Ms.NotSoIndependent

alexa play "i can hear the bells" from hairspray 👬💒

< prev | masterlist | next >

ok so

beyond being gross and weird I think there’s something to be said about the lack of literary analysis in proshipping (this post is about mp100 in particular but this can apply elsewhere)

there’s two points I’m getting at here: lack of understanding of the characters being interpreted, and intent of author

first of all, the common rebuttal to “he would not fucking say that” is “it’s just fiction and for fun” (which is just a really common rebuttal for everything but that’s beside my point). But that point lacks acknowledgement that their interpretation isn’t based on the source material. For example: Reigen, the guy who notoriously stood up against a terrorist organization to keep kids from being in danger, being interpreted as a pedophile (there’s no soft way to put it). It’s going directly against what is set up in a (in my opinion) disrespectful way. Also there’s a point to be made about trampling over platonic relationships for the sake of shipping and how that applies to proship but i digress!

There are methods to have characters act in ways they would not normally. In fact, most of my favorite fics across all of my fandoms do this!! What they all have in common is an understanding of that character that explains what pushed them to the point of deconstructing their own morals and values. “Wouldn’t it be fucked up if this happened?” works so much better when you can see how it led to that point. And even then I’d venture to say there are some lines that shouldn’t be crossed, knowing these characters do in fact belong to the author, but me drawing lines in the sand isn’t going to be accurate to everyone’s view. It’s always going to be a nuanced topic!

Second of all is the importance of authors intent when reading. Rather than applying this to the base media, however, I’m pivoting focus onto those creating proship content. What is their intent while writing? Through unfortunate exposure in Multiple fandoms I see these common reasons: fluffy content with or without acknowledging the ship being (for lack of a better word. i wish i knew a better one) problematic, dark content such as gore or rape, or (there’s no way to put this lightly) jackoff material. Keep in mind these are generalizations, but im also not giving some of these people the time of day to add defenses.

The “fluffy” content I can sometimes see as the author of the content not understanding the consequence of the ship itself (incest and pedophilia bad) due to a multitude of factors, and I genuinely do think there are learning experiences for them in non negative or aggressive ways. Dark content I can make a case that this is a form of self harm whether intentional or unintentional, however for some this gets looped into the last category. Finally, it’s pretty obvious some people just yank their shit to incest and pedophilia and I REALLY don’t think I need to explain why that’s bad. Point is, it’s important to consider proshippers intent, and how it’s more complex than just gross people who are intentionally malicious. I think there’s learning experiences here for every proshipper, however those who refuse to acknowledge that their actions have consequences (entirely different post to make there about how proshipping can in fact have real life repercussions) I hold a special vendetta against.

To conclude I’ll say I’m not someone who calls myself an “Anti”. Do I hate proshipping? Yes, absolutely I do. But I also enjoy fiction with darker topics that are handled in a critical manner!! Think Oyasumi Punpun. Good manga btw, absolutely horrifying though. I don’t think dark subjects should be kept out of fiction but I do think they should be handled with care.

Black ace culture is liking dances that have been made by us but are deemed as sexual (twerking, swiggling, body rolling, whining) but you are really just doing it for fun. ♠️

Exactly! We shouldn't be put off from taking part in our own cultures just because of the stereotypes that get placed on us (obviously if you're not comfortable to do these dances that's fine too). Our bodies will always be ours to do, move, travel and shake as we please 💜

Lookalikes…

Thinking about Endeavor and how he could’ve been great for exploring the corruption within the Hero system, how some Heroes are just full of shit. All they know to do is punch Villain and let camera go click flash and fans go aaaa omg Hero do hero thing that’s so cool I love him yay yippee

Imagining a world where Endeavor was introduced as a Hero who was just as widely beloved as All Might, and he carried himself similarly to him and everything. A facade where his whole reputation relies on practically being a clone of the no.1’s personality, just with a twist of competitiveness and maybe a sprinkle of awkwardness or quirkiness. So when we’re introduced to Shoto, we start out confused as to why he hates his father so much. We think of him as just another rebellious teenager, doesn’t want anything to do with his dad yada yada yada. Maybe we even roll our eyes at him at first. But then we learn, oh wait Shoto isn’t just some other rebellious teen. His father actually legitimately sucks. Overtime we slowly learn of Endeavor’s true nature, how abusive he is, and not only that, but how the Hero system has failed Shoto and his family because it did nothing to stop Endeavor from doing what he did to them. Endeavor gets away with so much simply because he’s at the top of the charts. Shoto has to live with and rely on a selfish abusive man who’s beloved by the mass public, who pretends to be this heroic caring guy just doing what he does for the sake of peace, when in reality it’s all for the money, fame, and power. And nobody believes Shoto when he opens up about his trauma. Nobody except Midoriya. Because they’ve been convinced that because Endeavor is a Hero that it must mean there’s a reason behind why he’s supposedly treating his family so badly, or that Shoto is being overdramatic that he’s wording himself poorly on purpose just to make his father look bad, because he’s the rebel kid who hates him and therefore surely that means he’s trying to drag others into his rebellion and hatred so he can avoid any kind of self reflection.

And what if All Might bought into the act. Instead of being directly rivals, they’re both good friends in the public eye. NightEye never trusts Endeavor for jackshit, and it could’ve been one of the things him and All Might argued over. All Might having so much faith in humanity that he trusts Endeavor with his life, going as far as to say he’s one of his best friends. Meanwhile Endeavor’s just happy that he has a “friend” who’s popular and rich. Since high school they had always been rivals, and Endeavor still viewed him that way, only now he was more discreet about it, wording himself in ways that made his jabs at All Might sound like it’s just bros being bros. All Might slowly opening up to the possibility that his “close friend” is just some guy who takes his speeches and tweaks them just enough so to seem like he knows what he’s talking about. Endeavor just regurgitates whatever All Might says but worded differently, and the public eat it up without a second thought.

Hero Killer Stain could be the starting point of really unraveling Endeavor and his true colors. Shoto being placed in this strange intense situation where he knows his father won’t back down and change just because Stain is targeting him, so on one hand the thought of his father dying—as cruel as it may seem—is honestly relieving, but on the other hand the same thought leaves him dreadful and guilty because he wants to be a Hero. He wants to be a Hero better than Endeavor. He wants to be a true Hero. Knowing that his father’s attitude towards the situation is only going to get him killed, what kind of Hero would that make Shoto if he just allowed that to happen without a fight? He had to at least try to save his father, even if he had hurt him so much. Not because of any way he felt towards Endeavor, but because of his own dream and to make his mother and siblings proud.

And HAWKS. OH THE ANGST POTENTIAL WITH HAWKS. Hawks learning that his idol is a piece of shit and him struggling to come to terms with the fact that he let this man influence him to become a Hero. He let Endeavor influence him so much on a personal level. Wanting to give him the benefit of the doubt, but the more time he spends with Endeavor and then learning about Dabi and his whole deal, eventually he can’t continue trying to defend this guy. He’s gotta distance himself somehow but his collaboration with Endeavor has already gone on for a long while now. Even if Endeavor’s reputation has been starting to decline due to Stain and All Might needing to retire early, Hawks can’t just back away now. Not when the Noumus are attacking the city and Endeavor is struggling to keep up with them on his own. And Endeavor’s reputation is only going to tank more from there too as he ends up showing that he’s incapable of handling being the no.1 Hero like he always wanted to be, no longer having anyone to copy speeches and motivational quotes off of and Hawks’s personality being too laidback for him to fuel his already cracking facade. To the point where Hawks has to do a lot of the heavy lifting. Endeavor is pushed to the point of desperation, trying so hard to cling onto the reputation he has left, and it affects their teamwork by a lot. Hawks keeps getting his feathers burned in battle because Endeavor keeps recklessly throwing himself into the fights only thinking about himself, practically neglecting Hawks altogether. It gets to the point where in private, Endeavor ends up hurting him. Hawks gets hurt by his own idol, and he’s left stunned. He’s not sure whether to distance himself or to keep attempting to look on the bright side of everything, to tell himself maybe I’m the one doing something wrong not him.

Let's Talk About Aizawa

So anyone who read my last anti Bakugou post knows that there was a stan in the tag trying to pick an argument (they failed). In their tags, they also complained about the Aizawa hate that we tend to include and that it makes no sense that we get on Aizawa about helping Bakugou who's "emotionally constipated" and needs more help than the other students.

So I figured, I haven't really made an analysis centered on Aizawa and now is as good a time as any. So let's break down why we tend to criticize him in the anti Bakugou tag.

I do want to start off by saying that a good chunk of the issues (not all of them but a good amount) come from frustrations with fanon. Aizawa is often portrayed as this great father figure to Izuku and the rest of 1A and more often than not the other adults in Izuku's life (Inko and Toshinori) are demonized and bashed as a result. Obviously it's your fic and you can do what you want, but the problem is confusing fanon with canon.

Aizawa has, consistently, treated Izuku terribly. Singling him out and humiliating him in front of his classmates, punishing him for things that aren't his fault, scolding him for things he doesn't scold anyone else for. He, out of all the adults we've seen barring Nighteye, treats Izuku the worst (goddamn Endeavor treated him with more respect, ENDEAVOR). So fans constantly putting him on such a pedestal doesn't do much to make him appealing.

But why does he get so much hate in relation to Bakugou? Simply put, Aizawa is an enabler.

From the literal Sports Festival, he defended Bakugou's problematic behavior. To be completely fair to Aizawa, this is moreso Horikoshi speaking through him, but it's something he's done multiple times. And to make things worse, he harps way more on Izuku's behavior which, while unhealthy, should not be treated worse than Bakugou being reckless, uncooperative, and violent.

He threw a temper tantrum on national television which was what caught the LOV's attention in the first place. And instead of owning up to the fact that he never did anything to correct it, Aizawa doubles down and makes the press seem like they're unreasonable. And then he says that he's going to work on fixing his behavior... And never does. He doesn't do anything after this to correct Bakugou.

In fact, he makes Izuku fix Bakugou. He knew Bakugou was aggressive towards Izuku and paired them up anyway. He supposedly did so to teach Bakugou how to cooperate and risked Izuku's grade in the process. Him pandering to Bakugou while allowing Izuku to suffer is (OBVIOUSLY) a problem.

And it hurts his other students. While he was working overtime to make sure Bakugou passed his final exam, he had FIVE OTHER STUDENTS who CLEARLY needed help fail. And then he yelled at and punished them for it. Aizawa giving Bakugou every advantage but leaving other students out to dry is obviously fucked up.

I shouldn't have to point that out, yet here we are.

A shorter analysis post than usual only because Aizawa is such a shallow character. There's a lot I didn't cover, but here's the jist of why he's a terrible teacher

man. spinner and shoji were two characters that i really enjoyed and wanted to see more of... until i did get to see more of them and horikoshi stomped on my dreams...

spinner goes from being one of the best characters to being ridiculously one-dimensional. the heroes don't do jack shit, until it's revealed at the last second that they did, meaning that everything the 'bad guys' did was ultimately useless. kurogiri being in a hospital made no sense; the guy is a high-ranking villain who is far too useful to the villains to give up, he should be in a highly secure location like tartarus. shoji goes from being someone who i really enjoyed to being someone with ignorant beliefs, despite him accusing his friends of being such people.

seriously, shoji's rant on how the 'people from the city' wouldn't understand because they 'had it easy'. NEWSFLASH: discrimination happens everywhere. yes, it's a lot more rampant outside of cities, but it still exists within a city. heck, i had someone scream racial slurs at me while i was walking home, and i live in a big city. to say that someone had it easy just because you had it worse is a horrible thing to say, especially when it's coming from someone who is supposed to be empathetic.

this is not shoji's beliefs. this is horikoshi's beliefs. he could have easily had shoji say something like 'you have had it hard. that being said, people are more willing to turn to extremes outside of the city'.

also, shoji's whole 'violence to get what you want never works out!!' is wrong. i'm not saying from a moral standpoint - that's perfectly fine. but it's historically wrong. yes, there are such a thing as peaceful protests, but they have never worked out as well as those that fight violence with violence. blm riots, for example, were the thing to force the government to take a closer look at why people were rioting and do things to prevent more property damage.

another thing i found troubling was how the mutants became enraged at a person of colour, specifically black, for trying to intervene and empathise with them, screaming that he could not understand. it's supposed to imply that racism wasn't a concern after quirks emerged, as people found other things to discriminate.

which is... very idealistic. if that were something people would really do, then racism wouldn't be a thing after sexism came to light. and neither of them would exist after the lgbt or the neurodivergent. but that's not what happened.

if someone else arises that people could discriminate upon, people would just add that to the list of things to discriminate on.

horikoshi could have drawn anyone for the mutants to yell at. he chose to use a person of colour. it comes off as very tone-deaf and it was just another sign that the mini-arc would screw up.

spinner losing his mind was bad. as in bad-bad. as in, there were so many ways to write this fight, and he chose this? instead of being a battle of ideaologies, it's shoji convincing the rest to step down, then trying to beat a mind-less spinner.

it could have been one of the best fights, with shoji's belief that using violence to solve your issues will only make it worse, and spinner arguing that using violence is the only way to do it with the state of their society.

no matter who won, in that case, it would be ultimately up to the readers to decide who truly won. who had the stronger argument, who made the more sense, all that jazz...

instead, shoji yells at a bunch of people about how 'destroying property isn't good' and 'violence is never the answer', all the while using violence to subdue him.

that could have been could, if it was commented on. if there were some sort of self-awareness.

but it's not and there is none. it went from being an arc i was really looking forward to reading, to something i can no longer stand.

shoji. spinner. you were both done so dirty

today i woke up to Tumblr suggesting to me a blog where proshippers find each other?? and it found me bc they were asking for "the arcana proshippers"

so to get it out of the way, if you're a proshipper or support proshipping block me and know i think it's disgusting and wrong

if you don't know what proshipping is, basically it's thinking that no ship can be wrong or problematic bc it's fiction so no one gets hurt.