#in my dkbk era

[glittermanda]

you're too sweet for me 🍒

[reverera]

if you asked katsuki what dating izuku is like, he’d probably dodge the question. make a quip or two, something unsatisfying and just the right amount of gross, like “sometimes he’ll wear the same pair of underwear two days in a row.” it usually does the job of getting people to leave him alone.

now, if you’re the persistent kind, and you play your cards juuust right, you might be lucky enough to catch him off his guard. you might see him fluster and fumble a little. you might get him to begrudgingly admit that izuku is “not that bad, maybe even cool, don’t tell him i fucking said that, i’ll kill you.”

you might get luckier still, and watch his demeanour shift like the skin of a chameleon changes colour. a katsuki with his shackles down, the one that thinks about izuku as though he were the greatest puzzle katsuki has ever seen. a life-long conundrum that both stupefies and astounds him. like he’s a stunning matrix of flesh and bone with warm hands and the kind of contagious laugh that makes you smile even when you’re trying not to.

if luck should have it one last time, he might speak on your way out the door, so softly you wonder whether it was meant for your ears at all.

he might say, “like i can finally breathe.” he might say, “like something id been waiting for finally fell into place.”

if you asked izuku what dating katsuki is like, he’d probably eagerly launch himself full throttle at the opportunity to wax lyrical about his amazing, wonderful, beautiful, superbly talented, incredibly strong, insanely smart, perfect, kind, sweet, stunning, awesome, best-in-the-world boyfriend. he probably has it in him to go on all night if nobody stops him. though no particular phrase would stick at first, around the half-hour mark one thing would become abundantly clear: izuku believes with every fibre of his being that katsuki is the best thing since sliced bread.

though, even with how forthcoming and passionate izuku would seem with his words and expressions, if you’re the perceptive kind, you might notice things about him that few others would. you might notice how his hand will come up to his chest sometimes, on the side of his heart, rubbing the area as though it hurts. you might notice how his voice imperceptibly shakes when something he says becomes too personal, too real.

you might notice, during a lull in conversation, how he gazes into nothing.

then maybe he’ll heave a sigh, a heavy one, weary and relieved both. and he’ll smile, a sweet and understated thing, a little sheepishly lopsided but no less sincere for it.

and maybe he’ll say something like, “being with him is like breathing.” maybe, “i can’t imagine a world without him.”

[darkcircles4lyfe]

Why Tiger is kind of a big deal, actually

Folks, I have a headache. I just spent the better part of my day doing research, and having even less fun than I expected while doing it. However, coming out the other end of it, I can say this: Tiger, in terms of representation of trans male characters in manga and anime, is practically an anomaly. And we should all be more aware of the weight that carries, not just because it shows how little representation we have, but also because maybe this says something about Horikoshi. Before I get into that, though, some backstory. 

Originally, I wanted to do this as quantitatively as possible, show you how much representation there is, where and when and who it comes from, regardless of how subjectively good or bad it is. Basically all I wanted to say was, “look, there isn't much.” But even I didn’t realize just how bad and messy things were going to turn out to be. I’m not going to show you my spreadsheet because it’s a fucking dumpster fire. For starters, there are a lot more instances of trans female characters, some that could be described as non-binary, genderfluid, or otherwise ambiguous, and very few trans male characters. I ended up with a list of about 20 alleged trans male characters, spanning roughly 40 years of Japanese media. (Not exhaustive, especially because not everything is available in English) Of those, some turned out to be inexplicit/vague/unclear, some were tragic, some were demeaning, some were very minor characters, and some belonged to creators and/or stories with exceptionally problematic aspects. Again I’m not gonna show you my spreadsheet because it got messy and subjective and honestly I was so frustrated I kinda lost my patience. In the end, only one survived as a manga I will definitely be seeking out for substantial, gratifying, therapeutic representation of someone like me. That one manga is Boys Run the Riot, by the way. I wish I could say more about it here, but I haven’t read it yet! Anyway, a few more did survived this filtering process excluding the fact that they’re minor characters, and Tiger was one of them. I want to reiterate how utterly abysmally tiny this pool of characters is. But I swear I still want to have some fun with this post, so let’s talk about Tiger, aka Chatora Yawara.

And what’s more fun than calling out our good buddy Mr. CC on his translating bullshit! Yeah! This all started when I was looking back at ch 72 and I realized something didn’t make sense:

Like, what does this even mean? “Genre?” “Wrong??” I can’t even understand what this statement is referring to exactly, just that it sounds bad. Seems very much like something got lost in translation. I unfortunately can’t really do the work myself, especially without access to the original Japanese, but sometimes I like to try to triangulate with multiple translations put together. Btw though, if you have access to the Japanese versions and can/want to translate, please do reach out to me to either confirm or deny all this. For now, here is a side by side comparison of officials (blue) vs. available fanscans (yellow) for Tiger’s introduction:

It’s subtle, but the officials get things a little more muddled. The most glaring difference is that CC has Aizawa refer to the whole hero team as “these ladies,” which sounds very bad! Idk if the original Japanese has any gendered language to justify translating it to “ladies,” but I’m guessing probably not. My interpretation of what went wrong here is that CC thought Horikoshi wanted to make Tiger being trans part of the joke, playing it for shock value, when really what was meant by “wrong gender” was more like “the only Pussycat who isn’t a woman,” and not “wrong” as in “mutilated woman who thinks she’s a man” (yes, transphobes call us that). After all, how would Deku be able to tell Tiger is trans and be shocked about it anyway? The other comments make a lot more sense with the added translator note in the fanscan as well, letting us know that the whole bit is a reference to Billy Blanks. Hence the “wrong genre.” Basically, all put together, the scene is actually just a joke about Tiger being a hard-ass buff dude instead of a cute, fun little kitty. So yeah, this is all fine. Cannot stress enough how refreshing that is after the research hell I went through today. 

Now let me get into what takes Tiger from okay to great in terms of representation. I want to underline the seemingly tiny detail that he is 31 years old and has been a part of his team for 12 years, so since they were 19. That likely means they were all friends in high school and had already been planning to work together for years. Perhaps their friendship even dates back before Tiger came out and started transitioning. I mean, imagine young Yawara happily befriending a group of girls (same bro, same) but being uneasy about the fact that the hero agency Ryuko is dreaming of starting is going to have them all themed as catgirls. Like, if he comes out, will he ruin that dream? But no, he cares enough about them and they care enough about him that it makes no difference whatsoever, and he even has fun going along with the theme too. Seriously, the fact that he has a gender-nonconforming style of hero costume is some next level shit. 

The other thing that makes him great is he’s just, there. Doing his thing. No one questions him, acts like he’s a fraud, scandalizes or misgenders him. His being trans at all is only mentioned in a quick note next to his sketch page, which is fine by me tbh. Better that than some dramatic reveal. He also doesn’t have any stereotypical traits. I mean, I guess some trans men being gym rats is kind of a stereotype, but not a bad one? It’s more of an actual thing that we can joke about. A negative portrayal I would expect might emphasize a trans man’s “womanly” body, for example, simultaneously fetishizing and mocking it. If anything the fact that Tiger’s body is very masculine suggests he was designed by someone who knows how medical transition works, and the fact that he happily participates in gender-nonconformity suggests he was designed by someone who understands the complexity and diversity of gender presentation. He’s just ya know, casually and quietly one of the most genuine representations of a trans man in manga ever.

Horikoshi does seem to have a way of making even the most minor characters feel real and complex. But with this there’s more to it than that. Trans men fly under the radar constantly. People don’t know shit about us. They forget we even exist. No cishet man who decides on a whim to make up a random trans male character magically gets it right. So lemme just point at Tiger with every ounce of emphasis I can possibly cram into my finger, and look you in the eye with the war-hardened stare of someone who has seen just about goddamn everything: This. Is. Significant. In a world where trans men get next to zero representation, let alone decent representation, this isn’t just good, it’s suspiciously good. Like Horikoshi Knows Things type of good. I hate to go here, but I don’t know how else to articulate this... like, in my spreadsheet elimination, the only examples that fared as well or better than Tiger were written by actual queer people and/or come from stories with more major queer characters. At the very least this means that for a cishet man, Horikoshi is way more knowledgable of lqbtq+ issues than average, and at most…well, you know what I’m getting at. I will also go ahead and say that a character like Tiger could very well be a sign of Horikoshi testing the waters for other more central queer characters in the future, getting a read on his audience, editors, publisher, etc. and how they react to it.

Regardless, I’m writing this post not to speculate, but because I want y’all to be armed with the confidence to say Horikoshi is on your side, and not the side of the ignorant dudes who think bnha is their personal plaything. I’m tired of those people pissing all over this manga like it’s their turf. You know, the kind of people who tell you bnha is a shounen, which means it’s “for boys,” straight, cisgender boys, and you don’t belong here so you should shut up or go read something else. Please take this post as a reminder that you’re not delusional, you do belong here, and you're in good hands with Horikoshi, whether you’re queer yourself or just enjoy a good queer ship/headcanon. 

Anyway have a nice rest of your Pride Month everybody <3

^also enjoy this little exchange with class A, it’s very cute

[neonscandal]

Hi, I'm the anon who asked "doom toxic yaoi". What I mean is : this pairing can have negative impact to each other, 'wrong time, right person' kinda thing, also doom by the narative.

Sorry I know that term mostly used for 80's & 90's BL pairing in BL manga or from shoujo (like CLAMP) that have tragic ending, but I see people used it for non-canon pairings in shounen, too....

And GoGe means Gojo as top (seme) and GeGo means Getou as the top (seme). Same with BkDk means Bakugou as top (seme) and vice versa.

For me, I don't mind if they're switching but I prefer top Gojo (GoGe) and top Midoriya (DkBk)....

Again, sorry for my rambling, and if you're not into seme/uke dynamics. It's just when I first enter SatoSugu fandom, one of the thing they asked is that, are you shipper for top Gojo or top Getou (the same when I asked for fics recs).

I mostly read BL manga/manhwa and danmei. But Gojo/Getou, Ash/Eiji and Bakugou/Midoriya are just special. Their stories are great and their dynamic with each other are amazing. And your blog specialize with them. Thanks so much for your blog @neonscandal .....

OKAY re: this ask, thanks for the clarification. Bearing that in mind, the phrase absolutely makes sense for that era as things were toxic as hell. It's giving Junjo Romantica lol

I think BakuDeku canonically makes each other better. They complement one another in how they think they're meant to be heroes and their competitiveness acts as a catalyst for their individual improvement. Over time, they've become way more cohesive but, at the onset it looked pretty dicey.

SatoSugu.. I think that may have been a one-sided improvement. Geto encouraged Gojo to be more humble and consider his responsibility toward the weak and, while I wonder if we'll get another side to the story as we did with Gojo, right now I would say that things were going well until they weren't. We could argue Gojo perhaps gave Geto more confidence but circumstances kinda dashed that, didn't they?

Never a need to apologize, my blog is literally all rambles 😅 I'm very familiar with the seme/uke situation, just can't say I have a preference. I tend to emphasize boring, domestic bliss type of fluff so take that with a grain of salt haha

[blossomshed]

i got tagged by @hehebread weeks agooooooo but here’s 5 songs i’m obsessed with rn - though i could only get the embed codes to work properly on the actual tumblr not on dashboard =w=

it just got released but i already have replayed it about 50 times. i too would sometimes rather suffer than do some small thing to make my future life easier, why humans like this

i love nao but this particular one has been going through my head on repeat for months and months

this is a fun song and i like how it sound, but also just the main hook for this feel real dkbk of the current era. all that's left of me is you...

when i say i literally went to the highlands just to drive around in the hills listening to this... just listening to it makes me wanna go out there again and it's constantly in my head

can't say songs im obsessing with w/o repping my boy rwj. 0.01% spotify listener is me, i think i could reliably claim 5% of total streams of this song. it's just like... soulful and amazing, he has such a great voice and his music is so distinctive! does a lot of production work for other musicians i really like too (including nao!!)

[darkcircles4lyfe]

Do you really think bakugo is gone forever?

>:)

No