Here's something to start the month 🏳️🌈😘. And something for the Sgt. Frog/Keroro Gunso fans out there 😉🐸. Looking forward to that movie coming out later this month🥳. Happy Pride to all my queer homies; I'm rootin' for ya 👍🏽✊🏽!!
Does this series technically count as a Magical Girl deconstruction? (Or maybe a subversion) Just not the violent, “everything sucks” kind? (Not saying I particularly dislike that kind lol)
Deconstruction maybe? But even then not really. The pilot specifically pokes at some of the magical girl tropes but the rest of the series I have planned is, at its core, a mostly normal magical girl show. Transformations, monsters of the day, girls being girls, magical mascots, big bads, etc.
I’m just latching onto a theme that’s seen in most magical girl anime (a want for a normal life and to not be burdened with the weight of the world as a young girl) and making that the focus of the show! Aika already had her origin story, she’s lived several seasons of this magical girl life and we’re jumping into the middle part of her story. The part where she’s starting to feel the burnout and is questioning if this is what she really wants.
It’s of course a more comical approach to fit my writing sensibilities and sense of humor (my professional background is in episodic comedies) but it is an earnest take on the genre!
i feel so strongly that pppidwtbamg is so many of the things we need right now. it’s whimsy! it’s black joy and action and silliness and fun, it’s unapologetically queer, it doesn’t take itself too seriously but it also doesn’t act like nothing matters… what a wonderful thing you’ve put into the world. i’m so glad it exists :)
This means the world to me for real. It’s my first time putting my original work out there (at this scale) and I’m still terrified to do so and wondering if it’s worth it especially with how vitriolic the internet can be towards black people and creators (and i am both, uh oh).
But it makes me so happy to see you get it! I worry about people taking me WAY too seriously and setting unachievable expectations for this this show when I am genuinely just trying to make something I enjoy with my friends, that I would have loved to see as a black/asian teenager. I’m trying to make sure I don’t lose sight of that as the project grows.
The mythology of the Igbo people in western Africa is somewhat difficult for outsiders to understand. This world – our world – is one universe in a set of two, alongside the spirit world, which can be seen as a sort of ‘mirror world’ to ours. The idea of duality is an important and recurring theme in Igbo mythology. As such, there are mirror people living there, mirrored versions of us. These are the Chi – guardians spirits who have a say in the destiny of their human. The Igbo have a proverb “no matter how gods are plotting the demise of a man, it will be for nothing unless his Chi is plotting with them”.
One tale is about a famed wrestler: he was an exceptionally muscular man and he defeated all his opponents effortlessly. But, having defeated all opponents in the human world he could not find the challenge he so desperately sought after. Thus the wrestler traveled to the spirit world to wrestle spirits, and once again he beat challenger after challenger until there was nobody in sight. Imagine being so angry that you beat the shit out of all humans in the world, and then go the spirit world to beat the shit out of their spirits.
The spirits – understandably – did not enjoy this and begged the man to leave, but he refused. At last, a final challenger approached, it was his own Chi. Being the mirrored image of the man, he was skinny and physically weak, and the wrestler laughed at him. But the man’s Chi overpowered him effortlessly and wrestled him to the ground before beating him to death. Thus, while the Chi are our guardians and protectors, assigned to us by the deity Chukwu, they are also our weakness and we should take care not to insult them. The Igbo also have a tradition where people have to built a shrine to their Chi, which they take great care of.
Dysphoria Hoodie is so real but can we give a round of applause to Autism Hoodie?
u were always there for my autistic ass when textures were awful, the world was too bright & loud, eye contact needed to be avoided, and i didn't know what to do with my hands. u even let me use your pullstrings as a stim toy. truest ride or die bestie i'll ever know 🫶💖🫡
The hoodie is wear in middle school and highschool because I was dysphoric also happened to be the only hoodie I could wear that day that didn't make me feel like ripping off my skin and also the only hoodie that could successfully cover my eyes to block out the florescents because they wouldn't let me wear my prescription sunglasses and when I wanted to sleep I'd just pull my arms inside and hide in it inside the library.
sorry this addition made me so ANGRY on your behalf, remembering how schools inflict such absolutely TORTURE on students with sensory issues and health issues in general. and it all ties in to lack of childhood bodily autonomy.
it is absolutely insane the extent to which school students aren't allowed to take care of their basic bodily needs such as:
controlling their water/food intake (the fact kids have to ask permission to drink water is INSANE)
hearing protection for kids with noise sensitivity
light protection for kids with light sensitivity
(seriously what the FUCK is up with controlling kids wearing hoods/hats/sunglasses during class)
removing themselves from a hostile environment (having to ask permission even on the verge of meltdown to step out of a room/situation that is actively causing them pain)
not having every minute of their day scheduled and supervised on a level akin to literal prisoners (hint: we shouldn't be doing this to people in prison either!)
having a basic level of goddamn privacy
going to the fucking bathroom!!!
it is VILE how often school systems reject the basic human agency of their students. it causes devastating harm, and disproportionately impacts vulnerable students.
So many students are forced to experience PREVENTABLE daily pain and discomfort resulting in long-term health issues and disability because their basic needs are ignored and trampled on by adult authority. There is no world where this is an acceptable norm.
fun thing about getting older as a dedicated lifelong non-athlete: i'm as fast and limber as I've ever been! which is not very. technically I'm in the best shape of my life. that is to say, middling
actually going from deeply-unwell-teenager to reasonably-functional-adult has inured me to the Common Laments of Aging:
"I can't run as fast as I used to" running is sweaty & gross hard pass
"i miss having stamina" you had STAMINA???
"ugh back pain" my inner teenager-with-scoliosis-and-mysterious-bone-pain is unphased
"ugh neck pain" do most people not spend the majority of their lifecycle hunched over screens from puberty onwards? if not that's my bad
"I used to be able to pull all-nighters" chugging energy drinks and depriving your brain of sleep to perform miserable labor is fucked up actually, and shouldn't be normalizd in or outside of college. given half a chance corporations would have your 60-year-old aunt hopped up on caffeine pills retouching powerpoints at 4am. thank fuck we're not expected to be 21 forever
"I used to be so flexible" why
"my metabolism 😭" kill your inner fatphobe, enjoy the comfy extra padding/circulation, buy a cool new wardrobe, and go forth, eat well, and GIVE NARY A FUCK.
"I miss having young knees" that one's valid
In conclusion my personal fitness goals remain, as always: to be able to carry multiple grocery bags, and go for a nice little walk (not jog!) around the neighborhood.
let me rant for a minute about how fucked up it is that "fitness" gets pushed first on teenagers as 1) school sports/athletics (which cause a statistically enormous amount of lifelong injuries) and then as 2) instagram gym culture aka being skinny+muscular for aesthetics. we pretend this is what "health" looks like, and it's not.
fitness & excercise should be about improving your day-to-day life. which means fitness needs vary a lot by individual, age, medical conditions etc. here are just a few examples of what practical fitness goals can look like:
stretches/exercises to reduce pain in daily life (e.g. carrying groceries up a flight of stairs without being sore the next day)
increase mobility (e.g. walking around a museum with fewer rest periods)
increase stamina (e.g. running to catch a bus)
increase muscle mass e.g. to prepare for your 60s/70s, bc apparently that stuff sticks around and makes getting older waaaaay easier
increase balance/flexibility to prevent falls
build/preserve bone density to prevent osteoporosis
general injury prevention, bc that shit sucks
basic maintenance, to help preserve a lifestyle that works for you
screw this anti-aging bullshit. no one needs to be a professional athlete or permenantly 21. what we deserve is to be able to age comfortably and live long, fulfilling lives. fitness is a tool, not a moral duty. it should work for you, not vice versa.
You talked about horis willingness to change the narrative based on popularity, would you say bakugos death and revival was one of those examples?? And what other examples would you say that fit?? I always thought it was a weird move killing bakugo considering how popular of a character he is and his role in the story (always thought it was done as a shock factor to raise sales but idk)
Bakugou’s role in general is the result of the pressures of BNHA’s popularity. Horikoshi claims to have changed his mind on Bakugou after he cried after the Battle Trials. It does not appear that Bakugou was being set up as the deuteragonist with a long winded atonement arc in the first arc of the manga, but he was too well received to remain a secondary character. Even after the Battle Trials in the Sports Festival, All for One’s dialogue demonstrates that Shouto was initially meant to fulfill more of a deuteragonist role.
Changing the plan for a character isn’t inherently negative, but the problem is that the audience loved Bakugou for the exact traits condemned by the earlier chapters. That dynamic stunts Bakugou’s reform because it creates a situation where (1) there is a character who fundamentally opposes the themes of the manga who is constantly validated by the narrative and (2) the character has to consistently engage in behavior that contradicts his own character development to keep the attention of the audience.
Horikoshi also did not significantly change the intended themes after inserting Bakugou into the deuteragonist position, which makes the contrast even more jarring.
Bakugou’s death fits into that pattern because his arc was entirely divorced from the expanding heroism to save the villains plot line. Having Bakugou be dead for much of that internal conflict for the savior squad was an easy way to avoid that glaring issue. Deep down, even some of the biggest Bakugou fans were uncomfortable with how siloed Bakugou was from the themes in Act Three. This is the reason many of them tried so hard to find someone who could be Bakugou’s villain when Act Three was being published.
The focus on Bakugou, Izuku, and Shouto as a trio outside the necessity of the Endeavor Agency Arc was also primarily about catering to the fanbase and marketability. It’s especially obvious in how most of the conflicts among these three are never resolved, but they’re constantly in the forefront.
Other than Bakugou, this issue is clear in the flattened characters of its girls between their concepts and what was included in the story. Rei was initially meant to have more agency; her draft version had an affair and had some mutual resentment with Shouto over the Endeavor situation. Lady Nagant was originally intended to have a full volume rather than exploding in three chapters. Ochako’s more unpleasant flaws at the concept stage were transplanted onto a minor character like Mount Lady. These are all choices made to maximize profitability of a shounen manga by avoiding any discomfort teen boys would have with considering the lives of morally complex women. But they are also decisions that made the story worse in the name of catering to the lowest common denominator.
The focus on Bakugou and Endeavor over their victims in their atonement also fits into this pattern. Teenage boys looking to read a power fantasy latched on to characters like Endeavor and Bakugou and weren’t particularly interested in hearing much from a Rei or seeing any vulnerability in Izuku. The narrative once again suffers from its refusal to make good on introduced conflicts out of fear of making the intended audience mildly uncomfortable.
Hello, my name is Nadin. I’m from Gaza. I’m a graphic design graduate, a wife—and now, a mother.
I finished my design studies just before the war began. I had dreams of starting a small studio, of creating art that told stories. I used to think about colors and fonts and the future.
Then, the war came. And the future became something we tried to hold onto, moment by moment.
On October 22, 2023, I learned I was pregnant when a missile destroyed my husband’s family home, killing 25 members—his mother, siblings, nieces and nephews—entire branches of our family in seconds.
We were displaced twice. Everything was gone—home, safety, routine, rest.
A few weeks later, I gave birth to our daughter. There was no crib, no celebration—not even stillness. But she arrived, quietly and beautifully. In her eyes I saw something I hadn’t felt in weeks: life that still wanted to grow.
Now, our days are shaped by decisions that could dismantle the future we are trying to build together.
Today, Israel’s government is discussing plans for a full military occupation of the Gaza Strip, including Gaza City and southern regions. The stated aim: to eliminate Hamas and later hand governing control to allied Arab forces—not Israel—but with no clear path to peace or normalcy.
The humanitarian fallout is devastating. More than 61,000 Palestinians have died in this war; hunger and malnutrition are rising sharply. Hospitals in north Gaza have shut down, and 193 people have now died of starvation, nearly half of them children.
Aid remains blocked, water is scarce, and many risk dying of hunger or disease long before future promises arrive.
We Don’t Know What Comes Next
There’s no clear path forward—only uncertainty for our daughter’s life and our ability to survive another day.
My name is Nadin, and I’m a mother from Gaza.
How You Can Help
I’m asking for support—not for comfort, but for survival:
Help us meet basic needs so we can breathe, heal, and preserve a world for our daughter.
Support us as I try to stand again on my own feet—even a glimmer of stability matters.
If you’ve read this far, thank you. If you can give—thank you. If you can’t—just sharing this post is a lifeline I will never forget.
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