#sometimes I feel I just don't have the same kind of personality and speech vibe/interactions as everyone else and it makes me boring

[manasurge]

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[thunderheadfred]

❄️Todoroki HC's🔥

Aged-up pro hero Shouto. NSFW under the cut. Minors do not interact.

- - -

General

Might as well be tied with Bakugou for the #1 pro hero spot; they seem to pass the crown back and forth every other year. Everyone knows about their intense frenemies uber-rivalry. Well. Everyone but Shouto.

He's asked to speak at a lot of charity events. If he has time to prepare (and hire a speech writer) he is capable of stirring crowds to standing ovations. But if caught unawares... he gets cornered into hilarious on-the-spot interviews. He's been memed. Mercilessly.

He's an OP character, but unfortunately he rolled -500 in fashion sense. Eventually he wises up and hires a stylist. When he finally cuts his hair a slightly different and even more flattering way, it's a national event. People faint in the street.

Does god-awful sleight-of-hand magic tricks when he meets young fans, even though nobody asked him to. The second-hand embarrassment is palpable. But he keeps doing it. God, why does he keep doing it?

Has hovering arm syndrome in every fan photo.

Super into pop music. Not a fan of any particular group or artist, couldn't tell you the name of a single song. But every time he turns up the volume on the radio it's like... really? THIS? Probably pumps that shit through his hero agency to keep up morale. Has no idea what you mean when you tell him his music taste doesn't match his personality.

Similarly, he enjoys brainless romantic comedies and old silent movies. Doesn't laugh at jokes but loses it over physical comedy. Thinks Buster Keaton and Harold Lloyd are the funniest people who ever walked the earth.

He's long and limber. Runs practically a hundred miles every day just to "relax." Doesn't even get sweaty doing it. A filthy yoga addict. He'll probably live to be 200 years old.

He can regulate his body temperature for quirk use but in everyday life he's always half a degree outside the Goldilocks zone. It drives him quietly insane; he has an epic love-hate relationship with his thermostat.

Has a therapy animal pet. Doesn't matter if it's a dog or a cat or a bird or an iguana or a teeny tiny rodent. It's the best-behaved animal in the country and speaks more languages than you. It has its own room and an instagram account with millions of followers.

Lives in a traditional Japanese estate that doubles as a national treasure. Probably has government-appointed snipers at the gate, and he's just like, "don't worry about it." You are afraid to touch anything. Fuck, don't even look at anything, just to be safe.

Has an outstanding personal chef who only gets to cook five things unless (thank fuck!!) company comes over. Impossibly picky eater. He rotates between a few "safe" foods and suspiciously side-eyes everything else. If you cook something unfamiliar for him it will be the most awkward meal of your life, because he'd never tell you he doesn't like it. But oh lord, just look at his face.

This clashes directly with his love of traveling. Frequently uses his hero earnings to visit exotic foreign locales over long weekends... but rarely tries the food.

- - -

Dating

A grey-ace demisexual disaster. You could count the number of people he's been attracted to on one hand. He falls madly in love every time and always gets his heart smashed to pieces when his crush can't magically intuit the meaning of his frigid longing glances and generically courteous romantic gestures.

Which is stupid, because he gets propositioned constantly. He can't walk out the door without being flirted with. People keep slipping him their phone numbers and he always directs them to his agency like a moron. It's a good thing he will never understand how attractive he is because that's the only thing keeping him from total world domination.

Conventional attractiveness does not compute. Shouto doesn't have a type, doesn't care that he's an eleven whilst you are merely mortal. He will fall for your personality above all else.

Probably falls head over heels because your schedules overlap in a completely ordinary way and he witnesses you doing something endearing or brave or most likely: utterly mundane.

Pick a favorite, because you're his favorite coworker, or his favorite barista, or his favorite random bystander in line at the grocery store. You made him smile once; then he spent the next three months daydreaming about your future together before you accidentally stomped on his foot, initiating your first real conversation.

He's big on healthy communication. HUGE. He goes to therapy and it shows. Will talk through literally everything to the point of delirium. Sometimes his dedication to resolving every issue right away can get overwhelming; sometimes you just need some frickin time alone. But it pays off, because the two of you have practically never have a "real fight." There's just no way for bad vibes to fester.

STILL, his family wasn't exactly... erm... verbally or emotionally supportive, shall we say. For that reason, he might not give you all the compliments you deserve, because it simply doesn't occur to him to do so. He assumes you know how he feels. If you're self-conscious or insecure in the relationship, it might take him a while to notice. But when he figures it out (or even better, when you tell him directly) he will make it up to you with enthusiasm.

Will take you on lavish dates. Spoils you rotten without actually intending to. He's clueless about money. If you wanted a sugar daddy, you just hit the fucking jackpot. But if the word valet makes you uncomfortable, perhaps suggest some romantic picnics instead. He can still go all out with the food and five-star location without making you see cartoon dollar signs.

Chronic Insomniac. Stays up too late watching YouTube every night. His viewing history is an incomprehensible blur of k-pop music videos, serial killer icebergs, and super girly crafty ASMR channels. When he's watching a video, he is unreachable. Please call back later and try again.

He's disgustingly cute when he sleeps. Doesn't snore, but drools. Sometimes the drool freezes and leaves frost trails on his face in the morning. Still sleeps with the giant stuffed cat pillow that his mother gave him when he was like, zero. He'll inadvertently suffocate you with it, and you will welcome death with open arms because awwwwww!!!!!

The first time he tells you he loves you will be after your traditional Japanese shinto wedding. You won't hear it again until you start a family. Honestly, it's a good thing he doesn't say it often and is always holding you when it happens. It's a knee-buckler.

- - -

Icy-Hot

I don't even need to say it. Shouto is as old-fashioned as they come. You will never open another door or pull out another chair for yourself as long as you live. He will ask before he holds your hand. He will ask before he kisses you. He will stop and check in if you so much as breathe funny during sex.

If you don't orgasm at exactly the same time while staring into one another's eyes, he'll consider himself a failed lover. God forbid you want him to pound you into the futon... cause you are going to have to present that scenario to him in writing first.

Physical intimacy rarely leads to sex. He loves cuddling, craves physical affection. He'll sprawl all over you and turn into goo while you hold him close. He's an amazing, astounding, phenomenally good kisser. And that's... nice and all... but sometimes you have to grab his face and say, "Shouto, I'm horny," before he's like so that's why you're currently dry-humping me?

Even if he isn't technically a virgin the first time (or the millionth time) you sleep together, you won't know the difference. He's a blushing violet. Every. Fucking. Time. This doesn't mean he's a bad lay, oh no. But there's always ten minutes of confused bumbling before he hits his stride and remembers oh yeah, I DO know how to fuck good.

Absolutely silent during sex. Focused. Intense. Sometimes you have to push him a little to make any kind of noise at all, just so you know you're pleasing him (oh don't worry, you are).

His cock is Just Right. Not to big or too small. Perfectly proportioned and symmetrical. Somehow pretty. Like a fucking factory prototype. It truly is not fair.

Gets handsy and restless at night, even if you both have work the next day. Seems to crave sex at three in the morning. You've given him more than one exhausted handjob.

Gets offended if you don't cum. Will go down on you for hours. Of course he uses his quirk to tease you. He doesn't typically use it during actual intercourse, but he's all about foreplay, and he'll use every tool in his arsenal.

His sex drive is completely fucking unpredictable. Sometimes he's all over you, other times he's an icy slab. His line of work leaves him busy and stressed on a near-constant basis, so you can't entirely blame his personality for this one. Just give him some time and help him take care of his basic needs. He'll come back around soon enough.

[ofdreamsanddoodles]

if you don't mind me asking, how do you deal with consuming content with 'problematic' aspects? for example, i see you reblog posts criticizing things like racism in tma, and you can still make content while being able to recognize those things. it's hard for me to continue enjoying something when it has even 1 thing slightly bad in it, but i know that's not a healthy way to consume content. is there anything you keep in mind when interacting with a given series? u don't need to answer ❤️ ty

also a note on my ask -- of course you don't need to answer, and you aren't a therapist & etc. i just admire your ability to both recognize flaws in works but still enjoy them, and thought since you seem to have critical thinking skills you might have a perspective that you could offer. being on tumblr from a young age seems to have affected my ability to separate things in my mind, lol. thanks so much for reading even if you don't feel comfortable answering.

I mean... you’ve kind of answered your own question? The only way to consume media is to remember that everything has flaws. My brother came by while I was typing this up and told me the answer is to “just vibe” because everyone is more or less terrible in one aspect or another but obviously, that’s not the answer you’re looking for.

I guess the short answer is just... you have to learn how to trust your own set of morals and understand that you shouldn’t feel guilty if a story you like betrays you. And yes, that’s hard, especially when you grow up surrounded by very rigid rules on what’s “okay” to watch, but if you’re just looking for some tips, here’s a list that I hope will help:

Find people you trust and see what they think of the situation. Think about whether or not they’re coming from an informed place. A friend of mine asked me if I knew about a Jewish tradition a while back. I had no idea what they were talking about. Turns out, it was something popular with German Jews. None of my family is from Germany. Sometimes, just being Jewish doesn’t mean I’m the right person to ask.

Find people who are complaining & see why they’re upset. Think about who is annoyed by this and how many of them there are. Think about what they think the proper response is, if any. Think about whether you have the right to wave off their concerns. Think about how those concerns are treated, both in-fandom and by creators. I saw a lot of people in the tma tag complaining about twitter “overreacting” to MAG 185, but if Jonny felt the need to issue an apology and specifically say that he realizes he’s crossed a line, chances are, the complaints were probably warranted (a thing I’d like to add is that apparently, RQ also issued an apology for a fluff episode they released, which I thought was kind of silly, because the episode was essentially just joking about martin forgetting a word. But also, as a neurodivergent person who sometimes struggles with speech, I do understand why that might upset people. not all apologies have to about incredibly important topics, but even the ones who aren’t show a lot about the cast behind it. Alternatively, if RQ had only apologized for this episode, and not MAG 185, that also says a lot about where there priorities are, and what fans they care about keeping)

Think about what will happen if you continue watching/reading etc. It’s not so much “is it okay if I keep watching this?” but “if I continue to watch this, will I convince myself that this problematic aspect isn’t actually a big deal? Is it so ingrained in the show that I can’t watch an episode without seeing the problems in it? What will I say to others, if they want to watch this?” For example, if someone sees you’ve reblogged a scene from a show you like and asks what it’s about, how many excuses are you going to give? How many trigger warnings are there, and can you justify them? There’s a difference between a piece of media having a character say homophobic slurs, and a piece of media saying a gay person should have homophobic slurs thrown at them.  Also: If you think you cant justify getting someone else interested, you probably shouldn’t justify contributing to the show. This might be obvious, but there’s a very big difference in pirating a tv show and buying its merch. 

Think about the fandom. If you continue talking about this, who are you surrounding yourself with? Like, there are a LOT of weirdos making content for kids shows, but that doesn’t always mean the show itself is weird. What it does mean, though, is that you should be careful navigating your enjoyment. Sometimes, the only way to enjoy something is to talk about it with a select few friends. Sometimes, it’s to enjoy it by yourself. I do believe it’s possible to enjoy a show in spite of the canon, but at the same time, if you’re watching a show that’s attracting a lot of racists, think about why that might be. 

some more thoughts under the cut, because I already wrote them out before I realized I could just make a list.

The thing about consuming media is that it’s very subjective. I know a lot of people who have given up on tma recently and while that’s not wholly because it’s “problematic,” it definitely plays a part in it. People have different meters for what they can excuse in media. The important thing to remember is WHY they left, and if you’re able to keep that in your mind while also continuing to engage in contact with the media. Will you be able to remember that Daisy traumatized Jon more than any other avatar if you consume context calling her Basira’s hot murderwife? Can you talk about the Flesh and acknowledge the racism in the creation of the Haans?

Personally, I don’t think you can produce positive content about Daisy and also acknowledge the harm she causes. You can’t point at a character and say, yes, she has committed actual police brutality, but I think she deserves a cute lesbian romance anyway. That’s not really a thing tma has done wrong as much as it is a problem with the fandom, but like, at the end of the day, it’s all just a matter of critical thinking. Who is being hurt by these portrayals of the characters? How? Most of the problems with tma aren’t things that are, like, baked into the actual worldbuilding and for a lot of people, that’s enough for them to still justify making content for the show.

If your complaints sound like “oh, if only they didn’t do xy, this would make for a good show,” then you’re probably fine. But if it goes into “i like this, but only if I can ignore (major plot point)” think about why you feel the need to keep watching. There are shows I’ve stopped watching based on principle. There’s manga I read that I only talk about with my brother and no one else, because I don’t want to be exposed to the fans. It doesn’t have to be as simple as “well, this artist did a bad thing, so now I’m going to ignore it forever.” If you think the creators of something are bad people, don’t support them. You can still pirate it or whatever, but if it’s something like hetalia, where the point of the show is just “let’s put all these stereotypes in a room and see how they react” then yes, for your own sake, you should stop watching because this is how stereotypes become normalized, and no one should be consuming media where nazi germany as the protagonist.

Really, at the end of the day, it’s just a matter of becoming media literate and that’s a process that takes time. Remember that being interested in something that isn’t 100% doesn’t make you a bad person, and listen to the people around you. Try and be a safe space for the people who do have complaints and remember not to place your enjoyment of something over the comfort of others. Other than that, just... do your best, I guess?

[violetsystems]

#personal

For however many ever years I first started journaling weekly, this has been my main spot to hang out on the internet. I deactivated my twitter around the same time as my Facebook and Instagram. I just recently on a whim reactivated the "Meta" portion to make sure I still looked alive. I was also locked out of it for a long period of time due to my old job. I have the gift of hindsight to realize that in terms of credible social network presences I'm not really important enough to notice. This is half true. I've been doxxed from infinity and beyond yet nobody can seem to acknowledge I have rights to pursue happiness. But as far as highlight reels, all the screenshots from any social media site eventually show up down here anyway. Sometimes it even originates from here. I've spent years trying to "break through" whatever wall people haphazardly slap on your social mobility in America. I travelled the world by myself. I successfully hooked up musical performances in Korea, Japan and even that one time in New Zealand. Nobody remembers me to my face. I log onto Facebook and the shell accounts that followed me over the years' birthdays are more relevant than people I actually have met in the flesh. If you want easily definable, quantitive examples of social interaction, these bigger sites are your cup of tea. And behind the scenes you pay the price for interacting with a publicly tradable company. These ecosystems wouldn't exist if it weren't for us feeding them. I've fed my own chum out into the digital ocean down here but mostly it has attracted like minded sharks. Hiroshi Fujiwara once said that revivals were permanently dead because of the internet. People connect and find what they want now. Nothing ever dies or becomes irrelevant. That is unless somebody thinks it's competition. Then companies, rich people, and the petty alike all find some way to harsh the vibe. This is why we can't have nice things. Or admit to them publicly. I've kind of solved that problem through whatever obsolescence was planned out for me. I can tell everyone in good faith that while I made almost four dollars for releasing a free mixtape, nobody really wants to acknowledge me other than the various urls in my dash. It's not verifiable other than how it makes me feel. I can't brag about it to anyone because everyone pretends I'm not good enough to exist in real life. So I feel a lot like I've been derezzed in some Tron sense only to be resurrected by the billionaires up top fighting amongst each other. Whatever exodus isn't really evident in my dash. It's all the same people I've hung out with for years. And for the most part it feels warm enough that I don't try to ruffle the blanket's placing in my final resting place.

It gets worse when you count what I do on LinkedIn. I do think if you use these sites it should give you something back. I still look for jobs. Sadly the jobs that LinkedIn suggests often follow me around in the downtown area in logo'd shirts like I'm in an open air slave market (JLL I'm looking squarely at you.) The way the data is used isn't respected at all. In fact, Facebook recently noted that they don't really know what goes on with half the data out there they salvage from your digital detritus. In the case of Twitter's buyout as we've seen with Epic Games and Bandcamp, the new management has great ideas of monetizing the platform for more profit. This means often that whatever you contribute to it will be used to generate revenue for people that own the platform and not you. In the case of twitter, I've read there is speculation that what comes with free speech is also for profit free speech monitoring by local law enforcement. That is to say that some of what you say loops back into a system for reporting you for saying some too spicy shit. This is beyond organic detective work. I shudder to think that the FBI has to read all these paragraphs in retrospect to get a clue as to what I'm about. Their reading comprehension isn't that good. I should know because I'm still in the same situation I've been in for years now. Or it's that nobody really pays attention to what I say down here except people involved in some elaborate plot to talk shit about me. We're talking a direct hot line when you threaten that jerk next door and brag about it. A hellsite you have to dig through versus a snitch informant that lulls you into speaking your mind and sells your case off to the highest bidder. Sounding farfetched? Chicago police did this with shotspotter, a public traded company that reports gunshots fired and maps them algorithmically. Often these noises lead to police deployments in areas that are predominantly populated by people of color. It takes a lot of man hours from police to spend years reading my love letters to my girlfriend and do absolutely nothing but set up cop houses around you. You figure if that had been happening over the years, there'd be oversight and some scandal. But mostly people just accept I'm down here married to an elder of the Matrix. Even if people weaponized ad content against the world heritage lore of my existence, I pay for ad free to ignore the shit. So all I really feel down here is like I'm hanging out in a VIP booth in a noisy ass club with my friends.

That being said, loose lips sink ships as they say. Pardon that awful pun. I liken our love to a Naval destroyer. Or a belly chain. However we're all connected it resembles Blockchain more than crypto ever could. What we all share together is very valuable to me. Everywhere else people pretend like I'm not good enough. That I've done something wrong over and over again. Like people in real life know everything there is to know about me. How many times I rub my pee pee in private thinking about the girl I love? How many terpenes I vaped in a glass box surrounded by blankets as to avoid detection from the satellites in the sky? How many pieces of religious art on my porch are measured against a religious belief system I've never shared with anyone? People know too much about each other and do little positive with it. This is to say that Tumblr has been a spot where you can avoid more than detection. You can avoid judgement and expectation. It's a safe space in the sense that we've been shunned for years. Of course many of us worry about people coming down here and "changing the culture." They will steal it for sure. They will pretend it's all about them. And we'll all be flirting with each other's side blogs just the same. I don't think much really changes for us. The only real cottage core there is out there for me is you tucked in beside me in bed. By you I mean something redacted for safety reasons. But you all have come to know what I'm talking about without it getting twisted. Can I even sacrifice that at this point? Nobody literally wants to admit they know who I am. Nobody wants to listen to the story out of my mouth. You could sit here as an X-file and read what I've written and figure out the detective work yourself. And nobody has. Because people out there are only paying attention to themselves on social media. And they've been trained to do so to create more content to be manipulated by. I use Tumblr to have real intimate, human relationships with the people I love that I write to. I use LinkedIn to look for a job. What would I use twitter for? I've heard every douchebag dj friend who pretends I don't exist tell people behind my back that I dropped off. That I need to step up my "social media game." And now it's ironic that somehow this place is more relevant than any of it. It always has been for me. Because I have love here. That's not something I want to snitch on or sell out. It's easy enough to do. Shut my mouth for nine hours and wait for you to speak through my dash. Maybe one day we can shut our mouths together in private. <3 Tim