#People see themselves in these characters and then they see the fandom dehumanize them via the same characters

[neon-moon-beam]

Not Again: Ableism Post-Teal Mask Edition

Hey, how about NOT being ableist towards Carmine and Kieran?

We've already dealt with N and Submas experiencing this since Gen 5's initial run, we've dealt with Volo and then Nemona, and definitely more but those are the big ones.

Lately there seems to be this tendency of people to want to diagnose every character and you don't actually need to give every single character an armchair diagnosis right out the gate. While representation is important and some characters have enough in their characterization to suggest an illness or disability, or even seem outright coded, not every character is, or needs to be. If a character strongly resonates with your experience with an illness or disability, that's one thing; many autistic people feel seen and validated by Submas, for example. But if you're grasping at straws or stretching a character's actions or situations to make them "fit" a diagnosis, it often comes across more as pathologizing characters rather than humanizing them. It's important to not only think about why you want to portray a character this way, but whether or not it fits with their characterization and if you're using it to show an accurate portrayal, or if you're just using it to excuse/dismiss their hurtful actions, or even demonize the character.

Spoilers for the Teal Mask DLC ahead. CW for ableism.

There's a huge difference between say, Submas who are so heavily autistic-coded you'd have a harder time arguing they aren't, and someone like Kieran who shows rejection sensitivity that may or may not be a symptom of something else, or Carmine, who appears explosive and a cruel bully, but it turns out her anger comes from places of worry as well as being angry about innocent people and Pokemon being wronged. Her decision to not tell Kieran they met Ogerpon was because she knew how much Ogerpon meant to him and how bad he would feel knowing he missed her. People have been quick to decide she has low or no empathy, when the game literally shows her having a lot of it! We also don't know Carmine and Kieran's whole stories yet. We're going to see them at Blueberry Academy next (and Kieran does tell the player that Carmine does everything for him there, which is a reason he wants to get stronger). We don't know why they're going to school there, if they have friends there or a community or if they’re outcast and bullied, or where their parents are. Their attitudes, actions, or even potential symptoms may be situational. Carmine certainly appears to be acting out to the threat of her hometown being overrun by tourists (and considering how tourism tends to impact places and its locals IRL, can you blame her?) Kieran has the conflicting situation of his sister looking out for him at school for reasons we haven’t seen yet, while also verbally cutting him down. He also identified with Ogerpon even before the player arrived at Kitakami, and maybe even projected onto her for a reason. There’s a potential for a lot to be going on here without either of them needing an instant armchair diagnosis before their story arcs are complete.

A character desperate for friends doesn't necessary indicate a personality disorder, especially when their backstory is that they were left out, bullied, or even considered an outsider to a degree in the town they grew up in. Someone like Nemona or Kieran wanting to have friends after experiencing a lot of rejection and isolation doesn't instantly mean they have a personality disorder, and even if the story ended up indicating that they did, that does not give anyone the excuse to write them as "scary" or "yandere". Personality disorders are complex in potential causes and how they manifest, and using them as shorthand to write a character being a "yandere" or abusive is ableist.

And once again, it is time to bring up the subject of “feral” or “unhinged”. Whether or not Carmine has anger issues that can be given a diagnosis or Kieran has a personality disorder or anything else that can be diagnosed doesn’t matter here. Making characters “scary and unhinged” for experiencing basic human emotions is…dehumanizing. When you decide Carmine should snap and go around hurting people, you actually sound just like the people in Kitakami who are ostracizing her and whispering behind her back, making her feel like she has no place in her own community. And the same with Kieran. The last scene of the storyline in Kitakami has him vowing to defeat the player. It comes off as a bit creepy, but it doesn’t mean he’s supposed to have been a creep all along or is turning into one; from a developer/storytelling perspective, it’s literally just creating suspense for the Indigo Disk story. While Kieran is shown to be rejection sensitive, jealous, self-isolating, and at times inconsiderate (Carmine had to remind him that Ogerpon’s feelings on who she should travel with mattered too), he’s also a kid. We don’t have an exact age, but my impression was he might be a bit younger than the player. Carmine does mention him having “teen angst” but it could be a joke as she herself is a teen claiming to be over it, and it could be one of those “older kid jokes about younger kid as though older kid is an elderly person” type of jokes. But if he is a teen, he’s a younger one, and he still has a lot to learn about managing his emotions and expressing himself constructively. Nobody is always mature about that at 13 (heck, there are adults who lack emotional maturity altogether). He shouldn’t be expected to react maturely every time to things that upset him, and he shouldn’t be pathologized or considered “unhinged” every time he doesn’t. Depicting him as “unhinged” also detracts from his positive traits that we see in conjunction with, or even in spite of his negative ones. He’s jealous of the player character’s strength and skill, but he doesn’t actually resent them, despite becoming obsessed with the idea of defeating them. Ogerpon was bonding more with the player, but he still decided to help with the situation with the masks and the Lousy Three. He’s jealous that Ogerpon wanted to go with the player, but he’s still happy for both of them. It’s much more likely that we’ll see him mature as a person and recognize his own strengths independent of Carmine and the player at the end of the Indigo Disk then see him become a “madman consumed by jealousy and pursuit of power”, because Pokemon doesn’t really tell stories like that, and certainly not with non-villain characters! And if Carmine and Kieran end up fitting a diagnosis for an illness or disability, continuing to depict them as “unhinged” based on those traits is very ableist. I and others have said it in regards to Submas so many times, but it’s true for other characters too.

And this is by no means an exhaustive list of examples of the ways people are being ableist after the Teal Mask DLC has released.

With all that said, a headcanon diagnosis doesn’t excuse a character’s actions that have hurt others, and neither does a character who’s acting out is situational. Carmine still lashes out at Kieran and hurts him, even when her intentions are to protect him. Kieran still ended up causing the revival of the Lousy Three and put the player and Ogrepon in an uncomfortable situation, and will likely put the player in an uncomfortable situation at Blueberry Academy. In the end, they’re characters being portrayed with virtues and flaws, and that humanizes them much more than slapping on a diagnosis and absolving them of every hurtful action, and certainly much more than slapping a diagnosis on them and in turn using it to demonize them. And if you’re really interested in writing characters with mental illnesses and/or disabilities, and especially if it’s not based on your own experiences, you need to do some actual research, not just watch a few short videos listing symptoms by a non-professional on the video app du jour. If you’re not sure where to look, Wikipedia articles cite their sources at the bottom of the article; you can read the page you’re interested in, but please check out the cited sources too!

Sadly, this is at least the third time in just under three years that people have immediately started depicting characters introduced, or reintroduced in Pokemon, in ways that have ended up becoming ableist. It’s disappointing and disheartening to see, and to be honest, it gets tiring for those of us talking about the issue to keep talking about it. Many of the people making the ableist depictions aren’t personally affected by the issues they misrepresent, and they can just post their art or fic, and continue on their way. But for those of us who have the illnesses and/or disabilities being misrepresented, even misrepresented as entertainment, we can’t just log off and go on our way. The reality is a series, characters, or even fandom that could be our break from everyday life, and should be our refuge, instead has a fandom that  just plays out our everyday difficulties for laughs, brings up our trauma as an excuse to write a character as “haha unhinged! ooh feral!”, treats characters the way so many of us were treated by bullies, by parents and teachers who didn’t understand, and ends up alienating us from a space that should be ours, a space some of us helped build, only to have to leave as others made it unfriendly to us. It gets so tiring to have to avoid content that should be enjoyable but isn’t, to have friends ask, “Is this really how others see me?” when yet another autistic-coded character is portrayed as unhinged and creepy, or to have them tell you how yet another fic or art dehumanized them via their favorite characters, to watch people describe a character the way your peers once described you as they made fun of or ostracized you for your neurodivergence. It’s tiring to have other fans of the same series make a space alienating, inaccessible, or even antagonistic towards you, instead of fostering community.

Come on people, please do better.

Thank you for reading my post and your consideration. And if you think other people would benefit from reading this, please give it a reblog. Likes don't do anything as tumblr has no real algorithm.

#cw: ableism #I'm neurodivergent but not autistic and I'm tired of seeing the ableism impact my friends and community so negatively #People see themselves in these characters and then they see the fandom dehumanize them via the same characters #carmine pokemon #kieran pokemon #teal mask dlc

[dueling-jesters]

What are your thoughts on women romanticising or fetishising gay men via shipping. And when you draw the line when this happened. (Sorry for bad english)

Anyone who's been following me since I started this blog knows that I'm personally annoyed with the fetishization of gay people that has run rampant in fandom spaces for decades. Shipping on its own is completely fine, but I think it becomes something of an issue when people use it to implement harmful stereotypes or to hurt someone directly.

One way I often see is when some people will take two male characters and change their appearance and personalities to project heteropatriarchal standards upon them, essentially turning them into a stand-in for an abusive straight couple. This is, of course, an extreme example.

One related form of it is,via headcanon, the association of body type, personalities, and sexual positions (i.e., making the shorter or curvier male character more feminine, weak, and submissive). This oftentimes overlaps with fandom racism (making a darker-skinned character aggressive and abusive) and transphobia (people who have a trend of making all of their transmasculine-headcanoned characters soft, submissive bottoms exclusively paired with cis-male-headcanoned characters).

One of the most obvious indicators of someone doing this is if they are obsessed over whoever is the top and who is the bottom in a way that's one step from asking "But who really is the guy and who's the girl in the relationship?". This becomes incredibly apparent when a multishipper exclusively headcanons submissive/feminine bottoms and dominant/masculine tops, devoid of any variety or versatility. It's a telltale sign that someone may not care what gay people are actually like in reality.

This doesn't necessarily mean that top and bottom headcanons are inherently fetishizing, but rather, when there is an amalgamation of it being a fandom member's main priority in shipping alongside reinforcing heteronormative stereotypes.

I personally think it's fine for someone to be primarily focused on shipping characters in fandom. It's extremely common for lgbt+ fans to project their experiences onto characters or to otherwise feel connected to them through shipping-even if they're of a different gender/ orientation. (Cisgender, heterosexual fans can be avid shippers as well without harming gay people!) A fan lusting over a character and shipping through projection is not inherently problematic, either. Perhaps my stance is biased as I am guilty of both. There could be a grey area or situations that may seem suspicious if taken out of context.

The perpetrators of fetishization are not exclusively women, nor should they be blamed for it as a whole. Just as some gay people are homophobic, and some trans people are transphobic, there are occasionally members of our community who treat gayness and/or transness as an "othering" quality- whether they separate themselves from the rest of us in doing so, or if it's a form of internalized bigotry.

There are, of course, plenty of cisgender, heterosexual men who display a similar, dehumanizing attitude towards lesbians and bisexual women - whether through media or in-person. In its entirety, this is not a fandom-exclusive phenomenon.

Fetishizing behavior has been weaponized in harassment and abuse towards gay people. Essentially, the preconceived bigotries and assumptions one may have fuel harmful stereotypes cast upon fictional characters, which in turn reinforce one's beliefs and can result in one holding the same assumptions about actual people. I won't go into much detail, but I have personally experienced and witnessed sexual harassment from self-proclaimed allies and fellow members of the lgbt community due to fanfiction-influenced mindsets.

In many aspects, I think the fetishization of gay men in fandom runs parallel to the patriarchal gaze prevalent in similar spaces - although it can absolutely converge at times. It can definitely make someone who would otherwise participate as a fan, or even as a shipper, feel alienated.

#ace's answers #thanks for sending this ask in! #although i am curious to if there was anything specific that prompted you to ask me this? #i hope my answer makes sense! i have many thoughts on this topic but it was difficult to coalesce all of them together into a solid respons #long post #this might completely go over the heads of some... #others may be too scared to interact with this post for they know themselves very well to be crossing the line

[eelfuneral]

I’ve noticed that things are getting rather tense in the TBB fandom with regards to shipping and Tech as of late, and I’m seeing a lot of really common autism-related sex and romance myths getting parroted as arguments. I figure that it’s high time I (an autistic person myself) created a myth-busting master post to debunk and challenge these assumptions.

Disclaimer: I am not trying to tell anybody what they should or should not ship. I don’t care who (if anyone) you want to see with Tech. This post is 100% about debunking stereotypes, nothing more.

Myth: Autistic adults are basically children who should be shielded from sex and romance. Tech is “too neurodivergent” to be in a relationship.

Fact: Autistic adults are adults, and many of us date, fall in love, and get married. In fact, autism is thought to be at least partially genetic, and the fact that autistic people keep turning up is proof that autistic people are reproducing. It’s not uncommon for parents to take their children in for an autism evaluation and find out that they are autistic themselves!

The suggestion that autistic people are too innocent and child-like to experience romance is one rooted in infantilization, which is a rampant and dehumanizing problem that IRL autistic adults have to contend with. Tech is a grown man with a receding hairline and lines on his face. He has seen war and likes to get drinks at the bar. He is very much an adult who is capable of making his own decisions.

Myth: All autistic people are aromantic an/or asexual.

Fact: There are plenty of ace, aro, and aroace autistics, but there are also plenty of allistic (non-autistic) people who are one or all of the above as well. Autistic people have a wide variety of sexual and romantic orientations just like everyone else!

Headcanoning Tech as aroace is not a bad thing and can be a very wonderful and validating experience for aroace fans, but him being autistic does not mean that this is the only romantic/sexual orientation that people are “allowed” to give him via headcanon. He could potentially be given any number of romantic and sexual orientations by fans, and him being autistic doesn’t take anything off of the table! You’ve still got a whole buffet to select from!

Myth: Autistic people can only date other autistics, therefore you shouldn’t ship Tech with [insert character here].

Fact: Autistic people can and do have relationships with allistic people. I’ve dated allistic people and know autistics who are married to them, so it certainly happens IRL. It isn’t “creepy” to pair Tech up with a character that may not be autistic, you’re fine.

Related Reading:

Note: blanket trigger warning for some discussion of sexual violence, particularly in the last linked article.

The infantilization of autistic people on TikTok needs to stop

Infantilizing Autism

Opposing Forces?: Autism and Dating, Romance, and Sexuality in the Mainstream Media

‘We are seen as big children’ :People with disabilities are sexually active too

#tbb Tech #disability stuff

[masterthespianduchovny]

Although there is critique to be made about Anthony, fans need to take accountability and responsibility for how they engage with media. As absurd as that sounds, I need people to actually listen.

I just read a tweet that said, "How rude of the actor. I clung to ships when I was in the closet Bc I craved representation. so glad Mark gets it, he a truly good ally."

This is what I meant yesterday when I said fans will dehumanize actors (to further their own goals).

"How rude?"

What is rude about Mackie wanting better m/m platonic relationships represented on screen? What? Because a person is no longer able to vicariously live through the character they're representing or who a fan paired them with?

It's the entitlement for me.

And that may sound wrong to say about the LBGTQ community, but there are levels to this shit when you add race to it, especially when they add in Mark Hamill. Mark was just portraying a character--one he cared about, but he wasn't trying to help influence the perception and dynamics of a group.

As a lead, Anthony wants to allow black men to have platonic relationships with other male characters without it being sexualized or romanticized because, let's be honest, most male friendships on screen (and many in real life) are toxic. If this person can get validation from fictional characters being gay, doesn't that say a black kid or black man can get validation from seeing a fictional black man be vulnerable and have close relationships with other male characters without it being sexual?

It's not like these fans cared about Sam until it was time to pair Bucky with a new man and now it's the responsibility of these actors to reinforce these fans' head canons???

Like, I completely fucking get where people are coming from at times with these criticisms, however, fandom and actors/crew were NEVER supposed to mix like this. I don't know if it's because of the increasing popularity of cons or the accessibility of people apart of the given show or movie, but the idea that actors and crew can't speak their mind thus them being "rude" for clarification and explaining the narrative is bonkers.

Head canons are GREAT! But when you're seeking validation from some form of media for representation that they've never indicated they're setting up, you've set yourself up for failure. How is anyone disappointed that Mackie said, "These are two men who are close, but it's not romantic--it's platonic."

Back then, fans fully embraced the fact that our shit wasn't canon and we were fine with that. Like, yeah, there is a lot of nuances and shit. I get that, but this entitlement in trying to dictate the narrative and color everything as queer baiting is wild as fuck and diminishes actual queer baiting.

I literally spoke to someone who said queer baiting is whatever a queer person thinks it is and that is wrong. This take completely muddles the meaning of queer baiting and, consequently, decontexualizes everything to give power to fan meaning. As a result, this is why some fans are upset when they faves they've coded as a gay man ends up with a woman. They've spent so much time ignoring canon and living in their own reality that when the show actually addresses romance, it feels homophobic to them.

Queer baiting is intentional for the most part. And if someone is always going with their meaning of something, they're going to think someone is "rude" and see anything in contradiction to their beliefs as homophobia.

There is this huge dishonesty about what goes on in the community and acting as if fans are always on their best behavior. Regardless if its m/m, m/f, or f/f fans can and have harassed actors about their ships. Fans have behaved poorly. Fans aren't telling these actors about these ships in a wink wink sort of way or just sharing something, they're constantly seeking out validation and, in return, are trying to influence the narrative. And when that doesn't happen, "WE WERE QUEER BAITED!!!"

These actors, writers, and show runners are being put in an impossible position. If they don't validate a fan's feelings, "they're rude and homophobic." Then if they keep with their narrative that doesn't support the fan interpretation, "They're rude and homophobic." If the validate the fans feelings and stay on course, its queer baiting. "But they said they shipped x and y!!!"

That twitter user projected their personal struggle onto Mackie and made him responsible for their feelings. In the process, she completely disregarded his personhood as a black person. And that's the shit I'm talking about.

If people truly understood that how you interact with media in a non canon way is your personal relationship that no one can interfere on, most wouldn't be upset by Mackie's words. Because shit that happens in fandom has shit all to do with canon most of the time.

One last point, for those who keep claiming that this was just an innocent little fandom thing that Mackie shat on, shall I remind y'all of Endgame???

People convinced themselves that Steve and Bucky were going to end up via a subtle nod and were mad as fuck when Steve ended up with Peggy. There was literally nothing to support this idea except head canons and actors going the Mark Hamill route of supporting fan feelings. After Endgame, their was fucking articles and pissed off fans because they were "queer baited", despite literally nothing in the narrative supporting this.

People can talk about tropes for days, yet a prime example of the MCU doing whatever the fuck they want is Steve and Natasha. You can lay out all the tropes you want, but they didn't go down that route. After having them kiss, change in front of each other, run away together several times, imply Steve had a hard on due to Natasha, etc THEY NEVER TOUCHED ON THEM ACTUALLY BEING TOGETHER. In literally the next movie after winter soldier, Natasha gets involved with Bruce.

They're always presented as good friends who genuinely care about each other.

It's fine if people ship Sam and Bucky. It's fine to want the MCU to actually explore their dynamic. What is not fine is to disregard and ignore canon to peddle your fantasies, and then claim you were baited because you didn't like the outcome.

The fandom at large can be so fucking dishonest and that shit is so appalling.

#Anthony mackie #sam wilson

[neon-junkie]

Hey everyone,

This will be my final post addressing the fandom conflict that has quite frankly gotten out of hand. Although it’s very likely this post will be picked apart, no matter how well intended it is, I will no longer be addressing, interacting, or responding to any further accusations made against me. Of course, if people have questions from a genuine place of interest, I will be happy to clarify anything for you, either via DM’s or non-anon asks. I will not be answering anonymous asks on this, as I do not want anything else posted on this topic. 

As a side note: For anyone tempted to wade into the debate, I sincerely ask you not to get involved. Do not make yourself a target, do not feel you need to ‘pick a side’, and please do not think you have an obligation to reason with either side. It seems to be well past the point of that, so please find people you get along with in this fandom and curate a space for yourself away from all this conflict.

Warning: This post will contain uncensored slurs, mentions of racism, paedophilia, transphobia, LGBTQ+ phobia, death threats, threats of violence, targeted harassment, and abusive language.

To start off, I want to apologise to everyone who has somehow gotten drawn into this mess by either defending me, following me, or interacting with my content. This whole situation with me began well over a year ago when I wrote a crack-smut fic featuring Javier/Micah, posted back in August 2019. A crack fic is defined as “a work of fan fiction that is absurd, surprising or ridiculous, often intentionally.” It was inspired by a camp interaction between Micah and Javier, and like many other fanfiction writers, I decided to write smut about it. The fic was titled ‘Dirty Fucking Greaser’, and if that shocks you, I’m sure you can imagine how shocked I was to be informed afterwards that ‘Greaser’ was in fact a very serious 19th century slur for a Mexican individual. My first encounter with this word as insult was via RDR2, where it was used like a very casual insult. My only prior knowledge of this term was in regards to the greasers youth subculture, so the severity was lost on me. This obviously does not excuse my ignorance, and I should have researched the term better, but this is just again to apologize for that oversight, the insensitivity, and to highlight that my use of this term was not meant maliciously. Following this being pointed out, I proceeded to make 3 separate apology posts [Unfortunately I can only find the third one: HERE], renamed the fic, and added slur warnings in both the tags and the fic description. When I continued to receive complaints and increasingly aggressive abuse (which included being told my apologies weren’t good enough and I should delete my account and even kill myself), I attempted to delete the fic and mistakenly abandoned it instead. I contacted AO3 to see if it could be removed, but they said there was nothing they could do. I contacted their DMCA takedown team, who also said they couldn't remove it. Please note that all this happened 7-8 months ago, and has been dragged on for almost a year. 

So, from this one unfortunate incident, I’ve been branded a racist, and someone who attacks POC, when all I have done is tried to defend myself and correct my past mistakes. I could have done this more gracefully in the past, but frankly when you’re suddenly the target of unrelenting callout posts and nasty anons, it’s very hard to be open to criticism of this sort, but this is what I’m trying to move past.

Over the course of the year, this one mistake has spiralled, and the crusade against me has somehow coincided with moral conflicts over certain characters and ships. This has devolved into dehumanizing abuse, witch hunts, death threats, doxxing, anon hate, and much more unpleasant behaviour.

I have been in fandom for a very long time, and at the heart of all fandom circles is the fear of censorship and subsequent purges, so the ‘ship and let ship’ mentality was more or less the pinnacle of fandom philosophy. And yes, this can be problematic in some contexts. People have their right to be uncomfortable with content, have a right to be offended by content, but that is not content meant for you. This argument has devolved into ‘what material is morally right to engage with’ and that is a mentality in which fandom will not survive, because for every person who is telling me I’m an awful person for writing about Micah, there are three other people telling me how much they appreciate me making that content. For every fic in which I characterize Javier and Flaco a certain way, some people are made uncomfortable by it and others tell me they enjoy it. And this isn’t just white people, but POC too, which makes it very difficult to know whether I am genuinely in the right or the wrong, especially when it comes to the concept of ‘fetishization’ which I have been made aware I need to educate myself on. I intend to do so, but I disagree with the common accusation that finding non-white men romantically and sexually attractive is inherently fetishistic and makes me racist. It’s pushing a catch-22; don’t find POC sexually attractive? Racist. Find POC sexually attractive? Racist.

I am always willing to be (politely) approached about anything my readers may be concerned about, but if it’s something I’ve specifically tagged for (such as themes, scenarios, etc.) I’m afraid you consented to reading it and with that I cannot help you. You are just as responsible for curating your space and what you see/read just as much as I am responsible for tagging it appropriately.  

On the topic of racism, I want to bring up my prior use of ‘white racism’ which has obviously been a point of contention among both white and people of colour. The (literal) black vs white concept of racism is incredibly American-centric, and as someone from Europe, which has a history of oppression against white cultures and those of people of colour, it feels inaccurate. However, this has recently been discussed with me and I came to the realization that while growing up, especially in the UK, ‘xenophobia’ and ‘racism’ were marketed as one and the same. So, with this little revelation in mind, I will no longer be using ‘white racism’ (Or ‘reverse racism’) to identify the abuse I have been receiving, but will instead call it by what it really is; dehumanizing, debasing, xenophobic, puritanical.   

Very briefly, I will also touch on the NewAustin situation, which has also been dredged into this. I did not ‘chase a POC from tumblr’. NA was a minor who for some reason was on my 18+ blog and took issue with me, likely from the ongoing discourse regarding my fic and initial mistake, as well as my interest in Micah. They were subsequently harassed into deleting their account by anonymous hate following various conflicts with other users for their support of me or their ships in general. I have never encouraged my followers to target anyone, and have always asked to be blocked and blacklisted by those who do not like me or my content. When NewAustin messaged me following the deletion of their blog, I was admittedly indifferent to the point of being unkind, and accused them of sending the hate themselves. This was based on the anon hate being racially-driven without there being any prior knowledge or publication that NA was a person of colour. This aside, I should have at the time, whether I believed it was my followers or not, condemned this behaviour. Regardless of the issues I’ve had with these people, it is never ever ok to send hate to anyone, no matter the motivation behind it, and that should have been stated at the time.

All I can do at this point is acknowledged and apologize for my past mistakes, and try to improve myself going forward.  

It is not my place to dictate the morals of the character/ship-aspect of this argument, and I am not interested in waging a war of opinion. This post is simply to clarify how I am involved in this, and why I am so viscerally targeted. You can draw your own conclusions, but I am no longer interested in this endless back and forth.

To my mutuals/followers, I stand by my request to not interact and to block and move on, as this is what I’ll be doing too.

Thank you for taking the time to read this, and I hope it makes things from my perspective a little clearer.

-RAT <3

EDIT: Just after this post was made, the fic in question was finally removed. I had to go through a DMCA take down, which can take months, since I originally abandoned the fic, thinking that meant delete. I explain this in more detail above. Said fic is gone, and has been gone since this post has been around.

#the tea #apology #long post

[stillness-in-green]

Thoughts on Chapter 314 (and surrounding events)

Being a loose summary of several things I thought about in relation to the leaks, what they say about the series as a whole, a bit of new operating headcanon on the Peerless Thief, and a dash of how fandom is responding to the revelations. Spoilers, obviously.

This chapter makes it quite clear that the HPSC absolutely would have gone in and eliminated the PLF quietly, lethally, and wholly unlawfully if Hawks hadn't reported back the numbers that he did. The only reason the raid involved non-Commission-affiliated heroes at all is because the PLF's manpower was simply too much for the Commission to deal with via their usual methods. I'm both appalled that the disregard for human rights in HeroAca Land is somehow even worse than I thought it was and smug that that tiny little piece I recently posted criticizing the PLF's treatment has turned out to be totally justified and supported by the canon.[1] (Note that this does not absolve Horikoshi of the responsibility to, himself, treat the PLF better than paper dolls tossed into the incinerator of Plot Irrelevance when they cease being convenient to his story.) The fact that the Commission was forced to involve heroes might mean Re-Destro, Mr. Compress and the others are somewhat safer than might otherwise be the case. Because of the involvement of the unsuspecting stooges law-abiding heroes, and because the botched raid became such a huge disaster, there’s far more public scrutiny on this than would otherwise be the case. Of course, "accidents" can still happen,[2] especially in a chaotic environment, but the factors above (combined with Clone!RD murdering the bejeezus out of the Lady Prez) do, I think, suggest that there probably isn't an organized push for quick solutions going on behind closed doors.

I don't think Nagant has been around for a terribly long time or that there was an uptick in vigilantism in recent years—I think the scene where she mentions vigilantes becoming accepted as heroes is just in reference to the early history of heroism. It's in keeping with what Tsukauchi Makoto described in Vigilantes, and forms the basis of the current system—the current system that Nagant was a single cog in a big machine grinding away to preserve.

Speaking of Nagant and the system, it's interesting to me that one of the groups Nagant apparently targeted at the HPSC's behest was corrupt heroes—those who colluded with villains or specifically goaded/incited civilians into using their quirks illegally, thus turning civilians into capital-V Villains in the eyes of the law. One might easily say that targeting corrupt heroes (albeit using a much broader definition of "corrupt") was Stain's whole shtick, but it actually puts me more in mind of the Peerless Thief, Harima Oji. Harima punished greedy or corrupt heroes with theft, and presumably with a measure of declaration and exposure,[3] then distributed their money back to the streets. Someone who ridicules those who abuse their power, and gets away with it for long enough to build a reputation: that right there is a recipe for a folk hero. The HPSC, in whatever form they existed at the time, obviously couldn't let that go on—such repeated humiliations would weaken peoples’ faith in (and obedience to) the system the HPSC was trying to build. At the same time, though, it would also weaken faith in the system to openly acknowledge that system's flaws, to acknowledge that some pretty awful people had found their way into the heroics business specifically for the power and ability to abuse it that the title of Hero afforded them. Public trials would make it a matter of record that some heroes—and, accordingly, heroes at large—did not deserve the public's unquestioning faith. Obviously in a system that was built from the ground up on faith, that was unacceptable. And so Harima was branded a supervillain for exposing the system's flaws, while the corrupt heroes who embodied those flaws to begin with were—and continue to be—quietly disposed of at the HPSC’s discretion.

There's a lot of talk around about how Lady Nagant is stupid, or hypocritical, or delusional, or whatever other dismissive adjective people want to use, because she expresses a preference for AFO's rule over the HPSC's. Firstly, I think it's dubious Lit Crit to fault a character for not being a Paragon of Rationality, especially when they're under the cascading stressors Nagant has been under since she was, what, 13? 14? Forced to live this dichotomy of smiling gallant hero and ruthless covert assassin, had her life threatened by the man who'd taken her in,[4] probably dumped in Tartarus until such time as her trial could be held,[5] and kept in those ghastly, dehumanizing conditions for who knows how long? How shocking, that her objectivity might be somewhat compromised! Secondly, it's not like she's saying that AFO's rule would be a sunny walk in the park. The kanji she uses doesn't even mean "better"; while it can mean serene or tranquil, her more likely meaning is clear/transparent. Her phrasing indicates that she's aware it would be pretty bad; she's simply of the opinion that at least his rule wouldn't be a sham, a pretty lie. It would be bad, but everyone would know it. No one would have these comforting illusions they could lose at any time; if you stepped out of line and got shot in the head by an assassin, well, at least you would probably know you that being defiant was running that risk, rather than never seeing it coming because you'd been told all your life that Heroes Didn't Do That To People. Again, this is a woman whose life was shattered no less than three times by the duplicity of the highest acting authority in this comic.[6] She doesn't have to be Objectively Correct By The Standards Of Ethical Utilitarianism—nor do you have to agree with her choice that because she doesn’t want to live in the Matrix, no one else should get to either—for her opinion to make sense from her own perspective! Thirdly, while I think it's fair to say that the HPSC and AFO actually use fairly similar methods to recruit followers and punish dissenters, we have no idea how much Nagant herself knows about AFO's recruitment tactics other than her own brief experience of it. And while AFO is a controlling and manipulative bastard, at least in his case it's coming from a man who openly styles himself as a Demon King, not an organization positioning itself as lawful regulators of the protectors of society at large while secretly training child soldiers to flagrantly violate every law protecting the human rights and due process of that society's people.

Overhaul's presence is delightful, and yes, he is a victim of Hero Society, if only because Hero Society could have put him in some kind of prison-based rehab facility after Shigaraki was through with him, but chose to dispose of him in Tartarus instead, for absolutely no justifiable cause. I suspect it's only due to Horikoshi not being very interested in the harsh realities of the trauma caused by enforced isolation[7] that Overhaul is the only Tartarus escapee that talks to himself and has dissociated from reality almost completely. Overhaul's maiming was not the fault of Hero Society, nor did Hero Society force him to torture Eri and repeatedly commit cold-blooded murder. But his madness? Yeah, I'm pretty comfortable laying that one at Hero Society's feet, actually. I can’t wait for Deku to have to face the victim that Chisaki Kai has become due to levels of systemic cruelty and negligence that really ought to be criminal—and which, if this were real life, would be.

--------Lately, footnotes are really popular with us!--------

[1] Lady Nagant: *talks about how the Hero Society everyone believes in is illusory, a thin fake over a brutal reality, and that returning to the false simplicity of that status quo will only cause history to repeat itself* Me, two weeks ago: Hero Society will never stop creating its own villains so long as, every time it fails people, it does nothing but shrug and write off the victims as unavoidable, inevitable sacrifices for the greater good.

[2] Yes, I'm still highly suspicious of the "Destro committed suicide in prison" claim.

[3] Compress tells us Harima “preached reformation,” but regardless, you don’t dress up in a modified kabuki costume and waltz midair through nighttime cityscapes raining cash out of the sky if you’re trying to keep your activities a secret.

[4] And her family situation couldn't have been much better than Hawks', if she was targeted by the HPSC to begin with. I would guess she was an orphan in the childcare system, easy to move from whatever alternative care arrangement she was in, be it an orphanage, a group home, or simply mature enough despite her relative youth that she lived alone on government support payments—that kind of thing isn't as unbelievable in Japan as it is in the U.S.—to the HPSC's care.

[5] And given what we learned between this chapter and 297, I doubt she was even allowed to be present for it. Japanese law states that everyone by default is supposed to be present for their own trial, but as in the U.S, that right can be waived if the defendant proves themselves to be a threat to the safety of the judge, court staff and other attendees. And of course, what a threat the HPSC could have painted her as being!

[6] At least until Hori deigns to show us a damn Diet session.

[7] To say nothing of the physical consequences of spending six months stuck in a tiny room with no natural light while frequently being strapped into a straitjacket, of which there should also be several.

#bnha spoilers #bnha 314 #boku no hero academia #hero public safety commission #paranormal liberation front #harima oji #lady nagant #overhaul bnha #my writing?