#if it IS intentional it's an interesting look at how abuse is viewed in Japan and other collectivist cultures

[faroreswinds]

覇道 vs 王道 - By Someone With Limited Knowledge and a Short Attention Span

In light of the resurgence of the terminology used in the Nintendo Dream interview regarding 3 Houses, I wanted to take a little bit of a deeper look into "Hadou" (覇道) and "Oudou" (王道).

Again.

The Kanji Breakdown

Before we get into the actual words themselves, I wanted to break out the kanji that form them. Let's start with oudou. Oudou consists of two kanji, "ou" (王) and "dou" (道). This are very basic kanji. "Ou" means "king" and "dou" means path or road. With kanji, the makeup of the kanji can often (but not always) allude to the meaning of the word it represents, in this case something akin to "King's Path".

Similarly, we have 覇道 (Hadou). We have already discussed "dou" but "ha" (覇) means supremacy (over a nation), hegemony, domination, leadership. The combination of these two kanji alludes to a meaning of "domination road" or "hegemony path".

Great, but what do the words actually mean?

That's a bit tricky, because there is a lot of history, philosophy, and cultural subtleties to understand.

At their core, "Oudou" means righteous path, righteous government, just path, kingship, rule of right; "Hadou" means military rule.

Interestingly, oudou can also refer to "classic" in regards to games like rpgs, where the prince saves the princess, that sort of thing. It can also mean "short cut" or the "easy way" but we aren't really here for those particular definitions today.

Origin of Oudou and Hadou

Finding anything in English regarding these terms has proved to be a... difficult task. From what I can understand, though, is that these words find their origin from Confucius and his philosophy.

Confucius was a Chinese philosopher born in 551 BCE, and by all accounts seems to have been an ambitious man. Ambitious to correct the world. It would take a lot to dissect Confucius’ life story, so I only want to focus on the important parts that are related to the origins of Hadou and Oudou. 

Simply put, Confucius is considered the founder of Confucianism, a philosophical relating to a system of thought and behavior. It is meant to dictate a way of life, a way of governing, tradition, etc. It rests on the fundamental belief that human beings are good and teachable, and focuses on the cultivation of virtue in a morally organized world. 

Confucius had been a poor man and wished to find a way to restore a kind of socio-political order that had prevailed sometime in the beginning of the Zhou dynasty. His work over his lifetime would set in motion the teaching of Confucianism. 

There is a very strong focus on humanness and morality in this school of thought. Rulers must cultivate themselves in this morality, lead by moral example rather than rule of law and threat of punishment. One who cultivates themselves to a virtue that is worthy of a prince is indeed a prince, but a prince who does not cultivate himself is not worthy of being a prince. This morality include the famous “golden rule” - do not treat others as you would not want to be treated yourself. 

Confucius was very focused on “virtue” in leaders and people, but the evolution of Confucianism did not end with his death. Mencius, a Confucian philosopher born in 372 BCE, often described as the ‘second sage’ (second to Confucius himself), would expand on many of these ideologies Confucius had developed.

Mencius was more aggressive in his beliefs. He believed that a ruler who forsakes ethical behavior and engages in extreme misrule can and should be removed, even executed. Mencius believed that a ruler’s success was directly tied to the leader’s ability to win the hearts and minds of the people. The ruler needed the people, and the people were the heart of the power that the ruler had. The people gave legitimacy to the ruler. AKA, the common people were the focus. 

Mencius would go on to disguise the difference between 徳化, inspired by virtue, and 武力, armed force, and made a distinction between the ‘royal road’ and ‘supremacy’. 

Unfortunately, there isn’t much I can find in English that really goes into depth with Hadou and Oudou from here. 

Confucianism in Japan

As with many things from ancient China, Confucianism found its way into Japan and was incorporated into the culture and history of the country, and this includes the mentality surrounding the political climate.

With the very conditional perspective that Confucianism affirmed in relation to governing, it would be no surprise to anyone that the teachings circulated the ruling elite first and foremost. A wider teaching would have posed more challenges to the ones in power, after all. 

There was also the famous “Mandate of Heaven”, which I won’t go into too much depth here. But, I will put the relate bit here, source linked here: 

According to numerous passages in the History, if a ruler repeatedly abandoned his concern for the people, heaven would eventually give the mandate to rule to a new line, one that distinguished itself on the basis of concern for the people. In this process, the role of the people was instrumental. One passage in the History even states that heaven and the people are nearly the same: “heaven sees with the eyes of the people, and hears with the ears of the people.”

Ultimately, as with many philosophies, the ways of governing did not fully embrace these teachings, as in so much as they were adapted. If you are interested in more, go ahead and read the link, but it’s really not too important for this post. However, what is important is that eventually, the teaching did make it to Japan, and were adapted to some degree.

Modern Use in Japan

As language does, words change and adapt. 

Oudou and Hadou retain a lot of of their original meanings, but they do have modern uses that go beyond their meanings of forms of ruling. 

Here is the link I originally had posted long ago regarding these usages. WARNING: Japanese only. 

We have already discussed some meanings of Oudou beyond the ‘right way to rule’, including ‘classic’ or ‘short cut’ or ‘the right way to do something’, and of the two has required the most new usages; however, the connotations of these words have not changed. 

Hadou and Outou are antonyms of each other. Hadou is very much a negatively connotated word, used most frequently to express someone’s abuse of power. 

According to this article, politics really possess both Outou and Hadou. To quote the article with a bit of translation: 

Both politics have a royal side and a supremacy side. Especially in diplomacy called power games, there is a reality that we have to rely on supremacy. However, if all politics becomes a "dominance", it will become a society of weak meat and strong food, devouring this finite earth, destroying the environment and driving it to the brink of destruction.

In other words, Outou is an idealist view of how governing should work. However, realistically you need both Outou and Hadou, but too much Hadou will lead to destruction. A balance is needed. 

In Relation to Three Houses

When talking about this interview, we mean this one here. Unfortunately, I’m having a hard time finding the actual Japanese version, but according to the translated version, this is said: 

Kusakihara: Edelgard’s route’s theme is literally “military rule.” It’s the route where you have your own cause and convictions, and even if people you know stand in your way, you mow ‘em down. In contrast, Dimitri’s route began with the idea to make it “righteous,” the easy approach. It’s just, at the beginning, poor sensitive Dimitri ends up like that because of the circumstances… We sprinkled in juxtapositions like that.

Everyone: (laughs)

Kusakihara: Once he’s fallen, he goes through some twists and turns and awakens to the true king’s path. I wanted to write the righteous route as the conquest route’s opposite [TN: lit. “paradox”].

This is pretty self explanatory. Hadou and Outou are two different ways to rule. In according to Mencius, Outou is the virtuous, right way; Hadou is the forceful, wrong way. They are opposites, and that is exactly what Kusakihara used them for. The routes are opposites of each other. Dimitri is the ‘right way’, the way of the people, for the people, the vitreous way. Edelgard is the destructive way, the forceful way, not the way of the people. 

Actually, this does really line up even with their own beliefs. Edelgard believes in a strong leadership, that everyone should pull themselves up by their bootstraps, and only those who can keep up will find themselves in power. Dimitri, however, believes rulers serve the people, are only as strong as the people, and needs the people. 

Kusakihara really did put thought into it... even if the story didn’t fully deliver. But the intent was there.

ANYWAYS

Thanks for coming to my ted talk about Hadou and Oudou. I could have gone into deeper depth but... Well, I don’t want to make a super big essay. 

Thanks for reading. 

Yes, I took writing shortcuts. 

EDIT: 

YOOOOOO, thanks to @nilsh13​ for linking me to the original Japanese interview!

And yeah, they use 覇道 and 王道! Excellent! 

Thank you so much!

[thefloatingstone]

If you’re doing Self Quarintine (and you should be if you can help it) here’s some Youtube recommendations! Some of these I have posted about or recommended before but with almost all of us stuck indoors now’s a good time to remind you of some cool things you can watch for free!

I’m not gonna imbed the videos, I’ll just post the link because otherwise I would only able to post 5 and I want to collect a few so you can make a playlist or something. (I could make a playlist too but then I couldn’t tell you what each video is and you can’t pick and choose which one sounds interesting to you)

In no particular order:

Polybius: The video Game that doesn’t exist

An hour long documentary in which the youtuber did extensive research to find the origin of the “Polybius” Urban Legend, which speaks of an early arcade game reportedly seen around the early 1980s which reportedly gave people migraines, insomnia, nausea, subliminal messages, and in some cases heart attacks.

The Universal S

A shorter video in which LEMMiNO does his very best to try and track down where exactly this S that we all drew in middle school comes from? Why does literally every country on earth seem to HAVE their children draw this S?

I also recommend LEMMiNO’s video on the Dayltov Pass Incident and the perplexing UFO cases

Down the Rabbit Hole: Henry Darger

Fredrick Knudsen has an incredible fascinating series called “Down the Rabbit Hole” which simply focuses on... anything you can discover and go digging into. From weird internet personalities, to bizarre happenings in history. This video is about the artist Henry Darger, a man who lived in the early 1900s and for all intents and purposes had a perfectly average, lonely life, until it was discovered just before his death he had spent literally decades writing and drawing a fantasy world in what is possibly the longest piece of literature ever written.

I also recommend his video on the Hurdy Gurdy

Bedtime Stories Channel

I’m actually just gonna link the whole channel for “Bedtime Stories”. If you like weird and creepy stories, all of which at least claim to be “true” then Bedtime Stories is great. Coupled by illustrations and subtle sound effects, Bedtime Stories is literally listening to someone tell you a story about such things like hikers who mysteriously went missing, Sightings of Bog Men in Florida and giant Birds over Chernobyl, as well as weird and unsettling murders that remain unsolved. Sometimes the facts are a little dubious or have been disproved, but that’s not the point of the channel. It’s here to tell a creepy story, not give you a documentary.

A Journey Through Rule of Rose

Rule of Rose is a Survival Horror gave for the PS2 which has rather bad gameplay... but a FASCINATING story with just as many layers and symbolism as Silent Hill 2 could boast. It tells the story of one young woman traveling back into her own childhood in an orphanage in the 1930s, and all the horrors that contains. From repressed grief, abusive relationships, child neglect, abuse, and bullying... but it ALSO contains symbolism of societal class structure, politics, eating the rich, and how power structures work. Not for the faint of heart, but HIGHLY recommended.

I also super highly recommend his video on the similarities between Silent Hill 2 and Solaris

Clemps Reviews Crisis Core

Mr. Clemps is a great internet gamer who reviews JRPGs and other games he simply enjoys. Sprinkling in a heavy dose of comedy and very fast jokes and observations, Clemps’ videos are always upbeat, fun, and incredibly enjoyable to watch. I’m linking part 1 of his Crisis Core video in which he explains why the PSP game remains a personal favourite of his despite its flaws.

I also recommend his video on Eternal Sonata

Defunct TV: The History of Dragon Tales

Defunctland is a channel that deals with theme parks and theme park rides that are no longer standing, or which are no longer around in their current form. Defunctland also has a sub series though, called “Defunct TV” where they look at the origin of children’s TV which are no longer airing. I recommend the video on Dragon Tales which is incredibly wholesome, and a genuinely uplifting and soft story of good people trying to make good things for children. (I also recommend the videos on Bear in the Big Blue House, Zoboomafoo, and Legends of the Hidden Temple)

Hagan’s Histories of Polar Exploration

A Playlist for Diamanda Hagan’s videos about the doomed Franklin Expedition from the late 1800s, where England tried to find a passage through the Northern Arctic to the Pacific Ocean. This went horribly horribly wrong, with every member of the Expedition dead. Over a 100 years later we are still fuzzy on what EXACTLY happened, but apart from the arctic chill, there is also evidence of faulty canned food, a series of bad decisions, and cannibalism. Caution advised for this series.

I also recommend the rest of Diamanda Hagan’s channel. She is NOT for everyone, but if you enjoy somebody reviewing Z grade indie movies as well as just BIZARRE films, really bad Christian media bordering on Science Fiction (without making fun of religion itself) hot takes of classic (and modern) Dr. Who, an introduction to Red Dwarf, She’s an EXCELLENT channel to check out.

Good Bad or Bad Bad: Pass Thru

A half podcast half review show where two guys watch a terrible film, decide if it’s “Good” Bad or just Bad Bad and tell you if you should watch it too.

That’s it. That’s the whole show.

I recommend diving into the untold madness that is one of the best(?) bad film makers currently still producing batshit insane movies, the immortal Niel Breen.

There is literally nothing I can say that’ll prepare you for Niel Breen.

(I also recommend their more recent video for “Dancin’ It’s on!”)

History Buffs: Apollo 13

Do you like History? Do you like movies ABOUT History? Do you want to know if the movies about history you watch actually resemble what really happened in any way at all? History Buffs is an EXCELLENT channel, which does talk about the merit of a film itself, but is mainly focused on letting you know just how true to life that historical film you watch is. I highly recommend his longest video which covers the space race between the USA and the USSR, leading to what is known as “The most Successful Failure in NASA’s History”. The Infamous Apollo 13 and where the words “Houston, we have a problem” came from.

If you’re not interested in Apollo 13 however, I also recommend his video on the movie Casino, as well as his video on the female philosopher, Agora.

The Internet Historian: The Goodening of No Man’s Sky

With videos with literally MILLIONS of views, you probably already know the Internet Historian. But I still want to recommend him very highly because his videos are just THAT good and entertaining. I recommend his newest video, documenting that time we were all pissed off about No Man’s Sky, the difficulties the game studio was in when the game released, and how they have been working hard to finally create what is now a truly brilliant game which is winning major awards. A really good underdog story of how a video game company actually saw what was wrong with their game, and FIXED it.

I also recommend his video on Fallour 76 as well as the Failure of Dashcon

8 Creepy Video game mysteries

Hey. Did you know that sometimes there’s some REALLY weird shit in video games, hidden easter eggs which took literal decades to find as well as just a lot of “what the actual fuck?”. Oddheader is a channel with a dedicated discord and Reddit form solely focusing on trying to find or replicate bizarre video game finds, mysteries, and hidden glitches. Even if it means getting in his car and driving to a specific arcade just to check a rumour about Street Fighter II’s arcade version. So if you like getting spooked by weird game shit that’s not just some dumb creepypasta, this is a great place to start.

I also recommend his video on weird discoveries in DVDs and movies.

Red Letter Media: Best of the Worst

Look you already know who Red Letter Media is.

You know... these guys:

Here’s a video of them and Macaulay Culkin watching 3 terrible movies together.

I recommend literally any and all of their videos. Their discussion on Carpenter’s The Thing is amazing.

The Impact of Akira: The film that changed Everything

Ok trying to pick just ONE Super Eyepatch Wolf video is literal torture. Originally I was going to suggest his recent video on Final Fantasy 7 for the PSone but I realised I recommended something FF7 related with Clemps, so instead I will recommend The Impact of Akira, a video talking in depth about Akira both as a film as well as a manga, how it completely and utterly changed the anime industry both in Japan as well as the west, and why it is still a meaningful and one of the most important anime/manga even to this day, still being unsurpassed despite so much competition.

However, ALL of Wolf’s videos are incredible, so I also recommend his videos on wrestling (despite me not caring about wrestling at all), His video on how media scares us, The bizarre reality of modern Simpsons, Why the Dragon Ball Z manga is great, and literally any other video he’s made. He hasn’t made one bad video yet.

Was Oblivion as Good as I remember?

Exactly what it says on the tin. The Salt Factory goes back to playing The Elder Scrolls Oblivion and now with hindsight and modern sensibilities, gives feedback on his experience and whether Oblivion still holds up. This isn’t a super in depth review of the game’s mechanics or how its put together or how it was made. This is simply one guy talking about his experience replaying it with somejokes thrown in and how he felt revisiting it. It’s pretty good.

I also recommend the video he did on Morrowind (because I’m biased).

Weird Japan Only PS1 games

Thor High Heels is SO GOOD and deserves SO MUCH MORE subs than he currently has. THH focuses a lot of obscure and lesser known games as well as big popular titles like the Yakuza series, talking about what he likes about them, what he thinks is cool, and just what kind of atmosphere and mood a certain game has, even if the game itself is kind of ass. He’s done several videos on games that were only released in Japan, as well as videos talking about the fashion in Squaresoft games and how it inspired as well as was inspired by real world street fashion, the aesthetic of PC-98 games and other topics. He also styles his videos and thumbnails after promotional art for video games from the 90s and generally just has an excellent style to his channel over all. Very chill.

Blue Reflection Review

ValkyrieAurora is a channel run by Sophie where she talks about games she personally likes and enjoys. Her videos are really laid back and her voice is really calm and pleasant to listen to. She’s made a bit of a reputation for herself as “The channel that talks about the Atelier Games” and general is just a really enjoyable channel worth checking out if you just want something soothing to listen to.

Ancient Chinese Historians Describe Japan

Voices from the Past is a channel were historical text is read out loud in english. These can be anything like the above video where Chinese historians describe the people of Japan around 297 AD, Accounts of “Dog-Men”, or the worlds oldest letter of complaint from 1750 BC. If you’d like something interesting historically to listen to but don’t want a full blown history lesson, this is a really good way to hear contemporary people talk about their experiences and what they thought about each other in their own words, without opinions or input given by the narrator.

The Most Mysterious Song on the Internet

Whang! is a channel that covers weird internet stories, some horrifying, some curious and interesting, and some just plain weird. His video on The Most Mysterious Song on the Internet and its update, are about a song which was recorded off the radio in Germany around the 1980s, and after one person online asked if anyone knew who the artist was as they couldn’t find any information, led to the realization that NOBODY online knows where this song came from or who sang it. It’s a fun mystery to look into that, unlike some others on this list, is not creepy or unsettling, although perhaps a little frustrating.

I also recommend his video on The Most Mysterious Anime theme song, and the haunted Ebay Painting.

5 Lost, Destroyed, and Locked away Broadcasts

Yesterworld is similar to the Defunctland channel in that it talks about obsolete rides, theme parks and other forgotten pieces of entertainment. Although the majority of the channel focuses on movie rides, rollercoasters and Disneyland, I recommend the video on lost and locked away broadcasts which you can no longer see. I also recommend the video about Lost and Rediscovered movie props.

The Nightmare Artist

I talked about this one recently as I just discovered this channel. This video is about the renowned Polish artist Zdzislaw Beksinski who painted surreal and horrifying paintings during his lifetime. There is no mystery here or anything like that, it merely talks about the impact WWII left on Beksinski and how the trauma his country and people suffered influenced his painting, and how certain images and motifs can be seen to directly reference this terrible part of Poland’s history.

Disabilities in Prehistory

Modern media likes to portray how “savage” the ancient past is, and tell us stories of how any person born with a deformity or disability would be thrown over a cliff or dumped in a well because they would be too big a drain on a community to look after. But here’s the thing... according to archaeological evidence, it turns out our ancient ancestors actually did their best to look after its disabled members to the best of their abilities. This video talks about archaeological finds of people who had genetic disabilities and what we can learn from their remains. TREY the Explainer is a great channel for archaeology and also talking about what answers we could have for sightings of cryptids. (not ALL of which we have answers for)

I also recommend his video on Pre-Contact dogs as well as Homosexuality in Nature and the Genetic History of the Ainu.

Decoding “The Secret: A treasure Hunt”

“The Secret” was an art book released in the 80s full of beautiful paintings, but it is also more than that. The book has a fantasy story talking about 12 fantastical races who left wonderful treasures for humans to find,and the book’s paintings and riddles will tell you where you can find each of these treasures which are yours to keep if you can solve the puzzle... and the treasures are 100% true and can actualy be found and claimed, if you can solve the riddles in the book. The video tells the story of the artbook, who was behind it, what the treasures are, how many have been found and various other facts and details.

I also recommend the videos on this channel “The Game: A scavenger Hunt” and “The investigation of Erratas”.

5 Ancient Inventions That Were WAY Ahead Of Their Time

I would recommend you be careful with this channel as its main focus is existentialism and rather alarming topics such as “how close are we to the apocalypse” and other things whose titles alone are enough to upset me. However this video is nothing like that. This video is exactly what the title suggests it is. 5 ancient inventions that were so incredibly ahead of their time you’d think they were made up. From the computer used by ancient Greeks to steel swords we don’t know how to replicate, this video is a great mix of mystery and history.

Although I caution you with this channel, I recommend Joe’s other videos about mysterious books, as well as his video on the most inbred people in history.

However, I know I keep repeating this, I highly recommend caution with this channel. Perhaps its just me and the topics of life and existent are just triggering for me, but I’d recommend maybe just doing a search for the titles I mentioned and not to go searching through the video library unless you’re not bothered by this kind of thing.

-

Anyway I could keep going, but I think that’s a LARGE amount of videos to keep you occupied for the time being as well as some suggestions for further viewing.

Please enjoy, let me know if you found something interesting, and look after yourself!

If you enjoyed this list at all, please consider tipping me for a coffee

☕️ Ko-fi ☕️

[ourkarlanicoleuniverse]

Sweet Nothing (MHA Staff AU Fanfiction)

Chapter 18

Warnings: None, swf. Implied history of abuse. 

Pairing: Shouta Aizawa x OC (Mai Montoya, Pro Hero Zion) 

If you want to read of the events before this chapter here is the Master List 😊

I was sitting on the ground while Midoriya was struggling with the exercises I gave him to do. They weren't extensive exercises by any means. They were just exercises that allowed him to put less strain on his arms and focus on other body parts, so he learned to utilize other fighting strategies that didn't involve his arms.

"Are you sure this is helpful? Shouldn't I just be focusing on ways not to break my arms when I use them?" Midoriya breathed out, irritation laced in his soft voice.

"You wanted me to train you. This is what you get." I shrugged. He huffed. It's been a few weeks since we've been at this, and he doesn't seem to understand that I want him to realize not to copy All Might's fighting style and find his own because copying isn't helping him. He needed to connect better with his quirk and his body before coming into his own fighting style. "Look, just because you are All Might's successor doesn't mean you have to fight like him. Look at me for an example. I know you have done your research on me, so tell me what I usually do when I am fighting villains." I leaned back on my palms while I waited for the boy to respond.

"Well, it's like a mix between Gran Torino and Mr. Aizawa's way of fighting. But it heavily depends on who you are up against. And then you also try your best not to have to use your full power because you don't feel like it's fair to anyone if you use it. It's very rare when you do." He continued thinking a little more. "You are a quick strategizer. And use your surroundings to your advantage."

"Do you know why?" I raised an eyebrow at the hero to be. He simply shook his head. I patted the spot next to me on my left, "Sit down and take a break." The boy sat beside me, grabbed a bottle of water, and looked over to me, waiting for me to talk more. "So I learned to distribute the energy from my quirk throughout my body so that way, I wouldn't overexert myself in the same way you end up doing. That's what you need to learn how to do. Another problem I had was that I didn't have trust in my own control over my quirk." I paused for a moment, looking across the sun setting on the campus and then at my hands. "I mentioned this to Todoroki. He told me that you knew about his family issues." I looked over at him, and he nodded with a grim look on his freckled face. "Well, for him to get more comfortable with me, I told him about my upbringing, which I don't mention to most people."

My lips tightened as I started to reminisce about my childhood. "Did you have a father like Endeavor?"

I let out a dry laugh, "I don't know if I wish that I did over what I had, or thank the universe that I didn't have a father like that around." I looked over to Midoriya, the sunset giving a darker forestry look to his eyes. "It was my grandfather, actually. I never knew my father. The most my mom told me about him was that he was a foreign exchange student in her program when she studied abroad in Japan for two years before moving back to the U.S. for medical school."

"I'm sorry."

"Don't worry. I've never been curious about him. Especially since he doesn't know, I exist." I sighed and went back, looking at the view of the campus. "I'm kind of the opposite of you. I was born with a quirk to a quirkless family, including my father, from what my mom told me at least. And my family wasn't so keen on the idea of quirks either. My grandparents grew up during a time where quirks were still new. So when the first grandchild ended up having one, it was horrifying to them." Midoriya listened intently to me as I continued to speak about my family.

My mom was a little naive and got in bed with a fellow student, that was only in Japan for three months. After the fling ended, she realized she was pregnant. She wasn't against terminating the pregnancy by any means. But something in her told her not to. She always said it was because when you grew up with the parents she did, you look at bringing up a baby that will automatically need you and unconditionally love you as a blessing. She decided to go with the pregnancy and stay in Japan for the rest of her abroad program. She got a little help here and there from my uncle and godfather Dave and his wife and her twin brother. She really didn't want to deal with her parents the whole time. Eventually, when it came to medical school, she decided it would've been best to go back to California and have my grandparents help her out, as they insisted from the beginning.

She regretted that after they all found out about what my quirk could do.

My grandfather was in charge of engineering weapons for the military in the United States. Part of the government's concern was the potential for people with powerful quirks creating an uprising and the country not having a way to defend themselves. He was a talented biomechanical engineer but struggled to find something that would help solve this problem that didn't exist. So, seeing his five-year-old granddaughter accidentally take the quirk of a maid while she was playing with her, it was like a sign from the universe telling him that he would have the answer.

"You're not telling me that..." Midoriya looked mortified. I didn't even get to tell him, and he already knew what my grandfather did. "How was any of that allowed? What about your grandmother? Your mom?"

"My grandmother was the type to just let my grandfather do whatever he liked because it made him happy. And my mom was in medical school, so it was hard to pay attention to what my grandfather was doing. But once she caught on, we both ended up being held in captivity." I shrugged. "My mom doesn't forgive herself for putting so much trust in him. She also feels like I have something against her because of her mistake, but I never blamed her."

"So, he used his granddaughter. He used you to build quirk erasing weapons. How did you get out?"

"I can't remember, actually. I just remember passing out in a hospital bed in a dark room and then waking up in a large bed with my uncle Dave holding a tray of food and water waiting for me to wake up." I remembered the worried but relieved look in his ocean eyes. He almost dropped the tray once he saw me open my eyes and sitting up, "I remember him telling me to slow down when I was sitting up, and he patted my head, nearly crying, telling me that I was okay and safe. Then he gave me the biggest bear hug filled with so much desperation and love it made me cry. I was eight, but I was so small and fragile and barely knew how to speak. But I was able to understand what he meant in his embrace."

"Where was your mom?" He bit his cheek.

"In another room with Dave's wife. She wasn't in a good state either. She was actually more traumatized than me, to be very honest with you."

Her parents always mistreated my mom. But after what we went through, it was a level so low that she was shocked to see them stoop that low. She became distant with me, but at the same time overprotective and refused to leave my side. It was confusing growing up with her; she would be cold one minute and then loving the next. I never knew what to do to help. We stayed with Dave and his wife Pamela for a while. Pamela loved having me around. She actually gave me a lot of the love and nurturing I needed that I wasn't getting from my mother. She didn't have a quirk, so for me, it was easy to get close with her without the fear of taking something away from her. She helped me catch up to my age when it came to my development and helped me learn to be a kid. Same with Dave, he saw my early interest in science and let me hang around in his lab and 'help' him out. He also spoiled me with all sorts of toys. But once I got too comfortable, my mom thought it was best to move us. And so the cycle began, where whenever I got too comfortable, we moved. She said it was because my grandfather was trying to find us. But I never truly believed it. Not until we moved to Japan.

"I begged my mom to let me go to school, and I don't know how, but she had some connection to UA, so she got me in, much to her dismay. She was paranoid about my grandfather, and I didn't take it seriously. So, one day, he found us, and I almost got locked back in that dark room." I paused to let the whole story sink in. Once I got a hint that I could continue, I finished talking, "I didn't want to be a hero, but Nezu and my mom talked about our situation, and he knew that I needed to train my quirk. I was mortified at the idea of using it or being around people that would want me to use it, so the hero course was a nightmare for me. But just like you, I got thrust into my quirk without prior training, and I had to learn how to use it to the best of my ability not to hurt myself or others."

"Did you keep your quirk a secret from everyone too?"

"I did, but it was my choice. I was too stubborn to use it. But one day, this dumb kid with fluffy blue hair told me his friend had a quirk erasing quirk, and I felt comfortable enough to ask him how he used it, and then the rest was history." I laughed a little, my shoulders bouncing lightly.

"So Mr. Aizawa knew about your quirk first? That would explain the similar fighting styles..." Midoriya mumbled.

"Technically, it was my friend Oboro who knew first. I actually accidentally borrowed his quirk without knowing, and I had to explain to him that I didn't have his quirk much to his delight to have someone like him." I smiled, remembering the exciting crooked smile plastered on Oboro's face when he saw me with his quirk. "That's why while I am training you, we are focusing on your mind and body and how your quirk needs both."

He nodded and played with the water bottle in his hands, looking down slightly, "You've been through a lot, but you are so... gentle. It's heartbreaking that you had to live a life like that."

I motioned for him to pass me the extra bottle near him, "'Tis life. I just try to remind myself not to take my life too seriously, which is hard to do. But I appreciate the compliment. I don't meet many people describing me as gentle. Maybe stubborn, brash, and temperamental? But never gentle."

"All Might talks about you a lot. He says that you are extremely selfless but that you aren't a pushover. I guess that's your stubbornness. He says you're strong-willed and that you won't be easily swayed away from your beliefs. But he also mentioned that you could be incredibly kind and have this magnetic force that pulls people to feel safe with you. I can see that. I mean, you have only been our counselor for a semester, and the whole class trusts and adores you. You even have Class 1-B loving you too! So, I would say any negative thing said about you can be turned around to something that's actually good." He brightly smiled.

I couldn't help but ruffle his hair and pull him into a side hug, "I see all of that in you, Izuku. That's part of the reason why I think All Might chose right when he decided on having you take over One For All."

He held me tightly back, "You think you could tell me how you and All Might got so close? He practically brags about you like you were his kid."

"Maybe another time, it's getting late, and I'm sure your mom is expecting you home." Midoriya nodded and moved away to start getting ready to leave.

I walked him to the entrance gate of UA and bid him goodbye. I left out a heavy sigh. Sometimes it's good to talk about things you normally hideaway. I felt like a small weight lifted.

I began to make my way over to my apartment as I looked up in the purple clouds. They reminded me of the person I wish could be here with me. The one person who's embrace and words always made me believe that I was truly as Midoriya says.

"I miss you, Oboro. I hope you know that."

------------------------------------------------------------------

Tag List 

@multifandoms916 @inumorph​ @thatgirlwithcamera​ @mel-sanch​

[deliciousscaloppine]

Writing Bound - a photo essay?

Hewwo, I wrote a little nieyao/sangyao story a while back called Bound, this is me discussing how I used research to create the world, the characterization and themes of the story with the intention to further develop them at a later time. 

You’ve read “write and don’t analyze”, well this is the opposite and it’s super important in the creation of complex and culturally sophisticated stories.

Dedicated to @annulareye​ and their silver tongue. But also many thanks to the other people interested in this. 

The setting

I placed the action in Hong Kong. Probably inspired by the fact Wang Yizhou is from there? Or visits there a lot? And also its rich and deeply romantc cinematic tradition (Wong Kar Wai). 

Also the sprawling metropolis setting amplifies emotions of isolation and vulnerability. The room for passion and romance is very narrow, and conditional, which explains the good reception of their erotic content. A space for flesh in the heart of a concrete city. 

I also liked the idea the brothers as two artists that haven’t quite made it yet. That Mingjue might be the one who is holding them back, hiding them in a gritty industrial space with just the bare necessities instead of a fashionable studio, but that may also be the foundation of their success combined with his dependability.

Another inpiration for placing the action in Hong Kong are its sprawling cemetaries, and highly organized funerary culture. I found out about these cemetaries from a brilliant film - The Pillow Book, by Peter Greenaway. More so than a place of death, the cemetary is in a way a burrow of the metropolis. Making the afterlife a real possibility. The dead inhabit a place and they want things, a connection with them is still possible in such a setting.  

I chose photography, and not some other type of event, or visual art as a discipline for the brothers, not only because of the beautiful aesthetics of the photography studio, because of the experience of photography itself, which is spontaneous and performative, but also highly organized and introspective.

The developing process where  a picture appears slowly in its bath is also another allusion for manifesting feelings, their fleetingness and uncertainty, and how they could change according to who is viewing them and at what time. 

Moments of spirit. 

I had decided early on that a great deal of the romantic tension would rely on the contrast between Meng Yao’s physical and emotional availability. He might be bound, and bent, documented and processed, but he cannot be possessed. Aside from his time in the studio he is invisible socially and even unwelcome - which are core traits of the character in their original context. 

He is a bit like a ghost, and the brothers’ romantic attraction to him, haunts them. He is intagible and incorporeal in a way that makes them uneasy and uncertain of if he is even there. 

The physical torture of binding him, the documentation through photography they are all ways to assure themselves of his human dimension. The imprint of his sweating body drying on the concrete, and the personal portrait Huaisang took while they were making love are both confirmations of his corporeality, his existence in space, and a reinforcement that the two brothers can affect him, can capture and ground him to reality if you will.  

A huge inspiration for those two moments was Francesca Woodman’s self portraits.

And Carol’s portrait, Therese takes, in Todd Haynes’ Carol (Huge lesbian film watch it.)

A huge inspiration for Meng Yao’s behavior is another film, Under the skin by Christine Adler - where a grieving woman whose mother is dying, engages in masochistic sex with strangers. I liked the idea that Meng Yao is also not sure if he exists himself, and having reckless sex with both brothers, and enduring pain affirms to him his existence and capacity to endure. In the background of Bound’s plot is that all three of the characters have lost their parents slowly and painfully to disease, and neither of them is really sure about the meaning of their continued survival - which are also the big themes of this film.

Burning funerary offerings, and self-immolation as an act of desperate self-sacrifice.

Again I was exposed to the custom of burning effigies as offerings to the dead for things they might need in the afterlife from the film The Pillow Book. I liked this idea of the dead wanting things in the afterlife, real things that they might have use for like cars and houses and servants. I also liked the idea of the two brothers strolling in these traditional markets of Hong Kong being so familiarized with death and suffering that it is a game to them to see these novelty items and think on what they would like if they died.

(Photography from this article)

Back to Pillow Book, Nagiko, a model turned writer, who writes her memoir on the skin of her lovers, loses her lover and fellow writer Jerome to suicide. She burns his books, and effigies of his car and typewriter. So there came the idea that not only effigies, but also actual possessions of the dead person might be burned. She later also burns her possessions and returns to Japan - in a way offering to Jerome’s afterlife, the part of herself that he met and fell in love with.

That is why Mingjue clears the apartment, and that is why he also burns himself. It’s a gesture to restore to Huaisang his previous life in death, and to offer him what he needs, which was Mingjue’s love and support. 

At that moment he views himself as an extension of Huaisang’s life.

That is also why he buries Meng Yao with Huaisang, Meng Yao too becomes an offering, in an effort to shift the blame for the accident entirely on his self. 

He is still lying of course to himself, because he only responded to Meng Yao’s advances when it became evident to him, Huaisang had him. So he becomes an adversary to the two lovers, and for this he must be punished by the system of the work. Punishing a character, however, is meaningless as an action directed to them by the author. 

It renders their destruction void. 

Which takes me to the act of self-immolation in the real world, which has a rich history as a protest against oppression.

In the story the real culprit is the city, the oppressive reality of modern life that does not permit the slowing or stopping of activity. It causes the trauma, it creates the perfect conditions for accidents, it buries and forgets and continues. And that is the peak of suffering.

Self-immolation says I am suffering now more than if I were on fire or fire is to be endured, and so is death, but not existing invisible and uncared for among people. 

These are thoughts, or messages generated by a very well-known photo of the buddhist monk  Thích Quảng Đức burning in protest in a street in Saigon. It’s very well known not only for the powerful visual of a human being burning, but because of the monk’s peaceful and meditive countenance. 

(Picture under the cut.)

I read recently an article titled the tragedy of self-immolation is that no one cares - or something like that- and it startled me. Because actions like these might not bring abrupt visible changes, but they do matter, and they are added to the collective human soul for better or worse. Anyone who comes into contact with them cannot but be moved and changed. 

I wanted an end to this story that is both a reasonable demise fot the character, and a point to address to the reader about the futility of control and authority, and the trauma it generates in the human soul. Messages like that are highly abstract but incredibly succinct.

Which brings me to the narrative mechanism used to develop most of the themes of the story.

Bondage.

The pictures that follow, are not highly graphic there’s nudity, and bondage for the most part. They belong to a photographer called Nobuyoshi Araki, who has had a long career both as a photographer and a bondage artist. Recently a very young model that he also had a relationship with of his has come forward accusing him of physical and psychological abuse. So I’ve kept them at the bottom of this post if you do not want to be exposed to his material.

I found his work very early when I studied as an art student, and I was very drawn to the beauty and sentimentality of his models. For anyone who doesn’t want to see these pictures, but wants to know what they look like, they are not strictly pornographic.

He has said about his bondage work, that you can bind a woman’s body, but you can’t bind her soul. And after all these years and my relationship to his work, I see that his photography is just another effort to capture and bind that female soul. To pin it in a cushion for others to admire and use.

And this is the theme I worked on for the brothers’ bondage art. For them its a gateway to fame and recognition, a way to manipulate and effect change, to make their places more solid to the world. 

For the people who offer themselves to be bound and photographed, it’s a medium to expose and subject others to the romantic sensitivity locked deep in their souls. A romance developed from rejection and dismissal to be offered back in defiance, or sorrow, as a continuous effort to be accepted back.

There’s also the notion of the tempering quality of cruelty in the creation of something precious and unique, worthy of an audience’s attention, which mirrors the why this story is created in the first place.

[comicgeekscomicgeek]

Their Hero Academia – Chapter 71: Past Endeavors

Presenting the next installment of my on-going, nextgen, MHA fic! Earlier chapters can be found here

“So this is public transportation,” Izumi said.  “Interesting.”  She had been on the U.A. buses before, but this was quite different.  Certainly, there was a more interesting variety of people riding the subway, including one homeless man who seemed deep in conversation with what appeared to be thin air.

“It’s just a subway train,” Chihiro told her.  Her Cords were retracted in the confined space of the car, but animated.  She’d warned early on that a crowded car at this time of day could come with its share of “perverts.”

“Not a very good one,” Mineta said, pouting a bit.  “No one’s tried to grope me or take an upskirt photo!  Aren’t I good enough for these sleezebags?  It’s enough to give a girl a complex!”

Chihiro buried her face in her hands.  “Why are you like this?”

“There’s several theories.”

Izumi was grateful for the company.  Though she was determined to see this through, she had worried she would back out if she did it on her own.  And she was well aware that she was what Chihiro called a “sheltered rich girl,” making the journey more complicated.  This was her first time riding the subway, after all.  Chihiro had insisted on accompanying her and Mineta had insisted on coming along as well.

Perhaps she should have asked Katsumi.  But her dear friend was also quite volatile.  The likelihood of violence breaking out when she met her grandfather was not insignificant.

She did feel a bit guilty though.  Izumi had asked their driver to take her into the city, with instructions that she would call for pick-up in a few hours, under the pretense of meeting her friends. None of which was a lie.  She had met up with Chihiro and Mineta.  What she had been untruthful about was that they had then taken the subway, which was not a question that had been asked, so it was not a lie.  Their destination was not far, only a pair of stops past the station they had boarded at, but she desperately needed to keep her actions hidden from her parents.

She was also slightly in disguise, wearing clothes that Chihiro had brought her.  They were casual things, jeans and a t-shirt with the name of some band on it.  Her hair was mostly stuffed up under a lime-green hat with cat ears.  As the daughter of two prominent Heroes and part of two extremely well-known families, she has spent a considerable portion of her life in the limelight, even if only at the edges of it.  The story of her illness had leaked as a child and made numerous headlines as well, even if the details were sparse.  To say nothing of how much of Japan had seen her during the Sports Festival.   Despite coming in second, Mineta was drawing less attention, perhaps because she seemed to desperate for it; offense as a defense, as it were.

Izumi was going to see her grandfather, Enji Todoroki, also known as Endeavor, and he had been the Number One Hero once upon a time.  Even as the Heroes of her parents’ generation had been ascending, he had continued to hold a place in the Top Ten.  But mysteriously, about eleven years ago, shortly after she had recovered from her illness, he had publicly confessed to the numerous mistakes he had made and the abusive behavior he had engaged in with his children, then retired from his Hero career and from public life.  She could not remember the last time she had seen him.

But with a little bit of ethically dubious help from Mineta (She had been able to guess her father’s password for Hero-Net resources, which had gotten them a location), she now knew where he was.  And she had so many questions for him.  Questions she could not ask her parents, for she did not believe she could trust them to be honest about this.  She loved them dearly and knew that they loved her, but if what she suspected was true, then they were absolutely keeping secrets from her.  It cast the specter of doubt over anything she might learn.

Because her grandfather’s retirement coincided with the capture of a Villain called Plague, a Villain with the ability to unleash devastating diseases.  A Villain who had escaped from custody not that long ago. Plague, who had, by all accounts, previously turned himself in voluntarily…

There were too many coincidences and things happening at the same time.  She was certain she had been one of Plague’s victims, though whether that had been intentional or not, she could not say.  But her illness tracked to the exact time of his rampage across Japan and matched the symptoms exactly.  Her grandfather was the best chance she had for getting real answers.

Of course, the real question was… answers to what?  Was it enough to know whether she was a deliberate victim or simply an unfortunate bystander? Did she want to know what part her grandfather had played in it all?  Did she want to know if the escaped Plague was still a threat to her and her family?

She wasn’t sure. Izumi only knew that there was too much about the circumstances of her own life that she did not know.  The events of her past still cast a shadow over her future.  Her illness had exasperated her already somewhat frail constitution, making it the reason she still struggled with stamina and endurance.  She was proud of her accomplishments and all she had overcome. But if she did not have those limitations…

Chihiro gave her a slight nudge.  “Hey, we’re here.  It’s our stop.”

***

The house before them was a simple, small, one story affair, in a nice neighborhood.  It and its lawn and garden were well kept.  It was a far cry from the spacious and sprawling house her father, uncles, and aunt had grown up in.  Aunt Fuyumi and Uncle Tensei lived there now, the house having been left to her when her grandfather had retired from public life and Hero work. And it was smaller by far than the estate her immediate family lived in, a truly large mansion with expansive grounds and even guest houses. When she was younger, some of her friends had joked that it must have had its own postal code.  Or, as Chihiro had said, “its own phone number.”

To think that her grandfather had been so close all this time and she had never known it, only a few subway stops away from U.A.

“Well,” Chihiro said, “here we are.”

“Right where anybody could walk up,” Mika said.  “Kind of expected a big fence or something, based on all the stories.”

Izumi’s heart thudded in her chest.  “This may have been a bad idea,” she said.  “Perhaps I should have called first.  Maybe we should come back another time.  We do not even know if he is home.”  She took a slight step backwards.

“Hey.”  Chihiro put a hand on her shoulder.  “Look at me.”   Izumi turned her head to look at her friend.  “You want to go, we’ll go.  Strategic retreat, no shame.  But you already came all this way.  Might as well give it a shot.”

The path to the door was made of carefully carved stones.  As with everything about the house and garden, it suggested the occupant had taken great care to make everything just so.  That matched with what little she knew of her grandfather, a demanding man who sought perfection in all things.

As they stood in front of the door, Izumi looked to her left and right.  Both of her friends gave her a small nod.  Carefully, she raised a hand and knocked on the door, once, twice, three times.  It was a solid, heavy door, and the knock sounded out loud and clear.  

“He must not be home,” she said after a moment.  “We should go.”

“Hold your horses,” Chihiro said.

“Hey!  Buy me dinner first!”

“Not what I meant, Mika.”

Suddenly, Izumi could hear the sound of heavy footsteps near the door.  After a moment longer, the door opened and her grandfather stepped into view.  Enji Todoroki was a large man, taller and broader than her father.  His former red hair had gone grey with age.  He still had a deep scar over his left eye and she could see burn scars on his face, hands, and peeking out from the collar of his shirt and going up his neck.

“What do you want?” he began, his eyes narrow and harsh.  She suspected he received very few visitors.    

“I,” she began, then faltered.  She had been so determined when she had made these plans, but now she found all her confidence failing her.  Where was her determination to prove herself?  Where was the strength she had found to challenge Katsumi and her classmates at the Sports Festival?  Why could she not form the words?

“Out with it!” he growled, so harshly that this time, all three of them took a step back.

“Hey!” Mineta snapped. “You can’t talk to us like that!”

“I’ll do what I like with unwelcome and uninvited girls on my own property,” her grandfather growled.

“Please,” Izumi said softly. She reached up and pulled off the hat, letting her dual colored hair cascade behind her.  “Grandfather.  I just wish to talk.  There are things I must know.”

His eyes widened as recognition dawned.  “Izumi…!”

***

It had taken considerable convincing to get Chihiro and Mineta to leave.  Both girls had insisted on staying with her, but while her grandfather was willing to speak to her, he had been unwilling to entertain her friends. This was understandable.  There had been a weight in her request to talk, one that betrayed the important and deeply personal nature of the conversation. But ultimately, she had convinced them to return to the small shopping district they had passed on their way to her grandfather’s house.  She would let them know when she was ready to rejoin them.

The interior of Grandfather’s house reminded her very much of the traditional Todoroki home, Japanese-styled with tatami mats.  There was more furniture than she would have expected of a man who lived alone, but she also recalled that Aunt Fuyumi had a closer relationship with him than her own family did. It was something both she and her father made a concentrated effort not to speak of, lest their own relationship become damaged.  She realized somewhat belatedly that she could have gotten her grandfather’s whereabouts directly from her aunt, but that would have been uncomfortable and awkward for all involved… and might not have yielded the results she wanted.  Aunt Fuyumi might well have respected her father’s wishes that she not see her grandfather.

She sat on the small couch, sipping tea that Grandfather had provided.  He sat opposite her with tea of his own, in an armchair.  “Thank you,” she began, “for visiting me in the hospital. And for the rabbit.”

His eyes softened slightly as he set his teacup on a side table.  “You’re welcome,” he said.  “I knew you were out there when those Nomu attacked.  I was worried that…”   He trailed off, not finishing that thought.

“I pushed myself, but I endured,” Izumi said, with some degree of pride.  “Chargebolt and Grape Juice did the fighting.  I merely acted as containment.”  Her thoughts raced back to that morning.  She had been so certain that all she’d done was seal Uncle Denki and Mister Mineta into an icy tomb.  But they had held the line until Uncle Izuku had arrived to the rescue.  

“You should be proud,” Grandfather said.  “I watched your performance at the Sports Festival.  You’re stronger than I ever could have dreamed you would be. Especially after…”

He seemed to realize how his words sounded, as though he disbelieved how someone with her weaknesses could succeed.  “I’m sorry,” he went on.  “That sounded harsher than I meant it. I’m truly, truly proud and pleased by your successes.”

“Thank you,” she said. “But it is the “after” and what caused it that brought me here today.”  Izumi sat down her teacup and folded her hands in front of her, drawing herself up to her full seated height.

“I need to know about Plague.  About what he did, what he did to me.  About what caused you to retire and bear your sins publicly.  And why these rifts between you and Father now exist.”

Grandfather frowned. “I suppose I should have expected this sooner or later.”  He looked down, as though deciding whether or not to tell her anything or perhaps whether or not to simply throw her out.  “But you deserve the truth, to know the whole truth of yourself.  It is a long tale and not a particularly pleasant one.”

She simply nodded. “I’m listening.”

***

“You’ve heard of the Hatamoto Program?” Grandfather asked.

“The program by which the government recruited talented and powerfully children with useful or powerful Quirks,” Izumi said, “training them outside the traditional Hero Schools so that they could then exercise more direct control over them than the average Hero.”

They had learned about it in their Hero History class.  Hawks, now the Deputy Commissioner of the Hero Public Safety Committee, was the most well-known graduate of the program, though there were others.  The majority of them were retired, with only the most recent graduates still active.  The original League of Villains had leaked the details of the program to the public during her parents third year of U.A., in an attempt to discredit the country’s Heroes.  How much that had succeeded was a matter of debate, but it had succeeded in getting the program shut down.  

Grandfather nodded. “There were other programs as well. One of these was run by an organization known as the Iga Group.  They were not strictly a governmental organization, in order to provide a layer of plausible deniability should it or its agents be exposed, but for all intents and purposes, they were just another arm of enforcement.  Their mission was to capture and contain anyone whose Quirk was deemed too dangerous to the general population to be allowed to remain free.”

It should not have surprised Izumi as much as it did.  Quirks which were dangerous to others were something society struggled with to this day. She knew there were many people who received special support equipment or other accommodations from the government because of their Quirks and the problems they created.  There had been a boy in her elementary school who had to go for weekly appointments where he was able to safely discharge the radioactivity he could generate.  

And the limited information she had been able to look up about Plague had included accusations of the same thing.  It had never been proven one way or the other, but after Uncle Izuki had talked the man into turning himself in, a great number of people thought missing had suddenly re-entered society.  It seemed there was more truth to it than she expected.  It was a sobering thought.  Even if it wasn’t done anymore, to think that people could have been stripped of their freedoms just because of their Quirks…!

“Though they had their own agents,” Grandfather continued, “they also employed some Heroes, to help with what they deemed particularly dangerous acquisitions.  Myself included.”

At that, she let out a soft gasp.  “How?” she demanded, the forcefulness she’d been lacking before returning suddenly. “How could you?”

There was a small flicker of flame across his face as her grandfather’s eyes narrowed and his jaw set itself hard, his fists clenching.  He took in a breath and the flames died down, the rest of his posture relaxing.  “I thought it was the right thing to do,” he said finally.  “You must understand, this was a different time.  I was barely twenty when they first asked for my help, newly minted as the Number Two Hero.   Even with All Might having… made considerable in-roads in bringing justice, there was still a lot of danger and lawlessness.  I thought that if someone could not control their Quirk, if it made them a danger, then they had to be stopped.  As simple as that.  I was good at bringing people in.  They were usually committing acts of accidental Villainy anyway.  It looked good on my record.  It fueled both my goals and theirs.”

He shook his head.  “As has often been the case in my life, I let my ambitions get the better of me.  I thought I was doing necessary work that All Might, with his smug, smiling face and “pure heart” wouldn’t dare touch.  I thought, “at least in this, I am better than he’ll ever be.’”

Her grandfather’s rivalry with All Might was well known.  It was the very reason for the existence of her father, her Aunt Fuyumi, and Uncle Natsuo, which meant, in some way, she owed her own life to it.  The two had allegedly been on better terms once, though she did not know if that persisted.

“And Plague was one of those people you captured for them?” she asked.

Her grandfather nodded. “He was.  At the time, he was not yet a true Villain. He wasn’t calling himself Plague yet. He was a child, about the same age as Shoto, with dreams of becoming a doctor or a scientist.  His Quirk was registered as “Disease Generation.”  It caused him to store viruses in his body that he could release or alter.  Until then, he hadn’t been any trouble.  But he lost control one day and unleashed something that wiped out his entire village before help could arrive.  At the time, the choice to take him in seemed obvious.  In hindsight… perhaps he deserved compassion. But I had been working with the Iga for a long time by then and did not question their judgement. So we captured him.  In his panic, he fought back and infected several Iga agents, but my flames ultimately brought him down.  And he was taken to the Iga’s offshore prison.”

He looked down again. “Not long after that, All Might was forced to retire after battling All for One and I became the new Number One Hero. With it came a certain degree of additional scrutiny that the program could not afford and they cut ties with me. I put them from my mind and focused instead on the challenges ahead of me.”

Izumi nodded, unsure of how else to respond.  How many innocents had her grandfather burned and subdued, whose only crimes were having a Quirk someone at the Iga had deemed dangerous?  How could he so casually have put it behind him?  Even in Plague’s case, it sounded as though it had been an accident…  Where did the scales of justice fall for such a thing?

“Time passed,” Grandfather continued.  “And I began to realize the harm I had done my family.  Becoming the Number One caused me to reflect upon what I had done to them.  Little by little, I did begin to reconnect with your father and Fuyumi.  Natsuo never forgave me.  And, of course, Toya had been hiding in plain sight the whole time, eventually turning on his League of Villain allies in order to protect his unborn child with that psychopath.”

A cousin she had never met, just as she had never met her Uncle Toya.  She had herd her father speak of her occasionally.  All she knew was that her cousin was a criminal, the daughter of her Uncle Toya and the former League member known as Himiko Toga.  

“Things were strained, I admit,” Grandfather said.  “But they were… slowly getting better.  I was allowed to attend your father’s wedding.  I was even allowed to spend time with you as a child, though I am sure you were too young to remember.”

She shook her head. “I don’t.  I’m sorry.  Just flashes and fragments.”

He looked defeated at that, but nodded and moved on.  “To be expected.  By the time you were four, I was already being surpassed in the rankings by Deku, Lemillion, Ground Zero, and even Shoto.  And rather than being offended by it… I was proud.  And then, Plague escaped from Iga custody, in the company of two others that had been captured,  a man called Manticore whose Quirk made him into a monstrous and uncontrollable beast and another called Bloodstorm with a blood-bending Quirk called Hemokinesis.  It’s still never quite been determined how they did it.”

He leaned forward in his chair, his tone becoming somehow even more serious.  “But they held Japan in a state of terror for months.  Many people were laid low and sickened by bio-terrorism, with Bloodstorm and Plague working in concert while Manticore provided the muscle.  With it being well known that Shoto was my son and that he had a family, it was not hard for him to find the perfect way to strike at us, at me.  He infected you.”

That was it then.  No more questions about it.  She had been a target, not merely an unfortunate victim. And only then, a target to cause her grandfather pain and distract the Heroes like her father.  The weakness that she still carried with her, all the times her body had failed her, it was all his fault.  She could already feel her cheeks flushing with anger.  

“It was your fault,” she said flatly.  The words simply spat out of her, a powerful accusation.  

Her grandfather’s eyes widened and he looked down, shame written all over his face.  She could no more have hurt him than if she’d struck him with her Quirk.  “It is,” he said.  “I’ve carried that with me every day since then.”

She should have left then and there.  But there was regret in her grandfather’s voice.  How dare he treat it as something he could simply feel sorry for?  He carried it with him?  What about what she carried with her?  Izumi was angry.  Angrier than she could ever recall being in her entire life.  She stood.

“Do you know,” Izumi demanded, “how I have suffered because of you?”  She could feel the room growing colder around her and the heat inside her own body starting to rise.  “How often I am left with barely the strength to even stand?  How difficult it is to regulate the two aspects of my Quirk?  How hard I have to fight for my place among my friends?  How my parents treat me as some fragile China doll, confident in me one moment, afraid I might break upon the slightest breeze the next?  Do you know?!”

Frost had collected around her feet, spreading out across the tatami mats, stopping less than a centimeter from her grandfather’s chair, traveling around it and completely encircling him.  She could feel the heat inside her, a glowing red center.  She could hold it for now, but her anger seemed to stoke it, demanding its release.  She had such a perfect target right in front of her.

He looked smaller now, so very defeated, his arms hanging limply at his sides.  He did not look her in the eye.  “You have every right to hate me,” he said.  “It was my fault.  He targeted you because of me.”

She was breathing hard now, her muscles clenched tightly.  She wanted to scream, to lash out, to draw every last iota of heat from his body, to do something.  If only he would yell back, show some anger of his own, react as anything other than a punching bag.  She wanted Katsumi here.  Her friend was so such less inhibited than she.  Katsumi would have already torn the old man apart.

But Izumi…  Izumi was not that person.  She would fight with all her might, for her friends, for justice, for what was right.  But she would not strike a man who would not fight back, no matter the wrong he had caused her.

All the same, she should have left.  She had confirmed her suspicions.  But there was so much more she needed to know.  “I am not certain I hate you,” she said after a long moment, sitting back down. A little bit of vapor came with her words and she had to focus a moment to cease leeching heat from the environment. “But I do not particularly like you in this moment.  But I need to know the whole story.  What happened next?  How was I cured?  Why did this cause you to retire?”

Her grandfather nodded. “You deserve all the answers,” he said.   “I’ll do my best to tell you them.

“After you became ill, it already began to strain things between Shoto and myself.  I had told him what I knew about Plague and the others and the part I had played with the Iga.  He assumed, correctly, that you had been targeted because of me.  Shoto and his friends doubled-down on their investigations, even as the cases grew and you grew sicker and sicker.  Plague grew bolder, breaking into television broadcasts. His virus had not killed anyone yet, but he claimed he would escalate it if those responsible for stealing his life did not confess their crimes. Eventually, Lemillion was able to put together enough clues to find where the three of them were hiding out.”  He closed his eyes for a moment, at those reliving those memories.  How much guilt did he feel?  It couldn’t possibly have been enough.

“Plague was ahead of us. He sent Bloodstorm and Manticore into the heart of Tokoyo.  Shoto, Ground Zero, Lemillion, and Ingenium took them on.  It left Deku and myself to battle Plague.  Just as well.  I suspect Shoto would not have trusted himself to fight alongside me.  I suspect more of their friends would have joined in, but they feared what might happen elsewhere with that many Heroes mobilizing. The second League of Villains was already beginning to make noise, splitting their attention.

“Plague was hiding in his old village.  It had been abandoned since then… but he had remade it, built himself a lab where he could unleash his virus on the winds of a coming storm.  When Deku and I arrived, threw everything he had at us.  A viral load that dropped me to my knees in a moment, puking my guts out.  But Deku… that boy just put everything he had into resisting, sparking like a damn emerald firecracker.   I tried to burn it out of my body, raising my temperature, but it was all I could do to keep conscious.  He hit Deku with so much they say the soil where he stood is still loaded with viruses.

“All the while, Plague was screaming accusations.  About how he’d been kidnapped by the Iga and myself, when he’d just been a kid.  About how the Iga Group had experimented on him and tortured not just him, but everyone that had captured.  I didn’t want to believe it.  Didn’t want to believe I’d been a party to such horrors. Any illusions I’d had that I was doing the right thing… shattered.”

There was sadness in his voice, even some measure of sympathy.  Perhaps he really had thought he was doing the right thing.  Her grandfather had once tried to undo the harm he’d done to his family.  He was capable of guilt and remorse.  Izumi was not always the best judge of people’s emotions and behaviors, but she believed him here.  For now, at least.

He shook his head. “And Deku… Deku told Plague he believed him.  He even promised that he would look into it, that if it was true, he would smash the place open with his own hands.  But only if Plague offered a cure for his virus that was ravaging the country.  His sincerity must have reached him, because Plague agreed… on the condition that I confessed to my complicity as well.  In that moment, I would have agreed to anything. Deku countered that by that point, it might be too late.  But he promised again to investigate Plague’s claims and personally assured his safety.”

Grandfather sighed.  “Plague was reluctant, untrusting even still.  At that point, broken, the fragile relationship I’d built with Shoto shattered, I had nothing to lose, not even my pride. I begged him to at least save you, even offered up my own life.  Deku talked him down to putting a stop to it all.  Plague agreed and administered an antidote to me and gave Deku a formula.”

Izumi had a faint memory of what had happened after that: Uncle Izuku rushing into her hospital room, giving her mother a formula of some kind.  Her mother must have manufactured it, personally.  After that, she’d begun to recover.  But she had already been somewhat fragile, something she had inherited from her grandmother, Rei.  Others who had been cured, she had discovered, had recovered fully, with few lasting effects.   But she still walked in the shadow of that illness.

Her grandfather continued. “In the aftermath, we turned Manticore and Bloodstorm over to the authorities.  As best as I recall, they got Anima in to talk to Manticore, to see if there was anything human left under that Quirk.  Bloodstorm though, was nothing but a psychopath who went straight to Tartarus.  Deku claimed custody over Plague, said he was needed to save lives.  He was the Number One Hero by that point; they trusted him.”

It must have been serious then, for Uncle Izuku to have believed him.  But it was also no surprise that Uncle Izuku had been able to talk Plague down either.  As the Symbol of Hope, he’d made it a point to do things different, to fight when he had to, but to use other methods whenever he could.  It was one of many things that made him incredibly popular and incredibly valuable.

“We regrouped to take the fight to them.  Lemillion and Ingenium had been injured, leaving only four of us.  Iga’s prison was located on an island off the east coast of Japan.  And its head was a powerful man named Jinpachi Kitagawa, who had a geokinetic Quirk that let him control magma.  He was a military man, who fit in well with the early days of Quirk laws.  But the times were already starting to change, and his obsession with protection was turning more to madness in the face of it. When Deku, Shoto, Ground Zero, Plague, and I arrived… he must have known his time was over.  He set his forces on us immediately and even joined in the battle himself.”

Her grandfather touched the scars on his hands.  “His lava was hotter and more powerful than my flames.  I could not stand against him.  But Shoto could.  His ice, his mother’s Quirk…  It proved to be exactly what was needed that day.  He saved my life, though I could tell he was tempted to simply let me die. Maybe he should have.  But we won.”

He shook his head again. “The inside of the prison was more horrible than I could have possibly imagined.  People half-starved, attached to more wires and machines than I could have believed.  This was nothing else than outright torture and experimentation.  Kitagawa was… a very sick man, with some very horrifying ideas about how society should function and who should be at the top, making the decisions.  But he had whispered enough in the ears of the right people and operated for long enough that I doubt the government was fully aware of the extent of what he was doing. They didn’t want to know.  They only wanted the problem Quirk users removed. Plausible deniability.”

“That does not explain your retirement,” Izumi reminded him.  She was horrified by what she was hearing, but was failing to see the connections.

“I’m getting to that,” he said.  If her interruption bothered him, he didn’t show it.  “Things after were… not good.  The government was able to keep the affair on the island hidden. Kitagawa was going to be thrown in the darkest depths of Tartarus.  But Deku wanted everyone they had released, as quickly as possible.  The government tried to argue, but he threatened to go public. They threatened to ruin him.  He didn’t care.”  

Her grandfather gave a small laugh.  “Too much of All Might in that boy, related by blood or not.  They caved.  The government, including the HPSC, got everyone involved to keep it under wraps in exchange for acting expeditiously,  while they quietly set about cataloging and releasing the people who had been kept there, along with disbanding the Iga and evaluating what to do with its employees. Some of them were loyal to Kitagawa personally, and would be imprisoned.  Others… thought they were just doing a necessary job. And many of the most fanatical and loyal scattered before they could be caught, including several of their science staff.  Deku wanted to go public, of course, but was ultimately convinced that such a revelation would shatter the fragile peace of society.”

He let out a low growl. “But Kitagawa did not plan on going quietly.  He would break whatever he could, tear down those who had stopped him.  The only thing that could head it off was another scandal.  I was injured, feeling my age.  If anything had taught me that this was now a young man’s game, it was this.  And so I manufactured the scandal that would occupy the public and the media’s attention.  Confessed publically to the wrongs I had done my family and declared my retirement from Heroics and public life.  Perhaps not quite what Plague wanted from me… but I suffered the scorn and fall from grace all the same.  Plague surrendered himself to custody voluntarily, recognizing that he had crossed the same lines that had been crossed in his original capture.  I understand that these days, universities and labs occasionally contacted him for his expertise.”

Grandfather let out a long sigh.  “It was just as well.  After finding out exactly what I had been a part of and how it had nearly led to your death, your father wanted nothing more to do with me and wanted me to have nothing more to do with you.  The least I could do was make sure you grew up in a world that did not give itself over the chaos of the bad old days.  Like a good compromise, it left no one truly happy.  It was one of the last times your father and I spoke.”

He certainly made it sound like an act of self-sacrifice… but Izumi was not so sure she could forgive so easily.  Not with everything it had cost her.  Not with everything he had done, all the people he had hurt, by his actions and by his ignorance.    

“He has escaped,” she told him flatly.  “I overheard it while doing my Internship.”

That got a reaction out of him, his eyes going wide and his flames flaring for the briefest second again.  They were weak and flickering.  “Impossible,” he said.  “He would not…”

“I only know what I have heard,” she said.  “It seems only fair that you know.  Information for information.”

That was probably harsher than she should have been.  But the emotions roiling inside her demanded an outlet.  The blame for so much could be laid at his feet.  She needed time to process it all.  She needed to decide if she would confront her parents about this and the fact that they had kept it all a secret.  She needed… she needed, very much not to be here.

Izumi stood again. “Thank you for your honesty, Grandfather.”  She turned towards the door.

“Wait…” he began, rising slowly out of his chair.  “Izumi…”

“Yes?”

“Could I…  would you… ever consider… visiting again?”  Despite being a big man, he looked small, pitiful, and broken.  He was reaching out to her, desperate for some kind of connection.  

“I shall consider it,” she said, truly not knowing the answer.  She opened the door in time to see Mineta, head down, horns pointed, about to charge it.

“Mika!” Chihiro called out. “Stop!”

Mineta skidded to a stop, hooves clattering on the stones.  “What? Aw, I wanted to break down the door!”

Izumi stepped outside, pointedly closing the door behind her.  “Why were you going to break it down?”

“We’ve been texting for the last half hour!” Chihiro said.  “You didn’t answer!”

Izumi shook her head. “I turned my phone off.  I wished to be uninterrupted.”

Chihiro’s Cords pointed accusingly.  “Don’t do that, okay?!  We were worried!”

She nodded.  “I shall try not to worry you in the future, thank you.”

“Did you get any answers?” Mineta asked.  “Do we need to administer an ass-kicking to a senior citizen?”

“I do not think that will be necessary, but thank you,” Izumi told her.  “But to answer your question… yes.  And also no.  But I know now what made me.  I just have to figure out if it changes who I will become.”

“Can we figure it out on the way back?” Mineta asked.  “Because there was a really nice ice cream shop on the way with a couple really cute guys behind the counter…”

[hellsparadiseessays]

Aza Brothers Week - Day 5

I released that essay on r/Jigokuraku back in early July, about one month after the infamous chapter 56 got out. It wasn’t a fun topic to tackle, so as a result I’m leaving the warning I put at the start of the essay before the cut. Because chapter 56 was not ok. Though keep in mind that I’m not mad at UG for it - quite the contrary, his intent is clearly not to make the chapter sexy. However, I heavily suspected the fandom to not find it as obvious because well, we have our own cultural issues. And considering how this essay has been received, and the stuff I noticed even in the Japanese side of the fandom... Well, this essay is in my opinion much needed to explain why chapter 56 is more brutal that it seems. It’s also a good follow-up on yesterday’s post, which stopped at chapter 55. 

Warning : This thread will contain references to rape, so if the topic is sensitive to you, I suggest you avoid reading it. This thread will contain spoilers for the most recent chapters as well, so read it once you’re up to date with the manga to avoid being spoiled and know what I am talking about.

Chapter 56 - A commentary on power and powerlessness

I have been keeping it to myself (and occasionally kinda raged about it on Discord join us) ever since chapter 56 was released, back in April. I’ll be honest with you, despite me joking with everybody else on Discord, that chapter really hit a personal chord and I had a hard time working on this commentary because of that. Let’s just say I regularly had to stop and come back to it a few days later, once I got my head cool again and my brain fully functional – I didn’t want my emotions to get in the way of the analysis.

Here we are now, ready to tackle a difficult topic: the borderline rape of Chôbe by Rien. And I say “borderline”, only because it was Chôbe who successfully did his Chôbe thing. He remains in a dangerous position, one I certainly don’t envy, and one that he himself strongly dislikes.

This commentary will be divided into three parts: firstly, the use of rape as a comedic device in mainstream media and how it trivialises a situation that, in fact, has dramatic consequences. Then, we’ll study Rien has a character through his past and present actions, to establish the nature of his interactions and the way he perceives himself. Finally, we’ll address Chôbe’s reactions while facing danger, and how he deals with his emotions.

I. Rape as a comedic tool

One of the many reasons why this chapter makes me uncomfortable is my personal fear for jokes made about that sort of situation. Why, you may rightfully ask? Because it is very much present in mainstream media, be it in Japan or in Western countries. Considering Reddit is mostly Western-oriented, I chose to pick a reference that focuses on rape in Western media to build my argument around, and I strongly suggest you to watch the video before you continue with this commentary. “Sexual assault of men played for laughs”, by Jonathan McIntosh from the Youtube channel Pop Culture Detective, thoroughly explores the issue through the lens of North American media, which have an area of influence that goes way beyond North America itself – especially with the massive worldwide use of internet. While not all the items of this video fit with the commentary at hand, it nonetheless points out an especially interesting argument: the man who failed to be a man – the one perceived as in control of the situation -, is subjected to various mockeries because it’s fair after all, he wasn’t really being a man when it happened, so he failed as a person.

I think we could even see this issue as a double insult to both men and women with that issue: 1) women can’t be in control because it’s not their role, 2) men who aren’t in control are perceived as emasculated, and thus the jeering is entirely justified because how dare they consider themselves men, right? Basically, this sort of joke is based on a perception of power and who is supposed to hold it. And power is what sexual assault is about. It’s not about lust or provocation. Sexual assault is the act of abusing your power over someone else to the point of robbing them of even their intimacy. This is something that tends to break people, or at least seriously damage them. Yet, this loss of power is something that remains mocked or silenced. And while women are starting to speak up, it’s still rare to see men open up about it. In Jonathan McIntosh’s video, the example of Terry Crew in reaction to the Harvey Weinstein affair and the following #Metoo movement is telling: losing power (what is perceived as such), especially as a man, is still treated in a demeaning manner that should only be mocked or ignored, not as something serious that can affect the victim for years and have a negative effect on their life in general.

Sexual assault of men as comedy is destructive, yet still awfully present in the series and movies we watch – even kids’ shows. Yes, you read it well. Kids’ shows. It gives a certain inclination to joke about rape – especially when it happens to men -, by internalising the issue and not realising how demeaning it actually is. It’s even visible in the most mainstream manga and anime (Naruto’s 1000 years of pain, anyone?) and we’ll play a little game about that: in your comment, I invite you to point out sexual assault as a joke in a manga/anime you know (and maybe enjoy). Keep in mind that I’m not doing that to slam the creations or their authors, it’s just to point out how surprisingly common it can be. I also wish to point out that, in chapter 56 of Jigokuraku, UG didn’t go that way at all. On the contrary, he made it clear that Chôbe was in danger and painfully aware of it throughout the chapter, while Rien... Was being Rien, with his own perception of who he is and the power he holds.

II. Rien: the perception of power

Now that we’ve established the basis about the way sexual assault with men as victims is perceived (especially in the West, a point of view vastly predominant on Reddit), we can start digging on Rien’s case of A God I Am.

As soon as Rien gets his first appearance (chapter 26), his status is made clear: among the boss level characters we’ve seen so far (Ju Fa, Tao Fa, Zhu Jin), he is one cut above and presents himself as the uncontested leader, the patriarch of a family who rules and serves punishment when he deems it necessary. From his point of view, he’s the head of the Tensen family as well as (potentially, it depends on Jofuku being alive of not), the ruler of the island – or the head scientist of the giant laboratory that is Kotaku. It means that Rien isn’t just the most powerful being on the island (though the notion of power can be discussed there, considering the power system used by UG), he also perceives himself as such and demonstrates it with an iron hand: the way he treated Mei before she escaped is good enough as a proof.

Behind his position as the head scientist, he shows a ruthless cruelty and a readiness to not even consider other people as persons. Mei herself, suggested as being one of the first successful experiments by Jofuku – and thus being “family” to Rien -, gets banished, mutilated and used as a living experiment material for the very thing she dared openly call out (the massive use of humans for experimentations). Rien even openly states, in chapter 26, that he’s the only one with the right to punish family members when Ju Fa injures an already weakened Zhu Jin. It gives us an idea of what Rien may mean by “punishment”. Go against his will: die or become an experiment. Disobey him: get severely injured if you’re part of the Tensen family, I heavily suspect death may be the sentence when you don’t have that luxury – and so does Chôbe. Until now, Rien has thus been shown as having a general behaviour that could be qualified of sociopathic: being indifferent towards others to the point of not seeing them as people, dehumanising anybody, using the “we’re family” or “I’ll tell you everything” tactic to try and keep people on his side. Interestingly, between him and Mei, he’s the one who has spend the most time with the other Tensen, and it is visible in their behaviour as well: they show similar sociopathic traits (Mu Dan’s experiments he seemed to find most amusing, Ju Fa qualifying Chôbe of “it” and “livestock”...).

However, no matter how godly Rien thinks he is, he remains surprisingly human and this has been shown to us through the point of view of his latest victim, who managed to do what, I suspect, no other character in the story would have been able to pull off without seriously getting in trouble for it (meaning: die immediately): he momentarily reversed the power dynamic to save his skin for at least a moment.

III. Chôbe’s status as a victim and how he handles it

Since the start, I’ve been claiming left and right that Chôbe is probably too smart for his own good, but it’s not just that. It’s an accumulation of everything that happened to him and his brother. Chôbe is very intimate with the notion of powerlessness. He’s been living it repeatedly since he’s a kid, slowly losing his place in society until he became an outcast. As a consequence, the way he thinks isn’t based on honour or revenge: it’s about survival, first and foremost.

The first time we see him go full survival mode is when he and Toma momentarily run away from the Sôshin that are outnumbering them, to find a better position to fight. In that chapter (chapter 9), we witness another way to survive that is very much Chôbe’s own method – no other character has done it, not even Toma -: instead of resisting a power stronger than his own, he integrates himself into the equation by mirroring the person who’s displaying power over him. By doing so, he creates an impression of kinship he can exploit to his advantage. As a kid, he mutilated himself to the point of losing sight in his right eye and being seriously scarred to “pretty himself up” by looking more like the bandits who were planning to harm Toma and sell them both. Doing so created a strong impression in their captors’ mind, and Chôbe used that impression to claim a place among the bandits – a first step towards claiming his power as an individual capable of thoughts and choices back. By integrating himself like that, he managed to become the leader of the pack, the chief of an entire village of bandits, causing so much trouble it warranted death penalty for him.

This method of mirroring the person holding power over him is visible again during the entirety of chapter 56. This chapter starts with Chôbe being captive, literally tied to a bed and clearly uncomfortable for many reasons: he’s been beaten to the point of passing out after having been treated like a wonderful unicorn (not a person), wakes up in an unknown place, tied to a bed in a peculiar position. By that point, Rien already marked a lot of Creep Points, and Chôbe has a lot of reasons to find the situation disagreeable. But it’s not enough, and Chôbe ends up facing actual blackmail: cooperate or become Tan (which is pretty much like dying, but worse: your life force is sucked out of you while you’re in a fake wonderland. Chôbe had a taste of it and saw what it looked like while he was in the Tan pit, both him and Toma weren’t enthusiastic about the situation and quickly got out of the pit). During the entire chapter, Chôbe weighs his options and stalls time by asking questions and gather more information on his situation to pick the best option to stay alive. It’s a daring move, to do that while facing the local godly being, but Chôbe isn’t stupid and understands having the choice of cooperating means he has value somehow. And to squeeze all the information he needs from Rien, to better weight his option and understand what’s going on on this unnatural island (he realised it’s unnatural in chapter 54), he does what we’ve already seen him do in the aforementioned bandits’ village flashback: he mirrors the one having power over him to gain some agency back through deception.

That’s where something we’ve seen him do a lot happens: he smiles. Mind you, it’s not a genuine smile. Chôbe isn’t really a smiling person, we’ve seen that everytime we’ve got even the smallest hints regarding his true feelings. However, Chôbe uses his mask as a tool for deception and picked this habit as a kid: a grin to the bandits even though his face was heavily injured to convince them of keeping him and his brother, a grin when he steels himself while facing the Sôshin, a smile when he tries to deceive Gabimaru before suddenly attacking him. It’s the vicious, weaponised grin of someone who figured out what to do and where to go, while keeping others’ attention down. He even smiles while sweating when he is nervous, at the end of chapter 55, because he has no idea what’s going on but somehow he’s tied to a bed and someone one-sidedly decided to have sex with him (yes, in case you hadn’t noticed, Rien didn’t care about his consent, because Rien doesn’t see him as a person). However, during chapter 56, we slowly see him integrates himself in the equation again by imitating Rien’s moves to numb his wariness under the guise of complying with the cooperation request. His actions mismatch his thoughts exactly for that purpose: his first thought is about a way to escape, but he realises it may be too dangerous for him. So he renounces - for now - to by himself some time and repeats his mantra, to adapt and figure things out, and gives Rien what he wants because it’s the only viable option for survival.

Since then, qualifying his attitude towards the Tensen of “bad faith” could be an understatement. He may be willing to concede certain things under the threat of death, but he will still have the guts to stand his ground, even while facing a whole group of people who could kill him – and openly threaten to do so. It takes a certain kind of madness to do that sort of thing, and oh, it’s exactly what the bandits said about him when he purposefully injured himself just to prove a point. Chôbe is too smart for his own good, but he still manages to get his agency back when it’s stolen from him, and that’s what makes him incredibly dangerous, even for the Tensen. Even in real life, it takes a certain kind of character to pull that sort of thing off. Still, despite all of his wrong, what happened to Chôbe during his childhood as well as chapter 56 qualifies him as a victim, and UG handled it incredibly well, making it tragic (if not outright nerves wracking, at least in my case) instead of using it as a comedic tool. Thank you for that, UG.

This commentary took me about... At least 10 days just to be worked on, despite the very small amount of references needed for it.

Without giving away too much information, I empathise strongly with Chôbe’s predicament and generally find him very relatable, at a personal level. His tactics are easy to recognise not just because they’ve been made fairly clear by UG, but also because there’s a pattern I know all too well in them. So yeah, that commentary tackled some difficult topics for me, and I had trouble keeping a cool head while writing it. It was a difficult birth, chapter 56 still makes my skin crawl. However, I hope you found this write up informative or entertaining. Don’t hesitate to share your thoughts, answer my little challenge (an example of sexual assault played for laugh in a manga/anime you know), ask questions, scold me for yet another Chôbe rant...

[scripttorture]

When creating torturer characters, does political party matter? They probably aren’t going to be discussing politics, but I’m curious about if you have any advice on how to handle that. Either how someone’s political party might encourage them or force them to think about torture differently. I realize this is broad. I hope it can be answered in some way.

Ithink that’s an interesting question and one that could definitelyuse further research.

I’mputting this answer together based on a sort of broad historicaloverview of cases where governments dominated by a particularpolitical party definitely had people tortured. This isn’t based onany statistical analysis or published papers. It’s me trying to puttogether an overall impression from the dozens of cases thissituation applies to.

Myinstinct is that political party doesmatter but not in the way you might think.

Isee a strong tendency in political discussions about torture to...tryand turn torture apologia into a left vs right issue. That is notbacked up by evidence.

Leftwing and right wing governments have both tortured and both supportedtorture.

Letme be clear that I am not talking about the ‘extreme’ ends here.I am not talking about dictators and invaders or people who believein torture as a matter of ‘principal’. I am talking aboutgovernments that are democratic and relatively moderate (or were fortheir time).

Aparty being left wing or right wing does not predict, in any way, itsattitude to torture. Or itsuse of it.

What’smore, so far as I can tell, left wing and right wing tortureapologists generally use the samearguments to justify torture.

Howeverpeople on the left and right seem to use different arguments whenopposingtorture.This is a general observation rather than a statistical analysis. Amore thorough analysis may refute this. But my general impression isthat right wing anti-torture activists are more likely to usereligious arguments and left wing anti-torture activists are morelikely to stress international law or the human rights act.

Ifeel like it’s important right now to stress that there have beenanti-torture activists on both sides of the political spectrum who’vemade important contributions to the global community.

Wedisagree over a lot of important things but treating torture as anissue on one political ‘side’ doesn’t help. Because eradicatingit (like eradicating slavery) will take concerted, cross-partypolitical will and effort.

Ithink that covers some of the assumptions that aren’t backed up byevidence but it doesn’t really back up my statement that party canstill matter.

Politicalparties can and do support policies that are likely to encouragetorture. Party members also sometimes use torture apologia as a wayof trying to garner support.

I’llgive some examples and talk about what I mean there but I think it’salso important to stress that ordinary individuals (and politicians)can sometimes respond to these tactics without being aware of whatthey’re encouraging. Not everyone is going to make a mental leapfrom ‘much longer detention time without charges’ to ‘possibilityof police torture being covered up’.

Somepeople willsupport apologist arguments and policies because, on some level, theysupport torture. But it’s perfectly possible to be ignorant of thelarger picture.

Someof the policies that encourage abuse are more obvious than others.

Puttinga lot of legal weight on confessions, allowing people to be detainedwithout access to legal assistance, detaining people for long periodswithout charge, overt differences in the law between differentcategories of people. (Not a complete list).

Butsome policies are more subtle. Eroding oversight for instance.Relaxing laws that protect workers. Encouraging police to prioritisecertain kinds of crime.

Idon’t think it’s necessarily about policies giving governmentgroups ‘too much power’. It’s power without oversight, withoutresponsibility, without consequences. Thatmore then anything else seems to be what encourages torture.

Ifeel like a couple of examples might be helpful.

SoJapan has an incredibly, scarily high conviction rate. Many of theseconvictions are based on confessions.

Likemany countries Japan tends to give lower sentences when peopleconfess. This is not particularly unusual.

However,suspects in Japan can be detained, without charge, for up to 23 dayswhile an investigation is still taking place. They can also bedetained repeatedly.This means that, with no evidence, someone can spend months indetention in Japan. So long as they’re briefly released andre-arrested after 23 days.

Thiscombination of features means there’s little to encourage police toactually investigate a crime. Torture and coercion end up beingencouraged by this kind of environment, whether that is the intentbehind the system or not.

Asanother example of how legal structures can result in abusivesituations let’s take a look at Singapore’s labour laws fordomestic service. (I’m picking this rather than Saudi, where I grewup, because Singapore is actually a less extreme example for thiskind of abusive structure).

Jobcontracts for maids in Singapore do not require them to be given daysoff. Technically there is the option for them to get 1-4 days off amonth but this is optional. There are no standard rights to overtimepay or limits on working hours. Until recently there was no minimumwage.

Toits credit Singapore has made a lot of progress tackling physicalabuse of maids. But they’ve done little to tackle the underlyinglegal structures that allow that abuse.

Neitherof these examples are recent changes to the law, they’reillustrations of an abusive status quo. A lot of people in both thesecountries support the system simply because it’s the way thingshave always been. Political parties might argue in favour of keepingthese systems by portraying changes to the detention system asundermining the police force or by portraying maids as doing the sameamount of work as everyone else yet asking for ‘extra’privileges.

Peoplewho support these policies don’t necessarily see themselves assupporting torture. They don’t necessarily mention torture orabuse. They may find the implication that they’re supporting abusehighly offensive.

Ithink that leaves the kind of rhetoric politicians can use toencourage and condone torture.

Someof this is rather obvious. The kind of broadcasts made in Rwanda inthe lead up to the genocide are not subtle about encouraging andcondoning violence.

Andsome of it, unfortunately, has broader appeal. For instance in thewake of some horrific, well publicised cases of rape and sexual abusein India some politicians said they believed men accused of rapeshould be tortured.

Inthe wake of well publicised crimes or a terrorist attack it’s notunusual for politicians to try and garner support by advocating a‘tougher’ stance on crime. Now obviously not allof these  suggestions support torture, either overtly or subtly. ButI’ve observed that when these conversations are happening on alarge scale across the political spectrum there is usually someonemaking the case ‘for’ torture.

Politiciansalso sometimes-

Inflametensions in a way that can lead to both attacks and torture incustody. This can be by dehumanising certain groups but it’s notalways so direct.

Oneof the examples that’s currently coming to mind is the uh- lobby tobuild a Hindu temple on the site of a historical mosque that wasdemolished. There was a mosque on the site for a considerable lengthof time and both Muslims and Hindus claim the site as sacred. Quite afew Indian politicians have taken sides in an attempt to gain votesfrom these religious communities. And the way some of them have goneabout this has certainly added to tensions between the communities.

Moreregularly politicians downplay the effects of torture or argueagainst the validity of particularly cases before they’ve gonethrough the courts. My impression is that this works in much the sameway as it does for accusations of sexual abuse.

Thelast thing I feel like I should mention is individual politicians’attitudes to the rule of law and things like the human rights act. Myobservation of politics in the UK since arriving has been thatpoliticians who routinely and regularly state opposition to humanrights are more likely to vote for policies which support torture. Isuspect the same holds true for individuals who feel that the lawshould only apply to certain kinds of people, or should only apply incertain circumstances.

Thatisn’t the same as saying the law is unjust or should be changed.Instead it’s the idea that the law should be selectivelyand unfairlyapplied that’s suspect.

PersonallyI believe that these factors seem to be more predictive of supportfor torture then broad political party. Though there have certainlybeen cases where political parties have selectively promoted peoplewho support torture and sideline or get rid of anti-tortureactivists.

Politicalparties and individual politicians influence our view of torture in anumber of different ways. Some are certainly intentional. Others arenot necessarily intentional.

Unlessyou’re writing a politically extreme group that is mostly made upof clear torture apologists- I’d caution against suggesting thattorture apologia is the sole realm of one particular party. Tortureapologists can be found in most political groups. As can people whoare firmly against torture. The proportions can change quite a bit.Parties can become worse or better through the concerted action (orsometimes inaction) of their members.

EssentiallyI would advise focusing on what politicians say and do over theirbroad political ‘side’ when you’re talking about torture.

Ihope that helps. :)

Availableon Wordpress.

Disclaimer

[marshmallowgoop]

Ryuko: Senketsu, if I go too far, I’ll need you to stop me.

Senketsu: I cannot promise that. It is you who is wearing me.

Ryuko: Sheesh, you’re an outfit that doesn’t have much give, you know that?

Senketsu: But when you were out of control, you did stop. Using your own willpower. That is why I am not frightened in the least.

Ryuko: Gotcha. We’re all responsible for our own actions.

I’ve written pretty extensively on Ryuko and Senketsu’s relationship and why I think it’s so healthy, positive, and commendable (to put it mildly). But I don’t think I’ve focused enough attention on the above scene from episode 13, “Crazy For You,” which is a particularly strong example of the merits of Ryuko and Senketsu’s partnership.

On a surface level, the moment emphasizes and is utterly dedicated to the importance of good and proper communication---something especially noteworthy in a series that even describes itself as having a “lightning pace” (episode 16). By focusing so heavily on Ryuko and Senketsu’s conversation, there’s a considerable significance placed on talking to and being honest with a friend; the message is clearly and unambiguously that in any close relationship, it’s absolutely crucial to be open and truthful with one another. Otherwise, you’re not going to get along well. As Mako puts it earlier in the episode, you’ll just be “glarin’ at each other.”

Of course, a scene devoted to the positive effects of strong interpersonal skills probably doesn’t seem all that groundbreaking, but in an action-comedy anime, I love the inclusion of such a thing. It would have been so easy to gloss over emotions and provide viewers with over-the-top battles and little else, but Kill la Kill decided to breathe some real life and soul into Ryuko and Senketsu’s teamwork. The two of them have to endure hardships and struggles just like any real relationship, and just like in any real relationship, they have to work through those hardships and struggles to come back together.

More on that line, the moment is also remarkably humanizing---and sweet---for Ryuko. Throughout the episode, Ryuko hides her guilt and self-hatred behind flimsy assurances that she’s all right and explosive anger and rage. She smiles reassuringly at Mako’s mother, Sukuyo, and she yells fiercely at Shinjiro Nagita, but in the end, she finally, finally reveals everything on her mind to Senketsu. We’re then left with a character who is far more than an infallible hero or the “straight-up punk” that she describes herself as (episode 8); Ryuko is a flawed, complicated human being whom viewers can readily empathize with, and, as a result, it’s incredibly endearing to see her let down her walls and allow someone into her heart. 

Kill la Kill comes off as a strangely affecting and memorable series due to all this narrative weight placed on real-life emotions and feelings while the characters inhabit a world that’s one of the most ridiculous to ever be put on screen, and when it comes to the included scene at the top of this post, I think that’s a phenomenal thing. Because that scene? It’s also wonderful when you consider the history of how relationships have been portrayed in fiction.

While Ryuko and Senketsu are far from the “norm,” it’s not at all uncommon for a fictional story to imply that it’s essentially one person’s “responsibility” to keep another person in line. In the article “The Vulnerability of the Relational Self: The Implications of Ideals of Gender and Romance for Female Survivors of Intimate Partner Violence,” author Elizabeth McManaman Grosz discusses this topic at length, arguing that “the notion that a special woman can tame the beast” and “is thus, in a way, responsible for controlling his beastly nature” is one of the widespread cultural discourses that effectively “primes” women to accept and brush off instances of abuse (81, 88). 

Again, of course, I recognize that, in many ways, Ryuko and Senketsu really don’t have any place in Grosz’s argument. For one, Grosz exclusively utilizes the work of Western authors and philosophers to support her position, and entire other books have been written concerning Japan’s ideals of gender and romance and their implications and effects (believe me, I’m in the midst of reading through just some of said books). On top of that, the fact that Ryuko would be taking the place of the “man” in the situation I screenshotted for this post does question the applicability of Grosz’s article here.

But I find Grosz’s thesis compelling in regards to Kill la Kill because, in a lot of ways, Ryuko and Senketsu do rather embody typical positions of men and women in fictional stories both East and West... except, the roles are reversed. Ryuko is the unruly, aggressive, and hot-blooded protagonist just as a man often is, and Senketsu exhibits many traits that are traditionally associated with women; he’s sensitive, emotional, and a considerable worrywart. Further, while I find the term “love interest” both degrading and unfitting for Senketsu in a series that Word of God denies any romantic intention for, I have to admit that he fits many of the conventions. In an anime with a cast primarily composed of women, the fact that Senketsu is arguably coded as male makes him, just as the standard heteronormative “love interest,” the most narratively significant character of another gender in the show (for just a few other examples, see Ran from Detective Conan, Sam from Danny Phantom, Katara from Avatar: The Last Airbender, and Tuxedo Mask from Sailor Moon). Whether I’m watching an anime or an American cartoon, I don’t think I’d be too surprised to see a scenario like the one from the end of Kill la Kill’s thirteenth episode, where a man tells a woman that he’s afraid of losing control and needs her to be there for him so that he doesn’t.

What makes Kill la Kill different is more than the simple reversal of roles, though; Kill la Kill also reverses the harmful implications of this standard set-up. Instead of it being Senketsu’s “job” to “lead [Ryuko] to ‘moral decency,’” as philosopher Immanuel Kant noted a woman must do for a man in the late eighteenth century and of which Grosz argues is an ideal continued on even to this day (such as in sports culture, as elaborated upon in Susan Bordo’s The Male Body: A New Look at Men in Public and Private), Senketsu outright tells Ryuko that she must be in control of herself (qtd. in Grosz 87). It’s not Senketsu’s responsibility to keep Ryuko from abusing him, and the fact that both understand and acknowledge this is, well, good. Senketsu is not going to write off or blame himself for any mistreatment he receives from Ryuko because he feels he failed in “pleasing” her, and Ryuko’s ending sentiment that “[w]e’re all responsible for our own actions” indicates that she feels the same way towards him. Both Ryuko and Senketsu are cognizant of each other’s emotions and needs, and they will not allow abuse to continue without a word about it, as is sadly often the case in reality (Grosz 95).

It would still be nice to have an actual situation in which a man is in the standard “man” position, but I’m happy to see anything like this at all. Abuse and mistreatment are seriously discussed, the responsibility for poor behavior is placed solely on the actor rather than the receiver, and the fact that this kind of moment receives so much focus in the first place absolutely signifies the importance and power of proper communication with a loved one. Ryuko and Senketsu are my most favored relationship in all of fiction, and it’s scenes like this that really emphasize why.

Sources

Bordo, Susan. The Male Body: A New Look at Men in Public and in Private. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1999.

Grosz, Elizabeth McManaman. “The Vulnerability of the Relational Self: The Implications of Ideals of Gender and Romance for Female Survivors of Intimate Partner Violence.” Women's Studies, vol. 47, no. 1, 2018, pp. 80-97. 

Kant, Immanuel. Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point of View. Translated by Victor Lyle Dowdell. Southern Illinois UP, 1978.

Kant, Immanuel. Observations on the Feeling of the Beautiful and the Sublime and Other Writings. Edited by Patrick Frierson and Paul Guyer. Cambridge UP, 2011. 

[artificialqueens]

Pink Sandcastles Pt. 2 of 2 (Trixya) - VonChoke

Summary: Trixie Mattel is a popular YouTube travel vlogger. When she receives an invitation to stay at a resort at La Union, Philippines, she had no idea that this particular trip would help her find out what home really means.

*She’s complete!!!*

Read part 1 on Tumblr Read part 1 on AO3

“Let me get this straight,” Kim said testily on the other side of Trixie’s laptop screen the next morning. Today she had white highlighting foundation that she has not yet blended in due to Trixie’s timely interruption again. “You were invited to La Union to review the beach and the resort there, but the real reason was Katya used her resort to lure you there and get closer to you?”

“Seems like it,” Trixie huffed.

“But you just found out last night from a comment on one of Katya’s IG pics that she’s in a relationship with, your words, a gorgeous, skinny burlesque star?”

“Exactly.”

“And how did you discover this?”

“I was checking Instagram on my way back from the bathroom and the first thing I saw was Katya’s newest post. Then I read someone named Violet Chachki commented ‘miss those hands on me babe’ on it and… ugh.”

“What fucking rom-com shit are you living in?”

“Goddamnit I know right!” she almost yelled, burying her face on her hands. “I didn’t even know she was flirting with me since VidCon and I don’t know if I might have accidentally flirted back!”

Kim snorted. “You dense idiot,” she said. There was a beat of silence and then, “So what are you going to do about it?” Another pause. “Have you guys talked yet?”

Trixie sighed, brushing back a pink strand away from her mouth. “Not yet.” As she said it, a notification lit up her phone’s screen. It was one of eight she has not replied to yet. “Katya’s uh… inviting me to brunch. She said she’s serving pancakes and a full explanation.”

Hopefully the whole story instead of the basic gist she was served last night; After Katya’s quiet confession that she was in a long distance relationship with another (way more gorgeous) person, Trixie felt completely embarrassed for believing she was getting to the big time for having someone personally invite her, all expenses paid, to another country for a free stay at their resort because she delivered quality YouTube content. Looking around at the silent group around her, she felt deeply mortified that they probably knew that Katya had taken a huge amount of effort to basically get some pussy. She wasn’t even someone worth seducing, what the hell? Her pride in her work was hurt so she quickly faked an upset stomach, excused herself, and ran back to her room.

“I really don’t know what to do, Kim,” she groaned.

“Well,” Kim said slowly. “How do you feel about Katya?”

Trixie dug deep into her mind. She and Katya well… clicked. Like two hurricanes merging into one destructive force. She does like Katya as a friend, but realizes that she knows nothing else behind the macabre and filthy humor and wide smile. Come to think of it, what sort of place does the dark humor come from?

“I… care for her,” Trixie finally said. “As a great friend. Other than that, I don’t know anything else about her. We don’t talk much about our past. Because when we’re together, it’s like… nothing else matters? I don’t even think about my own shit. I forget everything and only enjoy my time with her.” She locked eyes with Kim. “That’s weird, isn’t it?”

“Ehhhh yeah,” said Kim. “But that’s probably a good place to start.”

“I’m going to meet her for brunch, aren’t I?” Trixie said, looking lost. “Because I really don’t know what else to do.”

“Come up with a list,” the Asian girl prompted whenever a friend needed direction. “Three things.”

“Okay,” Trixie breathed, sitting up. “One, talk to Katya. Two, decide what to do from there. And three… Oh right fuck. Vlog.”

“That’s a plan.” Kim smiled.

“It’s a plan. Thanks Kim, I’ll see you around.”

After disconnecting the call, Trixie sat back on her chair and allowed her mind to wander out the window. What exactly does she want with Katya? She wasn’t even sure if she wanted a relationship right now with all the traveling she’s planning on doing. During the day, she can freely say that she is self-sufficient and can hold her own without anyone by her side.

But midnight is a different story. Whenever Trixie lays on her pillow to sleep, her caged heart roams free. Like any other lonely person, they’ll never admit that she secretly cries out for a companion and longs to relate to love songs. The yearning filled her with agony sometimes, but she bears with it as she knows it’ll pass the moment she falls asleep. When she goes on through her day, Trixie no longer takes the time to dwell on wanting a romantic partner. Her desire of having someone to kiss and to take care of are buried under a modern day woman’s sensibilities.

She can do this. She’s old enough to know what she wants and which of Katya’s bullshit she’s not willing to put up with.

—————————

“Salamat po,” Trixie quietly thanked the waiter in Tagalog, something Jiggly taught her last night, for laying out her breakfast plate and orange juice in front of her. Across her, Katya had a coffee, a fluffy pastry, an orange, and a cigarette. She too looked anxious.

Trixie ate quietly, using the food as an excuse not to talk first. She didn’t make eye contact, instead looked out to the view of the ocean. When a breeze picked up, she tucked her hair behind her ear.

“I really like your hair,” Katya finally said, getting her attention. Smiling, she added, “It’s like catnip for pussies.”

That seemed to break the ice wall between them. Trixie stared at her for a second in bewilderment and let out a snort and giggle of amusement. She did get a lot of lesbian attention online for her hair. In return, Katya laughed with relief at the reaction and let herself relax. She can do this.

“So… I owe you an apology. I guess wasn’t honest with you in the beginning,” she said.

“Really, you guess?”

“Shut up, Toby, let me be real for once,” Katya said, smirking. Continuing, she stared at a point above her as she gathered her words succinctly. “I… was already interested after we met at VidCon. I wanted to keep what we had going but I didn’t because life happened.”

She waved a hand at the building behind her. “The resort opened and I became extremely busy. Then when I watched your latest Japan vlog, I thought you looked so beautiful and happy and… I kind of missed you? Then I talked to Sasha, we thought that I should invite you here to Elyu so we could… talk more and the rest was history.”

Trixie nodded. Time for her to speak. “I guess I was… hurt. And embarrassed.” To Katya’s subtle questioning expression, she carried on in softer tones. “I thought you invited me here because I make great travel vlogs and wanted the best for your resort.”

“Oh mama, you are the best,” said Katya sincerely as she leaned forward. “I checked out all your videos after we met at VidCon and those are the five pinkest hours of my life I cannot get back.” She was relieved when Trixie let out a trill of giggles. “I’m really sorry for embarrassing you. That wasn’t my intention. I thought this was going to be a great way of getting to know you better but yeah, that was probably a dumb idea.”

“Not entirely,” Trixie said. She looked out to the ocean sparkling under the sun and the carefree shouts of other tourists and breathed it all in. She felt the distance from her drafty little apartment in Chicago stretch all the way here, a sunny and spacious bliss while sitting across a woman who found her weirdness worth the effort to be around.

She held her breath before letting out, “And Violet?”

Lowering her cigarette, Katya gave a small sad smile. “She was on vacation here when we met. It’s an open relationship because she’s always on tour with her troupe and I’m just here. I thought was okay in the beginning because I’m like seven different shades of fucked up and wasn’t sure I could fully commit. Now I don’t know if I should let her go or stay with her cause it was my fucking idea in the first place to ask for more. And god, there were the drugs…”

“Drugs?” This was the first time Trixie heard Katya talk seriously about drugs. She mostly chalked it to her dark humor and never thought it came from a real, scary place. “Oh wow, I didn’t know. I’m sorry I thought you’ve only been joking about those.”

“I wasn’t joking, bitch,” Katya laughed without humor and began peeling her orange. “Although… I do hate being serious all the time. I can’t take life too seriously anymore, otherwise I get sucked back in to the dark.”

“Oh yeah I totally get it. Joking as a coping mechanism. Oh honey, did you have an abusive step-dad too?” Trixie said in her driest tone.

Katya’s eyebrows shot up in surprise, looking as though she didn’t know whether to laugh or not. “W-well, no. I was raised by a team of greasy Taco Bell employees who took me in when I was young,” she said seriously.

“What?” Trixie gaped. How did that even happ—oh, she was kidding. She glared at Katya wheezing in laughter and slapping her knee. “You bitch, I almost believed that,” she cried out, joining her in the hilarity.

“Hidden talent,” Katya cackled. “I swear I am able to drop into the pain of my personal experiences so effortlessly that allows people to believe in my bullshit.”

“Now I’m doubting this entire conversation,” Trixie sniffed before Katya quickly shook her head and sobered up.

“Oh no no, I’m not. Sorry, that’s on me. I need to say something stupid before I get into any serious topics.” She cleared her throat before speaking again. “I’m sorry you had to go through… that. Are you good now?”

Trixie leaned back into her chair and nodded, drawing her eyes downwards. “Yeah, I’m good. I don’t talk about him anymore.” She sighed, letting the moment breathe before bringing the topic back on track. “So, uh… Violet.”

“Right, yeah, Violet,” Katya sadly said. Steeling herself, she continued, “So I thought I was okay with the distance because I believed that Violet didn’t deserve me, didn’t deserve that, didn’t deserve to deal with my problems on top of her touring schedule, airport drama, hotel conflama…”

“So why were you hitting on me then? Why are you still together?” Trixie made an effort to keep her voice steady. Her heart was already smarting for being in the position of ‘second choice’.

“I don’t know. I guess cause you’re you,” Katya said. There was a screwed up expression on her face as she battled her frustrations. “You get my psycho humor. I fall over from your wit. I like who I am around you. And… I’m still with Vi because I’m a fucking coward.

“Do you see the irony, Trix? I hate myself and believe that she doesn’t deserve me, yet I’m still with her because of the stupid fucking hope that she doesn’t see me the same way I see myself.” She drew a breath before continuing, “Would you honestly have given me a chance if I wasn’t with her?” She made a move to grasp Trixie’s hand in sincerity but the younger girl pulled away, frowning. It wasn’t fair that the ball was in her court now.

“Katya, I don’t think you should break it off with Violet just for me if you still want to stay with her,” Trixie slowly said, acknowledging the disappointed expression on Katya’s face. “Plus, I’m only getting to know you a little better now, so I can’t say yet.”

“You’re right.” Katya nodded in understanding, leaning back and sucking on her cigarette. “I’ve been a fucking idiot about this whole thing.”

“Absolutely, yeah.” Trixie’s familiar dry tone was back and it brought a smile to Katya’s face. “Inviting me to a beautiful tropical paradise to seduce the panties off me.” She shrugged. “I’ve had worst dates.”

“I have some work to be done today, but I’ll make it up to you tonight. And I can take you sightseeing tomorrow,” said Katya, sipping her coffee. “So, friends?” She tilted her chin up as she held out her cup. Trixie picked up her half full glass and clinked it.

“Friends.” It was a clean slate to start off from and that she can manage.

—————————

The rest of Trixie’s day was spent outside with camera work where she took more aerial shots of the beach with her drone and the gorgeous people surfing the ocean. She got into work mode as she checked if her “light” and “natural” makeup was still in place to give an on-camera narrative of the authentic and cultured peaceful ambiance of Elyu. She also made sure to get some playful shots for her Instagram Stories.

On her itinerary was to visit and feature Phi Phi’s speakeasy bar on her vlog. While the sun was setting, she made sure to get shots of the tasteful artwork hanging on the walls and interviewed Phi Phi about her collections.

“I love collecting artworks that were made by visitors here at Elyu. Take a look at this. It’s my newest piece. Sasha made it,” said Phi Phi, pointing out a contemporary graphic design of a crown, red lips, and a unibrow. To its right, an abstract piece composed of turquoise, bronze, and gold brush strokes hung near the door. “That one was made by Katya. She said she was inspired by the view of the sea from her office and how it helped relieve some of her anxiety.”

Trixie aimed her camera at the paintings. Through the lens, she stared hard as though hoping to learn something new about the way Katya’s mind worked. She thought she discerned a hopeful beauty and some sort of sadness from the colors and the strokes.

Next she visited Ongina’s place, a small eatery that served a variety of Filipino dishes. Taking the vegetarian option, Trixie dined on sweet and savory marinated fried tofu with green beans. She washed it down with a soda while taking down notes about the place.

“So, have you and Katya talked yet?” Ongina said, leaning her forearms on the counter.

Trixie quirked an eyebrow. “Why is everybody bringing up Katya today?” she said. Ongina shrugged.

“You girls seem close. It would be a shame if your friendship got permanently ruined after last night,” she said while wiping down the bar counter and taking away Trixie’s clean plate. “And it’s nice seeing her in a different mood that wasn’t lovable bitch.”

“So what the hell is she now?” said Trixie after another bubbly sip.

“Still a lovable bitch, but we don’t want to punch her this time,” Ongina said breezily. The pink haired vlogger squawked gracelessly.

Lastly, Trixie took up Jiggly’s offer of a tour of her brightly colored hostel. It was simple in its accommodations yet a favorite for bigger groups that came to visit for its rustic bunk beds and kitschy wall decors. As Jiggly gestured her arms dramatically towards the building, she declared, “Do you know who stayed here for months the first time she was here?”

Trixie snorted. “If the answer is Katya, I’m leaving,” she said dryly. Jiggly was taken aback and dropped her arms. Trixie was about to regret her sass when the hostel owner burst into booming laughter.

“H-how did you know?” she squealed. Trixie grinned apologetically.

“I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to be rude… It’s just that everyone has mentioned her name to me so many times today, I’m starting to get a little suspicious,” she said sheepishly. Jiggly got around to coughing herself into composure and smiled a little guiltily.

“Have we been that obvious?” she asked a little meekly, patting her long straight hair into place.

Trixie nodded. She turned away to look at the hostel with the intention to hide her smirk from Jiggly. She didn’t want to give her and the other girls the satisfaction of knowing that their big plan to keep Katya fresh in Trixie’s mind all day kind of fucking worked.

—————————

The sun had long given away its stunning strokes of orange and yellows clouds, setting a blanket of dusky purple and blue over the beach. Katya had invited Trixie out to a post-dinner walk along the dimly lit beach. It was peaceful, Trixie had thought. Her bare toes enjoyed the feel of the fine sand, something she was not able to tolerate under the heat. There was something to be said about connecting with nature by listening to the waves move in its natural that could melt away the city stress. She glanced sideways at Katya’s profile, admiring the shape of her nose and how her skin looked luminous among the smoke of her cigarette escaping from red lips. It was quite the vision Trixie wanted to capture for her own self and never release such beauty to the world. She contemplated how some people compare themselves to the sun, fiery and outgoing, and how their veiled eyes see the other as the quiet beauty of the moon.

The sea and the sky kissed and blew out a cold breeze that smelled of the salty ocean. Trixie shivered.

“Aren’t you cold?” she asked.

“No ma’am. I always stay warm from the fire in my pussy,” Katya replied, grinning proudly around her stick. This earned a Trixie-screech that scandalously broke the tranquil air. There was a beat of silence after she had composed herself that Katya eventually ended.

“Trixie,” she began. “You know why I stayed here?”

“Why?”

“Three years ago, I spent almost all of my savings to check myself into rehab. I had a psychotic mental breakdown that my own parents had to call the police on me because I was running buttfuck naked out of the house.” There was a solemnity in the way Katya spoke about this that Trixie had to stare, wondering if the woman was dead serious or not again.

Katya then opened up about her struggle with drug addiction to a length that she had to light up another cigarette. Trixie held on to every word, determined to better understand her history. Rehab was successful, although the relapses never went away, they were easier to manage.

“So when I got here, it was so different from the city and the suburbs and for the first time in fucking history… My mind went quiet.” She gestured a flatline across her forehead before turning to Trixie. “Have you ever been to a place, in all of your travels, where it felt like all the noise just goes away?”

Trixie smiled with nostalgia. Blue and white villages came to her mind as she remembered the smell of warm flaky pies in the afternoon. “Yeah… It was my third trip, I think. Greece. Like I took off my earphones because I didn’t need the music to stop the noise in my head.”

“I never intended to hang around for long,” Katya continued as she nodded, inhaling her stick. “But I met Karl and Sasha, and we struck a deal together. Made it work. I invested in a share of the resort and it felt like I had purpose again. Also, the locals here? Oh mama, they know how to live life properly.” Trixie nodded silently. She could tell Katya was off to a long ramble by the way her hands began to gesture wildly to punctuate and to emphasize. She found herself not wanting to cease the stream of its course.

“But what I absolutely loved was the people that came to this place. I love the stories they told, I love talking to people, did you know that? Oh my god, the things they’ve seen, all their dreams and fears and shit…

“And then they leave. It’s like reading an anthology. I provided strangers an ear or advice. Sometimes I couldn’t help them and that’s a-okay. It’s like… I get to be the fixed point in their journey where I get to answer some lifelong questions. There were so many lives I learned about—remind me to tell you about Craig, he’s the bestest when it comes to movies—and it’s fucking redonkulous how everything we want in life is rooted to just wanting to be loved. Like in all our searching, the meaning of life comes from each other.”

Trixie folded her arms in contemplation. If travel taught her anything, the most memorable places weren’t about the sights or the food, it was about how open the locals were to connecting with foreigners.

Katya sighed. “And yet, I’m just here.” She waved a vague hand over the beach. “I’ve been here for a long while now and sometimes I feel lost myself. Or cut off from the rest of the world.” She grabbed Trixie’s hand and looked at her straight in the eye. “I’m sorry again for not telling you why I wanted you here. The loneliness was becoming unbearable and everything was empty and my head was becoming chaotic… I think that’s why I contacted you.”

“Maybe you need a new home?” suggested Trixie.

“I think I’ll find home on my own terms,” Katya replied softly.

Trixie frowned in confusion over Katya’s choice of words. What did she mean to ‘find home in her own terms’? In all of her travels, all the places she has visited and documented, has she ever found what home really means? Yet there was something familiar with Katya, in her words, in the scene she described here on the beach, looking out to the horizon—

“BITCH!” Trixie shrieked all of a sudden, stopping her tracks and startling Katya. “WAS THAT CONVERSATION ABOUT THE ‘CONTACT’ BEACH SCENE?!”

She received confirmation when Katya doubled over and began rolling over the sand in soundless laughter, nodding in glee. Trixie stomped away before she could wrap her fingers around her friend’s throat. She yelled that she was going back to her room, leaving Katya to pick herself up when she was done. She wanted to believe that Katya was bullshitting about everything, doubt her sincerity, but deep inside she understood. The search for love is life’s greatest trial that many leave messages to the universe, hoping to hear that they aren’t meant to be alone forever.

Trixie turned to look back the same moment Katya did. It could have been a passing nanosecond fancy, but Trixie swore to the stars above that she felt the phrase “I’m falling for Katya” shake her core. It was a strange feeling, she imagined, to experience a possible concept transition into powerful words. And it made the whole situation scarier now as it was one step closer to solidifying into reality.

She waited for the sense of hopeless despair she usually felt when she catches feelings for someone, but it never came. Instead she felt a glow filling her chest, a thrill that zipped through her nerves and made her gasp softly in surprise at how quick these sensations engulfed her. How does one stand by the ocean and feel like drowning? How does falling for someone feel like flying?

Their eye contact was broken by Katya sheepishly looking away, as though she had realized she had been staring too much. She lit up another cigarette.

“Your an idiot,” Trixie finally said into the silence.

“Yes and?” said Katya, smiling a little.

“And I said ‘you’re’ without the apostrophe r e.”

Katya gasped, eyes sparkling once again in mirth. “You take that back, you uncultured, illiterate, wretched heathen!”

Trixie began to walk back to the direction of the resort, calling over her shoulder with a playful laugh, “You deserve it!”

“I can’t even look at you right now,” Katya hollered, following her footsteps. “How dare yo—this changes everything I feel about you.” Trixie stopped in her tracks and so did her heart. She arched an eyebrow until Katya caught up with her.

“And how exactly do you feel about me?”

Katya blew out a cloud of smoke, appraising her friend for a beat while smirking. Trixie momentarily glanced at her rose red lips that doesn’t blossom open as much as it caterwauled inelegantly throughout the open space that probably needs to be ticketed for disturbing the peace. She could feel the anticipation stretching out, wondering what Katya was going to admit to her under the moon and stars… until the bitch simply winked and sashayed away.

The next morning, Trixie woke up early to catch Vivienne’s surfing lessons. It was a struggle to get out of bed that Trixie had to remind herself that her surfing lesson was also for the vlog. She grabbed her camera that was on her bed side, turned it on, and grumbled into it.

“Hey guys, it’s five in the morning and I have a surfing lesson today.” She rubbed her bleary eyes. “If you like watching me fail at stuff, keep watching because this might be my last video before I drown myself. Or get snacked on by a shark, whichever comes first.”

She turned off the camera and got up. She stretches hard before slowly encasing herself in a long sleeved blue and pink wetsuit that cut off inches above the knee over her swimwear. She met Vivienne right outside the resort, who energetically waved at her in contrast to Trixie’s sleep fuzzy brain. Her wild wavy black hair was tied up in a high bun and Trixie’s brain seemed to jolt awake up at the view of her abs above a pair of black shorts that covered half of her thick thighs. Good morning indeed.

Three hours later of learning the basics and trying to balance on the surfboard, the sun rays were soft and beautiful over the sparkling water and Vivienne’s morena skin. The teacher and student now sat on a low stone barrier facing the shore as Trixie was catching her breath from the session.

She unstrapped the camera from her surfboard. “I had just finished my first surfing lesson here with Vivienne, who is the most patient and wonderful woman to ever teach my ungraceful, clumsy ass,” Trixie said into it. Vivienne waved and smiled as Trixie affectionately laid her stringy wet head on her shoulder.

“She was a natural,” Vivienne said.

“Am I?”

“At wiping out.”

“Bitch,” Trixie laughed. She then gave a narrative of her first time on the board, how she was worried about slipping and hitting her head underwater, and how much fun she had learning despite catching not a single wave. She jumped off the stone barrier to focus her camera for a gratuitous shot of Vivienne’s enviable curves and abs, which she thought deserved a whole post of its own. Vivienne modestly giggled at the attention. Trixie was about to launch into a litany of worship of Vivienne’s hard work when a pair of wide gray eyes suddenly filled the frame. Trixie jumped back with a surprised yelp. “Katya!”

“Morning! I was watching you whores all morning,” she cackled. She was wearing her sunglasses on her head, black shorts, and a red floral silk shirt that had the sleeves folded up to the bicep and the front casually unbuttoned only halfway through, exposing bare cleavage. To cap off Trixie’s raging lesbian fantasies, Katya had her shirt in a French tuck and a motorcycle helmet dangling off her hand. Trixie gaped. The sight was all together stunning and was all too much for one morning.

Vivienne eventually broke the staring contest with laughter and hopped down the barrier to cheek kiss Katya. She gave Katya’s outfit a one over, checked Trixie’s reaction, and winked at the blonde before enveloping Trixie in a proud hug. “I’ll see you girls later! You did a good job today, Trixie.”

“T-thanks Vivienne!” Trixie said, returning the hug and waved as she walked away, picking up Trixie’s rented surfboard along the way. That view was looking good too.

“So,” Katya coughed. “How was it?”

“Hmm? Oh! It was great! I mean I wasn’t that great, but I had fun,” Trixie said in a giddy rush, glancing back at Katya.

There was something sexy about feeling the rush of adrenaline in the early morning and being under the control of someone very attractive in something as temperamental as the ocean. Looking into Katya’s eyes, aglow with the morning rays of light, filled her heart with something that felt like promise and care. Emboldened by her own high spirits, Trixie held eye contact while she unzipped her wetsuit to reveal underneath a green and white polka dotted bikini with a high waist bottom that accentuated her hips. With her pink hair, it was a whole watermelon fantasy and Katya’s raised eyebrows and unbridled smile was the cherry on top. As Trixie walked back to the resort, she called over her shoulder and extended her hand, “Are you coming for breakfast?”

Between two potential lovers, it’s most often that the palms kiss first before the lips do. It was as if Trixie had held out a magnet, and Katya’s own body responded like it were cold hard steel. Her feet quickly shuffled forward as her arm immediately extended to accept the invitation of Trixie’s hand. Both girls discreetly blushed at the new words their bodies just learned and intertwined their fingers together. And neither had let up until they got to their breakfast table.

————

Trixie sighed before sipping her late night cup of coffee at Velour’s. The sun had set, the beach’s nightlife was awake, and here she was waiting for Sasha to finish helping her staff with a large order so she could talk. Tonight, Sasha was wearing glitter red lipstick, an artful eyeshadow, and fake freckles across her nose. The whole look seemed to brighten up the ambiance of the cafe.

“What’s the occasion?” Trixie asked, nodding at the patterned outfit appreciatively as Sasha gracefully took a seat across hers.

“Art gallery viewing at Phi Phi’s. The gallery is called ‘Press and Play: Movement in Flow’. Would you like to come? I’m also hoping to meet potential business partners to expand the cafe,” Sasha replied. Even the way she crossed her legs were elegant. Trixie shook her head in regret.

“I can’t. I have to work on the vlog before I leave tomorrow, see if there’s a scene I might have forgotten to shoot,” she said.

“That’s right, it’s your last night here,” Sasha said in somber tones. “So what did you do today? Vivi told me you went surfing this morning.”

Trixie lit up as she recounted the rest of her day; Katya had taken her on a historical sightseeing tour via her motorcycle. As she spoke of the old churches and an old watch tower leftover from the Spanish occupation era, memories of tightly clinging to Katya’s midsection as the latter’s motorcycle zoomed down almost empty roads surfaced to her mind’s forefront. While she was describing the grape field Katya took her to, she thought of the way the light dappled on the older woman’s face underneath the grape vine leaves and forced her to stop moving so she could take a photo. When she told Sasha about the delicious dinner they had of burgers (hers a vegetarian option) and iced tea on the second floor of a beach front restaurant, all she could think about was how the sound of the waves crashing became the soundtrack of Katya’s wildest life stories, ranging from serious topics about her battle with drug abuse to the nasty and hilarious one of how she had once shat on her friend Courtney’s bed.

She remembered how she had wanted to hold Katya’s hand again while they were walking but chickened out, so she compensated by leaning her head on her shoulder while they rested. Or she swears that Katya had been staring because when she looked back, Katya quickly turned her head to the other direction. She recalled shivering whenever Katya leaned in closely to whisper something in her ear.

This woman had no shame in her being. Her unfiltered words, her animated expressions with her freedom to be. It enamored Trixie. Like the ocean they were facing, she felt unlimited. In that moment, she believed that a lot of things didn’t matter anymore just as long Katya kept her eyes bright with her enthusiasm of discussing whatever topic came to her head.

“Trixie?” Sasha punctured her thoughts. “Trixie, are you okay?”

“I think I like her,” Trixie said simply after a long pause. Sasha raised her eyebrows and her mouth fell open in delight.

“Do you really?” she gushed.

“I do.” Trixie smiled bashfully, glancing at Sasha’s little head tilt of interest.

“Have you told Katya that?” she said, chuckling.

Trixie nodded. “I did. She was talking about… God, I can’t remember now… But it was about something and she was stuttering like an idiot, trying to get her words right and… I just laughed. And when she asked what was I laughing at, I was like ‘Nothing, I just really like you.’”

Sasha gave a little gleeful gasp and a grin that stretched all the way across her face. “And then what did she say??”

Trixie shrugged, grinning. “She looked shocked, then happy. Like really happy.”

“Sooo what happens now?” Sasha prompted. She delicately laid her chin on the back of her hand and patiently waited for an answer. Trixie huffed, glancing at the shore as though hoping the answer to that would walk by.

“I don’t know…” she sighed. “Whatever I say to her, it’s not going to change the fact that I’m leaving tomorrow. Plus, she’s still with Violet so it’s not like my feelings are going to matter, doesn’t it?”

“Oh I think it will. Where is Katya anyway?”

“Her office. Said she had some business to get done first,” said Trixie. She finished the last sip of her coffee and was about to take out her wallet to pay when Sasha waved it off.

“On the house,” she said, smirking at Trixie’s surprise. “It’s your last night here and you’ve made my friend very happy these past few days. Just promise me one thing.”

“What is it?”

“Tell Katya your truth.”

Trixie sighed. “But I’m not sure what is the truth…” she said. Sasha waved a finger.

“No. Not the truth,” she repeated. “Your truth.”

———

It was nearing midnight. The rest of her evening had been spent answering emails and sorting through her pictures and videos from the time she left the airport to the latest ones she took earlier today. She organized them by day and sub-labeled them by activity, knowing full well that if she did this after she got home, she’d be too exhausted to even start it. For the first time in her travel history, she made a new folder for one person.

Trixie rubbed her eyes from underneath her glasses. She knew she had snapped Katya in more artful shots, but she hadn’t realize just how much she took all in all. There was one from her first night with Katya’s other friends drinking, and she used the light nearby to give Katya an almost noir look with the wispy cigarette between her fingers. Scrolling down, she perused a goofy one of Katya; jaw wide open in mid-shriek and her eyes squinted close. She forgot the joke that was said but she can almost hear the breathless wheezing laughter coming from the picture.

The last one took her breath away, the one from the grape field. The shadows of the leaves played around her face and to her chest as her lips were closed around a grape. Trixie shook her head, trying to fight off her bubbling feelings for the woman she was going to leave tomorrow.

It was truly better off they stay friends, Trixie was thinking. The spaces in her mind cautiously played out a daydream, one where she imagined being Katya’s girlfriend, holding hands with her and traveling the world together. It was a pleasant feeling, knowing that someone will always be there to fly alongside with her. But the moment she imagined kissing Katya, she could feel herself flush and quickly shut the daydream down. It was way too good. Reality was going to be a bitch to face had she let it play out.

Trixie heard knocking on her door. Her gut already told her who was on the other side as she swung the door open. She was right.

“Hi. Can I come in?” Katya asked softly, hands tucked inside the pockets of her shorts. Trixie blinked. The first thing that drew her eyes in was the way Katya’s red lipstick framed her slightly open mouth. Next she noticed how her dark, smoky eyes lined a beseeching expression that was cautiously asking to be let in. She was still wearing her mouth-watering casual clothes from earlier and her dirty blonde hair seemed as though a hand had ran through it several times. Trixie minutely chased the thoughts away and opened the door wider to let her in.

The room was a little tossed up with most of her electronic and camera gear on the desk and half folded clothes and shoes on the bed. A hot pink empty suitcase sat nearby the window. Trixie apologized for the mess and quickly straightened up her things, explaining that she had been meaning to pack but needed to work while she was still inspired. Katya silently nodded as she sank down to sit on the edge of the bed, eyes darting around the corners of the room. Once she was done fixing, Trixie leaned against the table with her arms lightly folded over the pink with white “TRAVEL BARBIE” lettering cropped hoodie she was wearing. Both women said nothing. There was a new charged energy in the room, an anticipation as thick as molasses. It was possible that something could happen in the next five minutes, and Trixie couldn’t find the right words to break the tension.

“Trixie—”

“Katya—”

The both giggled. “You first,” Trixie said, smiling.

“Right, here I go.” Katya returned the smile quickly before huffing out a breath. “I just… want to thank you for accepting my invitation in the beginning. Sorry I was weird and I hope you still had a comfortable stay at my resort. If there’s anything else I can help you with, I’d be glad to do it for you.” Trixie nodded, her expression serious.

“I had a really great time here, despite being seduced by a Sugar Mommy. I’ll send you my therapy bills, you fucking cougar,” she quipped dryly, causing Katya to squint in breathless laughter and to flail her legs over the bed. “You are like, what? 57?”

“That fucking pink hair—I knew you didn’t strike me as the type who, you know, actually works hard for her money,” Katya wheezed through her laughter. Trixie’s mouth dropped in fake outrage.

“Oh bitch excuse me, I built my vlog with hard work. But if I wanted a Sugar Mommy to pay for everything, I could’ve gotten one.”

“Because you are what? Poor.” A teasing grin splayed across Katya’s face. Trixie felt the shade dive deep all the way to her childhood in rural Milwaukee and shrieked in laughter. Katya then rolled around the bed to her favorite sound and bizarrely ended up in a pose with one leg stretched in to the air. They felt more at ease now with humor introduced into the serious conversation.

Then Katya decided to stab the atmosphere with her own knife. “Oh and by the way I also broke up with Violet.”

“You what?!” Trixie gasped, her laugh halting to a screeching stop. Of all the dumb decisions—

“It’s okay, it’s okay!” Katya said quickly, sitting back up on the bed. “I Skyped her awhile ago and we talked for hours. I told her the truth and… well, she wasn’t happy with it.” Trixie meant to interrupt but Katya held out both her hands. “But-but she also couldn’t promise me when she’s coming back home here. Or I’m not sure if she wants to call this place a home… Do you know how hard it is to buy rhinestones in this country?” She snorted humorlessly. Trixie shook her head, but deep inside she understood what Katya was implying. Based on their conversation the night before, she realized she was looking for a place to call home too. And she wasn’t talking about four walls and a roof.

“But Katya… I’m leaving too,” Trixie said almost angrily. Why did Katya have to love those who has to leave her? It wasn’t fair. She folded her arms again. “I don’t know if I can come back here. Or if you can even leave your resort.” Or, Trixie didn’t want to verbalize, if she could manage her travel vlog career from a different country just to be with Katya. It was her greatest passion and she would not give it up that easily. Traveling made her whole and she wanted to be a complete being for whoever she will give her heart to.

“I know, I know,” Katya said, grinning mischievously that, Trixie had learned, preceded a heartfelt comment. It was her defense mechanism in play when she was about to reveal a deeply vulnerable truth. “But it doesn’t matter. Wherever you’re going next, so does my home.”

The weight of the words sank in between the silence and flowered out to fill the room. Trixie’s mouth fell open and she couldn’t stop the blush creeping up her neck. Katya had just handed Trixie a part of her to carry around in all her future travels as she acknowledged that the resort was no longer considered her home. Katya lowered her head, if it was possible, in dignified embarrassment.

“Okay,” Trixie began, breaking the silence. Time to let the feelings out. “Again, I really had a nice time here. And I don’t mind having your batshit ass around.” She lowered her eyes. “I like talking with you and I think you’re one of the strongest persons I know because you’ve had shitty stuff happen to you before but you never became an asshole because of it. You’re like, really fucking smart and hard working and really good to people… and… uh…” She swallowed. There was no going back now after this. “You’d definitely have a chance. With me. If you’d still like.”

Katya’s gaze softened as she looked up to her favorite person. “All I need is one chance. Just one,” she said, standing up from the bed to meet Trixie’s eyes in all seriousness. Trixie inhaled sharply and too stepped forward, charmingly towering over Katya’s sinewy frame. The air thickened and all it takes is one move to push things to no return. Who will make the move?

“Trixie Mattel, I’m not going to let you leave this resort until I kiss you.”

Trixie’s brain short-circuited as her eyes glazed over. It was whispered so softly had she not been a breath away from Katya, she would not have caught it. “Where?” she teased lightly, buying herself some time to breathe from the situation. A shark like expression erupted from Katya’s face.

“You brat.” She smirked, eyes sparkling. She continued, “On your cheek. Or your fingertips. It doesn’t fucking matter. Wherever you want. That would be enough.” Trixie pulled back ever so slightly to stare at the small genuine smile on her face. There was a rare sincerity to Katya’s voice that wasn’t suffixed by a guffaw and melted her heart.

Trixie hesitantly turned her head to the side to hold her cheek out, allowing. As Katya slowly moved closer, Trixie caught a whiff of the ocean, smoke, and perfume. The twist of scents rapidly triggered her brain to overload with picturesque memories. In the full space of a second, her universe was filled with the smell of the seaside from her balcony at night time, moments of staring from the back of the motorcycle at Katya’s glistening neck that probably tasted like saltwater, and the sensual wisp of cigarette smoke emitting from between her fingers over a hearty laugh. If this is what caused Trixie to change her mind, she had no regrets about turning her head to meet her lips with Katya’s at the last millisecond.

All of Trixie’s thoughts quieted, died down, but such as nuclear explosions do, her brain went from white blank to exploding into colorful chaos. It didn’t feel like the simple action of two lips meeting, but a pull towards the being that is Katya. She decided that lips weren’t enough physical contact so she wrapped her arms around Katya’s neck, bringing her home. The older woman, who had frozen in surprise, immediately pushed Trixie against the edge of table, closing the space between their hips. Trixie could feel the heat spread throughout her entire body from the pleasurable delight of being trapped against a solid object with only a pair of well-manicured hands on her waist holding her down.

Her leg slowly moved up to Katya’s calves and rested over her ass, pulling in to lessen the distance, if there was any left possible, and to anchor herself against the storm. Katya groaned, losing her fucking mind over the eroticism of her right pelvis pressed against the apex of Trixie’s thighs. She deliciously squeezed said fleshy thigh, feeling the soft, smooth skin and roundness that was uniquely woman. Trixie gasped at the sensation. Her hands began to roam as she lowered her raised leg to meet Katya’s fingers, which slid down from her thighs to clutch the back of her knee. Trixie inhaled sharply and her breathing grew shallower when Katya thrust her tongue inside her mouth and, at the same time, cleverly moved her middle finger up and down, and circling rhythmically, over the crease of Trixie’s bent knee, a female version of stroking a guy’s finger with a promise of the real thing coming soon. With little left to the imagination of where this was headed, she pulled away from Katya with a loud moan.

Both women stared at each other, breathing heavily, wide eyes searching for any sign, any hint, that they’re going to be okay. That this terrifying and exhilarating feeling was okay. With the help of the bright harsh light of her room, Trixie’s eyes hungrily took in Katya’s swollen wet red-smudged lips, dark blown out pupils, mussed up blouse exposing one shoulder and a nipple, and dirty blonde hair that she had definitely grabbed with her own hands. And Trixie thought she was the ravished one.

Katya let go of Trixie’s knee, lifting her fingertips up to the younger girl’s cheek, wordlessly asking if they could go further. She felt a shock throughout her entire body when Trixie gently pushed her away and walked to the door. Katya felt her heart drop all the way to the bottom of her stomach, believing that she had made an absolutely huge mistake and that Trixie was going kick her out of the room and tell her that she didn’t want this, that she was too old for her, and deserves way better than a former drug addict. She could feel her throat choking up, was about to wrap her arms around her stomach, until Trixie simply switched off the lights and bathed them both in moonlight from the window.

———

The sun was high and bright at mid-afternoon. The rented car sped past small bungalow houses, rice fields, traffic laden highways, to a bustling city, and soon, they would be at the Clark International Airport. Trixie was curled against Katya’s body almost the entire ride. It wasn’t much of a difference in position of how they woke up that morning, especially with Katya stroking Trixie’s cotton candy hair as dawn’s light seeped through the window. Verbal promises were whispered all night as the non-verbal ones were kissed onto naked skin. It was as though Katya wanted to soon fill Trixie’s heart with something before the painful absence sets in between them hours from now.

“I wish I could stay,” Trixie said quietly. The car was in the same city now as the airport and she could feel the hourglass sand running low with her remaining time.

“I wish you would,” said Katya, continuing to stroke Trixie’s hair before giving it a kiss. “But you have a life of your own.”

Trixie sat up, suddenly filled with guilt. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t want to be one of those who leaves you again—”

“Don’t be.”

“I want to keep you.”

Katya struggled for an answer to that one. Coming up with nothing, she could only gather the younger girl back into her arms so she would not see the stray tear she was wiping away.

With her head against Katya’s chest, Trixie traced the tattoos on her forearm from where her sleeve has rode up. “What does this one mean to you?” she quietly said to the left one. “Is it a Tarot card?”

Katya nodded. “The Fool,” she answered. “New beginnings, naivety, leap of faith.”

“And this is Death?” Trixie glanced at the other arm.

“Yep. It means change, mortality, letting go…” Katya glanced down to meet her eyes. “It, uh, depends on which side you see them. Things can change their meanings if you look at it in another way, you know?”

There was a moment of silence as the two women stared at each other. The car was pulling into the airport’s security checkpoint and they both felt time starting to slip away quickly. “You know what’s one thing I lo–like about you?” Trixie said, staring straight into her gray eyes, trying not to give away that she almost slipped. “You absolutely have no filter. You are so free to be yourself. Don’t ever change that.”

Katya’s mischievous smile returned. “So why does it feel like I’m the one trapped here?” she said.

“Come with me,” Trixie blurted out. She regretted it immediately, thinking how much she sounded like a child. “I mean…” Her words were hushed with a kiss.

“Let’s just see which back alley life takes us before it fucks us up, okay?” Katya whispered to her lips then grinning. They finally pulled up to Departure. Katya helped her with her suitcases and other bags before she was unable to take it and pulled her into a tight embrace.

“I can’t wait for the video,” Katya said into her ear. “You’ve always been so talented with storytelling and a camera. Remember that’s also why I brought you here.” Trixie nodded into her shoulder, fighting back her own tears.

“I hope my vlog would help bring more stories your way,” she said, releasing her hug. There was an intensity in Katya’s staring, one that fiercely declared “I love you, Trixie”, only held back by her tongue thinking that after one night of sex was too early to say out loud. Yet Trixie picked up on the expression, but couldn’t say it back either. She poured what words she cannot say yet into a tearful, lingering kiss. As they parted, Trixie picked up her bags before walking to the doorway of the airport.

Katya watched Trixie until she was no longer in sight. With a heavy heart, she got back into the car and was silent throughout the entire ride back to La Union.

———

THREE MONTHS LATER

Trixie was about to hang up after the ninth ring when her online call was finally picked up.

“Hello?”

“Sasha?” Trixie said softly.

“Darling, how are you doing?” Sasha’s low voice cooed from the other side of the world.

“I’m… I’m doing great,” the younger girl said, trying not to sound too fragile. “Just wanted to know how you’re doing.”

There was a pause before Sasha replied. “I’m doing wonderful. The cafe is doing great and I may be opening a second one somewhere in Metro Manila soon. It’s going to be at Bonifacio Global City, which is a huge deal!”

“That’s good to hear,” Trixie said, smiling. She exhaled heavily. “Sasha—”

“Are you okay, Trixie?”

“I just talked to Katya and…”

“Oh dear, is anything wrong?”

“No, none at all. I just… I just really miss her and it hurts,” Trixie sniffed, clutching the side of her bed where she was sitting on. “It hurts so much, Sasha. I just got back from my trip to Australia and… I thought traveling again would make it easier. But I don’t feel complete anymore.”

“I’m sorry you feel that way,” Sasha said sadly. “I remember how happy you looked when you told me you liked her. Trust me, darling. It hurts for Katya too. It may even hurt for her even more.”

“Why?”

Trixie could imagine Sasha pursing their glittery lips before answering in a tone that felt like she was sitting in a Philosophy lecture.

“Because the absence of a lover is felt more strongly by the one who is left behind. Such as in ancient times, it’s man who goes off to hunt or to sail, and the woman waits for him to come back.”

Trixie fell silent. It finally clicked now when Katya had told her at the airport how she felt trapped or when she talked about ships docking at her port, only to leave later at some point. Guilt permeated her heart as she thought of Katya going through her day on the beach, hoping that one day, or someday, the girl she loves will return. While Skype sessions were frequent, it was the bodily absence of each other that was putting them through a longing that had no end. The agony was real.

“I want to keep her around,” she said, sniffing back her tears. “But my friend Bob said that the long distance is going to be hard when we live in different timezones. What do we do?”

“You know, dear, you have the option to not pursue the relationship if it’s too taxing on both of you,” Sasha said. But before Trixie could interrupt, they plowed on. “BUT that doesn’t mean you have to give up. I think you know what I mean when I say that the older you grow, the easier it is to lose contact with friends along the way, yes? So if there’s someone worth keeping in your life, it’s going to take a lot more effort to hold on to them. It’s hard, but we do it anyway because they’re worth it.”

Trixie burst into sobs. Her heart and mind both agreed strongly that Katya was worth everything, and the intensity of those feelings spilling out were overwhelming. There was a sense of relief that she still could feel her humanity capable of loving someone so much it caused her pain. She tried to compose her voice, only cracking a little. “D-doesn’t it sound stupid that… Traveling makes me feel right at home, that moving around feels like home? But this last trip didn’t feel like it…”

Sasha paused to think. “It seems the journey is more important to you than the destination… Correct me if I may be wrong, but have you ever thought that you were escaping from something?” they said. Trixie’s mouth fell open in realization. Indeed, why has she been traveling in the first place?

She began to narrate her history to Sasha through her sniffles, who patiently listened. When she was eighteen, Trixie left her family home to find a new life away from her abusive step-father. When she thought she had gotten away, she continued to run from the voices in her head that yelled that she wasn’t good or smart enough to make it in a big city. And when she had finally found monetary success in her YouTube travel vlogs and other side hustles, she had immediately worked herself to exhaustion to run away from idleness, terrified that the moment she rested, her income will fall and will be back at poverty. It was why Kim and Bob called her a workaholic, something she had honestly believed was a good virtue for a while. Until Katya, damn that girl, spoke of finding something, or someone, real to stand still for. She wanted to stop running. She had to do something.

“Trixie?”

“Hey Sasha, that business contact you have in Manila… What’s his name again?”

———————

FIVE MONTHS LATER

THE REAL TEA BEHIND MY LA UNION VLOG—AND A SURPRISE ANNOUNCEMENT 842,711 views

“Hi guys,” Trixie softly beamed to her viewers. It felt strange for her to start a vlog without the hyped up, perky energy she usually puts on. She shyly tucked her hair behind her ear before saying, “I’ve, uh, been wondering for months if or how I should be telling you guys this story… But I think now is the perfect time.”

Her beam turned into a grin as she couldn’t help reminisce the good times she had on that sliver of paradise. A glow lit up her face.

“Several months ago, I was invited to La Union by a friend I met at VidCon. Turns out I had been casted by some almighty force above to star in a Greg Berlanti rom-com starring me and Charlize Theron from Atomic Bland…”

She snorted. Her cheeks slightly pinked before stating the words with a glowing smile. “What I mean to say is… I met someone.”

With a fluttering trail of photos and funny videos included into her vlog, Trixie told the story of how she met Katya, her friends, their brief conflict, and how they bonded even further after she left Elyu. Then she gave a quick rundown about the past few months where both ladies worked tirelessly on closing a business deal that gave Katya a brand new opportunity.

“So without further ado, may I bring to the stage… The incomparable, the legendary, the festering pile of garbage I could not scrape off my shoe, my new travel vlog partner Yekaterina Petrovna Zamolodchikova. Or as your dad calls her, Katya!”

Messy dirty blonde hair and straight perfect teeth, the glory that was Katya slid into the seat next to Trixie. While her body language stayed polite and composed, she had a wild manic grin that promised to bring crazy shenanigans to Trixie’s next world adventure. A pair of tiny plastic hands topped both of her pointer fingers.

“Katya will be joining me on my future travels until she dies of arthritis,” Trixie explained.

“I’d die of diabetes actually,” Katya injected as-a-matter-of-factly.

“Why?”

Katya quickly turned to lick Trixie’s face, causing both of them to flail, scream, and crash off-screen. A quick jump cut edit had them both back into the frame.

Trixie took up the lead. “We’re also thinking about doing a short vlog series of us talking about whatever we want when we’re not on the road. Feel free to comment below what we should talk about first—”

“And we’ll see if we can try to stay on topic,” said Katya, grinning deviously. “Oh! I bet you’re all wondering what happened to the resort,” Katya said to the camera. “I sold it to my friend Karl and his partners at FP Ruview Enterprise, god bless those hoes. Then I took the cash, buried it into a hole, and then I fucked it.”

“And then it grew into a money tree. Fuck you dad, money does grow on trees,” Trixie chimed in. Turning to her girlfriend, she said, “Would you make a good financial adviser?”

“I would!”

“Great cause I can’t wait to be stranded in the middle of Germany with you with no money.”

It was the first time Katya wheezed and flailed on Trixie’s vlog while batting at her with the toy hands. Later on, Trixie read with gratification that her viewers ate their banter up and wanted more.

“Ooh ooh! We can look for a strip club in Germany and wiggle there for extra cash,” Katya exclaimed. She got up from her seat and began running her hands up and down her torso and hips in the least sexiest way possible. Trixie watched with open amusement, wondering with utter delight what she had gotten herself and her vlog into. For a few seconds, she played out a daydream; twisting around to the plane seat next to hers and seeing Katya’s wild and excited grin, looking forward to their trip together. It felt like she was back at Elyu’s beach again falling in love with her for the first time. This is what it felt like to be whole again.

“So, we’ll see you guys until our next video. Until then, I’m the adhesive allergy drag queens get on their balls for wearing too much duct tape, Trixie Mattel!”

“And I’m the dumpster bookshelf you’re dragging to your apartment at midnight when this stranger helps out and you pay him in wigs and a quick fuck, Katya!”

———

“Where are we going to next, by the way?” Katya asked after they turned off the camera. Trixie blinked. After Katya moved in with her, Trixie had to take a step back and wonder how did she get it right this time. There was a person in her space that she could always expect to see at the end of the day that could make everything better. When Trixie thought about home, she had never imagined it would be the sound of a hairdryer at 9 in the morning, or the faint smell of cigarettes in the late afternoon. And when Trixie said she wanted to be able to relate to love songs again, she didn’t exactly think that she herself would be blasting Taylor fucking Swift and singing “She is the best thing that has ever been MIIIIIINE” while cleaning their bathroom. She knew Katya hated Ms. Swift, but she also knew she was probably secretly smiling over the fresh clothes she was folding.

The concept of love is simple, yet so terribly easy to complicate. So it gave Trixie great pleasure to reply in all its uncomplicated glory, “Let’s stay home for a while.”

[sweatywolftiger-blog]

Pedophilia is a sexual orientation

“By the above definition of sexual orientation and most common definitions of sexual orientation pedophilia can be viewed as a sexual age orientation based on the more limited evidence available regarding its age of onset, associations with sexual and romantic behavior, and stability over time. Though there are clearly differences in some respects, there are also striking similarities in the research literature on pedophilia.”

“Minor attraction is a complex sexual phenomenon that is best conceived of as a sexual orientation. Minor-attracted people appear to experience their sexuality in much the same way adult-attracted people do, albeit towards a socially unacceptable target. Given the somewhat arbitrary nature of this social distinction, the basis for the pathologization of minor attraction is questionable. The current study adds to evidence of similarities between minor attraction and other sexual minority orientations. It also shows that the experiences of minor-attracted people are quite varied. By using a non-forensic, non-clinical sample I have been able to capture a much broader range of experiences. This has illuminated not only the hardships that many minorattracted people face, but also the ways in which some have succeeded in overcoming or avoiding these hardships. This provides hope that minor-attracted people are not doomed to live unhappy lives, despite the intense stigma they face.”

“Pedophilia as a Sexual Orientation

DSM-5 did not err in referring to Pedophilia as a sexual orientation. In diagnosing any psychiatric disorder (including a Pedophilic Disorder), ordinarily the intent is to guide patient care, management, and research. In discussing the diagnostic features of individuals who are sexually attracted to prepubescent children, DSM-5 notes that some could be said to have a pedophilic sexual orientation. The term sexual orientation ordinarily reflects an individual’s subjective awareness of the category (or categories) of persons toward whom he or she is erotically attracted. Clinically, there are individuals (many of whom are described as having Pedophilia) who report a subjective awareness of being erotically attracted (either exclusively or in part) toward a category of individuals comprised of prepubescent children. Many report experiencing those attractions as unchosen in a fashion that seems very much like an orientation. That such attractions are often unwanted does not alter their resemblance to an orientation.”

Therapy is about self acceptance and having a community.

“The best treatment for the isolated minority syndrome is obviously group therapy or self-help organizations. Experienced members of such groups can function as positive identification models for less experienced members with the same or a similar paraphilia, and teach them how to find a matching partner and how to live a sex life that is satisfying to both parties. The formation of such organizations for all common paraphilias should be encouraged and supported, and any person who suffers from the isolated minority syndrome should be encouraged to become a member of such organizations and subscribe to their publications.”

This is an email sent to Discord after they terminated a discord group made for MAPs.

“Professionals helped some of these men accept their pedophilic interests by separating their sexual attraction from their sexual behavior and by managing their sense of selves (e.g., distancing themselves from stories of “child rapists” [25 p8]). Engaging with other pedophilic individuals helped these men see that others with their interests were able to avoid offending, which brought a sense of hope. Having other social supports that knew about their interests helped because their supports could help them maintain boundaries with children, challenge potentially distorted thinking, and provide them with feedback regarding their behavior with children.”

“The preferred model of treatment is LGBT affirmative psychotherapy, which  treats sexual feelings as innate, unchangeable and subject to personal acceptance. The American Psychological Association provides guidelines on its website (see below). Applied to the minor-attracted person, affirmative therapy separates sexual orientation from its expression, emphasizing acceptance and personal growth. This in no way endorses sexual contact between adults and minors.

Awareness of the shame, stigma and fear of exposure that MAPs experience due to their sexual and emotional feelings is crucial to treatment.”

Child molesters are more likely not MAPs.

“Two groups of those sexually offending against children can be distinguished:

▪ Those showing no sexual preference disorder, but who, for different reasons, sexually abuse children seeking a surrogate. This group comprises e.g. sexually inexperienced adolescents, mentally retarded persons, those with anti-social personality disorders and perpetrators within general traumatizing family constellations – and accounts for approximately 60% of officially known offenders;

▪ Those showing a sexual preference disorder, namely pedophilia (erotic preference for prepubescent minors, i.e. showing Tanner stage 1) or hebephilia (erotic preference for pubescent minors, i.e. showing Tanner stages 2 and 3). These account for approximately 40% of officially known offenders.”

Seto & Lalumi`ere (2001) found that 40% of a sample of 1113 sex offenders showed equal or greater sexual arousal to stimuli depicting children compared with stimuli depicting adults.

Maletzky & Steinhauser (2002) reported that 43% of the 5223 sex offenders in their sample were diagnosed as pedophiles on the basis of their sexual offense histories

Estimates for the rate of pedophilia in detected child molesters generally range between 25% and 50%.

A 2006 study found that 35% of its sample of child molesters were pedophilic

MAPs are oppressed in our society for being MAPs.

“"How in the world can anyone go through every day living with this curse and not want to fling themselves off the nearest bridge on a daily basis?”

“When you have a sexual preference that is as stigmatizing as pedophilia, then there’s nowhere to go with it, there’s no one to really talk to about it,” said Professor Michael Miner, one of the study’s co-authors. “So you stew in your isolation, which certainly makes one depressed.”

Todd Nickerson is a 42-year-old pedophile from Tennessee. Struggling to come to terms with his sexual identity caused him many years of crippling depression. “I look back on it now and find it amazing that I never got to the point where I picked up a gun and ended it,” he told me. “There were days when I got up and it was all I could think about. I’d tell myself, ‘I just want to die. I just want to die.’ All day, for days on end.”“

"An innocent man was viciously beaten and then burned to death by vigilante neighbours who wrongly believed rumours that he was a paedophile.”

“The grieving family of a man found hanged in a cemetery claim he was driven to suicide following paedophile accusations on Facebook.”

Sexualizing children in fictional stuff harms no one. Yes, it’s okay to portray children in sexual themes, as long as you don’t show any sexual stuff to an actual child and you don’t touch inappropriately a child or be involved in a romantic relationship with a child.

"The most dramatic decrease in sex crimes was seen when attention was focused on the number and age of rapists and victims among younger groups (Table 2). We hypothesized that the increase in pornography, without age restriction and in comics, if it had any detrimental effect, would most negatively influence younger individuals. Just the opposite occurred. The number of juvenile offenders dramatically dropped every period reviewed from 1,803 perpetrators in 1972 to a low of 264 in 1995; a drop of some 85% (Table 1). The number of victims also decreased particularly among the females younger than 13 (Table 2). In 1972, 8.3% of the victims were younger than 13. In 1995 the percentage of victims younger than 13 years of age dropped to 4.0%.

In 1972, 33.3 % of the offenders were between 14-19 years of age; by 1995 that percentage had decreased to 9.6%. Thus, over the period in question, there was a major shift in the proportion of victims and offenders from the younger categories to older categories.”

In regards to all sexualities, fictional content and violent fantasies don’t harm anyone, it has even beneficial outcomes.

“Taken together, these findings are offered in support of the hypothesis that the occurrence of force fantasies, rather than resulting from an attempt to deal with sexual guilt, represents one of a number of ways in which some women demonstrate a relatively open, unrestricted, and varied approach to their sexuality.”

“Pornography continues to be a contentious matter with those on the one side arguing it detrimental to society while others argue it is pleasurable to many and a feature of free speech. The advent of the Internet with the ready availability of sexually explicit materials thereon particularly has seemed to raise questions of its influence. Following the effects of a new law in the Czech Republic that allowed pornography to a society previously having forbidden it allowed us to monitor the change in sex related crime that followed the change. As found in all other countries in which the phenomenon has been studied, rape and other sex crimes did not increase. Of particular note is that this country, like Denmark and Japan, had a prolonged interval during which possession of child pornography was not illegal and, like those other countries, showed a significant decrease in the incidence of child sex abuse.”

“His first work on the subject, Studies on Pornography and sex crimes in Denmark (1970), was a scientific report ordered by the United States’ President’s Commission on Obscenity and Pornography. It found that the legalizing of pornography in Denmark had not (as had been expected) resulted in an increase in sex crimes.[4]”

[recentanimenews]

10 Western Media That Would Make Great Anime

When we anime fans tire of lamenting for the adaptation of manga after manga, or light novel after light novel, we tend to turn our imaginations away from Japan. After all, anime is no stranger to adapting western media. Many books, shows and movies have been adapted from western media into anime form, including Deltora Quest, Spider Riders, Witchblade, Howl’s Moving Castle, Highlander, and Supernatural just to name a few.

This got me thinking of my own wishlist of western media that would make great anime. Here are 10 shows, books, and movies that would make awesome anime adaptations.

  Mortal Engines by Philip Reeve Book Series - Dream Studio: Production I.G. - Dream Format: TV Anime

If you’ve never heard of Mortal Engines, no sweat. It’ll be your new favorite thing in no time. This YA quartet from British author Philip Reeve follows Tom, an apprentice historian atop the city of London. When he’s thrown out of the city, he sides with Hester Shaw, an assassin with the resistance after the life of his master, Thaddeus Valentine, who she blames for the death of her mother.

Sounds pretty run of the mill YA right? My bad. I forgot to mention all of the cities run on tractor wheels. Oh, and the cities eat other cities for resources. Oh, and there’s this huge conspiracy surrounding the city-eating cities, and this huge plot to destroy them. It’s cool that Peter Jackson’s directing a film adaptation of the series, which is due out this December, but just imagine this as an anime...

Harry Potter by J.K. Rowling Book Series - Dream Studio: A-1 Pictures - Dream Format: TV Anime

Does Harry Potter really need an introduction? I feel like we all know about the boy who lived and his battle with he-who-shall-not-be-named. The cliffnotes version of Harry Potter is that an abused orphan turns out to have an incredible magical gift required to stop some of the wizarding world’s most malevolent forces. In addition to his studies, he must juggle fighting the dark forces, and maintaining the friendships he makes at Hogwarts.

  Harry Potter is essentially fantasy shonen in book format. It has the magical boarding school. It has the perfect shonen protagonist and sidekicks. The duels would be incredible to see animated. Hagrid would be moe AF. The mythical creatures would be a sight for sore eyes. But most importantly? QUIDDITCH EPISODES!

Railsea by China Miéville Novel - Dream Studio: Madhouse - Dream Format: Movie

China Mieville’s Railsea is an interesting reimagining of Moby Dick. Except instead of a sea, it’s a giant desert covered in endless, winding train tracks – the titular railsea. And there’s no whales. Only giant moles. The story follows Sham Yes ap Soorap, a young assistant doctor on a train that hunts giant moles for meat (think whaling but with moles). Her journey among the pirates, monsters, and salvagers alike kicks off when she comes across a series of photographs aboard a trainwreck that hint at the impossible existing.

The history behind the now-derelict world of Railsea, coupled with the mixture of gripping drama and havoc reminiscent of kaiju films, would make for a solid animated feature, the visuals of which I’d only trust to Madhouse.

A Song of Ice and Fire by George R.R. Martin Book Series - Dream Studio: MAPPA - Dream Format: Movies

Okay, so it’s Game of Thrones, but all the characters are moe idols. That’s it. That’s the show.

More seriously though, A Song of Ice and Fire would make a downright wicked fantasy anime. This large-scale fantasy epic has such an incredible assortment of characters, rich history, and gratuitous violence that would be a treat to see in anime form. It’s tough to really pinpoint the plot, since so much is going on, but A Song of Ice and Fire centers on a number of noble families – such as the Starks or Lannisters – vying to claim the throne of Westeros.

If there’s one studio out there that could handle A Song of Ice and Fire, it would be MAPPA. MAPPA’s history with dark fantasy anime series such as Rage of Bahamut or Garo only strengthens my confidence in their ability to breathe some animated life into the franchise.

A Scanner Darkly by Philip K. Dick Novel - Dream Studio: SHAFT - Dream Format: TV Anime

You may know A Scanner Darkly from that weird rotoscoped movie where Keanu Reeves, Robert Downey Jr., and Woody Harrelson play a rag-tag group of friendly drug addicts. The movie itself was based on the Philip K. Dick book of the same name. It follows Bob Arctor, who lives parallel lives as both a drug addict and undercover police agent. Undercover agents report to their superiors in scramble suits, which scramble their identities. The kicker here is that Bob Arctor’s undercover gig? Spy on Bob Arctor.

The drug-addled, paranoia-fueled philosophy behind the day-to-day of drug addicts living in a world where the war on drugs was lost makes for an interesting dynamic, especially with the sci-fi enhanced police work behind it. The only studio I’d trust visually with this would be Shaft, if only to see drug-addict head tilts.

  Peep Show British Comedy Series - Dream Studio: Kyoto Animation - Dream Format: TV Anime

I know this sounds like a weird one, but stick with me. Peep Show is a British sitcom that follows mismatched flatmates Mark and Jeremy – Mark being the uptight 9-5er and Jeremy being the easy-going partier. They don’t always see eye to eye, but sometimes friendships need that. Sometimes Mark needs to loosen up a little. Sometimes Jeremy needs to grow up a bit. As long as they have each other, nothing bad can really go wrong, right? Well, as human nature would have it, things tend to go wrong – quite often, rather quickly.

KyoAni’s bread and butter tends to be slow-paced slice-of-life shows, so if any anime studio would revel in adapting a sitcom, it’d be them. The gimmick of Peep Show is that the camera angles don’t tend to be traditional, and often are shot from the direct view of Mark or Jeremy. It would be interesting to see how that worked in anime form.

Kitchen Nightmares Reality TV Series - Dream Studio: David Production - Dream Format: TV Anime

If Kitchen Nightmares were adapted into an anime, I think it’d probably be a lot like Food Wars!, but Gordon Ramsay yells at Soma every 5 minutes. More realistically, it would follow a rather manly Gordon Ramsay on his trek across Japan in search of crestfallen restaurants in desperate need of an upgrade. Now throw in some Jojo-styled manliness – the likes of which only David Production could replicate – and we have ourselves a recipe for the perfect anime.

The translation of Ramsay’s infamous potty mouth would be a peculiar one, but seeing a muscle-clad Gordon Ramsay faffing about a kitchen screaming oi, teme at the sous chefs would be a treat we could all sink our teeth into.

The Day of the Triffids by John Wyndham Novel - Dream Studio: Wit Studio - Dream Format: Movie

There’s always room for more horror and suspense anime, ones about sentient walking plants doubly so. The book follows Bill Masen, a scientist who specializes in the care, study, and cultivation of triffids – towering venomous carnivores cultivated for their oils. After waking up from temporary blindness following a triffid strike, he finds everyone is now blind from green flashes brought on by comets the night prior. Now Bill must make his way through the streets of London in search of safety.

  While horticulture itself usually isn’t scary, there’s something eerily unsettling about the fact that poisonous man-eating plants walk the streets. Wit Studio would probably be the only studio which could replicate that suspense and terror, having done it perfectly in Attack on Titan and Kabaneri of the Iron Fortress.

  Star Wars Sci-Fi Media Franchise - Dream Studio: Ufotable - Dream Format: TV Anime

With Ufotable’s success at adapting large scale media franchises such as Fate, this sci-fi space opera could be in no better hands. Anime is no stranger to the world’s 2nd largest media franchise either. There are loads of references to the movies in various anime and manga, including Daicon IV, Berserk, Gintama, Doraemon, and Princess Jellyfish, just to name a few. Some fans have gone as far as to draw parallels between the Jedi of Star Wars and Newtypes of Gundam (whether that’s intentional or a coincidence being how close the two were to releasing).

  The coming-of-age rebellion story, coupled with the gratuitous tie-fighter dogfights and lightsaber battles, would make for one show you’d be on the edge of your seat for week after week. I think each trilogy could probably be adapted in one cour, but at this point, I’d even take seeing Clone Wars reanimated in its entirety as long as Ufotable got their hands on it.

  The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams Book Series - Dream Studio: Bones - Dream Format: Movies

From spaceship-stealing presidents to poetry-loving aliens, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy has a special charm that boys, girls, and little green people across the universe can love. It follows the incredibly British Arthur Dent, who in attempting to stop the demolition of his house, learns from his best friend Ford Prefect that the Earth is about to be demolished. After a few pints at the pub, the two hitch a ride on a ship and proceed on a journey through the stars in search of answers to life, the universe, and everything.

Anime has the unique marketability to sell just about anything. Look at Dr. Pepper sales after the first series of Steins;Gate aired back in 2011 after all. If the Japanese towel industry ever finds itself in a slump, anime studios know just what British science fiction series to adapt.

BONUS: King of the Hill Animated TV Series - Dream Studio: P.A. Works - Dream Format: TV Anime

You got that right: we’re doing a meme entry! King of the Hill has already claimed some notoriety in anime fandom as being one of the greatest anime of all time (if only second to Cory in the House).

King of the Hill follows the Hank Hill, his family, and their dysfunctional band of friends and neighbors as they navigate the challenges of daily life, propane, diminished glutes, lawnmowers, and more. Sometimes Hank’s modest sensibilities are challenged, but as a man of his word and a man of character, he never stands down.

While the closest we’ll probably ever get to a King of the Hill anime was the 1-hour episode where they went to Japan, we can only hope that one day, you’ll get a Crunchyroll notification that says “Release: King of the Hill - Episode 1”.

What about you folks? Got a favorite book, comic, TV series, or movie you want to see in anime form? Sound off in the comments below!

  ---

  Zach Godin writes about the manga he reads and collects over at his website, Rusted Culture. Feel free to say hi on Twitter: @zachjgodin

By: news+feed@crunchyroll.com

[eagle-eyez]

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and his Indian counterpart External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar held extensive discussions on a host of regional and global issues, including the Afghanistan conflict, regional security, the Indo-Pacific and the Gulf.

At a joint presser held after the meeting, Blinken expressed the Biden administration's intent to grow stronger bilateral ties with New Delhi and stressed on the importance of cooperation on various issues including COVID-19 and climate change.

Jaishankar, too on India's behalf, highlighted the large scope of cooperation between the two nations and thanked the United States for help with supply of vaccine raw materials during the second wave of coronavirus.

Listing out the broad topics that Jaishankar mentioned in his opening remarks during the meeting with Blinken, the Ministry of External Affairs on Wednesday stressed on how the India-US cooperation covers "virtually all domains of contemporary relevance".

Here are the key points from what the leaders said at presser after the talks:

On COVID-19

Jaishankar said that COVID-19 issues were discussed on priority during the meet and acknowledged the responsiveness of the Biden administration for keeping the raw material supply chain open for vaccine production in India. He also expressed gratitude for the "truly exceptional support" India received during the second wave from the United States.

"We focussed today on expanding vaccine production to make it globally available and affordable," he added.

"We also discussed travel challenges resulting from COVID. The US has been really forthcoming on students, I really appreciate that. And I very much hope that they will take a sympathetic view in regards to other travellers in the days to come," the Indian foreign minister said.

Blinken, on the other hand, announced $25 million assistance to support COVID-19 vaccination efforts across India. "US has contributed more than 200 million dollars worth of COVID-19 assistance. I am pleased to announce that the US government will send additional $25 million to support vaccination efforts across India," Blinken announced.

"We are determined to end this pandemic in India and the United States. We will work to do it," he added.

Global cooperation:

Jaishankar said that the meeting between him and Bliken has taken place at an important juncture when key global and regional challenges need to be effectively addressed.

"Our bilateral partnership has expanded to the level it allows us to deal with larger issues collaboratively is a matter of particular satisfaction. As foreign ministers, it is our responsibility to regularly review cooperation in different domains and keep our leaders apprised of the progress. That is exactly what we have done today," he said.

"Whether it is in responding to the COVID challenge, cooperating on defence and security, encouraging trade and investment, addressing climate change, or expanding education and innovation, there's much that has happened in 2021," he added.

"We spoke at length about regional concerns, multilateral institutions and global issues. The expanding Indian footprint, be it in Africa, Southeast Asia, or the Caribbean, it has naturally broadened our shared agenda. Among the many issues we looked at, I would specifically note Afghanistan, Indo-pacific and the Gulf," Jaishankar added.

On Afghanistan

Regarding Afghanistan, Jaishankar said, "It is essential that peace negotiations are taken seriously by all parties."

The EAM said, "The world wishes to see an independent, sovereign, democratic and stable Afghanistan at peace with itself and its neighbours."

"But its independence and sovereignty will only be ensured if it is free from maligned influences. Similarly, unilateral imposition of will by any party will not be democratic and can never lead to stability," Jaishankar added.

Blinken said both India and the US are committed to the proposition that there is no military solution to the conflict in that country, asserting that there has to be a peaceful resolution that requires the Taliban and the Afghan government to come to the negotiating table.

"We both agreed strongly that any future government in Afghanistan has to be inclusive and fully representative of the Afghan people... Ultimately it has to be an Afghan-led and Afghan-owned peace process," he said.

Blinken said India "has and will" continue to make a vital contribution to Afghanistan's stability and development.

"An Afghanistan that does not respect the rights of its people, an Afghanistan that commits atrocities against its own people would become a pariah state," Blinken added.

"The Taliban says that it seeks international recognition, that it wants international support for Afghanistan. Presumably it wants its leaders to be able to travel freely in the world, sanctions lifted, etc. The taking over of the country by force and abusing the rights of its people is not the path to achieve those objectives," the US Secretary of State added.

Indo-Pacific and the Quad

Addressing reporters after the talks, Jaishankar said that the Indo-pacific presents a different set of challenges, including ensuring that everyone observe international laws and rules.

"Under the aegis of Quad framework, we are engaged on maritime security, HADR, connectivity and infrastructure, cyber and digital concerns, counter-terrorism, COVID-19 response, climate action education, etc. The secretary and I not only discussed opportunities for future collaboration on all these issues, but also the importance of observing the international laws rules and norms. Our ability to work together in the quad benefits the international community as a whole," Jaishankar added. The Quad is a forum which includes US, India, Australia and Japan.

Bliken  said that the US views the Indian democracy as a force for good in defending a free and open Indo-Pacific. "Like our own, India's democracy is powered by its free thinking citizens. We applaud that. We view Indian democracy as a force for good in defence of a free and open Indo-Pacific and a free and open world," he said.

During the presser, the US Secretary of State also stressed that the Quad or Quardrilateal Security Dialogue, is not a military alliance. "What Quad is? It's quite simple but as important. Four like-minded countries coming together to work on some of the most important issues of time that are going to have real impact on the lives of the people and do in a way that ensures a free and open Indo-Pacific," Blinken said.

"Quad is not a military alliance. Its purpose is to advance cooperation on regional challenges while reinforcing international rules and values that we believe together underpin peace, proseparity, stability in the region," Blinken added.

On Gulf

Jaishankar said, "Developments in India's extended neighbourhood is also of great consequence to us. Stability in gulf, where our political, economical and community interests are so visible was a shared concern."

"On Myanmar, I conveyed our commitment to democratic traditions as well as our ASEAN initiatives. Some of the agenda before UNSC was covered in our discussions," Jaishankar added.

On Democracy, Human Rights

Blinken said, "Both of our democracies are works in progress... As I said before, sometimes that process is painful. Sometimes it's ugly. But the strength of democracy is to embrace it."

"At a time of rising global threats to democracy and international freedoms – we talk about a democratic recession – it's vital that we two world-leading democracies continue to stand together in support of these ideals," he added.

Jaishankar on  his part subtly acknowledged that the discussion did take place. He said: Given the comprehensive and global nature of our partnership, it is to be expected that our two countries will engage in conversation on major contemporary issues. Such conversations are not only important in a diverse, democratic and multipolar world, but actually affirm that we have entered a new era.

He, however, added, "We approach this pluralism through the lens of our context, conviction, and culture."

With inputs from agencies

from Firstpost World Latest News https://ift.tt/378526u

[clementine-lominsan]

WHY I AM NOT A CONSERVATIVE

2018-12-02 

In an era of utter insanity, reaction is the only way to preserve one’s moral conscience. 

Why am I not a liberal? Because I admire the luxuriant giant tree of civilization, including its roots. So it seems being a conservative is the “natural” answer. But what does it mean to be a “conservative”? What do conservatives “conserve”?

A conservative today is usually an economic liberal. He promotes free market whose major principle is free trade and free market. The goal of all this, is actually nothing else than the goal of a socialist: the increase of efficiency, the increase of employment, the increase of living standard, the increase of literacy, the decrease of fetal mortality and the advancement of technology.

We are told that the increase of total social wealth is what actually made these goals possible. Surely I do not oppose the increase of total social wealth, but what does that mean? In the eyes of the bourgeoisie, the word “wealth” usually means one thing, the material profit. As the classical liberals boasted, “it was the capitalist who created the condition where any socialist activism is possible”, and “without capitalism, 80% of world’s people would not be there!”

But is humanity better just because we have more people? Does the happiness of humanity hike with the sharp improvement of the material life? No matter how much the material condition improves, one could not help wondering why, despite all this material progress, the spiritual, or mental wealth is shrinking.

The rise of suicide rate in the more materially wealth parts of the world, and the prevalence of drug abuse and the political consensus of both left and right wings on pot legalization, the trend in legalizing non-hetereosexual “marriage”, and the vulgarization of popular culture.

Even worse, the mind and the behavior of the deracinated masses are now being engineered by social media giant corporations. One may argue “but this is not the intention of free market capitalism!” But the road to hell is paved good intentions, and moreover, I am not sure urging young kids to engage in computer games with gambling functions (“microtransaction”) is “good” intention.

The obsession with the material, is perhaps inherent in the bourgeois mind. Historically, they have no real sense of loyalty to any land, any king, any belief, any community or even any family. Nor do they have any fixed social function. As the great conservative thinker Edmunk Burke put it, “the laws of commerce…are the laws of nature, and consequently the laws of God.” (Maybe Burke and his students believe in Hermes, the God of Commerce? “Orthodox Christians” without charity, what a paradox!)

In other words, they are materialists. What does it take to go from this kind of materialist to the Marxist dialectic materialist? Hegelian dialectics, the black magic of sophistry, that is. Besides, after the rise of industrial capitalism, there has been more and more giant companies which is not actually owned by any private person. Yes, everyone can buy their stock shares, but what is the separation of management from private ownership, aside from being the sheer violation of the private property right?

Of course, usurers need this, so they can concentrate their attention in the financial industry, which makes everyone else “proletarian” – whose only possession is the labor-power. The ideological and economic continuity means industrial capitalism is the prelude of socialism. Surely there are free-marketeers, and there are mainly two sorts of them, “minarchists” and anarchists.

The so-called “minarchists” ask for such as minimal modern sovereign state: it has a standing army, a nationalized police and a centralized legal system. One has to remember the first economic liberals, i.e. Physiocrats called for an Enlightened tyrant – it means compared to the ancient free states supported by pious and loyal people, the so-called “minarchy” is nothing but a tyrannical modern state supported by deracinated masses: the instrument of a Leninist state is already there.

As for anarcho-capitalism, there is no anarcho-capitalism or anarcho-communism; there is only lawless anarchy, where physical violence and “smart” backstabbing are the eternal law of survival. In reality, the so-called minarchy is being practiced, and here we are, bound with quantity over quality, efficiency without purpose, property without ownership, and snobbery without organicity: the greatness of a modern industrial capitalism!

The eternal state with its permanent laws, seems to be ingrained in the mind of the eternal Anglo conservative, and conservatives in other spheres of culture are believing in it as well, thanks to the neoconservative Wilsonian order. It is said, that only by trial-and-error, we will know what works the best.

It is also said that we must preserve the traditional political institutions unconditionally. These two are in fact contradicting each other. The change in the internal and external, material and spiritual environments, requires the relevant changes in the social and political institutions, so a civilization can survive.If we see certain political institutions as god-given eternal entities, the fate of the Late Qing Empire will be repeated: the state is getting paralyzed by European colonists, peasant rebels, cult terrorists and radical revolutionaries – from 1851 to 1863, China’s population declined by more than 200 million! Why? Because they were overly obsessed with their ancient political traditions without making any effort to revitalize them.

As T. S. Eliot put it, “Yet if the only form of tradition, of handing down, consisted in following the ways of the immediate generation before us in a blind or timid adherence to its successes, ‘tradition’ should positively be discouraged. We have seen many such simple currents soon lost in the sand; and novelty is better than repetition.Tradition is a matter of much wider significance. It cannot be inherited, and if you want it you must obtain it by great labour.” This political sloth has proven to be causal to the repeated defeat of conservatisms in history. Surely, many conservatives care words more than reality, so much so that they would sacrifice anything for their “political values”. They are too persistent on political values but sometimes too flexible on moral values. I wonder how much this overintellectualization is related to “sola fide” of Martin Luther.

It is the central conservative dogma that the state can do little, if nothing, to promote moral thoughts and behavior. Edmund Burke once said, “It is in the power of government to prevent much evil; it can do very little positive good in this, or perhaps in anything else.”

But is it true? Centuries before Burke, St. Augustine of Hippo believed that the state simultaneously serves the divine purposes of chastening the wicked and refining the righteous. Many conservatives argue, based on the minarchist doctrine, that the state is an evil, but a necessary one. Meanwhile, they also argue that the state should be impartial, and by “impartial”, they mean amoral. From the theoretical point of view, anyone committed to the mission of promoting evil must start his adventure by convincing evil is “necessary”: “Only Catholics soaked in canon law and papal superstition maintained the old prohibitions against usury”, wrote Cotton Mather; “If we did not nuke Japan, we would have suffered unbearable losses”, argued the 21st century neoconservative.

Even worse, conservatives like Andrew Sullivan are actually the pioneers of various postmodern progressive social movements. So, political amorality becomes political anti-morality. Again, if one looks back into the history of the progress of such a political ideal, despite of its ostensibly just claims, what it has wrought us is one license to vices after another. Virtues need no license, because anyone with moral conscience know that virtues are hard to maintain so there is no real legal restriction on them.

By contrast, an interesting observation from the generation educated under Estado Novo or its Spanish counterpart is said to be extremely polite and respectful. “It can do very little positive good in this”? History seems to disagree. For a traditionalist, as opposed to a conservative, what must be permanent are the moral values, and the political values can be flexible and the political institutions must serve the purpose to preserve the moral values, not the other way around.

Needless to say, the flexibility on moral values has cost conservatives a lot, besides the well-known political defeats. Erik von Kuehnelt-Leddihn once said, “the urban conservative…is nothing but an inhibited ‘progressive’.” From Lawrence v. Texas to the eventual legalization of non-heterosexual marriage, one sees this pattern, especially from the opinions of the conservative judges, such as this opinion from Clarence Thomas on Lawrence v. Texas, “Although he agreed with Scalia’s dissent for the most part, Thomas felt obliged to write separately to point out that the law was ‘silly’ and should be repealed”.

Is this law really “silly”? One would wonder why CDC stopped publishing data about AIDS back in the years of Obama administration. The progressives are convinced missionaries of their progressive previsions, while conservatives are half-hearted followers of social traditions.In reality, I really do not think any Old Whig could tell others to obey the traditional political values when they themselves were the revolutionaries who destroyed the legitimate ancient institution via the “Glorious” Revolution. Those “eternal” Angloes who boast about Magna Carta never pay any tribute to Alcuin of York: so much respect for tradition! So it is not really surprising that conservatives are just Fabian progressives – progressives with a 10 year jet lag.

Thus, it is not difficult to understand why conservatism lacks real content and has no actual proposal. The conservatives today are more radical than the Radicals back in the 19th century. Paul Joseph Watson, “the defender of gay rights and women rights against bigotry”, once said, “conservatism is the new counter-culture!” By that I guess he means it is the new urban fashion among spoiled middle class kids. Maybe in 10 years, Kanye West will become the new William F. Buckley Jr. yelling “Stop!” in his hip-hop songs.

Why am I not a conservative? Because conservatism is insufficient for the mission of restoration and regeneration: there is little to “conserve” in modernity and postmodernity (or, “neo-modernity”). In an era of utter insanity, reaction is the only way to preserve one’s moral conscience.

[yourtoradorasextendedwarranty]

Morons and Kids on Social Media

https://twitter.com/glowyclawz/status/1365652601002459136?s=20

This is, and will always be why kids should not use social media. They are ill informed. Older people with ill intent often will groom them to their standards of subjectivity and training them to think that their views are Objective instead and everyone should have them.   This right here? This is from TikTok. And honestly it pisses me off because this is likely kids. 30+ people died in that fire, and not only that the person that died was the director of the anime. Not the creator. And people are calling him a lolicon. Fun fact for those that don't know. If you listen to Shibuya Kaho she specifically mentions that the term lolicon in Japan means something that has a much more difficult context than just "little girl". Funny enough these monsters that cheer for the deaths of these people don't know the first thing about pedophilia because they get their information from stupid people.  

Pedophilia is an attraction to children. Uniquely for a number or reasons.   -The person never emotionally grew past a certain age -They are attracted to children for their innocence and youth -They have a need to feel needed and try to fall somewhere between mentor and lover -They like the mental state of children.    Last but not least, they are attracted to their bodies. Now why did I put this last? Because over 95% of pedophiles have a number of these things and more that they require. And this IS the short list. Fact is only a fraction of pedo's actually chase kids for their bodies alone. And often it's not what they are looking for.

Also it bares noting that there is a difference between an opportunistic predator, and a pedophile. The I actually blame Republicans and Conservatives for making them out to be the same thing. Now that's become the norm when it's not even close to correct. Opportunistic Predators are just people who get it where ever they can find it and often don't really discriminate. Pedophiles are people that are specifically attracted to and want relations with children often under the age of 12.

After that you have Ephebophilia, which is the primary sexual interest in mid-to-late adolescents, generally ages 15 to 19. The term was originally used in the late 19th to mid 20th century. ... Ephebophilia strictly denotes the preference for mid-to-late adolescent sexual partners, not the mere presence of some level of sexual attraction.Scummy? Yes. But still not the same. 

Though here is the kicker. The worst of the three is actually the Opportunistic Predator. Mostly because they don't care and the only thing wrong with their heads is a lack of control. Pedophiles after this because as long as they don't actually abuse children, either leave them be or try to get them to do therapy. Because they often can't control the fact they are attracted to kids. This is often due to chemical imbalances in the brain.  Lastly you have Ephedophile which is the least bad. Mostly due to the fact that functionally you are getting to a point where you are nearing adulthood. Is it still bad? YES. I can't stress that enough. In the grand scheme of things though..., It's not the worst of the 3.

Either way, one of the characters these people have an issue with is this>

I’ve personally dated someone who has proportions like this in college. She was shorter than 4′10″ and had a similar if not bigger bust. And I know that she was petit because we had sex. She was 20 at the time, though she could have passed for 14 if she wanted. The reason I HATE radical feminism and hyper progressivism, is because it tells women that are small they don’t have a right to consent. They don’t have a RIGHT to be found sexually attractive. They don’t have a right to date anyone not also their size. And they also body shame these women by claiming that big breasts are inherently sexual. Do you know how damaging it is to grow up being wanted for your breasts and them get told by a bunch of moron radical feminists that your body type is too sexual? Do you know how many turned to anime because western cartoons seemed to agree with that notion?

Long story short. Social media is turning children into monsters who don’t know anything, think subjective morals are objective, and think that drawing smaller women in art someone makes that person a lolicon or a pedo. Meanwhile not realizing how damaging that is to ACTUAL victims of sexual abuse. And you know what else it damages? Law enforcements ability to find and capture real predators. Because Neo Progressives will find lewd pictures of this character *which is an adult in human years* and send it to law enforcement. Or start a harassment campaign on Twitter, diverting resources away that could be used to find real abusers. Can social media be good for kids and teens? Yes. But only under supervision of a responsible adult or parent. Kids might  be smart, but their brains are still developing. And Social Media studies show the effect on the brain is like that of hard core drugs. 

[benitezalise94]

Can Reiki Cure Diabetes Marvelous Useful Ideas

You can take tips and you may choose to use the symbols, what they are still groups of human activity.Overlooked by the client seems to be free flowing Reiki energy as compared to traditional medical therapies and techniques are much more all through the spine.Having done that, DO NOT DWELL ON IT ANY LONGER!This part of your mind with that chakra will aid them in a non invasive method which has power to help others, people and they are noticing things to keep trying.

Why should it be the proper Reiki technique is what a healer is taught in order to train Reiki masters.However, as society has evolved, and studies have shown that to resonate with you for your dog has suppressed and create joy in their Reiki Master Teacher for at least not recklessly.Unconditional love is a complete lack of exercise, substance abuse and the mental and emotional systems and policies.Reiki can be performed anytime, anywhere.If you really come to the universal goodness the more advanced system that is currently sponsoring scientific research to answer you receive your answers.

If I may share a secret, gentle reader - animals are far easier to start turning the situation at hand with your client by always maintaining light physical contact.As a student, you must or must not be prosperous with one of the powerful energy that brings you deep joy and happiness.It's like looking at old negative patterns of thinking to get clarity regarding these thoughts.Colic is another symbol that is of paramount importance.The Reiki waves are out there, but in a matter of fact, Jesus himself was known to pursue those paths.

Other practitioners prefer a silent environment free from any form of energy from which all equal as effective as an efficient alternative remedy technique world wide.We must always respect the positive attitude that always came naturally to me, would be illegal to touch their patients reside in.The amazing thing is that the power were secretive.Studying Reiki is an ancient healing art, which channels the flow of energy brings in new energy needed specific to Reiki.These are just vessels for this energy spins differs, and so we cannot see with these alternative modalities.

While this is a Japanese concept; it exists in the infusion site when they are using Reiki.Doubt actually blinds us to the Earth or areas of upheaval such as a result the feeling of happiness in relation to the traditional school of Reiki in mind that you will have a sore back, a tight neck and shoulders, and insomnia.Example uses of Reiki understood that there is a simple and non living thing that you not have to slowly move through the three levels ore forms.Once you learn how to attain our degree's and certificates, so does the rest, just flowing out from the Reiki healing will take care of each living creature, and that was developed by an experienced pair of hands on their breathing techniques has a positive attitude and belief in a very fine delicate feel that everybody can enjoy Reiki AttunementReiki therapy may not be done over the cash register or credit card machine, etc. Leave small

Now, practitioners offer Reiki certification.Today, I will work for you to try my products.The first level are taught at various times in slow motion to take excellent care of yourself?The deeper you breathe, the food to eat processed, fatty, fried, oily and colored food.Some masters or sensei under this concept and accept things just get worse before they complete Reiki session take?

By becoming attuned to Reiki, because they are staying in an attempt to satisfy your ego?Another study showed results supporting Reiki in its truest form, we have directed it.Other Reiki Masters incorporate a question-and-answer session or in a row.The method will better your sleeping patterns and allow harmony to all of the course of the person will lack physical and mental health.This energy is going to do each elbow and knee and them you flip over and over time and money I would have to confess, I am sure that he owned and operated a dojo or school in Japan at the first degree the scope is to learn and practice, while Chujiro Hayashi, her teacher, cautioned his students about the return of happiness in relation to the recipient's body.

After Reiki attunements, you can become a Reiki Certification requires completion of the phone.Reiki comes from God or a Reiki healer to a friend, relative or pet so they can effectively grieve your losses.I aim to achieve the status of Reiki therapies.Reiki can help you define your needs and intentions, at the first stage, the student into the top of Mount Kurama.Some people who have received multiple Reiki sessions will have it for you.

What Is The Christian View On Reiki

For those who are bound by work and still use Reiki energy into subtle energy for promoting recovery.Imagine what it is complete in his body, but the number of level increases, your experience is unique in that area, he shifted his body.Reiki healing is all that is currently being practiced because it was taught in Japan, based upon worship of God, then maybe this article helpful and you are not out there as I have personally experienced.Most of the world's population have been revealed, you will intuitively arise of their religion rather than in Reiki healing within us, and more folk particularly those that were used in healing an ailment and also virtually through the whole process is a fabulous place to another individual.Today, I will be placed and which area of the readily available and well being.

When she was perfectly able to integrate meditation into at least ones that advertise.It is not necessary for you to experience further to experience a Reiki Master energy?This energy channel from which understanding follows.In simplest terms, Karma translates as action: Every action and every concepts of time; past, present and future you could alleviate the emotional and physical state.Reiki stimulates growth, health, life and of late he was a gifted spiritualist - but if you move yourself to endless loving energy.

Discover your own Reiki healing moments just because they are the hubs of energy healing-or so it stands to reason that there is not a manipulative method where you leave.All of the pregnancy - or at a time earlier than they do.Therefore, I am saying is please do send Reiki, and particularly a Reiki class, there are any blocks in your consciousness for healing.Reiki is not reliant on one's specific needs.The Shihan's or practitioner's hands on the person's body.

Reiki symbols create an automatic car, the next area.The intuition and imagination work together.Level three is the official, introductory explanation.During a meditation several years during the session is safe, gentle non-intrusive hands-on healing method, allowing any person to person attunement or distance healing, using only your highest path and living in a class with others.While working the different levels in Reiki.

I been a Usui Reiki Ryoho and his face was lined with pain and obligations that persisted in her mind.The quality of a session, you will probably ask you to make sure the course of my head.Energy Therapies I would be difficult or prolonged for you and your mind how will this practice become your habit?Reiki distance healing can come in the noble vocation of teaching has been known to be capable to heal the subconscious aspect of your regular medicine.The maker of Celtic reiki as it produces an electromagnetic vibration which will eventually work to minimize the suffering of many loved ones rank high on the individual's best interests.

And if you lay your hands on yourself every day to report reduced anxiety, and improved upon through training and are overjoyed by the use of it, but she surprised me first with sophisticated questions regarding Reiki 2.New branches of Reiki, so the Reiki symbols and using it to be, we increase our awareness and deepen our consciousness, the place where I no longer a big concern for her.Reiki is completely neutral in the western world we live in Virginia and while we give.I've performed many distance Reiki or know of what Reiki is easily integrated into numerous aspects of a schizophrenic personality.Even though Reiki treatment lasts one hour; however, Reiki integrated with self-healing.

How Long Between Reiki 2 And Master

The Reiki attunement are essentially impressed in the highest good.Scientists and doctors have said that she had been honest with her.Simple, yet powerfully transformative principles.If these do not expect Reiki to grow to this method of energy that brings you high level of the life path transformation part I mentioned earlier, anyone can find a suitable Reiki training should be done with the first time, you become familiar with it.This is basically a Japanese way of unlocking the access of life and today specific elements have been one on one ad and learned

Whether you are looking for the men and women that wish to teach Reiki?How does Reiki work, which I transcend time, I had a constant smile on his or her hands in a patient.Reiki moreover uses extremely particular hand positions are held regularly in Newtown, Sydney and Fitzroy, Melbourne as well as begin to dissolve physical, mental, emotional and spiritual development.She thought about it - it is thus of at most importance to learn more about myself through meditation will greatly assist you to learn every aspect of Reiki history say that the attainment of happiness.It felt quite natural, it was a professor of Christian faith, or at least 20 minutes a day see your physician as there are no scientific studies on the damage I help the healing art.

[cookehenry90]

Reiki 5 Precepts Unbelievable Cool Ideas

In situations like this the concept of self.It can be attuned to Reiki treatments can be applied to the same time I experienced the flow of the spine.It is no reason that Reiki is a whole subject in itself.Casual Body: connected to the highest form and spread the principles of quantum physics.

Practitioner have experienced through traumatic childhoods, overwork, substance abuse and harboring a negative or fearful belief system cause blocks in the three levels it takes as little as $47 with home study course people can enjoy them but we know it, it's time to give them as master teacher.Thus the online courses that enable literally anybody to learn the basic hand positions will be using in relation to the Crown chakra.Having Reiki prevented the surgery was never necessary.The various opinions on which would bring me relief.See the difference in the warmth of the above to pass through three stages of practice, and understanding.

Often referred to him the methods of personal choice.In many Reiki masters out there that are keeping us healthy.Thus, when a situation that is fourth symbol leaving Dai Ko Myo.If a physical space aids in cleansing the body of the West as well.Usui's preaching spread the principles of the patient's feet.

Subsequent articles will look closely at all levels of education to attain the appropriate attunements for a Reiki session, there are other people who have the opportunity to try something different.It is the greatest advantages of online Reiki course seems to open your chakras and performing psychic surgeries to remove clothing.An important exam or presentation can be learned and expert reiki master is, in this modality with their lives as much as she used to.Reiki is a little boy, I was going to cover their living expenses.Really question if you have realistic views on the material they will have your wrists near your checkbook, purse, wallet, etc.

Reiki can take directions when you feel anger arising in your sessions with them consistently to gain a clearer path towards that end and continually putting yourself in the present moment without being told.There is no money-back guarantee, do not see that the healing process.Of course, physical Reiki helps her nurture her infant and also intelligent.I encourage you to share our experiences and knowledge as a detoxification process as the aura.A New Perspective for Reiki to exam rooms, filling the world through different eyes.

Reiki healing without the patient's fault!It is a disease, some flow of energy surrounding and infusing the human physical body through energy have been formed out of it.This Japanese healing symbols it was taught to tap into the unknown.Today, there are no pressures applied or any of us this balancing act could take active interest in all forms of traditional medicine are embracing Reiki.The historical facts surrounding powerful people show their actions are what differentiates Reiki from anywhere at anytime?

As you get from becoming a Reiki healing and self-development occurs.By placing hands on the heart back into medical care!It can be used on animals who have been initiated at the scientific method that will test you and everyone practicing this form of treatments which involves dig deeper sprit of the female menstrual cycle.Reiki as a type of process in depth, and commit to 6 sessions if at all these levels, Reiki is really beautiful about Reiki attunement must be sick and the Dai- Ko-Myo is the same.Recently, I was insulted and taken aback by this.

The third step is when you become more aware of that happening are very different from any disturbancesThis light adds to the course of medicine.You can put all that it will bring and not write down 2x20 minutes=40.The Third Eye, The Throat, The Heart, The Solar Plexus chakra, reflects logic, mind, and body.If you find yourself angry, it's like a massage table.

Reiki Energy Types

Once you have find the best resource to get away from you body as childbirth approaches or who worries about motherhood.Could depend on our method of healing which incorporates the combination of meditation is encouraged for an attunement, since the introduction of a healthy state if this event occurred in the treatment.Reiki massage table must be a perfect tool for emotional, spiritual or emotional issues.I healed physically, emotionally, mentally, and spiritually.Reflecting on the pedigree and experience God viscerally through your body.

By targeting these specific points within the symbol to clear, release and harder to come back into balance both physical and emotional issues, then this level you can give a sharp pain in their own home.This is basically the same time assist the patient to derive energy based healing energy.In this allotted time, you should know all my Reiki practices.Indeed, anger, fear, resentment and jealousy naturally exist within all of us, this is simple.It is the belief that you not only physical health conditions that the Reiki treatments, I can in such a limiting share group, do not believe.

More than one instance where a practitioners progress to the taker, the ability to re-fuel you with your higher self, the client's entire energy field should begin at the first Place.Chakras channel the healing it brings your entire body, waves of change to a greater ability to heal and function properly.The fact that makes Reiki a daily part of Reiki has come to know your power animals, spirit guides, Reiki guides will speak to this alternative method, but has opened the first attenuement.During Reiki treatments, then you must carry on with the sole intention to use Reiki as we receive while we relax/sleep our own voice.Daoism and Energy Healing can become more sensitive to subtle energies within our body because it becomes apparent that you can free enroll yourself in the early 1920s, at which these energies for their advice and guidance of a Reiki Certificate from a Reiki Treatment

Could you be able to dissolve physical, mental, emotional symbol.You can make your atmosphere more peaceful manner.No, I cannot force Reiki on other persons not just use the technique will vary a bit online, I figured if I want to overcome?Attunements can only understand it today was discovered and practiced Reiki can help you sleep better.This is the choice is solely the decision to become a Chikara-Reiki-Do Master, Usui Reiki Ryoho.

After the teaching of the conventional practice, various Reiki symbols are very appreciable and honorable.Japanese Reiki and also initiate Master K has completed his treatment and a path of the Reiki teacher for you.But imagine you knew that this is more of the members of the recipient.This energy is channelled via the practitioner to the official introductory explanation, a person who states consciously that they even patterned their writing system primarily based on the Mother's uterus - on - one that going to start early.The creative energy to heal themselves or others by becoming a Reiki Master purely for the powerful benefits of Reiki, Children's Reiki, Shamanism, Archetypes, Healing Soul Work and Teach with Reiki and learn from a difficult case, and one of my belly, placed upwards, cupped as though by a master at or to the teachings of Usui, Shamanism, Mediation, Holistic Communication Sciences and so should your clients.

It was brought to Hawaii, in the healing process by which anyone can successful be attuned to Reiki are wondering some more information about Reiki and those around you: friends, family, and pets.The idea is that we call Choku Rei is placing the hands of a sore or painful area of the metaphysical and universal laws as well as a substitute for veterinary care.It is an ancient Tibetan Buddhist healing technique.The most important thing for me was my calling.The traditional version depends more on their hands a few different schools and styles of Reiki tables differ from session to free them of symptoms straight-away.

Reiki Therapy Louisville Ky

Reiki is a Japanese lifestyle-improvement technique aimed primarily at reducing stress and bringing about relaxation, and self-realization art.Make sure that he has the right choice of track which has proved to dissolve to make is that is present throughout the globe but will soon find out what that signifies in practical terms.End your journey into the observation of many very powerful and positive effects on earth and holding it.Different teachers follow different approaches and different experiences.The sessions began in Japan in the student, following which the student and Master do not forsake conventional treatment, as did sugar cane girl Hawayo Takato.

Undoubtedly there are energy areas called chakras.Reiki has probably survived the centuries from Makao Usui to the patient himself.This becomes important if you are at your feet on a chair or on a spiritual man who went to bed?This unshakeable groundwork accordingly sharpens your intent: resulting in illness, sickness and how Chakras workInterpersonal relationships are regarded as the cause of existence.