#but there is a certain thought pattern i've seen in some fanon takes

[ooooo-mcyt]

I don't like to make Pearl out to be completely blameless for all of Double Life.

In many cases, Pearl was pushy, hypocritical, and even selfish and cruel to a degree. Most of the things people said about her weren't made up, they were largely things Pearl did.

I'm not saying she was a "bad person", she wasn't. I've said before that I think Pearl is a very kind and easygoing person who only really wants companionship and never wanted to be "scarlet Pearl", and that's still true.

I'm also not saying she wasn't a victim, she was. I've said before that I think Pearl was unfairly isolated during Double Life and that she suffered immense trauma that she by no means "deserved" for anything she'd done.

But Pearl wasn't a "perfect victim" and I don't..like..to sand down her edges.

Scott was wrong to hurt Pearl on purpose, the axe crits were cruel, but Pearl independently (without knowing scott did the same thing) chose to "torture" Scott too.

Ren overreacted in a deeply damaging way when he labeled Pearl a curse and blamed her for a death she never meant to cause, but Pearl did steal from him in the moments leading up to that death.

Cleo threatening to kill Pearl's dog was wrong, especially when Cleo knows how much Tilly meant to Pearl and how much Pearl's mental state relied on her, but that threat came while Cleo was watching Pearl attack their chosen soulmate with an axe while threatening to kill him.

Why does Pearl need to be a 'perfect victim'? Why does she have to be sad and perfect entirely? If we sand down her harmful behavior in an attempt to validate her trauma are we saying she'd in some way 'deserve' her trauma if she did something 'bad' enough? Are we saying 'real' victims can't inflict harm?

The things Pearl suffered didn't come out of nowhere. There wasn't a conspiracy to hurt her, there wasn't a mob of evil cruel people who hated her for nothing, people weren't making things up to accuse Pearl of, and she didn't spend all of Double Life crying and doing no harm. Pearl hurt people.

And so what if Pearl hurt people? She doesn't deserve our empathy any less for it. She doesn't deserve to heal any less for it. She doesn't deserve her trauma any more for it. Pearl is still a kind easygoing person who deserves companionship and deserves to heal, she's just..not a 'perfect' victim and she doesn't need to be. Pearl does not need to be pure or absolved, she needs to be seen as a person and extended empathy. Those aren't the same thing.

And of course, there's this other argument that the people Pearl did hurt- especially Scott, he's the one I see this said about most often- deserved it. But I resent that concept, the idea that some people just deserve to be hurt. (especially since scott didn't do anything all that much worse than pearl, he just happened to have a slightly worse attitude about it and not express as much outward distress in a way that would make him immediately sympathetic. which should not at all be how we determine who allegedly 'deserves' to be hurt and who doesn't.)

I don't know, as a trauma survivor myself I just have a lot of feelings about the fandom urge to make a black and white dichotomy of perfect victim vs monster who 'deserves' punishment. I feel like it always inevitably ends up with people looking at situations with multiple victims, multiple traumatized and hurt people who have all been hurt, none of whom deserved it, and all of whom have hurt other people as well, and just..sorting them into 'good victim did nothing wrong' and 'bad victim deserved it'. I just don't like it. At all. I really think we need more nuance when talking about trauma and harmful relationships than that.

[valeriecherishes]

i find it fascinating that i think a good chunk of choices in s8 with buck and eddie were specifically designed around the idea of trying to actively avoid queerbaiting accusations, which i've never seen done before in any other show. they weaved it into the storylines themselves and still people were so one track minded that no matter what they did, it would always be deemed queerbaiting in their eyes.

i think the reality is that, even if both actors were down for buddie canon and the writers wanted to do it, it would be unlikely that the higher-ups would be cool with taking two of their young, hot, heartthrob-y main cast members who had previously only dated women coming out as some form of not-straight 7+ seasons into the show on a network procedural. it would be nice if we lived in that world, but i can't see that being the case.

i think in s7 they thought having buck come out as bi and still giving buddie ample scenes by doing that "at least one scene per episode" thing would still leave people satisfied- gives some validation for fans seeing buck as queer through the years while still giving plenty of nice scenes for the popular fanon ship, even if they remained platonic. but ofc due to the one-track-mind of it all, bi!buck was viewed as a direct line to buddie. more fans came into the fandom with this thought in mind due to that idea being pushed. but as it became increasingly clear that it was not in fact a direct line to buddie, the fandom gets increasingly more loud and entitled.

so now we have 8a where suddenly they have less one-on-one scenes again. eddie looking at a bikini magazine in a bucktommy scene. the next episode bucktommy break up and we have eddie declaring his straightness in the same episode- a very clear indication of the writers saying "hey! don't take buck showing up at eddie's door post-breakup as romantic, this is not a romantic scene!" because of their full knowledge that the fanbase would think buddie was imminent as soon as buck was single again. that doesn't work because the fandom ignores and spins eddie's statement (and ryan's a thousand "brothers" references), and so we get 8x11 to really drive it in. they even tried to let them down nicely by having maddie say "it wouldn't be so crazy", because no, it's not a crazy thought but it just isn't true. but nope, the message is ignored again, in fact it's been spun as a buddie win!

not to mention the continuous pattern of seeing less one-on-one buddie scenes by inserting other characters into their scenes to make them feel less intimate, establishing new friendships like buck/ravi, giving a fight scene to buddie that was aggressive and actively not romantic at all. i think so many of the choices made for their scenes this season were so indicative of the writers' active awareness of the fan dynamics at play and not wanting to give people the wrong idea and narratively show that it was not the direction the show was going.

but i think this is a lesson that, when a fanon ship fandom reaches a certain level like buddie has, nothing is really going to sink in for them. there's too much groupthink, grifters, sunk cost fallacies, social capital, and shared motivations to stay in the game no matter what for them to truly get the hint en masse.

i just hope that the writers have now realized this and stop letting this loud segment of the fandom influence the writing and direction of the show in any particular way. it's a useless endeavor, and it's not worth getting influenced by because they will never be happy with what the show actually is when they've made up their own version of it that is not based in reality.

[whomstdosthouthinkiis]

i guess I don't see the point of segregating those different dynamics, given that they have nothing to do with topping or bottoming, and aren't mutually exclusive. Kacchan is both bold, confident, outgoing, abrasive and shy, sensitive, and reserved. Izuku is both timid, tenderhearted, sensitive, and aggressive, obsessive, and arrogant. these are complicated, multifaceted characters. both deserve comfort, protection, and emotional catharsis, and should be the one to do the ass kicking. I understand people having a preference for what traits are emphasized, but not incorporating all of them means, well, it's going to be ooc. That's just how it goes.

What you have described to me...

timid katsuki x a possessive obsessed izuku… or a shy timid izuku x confident brash katsuki

...are both ooc, just in different ways. both of these readings flatten the various dimensions of their characters into, essentially, more easily written caricatures. I, as a person who is mostly a bkdk shipper (when it comes to my preference of who tops), would close a fic if either of these dynamics were emphasized to an extreme degree without balancing them with elements of their actual canonical personalities.

what is bothering me about this discussion, is the simply fact that, while you may say it's more than topping and bottoming, that is how it was originally intended and the basis of these diverging characterizations and communities; And I don't think you will ever escape that, especially when you yourself admit that both sides tend to feminize the bottom to some degree, which I have seen in action many times. As someone whose been in this fandom awhile, and in fandom in general for awhile, this isn't new, but it doesn't stop it from having... certain unfortunate connotations. From what I've gathered from various peoples framing, the general division still hinges on top as pursuer/aggressor/active-wooer/giver of affections vs. bottom as pursued/passive/object of affection.

when you pit bkdk = agressive/confident bk x passive/shy dk and dkbk = obsessive/possessive dk x shy/timid bk....

Even without active 'feminization', that's just heteronormativity.

I'm srry, that's just how it reads to me.

Someone can be a princess and still lay pipe, and someone can be the active-wooer and take back shots. The fact of the matter is bedroom dynamics have literally nothing to do with characters personalities, and the implication and tacit insistence that it does, and that's why the tags must be so starkly separated, is stepping in some very loaded and honestly kinda regressive ideas around queer relationships.

I don't say this to paint any group as "problematic" but it does have implications and patterns of behavior that need to be discussed. These issues and discourses don't exist in a cultural vacuum and it does us all a disservice to pretend like they do. (I see nothing wrong with exploring "problematic" things in fiction or shipping, it's okay to feminize characters and such, but pls at least be aware that's what is happening and the context around it). In essence, Izuku and Katsuki's dynamic in canon is neither one being purely active or passive in their affections toward each other; In fact their ever evolving relationship emphasizes how they've traded these roles back and forth, being equals in their deep abiding affections, competitive natures, and devotions to their convictions and each other. I do not see them as people who can so easily be split into roles or have their characterizations divided as such. I am mainly a bakudeku shipper, but that's simply because that was the tag at the fandom's founding. but I am also a switch shipper, because, again, I prefer their canonical relationship to any fanon interp, and do not see who tops as changing their dynamic whatsoever. (I have thought of katsuki as a princess, he's my favorite character whomst I love very much <3, but that doesn't make him inherently feminine or timid or a bottom, that's just me being hyperbolic in my affections).

I also find your insistence that there is one unified bkdk characterization to just be, well, entirely divorced from how I've interacted with the fandom. Because, while the two characterizations you've described are common, in such a large fandom it is plenty easy to find different fics of one supposed top/bottom dynamic that emphasize completely different parts of their personalities in completely opposite ways. Not to mention what about confident/protective bk x agressive/possessive dk? or timid/sweet dk x reserved/gentle bk? both are still ooc as well, but I think they are also very well founded in their characters and don't follow either of the dynamics you've laid out. TL;DR: I don't think these dynamics are easily separable or mutually exclusive, and I think that actually being true to their characters means acknowledging they do not fall into any such stereotypical molds of how top/bottom dynamics manifest in fandom (in fact most ships don't).

In all honesty, I don't think any of this discourse and separation is helpful to the fandom as a whole. I understand that the Japanese fandom does it... that doesn't mean it's actually best practice.

by all means, have your preference, but... it's really not that deep (or at least not in a good way). Just food for thought

Something that frustrated me a lot is how segregated bkdk and dkbk are from each other, like, It is the same characters! aren't we all on the same side?

But in the end, the difference is apparent when you read how they portray Izuku, I think that the thing, especially after chapter 431, is that people focus so much on Katsuki being 'rejected' that now Izuku is the that has to chase him (gain)

Their characterization changes so much depending on if bkdk or dkbk, at some point it stops being about who is topping who

yah all this bc I keep getting blocked by both sides bc I like both