. BAD CIVILIANS! NO OSTRACIZING SCARED AND EXHAUSTED CHILDREN IN THE HOUSE

EXCUSE ME RAT PRINCIPAL WHAT’S WITH THESE MIXED MESSAGES

???

RAT PRINCIPAL: he’s free to return to us at any time!!

ALSO RAT PRINCIPAL: but it’s too risky for him to return to us

?? ??????? ?????????????????????

so now he’s going on about how strong the U.A. Barrier is, and how it’s comparable to the defensive capabilities of Tartarus. this would have sounded a lot more impressive before chapter 297 lol

OH!!!! HELLO, WHAT’S THIS!!!

A TIMELY CALLBACK TO A CERTAIN MYSTERIOUS EVENT WHICH HASN’T BEEN REFERENCED SINCE USJ? [U.A. TRAITOR MUSIC INTENSIFIES]

so now Rat Principal says he upgraded U.A.’s security systems with his own “modifications”, whatever the fuck that means. I mean look, I’ve been saying for a long time now that U.A. is the best place for everyone to hole up, don’t get me wrong. but that was mostly on account of there not being any other practical alternatives. but you’re making it sound like you figured out a way to actually make it Decay-proof or some wild shit like that

-- hold up, DID YOU ADD A FORCE FIELD. DID YOU TRICK THIS SCHOOL OUT WAKANDA-STYLE YOU CRAZY MARSUPIAL. HOLY SHIT. because that would actually be perfect

LMAO

WHAT KIND OF GALAXY BRAIN BULLSHIT. “NAH THERE’S NO NEED FOR A FORCE FIELD, LET’S JUST PUT WHEELS ON IT”

oh okay so the whole campus is basically capable of burrowing itself underground. that’s insane lol I wonder how they pulled that off. probably got poor Cementoss working overtime

blah blah blah so basically the entire campus is split into a grid and each section of the grid is capable of its own independent movement. lol this is just the Merone Base from KHR. you thought no one would notice this casual plagiarism ten years after the fact, but YOU UNDERESTIMATED YOUR AUDIENCE, HORIKOSHI

“joke’s on you imma just lampshade it” WELL ALL RIGHT THEN

“look at me I’m so fucking self-aware” fucking swear to god. I can’t believe this man is my favorite mangaka of all time smdh

“excuse me, I wasn’t finished describing all the rest of this bullshit yet,” Rat Principal breaks in impatiently. “we also added a steel wall all around the underground of the campus that’s 3000 steel plates thick. that’s fifteen fucking meters of solid fucking steel just fyi. and if anyone fucks around with any part of it the defense system will activate immediately! and also all of the plates are independently motorized, whatever the fuck that means!! in conclusion you’re gonna need a fucking tower crane to suspend all of your disbelief by the time I’m through with this paragraph”

“also Shiketsu is almost as reinforced as U.A. but not quite because we still had to make sure we were better.” but of course. and apparently the two schools are connected via a secret tunnel as Hagakure mentioned earlier

LSDKFJLSDKJFLK

“WAIT WHAT” LMAO YOU HEARD HIM, NOW INASA CAN VISIT YOU BOTH IN THE MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT AND TELL YOU ALL ABOUT THE WEIRD DREAM HE HAD. GOD BLESS YOU HORIKOSHI

(ETA: moment of appreciation for Shouto and Katsuki having the same thought at the same time and making Knowing Eye Contact and saying the exact same thing out loud in perfect unison like the best friends they are. what a blessed day.)

so Tokoyami is all “but wait if you engineered all this shit all the way back during the Band arc how did you even know that Tomura’s quirk awakening would become a thing, Horikoshi -- uh, I mean, Principal Nezu”

and Rat Principal is all “lol idk”

“basically I just woke up one morning and was all ‘say, you know what this school really needs? a fifteen-meter-thick underground steel wall, and the ability to break up into little pieces that individually zoom around wherever the fuck they want.’ jesus christ. lol if money and common sense were apparently no obstacle why didn’t you just teleport U.A. to the fucking moon or something. maybe I should shut up before I given him any ideas

dsfaelkjldkjgl

you heard it here first, folks, all of this cost a grand total of nine million U.S. dollars. well technically it cost “more than” nine million dollars. never has that distinction been more important lmao. are we sure this barrier was really made of steel and not cardboard? who the hell sold it to them, Ea-Nasir??

this is my favorite manga series of all time. yes I am ashamed

“in conclusion please do your best to reach Deku-kun” SO WHAT WAS ALL THAT NONSENSE ABOUT IT BEING TOO RISKY THEN. anyway thank you for this super informative and edifying flashback, Horikoshi. I will cherish it always. I don’t even want to read another translation of this absurdity lmao, there’s something special about it just the way it is. pretty sure Horikoshi just had a cracked out fever dream one night and transferred it to the pages of the manga verbatim

anyway so back to the unruly mob

not their finest moment. please excuse me while I cover poor Deku’s ears and give him a good shoosh pap

oh wow the parents are out here too

is Mitsuki trying to hold Inko back?? that’s the last thing this fandom needs right now is more Mitsuki discourse fffwlkjs. and even Jiroudad, scientifically proven to be the best dad in all of BnHA, is just standing there silently looking vaguely unhappy. way to rise to the moment you guys

MONOMA

so this settles it for me that Aizawa is not at UA. I know a lot of people have been wondering about his whereabouts, and if I had to wager a guess it would be that something happened with Shirakumo/Kurogiri. I can’t think of anything else -- even the loss of an eye and a limb -- that would keep him from his kids at a time like this

anyway but this is excellent Monoma content right here though. I love that he apparently adopted Eri after a single interaction with her. also WHERE IS SHINSOU DAMMIT. THE PEOPLE NEED TO KNOW

and Kouta’s there too looking like he wants to run over to Deku but Ragdoll won’t let him :/

it’s gotta be pretty upsetting for him to see his hero like this and not having anyone stand up for him. [taps megaphone] IS THIS THING ON. OKAY YEAH IT SEEMS TO BE WORKING. AHEM. PAGING URARAKA OCHAKO. GONNA NEED YOU TO GET OVER HERE ALREADY AND MAKE THAT BIG DRAMATIC SPEECH WHICH YOU ARE CLEARLY DYING TO MAKE. IF YOU DON’T DO IT SOON I’M GONNA HAVE TO STEP IN, AND YOU REALLY DON’T WANT ME TO DO THAT SINCE MY SPEECH WILL NOT BE VERY GOOD OR INSPIRING, AND WILL PROBABLY JUST CONSIST OF “HELLO, YOU ARE ALL STUPID, PLEASE SHUT UP AND GO AWAY”

so now Mic is telling them to calm down. at least someone’s speaking up here, geez

OH MY GOD

MY MAN JEANIST OUT HERE DOING WHAT HE DOES BEST: MAKING EVERYONE FEEL GUILTY AND JUDGED

OH MY GOD HE IS GIVING SUCH A LONG AND BORING SPEECH LMAO IS YOUR STRATEGY TO PUT THEM ALL TO SLEEP OR WHAT

truly in awe of this man’s ability to take messages which could easily be conveyed in ELI5-speak, and stubbornly convert them into incomprehensible language the likes of which you need a graduate degree in order to understand

“hey guys, so originally our plan was to use Deku as bait for the villains, but that didn’t really work and also we realized it was kinda dumb and was probably gonna get him killed, so we brought him back here instead.” was that really so hard, Jeanist. also are we all really just gonna sit back here and watch Jeanist take full credit for Bakugou’s plan just like that lmao

(ETA:

WHERE DID ENDEAVOR GO AND WHO IS THIS DIABOLICAL MASTER OF DISGUISE. lol I genuinely didn’t notice this because I was too busy digging through thesauruses trying to rewrite Jeanist’s speech; many thanks to @class1akids​ for pointing it out and making my day immeasurably better. take it easy there Dick Tracy.)

“anyway so please stop being dicks and let him fucking rest so he can save all your ungrateful asses” what an impassioned and inspiring plea. time to see if the masses will listen to reason

narrator: they did not listen to reason

oh my god finally Ochako is doing something. YEAH OCHAKO WOOOO SHOW THEM HOW IT’S DONE

hmm

this entire chapter is truly and utterly nonsensical to me lol

(ETA: on my second readthrough I’m fucking dying at how she stole the megaphone right out of Mic’s hand lmao. and how Kacchan is all “fuck yeah nothing I appreciate more than some quality fucking larceny.”)

oh I see she was jumping on top of the main building so as to scream down at them all more impressively

“ANYWAY DEKU IS PRETTY COOL ACTUALLY, YOU GUYS ARE JUST MEAN” couldn’t have said it better myself Ochako

lol uh

gotta say I did not have “Ochako reveals the secret of OFA to the entire U.A. Citizen Clown Parade” on my bingo card for this week. it’s a bold strategy cotton let’s see if it pays off

SDLFKJSL

“NO, SERIOUSLY, HAVE YOU LOOKED AT HIM YOU GUYS. YOU THINK HE LIKES RUNNING AROUND DRESSED LIKE A RUSTED OIL DRUM?? HE DID THAT FOR YOU YOU UNGRATEFUL SLOBS”

so she is basically explaining the entire Deku Angst arc to them and explaining what a good and selfless protagonist Deku is, YES, PREACH

OMG IT’S THE GIGANTIC FOX LADY

not to insinuate anything, but what exactly were you doing standing out here with the hysterical mob, Gigantic Fox Lady? you’re better than that

-- KACCHAN SIGHTING!!

sdlkfjl. thanks for weighing in with that helpful and important observation. where have you been for the last five minutes. were you asleep. was it Jeanist’s speech

never mind, now he’s yelling at the civilians so I instantly forgive him

THE FUTURE NUMBER ONE HERO, EVERYONE. THANK YOU, THANK YOU. HE’LL BE HERE ALL WEEK

“anyway so I’m just going to end the chapter here” lmao seventeen pages truly do go by so fast. at least he didn’t try to force in a cliffhanger at the end this time. dare I say, growth

so I guess the civilians are either gonna have a Kamino and/or Fukuoka-esque moment where they remember how to be decent people and apologize to this poor young man, or else they’ll remain unpersuaded, and so Kacchan will have to knock a few of their heads around until they become more inclined to be reasonable. either option is fine by me lol