#''what's the point of having all the screencaps in your essay posts''

[birdmenmanga]

please talk more about chobits. i am so mentally ill about this show

okay disclaimer that I've never watched the Chobits anime and I've only read the manga. I dunno if they changed any important details but I doubt they changed anything too major (maybe I should check the anime out at some point?)

Usually I like to format my essays in a coherent post but whatever. That's too hard rn. I'm just going to write about it in no particular order with no screencaps of the manga to prove my point you guys are just gonna have to take my word for it

I think it's SO funny that like. The huge dilemma at the end centered around android facial recognition. Like yes this series was written like 20 years ago and yeah it was writing about a time that's basically our present day, and technology has advanced impossibly fast that even their imagined cutting-edge technology looks horribly outdated at this point.

Without the ability to recognize each other, we will only ever be objects. When a robot can recognize your face, only then can love ever be possible. Hideki, did you know you just opened up a whole new world of data scraping and targeted advertising in your universe?

I don't really blame CLAMP though. I think it was never really about robots as technology but rather robots as a reflection of humanity. Like Minoru, who built a Persocom modeled after his sister who passed away in order to cope with his grief, like the baker who loved his old Persocom so much he married her... it's a story dreaming about human connection, how we're always longing for relationships.

Mixed feelings about Chi's backstory with Freya Ichiro and Chitose. On one hand it's very touching that these two scientists just straight up built their own daughters, and naturally they would build their daughters with the ability to love, and it REALLY feels in character (where the character is the field of computer science) and they would forget about biases in the computer's collected data (daily experiences of their robot daughters) that Freya would accidentally fall in love with Ichiro. That's so plausible it hurts. I also think it's mildly funny/heartbreaking that Freya's grief made her fucking shut down like here's that weird intersection between technology and personhood of androids like girl what!! you're like oh no my android is shutting down because of an endlessly recursive loop... ok then close the loop??? edit your daughter's code??? You are literally the only doctors for her in the world? you're just going to let her die like this?????

By the way I don't know if I'm using the correct names for everyone but I'm sure you can figure out who I'm talking about based on context anon

While I think that ^^^ whole thing is sad but also hilarious in a kind of narmy way, I do think that Minoru and the baker's story were excellently executed and are genuinely heartbreaking. The baker's story most of all. I cry every time I read the part where the press is harassing him and asking him about his dead wife and he goes "Stop it. Stop referring to her as 'my wife' or 'my android'. She had a name, and it was Yumi." That was sooo good bestie I go insane every single time... like that IS so terribly realistic, like you can say it's a metaphor for dementia where the person you love can no longer remember who you are, or who they are for that matter, but it's also such a real facet of technological decay where eventually... no matter how much you love a feature, or a machine, or an app, or a whatever... these are all things that are built and maintained by others. And one day that maintenance will stop. And one day it'll go down forever.

Minoru's story too... when Yuzuki (Yukari? I forgor :skull:) tries to hack into the government database by herself and almost gets shut down he gets really mad at her and she goes "sorry I know I'm supposed to be your dead sister and you would be super heartbroken if i died again I'll be more careful" and he goes "no man like yeah you did start off as a horrible coping mechanism but you're a new person now, with your own life experiences and not just a copy of my sister, you matter to me because you're you, not because you're a replacement for someone"

I think that's a theme that comes up a lot, actually. I think this series is meant to address the fear that technology will replace humans not only in terms of jobs and stuff, but even in terms of human connection and affection. Why love me when you can love your perfect android wife who will never argue back? And I think the answer that the series provides is, is that really the horrible future you think it is? Because the truth is that humans are capable of love, capable of so much love... we love and we lose and we love again, we pack bond with just about anything out there... is that really such a horrible thing?

Conceptually I think it's interesting, but once again, I feel like CLAMP's vision failed to accurately account for how technology actually is in real life. The amount of data harvesting that needs to be done, likely unconsensually, is insane, and probably renders this whole operation deeply unethical on a level that they didn't even consider. Yeah I think it's great that we can love robots and that we can make robots that love us back. Not in our capitalist hellscape though.

I haven't read it recently, but I don't think there was ever a point that I felt like the pacing of the story was bad. Yeah, there are a ton of detours and side stories, but they all felt very relevant to the main story.

I know it's like. Chi's story or whatever. But also it feels like Hideki is also sidelined sometimes. It sometimes feels like he was just a necessary component to get this story to work, and without Chi he isn't anything (he's just ken kind of vibe). He's never brought up in CLAMP's other stories while Chi is (multiple times, even! TRC and Kobato I believe), even though the Chobits story is from his perspective. i dunno lol

I also think the art of Chobits is gorgeous. Among CLAMP's works I think it's probably second place, after Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicle (thought I might be forgetting some; it's not like I have a definitive ranking LOL) and tied with Angelic Layer

#asks #anonymous #chobits #clamp

[iraprince]

Heyo! Any advice on struggling to get your art seen in the world? I feel like no matter how much I post, or what I post, people never see it or seem to like it. I love art and am pursuing it as a career (hence why Im getting a degree in it currently lmao) but its kind of disheartening to work really hard on something, post it, and no one sees it.

oh, man. i'm afraid for this one i don't feel like i have a lot of solid advice. having a large-ish following online feels like something that kind of just, like, Happened to me, mostly on accident/in ways outside of my control, and even if i had some ideas on how to potentially replicate those gains i don't think they'd work consistently. (also, a lot of my large jumps in follower count came from mental health related work going viral bc it's #relatable; this is something i have complicated feelings about and it's absolutely not a viable, like, "strategy" or something that i would recommend, in the way that ppl can say like, "fanart gets attention!" or stuff like that.)

so, i don't have advice for how to actually GET those eyes on your art; i can maybe help with making ppl more likely to STAY once they do find you, and how to build a following that will actually help you maintain a living from your work -- bc i have TONS of peers w a following a fraction of the size of mine who get more jobs than me, are doing cooler/more "professional" stuff than me, etc! (heads up that most of my experience is on twitter; i know less than nothing about places like instagram + tiktok, and while tumblr functions very differently from twitter i feel like i handle things mostly the same here, aside from doing less personal posting/being less talkative and not 'networking' or following many people).

SCROLLING BACK UP TO ADD A SPOILER ALERT: AS ALWAYS I HAVE SAID "HAHA IDK I DON'T REALLY HAVE ANY ADVICE" AND THEN PROCEEDED TO TYPE A FULL ESSAY. IF YOU ARE ON DESKTOP YOU CAN HIT THE 'J' KEY TO SKIP THIS POST. IF YOU'RE ON MOBILE, I'M SORRY

a very important thing, especially professionally: it HAS to be easy to see what you do. (this is easier here on tumblr, where u can have a designated art tag etc, than on twitter, which is an awful website that sucks. <- guy who makes all his money on twitter) this means, like -- if i see something from you and get curious and click your profile, it should only take one more click to quickly see at least SOME of your art. on a professional account, it's probably best for your icon to be your own work, something snappy and memorable and eye-catching that reads well at a small size; people shouldn't have to dig for 20 minutes before they can start browsing your art. on twitter, this means TRY not to gunk up your media tab with a ton of reaction images/screencaps of your gacha pulls/etc; on here, it means make your art tag easy to find; on any website, a portfolio link, prominently displayed, is the best bet. (i am still working on that one myself lmao and i've been working professionally full time for a few years now so like, there are outliers and wiggle room on all of this).

next! it's great when your audience finds you, but you have to find them, too. find artists who do similar stuff to you and get into their stuff -- sincerely, not just as "networking." (like only do this with ppl whose stuff you actually think is cool, not just trying to get in mutuals with everyone you see in hopes of a bump, obviously.) get interested in other indie artists, find the people who are working/publishing in the spaces that are exciting and aspirational for you, and support them! i don't want it to sound cynical when i say there's a kind of give-and-take built into this; the point is not "well, if i reblog/retweet a bunch of YOUR stuff, maybe you'll feel obligated to boost mine in return," but that when you find other artists/creatives who are on the same wavelength as you, you will naturally stumble into pools of people who want to support art like yours, and you and your newfound peers will help each other when you hype each other's stuff up and direct followers to each other! (again re: things going differently on dif websites: this is twitter-specific for me, bc i use my tumblr as a gallery/portfolio. that doesn't mean it doesn't happen here tho! it can and does happen everywhere!)

it is really not a competition. i know that SOMETIMES it is in like, a really nitty-gritty numbers sense; people only have so much money to spare, they will make choices about whose patreon they can afford/what comic to buy/etc, that's true. but to me that's not competition. people who are sincerely into your stuff will hang on until they can afford it; maybe that means someone follows you for two whole years before the planets align and they have the budget/opportunity to commission you. by hanging out in similar circles you are not taking potential business or opportunities away from anyone else, nor are you risking leading your own audience to Someone They'll Like Better; you're just offering more options, and the internet is VAST and endless, and EVENTUALLY people will show up who are into YOUR STUFF, SPECIFICALLY. helping each other is never going to stifle or delay that!!

and my final chunk of advice is the one i give constantly that everyone is probably super sick of hearing but i just seriously seriously believe in it, even tho i know it's slow to pay off and hard to follow: keep doing exactly what you want to. keep doing it!!! you have to!!! yes, i mean the stuff that's getting like, 2 likes and 0 reblogs! the stuff that 'nobody likes!'

earlier i mentioned i have gotten big follower bumps from like adhd comics and stuff like that going viral. the thing is that, from a professional standpoint: my follower count has like, more than quintupled from where it was at a few years ago; my patreon income has absolutely NOT quintupled lmfao. it has less than doubled, over that same period of like... i wanna say over 4 years. that's still good, i'm grateful for it, and i owe a lot of it to the sheer numbers game (the more ppl see ur work, the more likely it is you'll reach someone who decides to support you), but there is absolutely not an actual direct correlation between numbers and career success/stability.

where there IS a direct correlation is between "people who give a shit about the art i really truly love making" and "people who like my art enough to support me professionally." HUGE chunks of the followers i get any time something goes viral slough off over time; there's nothing wrong with that, they just follow me bc something was funny/interesting and end up realizing my work's not actually their thing. but the ppl who follow me bc they're into all the stuff i post most consistently, the stuff i care about and am passionate about, stick around. and i would not have found them if i wasn't posting the shit i care about!

out there there are people who will be 100% crazy about the stuff that is 100% what you want to make. it's like actually statistically impossible for there not to be. the more niche your thing is, the longer it will take to find them, but they absolutely exist. but if you give up before you find them -- if you start saying, "well, i'll put in 50% of this idea that i love, but the other 50% is too weird and nobody's gonna like it and it'll flop" -- well, in that case, you can only ever find the ppl who are 50% into what you do. don't fuck yourself like that!! you cannot deny yourself the possibility (the INEVITABILITY!!! IMO!!!!!) of finding the people who will 100% get what you're doing.

so: on a pragmatic level, i'm sure there will be ppl who disagree with me on this, and who think it's absolutely mandatory to do fanart as a crowd draw or learn about algorithms and posting times and get on tiktok and do the visibility grind and everything and that it's stupid and irresponsible to tell people not to. i'm sure it's also easy to point out that i'm speaking from a place where i now have more eyes on my stuff than i know what to fucking do with so maybe i'm just totally out of touch and being naive or something. but for me the most important part of doing art now, ESPECIALLY as a career, is to keep loving it and to believe in what i'm doing and to build an audience that cares about the same things i do. and i think it is really really vital to make that your top priority. bc if you don't, then even if you DO crack the code to suddenly getting tons of notes on everything etc -- will you even keep wanting to do it?

this job is hard. it's lonely, in my experience; i spend so much time sitting in front of my computer alone. it's unstable, which is stressful and can be frightening. it's emotionally taxing, for me, because art is so important to me that it's hard to set boundaries and separate my identity from it and actually treat it like a job. it has taken me a long time to find success doing this; maybe i could have gotten there faster if i had tried to find ways to draw an audience specifically, but i think if i had somehow managed to get a big patreon following/tons of commissioners/etc by doing something formulaic or doing stuff that specifically gets tons of attention, but isn't what's natural for me -- i don't think i would have lasted very long that way. this is already hard and complicated enough; i don't think it's sustainable to give up any unnecessary ground on doing exactly what you're passionate about, bc at least in my case, that's mandatory for this even being a livable career for me. i would burn out and decide to do something else very quickly if the only way to succeed was to chase numbers/engagement.

doing it this way is very slow. if i hadn't been able to lean on family/my wife while starting up, i would have had to have a day job for much longer (like, years, probably) while saving up and preparing to go full time; for as long as you struggle to get traction, it may mean going full time has to be on the backburner. but the thing is that there's nothing wrong with that, it's the reality for the vast majority of us (from what i've seen) -- and you'll eventually build a career that can last way longer, i think.

okay oh my god i'm done. sorry about that. like i said this job is pretty lonely and i sit here all day and think about this stuff and then generally do not talk about it with anyone until somebody asks me about it and then i repeat myself at length again. like i did here. anyway have a good night sincerely and i hope some part of this was helpful!!!

#long post

[mettywiththenotes]

I’ve seen quite a bit of negativity around series that people actually enjoy but get hate and people getting sad over that hate (valid), feeling like they can only love that media in secret

I don’t know if I can say anything that will change that or change people’s perspective on any series

But the only thing I can express is that... people will hate anything. It could be the most loved series out there, has everything that ticks every box, and it will still get hate. Anything can be picked apart and labeled as bad if you just look close enough and be especially nitpicky

The last remaining media on earth could be an unmoving dot on a screen and there would still be discourse about it. Even if it was “universally agreed” that everybody loves the dot, there will still be hate

For everything you love, there is someone who despises it. I don’t feel surprised when I hear something has discourse anymore, I come to expect it because. yknow. it’s the internet

All I can say is that if you feel strongly about a series, if you want to combat that hate, then talk positively about it. Even if it’s a detail everybody already knows (there will be some who don’t), even if it’s something that feels pointless to point out (it likely won’t be), even if it’s just one scene that you like or find interesting, talk about it. Talk about it more than once, list every little thing you like, the characters, the details, write a full blown essay! Be unashamedly annoying! Keep posting and ranting and rambling. Even if you’re not the kind of person who’ll say a lot of things about it, you can still show your love in posting screencaps or any art you drew if you’re an artist

Keep creating, keep making posts (short or long, it doesn’t matter), keep talking, keep being loud, be annoying and love what you’re talking about! Eventually the amount of positive posts will have to surpass the negative ones

#fandoms

[voicefromthecorner]

i followed you bc of your twewy lb but outside of that, do you use this account to liveblog other games as you play them?

No actually, and that's something I figured I'd address at some point, which might as well be now.

This is going to be an essay on the highs and lows of liveblogging from my experience with the TWEWY games here, so get ready for a long dissection (TL;DR, I hadn't done liveblogs prior to TWEWY but I'm open to doing more in the future but I'd prefer to keep them more smaller scale and less reactive if I did):

If you look at the start of my OG TWEWY liveblog, where this all began, you'll notice I didn't really kick this thing off with "welcome to my big liveblog" or anything like that. I just started posting out of the blue about stuff that I thought was funny or neat to comment on. Post frequency was far less and I didn't analyse nearly as much as I more regularly do now.

But people got really into it and, frankly, I got really into it, so it became a much much bigger and broader thing in scope and scale than where it started. So before long, I was writing essays about my favourite parts of the story and my favourite stages of the character development, as well as still cracking some short one-off jokes or just taking a moment to step back and let some great game moments speak for themselves (which tended to be the posts that got the most attention, which I think is really cool).

This was because I was just playing the Final Remix version for the first time and I noticed that I had the power to take screencaps, which I could then post here if I fancied. I love this game, I was on an excited roll at experiencing the Switch version for the first time and I didn't really have any real life peeps I could share that excitement with, so I figured I'd do that from time to time to add some fun to my playthrough and get to share my thoughts somewhere with some people who might enjoy it. It was just something I figured would be occasional one-off stuff.

So yeah, basically this all kinda blew up from me looking to talk about one of my favourite games ever which effectively created these two concurrent liveblogs. The process has noticably slowed the pace that I go through them, of course, though part of that is my own procrastination or real life busyness, but I don't regret doing it and a big part of the reason I've kept doing it is that I can't shut up about how much I love these games.

I will say, from running a liveblog on these two games as my first experience of it, I think I do prefer the first one as a liveblog. The version of the game was new but I had played the story through before so I knew what I was getting into ahead of time, which meant I had less questions and more answers or at least thoughts to give.

Reacting to a game for the first time in this format is fun, don't get me wrong, but the experience is always getting delayed in certain forms and maybe it's self-talk but I'm often feeling like I'm burning posts on being clueless or being excited at every new thing I see. I'm not ashamed of that, but I can understand if it's not the experience people are looking for, at least as much as a reaction or commentary on the game's bigger moments. Like I said, I keep doing this because I want to ramble and rant about absolutely everything like a madman but it's definitely going to lead to content that is first and foremost only slowing down my playthrough.

And that's the one thing that's a big downside. Again, no regrets - the experience is fantastic and I'm delighted that I get to share it with people who are enjoying it, but it's definitely easier to liveblog a game I've played before because there's no loss in my delayed ability to spend time on it. I know what's coming, therefore I know better how to post about it and I'm not adjusting the pace of a new experience to accommodate it.

In other words, I find this text-based liveblog format is best suited for returning to something old rather than discovering something new. It can definitely work well for both when people are more economic with their posts, but I like to overdo things. Reactive playthroughs are better served by more live formats, like video recordings or livestreams. I did try a couple of YouTube playthroughs in the past (one that I'd played before, one that I hadn't) but neither worked out too well because I don't have the patience for editing.

As far as the TWEWY liveblogs go, if you're enjoying my NEO playthrough, don't be concerned! I'm going to have a lot more freedom as of roughly next week so hopefully I should have more time to power through it and I'm definitely going to! We're in the endgame, so close to the final showdown and I'm determined to see this through to the end! We've come this far together and we will finish it together. And afterwards, expect me to still post about either game when the whim calls for it.

But I think while I'm open to doing liveblogs in the future, I'll likely save it for specific things that I'm already familiar with. I don't think I'll do something on this scale again (with possible exception to a TWEWY 3 if it ever gets made (keep the faith!)) unless I developed a more efficient system for running it.

And to anyone reading this who's encouraged me and/or still encourages me over the months so much on this wild ride that started out as one of those little 4-year-old caterpillar roller coasters that steadily evolved into a 100ft tall dragon that's determined to break the sonic barrier, thank you so much for the support! It's really special to have a little corner of the internet that's enjoying spending time on your antics.

#liveblog #me #ask #anonymous #twewy

[glitchbirds]

the more i think about it the more i think “dont hatewatch anything dont give (x) any attention” is a sentiment thats a bit misguided, though i understand completely where it comes from

because, like, in that ideal world where no one online Does hatewatch anything that looks like trash from the first preview.. should only official film/television critics hired on major publications and already established in the industry have the privilege to watch whatever studio slop is pumped out? or does that privilege extend to people who make, like, informal critical essays and videos online discussing media; but beyond them the average person should not watch these things because its Bad and Morally Wrong to do so, they have to achieve the Special Privilege of having an audience for them to be allowed to watch something for critical purposes? or are they ALL corporate shills and not even critics should be covering shows like velma because its all free publicity? because idk. i feel like the implication here is either “death to all discussion of things i personally think suck (that i havent watched myself yet and never will) we should all just ignore it until it goes away” OR you make allowances for official film critics and the like and we have a roger ebert-type situation where ppl trust the word of certain critics so thoroughly that they never watch media outside their bubble of immediate interest themselves and just parrot the opinions of critics they like. so media can live and die by the force of what the most popular film writers of our time have to say about it, regardless of their actual quality. (frankly, we’re kind of already nearing at that point in certain online circles with some popular video essayists/“video essayists”, but i digress.) also, like, as plenty of ppl have pointed out, hatewatching is Not the main source of engagement for most shows you and all your tumblr mutuals think sucks, because there are plenty of ppl earnestly watching these things because theyve been heavily advertised to/because theyre interested in the IP/because it Actually seems to align with their sense of humor/etc. so in the ideal no-hatewatching-ever society, only ppl who have no real reason to object to the media in question will watch it, making actual debate and critique of the media impossible. because if all you can really say to them in protest is something you read in a polygon article once, you cant pull genuine examples that you understand in full context and it gets increasingly difficult to argue your points with someone who actually Has seen the full thing, even if their conclusions are heavily flawed.

obviously this is all hypotheticals and extremes because its impossible for hatewatching and media critique to just cease. and i absolutely dont think theres like a moral issue with telling ppl to not watch the stupid scooby doo television show, let alone being annoyed at it all over your dash. but im starting to think that the refrain shouldnt be “dont hatewatch EVER” and should be “dont create a fandom out of hatewatching”. because really fandom IS the problem here- you can watch whatever the hell you want on your own time and i honestly have no issues with ppl constructively picking apart shows like velma on their own blogs but its another thing entirely to be making harry potter “fix it” aus in 2023, u know? or making countless posts of just out of context screencaps (of dialogue the creators of the show Knew you were going to make out of context screencaps of), w/ no further critique beyond “what were they thinking?!?”-type captions. idk. just hatewatch and engage critically.

and pirate whatever you’re watching. obviously.

#something to be said also about maybe not hatewatching things IF its going to make you genuinely upset to do so #but id say i usually ‘hatewatch’ more so i can discuss the piece earnestly w/ my own opinions not someone elses that i saw online #and so i can make a coherent argument in opposition #and also because sometimes you DO get surprised and find out something thats been dogpiled on by the internet at large actually doesnt suck #txt

[ttrpgsmoved]

Yo, on your message about Tumblr's CEO - https://www.tumblr.com/ancientsigil/733591901031268352/please-stop-giving-tumblr-money-no-matter-how-much this one - the first point you link to, about him being a Zionist, doesn't actually have any proof of Zionism whatsoever. It just has some screenshots of Twitter likes about the distribution of TikTok tags relating to the *waves hand vaguely* everything happening in Gaza right now. Also a screencap of an essay about how TikTok, as a platform, is shaping what narratives Americans are exposed to.

From a data analysis perspective, the stuff he was looking at is all... pretty standard stuff. Nothing about it indicates an opposition to the two-state solution, or really indicates any kind of political belief.

i mean i would consider that essay pretty bad. but that link is awful anyways bc the op is a bootlicker. i changed the link pretty early actually and if you go looking through the reblogs (comments only) i did link to a different one. here's the post with a better link

#ask

[overthinkinglotr]

One REALLY underrated moment in Return of the King:

Gandalf calls Pippin a “fool” a lot throughout the trilogy. Calling Pippin a “fool of a Took” is one of Gandalf’s most famous lines, lol.

 Gandalf angrily tells Pippin not to ask “foolish” questions at the door of Moria, calls him “a fool but an honest fool” after he looks into the Palantir, etc.

Gandalf is the wisest member of the Fellowship, so it makes sense that he’d find the most foolish member of the Fellowship a little grating.

But then the “Gandalf and Pippin are forced to spend time together” subplot happens in ROTK.  And in one my favorite scenes in the film, Gandalf and Pippin wait for the shadow of Mordor to reach Minas Tirith.

Pippin asks: “Is there any hope, Gandalf? For Frodo and Sam?”

And Gandalf kinda smiles and responds: “There never was much hope..... Just a fool’s hope.”

It’s just this really great moment of humility where Gandalf acknowledges that in many ways, he’s just as much of a “fool” as Pippin.

#LOTR #lord of the rings #Pippin: *has 2 brain cells* #Gandalf: big mood #I'm gonna caps-lock for a minute #I LOVE THE GANDALF/PIPPIN BUDDY-COP SUBPLOT #IT'S SO GOOD!!!!! #DID ANYONE THINK THESE TWO CHARACTERS WOULD GET ALONG #LET ALONE BECOME THE DREAM TEAM WE NEEDED?????? #It's the content people crave #Gandalf/Pippin's friendship #is another one of the most underrated parts of the trilogy IMHO #It Gets me every time #I love it #I love everything about it #amazing showstopping spectacular #''what's the point of having all the screencaps in your essay posts'' #''you don't technically need them'' #because the movie is pretty #and I think it's important to remember how pretty it is #that's why

[renegadewangs]

Van Zieks - the Examination, part 12

Warnings: SPOILERS for The Great Ace Attorney: Chronicles. Additional warning for racist sentiments uttered by fictional characters (and screencaps to show these sentiments).

Disclaimer: (see Part 1 for the more detailed disclaimer.) - These posts are not meant to be taken as fact. Everything I’m outlining stems from my own views and experiences. If you believe that I’ve missed or misinterpreted something, please let me know so I can edit the post accordingly. -The purpose of these posts is an analysis, nothing more. Please do not come into these posts expecting me to either defend Barok van Zieks from haters, nor expecting me to encourage the hatred. - I’m using the Western release of The Great Ace Attorney Chronicles for these posts, but may refer to the original Japanese dialogue of Dai Gyakuten Saiban if needed to compare what’s said. This also means I’m using the localized names and localized romanization of the names to stay consistent. -It doesn’t matter one bit to me whether you like Barok van Zieks or dislike him. However, I will ask that everyone who comments refrains from attacking real, actual people.

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6 Part 7 Part 8 Part 9 Part 10 Part 11

Let's bring this thing home! It's time for the conclusion of the essay series!

Conclusion With a stupidly long essay series behind us, it's time to look at what we've learned! Let's go back to Part 1 and review what we needed from Van Zieks's character development for a fully rounded redemption arc, shall we?

1) Present an antagonistic (possibly immoral) force who personifies Ryunosuke’s biggest personal obstacle/weakness, in this case racial prejudice. 2) Humanizing traits begin to show. OPTIONAL: A backstory to justify any immorality he has. 3) Over time, Barok has his realization and sees the error of his ways. 4) Barok atones for his immorality, not simply through apology but by taking decisive steps. 5) The cast around him acknowledges his efforts and forgives him.

And looking at the main game (plus additional dialogue), we have...

1) Antagonistic force:

Etc. etc. I have many of these. We can all agree that as an antagonistic force, he does his job quite well. CEO of Racism and White Privilege in the flesh. It works, since we as the audience get very frustrated and want to see him defeated.

2) Humanization:

Giving him an old friend to be a defendant was a brilliant move, really. Albert's reflection on the friendship and the person Van Zieks used to be really helped flesh him out and make him appear more like a human being with, y'know, emotions and weaknesses. The little snippets of dialogue in his office really help too. Presenting evidence can also lead to fun tidbits. All in all, considering how gruff and distant Van Zieks is, they really did their very best to humanize him. The writers were given very little to work with but they exploited every opportunity to come their way.

OPTIONAL backstory:

Again, I don't think we needed a tragic backstory to have a well-rounded, redeemable character. Still, it ties in very expertly to the game's plot and the motivations of quite a few other characters. The story of Klint van Zieks and his death isn't necessarily Barok van Zieks's backstory, it's the center of an intricate web which also holds Kazuma, Stronghart, Gregson, Jigoku, (S)Holmes, Mikotoba, Sithe, Drebber- I could go on. A LOT. So because of how very integrated it is into the main narrative's recurring themes and characters, I'll give it props for being relevant and well thought out. The bigger question is: Does it justify his immorality? Not entirely. I think the game could have gotten more out of this if they'd involved the other two exchange students in this tale just a bit more. They could have given more attention to how Jigoku's aggressive behavior in the trial impacted Van Zieks, and explained whether he might've suspected Mikotoba of sabotaging (S)Holmes's investigation. If the narrative had done that, all three Japanese people to come to London would have been ‘the bad guy’ in Van Zieks's eyes and it would have given more credence to his racial generalization. They could have also given more attention to how the people around him reacted to Genshin being the Professor, because I'm sure Stronghart and Gregson stoked the fire in terms of xenophobia. As it stands, there isn't really enough there to justify hatred of an entire race as opposed to just one person.

3) Realization/Redemption

We see him already start to realize the error of his ways around the end of 1-5, which is technically only about halfway into the full narrative. Unfortunately, thanks to 2-2 being played afterwards (but chronologically set before 1-5), any progress made in 1-5 can become invalidated in the player's eyes. Growth works best when it's done linear. Don't get me wrong, flashbacking to earlier times when a character is still more morally tainted can work well, but it needs to be executed properly. Barok's behavior in 2-2 is downright insulting towards the audience itself and therefore, it causes emotional friction when relaying the narrative endgoal of redemption. It also makes it extra jarring when we hit 2-3, and suddenly Van Zieks is meant to be relying on the protagonist's desire to expose the truth. How on earth can we as the audience trust that Van Zieks believes in Ryu's abilities when we just came fresh out of a case where this man actively sabotages Ryu's efforts?

Still, the line of redemption continues from 2-3 into 2-4 well enough. He admits that he was wrong- that his hatred was illogical and that he needs to change. This is the very definition of redemption. I need to stress once more this is not to be confused with atonement, which comes next.

4) Atonement

Here it is. It's not enough to simply acknowledge mistakes; one needs to work hard to fix them. Since Van Zieks is the defendant for two whole episodes, equaling roughly 20% of the full narrative and 67% of the time following his first true realization (chronologically), there isn't much that he can actively do to atone. Because remember, not only do these actions need to fit the situation he's currently in, they need to fit his personality. These two limitations ensure the atonement mostly takes the form of dialogue. Of apologies.

One might want to point out that he never apologizes specifically for his racism, but there's a reason for that. If you pay close attention, you'll notice that there isn't a single character who ever uses a word like “racism”, “xenophobia” or even “racial prejudice” in this game. It's for the same reason you'll never see an Ace Attorney character utter words like “alcoholism”, “drug abuse” or “depression”. These things may be implied very strongly, to the point where you'll know for certain a character is suffering from it, but it's never given these exact labels. It has to do with the tone of the game. In Great Ace Attorney's dialogue, Barok van Zieks is only ever described as holding “a deep hatred for Japanese”, which is then the only thing he could apologize for. And he does, so long as you aren't looking for a literal phrasing of “I apologize for my deep hatred of your people”.

Regardless, he can't take more active, decisive action until he's freed from prison and two scenes with Van Zieks later, the game has ended. He still manages to take two actions, though! The first is to publicize the truth of the Professor, taking the blame of the mass murders off Genshin's shoulders (and losing his own privilege in the process). The second is to take Kazuma under his wing as his disciple. I'm not certain there's anything else the narrative could have had him do. What is decisively missing, however, is the following:

5) Acknowledgment

The above aren't good examples of cast acknowledgment that Van Zieks is taking part in a redemption arc, rather, they're the best I could find. Characters are acknowledging that he's changing- that he's being kinder to them and they can get along with him now, but they're not acknowledging that he caused hurt in the first place. This, in my opinion, is the Great Ace Attorney's biggest narrative flaw. I've talked before about how Ryu's reaction to Van Zieks's racism is 'indirect communication', a typically Japanese manner of dealing with negativity. I've also talked about how Ryu is not in a position to speak up, as he's a literal minority who is there to represent his country in an official capacity and can’t afford to make enemies. However, characters like Susato and Kazuma are far more outspoken in their opinions, as is Soseki. The only one who ever calls Van Zieks out on his racism is the British judge, and even that is done very meekly. When an old crusty white guy is the one who condemns white privilege in a cast full of minorities, you've got a problem. The Japanese cast's refusal to acknowledge that Van Zieks's words were harmful is like Team Avatar telling Zuko that sure, he can join since he's a good guy now, but never once acknowledging that he burned down villages or betrayed everyone's trust in Ba Sing Se. There's something very vital missing, see? If indeed the cast had called Van Zieks out more actively on his harmful ways and how necessary it was for him to change, he in turn could have taken more atonement steps in response.

So, for the conclusion: Does Barok van Zieks tick all the necessary boxes for a complete redemption arc? Yes. In a very technical sense, all the requirements are there. But does that mean it's a successful arc? Not necessarily. The game has a few slip-ups, a few things not executed as well as they could have been. For that reason, whether the audience is satisfied with the arc is entirely up to them. Taking into consideration that they had to cram a whole lot of story into just two games- the second game in particular, I can acknowledge they did their very best with the limitations that were there.

And there we have it! That’s all I could think to say on the matter. I hope everyone who read this till the very end enjoyed it, maybe even learned a thing or two. I’m always open to questions, input and constructive criticism!

#dgs #dgs spoilers #tgaa #tgaa spoilers #barok van zieks #I'M FREE! #well until I tackle the DLC content #but until then... #FREEEE

[janiedean]

@mandragores Janie i used to really admire you, but you have sincerely lost the plot with that one. Didn't you read recently how even the top surgeons, trans themselves, in the US trans clinics are now saying they've been too far and repeating what JKR said in her original essay, that transition in children is risky and non reversible? https://bariweiss.substack.com/p/top-trans-doctors-blow-the-whistle

I’ll... try to be civil about this and thank you for being civil in expressing your disagreement, but I don’t think I lost the plot here at all for a lot of reasons, as in, not counting that the source you’re leaving me is a website hosted by someone who, googling, does not seem to me like an authority on trans matters nor an exceedingly liberal person though what concerns me more is that she apparently is like ‘we should be skeptical of the covid vaccine’, but in order:

that article talks about specific people being not convinced about using the blockers etc before a certain age etc but like... transition in children is basically using their chosen name and let them present as they want. no one as far as I know says it’s okay to use puberty blockers on children, that article mentioned two doctors and one case which is also a reality show person I mean... I don’t think it’s representative of all doctors nor of all trans people who get surgery;

that person specifically is one specific case but I can assure you that with the waiting times around and how long it takes to get a diagnosis/hormone treatment clearance at least where I come from and in Europe (and in the US too unless you pay out of pocket) no one who isn’t rich in the first place is going to be able to afford blockers, hormones or surgery the moment they turn 18;

‘transition in children is risky and non-reversible’: yes, and that’s why puberty blockers - blockers - are a thing if you manage to get them (which most people... don’t so easily), no one performs surgery on children or teens before they turn 18 for that kind of reassignment surgery, and no one said that it should be a thing because you shouldn’t do any of that before you’re 18 anyway but like... I never met a trans activist who said the contrary, while most trans people you’ll talk to could tell you at a young age that they felt different and would come to identify it later, and like... maybe if children were taught what it means when they’re young without fear of being judged they’d realize sooner but anyway, on to what’s my point, which is...

this entire thing is just dogwhistling for terfism. saying ‘oh my god the trans activists want the children to transition and it’s irreversible they’re BAD!!!!’ is terfism 101 as in an argument that doesn’t exist except in some fringes (because I’m sure some extremists would be okay with that but the medical community isn’t so it’s a moot point) which paints the horrible trans activists/people in a bad light because they want to harm the children;

which we can also see wrt what jkr does concerning that incident in which she said that she was on twitter talking to children showing her fanart for that other book she wrote (children in theory can’t be on twitter but that’s something she never addressed) and supposed trans activists showed up posting porn on her feed for which no one has receipts or screencaps and ‘oh my god those horrible predators!!!’, which... most likely was a lie but ‘trans activists target the children!!’ is like... basic terf rhetoric, so now I’ll be a bit suspicious of anything she says in that matter because sorry but I’d like to think I’m not falling for that rhetoric;

this entire background is aimed at discrediting trans activists and actually harms actual adult trans people because guess what terfs and so on aren’t exactly not an entity when it comes to trying to influence legislation and jkr speaking for them just gives them extra ammo;

now, if you look at the status of trans rights for adults in the uk, at the moment, the summary from what I gather is ‘people wait four years for the first psychological evaluation’ because that’s how long waiting lists are, like not the hormones, the first psychological evaluation, which I suppose means that if you don’t have the money to pay for it in private - and I doubt it’s cheap - if you’re an adult trans person who knows they’re trans and needs a diagnosis/reassignment surgery/to go on hormones in the UK you’re looking at.... at least eight years’ waiting time because if it takes you four years to talk to the psychologist idk how long it is over there to get a diagnosis but I don’t think I’m too far off the mark if I suppose that the waiting lists for the actual surgeries are even longer, and like.... that’s not good at all;

jkr lives in the UK and she finances terf organizations who actively oppose pro-trans rights legislation which means that if it was up to them those people wouldn’t have accesso to resources at all, and all the ‘think of the children’ rhetoric is just a mask to hide the fact that they hate trans people, dot, because who gets harmed by it is not trans children who can not have surgery or take hormones anyway, it’s the ADULTS who have to wait longer to get treatment;

I don’t know if I have to add that untreated gender dysphoria has effects including depression, self-harm, suicidal instincts and so on, and that trans people are a minority of a minority, which means that all this think of the poor children rhetoric is there to basically negate human rights to a minority of people whose legitimacy has been proved scientifcially time and time again like trans people exist and gender dysphoria is a thing and denying them even the free psychological support is like... denying people their human rights same as not recognizing them as such, and with this I mean that jkr/terfs keep on talking about trans women as men in women’s spaces even if they mask it with other crap rhetoric, and if jrk has unresolved issues with men - which is understandable given her background - she can use the shitton of money she made to find a good therapist instead of going in crusades against trans women/trans people and actually harming real people, because when SHE, the most famous writer in the world as much as I wish she wasn’t, endorses that bigotry she gives them a platform they could only dream of;

and with this I mean that if orson scott card is a racist on main he does a lot less damage than jkr does by being a terf on main bc he doesn’t have nearly the same number of fans, but let’s move on;

terf ideology as a certain prominent feminist pointed out in a guardian interview before they oh wait censored that specific part, hmmmmmmmm guess why, is basically a gateway to far right wing shores because terfs do not give a fuck about women that aren’t other terfs and those women are most of the time cis and rich and a lot of other things I generally don’t approve of (anti-kink? anti-sex work? anti-women having a different opinions than them? anti-men in general except that then they’re more obsessed with dick than just about anyone?) and radical feminism/terfism does absolutely shit for women in general and the fact they don’t gaf about trans people and are so against their existance/recognition is not at all different from how right wing bigots are anti-trans people, except the latter don’t pretend they are progressives or that they care about women’s rights, and considering that 90% of the terfs I ever ran into also kept on ranting about how motherhood was a fundamental part of being a woman and oh wait TRANS WOMEN BAD THEY WANT TO APPROPRIATE IT but apparently that also means any woman who doesn’t want children or can’t have them then isn’t a woman? every single anti-trans argument they have is an anti-progressive argument and jkr isn’t any different;

and giving terfs even just a single inch on any matter means opening the door to their frankly harmful rhetoric and the fact that most of them can’t even conceive that margaret atwood doesn’t agree with them to the point that I saw terfs saying handmaid’s tale is not feminist or pro-women but like torture porn concerning women after she told them she wasn’t a terf about says everything about a) how they’ll throw under the bus anyone who doesn’t think like them, b) rewrite entire narratives that are actually feminist/progressive into OMG BAD rhetoric, c) how they only care about other terfs, and the trans rights thing is again, just the surface of the entire story;

tldr: children do not get surgery or hormones that can harm them, two single doctors not agreeing with blockers doesn’t make the entirety of the medical field, jkr is wrong because she opposes trans rights and supports a fake feminist movement that’s basically far right dressed in women’s rights propaganda that sounds like the 19th century anyway and I don’t think I’m dropping the ball if I say that terfs should not be given a platform, especially not jkr’s, that people into HP should be highly critical of whatever jkr does and stop giving her money and most of all that I care more about trans rights for adult people than about whatever jkr has to say about the supposed children she cares about, bc if she gave a fuck about trans children - which do exist - or trans people she wouldn’t be supporting a hate movement that’s also generally very anti-women that aren’t part of said movement.

sorry but I’m not budging on this one. trans rights are human rights and each single thing jkr does in supporting terfs is highly harming of the cause given how famous she is, so as far as I’m concerned if she has nothing to say on the topic she can enjoy the endless money she made with HP and keep her mouth shut instead of making false arguments about THE CHILDREN - notoriously what bigots hide behind all the time - and not write crime novels in which she has trans people demonized, and not just trans people because honestly after reading the plot of the silk worm or whatever was the name of that novel I’m 100% sure that if an unknown author pitched that to an editor it would have gone in the trash before even seeing a sensitivity reader. peace.

#mandragores #anti jkr #terf alert #*shrug* #transphobia cw #trans rights

[feralphoenix]

HOWMST BELL THE CAT? - A treatise on one aspect of how the Pale King sealed the Radiance

sup hollow knight fandom, i’m back with the picante takes again after having Noticed A Thing.

as with my previous essays i’ll put this guy up on dreamwidth later for accessibility purposes, since my layout text may be too small for high-res pc users. i will attach that in a reblog at a later point.

CONTENT WARNINGS FOR TONIGHT’S PROGRAM: This essay discusses canon-typical body horror and bodily boundary violations, with some side mentions of colonialism.

all game screencaps are mine. the screencap of the wiki is from the “developer notes” (style guide) section of the “cut content” page.

ALSO: if youre from a christian cultural upbringing (whether currently practicing, agnostic/secular, or atheist now), understand that some of what i’m discussing here may challenge you. if thinking thru the implications of this particular part of hollow knight worldbuilding/lore is distressing for you, PLEASE only approach this essay when youre in a safe mindset & open to listening, and ask the help of a therapist or anti-racism teacher/mentor to help you process your thoughts & feelings. just like keep in mind that youre listening to an ethnoreligiously marginalized person and please be respectful here or wherever else youre discussing this dang essay, ty

HOWMST BELL THE CAT? - A treatise on one aspect of how the Pale King sealed the Radiance

We understand more or less how the Pale King’s plan was supposed to work. Stuff Radiance into a no-thoughts-head-empty and silent Pure Vessel to trap, isolate, and silence her, both putting an end to the Infection and killing her for good. Stick that vessel in the Black Egg, which harnesses Void BS to both keep the vessel alive indefinitely and to cover Hallownest (and its neighbors) in a time-defying stasis so that the Pale King could successfully hoard his favorite shiny FOREVER, threatened by nothing. Then put a seal on the Black Egg to prevent anyone from getting inside and harming said vessel while it’s strung up and helpless. And THEN, put protective seals on the anchors (the Dreamers) to the Black Egg seal to protect them from any external harm: The stasis means the Dreamers won't die of old age or starvation.

All in all, a pretty foolproof plan!

...except that the Dreamers are still vulnerable to having their minds breached with the moths’ magic... and the Pale King failed to take into account that his Pure Vessel was a person actually and the amount of toxic stress his training/upbringing put on them made them REALLY POORLY SUITED FOR THEIR JOB... and also that killing 99% of his million children and turning the Abyss into a landfill for baby corpses would take enough of an emotional toll on his wife and #1 enabler the White Lady that she would walk out on him, ensuring he’d only ever have one shot at this whole deal...

Basically it’s the sort of plan that an emotionally constipated, low-empathy sort of guy who pours all his points into INT and has a big fat zero for WIS might think is foolproof. It has big holes in it that the Pale King did not consider to be big holes until he got owned by the various consequences of his actions and fell down said big holes, making the shocked pikachu face all the while. Rip in die, my guy.

Anyway, there’s a lot of incidental information scattered about the game that gives us more insight into the stages of TPK’s plan. Looking at Monomon’s notes in the Archive suggests that she was probably involved in designing the Black Egg; the hidden room in the Weavers’ den points to their being the ones to blueprint the Dreamer seal; the White Palace’s hidden rooms reveal both TPK’s morbid fascination with the Void and his mea culpa wrt his motives and the Path of Pain is certainly suggestive of a lot of things. The White Lady tells us straight out that she walked out on the Pale King because she wanted no part in a second vessel batch, but how TPK didn’t handle that is only revealed via map design and some incidental dialogue from the Old Stag.

This stuff presents us with, if not a full picture, then at least a decent connect-the-dots of certain aspects of crater politics and Pale Court drama at the time, and how exactly TPK’s plan came together.

But there is still one glaring question that these cookie crumbs do not provide us an answer to:

Who shall bell the cat?

How did TPK et al manage to stuff Radiance into Hollow in the first place?

This is the subject of a lot of memes and jokes within the fandom because it's so absurd. Radiance fuckin hates that dude! She’s probably gonna be pretty wary of him considering how he stole her people in the first place! And considering the anti-colonialism slant of the writing - beyond the general sympathetic view Team Cherry gives of each indigenous bug society, Seer makes it very clear that Radiance has very good reason to take violent action against Hallownest - the answer is probably not something like “she’s just that stupid” or “she rolled a crit fail”.

Well... I have an idea of how TPK managed to get Radiance in there. It raises about as many questions as it answers, mind, but it may be someplace to start.

[desc: the hollow knight's entry in the hunter’s journal. top text/ghost’s comment reads: “Fully grown Vessel, carrying the plague’s heart within its body.” bottom text/hunter’s comment says: “The old King of Hallownest... he must have been desperate to save his crumbling little world. The sacrifices he imposed on others... all for nothing.”]

Here we have Hollow’s bestiary entry. Most of what we’re concerned with here is the top text, which says the seal has literally trapped Radiance inside their body. (First of all, ew, TPK.)

We already knew Radiance is literally actually inside Hollow, though: The Infection is leaking out of their body, and to get to fight Radiance, Ghost has to go traipsing into their sibling’s mind. So what’s significant about that here?

[desc: screencap of the outside of the black egg temple, post-infected crossroads. there are large infection blobs in the foreground and background, connected to each other by veins that come from inside the temple.]

The infection blobs are weird and get weirder if you kill enough Lightseeds for the Hunter to tell you their origin story, i.e. that the literal actual sun has been having a very long bad day and cried a lot, and some of the liquid coalesced into living flesh, and some of that living flesh took on a mind of its own to become Lightseeds. (Hollow Knight is a WILD place.)

Lightseeds are Radiance’s accidental children and share a lot of her traits: They are harmless creatures that try to avoid conflict if possible but if pushed will get creative and find ways to fight regardless of their physical limitations. (For the Lightseeds this involves hiding inside Broken Vessel’s corpse and puppeting it around to try to stab you.) They even have her same distinctive yell. And according to the Hunter, they’re born from the infection blobs. These enemies only ever appear in the Ancient Basin, which both Radiance and the Void have ransacked, and in the Infected Crossroads.

The infection blobs are connected to and sort of a weird extension of Radiance because the Infection itself is sort of a weird extension of Radiance. In the game’s internal style guide Team Cherry explains that the Infection started as an accident, not her original intention but what happened when Hallownest tried to block her out.

[desc: screencap from the wiki of style notes attached to seer that describe a sketch of radiance’s finalized backstory. text reads: “The moth tribe were (perhaps) descended from Radiance. However, the King convinced them somehow to seal Radiance away. I guess so he could rule Hallownest with his singular vision, as a god/monarch with no other gods. The moths sealed Radiance away by forgetting about her. Hallownest was born and flourished. However, the memory of Radiance lingered (eg [sic] the statue at hallownest’s crown) and soon she began to reappear in dreams and starting [sic] exerting influence. The King and the bugs of Hallownest resisted this memory/power and it started to manifest as the Infection. Thus the first attempt to seal Radiance failed, and the King had to try another method - the Vessel.” emphasis mine.]

Some fans have posited the blobs as deposits of pupa juice, but given Team Cherry's description of the Infection’s origins I don’t know how likely that is. Since the Void also sticks its squamous tentacles into things via veiny looking things and the Nightmare’s Heart has similar veiny nonsense in the Nightmare Realm, I wonder if it isn’t just a Meddly God Shit thing in general.

Whatever the case, the blobs are very much connected to/a part of Radiance.

And when you’re hanging around them, you will notice two things: They pulse like they’re part of a circulatory system, and you can hear Radiance's heartbeat emanating from them.

[desc: screencap of the game’s title screen with the infected menu theme in use: a glowing orange ball at the center of a lot of black tendony webbing.]

Let’s also think of the Infected menu theme, which you unlock after getting either of the endings where Ghost takes over from Hollow and absorbs Radiance out of them. Ghost is infected and then sealed inside the Black Egg in Hollow's place. It’s suggested by the animation’s staging that Radiance briefly struggles to get out of Ghost after absorbed but is ultimately stuck in them, at which point the seal is reestablished.

If you haven’t used the Infected menu theme yourself, the... interesting thing about it is that it moves organically. The light ball expands and contracts - y’know, sort of like a living organ - and so does the black webby stuff around it.

Also, Radiance’s heartbeat is included in the theme's ambiance.

[desc: hollow’s bestiary entry again]

To cut to the chase, this part of Hollow’s bestiary entry that says “the plague’s heart”? I don’t think that’s just Ghost/Team Cherry being poetic. I think there’s a good chance it’s LITERAL.

I think TPK is the sort of person who could cram a native woman’s literal living beating heart inside his own child’s body so they can use it as... say, a focus to absorb and trap her mind/spirit inside their body, too. Mr. No Cost Too Great is capable of a lot in the name of keeping other people’s claws off his Big Shiny kingdom. This is kind of his whole brand.

But also, like, yuck.

This fits the worldbuilding too; generally speaking Hollow Knight is Body Horror City. Also there’s the case of Grimm: While he and Radiance are loose counterparts at best with WILDLY disparate outlooks and ethoses, his existence serves as precedent that a Higher Being’s heart specifically can be separate from the rest of them.

As I said before, though, this DOES raise as many questions as it answers. If this is another piece in the puzzle of how TPK belled the cat, we’re now left wondering how he got Radiance’s heart to use as Hollow's focus to begin with.

We know he has access to the Dream Realm because that’s ultimately where he hid when Hollow’s seal failed, but who did he send to do the stealing and how did they get away with it? (TPK certainly wouldn’t have gone; his own life’s the one cost too great for him to willingly pay.) Was Radiance’s heart separate from her like the Nightmare’s Heart, or was it a part of her body? (I think the latter is more likely just from her personality; Grimm’s hidden heart makes sense because of how he keeps even his own servants at arm’s length emotionally, whereas Radiance is all heart all the time. I think this makes more sense with their equal opposites schtick too. But this would make for a WAY riskier mission.)

I can imagine all kinds of possibilities. None of them are definitive, but the thing they have in common is that they are all Awful... and how on-brand that is for Hollow Knight as a whole is, maybe, the most persuasive argument for It’s Literally Actually Her Real Physical Heart there could be.

#hollow knight #hollow knight spoilers #hollow knight meta #the radiance #hk radiance #not sure if i should tag tpk bc i doubt therell be anything in here his stans will enjoy lol #long post under cut - #essay

[nonartisticbooknerd]

i notice you ship Kacchako- and there's nothing wrong with that but why? (note I haven't seen mha) from what I know, bakugou is a huge asshole who bullied deku a lot, while uraraka seems to be a nice person- i just wanna know why you ship them lol

oh BOY here comes the essay. 

Please note that this why I ship kacchako. This is not meant to convince anyone to ship kacchako, but simply my reasons as to why I like these two characters together.

To start off I will openly admit that yes, Bakugou is an asshole. He bullied Deku a lot (probably due to that wonderful inferiority/superiority complex he’s got going on) and in general, is pretty loud and rude to everyone. He makes it a point to let everyone know that they are beneath him and goes out of his way to prove that he’s the best and no one could even hope to compare.

Meanwhile, Uraraka is the exact opposite: sweet, bubbly, and very kind to everyone. She actually wants to be a hero for the money to help her parents out bc she comes from a poor family (which I LOVE but that’s a topic for another meta). She never tries to prove herself to anyone as a result, and just focuses on trying to learn to be the best hero possible (because the better you are, the more money you make).

The most notable difference is their relationship with Deku (and actually this is one of my reasons for shipping them but we’ll get to that). Bakugou was Deku’s former friend and he has a strong dislike toward Deku, stemming from an unhealthy need to prove his superiority in every respect over Deku. Uraraka, on the other hand, is one of Deku’s new and close friends, and they get along really well.

So why do I ship kacchako? Mutual respect, understanding, and potential character growth. Explanation of that below, with manga screencaps.

1. Mutual Respect

This is the major point of their ship for me and it stems from their fight in the Sports Festival. 

It’s quite obvious that Uraraka acknowledges Bakugou’s strength, after all, he’s seen as a powerhouse by everyone, and she repeatedly comments on his strength. But it takes a lot to get Bakugou to acknowledge someone. And with Uraraka, he does.

Aizawa just outright says it. Bakugou goes into the fight knowing that Uraraka is an opponent he needs to be wary of because she made it to the final round. Bakugou doesn’t see the small and sweet bubbly girl everyone else in the crowd is seeing, what he sees is an opponent, and Uraraka notices that. And just before launching her final attack, she thanks him.

Actually his reaction to her thanking him is one I love because we’ve never seen that kind of caught-off-guard expression on him before until this moment. To me, it seems that he couldn’t even imagine not taking her seriously because as mentioned before, she made it to the final round so in his mind she has to be strong to do that, and her thanking him for it is making him go “huh? what are you even thanking me for?”.

For her final attack, she drops a meteor shower on his head, he blows it away, and then we get this panel.

This is the first time in the manga that Bakugou acknowledges that someone nearly took him out. His hand is pounding from Quirk overuse and it’s the first time we see an adverse effect of his Quirk, the blowback from using too strong of an explosion. But more important is the fact that he says “that was close”, explicitly acknowledging that she nearly took him out. Respect.

So then after that Uraraka gets up and rushes at him again to attack, even though she’s clearly shown to be at her limit, and we get this from Bakugou:

He calls her by name. That’s incredibly important.

Throughout the manga, Bakugou uses nicknames (Deku, Shitty Hair, Flat Face etc.) to keep people at a distance and let them know he doesn’t give a shit about them. Keep in mind that before, he’d used a nickname for Uraraka, calling her Round Face right at the beginning of the fight. But now that she’s driven him to the limit he knows this girl is strong. And here, when he calls her by her name, he’s acknowledging her and her strength. This is the first person in class 1-A that he calls by name (Kirishima also eventually graduates from Shitty Hair to Kirishima, but that’s way later). After this, he doesn’t go back to using Round Face for her either. He keeps using her name when he refers to her, even in his head.

So Uraraka, at her limit, collapses before she even reaches Bakugou and he’s clearly shaken up by that. He was expecting the fight he’d been dreaming of, where he could give his all and fight an opponent that he genuinely respected and saw as strong, and then she collapsed. I wouldn’t go so far as to say it was a look of concern, I think it was more of mixed disappointment and shock.

When he re-enters the stands, all his classmates comment on the fight as he goes to sit down. A classmate (Kaminari) says something along the lines of “I can’t believe you could bring yourself to go so hard against such a fragile/small girl”. And in response comes the single line that was catalyst for me shipping kacchako. “Where do you see fragile?”

This is the first time he’s defended someone other than himself or All Might in this series. It just goes to show that he really does acknowledge Uraraka and her strength, to the point that he’s willing to speak up and say that to others, albeit in a indirect way.

Wayyy later he continues to respect her!

This is part of a page spread of characters introductions as given by Bakugou and Uraraka’s is the only vaguely positive character introduction Bakugou gives. Everyone else gets something kind of aggressive and along the lines of ‘I’ll beat you’ or ‘you’re weak’ and then Uraraka gets ‘her guts and roundness are acceptable’. Other translations say “her guts and roundness are respectable’ and I’m not sure which is correct, but either way, respect!!

The fact that one of the times he was smiling during a fight was against Uraraka. If he only smiles when fighting people he consider to be “towering walls” aka challenges, he must have seen Uraraka as one. Further proof of respect!

Over and over in that Sports Festival fight and then after, Horikoshi makes it a point to establish that Bakugou respects Uraraka’s strength. And that’s a major reason that I ship them. I like that dynamic of two people knowing that the other can kick major ass and respecting the hell out of them for it, especially if one character doesn’t look like they can kick ass.

2. Understanding

This goes a little bit more from Uraraka to Bakugou than the other way around, to be honest, but it’s a reason I ship them all the same. This is shown most clearly in the post- midterm exams omake (which is only in the manga and not the anime).

I love this omake so much because first of all, it reveals that Uraraka watches Bakugou from across the classroom closely enough to pick up on changes in his mood (as evidenced when she says “I sensed your Bakurage Aura” to him) and second, it reveals that she can pick up on changes in his emotional state easily.

But the most important part of that omake is this panel.

This is huge.

The way she outright says that Bakugou is terrified of Izuku’s potential development shows a deep understanding of Bakugou’s emotions and mental state that’s very unique. We never see anything like this level of understanding from any of their other classmates in direct relation to Bakugou. When she says “you act all menacing”, it shows that she knows that Bakugou’s yelling and bluster is an act put on the distance Izuku because he’s scared of him. 

This revelation wasn’t revealed to Deku and All Might until Deku v. Kacchan 2 when Bakugou told the two of them what he was feeling in terms that they could understand. And this was way before this, right after the midterm exams.

She follows this up by asking him to repair his relationship with Deku and be nicer to him. They hadn’t even interacted much, so the fact that she noticed this in the first place and then felt comfortable enough to tell him that to his face says a lot about how she understands him and is comfortable around him.

Bakugou is completely taken aback by this and sit and listens to her and lets her finish before yelling at her, which is big because if he didn’t respect what she had to say, he would have just cut her off and left, but he didn’t. That respect comes back into play.

So Uraraka genuinely gets Bakugou, both emotionally and mentally, and isn’t afraid to tell him about her observations, and that’s another big plus for me. I love how Uraraka can see right through him and catch him off guard every time they interact meaningfully. That deep understanding is an important part of any relationship, and the fact that she can analyze him like this, despite not being a close friend to him was interesting to me because of the potential for character development.

3. Character Development (both canon and potential)

Character development is a big thing for me when it comes to ships. I tend to really like ships that change a character for the better in some way or the other.

The Sports Festival fight changed the both of them. When Bakugou fought Todoroki and told him to give it his all, the speech bubble placement implies he was thinking of his fight with Uraraka when he said that. She’s his standard for a good fight now.

On the other end, Bakugou helped Uraraka realize that she didn’t need to exclusively focus on rescue with her Quirk and she takes an internship under Gunhead as a result, growing her character in a major way. Those Gunhead martial arts get used a lot later on by her, and none of that would have happened if her fight with Bakugou hadn’t happened. Overall, the Sports Festival fight was important to both their character arcs and I love that.

From the understanding part comes more possibility for character development. This is where their differing relationships with Deku come into play. One admires him and the other is scared of his growth. With her understanding of Bakugou and his relationship with Deku, Uraraka could genuinely help repair their relationship.

Also them as training partners! Not only do their Quirks have the potential for incredible compatibility (zero-gravity and explosions = human rockets/missiles??) but they could help the other with new skills. Uraraka could teach Bakugou Gunhead martial arts and help him improve his hand-to-hand Quirkless combat, Bakugou could help Uraraka with comabt awareness and increasing her power. He’s probably also got some ideas for creative applications of her Quirk. Make them training buddies, Horikoshi, I beg of you.

4. Other Things

Uraraka is completely chill with his foul-mouthed nature! She actually finds it even a little funny.

THE WAY SHE’S JUST NOT AT ALL SCARED TO THROW DOWN WITH HIM!! In the post midterms omake she even matches the Bakurage face at the end! She doesn’t take his shit at all and is 100% ready to fight again.

The chocolate manju scene from the war arc is hilarious to me because she’s comfortable enough around him to lightly reprimand him and the way he knows that she’s a foodie and wants to try the chocolate manju is really cute to me.

---

Of course, everything I said can also be platonically interpreted. I would just love for them to be friends in canon, and really, that’s what all of this logically leads to. I just like to dream about it slowly growing into romance during their pro hero years.

#you noticed more like your dash got flooded bc of me rip #kacchako #bakugou katsuki #uraraka ochako #I literally love this ship so much and think about them every day can you tell

[zirkkun]

Yo you have every right to be upset about things! You're still a person with your own feelings and deserve to be treated kindly. No one should come at you for making things you enjoy or for misunderstandings. I hope things get better for you even if I wasn't here for when all the drama happened (or maybe I was and just wasn't aware of it? I tend to avoid drama as much as possible tbh)

I didn't really post about it much. I think I answered about 4 asks about it (three of them in the same post because i was sure it was the same anon due to the similar string of seemingly continued messages) and the rest I just deleted as soon as they came in, but I got... A lot. A lot of mean things said too. Kinda hurts when you wanted to make something because you knew this work was highly criticized and wanted to let people give it a second chance only to be shot down by the people you were hoping to defend lol

In short, and a lot of it I missed because I was blocked by a lot of people so my friend sent me screencaps; someone took I believe only the old ask box post I had for ULR, which at the time was called "Underlust Rewrite," and was disgusted at the fact that everything was revamped and "made for kids" (because it's not 18+ explicit content, but as I've said before, it's just cause I'm too scared to be horny on main, and I've literally made a whole different biological system for ULR so I can write the necessary story ""sex scenes"" without it being human-like sex or otherwise uncomfortable or too explicit for me to draw, but I still consider it a mature story overall), so they blocked me instantly here and on twitter and then made a callout post on twitter itself. People were telling me originally to stop calling the AU Underlust, and I didn't really get it at first, because like, what's the difference between my spinoff and, say, Underlust Gold, Swapfell Indigo, TS!Underswap, you know, names that have add-ons from the original title to differentiate it but still connect it to the source. So that's what I said, as well as if I removed the Underlust name, it would be considered stealing to me, because I'd be disconnecting it from the source. But apparently, instead, what had been the concern was that it was just being called "Underlust" and the "Rewrite" aspect was implying I was replacing the original story, which like, had never been my intention and I've made a bunch of things with both the ULR and UL cast together and love the idea of Lust and Ace meeting up and just being a disaster duo of not working together at all. I just adore Underlust like it's in my pinned FAQ, Lust's been in my banner for months now, and he's practically my staple pfp character on every account but here atm.

It took like 3 days for it to actually click what was going on, because once I finally got the chance to have a conversation with someone where they weren't telling me I was the scum of the Earth -- which, honestly, bless the three people I talked to, they were so sweet (which actually included someone from the Japanese side of the fandom whose art I loved too... yeah it got pretty far. Once I sent them a message though it was cleared up quickly and they did post a clarification post about ULR and me, so that was nice to see.) -- I finally got the chance to realize that this was a misunderstanding from the beginning, from both sides, where people coming at me were saying I was doing all of the stuff above and probably more but those stuck the most, while I was confused as to where this information and accusations were coming from and what they were referring to in the first place. They probably never explained it in the anon asks because, well, they probably assumed I knew what I was doing, but when they came at me about something I didn't do with vague context of something I did do, I was very confused, and got really defensive really quickly, and really honestly snapped pretty hard. After my first initial explanation post and people were still trying to tell me to stop ULR/don't call it Underlust/whatever else there was, I just got tired and told people to block me if they didn't like it. But that didn't really stop anyone and honestly made it worse because that's when I started getting really nasty messages. I like... Specifically remember one where someone called me a lowlife and a thief, and that one stuck the most, but I tended to not read through them before deleting them for my own sanity. I actually did this to one of the people who'd later talked to me calmly about it at first too, because I had just woken up, and really didn't want to read an essay lecture on everything everyone's been telling me at the crack of 7am when I was borderline ready to delete my account and start over lol

Some people I do remember were accusing me of trying to censor nsfw content or erase it as well because ULR isn't 18+, and I'm out here on my horny ass like "wh. What are they talking about, where did you get that idea, have you SEEN my ao3 recommended list," /j but in all seriousness I really didn't understand that accusation at all because I've never been against nsfw content in the slightest and lowkey? This is very dumb -- but like, you know how they say when you get hate mail, you know you've made it? Well, for me, my thought has always been, "When there's 18+ fancontent of my OC's, I'll have finally made it." This is... Not a joke, some of my friends think its very weird LMAO oh well. I've been on the internet for far too long at this point -- like, definitely since I was far too young, probably, and being with a family of the next youngest being 12 years older than me, I really dove into stuff pretty quickly I definitely shouldn't have, but hey that's life -- I'm really unfazed by mostly anything now. Hell, me making ULR was honestly half motivated by me wanting to make others more comfortable with this kind of media, discussing sexuality and otherwise sexual-considered topics, without really being embarrassed or bothered by it. Because, people talk about death and killing and whatever other gorey stuff just fine, but the moment sex comes up, people just gasp in awe, y'know? I kind of grew up that way myself but like... ironically, in being more comfortable with my asexuality, I realized that it's honestly not that big of a deal. Sure, we don't need to hear the details of everything. We don't need to hear the details of a murder either. But I will never understand how murder is always the lowest on the "morally wrong list of things to not to" to so many people and that it's fine to mention, but even consider bringing up anything else and it's like, a sin and you're a bad person. Even racism is like, higher up on there for a lot of people, which it's like... this is an issue that needs to be discussed, or it can never be solved. You can't just kick that away and hope it goes away on its own, that's never how it works.

Ah, well, now I've gone off tangent lol. Sorry to make you read a blob of text lmao but having things in a cohesive format of what I've been thinking does feel a bit better. Thank you for the support regardless, and I do want to keep making what I really enjoy, because frankly, I really want to make things that make people take a step back and think for a moment, y'know? Things that invoke like a realization in yourself about something you didn't even know. That's how fiction's always been for me, so I want to give back by making it that way too. ... maybe my horny content is exempt from this however. That's just. Self indulgence LMAO.

Probably helps that I'm actually talking this all out for once, too, since before any of this I tried to keep as much of the situation contained to myself as possible in hopes I could clean it up before it got too bad. That was, in hindsight, probably a terrible idea lol. But I didn't want to be a source of stress for anyone following me or become the new creator-to-defend that like, 50% of people hate and 50% of people love and that you're either on one side or the other and there's no where in between. (I feel like Arin Hanson comes to mind for me every time I think of someone like this.) I know I can't please everyone and I knew internet hate would come eventually, but like, didn't expect it to be over a name or tag choice. I thought that would be a simple enough DM or clearable thing but apparently not, especially since I saw someone a few weeks ago delete their blog over a similar thing (though, the opposite, in a way: posting nsfw in a sfw tag by mistake). It wasn't in the UT fandom so y'all probably weren't following them (tbf I wasn't either, I just witnessed it happen from start to finish), but it was still disheartening.

Anyway, thank you, and sorry to make ya read all of that (if you actually did vahdbs don't blame you if you don't it's a lot of thought dump lmao)💕💕

#zircon answers #anonymous #all this happened like the DAY i got accepted onto the bhc team to and i was like #alright guys am i being kicked out day one lol #like i was expecting the worst from this whole thing #but im still kind of happy with how i worked it out #i really wish more people were like #willing to talk things out rather than just spit in a general direction and hope youll listen #because like even the people i talked to calmly some of them were pretty rude at first! but! #theyre not bad people #they were just scared for their favorite thing #i cant blame them for that and honestly i do consider the hatred justified under the circumstances that they knew #but they were all really nice after we talked things out #and were like 'i hope your series does well' and that really meant a lot honestly #death mention tw//

[gaykey]

Sorry to bother you with this sudden question, and I'm not here to have a fight or anything, just want to know how you feel.Do you think it's alright that non black people wear braids?If not,could you share your point?

It would be delighting for me if my idols wear my culture's traditional clothes or hairstyle, because I think they appreciate it and carry forward my country.So it was a bit shock when I learned about the controversy of "Cultural Appropriation".

Please don't be offended by the question, if it makes you uncomfortable you can just ignore it.

lol wow, ok. good morning.

this is a bit much for me first thing, so, i'll probably type of my thoughts now, and tidy it up to post later.

right so, i'm really gonna try and keep this concise, and not go on a rant, but, if i do, i'll put it under a read more.

to get right to the point, no, i do not think it's ok that non-black people wear braids.

black people have been mocked, ridiculed and singled out for literally hundreds of years, for their hair, and how they wear it, so, when a non black person comes along, and decides they want to try it out for a week, because suddenly they think it's cool and trendy, yes it's incredibly offensive.

they have no knowledge of the history behind those hairstyles, or even the practical, or cultural reasons, they're worn. also, ehy is it so hard for non blacks to understand that those styles are not for them? they're not for their hair types. but anyway

people treat blackness as a costume you can put on and take off whenever you feel like. all the benefits without the pesky trouble of actually having to be black.

that's not appreciating a culture, or carrying it forward, or bringing it to more people. it's just stealing the bare bones of it for aesthetic reasons.

especially with artists. they use blackness (music, style ect.) to further their career, and entrench themselves in the culture, because they know it will sell more music, it's not because they're super interested in the history of black music...it's because they know it's popular at the moment. that's exploitative.

i'm gonna talk about jesy nelson real quick because she's been pissing me off especially lately.

look at this white woman

she says that she's always been inspired and is a huge fan of 90's/early 2000's r&b, which is the style of music she's gone for with her solo debut (apparently. i refuse to listen to her shitty song).

why does she need to wear a shitty wig, and darken her skin, just because she likes r&b? the music video is awful and rife with bad parodies of what jesy thinks black culture is. (from what i've seen through screencaps.)

this isn't black culture, this is a mockery. it's outright blackface. and she's doing it to sell records.

which is the case when kpop idols do it. it's all to sell music.

she's been called out so heavily, by fans and also her ex-bandmate leigh-anne pinnock, who is black. but jesy feels vindicated because she's being backed by a black woman (nicki minaj), which is so common sadly. all it takes is one stupid black person to have a white person feel justified in their blackfishing antics.

now, i don't know what country you're from, anon, but all of this isn't like someone from bts saying they love italian culture because they love pizza.

because italians don't have a long history of being singled out mocked, threatened, killed, for their culture, like many many other ethnic minorities have, and still do.

now, i'm not the best source of info for this, because i am just one person, so i highly recommend you watch some videos, and read some articles and essays on the topic of cultural appropriation. google is your friend.

but here are my not very coherent thoughts and opinions for you, anon.

#anon #out of curiosity - why did you come to me? #also sorry meant to post this yesterday and forgot

[every-kirishima-eijirou]

The Beauty of Red Riot’s Origin Story: Episode 72 Analysis (LONG POST AHEAD)

Well, here we are! I’ve been waiting ages to watch this episode, and now, it’s finally done, and I am more than happy with how it turned out. I’ve seen it in both Japanese and English, back to back, and both Toshiki Masuda and Justin Cook knocked their performances out of the park, and the emotion conveyed in their voices only made our boy’s origin story that much more emotional. But WHY is it so emotional? What makes such a seemingly ordinary backstory have such an impact on a viewer? (Especially viewers like, you know, US). Well, this is the purpose of this lil analysis here, so let us explore how Kirishima’s backstory contributes so nicely to his character. (Disclaimer: Manga screencaps are not my translation).

Let’s start from the beginning:

This panel shows us what we already knew to begin with: Our boy Kirishima is good-natured, stands up for others, and has strong, manly convictions. Nothing special, really, and the revelation that he was like this long before he entered UA is a great foundation for his character. In that regard, he has a similar foundation to Deku, but what differs is their struggles. Now, we know Deku grew up without a quirk in a society where quirks have been thoroughly normalized, but what does Kirishima struggle with, if anything? Is that even possible, what with him being so outgoing and boisterous?

As it turns out: yes. It’s VERY possible. This is where we see that our Red Riot is not as infallible as we may have thought. Yes, Deku had a hard time growing up without a quirk, and while Kirishima was born with a quirk just like most others, he grew up being ashamed of it, which if you think about it is a lot worse in some ways. Quirks are hereditary, and for many people, including Kirishima, quirks are also an important part of one’s own identity. This can inspire feelings of depression and even envy towards people with “better” quirks, like Mina. In contrast with Kirishima’s more traditional view of heroism and chivalry, Mina has a flashy quirk and bubbly personality, which is really effective for diffusing the situation with the bullies. This is where Kirishima’s manliness fails him, and no, not because he got shown up by a girl (thank GOD for that). It’s because heroism in the “modern” age favors heroes who can provide entertainment. Someone who’d be right at home in, say, the idol industry (like Mina). According to his friends, Kirishima’s hardening quirk, which he sees as boring, would not fly in today’s society. Now, Kirishima doesn’t care so much about what his peers think of him, but he’s still ashamed of his quirk, so he trains to harden his body and spirit, both literally and figuratively: 

Also much like Deku, Kirishima has his own hero he looks up to: Crimson Riot. He serves as Kirishima’s main source of inspiration. It’s where he gets his hardline traditionalism from, and also how he copes with having a quirk he sees as “boring”. Again, this is where he and Deku differ. Deku looks up to All Might in a fanboyish sort of way, which inspired him to strive to be a hero as well. Kirishima, on the other hand, not only sees Crimson Riot as an inspiration to be heroic, but also because they have similar quirks. It’s only natural for a child who’s been conditioned be ashamed of something they can’t help. It’s something I can personally relate to as someone who struggled a lot with sexuality as a teenager, and something many others can surely relate to as well. This makes our boy an effective source of inspiration as well. 

However, no matter how hard he trains, both physically and mentally, Kirishima still can’t train himself to not feel fear. It’s only natural for ordinary people to feel fear. After all, fear was what kept humans alive back when they were just starting out. Still, this goes against all of Kirishima’s ideals of what being a hero means. Sure, he has no problem standing up to some regular school bullies, but unlike him, Mina didn’t hesitate to act when her friends were cornered by a 30-foot tall villain in the street. She’s a prime candidate for UA, so what chance does he have of getting in if he can’t stand up to a literal supervillain?

So, he gives up on his dreams of getting into UA. He didn’t act when it mattered. That was it for him. Even worse, the incident where Deku saved Bakugou from the slime monster made headlines. It was good that Horikoshi showed how this affected Kirishima, who was totally uninvolved, because it makes you think of what exactly that implies. After that incident, Deku was miraculously given a powerful quirk by All Might. Maybe if Kirishima were the protagonist, he would have been so lucky, but that’s not the case (more on this later). Despite this, Crimson Riot blesses Kirishima in a more indirect sense:

In his frustration, Kirishima throws a book against the wall, and coincidentally, this hologram-looking thing of Crimson Riot starts playing, and it’s exactly what he needs to hear. As he listens, Kirishima realizes that not even Crimson Riot is immune to fear, but he copes with it by telling himself that failing to save someone because you didn’t do anything is far worse than charging in and giving it your best shot. That way, he can live his life without regret, which is, from then on, what Kirishima strives to do. 

Finally, with a fresh motivation to get into his dream school, our boy pulls through (and gets 2nd place in the entrance exams!). To commemorate this, Kirishima dyes his hair and vows to leave his past behind him, and Red Riot as we know him today was born. 

This should surprise absolutely nobody, but Kirishima’s is my favorite backstory in the whole series, and to conclude this lil essay, I’m going to explain why. As I said before, his backstory is something a lot of people can resonate with. Feeling shame and self-doubt is something many people go through, and it’s prevalent with people who have conditioned themselves to feel ashamed of something beyond their control. Coming to terms with my bisexuality was a struggle for me, so I can definitely relate indirectly. 

This ties into the SYMpathy vs EMpathy argument. A lot of backstories in My Hero Academia, or even media in general, are tragic in a way that not everyone can relate to (not criticism, just observation). Let’s take Todoroki, for example: he was essentially quirk-bred by his father and was abused by him, being trained to the point of overexertion. On top of that, his mother gave him the scar over his left eye, and he has carried that trauma with him his whole life. Not everyone had such a toxic upbringing, but Todoroki sure did, and many people feel sorry for him. In other words, they sympathize. Kirishima, to contrast, had a much healthier upbringing, but has a lot of internalized self-esteem issues that everyone can relate to (or empathize with). While sympathy is the capacity to feel sorry for someone, empathy is the capacity to UNDERSTAND someone. Don’t get me wrong, tragedy is often a crucial element to a story’s narrative (if it’s done well), but it’s sometimes more cathartic for the viewer to see a character overcome more everyday struggles, especially if they can understand them on a fundamental level.

The last argument I will make goes back to what I was saying about Kirishima not being the protagonist, and I think if he WERE, his origin story would not be nearly as impactful. One might say that Kirishima embodies the more stereotypical “hot-blooded” shonen protagonist than Deku does, and I agree to some extent. However, it works better for him to be a supporting character. In most shonens (like Naruto), the protagonist’s backstory is established right away, and as such, the viewer always sees their character in the context of what they were like in the past (we get it STOP SHOWING US THE FUCKING SWING--) In Kirishima’s case, his backstory comes into play much later, and by that point, we are already so familiar with his Red Riot persona that the revelation that he wasn’t always so eager and optimistic hits that much harder, and seeing how it contrasts with Kirishima as we know him in the present feels more rewarding. Yes, we get to see bits and pieces of it early on, like when he feels inadequate after meeting Tetsutetsu and seeing that their quirks are nearly identical, but seeing those feelings fully presented in his backstory only serves to drive that home. In short, we see, at a glance, how far he’s come since then, instead of being forced to watch the whole process from start to finish, and it works really well. 

Another common trend among shonen protagonists, as I said before, is their tendency to be blessed with miraculous new abilities to make them special (and that includes Deku). Obviously, that didn’t happen with Kirishima. He had no pro-hero mentor to guide him, nor an all-powerful booster quirk to bolster his hardening abilities. He got to where he did through sheer perseverance and hard work, with only his idol’s words to keep pushing him forward. While Deku also had to work hard to get to where he is, fortune was on his side, and the fact that Kirishima pulled himself up by his bootstraps (so to speak) is, to me, a lot more admirable. 

And THAT, my friends, is the core of why Kirishima means so much to me as a character, and even if he doesn’t become the #1 hero in the story, he’s my personal #1 hero. So, on that note, thank you for all your support, and as always...Stay sturdy!

tl;dr I FUCKING LOVE KIRI SO MUCH YOU GUYS

#admin talks #essay #episode 72 #kirishima eijirou

[gingericywolf]

H, L, T !!

@wolborgie Thanks dear and sorry for the wait

this is actually the second time of me answering all of this because the first time everything got deleted while i was still typing for some reason in the middle of the Hitoshi essay

H - What is your favorite source text for fandom stuff (e.g., tv shows, movies, books, anime, Western animation, etc.)

books and anime, and any animation show really, I’m not big on tv-shows, I can’t bring myself to watch them and movies don’t really stick out much in my head.

L - Say  something genuinely nice about a character who isn’t one of your faves (chars you’re neutral on are fair game, as are chars you dislike)

Since I’ve seen him everywhere today I’ll go with Hitoshi

ok listen i had wrote a lot before everything got deleted and I don’t remember what I was saying.so this is all getting winged once again and I’ll probably miss some points made before

We can all agree that in the anime he is a dick, he treats Takao awfully, and lets not talk about poor Brook. I just can’t make up my mind on how he could ever think that That way of acting was a good one?? what is behind his mindset?? does he act that way because someone before treated him the same?? does he really thinks that’s the only way Takao will learn?? Is there some other issue that we have not be made aware of??? I wish we had known more, that he got a redemption arc, with his brother and with brook. even if after all he has done it would take years to forgive, at least for me in their situation. Yes, probably it was what takao needed at that time, because let’s be honest even Takao is a dick most times so I guess it runs in the family, but it’s not something that will be forgiven easily and it will leave a mark forever... I just feel bad, both for him and for the ones he treated badly

i haven’t read the manga deep enough but i think that he is better in there. but in the manga everyone has slightly different characters and there is no Bega arc

part of me really wants to hate him, and i feel bad for treating him bad in the few things I make but it’s just the consequence of his actions.

on the other hand we don’t know how he is outside of the beyblading world, we have just that little screencap at the end of g-rev and he really looks like a good, nice man.

And he is good-looking, pretty handsome to be fair and again we can’t argue on that.

T - Do  you have any hard and fast headcanons that you will die defending, about     anything at all (gender identity, sexual or romantic orientation, extended family, sexual preferences like top/bottom/switch, relationship with poetry, seriously anything)

me and @lamponellatempesta share one(1) brain-cell so for more I also suggest reading this post here and for more of my own headcanons there is this answer to another ask

-Max is pan and genderfluid

-it was a bit confusing for the others at the start because they didn’t want to mess up misgendering their friend, but it was hard since it constantly changes

-definitely had to explain things more than once to someone

-he/him- they-them are fine generally. she/her are for when Max is feeling strongly more feminine

-“if I’m feeling like a girl you will notice before I even tell you to change pronouns”

- He is So Glad that “Max” is actually a gender neutral name

-He also Has a Special pass for the girls group-chat and is totally loving it. he is getting really close with all the girls and loves spending time with them

-all the other boys pester him to know what are the girls secrets, Max is a good lad and doesn’t tell anything,

-he has doubles of the team shirts/jackets so to have both the boys and girls design. so he can more easily wear the one that is more fitting for how he is feeling during the tournaments.

Alright hope you enjoyed the answers

i’ve been here like 3 hours at this point writing

#fandom ask #wolborgie #hitoshi kinomiya #hiro granger #max mizuhara #I started writing at like 9 #it's fucking half past midnigth #also i feel like this is becoming a Max's blog #I'm sorry he is my comfort character #I project a lot #apart from the fact i headcanon him as pan #since I'm definitely on the opposite side #ray of sunshine #wanted to had something else but forgot of course #oh yeah he is a son of Apollo in my eyes #oh yeah sorry if the pronoums thing is not really clear #I'm just really used to the neutral male we have in italian #which is why i don't mind being called with male pronouns #becuase they feel neutral to me #i just fell like max would not really care much for it