AHHHH ssreedeeer,
thank you so much for the new chapter, I have been longing for it for so long and it did not disappoint (just like always your writing never disappoints!( I know I’m a bootlicker but i mean it!!))
I loved how nosy Katara was this chapter, it’s annoying but really fun ( and realistic tbh)
I already can’t wait for the next chapter!
Oh man if you liked nosy Katara last chapter ,you’re going to enjoy this next one.
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God can hori be any more heavy handed with the "DONT YOU WANT TO BE NORMAL NORMAL NORMAL" bestie, shes drinking other kids blood, thats not just "not normal". This weird retcon thing is annoying, Idk why hed bother putting her backstory in when he didnt give much of a shit about it 😭
The thing is, I actually don't think trying to say Toga's blood drinking is normal is necessarily bad or something that can't be done well. Quirks are a major part of the world and the story overall--it's not that far fetched that blood drinking might be a normal thing a person with a Quirk would want to do. If people can accept people that can make explosions which could also be dangerous to kids and people (and very much was for Izuku) then it's not a huge stretch to accept that blood drinking for Toga is normal and she should be accepted as such.
The issue is that Hori didn't really make that the issue. I don't think he really sees it himself given how he wrote Mineta, but Toga's main problem and why shes not accepted is a matter of consent not because she's seen as a creep.
This is why her backstory doesn't work very well, besides the fact it's way to late and very short. Yes, her parents freak out about her Quirk and obsession with blood. The problem is that they don't freak out for zero reason and are the only ones who reject her.
No child should be drinking the blood of birds. Whether she killed it or not, birds carry many diseases and parasites harmful to people. Her father shouldn't have hit her (because, I guess he did even though it's poorly conveyed), but the shock given what she's doing is understandable. Especially if they think she killed it (which is weird, and suggests she might have done something they found disturbing before this or were bad parents regardless of her Quirk).
Then they yell at her because she's biting her finger bloody. That's self harm and something you would want to send a child to therapy for. Sure, the counselor didn't help, but it's not like they can give Toga what she wants.
That's hammered home when they yell at her again when she drinks another kids blood. Hori messes up and doesn't show us what happens so we don't know if she hurt this other kid, or if they were scared of her or if they were fine with it.
Just giving us a look at her parents reaction doesn't give us any idea how she was seen by her peers. Because of that it's hard to make the case that she was only rejected for her Quirk alone, rather then her actions. In fact the only time we see other students they say she was popular and well liked until she attacked a boy in the class.
Given how young she looks when her parents yell at her for sucking another kids blood, and the fact she fled school after she attacked her crush, it appears these were separate events. If that was the case people in her school might have already heard about her sucking a kids blood earlier, and clearly not cared. In the very least we have to assume they knew her Quirk involved blood because Hori doesn't make any suggestion that it was hidden.
And that's why the theme of acceptance and Toga being normal because blood drinking is a part of her falls flat. No one ever said shit about her Quirk ever, except for her parents in sparse flashbacks. Ochako never thinks her blood drinking is gross nor do any of the the other Heroes or class 1A students. Hell, Tenya doesn't even bad mouth Stain for drinking blood even though he hated the guy so much he wanted him dead. This doesn't make it seem like the world rejected her for her Quirk.
No, the entire problem is that Toga doesn't understand consent or boundaries. We never see her ever ask anyone, even as a kid if she can drink their blood (that would have been a better scene then her drinking birds blood imho) and get rejected and told off and bullied/ostracized for her desire. Which if that did happen would explain why she never asks again and feels no one will accept her.
And, you could blame her parents and the therapist for this, but I'd just wager Hori doesn't really grasp that consent is the issue here. Mainly because Ochako never addresses it in anyway, even though she does bring up Toga's crimes. She offers her blood to Toga for life, but does not say that difference between Toga drinking her blood as opposed to anyone else's is because she is giving permission.
In the end Toga doesn't learn anything and just gets what she wanted given to her. Maybe Hori will address this next chapter but it really should have been brought up sooner. That or he should have had Toga actually not be accepted what-so-ever and shunned by all her peers for her Quirk even before she attacked her crush.
And this is part of the reason I really don't like the queer reading of the chapter is because by doing so it is suggesting that queer people are dangerous. If we read Toga's blood drinking as the same as kissing--which she seems to say (though her expression while drinking blood suggests something more...problematic) then she has been going around kissing people against their will to fulfill her own needs. If we read this as queer, is the story not saying that repressed gay people will sexually harass people because they can't understand consent when they inevitably snap?
I'm not saying this was or is Hori's intent. I think it's pretty clear he just didn't see how big an issue of consent there was with Toga and her Quirk. He wanted it to be all about how she wasn't accepted as normal, but didn't put in the work of showcasing that well. He has a lousy track record with female characters getting way less attention and with his rush to finish on top of that, Ochako and Toga got screwed with a half baked climax. Unfortunately that's also left it with less then great implications if you think about it for a coupe of minutes.
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omg that tams update fucking INCREDIBLE I adore the role reversal of azulas hope in the avatar and zukos skepticism it makes me ache so much in my heart
also this is now me just gushing about how I love your characterization for the fire siblings just in an overall general sense, like I know it's probably not purposeful the autistic traits I get out of them, that really IS just how they are whether I read into it deeper or not lmao, BUT I STILL ADORE IT MORE THAN ANYTHING ESP FROM YOUR WRITING. LIKE YOU JUST GET IT SO MUCH I LOVE IT. Taking everything from social interactions at face value Zuko and responding very honestly abt it paired with very aware of everything Azula who expresses emotional attachments differently than others are my BELOVEDS thank you for them
im gonna be honest azula in particular ive mentioned a couple times in the tams outline that she's definitely got Something going on and it's v much the same canonically imo. like at the very least she's low-empathy but i definitely lean towards neurodivergent hcs with her and i think tams in particular highlights that (you'll understand later but to summarise briefly without spoilers we get a real recurring thing with azula of her treading on toes/hurting feelings without meaning to and getting very confused and not understanding social cues. it's written in her pov as her just not being used to being around so many people/people who aren't zuko when she's a low-empathy person anyway, but it can definitely be interpreted as autism). zuko also leans into this if you want him to but it's definitely azula i've focused it on
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there’s always a lot of characterization/backstory/worldbuilding that’s in the back of my head while writing that never explicitly makes it onto the page. a lot does, of course, because I don’t know how to shut up, but there’s always stuff that has a big influence on worldbuilding/characterization/etc. that just does not have a place on the page for whatever reason. thinking specifically about a lot of my Peggy backstory for Home right now, but it’s true for every character and every story, not to mention worldbuilding. a lot of what doesn’t make it explicitly onto the page is because it’s not very flattering to the character, but it’s still fundamental to my backstory. some of it’s because the character themselves will never think of it except in very specific ways that mean it doesn’t come out explicitly on the page, but like. it’s still THERE.
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(last one i promise) (SORRY FOR ALL THE ASKS) for felix!! how did you come to see catarina as a sister ?? whats your favorite thing to do together when theres free time ??
(IT’S ALRIGHT, ANYONE CAN ALWAYS SEND AS MANY ASKS AS THEY WOULD LIKE TO!)
Felix: “Taking some time off from your usual expeditions, are we? Well, it’s good to see you in good spirits.
To answer your first question, that.. took a bit of time. You know what I was like back at the academy, after all. I didn’t actually get to meet Catarina until partway through the year, since it was only then that we ended up in the same house, but.. I’ll admit she caught my attention pretty quickly. She’s never trained as often as me, but we ended up arranging to spar together a lot, and that’s really how things got started. I’d say we have quite similar ways of fighting, so that common ground helped us to build up a connection, and then.. we started talking about other things than training, somehow. I suppose it was just- refreshing, to have someone around who had such an outside perspective. She may have roots in Faerghus, but the fact she wasn’t raised there, or raised to uphold the same typical values the Kingdom prides itself on - or even anywhere else in Fódlan - meant that.. there’s a lot I felt I could talk to her about, in a way I just couldn’t with others. Also, she wouldn’t hesitate to give me a piece of her mind, or say what she thought about things. Not many others were like that, so it stuck out to me.
By the end of the year, it didn’t feel like we had developed the same dynamic I have with my friends - and I wouldn’t necessarily say it was any worse or better, it’s just.. there was something different about it. Maybe it’s because it was just something shared between the two of us, not a piece of a larger group setting. A closeness that almost seemed more natural, or permanent, than just friendship, even despite the much shorter time we’d actually known each other. What I mean by that is that.. Rina and I can talk about anything, and it’d never feel like what we had could just suddenly fall apart, no matter what we actually said to each other. In fact, I don’t know if we’ve ever fallen out in a serious way; we may bicker a lot over little things, but it’s always more playful than anything else - never as tense or able to suddenly escalate as it could be with others. So, that’s.. really where the whole “sister” thing started.
Oh, and for your second question - we still train together, a lot. Catarina prides herself on being a difficult opponent to strike, and I’m very familiar with that by this point, but it doesn’t make it that much easier to get a hit in on her. Sometimes it can feel like I’m fighting a mirage of myself when she’s more on the offensive, which.. is a strange feeling, but I think it’s good. She also keeps trying to help me with the magic side of things, which usually results in her taking a pile of books out of the library and dragging me somewhere to go read them with her until one of us gets bored. ..I’ll admit that seeing her own spellcraft in action has helped me gain a greater appreciation of magic than I used to have, but I’m still not close to her own proficiency. Then again, I know I’d overpower her if she wasn’t using magic, so me having greater physical strength can still be more useful than her balanced and more agile style. And, the magic I do know how to cast is already far above what most swordsmen could use or expect from me, so I still have the edge in most combat situations, even without being an expert.
I.. hope that all of this answers your questions. Feel free to stop by again if you want to ask more.”
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oh my GOD YOU FOUND IT!!!! HOW I THOUGHT IT WAS LOST FOREVER- bubububu TT thank you so much :(((((( it’s a lovely prompt and it makes me so emotional— thank you again :( you made me so happy
Not gonna lie I was worried when I arrived at Mayra's Tumblr prompt archive and had to search around thousands of stories! Thankfully, only two of them included the "waitress" key word, but I was worried I had to search around using my own mental images I had from reading it years ago haha
Even then, the whole prompt was set up in a pretty unconventional way, the ask was about Amy ignoring Sonic and making it harder for herself, but the actual story is a barrage of crushing emotions you feel while reading about Sonic leaving for 8 years and Amy actually growing bitter over his decision, only to find out he's back and have this big mess of conflicting emotions. Like, at a simple glance it wouldn't seem that complex, but holy cow it's still amazing.
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