Between Worlds

[kragehund-est]

it actually is insane to me that it's a cultural norm for men to suck ass at getting their wives/gfs gifts. especially when they whine about how they have no idea what women like.

man, you're not getting a gift for Female Domestic Partner. you're getting a gift for Natalie, a person whom you have been married to for 7 years, whom has lived in the same home with you for a decade, whom speaks to you every day about her thoughts and interests, whom you presumably love, and whom you can directly or indirectly ask what she wants. it's not that you don't know what half the human population wants, that's irrelevant. you don't know what Natalie wants and that is inexcusable.

[shardofcognition]

The issue?

It's almost impossible to gift for someone who, when she wants a thing, she buys a thing, especially when she is operating from the same pool of money.

[frumdemi]

Having literally just gone through this with my husband (it's my birthday), I completely disagree. The gift is really the thought and effort put into choosing something for your spouse that she will enjoy. It doesn't need to be complicated or expensive, if needs to be thoughtful.

You need to work out if your spouse would appreciate flowers in her favourite colour, or a new boardgame, or some craft supply, or a voucher to her favourite shop, or whatever.

Personally I would rather he try but get it slightly wrong than tell me to pick something out for myself, but that kind of preference is also something you should know about your spouse after being together a few years.

(This is also a great time to appreciate specialist stores that know their regulars. I know full well that my spouse went to our local game store and asked our friend who owns it to recommend a game I'd like, and that was perfect.)

[shardofcognition]

The issue is, the thought and effort is a problem. The more thought and effort I would put in, the more likely it is that she's already put in more thought and effort into making the same purchase without consulting me. Duplication's not great, so I'm put in the position of either purchasing something she wouldn't buy for herself or purchasing her something generic (though still appreciated).

I agree in general with your advice, but in my particular situation she is always going to outshop me. And she will probably wind up spending whatever money I intended to put away for her. It's infinitely easier to buy gifts for someone who is cautious with their own spending than someone who's impulsive, because that caution gives you the opportunity to provide something that was desired, but not available right away.

With that said, crafts for me would be the way to go. I just work too much to make anything right now, so it's a bummer.

[kragehund-est]

it actually is insane to me that it's a cultural norm for men to suck ass at getting their wives/gfs gifts. especially when they whine about how they have no idea what women like.

man, you're not getting a gift for Female Domestic Partner. you're getting a gift for Natalie, a person whom you have been married to for 7 years, whom has lived in the same home with you for a decade, whom speaks to you every day about her thoughts and interests, whom you presumably love, and whom you can directly or indirectly ask what she wants. it's not that you don't know what half the human population wants, that's irrelevant. you don't know what Natalie wants and that is inexcusable.

[shardofcognition]

The issue?

It's almost impossible to gift for someone who, when she wants a thing, she buys a thing, especially when she is operating from the same pool of money.

[itssquidbian]

romance is a type of friendship and im sick of people pretending like they're two seperate categories. your romantic partner is Supposed to also be your friend like at the very least why are we pitting romance AGAINST friendship when they r intertwined???? romantic partners are also friends and u can have romance with ur friends stop acting like these bitches are seperate forces

[shardofcognition]

I don't agree that romance is a type of friendship - relationships are concoctions, and friendship and romance mix together well, and romance goes poorly without friendship being included. Romance, in that sense, is a bit like alcohol - romance by itself is strong and heady but will be overwhelming if consumed in large quantities… but mix it with some other, compatible flavors and the relationship becomes something that you can sip for a long time, or drink deeply of without being ill… and sometimes, the flavors of the friendship are so wonderful that, even though you knew the romantic aspect was there, you wind up discovering that you somehow became completely besotted with someone without realizing it until your head spun.

[homunculus-argument]

Nothing slapped my shit back into place like someone pointing out that the "genius gifted child with so much potential who got burnout and mental illness" is just the nerd equivalent to the jock "could have been a pro at sportsball if it wasn't for the injury".

[dysphoria-things]

staying up until 1am with your friends is like. wow we’re so fucking cool we’re so fucking badass we should go on a road trip or become famous or maybe hang out here forever because i dont wanna be anywhere that isnt with you guys im so full of love and joy and a live fast die young mentality. and staying up until 1am by yourself is like. for the third time this year i am genuinely contemplating suicide. good thing i dont have the executive function to clean up my room

[shardofcognition]

I know I'm going to sound like everybody's dad, but if you have the executive function to recognize that you ought to be cleaning up your room, you have the executive function to start to clean up your room.

The issue is often that there's not a clear starting point. Everything is piled on top of everything else, so that it feels like if anything has to be put away, everything has to go at the same time. That's not true, but boy does it feel like that. So.

Start with trash. Wrappers, shreds, etc. Old bags, things that don't need to be saved but have been cast aside. Just removing those things to a bag will make the room cleaner.

Follow that up with food related items - dishes, used utensils, half-finished glasses, etc. Gather those together, take them to the sink. If you need to soak them, put in bit of soap, and set a reminder to follow up later. Not only does that make the room instantly cleaner, but it reduces levels of mold and bad smells that might be lingering, meaning it takes away biochemical load from your system. Less load, less stress, and less mess.

After that, clothes. If it's clean, mark it as clean somehow. Fold it, hang it up. If it's dirty, put it in a laundry bin (if you have one) or put it together if you don't. In the absence of a laundry bin, you can lay out a bath towel, load it up with garments, and tie the tips tie the tips together. Then you have an easy way to move things to the wash, when you're ready, and a valid container to take things back.

Then, it's papers. If you don't have the wherewithal to go through them and get rid of useless things, you can still sort them based on urgency. If that's too much, you can try to stack them neatly, so that they at least take up less space.

Once you've done that, it's random crap to sort through. A "stuff box" is still superior to a loose pile. There's not a well organized adult alive that doesn't have some container of loose odds and ends.

===

The whole point of this is to say: If you build a list, if you break things down step by step *while you have the energy,* while you aren't yet daunted by the scope and magnitude of the work and decisions ahead of you, you leave yourself a groove you can just roll on down when you actually get to working. You spend the energy you need to organize yourself while you have it, in advance, before you're more exhausted and at the brink of task.

Once you've done it often enough, it becomes habit and takes very little energy or thought to do. You just have to start, and the fact that you feel bad about not having started IS sufficient motivation to get going, if you let it be. Executive dysfunction, or executive exhaustion, is less that you don't have the capacity to get moving but more that you don't develop the momentum to clear roadblocks. So put a little effort into clearing them ahead of time. It's a lot easier to fix a road when you aren't also pulling a wagon.

A little bit, every day, is how almost all problems are made, and how most of them are solved, too. Be nice to your future self, but also be accountable to your past self.

Also, be kind to yourself. You don't have to get everything done at once. If you accept the mess as it is, without fixating on how it shouldn't exist, you can celebrate your progress without beating yourself up for not finishing in one go. Don't harass someone while they're in the middle of doing the right thing, no matter how long it took them to start... and that goes double if the someone is yourself. It only takes time and attention from the task, and makes it less pleasant to boot.

[maswartz]

[shardofcognition]

Dreams of the Departed: One Piece

Not exactly a fan theory, but an observation.

Every member of the Straw Hats crew has lost someone incredibly important to them, and quite explicitly carries forward their dreams into the future. This idea - that is, dreams are not just personal, but also an inheritance from those we cared most deeply about - is at the CORE of the crew.

Luffy carries his promises to Sabo, and to Ace. Sanji, to his mother, and to his mentor - taking up the dream of the All Blue, now that his mentor largely sacrificed his chance. Zoro carries the promise he made to Quina, the vow to be the world's greatest for both their sakes. Chopper carries the dreams of his mentors, departed and remaining. Nami carries Bell Mere's hope for her, though not specifically her dreams... and Usopp bears both Kaya's thwarted desire to see the world, and his own desire to make his tall tales a reality.

Dreams connect each of the cast members to those they've left behind, those who supported, them, and those who they inspire on their journey. It's not just a matter of personal goals or desires, but of deep, indestructible connection to the people before and since.

Edit: I cannot believe I left out Robin, who bears the entire legacy of Ohara... Brook, the memories and music of his departed crew, and Jinbei, the Fishmen's dreams of a brighter future, literally.

[venerable-thief]

I am a huge fan of retiring to my quarters

[somethingusefulfromflorida]

In this economy you'll be lucky to retire to your nickels

[quinnception]

[aerequets]

this post was the catalyst for this comic, and i was also thinking of a desi song lyric (tere dil ke sheher mein ghar mera ho gaya / in the city of your heart, my home is made) and just... hmmm.... leaving your mark.... making a house into a home..... when the marks a child inevitably leaves behind (messes, scribbles, and in this case stickers) eventually fade away as they grow older and you're left with the memories stored in what hasn't been erased....

im not verbalizing it very well but catch my drift?

[shardofcognition]

League of Parallels - LoV vs. Class 1-A - Twice

Once I noticed it, I couldn't put it back.

Every member of the League of Villains in My Hero Academia has pretty much a direct counterpart in Class 1-A, and a fated confrontation at the climax of the series.

Except, one and all, their counterpart is NOT their fated opponent. Instead, the mirror image is almost always someone they barely interacted with.

Unlike most of the League of Villains, Twice doesn't meet his fate for good or ill at the hands of a member of Class 1-A, but instead at the wings of Hawks. The closest 1-A member to the confusion is Tokoyami, who, like Twice, has struggled with losing control of the sentient manifestation of his Quirk, his shadow self / selves. But Twice's parallel is Ochako Uraraka.

The Broken & The Mender

~ Poverty - Loyalty - Friendship - Self-Worth - Loneliness ~

~ Toga ~

What is the boundary, between a hero and a villain? If a villain sacrifices everything to save his friends, is he not heroic also? If a hero shoulders everyone's burdens, who is to save them, when the time comes? If a hero seeks to save everyone, doesn't that include the villains, too?

Ochaku / Twice: THE SUPPORTER

At first glance, Twice seems like he couldn't parallel anyone, except perhaps himself. He's stricken, split in two and shoddily rejoined, constantly both for and against everything, even himself. At least, until we got to know him better, when his wounds were bound up by Toga. At the end of the day, his theme is that a man divided against himself is defined, not by his words, but by his actions. His quirk is, ultimately, a measure of admiration for his friends and the world he lives in. Uraraka, on the other hand, begins her heroic work not to save the world, but to save her parents. Her logic is that heroism is a lucrative career - and she's out to make some money, because the problem that she saw, most of all, was poverty. But Ochako's theme, like her quirk, is that she wants to lift the burdens of other people, largely by taking them on herself. From the moment she volunteers to give Deku her exam points, to the point where she pleads for him to be given the space to rest, to have the suspicion against him lifted... Ochako is looking to the burdens of others, and seeking to lighten them. In the end, that includes Toga, too, where the burden is judgement and scorn. But when it comes to their parallels? Twice and Uravity both struggle with imposter syndrome, both struggle to define heroism, both focus on their friends and families. Both are driven to sacrifice themselves, and both come from, not the bottom of society, but from at least a deep awareness of material and personal want.

And, at the end of the day, like it or not... both are defined in part by their relationship to Toga - a woman inclined to admiration and even idolization of others but who, ultimately, refused to bend an inch to society's rules. A confident opposite, who was truly unlike them, but who had grasped something that each desperately needed.

And both of them, ultimately, asked the same questions of the world and the audience... "What makes a Hero? What makes a Villain? Can you call someone who gives their everything to save their friends truly villainous? Can you say the same of a hero that lets the outsiders to society languish? And in the end, how do you deal with the ones you couldn't save?"

<< Bakugo / Dabi

[shardofcognition]

League of Parallels - LoV vs. Class 1-A - Dabi

Once I noticed it, I couldn't put it back.

Every member of the League of Villains in My Hero Academia has pretty much a direct counterpart in Class 1-A, and a fated confrontation at the climax of the series.

Except, one and all, their counterpart is NOT their fated opponent. Instead, the mirror image is almost always someone they barely interacted with.

Dabi's fated encounter is, obviously, Shoto Todoroki - bound together by ties of blood and suffering. But Shoto doesn't parallel Dabi, except insofar as they both suffered under the same paternal incompetence.

Dabi's counterpart in My Hero Academia is Bakugo.

The Volatile Prodigy

~ Destiny - Greatness - Frustration - Solitude ~

Touya Todoroki and Katsuki Bakugo share ALMOST everything in common. Both were born with absolutely incredible, thoroughly dangerous quirks, and were immediately affirmed of their destined greatness - encouraged from their very first moments to set their sights on not simply heroic success, but the pinnacle - the rank of Number One Hero itself.

Both are loners by nature, eschewing close relationships with anyone who seems weaker than them and anyone who might seem to impede their dream. Bakugo at first refused to even learn the names of his classmates, and Touya despised every member of his family as a child, except his father, who he idolized. As far as friends of Touya's from school go, none are ever mentioned, except insofar as their heroic ambitions goad him. Bakugo's early friends are, as far as we can tell, mainly hangers-on.

Despite their strength, the foundation of their self-image cracked when someone close to them saw their weakness and seemingly rejected their strength. That led to an obsession with dominating or otherwise FORCING their detractor to see them as being as strong and capable as they believe themselves to be.

Both hurt themselves with their quirks all the time. Bakugo has learned to endure his own quirk, but it takes a great toll on his body even before its evolution. Touya's damage was unavoidable enough that his father immediately ended his training.

So, what's the difference?

Family, first of all. Bakugo's parents have a strong marriage, with Masaru's peacemaking style balancing his wife and child's explosive, confrontational personalities - but he's no pushover, clearly articulating his own thoughts. Masaki recognizes that Bakugo's ability has led to him having a distorted self-image, and sees it as important to correct but WITHOUT rejecting him or his aspirations.

Touya, on the other hand, went from being the golden child to discarded, even moreso because he never understood why he couldn't just bear the pain and injury to pursue his original, lauded potential. His parents marriage, brittle in the first place, fractured both because Touya could not right his psyche, and because Endeavor pushed Rei into bearing a fourth child, who then took Touya's coveted position of protege. Rei could never confront Endeavor or stick up adequately for herself, withdrawing except to deliver bitter barbs as the relationship deteriorated. Enji, Endeavor, could not understand other people's emotions or deal productively with his own.

Aspiration is another one. All-Might is a truer hero than Endeavor, and aiming toward All-Might meant Bakugo had cause to temper his worst personality traits, eventually.

But, most importantly, Bakugo met other people who he could respect, and peers who could rival his own ability. Because Touya was discouraged from openly using his quirk, he never met anyone near his level of ability... and never had cause to develop the humility and empathy needed to not merely excel, but to lead. Touya never met a Kirishima, whose aggressive friendliness and near invulnerability to Bakugo's personal defenses kept him grounded and involved.

We can see, in Bakugo, what Touya might have been. But we can also see, in Bakugo, exactly how difficult and destructive Touya might have been to deal with. And we can see in Dabi what a truly devastated and resentful Bakugo might look like.

[fish-with-more-eyes]

hyuse: “a deadline is a weighty thing, with the power to compel, and i suspect that osamu feels this more keenly than others.”

rokuro: “say i set my ducks in a row, to the point that even a worthless idiot could succeed with a little effort… if even that’s not enough for me to climb that first real step, i’ll just be proving that i’m hopelessly incompetent. confirming that truth for myself is my greatest fear of all.”

below here will just be me talking nonsensically abt the new wortri chapters so be warned:

osamu is such a compelling character and i cheer every time ashihara gets to pay off his development and explain the specifics of who he is and personally if i came up with a character with such specific building points i would not be able to resist trying to explain them constantly. this payoff in particular felt chefs kiss since rokuro was set up as a foil and idk i care him very much even though he's just a side character only tangentially related to the main plot. what the f

[shardofcognition]

Wishes.

I'm not going to join the BNHA hate, but I do feel like the ending disappointed me in ways that are entirely my own.

One of the things that I noted, way back in the day, was that though Deku did not inherit his parents quirks, those quirks described his ideal as a hero and core aspects of his personality. His father could breathe fire. And his mother could draw small objects toward herself.

As it manifested in Deku... he could speak fire in bold words, and draw the small, neglected, or forgotten toward him. The meaning of the two, together, would be "to inspire the weak." Which I think, to Horikoshi's credit, he tried to hit on with the idea that the change hero society needed, really needed, was for the small people to rely less on institutions and icons to deal with their problems... to focus on what they could do, whether or not they were licensed heroes. To show that heroism was in the hand outstretched to the strange and the suffering as much as the fist to smash evil.

But with him losing One for All, and retiring to teach... well, I don't like that. And I don't like that, because it returns him to quirklessness and leave major issues unresolved.

I always thought that the greatest hero would be the one to help with the quirk singularity. I'd felt that, if Deku were able to take All for One, he could make it that beautiful quirk that Yoichi foresaw - the kindest power, instead of the most vicious. And once it was clear that One for All's essence would be spent neutralizing All for One... I hoped that Deku, who was uniquely attuned to the world of quirks, might keep that power and use it to help others struggling with their abilities, like Spinner or the Nomu, even if he did not have a quirk of his own.

That he might, maybe, spin together the small fragments of the lost, the quirk factor victims of All for One, and forge them into something new, something that could make things better for others. Not a power to defeat a historic evil... but a power to forge a better future. Deku's great ability, before he inherited One for All, and even as a teacher, has been to understand quirks and the creative ways they could be applied.

The world still needs, not just heroes to deal with disasters and criminals, not just teachers to raise the next generation better... but someone who can, in large part, help to make quirks wholesome instead of destabilizing. A positive, rather than a crisis to be managed.

Deku should be that hero.

[shardofcognition]

My Hero Academia: Nations

I think people, generally, don't give enough attention to the national representation in My Hero Academia. At least, I haven't seen it discussed, much. All Might is *CLEARLY* a representation of America. To the degree that he represents this overwhelming power, this heroic ideal... but also to the degree that he is tarnished, crippled by conflicts, still able to project tremendous power but only for limited periods of time. He's also the Number One Hero, not just in Japan, but regarded as such around the world. And Endeavor, like it or not, is equally Japan.

Endeavor IS the rising sun. His strongest moves reference the sun (Prominence is, after all, named after a solar prominence) and his entire theme is continually striving toward a distant, even impossible goal. And he follows the Japanese stoicism, the distance in family, the loss of self in work... Even, to a fair degree, the drive to be number one, to exceed all others including the US, even knowing that there are unsurpassable limits in that contest.

[whateverthought]

My Hero Academia/Boku no Hero Academia is funny cause like,

the show makes a Big Deal about being a hero despite your weaknesses and shortcomings, perceived or otherwise, and rising above it all. It stars a character with no special abilities and very real feelings and views and ideas and the way they take that first step... is by getting a Special Ability. The Specialest Ability of All even. And it ends with this character losing said Ability while not being able to save their Foil, a victim of the world Just Like Them, and only becoming a hero again, not from their Own Hand but by someone else buying them a suit. Once again, only becoming a hero thanks to another's actions

[shardofcognition]

I mean, yes, and no? The suit at the end is basically the accummulation of the good will that Deku has cultivated throughout the series.

The Core Theme of My Hero Academia is Legacy - the core question is whether Deku will be able to live up to the Legacy / ideal of the Symbol of Peace - and the first episode introduces the theme of the unseen tarnish on that symbol. More broadly, My Hero Academia's theme is whether we embrace our legacies of heroism, or of hatred… and how we sort them when they entwine.

It isn't really about overcoming weakness and shortcomings except insofar as it is rising / growing to fulfill that legacy. My Hero Academia was never supposed to be a story about overcoming weaknesses and shortcomings to be a hero - because overcoming those is not what makes a hero. Heroism is not produced by power but precedes it. The other issue is that Shigaraki isn't going to be "saved" in the sense that he's rehabilitated, that he gives up his villainy and becomes a better person. At the end of the day, he has killed hundreds if not thousands of people, willfully, outside the law, and without AFO being a part of him. Another theme of MHA is that, regardless of whether you've suffered, you still have to account for your own actions. As to Dabi, he's a metaphor of a lot of things, but he rejected any kind of happy ending when he was a child. He decided - much like his father - that he would force the world to conform to his ideals of it. Or he would burn it down. Overbred, stuck in the past, misogynistic, cursing his legacy while utterly obsessed with it, harming himself with every effort to obtain power... Blaming everyone else for his malevolent and vicious actions... he is the perfect embodiment of ethnonationalism, if you want to really align characters to metaphors. The cursed child of the Rising Sun - the solar hero, the flames of conflict.

[intheeyeofthestar]

remember this?

chapte 220

remember how we we were robbed of spinner narrating the mva arc? bc i do and i'm still mad about it

for those who don't remember or haven't watch the anime: in the anime, izuku also narrate the mva even though it's spinner in the manga

i want to give the benefit of the doubt to those who worked on the anime. at first i didn't understand why spinner was the narrator either as he didn't seem like an important character

but now that mha is over, it's seems obvious that this narration was hinting at spinner's book, if not a part of the book itself

this entire arc is basically "yeah we're villains but we're also people and we care about each other, here's our story". so it doesn't make sense that izuku narrates it, but it does for spinner. his league was his reason to be, he let himself get mutilated/tortured/whatever you wanna call what afo did to him in the final arc for the league, and especially for shigaraki

so yeah, i wish we could have gotten narrator spinner

[aerequets]

this post was the catalyst for this comic, and i was also thinking of a desi song lyric (tere dil ke sheher mein ghar mera ho gaya / in the city of your heart, my home is made) and just... hmmm.... leaving your mark.... making a house into a home..... when the marks a child inevitably leaves behind (messes, scribbles, and in this case stickers) eventually fade away as they grow older and you're left with the memories stored in what hasn't been erased....

im not verbalizing it very well but catch my drift?