transfemhawkeye

[transfemhawkeye]

☆ intro post ☆

★—˚₊☆｡ basic stuff: my name is bianca. i use she/her pronouns. i'm 17 and a freshman in college. i am very small and i have no money.

★—˚₊☆｡ the only interest i retain with any amount of consistency is hawkeye/young avengers, hence the url.

★—˚₊☆｡ right now i'm interested in:

★‒ BNHA/MHA ★‒ Marvel (Comics) ★‒ Cyberpunk 2077 ★‒ Gender Studies in Classical Antiquity ★‒ More That I Can't Think Of

all of that is, of course, subject to change. this is a variety show.

★—˚₊☆｡ i also write sometimes! i'm on AO3 as biancaa.

★—˚₊☆｡ uhhhhh. um. idk be mutuals with me i'm super cool pinky promise

★—˚₊☆｡ people named aiden dni!!

[transfemhawkeye]

if london was calling me I'd hang up

[transfemhawkeye]

I mean, no. People don't know that Sappho ran a school. one of the most notable aspects of Sappho is that we know virtually nothing about her. She lived in Lesbos in the 7th and early 6th centuries BCE, she wrote lyric poetry-- meaning it was performed in song-- and those two facts nearly exhaust what we know for certain about Sappho.

The idea of Sappho as a teacher is an invention of the 20th century which is all but unsubstantiated, and, considering the pedagogical traditions of the time, pretty anachronistic. ( "Sappho Schoolmistress" by Holt N. Parker is a very good and widely cited article on this). 20th century Sapphic scholarship was very concerned with the question of her sexuality, and the schoolteacher interpretation was designed essentially as a way to portray her as pure and chaste. It's certainly not "the best understanding of the historical context." There's very likely not a single performance context which Sappho fits neatly into; some of her songs were probably performed at wedding ceremonies, and others may have been performed in private, for friends. Given the paucity of information, though, to make a definitive statement any way is intrinsically dishonest.

What we are nearly certain of about Sappho is that she "loved women as deeply as she did music" (a quote from Anne Carson that I'm quite fond of). Although I have my gripes with the way people engage with Sappho today (add that the the list of things I need to write a post about), it would be extremely difficult to, in good faith, argue against the homeroticism of Sappho's work. The single complete poem we have of hers is the Ode to Aphrodite (fragment 1), which clearly expresses romantic desire for a woman, and fragment 31 expresses a similar desire. The question is less whether Sappho had romantic relations with other women, and more so whether we can accurately refer to Sappho as gay, given the social contingency of sexuality. That is a very complicated and nuanced conversation, and I'm far too tired to bring up Foucault right now. Personally, I'm on the constructionist side of this argument, and I'm very hesitant to apply such contemporary terminology to the ancient world. Regardless, the general scholarly consensus is that Sappho loved women, she loved women at a time where it was abnormal for a woman to love women, and in my view, if not lesbian, i think we can fairly call her queer.

Do people know that Sappho ran a school.

Like yeah, people in the centuries afterwards interpreted her poetry very homoerotically to the point of naming lesbianism and the word sapphic after her work, but like. The best understanding of the actual historical context was that she just wrote a poem dedicated to each of her students to celebrate them completing their studies with her.

The queerness is in the interpretation not in the actual historical context. I feel like people don’t know this. Sorry to burst the gay bubble.

[transfemhawkeye]

As a disclaimer, I'd recommend waiting until we have the full chapter to make any definitive statements on it. Something, something, leak culture bad.

With that said, though, I have been thinking for the past half hour or so about Izuku rejecting a partnership offer from Bakugo in Chapter 431, and while I'm adhering to my words above regarding that, I do want to push back on the opinion-- which I've seen a lot of people holding-- that doing so is automatically mischaracterization.

BNHA's story centers around Izuku and Bakugo's dynamic, and we see that dynamic shift in such a profound way over the series. We begin the story with Izuku simultaneously idolizing and fearing a boy who, by all appearances, despises him. Katsuki's a bully and an egotist, but like so many bullies and egotists, the way he's acting is a mask. It's a response to fear, and it's a very conventionally masculine one (that's another post, though). Katsuki's scared of Izuku, because even though Izuku is weak, quirkless, below him, Katsuki always feels like Izuku is above him. He's scared of this feeling, and that becomes anger. So he lashes out, keeps Izuku at arm's length, and it doesn't work, because no matter what he does or says, Izuku worships him. That's a very intentional word choice; there is a sort of religious quality to the two's early dynamic, where Katsuki is this unreachable figure who Izuku simultaneously fears and loves, who represents the apex of strength and power in his eyes. This is, to say the least, an extremely unhealthy relationship dynamic, and one which harms both of them.

It's impossible to talk about Izuku and Bakugo's character arcs independently of each other. I would describe them as two sides of a coin; Izuku's arc fundamentally centers around creation, and Bakugo's around destruction. When Izuku arrives at UA, he defines himself by his worship for All Might and Katsuki. Izuku models his costume and his fighting style after All Might, even using the same names for his moves. Simultaneously, he continues to internalize Bakugo's bullying, doubting himself, continuing to idolize Katsuki even as Katsuki's increasing feeling of inferiority spurs him to ramp up the torment. So Izuku's arc is about gaining independence; it's about creating his own identity, about self reliance. He reclaims the derogatory nickname Katsuki uses for him, develops Shoot Style, changes his costume, and starts standing up to Katsuki. Yes, he still admires Katsuki, still cares for him, but crucially, that admiration no longer comes at the cost of his self-respect. It's because of this change that Bakugo is forced to reckon with the root of his aggression. He spends the majority of the series working towards consciously grasping his feelings of inferiority, and a big part of that is confronting his preconceived notions of strength and weakness, and accepting that he can rely on others without being weak. (Again, so much of Bakugo's arc is tied to overcoming toxic masculinity, and I'll definitely need to write about that sometime, too.) The apology he gives to Izuku at the end of the Dark Hero Arc is one of the series' strongest narrative moments, and its a showcase of so much development-- it's a genuine expression of vulnerability, Bakugo dropping his veneer of superiority, something which would be unconscionable to the Katsuki we meet in chapter 1. That Izuku doesn't immediately accept and try to assuage Katsuki's guilt speaks to the development he's undergone, too. Izuku learns to rely on himself, while Bakugo learns to rely on others.

So, after these arcs, with Izuku finally repowered, Bakugo asks him: "Will you join my agency as my partner?" This is the natural conclusion of Bakugo's arc: it shows that he sees Izuku as an equal and he's prepared to rely on him as a partner. And yet, Izuku turns him down. I understand why people would be upset about that, and if he did accept the offer, I wouldn't have a problem with it. But at the same time, we've just talked about how Izuku's story has centered around gaining independence from his idols. At some level, Bakugo is asking Izuku to go back to defining himself by their relationship, and even though it's in a far more equitable way than the hero worship which used to describe their dynamic, it's completely reasonable and in-character for Izuku not to want that. Yes, it's sad, but I think acting as though this is out of character for Izuku basically requires ignoring his character development, and it implies a very simplified understanding of his and Katsuki's dynamic and how it evolves throughout MHA. Bakugo and Izuku have one of my favorite relationships in any media I've watched/read/played/etc. and it's frustrating to see Izuku's part in it essentially be disregarded.

[transfemhawkeye]

CEASE THIS MADNESS!!!

[transfemhawkeye]

Seeing people get upset at Charli for being “disrespectful” to Captain America is so funny to me because I already know they haven’t read Hawkeye things or they would know this is par for the course of Hawkeye when they first meet Steve. It’s a canon event my friends.

[transfemhawkeye]

Your Honor, I love them! This new hawkeye redesign fuckin rocks dude gimme gimme gimme!

[transfemhawkeye]

[transfemhawkeye]

>looks up The Silence from Doctor Who

>the link is purple

[transfemhawkeye]

My favorite part of doctor who ever is when the doctor does their whole “I refuse to kill this villain/monster because of merciful moral reasons” bit and then immediately follows it with “so instead I will trap them alone in a barren hell dimension for all eternity”. It’s like that’s worse, though. do you get why that’s worse.

[transfemhawkeye]

Has anyone done this yet

[transfemhawkeye]

If you watch Doctor Who on Disney+, it gives you a 'skip intro' button, and if anything shows that Disney does not understand the appeal of Doctor Who, it's that. Who skips the Doctor Who intro. It's the least skippable intro in television history. It never even occurred to me to do that.

[transfemhawkeye]

why is it called free will if it costs so much to do anything i want

[transfemhawkeye]

“i have to be like this because this is what i’m like” ohhhhh boy

[transfemhawkeye]

rogue is the best doctor who has been in years oh my god. this episode is so good and so gay im losing my mind

[transfemhawkeye]

for the record, i only started reading jjk a little bit ago and I'm not fully caught up with it, but i still feel quite confident in saying that the fandom does not know how to read

[transfemhawkeye]

Neil!!!