#though this is true of academia as well obviously

[basi1isks]

from Planet of Weeds: Tallying the losses of Earth's animals and plants by David Quammen

[darkcircles4lyfe]

labor of love

Thinking back on the books and shows that have captivated me most over the years, I’ve noticed that a significant part of my enjoyment comes through glimpses of the creator themselves. The human, fallible, subjective, personal, and unique perspective that bleeds through. I'm forever trying to see things from the other way around instead of as the audience. As I become more familiar with a person’s work, I almost imagine myself as the close friend who can see bits and pieces of their loved one in everything the write. 

When I deal with fandoms or read and listen to media criticism, I inevitably get slapped in the face by the absence of this habit in other people. Maybe it’s because of concepts like “entertainment” and “consumption” making art into a product we spend our money on, and therefore we feel it owes us something. Maybe it’s the trend of pretending arbitrary differences in taste are actually somehow a basis for objective criticism. Regardless, even though I see plenty of reminders all over fandom spaces encouraging people to just enjoy things without worrying about whether they have some sort of intellectual merit, I don't see much acknowledgement of the creator’s point of view here. 

So let’s talk about creative work as what it is: somebody’s dream, which brewed in the dark and solitary chambers of their mind, real but invisible to the outside world. By some miracle of good fortune and incredibly hard work, that dream is made accessible to us, the audience. It’s difficult to express how surreal that really is. Not all media is like this, of course. But sometimes you can see when a story is made with love, that the creator is so in awe of this miracle that they bring all of themselves into it. When that happens, I too fall in love, and preference no longer seems to matter. It’s not, “I enjoy this thing because it’s so ME,” it’s more, “I enjoy it because it’s so THEM.”  

I worry sometimes that I have rose-tinted glasses on, but here’s the thing. We seem to over-associate criticism with logic, and praise with delusion, when in reality they are both limited. What I’m talking about here is neither. Sorry if this sounds cheesy, but I think “to love,” means “to know.” It’s where flaws and strengths blend together into a whole that is understood as it is cherished. 

All these various observations have been tumbling around in my head more and more since I’ve gotten into this funny little thing called Boku no Hero Academia. It’s so popular, so polarizing, it draws in such a wide range of opinions from so many different kinds of people. I find it fascinating to watch, but, like I just said, it also tends to slap me in the face. Not out of personal offense, mind you. More than anything I’m stunned by how disconnected a lot of people are from this human element, whether they are being negative or positive. Even if they know enough to invoke the name of Horikoshi, they treat him like more of a figure than a real person. 

It’s true none of us can actually truly know him. However, I think that while the author/audience relationship is a somewhat parasocial one, it’s worth acknowledging the mutuality of it as well. Let me take you all on a little journey to bring “the creator” down to Earth. 

First, a few plain facts: Before bnha, Horikoshi was able to get two other manga into serialization: Oumagadoki Zoo and Barrage. The former lasted 37 chapters from 2010 to 2011. Barrage lasted 16 chapters, in 2012. Juxtapose this with Boku no Hero Academia, which as of writing this, has been running for over 370 chapters spanning 8+ years since 2014. Horikoshi is currently 36 years old (born in 1986). 

Now let’s go back even further. His first one-shot was published in 2007, when he was 21. It’s called Tenko, and you can read it in English here. Most obviously, we can see that this Tenko character was later adapted to the Tenko we know in bnha, with a similar power, backstory, and appearance. But I actually think there are a few other ways we can draw comparisons from this genesis of Horikoshi’s career, all the way to the present. 

Here is the intro that prefaces the 2007 one-shot:

^I get chills looking at this, and it makes me grin, no joke. Please take a moment to read all the little tidbits. It sounds like the intentionally foreshadowing first scene of a famous person’s biopic, but no one had a clue back then. I just find that so hilarious and moving at the same time.

So think of the Tenko one-shot as a window into who Horikoshi was as an artist and a storyteller pre- pro industry, with the assumption that certain aspects of his work are probably simultaneously a bit more upfront but also underdeveloped. You know, like a kid. There’s both honesty and naivety there. I can also think back to being around 21 myself (only a few years ago lol), about the stories I was writing in school, the workshop classes I was in with other people my age, what they were writing, the things that were important to us that we discussed informing our work. It’s a formative time, right?

One of the primary things I notice about the Tenko one-shot is that it centers themes of power, heroism, and trauma, and has a resolution which involves bridging misunderstandings. 

It’s all very ideological, but also full of raw emotion. I read somewhere (sorry can’t remember where) Horikoshi saying that in formulating his idea for the ending of bnha, he has kept asking himself, what does it truly mean to be a hero? It seems he started asking that question way back in 2007, through this little story about swords and their wielders. The Tenko one-shot acknowledges that people and power are morally complicated, as is the idolization of heroes. The ending is hopeful, and looks ahead to times changing for the better by the will of progressively-minded and determined people. 

This reminds me of the current arc of the bnha manga, and how the whole story might eventually end. Horikoshi has shown us that the villains are worthy of sympathy, that they are a product of society’s willful ignorance, that “heroes” have also done abhorrent things. But he has also embraced the pure optimism of youth. He seems eager to ask the big questions about right and wrong, and present us with both ambiguity AND certainty. The final fights are not at all a contest of strength, and there are no winners and losers. I’m very curious to see how far he takes this. I’m sure it will ruffle some feathers, and leave some people unsatisfied, but that’s probably a good thing.

The other major thing I notice in the one-shot is the character Hana. Now, as she shares her name with one of the main characters in Oumagadoki Zoo, and they are also similar in personality, that could be where the comparison ends. However, that’s nothing to say Horikoshi didn’t continue her themes elsewhere. The Hana in the Tenko one-shot is primarily preoccupied with her goal of becoming a warrior, and she was inspired some time ago by a warrior who saved her. This other warrior, conicidentally, turns out to be a brutal, a-moral, self-proclaimed demon, and he actually doesn’t take Hana seriously. In some ways, this reminds me of Hawks with his own idols, Endeavor and Lady Nagant, and more generally the idea in bnha that someone you look up to might not be all you imagine them to be. Like All Might and his hidden suffering. Or like Ochako looking up to Izuku up until his solo arc, after which she proclaimed, “special powers are one thing, but there’s no such thing as a special person.” 

Speaking of Ochako. Hana’s primary source of angst in the story is that since she is a woman, her “masculine” ambition is laughed at and dismissed. Her dialogue with other characters is very direct about this, which I find pretty interesting. 

You can really feel her frustration and see the blatant misogyny in how she’s treated. Even though things are stated kinda bluntly, it feels genuine, ya know? Note that she also wears men’s clothes, and nothing about her appearance is catered to the “male gaze.” I mention all this because to me it contextualizes Horikoshi’s more recent female characters. We can infer that he carried this perspective on, but in subtler and more nuanced ways that might not be immediately noticed. They may sometimes look like shonen stereotypes and be influenced by a misogynistic world, but this is likely an act of parody and/or criticism on Horikoshi’s part. For example Ochako’s fight in the sports festival illustrates a similar point to Hana’s struggle as Katsuki is the only one who takes Ochako seriously while other male classmates see her and other female opponents as inherently weak or potential love interests. 

Hana remains ambitious, fostering her own motivation beyond her previous idol, and her ultimate goal is to help people. She reminds me so much of Ochako’s recent convictions. Ochako is fully herself now, and I’m confident her fight with Toga will show this even more, in a way that is much more direct. Since ch 374, I anticipate we may be getting confirmation of things pretty soon, so I wanted to restate that ASAP. 

I’ve said this before, but it really does trouble me how a lot of people assume so much about bnha based on other shonen, disregarding the fact that Horikoshi is his own person. This either leads to undo criticisms or expectations that will likely not be delivered on. It makes me sad because I want people to enjoy this story for what it is. I hope this is a reminder that although it may seem on the surface like Horikoshi is rehashing the same old thing, his work really is a labor of love, of knowing. It is an homage, which both celebrates and deconstructs. Please remember that for the day when folks will be scrambling trying to figure out how we got here. Ironically, the signs were there all along, from the start of Horikoshi’s career, if you only care to look. 

[cursedvibes]

If JJK characters were in Non- Curse world, what would their job be if not become Jujutsu Sorcerer (in your opinion)? Why? Please pick your top 5 fav characters...

Kenjaku

Well, according to canon Kenjaku's true calling is being a comedian and specifically part of a owarai duo. I think in a No Curse AU they still would need a vehicle to live out the STEM side of their interests though and that would also be what they first approach as career. Going on stage with Takaba would be more of a side-hussle. I'd say their main occupation is being a research scientist in obstetrics. Their fascinated by the human reproductive system and want to push research in that area, but they aren't that interested in actually caring for patients, they're just doing it to satisfy their own curiosity.

Yuuji

Gege said he'd probably be a firefighter if he didn't become a sorcerer and I think that fits. If not that, I definitely think he'd be involved in any kind of disaster response force (helping after earthquakes, tsunamis or sheltering homeless people and refugees). Something where he can directly interact with people, so he can see that he is actually making a difference. He also likes to be personally involved, so while desk work can't be avoided, he prefers to be on the ground. Doesn't have to be solely in Japan either, he'd have no problem going overseas, since he has very few ties that hold him in one place. He'd go wherever he's needed most.

Tengen

Not much different from canon I think. Cult leader and/or a hermit in the mountains. Although I can see some alternatives too where she interacts a bit more with people similar to the Heian times. Like for example being in academia and publishing in biology with maybe a focus on genetics. She teaches from time to time, but tries to avoid it and only brings out a book from time to time, which signifies to others that she's actually still alive. Alternatively, to match Kenjaku's interest in comedy, I could see her as a rakugo master, being very dedicated to pass on the old stories and has a very conservative view on how they should be told with not too many deviations or altered interpretations from what she sees as the source material. Kenjaku used to be her student before they broke away and decided to pursue manzai instead.

Uraume

Chef obviously. They have the right attitude to create breathtaking meals, but are also an absolute nightmare in the kitchen. They have very high standards and anyone who can't keep up gets fired. Their speciality are meat dishes and there are a few controversies surrounding them concerning how ethically sourced their ingredients are.

Angel

Cult leader. If not that then politician and she would like to treat the party she's a part of as her cult. She's controversial for her radical approach to problems and thinks the government should be allowed to overstep or stretch some laws she personally doesn't agree with. Strong defender of the death penalty, she thinks it should actually become a more common punishment again.

[solomons-finest-rum]

“Great Libraries of the Ancient World” (Alfie Solomons x fem!Reader) — Part 1/2

SUMMARY — Dark Academia AU. When you accepted the position of a librarian in an elite boarding school, you weren't exactly prepared for the mess that your predecessor had left in said library, and most importantly—for a certain Literature professor that would soon turn your world upside down.

AUTHOR’S NOTE — This is written for the 600 Celebration Event for the lovely Lee from @zablife! 💗💗💗 Congratulations on your milestone babes and thank you for agreeing to make it a two-parter because I think the muse got a little bit carried away with this one 🙈 and thank you so much to @alfie-darling for being the most gracious beta reader! 💗💗💗

WORD COUNT — 3,862

Masterlist

It all started with a job advertisement that was a little too good to be true. At least that’s what your gut told you when you read about the salary and the words “permanent position” bolded out like that. 

To be fair, though, the entire advertisement was rather unusually written. It truly felt as if two different people worked on it simultaneously and then backtracked throughout it to fix one another’s mistakes.

What you should have found equally odd, too, was how that little square of the newspaper ad section almost called out to you; like a little whisper beckoning you closer.  But then, as you did indeed get closer, you spotted the catch.

“An all-male boarding school?!” your mother exclaimed as soon as you told her about your curious little find in the paper.

And, as expected, she was more than ready to start one of her ungodly rants. You saw your father immediately hiding behind Times, his moustache already hinting a twitch. It always twitched when he tried to suppress a giggle.

“Mother, I really think—” you tried to explain, but you knew it would be of no use. Your mother was already easing herself into a lengthy tangent.

“My world, what is that foolish girl up to now, God help us all! Are you hearing this, sir?” She turned towards your father with her usual silent request for participation in berating you. He wouldn’t budge.

“Yes, dearest, I am hearing it directly and first-hand,” your father hummed, “and likewise, I think the neighbours heard you loud and clear.”

“That is just unheard of!” Your mother raised her voice even more, obviously unwilling to take the feedback. “That a girl her age would travel unchaperoned to God knows where and stay alone in a school for boys!”

“Darling, I’m convinced the other staff will be present as well, unless they expect our daughter to teach all subjects and manage the library single-handedly, in which case I dare say the proposed salary is quite ridiculous for a task of that size.” Your father winked at you behind your mother’s back and your heart swelled. You already knew you had his blessing.

“Unbelievable!” Your mother walked around the room now, much like a general preparing for his one final strike. “You, sir, would sentence your own daughter to a public scandal! How do you expect us to find her a proper match when she would be branded so?! Oh, I feel a weakness come over me already…” As your mother succumbed to her prophesied “weakness” and swooned onto a chaise lounge, which both you and your father already knew came just as she was out of arguments, your father swiftly put down his newspaper and rang for the maid.

“You called, my lady?” She came in quicker than ever, probably already having heard her mistress all the way downstairs.

“Yes! Fetch me my drops from the bathroom cabinet, quickly!” Your mother waved her hand dismissively. The maid curtsied and ran upstairs to get the medicine.

“Oh, oh, my head!” your mother whined anew, but you knew that the spectacle was already over.

“Now then,” your father cleared his throat and folded the newspaper neatly in four squares as he always did. “Show us the advertisement,” he demanded curtly, though you knew his tone was not meant to be dismissive.

A typical English gentleman, your father was a no-nonsense type of man, rarely prone to showing emotion. Nonetheless, you knew his judgement would be fair and sound.

You quickly handed him your own paper and smiled when he huffed at the wrinkled state of it. He read the circled ad with a usual frown that occurred when he was truly focused.

“Oh, finally!” your mother exclaimed then when the maid came back with a silver tray.

“Apologies, my lady,” the maid muttered softly and placed the tray on the side table to then prepare the concoction of bitter drops, just like the doctor ordered.

“Little more,” your mother grumbled, watching her like a hawk, though just with one eye open.

“But my lady—”

“That will do, Mary!” Your mother dismissed her and the girl, still not used to her mistress’ violent temper, nearly dropped the bottle. She curtsied again and left the room even more abruptly than before, obviously relieved for not having to witness the hysteria any longer.

You, on the other hand, had to endure it all your life. It was partly why you wanted to find employment as far away from London as possible. Times were changing after the Great War, a fact that your mother wouldn’t accept and your father seemed oddly fine with.

Perhaps it had to do with the fact you were an only child. That is, the only one surviving out of the three, as your brother and sister died in infancy, leaving your father with no natural heirs and no one to inherit the title. That was partly why he supported you pursuing your own money, as he tended to be infinitely more realistic than his wife.

Your mother never quite got over the fact that all her ancestral possessions would one day go to some distant cousin, solely for the reason that he was born a man. You yourself gradually got used to the idea–especially since it left your prospects rather flexible. It would make no difference if you married or not, and so you allowed yourself the luxury of fastidiousness that infinitely amused your father and brought on your mother’s hysteria fits.

Personally, you found books more interesting than other people and as time went by you came to the conclusion that no pathetic suitor would ever live up to the dark, mysterious heroes from your favourite novels.

“It’s certainly strange,” your father then said, taking you out of your head.

He sat down on the sofa and you settled next to him, eager to hear his point. Fortunately, the drops acted quickly and since your mother had just swallowed double the recommended dose, she was now completely quiet.

“But the salary is rather handsome,” you offered and he nodded in agreement.

“What worries me is the distance,” he said. “How will you cope all by yourself?”

There was genuine care in the way he asked it and you took his hand in yours, touched by the sentiment.

“They have telephones, I’m sure. I’ll write to you often, I–”

“Doesn’t your mother’s sister live close to Lincoln?” Your father got up then and clearly the tender moment was over. He was back to planning.

“Aunt Clarissa?” you whined. “Father, please…”

You were already disappointed. While you have only met your aunt once or twice in your life, the Dowager Countess Clarissa Stoneshire of Inselwards Hall was hardly a less dramatic companion than her sister.

“Yes, we should give her a call.”

“To…?”

“Ask her about that school.”

“Father…”

“That is my one condition,” he concluded and you hang your head, already certain your hopes would turn into dust.

“Oh, the scandal!” Your mother exclaimed once more, though infinitely weaker, still clutching her handkerchief like her last lifeline.

“It’s Yorkshire, dearest,” your father grunted as he reached for the telephone. “I’d hardly call it running away to the jungle to teach the lions how to start a fire.”

If only your father knew just how wrong he was.

During your first week, you already knew that dealing with hormonal adolescent boys was no different from taming wild boars. And seeing as you had no real experience with either, you quickly came to appreciate the fact that you were a librarian and not their teacher. As it happened, said wild boars rarely found themselves in need to read.

Quite surprisingly, your Aunt Clarissa had nothing but reluctant praise for the entire institution, which subsequently solidified your father’s support for you seeking the job. As it was close to her estate, she knew all about it. You still couldn’t believe it when your father reported her words:

“Is that truly what she said?” you asked him time and again, and you could see he was as surprised as you.

“Apparently it produced the finest young men in the country. Some of them MP’s, even.” Your father shook his head and looked at the advertisement once more.

Your mother was still napping and you knew you could discuss the matter easily.

“So you will let me call them?” you asked and nearly yelped with joy when your father nodded.

“No, wait,” he then said just as you reached for the phone handle. “I will call them. The headmaster should know who he is employing, that’s only proper.”

“Father, please…” you pleaded, but he was already speaking to the operator.

As you sat on the sofa and listened to one side of that conversation, your disappointment only grew. Yes, you really wanted the position, but you didn’t want to be employed just based on your name. You had references to show that you were much more than that.

You received the offer letter from the school in the following weeks and as you skimmed the contents of it, your stomach sank. They were “delighted to accept your candidacy for Head Librarian”, with your current references “more than sufficient”, hoping that “the enclosed first class train ticket would show their appreciation”. You shook your head and threw yourself on the bed dramatically, already disappointed that they would treat you with unnecessary courtesy that wouldn’t otherwise apply if your birthright remained unknown.

But none of that turned out to be true once you started working… 

You quickly saw that there was a reason why they so eagerly accepted your candidacy and none of it had anything to do with your name.

As it turned out, your predecessor left the library in a state of complete disarray, one you knew would take you months to get in order. Not only that, she disappeared abruptly one night without any notice, leaving everyone baffled and speculating about it to this day. 

As for the library, the task of cleaning up the mess would potentially take you even longer once the headmaster gave you the full tour—the school library was not only ancient but also enormous, and it took up two entire floors. The way the headmaster explained it, the library held countless priceless manuscripts and once bestowed with the key to the restricted section, you quickly assessed that the books collected there probably belonged in a museum.

“The fact of the matter is,” the headmaster said as you ended your tour by your tiny office located on the second floor, “we do need your help, Miss. And I’m hoping it will be more permanent than the last person in this position,” he added bitterly, his formidable black moustache twitching like an antenna that sensed disappointment. “She left us quite abruptly and as you can see, the state of things leaves much to be desired.”

That would be putting it mildly. Before you even finished sorting out the library cards and getting to arrange the general literature section from A to E, you realised that the endeavour would probably take your sanity along with it. Whatever the previous librarian used to get things done, it was most likely magic—though whatever happened here to get it to that state was most likely a hurricane.

Much like the library, the school itself was also much grander than expected. Formerly an abbey, and truly holding onto its gothic look tooth and nail, it reminded you of a haunted castle from one of your novels.

On average, you got lost at least five times a day and got so fed up with it that you even drafted yourself a hand-drawn map. Only… Even when you used it on the spot, pencil clutched tight in between your ink-stained fingers, you could swear that the doors and the corridors that were just there the day before weren’t there on the next.

However, nothing could have prepared you for the real reason why the previous librarian chose to vacate the position—and even though at first you weren’t sure that was the case, the evidence would quickly pile up against the man to give more than a clear picture of the menace he was…

Said real reason burst in through the door one gloomy afternoon, causing you to nearly drop every single book you were holding, and subsequently get thrown off the ladder you were balancing on as well. 

“What in the name of…!” You shouted, as you desperately clutched the heavy volumes with one hand and held onto the tall shelf with the other. 

Fortunately for you, these large wooden stacks were sturdy enough to sustain a much larger impact than yourself.

“You there!” you exclaimed and the stranger finally looked up to meet your unforgiving glare. The heavy doors to the library then slammed shut behind him, accentuating his unexpected entrance.

Broad-shouldered and with a beard like that, he couldn’t have been a student—though as short-sighted as you were, it could have all very well been in your head. 

What wasn’t, though, was what the man said next, in a booming, commanding tone:

“Right you are, luv, you go on, right?”

“Excuse me?”

“Yeah, I’m just gonna see if the old witch was hoardin’ the books I ordered all those bloody weeks ago, don’t trouble yourself.”

“What?!”

“No danger, luv, I know the way!”

“Excuse me! Excuse me, where do you think you’re going?!” You nearly fell off the ladder again, but he paid you no more mind. That for some reason made you angrier than anything else.

“You come back here at once!” you shrieked. 

That, to your astonishment, seemed to have finally worked. All you heard was the stranger mutter something under his breath, but he did come back to you as ordered—scowling. You thought it an unseemly manner, especially when faced with such justified outrage as yours. It was as if he was almost pleasantly surprised at it…

“Right then, you alright up there, sweetie?” he asked you all too bluntly once he made it towards you.

“No, of course not!” you scoffed. “Who are you and what do you think you’re doing?!”

You waited patiently for the explanation that never came—because in all of his audacity, the man just smirked. 

“Who am I?” he scoffed. “Luv—”

“I am not your love, don’t you call me that!”

“Right…”

“And start explaining yourself or I’ll…”

“Or what?” he grimaced.

“Or I’ll tell the headmaster!”

“Ah,” the stranger’s smirk only grew. “Yeah, you do that, sweetheart,” he concluded and then waltzed towards your private office as if it were his own.

“You…! Impertinent man, you get out of my library!” you shrieked, but then yelped, now a little less sure since any second now you could be falling down to your death out of pure outrage alone. 

“Yeah, that’s a bit uncalled for. Can ya throw me the keys?”

“What?! That is none of your concern, that is my office! You, sir! Do you hear me?!”

“Yeah, luv, the entire floor heard ya loud and clear!” he chuckled from a distance. “I’ll be outta your hair no time, now that is a promise, yeah?” 

“You—! Who… No, come back here! It isn’t open yet and that is not a part of it, I’ll have you know—!”

But as he sauntered through the aisles of books, not minding your warnings one bit, you realised quickly that he not only had no desire to leave, he was also feeling lucky enough to ignore you. 

“Excuse me!” 

And just when you put down part of the heavy stack you were holding all this time and finally started to make your way down from the ladder, you slipped on the step and screeched as you fell, your very short and very uneventful life flashing before your eyes.

But then… Then you heard a grunt and the hardwood floor of the library felt like a much softer landing than originally anticipated.

“Oh my God,” you gasped as you opened your eyes and found yourself safe in the arms of the impertinent stranger that must have come just in time to catch you from the fall. 

“You…” You blinked a couple of times, but as that did exactly nothing to improve your vision, you realised you must have lost your glasses with your fall. “Where are my glasses?”

“That a ‘thank you’ where you come from, luv?” the man huffed and you rolled your eyes at him.

You could see nearly nothing about his features except the beard and maybe, just maybe, the colour of his eyes—though with his brows knit so tightly above them that proved a challenge.

“Yeah, fuck me, right, but that’s doin’ exactly nothin’ for my back,” the man said and you gasped again at the language.

“My God!”

“Yeah, you keep sayin’ that, right, but he wasn’t too eager to stop ya from payin’ him a visit either…”

The man put you down then and made the point of stretching upwards with a bear-like grunt.

“Well,” you looked around pointlessly, doing your best in trying to locate your glasses. “I suppose a thank you is in order…”

“Ah,” he gave another wolfish grin. “See, you’re welcome.” 

“Even though I still don’t know your name…”

“Alfie.”

“...and what you’re doing in my library…”

“I told ya, didn’t I? Lookin’ for my books.”

“...and even though your manners, sir, leave much to be desired…”

“Right, this you thankin’ me or scoldin’, ‘cause where I come from, luv, they look somewhat different.”

“Well, you could certainly use a scolding, Alfie, as much as a thank you.” you huffed and that only amused him further. “Don’t laugh! You can’t just barge into other people’s offices, you know. That’s…”

“Hm?”

“Well, that’s just plain rude!” 

He laughed at you again and it was a raspy sort of laugh that suggested the man didn’t do that very often. You held your head a tad higher now, thinking that a man like that was perhaps the grounds keeper or other employee of the school, since judging by his manner alone and the state of his shirt… Well, the wrinkles on that, those you could see clearly enough even without your glasses.

And even if your father taught you not to judge your fellow man, your mother highly encouraged it—it was safe to say their echoes were both fighting for your attention, but finally you decided to have mercy on the poor man and not discourage the desire of reading in him at least:

“Well, Alfie, if you help me find my glasses then I could perhaps check in the office if my predecessor has left something… Oh. Thank you.”

He put them in your hands then and you couldn’t actually see how or when exactly he retrieved them, but you were relieved nonetheless. As you put them on and finally took a proper look at his face, a thought hit you that he wasn’t at all what you expected. 

It was a handsome face, this much was clear, but it was the playful way in which he looked at you that you found truly captivating. This and that low gravelling voice of his that did nothing to soften his abominable accent:

“My books then, luv?” 

“Yes,” you said, your throat drier than Sahara. “Follow me.”

Most bizarrely, you suddenly didn’t mind the pet name. You led him to your office completely unnecessarily, because it was clear that Alfie knew his way around the place much better than you did. 

“Excuse the mess,” you said as quickly as you entered the tiny room.

The truth was, it looked much better than when you originally inherited its contents, but still not good enough according to your impossible standards. 

Alfie’s, however, were evidently much different. He let out a slow whistle as he looked around, clearly impressed.

“You did that all yourself then?” he asked and you couldn’t help but blush a little at the praise.

“It was actually the easiest part,” you explained. “It’s the catalogues I am currently trying to tackle.” 

“Nah, you’ll do fine,” he replied and against your better judgement you blushed even more. “Just fine, I’d say, yeah…”

“Well,” you cleared your throat and turned around to cover up for the effect the man apparently had on you, but not before you noticed that smirk back on his face. “So which books did you say those were?”

“I didn’t, though, did I?”

“What?” You frowned and turned to face him again, only to be met with said smirk growing wider. It was clear that everything concerning the spoken word was somehow a game to him.

“Nothin’.” Alfie cleared his throat and looked through his pockets, then finally handed you a piece of paper, torn on one side and folded four times.

You wrinkled your nose as you spread out the note under the lamp and readied yourself for the hellish scribbling that no doubt awaited you…

But the handwriting turned out to be entirely neat—perfectly round, with a little old-fashioned flourish here or there, and unevenly tilted to the side just to keep things interesting.

“Yeah, ‘s… I can read that out for ya,” Alfie offered then and you realised you must have been looking at it for an unreasonably long while.

“No need,” you replied sharply and put the note in your own pocket before crouching under your desk to look through the boxes your predecessor had left there. Some of them were labelled with big letters “DO NOT TOUCH” written in chalk, some were still untouched as you hadn’t had the time or the energy to go through their contents yet.

“Let’s see,” you muttered to yourself as you looked, and even though you had your back turned to him, you could feel Alfie’s watchful gaze on you.

You stayed in silence as you searched and he, as you could tell by the creaking floorboards, took a more daring look around while you weren’t paying attention.

“Yeah, I can come back later, don’t trouble yourself,” Alfie said finally, just as you emerged from under there, holding a book triumphantly.

“I think I found it!” you cut him off again, then paused to let out the biggest sneeze of your life.

“Bless ya,” Alfie chuckled at that and you nodded instead of an answer, only to sneeze again as you approached him.

“Here you are.” You sniffled with embarrassment and handed him the book, an inconspicuous little volume with a faded red cover. “At least I think that’s one of them. I promise to look for the other two once I get my head around this… Well, this. And… I wanted to thank you again. You really did save my life.”

Alfie hummed instead of a reply and apparently that was that. He said nothing more about the matter and left the library rather unexpectedly without a word of goodbye—and this time no smirking involved. Stunned at the man’s behaviour, language and altogether strange general manner, you returned to your duties; though not without harbouring resentment for the treatment for the rest of the day.

[spyroh]

Spyro | 20 | They/Them | RP BLOG

MINORS & AGELESS BLOGS PLEASE DNI!!

Hi! Welcome to my RP blog! This is just a post for those who are interested in roleplaying with me, and also to get to know me a little bit! I'm just going to go through a few things about me and things I'd like to look for in a roleplay with someone, fandoms I'm familiar with/interact with, characters I play for others, and characters others could play for me. Keep in mind... This is honestly my first time posting about RP on Tumblr, I've usually spent my years on Amino or Discord, I just wanted to try something new here :) Lets hop right in!

🕷️ !rules + info! 🕷️

01) PLEASE! Be respectful of my reply times. Sometime’s I’m available during the day and sometimes I’m not. I may even reply in the middle of the night, (I don’t have the best sleep schedule.) Either way, I get my replies in to you as soon as I can, I’m sure I’ll be able to tell you if I’m busy for the day or night, so please don’t get angry with me if I’m not able to reply to you when you want me to.

02) Absolutely NO Racism, Religion Debates, Political Debates, Homophobia, Transphobia, etc. Anything along these lines is an instant block.

03) I roleplay on either Tumblr or Discord, preferably on Discord but if you’re more comfortable on this app then I don’t mind at all! Just let me know!

04) My discord can be accessed by sending me a DM here on Tumblr.

05) I am very OC friendly! Hence why Double-Up’s are my main go-to, but I’m not opposed to ship RP’s and others! I’ve done a few ccxcc or ocxoc roleplays and I honestly don’t do them enough. I really don’t mind doing any kind of roleplay with people :)

06) Please don’t be afraid to tell me any random facts or headcanons about your OC, or share your thoughts about any CC characters we may be using! I tend to ramble on about my OC’s so I really don’t see a problem with you doing the same, I honestly love to hear the character development :)

07) All I ask is for no weird ships… such as MinorxAdult, TeacherxStudent, and nothing of that sort.

08) My literacy tends to switch a lot, depending on my mood and how much there really is to type… but I usually don’t go anywhere below 2-3 paragraphs. My replies can get very large to some people, and some may view it as perfect. I can give you examples if you’d like in DM’s, but if you request for a lot of writing or not too much, I can stick to it. Whatever is comfortable for you. :)

09) Don’t be afraid to talk to me outside of Roleplaying if you want! I’m a very social person and I don’t mind talking to anybody outside of roleplaying.

10) I am open to NSFW roleplays, I won’t roleplay NSFW with the highschool / teenage characters though. Hope you understand :)

11) I’m open for group roleplays, but please ask permission first before adding me to a discord server or groupchat!

🕷️ !anime & muses! 🕷️

Note: I’m not involved in many fandoms, there are obviously some where I’m more interactive and know more about it, but I’m very easy to picking up character personalities. If you have a request that I haven’t listed, I’m sure I can work something out for you!

Jujutsu Kaisen (Main): Satoru Gojo, Kento Nanami, Toji Fushiguro, Choso, Maki Zenin, Shoko Ieiri, Megumi Fushiguro, Yuuji Itadori. (I’m WAY TOO GOOD at playing the character Gojo… obviously… look at my page & theme. I’m good at playing as the other listed characters aswell, but Gojo is my main and the main guy everyone asks for…. just know that I’m a great fit for the job lolols.)

Tokyo Revengers: Mikey, Chifuyu, Baji, Smiley, Takemichi, Hanma, Ran. (I need to catch up on Tokyo Revengers. But I’m very well aware of the characters and their personality. My best played character for this anime is prooobably Mikey or Baji.)

My Hero Academia: Shigaraki, Toga, Twice, Aizawa, Kurogiri, Mr. Compress, Todoroki, Kirishima, Bakugou, Shinso. (“SPYRO IS SO GOOD AT RPING AS VILLAINS” says a good friend of mine… and it’s true. Honestly, just name a villain and it’ll be done for you within a snap of a finger.)

Chainsaw Man: Makima, Aki, Denji, Power. (Makima is my main with CSM, but other characters listed I’m still able to play well! Especially Denji…)

Death Note: Light, L, Misa. (I’m not TOO involved with Death Note since I watched it so long ago, but I’ve done it before and I can do it again!)

Demon Slayer: Giyuu, Akaza, Zenitsu, Obanai, Muzan, Sabito. (BBY GIYUU IS MY MAINNN i love him so much and he will love you too.)

Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure: Joseph Joestar, Jotaro, Dio, Jonathan, Jolyne. (…I play Jotaro best. You won’t be disappointed.)

Bonus: Modern Warfare II: Soap, Alejandro, Soap, Gaz, Laswell. (This is not at anime but… definitely a roleplay request that I’ve had and probably one of the most funnest thing to roleplay if you know what’s happening in the campaign. I do my best playing literally any of these characters, just ask and you shall receive.)

🕷️ !characters 4 me! 🕷️

Jujutsu Kaisen: Ryomen Sukuna, Suguru Geto, or Kento Nanami. (OC for Jujutsu Kaisen has an interaction with all 3 characters in her life, but not at the same time; Nanami never really happened romantically in her life, but ideas spark. AU’s can be made for characters, but her main lover is Ryomen Sukuna.)

Tokyo Revengers: Draken or Baji. (OC for Tokyo Revengers is still in a bit of development. Either boys work for her love life. Whichever you prefer to play if we decide on a Tokyo Revengers roleplay.)

My Hero Academia: Hawks (Keigo Takami) is an Ex-Lover of OC, OC’s Current lover is Dabi (Touya Todoroki). (OC is VERY WELL DEVELOPED for MHA. I don’t roleplay MHA as much as I used to, but very very open to it!)

Demon Slayer: Tengen is an Ex-Lover of OC, Rengoku is a possible lover in OC’s future. (Complicated OC development… I love roleplaying Demon Slayer with my OC but the storyline can make things difficult.)

Modern Warfare II: Simon ‘Ghost’ Riley (I know… He’s Overrated) Is the lover of MW2 OC. (Fully-Developed OC for MW2 + background story for CCxOC)

[yourfavoritehouseplant]

hello there! curious autistic little shit whose special interest is zoology (entomology, specifically) here, so sorry to bother.

i would sell my soul to get a chance to actually study zoology, but the thing is, i have no idea what they do. after they graduate, i mean. do you have to become an academician at a university, or do you get to do something else too? if so, what? who hires zoologists?

i couldn't find any decent information on the web, so i thought it'd be best to ask somebody who's actually studying that at the moment. (if you aren't and i misunderstood you completely, well. it'd be very awkward.)

thank you and have a very good day!

No you absolutely guessed right, I'm also an autistic little shit with a special interest in zoology!!

It is true that a lot of folks who study zoology end up in academia/research. I think its helpful to remember that that doesn't necessarily mean working at or with a University lab! Generally speaking, museums, zoos, arboretums, and any other place with some sort of academic collection have positions. This is especially true for Entomology, in my experience. Entomologists seem to love keeping specimen collections, which creates a lot of positions for collecting/sorting/maintaining/archiving specimens. This route seems to appeal the most to people who just want to gather as much info about certain animal groups as possible.

Another major branch I usually see is wildlife/conservation/husbandry work. This one is more favorable if you're into animal handling and care (though its pretty dominated by charismatic animals like mammals and birds in case that's not your thing). Sometimes this is adjacent to academia, sometimes its more of a public service management thing like maintaining protected areas, and sometimes its more veterinary. Wildlife centers and national parks are famously understaffed, and zoos/aquariums are always looking for people qualified for specialized animal care (this would probably extend into entomology a bit more).

Then, of course, there's veterinary school. There's your veterinarians for companion animals, obviously, but also people trained in specialized/exotic animals (avian vets come to mind). There are also many veterinarians that go into agriculture, or caring for farm animals. (If you're really into domesticated animals, I recommend looking into animal science programs specifically rather than zoology as a whole). This branch requires a lot of work, and is very much the Zoologist equivalent of going off to med school, but tend to have the most stable and well paying job market from what I've seen. As previously mentioned, there are also positions for vets in specialized animal husbandry and care in zoos and aquariums, as well as in wildlife rescue centers.

Overall, most zoology positions are fairly specialized and require at minimum a 4 year undergrad degree, which is pretty frustrating. Most of the people I've interacted with in this field also plan to attend, are attending, or have graduated from some kind of postsecondary school, like grad or vet school. Its also kinda obvious that this isn't a field you get into for money or prestige. Most of these jobs are very much passion projects for anyone I've met who have them. Still, from one autist to another, passion's probably not something we have to worry about lol.

Anyway I tried to cover all the bases I knew about, but I'm just one guy and also like, obviously still a student so this definitely isn't comprehensive! Hope this helps though!!

[oliversrarebooks]

Whumptober 2023 Day Two: Delirium

Masterlist

TW: hallucinations, captivity

Fandom: My Hero Academia

Pairing: Monoma/Iida

"What, are you worried about me?" Neito said with that cocky grin.

"Of course I am," Tenya pleaded, knowing that there was nothing he could say that would dissuade him. They'd had this same song and dance so many times before, and honestly, Neito's willingness to throw himself into danger for the sake of hero work was one of the things he admired about him. One of the things they had in common. "I know you're more than capable -- I just want you to be careful. If it's true that the entire facility is staffed with villains with psychological quirks --"

"Those are some of the most fun to copy!" he cackled. "They never expect it to be used against them. And I've had plenty of practice with psychological quirks training with Hitoshi. Just you watch. I'll be in and out so fast that they're going to have to give me a speedrun medal on top of the awards and praise I'll get for saving so many people."

Tenya brushed his fingers through his soft hair. After all these years, he could tell when Neito was nervous under all the bluster. It was in the way his laugh died out a little too fast, stormy eyes too occupied with calculating every possible angle to hold mirth for long. He had every reason to be nervous, given what they knew about the facility and its secretive nature. They didn't even know where it was located, hoping that an undercover Neito wouldn't get his tracking device discovered. If the mission went south, it could be days time before he was rescued, if at all.

Tenya couldn't find the words to express all of his fears without eroding his partner's makeshift confidence, and so he pulled him in for a kiss instead.

"I'm really going to be fine," Neito said as they pulled away after a long minute. "You know how much I've been training for this."

Tenya knew he must be showing his nerves as well, for Neito to comfort him in all seriousness. "I know you have been. And I believe you will come back safe."

He had to believe that. It was the only way two pro heroes could survive a romantic relationship without going utterly insane.

---

It had been three days since they'd had the last transmission from Neito's tracking device. Sixty hours since Tenya and his friends had convinced the HPSC to change the mission from information gathering to search and rescue. Thirty hours since they'd raided the first lair and found it empty. Four hours since they'd located what they believed to be the actual facility. Ninety minutes since they'd finalized the raid and extraction team and plan. Eight minutes since Tenya had kicked a villain hard enough to shatter ribs, leaving him a broken, sobbing mess on the floor.

He'd take full responsibility for his actions later, once his partner was safely back home.

Midoriya was clearing the path ahead, and Tenya could hear the sounds of the fight echoing down the hallway. He ran, using his engines in quick bursts for precision in the tight hallways, looking for the prisoners.

He kept telling himself it would be fine. It wasn't as though it hadn't happened before -- Tenya worried sick and arriving to find Neito with a smug smile on his face despite cuts and bruises. "What took you so long?" he would say, his hands cuffed behind his back and chained to the wall. "I could've gotten out of this any time, obviously. I just thought you needed some help keeping your spot in the top ten. Rescuing a fellow hero, especially one as universally beloved as me, will really help your reputation."

Tenya rounded the corner into a hallway lined with iron-barred cells. Please be here, please don't be too hurt, please be well enough to make fun of me for my concern while I'm carrying you off to the ambulance. "Neito?"

He heard a skittering and a strangled yelp. His heart clenching, he dashed to the source of the noise.

If Tenya weren't able to immediately recognize that disheveled blonde hair, he might not have realized it was Neito. There was no proud grin and no mockery. The man in the cell was pale as a ghost and shaking uncontrollably, curled up into a tight ball as though his knees would protect him. There was a nasty looking cut on his forehead and bruises poking out from under the pajama-like white uniform.

"Not again," he said, his voice sounding raw. "Not again! You're not real. Leave me alone!"

He'd never seen his partner like this. Even suffering from broken limbs and blood loss he'd be trying to laugh it off in between demanding pain meds. As long as he was loudly complaining about how he was clearly dying, there was no chance he actually was.

Whatever quirks and experiments the villains had inflicted on him, they'd been enough to break him down to this in less than three days.

"Neito, it's me," said Tenya in his most reassuring voice, as he swiped the keycard he'd taken off the villain.

Neito only shrank back further into the cell, as though the cinder blocks could swallow him whole. "Stay back!"

"I'm real. I don't know what they did to you, but it really is me, and I'm here to rescue you."

"Not again." He shook his head rapidly. "Not this time. Not again."

"Listen, you're safe now. Whatever it is they did to --"

Tenya liked to think he was a well-prepared hero, but he wasn't at all prepared for Neito to suddenly unfurl himself from the tiny ball, kick him square in the stomach with enough force to send him off balance, and then go booking out the cell as fast as he could run, not even copying Tenya's quirk.

Perhaps he should have. As Tenya doubled over for a moment, getting his air back so he could chase after Neito, he felt slightly better that Neito wasn't as broken as he'd initially assumed. Sure, he seemed to think that Tenya was some kind of malevolent hallucination, but...

"Unhand me!" came the shout from down the hall. "I always knew you'd turn out to be evil somehow!"

Ah, so Midoriya had caught him. That was probably for the best.

---

I can't resist using the Whumptober prompts to push my favorite rarepair. Thanks for reading!

[citizen-zero]

This is not a well-formed thesis ATM but if I, a modern reader, were to look at Lucy Westenra through a modern lens, then she becomes emblematic of how young women and girls are forcibly sexualized by a patriarchal culture. This is more and especially true if you focus on how academia and Hollywood have treated her character, as opposed to just looking at Victorian cultural norms.

(Putting the rest under a cut for discussions of sexual abuse)

Because like, Lucy is canonically a sweet young girl who only has eyes for one man, who she wants to marry because she loves him. There’s nothing to suggest she wants him for nefarious reasons or that she’s sexually forward or otherwise violating Victorian expectations for her as a woman. She doesn’t even seem to be especially sexually repressed. She’s a 19 year old girl who is preyed upon by a much older, predatory man who, by enacting violence on her, turns her into something horrifying and tragic. She displays sexually charged and “unwomanly” behaviors not because of any actions she willingly took, but because it was forced on her by a man. She had no agency in becoming what she became.

Which actually, now that I frame it that way, makes me understand now why Hollywood in particular has been keen on finding ways to make her victimization actually her own fault. Isn’t this exactly what powerful older men in Hollywood do to girls and young women? Groom them and shape them into what they want them to be, something borderline unrecognizable? Pressure them into acting older and more sexual than is age-appropriate, and even sometimes (often?) convincing them that this is what they want too? And then inevitably, when those girls have mental health crises and spiral into self-destructive behaviors, it just becomes part of their reputations as slutty bad girls who deserve the disrespect and the shame even though those reputations were never ones they had much agency in earning. So Lucy to me is reminiscent of those young women in that she’s been turned into a sex symbol when she really shouldn’t have been, both textually and academically.

(There’s also a reading in there somewhere about how (again, applying a modern lens) she and the academia around her can be read as a metaphor for the ways that patriarchal institutions have co-opted and poisoned the women’s lib and sex positivity movements and made them into just another way to shame women for existing, but that thesis is not well-formed either.)

Obviously the traditional “she’s punished for being a slut” reading is busted and wretched, but I think there’s a lot we can say about Lucy’s story arc and how it encapsulates both sexual/sexualized trauma and how society responds to women and girls who experience it.

[novemberhush]

Zodiac Bingo

Thanks to @tulipfromtheinternet for tagging me! 😘 Tulip sent me this link to find my card, but I couldn’t get it to work for me (maybe you’ll have more luck) so I googled it and found this link to the same thing, which worked for me.

Okay, I gotta add a qualifier to some of these.

I do love crime shows, but I wouldn’t say I’m obsessed with serial killers (just don’t ask how many times I’ve watched Criminal Minds) and I’ve never listened to a podcast in my life. Evil plans for people who’ve hurt me? Well, who doesn’t nurse a few revenge fantasies? In the end, though, I tend to let karma do its thing. People usually end up showing their true colours and getting everything that goes along with that. (Or maybe I’ve just used my super Scorpio psychic powers to see they get what’s coming to them without having to lift a finger or get my hands dirty. Who’s to say? 😈 )

Also, I like to think I’m reasonably intelligent, but I’m not big-headed enough to assert I’m super intelligent.

As for ‘dark humour’, I tend to find that people who feel the need to constantly proclaim their humour is so dark and ‘not for everyone so you might not get it’ are often the first to start clutching their pearls when someone makes an actually dark joke in their presence. They like to think they’re so deep and so different (spoiler alert: they’re not, they’re just pretentious dickheads). So, no, I won’t be ticking that box, even if I do occasionally come out with things that shock a laugh out of people. Dark academia aesthetic, yeah, it’s okay, but saying I love it would be a stretch so not ticking that one.

Ghosting people is not something I’m proud of, it just happens sometimes, enough for me to tick it here. Although perhaps it would be more accurate to say I’m guilty of letting certain friendships (not my ride or die ones obviously) or relationships drift rather than actively, intentionally ghosting people.

As for being possessive, look, what’s mine is mine so keep your hands off and we won’t have a problem, that’s all.

Mind games? Who’s got the time or energy? I say what I mean and I mean what I say (which personally I think is a very Scorpio trait). Or maybe I’m just saying that to fuck with you…😉

I tag @smowkie @fireladybuckley @firemedicdiaz @guiltypleasurefandomface @siflovesbuddie @bewarethesmirk @tabbytabbytabby @evanesdust @stacinadia @zerokrox-blog @katries @oneawkwardcookie and anyone else who wants to play. No pressure on anyone who doesn’t!❤️

[centrally-unplanned]

My take on 'science overproduction' is I am sure predictable - its fundamentally an issue of gatekeeping and bundling. We are absolutely overproducing research; very obviously so in the humanities where huge swaths (not all, let's not exaggerate) of papers are useless and never read after publication. But its strongly true in STEM fields as well, the papers aren't devoid of any info but the majority at this point are an extremely inefficient way of communicating that knowledge. Most progress actually made ignores most of the literature, its not relevant to the project.

"Publish or perish" seems like the culprit, but its more of a symptom. It didnt emerge ex nihilo, it emerged due to science becoming way harder to make progress on in clean ways. A bunch of researchers 'applying their genius' to a task was hitting its limits, work needed checks, info needed dissemination to all the new unis out there, and faculty needed better ways of being incentivized and evaluated. The system was growing massively and complexity was expanding. It needed structuring.

I think why it was expanding though is the better question: yes much of it was real, but a lot of it was driven by how research was tied to the university structure. Due to that system, funding was married to teaching and credentialism was the name of the game - every scientist has to be a 'professor' and get a PhD. This actually makes no real sense - the skillsets of teaching and research barely overlap, and a real research project, towards a true concrete goal, would not be built out of 'phd's' but diverse skillsets. Reality has recognized this as universities hire fleets of support staff; but requirements around grants still mandate professor slots, and these jobs are never career tracks, instead 'pre-phd' or postdoc roles aspiring professors fill. This isnt a system built to maximize productive research; instead its one built to produce professors.

Publish-or-perish emerged to make those professors 'productive' but that was quickly gamed as the system didnt have enough for them to do. So now you produce fake metric papers because what else will you do but there is no easy, 'real' work lying on the ground. Industry snaps up as many PhD's as it wants already, they arent stuck there. So while i do support ending the 'publication' paradigm for academia I dont think it would accomplish much without either A: notably reducing the number of PhD's, or B: restructuring the entire academic system outside of the university system. Otherwise they will just invent some other metric to game.

[ohtobealady]

Could you do 15 for both Cora and Robert??

#15: Schooling/Education! Loooooved this one!!!! (And would love everyone else’s ideas, too.)

Cora:

I wanted to write her first because we have actual little canonical hints that Cora likes learning and finds it important. In most of her interactions with the grandchildren, she’s pulling out books for them to look at (at the places she and Robert have been) or reading with Marigold or Sybbie. We also see that Cora is also on Sybil’s side in S1 in that tiny argument with Violet about wanting to go to school. She encourages Edith to keep using her brain, and Cora is happiest when SHE’s using her brain (except for organizing the bazaar).

My headcanon for her is that she attended a school for girls, something akin to Brearley in NY. She’s overall very academically gifted. She did well in everything she tried. She excelled best in literary studies, but she enjoyed mathematics, too — she liked that there was an answer to the problem out before her. She despised rhetoric, even if she did well. (In a way, she much preferred absorbing ideas and formulating opinions on her own than being the director of other people’s ideas.) She went to an art class, too, which she loved most of all. This evolved into having private tutors for art; she sketched and painted very, very well. She learned several languages, French being one she learned alongside her mother, Martha (who insisted that she’d do well to know better French for when they went abroad to the House of Worth in Paris). She would’ve enjoyed university, but that was never even a thought. She was always going to be a wife and mother, and she WANTED to be a wife and mother, especially the latter. She wanted desperately for her own daughters to have the kind of education she had, though tradition (and Violet) really won out. After all, if it meant they’d marry well, then that’s what was to be done. Their place as women of society was really important to Cora’s world at the time, and that meant marriage to the right man and heirs.

Robert:

Like most other aristos, Robert had private tutors until he turned thirteen and was sent away to study at Eton. He loved Eton’s history, and he was generally very popular (as we know lol), but he wasn’t really one for academics. That isn’t to say he didn’t TRY, but it just didn’t come to him as naturally as some others. He didn’t loathe it either, but he was much better at people skills.

His one real academic love was literature and he stayed an avid reader … he really liked poetry, though Violet blinked at him incredulously when he admitted to such a thing. He also rather enjoyed history. Numbers were, and remain, his sworn enemy.

What he lacked up for academic prowess, he made up for in genuine friendship and understanding of people.

Oh, and obviously he adored anything about Egypt. He borrowed every book about Egypt he could get his hands on at Eton. He would’ve loved to have gone to Egypt and excavate all sorts of treasures, but lol. No.

This next bit is in part due to something @modernamericangirl mentioned before: We never hear Robert talk about any school except Eton. So I’m thinking that upon graduation from Eton, the opportunity was there for him to go to Oxford afterward, and he would’ve liked to in some small way, but perhaps at this point money was an actual issue. And it wasn’t like academia was a true love or desire of his. So he went ahead, after a little bit of a gap year, and started in the military as he was always going to do. He liked it more than studying, anyhow. It was full of camaraderie, duty, and service to Queen and country, his ultimate favs.

Ask me headcanon stuff!

[tonberry-yoda]

Hello. I read your post about why Hawks is the worst character in MHA and had some thoughts. Do ignore this if you want to, seeing as the post was from like eight months ago and it’s long :)))

Hawks using BJ’s body is to deceive the villains into believing the number 3 hero is dead, deceive them in hopes that he’ll gain their trust which is the whole point. Him doing so is a carefully well planned out plan that in fact does succeed and not anything that takes away from his character. You mention this right before the Twice part which I take as you trying to build up how shitty you believe he is before you actually say why you despise him. Doesn’t really make sense. Do you think that’s a bad plan? How does him doing that have anything to do with being a bad character. He does so with the consent of BJ obviously, I doubt he knocked him out and shoved into a duffel bag.

You state that you don’t consider anything about Twice villainous as he 1) doesn’t kill anyone in the series. Does him killing that one hero who apprehends Toga and Mr. Compress after his encounter with Hawks not count? The one he repeatedly stabs with a knife. He’s also killed many other villains during My Villains Academia Arc though these can be regarded as self defense. Even if he may not kill people with his own bare hands, he chooses to support and aid a group he knows are villains and are evil. He is, if not directly, indirectly killing people.

Hawks doesn’t ask Jin to join the heroes like you said but tells him to atone for his crimes and start over, even offering him his help, and the ‘potential’ he talks about is the potential he sees in him of him truly being a good person. Hawks says that the true nature of someone appears when they’re cornered. He’s believe Twice is a good person because of his willingness to help others, in this case, his friend when he was backed into a corner. You state that Hawks asks for a fight which simply isn’t true. Hawks’ main goal is to apprehend Twice cause 1) he’s a villain, one of Japan’s most wanted to be exact and 2) because of the effects Twice’s power can have on the ongoing war. He deems him the most dangerous which is why he’s after him.

—“Hawks asks for a fight, which Jin also refuses. Jin didn't want to hurt a friend.”

Hawks asks Jin to come quietly and Jin refuses that and then Hawks tells him that he doesn’t want to fight him, That’s the order it went in.

—“Hawks didn't want to deal with anymore refusals and villains though, so he grabbed one of his feathers and KILLED JIN!!”

Hawks only attempts to kill him after he refuses to cooperate and begins to fight.

—“Hawks killed an innocent man for NO REASON and still got praised for it.”

Let’s move on to Twice. Yes he’s an outcast, yes he was a victim of the system, yes he feels like the league has always welcomed him even though he feels all he’s done is cause trouble (death of Mange during the Shia Hassaikai Arc ) and be unhelpful ( that whole thing about him not being able to duplicate the quirk- destroying bullet during MVA arc) but that doesn’t justify any of his actions. Twice isn’t some 5 years who doesn’t know right from wrong. Sure this may be the only group who’s helped him and he can now hang around, seeing as they’re all criminals and have that in common but no one should be surprised as to why any hero would be after him. It’s may not be explicitly stated that he stands for what Tomura and AFO have in mind, but aiding the league for the sole reason of ‘oh they’ve helped me, let me help them even if they’re gonna take over the world’ doesn’t make him less innocent. Twice's willingness to trust and befriend others due a past he can relate to them with is one of the things that makes him a likable character. It’s through this that he’s able to trust Hawks and why his betrayal to him was that much more bitter.

Did Twice deserve better? Yes, but not from Hawks cause all he was his job of protecting people. Twice is one of the many characters whose perspectives we get to see and as a villain too which is even better because this runs hand in hand with one of themes build into Deku’s character which understanding why villains are the way they are. (The analyzation of Twice through this lens is way too long and a bit off topic so forget that.)

From the reasons you’ve listed, your dislike for Hawks doesn’t seem to come from him but rather the sadness you feel over Twices death. Killing is never okay however Hawks did the right thing in stopping a villain that could lead mass murder.

Hello darling dearest anon!!! First of all, thanks for reading that essay! I not only posted that over 8 months ago, but actually hand wrote it like a few months prior, so that is very VERY old writing. Also, it was all jokes and giggles.

Now, after your essay you just sent me, I still don't like Hawks. I would write a way better essay today then I did then, HOWEVER, I am 1.) tired from my wisdom teeth being removed yesterday and don't wanna sit through the suffrage of having to research Hawks yet again, and 2.) would much rather be playing Resident Evil 4 rn.

AHEM

Sure I missed a few things because I was just writing this for giggles. I only remembered after writing that essay that Jin did kill someone LOL

Hawks will never be a hero in my eyes. Anti hero? Sure. I can go with that. But under NO CIRUMSTANCE, even Hawks' tragic backstory and wish for heroes to not have to have difficult jobs, should a hero kill ANYONE. Look, I liked Jin, A LOT. I felt like he was just such a kind character who got stabbed in the back by a bird. And like, Hawks didn't even wait to kill him, bro was already fighting Jin LMFAOOOOOO

HOWEVER

I did not write that essay or hate Hawks because of how he killed Jin. I actually hated Hawks way before. He's just an annoying character in my opinion that was immediately forgiven for things that he shouldn't have. And like... idk. Dabi's better sjdhjdfhjdfh

And look, anon. I wrote that essay for the shits and giggles man. He's a goofy ahh character that I still actively write fanfic for.

Bruh, I don't even like MHA anymore LMFAOOOOOO. Like the manga is good, but the anime is just a bore to watch now.

I really don't care about Hawks LMFAO I skimmed your writing because honestly, as I said before, I wrote that essay to make people laugh. People still simp for him, hell, sometimes I go through phases where I will just stare at his gorgeous bird face.

I still think he's the worst character in MHA even if you did make some valid points

But you sending this made me laugh, so thanks for that

I won't ever enjoy Hawks as a character because I enjoy thousands of other characters than him and it this point, it's just a joke with my siblings and tumblr at this point. I wanted people to get a laugh out of my writing and a lot have lol

And triggering Hawks simps sounded fun to me at the time

Thanks for the giggle anon, have a great day and stay hydrated <3

[bicheetopuff]

“Entrance Exam Arc” & “Quirk Apprehension Test Arc” Dissection

Izuku Doing His Best Pt. 1: Entrance Exam

Contents:

I: You Can Be A Hero

II: All Might, Izuku, and a Training Montage

III: Entrance Exam or Izuku Panicking for 10 Minutes

IV: Izukus Hero Academia

I: You Can Be a Hero

So our main character has the first rule of being the main character out of the way; traumatic back story.

(People tend to invalidate Izukus back story because it isn’t as traumatic as other MCs, which is true. However, trauma is trauma. Being bullied for being different is trauma. Being bullied for being yourself is trauma. Being told you can’t achieve your dreams ever since you were fucking four, is trauma. Everyone has trauma, no one has a right to invalidate your trauma just because they think someone had it worse)

Now we’re at the newfound inspiration and training montage of the checklist.

More quotes to talk about? Hell yea!

“Huh?! Midoriya?! No way!!” & “There’s no hope for him.”: These we’re said by his middle school classmates. People we don’t even know the names of. They’re only here to push the plot and kill Izukus self esteem. But him thinking of those words after All Might just told him what he’s been waiting to hear for the past 14 years of his life is him silently saying, “turns out you were wrong” to these forgotten classmates.

“You’re totally quirkless and you think you can rub shoulders with me?!”: this was said by Katsuki. Again, him thinking of these words after what All Might just told him is him silently saying, “I can and I will”. Now that his idol is helping him up, he’s not gonna let Katsukis words or actions get in the way anymore.

“I’m sorry, Izuku. I’m sorry!!”: this was his mother losing faith in him. He can’t manifest a quirk so he can’t be a hero, end of discussion. Izuku thinking of this, he’s silently saying “you don’t have to be sorry anymore”.

As a whole, he’s remembering the times where he wished he could’ve heard All mights words instead of the words that were said. He wanted to be told he could be a hero by anyone. He wanted to be told he could be a hero by his mother and Katsuki.

II: All Might, Izuku, and a Training Montage

All Might goes on to explain OFA. Like, a DEEP explanation even though they just met and the explanation in such detail isn’t needed yet. Horikoshi could’ve waited to explain OFA after Izuku had trained for ten months and trust was built between them. And Izuku being the reckless moron he is, doesn’t even question why All Might is saying all this. He only questions why All Might is choosing him. Once All Might explained why he’s choosing him, he accepts without a second thought.

He- is it just me or did he have plenty of reasons to refuse? I think the reasons he thought about are in fact reasons to potentially refuse, if not take a little bit more time to think before accepting. These two met like an hour ago. All Might may be his idol but, All Might going in to such detail about everything so fast does nothing but show the same reckless ‘act-before-you-think’ attitude that Izuku himself possesses. This similarity between the two of them isn’t made obvious until later on but it’s definitely shown here whether we choose to notice it or not.

Nonetheless, Izuku works hard for what he wants. To the point where he actually overworked himself and passed out at some point. Another example of Izuku not caring about his own well being and being reckless, potentially slowing down his progress. But he gets back on track and we get a glow up from Little Izuku to Rippedoriya.

Right in time for his exam. He eats some hair and then goes to the exam even though he’s very obviously exhausted.

III: Entrance Exam or Izuku Panicking for 10 minutes

The time before the actual exam isn’t really important other than this one scene:

Izuku isn’t defenseless anymore. He’s strong and has a strong quirk now. Everything, to Izukus knowledge, that Katsuki bullies him for. However, even though he knows Katsuki hasn’t done anything to him in ten months he still freaks out and flinches but, he recognizes it and sees it as something to improve on. (I’m mainly pointing this out because I’m going to come back to it later on)

Directly after, we get to meet Ochako! Ochako stopping Izuku from falling right after Katsuki threw him off course is symbolic for who Ochakos character is as a whole. Especially for who she is to Izuku. She’s a supportive crutch that Izuku didn’t ask for but needed. Ochako is the first person to treat Izuku with genuine kindness even though she could’ve kept walking and watched Izuku eat shit like most of the people we’ve met in the series so far would’ve done at first meeting. I’ll talk more about her in her own meta probably during the sports festival arc.

Even though he was just given words of encouragement, Izuku panics when he reaches his test site. He’s basically panicking for all of chapter 3. Because of his nerves everyone at his test site underestimates him from the beginning, minus Ochako because she’s focusing on herself (unlike Iida).

This is kinda similar to the scene we saw in chapter one with Izukus class looking down on him after saying he was applying to UA. No one sees Izuku for who he is and they judge him at first sight because of his lack of confidence and obvious anxiousness. But, it’s less scary than it was in his classroom and I think it’s drawn like that to highlight Izukus new found developing confidence. The way people think about him is less scary now.

At first sight of one of the One Pointer villains, he panics and freezes. Right after he told himself he was going to work on his flinching. Irony, right? He goes on for ten minutes with no points and then the big bad shows up and he freezes up again… until he sees that the zero pointer puts the other test takers in danger.

He remembers what Ochako told him when she met him and then uses OFA for the first time in order to take out the zero pointer. It’s not fair for her to fall while everyone else keeps taking their tests, ignoring her. He was the only one to do help her even though he was also the only one with zero points. He took down the zero pointer without thinking, despite knowing the consequences. After this happened, to his knowledge he’s basically sure that he failed the exam because he immobilized himself by fucking up three limbs.

He compares this instance to the time he ran to save Katsuki from the sludge villain but corrects himself because this time he used OFA. This scene is actually a lot more graphic than it is in the anime. He’s literally crying, bleeding, throwing up and wincing in visible pain. He doesn’t comprehend consequences until he’s done with the action he set his mind on to do. The same thing happens countless times in the rest of the story because broken bones don’t have shit on Izukus drive and will power.

In the end he still tries to move, hoping to scrape up a single point before time runs out and when it does, he loses consciousness and people begin to gossip about him again just like before the exam started.

But it’s in a good light. People are starting to actually kinda see Izuku for who he really is, and not the nervous kid they made him out to be at first.

IV: Izukus Hero Academia

Izuku is prepared for bad news because he didn’t get any points in the exam. Again he doesn’t think of himself in this instance, he thinks about disappointing All Might and questioning why All Might chose him in the first place. Oh and how he refuses to tell his family and his mother about his relationship with All Might… we’ll go back to that eventually and you probably already know when and why.

Even though he’s almost positive he failed and disappointed All Might, he doesn’t regret what he did. And his choice comes back to help him instead of bite him in the ass for once. Ochako vouches for Izuku and offers up some of her points for saving her. He then remembers what one of the heroes told him after he saved Katuski.

Ochako validated his reasoning for putting himself in danger unlike that Pro Hero did when he saved Katsuki. That hero saw his own safety as more important than Katsukis life that day and didn’t do anything to try to save him. Izuku did the opposite. Izuku put Katsukis life above his own safety and was reprimanded for it. Ten months later he puts a strangers life before his own safety and receives recognition and appreciation for it for the first time from someone other than All Might. Not that he did it for recognition but, I can imagine it was probably nice to know that someone acknowledges your efforts with an emotion other than doubt or resentment.

Izuku Metas

<<Prev | Next>>

Dissection Series

<<Prev | Next>>

[vzyee]

gonna collect my thoughts on on earth we're briefly gorgeous since i finally read it after four years of it being the biggest thing in every sphere. preface is that i know this was like landmark literature & i can acknowledge that while also you know griping.

so first of all i thought this was straight up memoir when i read it due to assuming it was an extension of his more autobiographical poetry.

i made a joke abt how it reminded me of barry s3 but its like, the comparison is nearly there. turning from just depthless ancient sadness to like, extremely contemporaneous colloquial language and stylings. which isn't to say that the depictions of generational trauma in gorgeous (ancient sadness) are necessarily more remote/removed of course & in a lot of ways the early aughts details are alienating when you'd expect them to be grounding.

i also noticed how neatly this fits into the like goldfinch genre which im always going on about. obviously it borrows quite a bit thematically from the big gay dark academia epics (art trauma and memory) although crucially the academia element is sort of plucked out of the story. he goes to college this seems like it would have major implications in the narrative of americanness and yet it's barely factored in. and further barbara kingsolver totally did the whole first day on the tobacco farm thing in demon copperhead down to the gloves being too big. i'm calling dc a big etc gay novel even though it barely is because it also to me derives from that same tradition. However. and the point is. it disrupts that genre primarily by not being an epic. Like the prose is actually very efficient. a lot of the scenes are precisely what they are. to my taste i actually like a very long unwinding of every mood and development from one stage of life & being to the next & i do think. gorgeous accomplishes a lot of that even if nonlinearly. but for instance in the "sometimes being offered tenderness" scene, that felt to me like a moment that could have been more thoroughly arrived at as something that fundamentally changed the terms of little dog & trevor's relationship and their understanding of their place in their own & each other's lives. but instead it is so distilled. which is interesting. in a lot of other ways obviously it doesnt seem like theres a ton of disruption as with the dramatization of violence, drugs, intense angst etc and the very knowing floaty tone of the narration. which i did not appreciate as much.

last big point had to do with like, maturity of voice. to me this still seemed absolutely like . well a debut novel. an early work. i've read some of night sky with exit wounds and i have some familiarity otherwise with vuong but i don't think i've read anything more recent than gorgeous. i really like ocean vuong in interviews and i think he's immensely quotable which is a gift some writers have whether due to insight & reflection or just composure both of which are very impressive. vuong i think has both. however i think the impression i got over and over in gorgeous was that his voice either hasn't fully developed or he's still coming to terms with how to use it in practice. i think about this a lot, like what the metric is for a "mature" and "developed" individual voice vision style whatever in writing. basically it's when your conviction matches the level of your ambition & i did not see true conviction here. which is not a bad thing in and of itself in a novel of fragmentation disorientation and resistance. but amid the confusion and the immense efforts of the narrator to preserve recollect and reassemble there are still these grand poetic gestures of generalization summary and aphorism. once again "sometimes being offered tenderness feels like the very proof that we've been ruined" (one of the most successful attempts at generalization i think).

also he says somewhere in an interview that he's working against legibility which i'm not entirely sure he does. he mentions genre bending and the inclusion of for instance butterfly and opioid trivia, he mentions nonlinearity. all of this though is honestly more or less digestible, and the novel is actually fairly rigidly structured. Especially with the amount of im gonna call them tropes maybe cliches. that dictate the general plot progression. quite legible. & i feel even stronger abt that now that i realize those actually were conscious authorial placements and not like, real life experiences that just happened to follow a highly exaggerated narrative arc. which genuinely confused me when i was reading i thought he had to be at least embellishing. and he was

[tokiro07]

Cipher Academy ch.33 thoughts

[The Anonymity Chapter]

ANONYMITY!!! COLOR PAGE!!!!!

Red hair, blue-green eyes, she looks like if I were an anime girl, like Chie from Persona 4. But whereas I came to like Chie before playing Persona because of her design, obviously I've loved Anonymity because of her charmingly offputting personality from the moment she first opened her obnoxious little mouth, so her gaining a color scheme that resonates with me is just a fun little bonus

One small consequence of everyone wearing a standardized uniform, though, is that it's a bit more difficult to convey any given character's signature color, with the hair probably being the best way to do it. As much as I'd like to declare Anonymity one of my Green Girls, can I really give her that label in all good conscience if every other person around her is wearing that color as well and none of them technically by choice?

I also have difficulty labeling her as a Red Girl either since the red of her hair is a more realistic shade more reminiscent of orange or brown, and though Personal Package is depicted here with a red X, it's usually a more standard censor bar which I presume to be black, so I can't go off of that just yet either. It's a little bit of a conundrum

Anonymity continues to prove why she's best girl by not only absolutely bodying multiple opponents simultaneously and layering multiple plans and plots in doing so, but just looking so stylish while doing it too. Her signature 👌 hand sign has very quickly become an endearing part of her character, and committing to using it while snatching all of her opponent's tails was a great way to telegraph who she was before removing her mask

I'll admit, I was really worried when Anonymity first took off Personal Package to reveal her true face. When Hagakure's face was revealed in My Hero Academia, I was a little disappointed that she looked pretty...normal. Like "of course she looks like that." She was cute, but nothing out of the ordinary for Horikoshi's art style. Face reveals are pretty much a guaranteed letdown, so there was a part of me that was hoping that Anonymity's face would never be revealed

However, there are two factors that differentiate Anonymity from a character like Hagakure. First, because her face was revealed at the end of the first arc, there wasn't nearly as much buildup or time to establish expectations, so for better or worse, there wasn't as much impact from the reveal itself, thus making it easier to accept

Secondly, gap moe. Did ANYONE expect Anonymity to be sparkling when she took off the mask? I figured she'd just look surprisingly plain or that her eyes would be sharp to match the even tone she'd had the chapters leading up to the reveal, but no, everything about her was concealed. Her eyes, her mouth, her tone, even her hair was obscured, so the person behind the mask was essentially someone entirely different than the impression we'd been given

This though led to a new worry: would I like this sparkly girl anywhere near as much as the faceless girl? I fell in love with the deadpan, aloof and snarky Anonymity, how could this magical girl-looking version of her live up?

Simply by proving that she's every bit as annoying and self-important as ever, that's how! While her mannerisms are more expressive now, the things she says and the way she antagonizes others remain the same, so at her core, it's very clear that this is the same person, just one that's unrestrained by the need to hide her appearance

The best thing about her now is the dichotomy, the ability to switch between the blank face of stone and the glittering face of crystal, all the while singing the same horrible words and dancing the same horrible dance

As for the puzzles, I sadly didn't get a chance to try to solve them because I was at work and needed to read quickly. I know I wouldn't have been able to solve the music puzzle, and I might have been able to solve the sundial puzzle, but there's absolutely no way I wouldn't have been able to solve the math puzzle if I'd had the time to tackle it. I may not be the best at math, but I know Jump and I guarantee I'd have recognized those numbers if I'd actually looked at them. I know it's petty to hem and haw about how I could have performed, but god dammit I'm mad that I missed the opportunity to apply my specialty!

To conclude, my predictions from last week were pretty immediately off-base, with Anonymity using her connections with Class F not to fight them directly, but to ambush Class B. She's clearly planning to use them to get to Class F, so I may turn out to be partially correct, but that shifts the dynamic away from my expectations. Instead of fighting Class B, Nohime is getting ganged up on by Class D, which will undoubtedly give us good insight on Nohime, but again, I thought we'd see her on the offensive, not the defensive

Of course, I did preface that statement with acknowledgment that I'd likely be wrong, so if there's one thing I can always count on myself to be right about, it's that I'm pretty much always wrong!

[unofficialrad]

Maple Fact Page:

Probably just for my use, and also will have to update it now and again. Still deciding who Maple’s one true match would be, if anyone. I feel like they were mostly created with Asmodeus in mind but they’d work well with any of the demon bros. This is purely for the OG game, not nightbringer. Nightbringer has messed with me and my OC’s quite a bit, changing it up.

- Maple is about 20 when the game begins, RAD is imagined as more of a college campus.

- Maple is Plus size, in case that wasn’t clear

- Maple is an adaptation of one of my earlier obey me! MC’s simply named Ringo. Ringo was an even bigger nerd than Maple, and an even more obvious Monster lover.

- Maple experiments with all kinds of fashion types, but has a special place for long flowy things, more exposed looks, and warm comfy clothes. (Mostly so I can draw them in a lot!) But often is seen in more vintage, Academia looks.

- Despite being shy, and a bit on the insecure side, Maple has the Rizz. They could make Lucifer blush and be like “nah bro that wasn’t me” it drives the boys mad.

- Maple came to the devildom for two reasons: Living expenses are paid for, and they’re a monster lover if you catch my drift. Canon sin is Lust, though cards of them would exist in every sin.

- Maple, though cheeky and wild, and while intimidating at times, is only about 5’ tall. In comparison to our favorite devils; they’re fairly short.

- Maple’s nickname is some form of sheep pun from all the brothers, I personally love this HC for all of them, but y’know! (Examples: Sheepie, Lambchop, Lambkins, Lambie, Little Lamb, Little Sheep, And Ram)

- Maple’s motifs are mainly maple leafs now, but their original motifs were going to be sheep themed.

- Obviously Sheep pjs, and a sheep onesie for “halloween” events. During the event where the boys become animals, Maple dons little horns and a fluffy tail.

- Maple’s favorite food is likely either sushi like Belphie, or Apple pie like Satan. At first they revel in human world cheese burger’s like Beel, but quickly realize that the differences and similarities of devildom foods such as apple pie or sushi make them better, not worse.

-Maple has a strained relationship with the Angels, often joining in on teasing Luke, and bullying him a bit. Simeon is intrigued by them, but that’s essentially the extent of their relationship, With Solomon being a close friend and compatriot. That friendship later blooms into something more, of course.

- Maple is canonically clumsy as fuck, and thus, their first kiss with Mammon was accidental. It doesn’t stop either of them from being blushy though.

- Maple has mixed feelings regarding Lucifer, But generally speaking feels positively about the other demon brothers.