#I feel like she’s a very interesting female character is all

[ecargmura]

Dandadan Episode 8 Review - One Ball Down, One More To Go

There is something I would like to talk about now that I watched this episode. I think an interesting thing about Dandadan is the fact that the girls feel more like male shounen characters, but in a good way? Like, Momo feels like one of those rude shounen MCs and Aira is her rival, but they still feel like girls, but with male shounen character tropes. Okarun, on the other hand, feels like if Momo is a male shounen MC, he’d be the female love interest who’s shy but wants to get stronger so that she can be of use to her crush. Aira would be the rival character who is both similar but also different from the MC but is also involved with the female love interest whether it be romantically or not—in her case, she has a crush on Okarun. Seiko would be the MC’s mentor and Turbo Granny is the mascot character. Maybe it’s just me who thinks this way?

Why I say this is because the story really likes to make Okarun’s nutsacks be a part of a fanservice jokes like how people would always talk about a female character’s boobs. In fact, no one ever mentions boobs in this story—well, the only time they were mentioned was back in Episode 1 where Turbo Granny was asking if Okarun wanted to suckle hers. Other than that it has always been balls, whether they be golden or baseballs. The whole plot is about finding Okarun’s balls and even in this episode, the creepy aliens are after them. Like what Okarun said, WHY IS EVERYTHING AFTER HIS JUNK?

To be honest, even though Aira is revealed to be a kind person underneath her narcissism, delusion cannot be doused with character development. Even after everything that transpired in the previous episode, Aira still thinks Momo is a demon and that Okarun and Seiko are her cronies. Despite that, she develops a crush on Okarun and promises to save him from Momo’s spell. I honestly think she’s one of the funniest characters in this story because of how deluded she is. It’s so hilarious because the story really knows how to make her so funny. The way she was arguing with Momo with her mouth stuffed with noodles got me cackling. 

I also liked the part where Aira confesses to Okarun and tells him that it’s a man’s responsibility to accept the confession. Okarun is confused as heck and asked where she learned all that. It turns out that Aira learned about romance through her father’s porn stash. That got me cackling because I’m sure there are instances where girls learn about adult stuff. Heck, even I was reading very raunchy stories and looking at obscene pictures when I was a teenager, so I get her curiosity for the adult world. Though, I didn’t become deluded like Aira… The misunderstanding with Momo that occurred afterwards did hurt to watch, but I know it’ll get resolved later on because Momo does jump into conclusions first before thinking things through.

Another part of the comedy that I like was the sudden transition to baseball as Turbo Granny throws the golden ball back into Okarun. The best part about this sequence is Seiko swinging her bat as if she was the batter. I got a good laugh out of that sequence. I know Japan loves baseball, but I did NOT expect that it would be a way for him to get his ballsack back into his body.

While the episode was mainly comedy, I did like how it instantly transitioned into the serious, paranormal stuff instantaneously. Like, the kids are still in school and suddenly, an alien trapped them in their domain. They’re separated too. Momo is by herself in a place filled with water as some sort of dinosaur-like creature appears to shoot laser beams. Given that Flatwoods Monster was shown in episode 2 and that urban legends do exist in this story, does that mean this aquatic plesiosaur creature is the Loch Ness Monster?

With Okarun and Aira, they encounter the Serpoians. I was worried that they might go after Aira, but their target is actually Okarun as they want his junk because they believe it’s magical. I’m actually surprised that alien harassment goes for both genders in this story because usually, the author would make it so they attack only females. That’s pretty rare. Also, what’s with the crab alien with the boxing gloves? What sort of song is it singing?

The anime continues with high quality casting as Tomokazu Seki joins the cast as the crab alien with the boxing gloves. If you’re not familiar with him, Seki voices Kougami from Psycho-pass and Sanemi Shinazugawa from Demon Slayer. Kazuya Nakai returns as all three Serpoians. Though, Seki’s character has little screen-time other than him singing. I do hope it gets more screen time in the next episode. Also, Ayane Sakura’s deep voice in her youkai form was excellent. Wow.

Oh, and I’ve watched this episode in both Japanese and English dub and both versions are really great. I have to make a shout out to AJ Beckles who voices Okarun. I really liked the exasperation his voice had when he learned about Aira studying about romance through magazines and other stuff in her father’s study. I know that there’s a sub vs dub debate in the western anime community, but I think it’s all stupid. I think dubbed anime is getting better in recent years when there’s good direction and voice actors. Dandadan is filled with both.

I honestly can’t wait to see what the next episode has to offer as it seems that the group is dealing with the supposed Loch Ness Monster, the crab alien and the Serpoians all at once. I can’t wait to see how it all plays out and if it’ll be paced well. What are your thoughts on this episode?

[oriley42]

Serious question but no need to answer if you don’t want to

I see a lot of talk about Amber’s portrayal being sexist in the show, but I’m not quite sure why? To me her motives always seemed really well-defined (high pressure = “I’m only worthy when I’m successful”) so she puts on this sharky mask with a feminine facade so she is feminine enough to get a certain amount of approval but never shows how much she cares (which could be used against her but also could be used to undermine her “oh you’re too soft”). I thought the show did an excellent job of showing a mask for her

But a lot of people talk about 00s sexism and how it impacts her characterization. The sexism… Is it that she gets called a cutthroat bitch? Or how her story revolves around a man after she leaves House’s team? Is it the fridging?

Any of those could be it I guess but it just sounds like you and others are talking about something a little more fundamental to her personhood so I thought I’d ask if I’m missing anything.

Very interesting question! I think you're getting at exactly the trickiness of the issue, which is that sexism always operates systemically. It's not that any key aspect of Amber's character "is" misogynist, it's that every aspect of her character is automatically filtered through a lens of sexism.

In today's world where "bitch" has been very de-clawed, turned into a more casual and way less gendered insult that's used without cruel intention in queer slang, I think it's hard to understand just how violent the term was--and was meant to be--in the aughts. House in canon is not calling Amber a bitch in a cute, almost self-deprecating, friendly way (though I think it's valid to re-write it that way in fic to defuse the term!). He is calling her a bitch to contain and belittle and dehumanize her. We see the term mobilized this way against Cuddy in 5 to 9 as well: calling a woman a bitch was an extremely powerful rhetorical tool to turn any dangerously competent, brilliant, threateningly accomplished woman back into a harmless, debased, controllable object. So, "CB" reflects how easily the fact that Amber is the "female House" gets turned against her--it doesn't mean she's an eccentric genius like him, it means she's an evil copycat who needs to be put down. And this kind of structural logic applies to her whole characterization--it doesn't matter that House does it all more frequently and worse, if she does it, it's unacceptable because she's a woman. (There are parallels here with how racism means that when Foreman acts like House, he also gets the axe instead of the narrative bending over backwards to make what he did alright.) That's why she was fired, after all!

And her death. Woof. Classic case of killing a woman for man-pain. Everything supposedly about her death is actually about how her violent destruction can be used to fuel Wilson and House's character arcs. The narrative is occasionally conscious of this, for example, Wilson saying "none of you even liked Amber" is an almost metatextual reminder of how cruelly she was disenfranchised in every way (including the sexism of her trying to "defect" to the men's team early on, having no female friends, because unlike House who has so many people orbiting him, she is truly alone). Comparing her death to Kutner's is instructive: Kutner gets a whole episode that's about characters desperately trying to know him better. They trace their relationships towards him. Amber, on the other hand, is nearly absent from her own death. The characters trace away from her and towards the way male characters feel (Wilson's loss, House's guilt). Amber becomes just an imagined figure of House's guilt. Even her ghost is not her own. (Though I think many fans do a more feminist read and reclaim the way she haunts the narrative--but imho that would be a negotiated if not fully oppositional reading, to use Stuart Hall's decoding/encoding terms.)

One easy way to see that gendered difference is in how the show refers to these characters after death. Kutner is always "Kutner," never just "House's dead fellow" or rarely "our dead colleague." Amber is often referred to as "Wilson's dead girlfriend." Kutner is his own person, Amber rhetorically gets reduced to an object belonging to a man.

In conclusion: sexism operates structurally, which can make it hard to identify! And one of the funny effects of contemporary fandom doing so much good work to un-fridge women and give marginalized female characters richer personalities and more chances to grow is that canon's intended message of sexism gets obscured. Which, is awesome? Keep up the good work! Let's make misogyny unintelligible 🎉

[generalluxun]

I'm still trying to get my head around Chat Noir's complete sidelining not just in the finale, but pretty much the entirety of the show. Based on some of the tweets I've seen, Thomas Astruc is pretty hostile to the suggestion that Chat should have more of a share of the narrative.

So... why? Why make his family, his very existence, the fulcrum on which the show turns? If you want to be the show to only be about Marinette, with Adrien as a side character and "just" a love interest, then MAKE the show only about Marinette. Don't make the main plot about Adrien, and wonder why people are confused when he's not more involved in the main plot. It's such a self-inflicted wound.

Heck, the least they could have done was give Marinette SOME personal stake in her conflict with Hawkmoth, even if it's as uncomplicated as making Marinette a paragon-type superhero like Superman or Captain American who takes her duty to the people of Paris very seriously and feels deeply about the hurt Hawkmoth's is putting them through. But most of Marinette's personal conflicts are about romance or school dynamics. The closest any of her conflicts come to her actual enmity with Hawkmoth are those that deal with the stress of being a superhero/Guardian, in which Hawkmoth doesn't really feature as a person who is her mortal enemy but as an impersonal cause for the stress she's in.

While the finale tries to summon some emotional weight to Marinette's situation, the final fight, at least on Ladybug's end, feels less like the culmination of an epic rivalry and more like a contractual obligation Marinette needs to meet as Gabriel's assigned nemesis.

I mean, the unsatisfying but true answer is twofold:

1)TA never wanted Ladybug to have a partner. That was a requirement in order to get producers lined up to hand over money. It should be understood that I am NOT trashing the producers for this. It is their money. If you want to pursue your purely artistic goal then you secure other funding or self fund. If you want to get something MADE then you have to make what people want to pay to have made. A portion of the friction here comes from the fact that I don't think TA ever stopped fighting for his original version of the show, and that version conflicts directly with the version he was paid to write for.

2)In the context of the above- Adrien is a TROPHY. Gabriel is the DRAGON, and his home life is the TOWER that the KNIGHT Marinette must rescue him from. If Adrien were a side-character he wouldn't be much of a trophy, investment wise. Is it good to make a character purely a trophy? No. It's not good when it is done ot female characters, it's not good when it's done to male ones either. (Or intersex, enby, nongendered, etc) We've moved past the kind of storytelling TA is selling in his vision of ML. It feels like something out of the early 00's, which when you consider where he started his work, makes a lot of sense.

Should they have connected Marinette to Gabriel more? Absolutely! They both do fashion! SHE could have had an internship right along with Lila. Can you imagine the rivalry there? Can you imagine the conflicts with Gabriel?

At the VERY least they should have let Marinette actually track down abriel. Let her put all her planning and analysis to good use! Instead they just had Felix do it all and then some blind luck at the end. That's LAME, that's cheating Marinette out of a well deserved culmination story beat.

Punching has never been what Ladybug was about, so a final fight could never be a satisfying climax no matter how 'epic' it was.

[winters-on-the-wing]

my impression of the marauders as somebody who is extremely new to the fandom

this will probably make people mad. i am ready for that.

remus lupin -> he seems cool. his lore is fascinating. imagine being bitten by a werewolf and having your entire life ruined just because somebody has beef with your dad. that's some tea. i think his personality is cool, he seems very rough-and-tumble while also being quiet and plaintive, and i love how he has more street-smarts than book-smarts. the chocolate jokes are already getting old, though, i fear. besides aren't dogs allergic to chocolate?

sirius black -> this guy also seems cool. i like his natural swagger he's got going on. i hate how people are framing him as some "puppy dog" character when he's clearly got such a suave and effortless cool factor that clearly differentiates him from the others. i also think his lore is interesting. i love when the older sibling is the scapegoat, i feel like so often, the younger sibling is victimized in fandoms and i like the little reverse of expectations with that.

james potter -> THIS GUY IS MY FAVORITE HE IS LITERALLY ME. i think jegulus is stupid (to me, it just seems like a bunch of walking talking tropes, no real substance, and i hate how it frames james as some overly-masculinized knight-in-shining-armor archetype with no real personality of his own besides being regulus' savior), and i love how he defends lily from the others' teasing. i adore how his lore and personality set him up for such an interesting character development. it is so interesting to follow an uncorrupted child who has never known pain, to see him throw himself into harm's way because he feels like he has to. i also LOVE that he is a deer because i've always seen myself a deer-like sort of person. and oh did i mention that james is literally me? also his personality seems like such a nice mix of mr. popular and a fantastical, elvish presence.

peter pettigrew -> idk how to feel about him. he kinda pisses me off but i also feel like too many people are writing him off when he has the potential to be just as interesting a character as all the others. i kind of resent the idea that he was a "traitor" type from the start because the idea of him being a traitor is supposed to be a huge surprise that nobody saw coming. i love the idea of him being like a well-meaning jokester sort of person who sometimes goes too far, but just wants to be liked and wants to belong very badly.

regulus black -> okay so this is probably very unpopular but i think regulus is such an interesting antagonist. i don't want to redeem him. i don't want to ship him with any of the marauders. i think he best serves the universe as an antagonist role, somebody who holds so much bitterness and fear in his soul, to the point where he is destroying himself and everything around him to try and get what he wants - but the problem is that he does not know what he wants. i previously mentioned that i think the ship between him and james is dumb, and i stand by that. i think it would be cooler if regulus and james were sort of like enemies, though not overtly. regulus feels like james is taking away sirius and further corrupting him, destroying who sirius was. james feels like regulus is preventing sirius from growing and escaping his life of misery. but the thing is, they both love sirius. just in very complex ways. i love the idea of regulus being a tortured villain, his situation does not excuse his awful actions, but they explain them in a way that makes your heart ache for him, and then makes you feel like a weird asshole for feeling bad for him. that just seems so cool to me.

lily evans -> this is MY GIRLLL. i think she is so cool, so sweet and smart. the only thing with her that i find a bit annoying is that she's close with snape, who i find super annoying. but i love her attitude and her vibe. she's a strong woman without being one of those obnoxious "i'm a strong female character" archetypes. her strength lies in her actions, not her words. i also do think that her relationship with james is adorable and i hesitate to throw it away for the sake of gay ships, but i do think canon deviance with the marauders ships offers so much creative freedom, so james is not the only person i could potentially see her with. i think she could offer such an amazing platonic role in any story, and i hate the notion that the only storyline she offers is a romantic connection with james.

marlene mckinnon -> again, i am obsessed with her. i do not know much about her compared to the other characters, but what i do know about her, i love. i think she is so fun, and her personality is a great mix of strength and integrity. she sort of reminds me of a happier version of katniss from the hunger games. willing to fight for what she believes in, but she uses her power to support her values. i also feel like she and katniss have a similar dry humor that is so funny without even trying. i also love the idea that out of all the marauders, she is among the ones with the least emotional intelligence, in the sense that she isn't a "voice of reason" character like lily is. i hate when all of the woman characters are magically emotional geniuses.

severus snape -> i think he is incredibly annoying and i hate the narrative that he's just a poor baby who was bullied by the marauders. i just feel like he has such a victim complex about everything, and a lot of jealousy when it comes to his relationship with lily. i get that he did not have as much social power as the marauders, but if you play with fire, you're going to get burnt. i don't view him as completely unsympathetic per se, but i much prefer to view him from an antagonistic lens. he just seems like such a whiner. like if you don't want people to make fun of you, then don't be an asshole to them? maybe i am being overly harsh, but as somebody who was bullied, i think it is ridiculous to frame snape's situation as bullying because he is literally such an instigator. the whole point of bullying is that it is unprompted. like come on he is NOT a little wet cat of a victim.

and the other characters, i do not know enough about to form a coherent opinion. i do know of dorcus, alice, preston, and emmaline, but not nearly enough. i would love some advice on who they are and what they contribute to the story!

also i have not read all of "all the young dudes", i made it to chapter nine and then got overwhelmed by all the names, so i got the quick cliffsnotes of the lore from my best friend. i don't care about spoilers, i would actually love them!

also please don't get mad about my opinions, this is all lighthearted and again, i don't know shit about this fandom so i am pulling most of this out of my ass.

[exasperatedoctopus]

Whenever an episode has Lwaxana guest-starring I start filled with dread, for she is the most second-hand-embarrassment-generating person I’ve ever seen. By the end of the episode, I am filled with glee and soft fluffy feelings because Lwaxana is also the coolest lady I ever met.

This happens every time. Every. Single. Time.

[tangents-within-tangents]

Me: *complaining about how it's hard for me to relate to typical girl characters bc media makes it seem like all girls are boy crazy and the universal teenager experience revolves around romance and crushes and that just wasn’t true for me*

My mom: Well that’s because you’re not normal. You know, for everyone else that is what it's like

Me: *looks at the camera*

[florsial]

Wdym regulus emasculating sirius👁️👁️

I have no idea what you mean, Jamie, I have no idea. I think you are being strange-

I don't think Regulus does it in an "I was a born a woman and now suffers that while [Sirius] gets to prance around." Type of thing. I think if anyone thinks that, it's Walburga and Narcissa. The difference is that for example, Narcissa wants the position of power associated with a man while still being a woman (she thinks she's capable as a woman) while Regulus thinks he can be a better man himself as a whole.

Regulus doesn't view Sirius very highly in terms of being the Head of the House [Black]. Sirius goes against their family teachings, actively fights back against his family, and runs away, etc etc. With this, Regulus views him as rather weak, and since I think Regulus associated the purity views with love, he kinda also thinks that Sirius is a coward for not giving into those views for their family and by extension, Regulus. By emasculating Sirius, Regulus is admitting he can be a better "man" or he is "more of a man" than his brother.

I am aware that I sound like those people who say Regulus is sexist and believe me I know that, I'm sorry but I think sexism is so SO heavy in the stuff we embed into the Pureblood Society of Harry Potter (arrange marriages, victorian "aesthetics") (in my case, Chinese culture) that kinda "ties" everything together. Even though the idea of sexism is a rlly weird topic with Trans Regulus and the female characters of the Marauders (once again another thing that the fandom does to make up for the lack of female content). If you're gonna hc Regulus as trans, it is going to happen with the connections you put into the Purebloods. Yk? Anyway I'll shut up about this lol

Regulus is trying to validate the man he isn't allowed to be by emasculating Sirius' biological masculinity that comes with his identity as a cis man. It's less about the fact he's afab but it's more selfish, catering to Regulus, specifically as a closeted Trans Man. In a broader view, you could say it reflects his selfish nature in a very wide range way.

[silusvesuius]

i legit love when a character's gender is so integral to their personality (and perception obviously.) like so concrete that if genderbent their whole shtick would just be absolute dookie. anyways i'm just writing this text so i can talk in the tags (My beautiful safe haven)

this 14 minute song is soooooooooooo FYRE

[blinkbones]

i didnt really like the last scene of Primal (s2) but thematically it makes perfect sense and i can't be mad at it. Primal, besides being a visual delight of cartoonized gore & character design, is a story about the continuation of life. The second season could not make it more clear, with the emphasis put on the egg-laying scene, managing to imbue the long close-up of a cloaca with a sense of poetic wonder; and even more so, with the darwin episode, in which charles darwin explains primal theory before getting to play action hero. (this episode was honestly so shameless about having fun; it's a gem). This episode being the only one with dialogue that most of the audience would understand, as well as the only one breaking away from the main story, highlights its importance and makes it almost a demonstration of the series as a whole: one that openly chucks historical accuracy to the side to play with the concept of violence as a means of survival. what it doesn't mention, however, is the subsidiary theme of the importance of "family", aka the group one belongs to. It shines through with the main duo, and of course with the subplots of the giant and the vikings. With all this in mind, I can't argue against the thematic coherence and near necessity of the final sex scene--i may not have liked it, but it fits in with the narrative. As the caveman slowly dies from the wounds inflicted by the only being that could beat him (a godlike avenger), mira gazes at his paintings and gets a sense of his loneliness. They have travelled far together and while she may have found her village again, her previous lover is long dead. In many ways, they belong to one another and are "family" already (with the lizards too, of course). It's true that the scene, while quick, does not shy away in a classic fade-to-black--i'd call it off-puttingly intimate--but the series is very adult; it spreads intestines over just about every episode. And most of all, it's not grotesque or ridiculous--it's a tender rekindling of hope, symbolized by the dinosaur-riding daughter in the last images.

[doctorweebmd]

coming out of my baldurs gate 3 delirium (aka i am working a night shift and can't physically play it. at work.) to say that horikoshi. horikoshi when i GET YOU. you are NOT leaving izuku with no quirk and no arms. i am in your walls

[kebriones]

Reading that post you made about that book hurt. He would not fucking do that

Yeah. This entire book is so bad, and he is so out of character I am just skipping pages at this point to see if there's anything else crazy enough for me to mention.

[dimiclaudeblaigan]

how to ruin jugdral characters and make them into shitty modern tropes: have two teenage girls cat fight over their romantic feelings for a grown ass man and make them aggressive rivals

[aroaessidhe]

2023 reads // twitter thread  

Song Of Silver Flame like Night

YA wuxia/xianxia inspired fantasy

a girl in a colonised country with a mysterious seal on her arm left by her mother before she was killed

when a state magician finds her, she escapes with a boy to his school of secret traditional magic practitioners, and discover the secrets her mother left her

powerful demon gods

[mybrainproblems]

brain is just mii waiting room music as i consider where i've ended up in my supernatural fandom journey

[niuxita21]

Started Las Pelotaris and omg, Itzi and her husband are THE most delightful depiction of gay/lesbian solidarity. All "lesbian married to a man storylines" should be like this, it would do wonders for my blood pressure lmao

[libidinous-weeb]

same with male writers who write all their female characters as the exact same girl with long hair and pale delicate skin whose sole purpose is to ensure the male characters can live happily ever after while making all of the male characters have diverse and interesting storylines that have major effects to the plot with paragraphs of descriptions about what they look like and how they think. btw.

male artists who draw every woman/slightly femme looking person with the same yassified disney elsa face while having the decency to draw men in different and interesting ways are not seeing the light of heaven. btw