#their dynamic is SO interesting to me

[koerinz]

experimental

[drrav3nb]

THE FLY

I find it interesting that already in the first episode we're getting a common thread between Seo Do-young and Han Dong-soo, something that gives an insight into their morality and nature, in this case being how both of them react to a fly.

In Do-young's case, he immediately throws a baseball at the insect after noticing its presence. Now what's interesting is that the fly had not been buzzing around or causing a distraction, yet its mere existence irritated Do-young so much that he sought to kill it.

His ease and lack of hesitation to kill the insect shows just how apathetic he's become towards death and maybe even murder. It could also forewarn how he treats those that get in his way or even those that become a vexation.

Meanwhile, Dong-soo treats the fly with more patience - he gives it a chance. We can tell from his expression that the fly is an irritation to him, yet he opens the window to let it out, giving the insect a choice, one it doesn't take and this is where we see a shift.

At first he tries to smack it away, a failed attempt that spurs more irritation. Then he tracks the fly's movements before pouncing and catching it in his hand, an action that resembles a predator hunting its prey.

This is enforced when we see him tightening his hold on the fly, squeezing his fingers so much that we see them redden. Why does he do this? Catching the fly was enough, that probably even killed it. Yet something spurs this action, someone...

Do-young.

In this moment we get shown the scene where Dong-soo refuses Do-young's offer to work for him stating that, "There's a line I shouldn't cross" to which Do-young replies, "A line? There is a line to cross. You haven't seen the bottom enough yet...Does this hurt your ego? Then keep on living pathetically."

Clearly these words rattle Dong-soo and what follows is the savage murder of this insect at the hands of someone who had just sworn that there he would never cross the line. And yet without even being in the same room as him, Do-young has already started to influence/bring out the worst parts of Dong-soo, he's made him cross that line and soon he'll see the bottom.

Funnily enough, after both of these characters kill the fly, residues of it remain on their hands, evidence of their actions tainting their skin, marking them both with death and binding them through a shared sin - murder - perhaps the first of many.

[mjfass]

You know what I love about the BCC? That they are not selfish at all. Bryan literally said “I am the best wrestler in the world right now and if I’m not, it’s one of these men”. Their group it’s not about who is better, it’s not about egos, they genuinely just want to bring out the best in each other and love each other with a selfless-never ending- love. That’s it.

[chemmerson]

kagura and kyo’s episode in season 2 is actually so emotional likeeeeeeee

[oobbbear]

I want to post this here too because I’ve seen it happen a few times

Please understand that there are cultural differences and language differences, if you see this happening let the person clarify what they meant, that person might just not be familiar with words the western side of the internet use

[welcometogrouchland]

[ID in ALT] I've made posts before about Talia/Dick co-parenting Damian moments (will never happen but let me dream) and this came to me in a vision. Took me ages to finish for some reason 😭 and then even longer to post

[lotus-pear]

free will is drawing ur two favorite characters together and making them gay

[mikuyuuss]

“You'll see my face in every place

But you can't catch me now”

[gratuiciel]

that's an interesting question, and a good occasion for me to babble on about the blorbos xD

i think baji's real feelings about chifuyu are mostly hidden during the main story (and then revealed the moment he dies, when there's nothing left to do about it) so unless you dig deeper with additional content (spinoff, chibi reve, live action movie), you don't have that much to work with

long post incoming, with a few pics (sorry for the french lol, those are pictures from my own tokrev manga collection, i added translations in alt text) and also a chibi reve vid

by the time he meets chifuyu, baji is still traumatized by the crime he committed with kazutora, and in the spinoff, despite saving chifuyu from those guys to thank him for his help, he flat out rejects him when chifuyu starts showing interest in joining toman. after this initial rejection we see baji talk to himself in private, saying he never wants anyone close again

it's clear that without chifuyu's insistence on joining toman, baji would have just kept it at that, not wanting to get closer. but when he sees that chifuyu is serious about this, he accepts him into the team and also teaches him stuff like how he shouldn't rush into the fray on his own when he has teammates he can rely on (which is a bit rich coming from baji but that guy is kinda forced to contradict himself because of the threat kazutora poses + his own guilt). i think the spinoff is doing a pretty good job at showing that baji genuinely cares about and respects chifuyu, in various little ways

i should probably reread it tbh cause the details are a bit fuzzy rn (currently waiting for the second volume to come out where i live) but once the shojo chapters are done with and we get into delinquent business again, kazutora kind of becomes the ghost that haunts the spinoff's whole story (and i'm looking forward to the halloween showdown seen from their perspective, cause i believe we'll get there at some point)

and then there's the fact that the moment chifuyu steps into valhalla territory, he gets beaten to a pulp specifically because of his closeness to baji. i used to think chifuyu was dragged there, but now i'm not so sure. in the live action movie, even after getting his ass kicked, chifuyu actually walks into valhalla's headquarters a second time, along with takemichi (those boys have even less brain cells in the movies xD), to try and talk some sense into baji. so now i tend to think this is what happened when we see him the first time, too (but this one's just a headcanon, also the movie version of the characters is pretty different from wakui's version sometimes).

once kazutora does come out of juvie and we enter the main story's valhalla arc, then baji can no longer be with chifuyu for a whole lot of reasons. first, there's the promise he made to stay with kazutora no matter what, even through hell. baji is a guy that keeps his promises, and this kind of promise is not something anyone can back away from easily. kisaki joining toman was also a major reason for his departure, but when you take into account baji's promise to kazutora and the fact he went to meet him right after leaving toman, kisaki almost becomes something of a convenient excuse lol, although still a threat that baji wants to eliminate.

so what does chifuyu do when he walks (or is dragged) into this place full of dudes ready to kick his ass? he confronts baji about his decision to leave toman. chifuyu really admires toman and the whole "one for all, all for one" mentality, and he knows that baji cares deeply about toman as well. and who's there to see this guy try to appeal to baji's feelings, telling him to come to his senses? kazutora, most likely (he was absent for a bit to go fetch takemichi but i'm pretty sure he was still there at the start of the "trial of faith", since he's the one to explain who chifuyu is and why he's there). i believe that once he learns who chifuyu is (we don't know if he already knows about him before this incident, maybe the spinoff will tell us), and how far he's willing to go for baji, kazutora feels threatened by the guy, and orders baji to beat him up (again, this one's just a headcanon, but i think it fits kazutora's mental state at this point, and might also explain why chifuyu is scared of him personally (and not hanma who was technically presiding that trial)).

this would also explain why, the moment he sees baji talk with chifuyu, after hanma told him baji betrayed them, kazutora immediately believes it and rushes to stab baji (still not leaving hc territory here but would he have reacted the same if baji was talking to anyone else? well maybe with mikey lol)

so yeah, i think baji actually cares a lot about chifuyu, but was not allowed to show much of it (except when he was dying) because of the circumstances of the valhalla arc. when we see them in the spinoff and the final timeline (and in wakui's tr art), they joke around and spend time together like friends, which shows this isn't just a one-sided thing

here's the subbed chibi reve episode that shows the moment where baji beats up chifuyu (at around 01:10, halfway through the video), and we get to hear his internal monologue as he punches him.

we hear him beg chifuyu to give up on him. that's all he says, but it's a lot, because not only does baji admit he doesn't deserve to be his friend anymore, but he also knows chifuyu well enough to be aware that this might not even deter him from trying to reach him again

and now for the future! chifuyu is the type of guy that doesn't hold grudges if he knows the other person is sorry for what they did. we see this in the spinoff manga, and we also see this when kisaki apologizes in a seemingly genuine manner and then offers him and takemichi a drink in the bad toman timeline. chifuyu drinks it, because he believes kisaki meant what he said (and because he is not very smart when it comes to this sort of stuff)

also we get cute moments like this in the spinoff, i cant recommend it enough

chifuyu was there when kazutora apologized and told everyone he would stay with baji. he was probably the last person to leave the scene because he was holding baji in his arms at the time. he definitely saw that kazutora was sorry for his actions, and i think that from this point on he was no longer afraid of him. if not, then why would he be the one to come pick him up outside of jail each time? but one could argue that in the bad toman timeline (and onwards when he learns about the time travel) he was fighting against even more terrifying enemies and that therefore kazutora wasn't so scary anymore lol

as for the pet shop vs pilot dream, we kind of see him say that the pilot thing was a kid's dream, something not that serious, similar to hakkai's astronaut dream. after mikey's comment, it's clear that he also runs a pet shop because he wants to do something that reminds him of baji, but that alone can't be the sole reason why he chose this career. chifuyu loves cats and pets in general, and he's pretty sociable too, so the job fits him well, and i believe he is pretty happy with it

which brings me to the final timeline! in here too, chifuyu is the owner of a pet shop. baji didn't die, so he was under no obligation to honor his memory and could have chosen any other career. he could have become a pilot this time, but still went down the pet shop path. since he has memories of other timelines, i like to think that he chose to do this again because it was a way for him to stay close to his two friends, but also because he genuinely enjoyed his work there. after everything that happened, this was more important to him than his dream of becoming a pilot

in conclusion, and if anyone's still reading this by that point:

... i actually don't have a conclusion, i just really like chifuyu a whole lot and i think he's done more than just chase after baji's shadow. dude was just a baby who saw his best friend/role model die at age 13 and this certainly shaped most of his life afterwards, but he was genuine in wanting to help takemichi and kazutora, and i believe he became friends with both of them because they did get along well and not just because of baji

i need other peple's input on this: am i the only one who finds the baji/chifuyu dynamic kind of weird?

like, maybe it is because i have a lot of trouble understanding baji's character (it probably is), but while i know that baji cares about him, i feel like chifuyu cares a lot more (regarding the og manga only!! i haven't read the spinoff yet, even if i caught some info on it here and there. i am planning on doing so, i think it would help me understand them a lot more). he seems like he very much favors kazutora over fuyu, which is understandable, but it makes seem chifuyu's devotion a bit extra😓 esp in the spinoff lol, fuyu looks like he has the biggest shojo crush on baji

it's kind of iffy to me that during the bonten tl, chifuyu became a petshop owner when it was originally baji's dream to work with animals (fuyu wanted to be a pilot) and took kazutora with him (just because he was baji's friend, when he is canonically the person he dislikes/fears). like.. i don't know, it makes it seem like ""he has no personality"" outside of him? ygm?? this is really not random chifuyu slander, i actually kind of like him, but i just can't wrap my head around it😞 i can't tell if this was the direction his character was supposed to take. is he just supposed to be baji's #1 superfangirl, the hyperdevoted right hand and michi's friend? if that's the case, great!! it's just that it's not clear to me, chifuyu fans, please give me your thoughts!

[patheticrafeenjoyer]

s1 v. s4

[trans-axolotl]

my gendered experience growing up as an intersex person was overwhelmingly defined by my responses and resistance to everything that got me labeled as a failure: failure to quickly get a gender assigned at birth, failure to go through a normal puberty and grow up into a woman, failure at meeting the standards for "complete womanhood" because of my intersex sex traits, and yet simultaneously failing to ever be acknowledged as a "real man" and being treated as a threat when I expressed I wanted to transition.

before i realized i was a man and came out as trans, the ways that girlhood was denied to me was very often humiliating and painful. locker rooms filled with other girls were a frequent source of shame. there were many big and small ways that i was told that my intersex body made me insufficient, incomplete, broken. i was forced onto estrogen, forced into shaving my body hair, and was constantly being told to change myself to better fit this mystical idea of a "normal woman." and even though I ultimately ended up becoming a man, the denial of girlhood was painful.

but i think that these things would have been even more difficult to navigate as an intersex girl if on top of everything I already said, i was having to cope with the denial of my girlhood while i was forced into boys locker rooms. if my doctors were forcing me onto testosterone hrt and refusing to even discuss estrogen, if all my legal paperwork had "M" on it and was a logistical nightmare to change, if every support group for my intersex variation labeled it as a "men's support group," if the LGBTQ community spaces i tried to join were misogynistic towards me often to the point of exile, if my self determination as an intersex girl was denied in most spaces of my life, and on and on and on. while listing all these things out i also don't want to make it seem like it's all about suffering and pain--so much of transition for me has been about joy in my self determination and how much it feels like a reclamation of autonomy to decide what I want my body and self to be like--i know this is an experience i share with so many of my trans intersex friends.

as an person who was AFAB, although there were many ways that trying to grow up as an intersex girl were a painful, logistical nightmare, many times and places that i was excluded from woman's spaces, etc. however, there was a simultaneous affirmation that i was right to strive for that in the first place. which is logic rooted in some fucked up compulsory dyadism, but also which would have made some things slightly easier or even possible at all if i had wanted to embrace being an intersex girl within this fucked up system.

pretty much every time i've seen people on tumblr talking about "afab transfems" in an intersex context, people seem happy to collapse these experiences and act like there's no meaningful distinction or point in distinguishing between different types of intersex embodiment. it seems incredibly extractive, to be perfectly honest with you--taking terms already used by a community to make meaning of their experiences and to expand and dilute that term enough that it means something pretty different than the original.

it's making me think about the concept of epistemic injustice, which is a term coined by Miranda Fricker to describe oppression related to knowledge, communication, and making meaning of the world. There's two subtypes of epistemic injustice: testimonial injustice and hermeneutical injustice. Testimonial injustice refers to the dynamic where marginalized people are labeled as not credible, excluded from conversations, and their testimony and knowledge is labeled as unreliable, even when they're the ones who are experts and have first hand experience of what people are talking about. (this is why i probably won't make this post rebloggable--i've noticed this pattern on tumblr many times where trans men speaking about transmisogyny get lots of notes and are given a lot of grace, where trans women are silenced, attacked for not having perfect wording, and otherwise delegitimized.)

the second type is called hermeneutical injustice. it describes how marginalized people are denied the right to make sense of the experiences in their own lives. this can look like preventing people from building community, terminology, a political understanding of themselves, and the interpretive resources needed to process how you live in the world.

this is a form of injustice that I think almost all intersex people are very familiar with--we are denied community and interpretive resources to the point that we're told we don't even exist, that intersex isn't a real word, and so many more examples that leave us isolated and with very few options for understanding what we're collectively experiencing. as an intersex person i really intimately understand how frustrating, confusing, and painful it is to not have words for your experiences, your identity, your life.

so it makes me really sad and pissed off when it seems like intersex people seem to be replicating this exact same type of epistemic injustice towards transfems and specifically towards intersex transfems. pretty much every time recently i see people talking about "afab transfems" they're doing so in a way that seems to deny that trans women even have the right to make sense of their own experiences in the world. there seems to be this mindset that these political frameworks, these interpretive resources that transfems have built up are just up for grabs for anyone. and then on top of that has come with it a lot of cruel, hateful language and direct attacks towards many intersex transfems who are facing so much harassment right now.

an important value to me is this idea of reciprocity as a foundation for solidarity. to me reciprocity means that we're prioritizing the ways we care for each other, we're thinking about how we can uplift each other, and we're watching out for extractive or exploitative patterns where one group is constantly expected to be in "solidarity" with another group without getting the same respect and care back toward them. i think that there could be so many ways that intersex people of all genders could share our overlapping experiences and actually be in true, meaningful solidarity with each other, but i barely ever actually see that happen on tumblr. and that pisses me off, because i do think that there's so much we have in common that we could celebrate and support each other with. i feel so much kinship with so, so many of my trans intersex friends, and ways where i see our lives converge. but i don't think that can happen in an environment where there's no acknowledgment of the ways that our experiences will sometimes (often) differ from each other, and the ways that we have unique needs.

another frustration i've had based on this most recent couple months of transmisogynistic intersex posting on tumblr is how intersex people have been mostly ignoring intersex community resources and devaluing the existing intersex terminology that people created to try to meet our needs. so much of what i've seen people describing on tumblr seems to really line up with the term ipsogender. Ipsogender is a term coined by an intersex sociologist Cary Gabriel Costello, and is used to describe intersex people whose gender matches the gender they were medically assigned at birth, but who might not feel like cis or trans fits them, might experience dysphoria, and who might feel like they've ended up transitioning medically or socially in some ways. this is a word that exists that an intersex person put time into coining because they wanted other intersex people to feel seen, embraced, and have ways of understanding themselves and communicating to others, and that's something that's super meaningful to me! and yet, i've rarely seen anyone reference it, and also seen multiple people making fun of it in other spaces online.

there's also intergender, which is another intersex specific gender term used to describe when your gender is inseparable from your intersex traits, and that your intersex identity is intertwined with your gender identity in some way. some people just identify as intergender, others use it as an adjective and exist as an intergender man or woman. intersex terminology like this is really important to me, especially because we're so often denied the right to make sense of our own experiences.

i think ultimately what i wanted to say with this post is just that when i think about intersex community, some of the most important values of intersex community for me are solidarity, care for each other, and affirming our right to define our own existence. and i don't think that can happen in a community where people are acting in extractive ways, harassing and attacking their fellow community members, and being dismissive of the realities of other intersex people's lives.

[niinnyu]

(^ー^)

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

While you were fighting in the war, I was falling in a pit.

[First] Prev <–-> Next

[freetobeafcknriot]

FIVE & BEN ft. checking up on your little brother.

[afterthelambs]

Thinking about Shujin trio and Royal trio where Ryuji is venting to Ann "Joker replaced me with a mentally ill guy :(" and Ann is like "oh nooo. thank god he won't find a mentally ill girl to replace me with" and sumire passes by

[mfdragon]

The Session

Seems like Vlad has made some progress; but there's still one final step he needs to conquer!

(Wanna thank @ectospacecadet for helping me come up with some of the dialogue ideas for this one!)

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