Eating Star Fruit Because My Stomach Is A Black Hole. The Taste Is Absolutely Cosmic

Eating Star Fruit because my stomach is a black hole. The taste is absolutely cosmic ⭐🌟✨

yeah im into bdsm Be Dozing So Much

i think i like the four swords manga so much bc there is some just. very up my alley character and ship archetypes in there, but also the message itself and emotional beats hit surprisingly hard?

(long analysis below)

i like the idea of this character who is so ATTACHED to the idea of being an outsider and harming others, because he believes that he will never belong in the light with them. over the course of the manga, shadow link develops genuine fondness for vio, shows vulnerability through that fondness, and gets betrayed. no matter how real the feelings were between them, vio couldn't bear to hurt his friends or the world. it devastates shadow link; really gets to him. i wonder if he even knew he could have these feelings, falling for the very ruse he attempted to use on vio to get him on his side. while shadow is very ridiculous and theatrical in general, it doesn't seem fake when he expresses that he's glad vio has joined him. it also seems very real when he breaks down after the betrayal.

zelda choosing to be kind to shadow rather than mock him for being foolish is like the final straw that shatters his world view. she asks if he really thinks the light will hurt him, and challenges the notion that he isn't a hero deep down. she's not making excuses for him or telling him who to be; she's naming his deepest insecurities loud and clear and telling him it's okay to be scared. she's not rubbing salt in the wound of vio's rejection, but instead suggesting that shadow could find belonging with others if he took a leap of faith and tried to be their friend without an ulterior motive. shadow gets so giddy about the idea of doing havoc with vio, and it's like buddy, you're experiencing happiness because you like vio, not because you like being evil. i think deep down, we all just want to find Our People. and i can't stand to be cynical enough to suggest that we all don't have at least someone out there for us. it's just harder for some people to belong than others, as is the case with shadow.

shadow link is messed up and destructive to the people around him, unable to even imagine belonging in the light so he settles for chaos in darkness--but he submits, by the end of the comic, to the terrifying truth that he is deserving of love and capable of loving. i say terrifying because in an allegorical sense, it's kind of the equivalent of saying "i'm gay/mentally ill--i can't change that the world is harder for me, and it will be harder to find people who understand me, but i'm doing a disservice to myself and anyone i could hypothetically love by not trying to be my best self." it's a great and fairly uncommon message, especially for teenagers and young people in general.

i mean dude, talk about a bizarre but weirdly resonant reflection of the "gay teenager developing feelings for their best friend" experience. shadow link sets out to manipulate vio at first by appealing to his ego, no personal stakes in the game, but almost IMMEDIATELY falls DOWN BAD for this guy and becomes incredibly emotionally vulnerable around him. shadow link is genuinely LIVING for the time he gets to spend with vio, being as chaotic and theatrical and unrestrained as he pleases. he really believe that vio sees him, and likes him for who he is (which for the record i think is true, but vio also cares about his friends and the fate of the world, things that hold no meaning to shadow).

vio betrays shadow and it genuinely hurts, and that's kind of incredible for a short comic with a lot of goofy moments. and then shadow's resolution is vindicating too, he has agency in the choices he makes, and he does the right thing because he finally believes he doesn't need to remain in the darkness. he disguises himself to help the four because he knows they don't trust his face, really demonstrating the selfless desire to end all the magic shit that put him and the others in archetypical dark/light boxes. shadow link changes a lot in a short period, but the fact that to the end he believes that he still isn't like the others is negated by them saying he's part of "the body" and their friend. his "death" is very simply put in the text--"when a shadow turns to light, it disappears." it's not like a real death. it's a permanent and meaningful statement on how much shadow has changed, and found belonging and acceptance. if shadow's physical form came from feelings of spite and resentment, it makes sense that it no longer needed to exist.

and to TOP IT OFF, he does "end up" with vio and the others, if we're viewing The Full Link as an allegorical friend group or community. he's not quite as homogenous as they are, but rather serves as a shadow of the four. i love the panel where he's giving a thumbs-up from link's shadow so much. that's so simple and obvious, but honestly poetic. because like, in some ways you're never going to be just like everyone else. finding friends who are also gay or mentally ill doesn't make you any less of who you specifically are, and in at least some ways your friends and loved ones are always going to be different from you. i don't like it when the ultimate takeaway from a story is "once you live happily ever after, the darkness will be all gone," because hello??? some things never go away, and the darkness has, for better or for worse, made you who you are! qualities i see in shadow link are sardonic humor, unusual expressiveness, and a deep sense of caring towards His People/Person. those are fueled partially, but not entirely, by his not-great circumstances and deepest fears... but they're also where he shines.

you can be different from other people without resigning yourself to an lonely and unhappy life. coming out doesn't make you any less gay; seeking treatment doesn't magically cure mental illness; but acknowledging yourself for who you are is life-changing liberation, and necessary in the pursuit of happiness. these are huge and scary steps that especially young people are struggle to take, settling for resentment over the possibility of rejection. shadow link takes a chance and finds belonging, but still maintains the parts of himself that give him such a distinct personality. he is accepted for who he is, and at the end of the day who he is is not dark force whose sole purpose is to ruin lives, but just a strange gay-ass little dude who's a little bit extra but good at heart. and vio, as well as the others, appreciate that wholeheartedly. at the end of the day, the Whole Link just isn't the Whole Link without his shadow.

i don't know man, it's always special to me when an angsty character is written not as a joke, but as an opportunity to give people hope. even in the most obscure of places, even in ways that i can analyze endlessly but mean nothing to the average person. maybe none of this was the authors' intention. even if the manga was just, like, a shallow implementation of tropes and characteristics i'm a SUCKER for, i'd still love it to bits.

but i do see something a little deeper here, i can't help it. clearly the story has resonated with a small but dedicated group of fans, many of whom read the manga as kids or teens. i'm... honestly a little jealous of that. it's the kind of story i needed, and the kind of story i wish to tell. this series is truly a gift that keeps on giving.

Some of you need to realize that a woman doing something kind for a male partner is not always a sign of her own oppression wtf

One of the most life-changing things I ever learned came from Mythbusters, where they tested and proved (with cognitive testing puzzles and reaction time tests) that lying down and resting with the intention to sleep STILL provided significant mental benefits over just staying awake, even if a person couldn’t fall asleep in the amount of time they had. 

It helps me to actually sleep to know that just lying down with my eyes closed is still doing me some good, and helps me to not freak out/beat myself up when I stay up later than intended. Any amount of rest is better than no rest!

So if you didn’t know that…now you do

Hawks, Spinner, Their Heteromorphic Influence and How Society Views Mutants (featuring Quirk Exception theory)

Something I’ve realized about the heteromorphs of BNHA is that there’s a distinct difference in reaction to our very own Heteromorph Representation - that being Hawks and Spinner

See, when Hawks was introduced, we see instantly that he’s a mutant. He has wings (and maybe some kind of eye thing going on but idrk what that is)

But he’s never actually seen as some kind of inspiration for heteromorphs, is he? Like as far as I can remember, he’s never had some mutant come up to him and say he’s an inspiration for representing heteromorphs by becoming the Number 2 Hero

In fact, nobody really seems to talk about him in a Representation For Mutants way. Every time we see him with fans, he’s mostly regarded for his looks rather than what he is. The fans are even petting his feathers as he addresses others about autographs

And there’s that one heteromorph girl in the crowd with the phone scene, but apart from that, we can’t see any other mutants in the crowd

And while Hori could have just not shown us Hawks’ effect on people his kind yet, it makes me think about the difference between his influence and Spinner’s influence

Hawks is a heteromorph. Ideally, he should be seen as a step-up for the mutant race, right?

But here’s the thing, the thing that is so important between both of these characters

See, Hawks doesn’t look “ugly”. Lets think about the possibilities that Hawks could have had for a wing quirk related to birds; He could have had a beak, clawed feet, he could have had feathers sprouting around his body, he could have even squawked and chirped like a bird. But he doesn’t do any of that at all, and he has none of those features

Hawks isn’t “ugly”, because he doesn’t look like the standard heteromorph, the kind that have extra limbs pointing out, the kind that look the wrong side of odd, or, say, even the kind with scales over his skin

But you know who does? Spinner

Spinner is “ugly”. His heteromorph body is covered in scales and there’s no escaping that. As much as he wants to, he can’t hide those scales unless he does a full body cover-up like Compress, and I doubt that he’d even want to

And, see, that’s the difference - Hawks isn’t “ugly” so he gets away with fame, popularity, shrieking fans (and murder). Spinner is “ugly” and he’s been discriminated against since he was a child

Spinner KNOWS what it’s like to be abused over who he is, to be discriminated against, to be scorned from the world so much so that he didn’t even want to go outside anymore

Hawks, as far as we know, hasn’t had any kind of discrimination over him, and I suspect that’s because he “passes” as a human being

Hawks only has wings on his back, and eye thingies that make him look stylish. Apart from that, he’s literally a human man. And thats pleasing to the eye, right? Hori created him as someone who is “nice to look at”

Spinner though? Spinner has scales covering the whole of his body. Spinner has a beak. Spinner has claws. He’s been discriminated against for the way he looks. He’s not “nice to look at”.

 And the thing is, nobody has said anything about Hawks’ placement in the ranks as a representation for heteromorphs because of this I think. At least, it isn’t shown to us that mutants look to him for inspiration. Hawks looks “normal” so he’s basically a human, right?

But Spinner? Spinner created a movement. He has inspired fellow heteromorphs, just like him who don’t have “conventionally attractive” features, to rise up and start rebelling. They even dress like him!

There’s a big big difference in how Spinner and Hawks influence mutants, and it’s incredibly important to acknowledge this difference, because its an example for how heteromorphs are treated

Miruko for example! Miruko is a mutant with a rabbit’s kick. She has bunny ears and a tail. It’s assumed, as well, that she has bunny feet. But she “passes” as human

The ears and bunny tail could be seen as sexy (Hori draws her as a part of fanservice but you think I haven’t seen you people thirst for her and her bunny rabbit look? I see you fandom. Don’t think I don’t), the feet are just feet (as in they aren’t important and can be ignored), and apart from those, she’s literally a human person. She covers up her feet as well, obviously for armor, but it’s one way that it doesn’t seem that much of a problem and adds to her “sexy image”

And when we think about it, a lot of the heteromorph Hero kids are quite “conventionally attractive” too. Tokoyami does have a bird head, but he mostly has a human body. Mina is just pink with black eyes and cute lil horns. Ojiro is a whole ass human with a tail. Tsuyu has more human attributes than frog. Kouda doesn’t have any features sticking out and he just looks like a shy lil boy. Shouji does have his multiple arms, but he’s been seen to keep them down and make them look more like one arm, and apparently, his face is the scariest. And what does he do? He covers his face up

All of these kids “pass”. They look mostly human. Does it matter if they actually are human? No, but does it matter that they look mostly human? Yes. Definitely

And this is why Hawks really isn’t that much of a “representation” of mutants, because he only has his wings, he’s mostly human, and because of that, he looks attractive

One example I want to bring up is Ryukyu as well. While she isn’t a heteromorph, her quirk allows her to turn into a big dragon, and I think that could also tie in with how she is viewed

Because it makes me wonder if a quirk that turns you INTO something is an exception in the publics eyes. I could definitely see that being something they would let slip, because outside of her quirk, she’s “attractive” and human

But I want to briefly touch on how she covers her eye with a big mask. Because it’s not just a hero costume thing, it’s a civilian thing for her too

And it makes me wonder if, like Shouji, she’s covering a mutant part of herself to “pass”. I have no evidence for this, and it could easily just be simple character design, but it’s something to think about. Focusing more on her quirk though, the dragon could be seen as “ugly”, and if in another universe where she was a dragon heteromorph, I can see her being not as popular as she is now

Because look at this

She says “I’m honestly not sure I deserve this…” and you know what? That makes me think about how, without her human form, she would be a heteromorph. She would be seen as “ugly”. But because of her human form, she’s “normal” and “attractive”, and circling back to the eye-covering thing, she’s possibly covering a part of her body to pass

She even fell a rank. It makes me think, why? When she’s so useful, when she becomes so big but doesn’t do any damage to the surrounding area she’s in? (And when she took a role in the War Arc with trying to stop Shiggy but that happened later. It does show how useful and incredible she is though). There’s a lot in this scene that makes me think about why she fell a rank, and her reaction to being in the top 10. That scene has always been quite interesting to me

(This Ryukyu part is mostly just speculation, so don’t take it too seriously as solid evidence for this analysis. Who knows, Hori could reveal something about her or focus on other things, but it does make me think a lot about her character)

The same thing could be said for Amajiki, who is human but can acquire all sorts of features to defeat an opponent (cows hoof, squid tentacles, chicken feet etc etc). His quirk could have an effect on the public similar to how Ryukyu is seen; as an exception. This is only speculation though, based off the Quirk Exception theory.

Fully circling back tho to Hawks and Spinner, I focus on these two more because they are both people who have had a great impact on the story. They are also very opposite sides of heteromorphic features.

And it makes me think about how someone like Hawks got into the HC so easily and was given his own agency at such a young age possibly because of that privilege. While Spinner is someone who hit the bottom of the barrel and was hated by everyone, to the point where he couldn’t stand it any longer and left

He became part of the League Of Villains and became friends with people who appreciate him for who he is. While Hawks doesn’t even have a “who he is”, because he has an entire persona, and mostly acts as someone popular and on duty, never seeming to relax

Actually, the only time he relaxes, as in puts the persona down, is when he’s threatening Twice. And maybe when he was smiling at Nagant (I’ve seen a lot of people talk about how that was a Real Smile, and I think they are right to an extent) but apart from that, he never puts everything down. In his job, he can’t do. He always has to be on duty and working

One last thing to note as well is that this

is Hawks beta design. I think I remember Hori said that he asked for advice about this design and the response wasn’t exactly negative but it wasn’t that positive either. But when he introduced the Hawks design we have today, his staff loved it and so Hori decided to go for that one. I think I also remember him saying something along the lines of “I chose this design over the beta design to make him nicer to look at.” (Please take this with a pinch of salt because I’m not sure if thats exactly what he said or not)

I wonder how differently things would have been if this was the final design for him

Regardless, Spinner and Hawks have a lot of influence over people, and yet have two very separate reactions from citizens and other heteromorphs. It’s very interesting to think about, and it makes me wonder if Hori will focus on this at some point

It’s certainly relevant, and it’s definitely something to think on

Thank you for reading!

This analysis is dedicated to @villainsandvictimsalliance because they made this post and it got my brain gears working lol. Idk if this is what you were talking about in your post, but regardless, you inspired me to write about this, so thank you for that!

I don’t know if Hawks has made any actual dent in heteromorph representation or anything, or if he ever will, but from what I remember, he’s hasn’t really elicited any reaction within the mutant world, so I thought I’d talk about it

There is the possibility of such a thing as Mutant Solidarity I think, similar to Quirk Solidarity, but maybe its just reserved for those who are on the same level as mutant i.e. a squid person seeing an octopus person hero or smthg

There is the slight possibility of him and Miruko having had an impact, which I would love, but when I saw your post, I mostly thought about Spinner and Hawks and how they conflict each other in terms of who they are and as mutants. So I hope you don’t mind that lol

EDIT: okay so apparently I have to actually say this, but I don’t think Spinner is actually ugly. This wasn’t about me saying my opinion on their looks. From what I’ve gathered, a lot of mutants seem to be judged on how they look and I’m under the impression that maybe this has to do with how much discrimination some characters may get. I mean Twice wasn’t mutant but he still got judged on his looks and ended up in a really bad position, so who’s to say those with mutant features don’t get the same or even worse treatment? Again, this hasn’t been shown to us, but sometimes I do look at the Hero kids with heteromorphic features and see a pretty stark contrast between those like Spinner and other heteromorphs and the Hero kids who got into UA of all places. It just makes me think about how the world of BNHA works, and I think its something to consider when looking at new characters or even characters we already know. Thats also why I used quotations for ugly and attractive, because its not about if they actually ARE ugly or attractive, its how I think society could view them. Same with how I used quotations for the word Pass because I don’t like thinking about how some characters are more accepted than others, but its the way that I can see Hero society operating in that shallow kind of way, y'know? Anyway. Little disclaimer at the end here because I just wanted to make it clear why I wrote it the way I did, and not cause any confusion

IMPORTANT UPDATE!

@sanssa​ had some great comments about stuff that I didn’t get to go in depth about or just straight up didn’t mention in the analysis, and imo explained it better than I ever could!👏👏👏