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Hello, everyone, let’s play a game. Reblog this post with one of your favorite anime ships with at least one of these four tags:

Rate - People will rate your ship on a scale of 1-10

Roast - People will try to roast you based on your ship

Review - People will write their opinions of that ship

Recommend - People will recommend a different anime based on that ship

I promise I’ll respond to every single one of these because I’m bored and like talking about ships!

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Me: I think fandom spaces have been showing a lack of media literacy and character analysis skills and I find it really disheartening.

Other Person: Yeah, like when fans said that [Character with no explicitly confirmed sexuality] was gay when they’re confirmed to be straight!

Me: No, actually, that is part of the problem.

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Yes and it’s genuinely one of my favorite broader tropes in media–though I am gonna approach talking about it in a non-ship manner to give me broader options for my other examples.

Brief Anime Tangent: In another post I wrote about MHA, I talked about how All Might and Endeavor are the first iteration of the dynamic we see between Deku and Bakugo (along with parallels between characters). Deku learns to balance being a hero and having an independent identity, Bakugo learns to rely on and openly care for people around him while also understanding that individual power isn’t the most important thing. In doing so, they also figured out how to turn animosity and jealousy into an ostensibly healthy and respectful rivalry that pushed both of them to be better heroes. It would have been so easy for them to go down the same paths as All Might and Endeavor, but they managed to learn from the mistakes of the previous generation. Another great example of this is the changes between the three (though one is really unofficial) generations of Soukoku in Bungo Stray dogs: Fukuzawa and Mori, Dazai and Chuuya, and Atsushi and Akutagawa. With each iteration, the characters get better and communicating and trusting/respecting each other, which in turn helps their teamwork and makes them more effective.

When it comes to the parallels between Viktor and Jayce and Silco and Vander, the difference mostly lies in pride and vulnerability. Season two spoilers beneath the cut!

In season two, we see an undelivered/undiscovered letter from Vander to Silco that could have potentially changed the ultimate outcome of their feud. We get to see Vander’s unvoiced remorse and his desire to make amends, and it’s all very heartbreaking and emotional. Of course, Vander never found Silco, so he just ended up leaving it somewhere where he hoped Silco would find it.

In the alternate reality, we do see that Silco and Vander were able to make amends–Silco still has his scar, so we can rule out that as the difference between that universe and the canon one. So, either Silco found the letter or something happened that forced Vander to put aside his pride and continue his search regardless of difficulty, and I think the latter is much more likely. Vi’s death, in my opinion, reinforces the importance of family and caring for those who are important to you, while also directly showing that both Silco and Vander’s methods weren’t getting anywhere. When your child dies and reality hits, ego has to take a backseat. They were more effective working as a team, and this universe showed that perfectly.

For Jayce and Viktor, I think Viktor said it best: what kept them together was affection. When push came to shove, Jayce’s pride wasn’t more important to him than his city and, with the extra information he had from that future version of Viktor, nothing was more important than saving his friend. Viktor still had his pride and an understandable wariness of vulnerability, just like Silco. In that moment, he was not going to be the one to reach out and bridge the gap. Where Vander was unable to get past his pride to do it instead, Jayce succeeded.

Quick question, has anyone talked or thought about the parallels between Jayvik and the Zaundads?

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Note that none of this is a defense, just me thinking about the character.

I think the main thing about Jayce is that his naivety, ignorance, and/or optimism are things he doesn’t lose until it’s too late while simultaneously being what put him in the position to meet Viktor and make a difference in the world.

1. Naivety

Jayce seems to genuinely believe that everyone who offers to help him has his best interests and goals in mind. To Jayce, Hextech is this wonderful world of opportunities to do good, and other people see that! They just also see ways to achieve their own interests with it. This is not something to say that Mel, Heimerdinger, Caitlyn, etc. are bad people or don’t care about Jayce because they obviously do. The fact of the matter is, though, that each of them have their own interests to protect and Jayce ends up pulled in a million different directions with very little preparation. He learns how to play politics, sure, but with the apparent assumption that all he needs to do is Fix™️ politics and then he can get back to focusing on Hextech instead of it being his new main career. He still believes that everything has a clear-cut solution up until the factory raid he commits with Vi.

2. Ignorance

This one might be better worded as unconscious bias and is best exhibited by his conversation with Viktor on the bridge. He knows Viktor is dying (or at least very sick) and that Hextech could save him. It’s likely he even understands what caused Viktor’s chronic illness and know his background. However, he views Viktor as separate from Zaun because of what he’s heard and subconsciously learned growing up. It’s the privilege of ignorance in the sense that his baseline standard of living never forced him to confront these biases and information as anything other than abstract concepts. When that’s true, it’s easy to see someone you know and care about in the way of “oh, that’s just that person” instead of recognizing the factors behind it. Think like “I can’t even tell you’re disabled” being said as a compliment to someone with an invisible disability (please note that I chose this as my example because that’s my lived experience).

3, Optimism

This loops back around to the idea of there always being a clear and ultimate solution to any problem that Jayce can get to if he just has enough time. For Jayce, it seems like the glass is always either empty or completely full–either there is no solution and everything is futile or the perfect solution is just around the corner. That perseverance obviously pays off when it comes to Hextech but is less helpful when to comes to situations with any sort of ambiguity. Jayce absolutely has empathy and some sort of moral compass–that’s part of why killing the child in the factory shook him up so badly. Optimism might not be the best word to describe this, but it’s some mix of optimism and trust that slowly gets worn down over the course of season one until it’s absolutely shattered in the end of act three and his subsequent experience with the Arcane in season two.

This is all a long-winded way of saying that, in some ways, Jayce is a ‘Big Privileged Piltie’. We’re just used to associating privilege with upper class economy, something easy to do when it comes to Piltover. His simple world view remained sheltered and preserved until it was too late for him to change it. In my opinion, it’s a good reason to dislike him. Jayce isn’t a perfect hero (even though he wants to be) and his failures and ignorance had deadly consequences. However, it’s also a view of the complexity of privilege and intent vs. impact that I find really interesting to talk about–someone can have a good heart and good intentions and still fail to reach a point where they’re able to use those two things to make the impact they want on the world.

the thing about jayce is that I KNOW he's not the big privileged piltie that some people make him out to be but for that very reason I dislike him even more because that makes his aloofness even less justifiable

bro was in his 30s, his best friend was a zaunite with systemically inflicted illness and he still couldnt manage to reach class consciousness

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Opened Crunchyroll to watch something and got ambushed by my 2024 Crunchyroll Arc, which is a thing apparently.

If anyone is curious, my top three were Bungo Stray Dogs, Black Butler, and Windbreaker.

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From reading Rust Blaster, Black Butler, and Twisted Wonderland, I have determined that Toboso Yana desperately wants to create a plot heavy fantasy BL and I for one think we should let her for the good of Black Butler. Be free, Toboso, follow your dreams.

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Ok so I’m playing Overwatch with my dad, right? I’m Reaper, he’s Ana, so we get that one interaction talking about Soldier:76

Reaper: Tell Jack to stop chasing me.

Ana: I tried. He wouldn’t listen.

Reaper: Isn’t that just like him?

It’s a cool interaction, lets us know what Soldier’s doing since he isn’t really with the recalled Overwatch, awesome. However, there’s one issue: we had a Soldier:76 on our team, so instead of a conversation about an old friend it seemed like Reaper being passive aggressive like a kindergartener. “Tell Jack I’m not talking to him.” “He’s not talking to you either.” “Asshole.”

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I so desperately want to find people to do RPs for Matchablossom or Eraserdust and every time I find someone they end up ghosting me. How do I clone myself so I can RP with myself but it's not just me writing fanfiction by myself it's the very specific experience of RP? I don't even know how to explain why there's a difference but there definitely is. T-T

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Ok, so, potentially controversial take ahead. Please be nice to me? Ochako and Izuku are cute together, they have cute moments, I would not be mad if they were made canon. I promise this isn't about ship preference, despite the fact that it's pretty obvious what ship I prefer if you look at my account. Everyone please be happy and enjoy whatever ship you like (within obvious reason). This is also not an insult to Izuku as a character--I love him so so so much. However...

Ochako deserves better than what Izuku would be able to give in a relationship. The reason she's becoming a hero is to make money to help her parents--basically, a priority surrounding her family. Izuku, on the other hand, wants to follow in All Might's footsteps. Specifically, we know he becomes the #1 Hero, meaning he's always going to prioritize his hero work.

We've seen the kind of lives that the top Pros in MHA have to live, especially in the 1-3 spots. They have absolutely no healthy, consistent relationships, basically no hobbies or other facets of their life, and a total disregard for their own health and safety when weighed against Hero work.

When All Might retires, he has nothing to do but teaching and has a grand total of Maybe Four Friends. I'm not even sure if Nighteye (who's dead, so he definitely doesn't count tbh) and David Shield should count because of how much he cut them out of his life. That leaves his mentor, Gran Torino, who he also forgets to contact regularly and Detective Tsukauchi, who is a friend he made by accident and also technically has a mostly work-related relationship with. Toshinori can tell Inko that he'll dedicate the rest of his life to Izuku with total honesty because he literally has nothing else left in his life.

We all already know how fucked up Endeavor's life is because of his endless fixation on being the #1 Hero. Even then, when he actually gets to that position, Enji realizes he has nothing left as well. Sure, he has a family, but it's in the most literal sense of the word. He recognizes that his goals and Hero work have irrevocably damaged his relationship with his wife and kids, and all he can do is try to atone for that and keep working at being a hero to show them the kind of man he can be.

I'm not sure we even need to talk about Hawks, who was raised from childhood to only be a Pro Hero and has absolutely nothing outside of that, and Best Jeanist was able to fake his own death and go missing for weeks without anyone noticing. Both these guys do extra patrols just to show face and reassure civilians with their presence.

That's the kind of future Izuku is headed for, and he's already given the people he cares about a nice preview of what that life will be like with his Vigilante arc. The kid ran himself absolutely ragged, fighting off even the other 19 students in his class when they came to try to help him until he legitimately passed out. He'd starved and deprived himself of sleep just to protect the public. Most of his self-preservation is more about protecting the One For All quirk instead of himself. Basically, he fits in pretty well with the four heroes I talked about above.

Ochako, on the other hand, is able to prioritize people over being an ideal hero--that is, at least in my opinion, a major point of her final arc with Toga. She promises this girl who she barely knows a lifetime of her blood just for a chance to save Toga. It's a very personal, one-on-one situation that doesn't necessarily meet the standards of the average Pro Hero, but it's true to who Ochako is as a person. She's not chasing the idea of being a hero. She's chasing a future where she can protect and care for the people she loves--helping the public as a Pro Hero is just a nice benefit of it.

Honestly, the person who I can see matching her best in these goals is Tenya Iida, another character whose story arcs revolve around family. They're both very family-oriented people--being a Pro Hero is important to them, but not as important as the people they care about. Izuku, on the other hand, isn't really going to be able to give that to her unless he goes through some MAJOR personality changes. Otherwise, Ochako is just going to have to realize that she won't ever be his priority and will have to settle for always being second place. She deserves better than that.

Like I said at the top of the post, though, this isn't me saying that shipping the two of them is bad. It's a super cute ship, they're lovely. It's more about me looking at these two characters and going "wow, they are going different places in life and it seems like they'd be very dysfunctional". This post was super fun for me to write, anyway, and maybe I'll do some more shitposty/fun ship analysis another time.

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Hello.....If you don't mind me asking (again), who are your favorite romantic relationship's couples in books/ manga/manhwa/ anime/movies/tv series (can be canon or non-canon)? And why do you love them? Sorry if you've answered this question before....Thanks.

Mmmmm ok ok ok excellent question, but very hard for me to narrow down... I ship *so many things* in so many different series. I guess I'll throw out the first ships (up to five) that come to mind for a couple animes/manga, since that's mostly what I've been talking about in asks? If I wrote what I like about them, though, this post would be impossibly long, so maybe I'll just write some ship-focused posts once I figure out my next BG3 shitpost.

My Hero Academia Katsuki Bakugou and Izuku Midoriya (+Eijirou Kirishima) Ochako Uraraka and Himiko Toga Kyoka Jiro and Momo Yaoyorozu (+Denki Kaminari) Shouta Aizawa and Tomura Shigaraki Enji Todoroki and Keigo Takami The Case Study of Vanitas Dominique de Sade and Jeanne Noé Archiviste and Vanitas Noé Archiviste, Vanitas, Dominique de Sade, and Jeanne Roland and Olivier Moriarty the Patriot Sherlock Holmes and William James Moriarty Mycroft Holmes and Albert James Moriarty James Bonde and Miss Moneypenny John Watson and Mary Morstan SK8 the Infinity Langa Hasegawa and Reki Kyan Kaoru Sakurayashiki and Kojiro Nanjo Ainosuke Shindo and Tadashi Kikuchi Kuroko's Basketball Tetsuya Kuroko and Satsuki Momoi Riko Aida, Teppei Kiyoshi, and Junpei Hyuga Taiga Kagami and Daiki Aomine GoM, Taiga Kagami, and Tetsuya Kuroko

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Hello, it's not from the same one who asked before. But can I ask for your top fav female characters? Thx so much

Yes!!! Hello, this'll be my top 10 favorite female Anime/Manga Characters for 2023. 1. (Tie) Dominique de Sade and Jeanne (VnC) 2. (Tie) All the Girls in Class 1A: Ochako Uraraka, Tsuyu Asui, Momo Yaoyorozu, Mina Ashido, Tooru Hagakure, and Kyouka Jiro (MHA) 3. Kyouka Izumi (BSD) 4. Riko Aida (KnB) 5. Moneypenny (YnM) 6. Akiko Yosano (BSD) 7. (Tie) Himiko Toga and Nejire Hado (MHA) 8. Satsuki Momoi (KnB) 9. (Tie) Miri Unasaka (BD) and Eri (MHA) 10. Itsuka Kendo (MHA) Thank you for sending an ask, by the way, it makes me super duper happy! Please feel free to send in literally any ask, even if it's just saying hi or something!

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Do you mind if I ask your top 10 favorite characters (can be male or female) from all of the media that you loved (can be anime/manga, books, movies or tv series)? And why do you love them? Sorry if you've answered this question before.....Thanks....

Oh!!! Nobody has sent me an ask before this so I'd be very happy to answer it! :) Hmmm, I'm super duper bad at favorites, so I'll narrow down to male characters from Anime/Manga. Take these all with a grain of salt as what I'm liking this year, and I'd be happy to do female characters too! 1. (Tie) William James Moriarty (YnM), Katsuki Bakugou, and Izuku Midoriya (MHA) 2. (Tie) Taiga Kagami (KnB) and Vanitas (VnC) 3. Sherlock Holmes (YnM) 4. Toshinori Yagi (MHA) 5. (Tie) Kojiro Nanjo and Kaoru Sakurayashiki (SK8) 6. Doppo Kunikida (BSD) 7. Sebastian Moran (YnM) 8. (Tie) Yuuri Katsuki and Victor Nikiforov (YoI) 9. (Tie) Atsushi Nakajima and Osamu Dazai (BSD) 10. (Tie) Tomura Shigaraki and Shouta Aizawa (MHA) And then for Not-Anime I love every single character in Baldur's Gate 3. All of them. I'd also like to talk about that so, so much. There are lots more Anime characters that I really really like, but these are just the first ones that came to mind--that's why most of the ties are in pairs from the same series.

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Honestly, Gale and Astarion's Romance routes feel very Hozier-coded?

For Gale specifically, I'd put Sedated, Cherry Wine, Almost (Sweet Music), Wasteland, Baby!, Francesca, and Who We Are. There's that implicit understanding that Mystra broke him on some fundamental level that he feels like he'll never recover from and, even with that pain, he's still chasing her forgiveness and acceptance because that's where he found worth as a person. However, on top of the literal bomb in his chest, he finds himself with an illithid tadpole in his brain, completely abandoned by his goddess under a SECOND, much faster death sentence. Then he meets the player character who gives him a reason to try to live and love again (even in this horrible, fucked up situation) and find worth in himself beyond Mystra and her gifts. Initially, he feels like he has to treat the player like he would his past lover, specifically when it comes to their physical relationship, but the player can help him past that easily. The echo of that relationship is going to haunt him, probably for the rest of his life, but it isn't the only thing in his life, and he's choosing to love the player even in this hellish apocalypse he's found himself in.

Just a little rush, babe, to feel dizzy To derail the mind of me Just a little hush, babe; my veins are busy But my heart's in atrophy

Her fight and fury is fiery Oh but she loves Like sleep to the freezing Sweet and right and merciful I'm all but washed In the tide of her breathing And it's worth it, it's divine I have this some of the time

You and I burned out our steam Chasing someone else's dream How can somethin' be so much heavier But so much less than what it seems? Darling, we sacrificed We gave our time to somethin' undefined This phantom life sharpens like an image But it sharpens like a knife

I'll tell them put me back in it Darling, I would do it again, ah, ah If I could hold you for a minute Darling, I'd go through it again, ah, ah I would still be surprised I could find you, darling In any life If I could hold you for a minute Darling, I would do it again, ah, ah

The same kind of music haunts her bedroom I'm almost me again, she's almost you

And I love too That love soon might end And be known in it's aching But shown in the shaking Lately of my wasteland, baby Be still, my indelible friend You are unbreaking Though quaking Though crazy That's wasteland, baby

Astarion gets Take Me To Church, Jackie and Wilson, Someone New, Work Song, Nobody, Talk, First Time, All Things End, and First Light. He spends two hundred years feeling like an inhuman monster, twisted into a tool for Cazador only worth his body and honeyed words. Unlike Gale, Astarion sees the tadpole as a gift, saving him from the life of a slave that he never wants to return to. When he meets the player, he recognizes weakness and repeats that same pattern of securing safety with what Cazador taught him. In the end, the right path for the player to take with him is to teach him that he can be accepted and loved as the mess he sees himself as with worth beyond what Cazador broke him down to, and it's an incredible experience for him. They are the first person he truly cared for besides himself and he'd do anything to stay with them.

Every Sunday's getting more bleak A fresh poison each week "We were born sick", you heard them say it My church offers no absolutes She tells me, "Worship in the bedroom"

Onе bright mornin' goes so easy Darkness always finds you either way It creeps into the corners as the moment fades A voice your body jumps to callin' out your name But after this, I'm never gonna be the same And I am never going back again

Don't take this the wrong way You knew who I was with every step that I ran to you Only blue or black days Electing strange perfections in any stranger I choose

I won't deny I've got in my mind now (Hey, yeah) All the things I would do So I try to talk refined for fear that you find out (Hey, yeah) How I'm imaginin' you

A two-tonne weight around my chest feels like It just dropped a twenty-storey height If there was anyone to ever get through this life With their heart still intact, they didn't do it right

Remember once I told you about How before I heard it from your mouth My name would always hit my ears as such an awful sound? And the soul, if that's what you'd call it Uneasy ally of the body, it felt nameless as a river Undiscovered underground

She blows outta nowhere, roman candle of the wild Laughing away through my feeble disguise No other version of me I would rather be tonight. And, Lord, she found me just in time

Boys, when my baby found me I was three days on a drunken sin I woke with her walls around me Nothin' in her room but an empty crib And I was burnin' up a fever I didn't care much how long I lived But I swear I thought I dreamed her She never asked me once about the wrong I did When my time comes around Lay me gently in the cold dark earth No grave can hold my body down I'll crawl home to her

I'd be appalled if I saw you ever try to be a saint I wouldn't fall for someone I thought couldn't misbehave But I want you to know that I've had no love like your love

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Hello, I'd like to vent about something that just hit me.

I am 21 years old. I've been experiencing chronic pain and "mystery" medical conditions for as long as I can remember. I've gone through stretches where I lost massive amounts of weight because I physically couldn't keep food down. I've had chronic headaches and migraines for a decade. My periods have been so bad that unless I was literally bedridden with a heating pad the pain would make me throw up. My fatigue is so bad that I regularly can't make it through the day without falling asleep. I get respiratory issues at least once a season. My joints and muscles ache on their best days and on their worst days are absolutely excruciating. I've done the math. I'll have a debilitating migraine or headache about 2-3 days per month on average. For my period, I'll lose another two days. For the respiratory stuff, another day. That, without any other issues, is six days per month when my body fails on me. I'm losing 1/5 of my life to this. I am 21 years old, and two weeks ago I went to the first appointment where it felt like my doctor listened to me.

Every single other doctor told me I'd grow out of it or that it was my hormones/anxiety or just said it was a mystery and called it a day. The stuff this particular doctor is putting me through the diagnostic process is all degenerative, long-term disorders and conditions, one of which could eventually lead to me not being able to walk if it was untreated. And it is treatable--specifically, babies as young as 2-4 months old can receive surgery to correct it and I have spent over two decades in pain before anyone even looked at this as an option.

So, I don't care if it comes back negative and I went through all these EEGs and MRIs and Bloodwork for no answers because nobody has ever even sent me for an EEG or MRI before. Someone is listening to me and trying to get me answers and that's all I ever wanted!

God.

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Ok, so, I'm wandering around Act 3 and I finally find Dammon again in the Lower City--this is my tactician run, so I do a lot of aimless wandering to avoid my problems. I love Dammon and I decided to break into step inside his lovely home to see how he's living. I went upstairs, saw a book and was like, "Oh, maybe it's a diary! I'd love to get to know Dammon and his backstory better!" I walk close enough to see the title and--

D-Dammon?

Dammon?

Man's genuinely out here with one of his only personal belongings being a play so lewd it's been banned, I love him so much.

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Hello, I would like to offer you all my latest escapism project, where I went through seven of the nine Baldur’s Gate 3 companions (Sorry, Jaheira and Minsc, I love you but I felt like I got more time to know the others) and assigned them Hozier songs from all three albums that I think fit them well. As a taster, I present Astarion’s list:

Take Me To Church

Jackie and Wilson

Someone New

Work Song

Nobody

Talk

First Time

All Things End

First Light

I’d be happy to explain why I picked each song, but I’d also love to know if you think other songs would fit better. If you like this and/or just want to see your favorite companion’s list, just let me know. I’m also open to doing other characters.