BnHA Chapter 425: New Normal

Previously on BnHA: Everyone was all “and with that we conclude our final battle for better or worse!! We will now commence our slow return to the new normal, beginning with our protagonist and deuteragonist who are miraculously more or less intact, albeit exhausted and mildly traumatized. Also the words ‘more or less’ are kind of doing a lot of heavy lifting there.”

Today on BnHA: The Big 3 and Aoyama are OUT. Shinsou is IN. The Tododrama is PENDING, and the mysterious figure in the shadows is UNIDENTIFIED. Also class 1-A finally becomes class 2-A and it only took them 425 chapters and TEN LONG YEARS. Can you imagine if this series had actually run throughout their high school experience like people once expected. “THE YEAR IS 2044 AND MY HERO ACADEMIA IS FINALLY WINDING TO A CLOSE.” There’s an alternate universe somewhere where this actually happened and we were all so very, very tired.

This is once again a shorter than usual reaction summary post, as opposed to my typical page-by-page liveblog. Not gonna have time to do those for a while yet most likely, but like hell am I gonna miss out on the last days of the series, so here we are.

Once again basing this off of @pikahlua’s spoiler translation summary here!

watching the eighteen inch tall Rat Principal standing at a podium overseeing this graduation ceremony is surreal in the most wonderful way. it’s like receiving your diploma from a sentient Funko Pop

I love how they established that Mic sitting there screaming at the top of his lungs is also a beloved U.A. graduation tradition, and that the senpais just roll with it while everyone else is in varying stages of trying to decide if it’s too late to transfer to another school

ngl sometimes I forget that Ochako and Toga were actually the second canonical f/f ship in this series. shoutout to Hadou and her adorable girlfriend whose name I absolutely cannot recall

absolutely wild that Horikoshi gives credit to Rat Principal for coordinating the entire disaster recovery nationwide. are you serious. the “world-famous” Principal Nezu?? you’re telling me this little capybara is effectively the secret president of Japan now or something. when does he even sleep

“the principal made great contributions to quirk morality education” is also a VERY interesting tidbit that I really want to know more about. “hey guys what if we did a better job at teaching people not to be dicks with their quirks” AND JUST LIKE THAT JAPAN WAS SAVED huzzah

“we lost many things, but we gained nothing” is both HILARIOUS and soundly depressing, but I can see what he’s trying to get at. still an odd choice for a graduation speech though. “our job is all about harm reduction, and we couldn’t even do that this time around, but in the future we hope to balance things out and maybe even get some net positive impact going!” lmao. again it’s all true, and in all honesty it’s spectacular that they managed as well as they did, all things considered. and I guess it would have been disingenuous to just ignore the reality of everything this particular school body has been through and pretend like everything is great right now. but I still can’t help feeling like there was probably a more inspiring way to get this message across lol

regardless of what he says, Aizawa 100% either bribed or threatened Rat Principal behind the scenes in order to stay with his class. and will do so again next year. he can and will keep getting away with it. he is never leaving these kids

and the sheer relief from all of them upon hearing it is all the justification he needs. these kids have four thousand nine hundred and seventeen accumulated traumas among them. they don’t need a four thousand nine hundred and eighteenth. this man is their father ffs. MINA WAS CRYING AND EVERYTHING

Kacchan watched that YouTube video about a dozen times until he managed to tie his tie all on his own with the one hand. and he did an amazing job. he’s such a model citizen now

also it looks to me like he has his right arm hidden in a sling underneath his shirt, which is interesting. if I’m not mistaken (and I very well could be, since it’s been a hot minute since I did any BnHA timeline math), the final battle took place sometime in early May, so this chapter is taking place roughly one month later. the hospital chapter took place about a week after the battle, so it’s been about 3-4 weeks since then. I really want to know what kind of shape Kacchan’s arm is in, but I guess Horikoshi will get to it when he gets to it

also, “we all gotta be together today” was a real wakeup call to me in that it gave me just an absolutely ridiculous amount of feels. just a totally unreasonable amount. and it’s like. listen, self. Kacchan has completed his character growth arc. he’s a team player and a leader who loves all his friends and they all love him in return. we’ve known this for years now. it’s an established fact. you can’t keep bursting into tears or whatever every time he shows it. this is no way to live your life. I need an intervention

anyways later this evening class 2-A is gonna have a celebratory movie night in the common room, and Kacchan is gonna fall asleep two minutes in peacefully surrounded by all his classmates, and they’re all gonna nudge each other and smile fondly and cover him with a blanket and stay up until 2am and Aizawa will have no mercy on them the following morning. it’s gonna be so wholesome you guys

(ETA: I decided to go back and have some more feels about this one tiny Kacchan panel, because apparently the four paragraphs I already wrote about it weren't enough. so the thing is, Sero's wonderment at Katsuki being out of the hospital initially read to me as half bemused awe, and half "oh boy, time to get back into our usual rhythm of antagonizing Kacchan!" but my second time around, I can't help remembering that all of Kacchan's classmates got to watch this kid getting tortured and strangled and stabbed through the heart in 4K. like, even if they were busy with their own fights at the time, there's no way they didn't see the footage later on afterwards.

and that had to have been traumatic for them. their friend literally died and was just lying there so still for so long afterwards. and him getting better and going back to his usual asskicking self later on doesn't just erase those memories, you know? especially with him having lasting, permanent damage afterward. not just his arm, even! like who even knows if his heart is going to be okay long term. when people get organ transplants they have to go on immunosuppressants afterwards because otherwise their body will try to attack the replacement organ. so I wonder how exactly it works when it's still your heart, but it's being held together by various bits and pieces of a spindly little floss man. idk, but I bet you it's still pretty rough.

anyway so long story short, I'm now reading this as one-third bemused awe, one-third joking antagonism, and one-third genuine "no seriously, is it okay for you to be here, please don't do anything to put your health at risk because we seriously cannot handle you dying on us again." and Kacchan's not even disagreeing with him lol, which has to be the most concerning thing of all. "they said it's okay if I rest." even he knows he's pushing it, but it was too important of an occasion to miss. anyway please take it easy kiddo.)

Aoyama leaving makes me sad but it makes total sense for his character after what he’s been through. he needs time to sort things out and continue down his own personal honor-regaining journey. respect

also glad to hear that it was his own choice and that both Rat Principal and Nao would have supported him if he stayed. I still to this day do not understand Naomasa’s actual level of authority lol. like, he’s supposedly a detective, and yet he seems to be personally in charge of every single important police operation, on like a national level. and he has the authority to make decisions like letting Aoyama go free. he is the law, literally

Aoyama trying to feed Deku some farewell cheese also took me out. like he just walked in there and was all “sorry everyone, I’m leaving, but I’ll still aim for the path of a hero and will one day return, don’t you worry!” and at some point in the midst of this tearful speech he made a beeline directly to Izuku and tried to give him some cheese that he apparently just had in his pocket or something. and Izuku was all “YEAH!” all solemnly but HE DIDN’T EVEN TOUCH THAT POCKET CHEESE. like he loves you and accepts you for who you are Yuuga but COME ON

at this point in the chapter it also became clear to me that Aizawa has his hair up in some sort of loosely assembled messy bun and that’s why it looks so especially flowing and gorgeous today. this is great cinema

and then AT LONG LAST, the admission of Shinsou into class 2-A. they tried everything they could to keep him out, BUT NOT EVEN THE END OF THE WORLD COULD STOP HIM. his rightful place

Ojiro’s scandalized response to hearing Fuwa refer to Aizawa as “Era-sen”, and then Fuwa subsequently revealing all of Aizawa’s secrets and Aizawa getting flustered and kicking her out, was one of the most delightful sequences I’ve read. “nooooo don’t tell them that, what the hell am I gonna threaten them with now”

Izuku has not even attempted to crack a smile since the final battle, aside from when he was frantically trying to reassure Kacchan in the hospital. I’m worried about him but also loving this a little bit, ngl. I am content to wait for you to eventually have a proper breakdown, mister Greatest Hero

also I singled him out on the whole not-smiling thing, but really this is true for just about all of them. my heart aches :(

were there really so many people freaking out over Izuku’s hair that Horikoshi felt compelled to throw in that “HEY DEKU-KUN, YOU SHAVED YOUR HAIR LIKE THAT DUE TO AN INJURY, RIGHT? BUT IT’LL GROW BACK, RIGHT!?” line in there lol. the hilarious thing is that this chapter was already in the books before 424 was released, so it means that Horikoshi anticipated the backlash ahead of time. the man knows his audience

and now for this mysterious little barefoot man randomly emerging from some rubble somewhere. who are you. fandom already thinks you’re everyone from Tenko to Hisashi lol. my personal theory is that he’s just a random citizen who’s hurt and traumatized and needs help. and unlike what happened with baby Tenko once upon a time, this young man actually will be helped by a hero in his moment of need, and it’ll be all hopeful and stuff because SOCIETY IS CHANGING FOR THE BETTER NOW HOORAY

or maybe he really is Tenko, idk. what do I know lol. don’t listen to me

lastly, Shouto out here immediately leaving U.A. after class and ruining my dreams of a class 2-A movie night. FINE THEN. GO AND BE WITH YOUR FAMILY my precious little life preserver. and I’m actually really, really excited to see what their endgame is actually, so yes, Horikoshi, bring it on please and thank you

Why does it feel like people ship B/T out of obligation? Not because they actually like the ship, but because it’s canon queer representation that they have to support otherwise you get labeled as ‘homophobic’ or not supportive of bi! Buck. They care more about what the ship represents and not at all with how it’s written.

Because that's the reality. For some people they don't care what kind of representation we get for queer characters/ships so long as there is canon representation. Let me tell you as someone who is a little older and has been watching queer media for a long time shitty or minimal representation is not better than no representation. Not for me anyway.

I want so much to see more people like me in media especially considering that I'm bi and there are so few canon bi characters. I will always be grateful to 911 for them making Buck (who I relate to a lot btw) a canon bi character. But at the same time they haven't handled his bi journey all that great and they've handled his first relationship with a man even worse.

Personally I don't care for T*mmy as a character and mostly I just think Buck deserves better. There is so little substance to that relationship. Buck and T*mmy barely even talked through most of s7 and when they did I didn't like how T*mmy treated Buck. I didn't like how dismissive and sometimes down right snappy he was with Buck. Plus we saw how much T*mmy went out of his way multiple times for Eddie but we never saw him do the same for Buck he couldn't even be bothered to dress up for the bachelor party.

I also didn't like that we really didn't get to know how Buck feels about T*mmy and that relationship by the end of s7. You can say we saw some of that during the dinner scene or when he talked to Bobby but it was really Bobby doing most of the talking in the locker room scene and the date only made me dislike T*mmy more. Buck was being vulnerable and T*mmy was made to seem like he didn't really care again. It would have been nice to have a scene where Buck talked about how he felt having been dating a guy for a little bit and what he really thought about T*mmy at this point but we really haven't gotten any insight on that.

All that aside though no one has to like any ship and it certainly isn't homophobic/biphobic to dislike a pairing (unless your reasoning is you don't want to see two people of the same sex together). I actually haven't cared for any of Buck's love interests for one reason or another but here's the thing if you have an otp for a show you don't need a reason to dislike it when the characters you ship are with other people. You can simply say I don't like them with that other person I want to see the ship I love together.

B*mmys will come up with all kinds of reasons as to why they've decided it's not okay for you to dislike their ship but it's all a bunch of bs. I heard similar stuff when Buck and Taylor were together. That it was misogynistic because I didn't like Taylor and them together (mainly because I've never liked Taylor after what she did to Bobby). But whether it's B*mmy's calling us homophobic or Buck/Taylor's calling us misogynistic it's all the same kind of stuff. They're just looking for a reason to make us feel bad for not agreeing with them. You don't have to like the same kinds of things as anyone else and you don't have to see the show the same as anyone else.

Love Doesn't Suit You - Brennan Sorrengail

Just a little idea that came into my head the other day, and just had to get written down for you all. That and I missed writing for this man. If any one has any Brennan ideas please send them my way. Pre Fourth Wing and Iron Flame (no spoilers), mentions of blood/violence, maybe bring tissues...... Requests Open.

Masterlist

Never in his life had Brennan thought he’d be in this situation. Especially not with you. But here he was, stuck in this situationship with his childhood friend. Too scared to man up and tell you how he really felt. In stead you slept together, kissed and flirted. But the second it came to a label on it, you bailed. Every single time he had to watch you enjoy the company of another person. Gods, he did it too sometimes. But none of them were you.

”You’re going to get caught one day if you keep this up.”

I jump back, hand clutching my chest as Brennan steps out of the shadows. The moonlight reflecting off his reddish brown hair. He knew I liked to do these late night flights. Knew I used them to clear my head of whatever chaos was going on in it at the time.

”Only if I do something stupid.” I reply before walking past him.

I hear him sigh behind me before walking after me. “Well considering some of your choices you make, it might not be long.”

”What’s that suppose to mean?” I ask as I turn on the steps to look up at him.

I knew exactly what he meant. It was the same argument we had every few weeks or months depending how it was going. Brennan wanted more but…. I couldn’t. The thought of being with someone more than just a casual thing terrified me.

”You’re in a situatioship with what, two or three people now?” He says without even looking at me. “What happens when one of them meets and figures it out? Or you get bored and come back to me?” His voice laced with anger.

”I was pretty open about it not being exclusive. I’ve always made it clear with you and them I wanted nothing more than sex.” I say through gritted teeth before turning my back to him and walking back down the stairs.

Brennan’s footsteps are quick to follow me, and I can tell by the sound he’s angry. I’ve hit a nerve. Good. It’s better that he hates me. I’ll only break his heart if I haven’t already.

”You and I know very well that they’ve fallen in love with you. Don’t act all innocent with me.” He tells me as he practically breathes down my neck.

I turn and push Brennan back, causing him to stumble into the step behind him.

”You mean falling in love like you did?” I snap, watching as he winces at my words. “I’ve always made it clear I wanted nothing more than something casual. Love doesn’t go well with our line of work. You know that.”

Brennan just shakes his head, scoffing at the comment. “Love just doesn’t go well with you.” He mutters quietly before pushing past me and walking away. “Maybe I was stupid for even thinking you would ever commit to something.”

I barely catch the last part. Knowing he didn’t intend for me to hear it. But I do. I stand frozen to the spot as Brennan’s footsteps disappear. His words echoing in my head. My heart feeling like it was just ripped to shreds and thrown on the ground. I squeeze my eyes shut as tears start to roll down my face. If only he knew. If only he knew how much I actually cared. How much I wanted to put a label on us. But I can’t. I shake my head, trying to clear the thoughts from my mind before slowly following Brennan down the rest of the stairs to the quadrant to try and get some sleep before tomorrow.

I’ve fucked up. My mind not focused on the my challenge. My mind still focused on what happened last night. Brennan’s words still echoing in my head from the night before. And because of that I hadn’t been fully focused. And now I would pay for it.

I can feel the blood dripping from the wound as my challenger pulls their knife out of my stomach. My hands rushing to apply pressure to the wound. Blood instantly seeping through my fingers as I drop to my hands and knees in the pool of blood forming on the floor. This is it. This is how I die. Black dots start to fill my vision as I feel myself slipping away. Over the ringing in my ears I hear someone calling, no screaming my name. Their voice is pained, as if they’re losing someone they love.

I cough, blood splattering the ground beneath me. Shit.

The last thing I see before I black out is a familiar pair of amber eyes looking at me in panic as they scream my name, trying to apply pressure to the wound as they pull me into their arms.

although i feel i will most likely expand on it more in the future as i discover more about myself and the Aromantic Lifestyle, i think for now this might be my hatoful aro masterpost. this all has been on my mind for the past few weeks without me even recognising it and so i kinda just want to touch on uh. almost all of the main characters tbh.

when, a few years ago, i made those UGLY pride headcanon pieces (and yes i hate ALL of them now even yuuya and sakuya and i have considered remaking them but can't muster the willpower to do so) i think i was still weaning off of my inner asshole fandom gay who sat me down and told me "hey bitch. these fags better be AT LEAST bi or else you are homophobic. that's right you HOMOPHOBE i'll KILL YOU!!" as a baby gay i never felt like it was my place to say "hey i don't actually think these characters would be gay" or "i think the emotions projected onto them are not fully fleshed out or accurate to their personality" because i thought expressing a differing opinion made me an asshole, and in my defense there were and continue to be people who say that if you DON'T hc a character as queer, and queer in an acceptable way, then you are homophobic. but look at me now! i'm an asshole! and im defending the rights of aros everywhere 😤 (it's me it's literally just me im the only aro im defending). all of this is to say i have changed a lot of my opinions on the characters through my own exploration of them and through other people's inputs. and im here to tell YOU that you are AROPHOBIC if you don't hear me out and proceed to align all of your headcanons exactly with mine and then give me all of your money and you don't want to be aphobic now do you?

the character that i actually initially wanted to make an aro post about was my sweet normal-type trainer ryouta. i have to be honest with everyone. i actually think ryouta might be hetero. i honestly had no solid idea about his identity when i made my omni hc i genuinely just looked up a list of pride flags so i could say something interesting and im not fucking joking. it was a different time in my life. i actually don't think he would have an interest in men. i just don't read it in him. he admires male characters but that hardly goes beyond signs of genuine friendship. if anything i can see what people say about him after bbl with sakuya but like. is it inappropriate for me to say that i see it as. sometimes going through a traumatic experience with a friend and then having them want you to be safe could be a sign of platonic bonding and trust. i am not sure if ill bring this up more in this post but genuinely one of my least favorite things about internet fandom culture is having to defend yourself when saying a pair of characters might be friends. it so often devolves into arophobia and the devaluing of friendship when I DON'T EVEN UNDERSTAND THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN ROMANCE AND FRIENDSHIP in the FIRST PLACE. im not here to say you're WRONG for reading it as romantic. in fact i think in this case it's lowkey fair to do so. but not only is my reading different, i would like to ask an audience that doesn't agree to go into the rest of this post being mindful of the prejudices that are involved with being deeply defensive about romantic headcanons, and that it SUCKS being aromantic and having to add disclaimers like this about your ideas when most queer fandom spaces never expect you to have them for headcanons concerning most other LGBT identities.

anyway. what just happened i blacked out i take no responsibility for anything that i just said. what i wanted to say was that while i really don't read The Gay on ryouta, i think demiro RADIATES from him. i don't remember what it came from, it might've been the qna translation i did, but that time moa was like "if ryouta couldn't be with hiyoko he would probably just be okay being single forever" had me thinkin. i think the typical allo interpretation would probably be "oh so noble he would be so hung up on his old crush that he would never move on to someone new" but i think, when you red string bulletin board this quote across a couple other loose pieces of evidence you can see that it's pretty g-dang demi of him. his attraction to hiyoko stems almost exclusively from his connection with her. he hardly ever makes comments about her looks or how pretty she is. his ideal relationship with her is to just continue the things they've been doing forever, except now they're married i guess. he loves her for the way he's always thought of her, and for the fact that she's such a wonderful friend. she's ALWAYS been strong and supportive, he says. that's what makes ryouta admire her, he says.

he gets defensive when someone gets emotionally close with her. something that always stood out to me in his talk with yuuya on the holiday star was when he says something along the lines of "nageki knows a side of hiyoko that i don't." his fears come from someone knowing hiyoko in a similar intimate way that he does, and i think that's because that's the only way he might process romantic attraction coming to be. he also invalidates the way he believes yuuya sees attraction. in that same talk he throws jabs at how yuuya plays with girls and doesn't really come to know them, and again, besides coming from a society that is against casual sexuality, i think that would make a lot of sense within the context of ryouta seeing deep emotional connection as the only way you can have a "real" romantic love. i think ryouta doesn't really have a want or need to dig deeper into the implications of his attractions, which obviously results in him not even realising he has a crush on hiyoko, but i also think he just isn't. that concerned with figuring out where he stands in terms of romantic orientation. in a world where he is mlm, i think he would probably never recognise that or at least never label it, but regardless, if he's demi i think he would just never see that not everyone experiences attraction the way he does. i think he would be infinitely confused with the people who get married based on five months of dating after meeting on a dating app, which is what i do. honestly i just think ryouta is so accustomed to the status quo of being a young supportive straight guy that he sees his own demiromanticism as, if anything at all, just him being peak love story protagonist. so in conclusion i see ryouta as a hetero-demiromantic who doesn't KNOW that he's demiromantic.

as im trying to decide how i want to order this, i think i have to get someone out of the way. everyone knows i hate him with a passionate fury and i genuinely don't like thinking about him BUT. i have shoe eewahmeanay thoughts. im sorry. i have read what the shuu likers have to say about him. i have read the accursed pieces on his relationship to ryuuji. and your first assumption may be that i would read shuu as aromantic, because i am a freak. well it's not true. i actually DON'T see him as strictly aromantic. i think reading emotions through a clinical and cold view is very common to the aspec experience, especially to romance- and sex-repulsed people. putting yourself completely outside of the actions and experiences and just viewing them through a purely scientific this-is-what-social-creatures-in-A-Society-do-sometimes standpoint, you can find more ease and comfort in examining how other people view relationships. but im not here to argue that this is something that makes shuu aro (considering that is literally something he does), rather i would like to argue that this is something that stems from shuu being a general freak when it comes to Having Relationships. i kind of assume shuu might be somewhere on the arospectrum and as a certified shuu hater it's not my place to decide exactly where but i still see a possibility of attraction being an element of his actions. but it's fucked up™ attraction. i think more than anything being a little neglected boy already part of an upper class where genuine connection is discouraged is the biggest factor in iwamine's stunted social development, but he's also just. i don't think he was ever wired to desire or feel connection, not like most other people at least.

i will happily back the idea that isa was desperate for a well-rounded father figure, and that this is what lead him to becoming so deeply attached to ryuuji rather than him just having a gay crush. he is extremely fucking complicated and i know the shuu likers know that. im pretty sure most articulated shuu opinions will probably factor in the bad childhood and unhealthy dependencies into isa's view on ryuuji. i also think, though, that it is entirely too interesting to imagine that isa cannot comprehend the weight or meaning of his own emotions. i don't know if he's aromantic because on a fundamental level i cannot understand any attractions that i feel and it is extremely difficult to parse through different types of attraction. i think that is exactly the kind of compelling idea to play around with for shuu. i think he would sort through his feelings about ryuuji only after his passing, that being the critical trigger for him to do so and he would be unwilling to think too much about it otherwise, and if/when he did, it would still be in his patented narrow, clinical view. i don't think it's ridiculous to believe that there are unknown and involuntary brain fuck-ups going on that stem from attraction in that guy. of course shuu as an adult can only define his relationship to ryuuji through given societal standards, and i genuinely think there is something deeper than romantic intention there, but shuu may only come to the conclusion of "i'm a fucked up little freak boy who secretly liked being cared about but also i kinda thought he was attractive" (paraphrasing) due to the few words that our world gives us to define different relationships. really he just needs therapy.

um but my issue, the only one that really made me think about my arch nemesis this much, is the sheer amount of fluff that people write him into. it's INSANE. THOSE are the shuu likers who i don't think are as articulated as the ones i RESPECT. regardless of how shuu feels about ryuuji or what attraction he feels for him, shuu shows time and time again an inability to actually express his feelings about other people in any typical way. most of the time he just. y'know. expresses himself through violence and negativity. his interactions with ryuuji are usually dry and riddled with criticisms. shuu ends up carrying out his legacy through genocide. any friendship he could've conceived with tohri was always shut down because isa was always blunt with him, although i think isa didn't genuinely have any ill will towards tohri; tohri is just kind of an insecure guy who is very sensitive to criticism. with hiyoko the only way he can live with her is through actual murder. oh and did i say live i mean commit suicide. i don't know how he feels about hiyoko and to be honest im not terribly eager to figure it out but my point is that shuu only ever expresses positive emotions through negative means. i don't care if you think shuu just wants to be ryuuji's son or if you think shuu is a raging homosexual. he wouldn't be able to make it known either way. there is a post, and i don't have the will to dig it up because to my memory it was very crude but i found it funny nonetheless. i think it was tumblr user fluffyheretic who made a post saying something like "shuu iwamine would not be a hot daddy dom he would be googling 'how to kiss' on google dot com" and honestly yeah. i-- like-- how would that man ever be hot or god forbid fluffy in any other context than his chubby widdle partwidge cheeks. he would not be able to fathom a romantic relationship with the people he knows. he'd probably just like. idk. fantasize about dissecting their body and that would be the only thing he could imagine for days on end. and OH MY GOD. no he would not fucking plan a date. i am throwing shade to the fucks on ao3. this fag would not be cute or romantic at all. he would be off-putting and then you would leave. that would be the date. you might get a back-handed compliment. that's literally how he "courts" hiyoko. NOBODY LIKES HIM. in-game i mean. he is unlikeable. he is a dickhead. hiyoko and ryuuji are the only people to ever form a positive opinion of him because they are positive forces who love everyone. everyone else at the very least says mean shit about him behind his back. shuu iwamine aka isa souma aka utsuro ichijou is an aspec anomaly to me and it doesn't matter if he's aro or not. it's not like he could ever fucking land a date anyway.

transition to someone who is kind of that bitch's opposite: sakuya. or i guess really shuu's good parallel. that constitutes an entire post of its own tbh but. i think in general, even people who aren't that invested in aromanticism in hatoful could probably get down with grayro sakuya. to me at least, it kinda just makes sense on a basic level. he's not really invested in interpersonal relationships, even during his dating route which, need i mention, has its arc revolve around sakuya's personal growth and hardly is it ever implied he is attracted to hiyoko. the only time he ever begins to really feel exceptionally strongly about the people around him is coincidentally the same timeline in which yuuya tells him about their shared history: bbl. that's when he gains a sense of responsibility for his actions and feels a genuine care for his friends, and of course a painful regret for how he treated yuuya in particular his entire life. im almost tempted to call him straight up aromantic but ill let him be grayromantic as a treat. i think it compliments ryouta's demi-ness as the other part of the bbl pair. it also makes sense to me in the context of his very rare flattery in response to other people's praise, i think particularly hiyoko's. i find the thing he says in response to that one question about romantic types, the "someone who has acquired high-class refinement and etiquette. if one does not have those qualities, then they do not deserve to stand by my side," also kind of telling about sakuya's relationship to romance. obviously it's influenced by his role as a noblebirdie and the expectation he finds a partner as a political duty, but also notice how he says it in response to "who is your type?" and not something like "who do you see yourself marrying in the future?" it's not a description of personality or looks, it's a description of behavior. it's a detached response, implying that romance, to him, is not about what he finds attractive. romance is something that is EXPECTED of him. it could generally be assumed, i think, that if you actually did have a type in people, then regardless of if you were to be in an arranged marriage you would be happy to tell other people of that type. I'm sure the most common spin of this is just going to be that sakuya is really dedicated to the whole aristocrat bit but i think it reflects a lack of real interest in romantic relationships. if i were an aro prince thing and the press asked me what my type was, id probably also just respond with how my parents are going to decide who to set me up with. i'm not really looking for anything else, am i?

now. i have something controversial to say. i have gone. back and forth a hundred times on this boy and how i think he feels. and to be honest with everyone i think i might be a yuuya aromantic truther. i think yuuya is a very flirtatious aromantic little freak. and i know, right, he's like the most romantic guy in the entire cast. but it's very similar to the yuuya asexuality logic where flirting and romantic facades are simultaneously his only way of connecting to other people and yet also something that drives a wedge further between him and his connections. when he actually gets close to hiyoko, which is one of, if not the most intimate relationship he develops within the series, it's honestly not that romantic in nature. they're kinda just like. hangin out, but spy-type hangin out. like the entire post i wrote about hiyoko and yuuya's friendship. i know the whole partners-in-crime, two-of-us-against-the-world trope is usually a romantic one, but consider the beauty of the platonic version. consider the freedom. the commitment almost feels more intense when you drop the chains of romantic pressure to stay together. i think the best possible outcome of yuuya's dating route is tosakazaki qpr. besties but with COMMITMENT. besties but they love each other more than ANYTHING IN THE WORLD. the word queerplatonic has been ruined for me for various reasons but i just know they can reclaim it. i think yuuya might be so casual about romance and sex because he knows it's not in the cards for him. i can say your mom and i are in a committed relationship together with a completely straight face because i will never ACTUALLY be in a committed relationship with your mother. yuuya, similarly, can say he is in a committed relationship with everyone on the planet with a completely straight face because he knows he won't ever actually be in a committed relationship with anyone on the planet. it's so baller of him. i send kiss emojis to my friends and call them hot everyday but i would vomit if they got too close to me. maybe yuuya wouldn't be as touch-repulsed as the little freak i am but i think he would understand flirting as this somewhat rude way to compliment other people without getting too close. that's like. his entire thing.

ill be honest i have very little evidence for aro yuuya i just really WANT it to be real. yuuya- and hiyoko-type aromanticism is just very relatable to me. i relate to and love how they obsess over their friends, especially the way yuuya does it from a comfortable exaggerated distance that makes it clear he just wants to flatter you, and i just WANT it to be in an aro way. because i need more overtly flirtatious characters who just Do Not Want romance. because i need on a visceral level to normalise the presence of romantic elements in a completely platonic setting. making hiyoko and yuuya aromantic, to me, is my big fuck you. i will make these romantic characters aromantic and i will do it again. epic fuck you moment for the people who insist there are things that have to be romantic. epic fuck you moment for the people who claim things that don't involve them as a romantic scenario. my omnipotent level takes on these stupid bird characters are leagues ahead of your stupid baby "weah weh but he risked his life for her that's romance" incorrect IDIOT im literally living my life out of bounds and you're still debating on whether it's gay for a character to literally just CARE about another person.

okay okay i know that sounded like a conclusion but it wasn't fuck off. i'm only halfway through the main cast do you really think im done?

i think nageki is one of the characters i actually don't REALLY care about in terms of romantic identity but i've defaulted to aromantic as a defense mechanism against uncomfortable shit. i think it makes sense with his character (i love autism) and his storyline. but there's a lot of projection there too. and my feeling of protectiveness over a character i really love in such a personal way. i also think it meshes cutely with the fact that hiyoko and hitori, his SIBLINGS!! are aromantic themselves. so that's my headcanon, but honestly i don't feel THAT headstrong about it. i don't think it really makes sense in my head for him to be gay but i dont really care either way about other people's opinions on the matter. i think what bothers me is just that he's REALLY young and there is some Weird Shit that people put him in. sometimes i see him portrayed as. weirdly lustful??? or like uncomfortably obsessive? and not only is that sort of thing low-key weird as hell but like. did you play the game LMAO. clearly you don't know him like i do. sorry everybody part of being aromantic and bringing that into your favouwite tings is being PETTY AS HELL!!! that's my job here.

i thought i had more to say about nageki considering he's like. almost my oldest aro og but i kinda. don't. actually i spent an undisclosed amount of time tracking down a japanese playthrough of hatoful to see which version of "i love you" nageki used in his final speech but it honestly didn't clear very much up. and keep in mind the fact that nageki is talking from such a place of emptiness. he talks about how he fell numb to pain and hiyoko brought back feelings for him but mostly those negative ones. the ONLY positive light in his world is hiyoko. so an intense display of affection is KINDA warranted. and hypothetically it would also be possibly the most logical misunderstanding of one's own emotions in the game. idk sorry everyone hiyoko/nageki sibling dynamic for life. i've stayed in that mindset for so long that on occasion i raise an eyebrow when i see them paired together and then im like Oh. Shit. I'm Being Unreasonable Here. hey but what can you do. nageki love of my life, walking aromantic flag, please tread lightly in the scary waters of fandom spaces.

anghel higure freak of st pigeonation's high baja blast advertisement self-described martyr public-described weirdo someone id totally clock as a trans woman due to the fact that no cis man plays dungeons and dragons liberal user of eyeliner the goth asshole taking all of the GOOD chains from goodwill. an enigma of a person. when sheltered white gay people who ask "okay but are you afab or amab" say we need more weird queers they do NOT mean him. he would say something in his foreign language that roughly translates to "hey if you're a dude bangin dudes then have at em man im not gonna stop ya" and that may lead you to believe he is a straight ally but do NOT look at the yaoi in his sketchbook it reveals something about his mind. he's bisexual he's a little TOO gay he's looking up "homosexual tendencies" and clicking on sketchy medical advice websites he's a lesbian but he isn't a woman he probably isn't a man but non-binary rubs him the wrong way where's that book for parents of closeted children he's a pansexual imp who'll die happy he has no idea what pride is he thinks neopronouns are neat but has no idea how to communicate that in a way other people understand his parents keep hinting that they know he's not straight but he thinks he's keeping it under tight wraps maybe he is straight but he just doesn't FEEL straight he could never catch a date and he's happy about it he gets flattered once and catches feels the hero getting the girl in the end is too cliché but the doomed lone wolf story isn't but hypothetically his story might be cooler with a love interest how about everyone is the love interest this is his otome wait i thought he wasn't a woman and what about that pretty girl the next classroom over who is willing to larp with him is she technically a male love interest actually it's weird if he's going to date everyone how about instead everyone is attracted to him but as the accursed fallen angel he has a duty to never reciprocate he WILL puke if you hold his hand he's probably on the lgbt spectrum but honestly he doesn't care enough to figure it out right now he's got this sick cosplay project he's working on do you wanna see? yeah i don't know what anghel is. he can be aromantic if he wants. but he has to be a weird aromantic. he can be loveless or alloaro or romance favourable or fuck it he's romance repulsed or maybe he wants to kiss but that doesn't mean anything besides the fact that he likes it. it doesn't matter as long as he's weird about it. the minute he stops being weird about it he's fucked.

im sorry everybirdie i didn't realise i had so much to say about the other characters but so little about these last three. and now my transitions between subjects would be too much of a hassle to change so i could organise this into a more well-rounded balance of long rants and short tidbits. i wanted to save hitori for last because when i tried to talk about why he's aromantic i felt like the audience was more concerned with the fact that i was trashing on his popular ships than the fact that He Is Aromantic Guys I'm Being For Real He Told Me Himself. so i wanted to clarify my reasoning more thoroughly as the final character in the lineup, but im actually pretty sure that i WAS clear about why i think he's aromantic at the time, and now i don't have too much i want to say. so here's a list of bullets explaining why he's aromantic:

it makes the most sense with his storyline and character - hitori really is a character defined by his relationships to this around him, but like. in a way that he never has the spotlight. he's providing for his little siblings. he's providing support for his students. he's making it clear that hiyoko needs to learn about herself before she ever gets close with him. hell, he kills a man not out of bloodthirst or malice but as a sacrifice for his brother. he STRIVES to be alone. his baby siblings are his priority in his life and that doesn't change for a second, because like a baby bird (ha) he's made this imprint on the only people he truly associates with love and losing them was like losing what love MEANS to him. which is literally what he says himself. so like. not only does that mean other relationship archetypes are not in his field of vision, but treating his loved ones with that brotherly, somewhat overwhelming care is the only way he really knows HOW. it's how he treats kazuaki (til the end OOPS) and his students and hiyoko. and like i said. in the end of his story (as in. not mirror universe), his outcome is that he is alone without his children to look after. he goes along with hiyoko's confession in the end not because he's actually interested but because. i guess he just doesn't really have anything else to do. i don't even think he believes he can love again. i think hiyoko just goes "it's too sad that you don't want to love again :(" and then kazuaki goes "*sharp nose inhale, midwestern thigh pat* so anyway if you're still interested in that whole dating thing we can probably do that later if you want." i just really think inserting romantic love into his story after nageki is such a disservice to this entire key part of his character, that being that he REFUSES to love again after the loss of his brother. also it just feels kinda weird in a mirror scenario or whatever to make him get romantically involved with anyone SORRY i've heard that boyish charm in how he speaks i can only see confused innocence in his eyes my apologies

can you REALLY imagine him in a relationship or do you just see a generic anime guy and want to ship him with the closest twink

it makes the most sense within the themes of hatoful as a game - HELLO least romantic romance game EVER like please. this game is about appreciating the little things and learning to love life and yourself through grief THERE'S NO TIME WE'VE GOTTA GET OUTTA HERE DROP THE SHIPS FUCK THE THEMES THEY'RE GETTING CLOSER HELP HEEEELLLLP OH NO I LOVE MY LIFE AND IM OKAY BEING ALONE EVEN THOUGH I LOST THE PEOPLE I LOVE FUCK IT'S LIKE SOMETHING THAT PENETEATES EVERY ROUTE GAHHHHHH

that thing he said in the character interview about "never really having thought about [his romantic type]"

it is objectively funny

a few years ago at a high school show choir showcase there was a solo about a girl who was insane and falling in love with a hot coffee barista but he actually didn't know what romance is

all of the fan content surrounding him and romance is So bad and out of character (or even half portraying him as not wanting it in the first place) that i literally cannot see him as anything but aromantic. you guys literally ruined it sorry.

women are gross and men are gross and he didn't know people could be other genders until he heard some more in-touch teenager talking about it and honestly he's still pretty confused he's supportive but it's not something he could be into even just for the fact that he's nervous about offending them

it would honestly be embarrassing if he ever got into a relationship like all of that "my siblings are everything to me" and for what. you have a girlfriend now? that's gay

speaking of which him being straight makes like a thousand times more sense than him liking men but also i hate straight people

it makes ME uncomfy so i get to have my favourite boy be aromantic because i hate everyone here

sometimes i feel like applying really specific queer labels to characters is doing them a disservice in itself, because some characters seem Weird enough to delve into niche queer spaces and find those labels, but a lot of characters don't even know what pansexual actually means and you know it. my ideal way of defining a character's orientation is by looking at what would make sense for them to be attracted to and then just saying that's what they're attracted to, rather than saying they're gay or they're straight or bi or whatever. anyway that's just what i've been trying the make clear over the course of this post besides the aromanticism of it all.

i'm writing an entirely new conclusion from the one i wrote back in january. i think that aromanticism has become more of a rebellion than anything else to me. in all facets of my life. sometimes it's just so goddamn hard to EXIST as a PERSON when it's like nobody even believes you as you are. i feel like i've lost a lot of autonomy to be anything except a memory or a story. and im not interested in being erased. but i don't think any place has ever made me feel as seen and validated and VINDICATED as the aromantic community. it's like. Fuck you. yeah im not part of any boxes you'd understand. i feel like i didn't feel such a sense of free will until i found myself here. hell. i can do WHATEVER i want. i never thought about that. literally nobody can stop me. aromanticism cuts so many ties from other people's realities and what they believe to be real. so many people HATE aromanticism or what it stands for even if they don't want to admit it. and that is everything to me.

but in a fandom space, where rules are so much more rigid than they appear, where you come to share your favourite things with other people and only find that everyone is trying to make it known that their opinion is the Most Correct One about your beloved series or franchise or whatever the hell, it's like. kinda really hard to exist. as an aromantic and as a member in general. the other day i saw a community post on youtube by this girl who got popular in a niche community and she was just really conflicted because on one hand she wanted to move on from the space and make things she actually was interested in but on the other hand she didn't want to give up what she loved about this game and she also didn't want to lose her audience. and man the amount of times i've seen that shit is pretty disheartening. it's really not an unfounded fear. i have SEEN people who do cool stuff die out because they got popular for something very specific. it's so draining to motivation for them and it's always a shame to see people you like give up because they just don't matter to very many others. my point by bringing this story up is to just give an example that i saw recently of how suffocating fandom is. people are mean, man. for a lot of people fan spaces are freeing and happy but i feel like sometimes we just forget that they'll never be as good as just having a group of friends in real life to discuss your favourite things with. because the internet is designed to divide and organise and if we're being honest i think a lot of people fall into the trap of feeding the cycle of trying to make fandom this Very Specific Thing when it's really just a bunch of guys. and god. people who participate in fandom. well by default they are already very online and so g-dang it they're kinda just pricks. and sometimes the sheer amount of mental disorder within these spaces it. y'know don't fuckin deny it man it adds to the assholeness sometimes.

so like. being such a small minority within fandom, as an aromantic, is also my rebellion here. fuck you. i'm not falling into the tropes assigned seemingly at random to force a dynamic between characters. i can see without the blurred lens of the Shipping Glasses™. i am pretty sure that being aromantic kinda makes the grasp on characterisation a little stronger because im not looking at things the same way some other people are. sorry to be on my high horse everyone. Enjoying your hobby vs. Joining the subreddit for that hobby. everything is aromantic. i have a beam for it. i'm sorry to all of the other aros who feel excluded from fan spaces because of the sheer invasiveness that comes with shipping culture and amatonormativity and just plain Assholes within fan spaces. just something i've been thinking about for like. fucking. a few years idk. all of the hatoful characters have that aro in them because i couldn't give less of a shit about bad takes (bad takes being They Are Not Aromantic). i've got good takes. this is aromanticism baby. okay i'm gonna go hang myself from a tree now bye bye.

Hey do you wanna rant to me about dsmp gender hcs perhaps ❤️ or disabilities i just need entertainment

sorry this took a while!!

-Tubbo is partially blind in both eyes after his execution. His vision is heavily reduced and very blurry in any part he can actually see. He's also partially deaf. He uses glasses and a walking stick to get about. During his presidency he tries to obscure the fact that he's blind by wearing a partial mask and having Tommy and later Ranboo or Quackity by his side to help prevent him from tripping. Tommy generally lingers very close to him and talks quite loudly, which Tubbo appreciates because it means that he can see/hear Tommy much better than anyone else

-Hannah is a transfem human who is sensitive to the health of the nature around her. She dresses up as a fairy partially as a gender euphoria thing, which is why she fought so hard for the elytra. She's also a lesbian and one of the more confident people in their sexuality on the server, though she doesn't verbalize it often.

-Tommy is transfeminine and nonbinary. They used their very overblown comedic persona and idolize people like Jschlatt because they never felt any connection to her own masculinity and felt wrong for it. They start figuring out their gender after Manberg and fully accept themselves after Bedrock Bros. She's also platoniromantic, meaning her platonic and romantic feelings are kind of twisted together, and asexual. She wants to marry Tubbo. They have bad joint pain and stiffness as well as audio processing issues. They have delusions that can make talking to certain people difficult

-Eret is blind

-Puffy is kind of a woman but really likes fucking with her gender. She tends to create new personas when she does this. She also enjoys being contradictory it gives her gender euphoria. Most of the time she uses she/her and masculine titles (dad, papa, sir, mr, etc) and will dress in a range from masculine to feminine, but sometimes she'll do full drag in a variety of combinations of gender traits because she needs a change. Her feelings for Badboyhalo are gay but so are her feelings for Niki. She's also fat btw that's not a queer hc but it is important to me

-Schlatt has chronic pain and fatigue caused by a heart condition. He usually uses a cane and frequently has to lie down for periods of time between physical activities. He does neither in Manberg and exacerbates his illness with smoking, drinking, and forcing himself to walk around and stand for all hours of the day.

-Nihachu has persisting pain in her shoulder from when she was attacked leaving Manberg. Trauma and intense isolation exacerbated some mental stuff she already had. She experiences auditory hallucinations sometimes, can experience delusions, and has difficulty speaking in a way people around her can fully understand. She's probably bisexual but considers herself a lesbian

-Kind of a mental health headcanon but Technoblade does not hear voices in the sense of a mental health issue. He's sworn himself to service of the God of death (blood) and she just whispers at him sometimes.

Ok ok ok I'm not Tryna start discourse but bluestars prophecy was my first ever warriors book and bluestar will always be my favourite so I'm gonna make some counterpoints to you about her being a Smajor character

bluestar has always been led by an intense loyalty and dedication to those she loves and cares for - this includes her mum, her sister, her clan, eventually Firepaw when he joins the clan, and she has a VERY strong moral compass when it comes to doing the right thing - when she sees thistleclaw teaching tigerpaw to hurt a then baby scourge she very much discourages it and is against it

Afaik scott is Not like that, he doesn't have an emotional or love-driven moral code, he does things because they're smart decisions in the long term or because he wants to. Granted I havent seen a ton of his stuff but I have seen his limited life and 3rd life perspectives and he is very much a singular team player there, there to look after himself and well if people align with him that's great he's got allies (jimmy and Martyn) but he won't go out of his way to care for them

Bluestars defiance of starclan in the first series is BECAUSE she gave herself to them and what the warrior code demanded so much - yes she broke clan rules by having kids with crookedstar but she did everything in her power to make sure they'd have a happy life and felt terrible that thrushpelt was willing to say they were his to save her reputation. She didn't do it out of a selfish want, she only ever wanted to help her clan and those she loved, and her becoming clan leader is emblematic of that want. When she rejects starclan so wholeheartedly in the first series it's because THINGS KEEP GOING WRONG WHEN SHES TRIED SO HARD TO STOP THEM FROM DOING THAT - starclan has never cared about the sacrifices she made to keep her loved ones and clan safe, she lost her mother, her sister, her kits, her mate, literally everything, and things STILL KEEP GETTING WORSE. it's not a demand that she deserves to have everything good, it's a cry for help that shouldn't something go right after she's tried so hard???

C!Scott isn't like that. He puts himself above others and inherently believes he will get the best if he just plays his cards right, and he is good at it, he's very competent at lasting a long time in life series and getting what he wants - the ruthlessness of gem driven by desperation kills him in secret life, Martyn's complete fucking about face kills him in limited life, and I'm pretty sure it's etho who gets him out in 3rd life by luck. He doesn't plan to look after the ones he cares about, because he cares about himself first and foremost. Yeah you can argue when he doesn't get what he wants he gets annoyed, but his is less of a 'why don't I get this don't I deserve it' and more of a 'oh fuck this didn't work. Ok new plan double down on getting what I want by appeasing to people cos they're easy to read and therefore account for'

I don't doubt Scott would make a bluestar adjacent character if he made a warrior cats oc BUT his character would honestly be closer to darktail or ashfur than bluestar and that's that on that.

(sorry you activated 13 year old me's unskippable cutscene sjdjsjsjja this isnt meant to be a serious argument I just love bluestar a lot and love talking about her)

OKAY 1. this is fucking awesome thank you 2. i am going to do something new and exciting (advocate for scott instead of beating him to death with sticks) because unfortunately this bluestar info has only made me believe she is a smajor character even more.

As a general note when I talk about smajor characters as a collective here I’m referring to characters more in the realm of esmp/traffic/rats/pirates/etc, less vampire scott or necromancer scott who are intended to be villainous.

Scott characters tend to operate under a “If I am not a Good Person I may as well die” rule, and consequently abide by a strict moral code to keep themselves feeling clean. For instance: traffic Scott will never go back on his word, he will avoid dishonesty, and he won’t take from others unless he is sure that he can repay them. He will never betray his seasonal primary ally (even when they betray him first), and will often give people things just because they asked him nicely. He stakes a lot of his own identity on this, because it is through being a “good person” that he justifies his superiority (and, by extension, his own existence); in his mind he deserves the best and *is* the best because he is such a good person. When things don’t go his way, he thinks he doesn’t deserve it because he has been nothing but good, so he tries to place a reason. He often assumes that somebody must “have a vendetta” against him, even if this somebody is the world (see: him asking if limlife episode 1 boogeyman is some kind of joke played on him for not giving in to the boogey curse in Last Life.) which is very Bluestar to me, convinced that her misfortunes are a divine punishment.

This is all to say that Scott does have a strict moral code and deep sense of loyalty. Being a “good person” and devoted partner in the ways he understands it are so ingrained into what he is that I think he definitely has the capacity to be a Bluestar if he were raised being taught clan values, even if his internal systems are often built around never letting gross emotions be fully felt rather than what those emotions compel him to do.

hi guys its 5am and im crying my eyes out does anyone want to play checkers or something

looking at information on ehlers danlos and the Problems™

internet: "its really easy for people with ehlers danlos to sublux/dislocate stuff, sometimes without even realizing it!"

me: "okay cool maybe thats whats happening to me. hey internet how do i tell if ive subluxed/dislocated something"

internet: "oh no, you would DEFINITELY know if you did, thats not just something that happens without people realizing it!"

me: "but you just sa-"

internet: "YOU WOULD KNOW!!!"

y'know it's a night when hal sits and eats cereal in the dark room at 1.30am.

found out that rascal's owner took him again while i was out, and he's probably not gonna be back since the semester's almost over. i don't even know if his owner's coming back next semester, if i'll ever see him again. if he'll ever see me again. why do they wait until im not around to do this? why do they never let me say goodbye to him?

.

my main goal is for everyone to like me is that wrong

Today in therapy I was talking to my counselor about how I wish I wasn’t so attached to the idea of finding a romantic partner in a way that ends up causing me harm. There are some people who are so comfortable with not being in a romantic relationship and that it brings them a sense of security. She advised that it’s okay to admit that I’m in a place right now in my life where I need that sense of deep connection and people are interdependent beings. Being able to admit that was like having a big weight lifted off my chest. It also had a reverse effect, it made me feel like I could be more comfortable being single as long as I know my romantic relationships mean a lot to me, I want them to intentional, loving & balanced

I have some kind of weird evil wizard curse on me where I feel deeply sad and uniquely horrible when my beloved bestie roommate is home but feel Normal and Emotionally Regulated when theyre out like literally what is wrong with me good GOD get that girl some therapy !!!!

honestly it's just really fucking unfair that i don't get to have friends or connect with people or even have normal aquaintances and i always feel awkward and like everyone is put off by me and everything that involves social interaction is 100 times more difficult for me than it is for anyone else

someone will make a joke about how short they are and i instantly become aware of the fact that im wearing thicker shoes than them and if i took them off the size would uhhhhh not make them the shortest in the room anymore