#I'm aware there's an interesting character in there but the treatment of her this era has really turned me off

[brw]

I've never been a massive Emma Frost fan but ngl guys the Krakoa era has fully cemented a genuine hatred of the character. How do you open with a blond haired blue eyed woman who calls herself the White Queen for a superhero name saying she is going to be the East India Trading Company but don't worry it's for mutants and then not only refuse to explore that or criticise the colonial aesthetics inherent to her character since her inception, but in fact make her the awesome revolutionary fighting the good fight. Writers and fans refusal to acknowledge the very real colonial aesthetics and minority capitalist that is so essential to her character genuinely really frustrates me and has become all the more egregious as this era has developed and winded down.

[saintsenara]

Hey, I've been enjoying going through your takes on various hp ships, and I haven't seen this one. Did I miss it? What do you think of Ginny/Luna??

thank you very much for the ask, anons!

i've hinted at my views on linny in various places, but they don't yet have a dedicated post. so let's rectify that...

while i have a lot of time for the idea of both ginny and luna as queer, i'm sorry to say that linny is a victim of my general view when it comes to luna-centric pairings: that fics in which it's presented as something which works depend on the presence of fanon!luna, who is a beautiful clairvoyant ray-of-sunshine, rather than canon!luna, who is a stubborn conspiracist with the vibes of a golden retriever which can speak.

i don't doubt that ginny is incredibly fond of luna - nor that luna's positive characteristics [like her resilience, loyalty, kindness, and courage] must have been an enormous comfort to her while they're stuck at hogwarts with snape and the carrows - but her fondness always reads as the same sort of fondness you might have for a friend's precocious toddler. it's nice eye-rolling, but it's eye-rolling nonetheless.

which i think adds a slightly condescending element to their relationship which often gets left out of its portrayals in fanfiction, in both the platonic and the romantic sense. ginny and luna become closer just as ginny approaches her hot girl era [and, may i say, the implication of canon is that they're barely acquaintances prior to order of the phoenix, rather than childhood friends], and ginny's interest in keeping her around is evidently rooted in the fact that she views luna as unthreatening - her making luna take harry to ravenclaw tower in deathly hallows instead of cho always sends me, because she basically says "luna, you're unfuckable" and luna jumps up like "right you are!" - to her during her teenage peak. it's not exactly giving "christ, i think you're gorgeous"...

except, of course, that this doesn't matter in the slightest because this is fanfiction - the entire point is for two characters to be shoved together and made to realise they think the other is beautiful! i am perfectly amenable to the idea that linny can be written in which ginny and luna like and respect and are fucking obsessed with each other and which also feels coherent to both of their canon characterisations - and i love that for anyone who's a fan of the ship.

i just don't entirely think i am...

[there's also the... slightly discourse-y point, which is that linny often feels thrown into fics as a secondary ship as a way to enable a harry-centric slash pairing in a way which doesn't require the author to think about unravelling harry and ginny's canonical relationship.]

[i don't think there's anything wrong with this, per se - i break hinny up all the time, authors should be free to do whatever the fuck they want with their stories, not all fics need to do a completely canon-coherent wrangling with the canon couples they're breaking up in order to have their blorbos kiss, and i am increasingly uncomfortable with how some of the discussion i've seen recently pushing back, rightfully, on the misogynistic treatment of female characters in slash subfandoms is starting to sound a lot like "our canon het is pure and good and their non-canon slash is incomprehensible and wrong".]

[but i do nonetheless think it's worth being aware of a fandom tendency to make femslash relationships a throwaway line in order to enable m/m slash ones - and to think about how just smashing two female characters together without exploring how the relationship would align with their canon personalities doesn't necessarily help...]

[victimsofyaoipoll]

Round 2

Propaganda under the cut

Erina Pendleton

Erina is SO MUCH MORE than just a "Generic Love Interest" that was brought in the story to continue the bloodline after everything that happens (and it's made abundantly clear time and time and TIME AGAIN that she means everything to Jonathan, to a point that she was his exact reason to standing up against Dio for the first time) but without fail she's only ever allowed to be the supportive best friend. Or a wingman for Jonathan and whoever he's being shipped with. Or simply supposed to sit there and allow her husband to have a male lover (the amount of posts I've seen of ppl using the excuse that 'it was very common back in the Victorian Era for men to keep male lovers that their wives were aware of and quietly accepted so it isn't a stretch to say that Erina and Jonathan wouldn't be the same--especially given how progressive she's written". Or of course my favorite when they completely erase her from the narrative and pretends she doesn't exist Jonathan's got their son for some reason, but nope she ain't there! 

a lot of times ppl who ship her CANON HUSBAND jonathan joestar with speedwagon will put her on the back burner of HER OWN CANON RELATIONSHIP in favor of propping up jonawagon, to the point where 90% of the archive for jonawagon/jonawagon(eri) is either erina giving jonathan and speedwagon consent to be happy together while she acts like a #LoveIsLove wingman OR they'll have the audacity to write fics where erina comforts speedwagon at HER HUSBAND'S FUNERAL

Our hero’s hot wife who was the first (and arguably) only person to give him the emotional support he needed. She’s the only person who never expects him to fulfill some mythical role, she just loves him for who he is. She’s been his best friend and the love of his life since he was 12 years old. When it comes to hero/sidekick ship, she’s forced to be a wing woman for her own husband, either nobly letting him go or peacefully agreeing to an open relationship but only for him!!! She gets nothing out of it, she’s just a good Victorian wife who is “ahead of her time”. Usually, just so she can provide a womb so that the hero/sidekick can be dads and she can conveniently be offscreen. OR she’s written as a lesbian in order to completely and “justifiably” take her out of the equation but there’s a.) no other woman in her vicinity to even ship her with b.) there’s vaguely some faceless, nameless woman we’re meant to assume she’s pursuing, not even a real OC for her.

Alana Bloom

she kissed will graham in s1 and dated hannibal in s2 so you can imagine how bad the fandom is to her. fun fact she's in a canon lesbian relationship now tho <3

The show literally does the yaoi treatment of victimisation for the benefit of the male leads to her. And then the fandom mistreats her

I'm not sure if this even counts but...Literally a victim of Yaoi along with several other characters in-series, but she got it almost the worst. The entire show is just people dying because the two male leads are OBSESSED with each other and can't be normal about anything. Alana Bloom, actual PhD of psychology and consultant to the FBI, got kissed by one guy, fucked and fed people-meant by the other, and pushed out a window by the murder husbands' forced-surrogate daughter. Like. Actual victim of several crimes caused by yaoi. She's probably one of the few examples of a Yaoi Victim overcoming and evolving past her yaoi-related trauma into a stronger person/character, though: She gets an entire character overhaul and a hot, millionairess for a wife. She kills a man with an eel. She becomes head of the BSHCI, effectively putting her in complete power over her jackass cannibal ex-bf. She does quite well. Unfortunately, the rest of her screen time is spent trying not to get killed in the ongoing fallout of Hannibal and Will's fucked up courtship, but hey. Can't have everything. I don't even know if I'm saying anything valid here: the fandom loves her, but I supposed her position outside of the Hannigram relationship relegates her to a non-subject in a lot of Hannigram-focused fanwork. She's an 'obstacle' to their relationship only in the sense that Will had a crush on her once that went nowhere and Hannibal started an actual relationship with her SPECIFICALLY to piss off Will. I guess she's also a more literal obstacle as Hannibal's jailer and Will's friend who's constantly pointing out to him that Morals exist and he should try having some of those, maybe.

[lediz-watches]

Miraculous: Tales of Ladybug and Cat Noir (or at least, the first half of season five...)

Basically, fandom makes it hard to be a fan of this show.

Disney+ put the first half of season five up a few weeks ago, and I'll be honest, I've been putting off actually watching it because I've been playing video games in my downtime (Dredge! Also Dragon Age again, because I love the Warden and Hawke) and fandom makes me forget how much I do like Miraculous.

Because Miraculous is cute, and silly, and has hints of depth, and is what it is meant to be: a romantic comedy aimed at eight year old girls.

I'm sorry fandom, but that's what it is. And by accepting that, we become zen.

So for the purposes of my Disney+, the first half of seasons 5 is as planned, up to Exaltation/Elation.

So we got up to Marinette being in love with Cat Noir, Cat Noir having a celebrity heel realisation, and now Marinette can go back to the Safe Option.

The fact Cat Noir is Adrien and therefore has always been the Safe Option is only for us and kwamis to know. Shhh!

When you don't overthink it, and look at the show for what it is, it was actually a really well constructed arc. And I think it continues to be so if you're into spoilers like I am, but I haven't actually SEEN anything past this episode, so I won't go into that. But for this point.

As much as it made us tear our hair out because that episode was as close to 'real and happy Adrien' as I think we've ever seen, I think Adrien's little heel realisation was important. Because no matter which mask he's wearing, Adrien is a celebrity, and most people aren't interested in knowing the real him. So any relationship he gets into without dealing with that problem will mean SOMEONE is getting taken advantage of.

The show didn't go into it, and couldn't get into it, because these two characters are made for each other and are both safe for each other, but I think it was just explicit enough about the situation to plant the idea in a little girl's brain. And that's what matters.

Because Marinette does think she knows Cat Noir. She's spent time with him, she's seen different sides of him, she's smart and aware enough to know there's a lot about him she doesn't know, and while WE THE AUDIENCE know she knows him as Adrien, she doesn't. What she knows about Cat Noir is a super parasocial analogy, and in this era of online relationships and influencer-based reality, WOW is it important for little girls to hear that fan relationships aren't a good basis for romance.

Because the idea is there now. So future shows, aimed at say a 14 year old, which can get a little darker, can show what happens when people don't do the responsible thing. And in the back of their mind, a connection can be made. And maybe, just maybe, one day, that little girl might be able to make a smarter choice in her own life.

But that, unfortunately, is what I think fandom has trouble with.

Because this is a show for young girls. It's not actually trying to be anything else. It's just also very good at hinting at other things that we latch onto because we're older fans who can see the hints for what they are.

Marinette is a power fantasy. She's highly competent, smart, creative, funny, beautiful, everyone either loves her or is jealous of her, she's good at literally everything she tries, and the only flaws the show openly discusses are either things they say she'll grow out of (clumsiness, poor time management), or the result of other people's actions (her anxiety, her controlling nature, et cetera). Even when she screws up, and the show acknowledges it's her fault, it's never really her fault. And ultimately, she alone overcomes her problems because she's always been strong enough to overcome them, she just needs to believe in herself.

I would argue that she does actually have flaws, and that the show is very good at showing us them. I fully believe she screwed up with Chloe. Chloe's current arc is entirely due to Marinette's treatment of her in seasons two and three, but we'll never get into that for the same reason they'll never go deep into why Adrien's image being used on the Alliance rings is so frikking creepy (seriously, Illusion and Jubilation both make my skin crawl every time I watch them, my god). It's complex and insidious and just too complicated for an eight year old to really understand when they play with dolls and have a binary distinction between good and evil. BUT ANYWAY.

Marinette's a power fantasy because little girls need someone they can both relate to and look up to. They relate to her, because they've been bullied, so they're insecure and overthink things, and they're clumsy, and they make mistakes, but Marinette always comes out on top, so eventually so will they. Even if all their friends do what young girls will do and 'betray them' (little girls are awful to each other, honestly), they will prove strong enough to get through it all.

Both Adrien and Cat Noir serve this fantasy too. He's smart, he's kind, he's safe, he's hopelessly romantic, he loves SO MUCH and SO HARD, he's protective (sometimes aggressively so in the same way that little girls think they want a guy that will beat up other guys for them)(and some never grow out of this), but he actually needs saving.

The show then shows us why all of that is... actually complex and uncomfortable, but again, it's gonna skate over it because Adrien's... when you actually think about Adrien too hard it's easy to go really, really dark places. Him being controlled by the Graham van de Lily rings is the easiest and safest way of navigating the very dark and twisted construction of Adrien's situation. Because otherwise... yikes.

Unfortunately, I think season five is the culmination of this tell and show philosophy. Because the narrative is coming to a head. Marinette's made her big mistake as a hero, enabling the final showdown. The villain has crossed his own moral boundaries, enforcing the final showdown. All the narrative links need to tie together.

The power fantasy must prevail. The hero must overcome the tragic villain, the damsel must be saved, and Marinette will end up in a more hopeful life than she started in.

These are important stories for little girls to have.

But as older fans, we latch on to the depths and want to drag them up into the light. We want to see emotionally damaged young women grapple with the realisation that their actions, done in self-preservation and seemingly entirely justified, have negative consequences and can sometimes cause more harm. We want to explore the dark and twisted world of a kid raised to serve other people's desires, and we're fascinated by the fact that this is a male character in that position. We want to explore the terrifying catfish storyline that an older Felix could and absolutely would have played out with Ladybug and then again with Marinette. We want to see Adrien's anger and depression manifest and be dealt with.

Because these are the stories we as older fans are dealing with, and identify with, and we want OUR power fantasy. We want to be told that we can find a happy ending too.

And we can, and stories should tell us these things. But they don't, because stories for grown ups aren't supposed to have happy endings. Such is the actual problem with adult entertainment.

I wish we didn't take that out on Miraculous. Because Miraculous is a fun show. It's just that it is what it is.

I think I'm looking forward to the next half, though. Might just have to make a conscious decision to stay out of the fandom though...

[probablygayattorneys]

While we're on the topic of the remake of Another Code

(⚠️ SPOILERS FOR THE WII SEQUEL PART OF THE GAME⚠️ I'm going to try to not get into it in too much detail but I'm still putting the warning up)

I personally never owned a Wii, and for the longest time I wasn't even aware there was a sequel, so I was very excited to experience it for the first time in the Switch remake. I played it completely with no prior knowledge at all and i thought it was nice! But after finishing the game and doing some research about the sequel, it turns out they especially changed a lot of stuff compared to the original Wii game. I think they changed more in the sequel than in the original DS game?

There were some changes that were pretty nice, like them adding a couple more characters of colour when previously, Ashely and her mom were the only non-white people in the whole cast. I also like some of the characters' redesigns way more than their original designs.

Some other changes were a bit understandable, I guess. Like the remake completely removing two extremely minor NPCs who only had like 2 or 3 lines. Sure, that's fine

The changes that surprised me the most though, was the game completely changing a major character's backstory. In the original game, the character is alive, but in the remake, they had them actually be dead the whole time. Their motivations are very different too. There's also a side story that got removed from the remake as well. I don't understand why they felt the need to drastically change so much

Again, as someone who never played the Wii sequel before, I thought the remake version was pretty good and I had fun with it! But after learning how much was changed, I do feel a teensy tiny bit disappointed since I was really looking forward to seeing what exactly I missed out on, but I can't really do that with the remake.

It's a good game, don't get me wrong!! But yeah if anyone wants to experience what the original story was like, it's best to play the DS and Wii versions or watch a playthrough on youtube. The Switch version is more of a retelling of the story

I actually haven't played the sequel yet (I was undergoing a treatment that severely affected my memory and starting a completely unknown puzzle game while in that state seemed like a great way to miss a Chekov's gun until it shot me in the face, and then during that time a new girl started at work and we were talking about our hobbies and I mentioned my love for DS-era puzzle games "like Ace Attorney or Trace Memory" and she lost her shit because she had played Trace Memory when she was younger but then forgotten it's name and had been trying to remember for ages, and then since I wasn't using my switch at the time, I lent it to her so she could play the remake and she still has it, so I'm just... logging hours in Sims while I wait for her to finish it) so this is helpful information to know! I definitely want my first experience with it to be actually playing it myself, so I'll wait until Karina is done (though I also told her she could play all the other puzzle games because so help me god I will BRUTE FORCE HER INTO MY INTERESTS) (though I think the one she wants to play the most next is Hotel Dusk since we literally work at a hotel, so we'll probably trade off DS for switch and I'll have the chance to play it then) and then look up a playthrough or something. That's interesting that they made so many changes and also makes me even more wary and protective of Hotel Dusk. I will Kill Anyone Who Touches It.

[shounenforgirls]

kaiju no. 8 thoughts!!!!

~long post ahead~

just caught up on 20ish chapters and its been satisfying so far. i guess the two weeks (or 3?) interval on publishing each chapter is efficient for the author (the talented naoya matsumoto!!) to craft a non-rushed, smooth plot. the characters are promising, each of them seems to have a clear motivation and they are all made useful in the fights. everyone GETS a role, even if brief. or if they haven't yet, their appearance makes me anticipate for future actions. and the character designs! they are all so cool! some top-tier shit going on here. the functioning, gender-neutral suit design and the weapons! he gets a giant weapon, she gets a giant weapon, everybody gets a giant weapon! grotesque monster designs too! definitely reminds me of pacific rim.

and here's the thing that deserves to be discussed: the elder's faith in the younger generation. i do love stories that highlight intergenerational relationship – the contrast, conflict, trauma and so forth. i'm gonna make a little comparison with jujutsu kaisen here. jjk has conflict between the conservative higher-ups and the younger generation of sorcerers whose powers defy the conformity in the traditional jujutsu world. to put it simply, in jjk, the younger gen. and their powers inflict fear within the elder, traditional sorcerers – making them go as far as attempting executions on these kids or holding them down by grades system. meanwhile, in kn8, the younger generation of the kaiju defense force become the elder, higher ranking soldiers' ray of hope. they put their trust on the youngsters, see them as equal regardless of age and gender, even the newly recruited soldiers are given the same chance to prove themselves in a battle. and i think this is the core strength in their organization: faith and equality. the outcome of the elders' treatment towards the youngsters in the respective series is also striking: rebellion and violence in jjk, healthy growth and mutual respect in kn8. BOTH ARE GREAT. they portray how the role of the older generation shapes the younger and how it plays in the narrative/character development.

of course i have to talk about the treatment of the female characters. i consider myself to be critical of how they write female characters in a story but when it comes to stereotypical shounen manga, i don't really want to expect too much. and i find matsumoto-sensei to be quite adequate in handling his female characters. first, the common problem of girls in shounen manga: character design. no unnecessary fanservice in their physical appearance, yet they still have their own appeal. they are not drawn in male gaze-y angles as far as i can remember. and then! a girl (specifically a love interest, often a damsel in distress at that) being the mc's motivation is such a common trope in shounen. this trope also applies to kn8's mc, kafka, but in a quite subversive way. he looks up to his childhood friend, mina, who is one of the commanders in the defense force. she is strong and influential, and kafka's motivation is to stand by her side, as in being equal to her. it's sooo refreshing to see in shounen.

and then there's the badass shinomiya kikoru, who is the strongest among the new recruits. she's tough and confident, yet still has softer and compassionate side. she's also the daughter of the defense force's director general – and while she can get insecure w her strength due to her father's expectations, her character does not entirely revolve around being the daughter of a powerful man and i love her for it. she's aware of her capabilities and she knows she is her own person. [SPOILER ALERT] her backstory in particular made me appreciate her even more. she looked up to her mother, who was a powerful and beloved defense force commander in her era. kikoru's motivation to continue her mother's fight, to protect everyone in her mother's stead, once again feels refreshing. it's something that is usually seen in a male character with his father, but matsumoto-sensei proved that such motivation could be easily executed on female characters. i could go on about how precious the shinomiya family is, but i guess i should make a separate post for that.

so in conclusion: if want to see a wholesome 30 yr old man mc who can turn into a monster, healthy and fun rivalries, cool character, weapon and monster designs, balanced lighthearted and serious moments, plot-relevant and well-written female characters, please give kaiju no. 8 a try. it's entertaining and engaging, it still has 54 chapters so you can binge it in one sitting. and shit's about to go down too! the mysterious villain just declared war! i'm curious if the story will darken as the plot moves, kinda like jjk before and after shibuya arc lmao sorry for keep comparing them but it's with good intention. this manga has the potential to be big and hopefully gets an anime adaptation. can't wait to see that and i hope the fandom quickly grows because i need the content!!