No matter how shitty it might feel in the moment, most of the time when someone comes to you to communicate a boundary or a need or a negative feeling about something you did, it is actually a compliment. They are telling you BECAUSE they care about you and want it to work between you and because they trust you to care to do better. If they didn't care about you, they'd just avoid you. That uncomfortable convo is in fact a declaration of love and trust. Or at least intention of friendship. If they didn't like you, they'd just try to avoid you whenever possible. They wouldn't care to have The Talk (which is often scary and uncomfortable for them also). So try to treat their trust with care, even if it really upsets you to learn that you've accidentally hurt them

Don't kill me for this but methinks maybe some people on tumblr do not know what a toxic relationship is both in fiction and irl. like I'm seeing people calling their ships "toxic yuri" or whatever because their relationship is tumultuous and has ups and downs or because the people involved got into a fight and hurt each other's feelings a couple times like....my liege that is just a normal relationship. In literally any kind of interpersonal relationship it is inevitable that you are going to hurt people sometimes and you're going to be hurt. You're going to disagree with people. You're going to do things wrong. That doesn't mean you're toxic or that your relationships are unsalvageable. That's just how people work. Like I'm starting to genuinely worry that people r gonna carry this attitude into their real lives and fuck themselves over because they think that their real relationships with other people aren't supposed to have any conflict or discomfort whatsoever and I feel like it ties into this weird hyper-individualism thing that tumblr has going on where people are not supposed to rely on each other or try to grow and have compassion for other people or it's "emotional labour"....babes relationships are supposed to take work. We work on ourselves for other people because we care about them. Take my hand it's okay you can do it

Why do I, as a Japanese person, enjoy creating Black characters?

To put it simply, I started creating Black characters because a Black fan once said to me, 'Thank you for creating Black characters beautifully. It's a simple reason, but those words really made me happy.

A foreign fan told me, "Japanese anime art and entertainment are racially discriminatory". As a Japanese illustrator, I had never heard such an opinion from Japanese people. This perspective was new to me.

If Japanese anime art and entertainment are perceived as racially discriminatory from an international perspective, then we as Japanese must face this issue.

Unfortunately, I have heard some Japanese people say, "If foreigners don't like it, they shouldn't watch Japanese entertainment. It's made for Japanese people". This is a foolish thought.

No matter how much they claim that Japanese entertainment is "just for Japan," the Internet has erased borders. Japanese art and entertainment are no longer just for Japanese consumers. Can we go against the tide of this era?

No, it's impossible.

Some understanding Japanese have said to me, appreciating my efforts to create ethnic diversity and racial differences, "If you continue to draw Black characters, maybe one day Japanese people will deepen their understanding of diverse racial representation and your work will be properly recognized.

I would be happy if one day I could draw beautiful Black characters in my work for Japanese clients and for foreign fans.

@moonisneveralone @positively--speculative @meanmisscharles

Once you become a certain age, it is your responsibility to unlearn behaviors that hinder your growth as a person.

Man I cannot stress this enough. The “this is how I am, take it or leave it” attitude is an act of immaturity. We all have toxic traits that we need to work on and as an adult it’s our responsibility to recognize the damage that they can do to the ones we love. We all need to put in more effort in becoming better individuals.

male gaze is not 'when person look sexy' or 'when misogynist make film'

death of the author is not 'miku wrote this'

I don't think you have to read either essay to grasp the basic concepts

death of the author means that once a work is complete, what the author believes it to mean is irrelevant to critical analysis of what's in the text. it means when analysing the meaning of a text you prioritise reader interpretation above author intention, and that an interpretation can hold valid meaning even if it's utterly unintentional on the part of the person who created the thing. it doesn't mean 'i can ignore that the person who made this is a bigot' - it may in fact often mean 'this piece of art holds a lot of bigoted meanings that the author probably wasn't intentionally trying to convey but did anyway, and it's worth addressing that on its own terms regardless of whether the author recognises it's there.' it's important to understand because most artists are not consciously and vocally aware of all the possible meanings of their art, and because art is communal and interpretive. and because what somebody thinks they mean, what you think somebody means, and what a text is saying to you are three entirely different things and it's important to be able to tell the difference.

male gaze is a cinematographic theory on how films construct subjectivity (ie who you identify with and who you look at). it argues that film language assumes that the watcher is a (cis straight white hegemonically normative) man, and treats men as relatable subjects and women as unknowable objects - men as people with interior lives and women as things to be looked at or interacted with but not related to. this includes sexual objectification and voyeurism, but it doesn't mean 'finding a lady sexy' or 'looking with a sexual lens', it means the ways in which visual languages strip women of interiority and encourage us to understand only men as relatable people. it's important to understand this because not all related gaze theories are sexual in nature and if you can't get a grip on male gaze beyond 'sexual imagery', you're really going to struggle with concepts of white or abled or cis subjectivities.

Friendly reminder that you’re under no obligation to love other people, whether they’re your parents, siblings, other family members or anyone you know.  Someone’s love is something you earn through experiences and time, not because someone is “titled” under a label that they’ve put themselves. You’re not forced to love anyone who you think doesn’t deserve that love.

hot take here but the way people talk about “redemption arcs” and how they require that the sinner repent, debase himself, and then atone for his sins in order to be accepted back into the warmth of readers’ love, but there are some unforgivable sins for which no atonement is enough

is INCREDIBLY culturally christian

Another fascinating thing about responses to this post: whether they’re agreeing with me or disagreeing, whether they think people’s insistence on this arc is good or bad, a huge portion of people use the word “forgiveness” and center their entire response to this post around it.

Please observe that I never once used the word “forgiveness” - although I should have, because the idea that forgiveness is a necessity for ceasing-to-be-a-sinner, and indeed that forgiveness is the primary goal, is itself christian.

I have at no point in the original post or in any of my further discussion of it said that the end goal, or even a significant feature of, a villain-to-hero arc was forgiveness.

Yet everyone who thinks this arc is indeed the only valid option phrases their arguments in terms like “Would you forgive someone who didn’t…”

Maybe I would - maybe I wouldn’t!  But I never said anything about forgiveness being a requirement!

And everyone who wants to tell me that Christians Don’t Think Like This, Actually, says it in terms of “But Jesus forgives everyone, all you have to do is repent and you will be forgiven.”  …okay great who says the characters need to be forgiven, why is it RELEVANT whether Jesus would forgive them or not - unless you’re operating in a Christian framework where God’s Forgiveness is a central feature of your belief system.

People who agree that yes, this is a culturally christian thing, and further believe that another form of arc would be superior, are saying “you should be able to just stop doing bad things and only do good things, and that should be enough for you to be forgiven” - okay you got the spirit but why do we have to be forgiven.

Forgiveness - as least as it is being used in this context - is someone else granting salvation to you.  It is someone else absolving you of your guilt.  It is you having shown someone else that you are worthy now, and them casting judgement upon you, and then agreeing that you are enough better than you were before.

Why does someone else get to sit in judgement and decide if you’re a good person now?  Who besides a god stands in that position of omniscience and moral superiority and moral infallibility?

What if a character chooses to end his life of villainy, anonymously transfer all his ill-gotten gains to those he harmed, and devote the rest of his life to curing cancer alone in a lab on a deserted island, finally releasing his cure anonymously on his deathbed.  No other character even has any idea this has happened; they all figure he just died or went into hiding.  No one has forgiven him.  Does that mean he’s still a villain?

What if all the other characters have hardened hearts for whatever reason, and no matter how much penance the ex-villain does, even if he only did one tiny bad act and then spent years in pain in punishment and then spent decades saving the world over and over at great personal cost, they will never, ever forgive him?  Does that mean he’s still a villain?

What if everyone he personally wronged died in an accident, he was the only survivor, it was that shock that caused his change of heart, so everybody he knows now loves him and knows him only as a hero, but the people he hurt can never forgive him?  Is he still a villain?

On the other side, if, say, a child continuously forgives their abusive parent, does that mean the parent isn’t a villain?

Forgiveness does not have a one to one correlation with goodness.  In either direction.

I am concerned that what people are doing is translating “…in order to be accepted back into the warmth of readers’ love” as “be forgiven by the readers” (which is not inaccurate, in terms of the christian framework) and then all agreeing that yes, that should indeed be the central goal of every villain-to-hero arc.  Which opens a WILD can of worms.

Because that means - We, as the readers, are in the position of gods to the characters, casting judgement upon them, looking into their hearts and deciding whether We will grant forgiveness to the characters for the wrongs they have done to others.

Like.  Aside from all the other implications.  At the point where you are granting someone forgiveness for something they did to someone else, something’s gone very wrong.  Assuming you’re not, in fact, actually yourself a deity.

But also for people to make translation of “…warmth of readers’ love” to “readers’ forgiveness” you have to already be assuming that we can’t love a character if we haven’t forgiven them for every wrong they’ve done.  And that wouldn’t even be true if they were a real person, and super duper isn’t true if they’re fictional.  I love my mother with all my heart.  I’ll also never forgive her for what she did to me and my brother.  Forgiveness and love are two separate emotional axes and one does not imply anything about the other.

Look.  Here’s some advice for actual real life.  You don’t need to forgive someone to let them participate in society.  You don’t need to forgive someone to love them.  And you DEFINITELY don’t need to forgive them for them to be a good person.  Whether they’re a good person is in their heart - not yours.

I’m still upset about Momo

…And it’s not about her outfit.

Okay so like.  I caught up in bnha recently, and it’s great and fun and much better than your run of the mill shonen. The characters are great and engaging, and all that, but I just want to make a comment about my gal momo:

And like, I know the subject of her outfit has been beaten to death, and that is definitely one of the things that pisses me off because it’s 100% designed to sexualize a 15-year-old, but that’s not even what has pissed me off the most.

It’s not even Mineta’s lecherous actions during the Tournament Arc, or even that stupid pointless cheerleader scene.

That’s all run of the mill genre grossness, and I hate it but it didn’t piss me off nearly as much as her internship:

For all intents and purposes, this is probably the most benign form of sexism Momo’s dealt with so far, but it struck a particular chord with me…and I honestly think it’s far more insidious than the more blatant displays.

So, basically, at the start of all this, Momo is reeling from a blow to her self esteem after the tournament arc, and signs on with a well known Pro Hero, Uwabami, for her internship. However, she and the other intern are quickly brought into Uwabami’s glamorous lifestyle, acting as PR people and background props in her commercial.

This is the first female-female mentorship that we see in an entire series about mentorship, and I was sorely, sorely disappointed.

I work in a male-dominated field, and let me tell you it is not a compliment to be told:

“Yes I know you’re smart and capable, but I don’t care. I hired you, first and foremost, for your pretty face.”

So here we have a brilliant 15-year-old girl, who is already struggling with her self-confidence, brought under the mentorship of a powerful and influential woman. And instead of creating a situation that would help foster these students, it’s instead communicated that none of their efforts really mattered. That it matters most that they look nice, and put on a show. And it’s played off as a joke, as though this is the way things are and it’s hilarious that Momo should hope for anything other than that.

The fact that it’s a female mentor figure sending these messages? It’s like a kick in the teeth.

And maybe at this point it seems like I’m hounding on a small plot point, and it’s true that I had an intense rush of empathy for Momo due to personal experience, but I think that here lies the core issue with sexism in BNHA. The concept of, “Yes you’re smart and capable, but I only hired you for your pretty face” is the recurring theme with almost every female lead.

Do any of the female characters get seriously beaten and battered in conflict, to the extent that we see happening to Deku? No.

Do any of the female characters have to face inner demons and potential darkness like Iida? No.

Do any of the female characters struggle with physical and emotional abuse like Todoroki? No.

Heck, do we even get to see any of the girls being outright bad, and portrayed with the same villainous inclinations we see in Bakugou? No.

Even in the tournament arc, the girls are more often pushed out of bounds, rather than suffer the heat of battle. And I know that Ochako has a moment to shine in her fight with Bakugou, but that is the first and only chance we really get to see her or any of the girls in that capacity. 

All of their character arcs are short and sweet, dealing with simpler issues of self confidence and image. We, as an audience, are not allowed to see them as anything less than cute, pretty, and pure–both physically and in their ideologies. They aren’t allowed to suffer from murderous rage, or be seriously injured, because that would sully that perfect image.

In other words, as interesting as they are, they’re literally only there to fill the space. They’re only there to look at. They’re fascinating characters, but underutilized to the point that it’s hardly worth praising as ‘progressive.’ 

Basically, the theme of the female characters of this series is:

“Yes I know you’re smart and capable, but I don’t care. I hired you, first and foremost, for your pretty face.” 

I disagree on every possible level.

Yes, it is awful that she was hired for her pretty face. THAT IS THE POINT. It’s like saying, “I didn’t like Hidden Figures because it showed the black women being discriminated against.” Of course! That’s the point! What happened here is that Momo and Kendou, the two class leaders who are the best martial artists in their class, are having their skills outshined by their own appearance because that’s how the media works. That’s the point. It’s a problem. I take it you’re anime-only, because the direction they take this is that Momo has to gain the self-confidence to know that even though the hero profession deals a lot with public image, she’s far more capable than basically anyone else and no one else’s opinions matter.

Yes, Momo got pushed out of the ring. You know who else did? MIDORIYA. Kaminari got eliminated because he was too stupid to compete. Tokoyami straight-up tapped out, which is basically the worst way to go. Iida got frozen faster in his final match than Momo got pushed out. There were a lot of matches and only so many ways for people to get eliminated.

I’m going to give you a little taste of what we see from Momo in the future (and from the character book): spoilers ahoy.

YES YES YES!!

I reblogged this so could come back and comment on it later but apparently I didn’t need to thanks to @itsmyfandomandilikeit. Expanding on their first point this hero society is none too different from our own, which is why it can evoke so much emotion from us. There is sexism in the work place, young girls and boys are sexualized (honestly Momo would have been sexualized regardless of her hero costume because that is not where the problem lies), abuse can be hidden with enough influence, people without quirks are viewed as inferior beings, and sexual assault is often not taken seriously and only reprimanded with a slap on the wrist (Mineta is LITERALLY only ever slapped, why do you think that is?). Sound familiar? It should. BNHA has not held any punches when it comes to showing the flaws of that society. It’s not some utopia. These characters have to go through similar struggles we do everyday and become heroes on top of that. They’re going through the same struggles as us and coming out heroes. See what’s happening?

stop treating todoroki like a stupid fuck pls

oohhh my goddd y’all todoroki didn’t grow up in a cave. the boy lived with an abusive father for years, he was abused, he’s socially awkward but he’s not a reckless idiot. did y’all sleep on his entire arc

and listen, as much as i love todo//deku myself, he didn’t blindly rush to midoriya’s location when he received that mass text, he knew something was wrong & was the first and only one of midoriya’s contacts to figure out that the boy was in trouble

“all you did was mass-send your location pin to all your contacts”

actually, let’s go back to the very beginning of the series:

his very first line shows us that he’s….. not… dumb?

AND (manga spoiIers ahead) DID Y’ALL FORGET ABOUT THIS?

AND THIS?

can you tell that i’m sick of abuse victims being mischaracterised as dumb by their fandoms?

OH, AND HE HAS A SENSE OF HUMOUR. HE’S STOIC MOST OF THE TIME, BUT HE’S NOT INCAPABLE OF MAKING JOKES OR UNDERSTANDING THEM??

plus, for some mysterious reason everyone seems to be forgetting that he ranked 5th out of 20 in the end term written exam? (midoriya was 4th) hmmhhm

hell, when midoriya asks todoroki what he’d do with kouda, he straight up gives advice that i’m 100% certain comes from a personal standpoint:

todoroki knows how to express himself. he knows how his actions influence others, what impression he gives off. HE’S NOT DENSE.

and my dudes. even if you’re gonna write him as a lovestruck fool in fics: being in love means you can sometimes make irrational decisions or act flustered. it doesn’t mean you Suddenly lose half of your braincells.

MHHHHMM CONCLUSION: being socially awkward as a result of years of abuse doesn’t mean you’re “not with the times”. todoroki has a phone. he understands sarcasm. he gets jokes. he knows what an emoji is. he can communicate face-to-face with someone. he gets social cues. he’s an excellent fighter, analyser and strategist. 

so stop treating him like a stupid fuck.

It’s not your job to be likable. It’s your job to be yourself. The right people will like you anyway.

everyone knows that kids w divorced parents can have a rlly tough childhood but honestly let’s take a moment and consider the kids who’s parents never got divorced yet kept fighting and arguing every day… sometimes divorce is for the best option, both for partners and especially their kids

My mom says we can never understand what it’s like to grow up with one parent but we have always told her conversely she doesn’t know what it’s like to grow up with two parents who are physically and emotionally abusive towards each other

Divorce is not the worst thing that can happen to your marriage and it’s definitely not the worst thing that can happen to your kids.

seriously, fuck the false dichotomy between Science and The Arts. as if capital-S Science isn’t an art that requires creativity, perseverance, patience, and skilled observation. as if The Arts don’t require rigor, discipline, practice, and attention to detail. as if both aren’t cultural structures that stand on foundations of sexist, racist, capitalist hierarchy. as if they both can’t be used for purposes of enrichment and revolution. i am so fucking over this idea of presenting science and art as opposites, when they have so much more in common than people think.

UM!!!!!!! UM!!!! this is a beautiful post!!!! and I feel it with every part of my soul!

Something that took me too many years in school to realize (via alltherightnotes)