#in case anyone is curious I love and hate adam with equal intensity

[rengadyke]

Adam shows the ugly side of queerness, the people who get abused and don’t get support for their trauma and thus lash out and hurt others. Queer people who have the luxury of not seeing themselves in Adam dismiss him as irredeemable and either demonize him or straight-up pretend he doesn’t exist (I’ve seen him edited out of official art multiple times). He represents an aspect of queerness that people don’t want to see because we feel like it reflects badly on the whole community. Or his behavior reminds people of their own trauma. People have valid reasons for hating Adam, but if we acknowledge that we also have to acknowledge the valid reasons people have for loving him.

I’ve said this in a post before, but the point of Tadashi’s devotion to Adam (and Langa’s kindness towards Adam during their final race) is to show that people who have done bad things are still worthy of love and kindness. Not necessarily from the people they’ve hurt—Cherry demonstrates this when he loses all sympathy for Adam after Adam sends him to the hospital—but maybe from the people who have been down in the trenches with them, who understand where they’re coming from and can help them claw their way out.

Tadashi and Adam are still villains at the end; Adam is still terrorizing the protagonists and manipulating the justice system to serve his own needs, and Tadashi is enabling him. But they’re happy together. And you know what? I’m glad they’re happy. The fact that Utsumi wanted them and the viewers they represent to be happy is more important than the fact that some people don’t like them.

And as far as the accusations of pedophilia go, yes Adam does sexually harass teenagers and that’s not okay (hence him being a villain). I’ve seen takes on this ranging from “his behavior must mean he wants to rape these children there is no other explanation” to “actually he’s not attracted to minors, it’s all just part of his performance.” To me personally, it doesn’t matter what his motivations are because the effect is the same: the teenagers get sexually harassed by a grown man.

But if you’re only looking at Adam’s actions in the show and not the context of the genre he’s in, you’ll miss something: the pedophilic gay villain is a trope in shonen anime (Hunter x Hunter, Black Butler, and Banana Fish immediately come to mind). Utsumi is actually subverting this trope by giving Adam a sympathetic backstory and an age-appropriate love interest. Unlike other shonen anime villains, Adam is not defined solely by his violence against the protagonists. He has his own story, and fans who have trauma similar to his are encouraged to identify with him. Adam’s character is a subversion of a homophobic trope, as well as a message to everyone who feels like they have to hide and lash out because they’re different that they are still worthy of love.

Again, people are allowed to hate Adam if they want to. But people are also allowed to love him, and that doesn’t mean they’re about to go harass children or commit aggravated assault with a skateboard. So let’s all just chill out a little.

we do know that Ainosuke’s a villain

the majority of Adam lovers do know that he’s a villain, but the Western fandom’s hatred for him is too much. like why do you put so much effort hating him? go do something healthy. 

i don’t know much about other Adam fans, but i love him because 

he’s queer, duh. but like in a different way from the rest of the group

his trauma is similar to many of us growing in a queerphobic &/or  broken home.

how he deals with various trauma resonates with me as a multi-traumatize person

his coping mechanism, Adam, resonates with me as a marginalized person.

no seriously. masking is survival for marginalized people. if we show ourselves as we r we’re either discriminated, face trauma, and/or killed