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thedemoninme141 · 8 months ago

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Her Heartbeat, Chapter 1: Her Anger.

Summary: Wednesday's anger got her into trouble, Where do you come along?

Warnings: There isn't really any warning but I guess WednesdayBeatingPeople???? FLUFF!!!! No angst in this chapter, but who knows what happens in the future...

Masterlist

Wednesday sat there, in her dorm, right in front of the half-colored half-dead window.Your diary in her hand. And for the first time in her life, Wednesday felt anger. Anger was for people who lost control, who let their emotions drive their actions, who lashed out in fits of rage. Wednesday was never angry. She was annoyed most of the time, but angry? Never. At least that's what she kept telling herself. But inside, her blood simmered with a quiet rage, an anger that she had never considered a flaw but rather a necessary tool for survival. It was not an issue—it was a tolerance bar. And God help whoever crosses it.

So when those boys at Weathervane decided to mock Enid, they unknowingly signed their own fate. The day was already going bad and Wednesday's tolerance bar had reached its limit, and she had done what she deemed appropriate. Enid had tried to stop her, of course, pulling on her arm. She was still in control, right?

Okay fine! She broke a few bones, dislocated a jaw or two, and made sure they would remember to keep Enid’s name out of their mouths for as long as they lived.

When the cops came to the scene, Wednesday was still standing over the boys, wiping her knuckles with a napkin. She was arrested for the third time in her life. Or was it fourth time? Those boys were arrested too, but somehow it was only Wednesday who ended up with a mandatory sentence: Anger Management Therapy sessions. How utterly ridiculous. What could possibly be wrong with expressing herself in a way that ensured she was heard, understood, and remembered?

"You cannot say no, Wednesday, if you do not attend and pass this therapy session, I will have no choice but to expel you."

Ugh, why did Weems even survive Thornhill's poison?

And that’s how Wednesday found herself stuck in this new circle of hell. It was infuriating. It was unjust. And it was a complete waste of time.

The sessions were held in a nondescript building just off the main street in Jericho, where people who had done things they "shouldn't" were supposed to fix themselves. They were meant to "reflect," "heal," and "improve." Wednesday didn't need improvement. She was perfect as she was, she was everything they could never be: self-sufficient, rational, and unapologetic.

The group leader, David, was an insufferable man in his mid-thirties. And much to Wednesday's dismay, he was the male version of Enid. He was incessantly cheerful, overly intrusive, and sickeningly optimistic about everyone’s potential for change. Wednesday found him exhausting.

David had made it his mission to get Wednesday to "open up," constantly encouraging her to share her feelings, recount her past, and dig deep into the source of her "anger." But Wednesday refused to play his game. She sat through the sessions in stony silence, expressing her disinterest as the other participants spoke of their mistakes and regrets. The only sound she made was the tap of her boots. Maybe she can annoy David enough to get kicked out of this nonsense.

She showed up late, ignored his questions, and rolled her eyes whenever he tried to address her. But David was unflappable. He would only chuckle softly, as if she were some mischievous child whose antics were endearing rather than infuriating. Every time she pushed, he merely pushed back with more patience, more persistence, and an infuriatingly steady resolve. After a while, she realized he would not break, and she would only be prolonging her sentence by continuing to fight him.

She attended every session and waited silently while the others poured their hearts out. She refused to say a word, they didn't deserve to know a thing about her. Maybe things aren't exactly too bad. She can just go through alone without causing any trouble so David can finally give some positive feedback on her report and let her be free.

But he had thrown a new wrench into her already miserable routine. He announced, with that obnoxious grin plastered on his face, that they were now required to bring a "partner" to the sessions. Someone who can vouch for them, that they are making progress outside of the therapy session too. Someone who could act as their support system, their "anchor" in times of distress. As if she needed an anchor.

The mere thought of dragging someone else into this circus wasn't exactly unpleasing. At least she could pass her time watching them suffer.

But the problem was she didn't have a line of volunteers waiting to join her in group therapy

Enid, unsurprisingly, had refused immediately, citing her “makeup sessions” with Yoko as an excuse. Wednesday could see right through her, though. Enid’s answer wasn’t about makeup; it was about not wanting to spend her Fridays and Saturdays in a gloomy room with a bunch of disgruntled teenagers and their annoying leader. And honestly, can Wednesday blame her?

Eugene was a possibility, but he was too innocent, too eager to please. He would end up making her look ridiculous in front of the group.

Xavier would have jumped at the opportunity if he hadn’t transferred out last month, much to Wednesday’s relief. Wednesday needed someone but Xavier? Ew, Wednesday wasn't that desperate.

However, she was desperate enough to ask Bianca, who, getting the chance, mocked her before refusing her, “You got yourself in this mess, Wednesday. Surely you can get yourself out,”

That left no one. Not a single person who would willingly subject themselves to the torture of these sessions, and certainly not for her sake. But David had made it clear: no partner, no progress. And no progress meant more sessions, dragging on into the foreseeable future until she complied.

Fine. Screw Bianca. Screw this whole place, this entire ridiculous therapy group, and all its pointless exercises. There wasn’t even a single murder to investigate, no mysteries to solve, nothing to occupy her mind except these meaningless tasks assigned by the so-called professionals who think they can ‘fix’ her. Wednesday was done. Maybe she should run away again. Yes, she could slip out, make her way to Weathervane, and catch a bus to anywhere but here. No one would miss her, and she wouldn’t miss them.

Wednesday was so engrossed in her thoughts of escape that she didn’t even notice when someone approached her. It wasn’t until she heard an exasperated voice that she snapped out of it.

“Hey! Are you even listening?”

She blinked, her gaze shifting to the source of the interruption. A girl stood in front of her, arms crossed, looking more annoyed than intimidated. Wednesday’s eyebrows knit together.

“Who the hell are you?”

“I’m Y/n.”

Wednesday raised an eyebrow, completely unimpressed. “Congratulations. So what am I supposed to do with that information?”

"Ugh" you groaned “Well, I need your help,” you stated, trying to sound confident but there was an edge of uncertainty in your voice.

“No.” Wednesday didn’t even bother to ask what you needed.

“Oh, come on!” you shot back, clearly annoyed by her immediate dismissal. “At least ask what I need help with! I heard you’re quite good with these kinds of things.”

Wednesday’s eyes narrowed suspiciously. “What things? If you’re talking about murdering someone, then sure.”

“No, not murdering someone!” You glanced around nervously, almost mumbling. “It’s… umm… kind of like that, but not really… how do I say it…”

Wednesday cut you off with a sharp glare. “Waste my time, and you'll be the one getting murdered.”

“Okay, Jesus, calm down,” you muttered. “I need your help kidnapping someone.”

Wednesday blinked, taken aback. Her expression flickered with surprise, but it was quickly masked by her usual indifference.

"Why would you even think I’d help you? Wait, first of all why would you even think I’m qualified for this job?"

"Because you’re bored," you said plainly, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. "You see, I missed the last few months of last year, so I missed your grand entrance and your Hyde case, but I’ve heard about your reputation. How you took down Crackstone and how you saved the school. But I know you didn’t do it for the school—you did it for the thrill. For the challenge. You like going against the system."

She hated how accurate that was. It made her uneasy, like you could see right through her. Still, she wasn’t about to admit that you were right. Instead, she said, “No,” once more and got up, ready to walk away.

“Wait, I can give you money.” you blurted out.

The audacity... Wednesday stopped in her tracks, turning to glare at you. “What on earth is wrong with you? Do you really think I’m some kind of hired goon? Someone you can just pay off?”

Your face flushed, and you quickly shook your head.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean it that way. It just… slipped out. Please, I really need your help. Just tell me what I have to do.”

Wednesday should have turned around and left. She should have put as much distance between herself and this ridiculous request as possible. And yet… there was something in your audacity that intrigued her. Besides, she did need a partner for her therapy sessions, and making someone else suffer through them could be mildly entertaining.

"Fine," Wednesday said, her voice low and measured. "I’ll help you, but in return—"

You didn’t even let her finish. "Okay, done, agreed."

Wednesday blinked, momentarily thrown off by your eagerness. She hadn’t even told you what you would need to do, but you didn’t seem to care. You grabbed her hand, pulling her along with you as you headed towards the main gate.

"We don’t have much time," you said hurriedly. "We need to kidnap her right now."

Wednesday stumbled slightly as you dragged her along. Why wasn't she yanking her hand back? Her brows furrowed in confusion.

"Right now? Without any plan or any information?"

"Yeah, yeah," you said dismissively, waving your hand as if that was a minor detail. "I’ll tell you that on the way to the asylum."

“The what?” Wednesday’s voice rose slightly.

You just kept walking, your grip on her hand firm, and for once, Wednesday found herself caught up in someone else’s madness instead of her own.

CHAPTER 2 : Her Touch

[Author's note: Celine pretty much wrote the chapter 1, I just made some changes here and there, lol it took more time for me to create the art for this project than writing this, good news is Chapter 2 and 3 are almost ready.]

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stillness-in-green · 1 month ago

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On Child Abuse and Todoroki Touya

Being a response to this ask:

First, anon, I'd like to thank you for coming at the question of Touya's victimhood in such an honest, open spirit of curiosity. I've seen no shortage of people who, in not understanding why people call Touya a child abuse victim, flip over into belligerence and scorn, which is just no kind of tack to take about such a sensitive topic!

That said, child abuse is a broad, broad, broad topic, and not one I’m exceptionally well-read on, but I’ll try to hit the highlights as to why people—myself included—say Touya was a such a victim. Forgive me if anything I say sounds too basic and therefore condescending; that’s not my intention, I just don’t want to assume your knowledge on anything, as you say you haven’t personally encountered abuse before. If you’re very curious to learn more, there’s no shortage of resources out there, including just starting on Wikipedia’s articles on Child Abuse and Emotional Abuse and going from there.

(Sincerely, and speaking from my own experience, I would recommend everyone do at least some cursory reading on non-physical forms of abuse; it’s much better to know what the red flags are when you first start seeing them than have to enumerate them all only in retrospect. Like, if absolutely nothing else, take five minutes to do an image search for the Power and Control Wheel and look it over.[1])

1: Do note that the P&E wheel was developed in the 1980s, based off of a series of focus group discussions about the shared experiences between women being abused by their male partners. Because of that origin, in the original and still widely replicated version, there’s a segment about “abusing privilege” that doesn’t—because it was never designed to—take into account intersectionality, abuse between same-gendered partners, or women abusing men. More modern versions have attempted to modify the wheel for more general purpose, gender-neutral education about abuse. I find it to be a valuable introductory tool, but it's not a universal authority and shouldn't be treated as such.

Obviously, trigger warnings for discussion of child abuse generally and Touya and the rest of the kids’ situations specifically below the jump.

Introduction

So, the big big thing to keep in mind here is that abuse is not limited to physical violence or sexual abuse. Abuse can take all sorts of forms, even outside of intimate partner relationships: abuse of power, medical or professional abuse, spiritual abuse, financial abuse, and so on. Any list you care to look up of “types of abuse” can be quite long, depending on how granular the list-writers feel like being or who their target audience is. There’s also a great deal of overlap in types and terminology, so some sources will only include a few umbrella terms, whereas others will be much more extensive.

For example, a list identifying forms of abuse aimed at women is going to focus on different things than one about abuse aimed at the elderly, or children, or forms of institutionalized abuse (not to be confused with abuse taking place in institutional settings!). No one much talks about financial abuse when detailing different forms of child abuse, but it would be a major point of discussion for domestic or elder abuse. Comparatively, an exploration of domestic partner abuse may include neglect as a subtype of psychological/emotional abuse, whereas a similar explanation of child abuse will likely include it as a category unto itself.

Looking specifically at child abuse, Wikipedia explains that, depending on your sources, the term “child abuse” may or may not be used synonymously with “child maltreatment.” If they’re considered separate terms, then “child abuse” is considered one subtype, with the other subtype being “child neglect.” If abuse and maltreatment are used interchangeably, then neglect is a subtype of abuse.

More specific definitions and legislation about them vary hugely from place to place based on cultural standards, leeway given based on intentionality,[2] and how provable any given act might be based on clear evidence of harm.

2: As an example, a single parent whose child is suffering malnutrition because they’re living below the poverty line and can’t afford regular, nutritious meals is going to be regarded differently than a financially stable married couple who are actively choosing to spend their money on other things while letting their child go hungry.

Here are some definitions Wikipedia gives, as offered by various relevant organizations and laws:

The World Health Organization (WHO) defines child abuse and child maltreatment as "all forms of physical and/or emotional ill-treatment, sexual abuse, neglect or negligent treatment or commercial or other exploitation, resulting in actual or potential harm to the child's health, survival, development or dignity in the context of a relationship of responsibility, trust or power." In the United States, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) uses the term child maltreatment to refer to both acts of commission (abuse), which include "words or overt actions that cause harm, potential harm, or threat of harm to a child", and acts of omission (neglect), meaning "the failure to provide for a child's basic physical, emotional, or educational needs or to protect a child from harm or potential harm". The United States federal Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act defines child abuse and neglect as, at minimum, "any recent act or failure to act on the part of a parent or caretaker which results in death, serious physical or emotional harm, sexual abuse or exploitation" or "an act or failure to act which presents an imminent risk of serious harm".

(From Wikipedia's article on child abuse)

Note how many references there are in that chonky paragraph to neglect and emotional harm. That view of abuse is why pretty much everyone who calls Touya a victim of child abuse is using abuse as the umbrella term that includes neglect, so that’s the tack I’ll be taking here as well. Even if I were considering abuse and neglect separately, though, there are several things Touya is subjected to that should be considered abuse in that more active sense!

There are two big category terms that I’d say are relevant to Touya's experience, both of which are recognized forms of child maltreatment: child neglect and emotional/psychological abuse. You can make an argument for physical abuse as well, though it’s clearly not as extensive as what Shouto or Rei endured. I’ll touch on each of those, as well as point to some of the damage experts predict in victims of those forms of abuse that—intentionally or not on Horikoshi’s part—we do see in Touya/Dabi.

Child Neglect

The physical markers of child neglect are things like inadequate nutrition or shelter, but there are a number of other dimensions as well—some quite severe psychological damage can be done by e.g. a parent who regularly ignores their infant child crying. The same World Health Organization report Wikipedia quoted above noted that emotional neglect can be characterized by “a lack of nurturance, encouragement, and support.” A UK report from the same year included in its definition of neglect, “neglect of, or unresponsiveness to, a child’s basic emotional needs.”

The Wikipedia article itself includes a table listing types of child neglect with various (I assume hypothetical) example cases, among which is “emotional neglect,” described thusly: Guardian or parent give inadequate nurturing or affection. The parent or guardian fails to create an environment where the child feels secure, loved, wanted, worthy, etc.

So how does that all relate to Touya?

Touya seems at first glance to have been getting love and support aplenty in his youth—Enji supported him, was training him, raising him to be a Hero. The family was doing okay at that point. Rei had Fuyumi because she wanted another child,[3] and while Enji, too, still “yearned” for a child with his ideal quirk combination—which he already knew neither Touya nor Fuyumi possessed!—the two of them nonetheless stopped, for a time, with Fuyumi and Touya.

3: Because multiple children could encourage each other, per Endeavor’s characterization of Rei’s stated desires. I note that this is pretty much the same reasoning AFO gave Shimura Kotarou about having another child, just absent the calculated Hero bashing—children should have siblings so they can help each other out. With the way the endgame went, I confess myself shocked that neither Rei nor her parents turned out to be on AFO’s payroll.

The specifics of the timeline are illustrative here. Touya and Fuyumi are only eleven months apart in age, meaning Fuyumi was conceived only two months after Touya’s birth. Comparatively, Fuyumi was closing in on three years old by the time Natsuo was conceived! So, whatever his private desires, at that point in time, Enji was willing to abide, to trust his ambitions to Touya without continuing to try for a child closer to his ideal.

Crucially, at this juncture, Touya wanted exactly the situation he was in! He was thrilled to have this commonality with his father, whom he clearly adored, and unlike Shouto later on, didn’t find Enji’s expectations to be any sort of burden or source of stress. So while you could (and I will) still criticize the dynamic based on Enji’s ulterior motives, Touya’s lived experience was very happy.

Sidebar: Would that happiness have lasted? I don’t know. Enji’s support of Touya was so plainly conditional; there are so many things that could have disrupted it even if Touya’s health problems had never surfaced and Natsuo and Shouto were never born at all. What if Touya decided he wanted to pursue a different path when he got older? What if his youthful enthusiasm curdled into pridefulness and conceit in ways that made him fare poorly in the Hero Billboard charts? What if he struggled in school and couldn’t get into UA? Assuming that he couldn't surpass All Might within just a few short years of his debut, what would happen when All Might retired after Kamino with neither Endeavor nor [whatever Touya would have chosen for his Hero name] ever surpassing him? Myself, I tend to think that it’s unlikely that Enji and Rei would have stopped at two kids long-term anyway. Even if things had continued going well, Enji’s hope for his idealized quirk combined with Rei’s willingness to have more children in the hopes of having a happy, mutually supportive household would probably have led them to having more children eventually. Perhaps Touya wouldn’t have taken it so badly, if he weren’t already reeling from Enji’s rejection, but Shouto's existence would always have created complications in the dynamic because I don’t think Enji could have resisted starting to focus on what he would have seen as Shouto’s greater potential, and Touya surely would have noticed. In any case, something would always have happened because Enji’s ambitions, not any of his individual children’s responses to those ambitions, were the rot at the heart of the Todoroki family.

That happiness was based on a bad foundation, so it was always likely to crack. Touya’s health issues just revealed what was already there: that Enji saw his children as vessels for his ambition, and when they couldn’t fill that role, he functionally discarded them.

This was emotionally catastrophic for Touya because, again, he adored his father and desperately wanted a relationship with him, but Enji did not provide him with any kind of alternative framework for a relationship outside of “be a Hero that can fulfill my ambition.”

Now, did Enji just casually toss him aside without a second glance? No, of course not. He didn’t even immediately start trying to have kids again! He had enough invested in Touya that he did spend a while getting medical opinions and seeking out advice in hopes of “salvaging” Touya’s prospects; we see as much on the page.

(Honestly, the doc says this is unusual, but given the increasing diversity of quirks, how “unusual” could it possibly be? I would think issues like this would be quite common! What were the odds of Bakugou inheriting his father’s combustive sweat without also getting his father’s immunity to those combustions, for example?)

For Touya, though, the shift was obvious. Enji stopped spending time with him; they didn’t have anything to do together if it wasn’t training. Instead, his father started being harsher, raising his voice when he spoke to Touya, telling him that this was for his own good. All that affection and support, gone overnight.

(Note the jaggedness of Enji’s first talk bubble, and the lingering sharp corners to his second one, and compare them both to the smooth, rounded talk bubbles in the dojo scene or the doctor's analysis above.)

There did seem to be a period in which Enji tried to convince Touya to give up on the Hero goal, but Touya didn't care about being a Hero for its own sake; he cared about it because it was the only source of pride or connection Enji provided. He was asking Touya to give up the one thing Touya knew Enji valued, and that also meant giving up the thing that represented their bond. Touya loved him and didn’t want to give that bond up, so he kept stubbornly trying to push his way through, insisting he could handle it.

We have no evidence that Enji ever managed to get into words that he’d love Touya regardless of whether or not Touya could surpass All Might, but even if he did, Touya clearly didn’t believe him—and why would he, given that it’s obvious that was still Enji’s priority? If Touya was still loved either way, why did his bonding time with his dad dry up overnight? Why was his dad still obsessing over news reports about All Might? And, most importantly, why would his parents start trying to have children again?

Enji’s most important goal at the time was surpassing All Might; he consciously chose to keep pursuing that goal even though doing so made it crystal clear that anything he might have told Touya about how it was okay if Touya couldn’t is just a platitude.

Note how Rei explicitly said in the scene above that Touya knew very well what Enji was hoping for from his children, and them continuing to have more in light of that knowledge would be a horrible cruelty. Again, that’s apparent in the ages of the kids: as long as Touya’s fire was holding up, it was just him and Fuyumi, but practically as soon as his fire started hurting him, suddenly more siblings were being attempted?

That’s all to say, I don’t for a second believe that Enji only proposed having more kids in order to make Touya give up. The page above is Enji making a textually cruel decision which he justified using the well-being of his son but which in actuality revolved around letting him get back to pursuing his ambition, which having a relationship with his son no longer furthered.

Let me copy back in those definitions of emotional neglect:

A lack of nurturance, encouragement, and support; neglect of, or unresponsiveness to, a child’s basic emotional needs; inadequate nurturing or affection. The parent or guardian fails to create an environment where the child feels secure, loved, wanted, worthy, etc.

Enji’s support was conditional. His nurturing revolved 100% around nurturing the growth of a future Hero, and that nurturing itself was pretty flawed, given Endeavor’s ideas about what being a Hero means. When Touya tried to demand support, wanting to get back what he had before, Enji just shut him down. It’s patently obvious that, at the age of three and a half years old, Touya did not feel secure, loved, wanted, or worthy in that home environment. Over the next ten years, it would get progressively worse.

Before I move on to the more active abuse that Enji would come to perpetuate, I want to move away from definitions and briefly talk about some other recognized acts and consequences of child neglect. All per Wikipedia:

• Act: Allowing the child to witness violence or severe abuse between parents or adults.

We don’t see Touya here directly, but this happened immediately after Touya invited Enji to come up to Sekoto Peak, so he presumably did at least see his father storming off bellowing Rei’s name at the top of his lungs. Also, absolutely nothing about this scene suggests to me that it was the first time something like this had happened—Shoto calling it “bullying” suggests it’s a regular occurrence and Fuyumi hiding and covering both her own and Natsuo’s ears also reads as something she learned how to do, not something she was doing for the very first time in this scene. I don’t feel it’s a stretch, then, to chalk it up as part of the form “child neglect” took for Touya as well.

• Act: Not getting the child adequate medical care.

Too many panels to choose from here! From the evidence of the flashbacks, Touya’s fire started burning him when he was three and a half; he was then intentionally and regularly doing training that resulted him getting burned for ten more years. Even if you argue that he started hiding that training after his attack on Shouto led to Endeavor getting more distant from him than ever, he would still have been doing that training more openly for something like four solid years. In their argument just before that attack, Enji even described him as “covered in burns.”

So, if he was covered in burns, was consistently burning himself for years, was he getting professional medical treatment? (God knows he wasn’t getting psychological help.) Or would that have raised too many uncomfortable questions that could have led to Social Services showing up at the Number 2 Hero’s house in broad daylight right when the neighbors could see it?

That question doesn’t just indict Enji, by the way; it goes for Rei, too. It’s telling that Rei’s response to having a traumatic break and burning Shouto was to embrace him, weeping and apologizing, and try to apply ice to the burn, while the only response we ever see to Touya’s burns, following that early medical consultation, is him getting manhandled and shouted at.

• Consequences: Children from neglectful homes are unlikely to view alternative caregivers as being a source of safety, and instead typically show an increase in aggressive and hyperactive behaviors which may disrupt healthy or secure attachment; they’re often described as glib, manipulative and disingenuous in their interactions with others as they move through childhood.

o Don’t regard other caretakers as being a source of safety:

(I’m aware I’m cheating a little here in that Rei was not an alternative caretaker, she was his literal mother, while AFO and the Evil Orphanage staff were transparently Sus As Hell. Still, I think the shoe fits.)

o Aggressive behavior:

(See also him burning down the Evil Orphanage on his way out. Also see Wikipedia’s list of symptoms for “Psychomotor agitation” and marvel at how many of those behaviors you could connect to Touya and/or Dabi if you wanted to evaluate him on “hyperactive behaviors” as well.)

o Manipulative and disingenuous:

(I don’t necessarily think Touya was consciously being an emotionally manipulative shithead here, but this is emotionally manipulative shithead behavior all the same.)

Moving on now to the other major relevant topic...

Emotional/Psychological Abuse

In the context of discussions of abuse, these two terms are generally used interchangeably. Due to that, and the fuzziness of terminology that I mentioned at the outset, there’s a lot of overlap between definitions/examples of this sort of abuse and child neglect—sometimes neglect is considered a subtype, for example. The Wikipedia articles here are a bit vague and all over the place, so for this section I sought out sites more specifically tailored to the topic of child emotional abuse. (Here, here and here.)

Consistent patterns are immediately visible in what sort of treatment is generally considered to constitute emotional abuse in the context of a parent/child relationship. Several would apply to all the Todoroki children, some exclusively to Shouto, but I’ll go through the ones that seem relevant to Touya.

Rejection/Ignoring: Communicating to a child through words and conduct that he or she is unwanted and/or worthless. Being consistently absent or emotionally unavailable. Continually ignoring or rejecting them. Never expressing positive emotions, showing kindness or congratulating the child on their successes.

A lot of overlap with neglect here that I’ve already covered, but note how, once Touya’s health problems kicked in, we only ever see Touya and Enji interactions come in the form of Touya begging for his father’s attention; Rei likewise said that all Touya wanted was for his father to look at him, which Enji refused to do.

This refusal is most literal in the volume version of Chapter 302, where the added pages really amp up that watching/seeing theme of Enji’s I talked about in my reply to your previous ask. After Touya attacked Shouto, Enji ordered Rei to keep her eyes on Touya; in their later confrontation in the lead-up to Sekoto Peak, Enji brought this up again, demanding to know why she didn’t stop him when watching him was all he asked her to do. When she tearfully said that she couldn’t stop Touya, Enji defensively, furiously shouted that she had to, because he (Enji) wouldn’t “watch.”

(With thanks to @codenamesazanka, here's the Viz digital release version, rather more colloquial than the Japanese, as is often the case with Caleb Cook's localizations for Enji.)

Contextually, I’m sure he was saying he wasn’t going to be the one to look after the kid, but the words also play off his arc theme by showing what Enji not only neglected but explicitly refused to look at/see/watch/pay attention to.

Verbal Abuse: Threatening, cursing, or yelling at children. Consistently humiliating or criticizing them, especially in front of others. Blaming or scapegoating them for the parent’s own abuse.

At the same time that Touya was now having to beg for any attention, the only attention he did get became negative. I don’t think Enji literally cursed at him in any of the scenes we see, but his language became noticeably rougher and sharper in ways that the Viz official release localizes as including cursing, even though he wasn’t e.g. directly calling Touya swears. (That is, the English translation has Enji saying, “Dammit!” in amidst his rants, but no directly addressed profanity like “bastard” or “asshole.”)

I leave an extended discussion of that localization choice to those with a greater understanding of the Japanese context, but Enji did unequivocally yell, both at Touya and at everyone else, in front of other family members and at volumes other family members couldn’t help but overhear.

He also consistently treated Touya as if Touya’s pleas for attention or secret training were the problem when the problem was very obviously Enji’s own neglect. “Why won’t you stop?” “Why don’t you get it?” It’s not as direct as, say, beating Touya and then saying the beating was his own fault, but he blamed Touya for hurting himself, blamed Rei for not intervening, when Touya’s injuries were a direct result of Enji refusing to acknowledge that his responsibility for his child’s emotional well-being should take precedence over his desperately shallow desire to stand on top of an awards podium.

As to threats, intimidation in all forms is another one of those things that crops up all over abuse lists. While Enji didn’t overtly threaten Touya, lord knows his body language was scary as hell—all that looming and glaring and grimacing! We know he would destroy things when he got angry enough—as seen in his trashed dojo after All Might announced his retirement—and destruction of property[4] is a frequent example of psychological abuse via intimidation.

4: As of e.g. throwing household items during fights, slamming doors or on walls, or especially breaking the victim’s personal belongings.

We do also see one instance of him manhandling Touya in a way that would quite clearly qualify as outright physically abusive in a domestic partner relationship.

In the context of urgently checking one’s child for injuries, this is slightly more forgivable, but the urgency here wasn’t really about Touya’s health; it was about how he was continuing to disobey Enji’s wishes, and the indication that Rei wasn’t doing what Enji wanted her to, either. Note Touya’s wide-eyed, rigid expression at the rough handling.

I don’t think there’s enough of an established pattern to conclusively ding Enji as physically abusive towards Touya, but on the other hand, the general consensus of experts (as I understand it) is that labeling a relationship emotionally abusive requires a consistent, persistent pattern of abusive behavior (because it’s easy to handwave off individual uses of ugly language as just the unintended result of speaking in anger or a making a joke that didn’t land), whereas a physically abusive relationship can be judged as such based on a single violent incident (because it’s harder to make convincing excuses for hitting someone).

In that sense, and based on how he treated Rei and Shouto, I would not be hard-pressed to believe that Enji was all too ready to use physical force dragging Touya around against his will (out of the dojo, back to his room, to Rei so she could administer first aid for his burns, etc.). That would, again, easily qualify as abuse in the sense of domestic partner violence; while I can see the argument that it’s different with kids, even the one instance of it we see already raises my eyebrows, and my likelihood of calling it child abuse would increase the more frequently it was happening.

Manipulation/Exploitation: Manipulating a child, forcing a responsibility on them without regard to their development, not recognizing their individuality, having unreasonable expectations/unreasonable demands, comparing them to others/their siblings.

This is all most applicable to Shouto, obviously, but it’s also where you can clearly see Enji’s treatment of Touya as abusive even when he and Touya were both very happy. Remember, Touya wasn’t even four yet when his ice nature started asserting itself, so all that stuff about surpassing All Might was a responsibility/expectation Enji was pushing on a three-year old—a literal toddler!—absolutely without regard to anything Touya might have wanted or chosen if left to his own devices. He didn’t keep pushing once it became clear Touya wouldn’t be able to meet those expectations, of course, but he also didn’t demonstrate for Touya any other ways to be close to him/earn his approval.

Also, while I still think him wanting to push ahead with having more children is more about fulfilling his own ambitions than genuinely helping Touya, he did still frame the decision as being about Touya. Specifically, he wanted to do it to “make” Touya give up; it was a manipulative tactic chosen specifically in hopes of breaking Touya’s stubbornness because Enji couldn’t find a more appropriate method of convincing Touya to give up on pursuing Heroism.

Closing out this section, here are some Dabi-relevant consequences I found noted for emotional/psychological abuse, per Wikipedia:

• Poor self-esteem:

(I know this is from a scene where he was proclaiming his own capability, but what strikes me as indicative is the way he unironically referred to himself as Endeavor’s “creation.” Not the wording of someone with a good strong sense of independent self! Refer back also to his calling himself and Natsuo “failed creations.”)

• Destructive behavior, angry acts such as fire setting: (Waves at all of Dabi)

• Withdrawal, difficulty forming relationships, isolated from their parents, have few (if any) friends:

(If you don’t think this qualifies, see also Dabi’s stand-offish relationship with the League. I think he did have a measure of care for them, but it was pretty stunted, as well as filtered through several layers of variably plausible belief that they only mattered to him insomuch as they were relevant to his goals.)

• Difficulty controlling strong emotions:

(See also Dabi’s swings into grinning, off-balance mania.)

• Suicide.

(To my eyes, this desire to commit a murder-suicide with his father goes back at least at far as the first war—because I’m not confident in Dabi’s ability or desire to survive that blue-flame Prominence Burn Best Jeanist interrupted—and maybe even all the way back to Dabi’s “birth” praying at his own memorial photo at the family shrine, what with Dabi’s very name meaning “cremation” and all.)

Child Abuse in Japanese Resources

One of the things I made sure to do over the course of writing this piece was look up resources actually from Japan on the topic of child abuse, just to be sure that their conception of what constitutes abuse didn’t diverge in some unexpected way from my English-language resources. They did not—everything I covered above can also be found on Japanese web resources on child abuse—but they did, interestingly, include some things not covered by my English resources, things I take to be more specific to Japanese law and/or culture. I want to touch on those briefly before I wrap this up.

(The specific phrasing I use below is taken from the English-language version of the website Lights On Children, a Tokyo-based NPO focused on raising awareness and resources for children living in alternative care situations like children’s homes or foster families, but similar points were found on other websites as well.)

Inflicting burns as a form of physical abuse.

I didn’t discuss it specifically above because most of what I was working from was specific lists/infographics about signs of non-physical abuse, but I noticed on this site—and it’s true for English sites as well!—that burns on a child are a well-recognized sign of child abuse, ubiquitous on any list of tells for physical abuse. I wouldn’t suspect Horikoshi had that in mind specifically when brainstorming Shouto and the rest of his family situation, but it is notable that Shouto's most obvious injury, the one that gets his mother institutionalized, is a facial burn.

Touya hid his injuries, nominally so Enji didn’t realize he was still training and shout at him all the time or take more drastic measures to make him stop, but I gotta say, a school nurse doing a routine health check-up would not know the difference between burns Touya got from self-taught training and burns Touya got from his famous flame-wielding Hero father. The fact that they were hidden, and especially that they were on his torso rather than his limbs, should be screamingly suspicious to any semi-trained professional, and I truly wonder what the in-universe explanation is for how Touya got through 7+ years of regular school health screenings without Endeavor getting into serious trouble.

Not taking the child to a medical institution/hospital if they are in serious need of care.

This is another one that was ubiquitous under acts that constitute neglect. Japan has universal health care, you see, so there’s even less excuse for not getting your kids medical help if they need it than there would be in the U.S.[5] This goes back to my questions about whether Touya was ever taken to see a doctor/the emergency room to address his burns. Small ones I could see Enji and Rei plausibly justifying taking care of at the house, which, given the nature of Enji’s job and training regimen, was presumably well-stocked to handle such first aid. That huge band across Touya’s entire abdomen in Chapter 302, not so much.

5: My research suggests that all children under a certain age are eligible for Medicaid in the U.S. regardless of whether or not their parents qualify, so denying your child needed care is still heckin’ illegal here, too! However, health insurance in the U.S. is such a horrible morass that it wouldn’t surprise me if plenty of parents don’t know—or at least could plausibly claim that they don’t—about hospital requirements to provide care for kids regardless of their parents’ ability to pay.

Discriminatory treatment among siblings.

This one barely came up at all in English-language resources but was super common on the Japanese sites, I assume because the country’s deeply engrained problems with patriarchal attitudes is more likely to result in that kind of disparity between the treatment given to sons and daughters, or the oldest son compared to basically everyone else. I’ve also seen enough examples in anime of wildly differing treatment of adopted children—or step-children!—versus blood-related children that I assume it’s a reflection of some real-life precedent!

The relevance for the Todoroki children is, I trust, obvious.

Abusive actions to siblings.

I discussed above how allowing children to witness domestic partner violence is itself an act of child abuse, even if the abuser never lays a finger on the child themselves, and the same goes here. If anything, it’s even more stringent: the stuff about partner violence tends to specify letting a child witness it, while that qualifier of a child's perception is not present for sibling abuse. Abusing one child in any way—physically, sexually, psychologically, or via neglect—constitutes psychological abuse for all children in the home.

For the Todorokis, then, what Enji (or Rei!) did to any individual one of the children—be it the isolation and abusive training Shouto underwent, the rejection and verbal abuse Touya endured, or even the disregard and parentification Fuyumi and Natsuo had to deal with[6]—qualifies as abuse of all of them.

6: More prominent for Fuyumi, but Natsuo talked about the meals he cooked as well. I don’t think we know what-all the housekeeper did, how much she was around, or how old the kids were when she retired (at least old enough that Enji didn’t bother replacing her) but Fuyumi’d been trying to protect Natsuo from their family’s damage since she was seven years old.

Wrap-Up

So, I hope this has all clarified for you, anon, why people so readily call Touya an abuse victim. He was—they all were! I should also note, before I let readers go, that there’s not really a question of severity here, either: numerous studies have shown that the impact of psychological abuse and/or child neglect is no less damaging—and may even be more damaging—than the harm done by physical or sexual abuse in isolation. So it’s not like Touya’s just wildly overreacting or some kind of Bad Egg—while obviously not all abuse victims grow up into violent criminals, a certain percentage of them do, and Touya falls into that category.

It’s one of the things I always liked about the Todoroki plot, really. Four children, all of whom had wildly different responses to the abuse they suffered, allows room for one of them to be completely (and entertainingly!) unhinged about it without consequently implying that abuse will inevitably turn victims into violent monsters.

Thanks for the ask!

#bnha #todoroki touya #todoroki enji #bnha dabi #bnha endeavor #todoroki rei #todoroki family #tw: child abuse #tw: child neglect #moderately image heavy #my writing #todotalk #stillness answers

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goddessinnerglow · 5 months ago

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Become Your Best Version Before 2025 - Day 13

Financial Planning and Budgeting

Hello Goddesses! I know that talking about money, can feel scary or boring, but after working on our stress management tools yesterday, it's perfect timing to address something that's often a huge source of stress for many of us: finances.

First things first: if thinking about money makes you want to hide under your blanket, you're not alone. But taking control of your finances isn't about becoming a math genius or never buying another coffee again. It's about making friends with your money so it can help you live your best life.

Let's break this down into bite-sized pieces that won't give you a headache:

Start Where You Are

Remember when you first learned to ride a bike? You didn't start by doing tricks, you started with training wheels. Money management is the same way! First step: just look at your current situation. Open those banking apps you've been avoiding. Take a deep breath and look at your statements. Knowledge is power, even if it's a bit scary at first.

The Money Map Exercise

Grab a piece of paper (or open your notes app) and let's do something simple:

Write down all your income sources

List your regular monthly expenses (yes, including those sneaky subscriptions!)

Don't forget those irregular expenses like annual fees or seasonal costs

Look at what's left (or what's missing)

Congratulations! You've just created your first basic budget outline.

The 50/30/20 Guideline

Here's a popular way to think about your money:

50% for needs (rent, groceries, utilities)

30% for wants (fun stuff, shopping, entertainment)

20% for future you (savings, debt payment, investments)

These numbers might not work for everyone, especially depending on where you live. The important thing is to have some kind of plan that works for YOU.

Smart Money Habits You Can Start Today

The 24-Hour Rule: For non-essential purchases over a certain amount (you decide the number!), wait 24 hours before buying. You'd be surprised how many "must-haves" become "maybe nots" overnight!

Bill Calendar: Set up a simple calendar with all your bill due dates. Future you will be so grateful!

Automate Your Savings: Even if it's just $5 a week, set up automatic transfers to a savings account. It's like hiding money from yourself!

Track Your Spending: For just one week, write down every single purchase. No judging, just observing. You might find some surprising patterns!

The Emergency Fund Challenge

Let's start building that safety net! Even $500 in savings can make a huge difference in an emergency. Start with a goal of saving just $25 this week. Too much? Start with $10. Too little? Make it $50. The amount isn't as important as getting started.

Money Goals That Make Sense

Instead of vague goals like "save more," try specific ones like:

Save enough for three months of basic expenses by December 2025

Pay off one credit card by summer

Create a "fun fund" for that hobby you've been wanting to try

Your financial journey is exactly that, YOURS. You don't need to compare yourself to anyone else. The person on Instagram showing off their investment portfolio might still be paying off massive debt. Focus on your own path!

Your mission for today:

Look at your bank statement (I know, scary, but you can do it!)

Pick ONE money habit from this post to try this week

Set ONE specific financial goal for 2025

See you tomorrow for Day 14! Remember, every financial decision you make today is a gift to your future self.

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open-sketchbook · 1 year ago

Note

Hello. Regarding computer literacy among the younger ones, is there a good argument against the idea that "kids should not be forced to learn outdated '90's technology"?

yeah, a really good one: you don't make phone apps on a phone, you make them on a computer. kids are being walled into a deliberately limited and commercialized version of tools that make the modern world, denied a chance to learn how the machines they use every day work and, through that, the tools they could use to create more freely and powerfully than they'll get in walled gardens and with limited-application always-online apps.

it is the spectre of death for open source and DRM free software, and it denies kids the chance to control their digital lives.

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galaxy-fleur · 6 months ago

Note

Do you have any thoughts and headcanons about remake Leon pining and being down bad for someone he knew for a long time? Before Raccoon City or after all the same, i would love to read it :DD

Nothing like some good old slow-burn... It is an interesting thing to think about! Leon having someone that knew him before his life was forever changed would definitely have its upsides and downsides to it. For both parties involved. I do think a part of him will always crave that feeling of normalcy and stability that was stolen away from him. For someone to see that spark of innocence in him that he thinks he has lost now. Make him feel like that young, bright-eyed boy again that still had the control over his fate, even if for a moment.

Leon would feel more at ease, on the one hand. Someone knowing him so intimately means they actually know the real him, not just as an exceptional soldier, or a government's weapon, but as the same simple guy before the world was forever changed. And that's something he'll definitely want to indulge in. It's a nice feeling, to be looked at as a human and not as a weapon or an asset for once. He'll be overall just softer and more approachable with them. Even though he may become tough and battle-hardened, his actual self will always show through. And I'd say such a connection would bring those glimpses of his former self more often than not.

But, on the other hand, having someone who knew Leon before the Racoon City disaster also means that they see just how much he has changed. The pain and the weight of it all cannot be concealed from someone who knows you like that. There's no pretending that he's fine with being used as a tool. Not when you can compare it to that younger, truer version of himself. It's a double edged sword. Although he may find great solace in this familiarity, it may also act as a harsh reminder of what he has lost. And this goes the other way around, too. Witnessing someone you knew undergo such drastic change—and not voluntarily—must be difficult.

Seeing Leon's optimism wane and then slip away as he endures one agonizing ordeal after another must bee awful for his friend, too. While everyone else only sees a hardened professional, an old friend will only recognize a person they love pushing himself into something that's so far removed from everything they've both known.

So, there are definitely some nuances to explore here. As for Leon harboring feelings for an old friend like that... Hm, I think it depends on a position they're in, honestly. He'll definitely be way more open about it if they're in a similar line of work. However, it will be a little more difficult if they are a civilian. But his protective nature will remain constant. That's something that'll be a regular occurrence in either circumstance here.

More than anything, Leon wants to be able to protect those he cares about. It makes him sick to think of losing someone he cares about so much and not being able to keep them safe. That, of course, is a result of his failures in Racoon City. He won't be able to let go of that guilt until the events of RE4R (that's kinda what his story is about there, after all). It can become a little intrusive, depending on the personality of his friend. Although he has good intentions, his paranoid and protective nature may cause him to restrict their freedom or take away their agency in an effort to keep them safe. (I'm not talking about anything extreme here ofc!) That's something that can be a source of conflict for sure.

On a brighter note, you can also expect Leon to be way more softer, as I've already said! Tiny smiles, dumb jokes, remarks that aren't very funny but are charming in their own right, and awkward compliments every now and then. Those are all the things you can expect from him. He's not the greatest flirt, especially around someone who he has known for so long. Kinda hard to play Casanova when the person you want to woo knows all the embarrassing things about you. But he's charming without even trying.

And he's much more tactile, too! I feel like Leon tends to communicate through touch, so he has a natural tendency to be physically affectionate with those he's close to. He won't be clingy, per se. However, a light touch on your lower back or shoulder is common with him. Probably lots of headpats if his friend is shorter than him. It's a nice way to express affection without going too far with it. Will grab onto their hands, too. Mostly during an emotionally intimate moment.

Leon might even give out a hug or two for a friend like that. Most of the time, he needs it far more, honestly. Speaking of which, he's not only touchy himself, but he's also very receptive to touch, too.

For someone who always has to be on his guard, him not flinching at the touch but leaning into it instead speaks more than any words possibly could. More than anything, it's a show of trust and connection he feels to said person. It's very sweet, once you learn all the ins and outs of how he operates.

He won't go around asking for it, but if they were to go and offer him a hug? He'll absolutely melt into it.

#resident evil #leon kennedy #leon scott kennedy #leon s kennedy #once again wasn't sure which format you'd like more so i just went with referring to the friend as 'they' <3 #can u tell that character relationships are my bread and butter btw #i love humans

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bestiarium · 1 year ago

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Aagjuuk the Entrail-Stealer [Inuit mythology]

In an earlier post, I talked about Taqqiq, the benevolent lunar spirit from native Inuit religion. Whenever a person dies, it is Taqqiq who guides them to the afterlife. Though he is a powerful and important spirit, he is not the sole inhabitant of the Earth’s moon. When Taqqiq is guiding a soul, they are greeted by Aagjuuk, also called Ululijarnaat or Aukjuk. This enigmatic spirit resembles an old woman and some versions claim that she is Taqqiq’s cousin. She always carries an ulu knife (a traditional Inuk tool for cutting ropes, hair etc.) and a copper pot.

Aagjuuk puts on a kind and friendly façade, but in reality she is a cruel and vicious monster. She will attempt to make the visitor laugh, but this is a test, and the soul must remain absolutely emotionless. If the victim so much as giggles, she will slice open their stomach with her ulu knife and then collect their innards with her copper pot. She then devours the victim’s entrails. Because of this, this spirit is fittingly called the ‘entrail-stealer’.

An Angakkuq (an Inuit shaman) could also converse with Aagjuuk through a special spirit-summoning ceremony, something like a séance. But this was a dangerous practise, for the entrail-stealer would then attempt to make the shaman laugh. If she succeeded, she would open the shaman and steal their entrails, just like she does with victims in the afterlife.

Oosten argues that it is also a symbolic thing: a hunter who does not manage to restrain or control himself will eventually become food for something else.

Sources: Christopher, N., 2013, The Hidden: a compendium of arctic giants, dwarves, gnomes, trolls, faeries, and other strange beings from Inuit oral history, 191 pp, p. 178-183. Oosten, J. G., 1981, The structure of the shamanistic complex among the Netsilik and Iglulik, Études/Inuit/Studies, 5(1): pp. 83-98. Barraclough, E. R., Cudmore, D. M. and Donecker, S., 2016, Imagining the Supernatural North, University of Alberta, 328 pp. (image source: Eva Widermann on Artstation)

#spirits #mythical creatures #Inuit mythology #myths #world mythology #mythology

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femmefatalevibe · 1 year ago

Note

Hey, I love your account!❤️ I started my journey of being the highest version of myself. I wanted to ask some tips on how to be more intelligent and do you have some suggestions on podcasts, people you can follow that active on politics/history? English isn’t my native language.

Thanks! ❤️

Hi love! Thank you so much <333 I can't think of any specific podcasts/blogs at the moment, but sharing some other advice below. Bisous xx

Here are some of my tips:

Read books, articles, blogs, studies, and journals from credible & fact-checked sources

Watch & listen to evidence-based documentaries and podcasts

Take expert-backed courses and classes (from universities, industry leaders/certified organizations)

Attend forums/lectures from industry leaders museums, libraries, etc. (Virtually or in-person)

Talk to people in different fields and from different walks of life

Travel (globally, domestically, or locally), explore museums, parks, and stores in your area

Ask for feedback on your creative or skill-based projects and work; or insights from trusted people in your life on different situations in your life, from your past, or their greatest life lessons

Remain curious and diligent regarding your pursuit of knowledge. Live as a lifelong student

For emotional intelligence:

Embrace self-awareness & self-reflection: Observe how you feel, behave, and how people generally respond to your words/actions in different situations

Practice self-regulation: Learn to differentiate between your feelings and the actions that would be appropriate in a specific setting or interaction. Internalize that feelings are fleeting and non-factual. You're in control of how you respond/(don't) act on these emotions

Engage in active listening: Pay attention to what others are saying with the intent of understanding, not responding

Focus on emotional differentiation: Understand where your thoughts, feelings, intentions, and opinions end and another person's identity/perception begins

Display radical empathy and acceptance: Understand that almost all people's words and actions result from their own beliefs, past experiences, and current life circumstances/priorities. Put yourself in their shoes when attempting to understand their choices, behaviors, and times they come to you to discuss a problem, success, or major life decision. Accept that you can only control what you do. Very little of other people's actions/the world's workings are personal. Things are happening around you, not to you

Let go of your ego: View yourself as objectively as possible with the potential for improvement. Abolish any superior complex or overwhelming desire to prove your self-importance in others' lives and decisions

Remain open-minded: Question your own beliefs and opinions. Stay curious as to why you believe them to be true/authentic to you. Allow your opinions to change or have the capacity to modify your beliefs upon hearing new information. Understand your worldview and values are valid, but they're not definitively correct beliefs, just because they resonate/feel comfortable for you

Be receptive to feedback: Embrace constructive criticism as a self-improvement tool. Approach it with curiosity and optimism, not as a personal attack

Differentiate between your feelings and capabilities: Your thoughts are not facts. Remember you can do things you don't feel like doing most of the time (work, waking up in the morning, working out, etc.). Learn the difference between being a slave to your emotions and genuinely running out of energy

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enki2 · 1 month ago

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The more persistent control you have over a device, the more you and the device adapt to each other, becoming a more effective group organism. The higher the input and output bandwidth of the interface (i.e., the greater the number of distinct ways you can interact with it / it can respond to you), the faster the system can adapt.

So, the horse metaphor makes perfect sense: your desktop ships with a real keyboard on which you can probably do 300 WPM without blocking part of the display, and has a display that can hold half a dozen legible non-overlapping windows. If you have a screwdriver, you can open it up and replace basically any part. Even without a screwdriver, you can generally out of the box persistently dramatically change the UI settings to fit the needs of your environment (light vs dark mode, font size and style). You can stick linux on & that opens up a lot more. On a desktop computer, it's possible for a motivated 10 year old of average intelligence to progress from normal computer use to writing non-trivial application software for their own use within a couple years -- I am proof, & I'm far from alone.

Tablets are on the opposite end of the spectrum: simplified, locked down. The user does not collaborate with the tablet; instead, the tablet has only those affordances that channel the user's behavior into habits the developers of the tablet software consider desirable.

Mobile & web achieved the dream of proprietary software people: user-facing software that the user can't even disassemble because the important parts aren't accessible; since they did this through physical distance rather than the legal system, they can profit from other people's open source software too, circumventing many of the restrictions intended to keep improvements folded back into the community or to limit commercial use. But the side effect of this is that it gives professional computer touchers much more control over regular people's computers: not only can you not fix bugs in someone else's web app yourself, but you can't refuse to upgrade to a version that's a worse fit for your purposes. Where desktop computing encouraged the development of communities of amateur computer hobbyists who, together, would adapt or create alternatives to things that didn't work right (as well as creating lots of interesting, funny, unnecessary stuff that can only be classified as Art -- little games and toys, elaborate shitposts, weird mods and skins), mobile does not. The only thing you need to make your desktop computer do something brand new is a desktop computer, the software development tools & documentation that ship with the OS, and some free time -- you don't even need an internet connection; developing for web or mobile also functionally requires a desktop, on top of your mobile device for mobile (and if it's an iPhone you gotta have a Mac & pay Apple $99/year), & for web you need to pay for hosting and a domain name.

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specialagentartemis · 2 years ago

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A very apropos HumbleBundle right now…

Instructional tools for making games in Godot 4 Engine—a free and open-source videogame-making engine.

Master Godot—the lightweight, fast, and free game engine behind hits like Sonic Colors: Ultimate. Whether you want to use the brand new version 4 or the battle-tested version 3, these courses will get you building platformers, RPGs, first-person shooters, city-builders, strategy games, and more—no prior experience required! Plus, you’ll learn how to customize your games by creating your own art and assets, all while supporting Girls Who Code with your purchase!

$1 gets you Intro To Godot 4 Game Development; $25 gets you a whole suite of instructional tools and courses that cover all sorts of videogame-making skills. The program and the engine itself is free.

If you want to start learning to make 2D and 3D RPGs, platformers, survival games, strategy games, or FPSs, this has introductions to how to do all of that using an open-source non-corporate-controlled cross-platform-compatible program.

#Godot #Godot engine #video games #Unity #open source

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codingquill · 26 days ago

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Welcome back, coding enthusiasts! Today we'll talk about Git & Github , the must-know duo for any modern developer. Whether you're just starting out or need a refresher, this guide will walk you through everything from setup to intermediate-level use. Let’s jump in!

What is Git?

Git is a version control system. It helps you as a developer:

Track changes in your codebase, so if anything breaks, you can go back to a previous version. (Trust me, this happens more often than you’d think!)

Collaborate with others : whether you're working on a team project or contributing to an open-source repo, Git helps manage multiple versions of a project.

In short, Git allows you to work smarter, not harder. Developers who aren't familiar with the basics of Git? Let’s just say they’re missing a key tool in their toolkit.

What is Github ?

GitHub is a web-based platform that uses Git for version control and collaboration. It provides an interface to manage your repositories, track bugs, request new features, and much more. Think of it as a place where your Git repositories live, and where real teamwork happens. You can collaborate, share your code, and contribute to other projects, all while keeping everything well-organized.

Git & Github : not the same thing !

Git is the tool you use to create repositories and manage code on your local machine while GitHub is the platform where you host those repositories and collaborate with others. You can also host Git repositories on other platforms like GitLab and BitBucket, but GitHub is the most popular.

Installing Git (Windows, Linux, and macOS Users)

You can go ahead and download Git for your platform from (git-scm.com)

Using Git

You can use Git either through the command line (Terminal) or through a GUI. However, as a developer, it’s highly recommended to learn the terminal approach. Why? Because it’s more efficient, and understanding the commands will give you a better grasp of how Git works under the hood.

GitWorkflow

Git operates in several key areas:

Working directory (on your local machine)

Staging area (where changes are prepared to be committed)

Local repository (stored in the hidden .git directory in your project)

Remote repository (the version of the project stored on GitHub or other hosting platforms)

Let’s look at the basic commands that move code between these areas:

git init: Initializes a Git repository in your project directory, creating the .git folder.

git add: Adds your files to the staging area, where they’re prepared for committing.

git commit: Commits your staged files to your local repository.

git log: Shows the history of commits.

git push: Pushes your changes to the remote repository (like GitHub).

git pull: Pulls changes from the remote repository into your working directory.

git clone: Clones a remote repository to your local machine, maintaining the connection to the remote repo.

Branching and merging

When working in a team, it’s important to never mess up the main branch (often called master or main). This is the core of your project, and it's essential to keep it stable.

To do this, we branch out for new features or bug fixes. This way, you can make changes without affecting the main project until you’re ready to merge. Only merge your work back into the main branch once you're confident that it’s ready to go.

Getting Started: From Installation to Intermediate

Now, let’s go step-by-step through the process of using Git and GitHub from installation to pushing your first project.

Configuring Git

After installing Git, you’ll need to tell Git your name and email. This helps Git keep track of who made each change. To do this, run:

Master vs. Main Branch

By default, Git used to name the default branch master, but GitHub switched it to main for inclusivity reasons. To avoid confusion, check your default branch:

Pushing Changes to GitHub

Let’s go through an example of pushing your changes to GitHub.

First, initialize Git in your project directory:

Then to get the ‘untracked files’ , the files that we haven’t added yet to our staging area , we run the command

Now that you’ve guessed it we’re gonna run the git add command , you can add your files individually by running git add name or all at once like I did here

And finally it's time to commit our file to the local repository

Now, create a new repository on GitHub (it’s easy , just follow these instructions along with me)

Assuming you already created your github account you’ll go to this link and change username by your actual username : https://github.com/username?tab=repositories , then follow these instructions :

You can add a name and choose wether you repo can be public or private for now and forget about everything else for now.

Once your repository created on github , you’ll get this :

As you might’ve noticed, we’ve already run all these commands , all what’s left for us to do is to push our files from our local repository to our remote repository , so let’s go ahead and do that

And just like this we have successfully pushed our files to the remote repository

Here, you can see the default branch main, the total number of branches, your latest commit message along with how long ago it was made, and the number of commits you've made on that branch.

Now what is a Readme file ?

A README file is a markdown file where you can add any relevant information about your code or the specific functionality in a particular branch—since each branch can have its own README.

It also serves as a guide for anyone who clones your repository, showing them exactly how to use it.

You can add a README from this button:

Or, you can create it using a command and push it manually:

But for the sake of demonstrating how to pull content from a remote repository, we’re going with the first option:

Once that’s done, it gets added to the repository just like any other file—with a commit message and timestamp.

However, the README file isn’t on my local machine yet, so I’ll run the git pull command:

Now everything is up to date. And this is just the tiniest example of how you can pull content from your remote repository.

What is .gitignore file ?

Sometimes, you don’t want to push everything to GitHub—especially sensitive files like environment variables or API keys. These shouldn’t be shared publicly. In fact, GitHub might even send you a warning email if you do:

To avoid this, you should create a .gitignore file, like this:

Any file listed in .gitignore will not be pushed to GitHub. So you’re all set!

Cloning

When you want to copy a GitHub repository to your local machine (aka "clone" it), you have two main options:

Clone using HTTPS: This is the most straightforward method. You just copy the HTTPS link from GitHub and run:

It's simple, doesn’t require extra setup, and works well for most users. But each time you push or pull, GitHub may ask for your username and password (or personal access token if you've enabled 2FA).

But if you wanna clone using ssh , you’ll need to know a bit more about ssh keys , so let’s talk about that.

Clone using SSH (Secure Shell): This method uses SSH keys for authentication. Once set up, it’s more secure and doesn't prompt you for credentials every time. Here's how it works:

So what is an SSH key, actually?

Think of SSH keys as a digital handshake between your computer and GitHub.

Your computer generates a key pair:

A private key (stored safely on your machine)

A public key (shared with GitHub)

When you try to access GitHub via SSH, GitHub checks if the public key you've registered matches the private key on your machine.

If they match, you're in — no password prompts needed.

Steps to set up SSH with GitHub:

Generate your SSH key: