#Fandom meta-discourse-norms | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

neuroticbookworm · 2 years ago

Text

Sex and Morality in Only Friends

gif by @heretherebedork

My Only Friends fandom experience so far has been ..interesting, to say the least. While the big brain metas that y'all have been churning out have been tickling my brain and giving me life, I’ve also noticed a dissonance in how the characters and their gay wrongs are judged by the viewers in the court of morals on this hellsite.

All of these characters are messy. All of these characters are some level of toxic. All of these characters are engaged in some type of immoral behavior. But one of them gets judged much more harshly by the audience for his flaws than his counterparts. And it got me curious about how we generally perceive someone's morality, and how certain factors greatly influence the lens through which the morals of a character are judged. Like sex, par exemple.

We've been here before, folks. We have talked about sex, sex and more sex, our preconceptions around sex, and how it might affect the way we watch this show. @lurkingshan and @waitmyturtles did an excellent unwinding, here and here, on how we must recalibrate our lenses when we engage with Only Friends, so we can receive, enjoy, understand and judge the show and its characters on the queer scale and not an heteronormative and western one. @wen-kexing-apologist implored us to take a pause and reflect on respectable promiscuity and how it skews the way we judge these characters on the basis of whether they’re having the “right” kind of sex.

Here’s the thing, though. Sex, the kind of sex, the amount of sex and the self-acceptance of one’s sexual proclivity are all inadvertently linked to how much a person conforms to the society around them. You fuck too little, you’ll be dubbed a virgin who can’t drive. You fuck too much, you’ll be dubbed a slut. And if you’re openly comfortable and secure about who you fuck, where you fuck, and how much you fuck, you are ..unusual, to put it mildly. These characters are not the norm, which makes them unpredictable for the audience. And when the unpredictable one makes questionable choices, it’s easy to equivocate the nature of their sex life to their moral compass. Which is exactly how Boston is put on trial on the numerous analyses and thinkpieces that are unleashed here, week after week.

gif by @firstmix

Boston is a slut. He has sex more times on average than his peers. He has sex with multiple partners. And he’s very unapologetic about all of it. He knows exactly how he likes his sex, frequent and untethered, and he does not give a flying fuck about what people think. Which means he becomes a character whose mistakes are considered more egregious than others in the eyes of the audience.

Let me list all the gay wrongs Boston has committed in the show so far according to the discourse:

Recording Ray and Mew during their kiss (and using it to bust up Mew’s relationship and manipulate Top)

Cornering and fucking Top who was presumably in a relationship with Mew

Revealing Ray’s obsession with Mew with the intention of creating a rift between Ray and Sand

Being catty and manipulative

Manipulating Nick’s affections

Trying to fuck a dude who was already in a relationship (in episode 1)

I’ll admit, that’s a long list. And we’re only halfway through the show. But Boston is not the only one committing gay wrongs in this show. Most of the crimes listed above have an equivalent committed by other characters. Let’s take a walk down the lane of fuckups and refresh our memories.

Recording Ray and Mew during their kiss (and using it to bust up Mew's relationship and manipulate Top)

This one’s pretty easy. Boston is not the only voyeur in this show (@ranchthoughts, captain of the ephemerality squad) Nick recorded Top and Boston having sex in the car, and let his roommate Sand in on the secret. Which later had disastrous consequences (so far) and I’m sure will continue to bite multiple people in the ass in the future episodes.

Cornering and fucking Top who was presumably in a relationship with Mew

First off, Top knew exactly what Boston was doing everytime he cornered and seduced Top, and Top even says so the next time Boston manages to get him alone in the elevator.

So is it fair to judge Boston as the sole perpetrator here? Or did Top have a lot more agency in their car hookup than we give him credit for?

Secondly, Ray has been crossing Sand’s boundaries throughout this show. And just like Top, Sand allows Ray to do so, even though he clearly has the agency to stop Ray if he really wants to.

Revealing Ray’s obsession with Mew with the intention of creating a rift between Ray and Sand

Holding important information and controlling how it flows in the group for maximum destruction is a game Boston seems to excel at. But he’s not the only player. This week, after a heated exchange with Top, we saw Sand scheme his way into Nick’s phone, copy the incriminating audio recording, pass it on to Ray, who he knew would confront Boston AND inform Mew. Thus enacting a double revenge on Boston and Top. This turn of Sand was so deliciously slimy and morally vile that it led to @waitmyturtles rethinking how Sand might be using sympathy to his advantage (and how Jojo and NiNew might be using First Kanaphan’s fame and public image to elicit the sympathetic reaction that can then be subverted in the show)

Being catty and manipulative

Manipulation among these “friends” is the bread and butter of Only Friends and Boston ain’t the only one doing it. Mew and Top had built their entire courtship with games and prizes, each hiding what they really wanted from the relationship. Ray has been using Sand as an emotional bandaid, while he was still obsessed with Ray. Nick tried and failed to manipulate Top into leaving Boston alone (peak comedic moment in the show, tbh). Hell, even Cheum has been catty to everyone throughout the show, which lead to her getting dubbed as the veritable mean girl by my pal @lurkingshan

Manipulating Nick’s affections

I don’t agree with this one at all, fam. Boston has always been clear about where he stands in the relationship. He has always conveyed his stance to Nick clearly, who would then pout in disappointment, to which Boston would respond with a reassurance, like “You are my favorite”. Boston is in the clear here.

Trying to fuck a dude who was already in a relationship (in episode 1)

This one is particularly hilarious to me, because this scenario is also explored in Gay OK Bangkok 2, which was referenced as an essential homework for Only Friends by most of the posts I’ve linked above. Open relationships exist. Couples engage in threesomes. The guy who Boston was talking to in episode 1 did not reject Boston’s advances. Instead, he pulled up his phone and showed him what his boyfriend looks like, so the three of them can fuck. Together. With everyone’s consent. Having a consensual threesome is not a gay wrong and it does not need a defense.

gif by @chickenstrangers

Characters that are morally black and white are inherently comforting. They do not force us to engage with our internal moral compass to ascertain whether they are good or bad; it will be laid out for us, clear as day. And we will be reassured by the narrative that we are the good guys. But these characters are also not realistic; people in real life are not as clear cut as we would like them to be. The characters in Only Friends are young, queer, insecure, and human. Boston is no better than any of them, and more importantly – no worse.

@lurkingshan wrote a passionate defense of Brian Kinney from Queer as Folk, an iconic gay slut who cannot be more different than Boston. And yet, the comparisons were made, because they both choose to fuck unapologetically. The comparison erased Brian’s commitment to his community, his moral code, his bond with his friends. In short, by throwing him in the same slut bucket as Boston, his actual morality was entirely erased, and replaced with assumptions based on his sex life. Which is reckless and dangerous, if you ask me.

When Shan and I chatted with @bengiyo about Boston and Brian, he summarized the treatment of queer characters perfectly: “They hate the men for being sluts and they hate the boys for being repressed”. Well, I implore that we learn to understand them right, in all their messy glory, and not judge them for how they fuck.

#fucking ain't immoral #it's just fucking #only friends the series #only friends #only friends meta #ofts meta #bostonnick #sandray #topmew #neo trai #mark pakin #first kanaphan #khaotung thanawat #force jiratchapong #book kasidet

121 notes · View notes

frociaggine · 9 months ago

Note

9, 10, 23, 24 for the locked tomb 💕

10. worst part of fanon. I don't vibe with people framing everything John does in the worst possible way. It's not compelling TO ME. This month I am especially annoyed at the widespread assumption that Gideon going by Kiriona is something that must have been forced on her, vs the actually likely possibility that an orphan that was treated like shit all her life might actually be interested in learning about her only surviving bio family's long-lost culture. (+ framing renaming as inherently violent when there could be a host of reasons for Gideon to wish to go by a different name given all the stuff she went / is going through). Mind you, I'm not saying MY interpretation is necessarily right; I'm saying I dislike how certain interpretations are treated as a fact, especially when it gets into race / "coloniser vs colonised culture" kind of discussion territory, bc the majority of this fandom is very white and I HAVE heard multiple instances of non-white fans getting flack when they expressed different opinions.

tldr: I dislike it when fanon is treated as canon; I dislike it more when fanon is used as ground to flex your intellectual muscles like there must be ONE superior intepretation.

23. ship you've unwillingly come around to. just said it here but paldulcie!!

24. topic that brings up the most rancid discourse. my terrible blorbo EJG of course <3

9. worst part of canon [this got long so. cut]

Not "worst" but, looking back, I think especially the early books are a bit lacking in how they approach gender and race. I love this meta talking about how the main characters aren't especially recognisable as Māori + the approach to indigenous & colonialism themes feels quite white (default culture as the norm); and I think GtN especially is really pretty cis overall. I don't think ANY of this is necessarily a problem — authors have their strengths and weaknesses and I'm not blaming TM for not addressing every possible theme under the sun flawlessly, especially when she's been on record many times as saying she's writing fun books she'd have liked to read as a teenager first and foremost. However, it does annoy me a bit in the context of some fandom discourse that, like, goes out of their way to ascribe authorial intention to their favourite interpretation — treating TLT as a sacred text and not, like, an actual work of art that was made by ONE specific individual, (a white cis lesbian) who's probably not all-knowing, not perfectly plotted, and may be informed by the author's own biases and weaknesses as a writer.

I might not be explaining myself well. Like, I see many #meta takes floating around that and use the author's supposed planning insight as a justification for what their specific reading of the book is the most correct, or claim to interpret what the author really means, and sort of end up putting TM on a pedestal as a result so they get to use "well, the author here obviously meant..." as a stick to beat other fans with. Hopefully I'm making sense! But this fandom attitude of "No, u don't get it, THIS is what the books are really saying" makes me more aware of the ways in which the books are lacking, and I wish we could acknowledge that there ARE flaws! Which is fine! And move on.

#some #disk horse #ask to tag #askbox games #choose violence asks

12 notes · View notes

starsection-ni-sir-k-idol · 3 months ago

Text

FROM NICHE TO MAINSTREAM ENTERTAINMENT: SHOULD VIRTUAL SPACES HAVE FANDOM ETIQUETTE?

For those unfamiliar with fandoms, these are online communities where people come together to enthusiastically discuss about their favorite media franchises. Nowadays, some have expressed complete dismay over the lack of etiquette wherein anyone can be toxic without having to deal with the consequences or better yet engage in respectful discourse. Thus, netizens should apply what is considered as “Fandom Etiquette” on any social media platform whenever we consume any form of entertainment.

The thing is…there has already been untold Fandom Etiquette or Three Laws of Fandom that can be applied in multiple fandom spaces in which the latter is a meta essay made by user “Ozhawkauthor” from Tumblr. The Fandom Etiquette post talks about how to handle fanart, fanfiction and fandom in general on how to behave yourselves in those spaces such as “if you want more of it, support it”, which can be applied to both fanart and fanfiction. Meanwhile, the Three Laws of Fandom are self-explanatory, mainly on the first and third rule: “Don’t Like, Don’t Read” and “Ship and Let Ship” which tackle on ignoring the content you don’t like and just ignore the romantic pairing that you dislike as well and leave those who like it. However, not many people seem to get this idea of a proper etiquette when all the rise of toxicity and Cancel Culture became rampant which can affect multiple content creators, artists, and writers in those fandom spaces to the point they’ll consider quitting or transfer to other fandoms to stay away from the hate they’re receiving. This mainly applies to TikTok and Twitter because these two social media apps are popular to engage in those spaces, and the toxic side of those fandoms happen to be the loudest ones, which can lead to conflicts in public discourse, wondering who exactly is in the right. Recently, TikTok user “_Das_Hazel_” talked about how it is starting to affect a popular fanfiction site called “Archive of Our Own” where users are debating if they should have a dislike button, or better yet make a new archive for unproblematic works of fanfiction and it already has a name called “The Protectorate Archive” and they have a list on themes that shouldn’t be in fanfiction and emphasize on the word “Normalize” to combat problematic works, which has lead to another debate on what makes the contents deemed “problematic”. Matter of fact, what is the reason why fandoms have become more toxic and problematic in this modern age? While TikTok can be a cesspool of toxicity according to others, users who engage in those fandom spaces have pointed out and agree that it all started during the pandemic, where people have nothing else better to do and have never experienced fandoms before in general getting into those spaces. According to TikTok user “Msaleshadiva”, half of those people find it to be cool since it is a community to discuss their favorite franchise or form of entertainment while others openly discuss it in a derogatory manner, even confused why those who engage in these spaces are being weird and tackling topics like it’s the norm on the internet, hence getting called a “Weird Kid” to begin with. Thus, the toxicity has become increasingly clear and more people in those spaces begin hating each other whether they’re a content creator or a fan in a certain fandom. In the end, based on strong evidence, there has to be proper fandom etiquette in engaging with others on various online spaces not only for the modern age but for future users as well. This should apply to multiple, if not all fandoms. Let there be encouragement among those in the community when it comes to fan creation for a certain franchise rather than spreading hateful comments and creating unsolicited criticisms. If you dislike what you are seeing, all you simply have to do is to block the user and scroll away, this actually helps and people on Twitter began advising others to do this if you don’t like to engage in the content you’re seeing. It is just as simple as that and you can apply that principle in multiple forms of media, you don’t have to force yourself to engage in it, and sometimes if you want to say something that is not nice, say nothing and move on, that way both parties can go on and continue doing what they love.

References

American Library Association. (n.d.). Fandom. https://www.ala.org/future/trends/fandom

Hazel [@_das_hazel_]. (2024, April 8). original stitch with @luvlainey but I didn't want my video to de-sync lol. new mean people in fandom simply don't [Video]. TikTok. https://www.tiktok.com/@_das_hazel_/video/7355308013776948522

Hazel [@_das_hazel_]. (2025, February 9). Replying to @mercuriart thank you again for the link this was so fun to go through. hope the creator of [Video]. TikTok. https://www.tiktok.com/@_das_hazel_/video/7469076369347988782

KicsterAsh [@imaginashon]. (2018, August 29). Fandom Etiquette [Reblogged Post]. Tumblr. https://www.tumblr.com/imaginashon/177504067967/fandom-etiquette

Later. (n.d.). Fandom. https://later.com/social-media-glossary/fandom/

Livin’ in the MCU [@ozhawkauthor]. (2016, January 1). The Three Laws of Fandom [Blog Post]. Tumblr. https://ozhawkauthor.tumblr.com/post/136380833197/the-three-laws-of-fandom

Msaleshadiva (@msaleshadiva]. (2024, April 7). #stitch with @luvlainey Thats why fandom hasnt been fun all of a sudden #fyp #tumblr #animetiktok #animefandom #fandomculture [Video]. TikTok. https://www.tiktok.com/@msaleshadiva/video/7355142957273468202

Seagriff, C. (2023, February 24). The Beginnings of Fandom Culture. That Fangirl Life. https://thatfangirllife.com/2023/02/the-beginnings-of-fandom-culture/The Three Laws of Fandom. (n.d.). Fanlore. https://fanlore.org/wiki/The_Three_Laws_of_Fandom

#fandom #fandom things #fandom etiquette #fandom culture #fanfictions #fanart #toxic community #toxic fandom #fandom criticism #fandom problems #fandom issues #cancel culture #tiktok #ao3 #archive of our own

3 notes · View notes

justacryingbaby · 3 months ago

Text

How Tumblr’s Platform Vernacular Shapes Digital Activism and Micro-Publics

Tumblr isn’t just a relic of 2010s internet culture - It’s a living, breathing ecosystem where *platform vernacular* fuels niche communities and redefines digital activism. But how do Tumblr’s unique language and norms empower marginalized voices while navigating the paradoxes of the “public sphere”?

Micro-Publics and the Rise of Hashtag Vernacular

Habermas’s “public sphere” idealizes open, rational discourse, but Tumblr’s fragmented micro-publics - like LGBTQ+ blogs or fan communities - show how digital spaces operate differently (Simpson 2018). Here, hashtags like #BlackLivesMatter or #MeToo aren’t just metadata; they’re rallying cries that shape political discourse (Rho & Mazmanian 2020).

For instance, the #bodypositive movement on Tumblr challenges beauty norms through user-generated selfies and essays, fostering a community-driven counter-narrative to mainstream media (Reif, Miller & Taddicken 2022). These hashtags act as vernacular glue, binding users through shared slang (e.g., “OTP” or “AU”), GIFs, and reblogs - a far cry from Habermas’s text-heavy ideal.

Anonymity as a Double-Edged Sword

Tumblr’s lack of real-name policies creates safe spaces for marginalized groups, like LGBTQIA+ teens, to express themselves without fear of surveillance (Cavalcante 2018). Yet, this anonymity coexists with algorithmic biases. While Tumblr’s reverse-chronological feed *seems* democratic, studies show platforms like Twitter skew political discourse leftward, raising questions about whose voices get amplified (Huszár et al. 2021).

Platform Vernacular in Action: Memes and Fandom

Tumblr’s vernacular thrives on remix culture. Take TJLC (The Johnlock Conspiracy), a Sherlock fandom theory that spiralled into a meta-commentary on queer representation. To be more specific, the video of Sarah Z’s dissection of TJLC highlights how Tumblr’s “shitposting” and roleplay (RP) cultures blend humour with activism. Memes here aren’t just jokes - they’re resistance tools, as seen in political movements like #FreeHongKong, where absurdist humour critiques authoritarianism (Zheng & Li 2023).

youtube

Challenges: Surveillance and Algorithmic Gatekeeping

Despite its grassroots ethos, Tumblr isn’t immune to corporate or governmental surveillance. The Department of Homeland Security’s social media monitoring underscores how “safe spaces” can still be policed (Boyce 2016). Meanwhile, algorithmic curation risks homogenizing discourse - echoing Habermas’s fear of institutional influence.

Conclusion: Tumblr as a Vernacular Public Sphere?

Tumblr’s vernacular - reblogs, dashboards, and niche slang - creates a *participatory* public sphere where aesthetics and activism collide. Yet, its fragmented micro-publics remind us that the digital “public sphere” is plural, messy, and perpetually evolving. As platforms phase out hashtags, Tumblr’s survival hinges on balancing creativity with resistance to algorithmic control.

Reference:

Anselmo, DW 2018, ‘Gender and Queer Fan Labor on Tumblr’, Feminist Media Histories, vol. 4, University of California Press, no. 1, pp. 84–114.

Boyce, GA 2015, ‘The rugged border: Surveillance, policing and the dynamic materiality of the US/Mexico frontier’, Environment and Planning D Society and Space, vol. 34, SAGE Publishing, no. 2, pp. 245–262.

Cavalcante, A 2018, ‘Tumbling Into Queer Utopias and Vortexes: Experiences of LGBTQ Social Media Users on Tumblr’, Journal of Homosexuality, vol. 66, Taylor & Francis, no. 12, pp. 1715–1735.‌

Huszár, F, Ktena, SI, O’Brien, C, Belli, L, Schlaikjer, A & Hardt, M 2021, ‘Algorithmic amplification of politics on Twitter’, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, vol. 119, no. 1.

Reif, A, Miller, I & Taddicken, M 2022, ‘“Love the Skin You‘re In”: An Analysis of Women’s Self-Presentation and User Reactions to Selfies Using the Tumblr Hashtag #bodypositive’, Mass Communication & Society, vol. 26, Taylor & Francis, no. 6, pp. 1038–1061.

Rho, EH & Mazmanian, M 2020, ‘Political Hashtags & the Lost Art of Democratic Discourse’, pp. 1–13, viewed 16 February 2025.

Simpson, E 2018, ‘Integrated & Alone’, pp. 237–240.

Zheng, Q & Li, M 2024, ‘Foreign Movies and TV Dramas as the Source of Political Argot in an Authoritarian Context: Memes and Creative Resistance in Chinese Social Media’, Critical Arts, Taylor & Francis, pp. 1–19.

#mda20009 #PlatformVernacular #DigitalCommunities #HashtagActivism #PublicSphere #TumblrCulture #SocialMediaTheory #MicroPublics #DigitalCitizenship #Youtube

2 notes · View notes

bthump · 2 years ago

Note

This isn’t specifically about you and more about the anons, because I’ve noticed that you sometimes get requests to respond to meta posts other people make and something about that makes me a bit uncomfortable. Since your meta posts are widely liked by a big part of this community, it sometimes feels like you’re being kinda requested to „debunk“ other meta posts. Diversity in opinions is so important for a good fandom atmosphere and some of the anons you get seem to wanna stir up hostility and I don’t like it. Since I like some of your meta posts, but also find myself agreeing with other people, I just feel weird about this dynamic, you know? How do you feel about it?

I think that's a fair concern but honestly, I don't see it as inherently a problem. This might be my 00s internet bias here lol, but I tend to view meta on a public platform as fair game for response or external commentary - which includes my own posts. My meta is here to be read by anyone who wants to, and to provoke thought and discussion, and that's generally what I assume of others' meta as well.

Like I recognize that attitudes have changed in the era of mostly unmoderated spaces and reblogs and the lack of diverse comms with their own norms and discourse running rampant lol, and so it's often considered automatically rude to disagree with people now, but I think that can only extend so far. Like, I don't reblog posts just to disagree with them (unless they're a friend and I know they're cool with discussion) because I know it sucks when you keep getting notes from people who are liking or reblogging the take you disagree with, but I don't think that should mean not discussing other people's meta at all, as long as it's done respectfully of course.

And I understand why someone might want a second opinion on something they read. I think everyone should think for themselves and form their own opinions, and I completely agree that diversity of opinion is important in any fandom. But not everyone has confidence in their own analysis, or the learned skills for criticism, and I think it's reasonable to seek out other viewpoints and decide which seems most correct to you, or use them as boucing off points to figure out what you believe. I definitely don't want to be the only Berserk meta blog out there, and I'm more than happy to agree to disagree with most people. I'm not an authority on the story lol and people are free to agree or disagree with me however they see fit.

That said, I'm always a little wary about tone and intent, especially in Berserk fandom, because I'm not here to get into arguments and I try to make that clear. But I take most asks in good faith. Sometimes I might go a little too far with that lol, but honestly I'd rather come across as naive than hostile. If I found out that someone was trying to start a fight between me and someone else, or was using my posts to dunk on someone else, or if followers of mine took it as a cue to harass someone, I'd absolutely say something and stop answering those asks. (Hopefully we're all chill enough over here that this doesn't happen, btw. As far as I'm aware I've never incited anything like that and I've personally only ever seen fandom arguments started by people mad about Griffith fans existing, but tbf I also don't pay attention to whatever's happening outside of my dash.)

But yeah I don't think that's what's happening here, and I don't want to assume someone's trying to start shit unless there's clear evidence for that. Like in the last ask I got like this, the anon did specify that they agreed with the post they wanted me to comment on, and were just seeking more opinions/wondering what my own take was, and I think that's reasonable.

Idk, this is definitely one of those things where I know there are different valid opinions about etiquette. But I generally abide by the 'do unto others' rule, including here. I blog with the expectation that anyone can read what I write and agree or disagree, and that I might inspire other discussion. Sometimes I get nervous about being linked to notably hostile fan spaces, like the berserk reddit, but it has happened with virtually the same motivation as those anons (what do you guys think of this person's take?) and ultimately I'm fine with it, and even a little flattered.

All that said, at the end of the day I do think that it would be best for anyone who sends an ask referencing someone else's analysis to be specific about what they want to know, rather than a general 'what do you think of this?' question. Both because it shows why you're asking and what you're interested in and leaves less room for doubting your motivation, and because it makes it easier to answer.

#ask #anonymous #b #i don't necessarily want to encourage these types of asks so i'm not gonna post that last paragraph separately as a psa #but i don't want to tell anyone to refrain either as long as everyone's being chill about it #this is probably overly long lol but it's a fair concern and i want to address it as thoroughly as i can #theme: fandom

15 notes · View notes

mitigatedchaos · 2 years ago

Text

the grounds that you attack op on don't even make sense since you never really make clear how to differentiate between object level arguments and fandom level arguments.

The distinction is "object-level" vs "meta-level," not "object-level" vs "fandom-level."

An "object-level" position is something like "I think the sales tax in my county should be 6%." It's specific. It's concrete.

A meta-level position is more abstract. It could be a position on how we decide what the sales tax should be, or on how we should decide issues generally, including forms of government or discourse norms. It could be a position on what the sales tax should be given other factors.

Rather than there being a hard boundary between the object level and the meta level, it's a matter of less abstract vs more abstract.

We can usually go more concrete or specific, or more general or more abstract, from any given position. And what counts as object-level is relative to the issue under discussion.

For instance, suppose we are debating whether the sales tax will be decided by an appointed committee or decided by a vote. Relative to what the exact value of the sales tax will be, this is a meta-level discussion. Relative to the discussion of how the sales tax will be decided, this is an object-level discussion.

Cool?

If that all sounds like it's pretty obvious now, well, like. My position is that most of the stuff on my blog is pretty obvious.

Anyhow, sincerely, thanks for this response. A lot of my regular readers get my meaning pretty easily, so it's useful to get a response from someone that doesn't share the same background of assumptions.

Your response gives me a pretty good idea of where the confusion occurred (e.g. a soft example brought up to illustrate an axis taken as a hard example for classification of the OP, as just one issue w/ the clarity of the writing for your audience), and the kind of content needed for a longer-form approach for a more general audience.

A few additional notes,

I consider balioc a friend*, even though I don't think he'll ever vote outside of his party. If you only vote for one party, you can still have influence through discussion and through primary voting.

It is not suggested that you do not vote.

I am aware of the issues with two-party politics. TIMAC covered an alternative proposal in the 6,000-word post Alternative Voting Systems.

They want a violent crime wave to exist so fucking bad but it never happened so they had to make a moral panic over shoplifting and loitering ie things people use as examples of the most minor types of misdemeanor crimes but even then they had to fudge the numbers with fucking shoplifting

8K notes · View notes

centrally-unplanned · 5 years ago

Text

(Some very uncharitable and high-context ranting of stuff coming up here)

Kipo and the Age of the Wonderbeasts dropped on Netlifx this week, and even though lots of western animation suffers from this “we are for kids! but also...not?” rut in terms of writing and plotting I still enjoy following the medium as an animation junkie. And Kipo has some real strengths going for it in the animation and design department. Its part of a growing trend of shows pushing away from the “CalArts” style, using the hybridized “western anime” design pioneered in Avatar: The Last Airbender, which allows for much more expressive action animation and a greater range of character emotion. Kipo also doesn’t shy away from putting in the work on detailed backgrounds, necessary given their fantastical apocalyptic setting, and getting creative with the way they communicate motion with some Warner-Brothers style zany-ness.

(Also its definitely drawing some influence from The Boondocks. At first I wonder if that thought was, *ahem*, ‘biased’ in some way, but by the time you see Wolf in her flashback school uniform it goes from influence to straight-up reference. And its logical - Studio Mir, the South Korean company that Dreamworks partnered with for Kipo, made Season 4 of The Boondocks. They also made Korra, so yeah none of this animation direction is much of a surprise.)

Anyway, so Kipo has some inventive animation and design choices, despite its workhouse plot and a very thematically-contradictory ending (an essay for another time). It would be cool to talk about this direction with other people, right? So I go on twitter to see the discussion, and literally every single point of discussion is either official promotion or celebration of this:

I’m sure this is no surprise to anyone, and it honestly shouldn’t have been to me. I had momentarily forgotten that, though, because this scene in the show is...kindof terrible? Watching it made me groan out loud.

To give the briefest context possible, this scene occurs in an episode where the main female character, Kipo, asks out our friend Benson up here and this is his rejection. The problem with the scene are two-fold: for one, Kipo and Benson have had absolutely zero romantic chemistry before the 5 minutes leading up to this scene. Hes actually the background character in comparison to Kipo’s relationship to another character, Wolf. The romantic chemistry just sortof “appears”, she asks him out, he rejects, then after that scene, her feelings for him never come up again in the show. Its never mentioned or hinted at, they are just deleted from existence - which of course they were, they only existed so he could explicitly say the phrase “I’m gay”.

The second problem is a world-building one - Benson grew up in the post-apocalyptic ruins of earth, alone, without a single other human around. He has only vague artifacts from earth, and no human society. He is maybe 13? And has never dated or had romantic feelings for anyone. He should really have minimal self-awareness of what his sexual orientation is, or the language to express it, certainly not in the confidence done here. This is actually a frequent issue with the show - characters from a post-apocalypse setting make casual references to things from modern society they would have no real way of knowing - this just happens to be the worst example of it. It was done this way of course because him being gay isn’t really sufficient - its about the declaration, about saying it in *our* words.

And I just know that, if I was actually engaging in the Kipo “fan sphere”, I could not say any of this. Not that I would be attacked or whatever - its just that no one would care. The logic, construction, art of the scene, all of that is irrelevant beyond the checkbox of validation-through-representation. And the density of conversations around representation, around shipping, etc, are just suffocating - there is very little space to get a word in otherwise sometimes. The weaponization of this suffocation to castigate non-participants as social regressives just compounds the problem.

Its moments likes these that crystallize how certain things are just not made for you, not because of the product itself but because of how the product is embedded into cultural groups. And its hard sometimes not to be judge-y about it, to watch media get reduced down to tokenized components by the fandom’s that consume them and think of that as bad. And of course show designers know this dynamic - this Kipo scene exists the way it does to be direct fanservice to that audience. Its the jiggling anime breasts of western wokedom. These dynamics shape not just the fandoms, but the shows themselves, looping perpetually.

This is where this whole thought process is highly unfair - the actual people don’t individually only care about these few reified things, those are just the loudest voices, the most retweeted and upvoted comments. Yet I don’t see a reason to ignore my own feelings, that I shouldn’t waste my time engaging with people primed to be so distant from my own concerns. Ill just discuss animation with the communities that do value these things (anime, disney movies, etc). How that is a self-fulling prophecy, evaporative cooling writ large to fandom discourse, is obvious, but sometimes the fight isn’t worth it.

(I obviously need to post some of my policy/history/econ writings here, before I morph completely into a media discourse monster)

#kipo and the age of wonderbeasts #Fandom meta-discourse-norms

33 notes · View notes

utilitycaster · 2 years ago

Note

I’m I the only one who finds it alarming that most of this fandom who ship Imogen and Laudna (especially on twitter) don’t realize the unhealthyness thats going on in their relationship? They literally see two women to are affectionate with each other and say “ENDGAME!” “GIRLFRIENDS!” “MARRIED!” “KISS KISS KISS!” Then they focus on quotes that are kinda alarming, and Imogen’s Jealousy is pretty fucking Alarming! Saying that they are in love and just haven’t realized it yet. (Don’t get me started on that one blog on here counting down the days “till imodna realizes their in love.” I find it so fucking annoying.) Loving someone and being IN love with someone is two different things. Also another thing! I HATE THAT PEOPLE CALL THEM LESBIANS! THE BOTH HAVE EXPRESSED FEELINGS FOR MALE PERSENTING PEOPLE! I dread the day when the campaign ends and they don’t end up together or during the campaign fall IN love with someone that’s not each other. Especially if it’s a male persenting person, because the Laura and Marisha will be harassed and the shippers will yell Queerbait, also the men hating/haters will be in full force.

Hi anon,

I agree with most of this; I'm answering under a cut in the hopes that people who will be upset by an answer will be able to avoid it, without me having to explicitly discourse tag it and in doing so throw it to people who troll that tag to get mad at things. Also this is SUPER long and covers a lot of the thoughts I've had percolating on the CR fandom/shipping culture in general.

I think I and a lot of people who primarily deal in meta/analysis in this fandom have been inching ever closer to a lot of the points you've made here, and I am generally very willing to be the one who snaps and says "yeah has anyone noticed the emperor has literally no clothes on like what the fuck".

Let's start with the end and work backwards: It's happened before, it will happen again if Laura and Marisha's characters do not get together, and it's irritating, but like, I will take a good story and the consequences of a shitty segment of the fandom rather than the path of least resistance every time. I almost said something to this effect on the positive vibes ask last night, but like...there will always be people who are hateful and stupid on the internet, so you may as well stand in your own truth rather than fear their consequences. (Not that I don't respect the choice to quietly avoid harassment; I am the way I am because I know at this point I can take a pretty hard hit and shut it down, but that has not always been the case.) Anyway, people called an actual canon ship between lesbian characters queerbaiting last campaign, so it's not like those accusations hold any weight or need to be taken seriously; outside of their tiny circle, everyone thinks those people are idiots.

I do, as a bi woman, hate the tendency among hardcore shippers to erase bisexuality. They do it because a bi character's competing ships cannot be as easily dismissed as 'obviously can't happen, they're gay or lesbian', and they don't care how biphobic they look doing it. You are absolutely correct: Imogen and Laudna have both indicated interest in men or masc nb people. (Others have also pointed out that people tend to exclusively use he/him pronouns about Ashton when they are being critical of them, so they don't care how transphobic they look doing it either, apparently; also I don't think Ashton identifies as a he/they lesbian but there are in fact people who do identify as such so like...if your goal is to eliminate Ashton/Laudna as an option by saying Laudna is a lesbian, against all evidence to the contrary, you also need to make a number of presumptions about Ashton's sexuality and gender identity as well.)

This brings me to a tricky section about fandom in general but I think it's worth saying. In the real world, homophobia and transphobia are very real. They negatively impact our lives in heartbreaking and deadly ways. It is still the norm in most US media for the bulk of relationships shown to be between a cis man and a cis woman, and for protagonists to be cis and straight (note: also often able-bodied, male, white, etc but the focus of this discussion is queerness so I'm not covering all axes of oppression). However, in many fandom spaces, queer characters and ships are the fan favorites. Tumblr's userbase does skew heavily queer, and additionally, tends to skew towards women. In other words, a lot of things that are very true in real life do not hold in fandom spaces.

Which is to say: we're in a situation where an F/F ship is the massive juggernaut for the fandom right now. It does not mean that lesbians (or bi women who enter into relationships with other women) are not oppressed in the real world; it does mean that within the highly specific space of the Critical Role fandom, people are more likely to be in favor of this ship than not. It also means that a lot of the people who aren't into it are not homophobes, but are queer people - often even wlw - who are saying "I would like F/F ships! I would like them to actually be good." Like, to me, the only difference between Imogen and Laudna and every M/F canon relationship on network TV that's made me go "you're telling me they should be together, but I don't see it" is that they're both women (and I would bet a large sum that for a lot of people, this isn't about the dynamic, but purely about the gender of the people involved, ie, if Imogen were a man played by one of the men in the cast people wouldn't ship it, where as I personally can comfortably say I'd ship any of the canon ships from past campaigns regardless of character gender. This also admits that biological essentialism is fake and that Exandria is pretty gender equalthough, which some people don't want to do.)

Part of why I've been so frustrated is that, at least from my perspective, the overwhelming majority of hate and harassment I've seen within the fandom in Campaign 3 - and in Campaign 2 - has been from people who have shipped Marisha and Laura's characters. There has, in fact, been pretty considerable hate as well as measured criticism levied towards M/F ships (we're seeing some with Ashton/Laudna here, but both Fjord/Jester and Caleb/Jester, the latter of which I actively dislike and have openly criticized, received pretty vehement hate last campaign and most of it came from people who shipped Jester with Beau) and M/M ships (less harassment per se but people who shipped Caleb with Jester said some truly awful things about Caleb/Essek; also while I have not, you know, harassed people, I have said essentially the same things about how Taliesin and Liam's characters are shipped every campaign despite often having little connection as I have about Marisha and Laura's. I just don't talk about it as much because while I think and have said that Ashton/Orym is basically nothing - and that Widomauk, which most people vaguely classify as M/M, and for that matter, Percy/Vax, all are basically nothing - no one who ships those has called me a cunt or reblogged my posts in an abusive manner or called me out for the grave sin of preferring canon to fanon, so I respect the ship and let ship of it all.) For that matter, the bulk of hate towards Beauyasha came from people who shipped Beau and Jester. Like...I am confident there are people who dislike this ship specifically because it's between two women, and they are homophobic, but that is not the quarter where I think most of the criticism on Tumblr or Twitter is coming from.

So let's get to the last point. Why do people ship two women simply because they're standing next to each other? Why do they ignore countless red flags - and I am specifically talking about treating Imogen and Laudna's relationship as healthy and loving; not about shipping it in general. I cannot stress enough that if you treat Imogen/Laudna as some kind of toxic Briarwoods situation and are into that, I support that entirely.

There are a few reasons. First and foremost, I think a lot of people project onto characters rather than letting the characters provide them with differing perspectives. I find this deeply sad. It's not that you can't draw parallels between your own life and that of fictional characters or see yourself in them - you're supposed to! But it says something depressing about your empathy if your qualifications for which characters speak to you are only those who match your demographics. Like, I've said before, but my favorite characters from past campaigns are Vex and Fjord, and they have a lot in common! If you relate to one based on their themes of Who You Are In The Dark and the mask you present to the world over a face you don't particularly like, you will probably relate to the other! But also...I am a cis bi woman, I am not a person of color as both those characters are often considered coded to be (though am an ethnic minority), nor did I personally experience extensive emotional abuse and poverty as a child. I think there's value in wanting to see people like you! But also...representation is not just "I want to see people like me"; it's also "I want to humanize people who are not like me". If you cannot relate to someone simply because they don't match your gender or sexuality, then that's a really shallow and cold way to interact with the world. And, specifically in relation to queerness within Critical Role: this is a world that has consistently been depicted as not having homophobia or transphobia. I understand wanting to explore these themes and seeing characters who have experienced them, but like...this is not the media that will reasonably have a one-to-one portrayal of homophobia or transphobia, and you often will need to bend over backwards and project a lot of stuff that simply isn't in the canon to read that into them because the worldbuilding simply doesn't support it. And, to be clear, you can do that; but at that point you're applying a lens that only you can obtain, so you shouldn't be surprised if few people come along with you. (I also think it's kind of dumb to watch a show with 5 cis men on it, four of whom are married to women, and be mad that the story has men in it and that those men sometimes are attracted to women; unpacking this would easily double the length of this already incredibly long post though.)

So: this sets a stage for people coming into the show saying "who looks like me, or can I make to look like me" rather than engaging with what's actually going on. Part of why I've been hesitant on Imogen and Laudna the whole time, though started out much more open to it, is in fact that it was heavily shipped from quite literally the moment that Laura and Marisha were indicated to be playing two women who knew each other from before. We knew nothing about their dynamic other than "existing friendship". So I think a lot of people put the cart before the horse and started shipping, and I do think - and I could be entirely wrong - a lot of them, deep down in their hearts, know that they are twisting their interpretations to match an idea of these two characters that has increasingly been proven not to be true onscreen. Like, I think a lot of people kind of realize that Imogen is putting Laudna in a horrible position here; I think a lot of people realize that their so-called 'unconditional' love that transcends words means there's no room to resolve or even express conflict. Perhaps they don't, but like, I'd like to give people the benefit of the doubt. It's just...I think that because this ship is so all-consuming within the fandom, and because so many people have staked their identities within the fandom on it, they don't know how to leave it and are scared of retaliation if they do.

This is backed up by the slow shift I've described - Imodna started out with "they're already girlfriends" or "they're already in love but just haven't said it" or "what could ever happen other than they become ever closer and eventually kiss" (as witnessed by these questions) to "they realized they were in love during the campaign" to "Imogen is in love with Laudna but Laudna isn't aware" to "god remember how they used to talk, I'd give anything for it" to "I guess a QPR is okay" (which is itself bizarre, like, the issues I see in their relationship are still just as much issues in a nonsexual partnership as a sexual one; honestly, it's not a healthy friendship though it is an interesting one and the problem's I have are not going to be fixed by kissing.) Like, it's not the normal evolution of feelings one might have about a ship as the show goes on and more information is revealed, or rather, it's a ship that's becoming less and less confident as time goes on which is the opposite of how canon ships tend to go. (Which, I need to stress, does not discount that it could not be canon; it's just that I think it would require a pretty profound shakeup and conflict to do so). The signs and signals are becoming more and more tenuous and the shippers keep lowering and lowering the bar.

Since I've already brought up past campaigns and ships, let's do it again for the sake of illustration; this feels like how people who shipped Caleb and Jester went from ENDGAME to "Caleb is pushing away Jester to protect her" to "I think Laura is biting her lip when she's looking at Liam! This is a SIGN" even in episodes where Jester was like, actively making out with Fjord, to, and I am not making this up, posting pictures of the CR shop showing Laura in Caleb merch as evidence. Or how the bulk of Vex/Keyleth shipping in TLOVM rested on a scene in the trailer where Keyleth was staring dreamily and drunkenly into space while Vex was across the table only for the show to reveal Keyleth was staring at Vax. Like, all shipping does require a certain degree of cherrypicking, but there is a point where you are focused only on subtext and never text, and while that was how one had to interact with queer stories in the past, it's ridiculous to be doing it on a show where Marisha has openly RP-ed Beau eating Yasha out. Like, if they wanted to show two women being romantically involved, they will. (There's been a lot of Xena comparisons thrown around, and like...not that Xena isn't an important part of the history of depicting F/F relationships in media, but it is also a syndicated show from the 90s and couldn't show an explicitly lesbian relationship, and Critical Role very much can and has.)

I do think there are a subset of people who don't realize how unhealthy this is. Like...this is a whole psychological thing that I am unequipped to unpack, but I do think there are people for whatever reasons genuinely do believe that love means never having to say you're sorry. I am hoping this is because of youth and inexperience, because being able to communicate and advocate for yourself is a crucial part of relationships, as is the ability to express and resolve conflict. As you've noticed, the people who ship this have all said "well, obviously, Imogen won't betray Laudna" - but we don't know that. Honestly I think it could go either way. But they have to make that assumption to keep shipping it, because if Imogen might betray Laudna, then that does mean that there would have been more meaning and value in Laudna speaking up and that conversation was deeply flawed.

I also think some of this comes from unconditional love being an unreasonable expectation foisted upon us all at large. There are always conditions, or rather, you might always in some way love someone, but there are conditions under which you'd leave or boundaries you will draw. You can love someone who (for example) is dealing with an addiction but still refuse to let them drive while intoxicated or steal your stuff to pay for drugs. You can love someone who cheats on you but still want to end that relationship. I mean, while fear, self-doubt, and resources/logistics are all factors in people leaving abusive relationships, it's also true that a lot of people have some affection for the good times and that is a factor as well. Love is not a simple on/off switch. You can feel multiple things at once - honestly, that's what Ashton basically says this past episode, that they both love and hate the party! I think Imogen and Laudna do genuinely love each other, though I don't interpret it as romantic; I just also think that there's a lot of stuff they don't like about each other but are unable to express, and which will only become more and more of a threat to a potential romantic (or queerplatonic) relationship if left to fester unresolve. And, to be honest, I suspect real-world homophobia and fandom purity issues are part of why people are so unwilling to discuss why Imogen and Laudna's relationship is unhealthy; because it means admitting that queer relationships can have most of the same problems as straight ones, and possibly admitting that you still find an unhealthy relationship interesting and want to see it played out.

#answered #Anonymous #long post #cr tag #posts that make me realize i should probably watch the celluloid closet

110 notes · View notes

brydeswhale · 2 years ago

Text

The fact is that the “Sansa got Ned killed” discourse is tired old misogyny that got adopted by NLOG fan girls from old white geek dudes and functions as both garbage “meta” that reinforces shitty social norms and also an illustration of how fandom as a whole functioned towards female characters up until the mid-tens.

The “Arya got Lady killed” is a satirical commentary on how people excuse all of Arya’s actions or put the blame for them on Sansa because of their own internalized misogyny and an attempt to reframe an understanding of the Trident scene, which is ALSO a case where people put all the blame on Sansa despite her being the least culpable outside of Mycah and Lady.

They are not equivalent whatsoever.

#sansa stark

61 notes · View notes

faelapis · 3 years ago

Text

one thing i forgot to say about belos, i don't really buy the whole "belos is supposed to play on the idea of a villain about to become sympathetic, but then he isn't!" angle as a response to criticism.

for one thing, there's a lot of people talking past each other here. it seems like whenever someone critiques how he's played, there's this underlying assumption that the people critiquing it MUST want him to be a sad woobie. i don't need that, i just want him to be more compelling. so please respond to what people are actually saying.

secondly, i just don't think that's a reasonable argument in a show where every other moral is the most obvious shit you've ever heard. don't lie, be nice, found family good, propaganda and authoritorianism bad (but not bad as in a compelling story that has deep or complex themes, just bad as in "evil power hungry meanies are bad.")... but i'm supposed to believe that despite being played totally straight, he's actually a subtle and nuanced commentary on setup and payoff and how you've grown to "expect" someone like him to be deep or redeemable? please.

thirdly, and perhaps most important to me personally... its a boring reason for your villain to be written like he is. you have to be Extremely Online to think too much redemption is a real "problem" in animation. if you ask a normie to define "kids cartoons morals" they would say it has simple morals, the good guys win while the bad guys are killed or defeated. i swear some of y'all are just angry that steven universe dared to exist in a sea of more typical storytelling where the main villain is rarely ever redeemed.

if you look at the broader history of the medium as a whole, you can probably find more of the specific villain death where someone falls from a high place than ANY scenario where a big bad is redeemed.

i could go on. these are just the first gifs i could find. (picture description: gaston, the evil queen from snow white, frollo and mcleach from rescuers down under all falling to their deaths.)

there's just this extreme paranoia in cartoon fandom spaces lately that - i genuinely think just because steven universe and undertale came out around the same time - we're somehow never gonna get a real villain who isn't redeemed again.

meanwhile, the reality is like. not that at all.

(picture description: horde prime from she-ra and the princesses of power, simon from infinity train, and emilia from kipo and the age of wonderbeasts).

so if your villain only exists to say "wow there's no evil villains who don't get redeemed anymore, i'm gonna make one just to be meta-commentary on how there's no evil villains anymore." all i can say is like... cry more? and watch something other than steven universe, i guess? because redeeming your big bads is the rare exception, not the norm. yet its somehow completely dominated Cartoon Discourse (tm) as if its redefined the rules of the whole medium.

(just to get our terminology straight - by "big bad" i mean the main villains, the primary antagonists, the people in control who are the reason bad plot things happen. they are rarely redeemed. sure, you get more redemption out of sad abused woobie lackeys... but if you take issue with THAT, you might have less sympathy for abuse victims than you think. like. geez. most of the time they aren't even villains so much as trapped in their circumstances. just be born good, i guess. most media has a true evil big bad even if the abused lackey is redeemable anyway.)

and as someone likes redemption, and is therefore a privileged neoliberal hack who has never experienced abuse or trauma myself, according to my haters, i think thats just... a bit sad. we couldn't have One (1) cartoon redeem its supposed big bads without 3+ years of hysterical crying and posturing from every reactionary fuckhead in cartoon spaces that thats it, SU exists, so from now on its Brave and Revolutionary to have an evil villain.

give me a fucking break. get over yourselves. and if thats the intention behind creating belos (which i don't think, so i'm not here for your analysis of why he really exists, but if), then i extend that invitation to the owl house writers as well.

#the owl house #ask to tag /#gif /#steven universe #disney #animation #cartoons #spop #infinity train #kipo and the age of wonderbeasts #trope talk

193 notes · View notes

admirableadmiranda · 2 years ago

Note

Hi! While not new to tumblr it’s been quite a while and oh boy, I wasn’t expecting some of the drama that’s been happening all because of people moving from twitter to tumblr. Though I am a jc/xicheng main myself, I’m sorry y’all are having to deal with this.

Personally, I understand not feeling how fanon can change a character. I’ve felt this way about lwj sometimes (some ppl make him care too much about jc that it feels ooc) so I often avoid certain things and that even includes some themes of xicheng that makes wangxian completely different). Ah, I’m saying that gibberish to mean that I can relate to the frustration even if it’s not the same—

You should be allowed to vent and talk about it. You guys created a tag specific to that too and you guys don’t bother other tags either. I don’t see what the issue is personally with that.

Also, just bc I’ve seen this accusation a bit, I don’t think it’s the JC Stans who’ve been on tumblr for quite a while causing the drama so much as it’s those moving from twitter. Even some tumblr Jc fans have said themselves [paraphrased] “they created that tag quite a while ago. Best to just mute the tag and let them be.” Honestly, I didn’t even know that tag existed until people started pointing it out. If you’re in the general Jc tag, you don’t see the canon Jc tag stuff anyway.

I say the best thing is to just ignore them and keep posting meta/analysis there as you guys have been. I’ve seen fandom discourse get bad enough (*cough* FE3H fandom *cough*) that you just learn to ignore, block, and keep doing the norm. They’ll leave you alone when they see they can’t move you. And if they’ve blocked you, they’re only doing it to themselves.

Hi Anon. Thank you for stopping by, it really is lovely to see you.

Thank you very much for your kind words. I think we can definitely agree on just not vibing with certain types of fanon even if we aren’t bothered by it existing as long as we can still play our own way. I have no beef with Xicheng fans at all, it’s just not my thing (and I totally get you on the LWJ bit of it too).

I really don’t know why it’s suddenly such an issue now too! We had like eight months of total peace about the tag! It made sense for those of us here and allowed us to stop feuding and I was happy with that. It’s nice to just have an easy shorthand where both sides can filter out the one they don’t want and go from there.

Yeah I agree that it’s the Twitter fans. I’ve had a couple of people say that the tag has been overrun by antis and that’s what gets me there, cause I was one of the first to start using it at all, so can a tag really be overrun if that’s how it was always used? It wasn’t like we stole it or anything, I don’t think it existed outside of a few quieter blogs before my friends and I got in on the whole thing. I’m glad to hear that tumblr JC fans are also being reasonable about the whole thing.

<3 thank you Anon for the suggestion. I shall do my best to not start up new fights, but honestly I do tend to bite back when people bring the fight to my posts and inbox. But I shall continue to tag accordingly and hopefully all shall die down soon and we can return to our relative harmony.

I hope you continue to have good times here and enjoy your purple lotus as you love him best! Thanks for taking the time to drop by. It really meant a lot to me this morning.

#mdzs #canon jiang cheng #asks #anon asks #anon #sweet anons

24 notes · View notes

ladysunamireads · 2 years ago

Text

Young People's Discourse on Bloodthirst

Young People's Discourse on Bloodthirst by LupusPyxisRoss, Timetravel2hogwarts

The last thing Kaiji remembers was a bright purple flash and he end up in the future?! Heroes are the norm here!? Ew! Nedzu is a principal?! Ew! He has to be a TEACHER and teach HEROICS?! Ew! Yoichi's meta ability has been passed on and now there is a 9th and 8th?! DISGUSTI- No wait, that one's fine by his standards. After getting hit by a quirk and ending up in the future, Kaiji is disgusted by what the world has turned into, killing violent.... villains is an unwritten no no and honestly? Fuck the public opinion, their opinions are gonna be the fall of Japan! If a particularly violent criminal can't be killed as a last option and instead, the public decides to sacrifice fifty heroes JUST to subdue a villain and then throw the villain away into a high-security prison and waste all their tax payer money on keeping the villains alive instead of spending the money on more productive shit like public hospitals. Then Kaiji will just have to train students to kill villains 'under the radar.' He'll teach them by having them try to kill him! Or severely injure him at the very least... they will do so with 20 million yen and their ability to pass onto 2A on the line....

Words: 8003, Chapters: 1/?, Language: English

Fandoms: 僕のヒーローアカデミア | Boku no Hero Academia | My Hero Academia (Anime & Manga)

Rating: Teen And Up Audiences

Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings

Categories: Multi, Other

Characters: Class 1-A, Midoriya Izuku, Monoma Neito, Second One For All User, Nedzu, Todoroki Shouto, Yagi Toshinori | All Might

Relationships: Third One For All User/Yoichi | First One For All User, Second One For All User/Yoichi | First One For All User, Second One For All User/Third One For All User, Second One For All User/Third One For All User/Yoichi | First One For All User, Midoriya Izuku/Todoroki Shouto

Additional Tags: 2nd is Blond, bad financial decisions, There are consequences in Life, Aizawa gets to go on a vacation, by force, don't worry he's getting sun in one of those islands that has more cats than people, Comedy, based on assassionation classroom, but there are literally no spoilers for assassination classroom, Angst, 2nd misses hid family, Fluff and Angst, Fluff and Humor

Read Here: https://archiveofourown.org/works/44991352

#AO3 Feed #FanFiction #AO3 Tododeku #♥#Tododeku #BNHA #⚣#🐰❄️🔥#R:T #Angst #Fluff #A:LupusPyxisRoss

2 notes · View notes

steveyockey · 4 years ago

Note

Non spn anon: thank you for answering my confusing question, sorry it was confusing 😅 I must say I’m so intrigued by all the Dean gender discussion posts I’ve seen so when I learned there was a satin underwear moment I was like ?!?!?!!!!! On SPN of all shows? Just so much to unpack here. Anyway thank you again 🙏🏻

okay like I know you didn’t actually ask a question but this ask has been driving me crazy because “on SPN of all shows” non spn anon you wouldn’t know this because you, of course, do not watch spn, but this sort of slippage occurs all the time with dean! as was written in the gospel of dean by tumblr user marcusantonius, the slippage occurs so many fucking times (he likes to wear nightgowns! he knows purgatory is name of a gay club in miami! he’s made everyone he lives with watch lost boys over thirty times! he recites rent lyrics! soft spot for dirty dancing [“swayze always gets a pass”]! loves doctor sexy aka the in universe equivalent of greys! weird kinky sex references about zorro masks and whips!) and with such an earnestness that it actually actively reconstitutes dean against the superordinate classification of Absolute Heterosexual Male the narrative leans on as his assumed identity!

the thing about a lot of meta on gay/bi readings of dean is that. well. da miller has a piece called “anal rope” where he uses this understanding of coding as a difference between connotation and denotation, basically things that have the potential for a certain reading vs the literal text,

“connotation... excites the desire for proof, a desire that, so long as it develops within the connotative register, tends to draft every signifier into what nonetheless remains a hopeless task — hence the desire assumes another, complementary form in the dream (impossible to realize, but impossible not to entertain) that connotation would quit its dusky existence for fluorescent literality, would become denotation.”

it’s the same problem sedgwick refers to as “We Know What That Means” in epistemology of the closet,

“to have succeeded... in cracking the centuries-old code by which the-articulated-denial-of-articulability always had the possibility of meaning two things, of meaning either (heterosexual) ‘nothing’ or ‘homosexual meaning,’ would also always have been to assume one's place in a discourse in which there was a homosexual meaning, in which all homosexual meaning meant a single thing.”

and I have to say anon that back in fandom circa 2014 the panties thing drove me CRAZY because I felt like it was everywhere all the time in every post about bi dean or gay dean or queerbait or queercoding or endverse spiral but NO ONE would ever explain it! “We KNOW What That Means”!! it filtered out into every single fucking fic where dean discovers his sexuality, I swear to god I read so many stories where he had this big sexual identity crisis during which part of the realization would be the panties, just the panties, the fact that he liked them an illumination in and of itself. exactly as you articulated it, a “satin underwear moment.” most interestingly (to me, at least), the idea of the panties makes an appearance in twist and shout but in REVERSE with cas being the one wearing the panties (almost as though through some sort of metacognition the writers understood they were making a work so profoundly out of step with the actual characters the meaning of the panties no longer aligned with the dean they had written - but what about the panties had aligned with dean in the first place!?).

what DO the panties mean! they could mean a lot of things! sexual domination symbolic castration transgenderism kink fantasy shakespearean crossdressing something something gender roles battering rams to masculinity redefinitions of masculinity transgression of masculinity permeability of the borders of masculinity — nothing about the panties is inherently anything, it’s just about what you as the reader understand their meaning to be, the connotation YOU confer onto the text on the basis that rhonda hurley made dean try on her panties and he “kind of liked it,” and, somehow, and perhaps this is the key, this knowledge is what will convince a future self of dean winchester that his present self is the same self. and of course on the one hand it’s obvious that the assumed private nature of this knowledge, that dean would not have told this story to anyone else and thus only dean and rhonda can confirm its veracity, is the motivator for dean’s admission, but where’s the fun in that! and besides, that does nothing to explain how it come so easily, and so comfortably, which is how a lot of dean’s sexuality is supposed to come to him and part of the project he is cultivating as the Absolute Heterosexual Male! he’s a womanizer he’s a ladies man, again, to quote the gospel, “lovable fucker, always fuckable,” and something about the panties does fit into that, into what has been denoted about dean and sex and how he desires, but! it’s been denoted so thoroughly to collapse the image onto itself, so insistently proffered over and over again that it begs a question of itself and of the very comfortability that dean purports to have in his sexuality and the manner in which he wants you to think he wants the girl in the zorro mask to slap him. so the panties, which could be a reassurance of this comfort in this firm Heterosexual-Though-Non-Normative-Sexually Identity, instead become an object that connotes, along with every other little tic, every slippage, every glance, a hidden truth, a discomfort, a necessity to insist that there is not a secret buried beneath the open-bookedness of his sex life. it isn’t even actually about the connotation striving to become denotation, but rather that the denotation itself lacks stability and so connotation becomes identity as the performance of this heterosexual self tips into parody. masculinity. what a beast.

#spn #ziz watches spn #the way I keep writing paragraphs about the cw tv show supernatural is inherently embarrassing #but the way I continue to very earnestly do it? camp #if you make it to the end of this post good for you I probably would scroll past it myself but #non spn anon

273 notes · View notes

shortnotsweet · 4 years ago

Text

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.

#bakudeku #meta #my hero academia #boko no hero academia #bnha #mha #bakugou katsuki #izuku midoriya #ok these are just my general thoughts in response to the people who have hang ups about this ship #like y’all need to pls chill tf out ok #this is also not comprehensive and could definitely be elaborated on #but it’s just general thoughts #it’s just addressing general opposition I’ve seen #I never thought I’d ever write this much about this ship wtf

137 notes · View notes