#Winx club 2011

[fashiondolloftheday]

today's fashion doll is: HallowWinx Monster Mission Flora (2011)

[romancemedia]

Cartoon Romances + Caressing Lover's Cheek

[lunarislumen]

Alluka challenge 2/8: Winx style✨

the pose is taken by winx official art, this alluka as a fairy everyone🦋✨

[joslincox]

The Alpha Bitch Trope in Cartoon

Tricia Holmes from 6teen is well known by the gang as the most popular girl at their school and is the snooty archnemesis of Caitlin Cooke, who used to be a member of her Girl Posse.

Subverted on American Dad! where the "hottest girl in school" and head cheerleader Lisa Silver appears willing to go out with the nerdy Steve and is surprisingly understanding when the show's antics keep messing up the planned dates. In another episode, it looks like she and her Girl Posse did something terrible to Steve's unpopular girlfriend... but it turns out it is actually Steve's friends who are responsible, once again subverting what you'd expect from Alpha Bitch behavior.

Amphibia has Sasha Waybright, Anne's snobby and manipulative Toxic Friend who has a strong desire to rule over and control others; she even says herself that she ruled her school back on Earth. Anne starts the show off as her unwitting minion, being encouraged to engage in delinquent behavior and the like. As the series progresses, Sasha ultimately drives Anne away from her, especially after the latter realizes how bad of a friend she really is. By the third season, however, Sasha comes to realize how horrible she was and grows out of this behavior to become a better person.

Nanette Manoir from Angela Anaconda, also a Fauxreigner French Jerk and something of a teacher's pet. Angela has had many an Imagine Spot where she gets thoroughly humiliated and/or maimed.

Priscilla and Penelope Pinkpaws from Angelina Ballerina.

Cora, the daughter of the CEO Nora Rita Norita, in the Animaniacs (2020) short "My Super Sour 16" is an arrogant, spoiled Rich Bitch who wants her Sweet 16 to be absolutely perfect.

Muffy from Arthur used to be this and occasionally still has shades of it, particularly in the episode where Arthur starts acting like her. However, she has a Hidden Heart of Gold.

As Told by Ginger:

Miranda Kilgallen is the second-in-command and the Girl Posse leader to Courtney Gripling. She also defrosts a little. She never exactly becomes friendly, but she's a lot worse at the start than she is at the end.

Courtney Gripling is an inversion — Lovable Alpha Bitch. She's the queen bee; pretty, rich, popular, and more than a little narcissistic, a (self-proclaimed) snob, but she's a genuinely sweet person who doesn't seem to harbor any malice towards anyone — unlike her friend Miranda. While her sidekick Miranda is quick to insult the unpopular girls, Courtney is friendly with them.

Penelope Lang in Atomic Betty. Her two lackeys are a pair of sycophantic nerds, and she is infamous for referring to people as "losers" often.

Barbie:

Raquelle from Barbie: A Fairy Secret, although once the plot gets into motion, it's mostly pushed by the wayside.

Violet Nylund and Ashlynn Torescu from Barbie Presents Thumbelina.

Formerly Sloane, Hallie, and Dua for Camp Pop and Olivia and her friends for Camp Royalty from Barbie In Rock N Royals.

Tammy Bounceaway from Barbie Dreamhouse Adventures.

Tanya Butaire from LEGO Friends.

Batman Beyond has Blade and Chelsea. Blade is actually fairly apathetic, but has the look down pat, and is more than content to do things such as throw most of a school assignment on Terry, or manipulate a classmate to make another guy jealous. Chelsea, is usually a lot more sympathetic; she's actually a rather nice person, as seen in "The Last Resort," and except for being dismissive of Howard Groote, doesn't really do anything bad. Though she sometimes tries to get Dana to see other guys, it's because she thinks Terry isn't good for Dana, due to him always brushing her off.

Claire Brewster in Beetlejuice who is still the "stuck-up, shallow yet very pretty girl" type.

The Benedict Express

Madison, while technically a protagonist, is essentially the Beta Bitch to Alpha Bitch Erica Green and has often participated in her schemes against less attractive girls. Her status as the daughter of a professor allows her to get away with anything. Of course, their rival Sarah who is rarely shown is an even bigger Alpha Bitch.

Ciara Toler, when she was in high school and before she was brutally raped as a consequence of her bitchiness. While she showed strong Alpha Bitchy traits partly because of her status as "Barbee Creek Barbie" and "the princess of the projects" - the most attractive girl in her 'hood - her snobbishness is portrayed somewhat sympathetically as arising from her impatience with living in a community filled with people who preferred to wallow in poverty and being the only person (even in her own family) with a drive to improve herself. In fact, she often tried to act more like a Cute Sports Club Manager and uplift the spirit of her friends and neighbors before becoming exhausted with the fact they were only interested in drug dealing and violence.

Tammy Larson from Bob's Burgers is something of a subversion in that she thinks she's an Alpha Bitch and assumes she's super popular. The thing is, she doesn't have anywhere near as many friends or followers as you think she would if she were that popular. The only person who hangs around her on a regular basis and actually seems to like her is her Beta Bitch Jocelyn, and even she doesn't seem to like Tammy that much. The only other people who could possibly be considered her friends are Jimmy Jr., Zeke, and the Belcher siblings, and that should tell you something about her popularity level since they don't seem to actually even like her.

Boy Girl Dog Cat Mouse Cheese: Girl has a nemesis called Lila, who mockingly calls her "the queen of nerds" and threatens to shut down Girl's after-school cosplay club if elected school president, just to be mean.

Nina Harper from Braceface. Interesting, though, in that she and the protagonist, Sharon Spitz, were actually best friends when they were little. But a mishap with one of Nina's dolls that got its head popped off ended their friendship when she accused Sharon of being the culprit (even though she had no proof that Sharon did it). So her bullying Sharon is more or less out of spite. They do somewhat reconcile as the series goes on. Especially by season 3 when it's revealed that Sharon was indeed innocent of the doll incident; Nina's cousin was the cause of that.

Suzi from Camp Lakebottom is McGee's vain and bossy sister, a former pageant queen, and a huge Attention Whore.

Cleo from Clone High. She is a very selfish, snobby, cynical, vain, manipulative, pretentious, and materialistic stereotypical school diva who cares only about her social image, beauty, and popularity. Like in many a high school story, protagonist Abe has a hopeless crush on her despite the fact she's clearly more interested in Jerk Jock JFK.

Come the revival series set in 2023, Cleo expects she'll still be the most popular girl in school and is utterly horrified to learn she's been replaced by Frida Kahlo, an artsy skateboarder with a slight mustache and a giant unibrow. In fact, Frida and Harriet Tubman think Joan of Arc is cooler than Cleo.

Elisabeth "Sissi" Delmas in Code Lyoko is a strange version of this. In the first season, this is played straight, with the exception of a few scenes in only a few episodes. However, her assistance to the heroes in later seasons, particularly the second and fourth, is often offered without a second thought or a specific request for a reward, though this can happen quite a bit in a life-or-death situation. It seems that her personality alternates between seasons, from a straight Alpha Bitch with several Pet the Dog moments in Seasons 1 and 3 to a more Jerk with a Heart of Gold Lovable Alpha Bitch in Seasons 2 and 4.

Paulina from Danny Phantom. The most popular girl in school and loves to rub it in people's faces.

The show also had Valerie Grey, who early in the show ends up losing her wealth and becoming a Fallen Princess. She still retained some bitchiness before completely mellowing out and becomes a villain towards Danny’s ghost half.

Played with on Daria. You'd think the title character would have one as an arch-nemesis, but no, girls like Brittany are generally nice (if condescending) to her. Daria's sister Quinn, however, is part of the Fashion Club, the popular Girl Posse of their grade...and is in constant competition with its leader Sandi for dominance. Essentially, the two never have time to torture less popular girls because they're torturing each other instead. Quinn is generally the more sympathetic of the two, if only because she doesn't abuse poor Stacy, the group's least popular member.

The longer the show went on, the more it seemed like Sandi was a Deconstruction of the Alpha Bitch. While the boys of Lawndale all see Sandi as hot, there was nothing to indicate Sandi truly was as popular as she believes she is. Since she spends far more time battling Quinn for supremacy in the Fashion Club, Sandi's supposed popularity only ever was apparent within the confines of the club. Furthermore, when she decides to quit in "Fat Like Me" only Quinn appears sorry that Sandi's leaving while Tiffany and Stacy seemed overjoyed at the thought of Sandi no longer breathing down their necks. Considering Sandi is repeatedly shown to be an egotistical and manipulative Attention Whore, it's no wonder she's desperate to maintain what little foothold of popularity she has in a space she has total control over.

Andrea Davenport from The Ghost and Molly McGee is a snooty tween "influencer" who tries to make Molly a pariah on her first day at school just because she kept mispronouncing Andrea's name (which she insists is pronounced "AHN-dree-ah" and not "ANN-dree-ah").

Pacifica Northwest from Gravity Falls, which is later deconstructed in season 2 when it's suggested she's only this way because her rich parents are even worse and raised her to be stuck up. She begins to defrost as of "The Golf War", then "Northwest Mansion Mystery" reveals that she wasn't raised to be a bitch, she was mentally abused into being one. To put things in perspective, Pacifica was nothing more than a bully and a brat, but she isn't a sociopath. Dipper convinced her that there is still redemption for her.

"The Golf War" had Mabel lampshade this by calling her a "walking one-dimensional bleach blonde Valley Girl stereotype".

Mindy from The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy is a much younger Alpha Bitch, as well as an incredibly obsessive one. For example, she loses her head cheerleader position to Mandy (who just shouts the game plans to the team) and, after consulting the "patron saint of cheerleading" (a trophy she thinks is talking), decides the best solution is to incapacitate her in some way in the middle of a match, or, failing that, blow her up. If she sees Mandy with anyone aside from Billy or Irwin or the like, she walks up to them, puts on an obscenely perky face, and says "You're my best friend!"

Trina Riffin from Grojband acts this way, even though she only has one dedicated underling, her much put-upon childhood friend Mina. Nonetheless, her official bio states her to be the most popular girl at her school (although since we rarely ever see the characters at school, this never pops up in the series).

Paige Logan from Grossology. She is a popular but very snobbish girl.

Harvey Street Kids:

Frufru, the local rich girl. She's depicted as being haughty, self-absorbed, and into fashion, but lacks a Girl Posse, indicated to be simply because she's so distant from the other kids.

Zoe, Audrey's abusive older sister, is a more obvious example, being a head cheerleader and the leader of a trio composed of her and her two friends.

Rhonda Wellington Lloyd comes between this and Rich Bitch in some episodes of Hey Arnold! However, she actually is shown to have a friendly side, since her best friend Nadine actually is implied to be a middle-class girl (and with almost completely different interests than Rhonda—Nadine loves arthropods, Rhonda loves fashion). Her romantic interest in Harold, who actually is fat and less popular, is another redeeming feature.

Miraculous Ladybug:

Chloé Bourgeois. Her father is the Mayor of Paris and spoils his 'little angel' rotten. She hits all the marks for personality, but she is not very popular at all, with only one friend, Sabrina, who she treats more like a servant and also doesn't understand what friendship might actually be. She thinks everyone adores her (they don't), and can rarely accept she made a mistake. Among her most heinous acts is locking an emotionally insecure girl in the bathroom so she could be next to Adrien, who Chloé has a crush on (and said insecure girl does not) in a class photo. She is responsible for most cases of people becoming sad or angry and getting brainwashed into supervillains, to the point that Hawk Moth once created an akuma with no specific victim in mind and had it follow her around since he figured she was bound to piss someone off eventually. Unfortunately, he caught her on the day she was specifically trying to be nicer to people, so it took a little while, but she eventually delivered.

Lila Rossi. She convinces the rest of the class, who adores her, to do whatever she wants and manipulates people to try and turn them against Marinette (the only person who doesn't like her). She also torments people for petty reasons, such as sending a picture of herself kissing Adrien to Kagami, or the aforementioned turning people against Marinette because Marinette refuses to believe her Blatant Lies. She also acts spiteful and horribly rude, insulting people behind their backs.

Audrey Bougeois is one of these all grown up — she's a snobby, rude, and narcissistic fashion critic who belittles and threatens to fire anyone that doesn't meet her impossibly high standards. Her own family isn't exempt from this; her treatment of her husband is flat-out Domestic Abuse, she alternates between belittling her daughter while misremembering her name and encouraging her to follow her example (said daughter being Chloé), and while she treats Zoé slightly better, she doesn't really pay attention to her unless she puts up a Jerkass Façade.

Monster Buster Club gives us a subversion of the Always Female rule. Resident Alpha Brat Mark is a male Spoiled Blond Rich Kid who delights in insulting and generally being less than pleasant with the four kid heroes, apparently for no reason.

Cleo from Monster High is popular, vain, and frequently tries to manipulate situations to be about her. However, she does love her boyfriend and her friends, and occasionally displays redeeming qualities, becoming more of a Lovable Alpha Bitch as time goes on. Deconstructed in that her popularity is the result of her need for positive attention, which comes from her father and older sister treating her coldly and telling her about the importance of power, both of which went to Cleo's head.

Cleo: "I'm Cleo De Nile, and I've got to give the people what they want."

Tiff and Brit, the Crust cousins from My Life as a Teenage Robot, who continually plot to keep Jenny/XJ-9 unpopular.

Diamond Tiara from My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic, with Silver Spoon as the Beta Bitch, are a pair of spoiled brats who tease Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle about not developing cutie marks yet, and taunt Scootaloo about the fact that she can't fly. The episode "Crusaders of the Lost Mark" reveals Diamond was raised to be mean by her mother Spoiled Rich, who's far worse than she is, prompting her to stand up to her near the end and become nice.

Neo Yokio: Arcangelo is a male example. He leads the "east side gentlemen" who look down on Kaz for being Nouveau Riche.

Mayor Paul Spryman from Ozzy and Drix. He is a 14-year-old brain cell who has absolutely no business being in charge of the city and bullies Ozzy for being an Emo Teen and Drix for being a Nerd.

In Pixel Pinkie, Suzi is the school's alpha bitch who immediately marks Nina as a target for her strange clothes and Amazingly Embarrassing Parents.

Amity Blight in The Owl House, although she is technically more of the academic variety and grows into a lovable one fairly quickly. Her friend Boscha, while a Beta Bitch in status, is a more straight example in regard to attitude. Following Amity taking a level in kindness midway through Season 1, Boscha becomes the new Alpha Bitch in her place.

Princess Morbucks on The Powerpuff Girls (1998). She's a rich, spoiled Prima Donna that thinks she's better than the girls. Nobody at her school likes her. She even wants to become a member of the girls, which they turn down because she lacks any qualities of the team. Taken up notches in the 2016 reboot; she no longer wants to be the fourth Powerpuff Girl, she wants to be the only Powerpuff Girl.

Princess Natasha: Greg's girlfriend Kelly is this, at least as far as Natasha is concerned. She is totally self=absorbed and her 'crimes' include wearing too much makeup and cheating off her fellow students.

The Ashleys in Recess. Despite having some moments where they aren't a bunch of Rich Bitches, they spend the majority of the series wanting to screw with everyone for the sake of being mean.

Vana Glama from Sidekick is a classic case, a popular and self-centered primadonna who gets the best grades at the Sidekick Academy, has all the boys (especially Eric) drooling over her, and is served by the beleaguered nerd Kitty Ko.

In The Simpsons episode "Eight Misbehavin'", the family describe what happened to them during a nine-month mid-episode Time Skip. Lisa reveals that she became the most popular girl in school, "but then blew it by being conceited". Whilst the details of this are never revealed, it is probable that she became an Alpha Bitch during that period.

Gemini Stone from Sabrina: The Animated Series, a stand-in for the original Libby on the live-action series.

Also Portia from the friends forever movie.

The Spectacular Spider-Man

Liz was introduced as one, mocking Peter as much as everyone else, until a boost of Character Development after seeing him in different light turned her into his love interest.

Sally Avril is the most abusive girl of the group, even mercilessly mocking fellow clique-member Flash Thompson when his hero, Spider-Man, appears to be committing robberies. Slightly subverted when Peter's aunt has a heart attack as Flash mentions that even Sally feels sorry for him, although she is not as forthcoming with her sympathies as his friends are. Both she and Flash have gone through a bit of Character Development. When she thinks that Peter's been killed, Sally is horrified. She does say it's because she'll have to tell Liz and Liz "looks awful in black", but when she sees that Peter's okay, she performs a textbook Anger Born of Worry. A bit later, she tells him that no, she doesn't care, but she doesn't want him to be blown to bits, she's not a monster. In the last episode, she's glad Liz broke up with Peternote .

Gretel from Staines Down Drains is the arch-enemy of Mary-Jane. She is a spoilt girl who usually bullies the Staines with her friends, the Lupe brothers.

Brittney Wong from Star vs. the Forces of Evil hits all the typical beats: she's a bratty, selfish Rich Bitch who became captain of the cheer-leading squad at Echo Creek Academy "on her own, and not because her dad made a generous donation to the school." Naturally, Brittney hates Star for being one of the few kids she can't intimidate and for stealing attention away from herself

Strawberry Shortcake: Angel Cake has moments of such in the 2003 series, especially in the final season, to the point of playing the villain in "Sleeping Beauty".

Peppermint Fizz was this in her early appearances but outgrows such behavior following her redesign.

Raspberry Tart/Torte becomes one in the 2021 series, with the addition of Adaptational Villainy. She drops this after Season 1, when she warms up to Strawberry and becomes one of her closest friends.

Melody from Teenage Fairytale Dropouts is a mean girl in that she's constantly looking down on Fury for the latter being a fairy who still hasn't grown her wings yet.

Total Drama: From the first generation, Heather and Courtney. Heather is a classic queen bee whereas Courtney revealed herself to be a Bitch in Sheep's Clothing with her bossy and overly competitive personality as the series progressed. Both were the Alpha Bitch on their respective teams in the first two seasons with Heather serving as the show's main Alpha Bitch in Island and Courtney in Action. However, in World Tour, both girls clash for the position.

From the third generation, Amy and Sugar. Amy treats her twin sister Samey with absolutely no respect, and pretty much acts like a Jerkass towards her other teammates as well, particularly Jasmine. Sugar is a pageant brat who asserts herself as the dominant female, especially over Ella and Sky.

From the fourth generation, Julia. She starts as a fake Granola Girl social media influencer, but Beneath the Mask, she's as self-absorbed as one can get. MK eventually exposes Julia's real personality to the world, but Julia's popularity doesn't suffer for long— she gets thousands of new followers who enjoy her real personality, and she's relieved that she no longer has to act nice to be popular.

Total Drama Presents: The Ridonculous Race:

Taylor treats her mom Kelly like shit, and she is often rude to the other contestants.

Josee is a rare adult version, given how she regularly bullies her partner Jacques and belittles other teams, primarily the Cadets and the Sisters.

Mandy from Totally Spies! is a textbook case of this trope. Extra points for being shallow. Her cousin Mindy is also shown to be this, but it takes five seasons for her to show up.

It's spin-off show The Amazing Spiez! also has this with Tami.

Coral from Trollz is the head cheerleader, perpetually stuck-up, and is mean to the BFFL. She gets a case of Break the Haughty when Simon temporarily takes over and makes her his servant, and when Amethyst helps her she thanks the cast before returning to her usual ways.

Winx Club

A girl from Bloom's old hometown named Mitzi definitely fit the bill, despite appearing only a few times. In the Halloween episode, she invited Bloom and her friends to a party—which turned out to be an elaborate scheme to humiliate the girls. She bought and rigged a house, made up an elaborate legend, hired actors to pose as party guests (complete with scripts), and set up elaborate special effects around the house, just to pull a prank on someone she had barely seen in two years, along with four girls she had never met. Mitzi gets a more prominent role in some episodes of the fourth season: she lays her eyes on Brandon and wants to take him from Stella. Later, the Wizards of the Black Circle temporarily turn her and two friends into evil fairies. After that, she's practically Put on a Bus. She appears again in Season 5, and whatever time she's not playing fangirl to the Trix involves her being a bitch to her little sister.

The Trix themselves qualify. They bully others in school and generally boss others around before getting expelled. After episode nine, they get much, much worse, what with the multiple attempted homicides, turning The Cutie into a pumpkin for ruining one of their plans, removing the heroine's powers in a needlessly sadistic way after threatening her parents and revealing her backstory, and attempting to take over the universe. They're like Regina George, only with magical powers.

Christie Wilson from The Weekenders. She's a snooty jerk.

[ghostiehooves]

If you couldn’t tell, I watched a lot of Winx Club growing up. X]

This was actually an old/ very first fursona drawing I created, buuut got really detached from her and yeah. Here she is!

[bifairywife]

i swear that if 2023 pulls another bad reboot on one of my favourite childhood shows, i WILL sue

[antoniettap1303]

Rkgk: Fugetsu Hui Gou Rou Enchantix 💖🧚🏻‍♀️

[sunrisenovaa]

I love how you walk with your hands in your pockets How you'd kiss me when I was in the middle of saying something There's not a day I don't miss those rude interruptions

[winxamvedits]

more tatu~

[rewritingcanon]

U mentioned early 2010s ... how old were u back then? 5 or 6...?

ok so basically when i was growing up my mum banned me and my siblings from watching a lot of kids shows. i have never watched spongebob or adventure time or victorious or icarly or tawog or even DORA because my mum didnt approve of it so… i ended up watching Other Stuff that was from the 2010s. the popular shit i could get my hands on. this was around 2012 when my mum finally bought my brother an ipad and i shit you not i learned how to watch things my parents had on their plex account (which obviously didnt include kids stuff). so YES actually i started REALLY (concerningly) young

tbf though my brain was underdeveloped and most of watching merlin and sherlock holmes and supernatural slipped right by me but i do remember thinking merlin and arthur should have kissed and being mad when they never did.

merthur introduced me to gay people and it wasnt even its intention.

[s0fti3w1tch]

Trainee Halloween Costumes

What they're gonna wear in 2023 and what they wore... whatever time fits before 2011 -- thank you separated au group chat for the first drawing motivation I've had in a while. It's a little rough looking.

i didn't mean to make it look like they were floating in the second one. or that small. anyway splinter made the winx club bloom costume. trainee made the usagi costume with mona.

[cantstopthegifs]

Flora in Winx Club (2004 to 2009, 2011 to 2019)

[romancemedia]

Cartoon Romances + Flowers

[natsumebookss]

Tragic Yuri or Tragic Yuri: On Female Autonomy, Reclaiming the Narrative, and 2011's Moodiest Magical Girls

(contains spoilers for Madoka Magica and Heartcatch Precure, very slight spoilers for Winx Club, topics of loss and depression, and the author screaming into the void about anime bullshit that happened over a decade ago)

If you've spent any amount of time in the Precure or PMMM fandoms, you've probably come across this quote. It's natural in many ways for Urobuchi to feel the way he does--imposter syndrome is intensely common for artists and I'd imagine attempting to write a subversion of a common genre while a piece of media from that genre is wrapping up a super successful run is challenging. While I won't pretend Heartcatch reached the levels of popularity that PMMM ended up at, it was the highest-selling season for years in terms of toy sales and many still remember it very fondly. (I'm a bit more critical of it, personally, but more on that later.) And so much was made of Urobuchi confessing he hadn't seen Heartcatch at the time of writing his own show, with PMMM antis saying that meant he had no real appreciation for the genre.

But what if I were to tell you that not only would PMMM have been significantly worse if he'd made it more like Heartcatch, but Heartcatch would've been better off if it had been more like Madoka?

A disclaimer before we go any further: I am not suggesting that Heartcatch should've retooled into a darker series, or that it even had the ability to since the shows were made pretty much in tandem. The damage done to Heartcatch, in my opinion, was already done before Madoka's finale even aired. This is purely an exercise in comparing two magical girls from roughly the same anime season (one ending about when the other was starting) and seeing what they could learn from each other. Also note that my title on my main blog is literally "Heartcatch Precure finale anti," so there will be some bias involved. With that out of the way, let us proceed.

Context

Pictured: a completely normal Facebook discussion about a kid's anime character from almost 15 years ago.

For those unfamiliar, Cure Moonlight has essentially built up a reputation for being the Leafpool of Precure. For those unfamiliar with Warrior Cats, this is one of the worst things you can be called in fandom--someone with legions of fans who got screwed over so badly that those fans will never shut up about it. Being a Leafpool is not merely being a tragic character, but being actively fucked over by the narrative at every possible turn.

Let's explore Cure Moonlight in a bit more detail before comparing her to Homura and how, I argue, Homura did a similar story path to hers better. Like Homura, Cure Moonlight is first seen fighting a massive threat to humanity inside our pink magical girl Tsubomi's dream. The dream cuts off before we learn her fate, but all we can see on her face is pure sorrow before it does. The minute she is introduced, she already knows loss.

Throughout the show's run, we get to know her as Yuri Tsukikage, a veteran magical girl forced into retirement after her transformation item has been shattered. She has half of the broken Heart Seed that remains, and her foil Dark Precure, who broke the seed, has the other. Yuri is intensely depressed for this exact reason: she has lost her powers, her duties to the world, her fairy companion (who died in the battle with Dark Precure), and her father has also mysteriously vanished. The audience first sees her as a friend of one of the lead's older sisters, a senpai who excels at both sports and academics, before revealing her to be a broken person inside. The goal of Yuri's narrative, seemingly, is to restore her Precure powers, allow her to confide in new friends, and find her missing father.

The first two are accomplished in a pretty straightforward but heartwarming manner--Yuri begins to find a new purpose in training her Precure kohais and eventually regains her powers through hard work and determination. Typical kid's show stuff, even if seeing Cure Moonlight reappear for the first time is indisputably badass. It's the third one, however, that I have the most problems with.

Frequent followers of my main blog @curemoonliite may be familiar with a term I have called "moonbitching." This is what I call it when I rant at length about the Heartcatch finale and what it did to Cure Moonlight's character, or even just allude to it in the tags. Since this post will already be long enough without it, I'll go light on the moonbitching, but do just enough of it to give you the facts.

In the last few episodes of the series, Yuri learns that her father was brainwashed by the main villain of the series, Dune, and that Dark Precure was cloned from her genetic material while he was brainwashed. This is legitimately a fascinating plot point that, by itself, I have no problems with. However, soon after learning about this, both Dark Precure and her father are killed off in the final battle and all Yuri can do is watch.

Her father sacrificed himself for her in a moment of clarity, she didn't even get time to really process that she's been fighting her sister all along, and she's lost everyone all over again. She started the show with just her and her mother, and the second she sees hope at having a family again, it's taken away from her.

Her kohai Tsubomi, upon seeing this, begs Yuri not to take revenge on the Big Bad that's stolen everything from her. This isn't the Yuri I know, she shouts. But somewhere along the line, we've lost the Yuri we know. All her development, all her growth, has been torn away the minute she's forced to lose everything again. Her path as a character is now uncertain, the narrative deciding it won't allow her to pursue even the slightest act of revenge.

And all Yuri can do is watch alongside us.

Homura and Yuri

The minute I saw this finale for the first time, I was reminded of how a classic piece of children's/family media handled a similar plot point. Allow me to be cliched for a moment, but if we look at someone like Inigo Montoya, we can see that his decision to pursue revenge is never really questioned by the narrative. This is something that's always bothered me about female characters in media, especially magical girl stories--a magical girl can never just say "give me my father back, you son of a bitch." They may want to, but due to sexist notions about women and violence, they're always expected to take the high road.

Oftentimes, this is done by using the magical girl leader as a mouthpiece to directly dismiss their teammate's desires--Bloom and Aisha go through something very similar in S4 of Winx Club when Aisha's fiancee is killed. Neither Bloom nor Tsubomi are naturally dismissive people, and the narrative tends to characterize them as kind, but they are briefly mischaracterized in moments like this to give the typical "revenge is bad" message that kid's shows tend to have. A message that is often distinctly missing from boy's cartoons, but I digress.

Aisha is at least allowed the dignity of separating from the main team for a few episodes to join some extremists, but Yuri doesn't even get that.

And Homura gets so much more.

I'll admit, I still have mixed feelings about Rebellion to this day, but what I do appreciate about it is that it isn't hampered by these restraints that magical girl media made for children seem to have. That villain arc the Facebook commenter from before said Yuri should've had? It was too late for her by the time the finale ended, but it wasn't too late for Homura.

Homura is, in many ways, an anti-Yuri, and a lot of that comes from her having autonomy within the narrative. Female autonomy is something we see discussed in the social justice sphere a lot, but not quite as much in the storytelling sense. Probably the main difference between the two is that Homura, as a time traveler, can stop the ones she loves from ever being killed. In fact, that's also her greatest weakness, as she wears herself down with the timelines so much that she can barely bring herself to care for anything else sometimes.

Homura's depression comes from the idea that she Can Stop The Thing, but can't figure out precisely how to. Yuri's depression comes from the fact that she Can't Stop The Thing, thinks she knows how to, and gets herself into more trouble along the way. One of these makes for an intensely more active character that doesn't feel unfairly dunked on by the narrative, and oddly enough, it's not the kid's show character.

Yuri, as a children's character, is kept from doing certain things by what that entails. Homura, however, has no such restrictions. She can travel through time and repeat everything over literally until she breaks herself. And that she very, very much does.

Homura doesn't have to be convinced in the finale to let Madoka go, she just peacefully comes to terms with it herself. That alone gives her more autonomy than Yuri had, even if we recall that Rebellion's ending was not the original one that Urobuchi had planned. However, Rebellion's ending serves as an ultimate rebuttal to the narrative that a magical girl must simply allow hardship and loss to happen to her. If the world isn't fair to her, if not even time travel works out, why not just remake it?

This action comes at the cost of stripping Madoka of a lot of her autonomy, sure. But it is, in a way, the natural conclusion of how magical girl leaders are often made to strip their "angsty" team members of theirs. Homura's fall from grace is a flipping of this script in every way possible, and even if it's far from the best decision for her to make, we can see that it's 100% fully her own.

The revenge is complete. No one is there to stop her. Even the writers don't really know what to do with her now. Homura has now transcended the fate of the purple magical girl, and that's the best thing that could've ever happened to her.

A girl who seeks revenge is a devil. A girl who cannot become a princess is doomed to become a witch. But ask yourself, is the fear of becoming these things worth becoming a spectator in your own story?

And, if that's the case, is it truly better to reign in hell than serve in heaven?

[sleepingdeath-light]

last updated on : 16 / 09 / 2024

listed below are all of the fandoms that i am a part of and will write requests for. fandoms are listed alphabetically as they appear — and all are open for requests.

* = sfw requests only

animated (full or partial) series

anime

-> aggretsuko

-> attack on titan

-> beastars *

-> black butler

-> brand new animal

-> bungo stray dogs

-> deadman wonderland

-> death note

-> delicious in dungeon / dungeon meshi

-> demon slayer

-> hetalia

-> jujutsu kaisen

-> kakegurui

-> my hero academia

-> no longer allowed in another world

western

-> amphibia

-> arcane

-> avatar: the last airbender

-> bluey *

-> epithet erased

-> ever after high

-> fionna and cake

-> gravity falls

-> hazbin hotel

-> helluva boss

-> monster high

-> murder drones

-> star wars: the clone wars

-> steven universe

-> the amazing digital circus

-> the legend of korra

-> the owl house

-> winx club

animated films

content

-> disney masterlist (general)

-> disney masterlist (encanto)

-> dreamworks masterlist

-> ghibli masterlist

disney

-> alice in wonderland (incl. remakes)

-> aladdin

-> beauty and the beast

-> brave

-> cinderella

-> elemental

-> encanto

-> frozen

-> mulan

-> peter pan

-> pocahontas

-> princess and the frog

-> raya and the last dragon

-> sleeping beauty

-> snow white

-> tangled

-> the little mermaid

dreamworks

-> how to train your dragon

-> rise of the guardians

studio ghibli

-> howl’s moving castle

-> kiki’s delivery service

-> princess mononoke

-> spirited away

-> when marnie was there

games

mobile

-> cookie run: kingdom / ovenbreak / witch’s castle

-> mystic messenger

other

-> baldur’s gate 3

-> bioshock

-> dachabo! digi-pet sim!

-> dark deception

-> dead by daylight

-> deltarune

-> disco elysium

-> doki doki literature club *

-> five nights at freddy’s

-> hollow knight

-> overwatch

-> pokémon

-> resident evil 8

-> silent hill (all)

-> something’s wrong with sunny day jack

-> the groom of gallagher mansion

-> undertale

horror films

content

-> writing masterlist

general horror

-> the conjuring

-> wrong turn: the foundation (2021)

slashers

-> a nightmare on elm street

-> black christmas (1974)

-> bride of chucky

-> carrie

-> firefly trilogy

-> friday the 13th

-> halloween

-> house of wax

-> it

-> jennifer’s body

-> laid to rest

-> malignant

-> predator (& prey)

-> scream

-> silence of the lambs

-> the black phone

-> the boy

-> the collector

-> the texas chainsaw massacre

live action general media

films

-> bill (2015)

-> fantastic beasts

-> harry potter

-> star wars (all)

-> the chronicles of narnia

-> the pirates of the caribbean (all)

series

-> andor

-> bbc ghosts

-> bbc quacks

-> bridgerton

-> kenobi

-> marble hornets

-> spy (2011)

-> the book of boba fett

-> the mandalorian

-> the wrong mans

-> yonderland

-> you me and the apocalypse

marvel properties

content

-> mcu masterlist

-> non-mcu masterlist

films

-> avengers

-> black panther + wakanda forever

-> black widow

-> captain america

-> captain marvel

-> doctor strange

-> eternals

-> guardians of the galaxy

-> iron man

-> shang-chi and the legend of ten rings

-> thor

non-mcu media

-> deadpool

-> venom

online media

websites

-> welcome home /// playfellow vers

written

-> creepypastas

-> the scp foundation

[everafterrebel]

Winx club comics: Viz VS Papercutz

(Details undercut)

Around 2011 Viz started publishing the Winx Club comics in the USA. They only ended up publishing 18 issues out of Winx's library of 200+ total issues, and the issues they picked weren't even in order; they randomly jumped ahead and started releasing "season 3" and "season 4" issues and skipped dozens of comics.

Last year Pappercutz started releasing their own run of Winx comics, starting fresh from the beginning.

As a Winx Club and comic fan, I have both.

So I was wondering if they had just republished Viz's translations, but as it turns out, they started from scratch.

Most of the dialog is similar. It's not the same, (by far) but you can definitely tell that they were translating from the same source. (most of the time...)

However!!!

There are moments in the comics that make me wonder what the heck was going on. So I thought that I'd point out some of the more odd translating choices that were made. (Sorry for the poor quality of the images.)

In the first comparison, Stella replies with "Those only exist in fairy tales, Bloom! This is reality!" Implying that there are no magical creatures here; this is reality. However, in the Papercutz version, Stella says, "There are magical beings and creatures everywhere. Nothing here is "normal"..." Here she's replying to the fact that Bloom called the creatures "weird" and says that they aren't weird. She is saying that there are magical creatures, and they're normal.

As I said earlier, most of the differences in the translations are pretty similar, but in this case, the meanings are completely different. (From what I remember this happened a few other times too.)

In image 2, either Viz straight up added in extra dialog for Bloom, or Papercutz removed it.

In comparison 3, Bloom's speech bubble moved. (I was able to find an image of this page in Italian, and it looks like Viz had kept the original placement while Papercutz decided to move it. (For some reason?))

In 4, either Viz added arrows or Pappercutz removed them. (Arrows like these usually show up in comics intended for kids to help them read it in the right order when the designers make some creative "box" placements.)

In comparison 5 it looks like Viz forgot a text box and it was left blank for the release. Also, they changed the onomatopoeia to "punch".

^ And this was a reoccurring theme with Viz. They would constantly change the onomatopoeias to either more English sounding ones or just words. (There were still times were they did keep the original onomatopoeias though. Maybe they just got lazy or forgot.)

In 6 we see that either Viz added a text box or Pappercutz removed it.

There were a few other insistence like this. Viz had added a "Meanwhile" box at one point. (Or Pappercutz removed it.)

Now in one of the biggest differences between the two translations: in Viz's version, Sky is called Sky from the start while Papercutz keeps the original version where Sky is pretending to be Brandon until the end of "season 1."

If I had to guess why Viz went through all of the trouble to change Sky and Brandon's names (each and every single time they were mentioned, by the way) it would be because at the same time Viz was publishing these comics the "Nick specials" were being aired. These "specials" condensed the first two seasons of Winx Club into 4, 45 minute "recaps" that were meant to get potential new viewers caught up with the lore without Nick having to re-dub seasons 1 and 2.

And in the specials they removed the "Sky and Brandon name change" subplot.

So theoretically, it would make sense to keep the story consistent.

Honestly though? Even if that was the thought process, I still don't think that they should've done that. They should've just translated the comics as they were. That was their job. A lot of the plot points in the comics wouldn't work within the show and/or are different from the show. (Like Tecna's comic parents.) So it really shouldn't have been a problem with "comic Sky" and "comic Brandon" changing names.