#this is an example of the second male lead winning
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idk if you accept requests but i badly want to read the blue lock boys with the orange peel theory going around on tiktok 🥹
notes: anon, i was in a slump and then you come with this, please know i cant get it out of my mine for 2 whole nights. so, please have this, i hope u will enjoy it & your fave is there. also shoutout to @doobea for helping me with rin & barou esp <3 aso for standing my yappings. warning: none, post canon au in mind, reader's gender unspecified.
character: isagi, kaiser, bachira, chigiri, nagi, reo, rin, sae, barou + bonus
isagi
sweet boy will do it with a smile. is not the tidiest but you can now eat your orange while sharing with him. has a vibe that he is sort of used to doing this somehow. a total win still. if you do the same for him he will get flustered. also asking this is one of the quickest ways to get mr. egoist switches to mr. sweetheart boyfriend.
“Eh, why are peeling one too? I already… for me…?…I, uh—I see. Thanks… I—I am… give me a second.”
kaiser
you are the one who will peel for him—unless you throw a fuss and give him a silent treatment because this guy's pride is no joke. he can, he just doesn't want to. but to appease you and gain back his rightful spoiling, he will. afterward, at least, he learns his lesson and when you are about to peel one yourself, will take it and peel it beautifully for you like a second nature.
“…the fuck are you staring at? Just take it. You are about to eat it anyway, right? Then what's the big deal?”
bachira
yes, he will no question asked but is it worth it. probably will make a mess out of his energy. you will be laughing along with him somehow though so it is worth it. having the sunshine doing anything in front of you is a guaranteed smile-inducing routine. as for the orange, please do switch to other alternatives, for example: kisses, as suggested by him.
“Isn't this better than orange? Huum, huum! More healthy, sweeter too, right? Another one?”
chigiri
depending on his mood, you will either get a very cute orange peel or a half-peeled orange (at best) you have to finish peeling yourself. on the former, you get a smug bf who will feed you like it's a pocky stick. on the latter, you better be the one feeding him while hugging and cuddling him. multitask somehow. also, give him kisses because he is called a ‘princess’ for a reason.
“Ah, being in your arms being fed like this… yeah, yeah. I know don't worry. I will repay the favor.”
nagi
realistically, you will be the one peeling it for him and forcing him to eat one. because why would he even touch one? he is too lazy for that, nothing personal. but, let's say he really, really loves you: he still won't, he will just give you orange-flavored jelly in replacement. it does come from a place of love though, he genuinely thinks it's less troublesome to eat and, hence: better.
“Eating that is troublesome. It taste the same too. We can also do it while kissing. Mouth to mouth. Better right?”
reo
normally, will get a servant to peel it for you and him. though: can he do it? will he do it if it must be him? no question asked, absolutely will, all while chatting and staring at you with so much love. totally mr. k-drama male lead. you and your premium orange are in good hands.
“Oh, man, you are sometimes really …huh? Nah, I mean, I like doing this. It's just now I feel like I have to do this every time, so… yeah.”
rin
the first time, he will click his tongue and mess up. he will crush the orange. better never speak of it again, just know he loves you wholly despite everything. then a week passes and suddenly you will get a professional competitive orange peeler part-timer. without asking. just eat your orange. unless you are sick of it or it makes you actually sick.
“Did the orange taste good? … good. Nothing. You just look… nevermind. Do you want another one?”
sae
will he or will you. realistically, no? there are two possible reasons: 1) he can't. his whole stat is in soccer. 2) “you can't?” aka is it worth it getting judged by him. in case #2 though, just act cute and aim for his soft spot for you, he will fold and peel it with you pressed to his arm. he will grumble or glare but that's just itoshi-esque tsundere.
“You can't do something like this yourself? This will be the only time I’m doing this… Also who told you to move away?”
barou
our king. will peel the skin and the white fiber for you. tidy peels and if you know your way around his heart—you do just smile or blink and he is gone—he will also feed you. 10/10 execution no notes. probably will do this in kotatsu, dinner tables, and other domestic settings that are not bed while being a tsundere.
“I’m doing this just so you don't make a mess, got it? Also, scoot closer, your leg is kicking me—what do you mean I’m lying?!”
bonus
kunigami will, both before and after wc because you are his world. the difference would be in his expression only and there is that because his love for you would never change. shidou will but genuinely, please just peel it yourself. aiku will, not without teasing you though. gagamaru will either will or teach you how to eat the skin too. zantetsu wants to do it, but it will be really messy so please just don't. hiori will do it like a sweet boy, but if he is in his sadistic mood he will tease you for a bit before finally feeding you.
#bllk imagines#bllk x reader#bllk#blue lock#blue lock fluff#blue lock x reader#blue lock scenarios#bllk fluff#blue lock imagines#bllk scenarios#bllk headcanons#blue lock headcanons#isagi x reader#kaiser x reader#sae x reader#chigiri x reader#rin x reader#bachira x reader#barou x reader#nagi x reader#reo x reader#did i nearly lost the prompt? yes. but i did have fun. if anon also have fun it will be enough for me#i wrote this one in bed like a madman. after cooling down i can only think how it was fun. i hope i did it right#anon this is scheduled. if this makes you happy press isagi pic to gimme spirit. however all in all i hope u r happy
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Ron Desantis is a name many of us are familiar with, sadly. This beta male is known for his hateful policies, and generally disgraceful demeanor. However, I will prove the following fact to you all: He is not, in fact, a beta.
He is an omega taking heat suppressants.
1. Why He Hides It
Before we begin, let us ask ourselves the following: if my hypothesis is correct, why would he hide his dynamic? There are multiple reasons. The first of which: The inconvenience of heats.
Ron Desantis hopes to be a successful politician. As such, going into states of lust and slicking every month would interfere with the amount of time he can spend on his career. Additionally, it may very well open himself up for scandals. Taking heat suppressants thus frees up his schedule, and helps him keep his reputation, though I must emphasize to the omegas reading this that I do not hold any anti-omega beliefs. However, the political world today is not kind to omegas, which brings me to the second reason.
Politicians, as with many authority figures, are expected to be strong, sturdy, guarding alphas, not caring, nurturing omegas. Of course, not every alpha or omega fits the stereotype, but the stereotypes are pervasive. There's a reason that Donald Trump, an alpha, is more popular among conservatives then Ron Desantis, a ''beta''. It already is a slight blow to be seen as a beta, being known as an omega would be even more harmful to him. However I don't care about his career and in fact want him gone so I'm making this post.
2. His Omega Traits
My first proof is his personality. While it is not true that every person of a certain dynamic will have the same personality, certain traits are scientifically proven to correlate with one's dynamic. For example, not every alpha is quick to punch, or willing to fight to the death for a mate's honor, alphas in general to tend to be more possessive, more stubborn. These are not bad traits, but can be used to pinpoint a person's true dynamic.
For example: Omegas tend to be more passive. This article by the New York Times described Ron Desantis's political strategy as such:
One route for a candidate like DeSantis... is to win the nomination without crossing Trump... However, that strategy is passive.
3. Symptoms of Heat Suppressants
Heat suppressants have recognizable symptoms, if one knows where to look. Here's the ones he shows
First off, heat suppressants rarely remove all traces of being in heat. They often dont mask the scent on their own, for example, requiring scent suppressants and/or false scents. Scent suppressants are easily noticeable, as they are a lack of a scent. While betas do not have the strong scents of alphas or omegas, they do have some scent, which scent suppressants remove. Ron Desantis likely uses them as well as false scents, but the false scents must also be there.
I'm sure we all remember when Trump was on one of his usual bullying tirades, the last one directed at Desantis, where he mentioned his secnts being strange. False scents are in fact noticeable by those with a keen nose, and Trump's businessman background leads me to believe he would have that experience.
Secondly, while emotional states are not nearly as wild when off of heat suppressants, ones emotions instead are mildly high-strung for the entirety of ones cycle to offset the hormonal buildup. Look at that man and tell me hes experiencing a beta male's calm.
4. Final Proof
(This helpful chart was provided by @curioscurio)
5. Why Does It Matter?
Ron Desantis's extremely bigoted platform is based on a lie he tells his supporters. While in most cases I would not nearly be this aggrieved by an omega pretending to be a beta (as anti-omega sentiments do exist), Desantis doesn't lie simply to balance the scales, but to inflict harm upon others. If we get the word out to his supports, then its extremely likely they won't like the truth, and Desantis will fall from the tower of hatred he built when it's torn to shreds by his wicked flock. So please, reblog this, and one day we may be free of Desantis.
(ty for reading this satire lol)
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One of the things I find so interesting is how Jing is so very much not what a FL’s endgame love interest, especially in an epic xianxia, looks like (I mean in terms of character and narrative, not physical looks. Deng Wei is a ridiculously handsome man, like the rest of XY’s choices.)
I wonder if that is where at least some of puzzlement over XY’s choice/dislike of Jing as endgame that I’ve seen come from.
Jing is NOT the male lead - that is Cang Xuan, XY’s cousin who she never has even a glimmer of romantic feeling or attraction to. But Jing is also not the biggest badass or most magically powerful or most ambitious or with most status or most grand gestures or most epic story or even most outsize interaction with FL (vampy took her on dates to freaking underwater with his magic while Jing got her a practical gadget to use to go underwater herself; Vampy gave up one of his nine lives to heal her; Jing was only able to preserve her body so it would not be beyond saving and also try to die himself. Vampy’s power is battle while Jing is a tracker. Jing’s love is all-consuming and devoted but it’s also quiet.)
Jing does not come out first in anything except possibly torture (tho honestly that’s a bit of an open season on that one) and abnegation for FL’s sake. I mean the three guys are (future) emperor, a legendary rebel general with nine lives and an insane amount of magic and a…wealthy merchant.
And in a lot of ways it goes against the accepted usual narrative. Of course the top alpha dog would get the FL - the biggest bestest dude!!!! There are not many dramas where FL ends up not with ML and the ones I can think of still have a guy with outsize power/not that quiet/unhinged charisma - think of Ji Chang Wook in Empress Ki for example. The closest I can think of is in The King Loves also based on a novel where FL did not end up with the royal ML but the SML, the quiet royal bodyguard (but even there Rin was the best fighter in the drama.)
And of course the other thing that reinforces this whole departure from the usual narrative and can drive frustration is if you look at the three arcs/obstacles to FL for the three men. Cang Xuan is freaking fighting and scheming to win an empire! And accepting the whole drama maxim “love is never fated for an emperor.” Vampy is literally a sworn enemy of XY’s brother and fights to restore the long-defunct kingdom. So we have a would be emperor and a rebel leader. And then Jing’s problem is getting out of his engagement to an awful woman to be free to marry XY and/or leaving his monster family and abandoning his name to follow XY. I can see someone going “that’s nothing!”
BUT!
I love the narrative for getting that to a person living it, it’s all-consuming but also sticking to its guns that who XY will end up with is not about the usual tropes but what makes sense for her as a character. And so there is a reason Cang Xuan is the ML but Jing is the endgame and she does not end up with Vampy either. Cang Xuan’s wishes and plans drive the plot but that is precisely both why Jing is secondary in the plot but the one XY picks - she wants someone who will not drive the plot because what she wants is someone she wants cottagecore life with and there is no plot in cottagecore. The very fact that all Jing yearns for and all he fights for is domestic bliss (a traditionally FL obsession) - even all his scheming to help CX ascend is because he wants to assist FL’s desires - is why she ends up with him.
As she pretty much point blank stated in 33, everyone in her life put her second to a great cause and she’s done with that. The girl does not want a man who will change the world, she wants someone who is content to live in it with her.
ETA: I keep saying it but what the audience would pick in her place remains irrelevant. I mean I would not pick any of the three myself - I don’t feel like eternally sharing my man with 100 women as anyone with Cang Xuan would have to, Vampy’s greatest desire is to perish in the fight and the lack of appeal of that as a dating quality is obvious, and with his fam, marrying Jing would be like marrying into the Manson Family. But I am not XY so here we are.
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Another example for SheWon
By Jennifer Sieland December 4, 2023
Two trans-identified males dominated a women’s category at the Illinois State Cyclocross Championships yesterday, leading many women’s rights advocates to condemn the tournament for allowing men to self-identify into the women’s divisions.
The Illinois State Cyclocross Championships was held at Montrose Beach on December 3, representing the final challenge in the eight-race Chicago CycloCross Cup. As with other events in the Cup, the event comprised of over one dozen different competitions for men, women, and junior athletes.
But two trans-identified males topped the podium in the Women’s Singlespeed category, taking home medals set aside for female racers. Tessa Johnson and Evelyn Williamson placed first and second, respectively, in the competition, leaving space for only one biological woman – Kristin Chalmers – on the podium.
Johnson also participated in the Women’s Category 1/2 race, placing third and winning $100 in prize money.
According to the Chicago CrossCup’s website, the competition prides itself on “first and foremost fostering a positive & supportive community built around competitive cyclocross racing,” continuing: “That means welcoming and challenging everyone who wants to contribute to the series and make it better in that regard.”
In its official FAQ on the topic of transgender cyclists, the Cup notes that “discrimination or harassment of any kind on the basis of race, color, religion, age, gender, sexual orientation, gender identification, national origin, or any other stupid idea someone comes up with to belittle another racer will not be tolerated at [our] events and may result in disqualification.”
On X (formerly Twitter), news of Johnson and Williamson’s victories was shared by user @i_heart_bikes, an anonymous female cyclist who frequently calls out males self-identifying as “women” in the sport. In response, many women’s rights advocates and sports enthusiasts condemned the competition for allowing the men to participate.
“Well done @usacycling you’ve proved you don’t care about women & you’re happy to put men in female categories. What a joke,” one user replied.
“Cycling has been my refuge since I was a little girl. This makes me sick to my stomach and full of rage,” another said in response to the news.
One woman’s rights advocate even went so far as to edit Johnson and Williamson out of the podium photo, placing female racer Kristin Chalmers onto the top spot.
This is not the first time that Johnson and Williamson dominated the podium at the Chicago CycloCross Cup. In October, the two also took gold and silver in the Women’s Singlespeed, similarly leaving the only female on the podium with bronze. Johnson also took first place in the Women’s Category 1/2 race, earning him $150 in prize money.
Both Johnson and Williamson have been racing in women’s cycling for years, with Williamson collecting 18 first place titles in races across the country since 2017.
In September, Reduxx reported that Johnson and Williamson competed as a team in two separate women’s races in Illinois, taking first place in both of them. During one of the competitions, Williamson and Johnson competed under the team name “TS-ESTRODOLLS,” a reference to cross-sex hormones.
Johnson and Williamson celebrated their initial first place win on August 27 after their victory at the xXx Racing-Athletic Relay Cross in Chicago. The two men surpassed nine pairs of women for first place.
Just days later on August 31, Johnson and Williamson beat out two teams of women at the Ed Rudolph Velodrome during the State Championship in Madison.
Williamson is reportedly in a polyamorous relationship with Austin Killips, another trans-identified male cyclist who has become notorious for his frequent participation in women’s competitions. Killips has similarly taken several first place wins in women’s categories and has forced at least one woman out of the sport after targeting her with physical aggression during a race.
#usa#Illinois#Women’s sports are for women#Illinois State Cyclocross Championships#These dudes could have competed in other categories#Congratulations to Kristin Chalmers
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The era of dolls
The year 2023 in the filmography was full of the motif of women-dolls, puppets, marionettes and mannequins. The best example of a living doll in the most literal sense of the word is Barbie (dir. Greta Gerwig), who lives in an artificial world made of plastic. Whereas in Poor Things (dir. Yorgos Lanthimos) we can see Bella Baxter - a female version of Frankeintein, who has a newborn's brain transplanted. Another heroine worthy of the title of a little puppet controlled by a man would be Priscilla (dir. Sofia Coppola), who lives in a golden cage. All these female characters have in common their lack of independence, infantility and reduction to their own sexuality and appearance, at least at the beginning of the story.
The perversity of a 'Baby Doll' can be handled by a psychiatrist; there are ways and means of calming the resentments of a rebellious gril and winning her over to virtue. [S. de Beauvoir, Brigitte Bardot and the Lolita syndrome, 1962 p. 22]
Both Barbie, Priscilla and Bella emancipate themselves at some point by freeing from the power of others. I could even say that they become more mature after being exposed to the real world or honest, difficult life experiences. At this point, we can agree with Beauvoir's statement about the perversity of Baby Dolls, as she called young women characterized by childish behavior and submissiveness. However, as the history of the characters mentioned above indicates, it is impossible to "calm" a rebellious girl, especially when she discovers her puppet dependence.
Male requirements and female emancipation
It is not without reason that I quoted Simone de Beauvoir, one of the pioneers of contemporary second-wave feminism. The beginnings of all three films seem to be a small utopia created by men for men. However, when I called 2023 the era of dolls, I did not mean a return to the cinema of the 1950s, when Brigthette Bardot or Marilyn Monroe dominated the screens and patriarchy dominated homes. Over the course of the story, Priscilla, Bella and Barbie become independent, strong women who can inspire real women in various ways. The latest cinema is definitely feminist cinema and gives women back what they should have been presenting on the screen for a long time - strength, freedom of choice and self-creation.
Pink lipsticks, petticoats, puff sleeves, false eyelashes are only an artificial cover for women's true identity
After all, women are not mannequins and dolls to be decorated, and they do not dance like puppets led by men. They have their own path to follow in life. Regardless of whether it is a path that leads to awakening and discovering sexuality, studying medicine and gaining mental and material independence from an abusive man.
#poor things#barbie#priscilla#yorgos lanthimos#sofia coppola#greta gerwig#poor things 2023#barbie movie#priscilla movie#movies#films#dollette#dollcore#coquette dollete#dollete aesthetic#dollblr#feminism#dolly aesthetic#bella baxter
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Tsurune Book 3 Chapter 3 - The Song of Naru (Part 2)
Let me share my personal theory: In this universe, the sport of kyudo possesses the supernatural ability to alter one's brain chemistry. Those who have a deeper affinity with the bow are more transformed by this ability. Kyudo, it seems, can make one become more spiritually attuned and connect seemingly completely unrelated concepts, but also warp one's thought processes to the point of non-kyudo practitioners finding them incomprehensible.
Anyways I still had no idea what's going on. And yes, that last line in the chapter is real
Glossary here
Full list of translations here
Translation Notes
The word used here is 文字絵 (mojie) which means a picture formed by letters
In Japanese, superstring theory (超弦理論) contains the character for "bowstring"
A yotsugake is a kyudo glove that covers four fingers
Dousha is "a form of Japanese archery with the purpose of shooting arrows from one end to the other of the outer area on the west side of Sanjyusangen-do temple"
Toshiya is another name for dousha
A kosode is a short-sleeved kimono. It contains the character for sleeve
Apparently this is a quote from Kuroko no Basuke?
Previous | Next
The sun was flashing, spreading rainbow-colored wings of light.
It was the middle of May. The prefectural high school kyudo tournament preliminaries were being held.
The competition event was “close range.” The first day’s “individual competition” consisted of shooting four arrows in two stages in zasha, and the top ten with the highest number of hits would be selected for the next round.
The “team competition” on the second day consisted of one coach and five to seven archers, and one male and one female team per school could participate. The competition format was teams of five, four shots in zasha, and a time limit of eight minutes. Forty-one schools participated in the boys’ competition, and the eight teams with the highest scores in the first and second rounds would advance to the prefectural tournament. Looking at the past results, winning was between thirty and thirty-five hits, and the lowest halfway point was twenty.
Kazemai High School had a total of six girls: the three second-years Hanazawa, Shiragiku, and Seo, and three first-years. The boys had a total of seven, with the five second-years Kaito, Ryouhei, Seiya, Nanao, and Minato, and the two first-years Himuro and Kanbayashi. A total of thirteen people entered the individual and team competitions.
Kazemai was the winning school last year, so they attracted a lot of attention. Their school’s name was printed on the back of their green jerseys along with the illustration of an arrow.
When a student from another school said, “Oh, it’s Kazamai,” Nanao folded his hands behind his head.
“This is read as Kazemai. I get it, I sometimes say it wrong too.”
Kaito was appalled. “Don’t get the name of your own school wrong.”
“Japanese kanji is hard because there are so many different readings. Nippon, Nihon, Hinomoto, and Yamato are all examples of the ever-changing name of our country, after all.”
“Oh, it’s Asahina and Eddie from YumiDou,” they heard someone say.
They looked and saw the Haneina High School members passing by, with the flashy duo leading them. “Haneine?” someone muttered when they saw the characters printed on the back of their orange jerseys.
“Those guys are called ‘Haneina High School’… Oi, Asahina and Eddie! Merha!”
When Nanao waved at them, Asahina and Eddie also waved back. In addition, there were other unique members following them, such as a man with narrow eyes, a boy with a notebook and pen, and a boy with fresh flowers in his bag.
Asahina saluted them. “Hey, Nanapri and everyone from Kazemai. It’s been a while. How are you guys?”
Eddie continued, “Prince Nanao, it has been long seen we’ve last contacted each other. The frog art (1) I received from you the other way has seen a lot of uses, that it has.”
“I’m glad to hear that. I saw your last stream. You hit the center of the target in the dark!”
“Thank you. My body learned how to do it using something interesting. If it’s my dojo, I rarely miss a shot.”
“That’s amazing. I’d like to learn that technique too,” Seiya said.
“During kai, the second joint of your bow hand’s index finger should be in line with the position of the tree branch outside the kyudojo.”
“That isn’t something you learned with your body, it’s something you saw with your eyes…”
“Haha, well, it’s alright, isn’t it? I’ll be able to do it with my mind’s eye sooner or later.”
Suddenly, Asahina stared at Minato.
“Hmm? Is there something on my face?”
“I don’t know why, but I feel like rubbing your forehead, Narumiya.”
Seiya quickly hid Minato’s forehead. “You need our advisor’s permission.”
“Seriously? Just how strict are things at Kazemai? If only we can use a jutsu to clone him and borrow one of them. Oh, speak of the devil, Doppelgangers No. 1 and 2 have arrived.”
Asahina’s gaze was directed at a group of people dressed in purple jerseys.
It was the Kirisaki High School kyudo club. The twin brothers Senichi and Manji stopped walking at almost exactly the same moment. Their bangs were arranged symmetrically to each other. Senichi, whose bangs were parted to the left, spoke.
“Doppelgangers are already old news. We’re the Twin Fighters now.”
Hearing this, Kaito’s jaw dropped.
“I can’t believe there are guys with terrible naming senses in a different way from Seiya… Are you sure you guys aren’t going against the times?”
“Huh!?” The twins exclaimed in unison. Kabashima and Yushima tried to calm them down, but Senichi picked up the corners of his mouth and bared his teeth, and Manji pulled his eyelid down and stuck out his tongue. Without paying any attention to what was going on around him, Ryouhei ran up to a certain person.
“Shuu-kun!”
“Hey, Ryouhei. Did you grow taller again?”
“Yep. I’m not losing to you yet!”
“Fufu. I guess I have to give up.”
“It’s a shame that Motomura-senpai and Sase-senpai aren’t here anymore. It’s so sad that everyone has to go their separate ways after graduating from high school, even though we had so much fun together. I wish I could shoot with everyone more.”
Shuu’s pale eyelashes wavered. Senichi and Manji reacted.
“Yamanouchi, stop calling him that.”
“Huh? But Shuu-kun is Shuu-kun, isn’t he?”
Someone was watching the jumble of green, orange, and purple as they chattered.
Kuon was lamenting outside the circle.
It’s him! The man I saw in my dreams.
…No, wait. Who is Fujiwara-senpai looking at?
Following his line of sight, Kuon found Minato there. Shuu had a gentle smile on his face.
I can’t believe this. Those who stand at the top should not smile so frivolously. I don’t care about the dog anymore. This guy must be harmful to Fujiwara-senpai.
The antique doll smiled coldly.
After the opening ceremony, the individual competition started. The order was random in individual competitions.
The girls went first. Hanazawa, Shiragiku, Seo, and six other girls put on their yugake and headed for the waiting room with their bows, arrows, and tsurumaki with spare strings. Tommy-sensei went with them.
Cheering squads from each school took their places in the stands. It was filled with people holding paper cranes with prayers written on them and others recording in notebooks.
The Kazemai girls started appearing from the third group. Hanazawa’s matooto was cheered by the audience, and Shiragiku and Seo, who were in separate groups, followed. They performed a light and lovely dance, and as a result, Hanazawa had two hits, Shiragiku had three hits, and Seo landed all four of her arrows.
Next was the boys’ division.
Haneina’s Asahina, Eddie, Matsuda, Kanuma, and Igarashi. The five unique and showy individuals captured people’s attentions even when they were alone. Two in particular, Asahina and Eddie, had hair colors that couldn’t be misperceived even from a distance, and their shooting was even more beautiful than in their videos. Their arrows were like flashes as lightning, and they hit with all four arrows.
Kanbayashi, a Kazemai first-year, watched them from the waiting room and thought, I can’t shoot disgracefully. I have to do my best not to bring shame to Kazemai.
The first individual match. Kanbayashi was at the second target in the second group. The archer before him drew his bow. He released his arrow and hit the target at three o’clock. It was a good start.
Meanwhile, tension had stiffened Kanbayashi’s shoulders.
Huh? Why can’t I focus?
As he panicked in his mind, he raised his bow and moved to daisan. He slowly pushed his bow open—
Right when Kanbayashi realized it, the arrow was no longer in his hand and was sticking out of the arrow path. The arrow had jumped out of his hand while he was still drawing his bow. He had no idea what happened.
Crap, crap, crap.
No way, is this target panic…?
No, no, no, I’ve been nervous plenty of times, but I’ve never let go this early. No, there’s no time to think about this. I have to nock the next arrow—. His hands were shaking, and his bow grip was becoming slick with sweat.
It’s fine, it’s fine, it’ll be okay next time.
The more he chanted that in his mind, the rougher his breathing became.
For his second shot, Kanbayashi’s arrow was once again released before reaching kai. The venue became noisy as people started murmuring to each other, and the sound of someone saying “Ah” remained in his ears. The archer behind him released a sharp-flying arrow. Shouts of “Yes!” reverberated.
Kanbayashi’s third shot came around. He could feel his hands shaking. He didn’t know how to interpret this first-time sensation. What did Narumiya-senpai say? To overcome target panic, focus on breathing and exhale slowly. Exhale, exha…, oh no, I can’t do it—.
Again, before he even drew his bow back, the arrow was released in an instant. The sound of the aluminum arrow sweeping across the ground resounded, and it pierced the target after bouncing.
Is this what it means to not hear a tsurune?
It was almost terrifying for an archer.
After shooting all four arrows, Kanbayashi didn’t make any matooto, while Kaito, Seiya, and Minato landed all their arrows, and the others ended the first round with three hits.
Once he left the kyudojo, Kanbayashi buried his face in his hands. His heart was still pounding. “Don’t be so hard on yourself,” Nanao called out, but Kanbayashi’s face was so stiff that all he could manage was a forced smile.
This is so embarrassing. I became a complete mess in front of my senpais and my family who came to support me.
I’ve been practicing and practicing, but when the actual competition comes, I end up like this. What am I doing—.
Kanbayashi gripped the arrows that he retrieved.
“Please remove me from the lineup for tomorrow’s team competition! I can’t do it! I definitely have target panic! I don’t want to be a burden on everyone!”
This time it wasn’t Kanbayashi, but Minato and the second-years who were blinking rapidly.
It was Kaito who responded. “Oi, oi. We’re still only halfway through the individual competition. Why don’t you just hit the remaining four?”
Nanao and Ryouhei also chimed in.
“That’s right. It’s a little too early to give up. Let’s focus on the individual competition in front of us first.”
“Yeah, what he said. There was also a time when I panicked because my string snapped, but I managed.”
However, Kanbayashi didn’t change his opinion.
“It’s impossible! I’ve always had the potential to get target panic! My mental weakness is the only thing I’m confident about! You have to have had it to understand how awful it is!”
Everyone’s eyes turned to Minato. Nothing but the words of someone who experienced target panic could reach Kanbayashi’s heart now.
Minato stepped forward.
“Although it’s called target panic, it’s still a relatively early and sudden system. It’s not severe yet. We can get back on track.”
“You saw me, didn’t you!? My terrible shooting! I was so careful about target panic, but why, why…”
“Let’s do the dantian breathing exercises together. You’re too worked up right now, but you’ll calm down in a few minutes.”
“I can’t do such wishful thinking!”
Minato took Kanbayashi’s hand.
“Kanbayashi, listen to me. My mom once told me about something she read in a book. In ancient times, the Japanese named very fast vehicles ‘tsubame.” The second-fastest were ‘kodama,’ and the ones after that were ‘hikari.’ What do you think is a vehicle that’s faster than light?”
“…Was there anything faster than light?”
“The Shinkansen ‘Nozomi.’ It’s the Japanese word for ‘hope.’ The slogans were, ‘Nozomi of Ambitious Japan! is always there for you’ and ‘Nozomi is the fastest way to meet the person you want to see.’”
Tommy-sensei, who had been watching their exchange, smiled broadly.
“I’ve ridden on the ‘Hinotori’ before. E=mc2. It reminds one of Einstein, the monument of theoretical physics. When things move, they get heavier.”
“Tommy-sensei, you’re knowledgeable about physics too?” Kanbayashi said.
“No, not at all. I’m just a geography teacher. I only know the two theories: relativity, which deals with gravity, and quantum mechanics, which explains the behavior of matter in the microscopic world.”
“The only one of the seventeen subatomic particles that hadn’t been confirmed, the Higgs boson particle, was discovered in this century. It was called the God particle, and is responsible for giving mass to everything. And I guess there’s also the ‘superstring theory,’” Seiya supplemented. (2)
“Super-string?”
“The superstring theory. It’s a theory that claims that the origin of all things is ultra-small ‘strings’. The theory is that particles are actually the vibrations of these strings. It’s still at the stage of hypothesis.”
“The universe is made up of the sound of strings. I guess it would be too poetic to say that tsurune is the true nature of matter. Sound is the vibrating waves of air. Since it’s said that everything from people and plants to minerals are made up of waves, to say that ‘Nozomi’ is faster than light might not necessarily be wrong,” Masa-san said.
“Wow, tsurune is incredible.”
Tommy-sensei smiled with satisfaction at Kanbayashi, who was blinking rapidly.
“When I hear the word ‘ambitious,’ I think of Dr. Clark’s words. ‘Boys, be ambitious. Like this old man.’ I can almost hear the doctor laughing as he says, ‘I’m an eternal young man.’ Now, there’s still a long, long way to go. Let’s go to the next stage together.”
“I don’t really understand, but I’m going to let the team competition wait and focus on what’s in front of me right now.”
Kanbayashi changed his mindset and practiced dantian breathing as Minato put his hand on his lower abdomen.
As for the results of the individual competition, Kazemai’s Minato, Seiya, and Kaito, Kirisaki’s Shuu, Kabashima, and Kuon, Haneina’s Asahina and Eddie, and Seo from the girls’ division would be advancing to prefecturals.
The second day was the team competition.
The first round. The Haneina team, who were famous as Yotubers, drew a lot of attention for their shooting.
The oomae was Eddie Fox.
His long, blond hair was tied high up on his head, and a headband was tied around his forehead. He looked like an actor in a period drama. Once he gripped his bow, his jokester persona disappeared as his eyes sharpened, his breathing became shallower, and his face became dreadfully serious. A burst of sound resounded from the target area as he took advantage of a momentary gap and got in close to his opponent.
The second target was Matsuda Kotetsu.
He had poor vision, and the world he saw was composed of multicolored balls of light. His hearing was above average, and he had an excellent sense of perception. Whenever he stood before the target, he always stood behind someone else because it was easier to perceive the distance when someone was standing in front of him. Kyudo was a sport that could be played by people of all ages, and physical differences were no handicap. With the use of remote video conferencing, it was even possible to have a match with people on the other side of the world at the same time.
The third target was the naka, Kanuma Nobuhiko.
He was a haiku poet who loved writing haikus. He was staring absentmindedly into space during the middle of a competition.
A staff member approached him and asked him in a whisper, “Hey, what’s wrong? Are you not feeling well?”
“The eye of the snake/the white water surface holds/the golden-scaled fish. I tried to write a poem about carps living in a pond, but I guess it’s too mediocre. On a summer’s day/the koi frolic and a cat/sleeps beneath a tree. How’s that?” (3)
“This isn’t a haiku contest, it’s a kyudo tournament! Concentrate on your shooting!”
“Okaaay.”
Kanuma nocked his arrow. The spectators who had witnessed the scene were taken aback by his lack of nervousness and extraordinary strength of his heart.
The fourth target was the ochimae, Igarashi Shion.
He was the Gardening Prince who loved flowers. Even when he was sitting in his chair in the waiting room, he kept fresh flowers with him and left them with his tsurumaki. Even his bow was decorated with flowers he drew himself, and there were even people who wanted him to sell it to them. His shooting was as sweet-smelling as a flower and created the illusion of a fairy flying.
The fifth person was the ochi, Asahina You.
His red hair symbolized the rising sun. He parted his bow and followed the correct tsurumichi path. What was beautiful was good, and what was good was true. If you sought beauty and aesthetic, you would naturally follow the right path without being aware of it. Far from concepts such as “seeking the truth” and “ascetic training,” and the irrepressible joy that radiated from him captivated those who watched him. He liked to have fun, and believed in fundamentally ignoring what wasn’t fun or changing it to be fun.
The Haneina High School kyudo club was both noble and greedy. They lived not by the values of others, but their own axes. The five of them were comrades and friends who had met each other on their travels. Of course, there were occasional clashes of opinion, but they knew when to quit, so there were no lingering resentments. Making videos was a great way to learn about life and society, as what one said and did was constantly exposed to the public eye. It wasn’t easy to communicate something to others. True expressive people seemed to be free and unfettered at first glance, but they kept their feet on the ground and devoted themselves to their work.
The five of them carved out the Eight Stages of Shooting.
Ashibumi, douzukuri, yugamae, uchiokoshi, hikiwake, kai, hanare, zanshin.
When five circles, a “yoko kaichuu,” were lined up next to each other on the scoreboard, there was an eruption of applause.
Hanazawa, Shiragiku, and Seo, who were watching from the stands, let out sighs.
“It feels really fun.”
“Their shooting was brilliant.”
“They’re formidable opponents. It seems that the boys’ division won’t be so smooth-sailing.”
The members of the Haneina High School kyudo club achieved the high results of four, four, four, three, and four hits each.
Second round, first kyudojo. The champions, Kirisaki High School, were taking their turn.
The oomae was Kabashima. He was particular about his face and form. In the name of Kirisaki High School, he shot so that no one could complain. When gripping the bow, the tenmonsuji should be firmly sticking to the todake, and the skin between one’s thumb and index finger should be rolled up from below. It was no exaggeration to say that kyudo began with the Eight Stages of Shooting and ended with the Eight Stages of Shooting. Originally, it was the Seven Stages, but with the addition of “zanshin,” it became eight. Why did they make it eight? He felt something profound in it. He earnestly, single-mindedly, carved out the Eight Stages and created a matooto. He was intoxicated by the sweet tone.
Senichi was at the second target, and Manji was at the third. Although their time-difference attack was sealed up, the confidence of the Twin Fighters was evident. We stand on the front line, the firing line. Come on, follow us. They looked completely relaxed, as if victory had been decided before the fight had even begun.
The ochimae was Kuon Takumi. Unusually for a high school student, he used a yotsugake. (3) There were slight differences in gripping the string depending on whether you were wearing mitsugake and yotsugake. Originally used in dousha, (4) and it was said that yotsugake was more suitable for people who drew many arrows like the toshiya (5)in Sanjusangen-do or for people with tough bows, but since Kuon believed that yotsugake were more superiorly ranked than mitsugake, he chose to use it. The arrow that was released almost hit the center. A rapturous air exuded from his whole body.
When the ochi, Shuu, started to lift his bow, the entire venue resonated with silence.
Even the sound of his clothes rustling was daunting. He possessed a divinity, as if he had reached a higher level than what everyone called the “Young Lord.” He himself became a bow and emitted a tsurune that soared through the heavens. Shuu’s sound instantly erased the uncanny colors created by Kuon and purified the place.
A true sound.
A good sound.
A beautiful sound.
By the time the people whose hearts were pierced came back to their senses, Shuu had already left.
The results were announced over the loudspeaker.
“The results will be announced now. First shooting range, Team 17, four, four, three, four, four, nineteen hits total. Second shooting range, Team 18, four, two, two, four, 12 hits total. That is all.”
Kirisaki won, and Kazemai went after them.
The oomae, Kaito, drew his bow tightly. He relaxed his hands and stretched his upper arms.
More force, more force. He stretched and stretched—then released. The arrow was sucked into the target while spinning clockwise.
The second target, Ryouhei, didn’t only grow in height. He had the dignity of an archer, and he shot with majesty. He was someone who had love for everyone. He would continue to have affection for himself and others for the rest of his life. The target accurately reflected the archer, and the round target, without deceit or calculation, was waiting to be pierced.
The naka, Seiya, was also clearly different from who he was a year ago. He took off his obstinate armor and stretched his limbs freely. He hated himself. He hated irrationality, fate, all of it. When he became entwined with hatred and fell into a swamp, there was someone who reached out to him. That person said that they didn’t care what kind of person he was.
The ochimae, Kanbayashi, began to carry out his shot. He concentrated on the lower abdomen that Minato had put his hand on before.
The dantian is “here.”
Now, gather the light here.
He threw away all speech and listened only to the sound of his breathing. When the wind calmed down, his arrow flew at high speed.
The ochi was Minato. He summoned the wind that should have stopped. The wind that rushed around the earth was the land’s breath. Once you were able to feel that, you became a wind user. He manipulated the wind at will and connected it to a new era.
The tsurune took everything away.
For the results of the first round, Kazemai had fifteen hits out of twenty.
After the first and second rounds were completed, Kirisaki had thirty-six hits, Haneina had thirty-five, and Kazemai had thirty-three.
All three schools made it through the preliminaries.
After the tournament, the Kazemai second-years and Masa-san waited for a car to pick them up. Tommy-sensei and the first-years went home first. Waves of people came and went to the other shore.
Minato, Seiya, and Ryouhei sat on the edge of a flower bed. Ryouhei immediately started to eat his sweets. Seiya, finding the verse from “Greensleeves” stuck in his head, couldn’t help but hum it.
He met eyes with Masa-san, who was next to them.
“Is that an English folk song? You know a lot of old songs, Seiya.”
“If you know it, then you must be ancient as well, Masa-san. Minato’s mom used to hum it. Oh, it can’t be helped if you don’t know it.”
A bell was rung. Fighters burned with quiet fighting spirit.
Seeing the two jab at each other, Nanao quickly took out his phone. He entered the search words, and the English lyrics and translation were displayed.
Kaito peered at them.
“What’s this? Isn’t this just a guy who got dumped and kept whining about it? Isn’t it too obsessive to say at the end, ‘Goodbye, please come here again and love me?’”
“Kacchan, you don’t understand heartbreak at all.”
“Hah? I don’t need to.”
“Yep, that’s what I thought.”
Ryouhei said that he would eat all the sweets.
“What kind of woman is Greensleeves? He’s calling her name over and over, right?”
Seiya was the one who answered. “I did some research, but the prevailing theory seems to be that it’s a metaphor and not a real name. There are various theories that Greensleeves is a prostitute, a dead person, or a ghost. Also, some people think that Greensleeves isn’t a song about lost love, but more like a hymn.”
For a moment, sound disappeared.
Even though it should have been extremely noisy with all the people around, the area was so silent that it made their ears hurt. Even the birds were quiet.
Masa-san murmured a few words.
“Green kosode—. (6) I think it’s talking about the upper arm.”
“What do you mean?” Minato asked.
“There’s a custom in the West to wear green when one turns into a spirit. When you think of Santa Claus, you think of red clothes, but that was because he was dressed in a company’s image color in advertisements, and in England, he was originally dressed in green. According to one theory, Santa Claus is Saint Nicholas, that is, a clergyman. He is a person who seems to have existed, and his name and deeds are passed on to his disciples.”
“What does that have to do with ‘upper arms’?”
“I think ‘Greensleeves’ refers to the arms themselves. It’s ‘green sleeves.’ When you touch the arm of a person, a miracle will occur. That makes them a vessel of the divine.”
Masa-san typed into his phone.
Alas, my love, you do me wrong.
Greensleeves was all my joy.
Greensleeves was my delight.
Oh, my chest feels like it’s about to burst. You who bestow love, how cruel you are.
You let enjoy your love, and say you’ll forsake me. Is this a test of God?
Greensleeves, you are joy itself.
Greensleeves, you are days of happiness.
I was happy just being by your side.
Seiya spoke.
“That sound like words dedicated to God. A somewhat critical song of lamentation and resignation.”
“Greensleeves may have been a person who had a healing hand that could cure illnesses and injuries, or maybe she was a saint. There are even those who say that it is the name of God. It’s distinct from the secular world and doesn’t appear openly. Even if you’re attracted by, yearn for, adore, sacrifice yourself, and give up all your wealth and power for the singing voice that you overhear from the church, you cannot touch ‘it.’”
“I see. In that case, I can at least acknowledge the manly spirit of ‘I’ll stop you even if I have to cling to you,’” Kaito said. (7)
“Kacchan, this isn’t a rugby play. And ‘manly spirit,’ really? You completely ruined the mood,” Nanao said.
Seiya lowered his eyes and took off his glasses.
“Being abandoned by God might be an indication that humans are irredeemable.”
Shiragiku’s expression clouded over, and she gripped Seo and Hanazawa’s hands.
“How awful…it was such a wonderful melody.”
As everyone fell silent, Minato pondered.
Has God abandoned humans?
Is this really true? Didn’t I forget something important?
“You’re wrong! Such a sad and gentle melody could never be a criticism and lament to God. This is a joyful song for a coming-of-age ceremony!” he started shouting.
Before he knew it, everyone was staring at him blankly. The three girls shrank back while still holding hands.
Masa-san tried to follow Minato’s thought process.
“Coming-of-age ceremony? What’s with this all of a sudden? Where did your thoughts fly to, Minato?”
“I remembered my mother’s words. She said that at coming-of-age ceremonies, it’s a ‘song of naru.’”
“…What do you mean? Did your mother have a shrine maiden disposition?
“No, she was a normal mom.”
“Don’t put too much stock in what Narumiya calls ‘normal.’ By the way, who’s Naru? Is that a new character? Now I’m even more confused.”
Kaito scratched his head.
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Dynamight and All Mights Character Arcs
⚠️MHA Manga spoilers⚠️⚠️Discussion of ch362⚠️
Okay… this is the only serious post I’m making regarding Katsuki’s death scare. I’ll answer any asks about it but other than that I’m not gonna make anymore posts about this particular topic. Mha isn’t within any of our control and predictions are just that… predictions. In reality, this is Horikoshis story and if he decides to truly break all of our hearts then so be it.
Also I’m not gonna talk about OFA theories and more so their characters themselves. Mainly cuz OFA is complicated and it’s difficult to pinpoint what might actually be happening to it or what it’s doing. I’m just going on based on what would make sense as their arc resolutions and why I think so. Anyways…
Contents:
I: Unfinished business
II: Katsuki’s Stubbornness
III: All Mights incomplete arc and Nighteyes vision
IV: Horikoshi’s writing style
V: Quirk Society
VI: Some Parallels
I: Unfinished Business
So I’m pretty sure we all came to the conclusion that Katsuki’s arc is incomplete and this supposed “death” feels abrupt, rushed, and unsatisfying. Not that if he died at another point it’d be satisfying but with how Horikoshi has written other deaths (which I’ll bring up again later) it’d be very out of character of Hori to present the second male lead with a death that feels so incomplete and tragic.
I’m gonna cut straight to the point: Katsuki has been reflecting on himself for almost 250 chapters. Slowly accepting that he’s in fact, not the best. Thinking about what he did to Izuku when they were younger and finding ways to atone for it. Learning that showing you care about someone isn’t a sign of weakness. Overall trying to be less of an asshole. And most important (in my opinion) learning how to accept help from others. I wanna talk about this point specifically.
Izuku is “win to save” right? His thing is about helping people even when they don’t ask for it, and at the beginning that’s what bothered Katsuki the most about Izuku. Izuku tried to help him when Katsuki didn’t need it and Katsuki thought it was offensive because why would a kid who is good at everything with an amazing quirk need help from a quirkless loser?
This development is what stemmed the “if I can’t save myself, I’d rather not be saved” attitude that he has at the beginning because having to be saved makes him feel just as—if not more—inferior as losing.
(Is this picture recycled from another meta I posted? Yea… yea it is. But the highlighted parts still apply)
It took him a while to be even somewhat okay with accepting help from someone else and the first example was Kirishima in the hideout raid. Y’know, that time where Izuku let someone else be the one to reach out to him no matter how much he wanted it to be him. He said it had to be Kirishima because he knew that Katsuki wouldn’t have accepted his hand. Because he never has. And still hasn’t (no, heroes rising doesn’t count until proven otherwise).
After DvK2 Katsuki became almost hyper-fixated on the fact that he’s been misunderstanding Izuku for damn near 12 years. But also after DvK2, Katsuki hasn’t been given another chance to accept Izukus hand. And yea it’s pretty sappy but it’s an important part of their relationship and Katsukis development that theoretically can happen in the vestige world but wouldn’t make sense in terms of an actual resolution (in my opinion).
II: Katsuki’s Stubbornness
Katsuki is persistent and always has been. Aizawa and All Might have pointed it out several times. He’s grownup being good at everything and at UA is when he starts to be told there’s things he can’t do. He starts to get a taste of failure and tries his best to do what he’s told his incapable of anyway. The earliest example I can think of is during the sports fest when Tsuburaba tried to block Katsuki with his solid air and Monoma’s team is like “heh he can’t break through that.”
And he did anyway.
Or final exams when he was determined to try to beat All Might. Even though he didn’t he still tried his damnedest which I think is the best example despite not winning the way he wanted to. It’s also the first time he accepts Izukus help no matter how much he doesn’t like it. (The amount of parallels from this fight to 362 is crazy when you look at it closely)(we also get a taste of the actual frustration he feels when someone tells him he can’t do something).
“We had no hope of beating you without taking a few risks.”
“Even if it messes me up, I chose this path to victory.”
(…and we call Izuku the self sacrificial one)
Seem familiar? This quotes seem oddly relevant in light of 360-362. He’ll break himself if it means he tries his best for the outcome he wants and…
Meaning: as long as he’s able, he’ll fight to win. It’s apart of his character to not go down easily. He’s simply too stubborn to and it’d be extremely unfulfilling to go down mid-fight and not get back up. Yea, he didn’t get up a second time in his final exam because he passed out but, Izuku still made sure he claimed a victory even if it wasn’t the way he wanted. Plus he didn’t need to get up a second time. Katsuki deserves a victory to actually go his way this time, not for the victory itself but to prove his own expectations of his strength. He wants to be the strongest, right?
Who is Katsuki Bakugou if not someone that lives up to their own word?
If not for himself then for Izuku. To be the person Izuku looks up to.
III: All Mights incomplete arc and Nighteyes vision
So All Might has always been one to keep secrets from most people. When Izuku found out that All Might kept the fact that Nighteye knew about OFA and didn’t like him before they even met, he was offended, remember? And offended by the fact that Mirio was supposed to be the successor that All Might was settling with. Emphasis on settling.
Nighteye made it clear that he thinks Izuku is a lousy choice in a successor because he thinks “the burning desire to help people” isn’t enough to be a suitable candidate despite the fact that that’s how All Might was metaphorically born. And he still believes that despite Izuku’s quick improvement (up until his dying moments at least, but that’s beside the point).
So theory time:
I’ve actually been thinking about this for a while I just didn’t think Katsuki would have to get so hurt for it.
Some of Nighteyes dying words was about how Izuku proved that the future can be changed but during the Chisaki battle Uraraka and Izuku also proved that it takes will and conviction to change the future. To change fate. However, All Might has already secretly accepted that he is going to die which is why he never told the foresight to Izuku.
However…
He’s fighting to live for Izukus sake. Not his own. From this point in the story, yea Izuku needs him and All Might knows that. But later, after endeavors agency arc All Mihht starts to slowly believe that Izuku doesn’t need him anymore and in Izuku’s vigilante arc, All Might starts to see his thoughts being proven correct.
“You won’t need to look back to me.”
All Might began to realize that he’s not someone Izuku needs anymore, as harsh as that sounds. He became someone Izuku sought out to protect rather than the other way around and being aware of that is frustrating for him.
The panel of All Mights response was small and on the next page so I didn’t add it but all he said was “thank you.” He didn’t go on some kind of tangent about continuing to fight to live.
He recognizes that he’s not keeping the promise he made to Inko. He’s supposed to be the one protecting and teaching Izuku but the table turned (in a more obvious way since Izuku has been the one protecting and teaching All Might in the first place). But in the same way that he recognizes himself as not being someone Izuku needs anymore, he recognizes the people that Izuku does need. I think when it comes down to protecting himself or protecting someone he knows that Izuku still needs in his life, he’d choose the latter because he’s dedicated the rest of his life to doing things for Izuku’s sake. Not his own. And who’s the person that’s been most recognizable to All Might as the most important person in Izuku’s life?
I think All Might is gonna see Katsuki on the ground and be prepared to die for him just as Katsuki was prepared to die for Izuku (ch285). It would come full circle from when he was unwilling to try to save Katsuki in chapter one until he saw Izuku go for him first.
This is where I’ll start to sound desperate but it’s a legitimate thought I’ve had for a while. All Might can still go into his muscle form. And there’s no proof that OFA is completely gone other than ‘a feeling’ All Might had in his fight in Kamino. The original theory about why All Mights vestige is still ghostly was because he’s still alive but, what if it’s because he still has shreds of OFA and since he still has it, he hasn’t become a true vestige yet? This is something I thought of way before 362 because something just never felt right about it? Why would Nighteyes vision take place after All Mights retirement?
Nighteye didn’t say he’d encounter AFO again, assuming he knows what AFO looked like and what state he was in after All Might “beat” him 6 years ago. Just like All Might was able to recognize AFO immediately, Nighteye would too.
Do you remember his run in with stain? How stain threatened to kill him for talking down on himself? Stain showed All Might that despite feeling useless, there’s still people that believe in him. And he hit him with this:
A hero only exists for the sake of others…
That’s what he’s been doing, hasn’t it? Except in the state he’s in, he can’t be a real hero anymore can he? He’s felt useless. Like a Deku.
OFA is a power all about will and love. Katsukis in trouble and Katsuki means something to Izuku so… he’ll pull through despite thinking he can’t. Just like he did here:
Yes, it’s sad. But in my brain it makes sense and it’d complete All Mights character nicely. I think he’s being brought up to often in this fight for him to sit there and continue to just watch.
I’m sure Katsuki isn’t the only person that’s realized this about Izuku and has been inspired by it. And I think All Might being able to use OFA immediately with no drawback when he got it adds a tinge of irony there.
Do I think he’ll be the one to save Katsuki? No. But I think he’s gonna “face that other villain” while someone else heals Katsuki and OFA does whatever it does. And hopefully Izuku will be there eventually to lend a hand that Katsuki can finally accept.
Also I’d like to point this out before moving on:
Beginning of the story, rain started. The beginning of this shitshow.
Right after Izuku was found by Katsuki and brought home by his classmates. All Might letting someone else protect and raise him because he knows he can’t do anything that he considers meaningful for him anymore. The rain stops. When All Mights attitude changes after Stains lecture.
Weather has a sudden change again and it’s about to rain. What if it’s All Might heading to the battle field? He accidentally caused the rain before when he protected Katsuki (ch1). So what do you think will stop the rain once it’s started? I personally think it’ll be All Might accepting his unfortunate fate and dying happy doing something he always loved doing again. Being a hero and dying a hero. Not dying as some retiree.
Anyways…
These next two points are a little more logistical.
IV: Horikoshis Writing Style
There haven’t been very many deaths in mha. But each time they died with someone they cared about around or someone that cares about them (minus midnight).
-Twice saving Toga and compress and giving back Togas Handkerchief
-not a death scene but Mirio and Tamaki using each other as crutches when they were both really injured.
-Nighteye dying in the presence of All Might, his sidekick, disciple, and the kid that changed his negative attitude about his foresight (Izuku changing the future but not dying to Chisaki).
-again not a death scene but Kirishima sacrificing himself for Mina when Gigantomachia tried to grab her.
-not a death scene again but Katsuki sacrificing himself for Izuku.
A sudden change in that pattern just wouldn’t make sense in my opinion. Katsuki taking a senseless beating and dying is inconsistent writing to me so he’s gonna get back up cuz I say so.
V: Quirk Society
There’s not much to this so I’ll get straight to the point:
Recovery Girls existence
Best Jeanist survived a massive hole in his abdomen from AFO despite not being able to be healed for damn near half an hour (and we didn’t know he was still alive for like 150 chapters). Izuku gets his shattered bones healed in minutes despite it taking months to heal that kind of injury naturally. Katsukis injury seems healable when you take the verses medical care into consideration.
In terms of strategy when it comes to this fight I think it’d be dumb to not have Recovery Girl and a medical team on standby in AFO or ShigAFOs battlefields. I’m sure there’s medical and rescue on standby at the other battle fields too for after fights but it’d be dumb not to have at least someone at the fight against the biggest threat.
VI: Parallels
This is just stuff I haven’t already pointed out
heh yea…
Half-assed Conclusion
Katsuki accepting Izukus help and Izuku potentially saving his life isn’t him being a damsel. It’s a resolution to his character and is purely his own. I don’t think any other conclusion to his character arc would be satisfying until he accepts help from Izuku. Will it kinda be a test of Izuku’s control over his heart? Maybe. Will Izuku probably go ballistic? Probably. But whatever happens with Katsuki is Katsuki’s development only (and some all might).
Idk this may be me being in denial and desperate but this last chapter kinda screwed me up and made me think about the story a lot and how weird and out of place this chapter feels. It makes me feel better to word dump and put my thoughts somewhere that isn’t my brain so. This post probably doesn’t make much sense cuz I wrote it pretty quickly. Sorry in advance I guess lmao.
I’m not talking about this anymore and I’m probably gonna take a little break from mha for a bit. I’ll still be updating my fic for anyone that’s keeping up with that but other than that I’ll be avoiding the manga for a bit which is why I won’t be talking about this subject for a while.
#bnha#midoriya izuku#bakugou katsuki#mha#boku no hero academia#my hero academia#bnha meta#all might#sir nighteye#mirio togata#bnha manga spoilers#bakudeku#bkdk#bnha 362#yes I used over 10 photos#I’m built different#he’s fine cuz I say so#this might be extremely nonsensical to some but I don’t care#dumping my thoughts makes me feel better
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By: Richard Dawkins
Published: Mar 22, 2024
I want to make a three-way distinction. You can be a Cultural Christian, a Political Christian, a Believing Christian, or any combination of the three. People may disagree about which of these constitutes being “A Christian”. For me it has to be Believing Chistian.
I am a Cultural Christian, specifically a Cultural Anglican. I was educated in Christian schools. The history of my people is heavily influenced by Christian tradition. I like singing Christmas Carols, and am deeply moved by the sacred music of Bach and Handel. My head is full of Biblical phrases and quotations. And hymn tunes, which I regularly play by ear on my electronic clarinet.
I think Ayaan Hirsi-Ali (who is one of my favourite people in the world) is a Political Christian. She was brought up in the culture of Islam and is well aware of the horrors that that religion is still visiting on Muslims around the world, especially women. She sees Christianity as a relatively benign competitor, worth supporting as a bulwark against Islam. Just as most of us support a political party without agreeing with all its policies, because we prefer it to the alternative, a Political Christian may support Christianity without being a Believing Christian, because it’s better than the main alternative. Ayaan is a Cultural Muslim, and it is this that has driven her to be a Political Christian.
Believing Christians believe that there is a supernatural creator at the base of the universe called God. They believe a First Century Jew called Jesus is the son of God. They believe Jesus’s mother was a virgin when she gave birth to him. They believe that Jesus came alive again three days after he died. They believe that we ourselves have an immortal soul which survives our bodily death. They believe that God listens to our prayers. I strongly suspect hat Ayaan doesn’t believe any of these things. She is not a Believing Christian.
In my language, that means she is not a Christian at all. Others may include Cultural Christian in their definition of Christian, in which case I am a Christian. Indeed, Ayaan herself is reported to have called me one of the most Christian people she knows. But by the same token, the implication would be that she is a Muslim because she is a Cultural Muslim. And she certainly would not call herself a Muslim.
So, Ayaan is a Political Christian but she is no more a Believing Christian than I am. Her example leads me to consider my own position. Am I a Political Christian? I am in no doubt that Christianity is morally superior to Islam. Just look at the regions of the world with an explicitly Islamic government, or where Islam is the dominant political influence: Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Indonesia, Somalia, Northern Nigeria, Brunei, Turkey (betraying the admirable secularism of its post-Ottoman foundation) Saudi Arabia and many other countries of the Arab world. Laws vary, but recurrent patterns include mistreatment of women as second class citizens, persecution of gays, forced marriage, violent intolerance of what is considered blasphemous, anti-Jewish prejudice going so far as to laud Hitler, draconian punishment for apostasy, and for adultery which is often deemed to include simply talking to a member of the opposite sex other than a spouse or relative. Christianity has its bad points, and in earlier centuries it has been as bad as Islam. But today there’s no contest. When it comes to evil, Islam wins hands down, by a huge margin. No other religion comes close.
If I were American I would vote Democrat because, in spite of their idiotic stance on the male/female distinction, they are hugely preferable to the Republican alternative. Similarly, if I were forced to vote for either Christianity or Islam as alternative influences on the world, I would unhesitatingly vote Christian. If that make me a Political Christian, so be it. I am perhaps as much of a Political Christian as Ayaan is. But does that make either of us a Christian?
In my language, certainly not. For me, as a scientist, truth or falsehood of beliefs is what really defines a word like Christian or Muslim. If you are going to call somebody a Christian without qualification, I think it’s a confusion of language to mean anything less than a Believing Christian. You are at liberty to dissent from that definition. But let us at least be clear what definition we are using. If Ayaan says she’s a Christian and I say she’s not, we are really not disagreeing. We are defining our terms differently. She uses “Christian” to include “Political Christian” for herself and “Cultural Christian” for me. I don’t think you can be a real Christian if you don’t believe the fundmental tenets of Christianity.
The only disagreement is a semantic one. I am a Cultural Christian but not a Believing Christian, which, in my language means I am not a Christian. You, Ayaan, are a Political Christian, which in your language, but not mine, makes you a Christian. But we are neither of us Believing Christian. And this, in my language but not yours, makes neither of us Christians. So, dear Ayaan, let’s not agree to differ. Let’s agree that we don’t really differ.
Dissident Dialogues
I’m happy to say I’ll be having a public conversation with Ayaan Hirsi-Ali at the inaugural Dissident Dialogues. Obviously her announcement that she has become Christian will be a major part of the discussion. The conference will be in New York, May 3rd & 4th. Distinguished speakers include Steven Pinker, John McWhorter, Kathleen Stock, Alex O’Connor, and many other leading thinkers.
#Richard Dawkins#Ayaan Hirsi Ali#christianity#islam#political christianity#cultural christianity#believing christianity#religion#supernatural#religion is a mental illness
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sports festival shenanigans w/ scaramouche pt.2
Pairings: scaramouche x f!reader
Request: HI about your sports festival prompt, it reminded me of Maid Sama's sports festival episode. Its a very old anime though, I was hoping you'd be able to make a Scaramouche version of it. Context: so in the episode there were different prizes for all the events played, for the second final event, the prize was to receive a kiss from the protagonist's friend which who was kinda made to be the prize without consent :( she's popular among the males in the school apparently. In the end the male lead won for the protagonist because there was this other guy who was very desperate to win and tried to trip up the protag to get ahead of her, who also tried to do the same to the male lead when he caught up to that nasty guy >:( he fell on all fours in shock that he male lead jumped (to avoid his leg) and won the race, and protag came in second — male lead didnt want the kiss prize and it ended up going to second place (protag). What if Scaramouche's s/o was the prize in this (if you're able to write this for me) whoever wins the race can be up to you :p
Tags: fluff
a/n: YES I WATCHED MAID SAMA TOO!!! usui is so <3 he was THAT guy!
pt.1
it's the 2nd day of the sports festival and scara is thinking of resting from the participation and spending time with you, but it seems like the universe won't let him rest. there's always something happening these days
for example: you running to him in tears that he almost dropped everything to meet you halfway
"what's wrong?!" he searches your body for any more wounds or scratches while your lips are curved upset. "I lost the game!" you whine and he stops being dramatic, rolling his eyes at your attitude.
"what game?" "it's the one deciding the prize for the next race" you reply and scara seems uninterested, just what was the prize to make you so upset?
"and? what's the prize?"
"me. a kiss from me." you say, waiting for him to run off and strangle the committee but he surprisingly took it well! or so you thought...
all the little workers in his brain are now getting themselves ready for the race. forget childe's competitiveness, scaramouche won't let himself lose in this race. your life and everyone else's are in his hands
this was one prize he'd cheat to win (or not, coz he'd get ousted from the game)
bro code! everyone backed out from the race when they saw the name of the prize and scaramouche's purple head at the starting line. except for those who really wanna die...
the whistle blows and the race starts! you'd think the taller the person the faster they are in running. but scaramouche who lacked in the height department is leading the race like a bulldozer.
he views each obstacle course like the hardships he went through in life, and what did he do? he overcame them! everyone thinks he got possessed by the spirit of power and speed
several contestants are eliminated and scara muses 'weak ass mfs'. but he shouldn't forget that there are still pathetically clinging onto the hope of winning
the goal is near and scaramouche speeds up his feet but the fatigue is slowly catching up to him. nevertheless, he has to win this for you and for him. but the thorn at his side was the only thing he has to eliminate to reach the top.
he jumps to get ahead while grabbing the other guy's head albeit too harshly. "loser" scara jeers and smirks while his body comes in contact with the white tag; an exhilarating feeling of triumph courses through him as the committee announces his name, he somehow started to understand the thrill of competitions.
his supportive friends carry him and toss him in the air as if weightless, his mortified complaints went unheard. and to further embarrass the campus gremlin, the boys made a makeshift throne from their arms for him to sit on and deliver him to your spot.
scaramouche soon realizes the prize is in front of him; your sweet smile welcoming him like he came home from war. his cheeks flush from the public's eyes on him, the victory kiss dispersing his sanity as he acts like a shy teenage boy.
"virgin behavior" he faintly heard someone say or was his ear playing tricks on him?
while he was caught off guard, you advance and press a kiss to his cheek, plump lips coming in contact with the smooth skin. a tickly breath entering his ear as his brain short circuits and his heart pounds uncontrollably from the trickery you confessed to him. "I actually put myself as the prize. sorry bout that hmm?" you whisper, then you gave him another kiss but bolder on the lips.
"wahhhh!" and the crowd went wild as people hugged themselves and screamed as if they were watching a soccer game. meanwhile, his idiotic friends pretended to cry from the scene unfolding before them.
"MY BOY'S ALL GROWN UP NOW!"
#scaramouche x reader#scaramouche x reader fluff#scaramouche fluff#genshin x reader#genshin impact x reader#genshin hcs#genshin impact imagines#genshin impact scenarios#genshin fluff#genshin impact fluff#scaramouche hcs#scaramouche imagines#genshin imagines#genshin x reader fluff
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i'm really bummed that first kill got cancelled. we deserved to see cal and jules' happy ending, but on a more serious note i think the cancellation speaks to a general trend where sapphic-led american and british shows — especially ones with women of color — *still* aren't seen as profitable. when they do occasionally get made they receive overly harsh criticism and get cancelled — see the wilds, batwoman, trinkets, one day at a time, betty, i am not okay with this, even sense8 — the list goes on. there are so many shows with queer women as side characters but they very rarely get to be the true leads.
that's not to say that shows with queer male leads don't face some of the same issues in the states or the UK, but there are significantly more examples of shows with queer men at the helm that have been renewed for second, third, even fourth seasons. i don't mind a show having a short run (when it's planned that way) but renewal is an indication of investment and perceived profitability, and clearly that's not what Netflix or other companies see in their sapphic-led shows.
i see a lot of comparisons between viewership numbers for heartstopper and first kill, and i think it does highlight a bit of a double standard, but it's also worth noting that the budgets for these two shows must have been VERY different. heartstopper probably cost pennies to produce, while first kill has elaborate sets, props, CGI, fight choreography, and a larger main cast.
netflix saw heartstopper as an easy win, but didn't see first kill as something worth the effort to renew despite its success. i think some of this is because of the negative reviews written by people the show wasn't intended for. reviews called it unoriginal and underwhelming, but heartstopper never received that type of criticism. first kill was held to a very different standard. both were designed as teen dramas, but only heartstopper was actually treated like one by critics.
some of this could be that first kill seemingly has a wider audience appeal. first kill has supernatural elements, which is a popular genre for teen and adult viewers alike, while heartstopper is just a slice of life teen romance with less adult appeal. i'd also speculate that sex and violence play a part in how these two shows were treated. heartstopper is about as G rated as you can get. first kill is distinctly not G rated. the presence of sex and violence might have made first kill seem like a better target for wider criticism. no straight adult man is going to write a review calling heartstopper boring, but there's a chance he might write one for first kill.
shows that truly put queer characters front and center — no matter their gender — are not common on british and american tv, but it is true that there are fewer queer female leads than male leads, and shows with trans leads are almost non-existent. it's not quite fair to compare heartstopper and first kill without some caveats, but i do think the comparison still highlights some issues with how mainstream tv here treats queer leads and queer romance — especially queer women and queer Black characters.
#this really got away from me but i am just :( sad and disappointed. like i didn't really expect anything but this is still a huge bummer#like first kill gave us queer women who were COMPLEX and FLAWED and HORNY!!! how often does that happen??? 😭#a lot of queer characters in american and british tv are sanitized and BORING. first kill wasn't!!!!!!!!! :(#first kill#heartstopper#adrama#long post#100
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I'm the Villainess, so I'm Taming the Final Boss 1-4 Challenges Anime Tropes
Last summer I went to the bookstore to check out the "light novel" medium. I wanted to buy the first novel of a series I hadn't yet watched in anime. Even in a cursory glance at the shelves _I'm the Villainess, so I'm Taming the Final Boss_ stood out as something new and fresh. It looked like a direct challenge to many of the tropes of Japanese pop fiction that I'd seen in 30 years of reading manga and watching anime. Taming the Final Boss challenges the tropes in two ways, by the complexity of its female lead and by being the first genuinely sexy romance.
1) The protagonist
Japan has a very narrow range of strong female role models, to the point where recently older Japanese feminists apologized to young Japanese women for not doing more to provide them with an expanded range of strong role models. In Japanese pop fiction a good woman is allowed to be strong only if she uses her strength to help others. If she uses her strength for personal or selfish reasons she must be a bad woman and she must meet a bad end, even if the "selfish" reason that motivates her is saving her own life.
In shonen anime the classic example of this is Inuyasha. Kagome always fights for others, so she is allowed to have a good end. Kikyo and Kagra all have to at some point fight for the selfish reason of saving their own lives, and thus are morally dubious and die. It's such a waste!
(This is also the reason I refuse to watch anime where the male protagonist fights to prove himself the best at something just to prove himself, because no female protagonist would be allowed do that without being considered bad for being so selfish. The mild exception of being allowed to be the best at a traditionally female occupation doesn't count.)
Shoujo is even worse. The shoujo heroine, in the words of @marithlizard "does not value herself, her survival or her boundaries". The classic example is Tohru from Fruits Basket, who is so utterly self-sacrificing she forces the men around her to grow up in order to protect her -- and even that story showed this approach didn't work with her own extended family who would have happily let her self-destruct.
So where are the role models for women who want to survive and do what they want to do?
That's where the villainess subgenre comes in. In otome romance RPGs, the villainess is a strong, intelligent, highly educated and well connected young woman who exists to get publicly dumped by the prince when he chooses the main character and ignominiously killed off at a later date. But what if you're a former gamer who realizes you've been reborn in the role of this strong, intelligent woman? Are you going to stick around and wait to die, or are you going to do something selfish but ultimately life-saving?
Villainess stories quickly developed two different routes for dealing with this challenge. The first is the Caterina route, (named for the protagonist of _My Next Life as a Villainess _) stop being a villainess. Turn into the most loveable shoujo protagonist that everyone will fall in love with and no one will want to kill you. This route is nice in small doses but hardly subversive.
The second route is to quit the game. Realize that the system is rigged against you, walk away, stop being a villainess, and go discover a better life for yourself somewhere else. That's a totally valid option that I can respect if its your choice.
But what if you want to win the game? What if you want to decide on your own prize and carve out your own path to victory? Can a Japanese pop fiction female character do something so outrageously self-centered and survive?
Aileen Lauren d'Autriche is just such a villainess. At the moment of getting publicly dumped by the prince, she remembers that her current life is an otome game she played to distract herself from the fact that she was dying of childhood leukemia. All that she obtained from her previous life was some vague game knowledge and a burning desire to live this time around. In order to escape her doom of being killed when the final boss demon lord goes postal, she plans to marry the demon lord and keep him from going postal. Said demon lord is also her ex-fiance's older, sexier, hyper-magical, hyper-emo half brother. Shenanigans ensue.
Through it all Aileen never stops being a villainess. She regards both her "villainess" traits and her "heroine" traits as equally valid tools in her tool kit to be used appropriately and shamelessly as needed in order to win on her own terms and create her own happy ending for herself and her chosen lover. In that regard, this heroine of a frothy romcom is one of the most complex female protagonists in Japanese pop fiction.
2) a genuinely sexy romance
Anime has managed to tell many kinds of story well, but romance has always been it's weak spot. It's traditionally either:
a) one person pursuing someone who doesn't really want them, or
b) two people with mutual goals and life experiences deciding to form a partnership.
There's not many cases of two people (or more, though that's trickier) realizing the other is mutually irreplaceable.
Likewise, there's not really a lot of sexy stories. There's cute stories, sleazy stories, and stories with sexy people in them, but a sexy STORY is about two people (or more, though that's trickier) mutually enjoying their growing physical attraction to each other. I gave up on seeing that in Japanese pop fiction over a quarter century ago. The romance protagonists are usually too pure-hearted. But apparently a villainess and a demon lord can fall in mutual lust as well as love.
More please!
#anime#review#i'm the villainess so i'm taming the final boss#akuyaku reijou nanode last boss wo kattemimashita#feminist#feminism#otome
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27th March 1371 saw Robert II crowned at Scone.
The first of the Stewart kings of Scotland owed his throne to the fact that his mother, Marjorie, was the eldest daughter of Robert the Bruce, who was King of Scots as Robert I from 1306.
The Stewarts, who were crucial Bruce allies, were the hereditary High Stewards of Scotland and Marjorie was the wife of Walter the Steward. Their son was said to have been born at Paisley Abbey, west of Glasgow, which his family had founded. His mother apparently fell from a horse and young Robert was born by a crude cesarean section which she did not survive. Some historians doubt this story but fail to offer any other story about how oor Robert came into this world, so we're going with that!
He was heir presumptive to Robert the Bruce, who had no male heirs, but in 1324 Bruce, aged almost 50 had a son named David, to his second wife Elizabeth de Burgh, who at 40 was older than most women of childbearing age back then. David, who under a peace treaty with the English in 1328 was married at the age of four to the seven-year-old sister of Edward III of England. David went on to be David II but the marriage to Joan of England was childless and the crown passed to Uncle Robert.
Before this Robert took the title High Steward of Scotland at age 10, after the death of his father in 1326. The next we hear of Robert 20 years later at the Battle of where King David II was captured was captured by the English, and our erstwhile High Steward of Neville’s Cross Is said to have ran away. David was held prisoner for over 10 years.
Robert the Steward had meanwhile served as regent in some of the years of David’s absence. Scottish chroniclers disagreed about his competence or lack of it, but he seems mainly to have protected his own interests and obstructed attempts to secure David’s release. Eventually a ransom of 100,000 marks was agreed, David though had difficulty paying this and seemingly agreed that Edward III of England, instead of money could take the throne of Scotland when he croaked it, the Scottish Parliament however ruled this out of hand, so when David died in 1371, aged 46, the 54-year-old Robert succeeded him as the nearest male heir.
King at last, Robert now began a successful reign. He knew how Scottish politics worked and he used effective methods to win over foes and keep the loyalty of Stewart supporters with grants of land, titles and official positions. He seems to have encouraged the chroniclers to praise Robert the Bruce’s achievements, to reflect well on the Stewarts. It was Robert II who asked John Barbour to write the epic poem "The Brus.
We all know how randy the Stewarts were and Robert was no different, hs keen appetite for sex had supplied him with a small army of children by two wives and numerous mistresses. There are said to have been more than 21 of them altogether.
The oldest of the children were now grown-up and well able to help. The oldest son, John, now in his thirties High Steward and Earl of Carrick, was the official heir to the throne and supervised much of the running of the regime. The next son, Robert, Earl of Fife, was also active and a third son, Alexander, known as the Wolf of Badenoch, was the government’s principal figure in the Highlands. Daughters came in handy for marrying to leading families to secure their backing. Isabella, for example, was married to one of the Douglases and Margaret to the Lord of the Isles.
Robert was 74 when he died at the castle he had built for himself at Dundonald, near Kilmarnock, and was buried at Scone. His eldest son John succeeded him as Robert III and the Stewart line was established for centuries to come.
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Webtoon Review: Happily Ever Afterwards
Synopsis:
What would you do if you were reborn as a character from your favorite romance novel? For Peony, an avid fan of “The Song of Askar,” the answer is simple: Marry her favorite character, of course! Reincarnated as the princess of the Kingdom of Garten, Peony is determined to marry Richt, the second male lead of “The Song of Askar” and former prince of the Fairspren Empire, who was banished to an inhospitable land after the novel’s happy ending (which didn’t end so well for him). Amidst trials and tribulations, can Peony and Richt make the most of their second chance at life and love?
Status: Completed
Genre: Fantasy, Romance, Isekai, Drama, Josei, Comedy
Original Work By: Hwang Do Tol
Adapted by: Jeongseo
Review:
Hello Hi Annyeong and welcome to my review blog!
Today I will be reviewing a cute romance manhwa entitled, Happily Ever Afterwards!
This review will be a bit short since I finished it last February and I don't remember ALL the details, just the important ones.
Anyway, this title is another novel isekai.
But the thing is, the MC was not reincarnated as a part of the main cast, instead, she is a background character of the original story, a princess from a rich, neighbouring country.
The timeline also happened after the ending of the original story which made me interested.
So far, I've only read novel isekais where the MCs are either involved in the story from birth (reincarnated) or they went back in time.
For this one, the original princess died and the MC took over the princess' body. Unlike other isekais, the MC has no idea what will happen next since it's already the after-story. So it's up to the MC to create her own story thus, the title "Happily Ever Afterwards".
In her previous life, the MC, now called Princess Peony, has a favorite character/bias in the novel name Richt. In the novel, Richt is the tragic second lead who was exiled after starting a rebellion against the novel's hero and heroine; his brother and THE crown prince, Mikhail and his first love and brother's fiance, Hestia.
Peony absolutely LOVED Richt and thinks he is misunderstood and deserved to be happy. If only she could bring him happiness right? Then an idea struck her. Since she is at the novel's after story, she could change Richt fate and save him! And how you ask? By marrying him and becoming a great wife of course!
The premise of the story is totally relatable! Fictional guys are hot but they ain't real. But what if they WERE real? What would you do? Well, Ms. Peony here knows what she wants, she will marry her favorite character no matter what.
Peony now has a goal but conflicts got in her way. You see, the original Princess Peony is very fragile and sickly (thus why she died). Because of this, her family is overprotective and doted on her so much. The land where Lord Richt was exiled is very cold and almost unhabitable, it's a big red flag for her and her health. But girlie really wanted to make her bias happy so she said fck it, I'm going no matter what. Convincing her family to go and propose to him was challenging but Peony managed to convince them anyways.
Fast forward, Peony was able to travel to Lord Richt's residence and has many plans of winning him over. She proposed to him but was rejected. However, she won't back down without a fight! He is her bias after all so she knows everything about him! She believes that if she makes the right moves, he will eventually warm up to her.
However, making Richt fall for her was harder than expected. Despite knowing the things on how to pull his heart strings (example: giving him sweets), he is still so rude, aloof and cold towards her.
Despite Richt pushing her away, Peony would almost push back and would never leave. She put her foot down and declared that she WOULD marry him. Eventually, the two made a truce that if Peony made him fall for her in 100 days, he would marry her. And thus, begins their love story.
Their love story is actually cute. I won't spoil anything but I really love the development between the two as well as their chemistry. Sometimes I find myself giggling about how cute they are. I really love Peony as she is so pure, adorable, cheerful and strong. She's strong in the sense that she is very determined, driven and she knows what she wants. She is not afraid to try as she always takes the first step all the time which I admire very much. This attitude of hers really fits well with our male lead, Richt.
Now with Richt, I love him and Peony together but alone, I don't think he is on my favorite characters list. For me, this guy is just a big red flag. I'm not really a fan of tsundere male leads so I might be biased on this but he really gets on my nerves sometimes. He gets angry all so suddenly and he expects Peony to know why the hell is he angry about. And when Peony wants to talk about it, he lashes out like, okay dude chill, she just wants to understand you.
He has his moments sure, he even makes me swoon sometimes, but most of the times he is just a big jerk. I almost dropped this series because of how he treats Peony badly on the first half of the series. As much I love Peony, she sometimes can be so pushy. She has that "I can fix him" mindset so yeah, I kinda get annoyed at her sometimes because it hurts me to see her so determined when her efforts aren't even reciprocated.
Despite that, I kept reading this manhwa because my good friend recommended this to me and she loved it very much so I gave it a chance. I was thinking the whole time that Peony is so perfect for him because she has so much patience dealing with his moodiness. If I were her, I would dump his ass a long time ago :D
Anyways, the story itself was interesting. The main focus is the main couple's romance but the subplots are good too. The story of the rebellion has an unexpected twist and the love story of the second couple is very adorable as well. I really love Andy since he's such a cutie and a green flag! He is one of my favorite characters.
Reading it is entertaining and I was satisfied with the ending. My only problem is with the male lead at first but I guess it worked out for them both at the end. It was cute and I would recommend it to those peeps who loves the cold guy x cheerful girl dynamic.
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Overall Rating: 4/5
Status: Finished
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Here’s another example for SheWon
ByReduxx Team
June 10, 2023
A trans-identified male has once again taken first place in the women’s category of a North Carolina cycling tour, adding to his expansive list of victories against female cyclists.
The Belgian Waffle Ride North Carolina took place today in Hendersonville, and participating in the women’s division was biological man Austin Killips. Killips, 27, identifies as a “woman” and has been competing in women’s cycling events since 2022, as reflected by his pro cycling profile.
During the 137-mile race today, Killips quickly took the lead in the female division, as demonstrated by highlights offered by Unroad UNLTD through Instagram.
Immediately after the race began, Killips seized first place, leading Unroad UNLTD to report only on the second and third place female riders for the first two updates in their monitoring of the women’s category.
At the 13th mile mark, Killips was confirmed as having been in first place, with two female athletes — Paige Onweller and Flavia Oliveira — maintaining their second and third spots respectively.
During miles 55 through 59, Killips, Onweller, and Oliveira were grouped together with no concrete placing, and, shortly after and for a brief period of time, Onweller managed to claim the first place position.
But by mile 108, Killips had effortlessly slipped back into first place, and had begun to place significant distance between himself and the female riders. Nearing the finish line, Killips had a 5-minute head on his competitors.
While rolling through the finish line, the race commentator declared Killips had taken a “huge win.” No competitors appeared to be immediately behind him in the short clip uploaded to Instagram.
The race has since confirmed that Paige Onweller and Flavia Oliveira placed second and third respectively.
Unroad UNLTD announcers referred to Killips as a “female” and a “woman” throughout their check-ins.
This is not the first time Killips has placed first in a women’s race.
In May, Reduxx reported that Killips had placed first in the Tour of the Gila, an internationally known top-tier cycling competition. Notably, the 2022 Tour was the first in the competition’s history where the prize money for both the male and female categories was equal. But following Killips’ win, two biological males walked away with the prize pots.
Disturbingly, Killips had previously been accused of attempting to push female cyclist Hannah Arensman off the racing course at the UCI Cyclocross National Championships in December of 2022.
One Twitter user shared a video of the incident that shows Killips trying to “put Arensman into the tape.” The user said it was one of at least three such attempts to push her off course, but the only one recorded on video, and had said Killips should have been disqualified for that move alone.
Arensman, who was a 35-time winner in cyclocross racing, retired from the sport shortly after the controversy surrounding Killips attempting to push her off of the track during a women’s competition.
Arensman shared that she felt as though racing directly against male cyclists in women’s events had become so discouraging that she decided to end her cycling career.
#save women’s sports#The Belgian Waffle Ride North Carolina#Austin Killips is a man#Congratulations to Paige Onweller for being the first woman to finish the race#Congratulations to Flavia Oliveria for coming in second place for the women’s division#Austin Killips did this before#Austin Killips should have been disqualified for his aggressive behavior to another cyclist
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also, another question (sorry for being annoying) but, how would you make harley a villain again? dc is being so dense with making her a hero and it's so boring 😭 like, what kind of plot do you think could be done to turn her into a villain?
this is a really interesting question! and not annoying at all. :) (you're more than welcome to message me off anon as well, if you'd like! always enjoy making new comic nerd friends.)
anyhoo! one thought i had when i started reading harley's 2021 solo series (which i no longer follow, so don't expect any kind of congruence with it here), is that it's actually really uncomfortable to watch harley bend over backwards to impress batman. to me, it looked less like an honest shift in her character and more just... perpetuating her same old patterns. think about it. she met joker when she was in a rough place in life (if you look at sejic's take in 'harleen'), working a job that eats away at her soul and bottling her issues up for years on end. he makes her believe things can be different. offers her an alternative. she's utterly enamored with the world he promises. throws out everything that's made her her, and takes on a new persona to win his approval and earn her place by his side.
years pass, she emerges from the abusive relationship with joker. various nonsensical dc universe shit goes down. she loses ivy (temporarily), loses her sense of direction in life, feels alone and desperate. batman makes her believe things can be different. she takes on a new persona to win his approval and earn her place by his side.
i don't believe stephanie philips ever acknowledged this in the series, but it's so easy to read harley as someone with a pattern of molding herself to please influential male figures in her life, in the hopes it'll grant her fulfillment and a purpose. if we follow that logic, her decision to redeem herself and become part of the batfam is less her 'finding her true self' and more just, harley being harley and having an incredibly flimsy sense of personal identity. if they ever choose to go down this route, the natural conclusion would be that harley needs a break from deranged men in tacky costumes defining her life for her, and that she should break away and find her own path, which would probably lead her in a more chaotic, muddled, morally gray direction. that would be ideal for her, in my opinion.
(i have a bunch more to say about this, actually, so i’m just gonna stash the remainder of this text behemoth under a cut.)
even setting that particular interpretation of mine aside, though, it would be incredibly easy to de-redeem harley, because she honestly sucks at staying on the straight and narrow. there have been countless instances of her turning good for like twenty minutes before flipping right back -- in older comics and btas, for example, she'd cooperate with batman under specific circumstances, but ditch his ass the second joker was threatened. in gotham city sirens, she was content to live with selina and ivy in their considerably healthier and more functional threeway arrangement for months on end, but the second joker reentered her life, she turned her back on them.
even without joker in the picture-- as he's hardly relevant anymore-- you can see in the harley's holiday episode of btas, for example, that she could barely spend 6 hours outside of arkham without relapsing into her old habits. it's not even out of malice or criminal intent, it's just that she's been living as a villain for a very long time, she has an innate distrust of law enforcement, she's used to using violence to get her way and resorts to it as a kneejerk reaction. she's flighty and has a hair trigger temper and doesn't think before she acts. it's incredibly difficult for her to break the cycle and act 'correctly', even when she's making a conscious effort to. her characterization in the harley quinn animated series is consistent with this, as well-- even when she's trying to do the right thing, her idea of 'the right thing' is often warped by her skewed perception of reality and loose morals. she decides to 'save' nora from mr freeze because she assumes he's lying about keeping her frozen to protect her, which ultimately results in his death and horrible heartache for nora. and on a similar but lighter note, in her 2014 series she decides to take on a day job as a therapist at a senior center, basically trying to 'go straight', and ends up kidnapping and threatening the family of one of her patients, a sweet elderly grandma who told her stories of their heartbreaking neglect. harley thought she was delivering justice and teaching them a lesson for abandoning grandma. turns out she didn't read through her file, and grandma is suffering from dementia, and doesn't remember her family has been visiting twice a week for years. even when harley is trying to do good, she's uh, not great at it.
and let's also just take into account that a lot of aspects of her personality, are, like... bad? straight up terrible? don't get me wrong, i mean this lovingly. her current run tends to ignore this, but there's a REASON she spent years as the joker's lover-slash-sidekick, and it's not because she's a pure baby bean who had been brainwashed by him. she has dark, violent tendencies. she's sick of abiding by society's rules. she's manipulative. she's selfish and greedy. in her 2000 comic run, there's an entire arc where she has to act as a bodyguard for an elementary school girl with a rare ability who's being hunted by very rich men for nefarious purposes-- and even though they form a connection, and harley comes to care for her, she ends up selling her out for the money. this is a very similar trajectory to her relationship with cass in the birds of prey film, where she ends up selling cass out despite their developing bond. she regrets it later, of course. but she still made that choice.
with all that in mind, i think the real question is, how on earth would you keep harley a hero? the answer to which being: through extremely shallow and forced characterization dictated by crappy executive decisions. the dc higher ups saw that harley has become incredibly popular, that she's seen as something of a feminist icon and role model for girls, and went 'oh shit... she's too problematic... gotta make her a hero to justify her fanbase', never mind the fact that her fanbase formed AROUND her flawed, morally complex character.
realistically, harley wouldn't last a week as a hero. put her around the batfam or the justice league for more than an hour and they'd all want to kill each other. it would become exceedingly clear she is not cut out for the role. she does not have the moral compass or the self-discipline to be a proper 'good guy'. i don't think it even makes sense for her to WANT to be one. that's not to say her only choice is to be a villain-- but like i said before, carving out her own path, trying to do good in her own well-intentioned but messed up way, without giving up her selfish, chaotic, law-breaking side... that's the harley i want to see.
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reasons why i am anti finn hudson: an essay by me
yo gleeks and gays.
welcome to my humble abode.
now, before i get started, here’s a disclaimer for you little shits;
this post is NOT about cory monteith. it is about a character he plays on a tv show. i’m not gonna refrain from attacking finn just because of cory.
okay, here we go.
first of all, i think it’s important to mention that i don’t hate finn. i strongly dislike him. admittedly, my opinion goes up just a little whenever he says something dumb. but i am a firm believer that he is the most overrated, weakest character in glee.
as for will, i can openly confess that i HATE him. but that’s an essay for another day.
1. male lead
finn is introduced to us as this ‘hero’ of sorts, here to save glee club and unite the cliques of mckinley.
does he do this? no, not really.
throughout the pilot, we have people saying that they can’t win without finn or that they need him as their male lead.
i do not agree one bit.
they could’ve done perfectly fine without finn, considering it was rachel who was the star of the show. they only needed wanted finn for the look.
guess what, will? having the school quarterback in your club won’t make you number one!
cory was a good singer. he got stronger as the seasons went on and they could’ve had a worse male lead than finn.
but they could’ve had better.
scratch that - they HAD better.
kurt? maybe not as the lead. but they definitely could’ve utilised his voice a whole lot more, as it was one in a million.
but artie’s voice was a whole lot better than finn’s, yet they brushed him aside because, well, he didn’t fit the ‘asthetic’ (which is complete crap to me. why can’t a guy in a wheelchair be the lead?).
even puck’s voice was better than finn’s. granted, he wouldn’t have joined glee if not for quinn, and quinn wouldn’t have joined if not for finn, but they should’ve used him while they had him.
besides his voice, there are other reasons i don’t believe finn was suited to be a leader of the new directions.
like his loyalty, for example.
he constantly put his reputation above all else throughout the whole of season one and a lot of season 2. when asked to pick between glee or football, yes he always came back to glee, but his reputation was always taken into consideration. evidently, he usually went for the ‘cooler’ option when given an ultimatum.
i do have some examples of when he’s done this, but i haven’t watched season one in months and i do not have time to revisit it right now.
2. rachel and quinn
yes, quinn cheated on him and got pregnant.
yes, rachel cheated on him in uncalled for ‘revenge’.
no, i do not agree with either of those actions.
but finn wasn’t completely innocent in either situation.
in the second episode of season one, we see finn and rachel kiss for the first time. which is cute, for finchel stans. but he’s still dating quinn at this point. which makes him a cheater.
“but quinn’s was so much worse” i don’t care. cheating is cheating. if finn knew about quinn and puck at this time, then i’d understand. but he didn’t. as far as he knew, his relationship with quinn was solid. he actively chose to kiss rachel, betraying quinn in the process.
after this, he suddenly remembered how much he loved quinn and pushed rachel away. he was awful to her, manipulating her feelings for him in order to get what he wanted. like in 1x05 when he took her out on a ‘date’ just to get her back into glee so they could win. he went to her house in 1x11 because he was attracted to her, yet again going behind quinn’s back.
back to quinn, i felt bad for finn in the long run. you could see how much pressure quinn was putting on him during the pregnancy and how stressed he was about it all. but outing her pregnancy to her parents without her permission? horrible. quinn probably knew how her dad would react, so she most likely wanted to keep it a secret for a reason. but finn, not knowing if it would go well or not, decided to expose the pregnancy on his own terms and ended up getting quinn kicked out of her own home.
after breaking up with quinn, he, rather harshly, rejects rachel and tells her he doesn’t want to date her. but then when jesse came into the scene, finn decided he wanted her again and practically forced her to end things with jesse. he spent their whole relationship acting jealous and bitter, constantly trying to convince rachel to end things with jesse and date him instead.
but then they finally get together and everything seems okay for a minute.
until rachel finds out finn slept with santana and gets payback by making out with puck. which, yes, wasn’t fair on rachel’s behalf. finn didn’t cheat on rachel and she had the right to feel jealous of santana, but she didn’t have the right to be angry. so yes, i understand why finn broke up with her afterwards.
but then what does he do? chases after quinn once again. the girl who had a baby with someone else and broke his heart.
and for an added punch - she’s dating sam.
for someone who knows what it’s like to be cheated on, you wouldn’t think he’d go after a girl who is taken. but he does. he knowingly helps quinn cheat on sam and ruins their relationship with no remorse.
and then he parades their relationship around in rachel’s face and makes out like he never even loved her.
but guess what happens next.... jesse comes back to take rachel to prom and finn has issues with that. issues so bad that he ends up attacking jesse out of jealousy.
here is a boy that only wants the girl when she’s with someone else.
now, i despise quinn so i don’t feel particularly bad for her when finn breaks things off with her. but he was in the wrong for messing both girls around for so long.
at least this is the end of his and quinn’s relationship.
i don’t have a clear enough memory of their relationship in season 3 so i can’t really comment. all i’m gonna say, though, is that rachel did not cheat on finn with brody.
finn ended things with her in the last episode of season 3. even if it wasn’t a clear breakup, it was still a breakup. he ended things with her and then disappeared for months. rachel was moving on with her life and had every reason to move on with brody.
3. santana
i don’t care how mean she was to finn. i don’t care about the names she was calling him or anything else. there is never, ever a reason to out someone.
to quote his words; “that must hurt to not be able to admit to everyone how you really feel.”
he knew she was hiding her sexuality and he knew she was ashamed. he didn’t do this to help her. he did this because he saw her repressed homosexuality as a weapon he could use to get one over on her.
he calls her a coward for not admitting who she really was, which is absolutely vile. people are in the closet for different reasons. it doesn’t make them cowards. it makes them people with valid fears and emotions that are nobody’s business but their own. santana was afraid of coming out because she wasn’t sure if brittany loved her back. she was afraid of coming out because she knew her grandmother was homophobic and didn’t want to risk losing her. she was afraid of coming out because she still hadn’t completely accepted herself or who she was.
none of this had anything to do with finn and there is no valid excuse on earth to justify outing her like he did.
what makes me even madder was that he wasn’t even held accountable for his actions. santana was pissed and slapped him, as she should, but all he did was sing her a song and all was forgiven.
completely messed up!
4. kurt
now, i am a sucker for furt. i love their brotherly relationship and seasons 2b-4 furt have my heart.
but finn was a complete jackass to kurt, and it’s time someone called him out on it.
finn was not homophobic. he wasn’t against gays and he didn’t hate kurt for being gay. but he was definitely scared of being labelled by association.
and kurt wasn’t exactly shy about his crush on the quarterback.
while i do agree that kurt took his crush too far (i mean, setting up your parents just to spend more time with your crush is not normal behaviour) but i don’t believe he meant to be manipulative. he was just so blinded by his feelings that he didn’t realise he was going too far.
that doesn’t mean finn had the right to react the way he did.
that whole scene where burt lectures finn on his use of slurs was a powerful scene and one of my favourites in the show. but it still feels as though it was swept under the rug.
i get that finn was worked up, but calling his brother f*ggy? not acceptable by any measure. (yes, he was talking about the blanket, but he wasn’t really, was he...)
finn constantly judges kurt and hates on him for being himself, saying it would be easier for himself if kurt wasn’t so out there. and then when kurt was getting bullied, finn only decided to step in and protect his brother once burt forced him to. he practically admitted to rachel that he was staying out of the bullying because he didn’t want to tarnish his reputation. and while i don’t agree that the glee club confronting karofsky did kurt any favours, it was sure sweet in principle and finn should’ve wanted to stand up for his brother.
in 2x04, finn is awful to kurt in regards to sam. he wanted to sing a duet with him, and sam was clearly open to the idea, but finn still tried his hardest to shut it down. why? because he didn’t want kurt to ruin sam’s reputation. and while i understand he was thinking about what had happened between him and kurt, surely that was for sam to decide? i mean, who would’ve even known about the duet apart from the glee club? even if finn was partially right, he had the wrong intentions and being told to his face that he ruined people’s lives couldn’t have been nice for kurt to hear.
5. others
finn calling sue’s baby, who had downs syndrome, a r*tard was completely uncalled for and brushed under the rug far too easily.
finn’s treatment of blaine at the start of season three was horrendous and he shouldn’t have tried to make blaine feel bad about himself just because he was jealous of his talent.
finn using his grilled cheesus to pray for stupid things like touching rachel’s boobs instead of praying for his step-dad who was in a coma was shocking.
finn attempting to pull a handicapped quinn out of her wheelchair. now, i can’t really remember this scene all that well so imma leave it there. but it happened and it was wrong.
will favouring finn in everything he did. two instances that come to mind are will accusing santana of slapping him “unprovoked” when he knew full well finn had outed her. also him doing nothing when finn was beating up puck in season one. yes, finn was the victim in this situation. but as a teacher, will should stop violence whenever it happens. yet he watched kurt get abused for months and said nothing.
in conclusion, finn was praised as this “special” guy who was better than everyone, but in reality, he was insanely average. he wasn’t the best singer or dancer. there really wasn’t anything special about him, apart from being a dumbass most of the time. finn hudson is overrated and should’ve been held accountable for his mistakes far more than he actually was.
#glee#finn hudson#cory monteith#anti finn hudson#i prolly missed something#amber rants#cory monteith ily
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