#why can’t i apply this much analysis to like. school

[tenebriskukris]

Oshi No Ko Chapter 151 - My Thoughts/Analysis

It’s another setup chapter but we’re still in the beginning of a new arc so that’s to be expected. As always, spoilers for Oshi No Ko Ch 151 below.

The chapter starts with what I can only describe as the narrative glazing Kana’s acting skills. Aside from the fact that it shows that she’s recently premiered in that movie that Shima directed, it really isn’t necessary. The timeline of this manga has always been stuck in some nebulous mess of uncertainty for long enough that it could have been inserted anywhere within the last few chapters or so with ease.

Of course this entire montage of showing how good Kana’s acting ability actually is would ring a lot more true if she didn’t whore herself out to Shima in order to get a role. Much as I dislike how that entire situation went for Kana—and so much of that small mini arc in general—it undercuts Kana’s skills as an actor if her big break was because of Shima taking pity on Kana. Akane and Ruby were able to secure acting jobs without going to those lengths and were able to reach greater heights of popularity without it, so why can’t Kana achieve those same heights without couch casting?

Now that I think about it, I don’t think we’ve actually seen Kana get a role through her own efforts alone. The Sweet Today role was because Kaburagi was taking advantage of Kana in general as an actor; her role in Tokyo Blade was because he wanted to play both Kana and Akane off of each other, and even her role in the movie was because Kaburagi pulled some strings to get her on board. Even the intermission that focused on Kana and Akane basically reeked of industry nepotism, and I don’t need to reiterate what Kana was about to do to secure a role from Shima.

My thoughts on Kana’s acting ability aside, we settle on Kana and Aqua’s “date”. Kana wearing her old uniform even after she’s graduated is uh—a choice. That’s certainly some form of cosplay.

Aqua being surprised that this entire meeting is a date is—well. Kana I think if you want to actually make a play for Aqua you need to actually tell this shit to him beforehand. As far as he knows this is a casual outing with one of his friends. I expected her to do something a bit different when faced with the prospect of actually wooing Aqua, more specifically trying to actually take steps to woo him. Maybe I gave Kana too much credit. Akane’s manipulations aside, she hasn’t intentionally taken many steps to actually steer Aqua into considering her as a romantic partner in the series.

The baseball scene??? Now that’s a callback. I’m starting to see where Kana is heading with this whole mess. While Kana may look back at that time as a casual moment between two like minded people, it’s also the time where Aqua tried to vent some of his frustrations of his own Issues(™) and Kana quite easily rebuked them in favor of talking about romantic prospects. After that encounter, it doesn’t escape my gaze that Aqua hasn’t talked to Kana about his own Issues unless heavily pressed.

Oooooh future talk. Kind of hypocritical from the child actor that didn’t take steps to get into college to press people about their own future, but I don’t mean to pick at an old wound since it’s the equivalent of Kana making small talk. And Aqua’s thinking of applying to medical school??? We’d seen some similar implications go through his head during one of the interludes, but it’s nice to finally get some form of confirmation that he’s at least thought about a life after his revenge—even if he is just saying this to get Kana off his back.

Kana unintentionally dredging up Aqua’s trauma with her whole speech here. It’s a sight better than how she intentionally triggered him in Tokyo Blade, but I’m sure that doesn’t make Aqua feel much better. 

Aqua covering his face when confronted with Kana’s insight is cute, I gotta admit. The fact that it hides his star eyes in this panel here is also noteworthy. 

That dream came true when I was five years old. And Kana suffered through a dry spell in spite of it—or arguably because of it. Perhaps she can look at things with hindsight now that she’s managed to carve out a certain niche for herself in the industry but we know that Kana isn’t there just yet. Frill is a perfect example of what someone at the top of the industry looks like, and I don’t think anyone else in our cast aside from maybe Taiki is there just yet. One good movie and a small hint of stardom does not a national actress make. 

In fairness to Kana, her saying that she’s achieved her dream is a very in-character thing for her to do. Time and time again we’ve seen her immaturity and naivete undercut everything she sets out to achieve. Her inability to realize that she was being taken advantage of by Kaburagi in the earlier parts of the manga; the fact that she wasn’t able to remain professional with Aqua when he was avoiding her; her attempts to secure a role with Shima despite knowing his nature full well—the list goes on. If she really thinks that she’s become a national actress after tasting just a hint of success then that just plays into Kana’s faults even further.

I have a new dream now. I want to be the only person you look at. I couldn’t quite help but laugh as soon as Kana said this. Okay Kana, you want to be Aqua's idol? What have you done to actually achieve that? Because you have some gigantic shoes to fill in the form of Ai and Rubysarina. Her entire arc throughout the story has been towards actually being a successful actress, so this pivot leaves a bad taste in my mouth. I don’t even like Kana as a character and I’m complaining that this entire interaction did her dirty! 

The fact that Aqua didn’t even catch Kana’s baseball when she’s said this has to be some of the most godawful hit you over the head symbolism I’ve even seen from the series. There are college writing students out there that wouldn’t pull stuff like this even if they were held up at gunpoint! You’d think that an actual published series like this would have editors that strike this shit down but apparently not.

It’s not because of the fact that this metaphor it’s simple that irks me as much as it does. It’s the fact that it’s so obvious that it basically spells out that Kana’s attempts at trying to become Aqua’s star are going to be flushed down the toilet. In terms of being an idol, Kana hasn’t done anything else to engender Aqua’s devotion. As Aqua’s friend, she’s certainly become an important aspect of his life, but not so much in terms of being an idol. She does not inspire or drive Aqua’s motivations in the way an idol should—at least in my opinion.

What a fucking chapter. I’m just glad there isn’t a break next week so we can quickly see how this mess is going to turn out. At this point I just want some goddamn consequences to happen to Kana so having her lose Aqua basically sitting on her hands for the entire series is some good fucking karma. Crying and bitching about one’s love life constantly is absolutely not the characteristic of someone going to win it all as the series reaches its endgame.

I was actually surprised that there was so much talk about Kana grabbing death flags in this chapter. I mean, really, it’s like everyone forgot that most of the main cast has contractual immortality until after the interviews. Even then, Kana really hasn’t been important enough to the story since Tokyo Blade to justify any purpose of her dying aside from shock value. Even if there was something like that planned out for the next few chapters, the tension is going to be undercut knowing that most of the main cast is going to survive without any issue.

Once again the elephant in the room has to be Ruby. It’s kind of difficult to root for Kana in this instance—even besides all the reasons I’d listed so far—because we still don’t know what Aqua thinks about the kiss in Chapter 143. Anything regarding romance is stuck in a pool of indecision since that chapter and it simultaneously undercuts everything the narrative is trying to even do with Kana and Akane’s efforts to woo Aqua while leaving the actual plot of the story on the wayside. I just hope that we’ll be getting a peek into Aqua’s head while we’re unfortunately saddled back in with this romance plotline.

[saezurufeels]

@yoptics said: Great toughts @saezurufeels, the only thing I dont agree so much is the part of Yashiro wanting to make Doumeki Jelouse. For me it was more a response to his broken heart. Like when he saw Kageyame with Kuga and he went and blowjob dowmeki in almost the moment he past for the door. For me, was more a defense mechanism

Hi! Thanks! And, sure, that’s fair :) That scene was always a bit suspicious to me, even when the chapter first came out, I thought… did Yahsiro REALLY think he could get into Inami’s car that easily. That he could just stroll past Doumeki in the middle of an argument, and then hop into Inami’s car? Also knowing that Doumeki doesn’t fuck with Inami, Yashiro thought that? It’s something someone would do in middle school in front of their crush, even if they knew they wouldn’t stop them, you know? To make their crush look and think. Anyways, I let the thought go, but it came back to me after chapter 50, because now it’s clear to me that Yashiro may be testing the waters to see how Doumeki feels. Perhaps it started, even unconsciously, back then. The situation set itself up pretty conveniently, so Yashiro may have acted on impulse. But it really could be either, or both tbh.

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@omoteura said: this was a well-stated and thoughtful analysis! i enjoyed reading it.

Thank you for saying so, I’m glad you liked it <3 <3

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@ioveiava said: hi, great thoughts! just want to help confirming some things, doumeki saw wounds on yashiro's wrists and said "you like this kind of things huh?" and tried to tie him up but yashiro said "hey, there's no need to do that" (applying that he doesn't actually like it) and then doumeki was like "oh? so why did you let inami did it but not me? do you actually want to be treated gently?" sooo yes i agree yashiro subtly giving hint and doumeki actually notices it

Yes, great point, he did say that didn’t he! I was thinking specifically about when Doumeki said, “you have a lustful body that can’t be helped,” and Yashiro responded with something like, “you’re the one who's making my body respond like this”… What does Yashiro really mean? Either he means, “you’re one to talk, when YOU’RE the one doing this to ME.” Or Yashiro is implying that his body responds like that because it’s Doumeki doing those things to him. If it’s the second meaning, then it really changes things… that would be a huge hint.

[healeroflightanddark]

Collegebound, Chapter 8: Undeclared

Yuya had already decided that he wanted to major in drama before he had even graduated from high school. But now that he was actually in college, he realized that there were other similar degrees he could major in.

“Agh!” the poor tomato groaned one morning at breakfast. “I thought I knew what major I wanted! Now I’m having second thoughts!”

“Really? Why?” asked Yuto, who had brought homemade melonpan to share with his friends. “You’ve spent the last sixteen years saying you wanted to be a performer. Why the sudden change of heart?”

“No, no, I still want to be a performer, but I did a little more research and found out that there are multiple majors that relate to that particular career path, and Drama might actually not be the major I want to pursue…” Yuya sighed.

“What other majors are there?” Yugo asked. Yuya picked up the pamphlet he’d been reading, “There’s Drama, Theater, Performing Arts, and Acting.”

Yuri blinked. “And there’s… a difference between those four majors?”

“Apparently,” Yuya sighed. “According to this pamphlet, Drama focuses on the study of dramatic literature, theater history, and the theoretical aspects of theater, as well as practical skills such as acting and directing. Theater focuses on the practical aspects of theater, including acting, directing, stagecraft, and production. Performing Arts encompasses a broader range of disciplines, including theater, dance, and music, and may offer a more interdisciplinary approach to performance and artistic expression. And Acting is specifically focused on the development of acting skills, including character analysis, scene study, and performance techniques.”

“Ohhh,” Yuto, Yuri, and Yugo spoke in unison. Yuya put his pamphlet down and poked at his tamagoyaki. “You can see why I’m now questioning what major I want now.”

“Mhm,” Yuri agreed. “Have you already declared your major?”

Yuya shook his head. “I was originally planning on applying to Ryutoshi as a Drama major, but when I saw the other three majors it made me hesitate. So I applied as Undeclared.”

“Well, you have until the end of our second year to decide,” Yuto said. “And don’t worry, you’re not alone. I still haven’t been able to decide my major either. I can’t pick between Philosophy, History, Art History, Liberal Arts, or Fine Arts.”

“I wanna major in Engineering, but there are a bazillion different kinds of Engineering majors!” Yugo said, sulking a little. “There’s like… Computer Engineering and Mechanical Engineering and Electrical Engineering and like… so much Engineering. So now I have to decide which Engineering course I wanna major in.”

“I’m pretty sure I wanna major in Botany, but Horticulture also sounds interesting to me, so I’m a little unsure,” Yuri admitted. “And Biology in general seems fascinating as well. So I guess we’re all Undeclared at the moment, hm?”

Yuto, Yugo, and Yuya all nodded and hummed in agreement. Yuto smiled a little. “Well, we’ve got two years to figure it all out. That should be plenty of time!”

[stevensaus]

Ableism Is So Embedded That Researchers Don't Realize What Their Study Says

Recently disabilities got added to the classifications for medical research, and given studies like this, it's about damn time. I first saw it published in HCPLive a week ago: Autism Diagnosis at Toddler Age May Not Persist to Elementary School Years. I hoped at the time that it was another example of bad science reporting. It wasn't. The actual study, "Persistence of Autism Spectrum Disorder From Early Childhood Through School Age," has so much embedded ableism that the researchers do not seem to realize what their study actually says. The study says that toddlers diagnosed with autism may not be diagnosed as autistic once they reach elementary school age. The entire design of the study disregards the autistic experience and voices of those it examines. It does not consider that the children, as they grow older, may be learning to mask to hide their neurodivergence in order to better fit in. The authors also completely treat autism as simply how inconvenient it is to allistic people -- something that is amplified in the reporting (emphasis mine): All of the children in the study received interventions based on the diagnosis. The most common intervention used was applied behavior analysis, which is a therapy that focuses on increasing helpful behaviors and decreasing unhelpful ones. -WebMD If you don't understand why that is problematic, take a moment and read "The Casual Disregard of the Neurodivergent Voice." The study does not examine how autistic children think or learn or perceive information, and instead focuses entirely on how much they meet disability criteria. The authors even invent something called "non-persistent autism" because otherwise their whole framework falls apart. They came so close when they said that those with higher baseline scores and women tended to have this "non-persistent autism". Female children were more likely to no longer meet the criteria, as were those with "higher baseline adaptive skills," according to the study findings. -Fox News What the study actually shows is that the diagnostic criteria is kind of full of crap, as we realize that quite a few people -- most notably women -- have not been properly diagnosed with autism. The study is not total garbage. It simply does not show what the authors think it shows. What it actually is showing, as a user on Mastodon pointed out, is not anything about autism "going away". The study shows that autistic people are more likely to misdiagnosed as allistic once they are no longer toddlers. The information is right there, but because the authors are coming at it from an allistic point of view, they don't see that they've shown that the existing mechanisms for diagnosing autism are imprecise at best and deeply flawed at worst, which is exactly what the autism advocacy community has been saying for a long time. Nearly all prior autism research needs to be approached with this kind of skepticism. For example, a 2014 study implies that PTSD in a mother is a risk factor for autism, but what they were probably actually measuring was undiagnosed autistic mothers who had CPTSD from being autistic (and female-presenting) in our society. As they did not even recognize that possibility in the study, it's impossible to tell for sure. These fundamental problems in study design also indirectly give a lot of support to the idea and validity of self diagnosis. Because if the official diagnostic criteria is so flawed that it can't pick up autism in children once they're a little bit older, then how can it possibly be accurate enough for adults? Featured Image by Michal Jarmoluk from Pixabay Read the full article

[theblogs2024]

Why And How To Develop a Gamified Simulation Program

Acquiring staff members to interact with schooling and improvement generally is a serious obstacle — especially In terms of People boring matters. You’ll know which subjects I'm talking about mainly because your workforce will be repeatedly looking to prevent them or executing the bare least to have by and go forward. You’ll see their eyes glaze above when the same slide deck appears on their monitor they’ve observed for the last 5 years.

Of course, loads of this teaching can’t be prevented. It’s about compliance. It’s business enterprise-significant. It’s about basically endeavoring to Obtain your workforce to carry out at the highest in their video game.

So Let's say I told you this teaching can actually be entertaining, that your groups can love accomplishing it and that you could see a company impression you could measure?

Making Extra Highly effective Discovering And Growth Systems

Because the marketing and advertising director of a company that gives gamified simulation training options, I think there is a whole lot we will adapt with the gaming sector With regards to education our groups and executing it properly. Should the Sims four, a sport that simulates each mundane Portion of lifetime — from eating and sleeping to washing — can draw in ten million month-to-month active end users, then gamifying your schooling has the potential to remodel small business-important-but-dreaded training into anything your staff will basically choose to do.

Far more To suit your needs New Stability Warning Issued For Google s 1 8 Billion Gmail People Congress Introduces A Game Changing Crypto Bill Amid 350 Billion Bitcoin Ethereum BNB And XRP Selling price Pump ‘Anxiety The Walking Dead’ Year eight, Episode 4 Overview: It's possible Enjoy At Double Pace Developing Self-confidence

The Sims has proved it — we appreciate a daily life-simulator game. Exactly what is it which makes us equally as inclined to spend an hour pretending to scrub our kitchens and throw a supper bash as we're to really do those things in true everyday living?

In regards to the psychology of gaming, especially in everyday life simulators such as Sims, I feel It truly is due to the fact we’re offered the present of independence — the liberty for making choices and acquire matters Mistaken as repeatedly as we like with nominal repercussions. We’re not worried to give matters a go.

That’s why gamified 3D simulated environments could be a useful training arena for employees to build skills sustainably.

Mastering And Repetition: Why Exercise Will make Fantastic

There’s a cause that experts hardly ever end practising their capabilities. The sizes in the goalposts as well as the ball don’t change, but that doesn’t stop Cristiano Ronaldo from teaching everyday.

And of course, this doesn’t just implement to athletics. It’s not simply that repetition and follow can result in much better performance; there might be a measurable cognitive impact, also. Especially, analysis indicates that retrieval exercise supports your memory — so far more practice could lead on to better memory precision and precision.

Individual Improvement Plus your Base Line

On the subject of Discovering along with the impact on a company's fiscal general performance, it’s no surprise that 2018 Udemy (via Lifestyle Amp) data observed that top-engagement providers have a tendency to invest more on Finding out. Additionally, the exact same study located that 70% of businesses that extra online Finding out experienced an increase in profits.

But I do not believe employees constantly make improvements to from annual instruction, given that the repetition and apply intervals could possibly be too prolonged. Providing your team the ability to apply as usually as they want implies providing them the equipment they should understand and produce continuously.

Being familiar with Your People today Through Simulated Choices

It might be complicated for leaders to understand the people today they regulate to allow them to encourage them, help them and assist them reach their peak overall performance.

An more mature review carried out by an undergraduate college student discovered proof to advise that the way people behave during the Sims may very well be a projection of their real-everyday living values and temperament qualities. Whenever you’re looking at how your personnel respond and respond in virtual environments, you will be seeing a mirrored image of their temperament qualities.

If you're able to realize people superior, you’ll know how to get the ideal out of them And the way they can get the top outside of Functioning for your personal Business.

Guidelines for Planning A Gamified Simulation Training Software

By creating instruction that mixes psychology, gaming and learning, you can provide corporate learners with pleasurable, partaking and efficient teaching.

You should ensure the gamified simulation situations you employ are separately personalized for your enterprise and produce to lifetime precise experiences from your workplace reality. Ensure your personnel have the opportunity to answer in serious time and match their results against their colleagues to make pleasant Opposition.

One more spot to take into consideration is that you need to assure your teaching offers a safer setting to your staff members to create errors and discover from them.

You may be wondering why, if there’s a prospect of finding factors Improper, there’s any inspiration for gamers (and learners) to receive it proper. The answer could possibly lie in SDT (self-perseverance concept), and why the right know-how and application of behavioral psychology is important In regards to developing gamified simulation schooling with influence.

SDT tells us that humans have an innate require for competence, autonomy and relatedness. Hence, it is best to make certain the schooling you design and style will make personnel feel like they're mastering techniques, that they've psychological flexibility and that they're emotionally connected to Some others.

To make this enthusiasm in your team to keep participating with all your simulated Understanding natural environment, you’ll need to grasp The essential psychological needs that numerous aspects of the sport fulfill. A person 2017 study showed that games that emphasize flexible procedures bring on gamers emotion more capable. Interactional aspects can offer thoughts of relatedness.

It's also advisable to really encourage workforce to learn and play via your modules numerous instances. Then, you ought to use the data from their instruction sessions to determine which areas they wrestle with probably the most. This will likely aid you in supporting your staff grow to be a lot more confident in these spots. Productive education does not merely need the coach to layout the modules effectively but also to be certain they will monitor and assist staff members effectively.

You may say you don’t choose to change the game; you should develop it. And I do think equally your staff members along with your shareholders will enjoy you for it.

Learn more info. check out here: Virtual Reality Training

[redreadredemption]

OK ITS HERE! THE PART OF DRACULA THAT INFLUENCED MY ENTIRE PERSONALITY!

If you don’t know what I’m talking about, check your email. Read Jonathan’s entry for May 16th, and then come back. I absolutely refuse to spoil it for anyone.

Spoilers ahead

Long story short, when I was 14, I read the line “yes, I too can love” and it DESTROYED me. I still thought that I was cishet at the time, so I don’t look for queer subtext the way that I do now, and I had a full on crisis because I thought that I was misinterpreting the scene. Surely it was just… male friendship? Maybe saying “I love you” to your homies was more acceptable back then?

I still have the copy of Dracula that I annotated at the time, so I have a pretty good idea of what was going through my head at the time (the yellow post it’s are from about 6 months ago when I was looking through my notes and decided to write down my reactions to my reactions. I don’t know why I did that but they’re funny sometimes so I left them. I’ve got no clue when I put the pink post it there)

So anyway, once I finished drawing Lenny faces, I looked up “Dracula LGBT” and very quickly found hundreds of thousands of articles and essays breaking down just how fucking gay this book is. And I read a lot of them. I started reading other short stories about vampires that the authors talked about and somehow took at least another 6 months to realize that I’m queer after going on more than one rant to the people in my life about Carmilla because did you know that they kiss in that one? Laura and Carmilla kiss each other in a book written in the 1870s, did you know that? Carmilla is supposed to be a villain but she’s sooooo romantic, let me read you a passage, but oh no I’m not gay I’m just really fascinated by the history. I’m straight.

If it is not flagrantly obvious, I am not cishet. The time it took me to realize this is embarrassing, especially because I’m like, 90% sure that I went on at least one of these vampire rants to the poor guy who was my boyfriend at the time.

I’ll save some other rants about why vampires are gay as fuck for later because I’m at school right now and don’t have access to a lot of my notes, but I just wanted to share this because this is why Dracula means so much to me. There’s so much wrong with this book, and I’ll be the first to tell you that, but it holds a very special place in my heart. I don’t contribute my entire queer awakening to this one scene, there was other stuff going on, but it was definitely a contributor.

Dracula also really fueled the flame for my love of critical analysis. Like I said earlier, this scene prompted me to read other short stories about vampires, and at this point, it’s a game of “how long until this gets homoerotic” whenever I pick up a new story, and when I stumble across the rare text that can’t really be analyzed through a queer lens, there’s still other themes that I can analyze the fuck out of. Seriously, vampires are a very cool metaphor because they can pass as human for the most part and only reveal their monstrous tendencies later, so authors have a tendency to apply traits that are considered morally wrong, like gambling or… gay sex.

I don’t expect this to turn everyone on tumblr into Dracula scholars, but I hope that today’s email meant something to people. Maybe not the same way that it meant something to me, but I’m already seeing a couple posts like “wait, I’m not crazy right? Is this what I think it is” and I want y��all to know that it is EXACTLY what you think it is and you are NOT crazy

[ushalin]

Female Socialisation & Beauty: The Highs & Lows of Being a High School Girl

Or, if you’re a geeky, intelligent, “weird”, non-makeup wearing, non-shaving, openly-radfem, openly-separatist, openly-lesbian high school girl, it’s really just the lows. 

First post on RadBlr. Was on RadTwt as Alora/@missypilled (rip). Misogyny in school is possibly driving me insane. 

I have very long hair (I’d like to cut it but am not allowed to). I don’t style it. I always wear it in a ponytail for convenience, otherwise it’s irritating and gets in the way (which, of course, is an issue boys never deal with). I’ve been harassed—genuine harassment—by girls so many times over the years for never doing anything with my hair, or never having it down. I am treated SO much better by girls if I have it down; this has been consistent over the years, from Year 3 to Year 10. I look prettier with my hair down, and of course more feminine. I don’t care; it’s goddamn inconvenient. I’m here to function properly, not look attractive. 

A few days ago, I tested out this theory once again by having my hair down during class. Girls who usually only talk to me when they want to make fun of me for being a feminist were suddenly friendly and chatty. They stopped giving me sideway glances in class. Something so seemingly insignificant as hair style (or lack thereof) plays such a large part in treatment. They spend hours on their hair, I clearly don’t; I wash and brush it, that’s it. I don’t care about it like they do and it angers them. They distance themselves from me. Exactly how they’re trained to react. 

No surprise this experience applies to my zero-makeup face (the ones who treat me worse are the ones who wear the most makeup; I hold a metaphorical mirror up to them and make them ask themselves, “Why DO I wear all this?” and they hate it, they can’t bear to face the reality) and my hairy body. I have never worn makeup or shaved to see if it makes a difference and I never will, but we all know they would treat me much better if I did (the boys also mock my hairy body, far worse—even sexually harassing me for it [I beat up the boy who sexually harassed me by making inappropriate comments about my pubic hair lmao]). Obviously, this treatment has worsened since I came out as lesbian. 

I don’t care about approval or acceptance, thankfully. But I do think about this a lot. And I feel sad. Not for myself, but for these girls. Because they’ve been brainwashed. Because female socialisation has taught them to attack and mock any girl who doesn't conform to expectations of us (the things I’ve heard girls say in the changing rooms about some random girl who doesn’t shave her “vagina” [vulva...], dear God... wish I could find out who she was though, I want to be friends), any girl who escapes our hellish socialisation; you're a lesbian? You're a feminist (a radfem no less)? You're a separatist? You're beauty-free? Say goodbye to 90% of female friendships in school (ESPECIALLY high school, especially in the later part of school). Oh, are you a geek as well?* A nerd? Intelligent? Know your place, female! Partially writing this because I got laughed at, stared at and whispered about for a solid three minutes today for putting my hand up and giving the teacher a high-level analysis on the quote 'O, I am fortune's fool!'—this all came mostly from girls. One started choking with laughter??? Never seen any geeky or nerdy boys treated like that. Never witnessed them scathingly talked about for answering a question well. I wouldn't even call myself a nerd, I never put my hand up, I only do if no one else knows the answer. I didn’t even sound nerdy lmao? 

*Thinking about the treatment of the gay boy who’s into planes and NASA vs the treatment of the lesbian girl who’s into Doctor Who is 🥴 it’s really something. 

Female socialisation is evil. Truly evil. It teaches girls to keep away from those who don’t conform, to only interact when harassing us and attempting to coerce us into conforming to expectations of womyn—which of course keeps them from developing female solidarity with us (because we are dangerous; we are the deviants who could influence them, who could free them from their shackles), and it tries to keep us from developing solidarity with them because we wouldn’t want to be friends with cruel people. 

Society tells us female friendships are fake and insincere, that we’ll never have the depth male friendships have. That girls are bitchy and catty and love causing drama, but boys are so simple and peaceful. It’s drilled into us from our first year at school. 

Obviously, this is bullshit. I don’t need to explain how moids are incapable of having true bonds. Female friendship is a beautiful thing.All these things which girls apparently are? They’re socialised into being that if they are. Of course, we can’t acknowledge patriarchy is the cause of this, no, girls are just naturally evil bitches and a plethora of other misogynistic slurs, and, hey, you should focus on male relationships instead of female friendships, put your boyfriend over your friends! 

But as these girls who avoid this one aspect of socialisation are ostracised and disliked, they’re pushed into another section of female socialisation: they believe these lies about girls and female friendships. They’re treated like this because girls are catty and spiteful and snakes. It’s not because of any deeper reasons, it’s just because this is the way girls are. I’ve never come to this conclusion, but I can’t tell you the amount of (female :/) adults who have offered me this explanation when I come to them about my troubles. 

If I talk about all the other shit I’ve experienced at school for being lesbian and for being a radfem, this post would be a mile long. I’m sure as hell going to write something about that later though. But Jesus. I can tell you now the only time I’ve seen female solidarity at school is when OSA girls have come together to harass a lesbian. 

And if you girls find me here, like you did my Twitter, where you harassed me and revealed my personal information... like I said before: you won’t stop me from fighting for female liberation. Nothing you do gets to me. All I feel for you—all I will ever feel for you—is pity. You’re so young, I still hope there’s time for you to develop class consciousness. 

Schools are breeding grounds for misogyny. It’s hell where boys’ sexual harassment is rife and unrelenting, and female socialisation is shoved at you constantly and if for a single second you resist it, they will come for you and they will never stop. 

Fuck this world. Screw this world for making girls suffer. We’re children. We’re goddamn children and we have to go through this. Fuck moids and fuck moid-lovers. The horrors girls, especially teenage girls, go through would be considered morally illegal in any fair, womyn-loving world. But we’re in this world, where male supremacy has reigned for millennia and will continue to do so for a very long time. I hate it. No one thinks of the girl children. No one cares about us, not even each other. I’ve seen what my female peers have done to become numb to it. It is horrifying and heart-breaking. We deserve so much better.

[immaturityofthomasastruc]

Lila Rossi: I’d Say She’s a Good Villain, but Then I’d Be Lying (300 Follower Special)

Deception and cunning are easily two of the most important traits an antagonist could have. It shows that even if they don't have the strength to overcome obstacles, their wit is more than enough. This kind of trait is why characters like Lex Luthor, David Xanatos, and Princess Azula are so beloved, simply because of how intelligent they can be as villains and pose a real threat to the heroes.

It's clear that the Miraculous Ladybug writers want Lila to be seen as this, but the writing seriously fails to back that claim up.

Easily one of the most controversial characters in Miraculous Ladybug is Lila, mainly for the writing surrounding her. But there was a time where she was actually more of an ambiguous character, mainly for the lack of screentime she had until Season 3. But unfortunately, the more appearances she's had have painted a very poor portrait of an antagonist.

Lila's Tragic and Sympathetic Motivation for Hating Ladybug

Lila's first appearance was at the tail end of Season 1, “Volpina”. She was a new transfer student from Italy, and quickly made friends with a lot of her classmates for the lies she told, including being friends with Ladybug (which Alya blindly believed without doing any research like any excellent journalist). But because of how close she was getting to Adrien, Marinette, in a rare act of selfishness, transforms into Ladybug just to chew out Lila for lying about knowing her, humiliating her in front of Adrien. And this is the only motivation we get for what Lila does afterwards.

I'm not saying that it's wrong for Lila to get upset at Ladybug for doing this, and I like the moment of weakness Marinette has, but this is literally the only explanation we get for Lila deciding to side with Hawkmoth, a literal terrorist. As much as I hated the way the arc turned out, I could still understand Chloe siding with Hawkmoth, as it was clear that Hawkmoth was manipulating her and taking advantage of her ego. Lila? Ladybug's mean to her one time, and that inspires her to conspire with a complete stranger who brainwashes people to attack the city, which endangers innocent people and causes God knows how much in collateral damage if not for Miraculous Ladybug fixing everything.

I just don't get how a single negative interaction with someone is enough to conspire with a literal supervillain. Even in Season 3, when Marinette and Lila truly became enemies, it was because she risked exposing all the lies she told, which could damage her reputation. Sure, it's petty, but it makes sense for Lila to want to keep up the illusion. If she was simply an antagonist to Marinette in her civilian life like Chloe was before “Miracle Queen” , I'd be fine with that, but the writers clearly want her to be seen as on the same level of evil as Hawkmoth. I'll get into why that doesn't work later on.

Why Lila is an Excellent Liar

In my Master Fu analysis, I had pointed out that despite all the flaws he had, the narrative insisted on portraying him as an incredibly wise mentor. The same problem applies for Lila as well. We're supposed to see Lila as an expert manipulator and liar, but her lies are insultingly obvious. She always claims to be friends with celebrities and does all these awesome things, and in an age where we can have almost any question answered thanks to the internet, nobody ever stops to question her.

It's even more frustrating when you hear Lila talk about saving Jagged Stone's cat, when Jagged Stone is established to be very fond of Marinette (evidentially more than his own daughter), and nobody ever points that out. I think if Lila's lies were more stories about her travels around the world than outright lies about real people, it could have worked. It'd still be hard to believe, but it's something.

But this is a problem with writing shows aimed at children. As much as we hate writers who need to spell out things to kids, sometimes, they just don't understand some of the media they consume. Seriously, I never got this joke in SpongeBob as a kid, and I can't believe Nickelodeon actually approved this.

So the dilemma when writing a show with children in mind is finding that sweet spot between assuming your audience can figure it out, but not being too vague in your details. It's even harder when you need to find a way to convey the fact that someone is lying without being too obvious. Unfortunately, the show clearly fails to do that

Okay, this is going to sound like an incredibly weird thing to cite, and I only know about it because I used to know someone who was a huge fan of the franchise, but the movie Monster High: Friday Night Frights does a better job of subtly explaining to the audience that a character is lying. Please, just hear me out.

The movie follows the main characters competing in their high school's roller derby for the season after everyone on the usual team gets injured, and the championship match is against another school whose team tends to cheat to win matches. How they manage to do this without getting caught is anyone's guess. While the main characters are practicing, their coach, Clawd, notices a spy for the enemy team taking video of them to study their moves. In response, he calls over one of the athletes, Operetta, to chew her out for her showboating attitude. In reality, he's alerting her to the spy. Only using facial expressions, he clues her, and by extension, the audience, in on the fact that they know what the opposing team is trying to do.

This soon leads to Operetta pretending to tell the enemy team about their secret plan for the championship match, which was really an attempt to outsmart them to gain the advantage in the final stretch. The brilliance of this is how the audience is informed of this with no dialogue, and there's no scene afterwards spelling it out for those who don't get it. It manages to convey deception without being too obvious that Clawd and Operetta are being deceitful.

I think if there were more subtle hints to show the audience Lila was lying, she would be seen in a better light. As it is, Lila's lies are just pathetic, and it's ridiculous that everyone believes her. Which leads me to...

Lila, the Master Manipulator

I once read a Star Trek: Voyager fanfic that poked fun at the series by claiming that the reason a lot of the dumber episodes like “Threshold” and “Twisted” happened was because one of the crew members was an alien who unintentionally produced mood altering pheromones, with Captain Janeway actually realizing they were all high because of said pheromones, while two of the unaffected crew members were wondering what the hell they were doing before they found out the cause. Why do I bring this up? Sometimes, it feels like Lila is an unintentional parallel to the alien in that story.

Like so many characters, it's clear the show desperately wants the audience to view Lila in a certain way, but her actions do very little to actually back up that claim. When she's not using lies to tell stories about so many famous people she knows like her uncle who works for Nintendo, Lila is using strategies to manipulate everyone that are so obviously deceptive, the Thermians could pick up on them. Everyone and their mother knows how ridiculous a lot of what Lila does in episodes like “Chameleon” and “Ladybug” are, and I've talked about them before, so I'll try to be quick.

First off, as someone who had access to accommodations through high school and has had assistance in college so far, there is no way in hell that Ms. Bustier should take Lila's tinnitus at face value in “Chameleon”. If a student has a disability that could interfere with the education process, physical or developmental, not only does the school have to evaluate their performance, and determine if they're eligible for an Individualized Education Program, or IEP, but her teachers would have to be notified in the first place. As her primary educator, Ms. Bustier would be part of the team to oversee Lila's IEP and determine what accommodations she needs to help her learn better with her tinnitus and arthritis. But because the writers don't know what Google is, they just ignore it,  assume that Lila can just say she has a disability, and have everyone believe it. Even when Eric Cartman pretended to be disabled to compete in the Special Olympics, he put in more effort to look the part, even if he looked like a caricature.

Then there's the fact that that in “Chameleon”, everyone just believes Lila when she says Marinette stole her grandmother's necklace when not only is said necklace from the Agreste line of jewelry, but Alya, who is Rena Rouge, can't pick up on the fact that it's a fake. All she does to justify these lies is come up with a sob story about how nobody believes her, yet nobody ever tries to defend Marinette except Alya one time, and it was after she got expelled.

Or what about in “Oni-Chan”, where Lila thinks having Kagami kill Ladybug while claiming she'll back away from Adrien is a good idea? Let's say Oni-Chan does kill Ladybug or at least take away her Miraculous, what then? We know Lila wouldn't go through with this promise, and as soon as Kagami sees her harassing Adrien, she'll be ripe for akumatization again. Overall, not a great plan.

And yet somehow, this last example is what made her worthy enough to become one of Hawkmoth's most trusted agents. I'm just going to say it: Lila is not a good fit for the power of illusion. Whenever she's Volpina or Chameleon, she always goes out of her way to make a big show instead of being subtle with her deceptions. “Chameleon” is the worst offender, as even though Lila gets the power to shapeshift into someone else, instead of being discreet and cornering people into kissing them and gaining their appearance, she just runs around to get Ladybug's attention instead of being subtle. Even Felix had the bright idea to pretend to be Adrien to catch Ladybug off guard. How do you lose to something that happened in “Felix”?

Despite all of these screw-ups, we're still supposed to see her as this master of deception worthy of allying with Hawkmoth in both his supervillain and civilian form, when really, she's a terrible liar on the schoolyard and on the battlefield.

Why Lila is an Important Character

In the grand scheme of things, Lila just isn't as important of a character that the show loves to parade her around as. She's nothing more than a plot device used to raise the stakes in an episode, given how much reality seems to bend over just to accommodate for her lies. Even when the show alludes to her being part of bigger things, like her deal with Adrien, or her rivalry with Marinette, they don't even go anywhere.

She just feels pointless when you remember Astruc's brilliant idea to force Chloe into being the final Akuma for the season while Lila isn't even mentioned once. She only really makes appearances whenever the writers feel like it, which is why it’s hard to take her seriously. Why should I take this character seriously as a threat if the writers refuse to take her seriously as a threat? Why build Lila up as a big threat and not give her a major role in the finale? Why even include her in the show in the first place when you could show Chloe being more manipulative to fill in the plots Lila plays a big part in?

As of the time I am writing this analysis, four episodes of Season 4 have aired, three of them have been about lies or deception, and Lila hasn't been mentioned at all. It honestly seems like she won't appear unless the writers need a easy way to drive up the conflict, so they can justify it by saying that Lila's “superpower” of lying is more powerful than the common sense of everyone else.

I'm sorry this post was shorter than the last one, but compared to Master Fu, there's not that much to say about Lila that I haven't already said. Even the show barely gives her any attention, so it's hard for me to really find a lot to talk about.

[seaoflittlefires]

On Folklore, Solar Power and whatever went wrong in between (stay with me a minute)

So in 2020 when we were right in the middle of the pandemic, the BLM protests and so on, Folklore by Taylor Swift came out, and was universally adored. It was *also* an album about wanting to escape society and find quiet solace in nature. And it became *the* album of the year, perfectly representative of the way we all felt. So what was different about it? Why were so many of the same people who loved this album unable to connect with solar power (including myself)?

I think there were a few key differences: Folklore is an album about *wanting* to disconnect and find peace, not about effectively achieving it. And in this context, that makes a huge difference. Most people relate to songs about being tired and needing to run away, but few can relate to songs about running away for real.

This also applies to other themes in the album, like romance, or most importantly, fame: Folklore does a much better job of universalizing its themes. The song “Mirrorball”, which is essentially an exploration of how fame makes Taylor feel, is written in a way that ensures it can also be interpreted as the struggle of a popular high school girl or a person in love with someone who barely gives them the time of day. It explores the experience of fame in a way that invites the non-famous listener to connect with the more universal aspects of that experience. And even that happens only in some songs. The theme of fame and pressure is only one among many that are tackled in this album.

Another key thing is that Folklore takes seriously its theme of wanting to run away from the world. It never once brings up social problems or political issues (even the pandemic is alluded to just twice in a very lowkey way). The album doesn’t attempt to be a commentary on our current sociopolitical context *and* an escapist fantasy at the same time. It knows it can’t be both, so it settles for the latter. (And it works excellently, because I don’t know about Taylor Swift’s political analysis skills but she sure as hell can tell us a good story).

I’m going to jump over this quickly (she says and then writes a whole paragraph about it anyway) because I think it’s the most obvious part. However I think it’s important to add it because a large part of why people didn’t enjoy Solar Power is the musical aspect of it: Folklore is a fantastic album melodically. Each track is distinct but connected to the others by some underlying elements. Every song is strong on its own, not just as a piece within something bigger. But the new layers that do emerge when you put all the pieces together are also extraordinary. Lyrically this album may be Taylor’s best up to now. In contrast, one of the biggest criticisms I’ve seen about Solar Power, even from people who didn’t mind the thematic issues described above, is that it’s musically boring. The melodies are unoriginal and very similar to each other. Few of them are memorable on their own. I’ve seen them described as background music, which Folklore could never be. In fact, I think I’ve rarely seen people listen to Folklore without wearing headphones.

So in short, Folklore and Solar Power were extremely similar albums in that they attempted to do many of the same things in a similar style, but there’s a reason why one didn’t hit the same way the other did. This is by no means implying that Taylor Swift is a better musician than Lorde or that Folklore is a perfect record, but I did feel the need to understand what happened after seeing so many of the people who really liked the first album be completely underwhelmed by the second.

tl;dr I think it comes down to greater musical depth, but also to a more intelligent handling of the themes in the lyrics.

(thank you for reading I am aware I say a lot of words)

[baeddel]

speaking of trans boys. re: this post: it’s funnily enough been picked up by people i would typically consider my enemies, who tag it with #transandrophobia #transmisandry. you’ll laugh, but perhaps they’re right to tag it that way. if we have to be a theorist of transandrophobia lets at least try and do so seriously.

it’s worth reading the replies to that post from my friends. i may overemphasize the differences between the US and the UK in that post. one of the examples i use, Abigail Shrier’s Irreversible Damage, was actually published in the US and not the UK (by the far-right Regnery Publishing, built on the Regnery fortune one of the heirs to which uses his wealth to fund the activities of the white supremacist National Policy Institute and the Charles Martel Society; how do you like them apples?). but i still think it is the case, correct me if i’m wrong, that TERFs have enjoyed the most success at legal reform in the US pursuing a transmisogynist scaremongering agenda about potential predators, and that TERFs have enjoyed the most success at legal reform in the UK pursuing a #TransgenderTrend moral panic centered around the dangers posed to young cafabs (the two other major areas worth considering apart from legal reform would be medical reform and public attitudes; we wouldn’t be surprised to find the same trend in those areas, but we would also not be surprised to find a different trend).

anyway, the analysis i make about reproductive futurity (where transmascs themselves embody the Child as victims of transgender ideology who must be rescued, their fertility restored) is i think vulnerable to the same criticism made in this post. where sybil says “TERFs view you as a misguided corrupted victim”, and the rest, fig (sybil’s interlocutor) responds that what they are describing “are v much white transmasc experiences” and that black and brown transmascs are instead treated by white women “as threats, due to the intersecting views on manhood/masculinity and race.”

sybil accepts this argument and i accepted it at the time because it makes intuitive sense; this corresponds to how i understand racism to work. but i don’t really like accepting arguments on intuition like this because competing narratives would convince me equally based on the same principles. look at it this way: if we wanted to apply fig’s argument to my post we would say that transmascs of colour cannot embody the Child in this way because white women protray men of colour (even, people of colour quite generally) as dangerous, masculine, predatory, etc. we would bring up a number of examples to prove this, such as the role of ‘masculinity’ in the repressively reconstrued diagnostic criteria of schizophrenia applied to black male radicals in the 60s, the many instances where news writers refer to black 16 year old victims of police shootings as “men”, and so forth. we have a coherent story that people of colour are denied any notion of childhood and are seen to possess a sort of inaliable masculinity.

however, we could also tell the opposite story. there are many discourses where black and brown people figure as Children par excellence. i can’t find it now (frustrating!) but there is a very demonstrative old painting: it has a white woman who is meant to represent Europe nursing several children of colour (one for each ‘race’, as they saw it). this metaphor of mother Europe and her dependant colonies was very common (eg. here {warning: obscenely racist image}; common enough to be mocked in László Moholy-Nagy’s 1925 collage Mother Europe Cares for Her Colonies). further, the notion of the ‘childhood of man’ implicit in discourses about savages and primitives, important to liberal humanist evolutionism, became more than merely a discourse when deployed in eg. the reserve schools of America and Canada and the missionary schools of French Polynesia which sought to save native Children from their own indigineity—this in fact very much resembles our narrative about transmascs and their perverse salvation. in our conversation about this dev reminded me that people conflate “the capacity for self-infantilism and the use of infantilism as a means of social control.” one remembers what Eldridge Cleaver had to say about what he called the emasculation of black men, to such an extent that he analogized black men in America to court eunuchs (this is perhaps the only feature of his thought that stayed with him throughout his transition from black muslim to revolutionary communist to conservative fundamentalist).

you can see how i now have two competing stories that i might find intuitively convincing. both have historical analogues. i don’t want to arbitrarily decide one is the right version over the other without seeing good evidence and hearing good arguments. but even if i did, i should remain mindful that one might predominate in some discourses, might predominate in certain epochs, but may easily become its opposite under different conditions. if it can i’d like to know how, if it can’t i’d like to know why. in any case, it’s significant to me that personally i have never seen TERFs talk about cafabs of colour. of course they aren’t likely to talk about it to me, but this seems to be something that they acknowledge themselves (in a paraliptic way). Shrier confines her discussion to “(mostly white) girls,” by girls meaning trans men, who previously would have “[fallen] prey to anorexia and bulimia or multiple personality disorder“ (citation needed???). i can already imagine the sort of paper you could write about this parenthetical suggestion, (mostly white).

[therealvinelle]

I agree that Aro definitely is not straight, but if he is gay and not bi, why window shop for a wife? If he wanted a partner for some reason, why not find a male one? It was a different era, yes, but are vampires really homophobic?

So, for this meta, we’ll have to get historical. Before we do, keep in mind that while I know Ancient Greece better than most, having studied it (introductory level classes only, mind), I don’t know it well enough to be any kind of authority on the matter. History, more than any other discipline I can think of, is not respected as an academic field, and people with poor to no understanding of historical hermeneutics will make very bold assumptions that they then have too poor understanding of history to realize are bullshit. This is a disclaimer because I don’t want to join in on the chorus of authoritative-sounding people on the internet with no verifiable credentials who spout things about history that are then taken to be gospel truth by readers because the author made it sound good.

More, I say this because your question is asking me to explain the morality and social norms surrounding a character from 14th century BC Greece. And this man would not, for the record have been Ancient Greek, he would have been Mycenaean Greek. Very quick history lesson: Mycenaean Greece was a flourishing society that suffered a downfall, Greek civilization fell into its very own dark ages, until around 800 BC when Greeks began forming what would become the Ancient Greece we know and love. This in turn means that I can’t very well read up on the marital and sexual norms of Ancient Greece when I’m researching for Aro, because he was five hundred years old already when Ancient Greece became a thing.

And your question concerns cultural history. And for that we’re going to have to look at how we know the things we know about history. How history is studied.

Historians have two kinds of sources: archeological findings and written records. (I’m aware that oral tradition, like the one carried by the Aborigine people, isn’t technically one of these, but to my understanding it’ll be treated to similar analysis as written records, which leaves us with the two types of sources standing strong.) These sources are analyzed, and we apply various theories and models onto them to make sense of the context they were written in. The more sources we have, the more we can refine or eliminate these theories or models.

More, history is an ever evolving field. There are movements and schools of thought that influence how history is written (marxism in history, that is, history as a class struggle, was heavy in the 60′s and I think until the 80′s), which means that how a certain culture will be perceived today is not the way it was perceived a few decades ago, nor will it be perceived the same way a few decades in the future.

You see why I am daunted by you asking me to give you an answer about sexual and marital norms for a guy who lived 3000 years ago, and I hope you’ll understand why I feel this word vomit is necessary.

Now, the danger with Mycenaean Greece is that it’s a society it’s easy to feel we know a lot about, because it was the precursor to Ancient Greece, and we know a lot about the latter. But, first of, the reason why we know as much as we do about the Ancient Greeks is the Romans. The Greeks wrote about their history, their philosophy, their government, and they wrote plays and told stories. However, that was two thousand years ago and their writings would have been lost to the sands of time if the Romans hadn’t idolized and sought to emulate their society. This meant preserving their written records. This tradition was carried on by the Christians, in part because Hellenistic philosophy was incorporated into Christian philosophy. We have neo-platonism to thank for Christian asceticism, the “mind over matter” cornerstone.

What I’m getting at with all of this is that we know the insane amount about Ancient Greece that we do because of some very unique circumstances, and so we can make very sophisticated theories about what the Hellenistic world was like. It’s still detective work, but not Pepe Silvia type of detective work. This is not the case for Mycenaean Greece. We know a comparative lot about Mycenaean Greece, considering how long ago it was, but there is very much we don’t know.

With Mycenaean Greece, we are dealing with a lot more uncertainty. We haven’t deciphered one of their two writing styles, and a lot of the text we do have is very fragmentary. Coming up with detailed societal models for Mycenaean Greece, and for the 14th century BC specifically, is... well I don’t know enough about what this society left behind to know what historians have to work with, but I imagine they have their work cut out.

More, I haven’t studied this at all, which means that any attempt on my end to research this would be stumbling around in the dark.

One example: the Illiad and the Odyssey, while composed around the 8th century BC, were set in the early 12th century BC, which is nearly Aro’s time period. The Illiad depicts a homoerotic relationship between Patroclus and Achilles, and both works depict a lot of matrimonies, so I wish I could use it as a source. However, not only would this time gap alone make these sources questionable, but there’s also the matter of the Illiad and the Odyssey being transmitted orally, from bard to bard. Changes were made over the years. For example, the technology described in the Illiad is from several eras, as the warriors will be using bronze weaponry in one book and then switch to iron in the next. This game of telephone is what happens when a story is transmitted orally from person to person. So, while it’s tempting to use these works as a sort of reference point, the possibility, likelihood even, that the bards made adjustments to keep the old story entertaining for their contemporary audience is strong.

For this reason, I can’t give you any kind of historically correct analysis on what the marital or sexual mores would have been like in Aro’s time. Even if the knowledge is out there, I don’t have it.

But I can say this, spouses have for the longest time been partners. Men and women got married, even in the gay, gay, Ancient Greece, not just to have children but because they complemented each other, they were partners. Men needs wives, and women needs husbands. And a partner was canonically exactly what Aro was looking for, feelings had nothing to do with it:

After Caius and Marcus had found their romantic attachments, Aro decided to find his own, although rather than finding his other half in another vampire Aro decided to create his own instead. Aro had a certain type of woman in mind and he found what he was looking for in Sulpicia. He successfully courted her and she came to fall in love with him.

As for vampires being homophobic, I think that is for another post about what culture they bring with them into their new life. But to be brief I’ll say that while the individual vampire can be homophobic, there can be no homophobia at an institutional level because vampires have no institutions. And it’s the institutional homophobia that gets ya. It’s what the whole fight for gay rights has been about: secure legislation against discrimination and that protects gay people. (The right to marry and protection from employees firing LGBT employees comes to mind as examples of this.)

So, no one could force Aro to marry a woman. 

And I’d go into a rant here about how the prospect of gay marriage, of even identifying as homosexual (the labels homosexual, bisexual, and heterosexual are very new and, to my recollection, were born off of the Western psychiatric discipline as men who slept with other men were diagnosed with homosexuality. I imagine a man from the Antiquity would be confused at the notion that just because he likes to sleep with dudes he shouldn’t get married to a woman), was unthinkable up until very recently, but I just made this obscenely long rant about how I can’t really make these kinds of guesses, so I’m not gonna.

I think being married to a woman and then banging hot dudes who came along suited Aro just fine.

Also, I can’t believe I’m doing this, but - I’m going to encourage history asks. Because this fandom has a bit of a history problem, as a lot of the characters are from different time periods and many feel unsatisfied with the way Meyer handled that. I am by no means a historian, but I know several of the historical periods the characters of Twilight are from well enough to make educated guesses.

So, hit me with your worst.

[fa-by]

hi F! Please do an analysis on Lauren’s new song While I’m Alive! She said on her instagram that it was directed to “someone” at first 👀👀

Hi to you too, dear Anon 👋🏼😄 and for sure. No problem, in fact, I'm sorry for the delay 😅

So. While I'm Alive is part of the Femme it Forward's all-female album called Big Femme Energy, Vol. 1. Laur wrote it long before she was part of this project, and yes, she said she wrote it with a person in mind by turning a vent into art because tired of the way she was/is treated:

This person, in my opinion, is 100% a shark. And this also responds to another ask I've recently received:

Hey to you, dear Anon 👋🏼😄 Yep, Laur wrote it for someone among the higher ups and therefore it concerns her career in particular, but she also applies it to other situations in her life in general.

Now let's move on to the interpretation.

Verse 1:

“Don't say I'm too loud when I cry out what I've held inside

I wanna know why they tried to take me and bury me alive”

The music industry is dominated by men. Gender inequality, sexism, and ageism reign supreme. No matter how much harder they have to work in order to succeed, women are anyway either sidelined, or supervised by men. Why? Because there’s a huge disparity between men and women, especially due to the way the public perceives their success and power. For example.

A man is praised for performing on stage with just the guitar. A woman who does the same, however, not only is she criticized for being too lazy and boring for not having made the performance more lively with a choreography, but she’s also criticized for what she was wearing. Same woman who gets criticized when she instead performs with a choreography because she wasn’t good enough. A woman who can’t be a drummer because it’s a thing for men, and if she persists in wanting to play, it’s not because it’s her passion and she’s pursuing her dream, no; it’s because she wants attention 🙄. A woman who can’t have a good idea about a song because, what can she understand about music, right? 😒

Unfortunately, it’s all a double standard. Women work harder than men and they then get questioned whether their success is deserved. One way or another, women are constantly being torn apart. Reason why Laur begins the verse by already letting us understand how put down she is by the sharks, followed by a question that actually doesn’t represent a real request for information, but that implies a predetermined answer.

“'Cause who am I to think that I have a right?

Or decide to know what I need, right?”

She's sarcastic of course. Since they've always told her what to do, how to act, and how to feel, here she's including a couple of examples among the thousand and more things they always have said and say to her. Because who better than her knows what's best for her? The answer is her. Especially when these orders, because they're orders, are imposed on her to make money with her career and not for her sake or because they care about her as a person.

“It's in the way, I talk and I walk away

From what you made me”

By ‘what you made me’, she refers to the way she was before. The person who was forced to accept everything she was told to do and therefore she couldn’t be herself. The person they made her become, and she didn’t like that person. Now she no longer wants to ‘submit herself’ and accept everything just for money and fame as she did in the past because she was legally obliged and not to do so. She did it many times especially when she was still in the group, but unlike in the past, she luckily no longer has the same kind of obligations. So if she doesn’t want to do something now, she simply doesn’t. She says no to what she doesn’t accept and walks away from that (I talk and I walk away) by not caring if she doesn’t have the same success as before because she prefers not to have that kind of success anymore but to remain herself, rather than have it and be just a product (what you made me); a different person from who she really is.

Verse 2:

“And I know this is all too familiar

Feel the motive behind all that fake love”

In Olivia Rodrigo’s voice 🎤: 🎵 Did you get deja vu, Laur? 🎶 No, but all joking aside. By ‘I know this is all too familiar’, she means what she has already experienced in the past and which she has once again found herself in front of. Once out of both Epic/Syco and Maverick, she believed she would’ve be dealing with better people, but it wasn’t like that. She realized that those kinds of people are everywhere because it’s the music industry that’s like that. The problem isn’t the single label or the single management team, it’s the entire industry. The problem isn’t the surrounding, but the people who are in it. Not all of them luckily, but most of them unfortunately.

By ‘Feel the motive behind all that fake love’, on the other hand, she describes precisely that kind of people. The fake ones who first treat you well because they want something from you, and then show themselves for who they really are when they don’t get it and try to hinder you, punish you, destroy you, and ‘bury me alive’ (verse 1) because of it.

So. Although I said it playfully at first, these two sentences go perfectly well together to describe the sense of deja vu that Laur felt.

 

*Small note* In the next three sentences of the verse, I will use these ‘---’ to complete her sentences as if I were Lauren to give you my interpretation. I’ll then continue as I always have. Oh and, she’s talking about her music here.

 

“I can’t take all these unsolicited opinions --- Nope, not anymore. I don't want them. Thanks, but no thanks.

Go ahead and be the scared ones --- with someone else who’s ready to tell you yes to everything and who doesn’t have a vision on how they want their own songs. Someone else who has no problem being a marketable product/puppet.

Either way, I’ll get it done” --- with other producers, songwriters, collaborators, etc., of my choice.

 

“I’ve been told I’m too much

Too proud, too cruel

Too wild, difficult to be around”

Let’s also add too confident, too sincere, and too honest from the people who mocked her at school before she became famous, shall we? Or maybe too fat, too arrogant, too full of herself, too whore, and all the other things said by the haters over the years? 😒😒😒🙄🙄🙄

I was being sarcastic of course, guys. I mean, can our girl ever have a break?

“With too much to say

Never in the right way

So, what’s the right way?”

Rhetorical question here because the right way is exactly the way she is. She has no intention of behaving in the ‘right way’ they want because it would mean not being authentic and automatically it would no longer be the right way because she would be fake.

Chorus:

“If I can’t be me

Who do you want me to be? (Who do you want me to be?)”

I love, love, love, love this. For real. It’s so powerful. And it doesn’t surprise me that this part along with the rest of the chorus is repeated four times, because it’s the most important part and it encloses the whole song perfectly.

“‘Cause if you can’t see beyond your gaze”

Behind their ideas to be the perfect product without looking at the person and their feelings.

“You don’t phase me and I don’t trust you anyway

‘Cause runnin’ through life, I figured out time

Don’t wait for no one”

After all these years and precisely because of what she’s been through, she realized she can’t wait for them to see it the same way she does or for someone to ‘save her’. She prefers to ‘save herself’. Therefore, she will continue to be wary, not to trust, and above all, to remain authentic as she says here:

“So while I’m alive, I’ma just be me (I’ma just be me)

Whoever that ends up being”

And that's it, dear Anon 😉 This song is dedicated to one particular asshole who gave her the idea, but mostly, it's dedicated to all those assholes who tried to tell her what kind of music she should have made, how she should have behaved, and how she should have felt. She decides for her, and she doesn’t care if she doesn’t have the same success anymore. Just like she doesn’t care about all the rest like the expectations and superficial perceptions they have of her that are completely wrong.

I hope you enjoyed it, and I wish both of you Anons and everyone else reading this, a beautiful day ❤🥰🤗

[bubsthebee]

Can’t Say It.

Aizawa x Reader

Word Count: 3,541

A/N: Fluff, dragged out but it’s a happy ending. One shot. Age difference (9 years) Reader is 22 while Aizawa is 31. Mentions of alcohol.  

Reader is a young teacher at UA who has a unique relationship with Pro Hero and coworker Eraserhead. After a while of getting to know each other, will they realize their feelings? OR will they let self doubt get in the way. 

CHARACTER REPORT

Position: UA SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION 

Job Description: Quirk Analysis and Evaluation Processing. 

Name: (L/N), (F/N)                Power: 2/5 D    Intelligence: 4/5 B

Birthday: (5/10)                     Speed: 2/5 B    Cooperativeness: 5/5 A

Age: 22                                 Technique: 5/5 S

Sex: Female (She/Her)

Quirk: Analysis 

-(Y/N) is able to instantly analyze a person and their abilities after observing them, familiarizing themselves with their qurik. This also includes evaluating/predicting situations with higher than average accuracy. With this ability, she can use this information with or against a subject. She can keep up to three peoples' worth of information perfectly memorized at a time. Anymore, her analysis starts to create more errors and her accuracy decreases. 

--

Ever since (y/n) started working at UA, everyone knew that Aizawa’s single streak was in danger. 

While the scruff chined 1-A homeroom teacher taught his bustling young hero course, she supported the admin staff! Specifically falling under processing and evaluating every student's quirk and how to help progress their potential. This means every homeroom teacher ran their notes and evaluations about their students through her every quarter, possibly more depending on how active and intense their training has been. She and her small team are a key to the school’s successful hero and support course. No matter how a quirk was used, they would find the best way to help them improve it. 

Classroom 1-A currently holds the record for most updates and changes to analysis (surprise). With an increase in updates, (y/n) has spent more sleepless nights making sure her work was perfect than she originally thought she was going to. Not that she minded of course! She was young, and found that it helped drive her to improve her passions and skill. Besides her administrative work, she also works as a substitute teacher for English, and Hero Strategy lessons twice a semester. If needed she is more than happy to help with summer lessons. 

Aizawa has had more than his fair share of interaction with the young lady, more than others if one was keeping track. After the hero noticed (y/n)’s sleepless nights because of his students, he offered to stay and bring her coffee. When (y/n) noticed extra heavy bags under his eyes, there would be a nicely wrapped lunch on his desk with a cute thank you note in return. 

Over time a unique relationship developed between the two that anyone looking in could clearly see. Including the students. 

“Mr Aizawa! Your lady friend left ya another lunch, you’re so LUCKY.” Denki and Mineta whined without hesitation. 

“Why don’t we get cute lunches made by cute girls?” 

“Shut up! That’s Ms. (L/n) you’re talking about, not some side chick you dumbos. I think it’s really sweet.” Mina cooed alongside some of the other girls. 

Their homeroom teacher could only sigh, carefully tucking away the lunch box into his work desk as he partially ignored their scattered comments. “Lucky or not, you all should have your notes out and study. Your test scores from  last week clearly tell me I haven’t given enough in class work time. Do I have to cut down on our outside training hours?” The instant shuffling of paper and pencils brought a small smirk to his face. Nothing got his students off his back faster than less training hours. As he took attendance and organized his schedule, the small peeks at the lunch box reminded him about his last encounter with his….coworker. 

--

“Midoriya is such a strange boy you know? I’m surprised his quirk doesn't instantly tear his body apart every time he uses it. I’m glad he’s getting a handle on it, I hated seeing him hurt himself so often.”  You were sat cross legged in your office chair, typing away at your laptop underneath a bright desk lamp. 

“I agree, he needs to learn how to use his body with his quirk.” 

“Exactly!- Well, it looks like his rate of injuries compared to training has decreased. Based off of Recovery Girls records, his quirk usage deteriorated his arm muscle effectiveness. This means he’s got to either limit his usage on his arms, or learn how to use the rest of his body to compensate.” Rubbing your eyes shifted your reading glasses off of your face, exposing the bags that were starting to grow underneath them. 

“You shouldn’t be getting such heavy bags under your eyes like that, you’re too young for those (L/n).” He always notices them, no matter how well hidden. 

“Ya, okay GRAMPS. You’re not that much older than me and YOUR eyes are just as bad, if not worse. And call me (y/n), we’re friends aren't we?” 

Rolling his eyes, Aizawa gets up with a huff to pour some coffee from the nearby coffee pot. “Midoriya is your last report tonight right? Go home, you’ve got Hero Strategy classes tomorrow.” as if on cue, he hands you the cup of warm coffee while you reach out for it with a quiet “Thank you”. 

The way you hold the cup in your hands and let the warm steam brush against your face leaves him staring at you with a soft look. 

“I guess I could leave a little earlier than I thought....” blowing cool air onto the coffee, you slowly take a sip of the warm beverage. Every time you see that look on his face, you can’t help but wonder what he’s feeling. 

After a short while, you both clean up and close the office up. It’s 1 AM and both of you are more than ready to get at least a few hours of sleep in. Like usual, he walks you halfway to your home before bidding his own goodbye. 

“Goodnight (L/n).” As Aizawa turns to walk away, he feels a small tug at his sleeve. 

“I uh-” Turning to look around, he sees you with pinker cheeks underneath a streetlight. How do you always look so...nice? No matter the light you always look nice. 

You slowly slid your hand down his arm to gently hold onto his hand. It was so soft, not just the hold but your skin. You couldn't even look at him but your voice was clear as day. 

“Thank you, for staying with me. I know how tired you must be too….so I feel honored that you decide to spend your important time with me- er, to help me. You’re a great teacher and man Aizawa. Good night.” Just as quick as the moment had started, your touch was gone and you made your way home. 

He was alone, yet he could still feel your touch on his skin. Aizawa stood there for minutes, looking at his hand in awe and strange curiosity. His coworkers and friends told him multiple times, “You two aren’t a thing?”, “It’s obvious that you fancy her Shouta.”, 

“She has to feel the same, you don’t see how she looks at you when you aren’t paying attention.” 

--

         The school bell alerting the start of their first class was what pulled Aizawa out of his mind, looking up to see (y/n) walk into the class with your information tablet. ‘Ah, right. Hero Strategy.’          “Good Morning class! Great to see you all again.” She was chipper as always, her makeup easily covering her endeavors from the night before. The young teacher wore simple black tights with her training sweat jacket, everyone murmured in excitement because this meant that there would be out of class training and demonstrations          Rubbing his exhaustion from his face, the black haired male stands up to go stand near (y/n). “You all have ten minuets to change and get to the field. Any longer and you’ll be stuck in cleaning duty for the week.”

         Iida is quick to stand and grab his fellow classmates attention. “Quickly but in order, please gather your things and head to the gym! No RUNNING!” As valiant as his efforts were, everyone rushed out of the class in fear of being put into the cleaning crew while it was out of their turn. 

         The small smile he saw on your face was sobering, calmly following behind you as you made your way to the gym. 

         Usually, Aizawa would sneak into his sleeping back and nap during other teachers' lessons. These ones were different for him. He would sit off to the side and observe how you worked with the kids.

 While some students could take simple suggestions and immediately apply them, others needed physical examples. You were more than happy to adapt to all their needs as they all trained with their new plans and teachers notes. While Tokoyami nodded and talked with Dark Shadow about your observations, Uraraka carefully mimicked your moves as you slowly countered her attacks explaining how they affected her opponent's momentum even more. 

         He knew you were a natural when it came to children and hero work. The obvious proof was right in front of him. That and he was nine years older than you, yet you both were doing almost the exact same job. That's where everything starts to blur for him. 

         After a quick practice round with Shoji, a rundown with Bakugo about his quirk usage along with Midoriya and the rest of the class, their first class of the day was over. 

         The rest of the day went normal, and (Y/n) left to finish the rest of her lessons while Aizawa did the same. 

 --

         After a long week, you were more than happy to have the weekend to yourself, or so you thought. 

Incoming Call: Keigo <(‘v’)> 

“Keigo?”

 “Hey tiny, sorry to bother but I felt like I should call in and see how you were doing.” 

 “I’m fine, just getting ready to watch some movies and order take in. Had a long week. You?” 

 “Gonna be heading out to an event soon! Glad to hear you're doing good. Any luck with your crush on the office grandpa?”

 You roll your eyes as you wiggle yourself into more blankets, clicking through the different documentaries you could find on YouTube.

  “I don’t have a crush on Aizawa, and even IF I did he is NOT a grandpa. He would probably want someone closer to his age anyway. The whole life experience gap and everything.” 

 “Yeah okay, whatever. Don't get mad at me when you realize I’m right and you're missing out on not being single anymore.” 

 “You’ll be the first person I call when you’re actually right. ” “Ouch-” 

 “Pfft, talk to you later Kei. I have an hour long video about the origin of heroes and it’s calling my name.” 

 “Bye bye!” 

-

         No matter how relaxed you were or how interesting the documentary was, you couldn't get you know who out of your mind. Could you have a crush on Aizawa Shouta? Silver Fox hero of the night? Grumpy man who likes taking naps in the middle of the day? You couldn’t lie, he was attractive and his personality was more than pleasant to you at least. It always felt like something was there between you two..between late night talks and having lunch together sometimes. It felt like there was a connection, and the only thing keeping you two from connecting was a waterfall of hesitation and doubt. 

 “Whatever…”

--

         “WoooOO! Staff Party, this is gonna be a blast Listeners! Present Mic here to keep your evening thrilling with an amazing music selection!” 

         Upbeat music with minimal words played through the old speakers of a rented out ballroom. It was the end of the first semester staff party, everyone was dressed semi formal with their hair done nicely and makeup to match. The decorations were nice, and tables were laid out with food, drinks and chairs to relax and chat. 

         Aizawa was one of the first to show up since he and Yamada came together like usual. Although he socialized with other teachers as they passed by, he stayed closer to the walls and talked with Kayama most of the time. He was dressed fairly well, a simple fitted dark g suit coat with normal slacks. The usually wild and wavy mess of locks was neatly tied back into a very clean half knot that showed off his handsome face. 

         “No date Shouta? I was sure that pretty young thing would be with you tonight. (L/n) Right, she’s such a lovely girl.” Kayama’s hair was curled beautifully around her, a long fitted dress with a deep V cut showing off her lovely charm. Aizawa only rolled his eyes, sipping on his Champaign class to avoid talking even if it was just for a second more. 

         “It would make more sense for her to come in with someone closer to her age or with a friend. She is the youngest person on staff you know.” 

         “Age this age that blah blah BLAH. I know love when I see it-” 

         “Not love, this isn’t some romance film Nemuri.” 

         With a small and understanding smile, Nemuri reaches out to gently pat her dear friend's shoulder. “Someday, you’re going to realize that the things that are holding you back are nothing but a reflection of your own worries. I know you’ll figure it out. You both will. Now try to have fun-” Her attention was stolen away for a moment, a glint of excitement in her eyes clear as day. “If you’re worried about how she feels and how she’s doing, why don't you go show her around and make sure she feels welcomed?” 

         Turning around, the first thing Aizawa see’s is you. A cheesy thing to say, but he almost feels his heart skip a bit.  

         You wore a black turtleneck underneath a midnight blue spaghetti strap dress that fit you just right. Knitted knee high socks and stylish black heel boots finished off your look along with a beautiful pearl pendant necklace. Your hair looked soft and styled in a way he had never seen it before. Your eyes were done up just enough in a way that made them shine even more than they usually do.

         He’s trapped, and he is slowly realizing that he never wants to be set free. 

         When your eyes scan the room for anything familiar, they finally land on a set of eyes that are looking right back at you. You have to stop yourself from visibly gasping, why did his eyes feel so intense? What was he thinking as he made his way across the room to you. 

         Like Moses and the sea, everyone carefully parted to let you both have your moment. They all knew the chemistry between you too, and were more than happy to leave you  alone as they carried on with their conversations and laughter. 

         “You look beautiful.” His voice was low, and held a sense of hesitant tenderness even he was unsure of. You knew he meant it. 

         “And you look very handsome, you even shaved for the party.” With a small laugh you gently ran the back of your fingers across his shaved cheek. This wasn't new, you had done this exact touch multiple times before when you made fun of his stubble yet- it felt more intimate than it ever had before. Aizawa knew he didn't mind it. 

         Carefully sliding his hand into yours, he lifts it up to press a soft and long kiss to your knuckles. “It is a special occasion. Would you like to join me tonight?” He was never a man who cushioned his words, straight to the point and expressing just how he felt was never an issue. You were different. 

         Accepting his offer, you move to accept his offered arm. The night starts slow as you both walk around and chat with other faculty members you work with. With Aizawas help you were confident that you were able to make some new friends, maybe going to this party wasn't so bad after all.

         Everything else almost felt like a breeze. Laughs were shared, drinks were drank- and barriers were being broken down. You and Aizawa found yourselves slowly standing closer and closer together, close enough to where your fingers would brush against each other when one of you moved. All of Pro Hero Eraserhead’s friends could only watch with warm and excited smiles for him. 

         Like always, nights must always come to an end. 

         While some people left to retire for the night, others stayed longer to help clean or help more than drunk coworkers make it home safe. “I’m helping Nemuri make it home Sho! You gonna be okay making it back tonight?” Yamada had Nemuri balancing into his side, laughing as she drunkenly waved some of the others goodbye. “Oh! You all can head back home together if you’d like. I’m just helping clean a bit before I head back home.” you politely cut into their little chat, holding a medium sized black trash bag in your hands. 

         Taking a moment, Aizawa starts to shrug off his coat as he takes the garbage away from you. “I’ll stay behind to help clean. If you’re alright with it I can walk you home.” with wide eyes, the younger teacher could only nod before she turned away to hide her reddening cheeks to pick up more trash and plates. 

         “No worries, now get em TIGEr. RaaArW-” As Kayama tried to cheer her friend on, Yamada tugged her away with an amused laugh of his own. 

          Not even an hour later, everyone was out and the sky was as dark and it could be. The only stars you could see were the large ones as the light pollution shrouded out the smaller and weaker stars. 

         This time around, Aizawa's coat was wrapped around (y/n) shoulders, her head resting on him as they linked arms on the walk back to her house. Instead of splitting off halfway, he walks her all the way up to her front door. It was silent for a moment, the events from tonight silently washing over them. 

         “Thank you Aizawa, this...was a really nice night. I don't think it would have been as enjoyable as it was without you.” (y/n) broke the silence, turning to face and look up at the man she knew she would never look at the same again. Rubbing his mouth in thought, his eyes flicker between the young woman standing in front of him and the road. 

         “I want to thank you as well. I-.” He paused for a moment. 

         “I would like to kiss you, but I understand if you wouldn't. I think after tonight you know what my feelings are for you. I didn't even know about them fully until tonight. Kayama- Midnight was right. I was letting my worries hold me back when I should have been forward like I always am-”  

         Time freezes when he feels your hands pull down his face, your lips eagerly pressing into a kiss with such raw love and desperation. Instantly his arms move around to gently lift you up into him. One minute, two..three. You both only break apart for air and your warm breaths mingle against each other. “I’ve wanted to do that for a while now I think. My friend was right haha...maybe I do have a crush on you. I was just worried because I had no idea if you would even be interested in a relationship, let alone with someone as...young as me. I feel like a high schooler again haha.” 

         The fact that you were able to laugh the way you did and still hold him in your arms brought flutters to his chest. He knew now that he more than just saw you as a coworker or a close friend. He wants to be more. “I know what you mean. Who would want to be with someone as old as me? I would never want to make you feel like I was holding you back.” He would never admit it, but he felt like a young adult experiencing love for the first time...it was a bit embarrassing (in a good way.) 

         “You make me feel so helpless sometimes you know that?” pulling his head down again, (y/n) presses another soft kiss to Aizawa’s forehead. “What am I gonna do with you Aizawa?” 

         “Shouta.”

         “Huh?”

         “Shouta, call me Shouta if you want.” Thankful that it was dark out, he could feel himself heat up at the intimate suggestion. 

         With the way your eyes sparkled while you said his name, he knew he was hooked. There is no going back.          “What am I gonna do with you, Shouta?” 

         “You’ll figure it out eventually. I’ll help you along the way as long as you’ll help me too.” The shared silence was an unbroken promise to do the best you both can. 

         After sharing your final kiss good night, you watch Shouta walk down the street and out of view before returning into the comfort of your home. The jacket around your shoulders smelt strongly of the stoic man you now called yours. Enjoying the warmth and comfort his coat brought you, kicking off your boots you hop over your couch and settle into a comfortable position. 

 Calling: Keigo <(‘V’)>

 “WHY are you calling me at….2 in the MORNING. You gave me a damn heart attack-” 

 “You were right.” your voice was soft and held no regrets. 

 “Right? Right about what?” 

 “You were right, I did have feelings for Shouta. I said you would be the first person to call if you were right. And well, you were right.”          The next hour was spent catching your best friend up on everything that happened tonight. 

-

         On the other side of the story, Aizawa finally made it home and had no problem finding sleep that night. He felt as ease knowing that things weren't going to turn out as bad as he thought it originally was going to be. 

         He can't say it, not yet. 

         But he is in love. 

         And so are you.

[cheri-translates]

[CN] Shaw’s S2 R&S - What is known as amazing the world

🍒 Warning: This post contains detailed spoilers for a Rumours & Secrets, 所谓一鸣惊人, which has not been released in EN! 🍒

This R&S features S2 Shaw, but no knowledge of S2 is required to enjoy this~

In terms of sequencing, this is Shaw’s third S2 R&S!

[ Chapter One ]

When mentioning the tutor of the Archaeology Department in Loveland University, Professor Shen deserves greatest respect. Precisely because of the high academic requirements, he had not recruited graduate students in recent years. However, he didn't find anything wrong with this. He occasionally taught undergraduates, then immersed himself in his own academic research. His days followed a pretty regular pattern.

During such an ordinary time, Professor Shen met Shaw for the first time.

The day he interviewed Shaw was also the warmest afternoon in the late spring of Loveland City. The sycamore trees on both sides of the road were working hard to produce new buds. Professor Shen carried a pile of materials, walking across the sunny open space to the building where the graduate students were sitting for the second round of examinations.

So far, he had re-examined five students. Their performances were very mediocre, and there was still quite a lot of distance from his expectations. However, the student to be re-examined later was slightly different. The materials showed that he was directly recommended to him by Loveland University. Based on his age, he should be a young student. Amidst the twenty-five, twenty-six, and even older re-examinees, he had subconsciously left an impression on Professor Shen.

After dusting off the sycamore puffs that had fallen on his shoulders, Professor Shen entered the classroom. Before long, what accompanied the hands of the clock reaching 2pm were two beeps at the door of the classroom.

"Hello teacher, my name's Shaw.”

Hearing this, Professor Shen lifted his head. The boy at the door was indeed very young, but his flamboyant bluish purple short hair, incomparably avant-garde clothes, and flat expression without much of a smile rendered Professor Shen stunned for a second or two. But he quickly smoothened his expression, warmly beckoning Shaw to enter.

The student named Shaw wasn’t reserved at all. He sat down naturally on the chair in the middle, placing a black schoolbag casually at his feet.

Whether he was making judgments based on appearances or was no longer holding much hope, at that moment, Professor Shen thought that this was another interview where he would simply go through the motions. He raised some standard questions. Unexpectedly, Shaw actually answered them decently. Professor Shen's spirits gradually rose.

"What you wrote about in your undergraduate thesis was..." Professor Shen flipped through the materials in his hands. Just as he found the information, a clear voice sounded fluently. "《A Statistical Analysis of the Age and Gender of Human Skeletons Unearthed in Xushan》. It includes the basic condition of the unearthed human bones, any damage, pathological changes, as well as an analysis of the population and health of that period.”

"Does this mean you’re interested in physical anthropology?" Professor Shen pushed the glasses on the bridge of his nose, staring at Shaw with interest. "In that case, why did you apply to be my graduate student?" He needed to know that Professor Shen’s research direction was mainly on the appreciation of ancient appliances and field archaeology.

Faced with Professor Shen's sharp and intense gaze, Shaw didn’t panic at all. He shifted his overlapped legs, arching his eyebrows slightly. “Physical anthropology is a field that I wasn’t really familiar with, so I wanted to challenge it to learn more. Teacher's research direction is what I’m truly interested in." After he finished speaking, he added, "By the way, if I have the chance, I’d like to participate in field work a few times."

"Oh? The graduation thesis is such an important aspect. Isn’t challenging a new field very risky?" Professor Shen continued to probe.

Hearing this question, the corners of Shaw’s lips slanted, revealing his first smile of the day. However, there was an incredibly serious look in his eyes. He didn’t give a direct answer, but spoke leisurely, word by word. "Archaeology has always been a risk where expectations may end up fruitless. Don’t you agree?”

The re-examination and what Shaw said greatly exceeded Professor Shen's initial expectations. Outstanding schoolwork, comprehensive knowledge and an open-minded attitude. Except for seeming rather brash and conceited, Professor Shen wasn’t able to find fault with him at that moment. He drew a circle on Shaw's materials, then lifted his head to ask the final question:

"Student Shaw seems to be a young man with a lot of personality. So why did you choose the archaeology major that most people find boring?”

-

[ Chapter Two ]

The new semester has commenced for almost two weeks. For Professor Shen, aside from the need to attend a few more professional courses, his teaching life doesn’t seem to have changed much. He hasn't taken a graduate student in two years, and he hasn't gotten used to it yet. Fortunately, Shaw has never been someone who would simply wait passively.

After class this morning, Professor Shen returns to the office. Right after opening the stack of archaeological reports he’s been reading recently, there’s a sudden knock at the door.

"Shaw, is there a problem?" Professor Shen removes his reading glasses and asks composedly.

Shaw has a black backpack slung over one shoulder. He strides over to Professor Shen's desk. Scratching his own hair casually, he speaks with laziness in his tone. “Professor, you gave too little homework. Can’t you assign more?”

Professor Shen suddenly chuckles. Even though it’s only been two weeks since school started, he has already seen Shaw's agile mind and excellent learning speed. Professor Shen isn’t surprised by Shaw's request. But in his opinion, being overly eager isn’t always a good sign to rely on.

Professor Shen ponders for a moment, puts on his glasses again, then says to Shaw, "There’s another assignment, but I don't know if you’d be willing to do it.”

“Tell me about it?”

“You could draw pictures of the flowerbeds in school and objects in the classroom, then practice your fundamental sketching skills.”

Treating flower beds as ruins and objects as appliances is a method that many archaeology students use when practising sketching. But when this assignment comes out of Professor Shen's mouth...

Shaw sweeps a glance at the genial Professor Shen as he sits behind the desk. He purses his lips. Without a word, he hauls up his backpack and turns around, walking towards the office door. Just as he’s about to leave, he turns slightly with a soft “hmph”.

He doesn’t know if Professor Shen heard this sound, nor does he care that much. After all, he has once again immersed himself in the pile of archaeology reports.

-

Just after 5pm, Professor Shen hurries to a research meeting while carrying documents.

The sky at the end of summer is still very bright, clear and azure, without a single shadow of dusk. Professor Shen turns around a corner, and suddenly finds that the back not too far ahead is very familiar - the bluish-purple hair is one of the few in the whole of Loveland University, and he knows at a glance that it’s Shaw. And in front of Shaw, facing Professor Shen’s direction, is a girl with short hair and dressed in a delicate manner.

Professor Shen walks closer and closer. He’s unable to hear what the girl says, and only sees the shy expression on her face.

“Hey, I’m rushing to the band. You’re in the way.” Shaw’s voice is very cold, and even somewhat impatient. The girl seems a little reluctant to withdraw, and reaches out to grab Shaw. However, Shaw turns sideways and steps backwards, dodging instantly. At this point, Shaw knits his brows tightly, his eyes dyed with a sharp and impatient light. “I’ll repeat myself for the last time. I’m. Not. Interested.”

After saying this with a decisive attitude, Shaw walks away.

Walking from behind Shaw to a different branch of the corridor, Professor Shen grips the documents tightly. Actually, whether a student likes to be in a band or is adored by girls, these things belonging to the private lives of students aren’t what he’s interested in nor what he has ever interfered in. To him, what students place value on most are the quality of learning and professionalism. As for other things...

Professor Shen glances at his watch and subconsciously speeds up his pace. While he hurries, he hopes that his original judgment was correct, and hopes that Shaw is indeed a good successor worth cultivating, just as he appeared during the re-examination.

-

[ Chapter 3 ]

A week passes by suddenly.

Sitting at the desk which receives plentiful sunlight, Professor Shen flips through the stack of sketching assignments that Shaw had just handed in, an imperceptible smile of satisfaction on his lips.

In addition to printed computer drawings, another half are hand-drawn sketches by Shaw using a pen, and they are of pretty good quality. Over the years, Professor Shen had seen too many young kids neglecting hand-drawn sketches because they relied too much on computer drawings. No matter what decade it is, the most primitive and foundational skills should be the most solid.

The sense of gratification causes Professor Shen to sigh. However, the page he just flipped to causes him to stop abruptly - this is obviously not part of the drawing assignment. It looks like an analysis report... Professor Shen props up his glasses, reading it carefully from the beginning. Then, he realises that this is an analysis of archaeological reports. Flipping to the back roughly, he finds that coincidentally, this analysis is targeted at the stack of archaeological reports Professor Shen had been reading recently.

With no time to be surprised, Professor Shen straightens his back in an instant, sits up straight, and reads the analysis written by Shaw from start to finish carefully. Whether it’s the standardised writing format, the hypothesis proposed in response to pictures and existing materials, or the objectivity of the comparisons drawn, they can already be regarded as the standard of a professional. 

Even though he doesn’t know where Shaw obtained the archaeological reports, what is undeniable is that he used his "little brain". But what is even more undeniable is that just by skimming through the analysis, Professor Shen can see Shaw’s solid foundational and expansive knowledge.

Through this unassigned piece of homework, Professor Shen feels that what he sees isn’t just a very young student who’s just beginning graduate school. What’s displayed before his eyes is Shaw’s undiscovered potential and possibilities.

Professor Shen gets a full glass of water from the water dispenser, and Biluochun leaves twirl and dance in the transparent glass. He walks over to the window, blowing at the mouth of the cup. Then, he takes a few sips of tea slowly, appearing to be in a good mood.

In his mind, he recalls the content of the analysis report, as well as Shaw's appearance when he came to submit his assignment early in the morning.

At that time, his steps were confident and full of vigour. He walked straight to the table to set down his assignment, then raised his eyebrows in glowing spirits. "Professor, remember to read till the end."

Now that he thinks about it, Professor Shen seems to taste the unhesitating confidence and the unwillingness to admit defeat in Shaw's eyes that he didn’t notice before.

It looks like this kid felt that he was being underestimated before. Full of pent up grievances, he wanted to prove his capabilities! This was simply his slightly awkward yet incomparably confident demeanour...

Professor Shen sighs softly, then can’t help but chuckle.

Before him, the sun is still climbing up at 10am, but the radiance of sunlight is already incomparably dazzling.

-

[ Chapter Four ]

After a few autumn rains, Loveland City gradually turns cooling. Professor Shen's body isn’t very good, so he puts on a thick coat early.

On this day, Professor Shen comes to the office with a briefcase as usual. He methodically prepares Biluochun, takes out his materials and pen, and puts on his glasses. Just as he’s about to start work, the new young lecturer Xiao Fu suddenly turns to his desk while holding his phone. “Professor Shen, look at this quickly. This boy in the middle looks like your graduate student!"

“Why do I feel as if he might be that student of yours?" Teacher Fu looks increasingly certain that he’s correct. "I met him several times before. It’s that cool and triumphant look. Even the colour of his hair matches!"

Professor Shen lowers his head, pulling down his glasses, and the image on the phone screen is displayed in an instant. It seems to be a video of a performance. The musicians on stage are very lively, and the atmosphere under the stage seems to be extraordinarily enthusiastic. The person playing the bass intently and fervently in the middle - who else could he be but Shaw?

Even before Professor Shen speaks, Teacher Fu has already affirmed to himself. “That’s right, it’s him! I remember someone mentioning that he was in band, but I didn't expect him to look like this...”

Professor Shen's eyes are still focused on the phone screen. In the video, Shaw has the youthful vigour that he can only have at his age. He’s full of spirit, rebellious and eccentric, and exudes fervent vitality. He can attract everyone’s attention almost instantly, as though he's a natural focal point.

But such a Shaw seems slightly foreign to Professor Shen. In the past two or three months, the Shaw he has seen is a graduate student who rushes to and from school, but is very earnest in his specialised course, and is also very meticulous in research.

Teacher Fu has already taken his phone away and returned to his own desk. Professor Shen’s gaze returns to his materials, but there are still some emotions stirring in his heart.

The more interactions he has with Shaw, the more Professor thinks that he’s akin to a treasure. Although he may make someone feel conflicted, he always brings unexpected surprises to others. Initially, Professor Shen thought there might only be jade here. But after more digging, he found calligraphy and paintings and utensils. Thinking that this would be the end, taking a turn resulted in the digging of gold, silver, copper and iron. As for whether there would be other treasures in the future...

Knock knock.

Hearing knocks at the door, Professor Shen lifts his head instinctively - truly, speak of the devil.

"Professor, I came to ask about something." Shaw strides over. Standing before the desk, Shaw looks at Professor Shen with an indifferent expression, as if he’s just speaking thoughtlessly. "I heard that the excavation and inspection of the Hou Yin Tan site will be carried out soon. Anyway, my usual assignments aren’t urgent. I’m thinking of strolling around the area with you.”

Through the spectacle lenses, Professor Shen looks at the seemingly expressionless Shaw, and can’t help but chuckle.

He thinks to himself - perhaps no one has told Shaw that even though he always uses nonchalance as a cover, the insuppressible earnestness in his eyes are unable to conceal his genuine anticipation.

-

[ Chapter 5 ]

The excavation work has commenced for over a month, and everything is proceeding on tenterhooks and in an orderly manner.

Field excavation has always been a bitter and boring part of archaeological work. In addition to digging for long hours in a desolate field, it’s also common to find nothing after digging till the end. At the very least, Shaw has already experienced it several times this month.

It’s another cold and windy morning. Professor Shen comes to the excavation site early, only to find that Shaw hasn’t arrived yet, which is rare. Something noteworthy is that Shaw has been coming here earlier than him every day. But within a few minutes, Shaw appears, walking over while talking on the phone. Something is said on the other end of the line. Shaw arches his eyebrows in his signature style. "Tch, so long-winded... Got it.”

Professor Shen notices a cute rabbit pendant dangling from the bottom of Shaw’s phone, though he doesn’t know when it first appeared. He shows a smile of understanding, no longer paying attention to Shaw's actions, lowering his head to start a new day of work. After a while, a number of villagers from the vicinity also come over and they all greet Shaw first.

This is also something Professor Shen noticed on hindsight. At some point in time, Shaw had established a rapport with the villagers. Having the villagers in the vicinity cooperate and even participate in an amiable manner is another very important part of field excavation. In this aspect, Shaw's performance can be regarded as attaining a satisfactory full marks.

"Professor, leave the rest of the shaving to me." Shaw squats down beside Professor Shen, holding a shovel in his hand. Professor Shen doesn’t immediately express his opinion. Instead, he smiles slightly. "Finished your call with your girlfriend?" Shaw averts his eyes in a hurry, which is rare. He purses his lips. “Who said that she’s... Professor, don’t get infected by Mr Fu’s gossip.” Professor Shen chuckles while standing up slowly. Then, he pats Shaw on the shoulder. "I'll take a look at the pit."

Shaving is time-consuming and hard work, let alone shaving in winter. In spite of thin sunlight, the bitter cold wind hovers over the site, causing Shaw's nose to redden unknowingly. His ripped jeans have long since been covered in dust, and even his originally shiny earrings are coated in ash. Even so, Shaw simply kneels on the ground with ease, cleaning the ground while holding the shovel firmly, shovelling the ground and four walls carefully.

The shaving takes five hours.

Dinner naturally consists of a group of people eating together. When Shaw arrives, he has already taken a shower and is restored to a clean and refreshed state. However, when using chopsticks to pick out vegetables, Professor Shen notices his unusual behaviour immediately: he rarely moves his chopsticks, and he has been picking the vegetables slower than usual. After a few more glances, Professor Shen realises that his hands had turned swollen during the five consecutive hours of shaving.

Despite this, even after the meal is over, Shaw doesn’t say a word or complain at all.

Professor Shen is even more satisfied with the only graduate student he has. He can’t help but compliment him coolly. "You’ve done a good job recently. If you want to learn archeology properly, you must have this earnestness and inextinguishable momentum."

Shaw pauses for a second, but still has that triumphant expression when he speaks. "That goes without saying." But Professor Shen clearly sees how Shaw's eyes had lit up in an instant, and how his brows raised involuntarily.

Professor Shen smiles while shaking his head, looking at Shaw whose words don’t match his genuine feelings. He doesn’t know what Shaw experienced, and perhaps his cynicism is to some extent a defence mechanism. As long as he pretends not to care, there will never come a time when his expectations come to naught. And this also gives him a chance to rewind the situation. Even though amazing the world with brilliant feats bring with it surprises, it occasionally makes Professor Shen feel that what he’s doing is akin to a child looking forward to rewards...

With this thought in mind, Professor Shen smiles while walking away.

-

When Professor Shen arrives the next morning, many people are already surrounding the area. There’s an interview with the TV station today, and Professor Shen had long since pushed Shaw out. A young man with such an advantageous appearance is suitable to be on TV.

As expected, the host is holding the microphone and conducting the interview. Looking at Shaw’s knitted brows, Professor Shen can't help but laugh, knowing that he’s trying his best to answer patiently. At this moment, the host suddenly asks a rather familiar question. "Why are you studying archaeology?"

This question seems to pull time backwards to more than half a year ago, when Professor Shen met Shaw for the first time -

"Student Shaw seems to be a young man with a lot of personality. So why did you choose the archaeology major that most people find boring?”

Shaw arches his eyebrows. "Because I like it." He lifts his chin slightly, showing a determined smile. "Isn't liking something the greatest display of personality?”

More from S2: here

[shihalyfie]

Neverland, the role of “nostalgia” in Kiuzna’s narrative, and the 02 quartet’s unusual immunity to it

In general, the 02 quartet (my shorthand for the four human characters introduced in 02 who weren’t in Adventure, namely Daisuke, Ken, Miyako, and Iori) have a position in Kizuna that you can call “shockingly favorable” in that they’re kept safely out of the most dangerous parts of the plot in ways the others aren’t. This especially sticks out when we get to the Eosmon incident reaching its climax, when Takeru and Hikari are placed in the same situation as their Adventure seniors, despite the movie and its surrounding media generally portraying them closer in line with the others in the 02 group than the Adventure group.

To be a bit blunt about it, the obvious main reason the story is set up this way is meta -- a lot of the climax’s effectiveness depends on the audience getting sensory impact via recognizing things from the original series (including 02 as well; how convenient it is that all of the international Chosen are in the positions 02 fans would recognize!), and so it’s obvious that said climax would evoke imagery related to the series that was Digimon Adventure, while the 02 quartet would be treated extra-kindly by the narrative due to the need to give them compensatory action screentime given certain real-life events. But just because the originating reason is meta doesn’t mean there isn’t also a story reason for it, especially considering the relevance of 02′s themes in Kizuna’s narrative, and the surrounding circumstances regarding both series.

Before we get into anything else, the first thing that needs to be established is that Menoa and Eosmon’s lure is pretty obviously depicted as working on a subconscious level. This is why everyone else in the narrative agrees that what they did is “kidnapping”, despite her insistence that she’s just doing what they wanted. While they can’t not admit to having moments of weakness, nevertheless, it’s likely that most if not all of the people Menoa kidnapped consciously knew better and had learned better lessons than this a long time ago; if Menoa had consciously offered Neverland to her victims, most of them would have probably said no! But as Daisuke said back in 02 episode 49 -- when he witnessed his own friends being subjected to something similar at the hands of BelialVamdemon -- there’s no sin in having feelings of worries or troubles (and, by extension, irrational feelings in general), and Eosmon’s abilities and Neverland happen to be able to directly target them. In fact, we ourselves got to witness this internal conflict when Menoa made her direct offer to Taichi and Yamato to join Neverland; they briefly considered it because of the circumstances, but were snapped out of it quickly with Agumon and Gabumon’s intervention, and were really, really mad at themselves for considering it shortly after.

We saw the process of how Ayaka became one of the kidnapping victims at the beginning of the movie -- it happened right after she complained that she wasn’t fond of the idea of becoming an adult at this point. So it does lend some truth to the idea that Menoa’s working off something with these cases, and that Eosmon did specifically target people who had those wishes to some degree. Moreover, note carefully how this kidnapping (and some others in the movie) is portrayed; Eosmon doesn’t actually emerge from the device in question (it’s obvious that nobody notices the giant butterfly monster), and the victim’s consciousness and partner are whisked away thanks to being caught by the device camera. In Ayaka’s case, because her phone was sitting on the table, pointed at her. The fact that this is not how the kidnappings are portrayed all the way to the end of the movie is a very significant point.

So let’s talk about Neverland and its construction. The whole thing is based on Menoa’s own very, very warped view of what “happiness” is. This means that Neverland is only an “ideal world” or “utopia” in a way that makes sense to her -- and once you learn the full extent of her backstory, it becomes apparent how she came to the mentality she did, and, more pertinently, how she ended up projecting that on everyone else. Hence, how she came to decide that she knew better and should decide for everyone, because she thinks she gets the right to decide on everyone’s happiness based on her own experiences. (She doesn’t.)

The way Neverland is constructed is that everyone has “their own places” -- their own individual islands that recreate “memories” of everyone being able to be together with their partner, forever. So in other words, it’s not just that everyone’s being turned into children; it’s that they’re being kept in an eternal loop of their best memory and unable to “move forward”.

Here are three very significant parts about this, which will be important to keep in mind as we go deeper into this analysis:

Menoa’s view of this utopia requires people to be separated -- for all she claims this is a utopia where people can play together, she discourages fraternizing and encourages everyone to stay only with their own partners. This is, presumably, to lessen complications with said memories, because what might be one person’s best memory might not be for another, and also because she thinks one person being alone with their partner is happiness enough in itself. As we’ll be seeing later, this is very much not the case for everyone.

A lot of these memories in Neverland -- and Menoa’s own mentality, as we eventually find out -- are heavily dependent on the concept of rose-colored nostalgia, or, that is to say, conveniently omitting or forgetting about all of the bad things about one’s past in order to portray it as such a wonderful thing that nobody should ever move on from. And in the end, that probably applies to real-life childhood in general, too; as much as it’s so often put on a pedestal for being a time when “everything was simpler”, you can also easily argue that it wasn’t actually all sunshine and roses, it’s just that the process of forgetting things or the grass-is-greener phenomenon makes you conveniently forget all of the bad things and frustration that came with it too.

Because the concept of needing to stay in the past forever is based on the idea that it’s preferable to growing up, these memories thus have a strong premise of “things you cannot do anymore” -- something that, bar going back to the past and never moving from it, you will never get back or be able to sufficiently recreate. It’s unlikely the islands themselves are one-to-one recreating their specific memories in the way they happened, but rather seemingly presenting them the opportunity to “constantly do over” things they want to recreate or do again, as long as those things are associated with a happy thing that isn’t as easily accessible anymore.

In the case of the five Adventure group members who were brought into Neverland, these “memories” that they’re seen trapped in are, of course, from Digimon Adventure.

It is of course foolhardy to pretend that the main reason for this wasn’t meta, since, of course, there’s a huge point to be made here about the relationship between Adventure and nostalgia, plus the simple fact that this is what we’re most likely to recognize and be nostalgic for, but it also makes sense within the context of the narrative; Menoa has an extreme bias towards the happiness of her childhood revolving almost entirely around her partner, and, of course, Adventure was when these kids first had their most formative meetings with said partners. (This is also probably the in-story explanation for why the other international Chosen from 02 appear at or close to their 02 selves; beyond the meta reason of it being a way to make them recognizable when we only knew them for such a short time, it also approximates when they met their own partners.)

On top of that, Adventure was not all sunshine and roses for its cast! After all, there was a ton of drama and emotional trauma and stress from running away from enemies trying to kill them, or trying to save the universe, and glossing over that is also foolhardy -- but this is also where our concept of “rose-colored” comes in. Menoa’s not offering the kids the entire adventure; she’s offering them a small slice of the moments when they were able to be happy, the moments that made them want to stay in the Digital World for a whole 110 years’ worth of time at the end of Adventure -- she’s basically offering them that very thing they wanted and had ripped away from them at the end of Adventure when the time dilation phenomenon stopped. Take out all of the bad stuff, and suddenly, the events of Adventure seem outright romantic -- it’s the whole school of thought that fueled Adventure’s inspirations of Two Years’ Vacation and Stand By Me, in which a lot of stressful stuff happened and yet you still can’t help but think there was something magical and romantic about it. (I cannot emphasize enough how much of a cultural impact Stand By Me in particular had in Japan, to the point where it’s considered the epitome example of a “coming of age story” and “summer adventure”.)

Let’s take a closer look at what’s on each of the Adventure kids’ personal islands:

Hikari is probably the one in the most unusual position among this group, since she didn’t join until over the halfway point, and the first arc she got involved in revolved around everyone wanting her and Tailmon dead. Thus, the memory we get to see her involved in is the Numemon factory in Adventure episode 49. Although this was in the middle of the Dark Masters arc (and, uniquely, very close to the end of the series where a lot of stress was involved), due to the limited amount of time she got to be in the Digital World, this was the one time she got to do something really cool and awesome and impressive for herself that had nothing to do with the others (again: see how the requirements for these islands require not fraternizing with friends and being isolated).

One thing that the Adventure kids got to do that wasn’t in play in 02 was that there were a lot of “romantic experiences”, involving strange adventures and things like phone boxes on the beach, and, very significantly, “Digimon friends” -- ones that the kids made a huge note of bonding with over the course of the series. This contributes to a certain sense of whimsy that was involved in this adventure that the 02 quartet ultimately never ended up getting to foster, because the lack of the time dilation phenomenon meant that they spent much less time in the Digital World overall (more on this in a bit), and once the time dilation stopped, it meant that these kinds of “whimsical” experiences were ones the Adventure group was permanently torn away from once that adventure ended. That dropping of the time dilation phenomenon not only cut that initial adventure short, it also prevented any future ones like it from ever happening again.

And, of course, this is an extremely rose-colored memory, because shortly afterwards, the Numemon ended up all sacrificing themselves for Hikari. But hey, when you’re in a space that can eternally loop good memories forever, everything’s fine as long as we conveniently never get to that part, right?

From this point on, you’ll notice that all of the memories that show up on these islands are from before the halfway point of the series, because after that, things started getting increasingly pear-shaped and much more difficult to disentangle the stress, mental breakdowns, and witnessing of deaths from. (Hikari’s probably wouldn’t have come from such a late incident if she hadn’t joined the party so late.) Although there still were looming threats around the horizon in the beginning of Adventure, they weren’t always immediately apparent to the kids at every turn, and in fact, the beginning of the series involved more of a “well, we’re in this situation and probably need to get home somehow” aura than it did a “the world is in danger and all of us might die” aura. (It’s also in direct contrast to the 02 group, who were given the details of the crisis and what they needed to do roughly from the get-go.) So in other words, if you want to have some rose-colored nostalgia about the romanticism of this adventure, these are some of the best episodes to pull from.

Takeru’s is obviously from the Village of Beginnings, corresponding to Adventure episode 12, when he and Patamon got to have a fun romp through the village, play together, meet Elecmon, and learn about how Digimon are born. It’s also very much something he did without the others, only with Patamon, and had a lot of “fun and happiness” associated with (later solo episodes with Takeru had a lot more upsetting events more intrinsically tied with it), and, again, it’s extremely rose-colored -- it wasn’t even a day later when Angemon died in front of Takeru’s eyes. But hey, that’s even more reason to pick a moment from before then to stay in forever! Can’t have trauma if that trauma never happens, right?

Also, note that Takeru is one of the few here who’s confirmed to be aware of the partnership dissolution issue at this point, and, unlike Koushirou, isn’t confirmed to have accepted a forward-thinking mentality about it yet -- this is a very, very prime time for his fears of being separated from Patamon again to have a nasty relapse.

Mimi’s is the closest to the midpoint of the series, from the affair with the Geckomon and Otamamon castle (from Adventure episode 25; the metal railings here resemble the stage railings from that episode). It’s from the period of time that was a “lull” -- when nobody actually knew about the encroaching threat of Vamdemon quite yet, and for all it was worth, there was no longer any danger. So Mimi got to live happily in the comfort of the castle and play around with the Geckomon and Otamamon...which, of course, also conveniently excludes the affair where she went on a power trip, made everyone miserable due to her selfishness, and immediately felt guilt over it.

Mimi’s associations with this incident are not entirely negative; she was clearly still having fun singing for them in the end (note how her clothing during that scene involved her regular outfit, which she has on here), and she still had a positive impression of her relationship with the Geckomon and Otamamon as per Adventure episode 47 and 02 episode 6 (and as per 02 episode 15, even though everyone’s initial encounter with TonosamaGeckomon ended badly, nobody actually has any lingering grudge against him). So if you filter out that whole affair with the power trip and the resulting embarrassment, it was a meeting with a bunch of fun Digimon friends, a romantic little castle, and a fun stage session where Mimi got to sing.

Jou’s refers to the Infinity Mountain incident in Adventure episode 7, and even from the get-go you can already see the level of rose-coloredness in Jou’s gesture -- in the actual incident depicted, Jou went to the mountain out of a sense of obligation and stress, and the initial climbing involved him having a bit of a bickering moment with Gomamon. But once they did get up there, it was actually their first time the two of them got to really “bond” -- and not only that, their encounter with Unimon had Jou even look on it with fascination, before the Dark Gear had ever come into play.

So in the end, Jou really would have found the incident enjoyable and worthwhile if not for that, and from there you can understand why it would be appealing for him to revisit that setting and finally get to have a bit of calm fun with Gomamon there -- especially since, again, the Neverland islands have a very strong preference for isolating the kids from others, and this was one of the few times Jou got to have a major moment of calm like this alone with Gomamon, with a slight reprieve from the constant feeling of stress and duty.

Koushirou’s most prominently resembles the “sealed room” in the factory in Adventure episode 5, and while Koushirou certainly continued to make a large number of exciting discoveries after that, this was the situation where Koushirou, with no one else but Tentomon to worry about in the immediate vicinity, got to have the largest sensation of “novelty” -- where he first came upon the fascinating discovery of data manipulating reality around him, and he actually got to see the world change around him by wiping things off a wall.

And, of course, there were other things going on like Tentomon confronting him with his first existential crisis, and how things quickly went south with Andromon...but we don’t have to remember that part for now, right?

An interesting thing about Koushirou: the circumstances of how he was “kidnapped” in the first place are actually somewhat obscured compared to the other four in this scene, since Menoa presumably needed him conscious in order to get his list out of him, resulting in his kidnapping scene also involving an emerging Eosmon and not having him be instantly taken the way we see Takeru and Hikari (more on this in the section below). It’s thus unclear whether he’d be in their boat had his position in Menoa’s plan not been unusual -- said memories in Neverland involved “gathering information and learning more”, something he still actively involved himself with even after the events of Adventure, and he’s also the first one to reach a forward-thinking mentality about the partnership dissolution phenomenon. Either way, once he was already dragged into Neverland, it’s natural that the place could find a good memory for him in the same way it did for the other kids who were “manually” dragged in, but the actual method of entry and whether Koushirou's post-Adventure life put him in a mindset similar to that of the 02 quartet (again, see below) is a bit ambiguous.

So here’s an interesting part about how the 02 quartet gets involved in this story: their own encounters with Eosmon happen during a part where the method of kidnapping has abruptly changed. As many have pointed out, this is also when the degree of the targets Menoa wanted had also suddenly escalated, because while her previous claims had involved the idea of kidnapping like-minded adults (who, indeed, were entertaining thoughts of nostalgia to even some degree), she was now kidnapping actual children, ones who weren’t even nearly at the point of the supposed drudgery of adulthood that Menoa claimed they would eventually have, and with her arrogantly deciding she knew better for all of them. The part that becomes particularly intriguing about this is that the exact same thing happens with Miyako -- she is explicitly stated to have connected her laptop to the Internet, resulting in an Eosmon physically emerging and chasing her instead of instantaneously snatching away her consciousness through a camera like her own fellow 02 group members Takeru and Hikari.

So in other words, the 02 quartet’s favorable position in this incident doesn’t just have to do with being lucky enough to have gotten Koushirou’s warning about the Eosmon early; they (or at least Miyako) also seem to have a certain degree of outright immunity to it, much like the young children who aren’t old enough to have nostalgia yet. (Also, keep in mind that Takeru was caught thanks to a security camera; “excess caution with electronic devices” alone wouldn’t necessarily have guaranteed their safety.)

Recalling that, for the most part, Takeru and Hikari are usually treated more like 02 group members in the context of this narrative yet are, in this one case, treated as being potentially nostalgia-prone, it stands to reason that the main difference between the two of them and their fellow members in the 02 group is the fact that Takeru and Hikari went on the adventure in 1999, and the quartet did not. So in other words, the reason the 02 quartet isn’t as prone to this is not so much that they’re fundamentally different-minded people, as much as they have a distinct lack of an experience they can be attached to the way the Adventure group is to their own 1999 adventure. (Remember that Menoa’s kidnappings work heavily on subconscious feelings; you can’t blame anyone for having these kinds of feelings no matter how much they’ve consciously learned.)

As I said earlier, it’s foolhardy to pretend that Adventure was all sunshine and roses, and, likewise, it’s also foolhardy to pretend that 02 was nothing but suffering for everyone involved. Both series involved a lot of balancing of funny, silly moments to be treasured as much as they involved stress (which is why people are so attached to both, after all). So the question is not so much how happy they were in their childhoods as much as the nature of what that happiness came from, and what relation it has to their current lives. And when you look at what experiences the 02 quartet had back in 02, you might notice a thread of the fact that it is significantly harder to romanticize the events of 02 than it is Adventure.

Let’s put it this way: Let’s say that the 02 quartet was kidnapped into Neverland and placed onto islands that fit Menoa’s view of happiness. What, exactly, would you pick from 02 itself that would work? What kind of “happiness” did they have back then that’s so romantic, so impossible to replicate now, that they’d want to go back to because it’s better than their lives now once you disentangle all of the bad stuff?

...Not much. Not much at all, actually. Hanging out in the computer room together? Doesn’t seem like they cared that much about the computer room part as much as the fact the others were there bantering with them (which would put a huge nail in Menoa’s islands mandating isolationism). Going out on a picnic together? No reason they can’t just go on another picnic again (and if the BD box is to be believed, that’s exactly what they did, and they even added Ken to it while they were at it). Hanging out with their Digimon in real life and doing silly hijinks? They’re...probably still doing that now, actually. Getting to find true happiness at a Christmas party? That’s a party from the real world (again, something they most certainly continued to do thereafter), one where the happiness came not from the romanticism of anything that happened to do with some adventure, but just the happiness of being surrounded by true friends, which, again, Ken is still clearly getting to do by the time of Kizuna.

Once you look at the circumstances of what the “adventure” of 02 was to the 02 group, you may realize that it doesn’t really resemble the traditional romantic image of an “adventure” much at all. Sure, they were blessed with being able to regularly go back and forth between the Digital World from the get-go, but it meant that -- especially without the time dilation in play -- the Digital World became much less of a picturesque area associated with a one-time memorable adventure as much as something they had to squeeze in their after-hours while juggling it with their school. The circumstances they encountered their Digimon and the Digital World in were at a point where it had a certain level of “mundane” to them, compared to their seniors; it wasn’t a “fantasy adventure in the Digital World” when so much of the story also revolved around real-world events as well, and you can’t really find many “mysterious fantasy” events in 02 that resemble much of those in Adventure. The closest might be...Daisuke seeing Numemon pile out of a vending machine in 02 episode 1? (Not very romantic.) Daisuke getting chased around by a Tortomon in 02 episode 22? (Really not very romantic.) Iori getting to tour the ocean with Submarimon? (Implied to more about relief from how much he was holding himself back than the uniqueness of the experience in itself.) Ken’s long-time-ago flashback from 02 episode 23 about meeting Wormmon for the first time? (Defeating a Gazimon is hardly that impressive; the important part was him bonding with Wormmon, which he’s...uh...still doing now?)

There weren’t any lasting relationships with Digimon friends like the ones in Adventure, maybe encountering some civilians once and not seeing them much again after that, especially since the lack of time dilation meant not getting to spend as much time visiting them much at all (think about all of the really fun experiences that the Adventure group probably had that weren’t shown in the actual Adventure TV series, just because it probably didn’t have enough drama that would make a good TV episode plot). This means that there’s very little, if at all, of 02 that represents something this group would want so badly to recreate that they can’t already do now; everything from back then was either something comparatively mundane, or something they actually would not want back. Unlike with Adventure, where a lot of the kids had irreplaceable moments that only happened to be spoiled a bit later, a lot of the “really awesome accomplishments” from the first half of 02 were explicitly against Ken, someone whom they’d probably rather not dwell on fighting again because of how much they love him now; many of those good memories are “retroactively poisoned” because of that, and it’s much, much more difficult to make a rose-colored version of those memories disentangled from the bad, because of how fundamentally intrinsic that retroactive poisoning becomes.

And, when you think about it, the mandate of “you have to be alone on your own island” would pretty much break these four in particular, especially since the 02 group is portrayed as the type to need mutual support more than anything else, and so many of the events that represent “happiness” specifically involved the happiness of each other being present. It’s not to say that the 02 quartet had no moments of happiness when alone with their partners, but, rather, being with each other provided so much more fulfillment to them that Menoa’s offer of a memory of their past that requires them to be alone probably pales in comparison to anything they could do now in each other’s presence. Maybe, like with the other kids depicted in these scenes, they could be buttered up with something nice if you successfully got them into Neverland, but it’s not like they have any real wistfulness about anything from back then to the point that they’d be subconsciously drawn towards it instead of having to be dragged in kicking and screaming -- and especially in the case of Miyako, the same one who managed to evade an Eosmon here, who was offered a similar “chance to be alone” back in 02 episode 49 and didn’t take very long to decide she hated it because of how much of her happiness comes from getting to be with others.

By the time of the end of Adventure, the Adventure kids’ ideal situation was to have a romantic and fun 110-year adventure with the sights and fun of the Digital World, with all of the weird fantasy surrealism and less of the world-saving, and that’s something they never got to have (and that Menoa was inherently offering them). By the time of the end of 02, the 02 quartet’s ideal situation was...to find a way to get back to normal life and hope their friend feels a little better, and that “ideal situation” is still persisting even into the time of Kizuna, so it’s hard to imagine they really want more than that.

And, again, when you extrapolate this into what Kizuna’s trying to say about real life, adulthood, and nostalgia: it is true that Menoa’s projecting a belief that absolutely does not apply to everyone. While it’s true that many people feel that childhood had a certain kind of magic that you can’t get back in adulthood, there are possibly just as many people who aren’t really all that nostalgic to begin with, either due to trauma or something about their childhoods being miserable, or, even in the lack of such miserable events, simply enjoying the added freedom and expanded range of ability that comes with adulthood to the point they consider it to be more than worth the tradeoff. The 02 group basically represents this crowd -- Ken’s life right now beats out his past in pretty much nearly every respect, and while there are certain concerns about not being able to meet up as often, they’re finding the same ways to do the same kinds of over-the-top hijinks they did back in 02, with arguably even more range now that they get to exploit Digital Gates to do world travel and act without worrying about their parents. They’re basically like the adults who see Menoa’s creed of “childhood is better because adulthood sucks” and go “sorry, can’t relate.”

That said, remember: this isn’t because the 02 quartet is somehow mentally stronger or anything, but rather just a byproduct of what experiences they've had and haven’t had. Takeru and Hikari’s position is unique here -- for all intents and purposes their mentalities are portrayed as closer to the 02 group’s, but they did still have the experience their seniors had and are thus still capable of being close to their position in this one regard. In the end, everyone is different, it’s no sin to have feelings based on those differences, and “being able to relate” to one’s position is also an important key here; because the 02 group’s position is so alien to Menoa’s, it’s unlikely they could have tackled her problems nearly as intimately as their seniors could.

What we learn about Menoa’s backstory establishes that she forced her vision of nostalgic happiness on everyone based on her own perception of her past in such a warped, rose-colored manner. She conveniently omitted or forgot about details such as the fact that her life as a “child” involved feeling ostracized from everyone and that she herself was guilty of neglecting Morphomon. Not only that, she herself claims that she’s the only one who knows what this feels like -- that nobody relates to her -- and thus, you can see that she came to her conclusion that her experiences are universal by the power of sheer extrapolation, hence why she thinks everyone inevitably loses their partner upon reaching adulthood despite pretty significant amounts of evidence to the contrary. (For all it’s worth, the fact that she still considers herself as having “become an adult” at 14 just because she got into university at that time is pretty conceited.)

Menoa’s existence as being so starkly in contrast to the 02 quartet’s is very likely because her entire character was built up from the ground that way -- her entire backstory of skipping grades into university is heavily based on 02′s initial development premise and Ken’s own backstory, meaning she explicitly represents the path that Ken and the other 02 kids chose not to take, and the timing of certain events in her backstory seems almost deliberately engineered to prevent her from witnessing some of 02′s important answers to Kizuna’s conflict, most notably her inability to witness the final battle and the important lessons everyone present learned about following one’s dreams without restraint, and how that relates to one’s partner. Menoa’s mindset is basically that level of incompatible with 02′s themes of “moving on from the past” and “not caving to arbitrary societal expectations”, to the point her character could only get to this point by going out of the way to exclude her from 02′s story and events, because she’s fundamentally built as a character who started off on a very similar path as them (getting to integrate her Digimon partner into normal life, having a similar backstory to Ken) before veering off on a very different one.

Moreover, about that backstory, and the reason why 02 was conceived as such a criticism of the concept of “skipping grades into university”: the concern that someone in this position will be kept from making any friends their age. Menoa puts the moment of “being with one’s partner” on such a pedestal and considers herself to be “the only one who knows what this feels like” partially because she has a fundamentally warped view of friendship itself. Even the Adventure group, which may not have had quite the absurdly tight level of bonding the 02 group had, still broke out of the illusion via Taichi and Yamato reaching out to them, and Taichi and Yamato giving each other mutual support helped them make the decisions they did in the movie. The movie is titled “bonds”, and “bonds” doesn’t just refer to those between human and Digimon partner, but also bonds between each other; Taichi, Yamato, and Sora slowly drifting away from the others at the start of the movie has very strong relevance to their respective existential crises, and the role that Taichi and Yamato play in supporting each other, and Mimi’s in supporting Sora in To Sora and even beyond that, say a lot as to how they’re already expected to be much better off than Menoa was.

It’s not that adulthood is inherent drudgery; it’s that Menoa’s own circumstances really are that warped to the point where she sees her very unusual experiences as fundamentally synonymous with how life is supposed to work in general. She was so obsessed with “being independent”, “being useful to the world”, and “being on her own” that she had no mentality of making friends or connecting to others besides her own partner, and once her partner disappeared, she seemed to make no attempt to rectify that. So of course her life in university following that ended up being not nearly as fulfilling as she’d hoped, since she was getting no real emotional support from anywhere, and, as 02 itself also drove home, apparent “approval from society” only ever makes you as “happy” as a Dark Seed-implanted child if you’re not also being supported by your loved ones in the process. Her adulthood sucked, and she decided that everything about her rose-colored childhood meant that childhood is fundamentally superior in every way, and thus decided that keeping everyone else in it would be “saving” them from the terror it involves -- even though (even if they’re not aware of the specifics of everything) the 02 quartet is not the kind to be able to relate to this at all, and, eventually, Taichi and Yamato, who do understand her position a bit better due to their own experiences, are able to get her to reconsider a little.

[shortnotsweet]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Disclaimer

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

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

Let’s begin.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Two sides of the same coin, an outstretched hand.

They are better together.

How to Kill Middle Schoolers, and Why We Should

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Give it to Me Straight. It’s Homophobic.

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

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

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

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

Love in Perspective, from the East v. West

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

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

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

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

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

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

Stuck in the Sludge, the Past, and Season One

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

This may be edited or revised.