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piteouslord · 23 days

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crimson tears

just posted my first fanfic on ao3, feeling pretty good. i love projecting onto bakugo, he's literally so me. i have exhausted the autistic bakugo tag down to the last story!! warning for description of child abuse, internalized ableism (and in general), swearing

wattpad or ao3

The weight in the air was oppressive and suffocating. The scent of burning wood from the roaring fireplace and the subtle cologne smell radiating off Katsuki's clothes came together, a bitter reminder of where he was. As he glanced up from his spot on the floor, he saw his mother collapsed across the kitchen counter. She had a hand stretched out, silently pleading for his comfort. Katsuki could smell the stench of alcohol, a stench that made him second guess his determination to gain his mother's approval. He shook his head, getting up and walking towards the kitchen.

"Damn you, Mom. You're so damn pathetic." Katsuki's face contorted in disgust. His eyes focused on the beer bottle a few inches away from her hand, and then back on her. His muscles tightened, as if under stress, and in one swift motion he picked the bottle up. Katsuki breathed harshly, and with full confidence he swung. His eyes slammed shut, eventually taking a peek out of one eye. Katsuki's hand was shaking, his knuckles becoming white from his intense grip on the bottle. It rested above her head, and left her unscathed. "Fuck you, Mom! You deserve it, so why do I hesitate? Why? You would never hesitate if it was me. Fucking tell me why, bitch!" Katsuki slammed the bottle into the trash, wincing briefly at the noise of the shatter. He tightened his fists and resisted the urge to scream in pure rage, taking a sharp breath and advancing to his room.

"I'm so sick of this.. when will it fucking end?!" Katsuki muttered to himself, climbing up the stairs. There was no answer to this question, and he knew that. He wished that he had better, but in the back of his mind, he felt like he deserved it all. Or did he? No he didn't.. or does he? He shook his head again, opening the door to his room and staring directly into the mirror.

Katsuki closed his eyes. For some reason, he had made it a habit of watching himself cry in the mirror. He would pick at his skin, pop his pimples and scratch his arms. Katsuki didn't know why, but it made him feel better. Maybe it was a way of judging himself without speaking any words, or thinking any thoughts. With an aggressive cry, he slammed his hands onto the mirror, staring directly into his eyes as the tears streamed down.

There was no way to sugarcoat Katsuki Bakugo. He was an aggressive asshole, who thought he was better than everyone, who loves to pick fights and who loves to show off. Katsuki heard all of the comments, he wasn't oblivious. He didn't have blind faith in himself. He would try his hardest to argue it out in his head, but he could never win. If everyone thinks that about him, than that's what he must be.

Young Katsuki glanced up at his mother, confused as to why she was gripping his hand and pulling him forward. His eyes then settled on the unfamiliar house in front of him, a red brick house with bars over the windows. The house did not seem inviting, it almost seemed like it was giving him a signal to turn around and run, to beg to be taken home. Katsuki took another glance at his mother. He knew better than to question her, or to attempt to be taken home, as it would only result in punishment. He gave her a look of curiosity, hoping for an explanation.

Mitsuki looked down at him with a calm smile, "Oh Katsuki, aren't you excited? It's my cousin's birthday party. She loved to hold you when you were just a baby, don't you remember?"

Katsuki's face scrunched up in confusion, and an annoyed response followed, "No Mom, why would I remember that? Do you reme-" His mother cast him a gaze, and with that, he was quiet.

As they entered the house, Katsuki quickly recognized most people to be his immediate family, but there was a decent amount of unfamiliar folk as well. It was not difficult to assume these were also family members or family friends. It also didn't look like a very kid friendly function.

Mitsuki immediately dropped his hand, rushing over to talk to a group of ladies Katsuki wasn't personally aware of. He turned around to look at his father, who gave him a look of pity and a pat on the back, but didn't stick around and followed Mitsuki.

Katsuki looked around, the permanent noise of chatter staining his ears. No matter where he went, people were laughing, placing their drinks on the table, or knocking into furniture. He sat in the corner, confused as to his purpose, and shut his eyes to wish away his boredom. His hands unconsciously ended up on top of his ears, silencing the noise and allowing him some time to think. His mind drifted to All Might, the number one hero, who is always able to save the day with a smile on his face. At this moment, there was nothing more that he wanted than to be able to become a hero just like All Might, to be able to withstand situations no matter how tough.

"Katsuki, are you fucking serious? Get the hell over here. You're embarrassing me." Mitsuki quietly but powerfully demanded. She ripped his left hand right off his head, and pulled him towards the group she was previously talking to.

Katsuki looked up at her in alert, "Mom, what? I didn't- What did I do?" No matter what he did, he could never make her happy. Katsuki looked towards the floor, panic building up in his throat that prevented him from uttering another word.

Mitsuki gave him a firm pat on the back. "This is my cowardly son, Katsuki." She directed her eyesight towards the boy, "Are you going to treat your family with respect or are we not good enough to deserve that?"

Katsuki blinked hard, pain and confusion swirling in his mind as he looked up towards the unfamiliar people in front of him. He felt worse seeing their amused facial expressions, ready to break out in laughter as if he was a pitiful sight.

"H-Hi." Katsuki suppressed a sob, putting on the best 'I'm perfectly fine' face he could. His eyes darted back and forth between the two women sitting in front of them, facing an internal battle of which one felt more comfortable to rest his sight on. He glanced back at his mother, unsure what she wanted next.

"There we go, boy." Mitsuki placed her hand on top of Katsuki's head, giving his hair a ruffle. As she spoke to the women, her voice was quieter, but Katsuki was still able to hear her.

"Sorry about him, he's a brat sometimes. When I was younger, I was expected to greet all of my family with respect. This kid can't even make eye contact."

Katsuki felt a pang of hurt in his chest, the realization that she was deliberately letting him overhear. How could he be such a failure? Katsuki forced a strained smile to the women, the struggle of keeping his composure becoming apparent.

"Katsuki, I am so proud of you for getting the best score in your class on your math test. That's one way to get out there and show them you're a firecracker, that you're a Bakugo!" Mitsuki slammed her hand on the table in celebration.

Masaru looked at her suspiciously, letting out a sigh. "Mitsuki, have you been drinking? We've talked about this.."

Katsuki let out a massive grin, soaking in the approval. "Of course I got the best score, when haven't I? This is barely an achievement worth celebrating it happens so often." He turned his attention over his spicy wings, a world of pleasure washing over him with every bite.

There was very few things better in this world than spicy foods. Whenever Katsuki felt down, he liked to enjoy something spicy, but unfortunately his mother decided that was a good enough reason to use it against him. While Katsuki recognized that as complete, utter bullshit, it was an effective strategy to get him to behave. The only things that were comparable to spicy food was All Might, and his mother's approval-

"Katsuki, quit that right now!" Mitsuki called out, yanking his arm towards her and partially flipping his plate over. The hot sauce was splattered across the table, and the wings on the floor.

"W-What did I do? Quit that! Stop!" Katsuki attempted to pull his hand back, but suffered a mean strike to the back of his head from his mother's other hand. Tears began to seep down his face, pooling out aimlessly in attempt to soothe his confusion and hurt.

Masaru reached out and grabbed her hand, pulling the two of them apart. "That's enough, Mitsuki. The boy doesn't even know what's going on-"

"Masaru, if we don't punish this behavior now, who knows how he'll act in front of other people. We don't want people thinking we are freaks like him, do we? Now, Katsuki, come here so we can fix you." Mitsuki spat out, the impact of the alcohol becoming apparent. She walked into the other room with a bit of a struggle, falling into the wall a few times. Mitsuki emerged once more with a ruler in hand and an angry expression.

Katsuki began to scream in response to the ruler, almost tripping over the chair in an attempt to get away. Mitsuki lunged for him, grabbing him by his sweater and forcing him into his seat.

Mitsuki gave him a stern look, and made direct eye contact with him, "Katsuki, put your hands on the table, before this becomes more difficult than it needs to be."

Katsuki ferociously shook his head. "N-no, I don't know what's going on! Stop! Stop!" He squirmed and kicked, trying to get away from her with every ounce of effort he could manage. He caught a glimpse of his father, who sat on the other side of the table, seemingly coming to an agreement with his mother's previous words.

"You brat. I told you to stop rocking back and forth like a fucking moron. No wonder you can't have shit you like, you don't deserve it. There's no way a kid of mine is going to go out into the world, acting like a damn freak on display for everyone." Mitsuki slapped the ruler across the table, erupting a loud noise that reverberated in Katsuki's ears. "Put your hands on the table, before your hands aren't the only thing that will be bruised and bloody."

Katsuki's eyes flashed open, a cold sweat spreading throughout his entire body. He had suppressed those memories for so long, he almost wasn't sure if they were real. Katsuki took his hands off the mirror, and walked over to his bed, peeling the blankets off to reveal an All Might plushie. He held it in his hands and climbed into bed, breathing a sigh of relief.

"Shit, I have school in two days. I don't want to go back." Katsuki squeezed the plushie tighter. "I don't want to be here either. So fucking stupid." He pulled the blanket fully over him, and turned on his side. He held the plushie close to his chest, sighing as he rested his head partially on it. Katsuki closed his eyes, enjoying the peace and quiet he had for now.

let me know how you feel about it <3 this chapter took me literally 3 days of procrastination so i hope the rest of it goes a bit smoother lol

#autistic bakugou #bakugo x kirishima #kiribaku #krbk #krbk fanfic #kirishima eijirou #bakugou katsuki #my hero academia #mha #adhd kirishima #actually autistic

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yalocalfanficaddict · 5 months

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I don’t know why but it feels like so many characters in My Hero Academia have Autism (looking at you Bakugou and Todoroki) or ADHD (looking at you Kaminari and Kirishima) or both (looking at you Midoriya and Hatsume). Like, there are so many that seem neurodivergent to point that I wonder if Mr. Horikoshi himself is a lil funky that way…

#bnha #mha #my hero academia #boku no hero acedamia #katsuki bakugou #eijirou kirishima #izuku midoriya #shoto todoroki #denki kaminari #mei hatsume #autism #audhd #adhd #neurodiversity #kohei horikoshi #bnha headcannons #mha headcanons

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jasontoddssuper · 9 months

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Love that the Bnha fandom would have you thinking that Bakugou is a stereotypical manly man with a thing for fem girls with how they ship him but if you read the manga,he's completely whipped for his male best friend and the only girl he's tried to rizz up is his other best friend who's a small chested tomboy.Those white boy protags could never be him

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plusultraetc · 8 months

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tiny™️

#why is kaminari such a mood though #kirishima eijirou #kaminari denki #mha #bnha #my hero academia #liza watches mha #technically #bc i ended up reading the rest of s3 #the season was just not seasoning i needed to be able to hold it in my hands for the adhd brain to comply

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noeggets · 1 year

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starting the year off with Himiko because shes just the love of my life right now love my blorbo

#a #bnha #himiko toga #shoto todoroki #mei hatsume #the names i saved these pictures as #One of them is Koko bc my Sonku my friend makes Kirishima call her Koko because he can't remember her name but i think its cute #TodoToga its not a ship i just saved it as that bc it sound cute i want them to be friends and Himiko tell him all the silly stuff about-#his big bro #Himiko having so many nicknames for her friends #Mei doing the dino hands because do that #i dont have ADHD but something about her just says to me she does #i think she does #i dont know a whole lot about it but if you guys wanna tell me about it you can #we can make mei headcanons together

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eddies-spaghetti · 2 years

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Kiri headcanons ❤️🐋

[ ID: (first image) Kirishima is on the right side of a collage of the queer, trans masculine, and nonbinary flags. The pronouns he/they are on the left in black.

(second image) Kirishima is in the middle of a collage of the ADHD and chronic fatigue syndrome flags. End ID.]

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lunaeclipsis · 2 years

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@stigmatvm | X.

✯ “ so -- wait, hang on. ” a pause. he quickly taps his hand against the wooden table. “ can you say that again? i don’t think my brain processed that. ”

#its the adhd innit #⧾ ⊹ * ﹆╰ ᴀ ᴄᴇʀᴛɪғɪᴇᴅ ᴍᴏɴsᴛᴇʀ ɪ'ᴍ ᴀɴ ᴀʙsᴏʟᴜᴛᴇ ᴛʀɪᴘ ╯// ic + kirishima .

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not-your-fucking-kacchan · 2 years

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Hi you really don’t have to do this…… anyway I’ve been told I act like near from death note so could you do a mha x child male reader where the reader acts like near from death note like he pulls out toys in the middle of class stacks cups at lunch and is very quiet and stuff oh yeah could you make it class 1-A + Aizawa maybe other teachers in there too sorry if it’s too specific

Ofc! I haven't gotten that far into death note yet so I had to watch a Near compilation on YouTube, so I hope I got a good enough grasp of him in that time lol

Also I'm describing you as antisocial rather than shy, because near didn't strike me as the shy stuttering pushover type, and seemed just withdrawn or disinterested, and I also high-key headcanon izuku may have ADHD. I will not elaborate <3.

Masterlist<3

𝐂𝐥𝐚𝐬𝐬 1𝐀 𝐱 𝐌𝐚𝐥𝐞!𝐀𝐧𝐭𝐢𝐬𝐨𝐜𝐢𝐚𝐥!𝐑𝐞𝐚𝐝𝐞𝐫 𝐇𝐞𝐚𝐝𝐜𝐚𝐧𝐨𝐧𝐬

It draws a few sets of eyes every time you pull out a pack of tarot cards or dice to play with in the middle of class, but noone really got distracted as long as you were quiet enough. Though, a few times you've knocked over a power ranger or transformer doll while taking notes and drawn the classes attention.

During break on your second week of school, you find yourself approached by the 'bakusquad'. Kirishima introduces himself politely and mina stares in awe at your tarot collection, but Bakugou looks livid.

He doesn't expect you to meet his glare directly with an unamused stare, and he's a second away from lunging at you and taking it as a challenge before Kaminari and Kirishima simultaneously bonk him in the head.

"Dude you don't even know him, give him a chance!"

You can't stop yourself from raising an eyebrow at the statement, figuring that these two must be the perfect balance for Bakugou's... Overbearing personality.

The next thing that catches your attention is the green haired boy that joins into the conversation, quietly asking you a question with a cute tilt of his head. "Have you maybe got ADHD? I've just seen a few of the signs on you- It's perfectly okay if you do! You won't be looked at differently!"

You already like this one, he's so precious.

Your eyes look straight into his as he studies you, and it's very intriguing to watch the gears turn in his head while he figures you out like some sort of puzzle. You could definitely get along with him. "No, I don't believe so."

He seems a little surprised by your words, but then again, you very well may have ADHD. You were never allowed to get tested for it, because your parents refused. Without a diagnosis, they can pretend there's nothing "wrong" with you.

He studies your eyes, figuring that you may have an irregular sleep schedule from the dark circles under your eyes, and that your eyes seem to be very sensitive to light because of how wide your pupils are. It's almost unnerving, to be honest. Your eyes look almost fully black.

Over the next few days you're scolded a few times by Aizawa Sensei for being too loud when knocking over your dice or your robots, but he never once asked you to put them away. All he asked in return was for you to be a little more active in the lessons.

"You get to keep your toys as long as you answer questions and participate a little more. Does that sound fair?" You nodded, slowly backing away to walk back to your desk and wait for break to finish, but from then on, you start drawing attention to yourself.

At first the attention is unwanted, and as you sit Criss cross applesauce on your chair, playing with your tarot cards, Izuku comes to sit next to you, starting to ramble about a random hero that you don't know anything about. He's very easy to get used to, however, and you quickly become what some would call friends.

Everyone's a little creeped out by your social awkwardness, and the fact that you never seem to talk, until they start to include you more, and you're forced to make new friends.

That doesn't mean you don't have trouble opening up though, and during lunch you sit in silence with your new friends as they chatter and smile at you, stacking cups that Izuku gave you to help you focus on something other than the amount classmates you have crowding you.

It takes a few more months for even Izuku to pry anything even remotely emotional from you, and even then it only shows in the waver of your voice, but he's proud nonetheless.

He would escort you around school because he didn't want you to be alone, and after a while your newfound closeness with Izuku branches out as mina comes to join the two of you.

She gives you an absolutely radiant smile as she grabs your hand, izuku taking hold of your other side for them to both drag you away to some part of the school you're not familiar with. The warmth of their hands in yours leaves you in shock, though, and your mind blanks a little when you feel the greenette squeeze it reassuringly, a tiny, pale blush creeping into your cheeks. This feeling, it was something you wanted to feel every day. It's so warm and comforting.

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tenderheartedtheodore · 1 year

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random bnha headcanons because theres worms in my brain. (more under the cut)

- Kaminari, Midoriya, Kirishima, Sero and Hagakure have ADHD

- Kirishima is a gay transman (started transitioning in middle school)

- Midnight is a wlw transwoman

- Shirakumo was pansexual and used he/they pronouns

- Kaminari has lightning scars and does his best to hide them (they're mostly in his back, chest and arms)

- Bakugou genuinely has anger issues and is in the process of getting diagnosed

- Ojiro, Yaoyorozu and Hagakure have body dysmorphia

- Jirou, Bakugou and Present Mic are all either HoH or fully deaf (i.e.: Present Mic has hearing aids and Bakugou needs them as well)

- Uraraka has an anxiety disorder (GAD, likely)

- Iida has restless leg syndrome

- Kaminari gets seizures when he overuses his quirk

- Shinsou, Uraraka, Jirou and Kaminari deal with migraines often

- Shoji and Midoriya have chronic pains

- Mineta got fucking expelled.

- he got his ass beat by like half of the class for the shit he was doing to the girls and some crap he said to Kirishima (who's openly trans)

- Asui, Iida, Midoriya, Bakugou, Todoroki, Shinsou and Yaoyorozu are autistic

- Aoyama is gay and under the nonbinary umbrella

- Bakugou and Midoriya are also transmasc

- Midoriya's first binder was a birthday gift from the Bakugous (Bakugou half-jokingly wanted to make matching All Might binders for them)

- Tokoyami, Bakugou, Jirou, Todoroki and Shinsou often hang out together (either going to Hot Topic or just listening to music)

- the band/Jirousquad play whenever they have free time

- Satou stress bakes (Aizawa has walked in on him baking cakes at 2am several times)

- "... hey Mr Aizawa. Red velvet?" *deep sigh*

- most of the class has nightmares often and it's not new when they're awoken by or run into each other in the middle of the night

- Tokoyami having a nightmare, waking up with a scared Dark Shadow and then deciding to watch TV in the common room VS Asui curled up with a couple blankets on the couch because she also had a nightmare

- Jirou being hyperaware of her classmates' shallow breaths and shakes, feeling bad for not knowing what to do

- Bakugou wakes up the entire dorm by accident because he caused an explosion while waking up from a nightmare

- Koji uses sign language most the time and is semi verbal (autism and anxiety)

- Mirko is a lesbian

- Mr Compress is mlm

- Shinsou goes to sleep at 5am while Midoriya wakes up at 5am

- Shinsou, Kaminari, Tokoyami, Uraraka and Yaoyorozu are insomniacs

- Magne was like a big sister to Dabi (and he misses her. it was nice to know what it would've felt like to be the little sibling.)

- Bakugou is (stubbornly) teaching himself sign language

- Midoriya, Present Mic, Aizawa also know sign language (the Bakusquad are getting lessons from Midoriya)

- Monoma is on the aromantic spectrum

- Midoriya uses wrist braces and needs a cane (All Might and Recovery Girl are trying to get him to)

- Bakugou also needs wrist braces but refuses to get them

- Iida, Todoroki, Yaoyorozu and Bakugou are "Rich Kids With Family Issues" solidarity

- Natsuo used to the dye bits of red in his hair, but as he grew older, the red stopped growing

- it reminded him of Touya and he couldn't look in the mirror for the longest time

- Sero dislocates his shoulders often

- class 1a are banned from playing dodgeball (Recovery Girl had a really busy day the one time they played it)

- Todoroki and Yaoyorozu are gay-lesbian solidarity

- Kirishima, Uraraka, Tetsutetsu and Bakugou are gym buddies

- Midoriya learned English because of All Might

- Bakugou, Jirou, Kaminari and Shinsou are also fluent in English

- Midnight talked to Ashido, Yaoyorozu and Hagakure about their hero costumes and if they were truly comfortable wearing them; they ended up getting they fixed

- Shinsou sometimes uses his quirk to brainwash his classmates into doing self care

- "What're you doing, Sero?" "Oh, not much, just-" "Go drink water."

- Monoma, Midoriya, Kirishima, Denki and Bakugou have imposter syndrome

- if Yaoyorozu is caught off guard, she creates tiny figurines by accident

- Aizawa has had to catch Uraraka with his capture weapon a few times due to her sleep floating

- Shiozaki has extreme religious guilt

- Present Mic does his hair up while in his hero costume out of spite because high school kids used to make fun of Aizawa's hair when he used his quirk

- Kendo is bisexual

- she/they Fuyumi. you agree. reblog

- class 1a has sleepovers sometimes; blanket forts, movies, snacks, everything!

- (Aizawa knows and allows it every time. they deserve and need to be kids)

- sometimes they invite class 1b as well

- Monoma, Shinsou and Midoriya get along well to everyone's surprise

- Kirishima once ran into Dabi while buying hairdye but it was his day off and it looked like it was Dabi's day off too so he just pretended he never saw him grab a box of jetblack hairdye, shove it in his hoodie pocket and leave

- for the sake of his own sanity

- Hagakure can 'turn her quirk off' but only does so when she feels completely safe and comfortable, or when she's totally worn out

- when she did it for the first time around the rest od the class everyone was shocked

- "... is something wr-" "YOU'RE SO PRETTY???,?"

- Ashido, Uraraka and Kaminari hold Shoji's hands while crossing the street (mostly for fun, but he doesn't mind)

- Kaminari absent mindedly braided the hair on Ojiro's tail one day and he just let him

- Koji's bunny is an emotional support animal named Cotton

- Shigaraki decays door handles on purpose just to mess with the rest of the LOV

- he gets bored, okay?

- Aizawa teaches Eri sign language as a surprise for Mic (as well just so Eri has a way to communicate when she doesn't feel comfortable talking)

- Uraraka makes a casual comment about not having enough money to buy something for herself or her parents and Iida, Todoroki, Yaoyorozu and Bakugou hand her their credit cards like its nothing

- she is startled by that Every Time without fail

- Twice and Toga paint each other's nails

- Mr Compress lets Twice borrow his masks sometimes

- Himiko is a vegetarian, funnily enough

- Mt. Lady has chronic pains and stretch marks

- Bakugou has scars and burns from his own explosions (he wasn't born with perfect control over his quirk, and sometimes he takes his anger out on himself)

- Fuyumi and Natsuo's quirks are extremely powerful ice quirks, but Endeavor never bothered to train them and never let Rei teach them how to control their quirks

- while Fuyumi has Frost, Natsuo's quirk is called Subzero; he can lower his body temperature dangerously low and when he does so, whatever he touches freezes

- if he's emotional or focused enough, he can create icicles and wield them

- Todoroki considered dying his hair several times (black was on top of the list but after Dabi revealed he was Touya, he decided against it)

- the LOV took turns helping Dabi dye his hair

- Kurogiri helped Dabi with his staples (the only other person willing to do that was Himiko but everyone agreed it was a bad ideia)

- Spinner sticks around Dabi during winter because he's a human heater

- no one in the LOV liked Overhaul

- like, killing Magne was bad enough. but straight up child abuse? come on

- they know what it's like to be a kid and to be scared and hurt and they don't want that

- Himiko has nervous tics

- Hatsume is autistic and will infodump about her babies to anyone that will listen

- she and Midoriya infodump to each other

- sometimes, Kurogiri's gaze lingers on the morning sky. he finds clouds strangely amusing for some reason

- Aizawa and Present Mic have been together since they were 17 and have been married for nearly six years (they wear their rings on necklaces underneath their clothes)

- they officially adopted Eri first, then Shinsou

- (It's Free Real State Children)

- "I'm having another kid." "That's great, sensei-" "it's you. Mic and I have the papers already."

- Bakugou, Iida and Yaoyorozu tutor the class before tests

- Kaminari has dyscalculia and dyslexia

- Satou always has snacks on him (especially ones the made himself)

- he keeps an eye on Yaoyorozu and makes sure to give her something if he notices she's looking particularly pale

- most if not the whole class 1a has PTSD (this doesn't shock anyone. Aizawa is desperately trying to get them to talk to Hound Dog sometime)

- Aizawa needs reading glasses and refuses to wear them

- Aizawa and Present Mic & Midnight share custody of Sushi unironically (the cat Shirakumo rescued)

- Aizawa and Mic own other cats (Mochi and Tessie) (it's short for Tshirt, Mic thought it was funny)

- Iida and Yaoyorozu were at Aizawa and Mic's wedding due to their family status, everyone else was clueless to their marriage

- no one was aware they adopted Eri and Shinsou though

- like yeah Aizawa-sensei's taking care of Eri, BUT ADOPTION??

- "oh, Shinsou's in our class- HITOSHI AIZAWA-YAMADA?"

- Aizawa may have only two (2) legal children but by god does he love his other nineteen little bastards.

- Iida made a groupchat for class 1a for "school purposes" but it quickly descended into madness and he gave up

- the gc is now named something incoherent and incomprehensible and there's like seven other chats for different purposes (such as "dekusquad", "bakusquad", "the band" and "is this fucked up or are all parents like this?")

- Iida and Yaoyorozu keep note of everyone's allergies

- so does Aizawa

- Yaoyorozu has a bad relationship with food and often has trouble using her quirk due to it

- Tetsutetsu is a stealth transman (only Kirishima is vaguely aware)

- Kuroiro was extremely afraid of the dark as a child

- Ashido gets acid burns often (they're not too bad and mostly in her hands, but if it's a particularly bad day, she gets burns in her face)

- Kirishima has trouble walking/moving in general when he overuses his quirk

- Present Mic is mlm

- Aizawa is a gay transman

- Jirou and Kaminari are both bisexual

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xxmaddyxx · 10 months

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Hellooo!

I saw on your pinned post which said you don't do poly relationship's, which I understand, however do you do platonic friendships for the reader such as the Bakusquad or dekusquad?

If so, can you do one where the reader who hangs out with the Bakusquad, has really severe ADHD? And there's some sort of incident with Monoma?

If not that's totally okay!

With love anon

i gotchu babes, also i'm sorry if i don't accurately depict the adhd but i'll try my bestest for sure! <3 feel free to request more ;) masterlist

"y/n..... did you forget your homework again?" mina looked at you when you appeared at the diner

"wait, THAT'S WHAT I FORGOT" you smacked your forehead

"it's okay, you can use my book with me" kirshima smiled at you and invited you to sit beside him, which you accepted

"you're damn lucky that you're powerful on the battlefield, when it comes to book and shit-" mina smacked bakugo in the back of the head before he could finish

"bakugo we talked about this"

kirishima gave you a comforting smile, "hey, did you know how to do this problem"

you understood that you often forgot things, and had trouble concentrating, and bakugo did often bring this up

but believe it or not, it was him caring, and no way in hell he would ever admit that's why he brings it up

and yes mina has lectured him about it

but you and denki, two peas in a pod

you guys were usually the ones goofing off in the back of aizawa's class

i picture you guys like sharing airpods or smth and playing dumb songs and tryin not to laugh

or throwing paper balls at the back of bakugo's head

"BAKUGO! stop interrupting my class please" as bakugo is about to beat yall asses

meanwhile you and denki dying trying not to laugh

ANYWAY

one day, classes 1-A and 1-B were put together for a training exercise

you were put in groups of 3 or 4 and ordered to basically fight the other groups

creative ik

antyways, you were put in a group with denki, bakugo, and jirou

the group you guys were up to fight was Tetsutetsu, Monoma, and Shiozaki

Denki did a whole ass double take

"hey! it's that hot girl"

"the one that totally beat your ass at the sports event, yeah that's her :)" jirou said smirking

denki - :0 *dramatic gasp

anyway you guys were one of the last groups lined up to fight, so the teachers put everyone who wasn't fighting in the stands, and monoma's group was sitting behind yours

the groups before you fought and it was entertaining to watch, kinda

you were sitting in between jirou and bakugo, and he noticed how short your attention span was becoming, and you began fidgeting

he then pulled out some sort of fidget toy and handed it to you

you looked at him, "what's this for?"

he placed it in your hand, "just picked it up the other day, use it or whatever you need to pay attention to the damn matches, it'll be helpful in someway"

you raised a brow and looked at the toy in your hand, you smirked, "aww you thought about meee"

"shut up dammit! last time i do anything for you." he crossed his arms and looked away

you nudged him with your elbow "thank you, bakugo", which he responded with a grunt

monoma was watching the interaction and he blurted out with "are you guys together?"

jirou rolled her eyes

"WHAT NO?" bakugo yelled, you nudged him again

"just ignore 'em" you kept your attention on the toy

"dunno why anyone would date y/n anyway, they would probably loose interest super quickly anyway" monoma laughed at his own joke

bakugo was about to punch his lights out when you and denki kept him in his seat

"dude, you don't wanna be on house arrest again do you?" denki murmured to him

bakugo cursed to himself and sat back down

after a few more minutes of the match, deku and todoroki's team won no surprise

and your team was called up

as well as monoma's

"good luck y/n!" deku said as you passed him

"thank you!"

when y'all got onto the spar area thingy idk what its called

monoma laughed to himself again

"ugh, WHAT NOW?" bakugo yelled at him

"let's see if y/n can keep their attention on this-" he was interrupted by bakugo smashing his fist into monoma's face

"HEY I DIDN'T SAY GO YET??" present mic yelled

bakugo was about to beat his ass but aizawa used his scarf to hold him back

denki leaned over to you "so much for no more house arrest"

"no kidding"

jirou looked at you, "y'know bakugo wouldn't do that for just anyone, he must care about you as a friend"

"bakugo? having feelings? please." denki rolled his eyes, "but for real, she kinda has a point." he looked at you

you shrugged your shoulders and after aizawa let bakugo go, the fight commenced

and ofc you guys won after bakugo had a little motivation ;)

later that night, at the dorms you walked into the kitchen to find bakugo cooking with the rest of the bakusquad in the common room

you came up to him with the fidget toy in your hand "you want this back?"

he kept stirring whatever was in the put without looking up, "no, you keep it, you need it."

"oh thanks... dude that smells amazing what is that?" you looked at the pot

"food, go sit in the common room, i'll call when it's ready"

"whatever dad!" you went to the common room where the rest of them were and basically watched a movie and ate whatever bakugo made :)

#mha x reader #mha headcanons #mha x y/n #mha x you #bakugo katsuki #bakugo katuski #denki kaminari #bakusquad #eijirou kirishima #bakusquad x reader

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shinmelodia · 8 months

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Love & Process: blue (2002)

Hello to everyone reading, and welcome to a highly belated attempt to squeeze some of my thoughts and emotions through some semblance of a creative process and onto a page. Today, I want to introduce this blog by talking about a lovely film, blue (2002), directed by Hiroshi Ando and based on a manga by Kiriko Nananan.

Since I'm still somewhat new at diving into live action film, especially, like, uh, Japanese indie film, its helping to start with the yuri genre. Because like practically any other woman on this site, I quite enjoy lesbians. blue's manga original offers something of an alternative to the yuri norm, though, and the film follows suit. Both are definitely examples of the Japanese filmmaking trend I've heard of called "mumblecore," (or maybe mumble-komi for the manga equivalent) that most people know through the likes of Inio Asano's early work. Like Solanin or Girl on the Shore, blue is shoegazey, quiet, and contemplative, adorned with moments of subtle physical intimacy, layered emotion, and stunningly beautiful compositions of daily life.

My metric for these kinds of slow mood pieces, which I've previously tended to watch at random whenever the mood struck me, is that if my barely-medicated ADHD brain can even finish them, there's clearly something special going on. blue passed with flying colors; yeah, ok, it took two sittings, but I spent all of both enraptured, immersed, and invested in the mono no aware of silent, fragile love and messy asymmetry that formed this movie's emotional palette. blue is about love, of course, but its also about process and expression, both emotional and creative, and how processing things, artistically, verbally, non-verbally--is often required of real, human love.

In being about this, I think it did things for me that a lot of yuri often doesn't and gently hit me in a place that I really needed to be hit. So, let me get into it. This is going to be...very personal, and also obviously spoil the details of the film, if you care about that, although I'm sure there will be plenty of depth left in the text that I leave untouched. Whether you read it or not, I'll be happy I made it. Oh, and sorry if I come off as really New for being so struck by themes and aesthetics that are probably sort of standard for this type of film. I can't help what I feel like writing about, though.

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Kirishima Kayako lives in a small town by the sea, one much like dozens of other anonymous, disaster-prone exurban towns in Japan at the turn of the millennium. She rides the bus to her girls' high school every day, where she eats lunch with her friends and tries her best to learn something in class. Really, though, she's aimless, quiet, lonely, and introspective. She's trying, but its rare for others to be able to tell. She's also in love with her classmate, Endou Masami. When she confesses at the end of the first act, on a windy beach against the vastness of the ocean, Endou responds that she's glad, and the two become our lesbians for the movie. Kayako falls to her knees and cries in relief. Masami is different from the others--she sees how hard Kayako tried. Does that mean she loves her back, though?

Endou Masami has cool passions and interests; she collects American CDs, which she expertly critiques and describes while lending to friends. The mere view of her vibing to her American alt-rock while smoking a cigarette in front of her apartment window is album-cover worthy in itself. Kayako feels the same way: one of the most intimately gay scenes of the pre-confession portion of the film is when Masami lights a cigarette and asks if Kayako is shocked. The quiet girl declares without hesitation, "No, I'm admiring the way you lit the match."

The whole early film is such a delectable, lonely vibe. The slowly intertwining couple's solidifying dynamic is the kind that forms between an emotionally complex introvert and the perhaps even more unknowable yet somehow more confident object of their affection. The two are classmates, (there's no classic yuri kouhais and senpais here) but for the early part of the film we are seeing things from Kayako's perspective and Masami seems unmistakably older in spirit. There's something about the dense emotions conveyed in her gazes at her new girlfriend, the almost world-weary tinge of recklessness in her distant grins. She talks about music Kayako's never heard of and lends out books with Romantic-era paintings that she has well-formed thoughts on. Kayako even openly admits that if she could, she would want to be Masami.

I think we've all loved a girl like that.

It's a pretty typical experience in middle school or high school, for really anyone lonely who loves women, to be drawn to these sorts of sad, beautiful, oh-so-seemingly-complex femmes. I guess straight men have a similar thing going on with the whole Manic Pixie Dream Girl archetype, but for us women (or, women-to-be, at the time, I guess), the phenomenon of these people to us often involves a sort of existential jealousy. I'm not sure what is so alluring to other people about the sense that the object of their love has Something Going On that they are working through, or a vast and complicated life beyond the scope of one's understanding, but it me it always felt like something I was missing out on for myself. Obviously, a lot of their experiences and interests must be interesting and fun and super cool, you think, but even what pain you think they convey must be somehow more edifying than yours.

For me, the edifying aspect was the mere fact of femininity itself. The idea of a girl who has deep and Real emotions, who feels Real love and Real sadness and can actually express that in how she looks, beautiful and imperfect, always threw into stark contrast my own inability to express myself comparably. I was depressed, I was growing up, and I felt things, too, but, as someone who everyone thought was a straight boy and who was too scared to admit to being otherwise, I lacked that sort of beauty, that means of expressing what was inside me through fashion, makeup, book or music knowledge or taste. Or at least I thought I did. Thus, my own emotions must have also meant less. So, I ignored them and belittled them, and entire years passed before I processed a thing correctly. I always wanted to be some other girl. That was the only thing that would fix me.

I assume that the teen (and, uh, sometimes beyond) existential pining experienced by some other people in real life usually lacks the fun bonus that mine had of a screaming void where my femininity should have been, but I'm not sure how much this actually matters to the crux of the kind of experience I'm talking about. That some kind of void is there is all that matters, really, and its there for Kayako in her relationship with Masami at the beginning of the film. She has nothing, Masami is everything, and just being close to her is enough, for now. Just being noticed, just sharing something with her, is all Kayako feels like she can ask for.

Of course, this incomplete way of seeing love can't last, which brings us to the next part of the film, which starts when the two are hanging out and Masami reveals through a guarded, distant grin that she had an abortion a while ago. This isn't something that shocks Kayako or is really meant to shock the audience, and it isn't the big moment where she forced to reconsider her feelings. Rather, she asks how it went, and Masami responds honestly. She mentions she felt horrible the next day and had to be picked up by ambulance from the nurse's office, prompting Kayako to recall silently what to us was the film's first scene, a view from her window during class of an anonymous ambulance, sirens turned off, discreetly rescuing a student.

That she had this ambiguously traumatic, and at least unpleasant and potentially taboo experience is something that could have made Masami feel even older to Kayako, her pain even more distant and obscure. It certainly already is a way that Masami herself feels distant from others. Yet, by considering her own special, observant view of the ambulance back when it happened, it becomes one that Kayako can in some small way assertively share with her. Rather than continuing to put her lover's experiences on a pedestal, Kayako in this scene makes a silent decision to turn a blossoming mutual acceptance simply that they happened into a moment of true intimacy between the two, a sleepover punctuated by smirking kisses and satisfied cuddles initiated by each of them for the other. Despite her remarks that Kayako is weird for unhesitatingly wanting to stay with her, its an intimacy that Masami is happy to accept. This is all an important turning point in Kayako's development because she begins to choose insight, closeness, and assertion over the distant admiration that trapped her earlier.

As we go on, we'll start seeing how blue's gentle impact comes from the way it doesn't glorify or sugarcoat that earlier kind of unhealthy and immature dynamic. Instead it subverts it by giving Masami depth and Kayako agency, before reaching an endpoint that reflects on how the dehumanization of that kind of depressed, pining relationship can be overcome. In that sense, blue is a yuri romance mostly about the couple coming to accept their own and each other's humanity and capacity for expression. Like any good mumble movie, its full of long silences and almost unrealistically hesitant dialog, and doesn't give any explicit internal monologues like a lot of manga do. The world of this movie is one where expression is an uphill battle, something that has to be worked towards and struggled through. It's the world that Kayako and Masami share, in their own separate ways. And that's why its such a triumph to watch Kayako finally find her voice, her passion, and her process, which all starts in this scene.

First, though, it's time to learn about the Something that Masami has Going On.

Things begin when Kayako is still sleeping. Masami gets a call on her house phone that she doesn't answer, but that sends her into a silent spiral of emotional dread. She spends the next day at school in the nurse's office, refusing to tell Kayako what's going on and confiding only in her friend Nakano. Then, when summer break comes along, she disappears, leaving Kayako alone at home, pouring silently over the book of still life oil paintings that Masami lent her.

It ends up being Nakano who tells Kayako why she left. It's the story Masami didn't tell about the source of her abortion: an adult, married man whom she had a relationship with and eventually a pregnancy from. She got things taken care of without telling him, alerted her parents and tried never to see the rotten salaryman again. That is, until he called. He wasn't getting along with his wife anymore, apparently, and she had some sort of attachment to him that made her come running back. Her taste in music originally came from him, after all. It seems that, for the time being, her devotion to this mysterious, abusive man is going to perpetuate a brutal cycle: she'll keep hurting both Kayako and herself all at once.

What really destroys Kayako and her relationship, though, is that she lies about it. When she comes home after some predictably rough interactions with this guy, she tells her supposed girlfriend that she was enjoying a vacation with friends, and even gives her some grapes, supposedly grown in the prefecture she was hanging out in, as a twisted souvenir. The more assertive Kayako enforces her boundaries without hesitation, though, in equally as blunt a tone as she complimented her love, as when she told her she wanted to stay with her, all those nights ago. "Why are you lying to me?" Its with that same grin, now tinged with emotionally oblivious deception, that Masami dares to at first first feign ignorance.

"Eh?" Her smile is shallower than its ever been.

So Kayako walks away.

Their dynamic has now become worse than just immature; it's entirely toxic. From an outside perspective, Kayako is working on her shortcomings, while Masami refuses to reconcile her past. This kind of toxicity, though, is sadly just as common in high school (and even sometimes middle school) as is the kind of misunderstanding, lonely pining I talked about earlier, just usually among different sorts of people. Appropriately, its often even that exact kind of beautiful, hurting, mature femme (in the eyes of disastrous, moody lesbians like Kayako) who is going through that sort of pain. Its that mysterious and tragic byproduct of compulsory heterosexuality that causes a lot of girls to seek validation in the love of an older man, and that I imagine becomes a sort of addiction to that validation that only masquerades as love. Hell, Masami attributes much of what made her seem so interesting on the surface, her love of music, to this guy. She feels like she'd be nothing without him, and the way Kayako praised her, at least in the way she interpreted it, did nothing to dispel this fear. Which I think is really why she decided to go back, even though it would mean betraying the very girl whose love provided her an escape from it all.

Its an ugly truth, and its one that yuri media usually shies away from portraying, but it is explored with refreshing frankness and resolved with astounding maturity by the end of blue. And I think its the source material's status as "alternative" (I guess in Japanese parlance, Garo-inspired) manga, not to mention the movie's simply as an independent film, that allows it to break with genre limitations in this way. There's been tons of writing done on how yuri definitely presents a fantasy of the sapphic experience. Mainstream yuri's origins in Class-S still to this day often cause it to portray romances between women as fundamentally different, and inherently more pure, than those involving men, trapping them in a bubble of unassailable innocence. While that kind of makes sense and seems extremely cool to those of us who celebrate having little interest in moids or whatever, it also has the effect of sugarcoating and sometimes even outright obscuring what real women, even (and sometimes especially) sapphic ones, go through.

There's already a decent amount of yuri, especially among those aimed at older demographics and those where its more of a secondary genre, that do deal with compulsory heterosexuality and the experiences that come with it. What are much rarer are yuri series where one of the lover's flaws more resemble Masami's than Kayako's. Not enough that I've read at least is willing to make its relationships messy, or have one of its leads just do straight up bad things like self-destructive cheating and lying.

Because, really, its the same as what Kayako went through, isn't it? The lonely longing for something more that feels like it can only be cleansed by denying oneself all one has and betting it all on being close to someone else. The only difference between the two's actions is temperament and perhaps socialization--one sought it from a cooler woman, the other from an older man. And somewhere out of sight, that sad, irresponsible, fucked-up adult was probably hopelessly lonely, too, just like Kayako had to accept Masami was. Maybe disaster lesbians, disaster bisexuals(?), and yes, disaster straights aren't so different after all.

Well, other than that Kayako has worked to process her feelings, while Masami went and ruined her relationship over them. That's an important difference. Still, though, even Kayako has some work to do about how she feels about all of this. Masami's pedestal has been smashed, whether she likes it or not, and now she's lonelier than ever. So where does this vampiric cycle of taking from others end? What substance can replace loneliness in this ouroboros of etropic emotional alchemy?

Kayako doesn't touch the grapes. Instead, she silently processes things, lies on the floor listening to the cicadas scream in the garden. The grapes go rotten, and her brother throws them out. She sulks for a while.

Then, she starts painting. A still life of grapes, inspired by the books that Masami lent her. At first, her drawing is lousy, as the school fine arts instructor later tells her, but the colors are gorgeous. The deep purples of the fruits are expertly layered to capture light and tell a story, one deeper than the instructor could possibly imagine. It's the story not only of the transformation of a relationship, but of the growth of one of its participants. As the hot, still air of the coastal Japanese summer cloys around her lonesome final vacation of high school, Kayako finally salvages a passion to call her own out of a floundering relationship. When school starts again and she picks up art classes, going to Tokyo for uni, a dream that was previously held only by Masami, starts to be within her reach. She has a future, an interest, and a way to process all has happened to her.

And then comes the time for Masami to try and return. She proves unwilling to address all that happened before, instead trying to kiss Kayako after school in the art room. Her undeserved attempt at intimacy is rejected with a shove, but so too is her self-pity that causes her to instantly run away. There's more that needs to be said that simply "I'm a terrible person." Kayako pursues her into the town's small shopping district as night begins to fall and neon crackles to life against a cool late summer night. Now the emotional climax of the movie begins.

First, Kayako starts talking. She tells Masami about the painting, about her summer, about how lonely she was without her, about all the places she wanted to go with her. She talks about how happy she was at the same time that she found something she wanted to do without her. This approach is new for her. She's never so far relied on words so heavily to express her emotions. When Masami points this out, Kayako says:

This is how she's choosing to process things for the time being. At first, it was being silent to carefully consider her emotions. Now, its speaking up to keep them focused on what she really wants.

Then, its Masami's turn, for the first time, to tell the truth. By now they're away from the small cluster of lights, staring out at the blackness of the beach where they first got together. Masami broke up with the guy, she says. But she also asserts that she came to his emotional aid to begin with because she felt his need for help was more important than anything else to her. She couldn't tell her girlfriend this before, because doing so would mean telling a truth she didn't think Kayako could bear to hear: that he meant more to Masami than she did.

Kayako already knows this, of course. And by speaking up to quell her justified anger, by weaving words like the deft strokes of honest color on the tip of a paintbrush, she's gotten herself to a point where she can accept it, too.

I mean, think about it. Masami is broke now; Kayako needed to buy her a sandwich so she wouldn't be hungry on their impromptu date. Her sabotaging drive to be validated and her inability to accept love from the girl willing to give it has, by all accounts, ruined her life for the time being and harmed those around her. Even though she broke up with the guy out of necessity, or out of some fleeting impulse to run back to Kayako, she still feels like nothing without him. As she says to Kayako later, now the envy runs in reverse--Kayako is passionate about painting now, while Masami will still amount to nothing. Despite it all, though, Kayako is willing to love her. She's called Masami out on what she needs to be, then decided to stay nonetheless.

"I always come second. You broke up with him, so the number one spot is vacant. When someone else comes, you'll put him there...

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For most of my life, I believed that artistic expression was primarily the product of unrestrained, innate, and self-indulgent passion. I thought it was just something people either have or don't have, and that when they do, its something that can drive them to great heights of accomplishment and happiness otherwise impossible for humans to reach. It was mostly Japanese otaku media that instilled this into me, I think. I grew up exposed to a dizzying array of diverse and often miraculous artistic products that captured my imagination in ways the safe output of my own boring, monolithic home empire never did, and most of them were made by people who literally poured their lives into working on them. From Eiichro Oda's future-destroying, decades-long devotion to making One Piece to Kentaro Miura giving his life to practically paint the ceiling of the Sistene Chapel in pen on page after double-page spread in Berserk, to all of the hyper-passionate, universe-shattering early works of Hideaki Anno and his animator cohorts, I thought that I lived in a world of weird and wonderful treats whose cooks had the work ethic of demigods and the talent to match.

And even on the lower levels of the medium, among fan artists, cosplayers, writers, posters, historians, I felt surrounded by people who lived and breathed impossible passion, whose lives must have been defined by a kind of information processing my brain simply wasn't capable of. They had some ability to inhale the miraculous vapors of an abundant artistic landscape and spew out works of their own that further decorated the texture of a fleeting age of impossible marvels. And all that time, there I was, left on the sidelines, interested in many things but passionate about none, and lacking the motivation to really work to pursue anything at all. It was (and, honestly, still is) a state of existential discomfort similar to that sort of lonely-girl-pining, but doubtlessly far larger in scale. Some people had passion, while I had nothing to show for all my years of being alive. For fuck's sake, there was so much stuff out there, and I barely could muster the motivation to even read any of it most of the time.

After a while, I started to feel like I was simply broken, like I was an empty person that didn't belong in the very world I loved living in. And while I think this might be a niche outlook and insecurity (although one represented, to my profound gratitude, in Masami), I think it's also how a lot of people think about love. Love is often portrayed as a feeling sparked entirely of instinct, one that, when a person truly feels it, will never cause them to make any mistakes or do anything fucked up to those they care about. Something that will drive those bolstered by it to impossible heights, improve lives beyond the sorrow and loneliness to which they are otherwise condemned. But, as Kayako learned and as Masami and I are having to find out, that isn't really the whole story.

Expression is love. Love is process. Therefore, expression is also the labor of putting love through a process, of rigorously trying to get your ass in a seat and put in the steps of putting your feelings into form. As this is required of art, so is it required of relationships. And so the two are a cycle. Creation requires emotions to process; relationships require emotions to be processed. And the love that creation inspires feeds itself into the love for others that inspires the emotion to fuel more creation. A Labor of Love. Again, I know I'm New.

But this is what Kayako has been working up to all movie long, first with her silence, then with some words, then with the labor of painting, the iteration of getting better, then with more words again. She has found a slow cycle that is elevating her above her loneliness, a cycle that Masami helped create, and is welcome within, but that can, if need be, exist without her.

Love, labor, process. Expression, creation, process. Creating, processing, choosing...in the end, to do it all again. To stay with what--and who--you have labored to love. And that is the choice Kayako has made.

I have not yet answered what, after thinking and writing about this movie for days on end, might be the substance that can replace loneliness as fuel for the alchemical cycle of emotional taking and giving. By the end of the lovers' reunion, sitting by the road under the slowly-illuminating blue of a haphazardly-clouded dawn sky, Masami doesn't feel like she has an answer, either. She feels small and hollow, manipulative and weak. She's jealous of the coping strategy her own girlfriend has developed to deal with the effects of her bad behavior. So, in the end, what is she? What is there even left for Kayako to love?

I'll be honest, this feeling is so fucking real I get perilously teary every time I think about it. Because, for as much as I mused about Kayako's feelings resonating with me as a former and sometimes girl-piner, when it comes to my current relationship at age 22, it's Masami in whom I see myself most clearly and brutally. It's hard not to when she is the only representation in romance, let alone in yuri, I have seen so far who is as much of a fucking brat as I am at times. Whose tendency to sabotage her own relationship makes it so asymmetric that what her girlfriend feels appears almost one-sided, but whose love is real all the same. If she lacks process, talent, maturity, mystique, if no one is ever going to be good enough for her, then what at all does she have left?

The answer to all of this is the thing that lies at the core of her being, that makes her who she is. The source of her potential to express herself, the starting point of a process yet to fully begin. It's hard to see, but it's there. Its what makes her Endou Masami. And its what Kirishima Kayako loves the most.

It's color. It's the thing at the core of creation that can't be described with words, that forms the motivation for any process. Its the vivid purple of a painted grape whose intentional creation transcends deception and nurtures discovery. It's the blue of a dawning sky whose light guides two girls in messy, lopsided love back into each other's arms. It's Kirishima Kayako. It's Endou Masami. It's what everyone has, and it's all anyone has.

It's the source of love, its process, and its object.

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Eventually, Kayako has to leave for Tokyo. That's the decision that's best for her, and its a decision that, for the time being, will leave Masami behind in the countryside, hard at work on the process of learning to love herself. At the end of the film, she sends Kayako one final piece of proof of who she is. It's a painting of sorts, recorded on VHS, composed not of oil but of compressed light and sound. Stylistically, as the camera zooms in, it begins to resemble less Renoir and more Rothko: at first, its the beach, then, simply the point of the horizon, the area where the sea and sky meet. Its raw, not quite processed, pure color, vibrant blue, filtered and compressed into chunky, washed-out 800x600.

By way of description, "this is all I can do."

For years, I've struggled to believe that my emotions, hindered by depression and self-sabotage, have any value at all. As someone for whom love, passion, and expression have always felt difficult, even putting my thoughts down on a page, let alone drawing, painting, composing, or directing, has always seemed impossible. Recently, though, I've grown a lot. I've found the beginnings of a process learned to accept its existence. Both this process, and all the loves that go along with it, are often uncomfortable. They are painful and brutal and blissful things into which to pour the labors of communication and the torments of understanding. I've learned to process discomfort for the sake of creation, to create for the sake of love. It sounds cheesy, but again, I can't help what I wanted to write about.

I hope you'll join me as I find more new things and tough feelings I love to process on this account. There's so much more I'd love to say about blue, just for starters. I could talk about my undying appreciation for the work of Mikako Ishikawa, or how the shots in this movie are so gorgeous and evocative that I'd seen many of them before in "Japan in the 00s" vibes compilations.

But, until then, this is all I can do.

#japanese film #japanese cinema #yuri #yuri manga #lgbtq films #teen romance #pining #film analysis #personal essay #blue (2002)#kiriko nananan #mumblecore #long reads

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