#naoposting

[hokkaidonekoonline]

antis in fandoms be like, "proshippers/darkshippers don't deserve a safespace." sorry to break it to you but the reason your fandom is still alive is because of those SAME proshippers since the early 2000s or older than that

[sy-on-boy]

This fandom is great because every time I’m like “okay, canon is really interesting, what if I get back into posting—“ and I see random Damianya negativity. Yeah sure whatever. Is the Damianya even in the current chapter with us right now. Why are they catching strays.

[idiotsonlyevent]

wow, naoto's writing is bad! and its not even bad because "they should have been trans" or whatever tf ppl are saying, its bad because its inconsistent both internally as well with persona's canon lore. like, the whole basis of the persona series is that your shadow is part your true self. even though it says things that you don't want to hear or admit to others, it's still YOU. naoto's shadow 'wants to be a man.' naoto's shadow wants gcs. naoto's shadow is trans.

and that's not to say that you can't write a story or an arc about questioning gender. or a gnc woman. or about what it's like to be a woman in a male-dominated field. or a child that's forced to grow up too quickly because they're surrounded by - and doing the job of - adults. but to do that, then naoto's social link should have actually explored those things? we hear a lot about how it must be tough to be a woman detective. how the adult police officers don't take naoto seriously. but it's never shown; those issues aren't explored in a meaningful way. we know that they happen in the real world, but we don't get to see naoto react to those things; like the yosuke reacts to the junes part-timers, or the way yukiko reacts to the reporters and kasai-san. so that angle falls flat because those problems aren't acknowledged in naoto's arc.

naoto is openly dysphoric. i'm not saying that makes them trans bc dysphoric cis people exist, but they are repeatedly shown being uncomfortable when other characters bring up their height, the pitch of their voice, and their chest. and you can say that them deciding that they're a woman means that they're not comfortable being seen as a man either - that's fine, nonbinary people exist - but the scale of the discomfort is so completely different that it feels ridiculous and almost in bad faith to say they felt as uncomfortable 'as a man' as they did 'as a woman.'

and honestly, im a little tired of seeing stories where women 'dress up' as men to avoid sexism. i know the people writing these have never actually talked to trans men, but that's not how the world works. we don't come out and suddenly become magically accepted by society. you can be out for years and still be routinely misgendered! and in some cases, if you pass, you're expected to uphold and reinforce sexism - fun! /s. but those stories never show that, do they? i get that they're supposed to be escapist fantasies, and not real life, but persona 4 is a game that has relatively grounded themes and characters. many of us are or know a yosuke, a chie, a yukiko, etc. naoto's writing feels out of place because the themes it's trying to explore are either completely ignored or bastardized so badly that they become nonsensical.

it's also incredibly demeaning and egregious that to romance naoto, you basically force-fem them, when the whole point of their 'platonic' social link is that their gender doesn't matter (until at the very end, where they decide they're 'a woman after all'). this is pretty clearly done to assert the heterosexuality of the protagonist, but it's still really gross. are gnc women w lower voices not allowed to date men now? fellas, is it gay to date a woman?

but actually the most uncomfortable part to me is the rhetoric surrounding naoto's transness. i know this game came out more than a decade ago, but it uses the same negative tropes about transmasculine people that are being peddled by t€rfs and transphoßes today. and it's primarily other women (chie and yukiko) enforcing naoto's gender expression to stamp out any ideas of transmasculinity. naoto can't Actually be trans - she's just a confused little girl! she'll grow out of it and realize how stupid she was to throw away her beauty to be an ugly man! she was a girl all along! its straight out of social contagion nonsense, when their arc could have perfectly meshed w the theme of acceptance if they um. maybe accepted that they can be trans, even without needing to 'change their sex'? they can be a man with a 'woman's body'? they can see themselves however they want? (reminded of that post of a 'western' trans person saying they thought the trans man from one piece was a caricature or something, and the replies were just. japanese trans people saying that the way he's presented is empowering for them bc it's impossible to get hrt/gcs in japan, so they prefer narratives that accept their bodies as they are.)

naoto could have been amazing gnc woman, non-binary, or trans man rep, if atlus stuck to it and explored what any of those things meant to naoto as a character. instead, they fumbled the writing so badly that it becomes impossible to tell what they were trying to say. unless you're trans, then one day, you too can become normal! 

[sy-on-boy]

I went to the Spy x Family Exhibition at Tokyo! ✩(￣▽￣)✩

(I gasped seeing the bus hijacking arc :D)

I took some photos from the official book and I’m not sure if it’s “exclusive” (or new) material, but it seems interesting enough that I’m putting it here. (And there’s unfortunately a photo limit of 10 on the Tumblr app.) Apologies for the low quality photos ^_^

The legendary Damian photo! Next to him is a concealed Demetrius. Very interesting because this means Demetrius was planned (or at least imagined) from the beginning right when Damian as a character was starting to form. I can’t wait for Demetrius to debut. It could be soon after the tease! :D

This one is about Eden. The entire school has around 2000 students, 13 years, and 150 students per year. Apparently all the houses / halls have colours (shown in the last column) and Cecil hall is black. Could be useful for fanfiction.

Random Eden kids doodles? Then George.

This is a rudimentary relationship chart and the little scribbles are funny. Interesting how Becky is connected to the Desmonds. And Franky is neutral (although that has been established in canon).

Here’s the exclusive manga for the exhibition! It’s at the end of the book ^_^ (4 pages) I don’t really know what it says but I think it’s about the SxF cast going to the exhibition and meeting the editor and Endo.

Edit: here’s a translation by @yumeka-sxf! Thanks for translating :D

Anyways, the exhibition was a lot of fun! Entrance fee is pricey (1600 yen for a regular ticket) but everything is very nicely made. You also get a Stellar Star pin for completing a mission in the exhibit :D and you can take photos on the chairs from the covers of the first four volumes :D there’s a special exhibit of Endo’s pencil drafts of the first chapter + various notes. Basically everything in the exhibit is in the book you can buy there (it’s not too expensive, I forgot the price but it should be around the price of the ticket aka. 1600 yen).

[sy-on-boy]

I feel like part of the reason why Damianya resonated with a lot of people is nostalgia and the sense of childlike whimsy. Damianya explores puppy love and inexplicably having a crush on someone before you even know what a crush is, and because you’re a kid and you don’t know what to do with your new feelings, you start being pissy and embarrassed. You end up hurting people so you try to be gentle in return, but you’re just so embarrassed by being gentle, because you’re a kid and everything is embarrassing. But then she smiles at you and you feel all weird and warm and fluttery, and you decide this may just be alright after all, even if you don’t understand what’s going on. You act like you don’t care, but you do, furiously and tenderly and inexplicably, you notice everything about her, and your body moves to save her before you even know it.

It’s that sort of silly, instinctive attachment, one’s first experience of romantic love that isn’t really romantic love, just an immature preview of it, but you determinedly go through the actions anyway, because what else can you do?

[sy-on-boy]

Sorry for being MIA! It's been a while since I wrote Damianya, but if you're interested in what I write outside of fanfic, I've just finished a 70k original "crack taken seriously" social media/ epistolary novel. The premise is that a supervillain accidentally almost kills his nemesis, feels bad about it, then posts a frantic apology online. It then spirals into conspiracies, death faking, and a potential government takedown. The story is almost entirely told through social media and dialogue transcripts, including the classic Twitter and Tumblr, and more unhinged bits like in-universe fanfic on Ao3, ASMR videos, Twitch chat, etc etc. It's quite silly at times, so if you like my silly and cracky stuff like my Twitch Streamer AU, feel free give it a try! :)

An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works

[sy-on-boy]

… Apparently going to the SxF exhibition has Consequences because now people in my family are separately binging the anime. At different paces. Which means I have to see them watch all the Damianya scenes multiple times on various scenes and keep a straight face. Someone’s managed to binge the entire first 12 episodes in 24 hours. This is the first time so many people in my family are watching stuff I watch. Really putting the family in Spy x Family 😭

[sy-on-boy]

I just went to the Spy x Family exhibition in Tokyo 👀 anyone want a write up?