#actually thinking about it do i count Madoka too?

[m00nj3w3l]

Actually if I had a dollar everytime I liked some media where kids were being harvested like animals and used/trained for some shit benefitting some monsters or some shit and then some gay shit goes down I'd have... 4 dollars, which isn't a lot but IT'S WEIRD IT HAPPENED FOUR TIMES???

[ladyloveandjustice]

List of "Does it Like Women" Results and whether I agree

I find the "Does it like women" blog fascinating, as y'all have probably noticed. I always tend to think deeply about this topic when I consume media, so I wanted to make a list of results I disagree with, because it interests me! I'll likely be updating this through reblogs if my interest doesn't wane, I'll make a note in the replies when I do!

Loves Women

I agree with all of these so far!

Likes Women

Kill la Kill- Man it's 2013 again and I'm seeing tumblr make powerpoints about how klk is deeply feminist and it's actually a super deep critique of harassment that Ryuko has to wear the ugliest outfit ever and Westerners Don't Understand (person making this argument is inevitably a Westerner).

Yeah, based on the part I've seen and everything I've heard, hard disagree. But I have not seen the whole thing, just those three, I do know the part I saw included rape jokes a plenty, a weird victim-blamey take on "not being ashamed" of being forced into a skimpy outfit and how if you're bothered by men ogling you that's your weakness, and a vagina wedgie. I'm not as mad about it as I was back then,and I can appreciate the show has it's good points later on. Not having watched it also means my knowledge is incomplete. However, I have listened to really in depth breakdowns of the series (mainly Anifem's podcast), so I know exactly what happens, and yeah, the treatment of women doesn't impress me. I'm on the dislike side, (holding back on hates because again, haven't seen all of it)

...could understand mixed feelings though, I guess

Madoka- I'd definitely go more towards mixed feelings honestly (especially if we're counting Rebellion) but I get the people who say "likes".

Yuri is my Job- it loves women, it loves messy women, it loves women who love women, it loves them so much, idk why it got a sizeable no vote. People who only watched the first ep? People who think yuri is "bad"?

Mob Psycho 100- Someone in the notes says "accidentally likes women" and that's the only answer in the "likes women" area I'll accept. It has 10 million prominent male characters and like three prominent female characters. ONE really really obviously has a hard time imagining women as powerful or action heroes. (this is reflected in One Punch Man too) (One Punch Man actively hates women and queer people though, Mob is infinitely better) Only one who ever gets to fight and play with the boys, and she's a low level mook, and we have to spend 75% percent of her limited screentime on whether it's actually okay to fight women, with her winning argument being "Well you're literally a child so I guess it evens out" (???) The little girl with the evil dolls gets even less screentime.

I do like that the series examines how Mob idealized Takane and how people not caring about the real her made her tired, as well as how it allowed her to reject Mob and was basically a lesson in the importance of accepting rejection. But her screentime is also really limited, and I feel like we could have dove into her a lot more. Tome is a wonderful weird girl and I liked her little arc, and I hear she gets more in the Reigen manga, but still not a TON of screentime, and even with her there are a couple jabs about how she doesn't "count" as a girl due to not acting traditionally feminine we're clearly supposed to find funny. Emi is...there I guess. There's that sweet scene with the writer girl, and the bully girl, but they're like, not reoccurring at all, as evidenced by how I can't remember their names.

And uh. the girls school episode.

Anyway. Hot take but I don't think "they're barely in the story but when they are two of them are treated pretty decently and have some depth, though there is some weird stuff about whether women can even fight men or whatever" really counts as "likes women". I'd go more mixed feelings.

Life is Strange-out of the two options I chose dislikes, but my feelings are a lot closer to "mixed feelings". I go into why here.

Gushing Over Magical Girls- lol. lmao even. The anime about middle school girls who look 8 sexually assaulting other middle school girls DEFINITELY doesn't like women. I go into more detail here.

Cowboy Bebop: Mixed feelings, probably. I chose dislikes because yes, Faye and Ed are great (you could def read Ed as nb though), but Faye also is repeatedly damsel in distress'd and treated as incompetent in her field when I don't think she should be, she can be a failgirl without being the sole woman in the action side of the group and also the least capable (there's also That Scene in the movie). also i just. it's fine that she's sexy but I hate her outfit. give her something nicer looking, it's so ugly. But my main reason for a dislike vote is the treatment of Julia. Girl is a textbook example of fridging. They really gave her so little. But yeah I could see mixed feelings.

Also do you remember that one scene during Faye's tragic backstory where she's hospitalized and the camera requires us to look down her super (painful looking? like idk how she's not screaming about it) squished boobs during this tense and important moment god that took me out. whenever anyone acts like Faye always owns her sexiness and the camera never does anything I remember that scene.

Ranma 1/2: I've seen read a good chunk of it, and this result is...surprising. Maybe by the standards of 80's manga though, who knows.

Mixed Feelings

Dracula- IIII definitely think it dislikes women, sorry guys. Mina is a great character and you do have to take it in the context of when it was written. But there are surely contemporaries of Bram Stoker that wouldn't have randomly gone out of their way to scoff at the "New Woman". Not to mention again, really random sidebars about how men are so much smarter and cooler and women should be grateful to them. I could go on about Lucy and how Mina is treated and whether that's a critique of sexism or just playing into it and how it's so open to interpretation but I'll stop here.

also the book is hugely anti- Romani, immigrant etc and I think that ties into disliking women since some women are those Romani and immigrants

It really really felt like a case where a lot of people in the Drac Daily tag just wanted it to be super feminist because they liked it (you can like things without having to make them feminist! it's fine!), and the way they scoffed at feminist scholars who had "surface level readings" of the text (aka they dared to say it was sexist) still leaves a bad taste in my mouth.

The Lego Movie: dislikes women. what are y'all on. Even it's own sequel calls it out for disliking women. Wildstyle is basically the only woman with real characterization and she's the purest concentration of "hypercompetent woman must play second fiddle to Average Male loser who is the one who actually saves the world and also she falls in love with him because of course she does'. Then Wonder Woman got one line (in literally the first theatrical move she got to even be in) and Superman and Batman a lot of screen time.

Does not like

Scott Pilgrim- Don't get this result, I'd put it at likes or mixed feelings? It's literally about how Scott has weird issues with women where he doesn't see them as to full people they are, and it calls him out on that hard. The whole sixth volume is how he made up a damsel in distress scenario for Kim and always took her for granted, how he put all the blame on Envy for the end of their relationship when he played a huge role in that, Knives finally getting over him, moving on, and telling him he needs to grow up a little (highlighting how his grossness towards her was him refusing to accept that he was an adult now, and that he was horrible to her, and yes he does apologize), and accepting that he and Ramona are both messed up people and she's just as flawed as he is, taking down the pedestal he put her on. And having Ramona triumphantly confront her abuser. Scott acknowledges he has a lot in common with Gideon, the supervillain!

Roxy is a sticking point, the whole 'it was a phase thing' and her and Ramona's relationshipbeing unexplored was annoying (fixed in Takes Off) but even she had some moments of pathos and was definitely the (Ramona's) ex the story seemed to sympathize with the most.

I dunno. this seems like a tumblr lacks media literacy thing again. Did you think the narrative agrees with Scott. Did you only watch the movie.

Succession- I'd go more mixed feelings? Dislikes is fine, I think it doesn't have enough women and often privileges male characters over them, but sometimes it's examination of the sexism Shiv faces is really incisive, and she's a complex character. But she should have gotten that abortion.

Watchmen: hates women actually. Pretty much anything written by Alan Moore does.

Persona 4: I think it hates women actually. But dislike is fine too.

Merlin: Everything I've heard about the show puts in in the hates camp rather than dislikes, but i never watched it (I did watch this video on it, and the bootlicking is out of this world if it's accurate) so I can't really comment

Hates Women

Agree with all of these so far!

[magicalgirlpictureencyclopedia]

Idk why I'm back here, but I do want to say that I think we should talk more about gems in the magical girl genre such as Petite Princess Yucie, Jewelpet Twinkle, and Fairy Musketeers rather than niche 2010's titles we've (the fans, idc about them much) all agreed on aren't good. Besides beloved 90's-2000's titles (Sailor Moon, Cardcaptor Sakura, Ojamajo Doremi, Tokyo Mew Mew, Shugo Chara to name a few) and the rare retro fan who is into Minky Momo or Creamy Mami... I see a lot of, "Well, [×] was a bad show and the genre is ruined!", but it always comes off as someone who doesn't really watch the genre. There's a lot of good shows out there if you check them out, but if you aren't actively looking for recommendations or looking for titles then you can't really expect to find much.

As harsh as it may come off, in my experience the average American magical girl fan isn't going to watch or even know of obscure titles much to look for mhch more. Most people's introduction to the genre here was through Sailor Moon, and that expectation of those action oriented media sticked. Therefore, the majokko (魔女っ子, witch girl) and magical girl idol titles are pushed into the background. Some would point the finger at licensing, but it also misses how a lot of these titles aren't commonly talked about as is. It was worse before Retrocrush on Discotek, but at the least you can find people who are into stuff like Magical Emi or Pastel Yumi. Still, it's hard for me to grasp how a lot of the genre is ignored in bigger magical girl spaces, especially on sites such as Twitter. I get highly confused when I only see people talking about Precure or Sailor Moon, yet make a lot of assumptions pushed to places that aren't really responsible for that.

Sure, licensing could be better, but that's a complex issue I've seen people go into. A friend of mines posts about how deals were set up for shows like Shugo Chara, but companies weren't interested. There's a massive problem overall with getting girls media off the ground as well. However, it is also on fans to check out more than what many would call the "cream of the crop" if they want other experiences. The optimizing of "dark themes" from newer fans also does not help, as it relegates the genre into a very odd competition between which is more mature or serious, yet forgetting at the end of the day many of these titles are for kids and cam stand on their own without vague comparisons. If you're not even going to look into say, titles beyond Princess Tutu, then I can't really take demands of wanting the genre to explore other themes seriously when several already have done that...

Yes, I'm saying this because most people in the online spaces I frequent at most will just watch Precure, Madoka Magica, and Sailor Moon, yet refuse to look at anything else and commonly put themselves into discussions to make generalizations about media they know they will never watch. It's especially weird to see as a fan of adv games/visual novels and mecha anime, where I see people do the exact opposite - dig up old titles and openly talk about them. I'm not expecting fans to automatically know what stuff like Galaxy Fraulein Yuna is, or games like Silky Lip and Valis, but I do think with media critique and common complaints your scope of criticism should be beyond a popular 90's titles and a few from the 2000's. I also find so many conversations dull cause I've been in the fandom for a hot minute and recommendations I rarely see, but moreso complaints about the same 6-8 shows instead of uh, idk, watching something else entirely.

Again, enjoy your shows, just don't jump into convos "educating people" (telling me or others stuff like majokko don't count, too many other examples to list here), or claiming all of the genre was boring/good/bad/kiddy before [×]. I also promise you it's actually rare to find a magical girl title that doesn't address "serious themes", cause even the ones about fairy tales and cutesy magical schools have child abandonment and trauma rampant through them. :/

[puellamagishowdown]

Hello there! Welcome to Puella Magi Showdown, where we will be determining Tumblr's favorite Puella Magi. Feel free to vote with any criteria you like. Do you like the character, the design, the name? Did you flip a coin? Everything counts! The point is to have fun and determine which magical girl is best.

Q/A

What is this?: This is a single elimination bracket tournament involving magical girls present in the Puella Magi franchise as of May 9th, 2024. This includes crossovers characters from the mobile game. Each round will last a week, at the end of which the winners will be announced.

What happens if there is a tie?: If a tie occurs, a tiebreaker poll will occur. The poll will last for 24 hours and the one with the most votes will move on. If somehow a second tie occurs, another 24 hour tie breaker poll will occur. This will continue until one of the Magi wins.

What happens if there is an odd number of Puella Magi in a round?: The last match in the round will have a three-way vote. The magical girl with the most votes will move on. If a tie occurs between the top two choices, a tiebreaker will occur.

Why did you use that image for X character?: I tried my best to use official colored art of characters. If there are multiple options, I choose the one I think shows off more of the design. Surprisingly, some relatively major characters don't actually have full body art. And you do not understand my pain regarding all of the Magia Record characters that have the official art cut at the knees. There's full body art on the cards, but in the clean version it's cut.

There is an exception to the offical art rule. Because there really is so little clean Kazumi Magia art, I had to use fanart. It truly is that bad. There are literally some of the Saints that don't have full body art and they are major characters in the story. Why.

The fanarts of various Kazumi Magica characters are by Yukimura Kaname.

Where is X character?: Some characters do not have good art out there. This is mostly for minor characters, so I doubt anyone will miss them. But trust me, there was a debate about including some of the characters (see above for why).

What about X's alternate form?: Not including those. No Ultimate Madoka, no Infinite Iroha, no Fairytale Mifuyu. There's just too many alternate designs, we're just sticking with base forms here.

What about propaganda?: While I find it unlikely anyone will actually want to, I won't say anything against it.

[rui-drawsbox]

Hi um I really like the Arashi magical girl au so I hope it's alright if I talk a bit about what's in my head. I wrote down a few scenarios and did a quick storyboard for one (will draw everything out later). er here one of the scenarios I wrote (don't wanna make this post too long)

Scenario based on how Nazuna left Shu and how Mika does the same later

Mika: I still remember that day when Nazuna left…

Dark, dreary bg colors, Nazuna’s back is facing camera.

Mika: Nazuna-nii? Where are you going?

Nazuna pauses. He turns his head a bit. Close-up of his mouth.

Mika (Voice over): His words were a whisper… but I heard him clearly.

Nazuna: Sorry. I hope you'll understand one day...

Back in present. Mika holds a burned photo of him and Arashi. The side with Arashi is burned but bits of her hair and clothes can still be seen. (Shu was the one who burned the photo after seeing Mika look at it. Me thinks he threw it in a fire and after he left, Mika managed to salvage it but the side with Arashi is completely burnt)

Mika: I understand now. And I know what I have to do now.

Um there is a scene where Mika screams at Shu. Mika grabs Shu by the front of his clothes and flings him to the ground. Mika then walks away, now his back is facing camera.

Shu: Don’t you dare take another step or I’ll-

Mika (turns around): Or you’ll what? 

Close-up of Mika’s face.

Mika: I won't let you control me anymore.

Mika walks away.

Flashback to another scene in the past when Nazuna was still working for Shu.

They have come to Earth for the first time. They somehow come across a photo booth. Mika is very excited about what it is and Shu is about to scold him, telling him that their mission is more important. Shu then looks at Nazuna, who is quiet but is clearly interested in photo booth too. Shu relents and they take photos. At first they don’t know how it works so the photos turn out goofy. Then after getting the hang of it, Shu makes them pose a certain way. When he sees the photo strip, he does admit that the humans are interesting to have this sort of method to store memories. He cuts and throws the goofy trial photos away but Nazuna secretly takes them out. Perhaps when he betrays Shu, Nazuna’s final way to move on is to burn those photos, although Mika and Shu do not know. (yes photos being burned for dramatic flair)

In present, when Nazuna meets Mika after he leaves Shu, they hang out. They see a photo booth again. Nazuna makes a small remark about the previous photo with Shu. He asks Mika if he wants to take another photo. Mika asks if the Knights could take a pic with them too. In this pic, Mika is far happier. 

was thinking of parallels for Nazuna and Mika

Nazuna left quietly (was afraid of confronting Shu so he just wrote a note) Mika left with a bang! screams at Shu and grabs him by front of his clothes and throws him on the ground :D The photo that Nazuna kept of him, Shu, and Mika made him stay longer than he would have. Looking at it made him guilty for wanting to leave. Mika's photo of him and Arashi makes him realize that he has to leave Shu.

ok I will run away now. have a nice day :]

hihi! hello ask from 4 months ago haha /sobs/ im glad you enjoyed the au! sorry for not answer before haha,,

actually i loved this idea sm that i made a drawing about this at the time! i didn't liked the result and burned out lol, tried to make like a fake screenshot but it looked wonky tbh

i edited it a bit today (mabye i went overboard with those two, it looks kinda too dark even for a night and it looks unsettling lol) so it wasnt too gray (and mabye cuz i wanted to use these new cool effect in clip i learned the other day)

and my friend let me say that i loVE when photos have a heavy sentimental value for characters, im a sucker for the burned photo trope

+ Shu, Mika and Nazuna not being from earth makes me laugh for some reason, like, does this count as scifi if arashi is fighting vs technically aliens?/j

but if i think about it it would be like Madoka Magica(?), like, Arashi's cat should be an alien so why not the villians? i makes sense for me at least

also the parallels between Nazuna and Mika?!??!!"?!? im in love!??!?!??! the way they leaved Shu in such different ways?!??! the way their actions get affected by a simple piece of paper that means a lot for them?!?!??! thats my favorite part fr

and yeah go mika go! tell him his truths! he deserves it! *cheer moves*

byee! i loved this sm!! sorry for not answer this before!!!

[epicfranb]

@mortpee: if you could come up with a manga, what would it be abt ?

Hmm well i have an idea that i would love to make a comic abt, and it is strongly inspired by the mahou shoujo genre, so it counts hehe :3 it's about magical girls whose powers are based on forms of art! I think about a lot of things that bother me about this genre, missed opportunities, or limitations due to the fact that most of those series are for kids... But my main gripe is that, if you look at action shounen series, even if they're made for young teens, they're still interesting to watch for older ppl, but with mahou shoujo it's like you always have to keep in mind: this was made for kids, and so the conflicts (even tho they can be pretty mature) are aimed at kids, so can be pretty watered down or underdeveloped :"3 and you get SOOOOOO many cool shounen series that do very cool things with the tropes and expectations (mp100, one punch man, hxh), but in the mahou shoujo genre you get the sub-genre of "edgy magical girls" inspired by Madoka (and i don't personally think Madoka actually belongs to that genre, it's a deconstruction of the mahou shoujo genre, but it is still a pretty traditional mahou shoujo). Edgy magical girls rely on shock factor a lot of the time. Like, Magical Girl Site and Magical Girl Raising Project are literally just shounen series but with magical girls - it's not really the same. Funnily enough, Kill la Kill, which is literally a shounen series, leans into the mahou shoujo genre and borrows a lot from it, to the point where it feels more like mahou shoujo than the previous 2 i mentioned 🙃 So i would really really love if the mahou shoujo genre continued to evolve, be taken more seriously, more experimentation to be done within it, etc while still remaining a mahou shoujo genre, with magical transformations and friendship saving the world, and turning into a big god-like magical being and having the final battle in space :"D

So, after explaining my motivation, here are a couple of things i would do in my story:

- older characters. Magical girls in these series are usually aged between 13 and 17, and any more is like an older magical girl. The magical girls in my story would still be young, but i would set the minimal age of all characters to 18.

- a lot of magical girls! What i liked in Magia Record (the game, idc about the anime) was that there was a lot of them! It was established in the original madomagi that girls establish their territories on which they work (i think they did it in Raising Project as well), which implies there are a lot of magical girls. They did do too many in Magireco (they didn't ALL have to be in this one city xD), but i love the idea. With my idea, it would also mean i get to create a lot of unique characters based on different forms of art :D

- RULES!!! It isn't always explained in stories HOW people use magic. In Witch Hat Atelier, you draw your magic! In Tweeny Witches, you need parts of fairies, such as their hair or feathers! For my story, it would make sense that the girls can use any magic they can imagine. But with them doing different arts, they would naturally imagine things differently! "How to use magic?" "What is magic?" They would all have different answers to these questions. Maybe one music girl would use sound waves to deafen their enemy, but another one would play relaxing melodies to put a monster to sleep, a third one could heal their allies because they believe music has a healing effect.

- Worldbuilding! Why are magical girls a thing? What is their bigger purpose? Where did their cute mascots appear from? What are the monsters that keep appearing? How did nobody know about all this before?? How long has magic even been a thing??? I'm certainly borrowing from Madoka with these questions, and i plan to have a "FUCK. OUR LIVES ARE MEANINGLESS" moment in the end, but 1) nobody dies 2) ppl recover from this and find new hope 3) they defeat the evil and lose their magic as an exchange, but it's ok because their art and their friendships are the real magic 🥰🥰

- more diversity! I can't represent absolutely everyone of course, but i would want to have characters of different ethnicities and genders and sexualities at least. There isn't a rule that only girls can be magical, it's just that I'm going to focus on girls, but there will be magical boys and enbies too lol :D i have ideas for some disabled magical girls and trans magical girls and i just have sooo many ideas for designs and backstories in my head!!! (⁠☆⁠▽⁠☆⁠)

So yeah, hopefully i could get to that at some point.... ^_^; and i hope you liked reading my rambles :"D

[starrycat123-blog]

oksies hi starting a new thread of get to know you

haii I'm moth and also thea you may call me any nickname as well <3

I love musicals so so much (niche and popular!! basic-shaming is lame)

I am superhero obsessed (augh pied piper)

doctor who is my autism (yay river sonf!!!!)

good omens heoughhhhhhhh

super excited to meet you <3333333

Hi moth!! You can call me tetra. Don't worry that's not my real name or anything tho. I took it from the concept of tetrachords in music.

If we're generous about what we call superheroes, then maybe most of the things I like are superhero based. I mean obviously there's marvel and dc, but then there's stuff like dpxdc, sonic the hedgehog (idk if I've ever heard him called a superhero but he kinda is), if we count magical girls then like. Sailor moon and madoka magica

I haven't seen any episodes of good omens, but I read a really good fanfic of Crowley going to therapy a while back, and a couple funny ones with like yelp reviews of Aziraphale's bookstore. Plus I love the good omens analysis posts on here. I feel like maybe I half know some of what's happened in the show but also probably haven't scratched the surface. I'm kinda bad at watching TV shows, so there's a lot of stuff that I know from fandom but haven't seen. For another example of that, I've only watched one or two episodes of Sonic Prime. I reblog posts for it and it sounds good but idk. Just bad at it.

I'm a much more casual fan of musicals, I think for the same thing as above where I just struggle to sit and watch something on purpose. But I listen to the music from them sometimes, I've read transcripts online of a couple, and i swoon whenever I see a post analyzing the meaning of a musical song, especially when they go beyond lyrics and start going into the music theory in the tune. I don't have the skills or knowledge to do that myself but I love it so much

(when the singer changes their technique to enhance the meaning,, when this or that chord is a step outside the key to symbolize change or isolation or anything,,, using instruments as symbols for this or that character,,, tbh it doesn't have to be a musical even shout out to that youtube video by Scruffy on how fnaf's audio and sound effects make it scarier)

Lately I've been bouncing back and forth between Sonic and DPxDC. With hints of Slay The Princess in there bc I saw part of a playthrough of that awhile ago and loved the concept. I reblog madoka magica stuff whenever I see it (except magia record bc I know next to nothing about it) because that stuff makes me lose my mind. The love the pain the hope the despair!! Homura is probably like my ultimate blorbo but I love all the five girls they're so cool. I actually read the manga instead of watching the show though so I'm not as familiar with all the music. Plus I think the show had some extra scenes. Although it's a little confusing bc I think some of the extra scenes I see are magia record so idk.

Also I'm a fan of arts and crafts and will reblog that kind of thing once in a while, along with cute cat stuff.

Super excited to meet you too!

[takerfoxx]

So with me getting back into Evangelion lately, and since I'm always thinking about Madoka, and since the two have a lot of parallels, it got me thinking: what if the Eva pilots met the megucas? Like, if they had to team up against some big threat, like if Walpurgisnacht merged with an Angel or some shit? How would they get along? What would their interactions be like?

Then I realized that figuring that shit out was way too much work. Like, there's roughly five on each side (six if you count Touji and Nagisa), so figuring out each and every combination would give anyone a headache.

But there is one interaction in particular that I'm certain of.

And that is Kyoko would absolutely eviscerate Asuka.

I mean, think about it. The two are basically each other's closest counterparts, what with them being each team's feisty redhead with parental trauma giving them a tremendous attitude problems. But where they differ is that Asuka is the living definition of dishing it out but can't take it. She's hyper-aggressive, a walking inferiority/superiority complex that lashes out at anything that irks her or doesn't live up to her standards, and her list of triggers is practically an xylophone. And you know she would absolutely act out during the first team meeting and rub some of the more hotheaded megucas the wrong way.

But Kyoko is different. When someone pisses her off and offends her sensibilities, she doesn't immediately lash out (unless wasted food and/or disrespect of parents are involved). No, she takes the time to figure out exactly what makes the source of her irritation tic, find out just how to get under their skin, and she goes for the fucking kill.

I mean, think about it. Asuka can't physically dominate Kyoko the same way she can Shinji, and Kyoko would take perverse glee in verbally breaking Asuka down and leaving her a seething mess, knowing full well that Asuka wouldn't be able to do a damn thing about it.

But then, that would also lead Kyoko to finding out about Asuka's mom, which might actually initiate empathy from Kyoko, maybe turning from trying to hurt Asuka to showing her tough love and dolling out her admittedly questionable life lessons. Though if Asuka found out about Kyoko's family, I'm not sure she would be so gracious, though I can see Kyoko telling her the story the same way she did Sayaka.

And Kyoko has no problem showing respect to those that she feels deserves it, and Asuka is certainly a capable warrior, so I can see her getting tossed an apple after everything is all said and done.

But of course, Homura would just as likely get fed up with them both early on and shut that nonsense down, while Shinji and Madoka both silently wish that their teammates would stop being such jackasses for once in their lives.

Actually, come to think of it, Sayaka is more likely to get offended and pick a fight during that first meeting, with Kyoko going in for the kill later on.

And Mami would get exhausted just trying to play peacekeeper.

And Mari would just be egging everyone on because it's funny.

And Homura would share a silent "You see what I have to put up with?" moment with Rei.

And who knows what the fuck Kaworu would be doing?

[mahou-furbies]

Closing thoughts on Futari wa Precure Max Heart

(spoilers)

Ok I'll be honest, I expected very little of this. Futari Wa was already running out of steam with what to do with the two heroines in its later half, and now there's 47 more episodes of them? And how will the new girl (with one of the worst designs in the franchise) fit their dynamic?

However I was pleasantly surprised since there was actually some new character content. Or for the most part Nagisa and Honoka were about what I expected and especially Honoka got very little to do, but I did appreciate the episodes where they were acting as the leaders of their school clubs. The senpai role was exactly the kind of new position I've been hoping for in Precure, even if it was just for a handful of club-specific episodes. Or the senpai vibe was there even when it comes to Hikari, to my surprise the show didn't try to shove her in the team with the typical "everyone is buddy-buddy" relationship, but instead kept her a little at a distance, looking up to her seniors and taking more of a support role in battles.

Speaking of Hikari, unexpectedly she ranks pretty high on my Cure rankings. For one I'm always ready for more quiet and down-to-earth characters, and I really like how it was still treated as "normal", and not like that she had an anvilicious arc about learning to be less shy or whatever. And the way the story treated her was very unexpected for a Precure character, usually children's shows obviously have the heroes get over their fears after their introduction and you're not supposed to think about how these teenagers end up life threatening battles (that'd be Madoka), but Hikari remains pretty passive and anxious looking through the show. She looks pained even in her stock footage attack! She also kept her worries to herself far more than I expected, like isn't the message in stories like this usually "talk to your friends, they love you and everything is easier with teamwork"?

She is also unique among the Cures (splitting hairs if she actually counts as one) with her role in the plot; to my memory every other Cure I've seen eventually ends up in the same "a group of friends fights the villains" position, while Hikari's situation about spending half the season worrying her identity as the human form of a goddess and having to essentially die in order to resurrect her was something very different. And since the series spent a lot of (too much) time showing how the initial confusion that turns into dread burdens her, the grand finale where she had to make her decision had some real weight behind it. Like the show flat out tells her to die for the greater good?? Which she faces with dignity and goes through the sacrifice?? Then of course she shows up at the end because Precure isn't going to kill one of their heroines, and they didn't even try coming up with any explanation on why, but I'll accept it since she's such a good girl.

Not all was sunshine and rainbows though. While I was actually interested in the main plot, it moved soooo slowly. It felt like it was 20 episodes of the bad guys just playing in their mansion with the mysterious demon boy, then another 20 where the only development was "he and Shiny Luminous have a mysterious connection", and it wasn't until the very end when something really came out of it. And speaking of the villains, the minions were pretty boring.

Finally Porun sucks, I don't get why "a toddler who regularly throws temper tantrums" is an appealing character concept even for a kids' show. At least the other baby mascots focus more on the cutesy side of babies, but way too much of Porun's presence was crying, getting into trouble, etc. He did get a little less annoying as the series went on but he is still at the tail end of my Precure mascot likability list.

[moonnue]

20 Questions ♥

Thank you @anisaanisa for tagging me! ♥ I've been meaning to do these tag games but I'm always busy-- I'm actually free at the moment! And it's cool that it's a fanfic quiz, since I've just gotten into posting my stuff hahaha

How many works do you have on AO3?

Only 6 so far! I've got lots in the works but I don't like sharing 'till I'm done :3c

What’s your total AO3 words count?

29,294

What fandoms do you write for?

I've written for InuYasha, Portal, and for the little Toothfairy fandom but as far as what I've posted I'm currently, and very obviously, into Baldur's Gate 3. Other fandoms I've written for are Toilet-Bound Hanako-Kun, Jujutsu Kaisen, and Spice and Wolf

What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

Hands On A C(l)ock (441) Portrait of a Vampire (366) Shower Break (337) Cheeky Little Pup (73) Erotica of a Vampire (51)

Do you respond to comments? Why or why not?

I don't orz. I first posted to Ao3 in 2020 and then walked away so when I came back to post the next part I was like !!! oh shit!!! people left comments LOL I felt embarrassed for just letting them sit there and now I'm kind of stuck. Plus, I feel weird going to everyone and just saying "thank you!" I REALLY APPRECIATE IT I'M JUST…….. AH!

What’s the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

Not posted but it's going to be the KagKik fic I'm writing :3c Otherwise I don't like angst oops

What’s the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

Probably Shower Break, I guess? or Cheeky Little Pup? Idk, I'm even looking at my WIPs but I'm not sure how some of them are gonna end yet!

Do you get hate on fics?

Technically I experienced my first recently when I had a person try to accuse me of stealing their fic and then went on to try and drag my name through the mud. That was exciting! (sarcasm)

Do you write smut? If so what kind?

it's………. it's my main thing. oops. i write second person f/o x reader fic cuz i'm cringe and free <3

Do you write crossovers? What’s the craziest one you’ve written?

SOOO NOT WRITTEN! YET! But I do have a ton in mind. I think the craziest one I'd ever want to write if I got the balls to do it would be an RSK x Madoka Magica fic cuz I just think. It would be fucking funny. Given RSK are real people so I'm like ehhh maybe not. Otherwise I think the only other one is an InuYasha x Labyrinth crossover but that ain't too wild. It's been done before!

Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Not that I'm aware of! Also, I can't help but find it strange, the idea of stealing fic. Do people actually do this lol

Have you ever had a fic translated?

Nope!

Have you ever cowritten a fic before?

Technically? Friend of mine write together from time to time, but again, nothing posted.

What’s your all-time favourite ship?

You x Your Favorite Character

What’s a WIP you want to finish, but doubt you ever will?

I have a story started that's about Naraku getting isekai'd into another world where he's the hero of it. I think it's pretty funny but getting myself to start it has been a little tough.

What are your writing strengths?

I think I'm really good at capturing character voices. I also think I'm good at describing emotions.

What are your writing weaknesses?

I think my sentences could stand for a bit more of a unique structure. I don't like writing place descriptions very much, I'm very character focused.

Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language for a fic?

Sure…? Why not! Do it!

First fandom you wrote for?

InuYasha <3

Favourite fic you’ve ever written?

Care For A Wet Dog, oddly enough, even though it's unfinished. I don't know, there's something about it that I really like. It's older and I think I kind of miss how my writing used to be? Then again whether anyone else sees a difference, I wouldn't know.

not tagging anyone just cuz i...... i don't know who to tag! uh! i dont want to bother anyone lol! so if you see this and wanna do it please do! and tag me in it because if i inspired you to do it i would love to read it! (and maybe keep you in mind for any future tags? maybe? hm? *nudge nudge*)

[ladyloveandjustice]

I do agree the genre was never dead, but it's strange when someone's like "actually there's a lot of this around" and it's always like ten shows over the course of the last ten years and some of them aren't actually magical girl shows (Shy had magical girl vibes but it's very firmly presenting and marketing iitself as a Western-style-superhero show. and is one).

I do think it's GREAT that you spread awareness about that these anime, though!

When people are talking about the subgenre Madoka is in, they're also generally thinking magical girl warriors, not majokko series like Little Witch. And I think it's also okay to be mad there isn't a lot of anime when that's the medium that's most talked about online, even if there is more manga. When people complain about this kind of thing, I don't think they should have to put a million asterisks.

But again, I do agree it was never dead, and things have been changing positively lately! Demon Girl Next Door is great and we got an absolute WAVE of great magical girl anime this season. We haven't see a Madoka-rip off anime in quite a while so I think that trend is dying, so maybe the next big dark magical girl thing we get won't be mindlessly hyping a trend and actually have something to say.

Recs not mentioned in the OP: If magical girl adjacent stuff like SHY counts, I'd say give Healer Girl a look, it's very cute. Also for another majokko series, The Stories of the Girls Who Couldn't Become Magicians is airing this season and Witch Hat Atelier is upcoming. Some past mg stuff OP didn't mention that I haven't seen yet is Blue Reflection Ray and Girl in Twilight, might be not on here bc they might be darker but didn't seem like Madoka-alikes. They're on my list.

Anyway, thanks for the list, reblogging it for followers. I'm gonna note which of the list I think is good and I think is bad since I imagine a lot of followers share my taste

Great: Demon Girl Next Door, Flip Flappers (warning for some disquieting fanservice stuff infrequently), Little Witch Academia, Acro Trip so far, Magilumiere

Good/interesting: Artistwitch. Definitely variable and weird but it's interesting and experimental and worth a watch.

Bad: Urahara (SO boring), The Magical Girl and Lieutenant (no disrespect to the recently passed mangaka, but the mg was too moe-ified, and I heard there was a lot of SA jokes after I dropped it, NOT my thing, but it does look pretty)

Not Seen But Not interested: I've Had Enough of Being a Magical Girl makes me viscerally uncomfortable just from the image, looks like pedo bait, Six Hearts Princess also has a pedo bait design for one of them to the point it had to be censored on someone's Youtube and apparently produced only 7 eps in six years, Magia Wars...doesn't seem to exist anymore? google isn't finding it...I think I might have watched that one and it was too boring to keep up with though..Fantasista Doll...oh they're LITERALLY dolls...robots...they have masters...no.

Interested and Might check out:

Kuromajo- jeez we really are going back ten years...it's a 7 minute ep one. more of a witch show but I might check it out.

Somehow never heard of Matoi the Sacred Slayer! Potentially work checking out,

Magical Girl Kurumi: we really are scraping the barrel here budget wise, this is barely animated, not great proof the genre was thriving but yeah looks fine might check it out.

Mewkledreamy: ah it's a sanrio thing. Looks cute but probably not my cup of tea. Worth checking out

Magical Girl Aiko: it's a short, that's why nobody picked it up. The R+ rating is slightly alarming but I am curious now.

I should note the reason many of these series weren't talked about is they were never picked up for liscencing, which isn't any audience's fault.

and I didn't even include magical boy anime (which isn't as rare as some people think)

look. a subgenre going in a direction you don't like for a while doesn't make it "dead". reboots, sequels, prequels, and stuff like that are the trend in all sorts of media, not just magical girl anime.

also, there are all sorts of cool magical girl works that aren't anime, and i don't just mean manga and light novels. there's live-action stuff, VNs, webcomics, written works, cartoons from countries other than japan...

and guess what? i'm not against dark magical girl stuff by any means. madoka magica was what got me into magical girl stuff in the first place! i love all sorts of magical girl media, both light and dark, though i don't claim to be an expert by any means. there's still so much stuff i haven't watched/read/played...

anyway, the anime listed here include Artiswitch, Kuromajo-san ga Tooru, Little Witch Academia, Fantasista Doll, Magia Wars, SHY, Hina Logi: From Luck and Logic, Matoi the Sacred Slayer, I've Had Enough of Being a Magical Girl, Urahara, Flip Flappers, Six Hearts Princess, Magical Girl Kurumi, The Demon Girl Next Door, and Mewkledreamy. The upcoming ones are Magical Girl Aiko, Princess Session Orchestra, Acro Trip, Magilumiere, The Magical Girl and the Evil Lieutenant Used to be Enemies, and an unnamed magical girl anime from Studio Pierrot

[snakesonthispathlol]

To my dearest friend, the one I spend nights and days thinking of.

We watched Madoka Magica together this evening, it was wonderful and enthralling, however I hold back what thoughts are in my mind as I think it over. The show is written beautifully, you told me I'd relate to Sayuka's story the most, and you were right in part. However, I find myself relating to Homura's story in this incomprehensible way, the way I feel about you actually.

That dedication, that devotion is familiar to me. Though I can't say it outloud, I crave you knowing that about me.

But how I can say it? It's too soon, your wounds are too fresh. I don't dare confess now, I worry it will hurt you.

I crave and desire more from our relationship, but I know neither of us is ready for it. You were wounded in a gut wrenching way, sickening and horrible, they tainted your light and weakened it, that betrayal is not something you can easily come back from. I know this well.

My light has been shattered over and over and over and over, more times than I can count by such betrayals. And I haven't recovered from them yet. I still feel them in my soul and in my heart. I want to give you everything you deserved from a relationship, even though I know I can't.

My soul feels irrevocably tainted. Like I've lived a thousand lifetimes. All the knowledge I have was for survival, I realize now why the other bits got left behind.

Any knowledge of stories fuelled escapism, my coping mechanism. Always preparing for the worst outcome fuelled my paranoia, to prevent me from unpredictable scenarios. You are traumatized as I am, though we both feel like we're different yet same. It's a weird thing to see something recognizable under the surface, why I give advice to you when asked.

You consider me a best friend, and yet there's so much we don't know about each other.

I wonder sometimes. Do you ever have the same thoughts? Are we both dancing around a feeling we can't describe about each other. Is it to end in tragedy or does this have a happy ending?

With all my heart, I hope my therapist is right. That for once this won't end blowing up in my face, that I'm doomed to experiencing nothing but tragedy, for once, I actually hope, that this will be a good thing for me. I haven't seen the end of Madoka Magica, it is full of tragedy, and I hope it has a good ending, because maybe then, there's hope for us after all.

[theothin]

So I still haven’t finished rewatching Madoka, but I’m far enough to revisit this.

To rank magical girl shows, I feel like we have to start by defining what a magical girl show actually is. One option is this list on Wikipedia, which describes its criteria as:

Magical girl (魔法少女, mahō shōjo) is a subgenre of Japanese fantasy media centered around young girls who use magic, often through an alter ego into which they can transform. Since the genre's emergence in the 1960s, media including anime, manga, OVAs, ONAs, films, and live-action series have been produced.

This is a pretty vague definition, and I’d disagree with some of the calls on the list. For one thing, it includes Slayers, and while I don’t know much about the pre-Sailor-Moon ideas of magical girl media, I don’t think Slayers has much relation to the current image of a “magical girl”.

Lina Inverse is a girl who uses magic, but so are a number of other fantasy protagonists. I’d rather go for a more specific definition.

My inclination is to describe the standard image of a “magical girl” as being a girl who starts in the “mundane” side of a setting with some sort of hidden “fantastical” side, then somehow receives powers from the fantastical side and has to go back and forth between mundane life and fantastical problems. This frequently involves some sort of patron figure from the fantastical side (often a small animal companion), as well as magical outfit/appearance changes marking the activation of her powers, which can facilitate a superhero-like secret identity.

(In contrast, Slayers has no divide, magic is everywhere in Lina’s world.)

But magical girls can appear in stories that I would not consider magical girl stories, such as Miss Kuroitsu. So to define a “magical girl story”, I would say that it must be a story told primarily from the perspective of a magical girl.

According to these definitions, I’ve picked up about ten magical girl shows over the past year. I’ll leave out Tokyo Mew Mew New because it’s only got half a season so far and I haven’t watched the original, so ranking the others based purely on personal preference, I’d say:

Magical Girl Site

Magical Girl Ore

Revue Starlight

Magical Girl Raising Project

Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha

Revolutionary Girl Utena

Cardcaptor Sakura

Princess Tutu

Sailor Moon

Also, while I don’t feel like I can actually count it, honorable mention to Demon Girl Next Door.

Shamiko is basically a kind of magical girl, and Momo, who is a magical girl, is the best part of the show. But it’s too much of a slice-of-life show to feel fully relevant to the others here.

Now, if I were to rank Puella Magi Madoka Magica against this list, I’d put it somewhere in the neighborhood of Raising Project and Nanoha. The problem is, according to this criteria, PMMM is not a magical girl show.

PMMM certainly involves magical girls, but it’s told primarily from Madoka’s perspective, and for the bulk of the show, Madoka is not a magical girl. Madoka meets Kyubey and gains access to the city’s magical underworld, as well as to Kyubey’s telepathy network, but she does this as an unpowered observer. The result is that, rather than focusing on the experience of being a magical girl, PMMM focuses on the experience of being an external observer of magical girls.

I don’t think this is necessarily a bad thing, and I do think the thing PMMM does is pretty neat in its own right. (Plus, its music is great.) But it’s a very different thing from what magical girl shows are normally expected to offer.

Which does raise the question of, what if the main perspective we followed was Homura’s? I’d say PMMM would feel significantly more like a magical girl show in that case, and that Homura’s backstory episode makes for a good example of this. (Rebellion less so, since that’s where Homura basically stops meeting the conventional definition of a magical girl.) But the show as it exists focuses on Madoka’s perspective, and that shapes it heavily.

There’s a previous post I wrote about comparisons between PMMM and Magical Girl Site, taking a closer look at the focus areas of the two shows and how they compare to the overall magical girl genre. (tl;dr: Site is much more of what you’d actually expect a dark magical girl show to be.)

Speaking of which, let’s take a closer look at that ranking list.

---

1. Magical Girl Site (2018)

I wouldn’t call Magical Girl Site the best show on this list in terms of broader standards (that would probably be Revue Starlight), but it’s the one that most fits my specific tastes in fucked-up stuff. Even with that in mind, this isn’t an entirely fair ranking, since my opinion of the show increased after reading the manga. The manga is not particularly good, but it does help flesh out the characters and scenario, making it feel a lot more complete and thereby adding weight back to the show.

The previous post goes into more detail about my thoughts on Magical Girl Site, but in short, I think it’s a really cool blend of magical girl story elements with a particularly dark scenario. The anime only covers about halfway through the manga, so I hope it gets a second season at some point, or at least a movie. There’s some fun stuff later on that I’d really like to see the anime’s approach to.

Tone aside, an unusual thing about Magical Girl Site is that it’s the only show on this list where the characters don’t have any sort of transformation sequences or special combat outfits. Which makes it particularly striking that it’s also one of the shows that includes a trans magical girl.

For anyone considering checking it out, assume Content Warning: Everything - this is a show where one of the first shots is the main character trying to throw herself in front of a train. It’s got a positive side as well, and more of one than Madoka or Raising Project, but it’s definitely not for everyone.

---

2. Magical Girl Ore (2018)

Magical Girl Ore is not in the Wikipedia list, which I say is ridiculous. Saki is absolutely a magical girl, regardless of appearances. (Sakuyo, on the other hand, seems much more enthusiastic about the transformation.)

Ore is a very silly show, and I found it to be a lot of fun. It’s also a rare instance of F>M genderbending, which is more points in its favor.

I should point out that this list has a general “Content Warning: Anime” in effect, and Ore is certainly no exception. It’s simultaneously parodying both magical girl shows and yaoi, with all that entails.

---

3. Revue Starlight (2018)

Revue Starlight is the other show that’s on my list but not Wikipedia’s, and I do think this is a more debatable case. It’s really a music show first and foremost, but I feel like it has enough magical girl aspects to count. In any case, it’s adorable, and the songs are excellent.

Revue Starlight focusing its magical aspects on dueling arenas is a characteristic it shares with Utena, although Revue Starlight’s duels are much cooler. Also like Utena, it’s pretty abstract and confusing, although not to the same extent.

---

4. Magical Girl Raising Project (2016)

Raising Project is the show here with the closest resemblance to Madoka, in both tone and content. Two notable differences are that the the deadly scenario the magical girls are lured into is a 16-way survival game, and that the main character is actually a magical girl.

The second point is ultimately what lead me to re-thinking the definition of magical girl shows and how Madoka relates to it. Snow White is certainly a passive protagonist, but she experiences the battle royale from the inside rather than the outside, and that really does make a big difference.

One of the magical girls is described as “one of the few boys able to transform into a magical girl”, so apparently darker magical girl shows are the most likely ones to involve trans girls.

---

5. Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha (2004)

Finally stepping back into older shows, Nanoha is probably the show that did the most to shape the “darker and gayer” take on magical girls. I’m only two seasons into it so far, so I’ll focus on impressions from those.

Nanoha’s characters are a lot of fun, and the fight scenes are great. That said, its tone and worldbuilding are kind of incoherent, in ways that can undercut the more serious aspects. It also has some... weirder stuff, such as its take on transformation sequences. But it’s also a show where the main character befriends the girl she likes by shooting giant lasers at her, and I’ll give a lot of points for that.

---

6. Revolutionary Girl Utena (1997)

Utena is the other show from the original question, and it’s a tricky one for me to rate. One reason is that I watched it a month before the wave of anime I started in January, so comparing impressions to the others is a bit trickier. The other is that Utena is a really weird show.

I’ll probably need to rewatch Utena at some point to fully figure out what to think of it, but for now, I’m putting it here. I’ve seen talk of it being originally imagined as a parody of magical girl anime before evolving into more of a deconstruction, and I feel like that helps explain its bizarre mix of tones. It’s also a form of darker-and-gayer, although in a different way than Nanoha and its successors, and it’s another show with a bunch of fun songs.

Describing Utena as a magical girl show has always seemed a bit odd to me, although admittedly it sticks out less than Revue Starlight. From a characterization perspective, it certainly fits, but the magic tends to be more abstract and less fantastical than the others. The movie is more fantastical than the show, but in its own particularly weird ways.

---

7. Cardcaptor Sakura (1998)

Cardcaptor Sakura is the lightest show on this list, but it’s very cute. It’s also the one I watched most recently, I actually just finished it today.

Like most of the others here, it involves a standard power-activation sequence, except in this case it doesn’t change Sakura’s outfit. She does often fight in various outfits Tomoyo makes for her, though.

---

8. Princess Tutu (2002)

In my earlier post, Princess Tutu is the show I ended up picking as the closest comparison to Magical Girl Site’s structure. The two have big differences in tone and content, but Tutu gets pretty grim at times in some related ways.

It’s the least queer show on this list, although that doesn’t say much, and I still say Ahiru’s story feels pretty trans. (She’s assigned duck at birth!)

---

9. Sailor Moon (1992)

Sailor Moon is the oldest show here, and did a lot to help pave the way for the others. That said, it also feels like the most dated. It can be pretty repetitive, and I really don’t like Tuxedo Mask.

I’ve watched two seasons so far, the first was pretty good but I was not impressed by the second one. Still, there’s characters later on that I’m looking forward to meeting, and I plan to watch more soon.

---

This list focused mostly on stuff I watched this past year, but I can’t actually think of any other relevant anime I’ve watched. Miraculous Ladybug is a magical girl show that’s not anime, I watched a season and a half of it but that was years ago. My favorite show is She-Ra, which has some resemblance to magical girl shows, but I don’t think it fully qualifies since there isn’t really a mundane world. So that’s about it.

That got significantly longer than I’d planned, but apparently I have a lot to say about magical girl shows.

[rainy-day-coffee]

hi... how about head cannons about the dorm leaders with a magical girl mc from either the puella magi magica madoka, magical girl site, magical girl raising project or princess tutu universe please?

I'll be doing Magical Girl Raising Project for this one! I’ll be using the abilities found in the anime since I’m not creative enough to think of any myself. The personalities of the characters themselves have nothing to do with the abilities I chose, they’re their own person! This is written as platonic! I hope this is alright!

As an extra note, this was a really interesting topic to write about. I enjoyed it! I actually just binge watched this anime for this request! It was quite good, I might pick up the light novels!

Warning: Mild mentions of gore; spoilers for Magical Girl Raising Project(?)

Dorm leaders reacting to a Magical Girl Mc

A new game has been released! Customize your own Magical Girl and work hard to defeat monsters!

Granted a 1-in-10,000 chance to be a real-life Magical Girl, the unfortunate souls who agree to the contract are unknowingly pulled into a world of bloodshed. All Magical Girls are expected to collect Magical candies through acts of helpfulness. Whomever is at the bottom of the ranking list by the end of the week is greeted by death. That is, if they can even make it that far.

Magic: Swimming through objects as if they were water - the objects do not affect the user as they pass through them.

He’s never heard of an ability quite like yours! It isn’t teleportation--it’s literally going through objects, ignoring any kind of barrier. It sounds impossible. Understandably, he doesn’t believe you until you show him.

Please refrain from popping out of random places in an attempt to scare him. He doesn’t want to be on edge everyday, the stress he has now is more than enough.

He’s curious about the whole situation. Just how and why did these “people” wrap you (and others) into such a terrible contract? How is it possible to grant these special abilities onto otherwise magicless people? Unfortunately, you most likely don’t have answers for those questions.

Sadly, Riddle doesn’t know of a way to help you out of this. The library may have some information, but the chances are slim nonetheless. He can offer assistance in candy collecting instead!

Something always seems to be going on at his dorm, it would help him greatly if you were to keep an eye on everything and everyone. He knows it isn’t much, but every little bit counts. You have his full support.

Magic: Entering the dreams of others - the ability to pass through the Dream World, granting access to the dreams of those who are currently sleeping.

He’s extremely annoyed. He doesn’t understand what’s happening. He’s only seen you a couple times before, so why do you seem to plague all of his dreams?

In his dreams, you move so vividly and in-character, it baffles him. Dream versions of people can be accurate, but never to such an extent each time. He’ll confront you about it soon enough. He has no evidence of what you’re doing, however vivid memories of dream-you push him to demand answers anyways.

Highly uncomfortable to know his dreams, his usual safe place, can be invaded by a person. He demands that you stop. You can go bother someone else, he doesn’t need that kind of help. If he sees you in there one more time, he may have to resort to other methods to get you to stop.

In regards to earning candies, unless you ask him specifically for help, there isn’t much he can do. You can always help Ruggie out with chores around Savanaclaw and you’ll be set. It’s a good deal for both sides, you can earn some candies and Leona can finally sleep comfortably again.

He finds the system you’re stuck in deplorable. Unfortunately, he can’t get you out of it, but if you ever need extra help he can always have Ruggie find one or two ways to get you those extra candies you need.

Magic: Hearing the thoughts of those in need - with enough training, the user can pinpoint the location of a person. Additionally, they can hear thoughts apart from cries for help.

Your special magic interests him greatly. He already has a good pool of information of all the students, but being able to hear their most inner thoughts is something truly amazing. No amount of research could easily give him those kinds of details.

He has the twins watch over you for a bit, gathering as much information as they can about your situation and what you go about doing.

Given the circumstances, he doubts he can rob this ability of yours through a contract. This does however present an amazing opportunity.

This could blossom into a wonderful partnership. You need to collect candies, and he’s always willing to accept requests from those “poor” souls who need help. By helping him, you can meet your quota! The rules never did mention what kind of help you were limited to offer after all.

He pities you, nothing can be done about your situation at the moment. You can rest assured though, you’ll never be at the bottom of the leaderboard with him around!

When time allows it, Floyd and Jade will be busy poking their noses where they don’t belong. The mascot that appears when you’re around seems to come from that phone you use. If they can see it, then that means these beings have made a mistake somehow. Is it possible to find a way to free you from this through that?

Magic: Transforming into any biologically living being - the size and shape of the creature do not matter, anything is fair game.

When he first discovers your special magic, he’ll be amazed! Transformation magic isn’t exactly easy, so being able to turn into whatever creature you want sounds like a lot of fun!

He’ll be begging you to turn into a wide variety of animals. Can you please turn into a tiger? How about an elephant? Maybe an alpaca? This could go on for hours if you don’t stop him.

Upon learning the darker side of the Magical Girl world, he starts to cry. He knows the world isn’t all sunshine and rainbows, but this is too cruel. You didn’t know you would suffer this way. They should have at least given you all the information beforehand. Better yet, they shouldn’t be doing something so awful in the first place.

Because he finds it hard to keep secrets from Jamil, he ends up telling him about you. He then needs to convince Jamil that you aren’t trying to get him killed.

He goes around asking if people need help. He wants to do everything he can to ensure you survive. Money can’t get you out of this game, he’s tried to use it but that mascot that follows you around always refuses it.

Kalim doesn’t want you to die. Just thinking about it makes his head spin and worry bubble. It wouldn’t be his fault if you died in the first place, but the guilt would consume him entirely.

Magic: Freely manipulating sound - the user can generate sound from anywhere and even recreate the voices of others. As an added result of this ability, the user has enhanced hearing.

Vil won’t forgive you if you decide to mimic Epel’s voice so he can escape. He may be evading his lessons for now, but Vil will find a way to drill them into him later on.

He never would have thought such a thing was possible. This terrible fate you’ve had forced onto you makes no sense. The beautiful power you’ve been given is nothing compared to the price. He doesn’t blame you, he blames whatever is doing this. 

If such a game exists in the world of Twisted Wonderland, he’ll use his influence to dissuade people from playing. Vil will do this behind the scenes of course, his public image has to remain intact.

He actively requests your assistance. For example, helping his dorm improve their instrument playing--your impressive hearing can detect small mistakes they need to work on. Apart from this, he regrettably can’t offer more help.

Hone your abilities and work with what you have. He knows you can prevail. Please take care of yourself as you move forward.

Magic: Receiving one futuristic tool a day - the ability to randomly pick one useful tool out of 444,444,444. The tool breaks down and is no longer of use after a day passes.

He’s in awe. A real life Magical Girl! To think they could really exist outside of anime! Just what kind of world did you come from? Forget living in a world where magic is common, Magical Girls are on a different level entirely! Curiosity gnaws at him, but given how shy he is he won’t approach you with questions himself. Ortho is more than happy to ask any questions for him in his place though!

Once he finds out you’re one of those Magical Girls, he feels a tad sympathetic. You really got the short end of the stick in life didn’t you? He knew the possibility was there, that trope is not uncommon, but a small piece of him wished it wasn’t the case.

He supposes your special magic can be compared to gacha luck. You never really know what you’re going to get. Unfortunately, in your case you can’t even calculate rates for good rolls.

If you’re willing to let him, he’ll happily take apart the tools and gadgets you get from your daily pull. One of those future items should help him create even better machines than he can now! And even they can’t, disassembling and reassembling objects he’s never seen is a thrill in and of itself

If you happen to hear a small tip from Ortho or someone else about an issue occurring around campus, it may or may not have been Idia. He has eyes all around the school, spotting problems is quite easy.

He’ll be rooting for you from the sidelines. You’re a protagonist in this story, he hopes you can make it through to the end.

Magic: Extreme regeneration - being able to recover from any wound so long as a portion of the user’s body is left.

Mortified when he finds your body all mangled and bruised after a rough “accident.” Malleus is ready to destroy whoever or whatever did this to you. He cares about you greatly, the very thought of seeing you in such a state makes his stomach churn and pure rage wash over him.

Once you explain your situation, he can grasp enough to understand the major gist of it. He doesn’t quite know what a “Magical Girl” is but obviously it isn’t something good. Otherwise, you wouldn’t be in such a terrible situation.

To know that you can take care of yourself in the face of danger, makes him relieved. Although he doesn’t like the idea of you getting hurt at all, a healing ability is always wonderful to possess.

While you earn candies, Malleus will be working on a way to free you.

Even if these beings who granted you this ability are “all-powerful,” his magical capabilities are among the top in all the world. Perhaps, he can start by politely asking for answers from the leader of this group. If that seems to fail, killing off that mascot seems like a good place to start instead.

[gatheringkeepsakes]

I think a lot of this is just a result of media illiteracy these days. People want things spoon fed to them. I can't count the number of times I've seen people compare this show against something like My Hero Academia which reintroduces it's titular characters and their abilities to the audience every few episodes.

Viewers these days don't like subtext. They want to be told exactly what's going to happen and when something defies expectations without loud enough warnings, they get upset. RWBY does set up for its tone shifts regularly, it's just subtle in its approach that those victim to the "sometimes the curtains are just blue" mentality refuse to pick up on. Or just don't know how to.

From the start, we are given ample hooks into something more going on. Silver eyes, Ozpin as the man behind the curtain with many secrets, Cinder being a bigger bad we're waiting to reappear for the entire volume, it being pretty clear she's not the head of this plan either once she does get reintroduced, etc.

RWBY has a structure that it's followed consistently since the start. Each arc is three volumes; the first two establish the main setting and conflict for that specific region, and the third flips the story on its head.

Beacon starts with the introduction to Vale, the world, our heroes, and their daily lives. Then the tone shifts in V3 with many mysteries being uncovered and the big bad being revealed. But there are still mysteries to be uncovered. Like what Salem's motive is, how she knows Ozpin, and why she's talking to him as if he didn't just die under a scorched pile of rubble.

Mistral arc is the aftermath of tragedy, the travelling to and saving of Haven, and the reintroduction of Oz through Oscar. We get vague reasons for how Oz reincarnates, and even when he tells his story to RNJR, there are constant reminders from characters like Yang implying he's not giving the whole truth. That the audience shouldn't completely trust him. Then in v6, we get that tone shift from The Lost Fable.

Atlas is the same. Two volumes to try and save the kingdom, a third where we find out even more lore about the story - the world, the gods, AND our first concrete look into the mystery of Summer Rose's disappearance.

I agree that the marketing for this show has not been good and is still pretty awful if we're being honest. It doesn't help that Certain Videos on YouTube have literal millions of views talking about how awful the show is despite rarely knowing what they're actually talking about, it keeps a lot of people away just by word of mouth. Rooster Teeth as a company does not foster the best tone for its fanbase in general either, but I'm not going to get too deep into that.

The issue despite these things is that people engage with RWBY as if it's some big corporate IP when it's essentially an indie webcomic that just managed to get animated. I'd also argue that while the original descriptions for RWBY being an attempt at trying to make their own shounen, that is more of a demographic target than one specific genre. I've seen folks compare this show to long running fantasy novels from the 80s where they often start with low stakes school settings, then through trials, tragedies, and escalation, end up raising the stakes to fighting gods and then some. I'd also argue it follows a lot more of the subverted magical girl tropes as a subgenre than anything. Madoka Magica is a great example, same with things like Revolutionary Girl Utena.

As for not doing a good enough job to show it's a subversion... 6 out of the 8 main characters being girls in a "shounen" demographic series, is in and of itself our first clue towards this. Of the 2-3 male characters within the main eight, all three of them (Jaune, Ren, and eventually Oscar) have allusions to genderbends of female characters.

And on the topic of gender, there is absolutely an edge of misogyny to a lot of the unjust criticisms this show does get. Many of the people that focus so hard on criticizing team RWBY's actions are those obsessed with characters like Jaune, Adam, or Ironwood. But it's not just the more RWDE sides of the fandom that are victim to this. In retaliation to that subgroup of the fandom, many fans over-obsess on the female characters, often denying any viability to the male characters we do have. For example, the sheer amount of discourse towards Jaune getting any screen time in V9 as if he also has not been part of the cast since episode 1 & 2. Or those that infantize Oscar, treat him like nothing but an Ozpin meatsuit (which has been debunked in show MULTIPLE TIMES) or spend hours of their time arguing that that he could never have so much as a friendship with a character like Ruby, let alone something more (once again despite clear tropey and textual evidence to the contrary).

RWBY suffers from the same thing Steven Universe did. Another magical girl-esque show from 2013 that challenged the status quo of the expected genre, and as a result became a breeding ground for the most unnecessary - and in my opinion - unwarranted discourse imaginable. People, no matter what side of the fandom they're on, want this show to be something it isn't and refuse to meet the text where it is because they don't know how to. Or because they simply don't want to. And to view it as anything other than the reality they've convinced themselves it is makes them feel incredibly unsafe.

And as someone that's been watching since the first trailer aired, it genuinely breaks my heart. I do largely blame this fandoms inability to be normal towards fiction as one of the reasons it is struggling to get greenlit nowadays. Why would anyone who hasn't watched the show already in the 10 years they've had the chance to, be convinced to hop on now when this is the environment its fandom fosters.

I've had this thought swirling in the back of my head for a while, but it's finally congealed enough that I think I can make a coherent pitch, which is: I think RWBY's problems with the more vitriolic part of its fanbase partially stems from the fact that RWBY is a deconstruction that doesn't advertise it's a deconstruction.

RWBY's status as a deconstruction is pretty textbook. It takes apart standard fantasy, shounen, and anime tropes in order to analyze them and their deeper meaning and then reassembles them in new and interesting ways for the plot/characters/series. Thing is, it never says that outright in promotional material, which can lead to later outrage in fans.

See, unless their way of discovering new shows is to close their eyes and stab their finger at random, most people tend to choose series to watch/read based on expectations. Maybe a friend said they'll like it because it has [insert thing], maybe they read the summary and were intrigued, maybe they thought the poster/cover art was cool, whatever. These small pieces of information are generally enough for people to make a snap-judgment of the style and genre of the series, which they can then gauge against their personal tastes and decide whether or not they want to try.

Most of the time, this works just fine. Well-written deconstructions also generally give the viewers some warning/buildup before they take a hard swerve. See Madoka Magica: the magical girl paradigm is shaded by the possibility of death as soon as we're introduced to it, then there's an onscreen death with blood, and then a few episodes later we eventually realize the Faustian bargain of it all. Even innocent viewers who stumbled into watching it, unaware of the show's reputation, would go "Oh, wait, this is not going in the direction magical girl shows usually go" by a third of the way through.

The thing is, with RWBY, this does not happen unless you're paying a lot of attention and/or looking for it. And neither the cover art nor the summary nor, I believe, the fanbase gives a lot of warning about the swerves ahead.

In fact, RWBY initially bills itself as a pretty standard shounen anime. The main protagonist is hinted to have Special Powers and gets into the Magic Monster-Hunting School in the first episode, and the first two-and-a-half seasons are taken up by her and her friends' superhero-esque slice-of-life shenanigans as they thwart robberies and terrorist attacks and gear up for a tournament arc against the looming background of a larger conspiracy.

Then in the last half of the third season the villains' entire Rube Goldberg machine of a scheme snaps into completion and the plot twists so hard the entire genre takes a hard right. If you're used to character analysis and common anime tropes, this is not completely a surprise -up until this point, RWBY's character arcs and plot have been subtly traveling in non-traditional directions that hint of greater flexibility in genre treatment ahead- but if you're not... well.

Thing is, people watching RWBY up until this point have signed up for pretty standard shounen and they've been getting it, but the third season's ending smashes that all to bits. From then on out in RWBY, it's like they ordered fries and suddenly got a hamburger. It might be delicious; but it's not what they asked for, what they wanted, or what they paid for, and they are, justifiably, displeased.

So when the reasonable people either adjusted their expectations or sighed, shook their heads, and clicked back out (perhaps with a grumble and a scowl), the unreasonable people dug their heels in and began insisting that everybody was Getting The Show/Character Wrong and that CRWBY is ruining it, because the fact that RWBY's method of deconstruction is to put standard tropes in a blender and then arrange what's left in deceptive patterns means that said unreasonable viewers can scan the bare surface and argue that all the stereotypical stuff is clearly still under there, somewhere.

So they're continually trying to drag RWBY back to the tracks of a typical shounen anime series (it's closest relative), which creates a dissonance between the show they're watching and the show they think they're watching. They're trying to turn the hamburger back into fries, basically, except that doesn't work and just frustrates everyone involved, because you're trying to make RWBY into something that it's not. Hence, this attitude probably starting/fueling some of the more contentious statements in the fandom, i.e.:

"Ironwood was right the whole time" (in most action movies and shounen anime, allied military leaders are trustworthy beyond reproach)

"Adam's character was wasted" (we all know how much shounen loves their powerful warrior antiheroes)

"Ruby and the others are in the wrong about [insert thing]/or for doing [insert thing], and this is bad writing!" (shounen protagonists don't usually make more than One Very Big Mistake over the course of their entire careers, which is usually fixed/overcome/redeemed via an appropriately rigorous training arc)

And to be clear, there's nothing wrong with shounen tropes or shounen anime. They're wonderful storytelling devices in their own way and their own time: but if you want standard by-the-book shounen without any new and interesting concoctions, then RWBY is definitely not the show for you. And most people don't find that out until it's too late.

[mahou-furbies]

Hi! Do you know of any magical girls who have mermaids in it? Even for just one episode/chapter? (without the obvious Mermaid melody and Tropical Rouge)

I thought about the same question a few years back when I was preparing for Mermay, and could think of surprisingly few. But in addition to the ones you listed I can say that Mew Lettuce in Tokyo Mew Mew has a mermaid form, and there are some Precure seasons where at least one Cure turns into a mermaid for one episode: Star Twinkle Precure (everyone), Happiness Charge Precure (Hime) and Hugtto Precure (Homare). Balala the Fairies also apparently gives mermaid forms for the girls in the ocean themed season.

Go! Princess Precure has two mermaid themed Cures and Sayaka from Madoka also has a mermaid theme, but to my knowledge they don't transform into actual mermaids with the tail. Or Sayaka's witch form does if you count that. And for the Madoka universe, the Magia Record game gives Momoko and Mitama mermaid forms.

Sort of related is that Winx Club has two aquatic transformations but they keep their legs in the transformed form and I don't know if they have an actual mermaid trasformation too. And some of the cards in Cardcaptor Sakura have a mermaid look.