#being literal teens that were taken advantage of by adults that groomed them and all

[dimension-20-every-introduction]

Everyone Introduced in Dimension 20's Fantasy High: Junior Year episode 20 (finale)

[frizzle-mcshizzle]

what r your thoughts on forkle /gen

as a writer i think hes a very well written morally grey character, as a reader i hate his freaking guts here is the list i literally keep in my notes of why i hate him.

he broke into her room who knows how many times when she was a little girl (idc if he had REASONS its FREAKING WEIRD)

he asked Sophie to meet him (a grown man) on a island alone and when she took Keefe with her he told her she had to come in the cave with him alone

he just about left Dex for dead in the Neverseen hideout and only brought him because Sophie refused to go without him. Dex was a innocent child. Dex wasn’t just anyones child he was a member of the collectives child someone who he worked with side by side for years, and he was still willing to leave him behind (he later said he was going to back for him but like...)

Dex ended up with scars because he didn’t bring enough elixirs for him.

he thinks of Sophie as an accomplishment and doesn’t expect her to want him to think of her as anything more (Everblaze, Page 447.)

he calls her his moonlark. which sounds sweet until you realize that’s her project code name he’s literally calling her “my creation” aka “my weapon”

he will act very cryptic and only give out bits of information, just enough that she will look into what he was talking about then act proud and flatter her, saying things like “i underestimated you kids” when she and her friends figure out the thing he wanted her to know.

he will tell her about problems in the world making it sound horrible and hopeless, then saying "this is the thing we made you to fix, but that’s your choice"

he’s constantly switching from dehumanizing her because she is the Moonlark and it’s her job to change things and this is what she was created for. then treating like his child at the drop of a hat

excludes her parents from the conversations and tells her she has control over her life, not them, like she isn’t a young teen

he told a fourteen year old that if he and the rest of collective died Sophie and her friends would take their place, not care about what kind of pressure that would put on her. then admits to grooming Sophie and her friends to lead the Black Swan one day

he is constantly reading her mind and never lets her have her thoughts to herself but expects her to not read other peoples minds.

he put all this importance on Prentice and told a child that they where going to use her to brake into prison and almost got another child killed who didn't even need to be there (they could have done that without her they have dwarves)

finds it funny to exclude Sandor from conversations that could potentially put her in danger

had Sophie recruit other children, which is disturbing, because fine they don’t have a choice if she’s in danger but putting other children in danger and taking on missions is completely unnecessary, he could have done it himself or had adults do it.

Ignored tam being taken by the neverseen, and told them to focus on other things

Not to mention he basically took advantage of Emma Foster's health issues, knowing full well he'd be taking her child away from her and her husband at a later date. Sophie's human parents were done so dirty, and all they wanted to do was let her be a kid for as long as possible

[adviserbylove]

I am aware I've been quite annoying about this issue in the past, and for the moots that are tired of hearing this, I apologize. This will most likely be the last time that I will say this, cause at this point, I'm also fed up with it as well. But if I don't properly express my views on this matter instead of arguing with trolls hiding behind a grey ball with sunglasses (anonymous asks), I'm gonna let my feelings bottle up like a champagne bottle and, well....we all know how that goes

And no, this is not something that has been ongoing for me, or I'm still getting shit for this. If I do, I will delete any further asks about this issue. I've just been reminded of idiotic posts I've seen from purity patrol and it sickens me

There is nothing wrong with aging up your f/o

"It's not my fault you didn't grow out of your teenage crush" "....'Cause some people can't let go of their crush when they were teens" "Umm...why do you selfship with X who is 17 when you're an adult?" -- Shut up. There are so many reasons why someone would age up a character, and they don't equate to "Hiding the fact you would be attracted to their canon age". Perhaps they were a teenager when they started to selfship with them and when they got older, their f/o was in a media were they didn't age. Perhaps you fell in love with a character who, without their age being canonically 16-17, you would've taken them for early twenties~. Perhaps those characters have helped you through extremely harsh times, helped you through panic attacks and depressive episodes, and they became people that were very near and dear to you. People just expect you to throw all of that out the window as soon as you blow out the candles on your 18th birthday cake? Why not create an AU where you two grew up together and are still happy with each other? That is literally what self shipping is! Not 'growing out of your crush, and if you don't, that's your problem, not mine!'. That only makes it sound like your feelings towards your f/o is something that can be turned on and off like a light switch, which is NOT how feelings fucking work! Guess I should've gotten tired of my husband that I knew for 20+ years/been married to for 6+ years!

If anything, it would be weird if an adult did not age their f/o up. The reason behind aging up character is because sexualizing minors is wrong. You are not imaging yourself with teenagers, but adults that use to be those teenagers. It's faulty reasoning, because by this logic, college au's of characters that are canonically 16-17 are not valid. By this logic, falling in love with your childhood friend is not valid (which is actually one of my favorite, if not my favorite, trope). Seeing how characters grow and develop is suppose to be one of the best parts of fictional characters, and the fact that some people want to shit on that aspect that one's comfort can bring to them is absolutely wild for me

I've been blocked by multiple blogs, but before I was, they asked me why I selfship with a 17 year old when I'm in my twenties. Before I even answered their asks with the fact that I aged them up and worked hard on planning out what they would've done as an adult/what would be different/what their life was like in our AU, etc. I was already blocked. If you aren't interested in hearing my answer, then don't even bother sending an ask to me in the first place

I was groomed + SA'ed when I was 11 (by five different men, two of them happened to be family members, mind you), have children irl, and two younger brothers that have also been CSA victims. I will NEVER stop believing that it is wrong for an adult to take advantage of a minor. And frankly, you can stop shitting on a coping mechanism that actual survivors of CSA use

Aging up is not equal to sexualizing minors/p*dophilia! All it does is tell me that you have morals!

Again, believe what you want, but I will be deleting any pedo apologists, mean comments, purity patrol, proshitters using this as a trump card, etc.

They aren’t real. They can’t be hurt. They’re there for us to have fun with. So as long as you aren't producing literal CP, you are fine! Just enjoy yourself

[muchymozzarella]

Trigger warning: discussion of CSA, CSEM

@grossularia hope this helps.

The screenshots above involve the organisations "NCMEC" and "INHOPE" which, as you can see, were being inundated by false reports due to fandom ship wars as of 2019-2020, and possibly to this day

After I reblogged the post, I got this message:

and a clarification:

Think about it. 99.8% of ALL CONTENT reported to these organisations focused entirely on saving victims of child sexual abuse... is falsely reported.

That could be anything from an idiotic shipwar to even reprehensible, yet entirely inactionable, drawings of fictional underaged characters.

Here's an additional message from the anon (whose identity I will not reveal due to the nature of anonymity in these orgs).

And here's some research on incidences of child sexual abuse which details how most of it is committed by close and trustworthy people in a child's life:

It's important to note that the idea that fictional CP has a bigger impact on grooming or sexual manipulation is a false one, one that doesn't require any complex thought and makes people feel like they're doing something bigger than they are when they go after artists who create it.

Groomers don't NEED CP to groom. Literally destroy all fictional CP in the world and it won't even make a dent in the incidences of CSA, because most of it stems from seemingly innocent things - I don't know if you've heard the "cookie" story. I mean, of all the reports I've heard over years of actors and voice actors and animators and artists getting with underaged fans just through the totally innocent media they created that the fan consumed kind of proves that nothing needs to be wrong with the media for opportunistic assholes to take advantage.

Fictional CP is disgusting, sure. You can certainly report the content as being against TOS on most sites because most sites don't allow them and they can be taken down. But wasting the time of organisations dedicated to protecting kids with lines and colours is active harm against the kids that need protecting.

The real way you can protect kids from being groomed online (if not interpersonally in their lives) is internet literacy and safety. Unless you're a full grown adult with security around your home, don't tell people where you live. Don't give out personal information, etc. Don't trust people with anything until you're old enough and secure enough.

As someone who grew up on the internet knowing I could never ever trust anyone with my real info and not doing so until I was well into my twenties, the fact that so many people are willing to show their faces and home towns online as teens is terrifying.

tl;dr reporting fiction to child protective agencies just hurts kids. Don't do it. Stop.

[batfamquotes]

LMAO I forgot there are people who don’t know that talia al-ghul had sex with jason todd

that’s like people not knowing nightwing once kissed catwoman

this came up because https://shewhotellsstories.tumblr.com reblogged this

https://incorrectbatfamiliaquotes.tumblr.com/post/180702420910/jason-todd-i-hadnt-felt-that-messed-up-mentally

and their tags were basically asking did talia commit a statutory rape upon jason

and I realized wow people really don’t know that story and have zero context.

so I want to clarify just what happened between talia and jason 

for the record, I’m not justifying what happens, I’m just explaining the events as they occurred. 

(warning: this gets long)

SO! 

in red hood the lost days we’re shown what jason todd was doing in between getting resurrected, crawling out of his grave, and terrorizing batman when he comes back to gotham as red hood.

where was he?

with talia al-ghul

what was he doing?

getting training from the best teachers she picked out for him

and then killing the ones who turned out to be morally corrupt.

after crawling out of his grave, jason spent 5 months wandering around, then hospitalized, then back to wandering the streets before the al-ghuls found him and brought him to one of their compounds

then after a year of trying and failing to figure out how he came back from the dead, ra’s deemed jason a lost cause. jason had shown that he was a master combatant but he wasn’t all there, not mentally. now this could be because of the obvious trauma he’d been through, and an effect of being resurrected & being described as half dead. it’s very possible he had brain damage, and probably never would have recovered completely or maybe he would have, over a period of several years.

but talia didn’t have that option. ra’s forbid her to tell batman that his son was in her care and custody. and he decided that jason would leave them and be cared for in secret, since in his eyes he wasn’t improving. 

so talia sped up the process. she shoved jason into her father’s lazarus pit, gave him a survival kit, and helped him escape the al-ghul compound.

why? why do all this? well it’s implied that talia hoped to restore jason to the boy he once was, then she’d return him to batman who would be grateful in kind and love talia back.

but it’s pointed out that the chances of that happening aren’t high, and that the longer talia kept jason from bruce, the more likely it would be that bruce would be angry with her for keeping his son from him and not letting him know jason was alive.

after the dip in the lazarus pit, jason’s mental faculties are back to working order, and the pits healing factor works on his body as well, giving him a very late growth spurt.

it’s believed the lazarus pit made jason go “crazy” when he went on his vengeance driven kill spree but all it did for him mentally was undo his brain damage, throughout lost days and under the red hood jason’s got a clear moral stance and is driven by anger. yes he’s violent, but he’s coherent.

after reconnecting with talia, jason tells her he wants to kill batman for not avenging him and asks for her help, which she gives, while also stalling him by insisting he gain training in a variety of fields.

which he does. he’s an incredibly fast learner.

during that time, talia helps jason financially, paying for his livelihood and his teachers that she picks out for him

as his goals change, during the story he meets with talia on several occasions, telling her of his progress and plans. she’s a major part of his life, but he’s left to his own devices.

at the end of the series, talia tells jason that her father is dead by batman’s hand, and encourages him to gain vengeance on bruce, for slights made against him and her.

she then pulls jason towards her, and kisses him. he kisses her back, they fall to the bed, making out, and they have sex.

since up until that point jason had been focusing on training, and no mention of any love interests are made, there’s no reason to think he would have had penetrative sex before this, so it’s pretty clear that talia takes jason’s virginity. and yes, virginity is a social construct but for the narrative’s sake let’s call it what it is.

now, when jason comes back from the dead, it’s 6 months after he’s been buried.

at that point, jason was 15

in red hood the lost days it’s clear that a couple years pass between talia helping jason escape, his training, and the time they have sex.

so the timeline is, 15-16, being taken care of by talia, going on the run, deciding to murder batman

16-17, training from different teachers, learning new skills batman hadn’t taught him

18, giving up on murdering batman, and choosing to enact revenge instead, then talia takes his virginity

(for reference, he’s two years older than tim drake who was 16 when jason came back to gotham in under the red hood, so at the end of lost days jason is 18)

here is jason with talia in issue 1

look at how small and tiny he is. just like the malnourished robin he once was. he’s 15 at this point.

this is them in issue 2

he’s clearly older here, but not by much, he’s at least 16.

and here they are in issue 3, you can see jason’s aging, he’s either still 16 or he’s 17

and in issue 4, he’s either a late 17 or an early 18 here at this point in the story.

sidenote, jason with long hair and scruff is a LOOK!

and this is the Moment where they have sex in issue 6 when jason is 18

and the aftermath

I’m pretty sure that’s a condom wrapper next to the phone.

compare jason in issue 1 to issue 6. he goes from a teen to an adult, and the transitions are obvious.

NOW

let’s get into the why.

it’s clear that talia is most likely using jason to get at bruce, but along the way she grows to care for jason.

it should be noted that at that point jason is still emotionally a mess from everything, and talia is dealing with her father’s death, so they’re two compromised individuals seeking comfort in one another. it’s cathartic. but that doesn’t make it healthy. 

from the ages of 15 to 18 talia is jason’s primary caretaker. she doesn’t raise him, she’s not his mother, not biologically, legally, or technically. but she is a mother figure to him.

and talia is significantly older than jason, being in either her late 20s or early 30s

they aren’t unaware of their connection through batman, talia being his ex and jason being his adopted son

basically their having sex is a literal and figurative way of saying ‘screw you’ to the man

so their connection through bruce, age difference, power imbalanced relationship in the lost days story line, and their emotionally vulnerable states means that their having sex is unhealthy and it’s meant to be seen that way, it’s not supposed to be “hot” or good.

talia throughout the story manipulates jason into being the type of man bruce refuses to be, one who kills without hesitation.

but I wouldn’t say she takes advantage of him, not in the way you’d assume.

this isn’t a grooming situation, talia manipulates jason emotionally but not sexually. it’s messed up, we’re not contesting that

however, we will say that jason todd is legally an adult when talia has sex with him and it’s clear that it’s consensual on both their parts

jason’s not in a good head space when it happens but he is an adult physically, mentally and emotionally. 

it’s not statutory rape or incestuous, but it is very very messed up.

the closest comparison I can make is, imagine during stephanie brown’s batgirl run when she was an 18 year old college student and wasn’t dating tim drake at the time, if bruce wayne found himself attracted to her and had sex with stephanie brown in spite of her being his son’s ex girlfriend who tim obviously was still in love with and would never be over, bruce being significantly older than stephanie, not acting as a father figure towards her, but a mentor of sorts over the years, and bruce knowing stephanie since she was a 14 year old teenage girl. illegal? no. messed up? very.

I’m aware an 18 year old jason’s not going to have the same maturity level as someone older, he’s still growing, but that’s not the point here.

it’s consensual and legal sure

but it’s also unhealthy and messed up for the reasons listed above

it’s interesting, that jason wanting to find his biological mother was the major catalyst that drove him to the events that led to his death, and after he rose from the dead he found a mother figure in talia

[makeste]

more essaying about AFO and whether or not he’s the final villain

so @thequietmanno1 , I finally have some time to sit down and answer your asks so let’s get to it lol. I’ll start with the most recent one.

Gonna put my hat in the ring with you and @addermoray about AFO. I agree that currently he intends to turn everything over to Tomura. That was a good point about his little private insight into what makes a good teacher and how it reflected on his intentions going forward with his student. It makes sense for a successful villain like AFO to have the kind of personality and quick judgement to know when to fold em, or change the game up if your current hand won’t get you a satisfactory result. He’s has literal generations to learn how to be an effective evil overlord, so he must be used to playing a mean game of Xanatos speed chess depending on the situation so he always walks away with an advantage.

Switching from raising Tomura to be his loyal tyke bomb to being his own independent villain and leader may explain why Tomura’s development seemed so incomplete in his first appearance. I know that he needed to experience defeat to begin maturing into someone more competent and capable of handling himself, but at the same time, his attitude during the USJ invasion seemed a little too immature for someone his age- like he wasn’t exactly on the same emotional maturity level his body and mind were at after AFO had finished giving him basic training to prepare him. I guess AFO losing his head and not being able to push Tomura’s development forward in a new direction means Tomura got stuck emotionally for a few years whilst his master semi-recovered, not helped by the fact that AFO’s previous grooming attempts were intentionally preventing him from dealing with the emotional scars of his familial massacre. So he kinda stagnated for a bit until All Might and Deku knocked him off his high horse.

(you know what, I’m gonna put the rest of this under a cut; it’s a very long post lol)

After AFO realised he’d basically permanently lost his dream to take over the world, I can totally see him reacting to that in a very thought-out and methodical - but still very immature - way, not unlike the tantrums his pupil used to pull. Destroying the whole board so it’ll end on his terms. I don’t know if he planned for Tomura’s vision of the future to be one where you can rebuild society however you want and the survivors will be free to act how they please, or if he wanted Tomura to turn Japan into a living hellhole for everyone until there’s nothing left for anyone to work with, both heroes and villains. It could be both, frankly; given his adaptability levels I mentioned earlier, he could be fine with either outcome, so long as the society All Might created is destroyed in the process. In any regard, it’s quite likely that he planned the whole situation under the assumption that he’s going to kick the bucket at some point before he got thrown into Tartarus. But if he learns about Eri’s rewind quirk, I think that’ll prompt another change in priorities for him- though obviously that won’t happen until he’s outside.

I’m not sure if Tomura will kill him himself, unless there’s a drastic change in priorities. Like addermoray said, even if he did give Tomura his quirk, he’d still be grateful for it after his recent liberation, so he won’t kill him for his family’s deaths and whilst AFO still has such a highly useful quirk to pass onto him. His dialogue very much stated that was the eventual plan, so AFO is probably safeish until then. Besides, in either scenario, Tomura feels indebted to AFO for being the only one who noticed him and ‘saved’ him from his abused and ignored lifestyle. Really, I think, if anything, AFO would probably set himself up to kill or be killed by Deku in a final confrontation to further motivate Tomura to become the new Symbol of Chaos and focus his efforts on destroying Deku’s fledgling Symbol. See, going forward, I very much see AFO getting out of prison, but then choosing to leave Tomura running the organisation he’s built up in his absence- which won’t require any management from AFO himself anyway- and focus all his effort on analysing and psychologically manipulating Deku from behind Tomura’s back whilst the latter is focused on his current campaign of societal collapse, like the Joker focusing on breaking Batman’s spirit.

See, the thing I think a lot of people miss about Deku is that he is by far the youngest inheritor of OFA so far. I mean it seems obvious given his age and inexperience with the power that is way beyond what his predecessors had to deal with, but in All Might’s flashback to what I presume is his first meeting with Nana and his own Origin story, it looked like teen Might was a few years older than Deku at the time, and that was before he had to be trained to handle the power. We know that at the very least, he had the quirk and was doing heroics against AFO by 18, but you’ve got to remember that AFO being on the scene and in his prime meant Yagi’s era was more chaotic and dangerous for everyone than Deku’s is, so it’s likely that Yagi was already more prepared for the combative lifestyle that Deku was, even with the fact that he inherited OFA a few years later than him and having had time to sort out his resolution with the power. As opposed to Deku, who basically wanted to be All Might and spent a lot of time getting that hammered out of his skull, and has had issues with sorting out what kind of hero he’s supposed to become through his own merits, given his vague terms of describing his ambition.

Whilst it’s not determined when everyone got the power, we know that the First Wielder was an adult when it first manifested, and given the ages of the other generations that we’ve seen, I think it was implied that they were all chosen after they’d proved themselves capable of using the power against AFO, meaning they all had various heroic and emotional experience before getting OFA. Actually, I’m not certain, but I think it’s implied that Yagi was the youngest chosen before Deku, which, given his quirklessness and youth, makes it more poetic that he was ultimately the one to take him down twice.

That said, Deku is clearly not as prepared for going up against someone like AFO as the other Wielders were, either physically or mentally. All Might ushering an era of peace means that Deku doesn’t have nearly the same level of experience the others did by his age, and his whole 100% power/7 quirks thing is further complications in him becoming a new symbol asap. One aspect of this was time- All Might’s wounds and weakening health were pressuring him to find a successor more than AFO, who already had a handy-dandy prepped tyke-bomb in Tomura available- the perks of planning ahead. So when All Might Found Deku, it was a snap decision, and one he feels justified in, but it also meant Deku was rushed through the basic requirements of being able to Hold OFA without being prepared to actually ‘use’ it. His first smash came whilst he was under fire in the middle of a high-level exam for Christ’s sake, and All Might getting his own teacher taken away from him when he was still in school means he’s never been taught by someone else on how to be a good teacher, or how to recognise when he’s being a bad teacher. Not to mention the whole natural genius thing.

Point is, I don’t think any of the other Wielders made their choices so soon after meeting them, and probably not before they’d given them some advanced preparations for passing the power on to someone who was ready and capable of using it for a good cause. Adding to that, AFO’s got an unexpected advantage over Deku compared to the others- he knows who he is and where to find him. I think it’s heavily implied that past the first wielder, the others had to raise their successors in secret once they’d outed themselves to AFO as the next wielders, so he couldn’t pre-emptively cut the chain of succession, since if AFO knew who the next person was, he’d have ended them before they got a handle on their new power. Being in a more chaotic age- and the implication that they were older and more independent than Deku- meant the successors were capable of avoiding AFO’s gaze when needed, so they made up for their lack of All Might strength with subterfuge and tactical thinking whilst the power grew. Heck, All Might himself had to leave Japan for America so he’d be capable of handling himself and his abilities to the fullest when he returned. Deku doesn’t have that advantage- he’s in a school, with close friends and family, all of whom AFO can use to force him to fight him if needed. But I see him taking his time with this. Deku’s an unknown variable to AFO- he didn’t know about him till the USJ attack was finished, and after that the ball was already rolling on his incarceration scheme, so he didn’t make any moves. But once he’s out, I forsee him using his new lease on life to learn all about the new OFA holder and what makes him tick, as well as subtly messing with him in indirect means.

Given his declining health, and based on the fact he doesn’t seem like the kind of guy to waste away in a medical bed, I totally believe there’s going to be a showdown between them at some point, with AFO banking on either killing Deku and ending OFA for good, or further motivating Shigaraki if he falls. Granted, Eri’s quirk may change his mind on this, but again, AFO’s adaptable- I can totally see him having thought that outcome up after learning about Deku, and considering it a good way to go out. Regarding that Showdown, whether in his prime or at the end of his currant lifespan, I totally believe that’s when AFO would bring up any revelations about Tomura’s fall from grace. Like Addermoray said, it wouldn’t affect Shigaraki anymore- but it would affect the previous wielders through Deku, specifically Nana. I can totally see AFO using that family drama and revelations against his deceased nemeses by emotionally compromising Nana, and through that, perhaps disrupting whatever “avatar state” setup Deku goes into when he converses with them before getting down to brass tacks with him whilst he can’t contact them for advice.

In any regard, AFO’s definitely gonna be focused solely on Deku when he gets out- he’s totally done with All Might, having done everything he could to undermine him as a heroic symbol of peace before he was taken out. And leaving him to rot, powerless to help in the rising chaotic times, would be sweet revenge for him, forcing All Might into a similar position he himself was in. Shigaraki will be running whatever Empire he’s building just fine without AFO, and even if he intends to replace him eventually, AFO will probably consider Deku the more pressing engagement now that he’s got some room to think and work on his own terms. Running an evil empire is probably very taxing work, and very time consuming, which is probably why he didn’t take the OFA wielders as seriously as he should have until All Might’s time. So now he’ll be free to relax and get to know Deku before he attempts to utterly break him. Whichever way that turns out, I do think there will be some genuine Villain respect on his behalf towards Deku- there’s a lot of points those two have in common, so I think he’ll see a little of himself and his brother in this newest successor.

--- 

okay, a lot of different points here, so I’ll try to break them down and address them one by one. these aren’t necessarily in order either:

(1) good points about AFO probably shifting gears on Tomura after receiving his injury. clearly that would have thrown a wrench into his plans, regardless of what said plans actually were.

(2) about Deku being the youngest inheritor of OFA “by far” -- I have doubts that this is the case. young Toshinori was wearing a middle school uniform in the anime flashback when he spoke with Nana about wanting to become society’s pillar, so that would put him at the same age Deku was in chapter one, if not younger. moreover, you have to consider that young All Might was very much in the same boat Deku was as far as wanting to attend U.A. despite being quirkless. so it’s very likely that Nana pulled something similar to what he himself later did with Deku. otherwise it’s hard to envision how he could have passed the U.A. entrance exam. so I’d say chances are good All Might was the same age as Deku was when he inherited OFA, if not younger.

(3) I think Deku is actually more prepared than the other wielders in some ways, even as he lags behind in others. consider, first of all, the fact that he managed to pull off something none of the other wielders even knew about, much less came close to achieving, with the SIXQUIRKS. so there’s that. and then the other advantage that I think he has over the past wielders is that the other OFA users appear to have been loners, by and large. most likely for the reasons you laid out -- they had to lie low so as to prevent AFO -- who at the time was at his full power -- from taking them out, along with their loved ones. by contrast, Deku is exposed, so in that regard he’s much more vulnerable. but he also has a great advantage that none of the other wielders so far have had -- he’s not alone. it’s not just the bad guy who knows his secret. his teacher knows. his rival knows. he’s not fighting this battle alone. and that’s going to be critical moving forward. AFO may find it more difficult to break him than he anticipates. and frankly, his emotional naivete may prove to be as much of an advantage as it is a weakness, if not more so. he has resilience and optimism and those are critical strengths.

(4) I think we have different ideas as far as Horikoshi’s endgame plans for the series. the main thing I keep coming back to is Horikoshi’s pacing. this is a remarkably fast-paced story as far as the shounen genre typically goes. the one time he intentionally dragged an arc out, (a) he got bored his own damn self, and (b) despite his best efforts he couldn’t make it longer than 40 chapters. compare that to your average arc in Naruto or One Piece. compare that to fucking Dressrosa arc, or the damn Soul Society arc in Bleach. my point is, Horikoshi knows how to be concise. and a key thing is that he’s said in interviews that he doesn’t intend for the story to drag out forever. he’s a perfectionist, and he knows he doesn’t have infinite energy or infinite ideas, and I think he’d like to end things while he’s still on top. he also knows how he wants to end the story, and he’s mindful of making sure he’s constantly driving the plot forward. in this interview, he mentions he originally wanted the story to end around volume 30 (we’re currently in what will become volume 25), but he’s acknowledged he’s still got a lot of stuff he needs to set up, so the original target is clearly way off. but still, I think it’s a safe bet this series won’t be dragged out as long as others.

so that being said, when we consider future developments in the story, I think we need to take into account how much time there is left in the story. there isn’t time for characters to be slow and crafty in their schemes. we’re at a point where just about all the pieces needed for endgame have to be in place already, or at least established. we can’t expect new plot twists to keep being introduced. so while I like the idea of AFO playing the long game when it comes to Deku, I’m not sure how likely that actually is to happen. proper mind fuckery takes some time to pull off. I think it’s more likely we’ll see an accelerated version of that, if anything, with their relationship being crafted in the span of just one or two arcs rather than it being a more drawn out thing.

(5) so basically, here’s a quick rundown of where I personally see the story going 

Tomura completes his Rise to Power and starts to make good on his vow to end the world

the pros and police struggle and take heavy losses in several high-profile incidents, resulting in further instability to a society already beginning to show its cracks. things begin to look kind of bleak

Deku -- now under intense pressure to unlock the rest of his new powers as quickly as possible -- is of course somehow intricately tied to every single one of these incidents, and continues to grow stronger while somehow escaping through the skin of his teeth

rinse and repeat as things build to a head

AFO breaks out of prison and joins the League in an attack on U.A.

he steals Eri’s quirk and is restored to power. meanwhile, Tomura kills All Might, but also learns of AFO’s manipulations in the process. he has conflicted feelings about this

Deku meets the Obi-Wanned All Might in the Avatar State, and unlocks the rest of his powers, preparing for the final showdown

there is a final showdown. it’s fucking epic. in the end Tomura delivers the killing blow to AFO in a move that surprises him as much as anyone

that’s the cliff notes version, more or less. pretty straightforward, but I think the purpose of a story shouldn’t be to surprise and shock so much as it should be to move and excite and thrill the audience, and reward them for their investment in the story and the characters. and this is a classic hero’s journey outline, and it’s a classic for a reason.

anyway, to bring this all back around on track and conclude things, the story could probably work both ways -- with either Tomura as the final villain, or AFO. but based on the pieces we have so far, I think AFO being the final villain is the more logical and satisfying story. and I just really like the thought of him being done in by all these pawns he overlooked and underestimated. Deku, who barely seems to be an afterthought in his planning thus far; and Tomura, whom he’s manipulated to be this devastating agent of chaos and destruction, but whom he arrogantly continues to think of as being his. if he dies in prison, and Tomura does become the final villain, and is only redeemed at the end of the story, when he either dies or goes into exile or whatever -- that’s not satisfying. it disregards all of the worldbuilding being done to explore the mythology of OFA and AFO. it leaves us frustrated as we’re forced to side against a villain we now empathize with. it’s too fucking dark. so for now I’ll continue to root for AFO being the final villain. because it’s something I want, just as much as it is something I think things are leaning toward.

[otomeshistarlight-blog]

Rant incoming

I was scrolling through the JoJo tag when I saw this post and I just ... I’m really tired y’all.

First of all, according to a google search it looks like the age of consent in Italy is 14 (if I’m wrong, please correct me) so Narancia is very legal, as is Giorno. America’s laws are not universal. The world is not so UScentric that whatever we as a country deem inappropriate is likewise considered to be inappropriate in other countries. There are varying standards throughout different societies and one is not necessarily more correct than the next. Whether or not I think real life fourteen year olds should be having sex is irrelevant- because even if I don’t agree with it, it’s gonna happen anyway - but Narancia is not a real fourteen year old so whatever the law dictates in America OR Italy is irrelevant.

What this boils down to is that there is no victim here. Narancia cannot be taken advantage of. Narancia cannot be sexually assaulted and face the physical/emotional consequences of such trauma. There is nothing inherently wrong with shipping him in ANY pairing, regardless of the ages involved. If I want to write about him getting wrecked by Bruno I will damn well do it because not a single person is being hurt by me doing so. If this is something that triggers you and causes you distress then don’t 👏🏻 fucking 👏🏻 look 👏🏻 at 👏🏻 it. 👏🏻

Fighting for the rights of fictional characters solves nothing. It helps no one. It doesn’t benefit real victims and it sure as hell does not stop real people from being victimized in the first place. This is a nonissue that people are taking up arms over for no reason other than a perceived moral superiority that makes them feel more in control of the world around them. It stems from feeling helpless and lost in a society that doesn’t bend to their every whim. Fandom space is the only place they feel like they have any power so they take on the role of morality police, try to dictate what people can and cannot like, and then accuse anyone who won’t do what they say of heinous crimes. It’s extremely toxic and harmful, not to mention it lessens the severity of sincere pedophile/abuse finger pointing so the chances of a real predator getting away with it are greatly heightened, and I’m just done with it at this point.

Let’s say I’m looking through the porn tags as I am won’t to do and I come across a post that features blatant child porn. Real child porn. The 3D kind that, yknow, actually features real children being exploited and assaulted for realsies. I’m understandably appalled so I file a report with tumblr and they don’t even look at it because they’ve been bombarded for the last year with false harm to minors reports and the user is never penalized for actually doing something inherently wrong and immoral. Y’all have heard about the girl who cried wolf right? Like, y’all know how that story ends don’t you?

But no. Instead of directing your efforts towards anything worthwhile, you’re going to keep going after shippers. And for what? Because oh no, the fictional seventeen year old who could just as likely be nineteen is being paired with a fictional twenty-five year old. The horror. What is the world coming to? Think of the children!

Except ... these supposed children don’t exist. How can you victimize a piece of paper? The same argument applies to loli/shotacon too mind you, and there is no crime in looking at drawings regardless of their perceived age, especially when the topic is anime where you can have a character who looks like a five year old girl and she is in fact a 400 year old vampire. Like?? There is absolutely no logic you can apply to this that has any internal consistency let alone actually makes sense.

Me: these fictional minors don’t even look like sixteen year olds, where have you seen a real teenager who looks like this?

Antis: they look like teens you pedo!! And ageing them up is still pedophilia because they are canonly sixteen so you’re still thinking about teenagers in a roundabout, highly contrived way

Me: *shows you a 300 year old loli vampire* okay so I can definitely fuck this one right? She’s unrealistically old!

Antis: no!!!! You’re just using her canon age as an excuse to be a freak who preys on children! She might be 300 years old but she still has the body of a child!!

Me: okay so I’ll just age myself down to self ship, no biggie.

Antis: absolutely not!! You’re still an adult and ageing yourself down doesn’t make it okay!! I’m reporting you to the authorities right now!

Me: but ... who am I supposed to imagine fucking then?

Antis: one of the few adults you find in anime, except this one because he’s an abuser, or this one because he tortured a little girl and not the serial killer either because wow problematic

Me: so what you’re telling me ... is that I’m only allowed to thirst after your preapproved, precious cinnamon roll faves even though my tastes or needs in a relationship might vary greatly from yours?

Antis: yes, exactly. I’m so glad you’re finally on my level of intelligence and moral superiority. : ^)

Me: oh, I see now. So what this boils down to is that you just don’t want people to enjoy something you don’t personally agree with. Got it.

Antis: absolutely not!! I’m thinking about the betterment of society by telling you what you can and cannot enjoy! You liking these questionable things is harmful against the greater good! Won’t you think of the children!?

Me: soooooo we’re just gonna ignore how much that sounds like a fascist/communist society or ...?

Antis: : ^)

Y’all should absolutely read 1984. It would do you some good. Because having an attraction to a fucking anime character is not a slippery slope, but this puritanical shit? It sure as hell is.

Let me pose this query: what is stopping an anti from going on a book burning campaign or fighting to get certain books banned? Lolita? Flowers in the Attic? All of the works by Marquis de Sade (a personal hero of mine)? Alternatively who are the only people who actually engage in book burning/banning?

Overzealous religious nuts. Everything about the anti movement is the same “our children shouldn’t be exposed to such filth” battle cry that religious sects - specifically the western ones - have screamed for decades now except with a cute little sjw hat on top. No rock n’ roll music. It’s Satan’s music. No porn. It’s tainting America’s youth. No alcohol. It’s leading our country down the path of sin. No violent video games or movies. They’re turning people into mass shooters. No problematic themes in fictional works because it’s turning people into pedophiles/abusers.

And that is just ... factually incorrect. There is absolutely no correlation between Lolita being published and an uptick in children being sexually assaulted. There is no correlation between lolicon or shotacon breeding more pedophiles. Because that’s literally not how it works. Period. I’m not going to accidentally stumble on a loli doujin and think “huh yknow what? This sounds fun!” I could even read loli doujins at length and that’s still not going to convince me that actually engaging in sexual situations with toddlers is okay. Like ... I don’t know why these people think we’re so stupid that we don’t know the difference between right and wrong but this is just insane. The only people who look at loli or shota and then go on to commit crimes against real children are the ones who were already having those kinds of thoughts in the first place. The only people who play Grand Theft Auto and then go shoot up a church are the ones who were already having violent thoughts to begin with. These thoughts are not magically implanted into our brains regardless of what media we consume and that’s just a goddamn fact.

Yes, media impacts reality but not the way you think it does. Even all those sources antis link to about the supposed correlation between the two are twisted to meet their own rhetoric. It’s called marketing and anyone with half a brain cell knows that it exists. It’s meant to encourage us into thinking we need some product so we spend money on junk and keep capitalism going strong. it works more often than not. However no amount of marketing is going to convince a mentally sound person that shooting up a mall is a valid life choice to make. It just doesn’t work like that and you could scream until your blue in the face that fucking kids is the bees knees and I still wouldn’t touch a real child because that’s gross. Period. And since I can’t touch Bakugou Katsuki or Narancia because they’re just figments of someone’s imagination and pen and paper ... then where lies the problem?? What is the issue with writing or drawing fictional characters, regardless of age or moral compass, in sexual situations?

I’m a CSA survivor that has been on the internet for a LONG time. I’ve seen some shit I sorely wish I could forget. Everything from real life gore, real life death, bestiality, necrophilia and yes even real life child porn. I don’t think there’s a single problematic thing I haven’t accidentally stumbled on and it’s horrific. It’s disgusting. I know all too well how awful these things are and I know even better how it feels to be a victim of rape and sexual assault and pedophilia and grooming. Like. That was my life growing up. I know what these things look like and I can assure you without a shadow of a doubt that whatever is going on in fandom space isn’t even comparable. Please. Draw your OC fucking a dragon mascot character instead of fucking a real animal. Please write about a fictional father fucking his fictional son instead of fucking a real child or a real sibling. Do whatever you want with your imagination - and I do mean WHATEVER. If you want to think about eating your favorite characters shit then by all means. Enjoy. It doesn’t effect reality in any way besides maybe giving someone a cathartic coping outlet and there’s nothing wrong with it.

There’s nothing wrong with ANY topic being explored in fiction.

The only problem is when someone commits a crime in reality. When someone hurts another living being. And consuming this so called problematic fiction does not lead someone to real life crimes. Period.

Finding myself on that stupid gore site when I was 14, BestGore I think it’s called? Did not make me want to try killing someone. I’ve never even seriously contemplated doing it because death is awful in every regard, I wouldn’t seriously wish that on anyone let alone convince myself that it’s okay. But according to antis me being exposed to that sort of content means I’m more likely to go out and commit murder?

Literally what crack are you smoking?

Get the fuck out of here and do something worthwhile with your time if you honestly find these topics so disturbing. If not then shut up, sit down and let people enjoy their fandom experience however they see fit. Because this right here? This treating fictional characters like they matter, like they’re real people? It’s not fucking cute. And as someone who was raped from the time I was eleven until I was eighteen by a family member I can safely say that you aren’t doing shit to help anyone with this holier than thou, I know better than you crusade.

And that is the goddamn truth whether you like it or not.