The Way I’ll Make This Masquerade

Tsubasa Otori

Role/Age/Nicknames:

24 years old

WBBA Agent

Eagle Boy (by Yuu)

Tsu (by Hikaru)

Personality:

Confident, kind, intelligent, strong, honest, and a strong tactician

Tends to be very paternal in certain situations

Recruited all of the other WBBA agents

Like Dynamis, he is mature but loves the children

Relationships:

Doji: former employer

Yuu Tendo: legal guardian/ younger brother

Gingka, Wales, Sophie, & Yuki: childhood friends

Hikaru Hasama: longtime crush/girlfriend

Ryuga & Kyoya: best friends

Four Horsemen: uncle

Other WBBA Agents: friends

Beylin Temple: enemies

Abilities:

Flight and X-Ray vision

Skilled martial artist

Fluent in Japanese, English, French, Mandarin, Spanish, Russian, Greek, and Korean

Miscellaneous:

Has never seen a turtle before in his life

Bisexual

oh totally forgot kpop. don’t know how. it’s a big part of my life. i’m going to put all the groups in the tags, it’s a lot so…

how many fandom’s do you like?

Oh, wow so many. Let’s start with different channels:

Cartoon Network: any show from the early 2000-10s to Craig of the Creek; plus any anime that was on it like Bakugan and Beyblade

Disney: early 2000-10s sitcoms, TOH, GF, Ducktales (2017), Big Hero 6/MCU, etc.

Nickelodeon: Spongebob, some old sitcoms by D*n Schn*ider, Henry Danger is the last show

For fandoms outside of TV, I’ve seen Camp Camp, Ever After High; used to watch Mianite videos; listen to multiple broadway musicals (Hamilton, Heathers, ITH, DEH, 21 Chump Street, Kinky Boots); watched some shows for stay at home moms like Roseanne, That 70s Show, the Goldbergs, the middle, etc.

I am not avid in book fandoms except for the Artemis Fowl Series (don’t speak of the film).

For the anime that I care about: Bakugan, Beyblade, Fire Force, Magi, JJBA, PPP Mermaid, Haikyuu, HXH, Ass Class, and Azumanga. There’s a few more but I really don’t participate in the fandom for those anime, I just watch them and move on.

This is just a handful of stuff I remember. I try to join fandoms often. I’ll try to put a full list in the tags

GHGTHMGYK,IFDSGNYTGH

Hongjoong, talking to the rest of ateez: yall really yee’d my last fucking haw

Seonghwa: boo-fucking-hoo, cry me a tractor

“But why was it Daisuke-kun’s and Ichijouji-kun’s Digimon? Ah, I’m not saying it’s wrong.”

Doesn’t all this dialogue surrounding Daisuke and Ken’s Jogress evolution come across as very on-the-nose romantic and the epilogue perhaps, I look on as an adult, has Miyako where the writers themselves wanted Daisuke?

Happy Pride Month, 02 fans!

Me, at 12 years old: I would never ship a crack ship or a dark horse one. Canon ships are much more fun and make sense

Me, now: Yeah, so Masamune is gonna date Bao. They’re soulmates. Gingka and Ryuga are a thing, obviously. And half of these ships are random because I have range. Yuu’s just a confused aromantic.

The Beyblade anime was way more nuanced than any of us realized at the time. For a show that's supposed to be a teenage sports anime about spinning tops, it does quite a deep dive into the psyche, the personalities and mental health of its characters, which I think is rare in that genre. It does not shy away from dark, realistic themes.

We have Tyson who clearly has abandonment issues and I think that they show it pretty well. All the angst and anger he had in G Revolution was very much how a real person would react and the way he feels under pressure as a star - I think it was very well depicted.

We have Max, as the perpetual ray of sunshine and yet they obviously show how much of a face he puts up and how resilient he can be in difficult circumstances. Being underestimated repeatedly and how he comes to terms with it feels very realistic honestly. He's constantly having to prove himself to everyone - his rivals, his own friends and even his mother, who do not believe in him. It must be exhausting to be Max and I think that comes out well a lot of the time.

Kai's inability to attach himself to specific people and his lack of loyalty, as well as the depiction of how he deals with trauma (both in Season 1 vis a vis the abbey and in V Force vis a vis Wyatt) are very wonderfully shown. His emotions are both rational and real. As an adult, I think it's surprising for something so dark translate so well on screen in an otherwise innocuous and funny anime about teenagers.

Ray and the way he often feels conflicted about his loyalties and the responsibility he feels on his shoulder at every moment balanced with his ambitions give a very unique perspective to his character. I think they showed his struggles fairly well.

Hilary feeling like she doesn't fit in with the team, Kenny and his anxiety, Daichi and his excitement which overcompensates for his insecurities- there's so much layers to everyone.

And of course we have the other characters. We had Mariah and her internal turmoil in that whole Asian arc, we had the Russian boys and their whole dark past and bravery in standing up to their abuser in G Revolution, we had the spoilt Majestics getting humbled and seeing the error of their ways, we have Judy finally figuring out how to balance motherhood and her ambitions, we had Mariam stand up to her patriarchal teammates who are too blinded by tradition to see reason, we see Wyatt as the scorned fan, we see Zeo fighting just to be accepted as normal, we have Raul trying to be a worthy match for his twin sister...

And of course, Brooklyn. The dark and light angel versions of Brooklyn in his vision say everything you want to know about him.

Beyblade could have been shallow but it was not. That's what makes it unique. Thanks for coming to my TED talk.

In ‘Lucas on the Line,’ Lucas Sinclair experienced countless bouts of racism and micro aggressions including but not limited to:

Had children run away from him and refuse to touch him because they thought his Black skin color would rub off on them. This happened IN THE THIRD GRADE! And he never told his parents about it!

Calmed his anxiety about being the only Black kid in his homeroom class by coming to the realization that since there was no other Black kids that meant he most likely wouldn’t be bombed

Had to install a camera in his locker because his property got defaced by a glitter bomb

Lost his first and only black friend/mentor who supported him thanks to an ACTUAL MAKESHIFT BOMB being installed in his locker that caused a janitor to go to the hospital for 1st/2nd degree burns (and the white boy who did it barely got punished)

Got teased that the only reason he got on the basketball team was because he was Black

Comes to the realization that he might’ve actually only gotten in the team because the coach has a history of recruiting Black boys for the team regardless of their skill level

Gets called an Oreo (for uneducated: white on the inside, black on the outside) by racist bullies. Erica (who apparently has also been called this) sticks up for him and is the only one who understands what the insult means which means Mike and Dustin don’t know/understand the lengths of how deep the racism Lucas experiences in Hawkins on a daily bases

And these aren’t even all of them! These are just examples I had from the top of my head!

And despite all this happening in the book, “fans” have STILL FOUND A WAY to turn this book about Lucas and his struggles as a Black boy in a mostly white suburban town and his deteriorating relationship with Max and make it about Byler!

The fact that Lucas, one of the only characters of color on this show, can’t have ANYTHING to himself without people using him to push their ships is so aggravating!

He and Erica constantly get shit talked and miss characterized by fans, get excluded/cut out of group shots, and barely get any fanart/fics about them and their struggles compared to the white characters (I could make a whole new post about the terrible way this fandom treats Erica but I won’t do that here). Hell don’t forget that the fandom constantly tries to dispute the racism Lucas received in S2 from Billy was either not really racism, just a moment that Duffer Bros. put in to “ruin” Billy’s character and ultimately can be tossed out and ignored.

The only time I ever see Lucas get any large amount of attention is either due to 1) Lumax (but let’s be honest: 90% of the lumax tag on here isn’t even about them and has now become Elumax 2.0 and most post are people praising ElMax and then being like “oh Lucas/lumax is cute too” in the tags and that’s it). 2) people creating “parallels” of Lumax to their ship of choice (mostly Byler and Mileven) as a way to say that their ship is gonna be canon or 3) to say that he’s bisexual.

And all that is fine and whatever, ship and headcanon things to your hearts content, but if you only care about Lucas if he’s helping push you ship narrative or because you think he’s gay (to the point where some people actually read snippets of the book that talked about Lucas coming to the realization that Black boys like him can be considered attractive and only acknowledge the “queer” reading of the text and completely ignored the big race element that was the main focus), I’m sorry but, that’s not cool. The fact that 95% of the Lucas Sinclair tag isn’t about Lucas himself but white characters like Steve, Eddie, Byler says everything about how the fandom treats him.

I’m just so tired.

Lucas Sinclair deserves the same respect that the white characters get!

I leave you one of my favorite sections of the entire book: Lucas learning to become unabashedly himself:

Rant over.

Edit: in my blind rage I realized I forgot to edit out the Twitter handle. That’s completely my fault. Please don’t hate that Twitter user. I’m just coming back to fix that.

No, cause honestly... now I wanna write this

After watching episode 39 and talking it over with a friend, I think it would be neat if Alice knew she was Masquerade the entire time yet kept it up out of spite for the brawlers never letting her in on much. Just a thought

Randy Cunningham & Theresa Fowler.

I adore these precious teens so very much!