#so when people say 'get a better degree' 'apply online/apply in person' 'start at the bottom' I say 'kindly shut your mouth'

[rabbits-of-negative-euphoria]

i need the employed people to understand the job market is not like it was when they were unemployed.

[starastrologyy]

Astrology Observations

Hi everyone! Thank you for those who subscribed to my Patreon! I really really appreciate it! My readings are still closed as I was at capacity in June. However, I plan on opening them again in August xx This will be a brief post as I’m currently working on content for my patreon (if you would like to subscribe to get access to exclusive content the link is in my bio). I will still try my best to post on heat though! Thank you again for all your support :) I started this blog a year ago not thinking anyone would even see it! I’m so grateful for you all!

I get asked a lot about Solar Returns in my asks! Though some astrologers read them as stand alone charts, I always recommend that you interpret them using your natal chart as the reference point. I will say I have seen things manifest just using the Solar Return by itself (meaning you are reading and Interpreting it as it’s own chart). However, there’s a lot more accuracy when you place the solar return planets/rising signs in your natal chart. For example, if your Solar Return rising sign is in Leo but you’re a natal Sagittarius rising. Your 9th house will be activated that year (because Leo falls into your 9th house). Thus, themes surrounding higher education, international travels, and your beliefs will likely be highlighted that year. Your solar return Sun will always be in the same sign as your natal Sun. However, it’s house position in your solar return chart will change from year to year. Another thing to remember is that because the outer planets move slowly, it’s not uncommon to have certain aspects for consecutive solar returns. For example, you may see that you have your Solar Return Pluto squaring your Natal Sun for the third year in a row. As the years go by, the intensity will decrease but you will still feel the energy of the square (even if it’s subtle) until the orb is wide enough to not apply.

Whilst I’m still on the topic of Solar Returns, when you have your Solar Return Neptune conjunct your Solar Return Ascendant, you may take more pictures that year or find that you look better in pictures during that year.

Many people travel internationally for the first time or start college when their Solar Return Sun is in the 9th house. It can also be a year in which you are really focused on your religious or philosophical beliefs.

Mars square Pluto in synastry is one of my least favorite aspects (this is especially true of the orb is exact or at 2 degrees or less). If this energy is not properly handled/channeled it can create an extremely volatile dynamic between two people.

People with their natal Pluto in the 11th house tend to attract a lot of “frenemies”. They can also have a lot of really great friends in their lifetime but on the other hand they can also experience a lot of hurt, jealousy or betrayal in their friendships. Pluto is the planet of extremes. So, both are likely to occur when you have Pluto in the 11th house of a natal chart. These people may also come into contact with a lot of influential people in their life.

This is not really an “observation” just a little note on the Venus retrograde in Leo. I know so many people have been told to believe that their relationships will end or perhaps they’ll attract a new partner during this time. However, neither is necessarily the case. Of course Venus retrograde are about revisiting our values, finances, and relationships. However, you want to see where it is occurring in your OWN personal chart to see how it will apply to you. Those with their risings signs in Aries or Aquarius are more likely to hear from an ex or an old fling at this time as it is occurring in their 5th and 7th houses. Whereas, Leo Venuses are having their Venus returns so they will arguably be the most affected by this transit as they will need to reevaluate their relationships, finances, AND their values. If you have a Leo Venus you can pull up a Venus return chart online to get more information about how you will be personally impacted. If you are a Cancer Rising, this transit will occur in your 2nd house, so things related to finances, possessions, and values will be highlighted during this transit. If you are a Leo rising you may be reconsidering your physical appearance and how you show up in the world. You may be tempted to change your appearance during this time (however drastic changes to your physical appearance are not recommended at this time). I have a full post on how each rising sign will be affected by this transit on my patreon if you are interested 🤍

[obsidianpen]

Okay, so a lot of people here have talked about the use of AI and large language models such as ChatGPT, and honestly, I have mixed feelings. On one hand, I think that using them to help you proofread is fine. So spelling, grammar, and that sort of thing. And writers can also do this process themselves obviously, but I don't see the harm in using ChatGPT for this, as long as you are aware that you are giving your data and story over to OpenAI.

When it comes to ideas, bouncing ideas off of an AI can be fun, but only to the extent that they are completely your ideas (meaning the AI didn't come up with the idea for you and you aren't giving the AI information about someone else's ideas). So your idea your choice, but don't use the AI to get the idea for your work and don't give the AI other people's ideas or works. And this only really applies if you don't have anybody either in-person or online to do this with instead.

The last thing I'll say is that AI writing isn't the greatest. It can sound realistic and be cohesive to an extent, but it isn't the same as a real author. I actually tested this a few times because I was curious how it would turn out, and I promise that it is not a substitute or replacement for real authors. I think this is because ChatGPT and other AIs work by predicting what is the best/most likely word to come next in its response based off of the dataset it was trained on. It even has a function that allows some degree of randomness/variability in the next word, rather than only using the top/best next word each time. But this means it isn't coming up with new or inventive ideas. It doesn't come up with plot twists, it can't plan slowly developing arcs across multiple chapters, and it doesn't make the characters interesting to read, have a lot of depth, sound real, or so forth. There are more things too, but I'm just giving a non-exhaustive list of why ChatGPT's writing is not the same as a real author's writing.

Note: I apologize if this isn't clear or if I'm just rambling or if I made any typos. I'm writing this on my phone and have not had ChatGPT or other AI proofread it for me.

hm. I’d say there’s been a lot more discussion about whether or not Tom Riddle has a breeding kink (he does not; just a WAP kink) and about the height difference between Harry and Voldemort in NG (there are charts; they are, somehow, confusing). I don’t want this to be a recurring theme on this blog, so consider this my (very hopefully) last post on this topic.

My opinion on the matter: I don’t agree with your reasoning for using AI. You said you didn’t think it was an issue ‘as long as you are aware that you are giving your data and story over to OpenAI.’ I think you absolutely should care that you’re giving your data and story over to AI!!! You should care. Pretty much just sold yourself there as far as I’m concerned.

I don’t think anyone should be using AI for proofreading. I don’t know how great it is at this, but even if it’s amazing, I think you should be doing this yourself!!! Editing is a skill, and a great one to have. I catch a lot of things when I proofread my own shit; I realize I missed things or screwed things up - not just grammatically speaking but plot wise, which as you said, AI can’t help with anyway. Proofread your own stuff. Proofread your own stuff!!!! And if you want a second set of eyes on your work, ask a real human!!!!!!!!

re: bouncing your ideas off of AI… no!!!! Bounce your ideas off of PEOPLE I promise you will have much better conversations because they will be with someone who can think critically.

and the thing about chatGPT not writing super well… yeah, duh. But what some writers do is use shit like chatGPT as a starting point, then edit. It doesn’t come up with plot twists - unless you feed them to it. No one is arguing that it’s a good as a ‘real author’ but that doesn’t mean people who consider themselves ‘real authors’ aren’t using it. I think this sucks, because, in case we forgot, chatGPT uses theft as its foundation.

(and this isn’t even touching on the environmental shit concerning AI.)

In conclusion: I don’t think anyone should use it for anything creative. At all. Feel free to disagree (and you can post about that on your own blog), but if you lean on AI to edit or create your creative work, you’re only hindering yourself.

Note: I apologize if this isn't clear or if I'm just rambling or if I made any typos. I'm also writing this on my phone and have not had ChatGPT or other AI proofread it for me, nor would I ever.

[heartfullofleeches]

What if incel reader wants to turn a new leaf but V is making that extremely hard since he's fueling reader's gaming addiction and reader decides to leave him, albeit very reluctantly

(Angst time)

[Guys, I just got my first job! Didn't think anything would come in so soon since I just got my degree. Dont know when I'll have the time to log on, but I'll miss you. Take care.]

It happened again. This is exactly why you rarely played multiplayer anymore. Time and time again, people would detail their milestones in life, never to be seen again. New career. A baby. The list went on and on and on. It made you think about your life. Quitting your job and leeching off someone who gave you his all to play video games nearly twenty four hours a day. It's pathetic. You're pathetic- but you dont want things to stay this way.

You tried so hard to turn yourself around. Applying to jobs in the area, cutting back on your time online. The jobs never got back to you and V would remind you of a new dlc coming to a game you loved, pulling you right back in. V. You don't want to admit it. You wished for a reality where it wasn't true, but he was your biggest obstacle. His care, as well meaning as it was, was weighing you down and leaving you forever a shell of the person you were growing to be. If you wanted to get better, you'd have to let him go.

"H-hey, V. There's something I need to talk to you about. Before I start, I need to say that it isn't you. I love you, but I can't do this. Maybe, in a few years we can meet up and start over, but for now I-"

You choke. Tears flow in your reflection. You break down, crying over the bathroom sink for the millionth time. Even in practice, you can't stop yourself from falling apart. Your cries rebound against the walls, through the crack in the door where angry eyes watch as you wilt away on the bathroom floor. They're torn between comforting you, and breaking your computer to atoms. As much as it bound you to him, V always knew there was a possibility that it could tear you apart just as easily. He decides to take the third option, and quietly leaves the house.

-

"Fuck. Fuck. FUCK."

V slams his fist into the steering wheel. He claws at his skin, picking at his filth ridden body and attempting to relieve his air flow as he hyperventilates. You can't leave him. You can't. He can't go back to watching you from afar, wondering how you feel beneath his touch. Having that beautiful grin directed at him. He felt horrible to see you in so much pain, but he refused to accept fault. To let you go. He just had to ease up, give you some of the freedom you so desperately craved.

-

You're sitting on the couch when he finally returns home. He uncharacteristically quiet. You rise, chewing on your lips.

"V, I-"

He hugs you. "It's okay."

Your eyes water. "No, it's not."

"I was here earlier..." He squeezes you tighter. "I heard everything you said."

By the way he shakes, you can tell he's crying too.

"I'm sorry..."

"Don't be... Let me help you."

"How can you possibly help?"

"My parents. They own a company. We can get you a job. Mail room, office work, it doesn't matter. We can switch off on the housework, go out more. Please...."

"I don't want to lose you, Y/n."

You crumble, sobbing like a baby as you cling onto him and use his shirt to catch your tears. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry. You've done so much for me and I was just going to leave."

V hushes you and rubs circles into your back. "It's okay, baby. You'll get better and everything will be okay. Okay?"

You sniffle as he wipes and kisses away your tears. "Okay..."

"Good. I'm gonna go take a quick smoke, but while I do, you go get dressed so we can actually go out tonight. Sound good?"

"Yeah.." You smile a bit. "It does."

"Good." V kisses your forehead and you part ways. Walking outside and leaning against the railing, he pulls put his phone and dials a number. What he didn't expect was an answer on the first ring."

"Hey, Mom?... Yeah, it's me. Listen, I need you to do me a favor. Can you give my partner a job? Nothing too crazy, just something to keep them on their toes. Give them a couple promotions maybe, then fire them in a few months. The cameras in the main building are up to date, right?"

[my-deer-friend]

Hii I have a bit of personal question, if that is alright. I am very interested in the American Revolution but I do not live in America. I would like to become a historian or researcher of that time period one day. As a student do you think it is difficult to be a historian of the American Revolution when you are not American? I get a lot of books and information online, but I do not think it is the same as being in a place? Do you think your school program a good stepping stone to get into an American graduate school? Is that something you want to do one day?

Sorry for all the inquiries, you are just the only person on here who is in a similar situation as myself! Best wishes to you!

Hi Anon! This is a really good question, and I'll do my best to answer it as both a history student and a university professional.

(First, I'll note that my interest personally is not primarily in the American revolution, but rather in the 18th century more broadly. That includes lots of angles that I can pursue in Europe, not least looking at relations in the Atlantic world, the "republic of letters" and the enlightenment, and thematically I'm interested in queer history, which can be studied everywhere. I also have no desire to live in the US. But, yes, let's assume AmRev is the focus.)

There are different considerations for undergrad vs postgrad.

Undergraduate

At undergraduate level, it doesn't matter too much where you study. At this point in your journey, broadly speaking, the focus is on developing your academic skills, learning established content about your topic, and exploring a range of scholarly interests (not just the topic itself, but how to research that topic – i.e. methodologies). As long as your university has a department for American history, or even better a major, you're fine.

While you're busy with your degree, you can supplement your learning about the period in a lot of ways, including:

Using your own library to access books, journal articles and databases (and getting materials through inter-library loans if need be)

Using the vast and ever-growing online resources on American history provided by institutions like the Library of Congress, American universities and libraries (e.g. NYPL)

Where something isn't already available online, contacting the archive that has it and seeing if you can get a copy (I wrote a post about that)

Talk to your history prof about your interest, and they will probably be able to suggest some avenues to pursue. One very useful tool is to look up the AmRev curriculum or syllabus from other univerisities and see what readings and topics they cover (just google: "american revolution" syllabus). Here's one that came up.

And then – and I'll put this point in bold because it's the most important thing I'll say here:

👉✨Attend conferences✨👈

Conferences are where you make invaluable connections with like-minded scholars, hear about new research, find out about opportunities (scholarships, programs, funding, etc.), discover what a career in academia actually looks like, get advice from people already doing the job you want to do, and so on. There are even conferences specifically for undergrad students, or there might be a track at a generalist conference that allows emerging researchers to present on a topic. Lots of these take place online (hence, cheaper), or you might be able to apply for funding from your university to attend (or idk you have a fabulously wealthy great-aunt).

Postgraduate

While undergrad is more about learning, postgrad is more about finding out. The higher up the ladder you go, the narrower your focus becomes, and you start to need more specialised guidance. To get the most out of your learning, you need to go where the experts are, and naturally, many of the most cutting-edge scholars on American history are, well, in America. You'll want to be surrounded by a community of like-minded scholars. And yeah, "being there" can be important not just for better access to primary materials, but also for insights that come from physical, social and cultural proximity.

That said, I don't think it's impossible (or inadvisable) to study the American revolution outside of America; it's just trickier. Doing that successfully comes down to 1) finding the right advisor and 2) choosing the right topic.

By this point, you should know who the leading scholars are in your particular niche of interest. Nobody really studies "the American revolution" writ large; rather, they (and you) will focus on the political or racial or sociocultural or regional or culinary or-- whatever aspect of it. It might just happen that the people in your field are located near you.

You can also approach the topic from a different angle – start from a local point of interest that you can to relate to the AmRev. (Maybe you're Italian, and you know about Italian History Blorbo who went to fight in the war, and there's a story to tell there. Maybe you're Dutch and you have things to say about the intricacies of the financial and political support the Netherlands gave to America. And so on.) This might, in fact, lead to novel insights and perspectives that haven't been explored yet.

Good luck to you!

If anyone wants to share their own experiences, please feel free!

[yourlocaldisneyvillain]

How did you go about talking to and meeting your mutuals? This girl here needs a step by step on how to socialize online (and offline let's be honest), send help.

literally just say hello and start talking about something! sometimes the convo sticks, sometimes it doesn't. you can try a couple of times, but if you're not Vibing move on and don't dwell on it, you're just not on the same frequency. some people aren't interested in socialising or making friends, or are too shy, but then that's no concern of yours. there will be people you'll vibe with and who'll want to talk to you. but the key, i think, is time. you can't make friends in a day. you need to consistently talk to someone in order to even get a sense of who they are as a person let alone whether you truly vibe together. some of my mutuals i met irl and have plans of meeting up with them again! i prefer real life interactions to texting, but i will text if there are no other options haha. video calls are also good, i try to schedule those when i can bc i am a terrible texter (i hate typing and i forget to respond). as for offline friendships, kind of the same rules apply. start casually, bc people don't like the pressure of like. Having To Be Friends With Someone Immediately, and the older people get the less the "hey wanna be friends" line works lol. i know it personally puts me off lol. give it time, talk, see how you vibe and a friendship will develop naturally if the base for it is there! start somewhere and be persistent in your interactions (to a reasonable degree, like don't persist if the other person isn't interested in talking). cast a wide net, don't focus on just one person. after a few weeks there will be people who Stick Around, you'll sort of filter through them. and then you can go from there! i still wouldn't consider those friends just yet, it takes a bit more than that, but it's a good start! friendship takes time, both online and irl. i highly suggest you do the same thing irl, it's really, really good to have friends who are physically nearby. cast a wide net, socialise, don't be afraid of being "awkward" (people are so often awkward and it has stopped no one in adult age, people just accept you as you are most of the time, and say huh okay that's a weirdo but they're kinda fun!) and see who you vibe with the best. don't attach yourself to people who very obviously aren't interested in you, just do yourself a favour and move on. rejection is normal and nothing special lol. also make sure you aren't hanging out with someone just bc they wanna hang out with you. ask yourself who you genuinely like. better to be alone than in bad company! just START and persist, and don't get discouraged when there are no immediate results.

[joys-of-everyday]

Attachment

I have been away for a while, during which I have finished a degree (whoo!) and lost all of my drafts (sad!). I had a fancy website for organisation and I closed the tab and 6 months passed and I simply cannot remember where they have gone. So, back to word documents and I’m never putting my faith in a website again, at least not without bookmarking it. Any threads I was working on are gone. Adios! Probably for the better, since I’ve lost my momentum on them.

I’ve sufficiently curated my feed such that fandom discourse mostly doesn’t reach me unless I actively go out and search for it, and who has time for fandom discourse when you’re crying over exams, but inevitably SY vs SJ drama peaks in sometimes and… isn’t discourse so fascinating? Don’t you want to overanalyse it like you have nothing better to do in your life?

I love discourse, truly. It gives me so much joy.

You know, back in the ancient days (2020), I got into cpop. Cringe. Why is the idol fandom like this? Why am I like this? Anyway, I discovered an idol whose words… touched me. Deeply. Utterly transcendent. Relatable af. My gawd my blorbo understands me like nobody else etc. etc. I literally wrote down quotes and stuck them to my wall, that was how far it got (and I didn’t even have the excuse of being a teenager).

Now, unsurprising to those with any awareness of how the internet operates, as quickly as discovering the parasocial love of my life, I ran into the fans and the antis. ... .... *sigh*. There’s a lot to say about the dynamic of these groups, but what strikes me about that time is a vivid memory of obsessively reading anti content and feeling… well, hurt. More than hurt. Personally attacked. It was like everything I found relatable in this idol was being publicly criticised by the faceless masses, and all my worst fears about how people hated me were right there on the screen. I had to remove myself from idol news because it was really starting to get to me.

And as much as it was distressing, it was fascinating for me experiencing it, because I was a sensible adult (questionable) by this time! I knew the difference between reality and fiction! (and idols, as a brand, are basically fiction) But in relating to a figure on screen, in attaching a metaphorical part of myself to that figure, I’d opened myself up to a strange kind of vulnerability. Through this proxy, I’d put myself out into the world, and was automatically interpreting any negativity, regardless of whether it specifically applied to me or not, as an attack on me.

This, of course, is stupid. They weren’t attacking me. They didn’t even know of my existence. Even if, yes, the things being criticised were sometimes related to me and my experiences, 1) they were not criticising me and 2) online criticism tends to be… a teensy bit exaggerated.

To bring this back slightly, fictional characters can be an extremely powerful way to work through feelings that are a little bit too ugly to confront with directly. Maybe I’m weird, but I do this intensely. Most of my emotional processing involves sobbing over made-up situations involving fictional characters at inconvenient times of the day. The flip side to this is that what should be not-that-deep discussions on fictional characters are quick to turn personal, and are completely blown out of proportion in my mind.

I don’t really have a point here. This is mostly a self-conceited ramble about some experiences I’ve had. But some advice, which you are welcome to ignore if it’s not relevant: you are not a character on a screen. Any judgement of characters on screens are not a judgement of you as a person. And if it ever feels like it’s getting to you, go touch grass. Or open a window. Or - as my algebraic topology lecturer liked to say - drink a vat of gin. Whatever works for you.

[ddeonghwa-s]

for the ask game: 2,3,12,24,38 💌

i hope you're having a lovely day/night!!

-bintific

omg ty sm! <33 i hope you have a good day/night and that everything goes well for you :)

2. show us a picture of your handwriting?

unfortunately my handwriting is average lol. i write better when i know somseone is going to be reading my writing, but this is a page from my math notes:

3. 3 films you could watch for the rest of your life and not get bored?

little women (greta gerwig vers)

howl's moving castle

knives out lol

12. what's some good advice you want to share?

this is particularly for college students, so it may not apply to some of you. BUT college is something a lot of people struggle through! anyways. if you're attending a class that is content-heavy, highly recommend reading through your textbook to take notes before/after class, not DURING the class when the instructor is teaching. a huge part of learning, for me, is listening. i can't take notes at the same time i listen and still listen effectively. devote your entire self to listening, don't let yourself be distracted by trying to rush and get all the notes down before the instructor moves on. if need be, get a page of paper out for class to jot down any key ideas the instructor goes over. also. if your class uses an online service (@pearson) that allows you to do an assignment over and over until you get 100%, do it. for my math class i don't move on from a question until i get it right. this isn't for memorization per say, but for the POINTS. i'm not a good test taker, and last semester having 100% on all of my homework from not moving on until each question is complete SAVED MY ASS. this means sometimes homework takes longer, but as someone who does horrible during tests it genuinely saved me.

24. what's one thing you're proud of yourself for?

turning out all right. i grew up in a shitty situation with both my parents being various degrees of absent. i won't talk about my home enviroment, but it's something i will never forgive my parents for. i was extremely anti-social and sensitive as a result of my home life, and my mental health was extremely damaging when i was in middle school and part of high school. that being said: i turned out all right. i'm okay. i'm a good person despite it. i struggle, still, but despite everything i am still alive and am good. :)

38. fave song at the moment?

OMG OKOK SO. magnetic by illit and bbb by purple kiss. one is about having a crush and despite being complete opposites, you're attracted. it's so whimsy sounding, the instrument sounds like its from a fucking video game, it's so low-fi and i love it! as soon as wonhee starts the intro i am keyed IN AND READY TO PERFORM. and bbb! bad bitch behavior! let's fucking GO okay so i'm a bad gg stan and haven't liked most of purki's titles. but bbb is amazing and they fucking own the chorus and i love it soo much.

QUESTIONS I THINK WOULD BE FUN TO BE ASKED

[mightyflamethrower]

Updated at 1:58 p.m. ET on August 14, 2023

In 2008, when I was a writer for the blog Feministe, commenters began requesting warnings at the top of posts discussing distressing topics, most commonly sexual assault. Violence is, unfortunately and inevitably, central to feminist writing. Rape, domestic violence, racist violence, misogyny—these events indelibly shape women’s lives, whether we experience them directly or adjust our behavior in fear of them.

Back then, I was convinced that such warnings were sometimes necessary to convey the seriousness of the topics at hand (the term deeply problematic appears a mortifying number of times under my byline). Even so, I chafed at the demands to add ever more trigger warnings, especially when the headline already made clear what the post was about. But warnings were becoming the norm in online feminist spaces, and four words at the top of a post—“Trigger Warning: Sexual Assault”—seemed like an easy accommodation to make for the sake of our community’s well-being. We thought we were making the world just a little bit better. It didn’t occur to me until much later that we might have been part of the problem.

The warnings quickly multiplied. When I wrote that a piece of conservative legislation was “so awful it made me want to throw up,” one commenter asked for an eating-disorder trigger warning. When I posted a link to a funny BuzzFeed photo compilation, a commenter said it needed a trigger warning because the pictures of cats attacking dogs looked like domestic violence. Sometimes I rolled my eyes; sometimes I responded, telling people to get a grip. Still, I told myself that the general principle—warn people before presenting material that might upset them—was a good one.

Trigger warnings migrated from feminist websites and blogs to college campuses and progressive groups. Often, they seemed more about emphasizing the upsetting nature of certain topics than about accommodating people who had experienced traumatic events. By 2013, they had become so pervasive—and so controversial—that Slate declared it “The Year of the Trigger Warning.”

The issue only got more complicated from there. Around 2016, Richard Friedman, who ran the student mental-health program at Cornell for 22 years, started seeing the number of people seeking help each year increase by 10 or 15 percent. “Not just that,” he told me, “but the way young people were talking about upsetting events changed.” He described “this sense of being harmed by things that were unfamiliar and uncomfortable. The language that was being used seemed inflated relative to the actual harm that could be done. I mean, I was surprised—people were very upset about things that we would never have thought would be dangerous.” Some students, for instance, complained about lecturers who’d made comments they disliked, or teachers whose beliefs contradicted their personal values.

Read: The real problem with trigger warnings

To a certain degree, Friedman said, this represented a positive change. Mental illness was becoming less stigmatized than ever before, and seeking care was more common. But Friedman worried that students also saw themselves as fragile, and seemed to believe that coming into contact with offensive or challenging information was psychologically detrimental. In asking for more robust warnings about potentially upsetting classroom material, the students seemed to be saying: This could hurt us, and this institution owes us protection from distress.

Have we inadvertently raised a generation that has fewer tools to manage hardship?

Trigger warnings were only one part of a larger shift. Complaints quickly entered the wider culture, and were applied to “toxic” workplaces and “problematic” colleagues; students decried the “potential trauma” caused by ideas and objected to the presence of some speakers and works of art.

My own doubts about all of this came, ironically, from reporting on trauma. I’ve interviewed women around the world about the worst things human beings do to one another. I started to notice a concerning dissonance between what researchers understand about trauma and resilience, and the ways in which the concepts were being wielded in progressive institutions. And I began to question my own role in all of it.

Feminist writers were trying to make our little corner of the internet a gentler place, while also giving appropriate recognition to appallingly common female experiences that had been pushed into the shadows. To some extent, those efforts worked. But as the mental health of adolescent girls and college students crumbles, and as activist organizations, including feminist ones, find themselves repeatedly embroiled in internecine debates over power and language, a question nags: In giving greater weight to claims of individual hurt and victimization, have we inadvertently raised a generation that has fewer tools to manage hardship and transform adversity into agency?

since my days as a feminist blogger, mental health among teenagers has plummeted. From 2007 to 2019, the suicide rate for children ages 10 to 14 tripled; for girls in that age group, it nearly quadrupled. A 2021 CDC report found that 57 percent of female high-school students reported “persistent feelings of sadness or hopelessness,” up from 36 percent in 2011. Though the pandemic undoubtedly contributed to a crash in adolescent mental health, the downturn began well before COVID hit.

Teenage girls report troublingly high rates of sexual violence and bullying, as well as concern for their own physical safety at school. But it’s not clear that their material circumstances have taken a plunge steep enough to explain their mental-health decline. The CDC study suggests that, over the past decade, bullying among high schoolers has actually decreased in certain respects. Today’s teenagers are also less likely to drink or use illicit drugs than they were 10 years ago. And even before pandemic-relief funds slashed the child-poverty rate, the percentage of children living in poverty fell precipitously after 2012. American public high schoolers are more likely to graduate than at any other time in our country’s history, and girls are significantly more likely to graduate than boys.

Jonathan Haidt: The dangerous experiment on teen girls

So what has changed for the worse for teenage girls since roughly 2010? The forces behind their deteriorating mental health are opaque and complex, but one big shift has been a decline in the time teenagers spend with their friends in person, dipping by 11 hours a week—a decline that began before the pandemic, but was badly exacerbated by it. Since 2014, the proportion of teens with smartphones has risen by 22 percent, and the proportion who say they use the internet “almost constantly” has doubled. Part of the issue may be a social-media ecosystem that lets teens live within a bubble of like-minded peers and tends to privilege the loudest, most aggrieved voices; this kind of insularity can encourage teenagers to understand distressing experiences as traumatizing. “I think it’s easier for them to artificially curate environments that are comfortable,” Shaili Jain, a physician and PTSD specialist, told me. “And I think that is backfiring. Because then when they’re in a situation where they’re not comfortable, it feels really alarming to them.”

Applying the language of trauma to an event changes the way we process it. That may be a good thing, allowing a person to face a moment that truly cleaved their life into a before and an after, and to seek help and begin healing. Or it may amplify feelings of helplessness and hopelessness, elevating those feelings above a sense of competence and control.

“We have this saying in the mental-health world: ‘Perception is reality,’ ” Jain said. “So if someone is adamant that they felt something was traumatizing, that is their reality, and there’s probably going to be mental-health consequences of that.”

Martin Seligman, the director of the Positive Psychology Center at the University of Pennsylvania, has spent the past 50 years researching resilience. One study he co-authored looked at the U.S. Army, to see if there was a way to predict PTSD. Unsurprisingly, he and his fellow researchers found a link to the severity of the combat to which soldiers were exposed. But the preexisting disposition that soldiers brought to their battlefield experiences also mattered. “If you’re a catastrophizer, in the worst 10 or 20 percent, you’re more than three times as likely to come down with PTSD if you face severe combat,” Seligman told me. “And this is true at every level of severity of combat—the percentage goes down, but it’s still about twice as high, even with mild combat or no obvious combat.”

In other words, a person’s sense of themselves as either capable of persevering through hardship or unable to manage it can be self-fulfilling. “To the extent we overcome and cope with the adversities and traumas in our life, we develop more mastery, more resilience, more ability to fend off bad events in the future,” Seligman told me. “But conversely, to the extent that we have an ideology or a belief that when traumatic events occur, we are the helpless victims of them—that feeds on itself.”

Seligman also found that some soldiers who experienced severe trauma could not only survive, but actually turn their suffering into a source of strength. “About as many people who showed PTSD showed something called post-traumatic growth, which means they have an awful time during the event, but a year later they’re stronger physically and psychologically than they were to begin with,” he said. But that empowering message has yet to take hold in society.

so what would be a more productive way to approach adversity? Friedman, the former medical director of the Cornell mental-health program, compares building resilience to physical exercise. “It’s like any form of strength training,” he told me. “People have no hesitation about going to the gym and suffering, you know, muscle pain in the service of being stronger and looking a way that they want to look. And they wake up the next day and they say, ‘Oh my God, that’s so painful. I’m so achy.’ That’s not traumatic. And yet when you bring that to the emotional world, it’s suddenly very adverse.”

The problem is that this idea—that to develop resilience, we must tough out hard situations—places a heavier burden on some people than others. Friedman pointed out that people who grew up under constant stress, perhaps owing to abuse, poverty, or food insecurity, may find that this stress is “erosive” to their ability to use those resilience muscles. The exercise metaphor rankled Michael Ungar, the director of the Resilience Research Centre at Dalhousie University, in Halifax, Canada. “Chronic exposure to a stressor like racism, misogyny, being constantly stigmatized or excluded, ableism—all of those factors do wear us down; they make us more susceptible to feelings that will be very overwhelming,” he told me. There are, after all, only so many times a person can convince themselves that they can persevere when it feels like everyone around them is telling them the opposite.Creating the conditions where resilience is possible is as much a collective responsibility as an individual one.

Tyffani Monford Dent, a clinical psychologist and an author whose work focuses on sexual violence and racial trauma, calls this “the resiliency trap.” Black women in particular, she told me, have long been praised for their toughness and perseverance, but individual resiliency can’t solve structural problems. From Dent’s perspective, young people aren’t rejecting the concept of inner strength; they are rejecting the demand that they navigate systemic injustice with individual grit alone. When they talk about harm and trauma, they aren’t exhibiting weakness; they’re saying, Yes, I am vulnerable, and that’s human. These days, patients are being more “transparent about what they need to feel comfortable, to feel safe, to feel valued in this world,” she said. “Is that a bad thing?”

Most of the experts I spoke with were careful to distinguish between an individual student asking a professor for a specific accommodation to help them manage a past trauma, and a cultural inclination to avoid challenging or upsetting situations entirely. Thriving requires working through discomfort and hardship. But creating the conditions where that kind of resilience is possible is as much a collective responsibility as an individual one.

if we want to replace our culture of trauma with a culture of resilience, we’ll have to relearn how to support one another—something we’ve lost as our society has moved toward viewing “wellness” as an individual pursuit, a state of mind accessed via self-work. Retreating inward, and tying our identities to all of the ways in which we’ve been hurt, may actually make our inner worlds harder places to inhabit.

“If everything is traumatic and we have no capacity to cope with these moments, what does that say about our capacity to cope when something more extreme happens?” Ungar said. “Resilience is partly about putting in place the resources for the next stressor.” Those resources have to be both internal and external. Social change is necessary if we want to improve well-being, but social change becomes possible only if our movements are made up of people who believe that the adversities they have faced are surmountable, that injustice does not have to be permanent, that the world can change for the better, and that they have the ability to make that change.

To help people build resilience, we need to provide material aid to meet basic needs. We need to repair broken community ties so fewer among us feel like they’re struggling alone. And we need to encourage the cultivation of a sense of purpose beyond the self. We also know what stands in the way of resilience: avoiding difficult ideas and imperfect people, catastrophizing, isolating ourselves inside our own heads.

In my interviews with women who have experienced sexual violence, I try not to put the traumatic event at the center of our conversations. My aim instead is to learn as much as I can about them as people—their families, their work, their interests, what makes them happy, and where they feel the most themselves. And I always end our conversations by asking them to reflect on how far they’ve come, and what they are proudest of.

That last question often elicits a powerful response. I started asking it because I hoped to let the women I met feel seen in full, beyond the worst things that had happened to them.

There was a time when personal strength was the quiver that held an arsenal of virtues required for our success in life. These days there is no quiver and there are no virtues. I've seen too many videos of girls reduce to tears over what they call microaggressions. The proper response to a micro aggression is micro annoyance not emotional collapse.

[sturkillerbase]

Hello friends!! It's been a while. A very long while, I know...

I'm writing this to tell you all that's happened in my life that stopped me from coming back here. I'll be tagging my closest mutuals, but feel free to not read this if you don't want to. Sorry in advance because it's going to be a long one :/

First of all, if any of you are upset or disappointed or frustrated with me for vanishing, I completely understand, and it's okay.

Back in June, the first week of it, I got quite sick, and my mind wasn't in the best of places. I thought a week or two off would be enough. But then, inthe middle of that period, I got a terrible flu. I had never had a flu episode like that in my whole life, and even my mom was scared. It was so bad I also ended up with otitis and sinusitis. We spent so much in doctors and medicines, and I actually to this day need sinus medicine. It's only been a couple weeks since I've felt 100% well. Well, all of that took me an entire month.

Since I was so sick, I was on my bed for the entire two weeks. I only left the house to go to the doctor and a few times in my backyard to get some fresh air. I also had no energy to talk to people, weather in person or online. So, as you can imagine, I had A LOT of time to think on my own. Which led to overthinking the most trivial things and, unfortunately, the absolutely not trivial things as well. I've always been depressed, and this led me down into a well of despair, sadness, emptiness and all that comes with it. I was feeling like a used, dirty, old rag thrown into a dark corner.

Now we get to July. Despite my depressed state, I apply to the cinema postgraduation I've been waiting for since January, and I start making plans for my tumblr comeback. Then, I have MAJOR issues with the institution and its website. The website subscription page does not recognize the email I applied with. Without being able to log in to the page, I can’t complete my application, because I can't send the documents they require. I get in touch with them. The first people I talk to are completely useless, and send me copy-pasted instructions that don’t help at all. I then find another way of contacting them. They now know about it and say they'll fix the issue. Well, the entire month of July goes by, with me contacting them and them not solving the issue. They only halfway fix it when I tell them I'll be contacting the consumer's defense system (the institution is a private one so I can sue them for this ridiculous situation and stress they put me under), since I've been with this issue since July 1st, and it was now August 1st, AND classes began on the 9th. I don't know exactly what the woman on the other side did, but suddenly I can access the student area and finally send the required documents. I was so stressed through the entire month, there was no way I had enough peace of mind to come back to my blog. And I didn't want to come back just to complain and be angry.

But all is good now right? The degree of my dreams was about to start. I finally felt I had a purpose in life. I admitted to myself I was mentally worse than I thought I was, and that allowed me to start working on getting better. I get the urge to start illustrating again, something I love but hadn't done since January. Things are going just FINE.

Until they don't.

On August 3rd I'm informed the post grad classes won't be happening this trimester because there wasn't enough quorum. I'll have to wait until the next class, in October. After all that stress they made me go through for a whole month...

My mind crashes again. I'm back to the starting point, which, to me, feels like a loser's point.

But FINE! I'll wait. It'll happen, just not now.

Fast forwards to last Friday, August 12th. I was happy. I went to my friend's birthday party and I had fun. My friend and I have a trip scheduled for next week. I chose nice stuff at the supermarket for a nice Father's day dinner (this year it was on August 14th here in my country).

Then, last Friday, during dinner, my dad decides to be an ass. He says the most stupid shit he's ever said. I've always had issues with him but things had been doing well lately. But he just had to ruin it all.

So now here I am. My mind is fucked up again. I couldn't bring myself to wishing him a happy father's day or even giving him a hug. Well, how can I after his last episode of not wanting to be a proper father who fulfills the basic things he's supposed to as a parent? Plus accusing of things I had never done or said?? I'm angry. I'm upset. This makes me sick and gives me a headache. I feel like punching a punching bag for an entire week at least.

I'm truly hoping this 4 day vacation, away at a beautiful place, with people I like, will ease my mind. After that, I'll be back here with all that I'm in debt with you.

I'm sorry this is so long. I'm sorry I've been away, with no apparent signs of coming back. I haven't been a good friend to you here on tumblr. But I hope you'll understand I had no energy left to be here. English is not my first language, so even thinking in it was overwhelming to my already overworked and over exhausted brain.

I want to thank @scorpio-marionette and @boliv-jenta for not giving up on me; I've seen all of your notifications, and although my mind was too far away for interacting, my heart was warmed everytime I got a notification from you.

I also want to thank all of you who'll be understanding of this messy situations. I don't hope or wish for forgiveness or pity. I wrote this because I wanted to let you know of it all.

I do love you all, and never stopped for a moment. I've missed all of our interactions, and I'm looking forward to getting back here and making new lovely memories with you. As I've mentioned a while ago, the best thing that I've ever done and that ever happened to me was joining the Pedro Pascal fandom, because I had never met people that are so, SO lovely, kind, comprehensive and talented!!

Sending you all all my love and best wishes,

Ana 💖

@scorpio-marionette @boliv-jenta @darth-voder @supernaturalgirl20 @misspearly1 @mandoblowmybackout @becksxoxo @littlemisspascal @oonajaeadira

[spanishskulduggery]

Hi! I'm very curious about something regarding the Spanish language. I'm currently studying A2 Spanish but I had this question and my teacher did not seem too willing to discuss it. Here it goes:

I know that Spanish has, something my Spanish teacher says, linguistic gender. I was wondering how do the people who don't align themselves with the gender binary (masculine and feminine) speak/write in it? I have read this article about Spanish speaking people from US adding "x" Or "@" and people from Argentina using "e" to make the words gender neutral.

Thank you so much for responding, whenever you get to it. Also love your blog. ❤

Short answer, in general speaking terms people are tending towards the -e now because the other two are very hard to actually speak, and because Spanish-speakers feel the -e is more authentic

What you're most likely to see in Spanish is masculine plural as the default, or in written things you might see todos y todas or like un/una alumno/a "a student", or like se busca empleado/a "employees wanted" / "looking for an employee"

If it's something official or academic you typically include both [todas y todas] or you go masculine plural [todos] unless it's specifically feminine plural

-

Related, linguistic gender applies to all things, not just people. Why is la mesa "table" feminine, but el libro "book" masculine? Just linguistic gender. I can tell you that most loanwords (that aren't people) in Spanish are masculine, and that there are certain words that come from Greek are masculine, and that -ista words are unisex most of the time... And I can tell you there are some words like testigo or modelo that are unisex and don't change for gender. Aside from that, speaking about nouns and grammatical gender... those particular things are harder to parse for regular people, but if you go into the field of linguistics you can explore that more deeply. Some of it is source language (i.e. "it came from Latin this way") or things like that. And in general when talking about nouns it's unimportant and not considered sexist, that's just how it is.

There is such a thing where it gets a little too far the other way and people will say "history? what about herstory" which is a nice thought but the etymology has nothing to do with gender there

When it comes to people - and when it comes to gendered attitudes - that's where it gets more confusing and more complicated.

I believe there was an experiment where people had French and Spanish speakers [I believe it was Spanish] try to identify how a "fork" would sound. French people gave it a more feminine voice because "fork" is feminine in French, while Spanish speakers gave it a more masculine voice because it's masculine in Spanish.

Whether we like it or not, certain gendered things do influence our thoughts and feelings and reactions. A similar thing in English exists where the old joke was something like "There was a car accident; a boy is rushed to the ER and the surgeon but the father was killed. When they got to the ER the doctor said 'I can't operate on him, he's my son!'" and it's like "well who could the doctor be?" ...and the doctor is his mother. We associate "doctor" as masculine and "nurse" as feminine.

There's a gender bias in our language thought patterns, even though the language changes. And that does exist in Spanish too, to different extents.

There are certain cultural and gendered stereotypes or connotations attached to certain words, many tend to be more despective or pejorative when it's women.

For example - and I know this has changed in many places or it isn't as prevalent - el jinete "horseman/rider", while the female form is la amazona "horsewoman/rider". Because la jinete or la jineta was sometimes "promiscuous woman".

There were also debates about things like la presidente vs. la presidenta or what the female version of juez should be, whether it should be la juez or la jueza

Most languages with gendered language have varying degrees of this, and all languages I'm aware of have gendered stereotypes related to professions or cultural attitudes in some way, and not just for women, and not all in the same way with some of them being very culturally based

-

The longer answer involves a bit of history, and I'll be honest, some of it is contested or considered a little controversial in Spanish-speaking countries particularly in the conservative parts (which honestly should come as no surprise)

The first symbol that I know of that came about was the X

First piece of contested history: As far as I know, it was the trans/queer and drag communities in Latin America who started the trend of X. When there were signs or bulletins that had the gendered endings - specifically masculine plural as the default plural - people would write a big X through the O. This was a way of being inclusive and also a very smash the patriarchy move.

Some people attribute this to women's rights activists which may also be true, but a good portion of the things I read from people say it was the trans/queer/drag communities in Latin America doing this.

I've also read it originated in Brazil with Portuguese; still Latin America, but not a Spanish-speaking country.

Where it's most contested is that some people will say that this trend started in the Hispanic communities of the United States. And - not without reason - people are upset that this is perceived as a very gringo movement.

That's why Latinx is considered a very American-Hispanic experience

-

The arroba (@) is relatively new. I remember seeing it in the 2000s. I don't know if it existed earlier for gender inclusivity.

People used it because it looks like a combination of O and A, so it was meant to be cut down on saying things like todos y todas or niños y niñas in informal written speech

I remember quite a few (informal) emails starting like hola tod@s or muy buenas a tod@s or things like that

I think of it more as convenience especially in the information age where you never knew who you were talking to and it's easier than including both words, especially when masculine plural might be clumsy or insensitive

Still, it's practically impossible to use the @ in spoken Spanish, so it's better for writing casually. You also likely won't be allowed to use the @ in anything academic, but in chatrooms, blogs, or forums it's an option

-

I love the E ending. And the gender neutral form in singular is elle... so it's él "he", ella "she", and elle "they (singular)"

The -e ending is I think became more common within the past 10 years though it might have existed longer than that. These sorts of changes tend to come from the queer or trans communities and tend to be more insular before becoming more of an outside thing that then the general population finds out about

It came about because there are some adjectives in Spanish that end in -e that are unisex. It's not an A, it's not an O, but it's something grammatically neutral for Spanish

It's not as awkward as X, and E exists very firmly in Spanish so it's not perceived as some outside (typically gringo) influence

The good news is, it's pretty widespread on the internet. Not so much in person (yet), but especially in Spain and Argentina at least from what I've seen, particularly in the queer communities and online culture.

The only issues with it are that for non-native speakers, you have to get used to any spelling changes. Like amigo and amiga, but to use the E ending you have to add a U... so it's amigue.

That's because there are certain words where you have to do spelling changes to preserve the sound; gue has a hard G sound like -go does [like guerra]... but ge has the equivalent of an English H sound [gelatina for example]. Another one is cómico/a "funny" which would go to cómique. Again, because co has a hard C/K sound, while ce is a soft sound more like an S or in some contexts TH/Z sound; like centro is a soft sound, while cola is a hard sound

Unless you make it to the preterite forms where you come across like pagué, alcancé, practiqué with those types of endings... or subjunctive forms, pague, alcance, practique ... Basically you'd have to be exposed to those spelling rules or you'd be really confused if you were a total beginner.

It all makes sense when you speak it, but spelling might be harder before you learn those rules

The other drawback is that the E endings are sometimes not applicable. Like in damas y caballeros "ladies and gentlemen" there's not really a gender neutral variation on that, it's all binary there. And while la caballero "female knight" does exist, you'd never see a male variation on dama; the closest I've ever seen is calling a guy a damisela en apuros "damsel in distress" in some contexts where the man needs rescuing, and it's feminine una/la damisela, and it's very tongue-in-cheek

There are also some contexts like jefe vs jefa where I guess you would say jefe for "boss" if you were going the neutral route, but it's a bit weird because it's also the masculine option.

I can't speak for how people might feel about those if they're non-binary or agender because every so often you kind of get forced into the binary whether you like it or not

I totally support the E, I just recognize there are some limitations there and it's quirks of the Spanish language itself

Important Note: Just to reiterate, E endings are the ones most Spanish-speakers prefer because it's easiest to speak and doesn't have the American connotation that X does in some circles

-

Where it gets very "Facebook comment section" is that you'll see many Latin Americans traditionalists and conservatives claim that "this is just the gringos colonizing our language" and "grammatical gender doesn't matter in Spanish". They'll say that the "gender movement" is an American feminist movement and that it's a gringo thing and doesn't reflect actual Latin Americans or Spanish-speakers

Which on the one hand, yes, English does have a lot of undue influence on other languages because of colonization, and American influence and meddling in Latin American politics is a big important issue

But as far as I'm aware of the X (and especially the E) were created by Latin Americans

The other issue I personally have is that any time this conversation comes up, someone will say something like somos latinOs and claim that masculine plural is gender neutral

To that I say, first of all, "masculine plural" is inherently gendered. Additionally, there is a gender neutral in Spanish but it's lo or ello and it's only used with "it" so it sounds very unfriendly to use on an actual person... and in plural it looks like masculine plural and everything applies like masculine plural

Second, the reason masculine plural is default is because of machismo. It's more important that we don't possibly misgender a man, so it has to be masculine plural. It's changed in some places, but growing up when I was learning Spanish, if it was 99 women and 1 man you still had to put masculine plural

I'm not opposed to there being a default, and I understand why it's easier to use masculine plural, but some people get very upset at the idea of inclusive language

...

In general, my biggest issues with these comments come when people act like non-binary/queer/trans people don't exist in Spanish-speaking countries, like English invented them somehow. So it's nice to see linguistic self-determination and seeing native speakers using the E endings.

[comedicreliefonlyworkswhenfunny]

I am against the "Americanization" of fandoms.

What this applies to

Holding non American characters (and sometimes even fans) to an American moral standard. This includes

Refusing to take into account that, first things first, America is NOT the target audience, so certain tropes that would or would not pass in the west are different in Japan.

Like seriously, quite a few of the jokes are just not going to pass or hit, because they require background information that is not universal.

Assuming all American experience is standard. (This could mean watering down just how much pressure is placed on Japanese youth irl by saying that sort of thing is universal (while it is, to a degree, Japanese suicide rates are pretty fucking high because of how fast paced and work heavy some of their loads tend to be), and it's really annoying and rude when someone is trying to speak out about how heavy and harsh the standards are placed on them to succeed just for some American whose mom occasionally yells at them to do their homework dropping by to say "it's like that everywhere")

Demonizing (or wubbifying) a character using American morals, including and up to harassing fans over their interpretations or gatekeeping whether or not a character "should" get development (while you shouldn't do that fucking period, it's rude and annoying- this is specifically for the people who use American standards without acknowledging the cultural gap between them and, you know, the fucking target audience) ((Like seriously, saying "It's different in Japan" is not the end all be all excusing someone's actions, but sometimes the author didn't immediately think that maybe (insert vaguely universal thing) was that bad or that heavy of a topic before they put it into their media. If you don't want to see things like that? Pick a different series and stop harassing the fans))

Getting mad at or making fun of Japan's attempts to satirize their own culture. (A good example is Ace Attorney! To most of us, it's just a funny laugh can you imagine if courts were actually like that- guess what? Japan's are! (Not that America's are actually that much better, they just look good on paper))

Making America/American issues the center of your fan spaces

(Usually without sharing or bringing light to the issues that other countries are going through)

Your

Experiences

Are

Not

Univseral!

Seriously, very few things across America, even, are universal. Texas things the hundreds are nothing while Minnesota's like "oh it's only thirty degrees below zero"- so for fucks sake, stop assuming that all other countries work in ways similar to America.

It's good and important to share Ameican issues with your American followers, but guess what? America isn't the only country out there, and it's certainly not the only one going through bullshit. Don't pull shit like "why's no one reblogging this?" or "why should I care about what's happening in (X country)?"

Don't assume everyone lives in America.

Stop assuming everyone lives in America.

America is not and has never been the target audience for anime, and it's certainly not the only country outside of Japan that enjoys it.

Like I said above, sometimes Japan attempts to satirize its own culture. We can't tell what is and isn't meant as satire, because it's not our culture.

Social media activism can be tiring and maybe you don't have the energy to focus on things that are out of your control, but, if someone tells you about the shit they're going through, don't bring American politics up.

For the neurodivergent crowd out there thinking, "But why?" it's because a lot of social media, especially, is very heavily Americanized- sometimes to the point where people assume that everyone is American. Not to mention, it's disheartening. I'm sorry to say, but you're not actually relating to the conversation, you're often diverting the focus away from the topic at hand. Even if you mean well, America is heavily pedestaled and talked about frequently, and people from other countries are tired of America taking precedent over their own issues.

Don't divert non-American issues into American ones. Seriously. It's not your place. Please just support the original issue or move on.

Racist Bullshit

This especially goes for islanders and South Asian characters, as well as poc characters (because, yes, Japan DOES have black people)

Making "funny" racist headcanons. Not fucking cool.

Changing the canon interpretation of an explicit character of color in order to fit racist stereotypes.

Whitewashing or color draining characters. Different artistic skill sets can be hard, yes, but are you seriously going to look at someone and say "I don't feel like accurately portraying you or people that look like you, because it's difficult for me." If someone tries to correct you on your cultural depiction of a character and/or their life style, don't be an ass. (If possible, it would be nice for those that do the corrections to be polite as well, but it does get really frustrating).

Seriously, no offense guys, but, if you want to persue art, you're going to need to learn to depict different body types, skin colors, and/or ethnic features.

On that note, purposefully, willingly, or consistently inaccurately portraying people or characters of color (especially if someone in the fandom has "called you out" or specifically told you that what you're doing comes across as racist and you continue to do it). If you need help or suck at looking things up, there are references for you! Ask your followers if they have tutorials on poc (issue that you're having), whether it be bodily portrayal, facial proportions, or coloring and shading. Art is so much more fun when you can depict a wider variety, and guess what? Before you drew the same skinny, basic, white character over and over, you couldn't even draw that!

Attempting or claiming to DEPECT CULTURAL ACCURACY within a work or meta, while being completely fucking wrong. ESPECIALLY and specifically if someone calls you out, and you refuse to fix, correct, or change anything.

*little side note that the discussion revolving art is a very multilayered conversation, and it has quite a few technical potholes, which I'll bring up again farther into this post.

Fucking history

Stop demonizing or for absolute fucks sake wubbifying Japanese history because UwU Japan ♡0♡ or bringing up shit like "you know they sided with Nazis, right?" It's good to recognize poor past decisions, but literally it's not your country keep your nose out of it. And? A lot of decisions made by countries were not made by their general peoples. Even those that were, often involved heavy propaganda that made them think what they were doing was right.

Seriously, it's not your country, not your history. Unless you have some sort of higher education (but honestly even then a lot of those contain heavy bias), just don't butt in.

^^^ this also goes to all countries that are NOT Japan (specifically when people from non American countries talk about their history while in fandoms and someone wants to Amerisplain to them why "well, actually-"). When we said, "question your sources," we didn't mean "question the people who know better than you, while blindly accepting the (more than likely biased) education you were given in the past."

What this does NOT include:

Fanfiction

FANfiction

FanFICTION

FANFICTION.

Seriously, fanfiction is literally UNPAID WORK from RANDOM FANS- a lot of which who are or have started as kids. ((No, I'm not trying to excuse racist depictions of people just because they're free, please see above where I talk about learning to grow a skill and how it's possible tone bad and get good, on top of the fact that some inaccuracies are not just willful ignorance))

"Looking it up" doesn't work

"Looking it up" almost never works

Please, for fucks sake, you know that most all online search engines are heavily biased, right? Not to mention, not everything is universal across the entirety of Japan. You want to look up how the school system works in Hokkaido? Well it's different from the ones in Osaka!

Most fanfiction is meant to be an idealized version of the world. Homophobia, transphobia, misogyny, ableism, and racism are very prevalent and heavy topics that some fan authors would prefer to avoid. (Keep in mind, this is also used by some people in those minorities often because thinking about how relevant those kinds of things are is to them every day).

A lot of shit that happens in writing is purely because it's an ideal setting. I've seen a few arguments recently about how fan authors portray Japanese schools wrong- listen, I can't tell you how many random school systems I have pulled from my ass purely because (I need them to interact at these points, in these ways). Sometimes the only compliment I can think of is 'I like your shirt' or sometimes I need character A to realize that character B likes the same thing as they do, so I might ignore the fact that most all Japanese schools require uniforms, so that I can put my character in a shirt that will get someone else's attention.

Sometimes it's difficult to find information on different types of systems, and sometimes when you DO know those things, they directly rule out a plot point that needs to happen (like back on the topic of schools (from what I've seen/heard/read- which guess what? Despite being from multiple sources, might still be inaccurate!) Japanese schools don't have mandatory elective classes (outside of like gym and most of them usually learn English or another language- I've seen stuff about art classes? But the information across the board varies.), but, if I need my character to walk in and see someone completely in their element, I'm probably not going to try and gun for accuracy or make up a million and two reasons as to why this (non elective) person would possibly need something from (elective teacher) after school of all things.)

Some experiences ARE universal- or at least overlap American and Japanese norms! Like friends going to fast food places after school doesn't /sound Japanese/ or whatever, but it's not like a horrible inaccuracy to say that your characters ate at McDonald's because they were hungry. Especially when you consider that the Japanese idolization of American "culture" is also a thing.

Also I saw someone complaining about how, in December, a lot of (usually westerners) write Christmas fics! Well, not only are quite a few of those often gift fics, with it being the season if giving and all, but Japanese people do celebrate Christmas! Not as "the birth of Christ," but rather as a popularized holiday about gift giving (also pst: America isn't the only place that celebrates Christmas)

But, on that note, sometimes things like Holidays are "willfully ignorant" of what actually happens (I've made this point several times, but (also this does by no means excuse actual racism)), because, again: plot convenience! Hey what IF they celebrated Halloween by Trick or Treating? What if Easter was a thing and they got to watch their kids or younger siblings crawl around on the ground looking for tiny plastic eggs?

Fanfiction authors can put in hours of work for one or two thousand words- let alone ten thousand words, fifty thousand words, a hundred thousand words. And all of these are free. There is absolutely no (legal) way to make money off of their fanworks, but they spent hours, days, weeks, months- sometimes even years- writing. It is so unnecessary to EXPECT or REQUIRE them to spend even more hours looking up shit that, no offense, almost no one is going to notice. No one is going go care that all of my combini prices are accurate or that I wrote a fic with a Japanese map of a train station that I had to backwards search three times to find an English version that I could read.

Not everyone has the attention span or ability to spend hours of research before writing a single word. Neurodivergent people are literally a thing yall. Instead of producing the perfectly pretty accurate version of Japan that people want to happen, what ACTUALLY happens is that the writer reads and reads and reads and either never finds the information they need or they lose the motivation to write.

^^^ (This does NOT apply to indigenous or native peoples, like Pacific Islanders or tribes that exist in real life. Please make sure that you portray tribal minorities accurately. If you can't find the information you need (assuming that the content of the series is not specifically about a tribe), please just make one up (and for fucks sake, recognize that a lot of what you've been taught about tribal practices, such as shit like human sacrifices or godly worship, is actually just propaganda.)

Not to mention, it often puts a wall in front of readers who would then need to pull up their OWN information (that may or may not be biased) just in order to interact with the fic ((okay, this one has a little bit of arguability when it comes to things like measurements and currency, because Americans don't know what a meter is and no one else knows what a foot is- either way, one of yall is going to have to look up measurements if they want to get a better understanding of the fic)). However, a lot of Americans who do write using 'feet, Fahrenheit, dollars,' also write for their American followers or friends (which really could go both ways).

On a less easily arguable side, most fic readers aren't going to open up a new tab just to search everything that the author has written (re the whole deep topics, not everyone wants to read about those sorts of things, either). Not only are you making it more difficult on the writer, but you're also making it more difficult for the reader who's now wondering why you decided to add in Grandma's Katsudon recipe, and whether or not the details you have added are accurate.

Some series, themselves, ignore Japanese norms! Piercings, hair dye, and incorrectly wearing ones uniform are frowns upon in Japanese schools- sometimes up to inflicting punishment on those students because of it. However, some anime characters still have naturally or dyed blond hair some of them still have piercings or wear their uniforms wrong. Some series aren't set specifically in Japan, but rather in a vague based-off-real-life Japan that's just slightly different (like Haikyuu and all of its different prefectures). Sometimes they're based on real places, but real places that have gone through major changes (like the Hero Academia series with its quirks and shit).

Fandom is not a full time job. Please stop treating it like it is one. Most people in fandoms have to engage in other things like school or work that most definitely take precident over frantically Googling the cultural implications of dying your hair pink in Japan.

Art is also meant to be a creative freedom and is almost always a hobby, so there are a few cracks that tend to spark debate. Like I said, it is still a hobby, something that's meant to be fun (on this note!)

If trying new things and expanding your portfolio is genuinely making you upset, it's okay to take a break from it. You're not going to get it right on the first try and please, please to everyone out there critiquing artists' works, please take this into account before you post things.

I'm sorry to say, but, while it gets frustrating to see the same things done wrong over and over again, some people are genuinely trying. If it matters enough for you to point out, please offer solutions or resources that would possibly help the artist do better (honestly this could be said about a lot of online activism). I get that they should "want" to do better (and maybe they don't and your annoyance towards them is completely justified- again, as I said, if this becomes a repeated offense and they don't listen to or care about the people trying to help them, yeah you can be a bitch if it helps you feel better- just please don't assume that everyone is willfully ignorant of how hurtful/upsetting/annoying a certain way of portraying things is), but also WANTING to do better and ACTUALLY doing better are two different things.

Maybe they didn't realize what they were doing was inaccurate. Maybe they didn't have the right tutorials. Maybe they tried to look it up, but that failed them. Either way, to some- especially neurodivergent artists- just being told that their work is bad or racist or awful isn't going to make them want to search for better resources in order to be more accurate, it's just going to make them give up.

Also! In fic and in writing, no one is going to get it right on the first try. Especially at the stage where we creators ARE merely in fan spaces is a great time to "fuck around and find out", before we bring our willfully or accidentally racist shit into monetized media. Absolutely hold your fan creators to higher standards, but literally fan work has so little actual impact on popular media (and this goes for just about every debate about fan spaces), and constructive criticism as well as routine practice can mean worlds for representation in future media. NOT allowing for mistakes in micro spaces like fandoms is how you get genuinely harmful or just... bad... portrayals of minorities in popularized media that DOES have an impact on the greater public. OR you get a bunch of creators who are too afraid to walk out of their own little bubbles, because what if they get it wrong and everyone turns against them. It's better to just "stick with what they know" (hobbies are something that you are meant to get better at, even if that is a slow road- for all of my writers and artists out there, it does take time, but you will get it. To everyone else, please do speak up about things that are wrong, but don't make it all about what's wrong and please don't be rude. It's frustrating on both ends, so, if you can, please try not to escalate the situation more.)

Anyways, I'm tired of everyone holding fictional characters to American Puritanical standards, but I'm also tired of seeing every "stop Americanizing fandom" somehow loop into fanfiction and how all authors who don't make their fics as accurate as possible are actually just racist and perpetuating or enabling America's take over of the world or some shit.

Fan interpretation of published media is different than fan creation of mon monetized media. Americans dominating or monopolizing spaces meant for all fans (especially in a fandom that was never meant for them to begin with) is annoying and can be harmful sometimes. Americans writing out their own personal experience using random fictional characters (more often than not) isn't.

[chateautae]

hi sammy. i hope it’s alright for me to send you this, ive just been feeling really down today and wanted to ask advise from someone who doesn’t know me but who also brings me comfort.

my family moved to a big city this summer and i was supposed to move there around now-ish after finishing my degree. but i haven’t been able to secure a job/internship because of lack of experience due to covid these past 3 years and today my family told me i couldn’t move there until i secure a job because it’s really expensive. which i understand but today is the first time they told me this clearly and i just feel abandoned and useless. i feel so useless and shitty about myself because i worked my ass off to get a good degree and im incapable of securing a job, it’s just rejection after rejection and im starting to question everything including my worth.

i feel abandoned because my sister is going to this expensive international school and they go out every day almost and im just like..all i wanted was to join you guys. i thought it would be easier to look for a job once im actually there instead of looking online but they let me know that it would just be additional costs for nothing and i don’t wanna push. i understand that im older and i need to be able to support myself as well, but it’s just a shitty feeling, seeing how much fun they’re having there while im over here really struggling. im not a sentimental person and i can’t remember the last time i cried but ever since they told me this today i can’t stop crying anytime i think about it because i can’t believe how useless i am.

it gets even worse when i think about the boys. i see them and i see how successful they are at such a young age and i feel so proud of them and want nothing more but to be like them, be strong and successful because they inspire me so much, but when i keep on getting rejected i feel ashamed and bad about myself. im not comparing myself to them, i just really look up to them and not being able to achieve what i wanted to the way they did makes me wanna cry myself to sleep. being in my current situation, i get overwhelmed by an intense feeling of shame when i think about them.

idk what to do, how do i not loose hope? how do i keep on looking for jobs and stay motivated when all i get back in return is rejection? how do i get rid of this feeling of worthlessness? ive been trying to manifest good things for myself for so long but it just doesn’t seem to be working.

im sorry for dumping this on you, you don’t even have to reply i just felt like ranting because im not familiar with these feelings and im just lost and sad and confused and i hate this feeling, i just want to be able to feel proud of myself for once

first of all loves, i am so sorry for getting to this message so late, and i genuinely hope things are better for you by the time you see this!! if they're not, then i hope my words can bring you comfort, and i'm so happy you do see me as someone who can offer you that, it truly means a lot that you chose to confide in me <33

and honestly loves? what you feel is valid; i don't think it's fair for you to be iced out like this simply because circumstances aren't lining up for you. and i want you to know that that is exactly what this is, misaligned circumstance. this says nothing about your capability or that you're worth any less than your sibling's love. i promise you, there are numerous fully competent, brilliant people who also struggle to find anything in this cutthroat world, and i can tell you that this also happened to me! not that i'm saying i'm brilliant, i hoenstly believe myself the opposite, but what I'm saying is that there was a time where i genuinely was trapped at a horrible job that was destroying my mental health and me as a person, and i believed I would never find my way out. i continuously would apply to jobs and get nothing in return for months, and it got to a point where i honestly did give up. but i found my motivation again when i realized that nothing can happen if I don't at least keep trying to wedge my foot into the door, and so i decided fuck it, i'm gonna knock on doors searching for opportunity, praying that someone will hear me and guess what? right when i least expected it, someone heard my knock and opened the door, which even lead to another door opening for me and now i'm exactly where i wanted to see myself.

this isn't meant to put you down at all my love, but i just wanted to tell you that motivation really is hard to keep and find, but just because you keep receiving rejections does not make you worth any less than what you are. it simply means your time has yet to come, and while it sounds cliche, it's true, because there's no way you'll find that out if you don't keep trying, okay? i promise one step you take today could lead you down the path you're meant to take, or open a door that leads to success. feeling lonely and abandoned is also valid, because family is important and they mean everything to us, and i genuinely believe you should not have been cast aside like that, but i hope the motivation to also show your family that you're worth more than being iced out can push you to keep going. you're so strong and capable of fucking anything loves, remember that!

[moontheoretist]

At Tony's previous comment, the Spiderling just shakes his head, clearly bashful. "Well, I might be a little better at school than most people but that's only because I have already read through all the textbooks for this year and senior year and some of the college books for that one Materials Science course when I was trying to figure out my netting, oh and that one course on Physical Chemistry at Northwestern was really interesting and I only found the lectures online by accident and that was so interesting and the professor is a Nobel Price winner, how cool is that?!" The enthusiasm is definitely back at full force. Tony is getting the feeling that it would take quite a bit of effort to bring down the Spiderling's mood for any amount of time. And as the kid babbles on about the college courses he has stumbled across - clearly having forgotten that he is supposedly trying to tell Tony how he isn't a genius - Tony resolves to do his best to protect this pure hearted enthusiasm for all things life and learning as best he can. Because Tony remembers that time of his own life. Remembers what it was like to be interested in everything, to want to learn everything in every single field of study, when everything seemed fascinating. When he had not yet picked a particular field to focus on. And he also remembers how frustrating it had been to always have to slow down for everyone around him simply because no one could understand his babbling and lightning quick changes of topic. Remembers how offended his professors had gotten when he started meshing discoveries and principles from separate fields, completely irreverent of 'established' practices. When he debunked theories in chemistry by applying established principles of quantum mechanics. Or used complex decade-old mathematics from some unknown Russian guy to tear apart supposed revolutionary discoveries in physics. Thinking outside the box is a state of being for Tony and he has always loved combining different fields to come up with entirely new things to learn. It was the reason why he had finally decided to focus primarily on one of the more interdisciplinary fields, electrical engineering. But these days, people tend to only remember Tony's accomplishments in engineering and programming. They like to ignore that he not only holds three PhDs but also a truly absurd number of Master degrees in completely unrelated fields. And that's without even mentioning all the subjects he has simply read up on in the years after. Tony is constantly educating himself about new things, things he wants to know, to learn, to study. People don't like to hear him so much allude to his genius but Tony doesn't get into entirely new fields of study because he wants to show up others, but simply because he needs to gather new knowledge. Constantly. He would die of boredom if he had nothing to keep his brain busy with. But it still took him years to realize that most people didn't in fact enjoy being shown up by a fresh-faced kid who had surpassed them in their chosen field within 24 hours of deciding to start reading up on it. And his unconventional approach of mixing sciences had especially not gained him any favors at MIT, because people who consider themselves smart apparently get quite offended when someone clearly smarter comes along. And by the time any of them could finally bring themselves to actually have a real scientific debate with Tony, he more often than not had long since left their particular field behind, having already switched to an entirely unrelated area of interest. Only to repeat the process. It had driven every single science-minded person at MIT who came in contact with him insane. Tony had probably been the most disliked person in MIT's history. That isn't to say that his fellow students and the professors hadn't used Tony's revelations in order to further their own standing in the scientific community. Of course without ever mentioning where their oh-so-revolutionary ideas had come from. His enthusiasm for all things science had blinded him to the fact that not everyone thought the entire goal was to learn, that humans - and even scientists - are truly selfish at heart. Tony had started hating college then. To be constantly put down by the people around him, only to find out later that they had then used his ideas to get published in scientific journals, taking all credit and not giving Tony the opportunity to join them in arguing their - or rather his - case with others. He had learned quickly to either keep his ideas to himself or to immediately smack a patent on it or to get it published before anyone else could. Once he started churning out scientific publications, Tony had suddenly and completely 'coincidentally' become very popular with his fellow scientists. Their sudden 'change of heart' had only made Tony despise them even more. But thankfully, that was also the time of his life when he had met his Rhodey bear. Rhodey who was more than willing to listen to Tony talk, who tried to keep up with him but didn't get offended when he couldn't. Who was interested in Tony's babbling and even in Tony himself. Rhodey who had made everything better. It had been an incredible release to finally have someone he could talk to and talk at. About his private life, his courses, his professors, his own inventions and discoveries and ideas. Yeah, he more than gets the Spiderling's enthusiasm right now.

To intervene by apathyinreverie

[shortnotsweet]

Bakudeku: A Non-Comprehensive Dissection of the Exploitation of Working Bodies, the Murder of Annoying Children, and a Rivals-to-Lovers Complex

I. Bakudeku in Canon, And Why Anti’s Need to Calm the Fuck Down

II. Power is Power: the Brain-Melting Process of Normalization and Toxic Masculinity

III. How to Kill Middle Schoolers, and Why We Should

IV. Parallels in Abuse, EnemiesRivals-to-Lovers, and the Necessity of Redemption ft. ATLA’s Zuko

V. Give it to Me Straight. It’s Homophobic.

VI. Love in Perspective, from the East v. West

VII. Stuck in the Sludge, the Past, and Season One

Disclaimer

It needs to be said that there is definitely a place for disagreement, discourse, debate, and analysis: that is a sign of an active fandom that’s heavily invested, and not inherently a bad thing at all. Considering the amount of source material we do have (from the manga, to the anime, to the movies, to the light novels, to the official art), there are going to be warring interpretations, and that’s inevitable.

I started watching and reading MHA pretty recently, and just got into the fandom. I was weary for a reason, and honestly, based on what I’ve seen, I’m still weary now. I’ve seen a lot of anti posts, and these are basically my thoughts. This entire thing is in no way comprehensive, and it’s my own opinion, so take it with a grain of salt. If I wanted to be thorough about this, I would’ve included manga panels, excerpts from the light novel, shots from the anime, links to other posts/essays/metas that have inspired this, etc. but I’m tired and not about that life right now, so, this is what it is. This is poorly organized, but maybe I’ll return to fix it.

Let’s begin.

Bakudeku in Canon, And Why Anti’s Need to Calm the Fuck Down

There are a lot of different reasons, that can be trivial as you like, to ship or not to ship two (or more) characters. It could be based purely off of character design, proximity, aversion to another ship, or hypotheticals. And I do think that it’s totally valid if someone dislikes the ship or can’t get on board with his character because to them, it does come across as abuse, and the implications make them uncomfortable or, or it just feels unhealthy. If that is your takeaway, and you are going to stick to your guns, the more power to you.

But Bakudeku’s relationship has canonically progressed to the point where it’s not the emotionally (or physically) abusive clusterfuck some people portray it to be, and it’s cheap to assume that it would be, based off of their characterizations as middle schoolers. Izuku intentionally opens the story as a naive little kid who views the lens of the Hero society through rose colored glasses and arguably wants nothing more than assimilation into that society; Bakugou is a privileged little snot who embodies the worst and most hypocritical beliefs of this system. Both of them are intentionally proven wrong. Both are brainwashed, as many little children are, by the propaganda and societal norms that they are exposed to. Both of their arcs include unlearning crucial aspects of the Hero ideology in order to become true heroes.

I will personally never simp for Bakugou because for the longest time, I couldn't help but think of him as a little kid on the playground screaming at the top of his lungs because someone else is on the swingset. He’s red in the face, there are probably veins popping out of his neck, he’s losing it. It’s easy to see why people would prefer Tododeku to Bakudeku.

Even now, seeing him differently, I still personally wouldn’t date Bakugou, especially if I had other options. Why? I probably wouldn’t want to date any of the guys who bullied me, especially because I think that schoolyard bullying, even in middle school, affected me largely in a negative way and created a lot of complexes I’m still trying to work through. I haven’t built a better relationship with them, and I’m not obligated to. Still, I associate them with the kind of soft trauma that they inflicted upon me, and while to them it was probably impersonal, to me, it was an intimate sort of attack that still affects me. That being said, that is me. Those are my personal experiences, and while they could undoubtedly influence how I interpret relationships, I do not want to project and hinder my own interpretation of Deku.

The reality is that Deku himself has an innate understanding of Bakugou that no one else does; I mention later that he seems to understand his language, implicitly, and I do stand by that. He understands what it is he’s actually trying to say, often why he’s saying it, and while others may see him as wimpy or unable to stand up for himself, that’s simply not true. Part of Deku’s characterization is that he is uncommonly observant and empathetic; I’m not denying that Bakugou caused harm or inflicted damage, but infantilizing Deku and preaching about trauma that’s not backed by canon and then assuming random people online excuse abuse is just...the leap of leaps, and an actual toxic thing to do. I’ve read fan works where Bakugou is a bully, and that’s all, and has caused an intimate degree of emotional, mental, and physical insecurity from their middle school years that prevents their relationship from changing, and that’s for the better. I’m not going to argue and say that it’s not an interesting take, or not valid, or has no basis, because it does. Its basis is the character that Bakugou was in middle school, and the person he was when he entered UA.

Not only is Bakugou — the current Bakugou, the one who has accumulated memories and experiences and development — not the same person he was at the beginning of the story, but Deku is not the same person, either. Maybe who they are fundamentally, at their core, stays the same, but at the beginning and end of any story, or even their arcs within the story, the point is that characters will undergo change, and that the reader will gain perspective.

“You wanna be a hero so bad? I’ve got a time-saving idea for you. If you think you’ll have a quirk in your next life...go take a swan dive off the roof!”

Yes. That is a horrible thing to tell someone, even if you are a child, even if you don’t understand the implications, even if you don’t mean what it is you are saying. Had someone told me that in middle school, especially given our history and the context of our interactions, I don’t know if I would ever have forgiven them.

Here’s the thing: I’m not Deku. Neither is anyone reading this. Deku is a fictional character, and everyone we know about him is extrapolated from source material, and his response to this event follows:

“Idiot! If I really jumped, you’d be charged with bullying me into suicide! Think before you speak!”

I think it’s unfair to apply our own projections as a universal rather than an interpersonal interpretation; that’s not to say that the interpretation of Bakudeku being abusive or having unbalanced power dynamics isn’t valid, or unfounded, but rather it’s not a universal interpretation, and it’s not canon. Deku is much more of a verbal thinker; in comparison, Bakugou is a visual one, at least in the format of the manga, and as such, we get various panels demonstrating his guilt, and how deep it runs. His dialogue and rapport with Deku has undeniably shifted, and it’s very clear that the way they treat each other has changed from when they were younger. Part of Bakugou’s growth is him gaining self awareness, and eventually, the strength to wield that. He knows what a fucked up little kid he was, and he carries the weight of that.

“At that moment, there were no thoughts in my head. My body just moved on its own.”

There’s a part of me that really, really disliked Bakugou going into it, partially because of what I’d seen and what I’d heard from a limited, outside perspective. I felt like Bakugou embodied the toxic masculinity (and to an extent, I still believe that) and if he won in some way, that felt like the patriarchy winning, so I couldn't help but want to muzzle and leash him before releasing him into the wild.

The reality, however, of his character in canon is that it isn’t very accurate to assume that he would be an abusive partner in the future, or that Midoryia has not forgiven him to some extent already, that the two do not care about each other or are singularly important, that they respect each other, or that the narrative has forgotten any of this.

Don’t mistake me for a Bakugou simp or apologist. I’m not, but while I definitely could also see Tododeku (and I have a soft spot for them, too, their dynamic is totally different and unique, and Todoroki is arguably treated as the tritagonist) and I’m ambivalent about Izuocha (which is written as cannoncially romantic) I do believe that canonically, Bakugou and Deku are framed as soulmates/character foils, Sasuke + Naruto, Kageyama + Hinata style. Their relationship is arguably the focus of the series. That’s not to undermine the importance or impact of Deku’s relationships with other characters, and theirs with him, but in terms of which one takes priority, and which one this all hinges on?

The manga is about a lot of things, yes, but if it were to be distilled into one relationship, buckle up, because it’s the Bakudeku show.

Power is Power: the Brain-Melting Process of Normalization and Toxic Masculinity

One of the ways in which the biopolitical prioritization of Quirks is exemplified within Hero society is through Quirk marriages. Endeavor partially rationalizes the abuse of his family through the creation of a child with the perfect quirk, a child who can be molded into the perfect Hero. People with powerful, or useful abilities, are ranked high on the hierarchy of power and privilege, and with a powerful ability, the more opportunities and avenues for success are available to them.

For the most part, Bakugou is a super spoiled, privileged little rich kid who is born talented but is enabled for his aggressive behavior and, as a child, cannot move past his many internalized complexes, treats his peers like shit, and gets away with it because the hero society he lives in either has this “boys will be boys” mentality, or it’s an example of the way that power, or Power, is systematically prioritized in this society. The hero system enables and fosters abusers, people who want power and publicity, and people who are genetically predisposed to have advantages over others. There are plenty of good people who believe in and participate in this system, who want to be good, and who do good, but that doesn’t change the way that the hero society is structured, the ethical ambiguity of the Hero Commission, and the way that Heroes are but pawns, idols with machine guns, used to sell merch to the public, to install faith in the government, or the current status quo, and reinforce capitalist propaganda. Even All Might, the epitome of everything a Hero should be, is drained over the years, and exists as a concept or idea, when in reality he is a hollow shell with an entire person inside, struggling to survive. Hero society is functionally dependent on illusion.

In Marxist terms: There is no truth, there is only power.

Although Bakugou does change, and I think that while he regrets his actions, what is long overdue is him verbally expressing his remorse, both to himself and Deku. One might argue that he’s tried to do it in ways that are compatible with his limited emotional range of expression, and Deku seems to understand this language implicitly.

I am of the opinion that the narrative is building up to a verbal acknowledgement, confrontation, and subsequent apology that only speaks what has gone unspoken.

That being said, Bakugou is a great example of the way that figures of authority (parents, teachers, adults) and institutions both in the real world and this fictional universe reward violent behavior while also leaving mental and emotional health — both his own and of the people Bakugou hurts — unchecked, and part of the way he lashes out at others is because he was never taught otherwise.

And by that, I’m referring to the ways that are to me, genuinely disturbing. For example, yelling at his friends is chill. But telling someone to kill themselves, even casually and without intent and then misinterpreting everything they do as a ploy to make you feel weak because you're projecting? And having no teachers stop and intervene, either because they are afraid of you or because they value the weight that your Quirk can benefit society over the safety of children? That, to me, is both real and disturbing.

Not only that, but his parents (at least, Mitsuki), respond to his outbursts with more outbursts, and while this is likely the culture of their home and I hesitate to call it abusive, I do think that it contributed to the way that he approaches things. Bakugou as a character is very complex, but I think that he is primarily an example of the way that the Hero System fails people.

I don’t think we can write off the things he’s done, especially using the line of reasoning that “He didn’t mean it that way”, because in real life, children who hurt others rarely mean it like that either, but that doesn’t change the effect it has on the people who are victimized, but to be absolutely fair, I don’t think that the majority of Bakudeku shippers, at least now, do use that line of reasoning. Most of them seem to have a handle on exactly how fucked up the Hero society is, and exactly why it fucks up the people embedded within that society.

The characters are positioned in this way for a reason, and the discoveries made and the development that these characters undergo are meant to reveal more about the fictional world — and, perhaps, our world — as the narrative progresses.

The world of the Hero society is dependent, to some degree, on biopolitics. I don’t think we have enough evidence to suggest that people with Quirks or Quirkless people place enough identity or placement within society to become equivalent to marginalized groups, exactly, but we can draw parallels to the way that Deku and by extent Quirkless people are viewed as weak, a deviation, or disabled in some way. Deviants, or non-productive bodies, are shunned for their inability to perform ideal labor. While it is suggested to Deku that he could become a police officer or pursue some other occupation to help people, he believes that he can do the most positive good as a Hero. In order to be a Hero, however, in the sense of a career, one needs to have Power.

Deviation from the norm will be punished or policed unless it is exploitable; in order to become integrated into society, a deviant must undergo a process of normalization and become a working, exploitable body. It is only through gaining power from All Might that Deku is allowed to assimilate from the margins and into the upper ranks of society; the manga and the anime give the reader enough perspective, context, and examples to allow us to critique and deconstruct the society that is solely reliant on power.

Through his societal privileges, interpersonal biases, internalized complexes, and his subsequent unlearning of these ideologies, Bakugou provides examples of the way that the system simultaneously fails and indoctrinates those who are targeted, neglected, enabled by, believe in, and participate within the system.

Bakudeku are two sides of the same coin. We are shown visually that the crucial turning point and fracture in their relationship is when Bakugou refuses to take Deku’s outstretched hand; the idea of Deku offering him help messes with his adolescent perspective in that Power creates a hierarchy that must be obeyed, and to be helped is to be weak is to be made a loser.

Largely, their character flaws in terms of understanding the hero society are defined and entangled within the concept of power. Bakugou has power, or privilege, but does not have the moral character to use it as a hero, and believes that Power, or winning, is the only way in which to view life. Izuku has a much better grasp on the way in which heroes wield power (their ideologies can, at first, be differentiated as winning vs. saving), and is a worthy successor because of this understanding, and of circumstance. However, in order to become a Hero, our hero must first gain the Power that he lacks, and learn to wield it.

As the characters change, they bridge the gaps of their character deficiencies, and are brought closer together through character parallelism.

Two sides of the same coin, an outstretched hand.

They are better together.

How to Kill Middle Schoolers, and Why We Should

I think it’s fitting that in the manga, a critical part of Bakugou’s arc explicitly alludes to killing the middle school version of himself in order to progress into a young adult. In the alternative covers Horikoshi released, one of them was a close up of Bakugou in his middle school uniform, being stabbed/impaled, with blood rolling out of his mouth. Clearly this references the scene in which he sacrifices himself to save Deku, on a near-instinctual level.

To me, this only cements Horikoshi’s intent that middle school Bakugou must be debunked, killed, discarded, or destroyed in order for Bakugou the hero to emerge, which is why people who do actually excuse his actions or believe that those actions define him into young adulthood don’t really understand the necessity for change, because they seem to imply that he doesn’t need/cannot reach further growth, and there doesn’t need to be a separation between the Bakugou who is, at heart, volatile and repressed the angry, and the Bakugou who sacrifices himself, a hero who saves people.

Plot twist: there does need to be a difference. Further plot twist: there is a difference.

In sacrificing himself for Deku, Bakugou himself doesn't die, but the injury is fatal in the sense that it could've killed him physically and yet symbolizes the selfish, childish part of him that refused to accept Deku, himself, and the inevitability of change. In killing those selfish remnants, he could actually become the kind of hero that we the reader understand to be the true kind.

That’s why I think that a lot of the people who stress his actions as a child without acknowledging the ways he has changed, grown, and tried to fix what he has broken don’t really get it, because it was always part of his character arc to change and purposely become something different and better. If the effects of his worst and his most childish self stick with you more, and linger despite that, that’s okay. But distilling his character down to the wrong elements doesn’t get you the bare essentials; what it gets you is a skewed and shallow version of a person. If you’re okay with that version, that is also fine.

But you can’t condemn others who aren’t fine with that incomplete version, and to become enraged that others do not see him as you do is childish.

Bakugou’s change and the emphasis on that change is canon.

Parallels in Abuse, EnemiesRivals-to-Lovers, and the Necessity of Redemption ft. ATLA’s Zuko

In real life, the idea that “oh, he must bully you because he likes you” is often used as a way to brush aside or to excuse the action of bullying itself, as if a ‘secret crush’ somehow negates the effects of bullying on the victim or the inability of the bully to properly process and manifest their emotions in certain ways. It doesn’t. It often enables young boys to hurt others, and provides figures of authority to overlook the real source of schoolyard bullying or peer review. The “secret crush”, in real life, is used to undermine abuse, justify toxic masculinity, and is essentially used as a non-solution solution.

A common accusation is that Bakudeku shippers jump on the pairing because they romanticize pairing a bully and a victim together, or believe that the only way for Bakugou to atone for his past would be to date Midoryia in the future. This may be true for some people, in which case, that’s their own preference, but based on my experience and what I’ve witnessed, that’s not the case for most.

The difference being is that as these are characters, we as readers or viewers are meant to analyze them. Not to justify them, or to excuse their actions, but we are given the advantage of the outsider perspective to piece their characters together in context, understand why they are how they are, and witness them change; maybe I just haven’t been exposed to enough of the fandom, but no one (I’ve witnessed) treats the idea that “maybe Bakugou has feelings he can’t process or understand and so they manifest in aggressive and unchecked ways'' as a solution to his inability to communicate or process in a healthy way, rather it is just part of the explanation of his character, something is needs to — and is — working through. The solution to his middle school self is not the revelation of a “teehee, secret crush”, but self-reflection, remorse, and actively working to better oneself, which I do believe is canonically reflected, especially as of recently.

In canon, they are written to be partners, better together than apart, and I genuinely believe that one can like the Bakudeku dynamic not by route of romanticization but by observation.

I do think we are meant to see parallels between him and Endeavor; Endeavor is a high profile abuser who embodies the flaws and hypocrisy of the hero system. Bakugou is a schoolyard bully who emulates and internalizes the flaws of this system as a child, likely due to the structure of the society and the way that children will absorb the propaganda they are exposed to; the idea that Quirks, or power, define the inherent value of the individual, their ability to contribute to society, and subsequently their fundamental human worth. The difference between them is the fact that Endeavor is the literal adult who is fully and knowingly active within a toxic, corrupt system who forces his family to undergo a terrifying amount of trauma and abuse while facing little to no consequences because he knows that his status and the values of their society will protect him from those consequences. In other words, Endeavor is the threat of what Bakugou could have, and would have, become without intervention or genuine change.

Comparisons between characters, as parallels or foils, are tricky in that they imply but cannot confirm sameness. Having parallels with someone does not make them the same, by the way, but can serve to illustrate contrasts, or warnings. Harry Potter, for example, is meant to have obvious parallels with Tom Riddle, with similar abilities, and tragic upbringings. That doesn’t mean Harry grows up to become Lord Voldemort, but rather he helps lead a cross-generational movement to overthrow the facist regime. Harry is offered love, compassion, and friends, and does not embrace the darkness within or around him. As far as moldy old snake men are concerned, they do not deserve a redemption arc because they do not wish for one, and the truest of change only occurs when you actively try to change.

To be frank, either way, Bakugou was probably going to become a good Hero, in the sense that Endeavor is a ‘good’ Hero. Hero capitalized, as in a pro Hero, in the sense that it is a career, an occupation, and a status. Because of his strong Quirk, determination, skill, and work ethic, Bakugou would have made a good Hero. Due to his lack of character, however, he was not on the path to become a hero; defender of the weak, someone who saves people to save people, who is willing to make sacrifices detrimental to themselves, who saves people out of love.

It is necessary for him to undergo both a redemption arc and a symbolic death and rebirth in order for him to follow the path of a hero, having been inspired and prompted by Deku.

I personally don’t really like Endeavor’s little redemption arc, not because I don’t believe that people can change or that they shouldn't at least try to atone for the atrocities they have committed, but because within any narrative, a good redemption arc is important if it matters; what also matters is the context of that arc, and whether or not it was needed. For example, in ATLA, Zuko’s redemption arc is widely regarded as one of the best arcs in television history, something incredible. And it is. That shit fucks. In a good way.

It was confirmed that Azula was also going to get a redemption arc, had Volume 4 gone on as planned, and it was tentatively approached in the comics, which are considered canon. She is an undeniably bad person (who is willing to kill, threaten, exploit, and colonize), but she is also a child, and as viewers, we witness and recognize the factors that contributed to her (debatable) sociopathy, and the way that the system she was raised in failed her. Her family failed her; even Uncle Iroh, the wise mentor who helps guide Zuko to see the light, is willing to give up on her immediately, saying that she’s “crazy” and needs to be “put down”. Yes, it’s comedic, and yes, it’s pragmatic, but Azula is fourteen years old. Her mother is banished, her father is a psychopath, and her older brother, from her perspective, betrayed and abandoned her. She doesn’t have the emotional support that Zuko does; she exploits and controls her friends because it’s all she’s been taught to do; she says herself, her “own mother thought [she] was a monster; she was right, of course, but it still [hurts]”. A parent who does not believe in you, or a parent that uses you and will hurt you, is a genuine indicator of trauma.

The writers understood that both Zuko and Azula deserved redemption arcs. One was arguably further gone than the other, but that doesn’t change the fact that they are both children, products of their environment, who have the time, motive, and reason to change.

In contrast, you know who wouldn’t have deserved a redemption arc? Ozai. That simply would not have been interesting, wouldn’t have served the narrative well, and honestly, is not needed, thematically or otherwise. Am I comparing Ozai to Endeavor? Basically, yes. Fuck those guys. I don’t see a point in Endeavor’s little “I want to be a good dad now” arc, and I think that we don’t need to sympathize with characters in order to understand them or be interested in them. I want Touya/Dabi to expose his abuse, for his career to crumble, and then for him to die.

If they are not challenging the system that we the viewer are meant to question, and there is no thematic relevance to their redemption, is it even needed?

On that note, am I saying that Bakugou is the equivalent to Zuko? No, lmao. Definitely not. They are different characters with different progressions and different pressures. What I am saying is that good redemption arcs shouldn’t be handed out like candy to babies; it is the quality, rather than the quantity, that makes a redemption arc good. In terms of the commentary of the narrative, who needs a redemption arc, who is deserving, and who does it make sense to give one to?

In this case, Bakugou checks those boxes. It was always in the cards for him to change, and he has. In fact, he’s still changing.

Give it to Me Straight. It’s Homophobic.

There does seem to be an urge to obsessively gender either Bakugou or Deku, in making Deku the ultra-feminine, stereotypically hyper-sexualized “woman” of the relationship, with Bakugou becoming similarly sexualized but depicted as the hyper-masculine bodice ripper. On some level, that feels vaguely homophobic if not straight up misogynistic, in that in a gay relationship there’s an urge to compel them to conform under heteronormative stereotypes in order to be interpreted as real or functional. On one hand, I will say that in a lot of cases it feels like more of an expression of a kink, or fetishization and subsequent expression of internalized misogyny, at least, rather than a genuine exploration of the complexity and power imbalances of gender dynamics, expression, and boundaries.

That being said, I don’t think that that problematic aspect of shipping is unique to Bakudeku, or even to the fandom in general. We’ve all read fan work or see fanart of most gay ships in a similiar manner, and I think it’s a broader issue to be addressed than blaming it on a singular ship and calling it a day.

One interpretation of Bakugou’s character is his repression and the way his character functions under toxic masculinity, in a society’s egregious disregard for mental and emotional health (much like in the real world), the horrifying ways in which rage is rationalized or excused due to the concept of masculinity, and the way that characteristics that are associated with femininity — intellect, empathy, anxiety, kindness, hesitation, softness — are seen as stereotypically “weak”, and in men, traditionally emasculating. In terms of the way that the fictional universe is largely about societal priority and power dynamics between individuals and the way that extends to institutions, it’s not a total stretch to guess that gender as a construct is a relevant topic to expand on or at least keep in mind for comparison.

I think that the way in which characters are gendered and the extent to which that is a result of invasive heteronormativity and fetishization is a really important conversation to have, but using it as a case-by-case evolution of a ship used to condemn people isn’t conductive, and at that point, it’s treated as less of a real concern but an issue narrowly weaponised.

Love in Perspective, from the East v. West

Another thing I think could be elaborated on and written about in great detail is the way that the Eastern part of the fandom and the Western part of the fandom have such different perspectives on Bakudeku in particular. I am not going to go in depth with this, and there are many other people who could go into specifics, but just as an overview:

The manga and the anime are created for and targeted at a certain audience; our take on it will differ based on cultural norms, decisions in translation, understanding of the genre, and our own region-specific socialization. This includes the way in which we interpret certain relationships, the way they resonate with us, and what we do and do not find to be acceptable. Of course, this is not a case-by-case basis, and I’m sure there are plenty of people who hold differing beliefs within one area, but speaking generally, there is a reason that Bakudeku is not regarded as nearly as problematic in the East.

Had this been written by a Western creator, marketed primarily to and within the West (for reference, while I am Chinese, but I have lived in the USA for most of my life, so my own perspective is undoubtedly westernized), I would’ve immediately jumped to make comparisons between the Hero System and the American police system, in that a corrupt, or bastardized system is made no less corrupt for the people who do legitimately want to do good and help people, when that system disproportionately values and targets others while relying on propaganda that society must be reliant on that system in order to create safe communities when in reality it perpetuates just as many issues as it appears to solve, not to mention the way it attracts and rewards violent and power-hungry people who are enabled to abuse their power. I think comparisons can still be made, but in terms of analysis, it should be kept in mind that the police system in other parts of the world do not have the same history, place, and context as it does in America, and the police system in Japan, for example, probably wasn’t the basis for the Hero System.

As much as I do believe in the Death of the Author in most cases, the intent of the author does matter when it comes to content like this, if merely on the basis that it provides context that we may be missing as foreign viewers.

As far as the intent of the author goes, Bakugou is on a route of redemption.

He deserves it. It is unavoidable. That, of course, may depend on where you’re reading this.

Stuck in the Sludge, the Past, and Season One

If there’s one thing, to me, that epitomizes middle school Bakugou, it’s him being trapped in a sludge monster, rescued by his Quirkless childhood friend, and unable to believe his eyes. He clings to the ideology he always has, that Quirkless means weak, that there’s no way that Deku could have grown to be strong, or had the capacity to be strong all along. Bakugou is wrong about this, and continuously proven wrong. It is only when he accepts that he is wrong, and that Deku is someone to follow, that he starts his real path to heroics.

If Bakudeku’s relationship does not appeal to someone for whatever reason, there’s nothing wrong with that. They can write all they want about why they don’t ship it, or why it bothers them, or why they think it’s problematic. If it is legitimately triggering to you, then by all means, avoid it, point it out, etc. but do not undermine the reality of abuse simply to point fingers, just because you don’t like a ship. People who intentionally use the anti tag knowing it’ll show up in the main tag, go after people who are literally minding their own business, and accuse people of supporting abuse are the ones looking for a fight, and they’re annoying as hell because they don’t bring anything to the table. No evidence, no analysis, just repeated projection.

To clarify, I’m referring to a specific kind of shipper, not someone who just doesn’t like a ship, but who is so aggressive about it for absolutely no reason. There are plenty of very lovely people in this fandom, who mind their own business, multipship, or just don’t care.

Calling shippers dumb or braindead or toxic (to clarify, this isn’t targeting any one person I’ve seen, but a collective) based on projections and generalizations that come entirely from your own impression of the ship rather than observation is...really biased to me, and comes across as uneducated and trigger happy, rather than constructive or helpful in any way.

I’m not saying someone has to ship anything, or like it, in order to be a ‘good’ participant. But inserting derogatory material into a main tag, and dropping buzzwords with the same tired backing behind it without seeming to understand the implications of those words or acknowledging the development, pacing, and intentional change to the characters within the plot is just...I don’t know, it comes across as redundant, to me at least, and very childish. Aggressive. Toxic. Problematic. Maybe the real toxic shippers were the ones who bitched and moaned along the way. They’re like little kids, stuck in the past, unable to visualize or recognize change, and I think that’s a real shame because it’s preventing them from appreciating the story or its characters as it is, in canon.

But that’s okay, really. To each their own. Interpretations will vary, preferences differ, perspectives are not uniform. There is no one truth. There are five seasons of the show, a feature film, and like, thirty volumes as of this year.

All I’m saying is that if you want to stay stuck in the first season of each character, then that’s what you’re going to get. That’s up to you.

This may be edited or revised.

[olderthannetfic]

For me the most frustrating thing about SX and Lindsay is how *close* they are to getting it. They just... don’t. They will even say the dang thing but not apply it. Or consider how different things connect together. The second most frustrating thing is how much they get held up, particularly among young LGBT+ participants in fandom, as being correct about everything always and beacons of woke. The fact checking in their videos is usually fine, unless it’s outside their wheelhouse.

--

Yup. “Bicons”, they are not.

SZ should be ashamed of her take on the pink triangle. Ugh.

I’m a huge fan of Lindsay, but she’s infuriatingly wrong on certain topics. I blame a lot of this on the environment around youtube cultural commentators in general, however.

In Lindsay’s rant video, you get this really clear sense of how she started as a rando expressing her opinions online and got accidentally elevated to a status of authority she didn’t really aspire to and struggles to live up to. I’m sure some people see that as pretentious humblebragging or something, but it sounded very honest to me. I see it with all kinds of bloggers.

Our news media of the past (when it was better) also didn’t always live up to these standards, but randos who’ve accidentally gained a larger platform than they expected and who never claimed to be upholding any specific code definitely don’t.

People even do it to me a bit on here. Not to the same degree because I’m many orders of magnitude less popular, but I do come in for a bit of the “I thought we were friends, and now you’ve let me down!” parasocial relationship stuff.

(And this is hilarious because I do routinely make new fandom friends who are actual friends. I’m not anything like that inaccessible. I’m just oblivious and busy, so unless we chat regularly one-on-one or you @ me for my input a lot, I probably don’t have much sense of you as an individual rather than part of a sea of fandom commentary. I get a lot of anons for all of the obvious reasons having to do with fandom culture, and that’s why I leave anon asks on... but guys... you know I’m not going to remember you specifically or feel like your friend when you’re anon, right? I have a hard enough time remembering anyone I haven’t met in person even when they have a distinctive screenname!)

And more than that, I get taken to task for not living up to the standards of an academic or reporter... two things I am not, least of all on my personal tumblr of fannish squee.

We’d all be a lot healthier if we were able to enjoy the ramblings of individual blogger types without getting too wedded to the idea that they’re anything but personal opinions.