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enchantingzinehairdoweasel · 3 years

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Random Bakusquad Headcanons of Mine:

Types of music they listen to -

Bakugo: Hard rock, metal, alternative rock, and occasionally lo-fi to calm him down (blame Midoriya and his therapist). He pretends to be annoyed by his friends music tastes but he really doesn’t care all that much on road trips. Kirishima: He doesn’t have a particular favorite, to be honest he kind of just vibes to whatever. But he absolutely jams out to “Cool Kids” and “Cooler Than Me”. He definitely had a My Chemical Romance phase in middle school so he’s responsible for “Teenagers” being in the Squads Playlist, which actually made Shinsou genuinely smile when he first joined their squad. Kaminari: Anything dubstep or EDM, this boy is a hardcore dancer and no one can convince me otherwise (I especially love the idea of him being amazing at shuffle). He usually dances around with Mina when he turns one of his playlist on. Sero: He loves Latin music since it helps him stay connected to his heritage, although he loves vibing to whatever his friends listen to as well. The fact that he speaks Spanish makes it hysterical whenever his friends are playing a random Spanish song about sex and they don’t understand it. Ashido: She absolutely loves western music and rap, especially when it’s female rappers because of how aggressively fun she finds the lyrics. She probably listens to Megan Thee Stallion, Cardi B, ppcocaine, Doja Cat, Maliibu Miitch, and a lot more. Catch her dancing and singing along to vulgar songs with Kaminari. Jirou: She loves every type of genre and is capable of picking out something she loves in a song that is absolute garbage, she will appreciate every song out there even if it takes effort. Although she has a soft spot for the song “Somebody I Used to Know” and listens to “Jenny” whenever she thinks about her seemingly one sided crush on Yaoyorozo. Shinsou: Genuinely doesn’t know what he likes the most but he definitely listens to My Chemical Romance and he isn’t sure whether or not he finds it embarrassing. He kind of listens to songs he can vent/relate/lowkey jam to, like “Control” “I Am Not a Robot” “Cool Kids” “Stressed Out” “Parents” etc. If you listen really closely you can sometimes hear him softly humming “Electric Love” while looking over at Kaminari during class (he doesn’t even realize it, as Sero puts it he’s absolutely whipped for that dumbass). Utsushimi: While she isn’t able to hang out with them constantly, she definitely influences their music taste a bit. For some reason she has a strong love for kpop and western music/rap, when it comes to kpop you’ll find her crying literal tears of happiness whenever a Japanese version of a song releases. She probably hardcore vibes to songs like “Body” “Give Her Some Money” “Tia Tamera” “S.L.U.T”while also vibing to “LA DI DA” “Kill This Love” “Hip” “Style” etc.

Shinsou quotes Ghost Stories and everyone both loves and hates it so much, this is one of the reasons why Bakugo doesn’t care that he hangs out with Monoma instead sometimes (they both binged Ghost Stories together so they quote it together). Monoma, from across the cafeteria: WELL SHES EITHER A BITCH OR A GHOST. Shinsou: RUN SHES A GHOST AND A BITCH Bakugo: oh for fucks sake.

Every so often you’ll hear someone go “sheeeeesh” from Bakusquad and no one knows who it is, it infuriates Bakugo to the point where he openly threatens to slam them through a window. Random things you’ll hear them say on a daily basis - Kirishima: that’s not very plus ultra of you. Ashido: RIP THAT PUSSY AYY— Kaminari: gotta go geT SOME DICK TODAY—Shinsou: Well I might as well just die today. Sero: I’m finna act up— Bakugo: I don’t know who the fuck those losers are?? (As he gestures to his squad lighting a barrel on fire)

Surprisingly Sero has the best drip in the squad, Kirishima is pouting in the background with his limited edition crocs.

Kaminari dresses like a stereotypical twink and that is a fact (he got the crop top, shorts, and fishnets once he finally catches a sense of style in second year, thank the fashion police Aoyama and Monoma).

The Wicked Witch of the East argument definitely happened and it was between Bakugo and Sero.

Kirishima absolutely told the squad about how Kaminari basically called Shinsou hot to his face, he was teased for weeks but it was worth it in the end (he has a hot goth boyfriend now).

Kaminari fought to have Shinsou in Bakusquad and just barely won because Ashido mentioned that it was a possible love story in the making, Midoriya and Uraraka gave in because of that.

Although in the end he’s still considered a part of Dekusquad as well, the only two reasons why he hangs out with Bakusquad more is because 1. His boyfriend is in Bakusquad and 2. He’s not allowed to vape/smoke weed when he’s with Dekusquad because Iida won’t let him. He’s also dragged along with Monoma’s squad so he’s constantly being tugged around different groups.

He actually has his own squad but he’ll be six feet under before he admits that (Squad Members: Monoma, Hatsume, Yoarashi, Shishikura, and Utsushimi). If you want to understand that dynamic just watch my “Shinsou & Friends as Tiktoks” compilations lmao.

They all have tiktok, although they also share a group account called “Bakusquad Shenanigans” that records their “best moments”. Their most viewed compilations of each member include: “Denki is a Dumbass”, “Shinsou is an Icon”, “Sero is Mexican Guys”, “Kirishima Being Concerned for Three Minutes”, “‘Kacchan’ Being Whipped For His Boyfriends”, “Why Camie is a Snacc 😩💕✨”, “Mina is Also a Dumbass”, “Jirou Asks the Boys of 3a ‘Girl Questions’”

Sometimes Ashido will burst into her friend dorm rooms when they forget to lock their doors and shouts “HAVING SEX??” She regrets doing this sometimes as she has caught her all friends in the act at least once in fact -

Shinkami: Twice (she cackles whenever she recalls this, Kaminari didn’t really care but Shinsou was mortified the first time it happened)

Todobakudeku: Once (This actually got her to start knocking on those threes’ doors)

Serozaki: Three times (she has apologized profusely each and every time because Shiozaki deserves better, although she could care less about how Sero feels. The best part is they weren’t even doing anything that serious, it was legit just them making out)

She’s an absolute hypocrite because she would be extremely pissed if anyone did this to her and Kirishima

(If you wonder why I ship Sero and Shiozaki it’s very simple: it started off as a crack ship because I love the Stoner! Sero headcanon and I refuse to believe that Shiozaki doesn’t smoke weed as well. Now I see them as a genuinely wholesome and loving couple that are very much supportive of each other)

When they were bored they made a ranking of who’s the hottest (they don’t consider the last person unattractive it’s just that they’re all really attractive):

1. Shinsou - Kaminari is completely biased and the others just agreed with this selection because it’s the right choice (except Bakugo of course)

2. Bakugo - Best believe he was pissed when he got second place, he called his boyfriends and bitched about it (cue Midoriya offering sympathy and sweetly complimenting him while Todoroki cackles in the background)

3. Kaminari - He’s satisfied because he knows for a fact he’s pretty as hell, plus his boyfriend is the winner so suck it guys

4. Jirou - She genuinely didn’t really care what she ranked, since she already knows she’s attractive

5. Ashido - Lowkey salty that she wasn’t higher but understands because damn are all her best friends unfairly hot.

6. Sero - High key salty and bitched about this ranking as soon as he saw the paper, the squad had to give him a group hug and shower him in compliments to make up for it because “damnit yes Sero you’re a hottie too”

Camie wasn’t allowed to enter because her natural beauty is leagues ahead of theirs, they call her a goddess for a reason 💅✨

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amazingviralinfo · 7 years

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Beyoncs new tour finds her at the height of her artistic powers. What makes her sound, her dance moves, her image and her feminism so distinctive?

The sound: It sounds like a push to dominate all of pop

Of late, some music writers have got into the habit of referring to Beyonc as Queen Bey. It doesnt exactly imply a great deal of critical distance, but you can see why the nickname has stuck. It is hard to think of a recent album that feels more commanding and imperious than Lemonade, not just in its lyrics where defiant woman-scorned wrath meets righteous social anger but in its music. It sounds not like an R&B record, but a push to dominate all of pop. Country, alt-rock, left-field electronics, hoary Jack White blues-rock? I can do the lot. That seems to be one of its messages.

So pervasive is the Queen Bey persona that it is easy to forget that there was a time when Beyonc didnt seem to know what she wanted to be, at least musically. Her solo career never faltered commercially she continued the run of peerless pop hits that had begun with Destiny Childs No No No as if the groups dissolution were a mere formality, as if she had been the only thing that mattered about them all along but she also gave the impression of being torn between a career as an R&B diva and the desire to be an MOR entertainer.

Many of the best tracks on her first two solo albums tended to point up her voices similarity to R&B singers of the 60s and 70s the raw drums and see-sawing organ of Freakum Dress, the funk-rock of Suga Mama, Crazy in Loves blaring Chi-Lites horns but they were surrounded by stuff that erred on the sickly side of perfect, as if she were quietly investing in a future that might have more to do with cabaret than clubs.

Beyonc at the BET awards in Los Angeles. Photograph: Kevin Winter/Getty Images for BET

The sense of an artist being pulled uncomfortably in two opposing directions reached its peak with 2008s wildly uneven I Am Sasha Fierce: one disc full of self-help-motto power ballads and tracks that sounded as if they were following trends (Halo was audibly made in the image of Rihannas Umbrella), and another that suggested, for the first time, a willingness to experiment the percussion battery and oddly doomy minor chords of Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It), Video Phones minimal fusion of crunk rhythms, sampled groans, and needling synthesisers.

I Am Sasha Fierce sold 8m copies, but its follow-up suggested a rethink or at least a focusing of her approach. Made after she had severed ties with her manager and executive producer father, 4 built on its predecessors more experimental aspects, and introduced the I-can-do-anything musical expansiveness that you hear on Lemonade. There were influences drawn from Afrobeat, dancehall and alt-rock; thrown together with Kanye West collaborator Jeff Bhasker, the Sleepy Jacksons Luke Steele contributed the psychedelicised Philly soul of Rather Die Young.

Destinys Child had largelyshied away from the kind of ultra-futuristic R&B sound big in the late 90s and early noughties their singles were always about the chorus rather than the novelty of the production but, just at the point when the charts were awash with R&B stars making tinny pop-house tracks, Beyonce released Run the World (Girls), based on Major Lazers Pon De Floor, a battery of drums, dancehall rhythms and squealing noise. It was refined on Beyonc, the album on which she finally abandoned the last vestiges of conservatism. The sound was rooted in hip-hop, but dragged everything from chillwave to the Aphex Twins abstract electronica to doo-wop into its orbit. It was filled with tracks that stopped abruptly, as though she was impatient to move on to the next idea. There were songs that sounded like suites (Haunted, Partition), even, on No Angel, an audibly off-key vocal allowed out into the world.

A gushing profile in Vogue found her joking that she might take on jazz or even country next time. As it turned out, she wasnt joking. Alexis Petridis

The dance icon: She and her troupe move as one unit a drill team, an army

Beyonc performs at the Super Bowl in 2016. Photograph: Thearon W Henderson/Getty Images

Beyoncs music, style and message make her an untouchable ruler at the top of the pop-culture pyramid. Her dancing, however, is what makes her feel reachable.

We have watched Beyonc grow from seductive showpiece to sexually empowered woman. She has graduated from the male-gaze booty-shaking of Crazy in Love to the unapologetic, hard-hitting struts of Formation. Sure, all the action still happens in her pelvis and chest, but the execution is different, with a sway back, upturned chin and heavier step. Something about it says: This dancing is for me and no one else. Not for your eyes; not for Jay Zs.

Notice that Beyonc is rarely without her all-female squad of dancers, and that she doesnt usually deviate from their choreography. That is completely deliberate, because Beyonc can certainly carry a stage alone. Instead, she and her troupe move as one unit a drill team, an army in the name of black pride and girl power. Allow your eyes to blur and it is as if Beyonc is multiplying, until 50 of her are swarming the stage.

More from the Super Bowl show. Photograph: Ezra Shaw/Getty Images

Refocus your vision and she is just one woman among meticulously organised rows of dancers. She might be the point of a pyramid or centre of an X, but she is always standing with them. It helps convey the idea that Beyonc is your spokeswoman; that she is in this with you, fighting the same fight. That no matter how rich and powerful she is, she is a girls girl, the Everywoman. That she walks, spins, and grinds like each dancer behind her. Because what anchors Beyonces persona once a shiny display, and now a little more vulnerable isnt the dancing itself, but the staging. She does not underestimate the simple and persuasive power of movement in unison.

That is not to say that the actual movement that Beyonc and her team puts out is particularly inventive (though they have certainly come up with some great hairography). While Beyonc has become more radical in message, she has actually toned down the creativity of her dancing since the days of the Bob Fosse-inspired Single Ladies video. Formations punchy isolations, booty-bouncing and chest-popping are evenly set with the beat and the melody, with knees twisting in and out. At its most basic, its a heightened, polished version of something you would do in the privacy of your own living room, music blasting, two glasses of wine in a feel-good romp. Its another way to connect with her fans. For modern-day Bey, dance is no longer a main event; its there to serve her highness. And sometimes, that is all dance is supposed to do. Kristin Schwab

The brand: She doesnt release albums; she creates cultural events

Beyonc and Jay Z at the Met Gala in New York. Photograph: Mike Coppola/Getty Images

Theres the A-list, and then theres Queen Bey. Beyonc has risen to a rare level of fame where she has surpassed mere celebrity and become an archetype of achievement. When she dropped Lemonade, the world dropped everything to listen Beyonc doesnt release albums; she creates cultural events.

Beyonc has been famous for almost 20 years, but, it is only in the last eight that she has gone from phenomenal to phenomenon. This is no accident, but the result of strategic brand-building learned from Madonna and Apple.

Her metamorphosis into a brand can be seen in three key milestones. First, she married Jay Z. Then she killed Sasha Fierce. Finally, she fired her father. Strategic partnerships can be a highly effective way to build a brand and, leaving romance aside, Beyoncs 2007 marriage to Jay-Z was as strategic as you can get. Both benefited from the merger I mean marriage, gaining new fans and elevating their respective statuses.

When Beyonc married Jay Z, she was going through a period of transition. You can see this play out in the character of Sasha Fierce, an alter-ego that let Beyonc experiment with a more risqu sexual persona while maintaining her traditionally wholesome image. The 2008 album I Am Sasha Fierce reflected this tension. One side had more mainstream songs for new fans, the other was aimed more at old fans.

The I Am Sasha Fierce album cover

In 2010, she announced she didnt need to separate her persona from that of Sasha Fierce any more. Killing off Fierce signalled a Beyonc newly confident in what she stood for. This was reinforced shortly after, when Beyonc made arguably her most important move ever: she dropped her father as manager and seized control of her brand. When I decided to manage myself, it was important to me not to sign to some big company, she said. I wanted to follow in Madonnas footsteps and be a powerhouse.

Part of becoming and staying a powerhouse was exerting painstaking, Apple-like control over her brand. Its a mistake to call Beyoncs notorious attention to her image diva behaviour; its businesswoman behaviour. Beyonc understood that she couldnt let Beyonc-the-person encroach on Beyonc-the-brand. So she stopped saying much, and rarely gave interviews. In 2013, she made waves by appearing on the cover of the September issue of Vogue without deigning to give the customary interview that went with it. Her silence made her voice even more powerful, and reinforced the mythology she was creating.

A couple of months later, Beyonc really dropped the mic when she launched her fifth album, eponymously titled Beyonc, unexpectedly on iTunes. The launch broke all the conventions of music marketing and announced to the world that she only played by her own rules. The next year, she was on the cover of Time for their most influential people issue.

Today, Beyonc is more influential than ever. She has become a voice for feminism and civil rights. While this move to the left may seem to run the risk of being polarising, remember that her timing has always been flawless. She understands exactly when she can activate activism for her own benefit. Further, the sign of a strong brand is that it can evolve with culture, and weather the occasional controversy. The strength of Beyoncs brand is such that, at the moment, it seeems she can do no wrong. After all, to err is human but Beyonc is divine. Arwa Mahdawi

The feminist: She calls out to the masses to rise up

The Lemonade album cover

Its all Maya Angelou in those now iconic first 15 seconds of Beyoncs visual album masterpiece Lemonade. As the most famous pop star on the planet, golden cornrow coiffed, and supine on the back of a sports utility vehicle, comes up off the back of her ride in haunting slow motion, the spirit of legend Angelous classic 1978 poem And Still I Rise pulsates like an undercurrent: You may write me down in history/With your bitter, twisted lies/You may trod me in the very dirt/But still, like dust, Ill rise. Our heroine has taken Angelous words (that many a black girl has memorised) to heart, turning the wisdom of her lyric anthem into a long-form visual and sonic meditation. The result is a feminist breakthrough in the world of stadium pop. It is 18 million cracks in pop music cultures glass ceiling delivered by a sister wielding a baseball bat in a marigold sundress.

One of the biggest pop-culture events of the year so far, Lemonade has nonetheless weathered some high-profile handwringing from feminist scholars such as bell hooks, a notorious Beyonc hater, who conceded that the albums visual imagery shifts the gaze of white mainstream culture challeng[ing] us all to look anew, to radically revision how we see the black female body while nevertheless continuing to warn of her oppressive ties to capitalism and patriarchy. These sorts of concerns about Beyoncs brand of feminism are nothing new.

Beyonc at the Super Bowl in 2013. Photograph: Ezra Shaw/Getty Images

If you are a woman whose independence depends on making money, as Yonc and her fellow children of destiny would sing about in the year 2000, can you ever really be free of the systems that have historically oppressed women and people of colour? If, in your celebration of the single life, you are still chastising your ex for not having sealed a commitment with a rock, are you more of a material girl than empowered woman warrior?

The ambivalences in Beyoncs pre-Lemonade musical repertoire have led some, such as critic Andi Zeisler in her razor-sharp new book We Were Feminists Once, to characterise the superstars relationship to the F-word as a form of marketplace feminism, a mainstream, celebrity, consumer embrace of feminism that positions it as a cool, fun, accessible identity that anyone can adopt But Zeisler is also quick to point out that we need not hate the player, but rather the game in which our reigning queen of pop is ensnared.

The difference that Lemonade makes in Beyoncs career-long, increasingly sophisticated engagement with feminist politics is that it is an album that ambitiously aims to address the game of large-scale, deeply entwined racial and gender oppression, even as it foregrounds a tale of intimate deception and duplicity. True, this is still the Bey weve come to know who extols the virtues of revenge by way of paper, when many a feminist longs to hear her say instead that best revenge is dismantling patriarchy in all facets of modern life. But Lemonade is ultimately an album that moves well beyond a focus on being black Bill Gates in the making.

Just when a series of pop starlets from Taylor Swift to Emma Watson and Chlo Grace Moretz were willing to embrace a kind of feminism that oversimplifies its meaning, that thinks in limited and sometimes twisted ways about girl squads, making womens equality welcoming for men, and gender neutrality, along comes Bey with a new album that demands that we think about feminism as a sophisticated and multilayered practice rather than a slogan. The album encourages black women, in particular, to examine the wholeness of their beings and the complexities of their identities.

Beyonc and her team of artistic collaborators turned what had been an initial embrace of feminism into an epic sonic event. It demands that mainstream popular culture reckon with the conditions of being a modern black woman in ways never before seen and felt.

Beyonc and Coldplays Chris Martin at the 2016 Super Bowl show. Photograph: Kevin Mazur/WireImage

For the first time, a superstar black female musician aligned herself with intersecting racial and gender freedom struggles by way of a concept album, as well as the Super Bowl halftime routine watched the world over.

Most would be hard-pressed to recall the last time a black female pop star had enough cultural capital and sheer recording industry power to boldly weave together critiques of racial and gender inequality into a full-length recording. The go-to reference for many is still Atlantic Records-era Aretha, crowned the iconic foremother of the feminist pop anthem. Others might cite the audacity of Lauryn Hills ferociously introspective narratives of self-discovery and personal redemption, the biting lyricism and sophisticated instrumentation of Meshell Ndegeocellos or Erykah Badus finest releases, or the recent Afrofuturist liberation odysseys of Janelle Mone. But none of these artists, not even the Queen of Soul, have commanded the kind of multimedia global platform that fourth-wave Bey has been able to seize upon in this rapidly changing digital age.

And so enter Yonc with her Run-the-World army of women: an all-female dance troupe, backup singers, her celebrated Suga Mama band, and her pathbreaking alliances with diasporic black feminist intellectuals such as Warsan Shire and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. At the height of her artistic powers and political vision, she calls out to the masses to rise up, Angelou-style, and ride with her as she sits behind the wheel of a Hold Up video demolition monster truck, driving pop culture forwards and into the future with no turning back. Daphne Brooks

The celebrity: Even sneezing on stage gets her coverage

Beyonc on tour in Houston, Texas. Photograph: Larry Busacca/PW/WireImage

Pop superstars fall into two camps: the boy or girl next door, or the character who would buy the house next door, evict the family and erect a neon and diamant castle in their own honour. Britney, Ed Sheeran and Taylor Swift would have you believe they would pop round for a cup of sugar; Kanye, Gaga and Madonna appeal because you know they would send in the JCBs. Fans engage with all those artists with a similar intensity, but we attach ourselves to the humanity of some and the audacity of others.

Most artists stay in one lane, but during her two-decade career, Beyonc has deftly segued from sugar (early interviews show an artist with little to say maybe, we might now speculate, she simply wasnt being asked the right questions) to steamrollers: Aprils Lemonade addressed, owned and even exacerbated rumours surrounding her marriage to Jay Z in the pop equivalent of a controlled explosion, by an artist now able to unleash, control and manipulate her own celebrity on her own terms.

Tech companies pivot when their original proposition goes wrong: Beyonc did it when things were going right or, at least, before diminishing returns set in. And she did so while achieving critical and commercial success.

The shift in Beyoncs celebrity status didnt happen overnight. Her relationship with Jay Z created a celebrity whole far exceeding the sum of its parts, while the aggressive sound and styling around Run the World (Girls) put a hard edge on the broad-stroke feminism of early Destinys Child tracks. But 2013s surprise album really saw Beyonc take control. The power of instant releases shouldnt be underestimated: by stripping critics of any meaningful role in an albums release, Beyonc and others have allowed for a frictionless exchange of celebrity energy between fan and artist.

Jay Z and Beyonc in San Francisco in 2014. Photograph: Mason Poole/Invision for Parkwood Entertainment

Six months later, Beyonc topped the Forbes celebrity power list, based on mentions in print, radio, TV and online, for the first time since her initial appearance on the list a decade earlier. This reflects shifting, click-driven priorities of the global news agenda, but Google Trends echoed Beyoncs role in that shift: before 2013 there were clumps of interest around album campaigns, but in December 2013 Beyonc began prompting huge peaks in interest that wildly outstripped any that came before.

As her politically charged Super Bowl performance earlier this year showed us, Beyonc understands tentpole moments, but she also understands the smaller details, the pegs without which tentpoles wouldnt hold up. She knew this early on. Consider Question! in Independent Women, Pt 1 or I aint gonna diss you on the internet when the world was still on dial-up lyrical proto-memes that now seem like Beyonc staking her claim on the modern world of social-driven celebrity culture.

Fast-forward to 2016 and Becky With the Good Hair the woman rumoured to have been a third party in the Beyonc-Jay Z marriage is a celebrity in her own right, while restaurant chain Red Lobster reported a 33% boost in sales after being namechecked in Formation as the ideal location for a crustacean-themed post-coital lap of honour. If that is interesting in itself, interesting, too, is how widely that news was reported. But this is an era when Beyonc sneezing on stage can guarantee coverage from Time, Vanity Fair, Mail Online and the Hereford Times. That, as much as anything else, defines the meaning of celebrity in 2016. Peter Robinson

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