#way to objectify a character by making them out to be a reward

[the-way-astray]

hi, hello, yes, if you ever use the word "deserve" with regards to romantic relationships between fictional characters (and real people, honestly) then i kindly invite you to go fuck yourself

[aspoonofsugar]

Adam's Design

Here comes an analysis of Adam's design! Just like with Vaggie, I am gonna reference some other metas, combine ideas together and see what the first man's design has to say!

THE FIRST MAN

The Hellaverse is famous for giving its characters animal motifs. Still, Adam is one of the few exceptions:

His only animal traits are his wings, which sport two stripes like the other exorcists'. However, the exorcists have white and black wings, which together with their gray outfits make them look like pigeons:

Adam's overall design is instead unique and does not fit this imagery. So, is that it? Does Adam really lack an animal motif?

Well, not exactly:

Adam is the first man, who is created after all the other animals. In other words, Adam's own animal motif is "the man", which is used to explore three ideas:

Masculinity

Authority (the patriarchy)

Humanity

These three themes are entangled in Adam's character and are conveyed by three different visual motifs, which can be found in his weapon of choice:

Adam fights with:

an axe - a very brute weapon, which ties into his hyper-masculine persona, rooted in physical prowess

a guitar - a rock instrument, which ties into his rock motif, used to explore authority

a harp - an instrument associated with angels, which ties into the first human's religious motif

THE DICKMASTER - TOXIC MASCULINITY

Adam's attire is a way to affirm his masculinity, starting with his tunic, which resembles a Letterman jacket:

Lettermen are students awarded for excelling in school activities, like sports. As a prize, they receive a jacket or another piece of cloth with the initial of their school on it. When it comes to Adam, he is wearing a "Letterman tunic" with a giant "A", aka his own initial. This choice highlights three things:

The letter on the jacket is usually that of the school or team, as these clothes are meant to represent school pride. However, Adam wears an "A" for Adam to highlight his narcissism. Deep down, the only team Adam plays for is his own.

To become a Letterman is a reward. It shows you are great at something. Similarly, Adam starts as a virtuous soul, but climbs up until he becomes the leader of the Exorcists.

Letterman jackets are associated with the archetype of the jock in teen movies. This type of character is strong and popular, but dumb and arrogant. This fits Adam, who also frames the exterminations as sports:

Adam: Lute, how many demons did you kill this year? Lute: Got a good 275 this year, sir. Adam: 275? Woah! Badass! 

In other words, Adam's Letterman tunic is Adam showing his status in Heaven. He is great and everybody needs to know it. Not only that, but his excellence is built on masculine traits:

Adam: So, I was playin' this gig, and for some fuckin' reason, this virtue chick was diggin' on the drummer, and it's like, "do you know who I am? I'm fuckin' Adam. I'm the original dick!" All dicks descend from me. You think you want drummer dick? No way! I'm the Dick-fuckin' master! So, anyway, then we fucked, and it was awesome.

He is strong, good at sports and sex. He is the man, right? So, of course he is also the Letter-man! He is more of a Letterman than anybody else to the point his own initial is THE only letter worth wearing :P Not only that, but his initial is also the Letter-Man par excellence since it is basically a stylized dick:

And yet, this design choice is used ironically. Adam wears a penis to look like a dickmaster, when he is really a dick. So, Adam highlights his masculinity so much that he becomes toxic.

Deep down this is a reaction to his two wives dumping him for the same guy:

Lucifer: Well, your first wife didn't seem to hate what I had to offer…or the second! Bowchicka pow pow!

This event consumes Adam so much that he ends up objectifying all women and lashing out at anything or anyone connected to his love rival. The end result is a character who waves his hyper-masculinity to hide how unsure he is about himself. This contradiction permeates Adam's looks with an example being his horns:

They look so metal rock, right? Then one remembers that cuckhold's horns are symbolic of a man whose wife is unfaithful... and we go back to the failure of Adam's marriage. Adam's inability to overcome this upset has progressively led him to find satisfaction in power and authority, rather than happiness and relationships.

STICK IT TO THE MAN - ROCK AND AUTHORITY

Adam's aesthetic makes him look like a rockstar:

Especially the spikes and horns give him metal vibes, which are emphasized by Adam's love for hard rock:

Adam: Guitar solo, fuck yeah!

What's interesting is that this motif ties with the theme of authority:

Vaggie: "Act selfless, don't steal, stick it to the man". Are you fucking serious? Adam: Uh, yeah. Sure got me here, didn't it?

This line is a reference to School of Rock, which tells the story of Dewey, a failed rockstar, who discovers himself a teacher. The movie musical explores how rock is about connection, community and self-expression. In short, it is about rebelling against an authority, which suffocates who you are:

Dewey: THE WORLD is run by the Man. Oh, you don't know the Man? He's everywhere. In the White House, down the hall, MISS MULLINS, she's the Man. And the Man ruined the ozone, and he's burning down the Amazon, and he kidnapped Shamu and put her in a chlorine tank! Okay? And there used to be a way to stick it to the Man, it was called rock 'n roll. But guess what? Oh no. The Man ruined that, too, with a little thing called MTV! So don't waste your time trying to make anything cool, or pure, or awesome, 'cause the Man is just gonna call you a fat washed up loser and crush your soul. So do yourselves a favor and just GIVE UP!

Well, the irony is obviously that Adam himself is "the man", so he is the authority the people of Hell need to rebel against. On a deeper level he takes an aesthetic about freedom and rebellion and turns it into a symbol of power and repression for both the people of Hell, who are oppressed, and the exorcists, who are forced to conform:

Adam transforms something born to challenge the system into the system. Just like he himself was born a human and progressively turned into a monster:

Adam: You really think you can take me on? A mortal soul is no match for me, edge-lord. Alastor: You should know better than anyone what a soul can accomplish when they take charge of their own fate.

Alastor and Adam are the same because both used their respective Kingdom's rules to grow stronger. Alastor collected souls and became an Overlord. Adam instead managed to rise to the rank of Archangel (Archangels are probably the Heaven's equivalent of Hell's Overlords). So, Adam is an example of a broken person, who tried to fill his existential void by amassing more and more power, until he completely lost himself. The end result of this process is an empty vessel, an "idol". This metaphor works in two ways:

1-Adam is a musical idol aka a rockstar, which is why his song alludes to a concert. Adam makes a bombastic exhibition with guitar solos and an enthusiastic group of fans cheering and clapping:

2-Adam is a religious idol, which means he is trying to present himself as more than what he is. He is a man, but wants others to perceive him as god.

JUST A MAN - RELIGION AND HUMANITY

In "Hell is Forever", Adam conjures a group of golden exorcists, who dance with him. In particular, three of them fly behind Adam, so that for a moment it seems as if he has eight wings. This moment references two sets of symbolism.

The first one is from the Bible- at one point the Israelites start adoring a golden calf instead of God and are punished for it.

The second one is from the series itself- here the Seraphims have 6 wings and they are the highest ranking angels.

So, Adam plays the part of the golden calf, as he imagines himself with 8 golden wings. He does so because he wants to be a God above the Seraphims. Or at least, he wants to be better than one specific Seraphim:

Adam is motivated by a sense of inferiority towards Lucifer, which results in the first man both negating the King of Hell and imitating him. Visually this contradiction is shown by Adam's religious motif. As a matter of fact the first man resembles both an angel and a devil.

Adam has all the attributes of an angel, like the halo and the wings. Moreover, he wears white, gold and celestial blue, which are all colors associated with Heaven. To be precise, "white" alludes to "goodness", "gold" brings to mind "precious" and "celestial" means "related to the sky". So, Adam himself is good, precious and heavenly. He is different from the sinners, who are punished in darkness. He is better than the other exorcists, who wear silver. He is definitely the opposite of the devil, who is red and is banished to Hell.

Adam chooses some accessories that make him look demonic. He breaks his color palette by adding black gloves, a black mask and black horns. Black is associated with Hell and so are horns. Why would Adam embrace such an aesthetic? Well, other than his obvious love for rock and metal, it is because deep down he envies Lucifer and wants to be like him. Adam's mask ties into this. It is noseless, harlequin-like and has pointy teeth. It is basically a loose imitation of Lucifer's clown-like face, but black. The difference is that Lucifer's face is naturally like that, whereas Adam wears a mask and refuses to take it away:

If you wear a mask 24h/24h when you do not need to, then you probably dislike your face. Well, Adam clearly does and he also dislikes himself, which is why he embraces a facade. He isn't just a fake god, but also a fake self. He doesn't really have 8 wings, he isn't heaven-born like the highest angels and he isn't a demon. He is just a man. Not even the man, but just one among many. He is a normal person and he can't stand it, so he tries to hide it. Still, the truth comes to light in the final fight. Starting with Adam's battle outfit.

UNMASKED

Adam's battle outfit superficially emphasizes his major motifs:

He wears more and bigger spikes because "he rocks" :P

He wears a fig leaf over his "jewels" to highlight them. This also works as an inversion of the biblical Adam, who covered his nudity using leaves out of shame. Hellaverse Adam instead wants people to notice his penis XD

And yet, some cracks start to appear. For example, the color scheme is slightly different from usual:

The white is mostly covered and almost disappears

The celestial blue is nowhere to be seen. In its place there is a color similar to purple, so a mix of blue (heaven) and red (hell)

The gold is the only color that stays unchanged

The end result is a character, who appears much darker and more ominous. So, Adam has given up any pretense of goodness and is showing his true colors. He is not a well-intentioned extremist, but a cruel and selfish prick, who likes hurting others. Still, this malice comes from insecurity. Adam's frail sense of self starts creeping out from those same motifs he uses to appear strong:

he wears a golden leaf to highlight his penis; still he does so to overcompensate his insecurity as a lover and appear more macho-like (deconstruction of masculinity)

he has so much gold because this color ties with his idol symbolism; he is the golden calf, after all (deconstruction of authority)

Finally, Adam's mask gets quickly cracked the moment Lucifer appears. This isn't by chance because Lucifer is who Adam deep down wants to be: the man Lilith fell in love with. At the same time, Adam is who Lucifer risks to become, if he does not overcome his flaws: a lonely and frustrated man who can't make any connections. In short, the fight between Adam and Lucifer is a fight between two sides of the self.

Adam fights his ideal self, which is why Lucifer is who he can't be. Adam tries to appear both angelic and demonic, but Lucifer is naturally so:

Lucifer fights his shadow self, which is why Adam wears a mask similar to Lucifer's face, but black:

Their fight marks Adam's progressive "unmasking".

First of all, Lucifer takes the form of many animals, which is interesting for two reasons:

Despite changing shapes, Lucifer always remains himself as shown by the little hat and bowtie all his animal forms have. He never hides or represses who he is.

Adam facing off against different animals makes his lack of animal traits even more obvious and prepares us for the reveal: his animal motif is humanity.

Secondly, Lucifer gives two huge blows to Adam's ego. On the one hand Lucifer mocks Adam for both his wives preferring him over Adam. On the other hand Lucifer shows his superior power and proves the difference in hierarchy is still there, despite Adam's struggles. In short, Lucifer deconstructs Adam's masculinity and undermines his authority to show his humanity:

Adam is just a normal dude. He is a man. He is human. He is so human he is actually designed after a real person: his voice actor, Alex Brightman. Brightman became successful by playing Dewey Finn in the musical version of School of Rock, so this choice emphasizes Adam as a negative version of Dewey. Even more importantly, though, it underlines Adam's normality. He has no fleshy design, nor monstrous attribute, nor animal parts. He is 100% human. He is a person. Not only that, but he is a person, who doesn't take care of himself. He is overweight, is not shaved and has eye-bags under his eyes. He could be very attractive, but has let himself go. Obviously this is meant to mirror Adam's interiority. He can't accept who he is, which only leads to frustration and unhappiness.

Adam's final moments bring this idea home by playing with his three themes of authority, masculinity and humanity.

Adam makes his idol-motif obvious by openly stating he wants to be a god (authority):

Adam: No... you don't get to end this! I'm fucking Adam! I'm the fucking man, and you're just some fucking clown or something! I started everything on Earth! All of mankind came from these fucking nuts! You all should be worshipping me, you ungrateful, disgusting, fucking losers-!

Adam is stabbed by Niffty, a masochist woman who loves bad boys. Not only that, but Niffty stabs him in his stylized penis and Lucifer's innuendo drives home Adam has been metaphorically stabbed in the balls (masculinity):

Lucifer: Hey, y-ya got somethin' stickin' outta your... your thing there.

Adam shows his humanity by smiling to a crying Lute before dying:

In the end, Adam had the potential to grow and to find happiness because he was a human. And yet, he despised his humanity, repressed it and died a humiliating and avoidable death, leaving behind the only person who truly cared about him.

THE DRAGON

So, we have analyzed Adam's design in the series. Still, according to the Pitch Bible for Hazbin Hotel, Adam was initially designed as a dragon:

Obviously the story was supposed to be very different back then. Still, it is fun to theorize about why a dragon-design was imagined for Adam. I can think of two reasons:

Adam was linked to dragons because they are often associated with the devil, so his design highlighted how he is a demon inside, despite being an angel. This same result is obtained in the series by his horns and idol motif.

Adam was a dragon because he is in fact someone else's "dragon", so a sidekick for a much more dangerous villain

Personally, I think this second point might still be valid. After all:

Lute: Adam is dead. Your deal is done and I'm in charge now.

He had enough authority in Heaven to make a deal with Lilith and to avoid punishment by Sera. So, I am expecting future seasons to reveal his link to a higher standing angel or to some other active force in the Hellaverse.

At the same time, it is interesting to notice that Adam's dragon design has been passed down to another character:

Satan, King of Wrath, is a giant dragon, who used to be Lucifer's "dragon" and is now trying to pass himself up as the real devil of the Hellaverse.

What's more, Satan isn't the only Deadly Sin whose design references Adam's. As a matter of fact Adam's final looks can be easily compared to that of another Helluva character:

Mammon, King of Greed, has diamonds all over his outfit, just like Adam. Moreover, they have a similar body-shape and they both try to emulate Lucifer. Adam tries to look demonic, whereas Mammon uses a cane similar to Lucifer's. Not only that, but the King of Greed steals Lucifer's ideas, so that he can steal the King of Hell's place in the entertainment industry.

In short, both Adam's previous and current designs are linked somehow to Sins, who envy Lucifer and are trying to take his place. This is an interesting motif, which confirms Adam's role as Lucifer's shadow in Hazbin Hotel. We don't know if Adam will come back to life. Still, I am sure he will keep being important for the story and future revelations will make his foiling with the Devil deeper.

These are all my thoughts on the Lead Exorcists's design! Overall, I think it is a simple and yet rich design that helps us explore the character and does a great job to characterize him in his short screen-time!

[self-loving-vampire]

Sorry people are being annoying about sex on anon. If it helps, here’s a convenient explanation for why those anons probably felt boobsposting was “problematic” and why they are wrong that you can point them to rather than having to discourse about it again.

See back in the 2000s and early new 10s, there was a frankly necessary cultural discussion around the depiction of women in popular media. A lot of popular media at the time, especially things like blockbuster action flicks, tended to treat female characters as things that existed for the male characters to “win” by completing the plot, rather than as full persons who were active agents within it. There were lost of variations of this. Sometimes the female character was a shrill harpy who had the audacity to dislike the male character for being rude and demeaning to her, but learned her place and became a good wife once the dude showed off how much of a cool hero he was. Other times, the woman would in theory be competent but in practice only exist so the dude could show off how much better he was at everything then her. The male gaze is not “female character as love interest” or “female character being portrayed as sexy”. It assuming your audience is all straight, kinda sexist dudes who view women as something desirable but not worth relating to. Woman as 2-dimensional caricature who the male audience stand-in can “win” or “use” without ever having to consider as a person. This obviously re-enforced some rather nasty ideas about the proper “role” of women in the world, and was so pervasive that most creators who leaned into it probably weren’t trying to be sexist. They just legitimately didn’t consider women.

The problems with how this discourse went are threefold. Firstly, this is a problem of framing that frequently got treated as a problem of tropes. The damsel in distress trope got a lot of shit for being “inherently sexist”. Yes, damsels who are just things for male protagonists to win were ever-pervasive back then and were kinda sexist. But a lot of damsels were either fleshed out characters who had opinions on the world and on being kidnapped that the story treated as important, or were even outright active agents in the plot whose actions the narrative considered valuable. Damsels were only sexist when they were framed as passive rewards for the hero to “win” by doing the plot good, and even then only really because of how pervasive the flattest version of the trope was in a culture that broadly dehumanized women. Secondly, we kinda won that culture battle. While sexism still exists in media today, the problem these days isn’t really a pervasive cultural miasma of unquestioned dehumanization. The problem is a split between people who consider women to be people and can thus usually characterize even sexy or traditionally feminine women well vs misogynists who are actively and malevolently dehumanizing women. We probably need to change tactics these day.

Finally, while I do think the original cultural battle was something that needed to be fought, it unfortunately also gave reactionary prudes a way to slip sexphobia into feminist-sounding language. It’s sort of like what happened to objectification. A woman who willingly posts slutty pictures of herself on the internet is not “objectifying herself”, you can’t objectify yourself. The men (and women) who masturbate to those pictures also aren’t objectifying her. Objectification involves disregarding a person’s desires, and that woman was clearly signaling “I want you to ogle me”. The problem in media was never “woman hot”. It was “woman is not person”. “Hot” and “person” are not mutually exclusive. I personally think it doesn’t make sense to rate the “feminism” of porn the exact same way you rate other media, I think there are some tropes that are okay in porn but not outside of it. But if we are going too, then there are porn works where the entire point is how hot it is to dehumanize and objectify women that are way more “feminist” then most wholesome, sex-free hallmark romance. Because the porn is functionally a dystopian setting you are supposed to fap too, and is thus interested in the personhood and internal experiences and suffering of the women involved, while “wholesome” romance is by this point pretty infamous for framing women wanting to have a job and independent life as a problem that needs to be cured so she can fulfill her true purpose as a conservative man’s tradwife.

I don't plan to discourse much more about it but I have to say that the way in which people started to apply the idea of objectification in broader contexts where it doesn't harm even the storytelling it is adjacent to and kind of reminds me of what people on here do to the "Bury Your Gays" trope. It feels kind of like a similar degree of superficial over-application that resulted in people treating like any queer character dying at all is inherently bad regardless of the context, how it is written, or even the genre and tone of the story.

Pervert drawings are - for multiple reasons - not something it makes sense to have that kind of discourse about unless you were using it as a cover for a more general anti-porn ideology.

As an aside: I am now reminded of the type of person who "really likes Sakura except for all the sexual stuff".

[dujour13]

Pew pew I’m shooting back. Share some Sia secrets 💕 1, 3, 5, 12 💕

You got me I'm dead 💕💕 bleeding from the heart

1. What, specifically, was the catalyst for their physical attraction (if applicable) to the other character? In other words, what in particular had them like “Oh, they’re…hot…”

Let’s be honest. Siavash is not immune to the bad boys. However, as a first impression he is actively put off by Zrise’s whole deal. Not only is Zrise hostile and vicious with pretty much everybody, he flirts with Siavash in the most superficial and objectifying way possible, which for Siavash is a serious turn-off.

Also, Sia’s not usually into ripped guys. In Drezen he’s not among the admirers who get up early to go down to the training ground for an eyeful. Of course not. He’s just there for the lessons.

But after they’ve traveled and fought side-by-side for a while, Siavash finds himself unexpectedly captivated by this faraway, brooding look Zrise gets when he thinks no one’s watching, or the way his expression softens when he’s listening to Sia sing. He resembles his twin sister most in those moments. It’s pretty cute. His attitude also softens over time, or at least he shows a willingness to take it down a notch. Definitely points in his favor when he stops flirting.

The coup de foudre is when they go to the Swallowtail festival at the Court of the Lark, and Lariel makes Zrise wear a flower crown. It’s like Sia sees all his potential in that moment. The azata trapped within, struggling to emerge from its bad boy cocoon. It’s incredibly rewarding to get a sincere smile out of him. That becomes Siavash's project.

3. By contrast, what was the moment that first made their ~heart~ Soft for the other person? Not necessarily a conscious realization of “I love this person,” but a moment that had them like “Oh…I adore them…”

The bear.

By the time of the bear incident, Sia and Zrise are already starting to be close. Zrise stops the aggressive flirting and instead starts helping Sia out in many ways, in the command room and on the battlefield, and he’s even growing flowers for the Citadel balcony. His temper is still volatile and he antagonizes the other companions, but Sia’s more and more happy to overlook all that because it looks like Zrise is really trying.

And then Sia happens to be there when Lariel hands Zrise his childhood teddy bear that she kept for him all these years, and he suddenly starts to see the fuller picture. It breaks his heart. He’s obsessed. He can’t get the image out of his mind of poor young Zrise being sent away, separated from his twin and commanded to serve a cruel goddess, and having that bear ripped out of his hands and adulthood forced on him. Lariel kept it all this time. Sia needs to give him a hug so bad he runs to his room in the middle of the night and then chickens out.

The bear adds a dimension to Zrise that Sia was starting to suspect - that he's been through a lot, and the bad boy act is self-defense. All of a sudden those same off-putting things he does become endearing in a way.

5. How do they consciously realize that they like the other character? Does it take them a while?

For a long time Siavash thinks he might be able to get through to Zrise, but it doesn’t cross his conscious mind that the relationship could go further than friendship. Like even when Zrise accidentally drops hints that he’s sweet on him, Sia’s immediate reaction is “Aw. How can I let him down easy?”

At the Swallowtail festival he realizes Zrise might have a serious crush on him, and once the thought’s in his mind he can’t shake it.

It doesn’t make him happy. Not because of Zrise, but because of himself. He would not want to bring Calistria’s wrath down on Zrise only to be flaked out on. (He’s also a bit of a coward but he’s not admitting that to himself.)

Sia's on the far side of a hard break-up and blames himself for having hurt someone. He's fixated on his own failings and worried about starting a relationship, especially with someone fragile. He cares about Zrise and truly thinks he'd be bad for him.

At the same time, rejecting him would be devastating. It's not exactly a conscious thought process, but when Zrise confesses, Siavash is already in deep, so he's ready to grab onto any reason not to turn him away. So he's cautious but hopeful.

12. How much independence do they prefer in a relationship—do they want to share their lives as much as possible with their partner, or do they prefer to mostly do their own thing and let their partner do their own thing?

Very much the latter. Siavash needs to do his own thing and for his partner to have an "own thing" to do, but ideally those overlap often. He feels trapped if he stays in one place too long, but he needs to know his heart’s home is out there.

What you have to realize is that if Siavash travels and gets swept up in other projects it’s not because he doesn’t love or miss someone – on the contrary, it’s proof of the strength of the relationship, because it requires an insane level of trust and security. Leaving for extended periods is how he loves.

I think it might be harder for Zrise, but he does seem to understand that as long as Sia’s heart is in it, he’ll always be there. It's touching how much Zrise comes to understand him.

Couples questions

[jeweled-blue-eyes]

How do you think Derrick would have reacted if Penelope was asked out by a nobleman who actually likes her and wants to know her and Penelope is happy about it and agrees.

Do you think Reynold harboured any feeling for og Penelope since he was a capture target. How would their relationship grow

I've already talked a bit about this scenario here. I can see it go two ways: 1. Derrick is relieved to be rid of her only to regret it when it's too late, 2. Derrick would be against a marriage citing Penelope's immaturity and lack of education as a reason. They can't hand Penelope over when she hasn't yet learned how to run a household and host parties as it would only embarass the family name if she were to fail her basic duties. He would have enough reasons to suspect an ulterior motive for any advances made at her (the Eckart's wealth, the noble family name) and would investigate every suitor throughly in hopes he could dig up dirt on him and prevent a marriage. That means he might stalk their dates and harrass Penelope. I can image Derrick trying to make Penelope believe her fiance doesn't love her back and is obvously just using her/going to abuse her once he has married her. Penelope needs her father's blessing for her marriage and the Duke isn't likely to give it to her if Derrick makes him believe that she isn't safe and treasured by her fiancé. The only AU where he would support them was if a marriage would be the only thing saving her from an execution, but even then he might want them to divorce afterwards. Tbh I see Derrick more as a "if I can't have you, no one can." Claude Frollo type of character, so he might prefer for her to die rather than marry someone else.

Personally I don't think Reynold harboured romantic feelings for og Penelope and I'd prefer it if he didn't. Penelope deserves one brother who isn't lusting after her. Nothing like that has been hinted in the story. I really do view him as the most brother coded character (not in a good way mind you). If he had bullied her because he was secretly in love with her, it would have just been a repitition of Derrick's trope. I headcanon Derrick and Reynold as two different sides of abuse. Derrick is emotionally abusive and Reynold physically. Derrick can only love Penelope romantically, he is incapable of loving her in a way that doesn't involve lust, that doesn't objectify and dehumanizes her as his possession, while Reynold could've loved her platonically if not for Derrick. Wheras Derrick's abuse is much more subtile and harder to spot it's actually much more dangerous and damaging, because it poisons every relationship around Penelope. Derrick can only "love" her as a lover and Reynold can only "love" her as a replacement of Ivonne. What both brothers demand from her is incompatiable with each other. There is no winning. She's being punished either way. If she fullfills the expectations of one brother, she is met with hatred and disgust by the other brother.

I assume this ask must have been send in response to the Reynold & Penelope post I made. Let me elaborate on this idea a bit. It wasn't really meant as a shippy post where Reynold would have developed a crush on Penelope or vica versa. It was me speculating how Derrick's manipulations would have affected Penelope's worldview. How Penelope would pay men with her body when she wants something. How she thinks it's okay to initiate something sexual with Reynold because that's how her relationship with Derrick functions. Penelope will give Derrick kisses, lets him touch her etc, and in exchange he must shower her with gifts and the love that she knows deep down doesn't exist. At first she isn't even aware that it's sexual, she just understands that when she does this and that Derrick will be pleased with her and reward her. It makes her uncomfortable at times but it doesn't hurt her that much, so she thinks it's a kind of suffering she has to endure to get her compensation. Over the time she gets used to it and expects this method to work on Reynold too. She does it when she feels lonely, when she wants attention, gifts, it's also a trauma response that she displays when she needs to diffuse a situation.

For example I can picture a situation where Reynold is angry and Penelope climbs on his lap, kisses him and starts unbuttoning her blouse to "calm him down" and Reynold would be horrified and disgusted at her. His face would turn scarlet red, he would yell at her, push her away or slap her face and call her a pervert. Derrick would use this incident to justify what he is doing to her. He can't ruin her if she was never pure. Unlike those delicate noble girls whose virtue needs to be protected, Penelope is a dirty commoner girl with no known father, a war orphan who leeches of his father's wealth and only causes trouble. She doesn't deserve any rights. Such a girl can only be inherently rotten. It's in her nature. That Penelope's hypersexual behaviour might be caused by his grooming doesn't even cross his mind.

Reynold might panick when he sees Penelope and Derrick in the same room together. He would make a rude remark to make her angry and leave the room, he would play cruel pranks on Penelope to scare her away, he would in the evenings often lean in her doorframe to complain about her existence. If he's always around her and putting her in her place nothing weird can happen, right? In a way that would be his version of protecting her. Reynold would lack empathy for Penelope's situation but at some subconscious level he would understand that his elder brother is hurting her althrough he can't name why. It's easier to blame the victim, because it wouldn't force him to question his beliefs. At some point he might have even believed that this 12 year old is abusing his 18 year old brother and not the other way round. That by hurting Penelope he is protecting his brother and vindicating him. This might be where he got the idea that Penelope must have seduced the duke in order to get adopted. Penelope was harrassing him, so who's to say this isn't how Derrick got dragged into this mess? Penelope stole his sister's place, she tried to steal his father's love and now she has stolen his brother away from him just like she has taken everything else.

I think Reynold would be in denial of the situation. I also think Derrick would gaslight him like crazy about it. Eventually when Reynold brings up the topic, Derick would make him look like he was out of his mind. He'd say something like "If you see two siblings spending time with each other as inherently sexual, perhaps you are the one who has secretly been desiring her all the time. / Should I be worried about your relationship to Penelope? If you hated her so much why do I often see you walking up and down next to her door in the evenings? Suspicious."

In summary I don't view Reynold as someone who would fall for his stepsister naturally, but I don't find the idea that Reynold could start a relationship with Penelope impossible if other factors were involved. As I mentioned before, I think that both Reynold and Penelope are ridiculously easy to manipulate. In this AU Penelope would have learned that getting brotherly love is impossible if it doesn't also come with sexual love. And she's very desperate to be loved. Reynold might adopt Derrick's attitude..partly. 14 year old Reynold might've looked up to Derrick and copied some of his behaviour. When Derrick and Penelope enter a relationship, it might cause him to feel left out. Reynold's mother died, his sister was kidnapped, his father became emotionally unavailible, his brother is well...Derrick. They didn't seem particulary close. Ivonne might have served as a bridge between them but now that's she's gone and not even their hatred for her replacement can connect them anymore, he has nothing. He would want to be let into their secret until he realizes in horror what this secret entails.

I once read a story where a brother coerced his twin into sleeping with their little sister after their twin discovered their relationship and wanted to tell their parents. The twin might have had romantic feelings for her as well but held back because he knew it was wrong or his brother's manipulations made him doubt himself and he believed that he was just like his brother since he "enjoyed" it. Either way he started to believe he was an awful person and tried to hide what they did from their parents because now he thought of himself as a criminal too. This is the only way I could imagine Reynold x Penelope to happen actually. That to secure Reynold's silence Derrick would have to resort to making him an accomplice.

Derrick would hate it the whole time and he'd be insanely jealous, but it'd be the only way to get Reynold's absolute compliance. In the long run gaslighting Reynold, invocating his authority as the heir and convincing him to keep quiet to maintain the family peace and protect their family's reputation wouldn't work.

I have troubles how to come up with a trigger where Derrick/Penelope & Penelope/Reynold can come into being. Reynold would have to be grieving or drunk or drugged. In any way he'd have to be not fully lucid in order to entertain even such idea. Even if Derrick were to leave the picture then, Reynold and Penelope might fall back on hierarchies, roles and learned pattern. They wouldn't sleep with each other because they love each other like lovers. They'd sleep with each other because they are lonely and traumatized teenagers. Because this is normalicity to Penelope and the only kind of comfort Reynold knows to offer her. It would be interesting for them to try and struggle to overcome their trauma and become a real family.

[jian-wei-uh]

Blog Post #8: Playable or Objectified? Male Gaze and Gender Representation in Wuthering Waves.

Wuthering Waves is an action RPG from Kuro Games, combining open-world exploration with fast-paced combat mechanics. The game’s setting is a sci-fi world full of robotic enemies and complex characters, similar to Genshin Impact but with a focus on combo-driven combat, team switching, and environment interactions. Players can control different characters, called Resonators, each with unique abilities and skills. The combat stands out with flashy, hack-and-slash moves, and you can even gain an edge by reading and countering enemy attacks, giving skilled players the ability to take on tough foes early on. The game is also a gacha (using in-game currency to select lootbox and get reward) title, allowing you to collect new characters and weapons, with a forgiving system that encourages frequent rewards.

Figure 1: Before and after design of an essential non-playable character name Scar.

During the game's release, many players joked inappropriately about Scar's costume design, focusing on the area around his lower torso. As shown in Figure 1 (left image), the design featured a zipper-like element positioned near that region. Some players compared its shape to an onigiri and added crude nicknames by associating it with a term for female anatomy. This aspect of the design was not intended to be sexualized, and the developers later updated Scar’s costume to remove the controversial detail (Chatterton, 2024).

Now what about the female characters in the game? Were their design logical for their role or are they wearing too revealing? We will analyse Baizhi from this video game to find out if they are design for the male gaze or the general public.

The male gaze refers to the way in which visual media, particularly film, often presents women as objects of male desire, positioning the viewer from a male perspective. Women are typically depicted as passive, sexualised figures meant to be looked at, while men are portrayed as active agents. This dynamic splits the pleasure of looking between the active male gaze and the passive female body. Women’s appearances are stylised for visual and erotic impact, often disrupting narrative flow, and their role within the story is often defined by the male characters' responses to them (Mulvey, 1975).

Figure 2-3 Baizhi Resonator. (Wuthering Waves, 2024)

Baizhi is a researcher specialising in Remnant Ecoacoustics, a field that explores the interaction between living things and mysterious energies known as Remnants. She is accompanied by a unique creature that helps her to heal others. Her character role is a healer but her background story is being scientist. To compare with the male scientist counterpart, XiangLi Yao was chosen.

Figure 4-5 XiangLi Yao Resonator. (Wuthering Waves, 2024)

XiangLi Yao is a scientist, holding the position of Principal Investigator at Huaxu Academy's Jinzhou Campus. As the Academy's youngest multi-disciplinary scientist, Xiangli is deeply passionate about Automata Mechanics, always making significant discoveries in his field. The difference between XiangLi Yao and Baizhi is that XiangLi Yao is a Damage Per Second (DPS) character. DPS characters are the primary damage dealers, with the sole objective of dealing damage to enemies. As observed, the female character, Baizhi, has significantly more exposed skin compared to the male character, despite both being scientists. Both scientist are in dangerous research field yet Baizhi has little clothes covering to protect her from the possible dangers from her research. While XiangLi Yao has several layers of clothes and even a robotic arm to defend himself.

Figure 6: Jiyan's Tacet Mark.

Tacet Marks are symbols that appear on characters after they undergo awakening, unlocking enhanced abilities or new powers. For example, in Figure 6, the resonator Jiyan's Tacet Mark is located on his back, while in Figure 5, the Tacet Marks on the resonator XiangLi Yao are on the knuckles of his left hand. However, as observed in figure 2, Baizhi's Tacet Mark is located high up her thighs which guides users eyes to look at her tights. Other male characters have their tacet marks located at normal place while Baizhi's Tacet Mark is located at a rather inappropriate location. Although, there is a tassel prop blocking the view of the tacet mark, it is still visible to the viewers.

Video 1: Baizhi's gameplay.

In action role-playing games like Wuthering Waves, players control characters to combat in-game enemies. Gameplay typically includes basic attacks and a powerful ultimate ability, which features unique animations and delivers a strong offensive action against enemies or provides beneficial effects for allies. For example, in the video above, starting at 0:18, Baizhi's ultimate animation is showcased. As seen in the video, the camera animation begins with a close-up of her upper thigh's Tacet Mark and moves upward while maintaining a low angle. This deliberate framing draws attention to her figure quite inappropriately, especially since she is a healer.

With all that discussion, I have come to the conclusion that some female character, like Baizhi, in Wuthering Waves are indeed design for the male gaze. While male characters are designed to look cool and mighty, female characters are design with rather less clothes and curvy slender figures.

One of the major reason for this kind of character designs would be that gacha games often design female characters with exaggerated and sexualised appearances to appeal to players' emotions and desires. By creating attractive visuals and narratives that make these characters stand out, developers encourage players to feel a stronger connection or fascination with them. This strategy taps into the psychological attachment players form with their favourite characters, making them more willing to spend real money to obtain or upgrade these characters through the game’s monetisation systems. This deliberate design choice aligns with the goal of maximising company profit by leveraging emotional investment (Gong et al., 2024). However, by carrying out such tactics on mass could half the female players. A reseach by Behm-Morawitz and Mastro (2009) discovered that when female players play as sexualised female characters in video games, it can have significant psychological effects, particularly by undermining their confidence in real-world abilities. When female characters are portrayed in a highly sexualised manner, their qualities like strength, independence, and power often become overshadowed by their appearance which steals the spotlight. This focus on sexualisation diminishes the potential for these characters to be seen as empowering role models by female players. As a result, women may internalise negative stereotypes, leading to lower confidence in their physical and cognitive abilities. These portrayals can also reinforce societal biases, shaping how women view themselves and how they believe others perceive them, further contributing to harmful self-perceptions and beliefs.

The temporary profits gained by harming the player base and enforcing negative stereotypes is not worthy at all. Hence, in my future projects, I would definitely think twice and conduct proper research to create characters that realistic to their background story and avoid unnecessary designs that might deemed as content for the male gaze.

Reference

Behm-Morawitz, E. and Mastro, D. (2009). The Effects of the Sexualization of Female Video Game Characters on Gender Stereotyping and Female Self-Concept. Sex Roles, 61(11-12), pp.808–823.

Chatterton, L. (2024). Scar’s costume design was changed in Wuthering Waves’ newest update and here’s why. Available at: https://progameguides.com/wuthering-waves/scars-costume-design-was-changed-in-wuthering-waves-newest-update-and-heres-why/. [Accessed: 9 December 2024]

Gong, A.-D., Huang, Y.-T., Liu, K. and Sugiura, K. (2024). Getting hooked on mobile games: Strengthening purchase intentions towards mobile games using investment model and parasocial interactions. Mobile Media & Communication. Available at :https://doi.org/10.1177/20501579241257907. [Accessed: 9 December 2024]

Mulvey, L. (1975) “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema”, Screen, 16(3): 6–18. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1093/screen/16.3.6 [Accessed: 9 December 2024]

Kuro Technology (Hong Kong) Co., Ltd. (2024). Wuthering Waves. Kuro Games.

[idkhowtopickausername]

I really do think that if Sasuke and Naruto were actually treated as complementary it could’ve been really powerful. Like the thing about Naruto’s ideology is that it’s so focused on feelings that towards the end it becomes more about mitigating conflict than about creating any kind of systemic change, whereas Sasuke is unafraid of creating conflict and directly focused on bringing about some type of revolutionary change.

Talk no jutsu, at it’s core, I think is an attempt on Naruto’s part to replicate what Iruka did for him, which is acknowledge someone’s suffering and the fact that they’re deserving of compassion despite their own feeling of isolation and hopelessness. But its formulaic repetition takes on a preachy quality after a while and serves to falsely equate his own suffering with everyone else’s, while placing the responsibility on the individual who has been hurt to simply change their mindset without seeking any outward change or accountability. On a narrative level it ends up stripping characters of any aspect of their ideology that poses a challenge to the broader social order until they praise Naruto and then die or fade into the background.

Despite the fact that their suffering and sense of isolation is something that connects them, Sasuke is very aware that his suffering is different from Naruto’s—he points it out at the first VoTE fight when he says that Naruto doesn’t understand what it’s like to have loved ones and then lose them. His entire focus is on the fact that he needs some outward form of justice or closure and that he cannot heal by simply changing his mindset. He doesn’t suppress his trauma the way Naruto does but is very honest with himself about it. It would make sense for Naruto to have to change his ideology in order to reconcile with Sasuke, just as Sasuke has to accept that cutting himself off from love and bonds is something that he simply can’t and shouldn’t have to do.

Sasuke is also very aware of the superficiality of the village’s favor because he was popular and considered a valuable asset but was still offered no genuine support following the massacre and was quickly treated as an enemy by everyone except Naruto following his defection. He understands that the village rewards usefulness with high status in a way that’s objectifying and conditional, whereas Naruto still needs to acknowledge that for himself. Naruto on the other hand understands how unbearable complete ostracization and loneliness is—something that Sasuke needs to accept. Their storylines are reversed in that sense. Naruto’s need to feel a sense of belonging leads him to uncritically absorb and parrot a lot of the village’s propaganda, while Sasuke is able to openly criticize the shinobi system and form his own ideas in a way that is largely uninfluenced by popular opinion. But Sasuke’s attempts to forego relationships and outside input altogether and take everything on himself is impractical as well. Compassion and human connection on a personal level are important, they’re just not solutions in and of themselves.

Instead of embracing Sasuke’s ideas but still acknowledging that he shouldn’t have to carry them out alone in ways that are impractical and self-destructive, the narrative uses Sasuke’s self-destructive methods to undermine his ideas completely and validate Naruto’s. This is incredibly frustrating because the reason he was driven to isolate himself and try to put himself through hell was because of the very problems he was trying to solve in doing so. 

[zevranunderstander]

i miss how old big game titles were just allowed to be mean and weird sometimes and weren’t these super sanitized, disney-like, family-friendly, very non-political products that had to be consumed by the largest audience possible.

like, not every game mechanic in the old animal crossing games made sense, sure. there were festivals you didn’t get any rewards for or played minigames at, you just put some flowers in front of your house or your neighbours suddenly had christmas lights around their houses, but old animal crossing games were way more focussed on creating a community and interacting with characters you like. if you were mean to characters in animal crossing they would start to gossip about you and spread mean rumors, i remember i had so much fun making one character my enemy - i didn’t want her to move away, it was part of the immersive story i made myself. old animal crossing game came with legends to them, like, “if you do x, tom nook opens his shop in the middle of the night, but everything is ten times as expensive”, there wasn’t much of a mechanical point to any of these but they made you discover stuff about the game even after playing or a year or so. for me, animal crossing: new horizions is nothing like playing old animal crossing games - the game is so polished it loses all it’s weirdness and charm.

the early sims games were full of really mean dialogue lines about your characters, featured a lot of stuff that had no real gameplay to it other than the feeling of playing with barbie dolls and could get *incredibly* weird and while i still like sims 4 it is nothing like playing sims 2 for me. i recently checked out the new sims 4 feature where you can play scenarios, but almost all of the scenarios are like “you are rasing a young child/multiple children”, “you play as a person who works in retail” etc. while a similar feature existed in sims 2 where all the scenarios were batshit insane stuff you wouldn’t already play in the game as usual. like just this random scrap of lore says SO much about how much weirder the series used to be:

this next point is gonna be a weird one, but in the early video game days almost every game had a brothel or some other sex-related content (or both). don’t misunderstand this, i do not think objectifying women is the thing we lost in gaming over the years, nor do i think this is what we need to use the medium of video games for, but i think it’s one of these signs that games nowadays need to be very presentable for a large audience and e.g. a quest where you need to actually program a sex robot that you can also actually *have sex with* is way less imaginable in a game today, than it was in 2011.

this is not the only reason the game sucks absolute ass, but compare dragon age 1 and 2 to dragon age inquisition. dragon age games lived off of this weird level of chaos, incredibly humorous questlines, sidequests where you visit the brothel, have to strip naked with your friends or talk a bunch of hostile werewolves into being your friends and chatting with an oak tree that only spoke in riddles. i personally think the first two games had a certain charm to them, because that made them so incredibly unique. and dragon age inquisition tried so hard to be sanitized and marketable - they added crafting and grinding and chunks of open world and every other mechanic imagineable that was popular at the time, and they removed all the stuff that made the games so loveable in the first place - the game takes itself incredibly serious, has no real, memorable quests that are funny or messy and has more of a marvel approach to humor than the weird, niche, incredibly dirty humor the first two games had and it really shows

what im saying is. i hate you, super-sanitized AAA-titles, i hate you, age-appropriate marvel humor, i hate you “every mechanic has to make sense” game design approach, i hate you, shallow quippy dialogue, i hate you, crafting systems, i hate you, lack of negative reactions to player actions, i hate you, i hate you, i hate you, i hate you

[regarding-stories]

The Quintessential Quintuplets - fulfilling narrative promises?

Didn't I write about this just yesterday? Twice? Yup. I'm back and still in the five stages of grief about this one. Somewhere between anger, denial, and maybe some bargaining. I know it's ridiculous, but I couldn't go to bed before the second article helped me process some of the feelings regarding the movie out into written word. And I woke up and it was back on my mind.

I was wondering if one can objectify this disappointment I feel and I had additional thoughts on that topic. Now, no matter what I say about this in terms of analysis, it's clear that ultimately one also rationalizes one's own feelings. I felt it was the wrong ending. The movie felt flat and limp halfway through. I can try to rationalize why, but the reality is that if a story is brought to any satisfying conclusion - and that doesn't mean it's a "good" one - you will feel that. There will not always be a sense of acceptance. The author might try to rattle you and deliberately deny you the satisfaction. That's fair in art.

But I doubt that's what happened here. The story feels like it falls flat because you're not sold on the ending. People walked out. So lay back and join me for another ride.

First things first

No matter what else I say, if you made it this far into the series, the makers of both manga and anime have managed to make you care. As I said in the start, the character detail sells the series. You would want to know how it ends. And that it has to end has been "promised" right off the bat.

During the course of consuming the story you have built expectations. Maybe you looked for clues. Maybe you simply enjoyed the feelings the series transmitted. You navigated the story along the lines that its writers laid out.

Unwittingly, a story is also a contract between author and audience. Some stories guarantee the outcome and the joy is seeing how it happens. Some stories are more about passing experience with no singular goal or resolution point. Sometimes it's about the ride, sometimes it's about the end. "Ideally," both matter.

The Quintessential Quintuplets (QQ) made it clear from the beginning that there must be a definite end and a singular end. That was as a promise and a narrative constraint, and either it would deliver on that promise or provide a twist or copout. It even teased twisting the end several times - multiple white dresses, the "quintuplets game" right before the ceremony. But in the end it plays this promise straight - which is surprisingly unsatisfying. Not saying that a twist or a copout would have been more rewarding. But due to the way the story "gets there," it incurs quite a bit of narrative debt it doesn't pay down on.

And oh yeah. Spoilers.

What genre is it?

What genre is this actually? And what are the genre's promises?

Is it a mystery? Is it a love story? Is it a story about the fleeting nature of first love? It's kind of neither and tries to be all of it, and succeeds and fails to varying degrees.

Is it a mystery? Mystery refers here to something akin to a detective story. Not the kind of mystery with monsters and files with a big X on them. More like a classical Whodunnit. And in a sense QQ makes it clear that wants to be a bit of that. It deliberately and constantly obfuscates the outcome, it provides clues but these clues are often misleading, or not real clues.

Who will hold Futaro's hand at the campfire? Subverted. They all do. Who kisses Futaro under the bell? Deliberately held out on. Who posed as Rena? Etc. The story then insists, through narrative from the future, that these are decisive events that tip the balance. But in reality they are just placeholders the writer left open to fill them later on and put the girl into he always wanted to. The campfire legend keeps everybody in the race. The bell one is unresolved and gives only limited clues (though Yotsuba was quite a possibility here).

Here the author says that these are the decision points. But we don't get the clues to truly answer that by them alone. This story does not lead us to its conclusion, it does not allow us to solve the mystery. It's mystifying and deliberately obfuscating the end.

In other words, it fails as a mystery story because it doesn't want to give away the end. This makes it hard to be satisfied with any ending. Futaro plays a big part in it because there are no clear giveaways on his side either. For the longest time he refuses even to play the game he's in proper.

This will factor into my final assessment of the genre, but let's look at it some more...

Love, actually?

So is it a story of fleeting teenage love? It tries to be. But while it plays on the feelings of magical summers and a time that never comes back, it insists that love is not fleeting. Campfire legends and who rings the bell with whom seem like overblown things, and each girl gets to have a bit of her own love drama with Futaro.

But the story insists that first love is not fleeting. It's even destined, it leads to marriage. And frankly, it goes even further by making Yotsuba the Kyoto girl. It was always meant to be. In other words, it takes love quite seriously. And the girls don't seem to relent on their feelings on Futaro even after the cat is out of the bag, which I find pathetic. Yes, they all let Yotsuba have her happy end - because they're good people. We never get to see them find their own love, their own "ending." If love is supposed to work like in the story, dispensed by the fate fairy, then why did she just retire her wand after 20% of the job? (She sucks.)

Love stories work differently than mysteries. We may not always know if the protagonists end up with each other. But we get to see what they feel on the way. This is only half-fulfilled here. What we see is that each girl gets to have her story by his side and we see feelings on display. But what we don't see is the inevitability that tells us: This is love.

We just don't.

Do you get a single moment that tells us - "Oh, this has to be!"? Where you can't feel but say: "Futaro clearly has fallen in love with Yotsuba." You definitely will not. Because it feels like they picked one of many moments and declared it the winner.

It's not fate. It's like the spinning wheel in the Game of Life board game we saw them play together.

We don't see them have this inevitable chemistry that convinces us of the answer. That's why the answer feels flat. The author sets it up as meant to be, but the story never sells it. It's out of sight. With what we see of Futaro he should be unable to decide because you don't really know at this point, either. The answer the author provides is like the drink Futaro pulls out of the vending machine. It may represent his supposed gut decision. But it is not inevitable. It's not set up as the answer.

It's an answer, just not the answer.

So the winner is...

QQ is a shell game. As the author moves around the shells we are deliberately misled as to who is the winner to reel us in. Yotsuba's winning ticket was stamped five years ago. She's the card in the sleeve. Everything else is just chaff and distraction.

This is part of why the answer feels random. Yes, it is foreshadowed by Yotsuba being the Kyoto girl. So love never changes, and yet it takes us an awful long time to get there. Look at Futaro. Look at how he treats Yotsuba. Do you feel how they work as a couple? They work as loyal friends. But they lack something.

Yotsuba's playground outing on the date lays out a few things. It's a reminder how she's the child among them. She's not even presented as teenager much. She's the goofball puppy that I was glad also got a bit of attention because I like her. I never was convinced it was real. I was just glad the puppy got a treat, too, else I would have felt sorry for her.

What the story also is is both a race and popularity contest. But the popularity is never the one of the girls with Futaro. It's with us. Which one do you like best? What's your type? Who could you fall for or identify with? There are five archetypal choices on the menu.

Miku, for example, is like a remix of two of my exes. If she's executed well, I might always be partial to that. While all five girls are meant to be likable and suitable for identifying with them, people will be like the quintuplets. Once asked, everybody picks differently. Of course Yotsuba has her own fan club. But does that really mean the answer is narratively satisfying because you like Yotsuba best? (Which I can totally see happening.) You see, I do like Yotsuba a lot. But narratively she fails to satisfy. She needed to be the Kyoto girl to have something going for her in terms of the romance which we don't see happening.

She could have been satisfying had it been set up, it's not beyond her. But by delivering the setup after the resolution the writers admit how weak and arbitrary this ending is when comparing it to what came before it. By avoiding committing for this long, maybe any ending would feel arbitrary. You're after all 500+ minutes into watching the show when we head to the resolution. There was lot of damn time to set something up.

And the nasty thing is that by dragging out the popularity contest, it is meant to end at its highest tension point. None of the other girls gets gently let down, knowing that she's not it. They all learn the hard way. The show could have convincingly shed the leaves until one remains as the answer. It could have treated the other girls as the equally loved ones that end up not being chosen. But the dramatic solution is like teenage love often is - not what you hope for and painful.

"Quite the Crappy Kyoto Quagmire"

And then we are not released into an end. We're just dragged through the husk, a mere shell of a story that feels empty. This whole bit of getting Yotsuba to accept Futaro's decision is unconvincing and overplayed. The drama doesn't fit her.

It doesn't help that the second half of the movie rewrites Yotsuba's character. The always cheerful genki girl that is a ditz was once a dedicated, focused girl-with-a-goal, and actually quite selfish. We're meant to believe Yotsuba is what she is because she's turning herself around before we get to look. Her actual story is copy-pasted in and has been deliberately hidden from us. The Yotsuba puzzle was missing important pieces.

Yotsuba wasn't a lovable ditz that required the aid of others. She made bad decisions. Her sisters stepped up for her in spite of that. And like she said in the second season: They never breathed a word about it. So that we don't know.

You don't get to be complicated just at the end. We have to see that before. Not after the story is meant to have resolved. Yotsuba is a plot twist. The card in the sleeve. The winning ticket was sold before you enter.

Movies that establish a lovable cast often have a hard time letting go. Look at the ending of, let's say, Lilo & Stitch. You notice how the authors don't want to let go and want to tell us more stories with these characters.

But here's the thing. With the way this story was set up as a popularity contest and that you "have to chose," you can't stick around after that happened. The whole "quintuplets game" at the end is a silly gimmick. Yes, it reminds us that he loves them all to a depth that they can no longer fool him. But again that's not entirely how it feels. It also reminds us of our own dissatisfaction with the resolution.

The same is true for this unshakeable "it will work" attitude we get from Futaro. It's not set up. It feels empty. After he made up his mind, it's forever made up. Is that how a real person would be in his stead? He feels entirely like a plot device after the reveal. The date he takes Yotsuba on is unconvincing and even rehashes their "greatest moment" instead of giving us another one. Because they couldn't think of one.

Popularity contests are not good stories

If this is a popularity contest, make it a game and let me chose my ending. Give me five equally satisfying endings. Let everybody win on their own terms. Don't fool us with shell games that can only disappoint.

Somebody wrote online: "If you don't like the ending, play the game."

If I don't like the ending, the author hasn't done the job right. Whether we like the ending of a story is not meant to be decided by our semi-random bias in picking a character. Whatever ending we get, it's meant to be sold to us. When we read stories, we like to have ourselves set up for this satisfaction. This is manipulation we willingly participate in. We want to be right. We want to have felt "the right thing." Cash in our reward voucher for paying attention.

What The Quintessential Quintuplets did was set up a minimal threshold each girl gets to cross so that she is a candidate for the final decision. What it didn't do is set up the winner so that we can be happy with her. And it absolutely knows it. The second half of the movie is proof that it didn't stick the landing and is conscious of it. We never get to let go - as the other girls don't. They just line up behind her sister. We never get this "Yes, you were the special one." feeling. Because she wasn't. She was one of many, not the one.

And maybe none of them was. The actual story doesn't line up with the happily-ever-after ending. It could remain as the story of our teenage flings and almost better end unresolved. Okay, maybe not. It's hard to imagine a satisfying ending here.

But look at this way. For the end of season 2 all the girls line up for Miku's sake. And it feels genuine, satisfying, and entirely in character. Even Nino's little slip. And this ending does not have that feeling. They lined up for Yotsuba alright, but again before the story started.

An author's prerogative is that they get to make choices for us. If I play a game or a role-playing game, I have agency. So I get to chose what I like, hopefully, and you can bank on me liking my choice. If you chose for me, however, you need to make the choice matter for me.

I rewatched the series 2.5 times at this point. And that was satisfying. And I don't feel like I ever want to rewatch the movie. The narrative satisfaction only lasted while the game was going. Ending it sunk the ship altogether. I never liked popularity contests. Why did I join this one?

[grymoria]

Calling Out Misogyny In the Naruto Fandom

     Naruto, in my opinion, is a great series. Amazing plot, amazing fighting, and amazing characters. However, I have started to lose interest in the series because of the people that are in the fandom, mostly misogynistic heterosexual men. They openly show their misogyny without even realizing it and it's not so hard to tell when you notice how they treat or talk about two of the female characters in the series, Sakura and Hinata. Sakura is hated for misogynistic reasons and Hinata is loved for misogynistic reasons. I can simply point them out based on what I, as well as others in the Naruto fandom, have witnessed.

    One reason why Naruto fans hate Sakura but love Hinata in a misogynistic way is because of their breast size. Naruto fans call Sakura "flat" but call Hinata "busty," and when the Boruto series started, some of them were upset that Hinata looked "flat." First off, what the fuck does their breast size got to do with their character? If that's one of the reasons why you feel a certain way about a female character, that shows that you're objectifying them and sexualizing them. This is considered misogyny because you don't see them as human beings at that point. Not every woman on this planet is going to be busty or even wants to be busty. What their body looks like should not matter. You can meet a woman with the nicest body you have ever seen but she can also have the worst personality & behavior you can ever witness. (Edit: I'm just now realizing this...why were y'all looking at their chest anyway in Naruto/Naruto Shippuden when the majority of the time they were minors? Fictional characters or not, they were still children regardless.)

    Reason two as to why Naruto fans hate Sakura in a misogynistic way is because she didn't want to be with Naruto despite how many times he saved her. Just because Naruto was saving his love interest at the time several times, doesn't mean Sakura owes him her love. If you do something good for someone else, then you are supposed to do it out of the good of your heart, not because you want them to do something for you. Women do not owe men a damn thing when men choose to do something nice for them and vice versa, keyword: CHOOSE. Not to mention, Naruto was aware that Sakura did not love him, which is why he knew that she was lying when she told him she loved him. So if Naruto was aware that Sakura didn't love him, then why did he bother saving her those times? It's probably because Sakura is still his teammate/friend, and he's a good person. Not to mention, Sakura has also saved Naruto several times as well, so by a misogynist's logic, doesn't that mean Naruto would owe her as well? If you want women to "reward" you because you did something nice for them, then not only you're misogynistic, but you were never thinking about the woman's needs; you were only thinking about your wants which makes you selfish as fuck.

   Reason three as to why Naruto fans love Hinata is because she married Naruto. There's nothing wrong with this. Hinata has always loved him ever since they were kids so she got the man of her dreams. Good for her, she deserves it. But what makes this misogynistic is the type of wife that she became, which makes fans wish that they had a wife like Hinata. There is nothing wrong with being a stay-at-home mom, but if you purposely want your wife to be a stay-at-home mom, then that means you want her to depend on you. You don't want her to provide for the family financially because you feel like only you should do it. After all, it is a stereotype that men have made themselves. This is probably another reason why Naruto fans don't like Sakura. She's not a stay-at-home mom. Instead, she's a doctor, the head of the Medical Department, and she runs a clinic for kids. She doesn't need to depend on Sasuke because she has her success. It's not only Naruto fans, but I've witnessed men in general who can't stand that a woman is independent. Women were never meant to depend on men. Women can take care of themselves. 

Reason four as to why Naruto fans hate Sakura but love Hinata in a misogynistic way is because of their personalities. Sakura has a strong-willed personality. She's outgoing, not afraid to speak up, and will try to put someone in their place if necessary. Hinata is shy, not so confident, and sensitive but she's also kind-hearted. There's nothing wrong with either of these personalities, but misogynists hate that a female character, or women in general, have personality traits that are considered masculine. Just because someone is born a woman, doesn't mean they should act like the type of woman you want them to be. You, as well as society, have no right to try to control someone, and you have no right to shame someone for not being the person that they are. Not every woman has the same or similar personality and that is ok. There's nothing wrong with being different, and being different doesn't hurt you personally in any type of way.

There are other reasons why Naruto fans hate Sakura and other reasons why they also love Hinata, but the point was to only focus on misogynistic reasons. Both Sakura and Hinata are good characters in their own way. You have the right to like/dislike a character, but if you like/dislike them for a reason that relates to oppression towards a certain group of people, then you're considered a bigot. Yes, both Sakura and Hinata are fictional, but bigotry is real. If you cause prejudice towards fictional female characters because of the way they are, then it's obvious that you would feel the same way towards women in real life. 

[haztory]

𝐨𝐟 𝐟𝐚𝐧𝐠𝐢𝐫𝐥𝐬 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐦𝐢𝐥𝐤 𝐛𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐝. (1)

--iwaizumi hajime x f!reader; fake/pretend dating, mutual pining, third year characters, confident/no-nonsense reader, puppet master oikawa, ocassional cursing, other than that no warnings!

--summary: Iwaizumi Hajime was more than content to not be at the receiving end of the hordes of fangirl's attention. 

But when they all suddenly devote their time and love to him, he can't help but quickly want an out. It's Oikawa's suggestion- a good one at that. Get a girlfriend to scare them off.

And what better than use you, Iwaizumi's best friend with a long standing crush on him, to play the role.

a/n: this is my first haikyuu fic! i did not expect it to be about iwa considering im a huge daichi simp, but that’s what listening to bubble pop electric by gwen stefani and browsing through pinterest does to the brain, ig. please let me know if any characters are too ooc, as im still trying to get them down.

other than that, enjoy! messages are always appreciated. 

(w.c. 4836)

masterlist | next chapter

Iwaizumi Hajime was hand sculpted by the gods, the entire female student body deduces with fanatic agreement one blessed afternoon. His shoulders are broad, skin rippling like waves breaking on rocks under the movement of his muscles. His stomach is firm and taut with the lining of his abs and his pectorals are considerably large enough to have every single girl in attendance foam at the mouth. And as he raises one— bulging — arm to wave sheepishly to the widened eyes of the crowd, his thick and veiny hand on full display, a collective moan is heard throughout the building. It has the poor boy ducking his head downward even further. 

The fundraiser arranged to cover the expenses of the volleyball team’s traveling to away games exceeded its initial goal (that of which the all-female led student council was greatly responsible for) resulting in the entire team parading themselves around the cafeteria as a reward for the students’ commitment to the task. 

Shirtless.

And while attention from the female population has usually always been paid to the star setter, Oikawa Tooru and all of his addicting charm, his absence in this mouthwatering and delectable ceremony has allowed for the ace and vice-captain of the Seijoh Volleyball Team to shine. Oh, and shine, he has. 

Within a mere five minutes, the fiercely devoted and militant fanclub belonging to Oikawa has suddenly converted— briefly, they insist— to the groupies of Seijoh’s Vice Captain: powerful ace, leader of offense, total hottie. 

The attention increases tenfold from that point on. Suddenly, Oikawa is no longer the only one receiving love confessions numerous times on a daily basis (much to his chagrin), but instead is sharing the spotlight with his best friend, who is more than uncomfortable with the unexpected shift in notice. He was never ecstatic at being labeled as ‘Oikawa’s number two’, adamant that he was his own entity despite the intricate intertwinement with his best friend, he was, in fact, totally fine with never being hounded by girls at every minute of the day. Sure, the attention would be nice, occasionally. 

But this? This is outrageous.

This is the tenth girl today to have stopped by his locker, a pink flush encompassing her face as she sticks her hands out to present something to Iwaizumi. It’s tupper ware, decorated in a pink bow with his name written in cursive on the top accompanied by some cute glitter stickers. That would make this the fourth container he’s received this morning, and as much as the whole act fills him with a deep dread and hesitation, he doesn’t have the heart to reject her gift. Especially when her hands are shaking so hard and she’s stuttering every other word out. 

So he puts on the standard smile, the one that he’s seen Oikawa pump out a hundred times a day but fails to meet in equal warmth and charm, and thanks her graciously and sincerely— even though he’s not that big a fan of milk bread and this is the third one he’s going to have to shove into his locker. 

He bows to her with an awkward smile, “Ah, thank you, uh…”

“H-Hina!” she shouts, her hands slapping upward towards her mouth after the outburst. The pink flushes deeper on her skin, and Iwaizumi has to wonder what exactly is going through the air for a girl to have this kind of reaction to him. He hasn’t changed, hasn’t developed a new attitude that should have girls swooning at his feet. He’s the same as always, stubbornly so. He is Iwaizumi Hajime, hardass, avid monster movie watcher and the usual second thought. He supposes he should feel somewhat elated at the long-awaited recognition, but he can’t shake off the feeling that this is all incredibly unwarranted. 

It's a surface value attraction. They're not really swooning for him, just the idea of him. That stings a bit more than he’d like to admit.

“Hina,” he affirms with a gentle nod, bowing his head in gratitude, “Thank you for the treat. I will, uh, treasure every bite.”

He doesn’t mean it to be anything charming (because he’s not) nor even remotely romantic (because it’s not), it’s just what he comes up with at the top of his head, but Hina starts to shake and a watery smile spreads across her face when she hears it and he knows he’s made this whole thing much worse. Before he can even awkwardly ask if she’s alright, she bows hurriedly again before running off with a shriek. 

It's then that he’s sure Oikawa is one sadistic motherfucker because there is no way anyone mentally sane could take that reaction as a compliment. There’s an intense guilt that settles in his stomach for the rest of the day for causing a girl to tremble like that. 

Curse the student council for that stupid fundraiser award. He would much rather walk to every away game than have to go through another day of this. 

He opens his locker again, placing the container in there amongst all the other ones and the numerous handmade cards declaring affection. He closes it with a sigh. He can only hope that this phase of adoration is reaching its end. 

Quickly.

**

It does not end quickly. 

It's month three of endless confessions and Iwaizumi is about to lose his mind. Word spreads about his favorite kinds of teas and sweets (which he is sure Oikawa is directly responsible for) and his locker starts to resemble a mall kiosk more than any part of school property. The outside is decorated with stickers and taped with more love cards and he’s pretty sure someone found out his combination (again) because there are balloons floating out of it.

It's a circus. One that Mattsukawa and Hanamaki repeatedly laugh about every time they see it. 

He would like to indulge in the acts or at least make some kind of peace with the situation, he really would. He’s always fantasized in passing about the pride and specialty one must feel at being the center of female attention, having seen it and thwarted it first hand from Oikawa’s fans, but the longer this drags on the more fraudulent he starts to feel.

How can he enjoy his favorite foods when the girls giving it to him are blinded by a false idea of him? They’re not genuine, and if he accepted them, he would only feel like a bad guy, taking advantage of poor girls who haven’t got the slightest clue about him. Because Iwaizumi doesn’t have the million dollar smile like Oikawa does, nor does he have the oozing charm and commercial personality. 

He’s hard, and stubborn, and less inclined to entertain bullshit— the complete opposite of shitty-kawa. So whatever perception these girls think they have of Iwa, they’re wrong. and he can’t accept gifts from these girls who think they love him, when in reality, he’s the furthest thing from what they assume he is. 

“Why are you so adamant to believe that what they feel isn’t real? What's so ridiculous about liking you? Hmm?” Oikawa sings with a laugh one afternoon, the whole team crammed into the club room as they change out of their practice gear. the other guys snicker at Iwaizumi’s dismay, the usual frown painted on his face is permanently etched deeper into his skin and he knows they’re all getting a sick enjoyment from his torture.

The constant reliability to the chaos Oikawa brings is now subjected to his own taste of havoc. And he’s absolutely miserable. 

In all of his stubborn self-sufficiency, he’s refused to even indulge the guys with a verbal complaint, simply grumbling at the gifts before moving on with his day. Intent on dealing with this problem on his own and prohibiting himself from being a burden to anyone else. 

But he’s off his a-game in practice and the crease between his eyebrows is now a persistent feature on his face these days.

“Because it's not real,” he grunts, throwing his sweaty shirt into his sports bag, “They don’t like me.”

Hanamaki snorts from across the benches, a wide smile on his face as he unlaces his shoes and sings, “They only like him for his bodyyy.”

“Can you blame them? Who would ever like Iwa for his personality?” Matsukawa joins him in snickering, earning a killer glare from the victim in question. Not helping. They only laugh harder. 

“So what?” Oikawa questions amusedly, ignoring the sarcasm dripping from the other two third years, leaning his body against the lockers as he watches his best friend ripple with frustration. A constant sight these days.

“So what?” Iwaizumi turns to look at him, incredulity furrowing his features as his friends look at him like he’s grown a third head for being reasonably uncomfortable with this, “It's weird. They’re giving all of these nice gifts to a guy they barely know and they all look at me like a piece of meat.”

“God, girls objectifying you? The horror.” Mattsun torts again, earning a water bottle thrown at his face.

“So what?” Oikawa laughs again, the kind of laugh that reverberates around the room and rings a little too loudly in his ears. He’s heard this laugh thousands of times over the years, coming out to play when Oikawa is far too keen on putting Hajime as the butt of a joke. The mockery is clear in his voice, bleeding in the two simple words yet weighing like a hundred. He can usually take it, dish it back with equal fervor to his best friend, but this time around, he can’t. 

This whole mess of a situation sits heavily on his shoulders and for the first time, any attempt to just barrel through a problem like he so often does seems pointless to Hajime. Because no matter how much he ignores, no matter how often he declines, the girls will continue to only see Seijoh's ace. Not Iwaizumi Hajime. 

He sighs. He doesn’t know what he was expecting in venting to his friends. Validation if they were any nicer, but deep down he knew it would take a different trajectory. 

Maybe they’re right; Maybe he is blowing this out of proportion. Maybe he should just accept the gifts, enjoy them while he can because the girls are choosing to do it. They’re not being held against their will, nor is anyone really being hurt by these peculiar circumstances. It's, theoretically, a win-win.

It doesn’t stop the pit in his stomach from sinking even lower when he sees girls stop their chattering in the hallways as he passes. It doesn’t stop the overwhelming feeling of disappointment he feels when he notices they stare at his biceps before his face before dashing away. 

 Matsukawa shuts his own locker with a grumble, “Must be nice.”

“You wanna take my place, Issei?” iwaizumi turns to look over his shoulder, meeting the mischievous twinkle of the middle blocker. 

“Yeah man, I do. Girls at my feet everyday bringing me food? That’s every guy’s dream.”

“Yeah, if every guy was a piece of shit like you.” The words tumble without second thought and Hanamaki finds himself clutching his stomach with laughter at the retort. He doesn’t mean to direct his anger at his friend, but it seeps into his words anyways. He’s lucky they’re good enough sports to take it in stride. Even if the twinkle in Matsukawa’s eyes dims and he grumbles a “shut up” while he slaps the back of Hanamaki’s head. 

He knows a solution— or sympathy— won’t be offered in his venting, adamant that this is something he needs to solve on his own, but he can’t help himself. He just has to get it out. “I can't even go to class normally anymore. There’s always a girl waiting for me.”

His back is turned towards his friends as he folds his gym clothes into the open cubby, but even despite the absence of his facial expression, the other three sitting near him can hear the exhaustion in his voice. Much as they might tease him, they’ve sat front and center to the slow decline of Hajime’s sanity and comfort as he was thrust suddenly into the spotlight that he was ill-prepared for. He’s laughably out of his element, but his plight is severe enough for all three of them to occasionally step in.

Hanamaki and Mattsun have had their fair share of instances in which they’ve had to redirect of a horde of girls hounding at them for Iwaizumi’s location, telling them that they had no idea where Iwaizumi could have gone when in fact, he was hiding in the clubroom. And while they would’ve been more than happy to send them his way just to watch him fluster and stutter, the two friends knew the momentary laugh wouldn’t have been worth the further depletion of Hajime’s confidence and happiness. Iwaizumi wants this attention to be for something genuine, for something that he was directly responsible for and can be proud of. Not something as surface value as an attractive body. 

Truth be told, all three of Seijoh's third years want to help him as much as Iwaizumi wants this to be over. But just like him, they have no idea what to do.

Hajime sighs again, “Don’t even get me started about when I’m with (Y/N). You think stalking is bad? Try having to deal with evil glares too.”

Scratch that. They have one idea.

The mention of the ace’s other best friend, the one that they’re all too familiar with, has all of Seijoh's members perking their heads upward in interest. A lightbulb going off simultaneously as they all share a glance with one another. Hanamaki looks up to Oikawa who looks to Mattsun who looks to Hanamaki. Their eyes darting between one another, telepathically asking the same question.

Are you thinking what I'm thinking?

Hanamaki and Mattsun finalize their answer with a hard stare at Oikawa and smirks on their faces. They both give a long nod to their captain and like the well-oiled machine the Seijoh Volleyball Team is known to be, a plan is formulated and put into action before anyone can blink. 

“Oh?” Oikawa prods, taking the initiative. His grin is suddenly more wicked than before, “How so?”

Iwaizumi notices the subtle change in tone in the conversation, can hear the smile in Oikawa’s words, but he doesn’t think much of it. Simply attributing it to the mention of the beloved figure they’re all acquainted with. He can’t blame them, finding his own mood has tipped upward at the mere thought of you. And while he has apologized to the moon and back for inadvertently getting you involved in this nightmare of a situation, there’s a resounding comfort he feels at knowing that there's at least one person on his side. One person that is willing to trudge through the mud with him, regardless of how often they complain.

Because whatever happens to him happens to you, you insist. So if he has to deal with a hundred fangirls, then so do you. 

He plows on, airing out his struggles and frustrations with his newfound attention. “They’re always staring at us, making the whole thing uncomfortable when we’re just hanging out. (Y/N) even told me she once got cornered in the girls’ bathroom during lunch.”

Oikawa gasps, always enthralled with any juicy gossip, especially on the rare occasion that it involves you— his beloved, headstrong, annoying other best friend. “What did they say?”

“Some weird shit about staying away from me, like I was their property.”

“And what did (y/n) say?”

Iwaizumi laughs, a genuine one that has been missing since this whole ordeal began. He turns to look at his friends, the smile reaching his eyes and pushing upwards on his cheeks. If they weren’t sure of their plan before, the happiness on his face was enough of a push to solidify it. The happiness that only someone specific can bring out. “It's (Y/N). What do you think she said?”

Oikawa, all too familiar with your personality and deviance from the norm since age ten, huffs out a laugh, “Hmm, let me guess, something about doing whatever she wants with whoever she wants.” 

“No, actually, she—” 

You’re washing your hands in the sink of the bathroom when you hear a cough from behind you. Looking upwards into the mirror, you are suddenly confronted with the reflection of six girls circling around you.

A groan tumbles out of your mouth. You knew something like this was bound to happen, jealousy always emerging victorious whenever girls were thirsting after a young man. You just didn’t think it would be happening so soon, only two months into the fanatic obsession with your best friend. It’s your fault really, you should’ve prepared for a moment like this to come. But as they all shoot daggers into your reflection you can’t help but recognize how woefully dreadful this is.  

You'd kill Hajime for inadvertently getting you into this if he wasn’t already feeling so guilty about it. 

Each one stares at you with an intense fury, and while you’ve never considered yourself to be much of a fighter, you’re mentally preparing yourself to throw a couple of punches in this cramped bathroom. You won’t win, six against one is hardly a story of triumph, but you’ll be damned if you get intimidated by this raging group of hormones. 

The faucet stops, with almost impeccable comedic timing, and a silence emanates throughout the area. It's awkward, painfully so and their silent stares are not helping.

“Uh… Can I help you?”

The one in the middle (the leader, you assume) stands with a hip jutted out and her arms crossed. You’ve seen her in passing before. Her eyes narrow at your question, “So, are you two dating?”

You have to force yourself to not roll your eyes. Of course this is where this was going. Because God forbid anyone have friends of the opposite gender. Indicator number one that the interest of these girls was superficial, considering if they even really had been interested in more than the prospect of having access to Iwaizumi’s body, they would’ve realized that you’ve been in his life for a lot longer than he’s had any redeeming qualities— including those rocking arms of his. 

You won't entertain this, something you’ve been adamant about even if Hajime has insisted you don’t , especially not when it's causing Iwa all this grief that you’ve had to comfort him through time and time again. 

“Who’s asking?” You all but bark back, patience wearing thin.

The one to the right of the leader— Pigtails, you’ve taken to calling her— scoffs and stomps her foot, “We are, obviously!”

Patience is below the ground now.

The left one, the one with pink hair, speaks this time, “Iwaizumi won’t even talk to us for more than a minute but he lets you hang around! So, if you’re not dating you have to tell us!”

“Why?”

“So that you can help us get closer to him!”

“Yeah, no.” you respond curtly, feeling rather nauseous at the lengths in which these girls are going just to get his attention. Cornering his friend and doing a piss-poor job at intimidating them into coercing them for information about him. No wonder Hajime's been feeling so depressed. 

Taking the piss out of him used to be fun, something you and Pikawa could share profound pleasure in, but now that it's at your front door and reeking of death, you’re quickly realizing just how much you owe that spiky haired idiot. 

You grab your bag that lay at your feet, turning to face the six girls with a mirthless smile despite the hatred burning in their eyes.

“Good luck with… whatever it is you’re trying to do.”

You’re almost out the door when the leader, who has puffed out her chest and taken a step forward  blurts out, “If you’re not going to help us, then you better stay out of our way.”

There are few people in this world that you’ve dreamt about punching. Oikawa has made the list a couple times, but that’s only when he’s being particularly obnoxious. Iwaizumi has too, usually when his hard headedness has conflicted with yours, but even then the situation is usually better within the next hour. 

But this girl, oh this girl, she has made the top of your list in record time. And you highly doubt she’s coming off of it anytime soon. And now that you’ve gotten a good look at her, you’re starting to remember exactly where you’ve seen her before.

You raise an eyebrow at her intimidation, “Or what?” 

(You have to pat your back for that one because you really sound like the scary third year you’ve always dreamt of being.)

She doesn’t falter in her misplaced confidence, a smile pulling at her lips, “If he’s not yours, then he’ll be one of ours soon enough. And I can promise you, every boyfriend I've ever had always dropped his girl best friends when I asked.”

“Uh huh,” you glance at your watch that shows there are only fifteen minutes left in lunch. Might as well start on your meal now.

You pull the backpack slung over your shoulder in front of you, unzipping the large pocket and pulling out a familiar container. The girls gasp when they see it. 

It's pink and has a little cat design on the front of it. Very cute and very distinct. You pop open the top, grabbing the milk bread that lies inside with your left hand and holding the lid and the box with your right. The lid is tilted forward, granting all the girls clear viewing of the cursive ink that lies on it.

The name is clear and the handwriting incredibly recognizable. The leader’s mouth gapes open.

You take a bite out of the treat, a dramatic moan escaping your mouth. You point at the girl, “Mm. You made this right?”

She doesn’t answer. None of them do. They only stare with wide eyes.

“I remember seeing you give this to Iwa this morning. It’s really good. He's not a big fan of milk bread, so he’s been giving them to me but I’ve enjoyed every single one of them! Although I am getting tired of eating the same thing over and over. So, if you’re taking suggestions, try Agedashi Dōfu. It's Iwa’s favorite.”

You lick your lips to make the point clearer. A gentle reminder of your place and their lack of one in his life. They seem to get it.

“Right then. Bye ladies! This was fun! I’m sure Hajime will be thrilled to hear all about it.”

Iwaizumi finishes recounting the story with a childlike wonder, meeting the furrowed brows and agape mouths of his friends with a joyous smile. There’s an unmistakable twinkle of affection in his eyes, one that he must not even realize is there. But it's noticeable, and his friends recognize it.

It's the same look he always gets whenever he talks about you. 

It was mean of you to humiliate those girls like that, he knows, but his smile when recounting the tale is more than indicative of his true feelings behind the action. He briefly lectured you about it after you told him, insisting that it was important to be nice to these poor girls who didn’t know any better, that you begrudgingly agreed to, but he thinks about it often. Thinks about it at practice, in the middle of class, and every time he sees you.

He didn’t know how he felt about it, but from the way it warmed his cheeks and filled his chest with a weird lightness, he knew he was ultimately appreciative of the action. Honored that you would stick up for him unapologetically and protect him from unassuming teenage girls.

It shouldn’t be much of a surprise. Were the roles reversed he would do the same for you in a heartbeat. But still, he thinks about it. A lot.

“I haven’t seen those girls since, but I have been getting a lot more Agedashi Dōfu, so I guess that’s a plus.” He shrugs his shoulders in nonchalance returning back to the contents of his locker but the remnants of a smile plays on his lips. 

“Well, how ‘bout that?” Oikawa coos. He steps closer to Iwa, placing his hands on the ace’s shoulders and giving them a good natured shake. 

“I think I have the perfect solution to your problem, Iwa-chan.”

**

“You want me chu do wha?” you ask, mouth full of milk bread as the boy in front of you conveniently avoids your eye contact. 

It's the seventh container he’s handed you this week, and while your little incident has quickly diminished the amount he usually receives, there are still the occasional stray containers with the sweet that he instinctively hands to you. 

This time it came in a purple container. No outlandish designs or stickers like the other ones, but there is a written poem on the top comparing his eyes to the dirt of the Miyagi mountains. You suppose that’s romantic, but your leniency only goes so far. Particularly when this poem has no clear rhyming pattern. 

You’ve long since passed the point of guilt for eating all of the treats that were clearly not meant for you. Hajime was much too conflicted with the gifts to even consider smelling them, so it serves as a solution to the problem to just give it to you. He doesn’t have to worry about maliciously taking advantage of these girls and you get food. 

Win-win.

And while you’re not that into milk bread (having eaten it almost everyday for the past couple of weeks), your consumption of it seems to give him some peace of mind. Out of sight, out of mind kind of thing. And really, that’s all you’ve ever wanted for him.

But this is going too far.

Swallowing the last piece of milk bread, you look up at the idiot from your place on the bench. He stands in front of you, hands shoved deep into his pockets and shuffling from foot to foot. 

“You’re joking, right?”

This is a joke. It has to be. There’s no way the world would be this cruel to you.

His eyes remain averted, his thumb and index finger pinching the bridge of his nose as if it would wake him up from this endless nightmare, “Look, it’ll only be until I can get these girls to back off of me a little.”

“No.”

“Wha— (Y/N).” He breathes out, a twinge of desperation and pleading seeping into his voice as he finally looks into your eyes. He doesn’t know what he expects to see, but the pure and unadulterated seriousness is not one of them. He’s almost convinced to drop the subject altogether. Almost.

“Whose idea was this?” You practically growl out, closing the container and cleaning your surrounding area of any stray crumbs. You thrust your hand outward, shoving the container his way. He takes it from you without question.

“Does it matter?”

“Whose?”

“...Oikawa.”

Of course it was. “I’m gonna kill him.”

“(Y/N),” he says your name more forcefully. It’s the same tone he uses with Oikawa when he’s being whiny. It's enough of a bite to have you stop rearranging your items for a brief moment, meeting his determined gaze with one of your own. He stares intently, eyes unwavering in their silent plea to make you understand.

That’s the worst part about it. He’s serious, and he’s confident that this is the only way to solve the problem that’s been plaguing him for the past three months. 

If there's one thing you know about Iwaizumi Hajime, it’s that he’ll solve any problem on his plate and won’t stop until it's fixed. He’s responsible to a fault, refusing to burden others unless absolutely necessary. The fact that he’s viewing this to be the only solution and actually trying to persuade you is indicative enough of how desperate he is. 

Even more so indicative of how truly fucked you are, considering you’ve already made a decision before he even explains further.

Damn him and that hard head of his. 

Damn Oikawa for knowing what he does and still dragging you into this mess. No doubt he was thoroughly enjoying this.

“Will you please be my girlfriend?”

Damn that student council and their stupid fundraiser for getting Iwaizumi Hajime, the boy you’ve been best friends with since you were ten and had a crush on since you were thirteen, to ask you to be his fake girlfriend in order to thwart off hordes of fangirls. 

Damn you for already having an answer before you can even think twice.

Iwaizumi Hajime was hand sculpted by the gods, and they were all laughing at your expense now. 

end notes: whoop there it is. let me know what you all think! should i keep going? should i say fuck a degree and major in iwazumi hajime? idk man im about to.

[platypuskenny]

the fandom has sadly always been pretty weird about rebecca, and the girls in general. bebe with boobs, and her "dumping" an unappreciative kyle to get with clyde? she's a slut. rebecca instantly flirting with other boys after kyle kisses her? slut, villain, even an abuser in fics! whuh? wendy of course would be like enemy #1 to these fans, rebecca following close behind, and even kenny's one-time girlfriend kelly was vilified. ofc tammy being sexually active also got her heat. sad.

honestly i'm one of those fans who, for the most part, tries to put these behaviors in the context of these still ultimately being kids (at least in the earlier seasons where they're   written as kids as opposed to trey and matt's angst dumps). so seeing any of them be called a slut is just.... weird and creepy to me. especially in the context of episodes that are ultimately criticizing the way society forces young girls into sexualized behaviors far too early.

bebe canonically has some manipulative tendencies and seems to have boyfriends just for the sake of it, but she's never written to be "slutty" or anything of that sort. she likes kyle's butt and she engages in the "whore" trend with the other girls but that's pretty much it. the fact people characterize her as promiscuous because she has boobs is baffling because the episode is specifically about how she doesn't want to be seen that way. she hates being objectified to the point she tries to get breast reduction surgery. her flirtation with guys seems to be just to get something out of them or to follow a trend. honestly i like the headcanon of her being a closeted lesbian more than anything.

the fact that rebecca apparently has a history of being caricatured as a slutty villain is heartbreaking to me. honestly, rebecca is my favorite one-off character and she's so interesting for reasons that fandom rarely explores. her burst of sexuality is depicted as something she doesn't fully understand, because she's unfamiliar with love and possibly any sort of affection in general. her attitude seems to be a caricature of "sexy party girl" which leads me to believe she's positing rather than actually becoming promiscuous. nothing about her behavior seems malicious, and her abandoning kyle is more just because she literally does not know how to maintain friendships. and again, she's a kid, a heavily sheltered one. i think it's more rewarding to explore how rebecca learns how to healthily express affection despite her sheltered background than to just paint her as a "whore."

kelly is really underrated and i don't get what's worth vilifying about her when she did nothing wrong. she saves kenny's life for fuck's sake! also she's a child. she still picks her nose.

wendy is very very complicated to write accurately and even i don't fully understand her, but the fandom reducing her to either "perfect girlboss" or "evil bitch who broke stan's heart" is annoying as hell.

i get why people hate on tammy since she did kiiiinda kill kenny, but she didn't actually do anything out of malice. she performed sexual acts on another kid and regretted it deeply (her speech about it actually makes me sad) and her home life is comparable to kenny's in at least poverty.

it's amazing how many of these characters seem to have more depth in a single episode than they do across literal decades of fanmade content! but i guess that's what happens when the show and its fandom are such a boys' club and the fandom gets used to the boys being the most developed characters ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[hamliet]

Penny and Death in Fiction

Musings more so than meta, brought to you by frequently receiving asks accusing me of hypocrisy for having different opinions on characters dying in different stories, and as a way of me working out why I feel very, very differently from most of the RWBY fandom about Penny’s death. Obviously this is not to say people can’t have their own feelings or disagree (clearly the majority do disagree) but these are just my thoughts based on how I read death in fiction and the themes/set up or RWBY in particular.

"Anyone can die" and "redemptive death" and "sacrificial death" are overused tropes for sure. But that doesn't mean they never work or never fit. They just are often used as cheap ways to hook an audience (instead of relying on the substance of the story) and/or avoid difficult questions in a story that would demand exploration (like what happens to the mass murderer after redemption?). The oversaturation, and frankly, misuse, of these death tropes almost seems to have led to a sort-of knee-jerk reaction in fandom in the other direction, where death can’t happen at all or it’s bad writing, and I just... I don’t agree.

A story doesn’t need to avoid the topic of death to be hopeful. In fact, to many of us, it’s comforting to see grief on screen and to be encouraged to grieve.

SnK’s main theme is “the world is cruel, but the world is also beautiful.” We see that death is one of the cruelest parts of the world from the very first chapter, with Carla’s death. And yet, we’re shown that risking lives for a greater cause--the Survey Corps in the opening pages--is a part of that beauty. So, while SnK is sometimes very critical of self-sacrifice (Armin, Reiner, and Historia are all suicidal and looking for a hero’s death as a way out), it isn’t always. There’s nuance. Erwin’s and Porco’s and Zeke’s deaths, for example, are framed as moments of heroism because of the desperate circumstances. The circumstances are cruel, but within a cruel world, they were capable of beautiful choices because choice is in some ways all we’re guaranteed; we can’t choose our circumstances. The reason Eren was never going to survive SnK after this turn was because he acted against the main theme, against the concept of choice, removing it for many people, and against the concept of being born into the world being enough to give life value.

BSD is my favorite and probably the most flagrant about redemption and not killing its characters (any main ones so far). But it makes sense when you look at what the theme is--it’s specifically about looking for a reason to live. However, BSD  doesn’t avoid death either: all of its characters’ backstories are steeped in death (most are orphans, Oda, Atsushi’s headmaster, etc), and Dazai’s suicidal ideation forces the characters to confront the helplessness of grief and pain without actually killing characters. Our main characters probably won’t die--they’ll find a reason to live--but they still have to deal with death around them, and learn to grieve when appropriate. Death, the high cost of living.

Tokyo Ghoul was probably the most blatantly critical of self-sacrifice, exploring the ways self-sacrifice hurts those around you and was often just a desperate attempt to find a place in the world and assert you matter via a glorious sacrifice. Thus, its main message was “it may not be stylish, but... live.” But even so, characters died all the time in TG and TGre. Grief and learning to carry on in a brutal world where some types of people (ghouls) were forced to kill were major presences in the story. In fact, it seemed to suggest living was a valuable enough premise itself that to keep living even in the face of impending death was beautiful.

BNHA’s main theme is “heroes save.” BNHA has established someone dying as distinctly not saving them (see: the Ending fight, where our MCs literally say that they won’t let anyone die); hence, it doesn’t make sense for the heroes to “save” the villains only to have them die. If you’re gonna reward your MCs for upholding the main theme (you should), they should have their decision matter.

Tonally, RWBY is most similar to BNHA in that they are both fundamentally hopeful, optimistic stories. However, RWBY and BNHA frame death differently because of their particular themes and storylines.BNHA’s premise is based in superhero genre, where death is usually meaningless; RWBY’s is in fairy tales and alchemy--both of which have death as a central tenet. Yes, fairy tales, while we think of them as being very kid-friendly, almost always include an aspect of death and/or loss. RWBY frames death as part of life, BNHA frames death as something that villains utilize to hurt and thus needs to be stopped. For RWBY accepting death is literally the main conflict (Salem's motivation is her inability to do this!) while BNHA saving people from being hurt is the main conflict.

I’ve seen so many takes that RWBY is critical of self-sacrifice, and it is just... not. It doesn’t glorify it, but it doesn’t deconstruct it either. Pyrrha’s death is not a sacrifice; she’s not trying to gain time. She’s just trying to do the right thing for herself, to be the hero she knew she was. Her death is somewhat pyrrhic, yes, because everything still collapses, but Pyrrha’s life--of which her death is a part, not the end--is far from futile. The scene with Pyrrha’s mother at the statue of her shows that Pyrrha’s heroic legacy, her determination to do all she could to stop Cinder even when she knew it was hopeless to stop her--that helps Pyrrha to live beyond her death. I mean, RWBYJNROE are facing the possibility of never being able to defeat Salem, but they’re still fighting, just like Pyrrha.

As for actual sacrifices in the story, Hazel’s death saves the kids. Vine’s saves his friends. Penny’s saves her people for now, but it doesn't immediately solve the conflicts either. Thus, it doesn’t glorify her death or hold death up as a worthy goal, but it does respect her choice and does not frame it as a bad or futile thing (if it was a bad thing, she wouldn’t have saved everyone even if temporarily).

Penny wanted to be a human being; that was her greatest wish, even with the guarantee of eventual death and no guarantee of tomorrow. She always was human, of course, but she wanted to be human in all senses, including the physical as well as the spiritual (which she always was).

Is her resulting death a negative framing of that choice? No, I don’t think so. In RWBY, death is not punishment. Grief is not a punishment. Death is a part of life, and learning to live with death (grief) is essential to a peaceful, healthy world. We see what happens when people cannot accept death and grieve (Hazel and Salem). 

Penny’s whole thing was that her choices weren’t respected. She was constantly objectified. Yet choice is a fundamental part of being human, and the repercussions of our choices are a part of that. She wanted to choose. Like with SnK, sometimes all we have is choice in RWBY. It’s one of the gifts of the gods, after all. All they can do is choose to keep fighting, keep trying in a broken world.

Yes, I do think it’s a bit of a valid criticism to have had Penny suicidal a few episodes ago, but she was not suicidal in the moment of her death. She wasn’t hoping to die. She had gotten everything she wanted; she could not be controlled anymore, not in the way she had been. She was giving it her all against Cinder to save her friends and her people; if Cinder hadn’t shown up, she would have just gone to Vacuo. Her final choice was to decide what to do with her power, sometime Cinder could not take from her. And like Pyrrha, she will continue to live on in those she loved--in Winter via the powers, and in spirit with her friends and their memories.

Penny’s death is not a negative thing, but bringing her back against her wishes would be.

[tg-headcanons]

Hehehehe hohohoho..seidou alphabet?

He’s always looking submissive and breedable 😌

A = Aftercare (what they’re like after sex): when it’s over, he’s gonna be needing aftercare. He’s absolutely exhausted, he could use a little clean up and words of reassurance now that he’s no longer horny and probably embarrassed by how desperate he was to be fucked. A quick nap, being held by his partner and getting some ibuprofen is a must

B = Body part (their favorite body part of theirs and also their partner’s): on himself he likes his hands, and on his partner he likes tits. Male or female, if they have tiddy, he wants to drown in it

C = Cum (anything to do with cum, basically): he knows it’s kind of gross, be he likes to swallow. When he gives head he wants his partner to finish deep in his throat

D = Dirty secret (pretty self explanatory, a dirty secret of theirs): he’s masturbated to the thought of Houji before and felt really awkward working with him the next day

E = Experience (how experienced are they? do they know what they’re doing?): he’s not very experienced. He had a high school girlfriend who he lost his virginity to and a drunk one night stand or two, but it was always his partners taking the lead and he’s still awkward about making advances let alone doing anything sexual without blushing like a virgin

F = Favorite position (this goes without saying): any position where he’s bent over something. Being pinned between a surface and his partner’s body and unable to escape is the best feeling to him

G = Goofy (are they more serious in the moment? are they humorous? etc.): he doesn’t really joke during it, the most he’ll do are little jabs when he’s hoping to provoke his partner into a bit more roughness

H = Heat (what are heats like for them? How do they handle it?): his heats suck. He’s one of those ghouls who, no matter how many times he’s fucked, can’t seem to make the desperation go away. Even with two partners he outlasts them, ready to again seconds after finishing. With how bad it is, he just lets his partners secure him to the bed and do whatever they can for him, he’s okay with them having control when he’s like that since he can’t think rationally when that overheated and desperate

I = Intimacy (how are they during the moment? the romantic aspect): he’s very focused on his partners during it, paying just as close attention to what they’re saying as what they’re doing to him. It’s romantic in the way being desperate for any word or sensation from someone can be

J = Jack off (masturbation headcanon): he does it pretty often. He’s a healthy young man who doesn’t have much time after work for sex, of course he’s going to relieve himself. He usually does it in that same face down position he likes to get fucked in, biting the sheets to stay quiet. He hates that it’s usually insults from akira or praise from Amon that comes to mind while his hand is wrapped around his cock, but it does the job.

K = Kink (one or more of their kinks): degradation and praise, being dominated, anything that makes him feel like he’s under the control of someone he desperately wants to please. Anything done to him is heavenly if it’s to please his master

L = Location (favorite places to do the do): I think it comes as no surprise that he’d love to fuck in the office. It’s always been a fantasy of his to get pulled into a storage closet during work hours and fucked against the wall, struggling to stay quiet

M = Motivation (what turns them on, gets them going): praise and degradation. I don’t care that I’ve already said it this boy wants to get noticed and told exactly what is thought of him. If he’s good, he deserves a reward doesn’t he? If he’s bad, there’s gotta be something he can do to make up for it. Either way, any compliment or insult he gets from an attractive superior has him uncomfortably crossing his legs

N = No (something they wouldn’t do, turn offs): being ignored/silence. He loves to feel objectified and used, but being completely disregarded as often painful things are done to his body makes him panic when it reminds him too much of being really objectified by kanou. As you can see, there is a dilemma here. He’s found out that he can handle being used as a toy so long as his partner talks to him. As long as he’s reminded that he’s recognized as a person who can give and revoke consent at any time, he can handle any rough treatment

O = Oral (preference in giving or receiving, skill, etc.): giving, and holy hell can he give. That boy sucks dick like he’s dying and the only cure is semen and eats pussy like it’s a four course meal. He loves the feeling of serving them, like it’s a job to prove just how much pleasure he can give and just how much discomfort he can disregard. Either ask him politely or put a spider gag in his mouth and fuck his throat, either way he’d gladly get on his knees

P = Pace (are they fast and rough? slow and sensual? etc.): As fast and rough as possible, he wants his partners to make him their bitch. He wants his legs to shake tomorrow

Q = Quickie (their opinions on quickies, how often, etc.): loves them. Any time, any place, he’s ready to go. He can’t go as rough with these since they don’t have the time for the aftercare he needs afterwards though, but a gentle fuck in back room somewhere is it’s own type of exhilarating

R = Risk (are they game to experiment? do they take risks? etc.): a big part of it for him is being forced out of his comfort zone. Having a vibe in him in public, getting choked, taking a toy inside him he’s pretty sure is too big, it’s all better with the very real embarrassment and nerves. It really could hurt, but he’s been given an order, and he wants to be a good boy doesn’t he?

S = Stamina (how many rounds can they go for? how long do they last?): he can go awhile, it’s not that he has a short refractory period, only that he has no problem being fucked long after he’s already cum

T = Toys (do they own toys? do they use them? on a partner or themselves?): he’s never bought any of his own, but is down for anything his partner wants to use on him

U = Unfair (how much they like to tease): he doesn’t tease, but loves to be teased. Edge him and deny him over and over until he’s a desperate mess

V = Volume (how loud they are, what sounds they make, etc.): he always starts with little grunts and groans, the demand for his partner to stop teasing and just get onto it, but little by little his submissive nature takes over, and those moans and cries flow freely by the end

W = Wild card (a random headcanon for the character): he is a very horny drunk. When enough drinks deep, he has no problem grabbing his partner by the collar and telling them exactly how he wants them to make a mess out of him in filthy detail. Doesn’t matter if they’re home or in the middle of a bar, he’ll be crawling into their lap and grinding on their leg. He’s always humiliated the next day, but in the moment he can’t think about anything but getting railed

X = X-ray (let’s see what’s going on under those clothes): about 6-6.5 inches

Y = Yearning (how high is their sex drive?): so horny all the time holy fuck This man is down horrendously 24/7

Z = Zzz (how quickly they fall asleep afterwards): usually pretty fast, once his partner pulls out of him and gives him those gentle touches and words of praise that marks the beginning of aftercare, he’s rarely awake for more than three minutes. Half the time he’s only asleep for a couple minutes, but he needs that to recover and ease himself out of that submissive state

[becausegoodbye]

Okay, so I adore My Hero Academia, but there are some scenes that really irk me.

I get that sexism and fanservice come with the territory with shounen anime, but somehow I've never gotten used to it. The show will be awesome and fun for dozens of episodes at a time, but then all of a sudden the girl classmates at UA will get tricked into wearing skimpy outfits they're humiliated by, or creepshots will be taken of them without their consent, or they'll be groped and demeaned by someone who simply lies when confronted about it. Depiction doesn't automatically mean endorsement, but these moments are often played for laughs in a way that makes it difficult to sustain a reading of the show as adequately critical of this stuff. It's only occasional, but it's a frustrating stain on an otherwise great show.

The genesis of this project came when I was considering giving my little 9-year-old nephew My Hero Academia to watch (because I knew he'd love it), and I decided that I wasn't actually comfortable giving it to him as-is. When I sat down and looked at it though, I realised that the sexism wasn't exactly ... integral. It was just occasional scenes, usually not at all plot-critical, that mostly felt like they'd been added to an already fully functional story after a dictate from above to include more fanservice. So I set about making a 'nephew cut': a lightly edited version of the show that just got rid of the worst bits of sexism, misogyny, and objectifying fanservice.

There honestly wasn't all that much of it. I only ended up making edits to 17 out of 113 episodes as of the end of season five. I didn't get rid of everything questionable on a gender-politics level – just the worst offenders: the grossest stuff, the really disheartening stuff, the stuff I remembered actively cringing at. This is obviously an extremely subjective endeavour, and other people would inevitably draw the line in different places. But my guiding intuitions were always specifically about my young nephew. 'What would I regret exposing him to?'

I want to stress: this isn't merely a prudish cut of My Hero Academia. Teens being off-colour is fine; Mineta being too horny to live is fine. I'm not trying to make some blanket puritanical bowdlerisation here, and I obviously support the original versions continuing to be available to all who want them. But this edit is specifically about misogyny, and the level of misogyny I'm comfortable introducing into my nephew's life. When a girl character's consent is violated and it's treated as comic relief, that straightforwardly minimises and normalises the violation. When the show punishes a boy for being a perv, but still rewards the viewer with a cheesecake shot of the girls half-dressed as a direct result of the perv's actions, that reinforces the objectification and provides implicit meta-justification for his behaviour. When everyone knows that 'oh, Mineta is just like that', that invites the viewer to similarly laugh off the missing stairs in their own lives. If my nephew was 14, I probably wouldn't have bothered making these edits, but 9? You're a goddamn sponge when you're 9, and if the colourful fun show about superpowers tells you that it's funny when girls get sexually assaulted, I don't think it's a stretch to suppose that that could burrow its way into your intuitions in a way that'll be tricky to dig out later.

I'm not a professional editor by any stretch of the imagination, and this is honestly a pretty clumsy job. Some scenes I was able to cut in their entirety fairly seamlessly, but there are plenty of other noticeable 'jumps'. Even with that, though, I've been struck by how much I prefer these versions. I made the edits for my nephew (because there's so much cool stuff in this show outside of those scenes that I wanted him to be able to enjoy), but for my money, it's just a much more fun show when you don't have to worry as much about weird misogyny being played for laughs around the next corner. I've made these available publicly hoping that maybe someone else will find them useful, but even if they don't – even if literally the only person who ever sees them is my nephew – I consider the project well worth having done.

My Hero Academia - becausegoodbye's Less-Sexist Edit [NOTE: I originally had the entire show up for download with my edited episodes among them, but I eventually needed the Google Drive space for other things. So I've trimmed it down to just hosting the *edited* episodes, which you can download and slot into your own files of the show if desired.]

. For the curious, these are the specific scenes that I edited out:

S02E02 - 9:52 - Mt Lady sex-appealing her way to some free food, then being shamed for it by Kamui Woods.

S02E06 - 10:30, 12:35- Mineta plotting to trick the girls into wearing skimpy cheerleader outfits, which humiliates them. (Note: they wear the outfits in so many scenes, it wasn't possible to edit out the entirety of this subplot. So the girls still inexplicably appear a bunch of times wearing the cheerleader outfits, which isn't ideal, but at least the whole deception/humiliation angle is cut.)

S02E20 - 5:17 - Mineta going on a creepy little misogynistic rant about how "all women are demons at heart". 11:15 - Mineta peeping in on the girls' locker room. (This is a classic example of the show trying to 'have it both ways' imo, where Mineta is punished for his perviness, but the audience still gets the cheesecake shot of the girls half-undressed as a direct result of his actions. This reinforces the objectification of the girls and provides an unsettling meta-justification for Mineta's violating actions, and it stinks.)

S03E01 - 9:20, 10:01 - This one was a bit tricky. I would have liked to have edited out the entire scheme by Mineta and Kaminari to use the pool to see the girls in their swimsuits, but it's a little too embedded into everything. Their scheme also doesn't work and the girls get the better end of the deal, so I guess it's not the worst of it? I've taken the half-measure of just editing out the cheesecake shot where they're imagining the girls in bikinis, and then also the bit where Mineta's like "hey, school swimsuits are still pretty hot" and Kaminari says "have some standards, dude", just because the implications there about how desire is supposed to work are ... not great.

S03E02 - 4:37 - Butt shot of the girls as Mineta slavers over them. (This one wouldn't be cut if it was just Mineta being horny, but again, it's when the show makes aesthetic choices that lean into the objectification that it enters a different category.) 16:38 - Fanservice shot of the girls bathing. (The whole storyline of Mineta trying to climb the fence to perv on them and getting stopped by Kota is a little too plot-critical to cut in its entirety – particularly as Midoriya then saves Kota from falling – but I've at least cut the 'having it both ways' cheesecake shot.)

S03E13 - Mineta's a boundary-crossing creep in this ep in a bunch of ways, the more egregious and easily cuttable being: 9:13 - drooling over the proximity to the girls' dorms. 13:42 - more drooling at the prospect of nonconsensually rummaging through the girls' stuff. 14:49 - "Guys like this always have a super pervy side". 17:16 - Smelling Hagakure's underwear.

S03E14 - 12:31 - Mei falling on top of Midoria and the godawful 'boingggg' of her breasts.

S03E25 - 4:52 - Mineta crossing a line in his level of creepiness towards Nejire.

S04E02 - 20:00 - Sir Nighteye 'tickle torturing' Bubble Girl while she's literally strapped to a machine, which is deeply sadistic and uncomfortable. (I had to make a bunch of tricky little edits to make it work, but the larger scene - Midoriya meeting Nighteye and failing to make him laugh - still holds together.)

S04E03 - 1:30 to 5:39 - a bunch of little edits to be consistent with the changes to the previous episode. 19:04 - Mineta staring at Mina's breasts and the show kinda doing the same.

S04E16 - 9:23 - Weird oversexual interaction between Camie and the kids she's supposed to be babysitting.

S04E18 - 6:16 - Kaminari's demeaning 'maid cafe' idea.

S05E01 - 8:19 - Mineta leering at Yaoyorozu. (Not the worst of Mineta by a long shot, but everyone else in this montage gets to have their moment of coolness uninterrupted, and I just feel that Yaoyorozu deserves that too.)

S05E03 - 10:28 - Ururaka recalling Midoria's encounter with Mei's breasts from S03E14.

S05E11 - 6:01 - Mineta sexually assaulting Mina by deliberately pushing himself into her breasts.

S05E12 - 3:32 - Mina referencing the above sexual assault and Mineta lying about it, pretending it was an accident.

S05E13 - 5:40 - Cheesecake butt-and-boob shots of Mt Lady and Midnight. 16:40 - Mineta taking nonconsensual creepshots of the girls at the Christmas party.

[invisibleenvy]

A lot of normal dudes who don’t recognize misogyny as an issue that impacts women on an educational and occupational level, can also acknowledge that they have sexist/misogynistic friends who they wouldn’t want you around.

Guess what? Those men making cringe jokes privately with you, who hold objectifying views & probably treat their girlfriends(when they can get one) like shit- those men also hold day jobs where they get to have a voice in decision making at a company level. They are contributing to an environment where THEY KNOW they can’t talk like that, so as women we work side by side with these men who might even *seem reasonable* who go home and talk like that in a discord call or around the dining room table or at the bar with their friends and other male colleagues afterwards. We just have to live with it.

I know nurses, government workers, warehouse workers and men holding other positions who have either been the ones making those jokes, or the ones laughing right along with them, right in front of me. You can’t tell me that none of their private personal views leak into the way they view their colleagues and make decisions at work. Those jokes and comments get laughed at in private and insidiously seep into the behaviors and thoughts of those who experience them.

Personally, I have a hard time accepting this. Even though I’ve overlooked it & sought to fit into male spaces by being “cool” with the way some men talk about women, I can’t say it hasn’t impacted the way I view male/female relationships. It has solidified a lot of fears I had when I was young, about how my usefulness to a man would always seem to run out once it was clear I wouldn’t be dating them. When I see how sexualized any perception of femininity is portrayed as in media starting at a young age, I am starting to feel sick. I am starting to get really tired of the pressure and expectations surrounding the dichotomy of “as a professional woman you must avoid sexualizing yourself at all costs, you must clear any indications of having ownership of sexuality off of your socials, and you need to watch your words” at the SAME EXACT TIME AS I see the men in my life gravitate towards women who are more sexually explicit, as social media platforms reward female sexuality, as the media we consume revolves around various male characters of various backgrounds all trying to “get the girl” which stakes in the male mind from a young age that women are a conquest and an obstacle in the journey to be successful. In order to be desirable I must portray myself in a sexual manner. In order to be successful, I need to avoid portraying myself in a sexual manner. There is no room for me or what I want in that conversation.

Let’s talk about the range of female behavior that is considered sexual versus male behavior. 1 of these groups can post topless sweaty post gym/beach photos on their primary social media. One of these groups can post photos designed to accentuate whatever body part they want to show off without being perceived as sexual. They can wear shorts as long or short as they want, tops as low cut as they want, socks and shoes of any length and kind. They can party and prank and LIVE. There are types of photos that would absolutely be considered inappropriate for anyone to post online, and that happens, but I have to be SO CAREFUL about what I’m wearing and how much cleavage or leg I might be showing in anything I post online. I can’t post things from certain locations without potential scrutiny, and the things I do post get me unsolicited DMs left and right, a completely separate issue on its own. You just get used to the constant barrage after a while because what are you supposed to do? Not post? Have a team approve each post? I genuinely wonder how many men have ever had to second guess a social media post for work related reasons, when they weren’t doing something illegal. I can guarantee you that almost every woman over 21 years old has second guessed posting something pretty innocent online because of what somebody else might say or think. Because of consequences. The weight of a million eyes is on us at all times, whether we want it there or not. It’s not a choice. I don’t get to refuse to work with certain people, or opt out of the life I’m living. I don’t get to say “ok I just won’t post that then” because what kind of freedom is that? Feeling trapped in my own life because of what others might think about me? I hate that I deleted 5 Instagram posts a few weeks ago when I was interviewing for a promotion. There wasn’t ANYTHING wrong with any of the posts. I was fully clothed in all of them, not doing anything shady or illegal. I simply can’t “give the wrong impression” so it’s a risk I couldn’t take. Because of my appearance.

All I wanted to say is just that I’m tired. I am so tired. I have put a lot of effort into gently guiding others away from the thinking and behaviors that lead to this, but it’s so hard when it’s ingrained at such a young age. I love my professional side and my sexual side, and I just wish I had more ownership over all of it. I don’t want to make my decisions for others anymore. I’m tired of getting celebrated privately for things that people will turn around and treat me like shit for later. If y’all want women to keep fucking you & sending nudes & being more brave about what they want, stop punishing them for doing those things. Stop demonizing sexualized women and blacklisting them from having a professional life. Stop laughing at your friend’s shitty jokes about “bitches” stop and start paying attention to the language used around women and feminine behaviors/items/hobbies and question the negative framework around those things. If you enjoy something a woman can provide you with, then why exactly would you punish it, shame her, embarrass her? Why would there be any negative connotation?

Please for the love of god in 2022 acknowledge that sexism is real, that your friends shitty comments are hurting real people, and that as women, we are nearly powerless in changing the perception those men have about what is acceptable or right. We are counting on the normal dudes to stop interacting with that stuff, to stop laughing at those jokes, and to start asking these men why they feel that way and if a woman made them feel that way, why are they then applying it to women as a whole? These are the same people who get defensive and will try to argue that women hate men but as a woman myself I can and have and will criticize women who want to dump on men as a whole. Even though we’re in the more oppressed position, I fullheartedly believe that toxic behavior surrounding the perception of men as a whole only worsens the divide & isn’t accurate of the majority of people.

I’m doing my part, please do yours.