hi, i'm auxo (she/her). i can't turn my brain off, but i love things. i have a working ability in Spanish and I have basic knowledge of Tagalog, too. please read my fics on ao3, i promise i only type like this on tumblr for *the aesthetic*

I've been going through my bookmarks and, for some reason, MHA and Star Wars were the fandoms that really jumped out at me. That's great. I bookmarked those fics for a reason. However, going back into those fics reminded me of what I have to do when in those fandoms, which is normal. For instance, I always filter out character bashing in MHA, alongside the 3 extra All Might hate tags, and I tend to notice certain biases and parallels in Star Wars that I don't always like. That's normal and I do similar things in many different fandoms.

I just, I have a pet peeve in both of these fandoms because something that was a bit... ignorant caught on as fanon and now pops up every once and a while to kill me.

First of all: The Quirkless Shoe Theory. Okay, so, like, I have wide feet. I tend to have a more limited selection in stores, especially when it comes to dress shoes. I'm a women's 6.5-7 (which is fairly small in American sizing), but a shoe will sometimes jab into the side of my foot if I'm not wearing a wide. I had to get a men's 5 for my doc martins, because of the width of my feet. So, even if you believe that the lack of a joint in the smallest toe would drastically change the composition of everyone's shoes, it's unrealistic that society would just stop accommodating wide feet, at least, not to mention accommodating the variation of foot sizes brought on by mutant quirks.

Of course, I know that the Quirkless Shoe Theory is just a plot device to have fun with and I am not trying to attack the people who use it. I just find it hard to ignore, personally, and I feel like sometimes people like to use it to harp on quirkless discrimination to the point that it feels like a trauma competition, which doesn't work when I've thought so much about the practicality of it.

The other thing is that: Some fics refer to the people, practices, and objects that belong to the planet of Naboo as 'Nubian', as opposed to something like 'Nabooian'. I get it. 'Nabooian' has too many vowels next to one another for an English speaker and 'Nubian' sounds more like a word. But, like, that's because Nubians exist?

The region of Nubia is located in what is currently southern Egypt and northern Sudan. Its indigenous inhabitants, the Nubian people, are descendants of the Kingdom of Kush, which created the multitude of pyramids in Sudan. Moreover, the Twenty-fifth Dynasty of Egypt (which reigned from 744 - 656 BCE) consisted of Kushite pharaohs after the Kingdom of Kush invaded Egypt. They're sometimes colloquially known as the black pharaohs.

I should be clear here that cannibalism is a social construct and it has been practiced for a number of reasons throughout history, for better or for worse.

Moving on, what happens in the manga isn't cannibalism in that cannibalism is the act of one member of a species eating another. Additionally, it's not cannibalism according to demon society, which encourages the consumption of humans.

However, it is cannibalism in that the manga doesn't exist in a vacuum, so that there is still this transgression where someone that we the audience recognize as human--as being sapient--wants to consume someone else who is also recognizably sapient.

So, we have Schrodinger's cannibalism.

Except, even when it isn't cannibalism in-universe, it sort of is. Because, though it is culturally accepted for demons to eat humans, Iruma has already been recognized as a demon, so eating him is...messy.

In terms of the story, the cannibalism is super important in that it's a breaking point. Iruma has a wonderful life in the Netherworld, surrounded by people who love him. He's coming closer and closer to viewing himself as a demon. Then Kirio (Iruma's example of a 'true demon') shows up and declares that he wants to eat Iruma. Because, according to demonic society, Iruma is only as valuable as the power he provides to others and his life is made for consumption. So, he's facing this major cognitive dissonance between his parents (who were supposed to support him, but only used him) and his new home (which has supported him, but is supposed to use him). He's going to have to face the fact that the place he loves doesn't view him as a person.

That, of course, doesn't justify the cannibalism. The Victorians (and earlier Europeans) ate mummies because they wanted to be healthy, but it was also a sign of them viewing Egyptians as subhuman.

The rhetoric surrounding the cannibalism is also very fascist. It focuses on Iruma's 'place', and is, in some part, Kirio's attempt to reassert his own worldview via invalidating Iruma's. Here, I'm defining fascism as a restrictive hyper-nationalism, wherein only those who fit within pre-defined roles are permitted to succeed and also promote oppression of those who do not fit within those roles. In this view, Kirio is the victim of fascist system; he did not fit into the system until he forced himself to fit into the system. His despair worldview, his madness, is him coping with the ugliness of the world. If he were to accept Iruma's worldview as right, he would have to deal with the fact that he was wronged and that no one saved him. Eating Iruma would prove that Iruma's refusal to despair is just a 'human thing' and that it is invalid. Moreover, it would be Kirio once again justifying his own trauma by forcing Iruma to accept despair as good (because hurt people hurt people).

The 'other species' thing also doesn't work out completely in that humans and demons have at least been shown to have the capability to hybridize. I know that sci-fi and fantasy love to play loosey-goosey with lines between species, but the point still stands that these two species are close enough to crossbreed.

In summary, cannibalism in WtDS!IK is super loaded and fascinating and I love this story and cannibalism in general is super loaded. I didn't even talk about the erotic aspect of it.

Like, Shen Jiu was enslaved, which is the epitome of an abusive system. But everything else sucks too. Yue Qingyuan's master was perfectly fine to throw a beaten YQY in a dark cave for a year and to ignore the pain of his beloved family member. The Old Palace Master used his position of power to isolate the objects of his obsession and, in the original PDIW, got away with it. Even in SVSSS canon, he destroyed SXY and broke up her family. No one stepped in when SJ abused LBH. We all love to care about everyone on Cang Qiong, but all of them were bystanders in a crueler world.

The closest thing to accountability that anyone gets is the Trial of SQQ, but that's another form of abuse. That's a powerful man leveraging his political power and the legitimate grievances of the accused in order to justify torture.

And, while I'm at it, I should specify that I do think that SQQ earned his fate in the original. Not that it was deserved, not that anyone could deserve that, but rather that he created his own downfall. LBH is at fault for choosing to torture SQQ, yes, but part of SQQ's crimes, of his abuse, was destroying the part of LBH that would care about mercy or give up revenge. He was cruel.

however, it is march. i live in the american midwest. my knuckles are turning red. one of the joints in my middle finger has an actual cut on it from sheer dryness. i have to put on lotion.

And it does make me wonder how exactly the franchise ever got made in the first place. Like, I know about season 0 and how the card game began, so the first official series is plausible, even though I think it's a little wild that it was made at all after the darkness of season 0 and the fact that they were clearly uninvested in the card game (i.e. they kept on finding excuses to play other games and season 1 barely followed any rules)

I can tell how Yugioh GX was made, too. The first series was super popular, so a slice-of-life sequel wouldn't hurt.

But, as a GX lover who is really invested in all of that show's insanity, I can't understand how they greenlit 5ds following the end of GX. The premise of 5ds is wild, even if the 'cool' factor of motorcycles bought it some brownie points in marketability.

After 5ds, which is still thought of as a good Yugioh series, I can see how we got Zexal, because it is genuinely a good show that blends the elements of prior series with a wild new setting. Also, all of its theme songs rock.

Furthermore, I can see how we got Arc-V out of Zexal; it's a show that incorporates a lot of older elements with a novel premise, except this time they don't pull it off because they care more about nostalgia than actually building out a good story (i'm not bitter) and write a terrible ending for the anime (and an even worse ending for the manga).

But, after Arc-V, what made them willing to even try to go to Vrains? (Disclaimer: I have not watched Vrains). From what I can tell, Vrains is interesting and well done and I'm glad about it, but I still don't get how it happened.

I understand why Go Rush and Sevens happened as well (appealing to a younger demographic a la Beyblade and Bakugan), but I think that it was an odd/careless decision that disregarded the fanbase that had fueled Yugioh's madness for years.