not-a-bad-bitch

[not-a-bad-bitch]

doing my part by being in my 20s and not getting married HOLD THE LINE

[not-a-bad-bitch]

[not-a-bad-bitch]

He's about to ruin this whole man's career

[not-a-bad-bitch]

@sun-ashes @xiaokuer-schmetterling @maelstrom-of-emotions

Thinking about the soulmate modern au you made but focusing specifically on the part about Wei Ying giving Jiang Cheng his kidney cause I've spiraled into an au where Wei Ying is adopted to be the 'Savior/donor Sibling' for his brother. Imagine Yu Ziyuan gives birth to a sickly Jiang Cheng and she pressures Jiang Fengmian to find a way to fix it and some shady doctor suggests the Jiangs get pregnant with a donor sibling but Yu Ziyuan refuses to go through another pregnancy so this doctor suggests the Jiangs adopt a kid who can be one and they are that rich, powerful and influential enough that they can do some back alley testing on orphans from a variety of different orphanages and it takes a few years but they finally find a match in Wei Ying. A 5 year old boy who'd been orphaned after watching his parents die in a car accident. His adoption is made into a public spectacle where the Jiangs are framed as being benevolent and kind for taking in such an unfortunate child.

But it's drilled into Wei Ying even from a young age by everyone around him that he is indebted to the Jiangs and giving parts of himself away to help his brother is 'the least he could do'.

He's not allowed to play sports cause he might get injured, and Jiang Cheng needs him to be healthy and ready. He's not allowed to have friends outside of the family because Yu Ziyuan didn't want to risk him getting into the bad crowd and start "smoking and drinking like the delinquent child he is." Jiang Fengmian does nothing to limit Wei Ying, but he also does nothing with his wife's attempts to do so.

Blood, bone marrow, liver. He gives and gives.

"Open the toolbox and take what you need!" he told the doctors with a toothy grin as if it was just a game.

The eventuality of Jiang Cheng needing a kidney transplant is unsaid but still hangs in the air like a hangman's noose. When it finally happens, Wei Ying wakes up after the surgery, groggy and in pain to see Jiang Yan li by his bedside. Tears running down her face because she'd been so scared. There had been complications on Wei Ying's part during the surgery and while her parents hadn't reacted to the news, she herself had started trembling at the thought of losing one sibling for the other.

So she apologizes. Through muffled tears, with her face buried into Wei Ying's side, asking to be forgiven for a fault that was not her own. After all, what was she supposed to do in the face of her mother's indignation and fury? Was she supposed to take one brother far away while the other laid dying in his own bed?

But Wei Ying's own heart aches seeing the pain he's causing her. So, on his third day of lying in his hospital bed, doing nothing but listening to his only visitor cry when she thought he was asleep, he decides.

On the fourth day, after visiting Jiang Cheng, she makes her way to her other little brothers room only to find it empty with fresh sheets laid out and pulled tight at the sides. She's told by a nurse that, at 18 years old, Wei Ying was legally allowed to discharge himself even if it was AMA, but he had left Jiang Yanli a note before he left. Then the nurse scurries away to do her work before Yanli can even react.

Imagine Wei Ying stumbling as he walks to nowhere. Nothing on him except for a duffle bag filled with the few possessions he'd brought with him to the hospital. Imagine he stops by a cafe because the pain is too much and, by serendipity, is found by Wen Ning, who was working as a barista at the same cafe. Who sees past Wei Ying's smiles to notice the sweat beading on his pale skin. The grimace he fails to hold back when he tries to straighten up in his seat. Without hesitation, Wen Ning tells his boss that he needs to go home even as he hears the man throw threats of unemployment in his direction. Wen Ning simply says nothing as he helps Wei Ying walk to a cab that neither of them can afford, already waiting outside.

Wen Qing isn't pleased to be woken up after a 24-hour shift at the hospital, but she can never say no to her little brother. Especially when he brings home a stray who urgently needs her medical expertise. Though she doesn't hold back from verbally berating the stranger when she finds his fresh surgical scars because what was the idiot thinking???

Imagine Wei Ying staying with them for weeks. Healing under threat of violence from Wen Qing should he try to leave. Imagine him planning to work to repay their kindness but somehow finds himself staying permanently when the little boy living with them asks him to come to his kindergarten talent show to watch him dance. Imagine Wei Ying being the one to show up to parent teacher conferences because Wen Qing unfortunately has work, and Wen Ning is busy with his college courses. Imagine Wei Ying being the one to help little A-Yuan with his homework. The one to tell him bedtime stories. The one to look after him when he gets chicken pox.

Imagine one day the little boy falls asleep curled up on his lap and Wei Ying finally realizes that he can't leave. That for once he felt needed but not for what he can give but for simply just being himself.

Imagine, with Wen Ning's encouragement, he starts taking online courses at the same university. Studying what he actually wants instead of the course that had been decided for him so he could look after Jiang Cheng.

One day, he has to hand in an assignment, and the TA is an old high school friend he didn't think he'd ever seen again. Lan Zhan, on his part, never thought he'd ever reunite with an old crush that is starting to bubble back to the surface the second their eyes met. Both of them have lost the shackles that held them back from fully living their lives. But the question is, are they actually willing to chase what they want and recognize they deserve to be loved for who they are.

Just lots of angst, ok!

[not-a-bad-bitch]

anybody out there hiring gay losers. ideally a 100k/year salary and i work for one hour every day when i feel like it. thanks

[not-a-bad-bitch]

Underneath the bridge, drifting through the river’s end;

Two lovers met.

[not-a-bad-bitch]

Children's books author Wei Wuxian (alias Mo Xuanyu) that writes books explaining grief, loss, adoption and gay marriage to children. Editor Lan Wanji who edits the books, greatly admires the author and would like to get to know the man better but doesn't want to be unprofessional, and so he just buys the books for his son, A-Yuan.

Also preschool teacher Wei Wuxian who takes ideas for his books from the questions his kids ask him. And parent Lan Wanji who is constantly being pushed to meet someone by his family so A-Yuan can have another parent (LWJ works a lot and Xichen and Lan Qiren are worried be will burn out). And kid A-Yuan who absolutely adores his preschool teacher and wonders why he can't just marry his dad.

Cue to WWX writing a book explaining single parenthood to children and why they may feel attached to their teachers/want them to be their families, LWJ connecting the dots and asking him out, and A-Yuan being extremely pleased this worked out as he intended.

A year later WWX writes a children's book about adapting to a new parent and a parenting book about how to do so. Not that he experienced any of the problems written in there: his child practically matchmaked him.

[not-a-bad-bitch]

I caved, ok? Is that what people want to hear?? I fucking caved. I thought y'all were exaggerating. I thought it was subtle. But by God those firefighters were eye fucking by the second episode-

[not-a-bad-bitch]

Every night at eleven I have to choose between enjoying the sweet embrace of slumber or staying up late to do something enriching and fun that I wouldn’t otherwise have the opportunity to do. And every night at eleven I take the secret third option of “doing nothing on my phone until one in the morning.”

[not-a-bad-bitch]

The La Clan experience is that everyone except maybe Lakan and Loumen thinks everyone else is the weird one and they're the only normal ones. Y'all are just all autistic!!

[not-a-bad-bitch]

it took me two whole weeks to create this illustration... do you think it was worth it? 😂 a small tribute to the finale of the second act of arcane and one of my favorite scenes from the series. even now, i feel like crying every time i rewatch that final scene.. poor isha 🥺

[not-a-bad-bitch]

there are two competing sects on this website - one that uses the word "spicy" to mean "neurodivergent" and one that uses the word "spicy" to mean "sexual content." i do not like either of them

[not-a-bad-bitch]

So when the Soviet Union collapsed they famously showed the ballet “Swan Lake” on TV all day. So what are they going to show on TV when the US collapses. I’m guessing Starwars.

[not-a-bad-bitch]

My Top 12 Favorite Anime of 2024 (and more)!

We had a lot of good anime in 2024, so here's the list of my top 12 favorites and some bonus great anime as well. If you get tired of clicking the review links, check out my anime overview collection for all of them here.  

(There are a couple anime on here I never gave an official review due to not watching during the season they were airing, and their sections are a bit longer) These are in no particular order!

Delicious in Dungeon (a.k.a Dungeon Meshi)

Dungeon Meshi  is one of my favorite stories period, and easily my top anime of the year. The basic premise is that Laios and his party of adventurers need to travel through a monster-infested dungeon rescue his sister. Rather waste precious time earning money for food, Laios decides they should just eat the monsters they encounter as they travel. But then that simple plot spins off into so much more...

The story combines cooking and adventure animanga expertly. It has some of the most impressive and fascinating worldbuilding I've ever seen, top-tier varied character design and a great plot. It's also funny as hell, and I love its main cast of nuanced eccentric weirdos with all my heart. Even the characters who have five minutes of screen time feel like you could watch a spin-off series about them.

It's not just about food, but the cycle of life and death, about hunger of all kinds, about ecosystems and societies and finding solace in the monstrous...there's a lot simmering under this story!

So, go ahead and eat up! And read my review here for more!

Mayonaka Punch

Canceled YouTuber, Masaki, meets a pathetic lesbian vampire, Live. Live agrees to help Masaki launch a new YouTube channel, but in exchange, Masaki has to let Live suck up all her blood when they reach 100 million subscribers.

 This is the kind of stuff I watch anime for. This is what dreams are made of.

Do you support women's wrongs? Are you craving some women who are loveable shitheads? Do you want a great ensemble comedy about five disaster vampires wreaking havoc and a cynical human along for the ride? This show has all that, plus some down bad lesbian vampire shenanigans! But there's also a lot of growth for the main character, and the show has a lot of pathos in how it explores how the internet and its outrage train can do a number on one's mental health.

It's a ton of fun! See my full review here!

Magilumiere Magical Girls Inc.

Being a magical girl is no longer the domain of teenagers, and has evolved into an actual career dominated by adult women. Kana becomes a magical girl for a scrappy start up company, and tries her best to navigate working life.

It's the magical girl story about adult women I've been craving for years! Magical girl media often explores the struggles of adolescence and growing up, and this show takes us to the next step by using magical girls to explore what it’s like to be a young woman entering the working world. The focus is one Kana struggling to grow her confidence and accept support from her workplace, but it also has a lot to say about companies exploiting their workers, prizing efficiency and growth over actually taking care of their customers, and it shows how the world could be better than what it is right now. Check out my review here for more detail!

Girls Band Cry

After being bullied, Nina drops out school and ends up starting a band with four other girls, including the woman whose music saved her at her darkest moment. Nina's determined for the band to stick it to the people who once looked down on them. GBC features some wonderfully messy and entertaining teenage girls, actually incredible CGI animation and great music. Nina, the lead, is allowed to be angry and obnoxious and powered by spite, but the narrative sympathizes with her and loves her spirit, even if she sometimes messes things up. All the girls have rough edges and raw emotion and a great dynamic with each other. They also flip people off a lot.

It was kind of screwed over by streaming, but don't sleep on it! See my review here!

Natsume's Book of Friends (Season 7) 

Anime's sweetest boy and his horrible cat (affectionate) are back, and it's time for more yokai adventures! I’ve already talked at length about how this series is special–check out my series review/ Rec post for the series here. I also did an article titled The Courage to Speak: Mental Illness and Recovery in Natsume’s Book of Friends that goes into more in-depth analysis. The story is sweet and charming and sometimes heartwrenching and very important to me.

It's yet another season of lovely, bittersweet yokai tales that tug on your heartstrings, the characters continue to heal and grow in slow but satisfying ways. It just feels so nice watching this series again and letting the love, comfort, and catharsis wash over me. See my review here.

Dead Dead Demon's DeDeDeDe Destruction

A giant mothership is hovering over Tokyo. The aliens have done nothing, not even leaving their ship, but Japan and America are already trying to blow that UFO up, and show off who has the best weapons, causing many civilian casualties along the way. Meanwhile, two girls are just trying to living their lives.

This anime goes hard on criticizing the military industrial complex, Japanese nationalism and imperialism, American imperialism, xenophobia, mistreatment of immigrants, rich people, and conspiracy theorists. That means it's often devastating and visceral, but it also follows some fantastic weird girls and their ride-or-die soul bond, as well as other charming, funny teenagers who are just trying to live in a world falling apart around them. You can also look forward to some plot twists that recontextualize everything you know!

You should also see my review for some content warnings and a really important message about episode order if you want more detail, you can read it here.

Senpai is an Otokonoko

 Makoto is an "otokonoko" ( a term that means crossdressing boy) and he's figuring out his relationship to gender, and hiding his interests from his mother. A girl named Aoi confesses to him, thinking he's a girl. But he reveals the truth, she's ecstatic about it, much to his shock. Meanwhile, Makoto's best friend Ryuji is also crushing on him...

It's tough to be a queer kid in a world full of rigid gender roles and insidious homophobia, and this anime shows the unfairness of that struggle. But it also shows the joy of finding those who accept and understand you, and of slowly becoming comfortable with who you are. The show knows how to make you really roots for these great kids, and it's really good at tugging the ol' heartstrings. See my review here for more!

A Sign of Affection

The anime follows Yuki, a shy girl who's been deaf since birth, and Itsuomi, a world-traveler and polyglot, fall in love. They both live in very different worlds, but as their romance blooms, they're eager to learn more about each other.

A Sign of Affection is shoujo romance at its sweetest, with soft colors, gentle blushes, tender moments, and plenty of warm fuzzies. The animation is beautiful and the show treats Yuki's perspective with care and delicacy as the story goes on. It also have a great focus on communication and consent in a relationship. Read my review here! 

YATAGARASU: The Raven Does Not Choose Its Master

In this world, people have the ability to shapeshift into yatagarasu, the giant three legged ravens from Japanese mythology. Prince Wakamiya, who's next in line for the emperor, is thought to be an incarnation of the powerful "Golden Raven", so the four women chosen as his bride candidates (each who carry the hopes of their respective provinces) compete fiercely for his hand. Yukiya, a canny young boy, has been pulled into being the prince's attendant, and both Yukiya and the women soon find themselves pulled into a deadly web of mysteries and political machinations.

Yatagarasu is a tightly woven tale of political intrigue, featuring lots of palace folk plotting against each other, multiple assassination attempts, spies, fascinating worldbuilding and use of mythology, well executed plot twists, and complex characters. Yukiya is a very likeable little trickster with a heart of gold, and he works well as an audience surrogate who has to keep up with all this weird court drama. In the first half, the story focuses a lot on on women contending with rigid roles and how that leads to both enmity and empathy between them. But disappointingly, most of those characters are dropped or have their roles reduced in the second half of the anime, which is a shame.

Overall, this anime is a story that hooks you with it's story and it's dark, majestic atmosphere and never lets go. It's just plain good, and pretty underrated, so I'd suggest checking it out!

The Apothecary Diaries (Episodes 13-24)

The second half of The Apothecary Diaries was somehow even better than the first half, crafting a compelling ongoing mystery and delving into MaoMao’s backstory. There were quite a few big thrills that made me gasp aloud. MaoMao, the world's best poison-obsessed detective, pulled off some show-stopping feats and she remains an incredible, endearing character. Especially now that we’ve learned she has a killer evil laugh. Check out my review of the first part of The Apothecary Diaries here and slightly more detail on this run of episodes here.

Dandadan

 Another one you've probably heard of, it's the story of two kids- Momo, who was abducted by aliens and Okarun, who was cursed by a yokai. Now they have to break Okarun's curese while aliens and yokai are hunting them!

Dandadan is an anime bursting with absurd action and humor, and it has a boppin’ soundtrack and amazing animation from Science Saru. It’s wildly weird in the best way, and the characters are hilarious lovable losers. It's also the rare example of a battle shonen that actually treats its female lead as an equal to her male partner, in screen time and in battle. I adore Momo with all my heart- she's fun, she's bombastic, she's badass, she's everything.

However, the main problem I have with the show is its pattern of putting Momo in sexual peril. I go into more detail about this and the show in general in my review here.

Train to the End of the World

 A story about four girls and a dog traveling across a weird, warped version of Japan to find their missing friend, Train to the End of the World is wild. I absolutely adore bizarre anime about equally bizarre girls, and this delivers. We see the girls encounter a cult with mushrooms growing out of their heads, screaming goatmen and even zombies on their journey. The dynamic between the different characters is great, and the dialogue is snappy. If you appreciate wild and weird zaniness that also has a lot of heart and great friendships, give this show a try. My full review is here.

Bonus Anime- some other stuff you might want to check out!

Cherry Magic! Thirty Years of Virginity Can Make You a Wizard?!

Despite an extremely goofy title Cherry Magic quickly became a surprisingly grounded, thoughtful and heartfelt BL romance worth watching. See my full review here.

7th Time Loop: The Villainess Enjoys a Carefree Life Married to Her Worst Enemy!

Rishe has lived seven lives, had lots of adventures, and in every single one of them, she has been killed as result of the world war started by the emperor of a neighboring kingdom. Each time Rishe dies, she's sent back to the moment the crown prince of her own country broke off their engagement (she's actually pretty happy about it). But in her seventh life, the future Emperor sees her, is instantly smitten by how cool she is and proposes to her. Rishe decides she might as well enjoy life chilling in the palace before things inevitably go to hell.

7th Time Loop has a fun conceit, and it features a vivacious, badass heroine who's a joy to watch. Having lived as a commoner in most of her past lives, she's ready to use her smarts to help people--whether it's going undercover to help a maid who's being bullied or addressing illiteracy among the servant girls. Whether she's beating up kidnappers or politically maneuvering, she's learning and growing and kicking ass. While her love interest is a bit too broody for me, I do deeply relate to how Rishe's badassery clearly turns him on. The antagonists and plot are sometimes a bit silly, but it's always a good time. A josei anime about an awesome gal is just what the doctor ordered.

Acro Trip

A silly show about a magical girl fangirl who's recruited to an evil organization by an incompetent villain,  Acro Trip is a lot of fun, and I recommend it to any magical girl enjoyer. I also recommend it to anyone who loves pathetic failguys and girls. Our "villain" Chrome is the most hilariously pathetic of them all. You like bad boys? Well this man is literally bad at everything. See my full review here.

Whisper Me a Love Song

 I have to give a shoutout to the only textual yuri anime that came out this year--it's production basically completely collapsed, but it's still watchable and the story is a sweet and solid girl band romance. At least consider giving the manga a shot if nothing else! See my review here!

[not-a-bad-bitch]

Every time she's on screen I start destroying furniture

[not-a-bad-bitch]

Bless the original hellsite for enabling me to post this entire post-season-two saga in full.

[not-a-bad-bitch]

I cannot believe there's absolutely no way to watch free shows and movies anymore, there are too many paid streaming platforms and pirating websites have viruses and ads preventing you from watching it uninterrupted((.)) id rather follow the rules and purchase media moving forward because it is too inconvenient. Seriously, free and no ads or viruses with 1080p streaming is DEAD.