#this is about the level of my sports analysis ability as well ha

[meazalykov]

the critic

lena oberdorf x commentator!reader

summary: when lena gets tagged in a video clip, she approaches you

before the cameras, before the viral clips, before the edits, before your voice became synonymous with women’s soccer commentary, there was your games itself.

you used to play, back in the day. soccer was your life—practices in the morning, matches on weekends, hours spent refining your craft, the feel of the ball at your feet something almost sacred. 

you had dreams, big ones, of playing at the highest level, maybe even for the national team. but that all came crashing down when a spinal injury took you out of the game. 

one bad fall, a rough tackle by three players at once in a crucial match, and suddenly, everything you had worked for was gone. 

the doctors said you were lucky to be walking and running again, but for a long time, it didn’t feel like luck. 

it felt like a curse, like soccer was ripped away from you when you were just starting to get your footing in the world of professional sports. 

lyon was close to signing you from your childhood club. however, that changed. the deal had to fail and so did your dream.

so you had to shift gears. you couldn’t play anymore, but you could talk about the game, share your insights, your passion, your love for it with the world. 

and, as it turned out, people loved listening to you. your analysis was sharp, your delivery honest, your humor was sweet, and soon enough, you became a well-known voice in women’s soccer commentary. 

you poured everything you couldn’t put on the pitch into your work, and it paid off.

now, here you are—2023, world cup, germany vs colombia. the stadium is electric, fans buzzing with anticipation. 

it’s your job to capture all of it, to bring the game to life for those watching at home. 

alongside you in the commentator’s booth is tyrell, your close friend and co-host for one of the biggest sports streaming sites in the world. 

you adjust your headset, eyes scanning the field as the camera pans over the players. 

"alright, tyrell, we’ve got quite the matchup today," you say, your voice carrying across the broadcast. 

"germany is looking to bounce back after their last game, and colombia has been on fire in their latest matches with caicedo. it’s anyone’s game today."

"no doubt," tyrell agrees. 

“but you know i’ve got my eye on germany’s midfield. lena oberdorf, she’s got a lot of weight on her shoulders in this one. one of the best defensive midfielders in the world is on the pitch tonight." he finishes. 

you nod, your gaze locking onto oberdorf as she moves across the pitch. 

she’s been a standout for years—strong, composed, a true force in the midfield. 

you’ve always admired the way she plays, the way she commands respect on the field as she will roughly stop any opponent attack. 

but today, something feels off. you’ve been watching her closely during the first half, and you can’t help but feel like she’s holding back.

"honestly," you start, pausing to gather your thoughts, "i expected more from oberdorf during that first half."

there’s a brief silence as tyrell turns to look at you, his eyebrows raised in surprise. 

it’s not often that you call out a player like that, especially someone as highly regarded as oberdorf. 

"really?" he asks, curious. "what do you think’s going on with her?"

you lean forward slightly, watching as the replay of germany’s midfield play rolls across your monitor. 

"she’s not playing with her usual aggression. oberdorf is known for her ability to dominate the midfield, to break up play and transition quickly. but today, she’s been hesitant. this can’t continue if they don’t want someone like caicedo to get in their box. oberdorf needs to press harder, get more involved in the attack. if she steps it up in the second half, she can make the difference that germany needs."

your words hang in the air for a moment before tyrell responds, and the conversation shifts back to the overall match. 

but you can’t shake the feeling that your comment will stir something up. 

sure enough, by the time the game is over—colombia managing to scrape by with a fantastic win—your phone is buzzing nonstop. 

social media is ablaze with the clip of you critiquing oberdorf, the internet having latched onto the rare moment where you offered up something negative about a player you so clearly admired.

fans of both you and lena are eating it up, dissecting your analysis, making memes, and some even suggesting you had ulterior motives. 

it doesn’t help that you’ve been vocal in the past about your respect for oberdorf’s game. 

and maybe, if you’re being totally honest, there’s more to it than just respect. 

you’ve followed her career closely, always a little more interested in her games than others. not that you’d ever admit to having a bit of a crush on her—not publicly, anyway.

across the city, at the team hotel, lena oberdorf is stretched out on her bed, headphones in, trying to decompress after the match. 

her body is exhausted, germany didn’t get the result they needed. her phone buzzes with notifications, but she ignores it for now, lost in her thoughts.

that is, until laura freigang walks in, a mischievous grin on her face and her phone in hand. 

"lena," she says, her voice sings, "it looks like someone’s got their eye on you."

lena sits up, raising an eyebrow. "what are you talking about?"

laura tosses her phone onto the bed, and lena catches it, her eyes narrowing as she watches the video that’s already queued up. 

it’s you, sitting in the commentator’s booth, talking about her. her. 

"honestly, i expected more from oberdorf during that first half."

lena blinks, her mind processing the words. she’s used to hearing praise, especially from someone like you, who’s usually more positive in your analysis. 

but this? it feels different. not harsh, but… honest. like you know she could do better, and that, in a weird way, feels almost flattering.

"see?" laura says, flopping onto the bed next to her. 

"she noticed you. she expects more from you, lena."

lena rolls her eyes, but she can’t hide the faint smile tugging at her lips. 

it’s no secret, at least among her teammates, that she’s always found you attractive. she’s mentioned it once or twice—half-joking, half-serious—how she watches your broadcasts not just for the analysis but because, well, you’re easy on the eyes. 

but she never thought it would go beyond that. you were based in new york city, worlds away from her, and probably didn’t even know she existed outside of your job.

but now? maybe things have changed.

"i don’t want to get your hopes up because it could’ve been a simple analysis but maybe this is your shot," laura adds, nudging lena with her elbow. 

"go for it. what’s the worst that could happen?"

lena hesitates, the idea forming in her mind. it’s bold, sure, but she’s never been one to shy away from taking risks. "yeah… maybe i will."

later that night, you’re sitting in the hotel bar, winding down after a long day of commentary in australia. 

the buzz from the viral clip still lingers in the back of your mind, and you’re half-expecting to get some flak for it. but instead, it seems like people are more entertained by the whole thing than anything else. 

you take a sip of your drink, eyes scanning the room, when you hear a voice behind you.

"hey y/n-- I'm sorry, uh I hope i’m not interrupting."

you turn, and your breath catches in your throat for just a second. it’s lena oberdorf, standing right in front of you, looking a little nervous but still carrying that air of confidence she always has on the pitch.

how did she find you? maybe the german national team stayed nearby? i mean, you were told this was a popular bar in sydney.

however, why would lena go to a bar if she has to prepare for the important match against south korea?

"not at all," you manage, trying to keep your cool despite the sudden rush of nerves.

"what’s up?"

"i, uh, saw the clip," she says, rubbing the back of her neck. "the one where you talked about me."

you chuckle softly, feeling a slight flush in your cheeks. "yeah… i didn’t mean to come off too harsh. just being honest, you know?"

you didn’t know how to react, so you smile. no player has confronted you about your comments before. this is a first.

"no, i get it," she smiles, her eyes locking onto yours. 

"honesty’s good. i just… wanted to ask if you’d like to grab dinner sometime. maybe when you’re in germany next? i’d love to take you out." lena speaks in perfect english. 

you blink, surprised by the offer. of all the things you expected tonight, this wasn’t one of them. but looking at her now, her smile genuine and her eyes soft with hope, you can’t help but smile back.

"yeah," you say, heart racing just a little. "i’d like that."

you were a little older than her, older by two years, but she carried herself in a way that pulled you to her.

the world feels a little smaller, the distance between you and lena shrinking with a single conversation. 

you think that maybe you should critic her more often, kidding— of course.

my masterlist is here if you want to read more fics <3

[chessismyaesthetic]

Happy birthday Viswanathan "Vishy" Anand!

Vishy Anand, one of my favourite commentators from recent World Championships (he just seems like such a lovely guy and his analysis is always interesting and well explained), is an Indian chess grandmaster and a former five-time World Chess Champion. The FIRST grandmaster from India (he won the title in 1988) which is hard to believe given how many great Indian chess players there are now, he has the 8th highest peak FIDE raiting of all time. He remains the only player to have won the World Chess Championship in tournament, match, and knockout format, as well as rapid time controls.

Vishy playing Kasparov, 1995.

As a teenager people called him "Lightning Kid" for his rapid playing speed, and later GMs who faced him often described him as one of the all-time greats alongside Garry Kasparov (a logical comparison given the schism in the World Championship and the fact most top GMs would have played both so could compare).

As a lightning fast teenager in the 1980s.

Wikipedia describes him as "a well-liked figure throughout the chess world for two decades, evidenced by the fact that Kasparov, Kramnik, and Carlsen, all of whom were rivals for the world championship during Anand's career, each aided him in his preparations for the 2010 World Chess Championship" which is something I massively admire in sports people - the seemingly rare ability to be a top competitor AND be nice to people.

Check out his game 6 win against Karpov in the 1998 World Championship match for a great win at an important moment. Karpov had won the first four games, Vishy made a draw in game 5, and NEEDED to win. So what does he do? He plays the Trompowsky Attack (1. d4 Nf6 2. Bg5) - rarely seen at GM level - and wins in 42 moves! Seriously, go google and admire. Sadly (for me at least since I'm a fan) he lost the WC in the tiebreaker games and didn't manage to become World Champion until two years later when he became the first world champion from Asia and the first world champion from outside the ex-Soviet Union since Bobby Fischer.

Anand v. Kramnik at the 2008 World Championship, game 3.

OR check out game 3 of his World Championship match against Kramnik in 2008. Here Vishy has the black pieces playing against Kramnik's Queen's Gambit Declined - they go into a really tactically sharp line known as the Blumenfeld Attack (this is part of the Semi-Slav defence, classical merin variation if you want to look it up). On move 14 Vishy plays a novelty - a new idea - that Kramnik needs to refute if he's to win. Vishy's idea is to just give up a pawn (which is usually defended) in favour of attacking the white king. Two pawns down, Vishy rejects the possibility of a draw and goes on the attack with Kramnik's king on the run. It's exciting stuff and unbelievably tense when you imagine the WC conditions they were playing in!

Vishy about to beat defending champion Magnus Carlsen in Game 3 of the 2014 World Chess Championship in Sochi.

His career is way too long and too well documented to be worth going into any greater detail - google is your friend here - but what a great player. Well worth delving into his games, not least as he was one of the first to embrace computer prep so that alone is an interesting development.

[henry-w-albert]

This is an analysis of Lockwood and cos swords

I am a big weapons freak and carry myself a wide variety of swords including one rapier, so I thought it might be interesting to share my ADHD hyper analysis of how Goerges, Lucy's and Lockwood's choice of weaponry depicts their fighting abilities. (I will mostly refer to episode 3: doubt thou the stars as that is the first episode where we see all members use their swords, specially in enclosed spaces)

Apart from the obvious which is that all three Lucy, George and Lockwood carry leather guarded open rapiers we have a few more informations from pictures than from the show. (I am aware that they have a basket filled with all sorts of rapiers but I will use the ones from the official posters as that gives me the most accurate description)

Lockwood has a one handed rapier with a round pommel and a swept hilt with guard and S shaped quillons. This is probably the most common hilt type for a rapier and originated in the early 1600s. It is both of elegance and functionality as this hilt protects the user's hand whilst still giving full range for movement. Lockwood using this specific kind of hilt is absolutely glorious. The viewer knows from the first episode on that Lockwood is very good with the rapier and this sword shows just that. To use a hilt with guard you have to be well trained and aware of your movements. A rapier other than the weapons that were before is not a blunt killing force but a two sided weapon, used for thrusting and cutting. To be able to do both you have to have a few years of training. This sword is perfect to show off and be arrogant with as well as to actually fight.

Lucy a one handed rapier with a round pommel and dish hilt with swept knuckle guard and fingerguard. This hilt combination originated in the mid 1600s. It is most useful with thrusting maneuvers instead of cutting as the dish protects the hand only from the front but not the sides as you would see on the earlier build rapiers. The dish hilt also offered for even more intricate beauty. A sword made for the girl who hasn't even passed her fourth year of training. Different than Lockwood's weapon Lucy's rapier is made for blunt movements and unexpirienced fighters. It's primary protection being for thrusting motions corresponds with the level of skill that Lucy possesses. The fingerguard being a further point to tighten the grip and harden the movements makes it of even better use for starters. (To ad the knuckle guard could be for the purpose of actual protection ore just ease of use, sadly I could not figure that out from what I had seen in the show.)

George has a one handed rapier with a round pommel and S shaped quillons with fingerguard. this very easy hilt was Introduced in the time of change from the classic cross guard to the first variation of a rapier at the end of 1400. It got famous with the upcoming military as it was the first of its kind to be easy of use whilst bringing the protection the late rapiers perfected. This hilt is especially interesting as it allows you to not just use the handle but also the ricasso. We don't really see George use his rapier in the show which I think was intentionally as this sword is not a weapon to be used for fun ore sports. Other than the rapier Lucy and Lockwood use, Georges rapier comes from a time where this was not used for show ore fun but primarily and usually only for killing.

This obviously is not a comment on the actors fighting skill as they all are verry able to use these weapons as they have shown on many occasions throughout the series. This is about the weapons there common use and skillset you need to wield them properly.

[soul-dwelling]

Sorry to bug you with another MHA rant - but I think it's a point that isn't often brought up: The storys/Deku's "elitism" (maybe not the best word)

What I mean is the fact that Deku allways has to be "the best" and everything is framed through that lense in a way - maybe not in every moment, but in the ultimate analysis - like him only becoming a hero after getting the best quirk or how he only wanted to go to UA or only really idolised All Might - like I know Endeavor had a bad rep but wasnt he said to have solved the most crimes, ergo saved the most? Or shouldnt Izuku care about rescue heroes more if "rescuing" is what he actually cares for.

But the UA thing - it seemed to me like his dream wasn't even to become a hero, but his twisted romantisced perfect life version of a hero. Hence why he didnt try to apply to a mediocre school - I mean if UA lets quirkless do the exam, wouldnt there be any low to mid level school taking him, even if for PR reasons.

Yet other schools are so unimportant that they disapear basically as soon as they get mentioned.

But maybe my point is still debatable, and I admit one can find examples at the start that contradict it, like Deku basically jeopardising his chances of winning the sports festival to save Shoto.

Yet what matters is the end - and the way to it too - cause yeah, in the end, without a quirk, he didnt even try to be a hero, and didnt even try to get support equipment that literally wasnt some experimental futuristic uber powerfull suit, from the same makers thath gave non powered Allmight the ability to go toe to toe with the biggest villian of history. But that was already clear on the way during the end - like the fact Deku got seven quirks - obviously only made to show how he is special and strong on another level than anyone else

Yet why should he be? Especially with how popular Bakogou and Shoto where, why couldnt they just stay on a simmilar level and take on the main vilian 3 on 1. I mean even Naruto did that (even if Kaguay was bad for unrelated reasons) Especially with how the whole "saving Tenko" thing basically went nowhere, and could as well not have been introduced - might as well show AFO taking Tenko totally over to drive the point how evil potatoe man is way earlier and then focus the fight on guts and everyone working together - cliche, but doesnt bait the audience with some redemption and reform Hori obviously doesnt want to adress. But even speaking of Hori, i dunno, even his comments about "oh if Hero Academia didnt succeed, I would have quited being a mangaka" - like other magazines dont exist, like there aren't any other alternatives, like a story can be succesful without going for hundreds of chapter - seems to be the same attitude. But lets see if he actually does the Horror manga or if his health really declined as badly as many fear, in the later case, maybe he just got depressed, cause bad health sucks, I ain't gonna lie...

Long response below (about 14 pages, single-spaced)--and disorganized at that. 

I am going to again copy your question (in bold below) and respond to it in bits and pieces, as well as putting in headings to help outline my answer. 

I’m writing this as quickly as I can, so I apologize for rambling, awkward transitions, and going all over the case within a dash-filled sentence or a paragraph that is way too long. 

(Spoilers and whining as well about Fire Force.)

Izuku should be the best boy

Sorry to bug you with another MHA rant - but I think it's a point that isn't often brought up:

The storys/Deku's "elitism" (maybe not the best word)

What I mean is the fact that Deku allways has to be "the best" and everything is framed through that lense in a way - maybe not in every moment, but in the ultimate analysis - like him only becoming a hero after getting the best quirk 

I’ll get to more specifics about this first part of the submission in a moment. But first, a little rambling. 

My defense of Izuku as having to solve most problems in My Hero Academia: he is the protagonist, I have said he should be too good to be true (without ignoring how, if Izuku was a girl or a woman, the worst people online would make bullshit “Mary Sue” misogynistic arguments). We need to be cheering on Izuku: having his literal only so-called flaw be that he has no Quirk means that we side with him when we see how helpful he is, how smart he is, how heroic he is, and we take his side against even the best and most rational arguments by Bakugo, All Might, Recovery Girl, Gran Torino, Nighteye, Shigaraki, and All For One. 

That being said, that doesn’t mean you have him solve every last problem or else you undermine the manga’s message that collaboration is good. (Granted, Horikoshi undermined the value of collaboration repeatedly in his own story.) If you have Izuku solve everything, then Ochaco does not fix the poor counseling and health care system to address what potentially dangerous Quirks do, then Shoji and Koda don’t teach anti-bigotry practices, then the Todorokis don’t stop Dabi, and on and on. 

Now, to focus my answer a bit more: 

I talked about this elsewhere, but I think Izuku’s story would have improved had the manga made Izuku the best hero before he got the best Quirk. I know this lapses into “too good to be true” territory--but that’s the point, make him too good to be true: kid who knows more about Quirks than anyone else, kid who helps the elderly in his neighborhood, favorite “grown up” to the kids in his neighborhood, helpful neighborhood civic-minded community organizer. 

Maybe my recommendation is too clean and risks making Izuku without flaws. And it makes All Might too perfect as well: the plot can move forward only if All Might does something reckless, like handing over the Quirk to someone who even with a months-long workout regiment has zero time or instruction how to use One For All without almost getting himself and Ochaco killed during his entrance exam? But that means the problem is also that I don’t think Izuku and All Might ever clear the bar of early installment foolishness--similar to how the manga never convinced me that Bakugo could ever make up for telling Izuku to go kill himself. Maybe these are problems in the writing that will get corrected in the next adaptation, like that Hollywood adaptation, but as I also said, if you do correct these problems, I don’t know whether that takes out complexity in characterization and potential for character progression. 

Is it good that All Might was an idol?

or how he only wanted to go to UA or only really idolised All Might - 

I may push back a bit on whether Izuku only really idolized All Might, for two reasons. 

First, I wish the story had done more to toy with whether idolizing is a good thing. 

My Hero Academia ends without a useful thesis statement on the whole thing. All Might serving as the Symbol of Peace had its benefits and disadvantages, and the story never came across to me as defining whether he did more harm than good, although Stain’s final remarks to him get close to a summary statement. And Izuku idolizing All Might gave him inspiration and examples what to do, but he never quite made the base of One For All his own and kept struggling even to the end to figure out a way to use the base of One For All as his own, an opportunity thwarted as well when Izuku defeats All For One and Shigaraki with just punches and when so much of his fighting in the final arc was using a whole new set of Quirks comparatively recently introduced such that it is harder to really compare how Izuku uses One For All compared to how All Might uses One For All. 

Second, while “idolize” may not be accurate enough, Izuku’s joy and knowledge about pretty much all Pro Heroes is something integral to who he is. But yeah, I do wish we saw him pulling more from their examples. The manga barely gave attention outside of flashbacks as to how Izuku took inspiration from others to learn how to use his other Quirks, and even then he was pulling more from the examples of his classmates like Ochaco and Sero to use Float and Blackwhip. 

Izuku and Endeavor should have interacted more

like I know Endeavor had a bad rep but wasnt he said to have solved the most crimes, ergo saved the most? Or shouldnt Izuku care about rescue heroes more if "rescuing" is what he actually cares for.

I would have loved to have seen more interactions with Endeavor and Izuku, and I say that as someone who despises Endeavor and would rather never have him pop up in the manga again. 

Like, the anime gag of Izuku breaking the fourth wall to look at the audience with a question mark after Endeavor said something abstruse but profound and understanding Izuku’s link to All Might--that is something that shows Endeavor’s knowledge and wisdom while not ignoring he is an abusive sack of shit and that even Izuku is perplexed that this violent hothead may have something deeper going on. 

Izuku is our main character--while I do not want to overshadow how Shoto responds to his own father, it is weird not to have our main character have some one-on-one interactions with just him and Endeavor. We had that really good scene between the two at the Sports Festival--could we do something like that again, especially when it comes to how we contrast what heroics mean to each of them, how their regard for All Might could influence the other (such as Endeavor inadvertently making Izuku realize that All Might is human and hence makes mistakes, and Endeavor getting over himself and realizing that while he now knows the burden All Might carried he also needs to appreciate that All Might is a good guy and has done incredible good for Izuku as well as for Shoto).  

I also want to push back about Endeavor solving so many crimes--not that this is not true, it is true, you have that correct, the manga says so. 

I just get bothered how that detail feels like a retcon, even though technically it’s not. 

When we first meet Endeavor, we know he is the Number Two Hero, so it is not out of the ordinary to realize he got to that title not just by strength and superpowers but also by actual skill, whether in rescue, detective work, or number of people saved. 

You bring up rescue work, not necessarily about Endeavor but in general. I’ll talk more about rescue work in a moment. But rescue work never struck me as Endeavor’s forte, although some of that is the fault of writers other than Horikoshi: dude ended up killing someone in Vigilantes and not noticing--I do not think he is that good at rescue and saving people. (And this all becomes even more disturbing for me to try to make jokes about as I have the dawning realization that of course he sucks at rescuing people, he got Toya killed and couldn’t save his own dad.) 

I just wish that we did more with that detective work long before we’re just told, “He’s good at detective work.” He is able to decode Hawks’s message--great, why couldn’t we have gotten this hint earlier? If he had figured out that All Might somehow passed on his Quirk to Izuku, maybe that would have helped make him look smarter--he could have the same reaction Shoto has to emphasize this similar familial tick (“Izuku and All Might have a similar Quirk”) and unlike Shoto (“Are you his secret love child?”) could instead take the more accurate approach (“All Might somehow passed on his Quirk to Izuku--is that why his Pro Hero work has been slowing down?”). 

Rescue work and Izuku’s lacking skills

Let’s circle back to rescue work, and what it says about Izuku’s lacking skills. 

Remember in the License Exam arc, how Izuku did not realize he had to talk to the actors playing victims, because Aizawa either sucks at teaching or Izuku is just that bad at understanding the logistics of doing hero work? Either way, it shows that the story had more to offer--and just didn’t. 

Numerous complaints about this final arc and its last chapters have circulated so frequently that I can’t tell whether they are repeated so much as to be correct but cliche, or repeated so often that we accept them as truth and ignore the glaring flaws. In other words, I am bothered by the repeated complaint online that Izuku was never serious about hero work, that he had no plan before getting One For All, that he was not thinking enough about the logistics of what he was training to do. I’m not going to say whether that assessment of Izuku is correct or incorrect, as the complaint strikes me as something that is a flaw with the story itself, not the character. 

Izuku strikes me as someone who of course would think about a plan to be a hero, how to save people: he had a plan for delaying the Slime Monster to try to save Bakugo, it just wasn’t a good plan; he had numerous Pro Hero names thought up when he was a little kid; he had copious notes about how Quirks work and was still filling out new journals during the Sports Festival. 

But, yeah, I can’t ignore that Izuku did not have a plan in mind for the logistics for Pro Hero work--because he is inexperienced, he is a teenager, he has not yet worked as Pro Hero, of course he doesn’t know all the logistics, that’s why he is in school and that is ostensibly what the manga is supposed to be about, teaching Izuku how to do Pro Hero work and by extension showing us in the audience how this world works. This is not an insult to Izuku: he literally does not know these things, that’s great, we get to learn along with him, we don’t feel ignorant because even best boy / smartest boy Izuku didn’t know. 

But actually educating Izuku, and by extension us audience members, on Pro Hero logistics would require this “academia” manga to actually be about “academia,” and Horikoshi or his editors or the audience itself seem to have an aversion to learning shit. 

(This is also why I hate the excuse that we only get Year 1 of the Class A because otherwise it would be boring to keep having another Sports Festival arc, another School Festival arc, another graduation arc for each school year. Look, Horikoshi is exhausted, I appreciate he does not want to repeat those stories--but as for fans saying that stuff would be boring, bullshit, that’s a challenge, rise up to face it, give me that Sports Festival that shows how far those who lost the first year have come, show how far those who won the first year have fallen, give me new School Festival activities with new characters, make the graduation change each time especially depending on whether the world is doing well or has gotten worse since All Might retired.) 

So, the manga does not do the “academia” thing much--and then the manga never felt like it actually addressed how these logistics to Pro Hero regulations work. We get bread crumbs that don’t lead very far: we wait until the Nighteye arc to learn that there is the Hero Network, and it gets namedropped so that Ochaco and Tsuyu can ask about it and get answered by Ryukyu. 

The thing is, having the students be flat-out ignorant about some of these details would help build the world and help characterize these characters. I wrote in another post how we had this great opportunity to show that Izuku is so idealistic that he may be ignorant as to all the workings that go into an agency: insurance, staffing, merchandising, specialization. I wrote in that post how excellent it would be to bring back Tenya’s brother Tensei to talk about how in Vigilantes his agency was such a well-oiled machine because he had numerous sidekicks all focused on making up for skills he as a speedsters lacked, as a way to show that an agency has to be designed smartly--and that Izuku is someone who just hopes that things will work out and never struck me as an organizer. 

If Izuku really is that ignorant about organizing and is better suited as a cog in the machine, a teacher, or someone who is just good at designing plans and executing them but not leading a team, we could build on what the manga already showed us about who is good at that leadership. I mean, hell, we did an entire opening arc in the manga that Izuku is not a good class president, leave that to Iida and Momo. 

And we also saw during the School Festival that Mina, Momo, Jiro, and Iida are good at organizing the Class A activity--maybe those are skills they have that Izuku lacks. It would help to do more to justify Mina’s value to this story: she is a fan favorite, but there are only so many gags you can do about her academic skills being wanting before you need to emphasize that her people skills and leadership skills are why she is in this cast. And it would go a long way to clarify why Ochaco recruited Iida, Momo, and Jiro for her Quirk counseling initiative. See why I am getting annoyed with how this manga went? It already had the details there in the characters but never gave us those stories. And it’s going to be annoying should those stories ever happen because they were not part of the original manga, not in order of chapters to read in order to get to these logical conclusions, and will instead be some light novel or OVA or spinoff manga or film that you have to pay more money to get rather than just being part of the main manga that I’m already paying Viz to subscribe to. 

The manga failed to criticize its own romanticizing and show a changed world

But the UA thing - it seemed to me like his dream wasn't even to become a hero, but his twisted romantisced perfect life version of a hero. 

We really needed this manga to dig into its worldbuilding. 

There was a post my friend dchan87 reblogged from ilovereadingandstuff and thekingofwinterblog a bit ago, about how Amphibia did well at leaving enough holes for you to fill in, while My Hero Academia was trying to answer so many questions that it could not answer some of them at all, could not answer some of them sufficiently, or over-explained some of them and failed to satisfy enough of the audience. On a related note, I am loathe to say that Ohkubo did great with Soul Eater by leaving so many holes there for the audience to fill in the gaps, which the fans did expertly for 18 years…until Ohkubo fucked that up and gave bad answers in Fire Force, thereby cancelling out much better fan theories and compromising the intended message of both stories, but I’ve complained enough about Ohkubo’s bad writing for a decade. 

But to get back to my point: we needed that worldbuilding to either be like Amphibia or like Soul Eater--just enough, not too much to weigh down the story with “realism” that cancels out believability. We got so many hero schools that we don’t know why UA is so good and whether Izuku’s choice was just obsessing with the alumni (All Might but also Aizawa, Present Mic, Endeavor, and so on), or whether he was making a rational choice. 

However, as I am someone who went to grad school because I slightly idealized one of my professors having gone to that same school, and have some regrets about my educational choices: I mean, yeah, believable and realistic, so, can’t quite fault Izuku entirely for romanticizing. Izuku needs to have flaws so that we have a plot--I am fine with him romanticizing UA and the overall Pro Hero society. I just hate that nothing much comes of that once All For One shows how under-prepared the heroes were to stop Shigaraki’s transformation, how unprepared Japan and the world were for All For One’s threat, how little of Pro Hero society seems to have changed in Chapter 430, how little we see Izuku change his mind after Nagant, how it’s left to Ochaco and others to verbalize what needs to change but the story skips over just what exactly Ochaco, Shoji, and others do to change this world. 

Should Izuku have gone to UA?

Hence why he didnt try to apply to a mediocre school - I mean if UA lets quirkless do the exam, wouldnt there be any low to mid level school taking him, even if for PR reasons.

God, I would have loved it if we had had Inko take Izuku aside and bring up that UA may not be his best choice. I know we don’t want to step on Ochaco’s storyline, and money doesn’t really seem to be a concerned in this story despite the lipservice given to it, but imagine if Inko, practically a single parent, having to tell Izuku, “UA is too expensive, try a mid-level school.” We got close to that when she refused to send him back initially despite All Might’s encouragement, but that wasn’t money, it was because All Might and the teachers could not protect the kids from a fucking villain attack. 

Again, maybe I’m grabbing too much from my own life, but there are totally parents who will say, “Does it really have to be that school? Think about money, whether this education is worth it, location. Why not aim for this school instead?” 

Even All Might could have brought it up: “UA was right for me; I don’t think it will be right for you. Don’t chase the ring, focus on the plan that works for you.” But we already saw from Gran Torino that Izuku and All Might reinforce their worst qualities in each other of romanticizing, idealizing, and not trying something new. Again, do you want flawed characters who can progress, or do you want everyone to be perfect from the beginning? I’m not even asking you--I’m asking myself, because this is the trap I fall into when re-writing these stories, making everyone absolutely perfect instead of believable and having flaws that keep the plot going. 

The manga also sort of retconned a lot of the entrance exam details. The manga does show Izuku was able to go into the exam when he had a Quirk--although, yeah, wouldn’t he have to schedule this ahead of time even without being registered with the government as having a Quirk? Then the manga reveals that Support and General and Business Tracks at UA may not require a Quirk, so Izuku could have gone into any of them…but that would require he show technological aptitude, or take Shinso’s path, or have PR skills, and none of those quite work, especially as we need Shinso as the foil to Izuku for both of their storylines to persist. (Aside: Man, Shinso deserved a better wrap-up in this manga. What is his Pro Hero name?) 

Yet other schools are so unimportant that they disapear basically as soon as they get mentioned.

We needed more spinoff stories. I loved that all-girls school in the anime-only Momo arc during the license exam. I wanted more of the schools doing something in the final arc and especially getting closure: what happened to Inasa and Camie and the rest in Chapter 430? 

Is self-sacrifice heroic? 

But maybe my point is still debatable, and I admit one can find examples at the start that contradict it, like Deku basically jeopardising his chances of winning the sports festival to save Shoto.

The manga did well at explaining the stakes for the Sports Festival, and while important for the sake of characterization, it wasn’t life or death (until Izuku almost got himself killed by Shoto, which…yeah, these two characters have flaws, to put it nicely). 

Aizawa said it was about being scouted--and any of us can use logic to suppose that, first, they have three years of these festivals to make an impression, and second, there are other ways to make an impression, as Shinso shows. 

All Might said this was Izuku’s time to show he can be like him, a symbol to people and the inheritor of his legacy--and while that is too much to put on Izuku, especially (as online people have said on Reddit and elsewhere) All Might brings all of this up without also putting on the pressure or just being honest about the potential threat of another All For One or indeed the actual All For One returning. And even those stakes are not that pivotal: Izuku and All Might make it a big deal, and it is for the arc, but in the overall manga, even before the Sports Festival ends, we know it’s not as big a deal, it’s just Izuku’s entrance to the larger national and international audience, it won’t end his career. 

I guess my point is, yeah, I see how Izuku’s willingness to lose the Sports Festival butts up against his idealized image of a superhero--and even then, it is hard to discern how those two details contrast or potentially contradict because the story itself overly idealized and overly romanticized it. Think about it: it’s Recovery Girl who has to set Izuku and All Might straight, that this play-hero routine is going to get Izuku killed. The story wants us to see Izuku almost getting killed by Shoto as heroic and the correct thing--and keeps emphasizing that Izuku is going to get himself killed. 

I can’t quite wrap my head around all of these details to make a clear statement, beyond saying that My Hero Academia has always has a problem when it comes to whether self-sacrifice and death are ideals that heroes should aim for. We have shown over and over again that self-sacrifice in this story, or otherwise reckless actions, are not wholly good: Gentle ruined his career by inadvertently showboating or interfering and not paying attention; Ochaco may have redeemed Toga in her eyes but almost died and ended up with Toga dead; the Todoroki family got physical scars but no better ending and now have Dabi slowly dying; Izuku is scarred up, without a Quirk, debased by his teacher and now coworker Aizawa, and didn’t get Pro Hero society to put away the statues, get rid of the ads and marketing, and get some free time. 

I mean, I keep turning back to this point on this blog, but how the hell was Fire Force better at imparting the lesson, “Getting yourself killed is stupid, you still need to survive another day to keep rescuing people, figure out how to save others without getting yourself killed”? 

The mech suit ending doesn’t hold up and potentially undermines the intended moral 

Yet what matters is the end - and the way to it too - cause yeah, in the end, without a quirk, he didnt even try to be a hero, and didnt even try to get support equipment that literally wasnt some experimental futuristic uber powerfull suit, from the same makers thath gave non powered Allmight the ability to go toe to toe with the biggest villian of history.

I have read enough fans trying to make this work. I’m not entirely convinced by their ideas, but I’ll summarize a few of them. 

First, there are people pointing out that Izuku didn’t have the money to get that support equipment to keep doing Pro Hero work. I’m not convinced, but I appreciate people pointing out the limitations: maybe the global economy got so bad that even rich students like Momo, Shoto, and Tenya could only do so much; the manga volumes say All Might used all of his remaining money on his mech suit against All For One. 

Second, there are people pointing out that, while the All Might suit was proven to work, that was a quick job and that everyone wanted to get it correct, which required eight years of work with Mei and Melissa collaborating in completely different countries. (Sidebar: Just put Mei and Melissa in the same nation--for shipping or platonic or just mutual relationships with the main cast.) I’m less convinced by this explanation, as it is bizarre to wait eight years when you really need to get Izuku testing out that mech suit in a controlled environment instead of out in the field unless you are dealing with the kind of dire situation All Might was against All For One. It’s all the more bothersome because the manga already gave us this story--twice: in the main manga with Izuku almost getting his body torn apart testing Mei’s equipment, and in Team-Up Missions with now both Mei and Melissa almost killing Izuku with dueling support equipment for Crash Test Deku to try out. 

All of the “you can still be a hero with this expensive mech suit” argument also bothers me because the opening conceit of My Hero Academia--”in this fictional world, you need a superpower to be a superhero”--is already a ridiculously stupid question: of course you can, that is answered by Chapter 1, it’s been answered in comic books since Batman and Iron Man, the manga practically says yes, you can, because Quirks held by Mei and Ojiro give them very little advantage in combat (granted, Mei is not a fighter), and Knuckleduster in Vigilantes has no superpowers. It’s that Amphibia problem above: when you over-explain, you answer the question that was supposed to drive the story, so now that you answered it, you have no story, and everything after is over-explaining everything and potentially undermining the point you were trying to make (see also Fire Force over-explaining Soul Eater and hence ruining both stories). 

Izuku should have been the Hulk

But that was already clear on the way during the end - like the fact Deku got seven quirks - obviously only made to show how he is special and strong on another level than anyone else 

And Izuku having more Quirks could show how smart he is at using them all, or have been for a longer story to show this new challenge that affects him physically and emotionally as his confidence is shaken with the seemingly sisyphean failure of getting one Quirk correct only to fail again and again with the next (but I don’t think he even got a handle on the first Quirk to begin with). 

It’s another set of missed opportunities, especially, so that we don’t act like Izuku is special, if we get some more worldbuilding by showing what people like Shoto do with multiple Quirks, how that has been a mental struggle for him and hence allows Izuku and Shoto to both develop their relationship by trading notes on how to do it. 

Or, it can be an opportunity to show the danger Izuku faces that the Nomu face: what happens when you have more Quirks than your mind and body can handle? Then you can bring in Dr. Yoshida, Kurogiri, the science behind Nomu, and actually delve into how evil All For One and Garaki are, the hope Aizawa and Mic have at the potential of bringing back Shirakumo, and keep moving forward with the elements you already have to your story rather than disposing the Nomu as just raw muscle, plot devices, and empty characters. It opens up questions for Izuku: by getting all of these additional Quirks, could his mind get warped? Is Izuku becoming inhuman? The boy is already a bundle of nerves, anxiously talking to himself, muttering his way through all that he knows about Quirks--what happens when he has a momentary slip-up and over-reacts, mistaking an error anyone makes for one where he thinks he is losing his mind? That’d be relatable for readers, especially when dealing with forgetfulness due to anxiety or this godawful ongoing COVID pandemic world we’re in--and it’d be a silly notion for Izuku, of course he’s fine, it’s a fear that quickly would be corrected by everyone around him. But it sets up a contrast that is worth exploring: what happens when the smartest person risks losing himself due to too much physical power? This is literally Bruce Banner and the Hulk--and Horikoshi whiffed at even trying to get his comic book nerd on there. 

The Izuku/Bakugo/Shoto dynamic never worked for me

Yet why should he be? Especially with how popular Bakogou and Shoto where, why couldnt they just stay on a simmilar level and take on the main vilian 3 on 1. I mean even Naruto did that (even if Kaguay was bad for unrelated reasons)

This is a “me” problem, but I don’t like the chemistry of Izuku, Bakugo, and Shoto. Izuku is too meek, Shoto is so passive despite having a fiery temper when pushed, Bakugo is too violent and angry. This isn’t id-ego-supergo, this isn’t Kirk, Bones, and Spock, it isn’t Wonder Girl, Starfire, and Raven, it isn’t Batman, Booster Gold, and Ted Kord, it’s just a mess. Izuku and Shoto are both too passive to balance Bakugo, Shoto and Bakugo are too fiery for the meek Izuku to get to do much, Shoto and Bakugo have far better chemistry bouncing off of each other alone due to shared temper but different elements of releasing it (think Kirk and Spock). 

I have not sat through the entirety of the third and fourth films to see how they coordinate well in combat, but I also don’t like sitting through movies just for gorgeous animation and fight sequences--I want a good story that pushes character progression, even for the movie-only characters, and when the third and fourth movies are instead about the progression of Rody, Giulio, and Anna, I don’t care about Bakugo and Shoto, and Izuku is pretty much just the Matthew McConaughey chaos agent there to cause change, not to be changed. (I took that description of McConaughey from Patton Oswalt. And, disclaimer: fucking hell, Oswalt, stop stanning transphobes like Chapelle, Jesus.) 

I think I get your point about Izuku, Bakugo, and Shoto being better served for the story if they were more like a Naruto trio, as Naruto, Sakura, and either Sasuke or Sai. But I almost think the better option would be like One Piece, where it’s not that any of the three stay at the same level, but that their involvement in the plot and their power scaling depends on the arc, situation, setting, and opponent. Izuku, Bakugo, and Shoto don’t have to stay at similar level: it’d actually help similar to One Piece is any of them feel like the Sanji or the Nami or the Usopp or even the Zoro where they feel like they failed to keep up or failed at a task. Or, think Maka, Black Star, and Kid: Maka repeatedly felt like she was falling behind two gods, why not have Izuku thinking he’s falling behind, then, boom, he has new Quirks and risks falling even further behind rather than using these new powers to pass them by. 

There is that moment in the Sports Festival where it is Izuku slamming down the metal shielding to explode past Bakugo and Shoto: I wish that had been their dynamic for the rest of the series, the three in competition to get ahead of the others. I don’t think the manga ever topped the Sports Festival arc, and I think losing that potential dynamic between these three characters as shown in that explosion is one reason. Izuku had that drive; what happened to that drive after the Sports Festival? Shoto thankfully mellows out after Izuku sets him straight on his Quirk being his alone, not Endeavor’s, but now he lacks the same action-y forward momentum, more of his story being a mature introspective focus on how he mentally grapples with his father both being his greatest enemy and his best mentor at using the same Quirk they have, but as I said, while mature and introspective, it’s not something easy to visual in an illustrated manga that has to use images to tell its story. And Bakugo is just the worst. 

Kill off Shigaraki earlier

Especially with how the whole "saving Tenko" thing basically went nowhere, and could as well not have been introduced - might as well show AFO taking Tenko totally over to drive the point how evil potatoe man is way earlier and then focus the fight on guts and everyone working together - cliche, but doesnt bait the audience with some redemption and reform Hori obviously doesnt want to adress.

My friend has an idea about how to fix “saving Tenko.” We’ll get to that another time, when they are ready to share it. 

Tenko/Shigaraki coming to realize he was a hero to villains, then getting subsumed by All For One, should have been the end of his story. It’d be tragic, but the ending for him already was: if you’re going to kill him off, just do it once and be done with it. Typically a play works better with only one twist; to reverse that twist by having Shigaraki re-assert himself just to die again ruins the twist. 

This could have been salvaged with better visuals: Shigaraki and Izuku both ending All For One could have been visually dynamic, where now Shigaraki is where All Might stood alongside Izuku in the first film to deliver the final punch. Imagine if you staged that image where it is Izuku (in the real world) and Shigaraki (just imagined and hence only a vestige), with an image of All MIght in the same pose as Izuku, and an image of Nana in the same pose as Shigaraki, delivering the last attack on All For One. We are in the eyes of All For One, we are seeing what he sees--or maybe he’s imagining it, and it is freaking him out all the more, the legacy of Nana and All Might in Shigaraki and Izuku, finally ending him. 

But we didn’t get that image; we got something that looks more like Shigaraki and Izuku punching at each other. It’s not even Shigaraki doing that punch to send Decay or One For All back into Izuku. (I’m not saying I would want that ending, I hated that ending in the second film, but it would have justified the worse visuals we got instead of what I think is the better option I’m offering.)

To get back to what I was saying about reversing your twist: just do the one twist, All For One reasserting himself, our last image of Shigaraki is him dying in horrible fashion, his entire life has been suffering, he gets no final words with Izuku, nothing to say to Spinner. Make it hurt. Then you have to have Izuku, Spinner, and the rest making sense of this with each other, not with any direction by Shigaraki, so that they get to be their own characters, not just enacting Shigaraki’s will. It sucks to keep Shigaraki a permanent victim throughout the story, but maybe this story needed one character who is utterly destroyed and a victim--not a Star and Stripe who manages to offer one or two advantages to save the heroes, not Izuku still getting a full life after losing his Quirk, just someone who was groomed from the beginning and never had a chance, so that, when Scissors Boy is saved by Granny, that is our vicarious resolution and higher state, someone who unknowingly carries on the legacy of what Shigaraki could have been if he had been given a chance. 

Does that mean we keep the Force Ghost of Shigaraki there looking at Izuku in the final chapter? I don’t know--I don’t even like that artwork, Shigaraki looks off-model, the image does not convey that it is a spirit and just looks like bad layering of the art. 

Shueisha owes its mangaka more

But even speaking of Hori, i dunno, even his comments about "oh if Hero Academia didnt succeed,  I would have quited being a mangaka" - like other magazines dont exist, like there aren't any other alternatives, like a story can be succesful without going for hundreds of chapter - seems to be the same attitude. 

Horikoshi gets to live his own life: if he would have changed careers if this manga did not work out for him, that is his decision, I respect it, he should do what makes him happy but also should keep doing illustrations that fulfill him as a hobby, as work, or whatever he wants. I will not hold that against him, and I would not hold it against him that he had a mindset of, if this doesn’t work, I give up. 

I’m also less interested in criticizing Horikoshi’s mindset because of what you are pointing out. 

Yes, there are other magazines--and we see how difficult it is to get a pilot manga accepted by any, to get that one-shot to be successful, to get through the first year of publishing, and to attract an audience, advertisers, vendors, and anime producers. 

Yes, a story can be successful without going for hundreds of chapters--but try telling that to the worst people on the Internet. (The stupidest video I sat through this week, more obsessed with what didn’t work with a Hollywood company, than whether their films were any good.) 

Horikoshi could be satisfied with a good story that didn’t last for hundreds of chapters--but we see how enough dicks online are just the worst about good stories that ended before their time or before they were given a chance. Just to name a few from the Shueisha/Viz camp: Magu-chan, Candy Flurry, and Ginka and Gluna all deserved better. 

It’s the equivalent of so many YouTube videos and online essays lifting up some stories and denigrating others: “This manga is the best manga ever!” “This creator is the GOAT!” “This moment in animation changed everything!” Well, why not talk about the stuff that demonstrates good craftswork, is competent or even excellent, is not necessarily the first ever or the best ever but is something someone enjoys and digs into why it works? People do enjoy My Hero Academia without thinking it is the best (it is not), that Horikoshi is the GOAT (he is not)--but because the story has its really good points, that Horikoshi is really talented and one of the best (of many who are also some of the best), and it is fine to just be good enough or excellent, not perfect, not superior, not comparatively better, just really, really good. 

Sidebar: Oumagadoki Zoo had the same problems with ending

Also, just going to throw this out there: Oumagadoki Zoo had one of the worst endings I have read in a manga for some time, refusing to commit to its sad ending, leaving the door open to more stories that would have continued all that worked so well in the previous arcs and world being built but didn’t get the chance it deserved, so I kind of wonder whether Horikoshi has struggled with endings before due to publishing power dynamics outside of his control, or a refusal to commit to something going really bad and not dealing with the darkness that brings. 

Granted, though, Oumagadoki Zoo is more often lighthearted than horrifying, so I can’t blame him for canceling out the pseudo-deaths he introduced just a few pages earlier--at least readers were not traumatized by those pseudo-deaths and got the equivalent of Tinkerbell coming back to life by the readers just believing enough. 

We need to take care of our health. (And I don’t like horror stories.)

But lets see if he actually does the Horror manga or if his health really declined as badly as many fear, in the later case, maybe he just got depressed, cause bad health sucks, I ain't gonna lie…

My petulance: despite running a Soul Eater fan blog, despite what I teach and research, I am not a big fan of horror in visual content (I can read it, I don’t like watching it or seeing it). And I tend to prefer a good story over good visuals, so I don’t know whether a horror manga by Horikoshi will appeal to me. 

And yes, health problems are serious--not ignoring what I am going through with health problems and what people I know are going through as COVID persists, mental health problems persist, and aging, lack of accessibility, and physical health problems persist. And all of that is an indictment against me, as I am failing at being more sympathetic to Horikoshi when I am highly critical of how My Hero Academia wrapped up. 

[doublegoblin]

15 Tags, 15 Mutuals OC Style

Much appreciated @tailoroffates

As far as whomst to tag: @asterhaze @lola-theshowgrl @lettersandinkstains @monstrousfreedom and I think I'll leave it there as direct tags, but if'n ya see this and want in, open mic.

Rules Choose a character from a WIP and use them to answer the questions below.

So I have done with with Alex the MC of Rituals and Red Tape, I want to have a little fun and do this one for their manager. That omnipresent fractal in the sky, upper level manager in a literal sense, unknowable eldritch being: Dave

1. Are you named after anyone?

I have been given many titles by your tongue. My employees however have ordained in me a name they profess speaks highly of my character. To quote Previous Manager Douglas "You just really seem like a Dave." I am not one to argue with an immutable truth.

2. When was the last time you cried?

When last the pale star of H'yn'gth faded into the noise of the cosmos, when all noise from the pulsating vortex ceased, when the life blood of the slain false deity washed across the galaxies beyond even the greatest of sights. That is to say, the last employee review I had with Alex. They are meeting my expectations adequately and is that not which all Managers strive for?

3. Do you have kids?

My staff has spoken at length of these creatures that are sired. My employees then are akin to my children, some more well liked than others as is traditional I hear.

4. Do you use sarcasm?

Clear and open communication is the cornerstone of any good workplace relationship. They bemoan it but I know my employees truly appreciate my direct honest feedback.

5. What's the first thing you notice about people?

Their adherence to our dress code.

6. What's your eye color?

It has been described as colors within colors, an ever shifting kaleidoscope of melting and pulsating spectrums here to unknown by less developed eyes. I would assume this is to say; I have blue eyes but not entirely blue, gray with speckles of brown and a ring of green. They must be beautiful though, none long look me directly in them.

7. Scary movies or happy endings?

A perfect union of the two.

8. Any special talents?

I am a wonderful communicator.

9. Where were you born?

I am unaware of this concept. Is being born something that would assist in employee to Management relations? I will speak with Alex about having me become 'born'.

10. What are your hobbies?

I enjoy making things. And then, organizing those things. It is very therapeutic.

11. Have you any pets?

My employees are also like my pets.

12. What sports do you play/have played?

There was at one time I attempted to engage in a game known as "Tennis". HR has requested I no longer engage with "tennis".

13. How tall are you?

Average dimensions. Perhaps a small percentile under average. I am unsure how lower level being perceive me. To also quote Previous Manager Douglas "Holy shit, holy shit, holy shit, no matter where I look you are right fucking there, holy shit I am starting to lose it." While his profanity was unneeded I never did get the answer as to what 'it' was.

14. Favorite subject in school?

Do you beings go to places for learning? Curious. Your minds have such limitations, yet your elasticity is marvelous. However I will answer this question with the best of my ability. Statistical Analysis, would be the closest approximation.

15. Dream job?

I have already fulfilled my place. To deviate is unthinkable.

[alexbkrieger13]

This will probably be behind a paywall soon-ish. Good piece on Frido winning Diamantbollen and our/the expectations on her. A decent analysis.

To the naked eye Kosse looked to have a better Euro than Frido. Turns out the Diamantbollen winner had a higher number of offensive actions than the average. Looking at all data Frido was the second best left wing forward, just behind Germany's Klara Bühl.

Thorén: Says a lot about our expectations

When the demands changed, the intensity became higher and the role new, Fridolina Rolfö humbly responded and created a sharper version of herself.

2022 is the Barcelona star's best season at club team level.

2023 should be the year when the national team again succeeds in creating golden weathering with its now well-polished diamond.

Clay covered slopes. At least that's the feeling when you're at the delightful rural pitch a few minutes from Fjärås in northern Halland.

My many visits to the sports ground over the years have been as a parent on a blanket in the grass with a coffee mug in hand or as a seven-man leader, but only this summer did I realize the uniqueness in that it was the same ground that young soft Fridolina feet trod.

The lawn, surrounded by meadows and a stable, is a place where girls' dreams of a career on the main world stage can now be born in an honest way thanks to the inspiration Fridolina Rolfö left behind and the new market in Europe.

From Lertäppa to Camp Nou, Fridolina Rolfö made it. She did it without having a similar role model herself.

But just like the foundation of her childhood plan, the road has not been straight.

The courage to dare to speak out and back away from parts of former club Bayern Munich's hard physical training to prevent recurring diffuse muscle problems and injuries was decisive and mature.

She embraced the attitude to Barcelona coach Jonatan Giraldez's unexpected request after the move to Spain with confidence. She came there with an expectation of becoming a piece of the puzzle like Barcelona's razor-sharp attack. She was. As a left back.

Earlier last fall, Jonathan Giraldez talked about the reactions to the retraining of the Swedish wing forward/offensive midfielder.

- In the beginning, I remember that people thought I was crazy for playing her as a left-back, but for us she is a not a left-back. She is a winger and can adapt to our way and use her strengths, he said.

In her new role, Fridolina Rolfö has improved her defensive game, she has become adept at controlling her opponent and breaking the ball with the right foot position and aggressive action.

Offensively, she retains her top qualities - sharp one on one, the ability to bring the ball forward and use her fine shot when she ends up more centrally in the lane.

There she was second best in the entire EC

But above all, her input - both early entries and cutbacks - has become even sharper. Barcelona is often a marked playmaker in their matches and chooses to build their game via the right wing and centrally. Deliberately to open up the spaces on the left for his modern all-round player at left back.

Counting from December to date, Fridolina Rolfö has played 26 league matches for Barcelona. It has resulted in eight goals and several assists. A flattering conclusion for a left-back, for a player and person who chose to flourish when the environment created conditions instead of getting stuck in old ways of thinking.

When Barcelona intensity knocked the football world with its gold in the Champions League in the spring of 2021, Rolfö was not in the club.

Lyon, with its physical way of playing, had found a hurtful method in this spring's CL final, but it was not Fridolina Rolfö who bowed down in Barcelona.

Before this summer's EC, we all thought that Fridolina Rolfö would be the player who led her Swedish national team to EC gold.

Sweden faltered at times, but made it to the semi-finals. The meeting with England was, however, exposed.

The outside forward Fridolina Rolfö was also not the decisive key in Sweden's offensive.

A slightly worn body has been given as a reason afterwards. There were more reasons.

While Fridolina Rolfö against simpler opposition with larger surfaces played a decisive role during the 2021 Olympic silver journey, the space and the decisive actions became fewer against a more intense, low-defensive EC opposition.

Union captain Peter Gerhardsson was also unable to resolve the tactical knots to give Rolfö room to play.

When the Football Channel summed up the Barcelona player's efforts, it turned out that her offensive actions were higher than the average in the EC. If you looked at all the data in the analysis, Fridolina Rolfö was the second best left winger in the entire EC, just after Germany's Klara Bühl.

Can give golden weathering this summer

That says a lot about the expectations we have of Fridolina Rolfö.

But rightfully so.

Fridolina Rolfö, raised by IFK Fjärås in Lertäppa and Ögärdets IP a few hundred meters north of the church, has made a unique journey.

She wins the Diamond Ball for the second year in a row.

The 29-year-old does it as an even more complete player, as an updated version of himself.

Her performances on the pitch are total, defensive, offensive - Fridolina Rolfö is not stuck in a template but acts from freedom with extensive fitness and phenomenal technique.

Hopefully, the Swedish national team management can create an environment which means that the now polished diamond Rolfö can give the WC team golden weathering in the summer.

[tutorhelpdesk]

Is Paying Someone to Do My Finance Homework Worth It?

 With the current demands of challenging academic environment and modern-day finance courses, more and more students find themselves struggling to fit in their academic responsibilities and fail to fulfil their course commitments. Due to the increasing trend of incorporating finance and financial analysis in many degree programs, there is a growing need for professional help in solving challenging finance assignments. To tackle problematic tasks, students seek experts who can guide them in completing their work. Searching on internet results in numerous websites offering such services. The question that arises in the minds of many students is, “Is paying someone to do my finance homework worth it?” This article seeks to explain why outsourcing finance assignments and coursework is a good idea, and how one can get the most out of this service.

The Modern Student’s Struggle

Statistics reveal a startling trend: A study conducted by the American Institute of Stress reveal that about 80 percent of UK college students suffer from stress and anxiety. Half of this pressure is academic related and the workload that is associated with the courses taken. Finance being a hardcore academic subject, with lots of numerical computations and theory-based concepts is often counted amongst the most challenging career paths. And it is quite common for students looking for support to help them bear the academic load.

Top 6 Reasons to Pay for Finance Homework Assistance

Access to Expertise

This is one of the primary reasons why one should pay for finance homework help is the ability to utilize the expertise of professionals. Such specialists are experienced in finance and related streams and possess profound knowledge of the subject. Their expertise with deep understanding of the concepts help students apply comprehensive problem solving techniques, discover insights and provide tips that may not be provided in textbooks.

Time Management

Finance homeworks are usually tiresome, especially for students who are undertaking other courses simultaneously. Students can therefore engage professionals in solving their assignments, while investing their time on more crucial activities like preparing for exams, internships, or other pursuits. This optimizes time and reduces stress enabling students to achieve a balanced academic experience.

Improved Grades

Hiring a professional finance person to help with your homework may boost your grades. They have the skills of writing perfect, scholarly solutions that meet the requirements of academic writing. With their assistance, scholars are in a position to produce solutions of desirable quality that meets the expectations of instructors hence increasing their cumulative performance. 

Enhanced Understanding

It is important to note that the act of paying for finance homework help does not necessarily mean that an individual is being dishonest. These services are particularly helpful to many students in helping them gains a better comprehension of various concepts at times when they have either missed lectures or don’t find enough study material. By using the solutions given by expert tutors, students can get a better understanding of topics and enhance their problem-solving abilities.

Personalized Learning

Every student has his/her own intelligence level, pace of comprehension and learning style. Unlike a professor in class who can’t focus on every student, online finance experts are more personalized and are able to customize their services to meet the learning preference of students. One of the advantages of such an approach is increase in efficiency of students and facilitating a comfortable learning experience.

Reduced Stress

The pressure that students have to perform well in their finance courses is very high. Apart from academic commitments students have some personal commitments (family affairs, extracurricular activities, sports etc) too that are equally to address. Sometimes, they wonder, who will do my finance homework while attending a family gathering. Through outsourcing of homework, students can minimize stress and attain a healthier mental and emotional status. It can lead to improved efficiency of tasks and a more optimistic attitude towards their studies.

The Don’ts While Choosing a Finance Expert

While the benefits of paying for finance homework help are clear, it’s crucial to choose the right expert to ensure a positive experience. Here is some don’ts to keep in mind:

Do not Rush the Decision:  Do not rush when selecting the service providers to work with as this might compromise the results you get. Determine the credibility and expertise of tutors before hiring them. It is recommended to go through their sample work and customer reviews in order to judge their reliability.

Do not Ignore Communication: Choose a service that offers clear and open communication channels. Hence for conveying the requirements of your assignments and their fulfilment, communication is vital.

Don’t Overlook Credentials: Check the academic background of the persons, who will be working on your papers. Ensure they meet the obligatory educational backgrounds and practical experience to be able to produce accurate and efficient solutions.

Don’t Compromise on Quality: It is recommended to get an affordable expert, but don’t let the price influence the quality of work you expect. Low-cost services may not produce the desired results, therefore ensure a balance between the two.

Don’t Forget About Plagiarism: See to it that the services provider has high standards of academic writing with zero tolerance to any form of plagiarism and content generated using AI. Extensive research and citing authentic research papers are critical in maintaining academic integrity.

Why Choose Our Finance Homework Help Service

Our finance homework help service is designed to provide students with the support they need to excel in their studies. Simply contact us on our email hw@tutorhelpdesk.com and initiate a request to do my finance homework. We will take care of the rest. Here are the top three reasons why you should opt for our service:

Expert Team of Finance Professionals

Our team comprises highly qualified finance experts who have practical experience working in the academic as well as in the business environments. They are conversant with almost all topics and streams of finance right from the basic level to the most complex level of financial analysis, that ensures quality assistance. 

Customized Solutions

Every student learns at his/her own pace and has their own unique needs. We are flexible with our approach and design our services with unique features to meet individual needs. Our specialists dedicate their time necessary to know your aims and objectives and assist you in attaining the best results. 

Commitment to Quality and Originality

We strive to provide our customers with exceptional, plagiarism-free work that meets the required academic level. We employ measures to ensure that the provided solution is qualitative, well researched, free from errors and plagiarism.

Why Getting Help with Finance Homework Is Not Cheating but Smart Learning

One of the misconceptions that has to be addressed is the belief that asking for assistance with finance homework is somehow equivalent to cheating. Hiring expert help for finance homework is not about skimping but it is actually about getting a better learning experience for self-enhancement.

Here is why:

Deepening Understanding

When student seek expert help, they expose themselves to different perspectives and outlook and learn smart methods which might not always be covered in a class. It enables them to better understand all concepts quickly and timely achieve all course milestones.

Personalized Guidance

Learning abilities and preferences of students are different from each other. Personalized guidance allows a student to have a comfortable learning experience. They can learn at their own pace which results in increased efficiency and better comprehension.

Time Management and Efficiency

Students are usually burdened with many responsibilities. Engaging experts for solving complex assignments, students can get more time to focus on other critical subjects or divert their attention towards personal development. This eases the stress and anxiety they go through and help them maintain a healthy academic life. 

Also Read: 7 Tips for Mastering Volatility Forecasting in Your Finance Homework

Top Finance Topics We Cover

We offer comprehensive support across a wide range of finance topics, including but not limited to:

Financial Accounting: Understanding financial statements, cash flow analysis, and accounting principles.

Corporate Finance: Capital budgeting, cost of capital, and financial risk management.

Investment Analysis: Portfolio management, asset valuation, and investment strategies.

Financial Markets: Stock markets, bond markets, and derivatives.

International Finance: Foreign exchange, international trade, and global financial markets.

Conclusion

Investing on an expert can be wise decision for students during their coursework. Choosing a online finance tutor and leveraging his expertise results in getting better grades, understanding of problematic areas, and minimizing anxiety levels. With our finance homework help services, students get the help they need in their courses. You can be certain that you are making the right decision by option our services that comes with world class expert team, tailored solutions and dedication to quality.

FAQs

Isn’t getting help with finance homework considered cheating?

Absolutely not. Seeking help from tutors for finance assignments is not cheating. It is all about gaining deeper knowledge of the given problems through unique insights, perspectives and smart methods that the experts can impart.

How does paying for finance homework assistance improve my grades?

Experts guarantee high quality work as they develop solutions based on extensive research and using reliable techniques and references. The solution we provide complies with and, in most cases, surpasses your instructor’s requirements. Such an approach of learning enhances the chances of obtaining better grades as well as improves overall performance in the coursework.

What should I look for when choosing a finance expert?

When selecting a finance expert, evaluate their qualifications, experience, and feedback from previous clients. Make sure they communicate clearly, follow rigorous anti-plagiarism standards, and offer personalized solutions tailored to your unique requirements. Use search engines to search for “write my finance assignment”, select few available options based on the criteria we have discussed and take your time to make your decision. Do not sacrifice quality for a lower price.

Do you have experts who can do my finance assignment?

Yes of course, we employ a team of highly skilled finance professionals with extensive industry as well as academic experience. We deliver customized solutions that address each student's specific needs, ensuring high quality and originality. Our dedication to excellence guarantees that you receive reliable and effective assistance with your finance assignments.

Which finance topics do you provide homework help with?

We help with a broad range of finance topics, including Financial Accounting, Corporate Finance, Investment Analysis, Financial Markets, International Finance, and Quantitative Methods. Whether you need help with financial statements or financial modelling, our experts are ready to cater to all your finance homework requirements.

[mahakaliastrology]

Penis size and Sexuality in the Natal Chart.

This is kind of a weird post idea but honestly, it is something I sometimes get curious about. It’s quite ridiculous but goes to show how niche and fine tuned you can get with astrology. When it comes to literal inches, I couldn’t tell you. I’m sure there’s a way to figure that out too, but I’m not at that level, let alone care that much to learn how to be. Looking at a dudes Mars in his chart is good enough to tell me what I need to know about the size of his dick, his masculinity, and how much stamina he possesses.

Disclaimers:

Trigger Warning⚠️: I talk about some sexually sensitive topics here that some may find triggering.

I don’t consider the information in this post unethical. You could know all the astrology in the world, but if you’re not meant to know something, you won’t anyway.

Physical connection can be just as important as an emotional, spiritual, mental or material connection etc. If the latter listed can be looked into for ethical purposes of knowing what you’re getting yourself involved with, then why can’t you be curious about a man’s masculinity. 

Ultimately, I am not using this information to judge or mock men and I am capable of assessing this maturely. At the end of the day, the study of astrology is a tool, and is not conductive in itself. God is above the planets and bigger than astrology, and your ability to use astrology advantageously would be seriously limited if you use it to judge or criticise things without higher moral virtue.

My intention with this post is to teach astrological methods of determining a man’s penis size and sex drive, and how that can relate to his overall masculinity and I condone this information being used to mock or degrade men without good reason.

_______

So Mars is the planet we will be focusing on in this post. Why? Mars rules men. It also rules war, penetration, drive, action, sports, force, anger etc. If you look at the Sun’s glyph (☉) it shows the soul, or who we are at the centre and the light we shine into the world. Now using this as a baseline, if you look at the glyph of Mars (♂) it looks like it has a literal erect dick coming out of it, pointing upwards as it symbolises the ‘upper grip of existence’. It has also been compared to a spear coming out of a shield. This is not random. Compare to the Venus glyph (♀). The cross below the circle points to a lower grip of existence, in which her power is underlying, passive and receptive. 

Now we know what Mars is about, you wanna find out what Mars is doing in the natal chart. That is, what sign he’s in, who he aspects and any other miscellaneous details that could add to the picture. 

Mars in a sign would be descriptive of his actual nature, whereas the aspects will add to how this is expressed. 

So let’s say if Mars was in Taurus, you can expect slower and more thorough, sensual experiences. With Mars in Aries, in his own sign, you could expect more fast, direct and spontaneous encounters and they are unlikely to hold back. They may sometimes be aggressive but the aspects would further clarify this. Mars in Cancer will likely be more sentimental and caring in such a scenario. Mars in Capricorn would take its time and would be more interested in distinct roles of domination/submission. 

Nevertheless, sex is made up of more than just Mars, and a whole chart analysis would have to be made to see that. 

More importantly, let’s get to aspects, because this is where the size can be shown.

Mars Aspects

One of the most common factors found in men who are “well-endowed” is Jupiter in aspect to Mars. Jupiter expands whatever he touches, so in this case, his masculinity.

Saturn in aspect to Mars on the other hand will tend to constrain, especially in hard aspect. Saturn in this way can block or restrict Mars’ masculine expression, and as a result give a smaller dick.

A Saturn trine or sextile, with coupling power aspects could rather show a sense of endurance and stamina which helps support Mars. As you may know, Mars is exalted in Capricorn which is ruled by Saturn, and because his actions are paced, he will therefore have energy to preserve and last longer.

What happens if let’s say Jupiter is square Mars, but there is also a Saturn opposition? You take it both into account. In this case, you may likely find a grower on your hands. 

Neptune Mars aspect may be inclined to lie or glamourise his manhood somehow, especially if unsupported by power enhancing aspects. He may be quite passive and submissive when it comes to ‘walking the walk’. The most extreme stereotype I can think of with this is a man who acts assertive and dominant in the outer world or from a distance but when nobody’s watching he tries on a wig and his wife’s bra in secret. Although please look at the chart overall as this connection in itself would not tell you this about a man. Either way there is some unclear passive quality about this Mars aspect, in that he may express his sexuality through daydreaming about sex rather than acting upon it or having astral sex intentionally or unintentionally if he is not spiritually attuned. Often, sex is better in fantasy than in reality for someone with this in hard aspect. He may even resort to using performance enhancing drugs as Neptune rules drugs and masking of some sort. 

Pluto Mars, on the other hand, is really something. Pluto can generate a lot of energy and force to Mars in a way a lot of other planetary bodies can’t, but it really depends on other aspects. Suppose Pluto squares Mars, giving an INTENSE desire, even obsession with sex, but Mars conjuncts Saturn. This will likely show that despite all this energy, you are being blocked off somehow, and will probably just result in prolonged blueballs (ouch). Pluto, nevertheless, will give a strong obsessive pushing drive. Might I say, borderline r*pey, and may be into BDSM type shit. Though note that Pluto Mars in itself will not show you a rapist. You will have to determine if the person in question is an actual piece of shit who feels entitled to someone else’s body to determine that. Just because someone is forceful doesn’t mean they are intrinsincally a rapist. A rape can happen without Pluto’s influence as not all rape is through force. Rape is about disrespecting someone’s boundries and this can happen through deception too, ie Neptune. Anyway so long story short, Pluto by himself would not necessarily show a big dick and can go either way, but would rather show a very powerful and intrusive one. 

Honourable mentions - the 8th House/Pluto himself. 

The 8th house and Pluto rules our genitals also so it only makes sense to look there as well when assessing this. As you can imagine, Jupiter here also gives a good sign of a well-endowed man. 

Likewise, Jupiter aspecting the 8th House ruler or cusp should be taken into consideration. 

Mars and Pluto being in the 8th House generates energy into this area so that is also something to look out for.

Aries, Scorpio or Sagittarius influencing the 8th House may also add to size. 

Likewise, Mars or Jupiter in the signs of Scorpio can also be factored in. 

Mars or Jupiter in the 1st House even could add as it relates to the man himself as he is.

Obviously, with Pluto taking a very long time to change signs, it will not be worth looking at this unless you want to compare how one generation compares to another. Nevertheless, the house Pluto is in can detail things more clearly, but if you haven’t managed to link the previously mentioned factors in, it might not be worth investigating too much. Pluto in the 6th House in conjunction to Chiron for example, may just show some sort of medical problem related to your genitals rather than anything about size. Maybe Pluto in the 1st House might matter if not in the 8th, as Pluto in the 1st House will likely show a man who possesses a lot of natural power in his identity anyway, so if explored, you may find some other factors in the natal chart to clarify how that relates to his dick. 

[urmomsstuntdouble]

Can you do one for america

Since I received this about an hour or two after posting my lithuania analysis, I assume you’re asking for an america character analysis. I was debating whether or not to go through with writing this or not for a while, but i’ve decided that I’ll try. I hope you enjoy it!

Idealism

The first thing that sticks out to me when thinking about america is that he’s super idealistic, and I think this has its roots in his birth. Everything in his life has been about hope and being better than others, even down to the decision to colonise north america. England needs to be the most powerful country in europe. Better set up a colony in america so that it can save us. It’s that sort of logic that i think gives america the idea that he needs to be perfect, or that he can be the ideal person. And though a lot of what we consider to be the “american” identity (intense patriotism, nativism, idealism, etc) took recognizable shape in the 19th century, i think this way of thinking was nothing new to alfred. He’d been raised on it, with the desire to please arthur sort of in his blood? Anyway i feel like the idea that the colonies would be so so prosperous really put the idea into america’s head early on that he was perfect and that he was destined to be such a great person, even if that wasn't true. I often see his daddy issues presented as solely abandonment issues, but my interpretation of america is more of a combination of abandonment issues and the pressure, some of it self inflicted, to be a perfect country. Basically, his idealism is deeply rooted in unhealthy places. 

Also, a religion headcanon i have is that while he was more raised to be a puritan, freddie prefers quakerism. Though he’s not the most compatible with quakerism, as it rejects violence and quakers often refer to themselves as the society of friends, and are very welcoming, i think it gives him some hope. One of freddie’s biggest problems is that he wants people to be better than they are, and quakerism helps a little with that, because it’s a way that he can help himself become better than he currently is. I feel like he’s been a quaker for a very long time, so he’s not a very good quaker, but this is still something that’s very important to him. 

Hero complex and other mental bullshit

America having a hero complex and also being physically 19 is something i think really highly of. First of all, it very much fits with the mythology of america being a sort of world savior. Secondly, a lot of american media focuses on heroism, whether its on the behalf of average people, like the hunger games, or on the behalf of superheroes, like the mcu- especially over the past 20 years. Though i think it’s a good thing to promote heroism, the hero-martyr complex that gen z has is. Oof. And i think alfred fits very well into that toxic sort of “heroism” that most gen z kids have. He thinks he’s somehow able to fix everything wrong with the world, just because he really wants to. Though that desire is genuine, it’s not always something that’s his place to fix or something that even needed fixing. There’s also a selfish component to that- He needs to prove himself, and heroism is the only way he thinks he can do that. It’s why he works out constantly and cares so much, on a personal rather than country-avatar-thing level, about being #1 at everything. He has to be better than everyone else because he has to be the perfect hero. 

I also think it’s interesting how america seems to have more pronounced daddy issues than canada, and i think this is something that harkens back to the 13 colonies (side note i hate the term ‘colonial times’ when referring to the time before the revolutionary war or canadian independence. These are settler states, its always colonial times.) and american independence. Canada sort of only exists because of british loyalists, as they made up the majority of the population around the turn of the 19th century. They saw themselves as being The Better Colonists. Real daddy’s boy types, and I think this is something that contributes to the hero complex. Because matthew refused to rebel so openly, that made arthur favor him as a son, so alfred felt the need to be even better than matthew- even though, of course, alfred was a bit more favored. 

Fighting Style

Freddie is very good at violence, but not in the same way that a lot of other nations are. Where they tend to be more well trained in specific styles of fighting, freddie just sort of has all of them? His mind is very crowded, i think. Also, the way that he would have learned to fight is different from the other super powerful countries by virtue of his youth, and by virtue of the different regional fighting styles in america. One that’s haunted me is a trend in the ability to rip off ears and noses- Particularly by white gangs in the antebellum south, this was seen as being like. A real badass. I think alfred was something of a feral child. If you know the saying “it takes a village to raise a child,” i think it really did with him. He had so many parents, just like a lot of the western hemisphere countries. But anyway because of all his many many parents, there was never any strong parental force in his life, so it’s more like he didn’t have any at all, and because of that, alfred was a very strange child. And because violence is so ingrained in american society, alfred is very good at fighting, both in order to be fun and flashy and for his own self defense. Though he doesn't really like to fight unless he feels like he has to (and other people are very good at convincing him that he does have to)

Sports

Though america is definitely super athletic and could probably naturally be good at most sports, i think there’s a few that he’d more gravitate towards. Those are basketball, track and field, and olympic lifting. I would include american football but it’s a stupid sport that doesn’t make any sense, so it will not be included for spite reasons. In basketball I think he’s sort of an every-man. I think he’s around six feet tall, so he really could play any position on offense, and as for defense, I think he’d play his best defense against the point guard, bc i feel like Alfred is really fast and good at getting up in your face. He’d have a ton of steals whenever defending against the point guard. I think he’d be a good center on offense, because he’s a bit aggressive and that would be useful for getting rebounds and put-backs, though i wouldn’t discount point-guard freddie, because he does like to be very inspiring. He’s pretty energetic as well, and a point guard can really carry the entire team in terms of energy and spirit. As for track and field, he’d also be an every man- I feel like he’d gravitate more towards sprinting events by personality, but his coach would stick him in wherever. Where olympic lifts are concerned, he’s absolutely a snatch specialist. 

Empire and contradictions

America is an empire. No way of getting around that. I think imperialism in hetalia is an interesting subject, especially where america is concerned. @mysticalmusicwhispers did a good job running that down here, but basically my thoughts on the matter are that alfred doesn't really like being an empire. There’s many angles to that. It’s lonely at the top, for one. There’s no one who relates to being a 21st century empire in quite the same way as him. Then you have the fact that a lot of people living in america have suffered under imperialism as well. Because of that, there’s a lot of self hatred and anxiety and a not knowing if he can fully trust himself. Theres also the obsession that many americans have with people from other cultures being able to assimilate to american wasp culture. Because of all the people who live in the states who are very much not wasps and who can never be, it’s really hard on alfred, though he refuses to admit that things are anything but fine. 

Extras/Fun stuff

A book that reminds me of him is The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien. It’s a collection of short stories about O’Brien’s time serving in the military during the Vietnam War. It’s a very haunting book and I think about it at least once a week, but it is very violent and there’s a lot of fucked up stuff in it.

giveme chubby alfred or give me death

i feel like this shouldn’t have to be said, but sometimes there’s people who depict him as being pro-trump or pro-right wing bullshit, which. absolutely not. just because of all the political turmoil that exists within alfred, and because of all the pain he goes through because of all the hate that exists within his borders- hate that the entire world is forced to pay attention to. even though he might not have all the best sympathies or motivations, he’s just so tired of all the pain he personally goes through because of domestic political unrest, and would like it to end in the way that’s the least painful for him as a person. 

Bi king of my heart 

not a natural blond

I hc him as being mixed, though i’m not sure what exactly he’d look like? But i do enjoy alfred but not white, as poc are the driving force behind a lot of american life, right down to the languages we speak. Like. something like half the states names are the words of their indigenous peoples, and even more toponyms are indigenous across the country. Then of course i feel he’s very protective of aave and will always pronounce words in Not English correctly. (if u want to hear more about my language thoughts they’re linked below. Not gonna rehash it here cause those posts are Long™) 

My playlist for him!

Other analyses (age, linguistics) 

writing requests

[queenofallwitches]

Why I hate people who spend their adult life arguing online;

1. Well it’s juvenile , I personally prefer to leave any and all pseudo intellectual social discourse in my 6th grade debating class...

2. You aren’t anyone important and not saying novel things, you are using people who have put information that is novel and trying to spin it into your own agenda.

3. Waste of time, fools will be foolish, and if you enjoy the discourse, toastmasters or academic debating would be more productive uses of time

4. You lack self insight

5. You are self aware and doing it due to your own egotistical, sadistic, cunning desires. (Trolls, deep fakes)

Why I never take anyone who loves to argue on menial topics seriously: (spiritually or mentally)

I am high iq and high eq. I am also “attractive by the conventional measures of society” I deal with the most pathetic and malicious idiots who cannot understand a woman who has aesthetic appeal, that can also hold a stimulating and intelligent conversation.

I don’t argue. I problem solve. Arguing online was faded out when I was 14 years old.

But people who are almost 40, ar still out there pretending that they are the most unique and authoritative source of blogging bullshit. When the world media and journalism is where we are today. The academic literature speaks a plethora more than an adult in the hamster wheel, unable to see they are playing checkers in a left vs right, design by social engineering and the think tanks of Tavistock, you play the part they put you to be.

A dialectic of irrational and repetitive arguments is never productive.

It lacks a solution or a higher order of resolution, why are you behaving to destroy when you are claiming to want to create a world better?

So unconscious and unexplained lack of self awareness in adults who are obviously insecure and ignorant becomes old quick.

I comprehend why it’s important but the level of the argument is basic, and been recycled 1000000 times.

Why am I writing this? Free speech is not free. If you can discourse over the same shit and never find a solution you are part of the same fucking problem.

How I know?

Life experience. Learning.

Love of learning and living and devouring the higher level of what if, how can we, let’s move into a better solution.

I have many years of experience that is beyond the understanding of most people and I have gone through things nobody understands.

One time I was a young teen, but was already too smart, too sassy, too aware and that left my life a wreck after I went too far.

I DID get expelled in the 11th grade. I’m no idiot, I am actually genius, by measures of conventional iq.

So I was academically talented without effort, not to boast, because I hated being smart.

But I did get the internet social discourse I needed to say; on things that we should be all knowing are social engineering in a designed dichotomy to divide and conquer.

I was in a program in high school called cum laude. I cannot recall the meaning. But we were advanced academics, not only skilled at learning but sports, extra curricular things like musicals, choir, crusade survivor camps (duke of Edinburgh), debating, tutoring/mentoring younger students & more. I won many awards without trying. Mostly for geography (social science), design tech, visual art & creative writing. I was learning university level things in year 8. And examining and analysis to debate in scholarly discourse about topics that were familiar when I was in 1-2 year of my bachelor degree. An example is philosophy, as this was mandated in the GT program. Smart is my sense of knowing how to balance the logical and the emotional. This is ONE percent of my life but one I did not follow through on and as a result I walk this path now, and I put up with the educated and intelligent “idiots” (like conformity, bullying, bitching kids in the same class) and refuse to stoop to low iq, low eq and low level idiots.

You waste time. I am not saying I am only exclusive to educated or academic professionals, that is not what this is about. This is about me being underestimated and undermined and never taken seriously because I get the most inhuman torment if I do start to speak my truth.

Lucky I found comfort in solitary rebellion. So. Let’s see what I am that is always going to be a work in progress but what my enemies forget all the time.

To remind you:

I am a born, intuitive empath, psychic and ancestral lineages of many esoteric paths play into my natural ability. I used to hate feeling, knowing and perceiving things that I could see happening, in my dreams, visions and “gnosis” before they happened. I felt powerless.

But now I know how to harness it, things change.

And yet still I have to sit back and observe, as I did for years in school, and then in the fucking shithole employment situation that was my consequence of 2 expulsions from schools. (They value conformity over fucking intelligence) I had a gang of kids in my last high school sign a petition to have me expelled and that is one example of how people in my life come to attack, hate, misunderstand and spit venom for no reason.

I never push that energy myself. But I call things as I see them. I am real , and my perception is primed to pierce the veil on those who lack authenticity, who are bullies, cunning, cruel, conformists, deep fakes, fraudulent, following orders for the sake of fear, or just narcissistic or psychopathic “organic portals” who carry out the agenda for the black lodge.

I have no issue if these people want to live a life away from me and what I protect. But when my sphere is crossed into on a repeated basis, I will study the situation in silence. I won’t speak of what I see, without objective and subjective factors weighed in a careful, cautious but not closed minded, way. See you and I are probably not the same because I’m the kind of human who always gives people the benefit of the doubt and believes that people are better, that is my detriment and my strength. I see the good and hope that others carry a genuine heart and soul. But my experience shows me that I am not wrong when I feel off, or intuitive feelings are ignored due to my “dismissal”.

When I find the truth, I always say, I knew I needed to listen to my heart and head.

That’s why I can never be broken, or betrayed, or backstabbed worse than before. It is always a learning lesson I am open to growing from.

I am always open to being wrong, or told how to be better, my flaws are on open display and I am not scared of that. I want to be more helpful to grow and nourish the people and places I interact with.

In my world, arguing online was a dying medium by my 18th birthday. For many reasons. But the enemy is a sucker for this divide and conquer, drama bred social and political bullshit that’s all just opinion and speculation. It creates a negative tone and teaches nothing of novelty or wisdom. It just shows how weak, insecure, paranoid, and self obsessed people who are too old for the high school bullshit, by miles, are. my enemies could even spit out the first longing to follow the death cult of the black lodge, I was already aware of what 95 % of you found out in 2020. I don’t mean to be pretentious or pompous, I’m not. I’m actually the most passionate, loving and open minded human I know. But the people who come into my spaces to play to prey. Imposters and the immoral, A siphoning sickness in a role to ruin, how could anyone do that but someone who is a soul-devoid parasite? That’s real fucking discourse. Let’s talk about morality, moral principles and how they are applied and actualised into the metacogition of your own microcosm.

Suggestions and solutions?

How about discourse on the metaphysics of mystic, magick, the mind and the method to mend the mundane world into a manifestation where a symbiotic system of mutually beneficial prosperity, peace, collaboration, creation & harmony can be lived on a daily basis?

How about solutions and sitting with your own shadow in the darkness to see your flaws.

how they only give me a free pass to watch the shit show. when push comes to shove and patterns that are seen in your behaviour, cyclically, are the key that unlocks the truth of anyone’s hidden motivation.

Why is deception and destruction never noted by the deceived, unless someone like me comes to break the wall of ignorance to say “hey this is the truth and it hurts and looks vile but fucking wake up”. No I don’t like the ripple impact this has but at the same time I am aw woman of strength. I will stand up for the real, authentic and genuine truth and speak my mind.

I don’t sugar coat this bullshit.

Nor will I indulge it.

Let alone be a person who lets it seep it’s tendrils into my life and what I love.

Not ever. Never.

As someone wise once said “despair ends, tactics begin”

You cannot claim any authentic path without putting your soul, blood and spirit to the test of facing your demons, slaying the darkness. I am not sure that comes with what I and others see these action and behaviour presenting to be.

I rarely write things like this, and only want to address this because i walk on a path of “rose and thorn”. My thorn will eventually slay whatever is a threat, a charlatan or a sheep in wolves clothing. By accident. Because what you are lacking is always looking to attack, I am always having to protect and defend my life from the evil.

I see you. I know the hidden hand x64. I am always open to forgiving people if they are sincere but will play reflection of the adverse if passive people are coming to what to me, is a beautiful and amazing thing, and to be acting as agents of sabotage? Shame on your lack of soul, and it’s lack of seeking to steal, stain and shit all over the things of substance, spirituality and sincerity will always be seen when I am the seer seeing the undertones.

So where is the moral compass?

Find yourself, and then you can find something real that is yours to be into and love. Maybe even this. But to fuck with what is real, while being fake, and following orders, is by far, fence sitting and fraudulent, insidious & infantile activity. Why not spend time looking inside to see why you are following this order from who for what? What is your genuine purpose? Soul mission? Higher self ? Or are you all still stuck in the love is the law is the law love under the will of the guy who wrote a book last century.

Fucking even Crowley lived his great work, and he has flaws and did things many would dispute to be “evil”. But he didn’t copy another clone from 100 years prior, following the mantra that someone else made up. That’s the stupid thing, the whole “do what thou wilt” was not do what you want but that is not a strong point for the sheep of the worst. I know as I see both sides, and as a child in the 90s I saw the dark, evil and insidious. To see that again, here, 3 decades later, playing coy but really carrying rancid intent.. is my call to commune what many will never see, because you all are complicit, and tell these fucking lies and divert productive progress by your stupid discourse. These people LOVE senseless debating. Semantics. Solutions, self awareness or seek a soul inside the empty cavern that the black lodge will set inside your sadistic serpentine, slimy soul.

[stray-inu-writes]

Ko Murakami : Character Analysis

Despite being a secondary character (like most characters in WT), Murakami is part of the few chosen ones that got an actual backstory and a whole lot of defining characteristics, which lead him to be one of my favorites !

A Side Effect whose influence is more than a side effect

One thing I love about World Trigger is how Ashihara always shows the downside of what could be considered as a superpower, and Murakami is no exception to that rule. His enhanced sleep learning allowed him to rise to the top of Border without having to train as much as the others, a capacity that most students would love to have (me included). Earlier in life, he’s shown to improve quickly in every sport his friends introduce him to, and this ability was probably helpful in his academic cursus. He just needed to take a nap after class, and the lesson of the day was ingrained in his brain ; same goes for soccer tactics, volleyball moves…the list goes on. Heaven, right ? Except one little thing : social bonds are often forged through common struggles, especially during childhood and teenage years.

At this age, not struggling the same way as your classmates and friends translates to being unable to relate to them. How could Ko Murakami, 12 years old, understand why the others had to study hard to get a good grade, or forget things the teacher said in class ? It was obvious, he just remembered everything, so why weren’t the others the same as him ? When I read Ko’s backstory, my mind immediately linked it to a lot of gifted kid’s experience, where they feel isolated from their classmates. It’s explicitly stated that he lost a lot of friends to jealousy : every time they tried to teach him something (another popular form of bonding), he quickly surpassed them. Such a situation can easily take a toll on a young child or teen, and I believe that it’s exactly what happened, damaging the relationship he had with his Side Effect. Despising something that causes you isolation is perfectly normal, even though it gives you an advantage in other fields. Success doesn’t equal happiness, after all, and that was especially true for him.

The search for a purpose and a place where to belong is a central theme of everyone’s teen years and this belonging is usually found in friendship groups. For Ko, this search resulted in his enrollment in Border, most likely so as to put his talents to good use, since he had to deal with it anyway, but not in the big, shiny HQ in the middle of the city, no, in the Suzunari Branch. Ashihara mentioned in a Q&A that Murakami didn’t care to where he would get assigned to and I think he was even relieved to be sent in a newly created branch. New means that everyone is into unknown territory and it’s a very comfortable situation for someone like Ko.

However, the same thing happened : he got a mentor, Arafune, who taught him how to fight and use Attacker Triggers. In six months, the student surpassed his teacher and Ko found himself in a situation that seemed in all ways similar to what he went through during his childhood. In his mind, everything was going to repeat itself : he had made new friends, forged new bonds, but these bonds were at risk to be tainted by jealousy. As a matter of fact, this could have very well been the case, had his mentor been someone else than Arafune.

The path to acceptance

Fortunately for him, Arafune goals were very different from his disciple’s or really, anyone in Border, as he looked for a way to produce perfect All-Rounders. Ko’s experience with the effects of his ability mixed with a terribly bad timing and probably a lack of communication between them played an important role is the misunderstanding. We can see Ko completely breaking down, crying alone because thinking he lost another friend to his Side Effect was unbearable. It’s very likely that he kept this possibility in mind since the day he joined Border, and even the smallest sign that his fears may be true again was probably too much. That’s when the usual course of events suddenly shifts when he discovers that Arafune doesn’t resent him in the slightest and that Kuruma and Taichi don’t hesitate to comfort him. I can only imagine the relief he felt : for the first time, the people he let close to him didn’t reject him, in the contrary.

In Border, while there may be a rivalry between squads, everyone is working towards the same goal : protect Mikado from the Neighbors. In times of crisis, all teams come together and cooperate, because that’s what they trained from. This is even truer for the members of the same team, whose success depends on every one. Ko’s teammates don’t see his particularity as something disturbing, but as something they can all benefit from. It’s a very different perspective than his previous friends’, because another dimension was added. In organizations like the Border, people with unusual profiles and exceptional capacities aren’t seem as “too much” like it’s the case in others social situations where deviating from the norm is frowned upon.

Hence why Murakami’s own point of view of his Side Effect changed : he was no longer the weird kid, but someone who supported his team and helped others. Enhanced sleep learning went from factor of exclusion to a useful talent. Of course, Ko’s change of heart was probably gradual, because reevaluating something you believed most of your life isn’t done overnight, but that’s what made him into the Murakami we see through Yuma’s eyes.

A selfless and patient fighter

Ashihara could have gone the easy way and made him this super mysterious and edgy character – and with his backstory, he could have very well become a lone wolf ! - but he chose instead to create maybe one of the most human characters in World Trigger. Plot-wise, Murakami represents a turning point : he’s the first opponent to represent a challenge for Yuma. Our white-haired prodigy acknowledges that if the match had gone on, the losses and victories would have evened out, which is a very rare thing for him. However, Murakami is honest and doesn’t show any signs of arrogance when he gets to defeat his opponent, probably because he knows it’s because of his Side Effect and not entirely thanks to his personal skills (which raises the question : does he consider his ability to be entirely part of him or something he can separate himself from ?)

In general, the readers can see Murakami as a very humble young man, always polite, someone who could very well brag openly about his ranking but doesn’t in any way. More importantly, he’s defined by his undying loyalty to his teammates : he could have left them to get in a A-Rank unit with more prestige, but I believe the idea never came to his mind and for a very simple reason. He isn’t looking for glory, he’s looking for somewhere to belong and somewhere to be useful, and his skills fit perfectly into Suzunari-1. In a way, his new perspective on his Side Effect is that he has a responsibility, which explains why he often chooses the hardest tasks and takes the more risks : for his team. Murakami doesn’t think too highly of himself and wouldn’t mind to take a hit on his pride if that meant victory for them, something that others would be unable to do. That’s also why he trains relentlessly : he doesn’t satisfy himself of his current level, not because of his ego but because he knows he can do better for the others. (his hard-working nature has been confirmed by Ashihara himself in a Q&A !)

This unit is one of the few that consider themselves as more than teammates, as every interaction between them we get to see resemble a family’s. They all know they would be nowhere as high in the ranking without Ko, especially Ko himself, but he never belittles them. Even Taichi the klutz, who can be more of a burden than a help sometimes, is treated sweetly by him, while others may have snapped under the pressure. Other examples of Murakami’s patience are shown by his friendship with Kage. Kageura obviously isn’t an easy person to get along with considering his outbursts and his irritability.

That’s where we can notice a pattern in Ko’s friendships : they all are honest (sometimes to a fault) and simple people. He probably wouldn’t enjoy that much the company of someone like Jin who often hides his true feelings. Murakami likes real people, and it’s extremely coherent with his backstory. In the past, he had to deal with friends that let him down when something didn’t work out the way they planned, and now tends to befriend people who are unapologetically themselves, meaning they don’t conceal their true personality and thoughts behind a mask they use to be liked or well seen by the others (Kage couldn’t give more a shit about people’s opinion of him).

And of course, Murakami isn’t all serious ! He’s shown various times to be amused by his friends’ behavior or to mess with people in a harmless way, like the time when he makes Yuma believe Kage’s Side Effect is to read minds.

(does my crush show through this analysis ? Absolutely.)

I could have gone into some points in a little more depth, but that will be all ! Also, there are some moments where my limits in using the English language are blatant and I apologize in advance. Next one will be Reiji ! It will probably be shorter, since I’m always more proficient in analyzing my favorites, even though I like Reiji very much 😊

[palmett-hoes]

Hi, I really loved your post with the monsters as Birds of Prey! Was wondering if you had any thoughts on the Foxes as Marvel or Mcu characters? I feel like I could see Dan as Carol Danvers and Andrew for sure is Jessica Jones, idk about the rest.

oh wow old post!!

haha unfortunately i’m not really a comics person so i don’t feel like i can really give the best analysis possible, but i have seen most of the mcu movies and bits and pieces of the netflix show so i’ll try my best. also im using dc characters too bc i want to

1. Dan: I think your instinct with Dan as Captain Marvel is spot-on (at least uhhh,, based on the movie lol sorry comics ppl). Her direct, forceful powers and fighting style are definitely reminiscent of dan’s no-nonsense leadership approach. similarly the themes of overcoming sexism and acceling in a male-dominated industry in the captain marvel movie is pretty much the same as dan’s story establishing herself as the first female exy captain (tho sports is way more valid than the military). plus there’s a lot of emphasis on love and friendship between women that dan is ALL about. also lashana lynch would be a god tier dan wilds fc. Dan could also def have that lawful good Okoye from Black Panther energy. Loyal, disciplined, no-nonsense leader. no powers except discipline. no hair. also danai gurira in 2012 with the dreads and the sword and the cape on TWD was definitely part of my middle school sexual awakening

2. Kevin: Aquaman. this is based pretty much exclusively on the fact that jason momoa is my #1 kevin fc and also that Pasifika kevin is phenomenal and mandatory, actually. otherwise i think he has a decent amount of stick-up-the-ass cyclops energy. or dick grayson nightwing energy but i don’t have any evidence for why. kinda looks like him tho

3. Andrew: andrew gets the most characters bc he’s my favorite. i think ur jessica jones instincts are absolutely correct, both in her storyline (i only watched the first season) and her powers. i’ve seen some powers au and the tendency seems to be giving andrew like,, psychic powers or the like, and i don’t really agree. andrew is a very direct character. he’s pragmatic, he confronts problems head on, and he doesn’t muck about in details. to me this really translates best into physical powers like super strength that help u big punch straight thru all ur problems. also i def think andrew would be not just a solo hero but a mercenary (or a detective) because he’s not altruistic enough to be a standard vigilante. he doesn’t care enough about other people to hang out on rooftops all night waiting for Crime to occur. there’s a price for that.  which brings us to the NEXT andrew hero: deadpool. maybe in personality more of a drugged andrew but the superpowered mercenary is really a perfect fit for andrew. also, healing powers have a decidedly tragic poetry to them on andrew. already he’s self-destructive, if he had a healing factor his concern for his own well-being would be so beyond rock bottom it’d be in the earth’s core. even worse when you remember that with a healing factor, as opposed to indestructibility, you still feel all the pain. which brings us to Wolverine and X-23, who have the same thematic points as deadpool but are much more of a personality match and they have knife hands, which i really think andrew would appreciate. ending that sadness train and onto another tho, andrew’s aesthetic and Vibes fit the Winter Soldier just SO well (just that movie tho, not really civil war or anything past that) and a reinterpretation of the captain america story using the twinyards would be incredibly interesting. and finally, one last hero that would work really well for andrew: rogue, only remove the angst around not being able to touch people, andrew would love that. one touch and their comatose? baller. don't fucking touch him.

4. Matt: Shazam. I didn’t see the shazam movie but my dad and brother did and they said it was very funny and all the trailors looked like it had a lot of fun himbo energy and i really think that fits. in terms of matching himbo disaster energy i think i’ve heard good things about comics hawkeye (not mcu). thor?

5. Aaron: Mr. Fantastic. now this might be a stretch but aaron is a character who uses a skin-deep veneer of anger to cover the fact that he’s actually quite pliant and bends to other people’s wills. and he’s a doctor or w/e. he could alse be like,, antman. he’s smart right? hank pym not paul rudd. katelyn can be wasp

6. Seth: Arm Fall Off Boy. no i will not elaborate.             ..... ugh fine, but i'm using my favorite piece of superhero media of all time: x-men evolution, the one where they're all teenagers in public high school. seth can be lance alvers/avalanche who’s a bit of a jerk and has a lot of issues with authority and has a rivalry with cyclops very reminiscent of seth with kevin, but still there’s the recurring theme that he’s lashing out because of low self-esteem and a bad situation and he’s a surprisingly sympathetic character who i’m very fond of. his power is earthquakes but i think the name makes that pretty self-explanatory

7. Allison: Iron Man. cocky, bitchy, and rich rich rich. sounds like allison to me. then to elevate it a level higher: emma frost, rich bitch extraordinaire. also if allison had telepathic powers she would be unstoppable. plus one more bitchy, morally-gray blonde (but chaotic this time): Harley Quinn

8. Nicky: Okay so I do wanna give a quick shout-out to Northstar, the first openly gay comicbook superhero, who’s a speedster which I’d actually say fits Nicky pretty well. However, if i had to choose a superhero to represent nicky in presence and powers it would have to be Jubilee from x-men (... from what i’ve heard lol. i’ve never actually consumed any of her Media hahaha anyway) she’s a joyful, energetic presence and her powers are setting off fireworks which i think is a good balance of nicky being a supportive cousin-parent AND a chaotic train wreck garbage trash man. also gonna throw in johnny storm for a cheap 'flaming' joke

9. Renee: Thunder/Blackbird from Black Lightning bc she’s a fufkin lesbian lol. (i don’t watch the show but i do follow nafessa williams’s tag). now the fr ones i’m gonna do together because to me they have the same Vibes so i chose them for the same reasons. Wonder Woman and Storm who to me have the same  reserved, impartial, regal energy. honestly ethereal and somewhat otherwordly, and quite literally goddesses. also op as hell.  black widow and her “red in my leger” looking for redemption story also fits thematically.

10. Neil: okay lazy answer first: the flash or quicksilver. get it? because they run fast? and neil run too? yea i like to think i've proven myself to be better than such a surface level interpretation but worth the mention ig. so for srs now, mystique and her shape changing powers would be an interesting interpretation of neil's identity issues, but i wanna push it a step further. nightcrawler would actually be possibly the MOST interesting hero to apply to neil 1. because powers still very movement go fast place to place 2. because of the thematic focus on neil's unusual looks and the lengths he goes to hide them, very much in line with the way nightcrawler will use a hologram-projector in order to look human, yet in both cases it's only a surface-level illusion, and 3. his parentage. here, mary would be mystique, which i also think works very well considering mary seemed to be the far more effective chameleon on the run than neil, and also fits with her place as a morally grey character, as mystique herself is often a villain or an antagonist, with her own agenda and shadowy motives. then nathan matches well with nightcrawler's father: azazel, a literal demon, and also where kurt gets his appearance. it's a shockingly coherent narrative between the three of them. then, to also give neil some powers that aren't contingent on his fucked up geneology and rather on his own merit and abilities, Black Canary and her sonic voice parallel the way that neil began to anchor his identity and take ownership over himself through his voice and his sick roasts

and 1 extra, wymack: batman, on account of his altruism, his dedication to second chances, and his many, many adopted children

---

anon, ik it's been a sec since you sent this, so i hope it gets back to you. i had a fun time with it and it prompted like,,, 7 different au s that i'll never write

[a-crimson-lion]

A Look At Bakudeku’s Development (Based On That One Instagram Post): A Photo-Narrative Analysis

Word Count: 4,287 (Yikes…)

[This got long. Like, REALLY long. Don't expect too many colors. There's a lot to get through...]

For those out of the loop, I recently came across this Instagram post during unhealthy hours in the morning. The purpose of this post, I’d assume, was to debunk any negativity aimed at the Bakudeku dynamic/ship, claiming it was indeed not abusive and that the antis in question are ignoring canon in favor of playing Bakugo’s suicide instigation on repeat. Before addressing the post in question, I would like to state two things:

I am not stuck on Chapter/Episode 1 in the series. I have been caught up proper with every story arc up to the JT Training Arc and am roughly familiar with everything past that point. I don’t just take Katsuki’s now essentially forgotten suicide instigation into account; I’m taking every part of his actions well beyond that moment and how they reflect on him, internally justified or otherwise.

While I’m among the people who believe that Bakudeku as of the latest incarnation of the manga (up to Ch. 280) is indeed abusive, I am open to discussions on why it is not. In any case, however, I cannot ignore the fact that the dynamic/ship is incredibly problematic besides the skeletons in both Izuku and Katsuki’s closets.

So, in order to address this issue to the best of my half-awake brain’s abilities, I will review the screenshots within said post and break down how they factor into the Bakudeku dynamic and the overall development. Be aware that there are some manga and movie spoilers, and this is just MY OPINION. I could be wrong, and I’m okay with that. If you wanna talk without patronizing me, the comments are open. I also apologize in advance if I myself come of as patronizing. All the screenshots I’ll be discussing can be found in the video link above (or here).

Well then, no point in beating around the bush...

1) Izuku Taking Katsuki Out Of The Final Exam Gate (Anime Screenshot)

The first piece of “evidence” used to show the merit of Bakudeku comes from the Final Exam arc, shortly after Katsuki succumbs to All Might’s assault, only for Izuku to come in and deck the #1 Hero in order to grab Katsuki and carry him to safety, allowing them both to pass.

However, this photo marks a recurring trend throughout some of the other photos: they speak more about IZUKU as a character than Izuku AND Katsuki.

Izuku getting to save Katsuki is a major development… for Izuku. One that we’ve seen before. Think about it. The first time Izuku saves Katsuki towards the beginning of the exam, he has to punch Katsuki in the face because he was considering throwing the match just for working with Izuku. And after he’s been saved, Katsuki blows up (figuratively and literally) before aggressively kabedoning him. In this scene though? Katsuki got knocked the f*** out, so he really has no room to protest if Izuku comes in to save him a second time.

Plus, this isn’t really anything NEW with Izuku. We know that he’s aware in an abstract sense that what Katsuki did to him was “wrong,” but he doesn’t hold a grudge or any animosity to him towards that. He’s one of Katsuki’s biggest defenders and supporters, assuming Katsuki allows it. So really, him saving Katsuki isn’t really surprising or a major step forward, ‘cause he was always willing to do it from the get go. And again, Katsuki isn’t conscious during his second rescue, so we don’t really know if he would have let Izuku save him again or if he would have protested.

There’s nothing new here, and nothing balanced to the overall dynamic. Just Izuku being Izuku.

2) All Might Acknowledges The New Bakudeku Rivalry (Anime Screenshot)

Deku vs Kacchan 2 was a big moment for the Bakudeku dynamic. I’m not saying it’s a positive moment, nor am I saying it was necessary, but it was big. And in the aftermath of that fight, where Izuku and Katsuki are having a back and forth, All Might thinks to himself that the two have become true rivals now, or something along those lines. And it’s nice that he’s willing to spell this out for the audience and all, but uh…

Stop me if you’ve heard this one before: show, don’t tell.

All Might is essentially telling us that Izuku and Katsuki are rivals now. What does the story have to show for it? A brief conversation during their house arrest, followed by a massive stall due to the Shie Hassaikai Arc and Cultural Festival Arc (albeit with one more instance we’ll cover later), and then what essentially equates to Katsuki yelling at Izuku a lot during the Joint Training Arc.

...that’s ...not much.

And yeah, you could expect me to be a good bean to the author and wait until the later arcs, but even then, the execution… just falls kinda flat, at least for me. Going back to that particular moment with All Might’s thought process, it kind of reminds me of Eraserhead essentially acting as a mouthpiece for the Ochako vs Katsuki fight during the Sports Festival, but that’s a can of worms I won’t be indulging today.

What I’m getting at is this: All Might letting the audience know that Bakudeku have reached rival status is great! Now if only the series could deliver more on that...

3) Standing With Two One For Alls (Heroes Rising)

Okay, seriously, if you haven’t seen Heroes Rising yet, I implore you, GO. WATCH IT. It is an incredible film and I would recommend it with warm words. And I’ll admit, it gives us a better incarnation of Bakudeku compared to the rest of the series.

Yes, I said “better,” not “great.”

Look, I’m all for Izuku and Katsuki working past their differences and the clusterf*** that was their childhood, and maybe Horikoshi not being as integrally involved with the film’s writing as people think he is has something to do with it, but uh… you do not say “put myself as low as to working with Deku” or something like that and expect to be casually tossed aside, at least if you’re me. And while I’m glad there was some genuine emotional tension as Izuku gave Katsuki OFA, some part about it feels… off. Like, nothing was really truly resolved. Katsuki wasn’t given OFA as a sign of forgiveness, as an acknowledgement. Katsuki was given OFA because there was an AFO level villain about to wreck the place and kill some peeps and oh look, the narrative made it so that Katsuki was the only convenient holder around! It kinda stings when you look at it that way.

Not that it matters, because a big thing most people forget is that at the end of this movie, THE ENTIRE THING IS ESSENTIALLY SWIPED ACROSS THE DESK AND ON THE FLOOR. Even if it was going to have some level of effort towards the development of the dynamic, that effort is essentially GONE because Katsuki doesn’t remember SQUAT, and what happens to OFA after the fight is NEVER DISCUSSED. It’s just a hard reset, BOOM, back to normal. *Sigh*

Really, the whole double OFA thing was for convenience, less so for any emotional leveling up that could have been done. And even then, Izuku is still somehow the one putting more emotional input into the entire thing than Katsuki.

4) “I Thought You Were Gonna Get Ahead Of Me!” (Anime Screenshot)

Katsuki’s methods of motivation are… admittedly not for everyone. They seem to work fine for Izuku, as seen sometime after the Cultural Festival Arc, but again, that’s just Izuku. We know how he takes Katsuki’s words and turns it into motivation, but why does Katsuki bother at all?

Well, maybe this comes with desperately trying to find reasons to like a character but progressively despising him and his narrative placement more and more as time progresses, but here’s my angle on it: Katsuki just doesn’t want Izuku dragging his weight for nothing.

Keep in mind, we’re talking about the same Katsuki who held a grudge against Shoto for holding back during the Sports Festival. The same Katsuki who wanted the #1 Hero to go all out and would continuously press to fight him. The same Katsuki who wanted to fight a deadly villain even after being instructed to get back to camp for his own safety. The same Katsuki who challenged Izuku to a fight to finally determine where the gap was, and who was frustrated when he won because the power Izuku possessed was All Might’s, so clearly he shouldn’t have lost.

In short, Katsuki doesn’t like it when people don’t give it their all. And I believe it’s been stated once or twice that once Izuku makes One For All his own, there’s a good chance they’re gonna fight again. So it’s in Katsuki’s best interest to make sure Izuku isn’t half-assing anything, because he wants to prove he can beat Izuku at his best, thus proving that KATSUKI is the best.

So it’s less so for Izuku’s benefit as it is for Katsuki’s own.

5) One Giant Leap (Heroes Rising)

Arguably one of the best moments of the entire Heroes Rising film amongst the fandom is the big handhold scene between Katsuki and Izuku as they make a last gambit effort to take down Nine with two One for Alls. Admittedly this is one of the best if not the best moment throughout the entire progression of the Bakudeku dynamic thus far. I’ll give it that much.

...which makes it all the more frustrating because again: MIND. WIPE. The audience knows it happened, but in canon we never know if Izuku discusses it with Katsuki or if anyone else was aware of the moment in greater specificity. IT ESSENTIALLY NEVER HAPPENED, and I’m starting to legitimately wonder whether or not it was for the best...

6) Datte Atashi No Hero (Anime Screenshot)

First off: how? Second off: huh?

Believe me, the second ending of Season 3 is an absolute bop, don’t get me wrong, but uh… again, it provides NOTHING balanced for Bakudeku, once again relying on Izuku’s perspective on the entire matter. I once read an interesting meta about this ending and how it could be interpreted (take this with a grain of salt), but the biggest contender is that this is in fact Izuku’s fantasy. Think about it:

Izuku is a humble traveling warrior, with nothing to distinguish himself in his own opinion.

Ochako is a magician because she’s alien to Izuku, an unheard of phenomenon.

Tenya being a knight, Shoto being a prince, and Momo being a warrior princess all correlates to their high standings in society, heroic or otherwise.

The reason Katsuki is a barbarian king is because he’s familiar to Izuku in an ancient sense; he’s known him for a long time. The list goes on, but you get the jist.

With this in mind, it’s not difficult to understand that even Katsuki willing to work with Izuku would be another aspect of Izuku’s fantasy: to be able to stand beside his childhood friend once more. And remember the ending of that scene, when Izuku does that big sword slash? That’s him having fully mastered OFA. Both are things that could happen given the manga’s recent direction, but still have yet to happen because this is, again, a fantasy.

And apparently Datte Atatshi No Hero is a reflection on Izuku’s feelings towards Katsuki. Take that as you will, but again, this does not speak for Bakudeku as a whole. Just Izuku’s feelings on the matter.

7) Win to Save, Save to Win (Manga Screenshot)

Since I’ve already penned myself into a short story at this point, might as well take the time to look at this famous phrase from the story.

Personally, I consider it bulls***. It harms both characters overall; yes, I said both. It excuses Katsuki’s need to be a blunt powerhouse that only targets villains, and it redundantly demands Izuku do more of what he was already doing, albeit with less sympathy. I know it sounds corny to say saving is more important than winning, but in the heat of the moment, what gets to the civilians in danger more often? Seeing a guy in a cape deck the latest disaster right in front of them or from a distance? Or said cape guy risking life and limb making sure that this person gets to see life another day?

There’s no perfect answer to it, but that’s my stance.

And this quote, “Win to save, save to win,” justifies the one thing that keeps Katsuki from truly outgrowing his past: his need to be the best. If winning is on the same level then saving, and Izuku has an innate capacity to save, then that means it’s okay for Katsuki to have to win all the time, right?

No. It’s not. And that’s not speaking for all the “Gary Stu” crap, either.

Because being pressured into being the best is what caused Katsuki to hate any kindness offered to him by Izuku. The desire to be the best had him bully Izuku for a decade to ensure that Izuku remained the loser and Katsuki remained the winner. That desire characterizes arguably the worst aspects of Katsuki’s character, and those aspects aren’t gonna fly in the Pro Hero world. Because if Nana Shimura, Shota Aizawa, the Pussycats, Mirio, Sir Nighteye, and a handful of other incidents have taught us anything, it’s that even at their best efforts, heroes don’t win all the time.

Katsuki needs to learn this, or it will crush him in the long term. But he hasn’t. The narrative has kept letting him rack up wins, and his current actions in the manga were spurred on by the fact that he still has yet to truly take a loss.

Say what you will, but I don’t like this line. For what it says about Izuku or Katsuki.

8) The Only One Who Can Accept His Feelings… (Anime Screenshot)

Me @ #7: Wanna see me go off?

Me @ #8: Wanna see me do it again?

Izuku’s perspective on the entire Bakudeku situation is a major reason why most fans condone it. “Izuku doesn’t appear obviously bothered by Katsuki, so that clearly means it’s not abusive/problematic, so just shut up!” or something like that. Well, I’m no psychologist, so I won’t go into a spiel about people ignoring their pain for the sake of others or people trying to excuse others in order to place fault on themselves whether or not it be accurate.

Really, all I can say is that NONE OF THIS should be Izuku’s responsibility.

I’m not blaming this on Izuku because he hasn’t had actual friends or a healthy support system in a long while, but the fact that he decides to take on and enable Katsuki in his element just… doesn’t sit well with me. The logical conclusion would be talking, not throwing hands. I don’t care if they’re “distressed teenagers,” neither of them should be doing this, and Katsuki was fully aware that the teachers would stop them in the first place; that’s not simply adults meddling in what isn’t their business. Katsuki should have really figured out by now that maybe the best course of action is to actually vent to someone without blowing their face off, and I get that he’s absolute s*** at feelings, but really, that’s more of a red flag that he needs to actually get help. And if you think a little too hard on Izuku’s feelings of the matter, well…

Imagine being ostracized for so long that you lose all sense of self worth.

Imagine being told time and again that your worthless, which checks out for you because clearly if your worthless, the guy that enabled that mindset is obviously better than you, and he’s entitled to use you for his own ends.

That’s what I get from this scene.

And again, this is all from IZUKU at this point; virtually NOTHING from Katsuki.

9) Double Detroit Smash (Heroes Rising)

I’ve already said my piece about the film. At this point, it’s beating a dead horse with a stick. Moving on.

10) Word of God (Miscellaneous)

Here’s the thing about Word of God in fandom: the general consensus is that it’s nice to get confirmation from a credible source, but unless it is portrayed in canon, it’s just more words which may or may not be true.

In this case, Kohei Horikoshi, the mangaka for BNHA, is saying that eventually, Katsuki will have to apologize to Izuku. Eventually.

As in, it still hasn’t happened yet.

As in, Katsuki still has yet to decide that what he did in the past was wrong and he should try to fix it.

As in, it currently shows no bearing towards Katsuki’s current character nor the overall Bakudeku dynamic.

Sure, it MIGHT happen, but in another interview (or mayhaps it’s the same one), Horikoshi stated that Katsuki originally wasn’t intended to get as much screen time as he did. Both of these situations are different of course, but with the recent turbulence of the War Arc shaking up the manga, is it really so hard to believe that an apology might slip away from Katsuki’s thought process?

On the bright side, an apology could happen. But until it’s canon, then it’s only a possibility, and therefore can’t be used fully for the intended argument.

11) X-Catapult Handhold (Heroes Rising)

I bet some people working on the movie and some fans on the movie felt spoiled when they included not one, but two handholding scenes for Izuku and Katsuki.

And while the first handhold is certainly a marvel of battle tactics, again, there isn’t much else going on with it. Is it nice to see Katsuki working with Izuku again? Yes, but contrary to popular belief, it doesn’t go past that. Katsuki’s just willing to work with Izuku, full stop. He’d probably be willing to work with anyone because Nine is f***ing tank. And sure, getting a handhold tease is nice, but it’s only to facilitate Katsuki’s subsequent yeeting of Izuku at Nine in an attempt to do damage. Nothing more pressing about the circumstances of their past or anything like that.

12) A Bit of Advice (Anime Screenshot)

Look, this is one of the tamer, better looks at Izuku and Katsuki’s relationship. He’s willing to put his pride aside and give Izuku some advice. But remember what I said earlier in #4?

It’s not just to make sure Izuku gets better, but so Katsuki can feel like it’s a complete win when he beats his ass.

And if we take the line “It pisses me off” into account, we can look at that flaw from the same angle. Remember, Izuku has All Might’s power, the #1 Hero’s power. To Katsuki, that means he shouldn’t have the luxury of making mistakes. But Izuku does. He makes mistakes, and Katsuki sees them and he doesn’t get to exploit them. He still wins, but not because of those mistakes. And part of that pisses Katsuki off. Izuku shouldn’t get to slack. So, Katsuki gives him some advice. Advice that will no doubt help Izuku in the long run, for his (and Katuki’s) sakes. It’s a good outcome from a not very good reason...

13) Have You Made That Borrowed Power Your Own? (Manga Screenshot)

Yeah, no.

I don’t care if Izuku is used to this treatment, it still isn’t reinforcing an overall positive tone.

I don’t care if Katsuki acknowledges at some level that Izuku’s power is becoming his own, he still has the gall to say it was no wonder he passed BECAUSE of his power. Which may be true, but it’s not like Izuku was relying on it 100%, and lowkey comes off as Quirkist.

All it tells me is that Katsuki is starting to acknowledge Izuku, in the “gadfly I can’t get off my back” sort of way. Is this the “best development” y’all are rooting for? Basic acknowledgement of another human being?

14) Outta My Way Punk! (Manga Screenshot)

Katsuki reflexively tells Izuku to get out of his way.

Izuku is used to it, again, that does not excuse it.

Once again, Katsuki reverts back to his usual behavior instead of showing a more subtle approach to show the audience that maybe he’s changing beyond what a chorus of other characters saying “he’s changed!” has to offer.

...even if it’s not abusive, you can’t really say that’s a “good” relationship, either.

15) Blackwhip Training (Manga Screenshot)

Katsuki willing to train with Izuku to help him master his Quirk(s) is nice.

Still blatantly in his element with lots of needless yelling and dominance assertion, but still nice.

And keep in mind, right after it’s clear they aren’t getting anywhere and Izuku tries to rationalize it, Katsuki decides to dip seeing as it’s not worth his time anymore. And even before that, at least in my translation, Katsuki seems to be more interested in beating out Blackwhip instead of having Izuku get a handle on.

Again, maybe not abusive, but not exactly supportive, either.

16) ??? (Anime Screenshot)

I personally have no idea what they were going for with this screenshot, but if I had to guess, that’s after Katsuki gives Izuku an escape window whilst he faces off against All Might alone during their Final Exams.

While I understand that this is early on in their dynamic’s development, the fact still stands that Katsuki still wants to fight for fighting’s sake. He may have been willing to at least give Izuku a chance, but he still sees Izuku’s retreat as cowardly, even though it’s a perfectly valid way to pass the exam. He still just wants to fight.

There’s no mutuality in that sense.

17) Quote from Justin Briner (Miscellaneous)

I don’t have much of an opinion for Izuku’s English VA, but for what it’s worth, I think overall he’s a really cool dude. The same, however, cannot be said for his quote.

I can buy into Izuku wanting to get stronger because of Katsuki, since that is a major plot point. I can’t do the same for Katsuki seeing the good in people because we don’t ever see it, really? In fact, it’s more like people latch on to Katsuki and he just tolerates them until they’ve completely wormed their way into his life. There’s no scene where Katsuki considers someone a good person because of something Izuku did, or anything even vaguely along those lines, at least to my knowledge.

As for their relationship, there have been more downs than ups, and it isn’t relatable to me in the slightest. Maybe that’s just ‘cause I don’t get the overall appeal, but their friendship never really strikes me as a… well, friendship. You could argue that’s the point and that’s what makes them different and interesting, but I would much rather we see more concrete proof of their relationship being at more understandable highs and lows while actually demonstrating it was mutual.

But again. That’s just me.

18) Joint Training Pep Talk (Manga Screenshot)

I’m basically repeating myself at this point. Katsuki might be keeping tabs on Izuku, but again, it’s not entirely for Izuku’s benefit. He just wants to make sure his new “rival” (successor to the #1 Hero, I might add) isn’t dragging his feet through the mud and actually getting s*** done so their eventual third clash will actually be worth his time.

...this relationship is so one-sided in two entirely different ways, I swear.

19) Speaking With Kacchan So Naturally (Manga Screenshot)

Why are we congratulating Katsuki for adding one more person to his already (surprisingly) sizable tolerance pile?

Why are we congratulating Izuku for bridging a gap other people managed to cross with little to no effort even though he didn’t do anything wrong?

Izuku is essentially saying “Good job on me for finally getting the same treatment as everyone else from that one person after over ten years.” Good on him, but uh… that’s not exactly a landmark worth framing the way the fandom does...

The relationship might not be outright abusive, but HOO BOY the bar has never been set lower...

20) “You’ve got a good friend in him” (Manga Screenshot)

And finally, the pièce de résistance. Which is really more narrative mouthpiece-ing.

Even before that, Katsuki yet again can’t take a compliment from Izuku for whatever reason. Yet again, Izuku just shrugs off all of Katsuki’s discouragement, intentional or otherwise. And I love me some Dadmight as much as the next guy, but really, does he have a good grasp on relationships? His only friends in his life were David and Naomasa, and he’s been shown time and time again to not be the infallible man many think he is due to being the Symbol of Peace? But suddenly he goes “Bakudeku rights” and y’all jump on that with no room for argument?

Katsuki has yet to prove what All Might has been saying. Again, telling rather than showing, therefore removing the meaning from the entire thing. Unless Katsuki proves otherwise, I call bulls***.

-------------------------------------------------------

So, my final verdict? Bakudeku is fine. It’s just not as great as the rest of you are making it out to be. I’m not gonna dictate whatever you ship or what you enjoy, that’s not my place, but at least keep these perspectives in mind. You don’t have to believe them, but just… stay aware, y’know?

Alrighty, I’ve wasted enough of your time. If you’ve read it until the very end, then… thanks. Carry on.

-Crimson Lion (10 August 2020)

[mysterylover123]

Todoroki’s Relationships Analysis Part 7: Chapter 169-now. Culture Fest, Pro Hero, JTA, MLA & Winter Internship arcs.

(SPOILERS TO NOW)

Culture Festival Arc

The new, party person post retake arc Shoto

Shoto’s retake course has helped to change his perspective on things a little, and understand the value of fun a little bit more (which is what this arc is all about)

He remains critical towards Bakugou here, though Katsuki definitely starts it. 

Or more accurately, the rest of the school starts it by acting like Class A asked to get attacked by crazy supervillains. Bakugou initially in this scene seems like he’s being a jerk, but he’s actually having one of his moments of kindness and empathy, as he defends his classmates from the rest of the school, and Shoto stops criticizing him once that lands. 

Shoto spends most of the CF arc hanging around twith this group, whom he mostly gets along with on the level of fairly normal friendship, so there isn’t much to say about these scenes.

We see Shoto to be the most concerned classmate about Deku’s wellbeing, probably because he’s learned by this point that an unavailable Midoriya probably means he’s breaking his body in two.

He watches Izuku getting scolded by the teachers.

And hangs out with Iida during the Culture Fest event itself. (Iida is the universal bro)

Culture Fest Shoto is still fairly quiet, but much more sociable than before. He suggests throwing a big party for the school, which should probably tell you that he’s a very different kid from the start of the year.

Pro Hero Arc

This arc is mostly about Shoto’s relationship with his dad, though we get a quick glimpse of his classmates looking after him when the fight plays on TV.

Four classmates are specifically watching Shoto. Now, while Kiri and Shoto do have a friendship, Kiri is generally the “glue that holds the class together”, so essentially, he was written to be the kid who always looks after his teammates. The other 3 are Shoto’s 3 main ships: Bakugou, Deku, and Momo. 

Though just about everyone comes over to him afterwards.

Included because how can you not.

joint Training Arc

Sero and Shoto sure have come a long way since “nice try” huh? And yes, Earlyroki is the phrase I want to use too.

Shoto is focused on watching Yaoyorozu’s fight.

He showcases some understanding of Momo’s tactical expertise and confidence in her ability to win. He believes that only a total assault on her could have been sufficient to actually defeat Momo. 

He looks worried for Momo after she loses and states firmly that he “hopes she doesn’t get all discouraged again”, recalling her previous sadness and worrying for her in the future.

We see a moment of Todoroki and Bakugou being on the same wavelength here, as following the above panel Shoto immediately does just that. 

Tetsutetsu pushes Todoroki to the point where he has to use way too much firepower. However, his team still loses/ties.

He has a Deku-like moment and this triggers his actions in the next arc (tears at BabyTodo in the left hand panel.)

This is his reaction to BlackWhip. He goes over to Deku after the JTA is over and after Deku’s training session with Bakugou and All Might and asks him directly, indicating he thinks Izuku has two powers.

Clearly, Shoto felt a bit betrayed that Deku asked him to go all out but was apparently holding back himself. I wish we could’ve had Shoto’s thoughts while the whole thing was going on.

He instantly believes Midoriya and doesn’t think to question this strange development. He compliments him as well, showing that Deku has joined Momo and Kacchan’s ranks as someone Shoto admires. Deku shoots right back at him.

Shoto, having tied while Deku and Kacchan, his two Official Rivals, both won with a complete knockout, obviously feels like they’ve surpassed him. This is, basically, his equivalent (though less angsty) to Bakugou at the end of the PLE arc, feeling completely surpassed by everyone.

The Joint Training arc sees, to Shoto, his classmates surpassing him, and spurs him to decide and seek out Endeavor as a Utility. We see his admiration for Momo, Kacchan and Izuku on full display.

MLA Arc

Newly minted Licensed heroes Todoroki and Bakugou are here to save the day Together!

They’re referring to each other as “we” and working together to end the villains.

Shoto’s showing concern for Kacchan, who as usual takes all concern for his wellbeing as an insult. (and as usual makes everything about Deku. Holy crap, was that really as powerful as the Sports Fest move?!?! They’ll have to bust out some sick animation for that).

Winter Internship Arc (up to present chapter, Chapter 250)

So Todoroki and Kacchan work together well. Are they friends? What does Shoto think of their relationship? His self-definition is that they get along well.

Todoroki apparently defines friendship as “spending a lot of time together”. Bakugou objects to this. Todoroki basically calmly insists that they get along anyway.

Shoto’s motto of heroism here is that he wants “to put others at ease’. We’ve got his manifesto as to heroism laid out here.

This is funny, yes, but also kinda heartbreaking. Shoto is incredibly awkward in his interview and doesn’t seem to understand that he’s being flirted with. It’s possible he doesn’t have much conception of what romance, flirtation and attraction even are. This is a facet I’d like to see explored more in shipping fics, actually, because any idea of Shoto as some smooth charmer with great flirting skills should be heavily dispelled by this instance.

Although he’s talking about his dad here, the words could just as easily apply to Midoriya.

Shoto instantly apologies to Katsuki, taking it as his fault that Bakugou was cut, because he’s not socially adept enough to get that Bakugou’s behavior is inappropriate. While one doesn’t have to, you could take Bakugou’s reply as him relieving Shoto of feeling guilty by telling him it wasn’t his fault. Just in Bakugou-speak.

Deku’s 3 most popular ships watch him try and conquer his quirk. Or is this in his head?

Some nervous solidarity between Shoto and Izuku, + bonus Jealous Bakugou.

ChristmasTodo notices Bakugou feeling down.

And immediately offers him and Deku internship jobs with the #1. Shoto’s motives her deserve some consideration. He states later on that he sees Endeavor, as far as regards his career as a pro, in a utilitarian manner. He views him as a means to an end for success (outside of their past and family drama, obviously). So Shoto is, essentially, offering Deku and Kacchan the best possible internship opportunity he can, even though it involves asking his old man for a favor. That’s some serious supportive friendship power right there.

Endeavor complains about having to teach all 3 but Shoto shuts him down quickly.

He agrees with Bakugou that Endeavor’s dismissive attitude is not what they signed on for or what he promised Kacchan. 

Todo and Kacchan are again on the same wavelength here and act like they both find Deku’s constant chatter annoying.

In his big speech to Endeavor, he states that “competing with these guys” before correcting himself and trying to include the rest of his classmates in that estimation. But he ca’t take back that initial impulse. Deku and Kacchan are placed first in his estimation. They are the first ones he thinks of. And both, as well. It’s  very clear that Deku and Kacchan (Twin Stars of class A indeed) changed his life. Thinking about it too...he didn’t immediately use fire after his match with Deku. It wasn’t until he hurt Bakugou by holding back and lost hte match that he really started to change.

“IN front of my friends”. Shoto again points out that he came her to use Endeavor, regardless of feelings. He insists on being treated the same as Deku and Kacchan, and tells Endeavor not to pretend to be dadlike to him in front of them. This impulse is interesting too. He doesn’t wish to present any kind of lie to these two.

Shoto pays a lot of attention to Kacchan and actually smiles when Bakugou calls Endeavor’s power a “rip-off” of Bakugou’s own explosion quirk. I guess he likes the chance to insult dear ol dad.

When Deku and Kacchan are both in a bad mood, Shoto plays supportive cheerleader.

He’s totally cool with the invitation.

He shows again some understand of (and criticism of) Deku.

This is where Todoroki comes to understand that Katsuki knows about his situation with Endeavor. Interestingly enough, while Deku is the one he told, he hasn’t shown any inclination to add more to that knowledge since the Sports Festival. 

Deku shows some incredible understanding of Shoto’s mind here and supports his decision with Endeav either way. Shoto’s expression is astonished, as if he had never thought of his situation this way before.

He immediately opens up to Deku and Kacchan about Toya with Fuyumi’s help; once again, both know Shoto’s backstory.

He also reaches out to get the recipe from Fuyumi to give to Bakugou. Always the caring, considerate friend.

Presumably she doesn’t thank Bakugou too because he keeps insisting he totally isn’t friends with Shoto. Shoto looks so adorably embarassed here.

He’s solicited as a study buddy for Deku, and for now (until Friday) this is where we leave them. Jumping forward to save Natsuo.

So this retrospective on Todoroki’s relationships - Todoroki’s relationships only, from his POV alone - was interesting. And very informative, as it changed my perspective on Shoto’s character dynamics a lot. I hope you enjoyed, and let me know if there are any other characters you want me to do a Relationships retrospective on in the future.

[sugar-petals]

I know that you're a multifan so I hope you won't reject my offer. There isn't much shinee fans around here so there isn't enough readings/analysis about them. Can you please make a reading about their ideal types or future partners type of reading? I love your writings, you put so much detail into it. I hope you'll do one for them like the one you did for BTS. I love shinee but people nowadays only know taemin so there isn't much info about others yet I'm curious about them all😭

let’s have a look: here goes their future partner prediction. includes an oracle message from jonghyun to the members at the end.

♡ minho: ACE OF SWORDS

i am sure this person is an accomplished academic, they hold some kind of important title. interestingly, minho’s partner will be a bit younger than him, the aces in tarot are a very youthful, start-of-everything card. they have a lot of interest in technology, online business, social networking, writing, languages in general. this is a well-spoken type, sharp wit ahead. it could be a popular instagrammer or youtuber. they know to express themselves clearly. minho will appreciate their honesty and authentic character, their ability to talk about difficult topics and intellectual debates. they might be from a mountainous region. a hand is very prominently depicted on the ACE OF SWORDS which leads me to think that this is their signature body part and charm point. they could have prominent bone structure, sharp looks. their zodiac sign could be libra, gemini, aquarius.

♡ taemin: KING OF WANDS

as we know… wowza, this is a very powerful archetype with a lot of fiery energy coming with it. taemin’s partner will certainly be the boss at home. a very assertive lover who knows what they want in relationships, no doormat in sight here. they carry themselves with seasoned authority. you’ll be able to see it from a mile away. they love to wear red, dress boldly, they’re tall, too. like in onew’s case, taemin’s partner will be older than him. taemin will be wowed by their temper and majestic behavior. the KING OF WANDS never minces words and proudly lets other people know what s/he can do. i can see their region of origin as similar to key’s actually, it’s a hotter country below the equator, very dry kind of landscapes. the salamander is a prominent animal on the card, it could be their pet. the spiritual meaning of the salamander is resilience, this is taemin’s partner in a nutshell. their zodiac sign could be aries, leo, sagittarius.

♡ onew: THE HERMIT

now this could be a sign that onew will stay single for a bit longer than the other members, or it tells us that his partner is the reclusive and cozy kind. i believe the latter is the case. onew’s partner is on a serious spiritual journey right now. it’s the kind of person who does a lot of soul searching and pondering. they don’t speak a lot but they’re actually very, very smart. since the hermit is sort of the grandpa in the tarot lmao… it’ll be somebody older than him. significantly so, or the person comes across as wise so you’d think they’re older. it’s somebody from a colder country, there’s snow visible on the card. that same quality applies to their personality, this is not someone with heated emotions like key’s or taemin’s lovers. they are calm, cool, collected. not laid-back, just subdued. their zodiac sign could be virgo, this is traditionally associated with the hermit.

♡ key: KNIGHT OF WANDS

kibum is meeting someone on eye-level here. somebody wild and free and flamboyant. yes, they love to dress up, too. mark your calendar for halloween. they can pretty much share a wardrobe and will dominate red carpets and the first row at catwalks worldwide. fashion, baby! his partner will be younger or of the same age. you can see the three pyramids or gizeh on the card so you will find a connection to egypt in their origin, or the middle east in general. this is a person who has a hobbyhorse — literally, the card shows a prancing horse — that revolves around vehicles. i’m not kidding. key’s partner has a flashy sports car, you bet your lightstick. they will be living life like a roadmovie; it’s someone key will enthusiastically travel a lot with, they’re always on the move as a pair. their zodiac sign could be aries, leo, sagittarius.

👼 ORACLE CARD BONUS ➝ i also pulled angel cards to potentially get a message from jonghyun. i asked what he wants to tell them for their future partnerships. 

to minho: “you deserve the best! reach for the stars with your dreams and wishes and don’t compromise anything.”

to taemin: “you have the gift to work with young people. your purpose involves helping kids, to teach them or to raise them.”

to onew: “there will be a positive change among your relatives/partnerships. there might be an addition to your family.”

to key: “you will receive the money that you require. it’s up to a higher power. keep the faith.”