#also the word in question is yaoi and I KNOW i speak the japanese way that's why i tought everyone did too

[cratis]

Being sure to know a word for 10+ years and then hearing an american saying it for the first time in a completely different way you thought it was in your head is the psych version of a slap, not only the pain but the indignity of it. Like, how dare you? That word was my friend and you insult it so blatantly in front of my own eyes.

[sammysdewysensitiveeyes]

Choose violence game.

You know what. I'm very curious about your opinion about ALL OF THE NUMBERS

Wow, you chose violence, my friend. And I appreciate it!

These answers are mostly exclusively for Marvel/X-Men fandom. Be warned, I blab on forever. I cut out questions I already answered.

the character everyone gets wrong

I would love it if writers and fans stopped treating Sebastian Shaw as a sexist strawman.  I think the most ridiculous recent example was Shaw arguing against Curse’s resurrection in X-Men Green, and Kitty accusing him of having problems with powerful women he can’t control, and name-dropping Jean “Fire and life incarnate” like that’s supposed to intimidate Sebastian.  Give me a break, are we really girlbossing Curse?  I think Sebastian opposes Curse’s resurrection because she went a killing spree that makes her a liability to Krakoa.

It's also…..interesting to me that Sebastian is treated like the epitome of rich white male privilege.  I mean, I get it, he is rich and white and male, and he acts like he spends all his free time swimming in the money bin, but he also grew up in poverty.  There are plenty of rich characters born into wealth who don’t get this treatment.

2. a compelling argument for why your fave would never top or bottom

All my faves do both.

3.screenshot or description of the worst take you've seen on tumblr

I’m assuming this means just fandom related, not real world issues.  But if I can veer away from X-Men fandom for a second, I really, really hate the way English-speaking manga fans have picked up the word fujoshi and turned it into “those awful women who fetishize MLM”  The original meaning of fujoshi, or “rotten women,” was misogynistic and homophobic male manga fans insulting any woman who was a big fan of anime/manga, and especially women who shipped M/M.  Japanese female fans embraced and reclaimed the term as a kind of badge of honor.  And now English-speaking, mostly Western fans on Tumblr have snatched up the term, which they don’t fully understand, as a way to differentiate themselves, the “good” M/M fans, from those awful fujoshi, the “bad” M/M fans.  I honestly think it’s racist to use the word that way.  You don’t get to enjoy Japanese BL/yaoi manga (or ship characters from manga) and also steal a word from Japanese fandom and use it incorrectly to bash on other fans.  If you want to talk about female fans fetishizing gay men, that’s a conversation we can have without taking a word out of context from another culture.  Personally, I think the main thing that really matters is how people treat actual, real life LGBTQ people.

4. what was the last straw that made you finally block that annoying person?

Aside from those friendly pornbots, the main people I block are random strangers that I see having shitty opinions on threads reblogged by people I follow (the people I follow are generally reblogging a refutation of the shitty opinion).  So anyone posting, say, anti-trans stuff gets a block immediately. 

I’ve never blocked a mutual or someone that I previously followed, it would take a lot to get me to do that.  There was one blog that I had bookmarked and frequently read back before I had a tumblr account, because they mostly posted about a character I like.  Their posting got gradually more and more red-pilled – they started posting Jordan Peterson videos, then it was pro-Trump stuff.  I don’t know what the hell happened, they had seemed like an intelligent and empathetic person.  I never officially followed them on tumblr, but last time I checked their blog, they were whining about SJW.  Blocked.

5. worst discord server and why

I’m barely on Discord, aside from talking to a couple of IRL friends.  I prefer this Discord. 

And this one.

6. which ship fans are the most annoying?

I think it all comes down to the individual fans.  Any ship can be annoying if it gets large enough that it sort of dominates fandom, but I still don’t mind if the fans are well-behaved.  Ship wars in general annoy me – ship and let ship, as far as I’m concerned.  I probably get more annoyed with people who make a big deal about hating a particular ship.  I don’t mean just disliking it, or making a few posts venting about the ship or fans being annoying, I totally understand that. I mean constantly posting about how much they hate the ship, like it’s their own personal crusade.

9. worst part of canon

That Pyro and Avalanche have not kissed yet.

10. worst part of fanon

That not enough people have written about or drawn Pyro and Avalanche kissing.

11. number of fandom-related words you've filtered

None.  I don’t really bother.

12. the unpopular character that you actually like and why more people should like them

Morph from TAS.  Look, here’s this upbeat and cheerful mutant (who is also kind of annoying, admittedly), who is “killed” while trying to protect their friend, and then goes through absolute hell being manipulated and tortured and turned against their own team and having to confront their own dark side because they did terrible things, that’s an interesting character right there.  And Exiles Morph shows that TAS Morph has a ton of untapped potential in their powers.  Not to mention, we know so little about the character and their background, you can project whatever fanon you want onto them.  (Slaps roof) This bad boy can fit so many headcanons into them!

While I’m at it, I’ll also give a shout-out to Spyke from Evolution, a cute and likable kid with very cool powers, who also goes through an interesting arc with his powers visibly mutating his body, and he goes underground to live with the Morlocks and becomes their protector (which is nice, given that the X-Men mostly ignore the Morlocks).  And unlike Morph, Spyke was actually a main cast member on the show.  No offense to X-23, but how is it she got imported into the comics as a major character, despite only appearing in two episodes, and Spyke never really did?  (I know the answer – it’s because she’s a Wolverine.)

13. worst blorboficiation

Leah Williams completely re-writing Blob’s personality.  Don’t get me wrong, I like a more thoughtful, sensitive Blob, I like chill bartender Blob living his best life on Krakoa, I don’t like a personality change that barely resembles the old character.  I like Blob’s big and loud personality, even when he was often an obnoxious jerk, and I think there are ways to write him more sympathetically without completely losing that.

To be honest a lot of Leah Williams writing is just…..a little too Tumblr for me?  (Outside of other issues)  Like I totally love and appreciate the jokes and memes people make on here, but I can’t stand Jubilee using the phrase “juicy dumper” to describe having a nice ass.  Not because Jubilee can’t talk about sex or her body, or be vulgar, she’s a grown adult mother.  Just that “juicy dumper” sounds so fucking stupid, even for Jubilee, who is a slang queen.  It’s speech that works online, but people shouldn’t actually say it.

14. that one thing you see in fics all the time

If we’re talking about things that annoy me, the obvious influence of TV or movie versions of characters when people are supposedly writing the comics version.  Or people tagging all possible adaptations, even though those have wildly different versions of the characters.  I don’t mind people being creative and adapting various versions of the characters, I do mind people claiming they’re writing the comics character, and it’s obviously the movie/cartoon version.  Or going into a fic not knowing at all which versions of the character I’m going to get.  That’s probably my most petty, gate-keeping fandom opinion.

15, that one thing you see in fanart all the time

I really don’t have a problem with most fanart. I do get tired of Madelyne Pryor fanart being all evil-sexy-boobs-out Goblin Queen, but in fairness, that’s how the comics have been depicting her for years.  And unless you tag it as Maddy, or put her in her flight suit or Anodyne costume, it’s hard to know it’s her otherwise.

16. you can't understand why so many people like this thing (characterization, trope, headcanon, etc)

The Wolverine/Jean/Scott “love triangle,” I’m so tired of it, but Wolverine writers will never let the whole Jean thing go.  I think fandom is actually pretty divided on it at this point, but there are plenty of people that still seem to love it, or want some kind of poly thing between them.  (I don’t have an issue with a poly relationship in comics, I just have an issue with Jean/Wolverine.)  I hate it because it feels forced, because Wolverine has had many partners and it seems like writers just want him to be the cool guy who gets all the women, and because they want some of the conflict between Wolverine and Scott to revolve around Jean, even though it’s already an obvious conflict between team leader and Guy Who Hates Authority.  I have never read any kind of attraction on Jean’s part that has convinced me, it just feels like Wolverine either pining for or chasing after a woman who is not interested, and who is already with someone else.  I’d much rather see Wolverine/Storm, or Wolverine/Storm/Nightcrawler if people want a poly ship.  That’s actually a romance growing naturally out of friendship and mutual respect, not “The cool rebel guy likes The Girl, and therefore he should have her.”

17. there should be more of this type of fic/art

Pyro and Avalanche kissing, obviously.

18. it's absolutely criminal that the fandom has been sleeping on...

Shinobi Shaw.  He’s a hot bad boy with a history of being abused, he’s the son of a prominent villain, he’s bisexual and has an amazing fashion sense (when he’s not in Marauders).  He’s a poor little meow meow.  He has all the qualities that should make Tumblr latch onto him, but for some reason people haven’t.  Maybe because he hasn’t had much to do in the Krakoa era outside of Marauders, and he didn’t really get to do much in Marauders, either.

20. part of canon you found tedious or boring

I’ve been trying to read some of the original X-Men issues, like the stuff from way back in the 60’s, and wow is it a slog.  I’m honestly mostly bored with the original five, I like Jean and Bobby, but I think the book gets way more interesting when the Giant Size X-Men show up.

21. part of canon you think is overhyped

Big comics events, editors please stop making writers interrupt their stories every few months for the latest “event.”

But the recent specific thing is Mr. Sinister.  He’s a fun and entertaining character, but he or one of his clones have played SUCH a big role in the Krakoa books, and we just had an entire event about him taking over, and it seems like his story still isn’t over, I’m honestly just tired of him.  I’m glad classic Sinister went into the Pit, but there are still three clones running around to fill the void, and they’re not that interesting either.  I don’t want Sinister to leave the books entirely, I just want him and his variants to GO AWAY for a little while.

22. your favorite part of canon that everyone else ignores

Phantazia.  Where are you, Eileen?

Also, why has no one put Pyro and Fabian Cortez together as a musical duo when they both can canonically play instruments.  (Or at last, Fabian says he can…..)

23. ship you've unwillingly come around to

I can’t think of any ship I actively dislike that I’ve been convinced to like.  But I have been introduced to ships that I hadn’t thought about before, like Maximus/Namor, or Gambit/Quicksilver, or Unus/Blob.  I was already into Sam/Bucky, but fans have got me liking it even more.

24. topic that brings up the most rancid discourse

Things aren’t so bad on Tumblr, but on other social media like Reddit, any time a character in super-hero comics is LGBTQ.  It doesn’t matter if it’s a pre-established character coming out, or a completely new character, all the assholes come crawling out of the woodwork to explain why they totally don’t have a problem with gay characters, they just don’t like the way this particular one is written.  Every time.  There is no winning with these fans.  If it’s an established character coming out, then we get “Just make a new character, don’t change an established one!”  Even though comics are full of other types of character retcons.  Even though creators were restricted in depicting gay characters for decades (and to some extent probably still are), and a lot of meant-to-be-queer characters got straightwashed.  Even if it’s a minor recurring character whose sexuality was never previously established.  If it’s a completely new character, then they are an example of comics going “woke” and caring more about agendas than storytelling.  If the character’s sexuality is not a major part of their storyline, then they’re a token, if it is a major part of their storyline, then the character’s whole personality is about being gay.  There is no “right way” to write LGBTQ characters for these fans, because they really just don’t want gay characters in their super-hero comics.

This also applies to just about anytime a character is something other than a straight white dude or a conventionally hot woman.  “I just want good storytelling, not forced diversity!” people say about Kamala Khan, a popular and well-written character who has carried her own book with a great supporting cast for years.

25. common fandom complaint that you're sick of hearing

Anything negative about the inclusive nature of A03.  Use the damn tags, or else go construct your morally pure fandom archive somewhere else.

[the-skeletoninyour-closet]

Full respect to your point, OP, and that people should not be so Fucking Weird about Japanese terms for things, from orientalist to flat out racist.

But at the risk of detracting, I’m still going to focus in a touch on the example of fujoshi. Straight up, the term fujoshi 腐女子 translates to rotten girl, fu 腐　for rotten (the pronunciation for the kanji character when strung together in this word), and joshi 女子 for girl. While *maybe* it has a history in Japanese feminism or otaku culture as being a reclamation for not being perfectly appealing to men with this trait, it as far as I know doesn’t quite have the history as a reclaimed insult as other English queer culture terms I know.

Fujoshi is currently a quick short hand for “oooh I’m so DIRTY for liking gay men stuff I’m such a NAUGHTY GIRL”. It may be personal that I don’t mind the term as specifically referring to women (esp straight women) who fetishize gay men, because it also feels very period specific to ~2010’s for that sort of common relationship to yaoi and other BL media. Yes it includes before then, but this is my specific thing.

The question then may be what’s the closest English term to use instead without potential insult and knee jerk disgust and bias towards Japanese terms. Welp. Closest thing I can think of is fag hag. Unfortunately, while fag is a reclaimed self identifier and funny as all hell when we gays use it, it still hits when it has the tone of fag(predecessor to homophobic violence). Fujoshi doesn’t have that baggage in English speaking circles, and it’s a little more “PC” as an identifier.

Technically you could have a similar discussion about people who use the terms porn or lewds, vs Hentai or ecchi. Hentai 変顔　has the term “weird” literally in it, you could lit translate it to weird-body. Ish. But it still has more cadence of “pervert”. Ecchi えっち, on the other hand, is softer. More like “naughty” or “playful” or “lewd”, less with the derogatory aspect (the point I want to focus on when certain Japanese words are derogatory and when they ain’t. Do you (general you) in your mind associate Hentai with anime style animated or drawn porn? Or ecchi? It’s gonna be different for each person, and I absolutely cannot guarantee 1:1 coherence with Japanese media perspective on this. In fact with that, PLEASE take my tangent with a punch of salt, I’m only second language on Japanese. I’ve had a dude say “why do you have such a good anime voice” after I sang part of a Japanese song j liked to my standards of pronunciation - weird moment, hard to remember how to respond in it, I’ll sort it later. But orientalism type things happen in weird ways.

While it’s kinda weird for non-Japanese artists to call their lewds Hentai or ecchi, if you’re doing it to try to beat a hostile algorithm into submissions and get as many tags on a thing as you can to make a living, I don’t have a leg to stand on to care.

Long response that might’ve missed the point. I’m not asking folks to get a bachelor’s in every language they use words from. I just think it’s good to learn more on the nuances of them, why some words hit, why some words don’t. And for the love of god, build every weapon in your arsenal you can against orientalism and racism that you can, and that means thwacking down tidbits of ignorance imo.

I'm probably gonna get yelled at for saying this but sometimes something isn't a real problem in fandom, you just learned a Japanese word describing a general fandom practice and got scared and decided it meant "The Bad Ones" of that practice

[chibimyumi]

Asks and Grell’s Gender

Dear everyone,

The past few days had been very turbulent for my blog because the topic about Grell’s gender was brought up.

I am aware that this topic is very sensitive. It is treated as a topic for debate despite there being indisputable proof and me having explained why this evidence is indisputable. However, some asks and PMs have still come in, and it almost makes me feel like I am explaining why the earth is round to Flat-Earthers. The logic is the same: “if I don’t (want to) understand it, it must not be real.”

I know most people so far have sent me really nice asks, and I thank you for that! Honestly. However, I have shut down my Anon for now, because honestly I am pretty tired of defending the legitimacy of not just Toboso’s canon statements, but also the legitimacy of real people’s identities.

The asks regarding this topic I have left in my inbox I shall answer here, but please let this be the end of this topic, because I have ran out of patience.

Yes, it had only been three days, but I have ran out of patience. And for the first time in my life, I have come to realise how tiresome it must be for real transgender people who have to defend their legitimacy on a daily basis, and that this might be the outlook of their future as well.

Dear Asker 1,

I know you probably mean well, but the issue at hand is not ‘accepting each other’s point of views’ and ‘remaining friendly’. The issue at hand is that someone’s identity is not a ‘point of view’. If I were to start saying that Undertaker is in fact a woman and debating the lack of evidence for him being a man, and that people should accept my point of view, I would most definitely become a target for ridicule. As I should be in that case. (Pff, canon Female Undertaker indeed)

If there are any ambiguities left, I would like to invite you to (re)read the posts containing hard evidence here, here, here and here. There is really not much more left I can say that have not already been said in these posts.

Dear Anon 1,

Thank you for this interesting information! I have always been interested in languages and how language influences and shapes thought. When I speak in English, Japanese or other languages, I am still me, but the pattern of thought process becomes very different. It is not like I become an altogether different person, but I do have ‘one side of me’ that comes forward in one language, and ‘another side’ that shows itself in another.

Your example here again attests for just how much influence language - and therefore - translators have in shaping thoughts and understandings.

On another note, I wish to point out that in Japanese, Grell never said: “my body is male”. In case anybody wishes to turn this into evidence for Grell’s maleness; In the original canon, Grell is merely stating a fact that happened to her.

“アタシも赤ちゃんが欲しいのに男ってだけでダメだもの”

“Atashi mo akachan ga hoshii no ni otoko tte dake de dame da mono.”

“I too wanted a baby, but they said that I am a man so I can’t.”

Dear Anon 2,

First of all, as demonstrated in 1.here, 2.here, 3.here, 4.here, 5.here and 6.here again, Yana never used male pronouns for Grell, and there is no ground to stand on that Grell is male.

Secondly, if you are referring to “Yes, Grell is a man, but has the heart of a maiden,” (Toboso, 2010), that was simply the lack of accurate terminology in Japanese for a transgender woman from almost a decade ago. Transgender studies have developed entirely differently than within Euro-American discourse. As such, holding Yana’s words from 9 years ago accountable as accurate NOW in the English speaking community would be Euro-Americentrist at best.

Thirdly, I am not saying that all people who think Grell is a man do it for yaoi; but one cannot deny that among many of such people, they either do it to ship Grell in a context as ‘the male lover’ regardless of the gender of the other shipped subject, or for any other reason for which they “wish” she were male.

Finally, it is not about ‘wanting’ Grell to be transgender, but identifying Grell as a transgender character. Madam Red for one is also a ‘misogynistic anti choice serial killer’, and although in a different way, also a trope character. I however have never seen anybody ‘NOT wanting her to be a female representation’, because her gender is not treated as debatable.

Though from a different series, Sister Krone from ‘Promised Neverland’ is also a ‘problematic serial killer and a trope character’. And for obvious reasons people would also ‘not want her to be black representation’. I have seen nobody disputing the fact that she is a black character, nevertheless.

I wish to stress that a representation is not always a good one. A representation - however problematic - is still representation. Even if Grell were a man, Man!Grell would still be ‘a misogynistic anti choice serial killer’. In this case however, Man!Grell would be a heavily queer-coded or actually queer man who decides who cannot have hysterectomy, and makes a final judgement for his victims.

In short, if Grell had been a man, then instead of a problematic transgender female character, we would have had a problematic queer-coded male character.

Simple maths brings us to: We will always be left with an offensive queer representation, regardless of what Grell’s gender is. So who wins?

In the very least, if we will be stuck with an offensive queer representation, then at least the legitimacy of transgender identity should not be questioned; that is the least we can do to minimise the offence.

[tiergan-vashir]

as someone who genuinely doesn't understand, why is it specifically that liking futa/gay stuff is so bad? some people are assholes about it sure, but there're plenty of people who aren't. what makes it so specifically much worse than liking straight stuff? especially given that futa/trap are 99% of the time not being used for/as actual trans people.

H’okay. I’m going to naively assume you actually want to know why, but I’m also going to shove all of this shit under a cut, because it’s going to be very, very long I’m pretty sure people are likely tired of seeing this by now and it might even be triggering for some folks.

The TL;DR of it all is that:

Fetishizationdoesn’t exist in a bubble - it propagates harmful stereotypes and ideas that hurt living people. So even though you’re probably using those words and phrases to describe your ERP video game smut character and not a living, breathing trans or intersex person - by helping keep those words commonplace and in use by others, you’re helping spread stereotypes and ideas that harm real, live people.

Even if you - yourself - are not using the word to describe actual trans folks, you’re normalizing it’s usage and some other dumb fuck you may have been interacting with WILL use it to describe an actual trans person.

All people want is Respect. Respect for their bodies. Respect for their life experiences and struggles. Respect as fellow humans. If you can’t give them that over some shit you really really want to use for your ERP cat girl smut in your japanese vidya games, then you’re honestly just a dick. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Massive trigger warning for me talking candidly about all of the above.

Fujoshi and the “gay stuff”

A quick disclaimer.  I’m not a gay man.  I’m a pansexual nonbinary person.  I don’t feel super comfortable speaking as any kind of authority figure at all on a topic that veers so closely to gay male experiences.  I’m going to speak on what I’ve heard, directly, from actual gay men I’ve spoken to and what I’ve seen with my own two eyes.  However, other gay men might have different opinions than what I’ve written here and if it differs from my words,  those words have more weight, because … ya know, this is their lives.  They’re the authority on their own life experiences.There’s next thing I want to get out of the way is that not “gay stuff” that’s bad.   There’s nothing wrong about being gay.

People explicitly mention fujoshi, because they’re essentially yaoi-super-fans.  Yaoi in particular gets a bad rap, because while I’m sure some exist that depict healthier, more realistic relationships - a whole lot of them simply reduce gay men down to sexual objects for the pleasure of straight women (it’s written by and for straight women after all) and often comes packaged with A LOT of harmful ideas on gay relationships that don’t actually have anything to do with what real gay relationships are like.

It would be one thing if every single woman in the universe looked at Yaoi and had the immediate understanding that “the shit I’m seeing in my japanese anime mangos about two slender effeminate men categorizing themselves by uke and seme while doing the horizontal mambo with pretty questionable consent practices and having hands WAY too large to be human is pretty divorced from the reality of what actual gay male relationships are like. I should not bother any actual living gay man with this stuff and I should respect them as people.”

But again - fetishization doesn’t exist in a bubble.  While some consumers of yaoi have enough awareness not to be gross about it, there are WAY too many others who get very accustomed to seeing gay men and their bodies purely as objects for sexual gratification - not people to be respected.  Some of them even still consider gay men and gay relationships “sinful and forbidden” - and their yaoi characters as their “sinful gay babies!” that are only acceptable within the confines of spank-bank material.

This is where people get pissed.

To rip from a previous post of mine:

I have heard stories from gay male RPers about how fujoshi RPers were super down to RP yaoi shit with them …right up until they found out WHOOPS, wow you are an actual gay man and not a fellow straight woman? No. Sorry. I can’t RP with you. Your lifestyle is sinful and wrong.

Or they see two gay men kissing and cuddling and start talking about those two living, breathing men as though they are some yaoi-comic stereotype with an uke and seme instead of… just regular, actual human beings with complex romantic and sexual lives of their own.

In 2017, a really beautiful animation came out about a young school boy struggling with his budding crush for another boy.  

The joy of seeing really adorable animation showing a rare depiction of young, innocent gay love was temporarily tarnished by the fact that in the beginning there was a flood of comments was about “omg YAOI. IT’S SO GREAT SEEING YAOI.” “ANY OTHER YAOI FANS HERE?” (the comments section has since cleaned up a lot, thankfully, but it definitely happened).  

Any decent human being would’ve seen the animation for what it was - a really sweet animation depicting young love that LGBT folks could actually relate to.  Fujoshi on the other hand had become so accustomed to seeing any romance between two boys or men as material for their sexual fetish, that they couldn’t even turn it off when looking at an animation about one underage minor having a crush on another, two little school boys in a romantic, non-sexual context.  

In those folks’ eyes - those two boys were not seen as sweet characters representing budding gay love that lots of LGBT folks could relate to - they immediately became objects for sexual consumption.

This is not to say that anyone who is writing a character that doesn’t align with their own gender/sexuality is an immediate shitlord.  

I’m a pansexual nonbinary person writing a pansexual cis male dude in a very LGBT FC.  I don’t really write or draw Tiergan in too many sexual or romantic contexts to start with, just because of the way his character is. 

When I did do so however, I noticed I was fine drawing or writing heterosexual romances with my character, but when it came to anything remotely approaching Tiergan being intimate with men - I was intensely anxious about making any of my gay/bi male FC-mates uncomfortable.  My FC-mates are awesome people and their feelings are important to me. I wanted to honour those feelings and their life experiences.

I ended up just talking to folks to see how they felt, what I should do, how I should treat everything.  Of course gay/bi men are all different, because we’re all human and may have different perspectives or feelings on the matter so someone else may feel differently, but what I was told by everyone in all my discussions was that it boiled down to Respect. Treating gay/bi/pan men, their relationships, and their life experiences with the respect they are due and not simply as tools for getting off.

Fujoshi are often not respectful of gay men beyond their use as sexual objects - so why should anyone give them respect in return?

“Trap” and “Futa”

I’m going to go on a limb and assume you’re here because you read this post here.  Where I mentioned the Trans Panic Defense and how actual trans women find the word “trap” triggering because they get beaten to death IRL by cis straight men for “trapping” them.

If that really wasn’t enough, please look at this video by ContraPoints, which gets into more detail about why the word “Trap” is so hurtful from the words of an actual trans woman.

If you actually humored me and watched that video instead of blindly digging in your heels about how bad you want to keep using a word, it should be incredibly clear by now that the word “trap” is really hurtful to trans women and reminds them of the fact that they literally get killed by people just for walking down the street and making some cis dude’s dick tingle in his pants.

To put things in a different context, this is an extreme example, but there was a time the N-word was used regularly.   But now, you likely never do, because you know it’s offensive and hurtful to black people.  What’s the big deal though - right? It’s just a word.

But much like “trap” reminds trans women of the possibility that cis straight men might beat them to death in a fit of “trans panic” and the long history of trans women being viciously murdered even today for “trapping” men with their “trickery”.  The N-word reminds the black community of a long, vicious, painful, hateful legacy of racism, slavery, and oppression. That’s why civilized adults don’t use that word, even as an insult.

If we want a way less extreme example than the N-word, we have words like “Negro” and “Oriental” which are dated and offensive terms for Black and Asian communities respectively in the United States, because in the US it reminds those communities of painful, racist histories.

“Trap” reminds trans people of really bad fucking times. It reminds them that they can be murdered. Just stop using it.

Futa/Futanari, as mentioned in my previous post, literally means “hermaphrodite” which both intersex and trans folk find offensive to be referred to as because it doesn’t actually describe them.  So regardless of whether you’re using the word to describe a trans female character or an intersex person - it’s still offensive to either group, because that’s not what they are.

I’m assuming when you say you don’t use it on actual trans/intersex people, you mean you’re just using Trap/Futa to describe your character falling into a very specific anime hentai bucket.  However, every time you use the word “trap” or “futa”, even if you’re not talking to an actual trans woman - you’re normalizing the idea that it’s totally okay to keep using this word.  And even if YOU are careful not to blurt it out in front of an actual trans person, and use it only in reference to your pretendy-times triple-dicked cat girl character, you can’t count on all your buddies to do the same. Or your buddies’ buddies, or your buddies’ buddies’ buddies - etc.

If you ACTUALLY CARE about the feelings and comfort of trans/intersex folks, then you’ll not use the word “trap” or “futa” anymore, so that it stops being commonly, casually used.  All folks want is respect. Give that to them.

If after all of this, you still at the very least don’t see why using the word “trap” is no bueno despite the history of literal death behind it, I don’t know what to tell you other than that you’re placing greater importance on a singular word to describe your fap material before human beings, and that kinda makes you a dick.

What makes it worse than Straight Stuff?

Let’s do a quick exercise.

You have 10 seconds to think of one commonly used, popular term with the same ubiquity as trap, futa, or yaoi that encapsulates a harmful, fetishistic sexual stereotype specifically about cis straight white relationships.  You can even use Google if you want.

I specify white, because things like “yellow fever” have explicitly to do with race and thus don’t count.

If you can’t think of jack shit, it’s because “cis straight” is considered “normal” by our society - and anything that deviates from that is considered “exotic” or “different” and gets fetishized.  

If you’re a straight person, you likely have NEVER had to deal with someone fetishizing and objectifying you simply for your straightness, because it’s “normal”.  What is there to fetishize? They might objectify you for other reasons, like your gender, your race if you’re PoC, your weight (aka fat fetish), etc.  But being objectified through your straightness - if it happens at all - is so minuscule in comparison to what LGBT folks have to go through on the daily that it is insanely unbalanced.  It’s worse than “straight stuff” because LGBT folks have to go through it WAY, WAY more often than straight people do.

[orenonahaichigoda]

About Me, and Some Things to Know About (Being Queer in) Japan

日本語でどうぞ。

とは言っても、より多くの人数が読めるように、以下を英語で書きます。

Se habla Español.

30s/trans male/California.

Grew up in Koube. Left in the early '90s for NYC. (Then left there because Giuliani ruined everything)

WHEN THE TRANS TALK STARTED IN JAPAN:

If I had stayed just a*little bit* longer, I probably would have learned that trans men exist, too, and so does hormone therapy. Activist-polititian Kamikawa Aya took her activism to NHK news spots shortly after I left. My grandparents listened to nothing else. (My dad was either NHK or Yomiuri, and I watched Asahi, the latter two not sure if they're national or only Oosaka-Koube broadcast region, but whatever) I mention this because it would be very easy for Ichigo to learn enough to figure it out before high school. And everyone's grandparents watch NHK, And a lot of parents, too. It's like BBC in Britain. PBS is the closest to an American analogue that exists, but the point is public advocacy for trans people became a thing in 1995, so it's not too hard to imagine someone born in the '80s would have enough information to figure it out early in life. Japan was a couple decades ahead of America on that.

FAIR NOTICE ABOUT MY SPANISH:

I'm mixed Japanese and Italian, I picked up Spanish to communicate with my new friends when I came to America. It's not native or anything, no relatives spoke it, and do expect some mixed words from different dialects.

Si estamos escribiendo en Español y se confunden mis palabras, siempre me puede pedir. Por ejemplo, ya sé que la palabra "la bodega" significa cosas diferentes entre Español Puertorriqueño y Español Mexicano.

PAIRING THREADS:

I'm essentially aroace. That doesn't mean I'm not totally down for *well-thought-out* ships. That's not my sole purpose here, but I do welcome it. Well-thought-out is the qualifier, though. And I don't get anything out of PWP, either. I'm only writing all this because I know a fair amount of RP strays into X rated. Shipping, yes, PWP, no.

ETERNAL DISCLAIMER:

My info about Japan varies, but a lot of it may be out of date. I was kinda cut off after leaving until I came to CA, and now more connected with the Web, but anything I say can carry the risk of being up to a few decades out of date.

BEING TRANS IN THE JAPANESE SPEAKING WORLD:

That being said, I can definitely say that while berserko right-wingers, who tend not to leave Japan, as trump voters tend not to leave the US, might be different, know when writing with me that being trans tends not to be a big deal among Japanese people. Now, IN Japan, yes, you'll have to deal with the right-wing Japanese, and in school, kids will pick on each other for anything--kids will pick for someone not liking the "right" bands, but among more progressive Japanese, like the Shin-Issei that I've been around since coming out, telling someone you're trans is not gonna cause fire to rain down on your head. It's gonna be the conservative/regressive bunch that'll be misgendering and all that. Trans kids will get bullied, there will be some also coming from conservative adults, but it doesn't make sense when writers juxtapose 1980s America on Japan.

HOMOPHOBIA AND "YAOI"/"YURI":

Which reminds me, you all have probably seen a lot of "yaoi." Here's the thing: it's gay fetish for straight consumption. Why do you think one guy is always "manly" and the other's "womanly"? It's a homophobic genre. "Yuri" is used for both that kind of thing and actual stuff by and for lesbians, but it's exactly like all those straight men googling"lesbian porn" on RedTube. To this extent, I'd probably need an extra amount of back and forth for shipping with a male character of a female mun. I'm not gonna rule it out, but I'm gonna be a little picky there. Not so much with any other gender. Most NB people I've met tend to really get this kind of thing, although it's a small number that I've met.

ABSOLUTE RULE:

Also, if you wanna play in Japanese, こうして日本語で書くんだ。*全部を* If you can't do that, write in English or Spanish. I've gotten my face punched in for legit broken English. It's not a "cute aesthetic uwu."

HOMOPHOBIA IN JAPAN:

There's a lot of... homophobia came with Admiral Perry for the most part, and it's...gay is not called evil or anything, but it's also difficult to actually *walk down the street holding hands with another man.* I can't speak on it too much, because I only started dating until after high school when I was already here. It's definitely not Regan's America, but it's also not free of homophobia. Unfortunately, I can't quite say how it is.

OTHER ABSOLUTE RULE:

But I also...it really grates my nerves when I see m/m shipping fic throwing around the word "sin" like it's the best thing ever to call queer people. It's not. It's the worst thing ever.

JAPANESE GEOGRAPHY/"KARAKURA TOWN":

One thing that non-Japanese speaking fans of Bleach always miss is what a town is in Japan. So, let's set this up with one a bit south of where I lived that has "town" in its name. Ninomiya Town is in Central Ward of Koube City, which is in Hyougo Province, which is in Japan. There're more divisions, but those are the ones you need to send a letter. It's kinda like how Compton and Wilmington are both in Los Angeles, as in part of the city. Karakura is an imaginary town in Tokyo. I'd say it's like having an American comic set in a place called Lawndale, except THERE IS ACTUALLY A TOWN CALLED THAT. It's one of L.A.'s suburban nearby towns.

NOT A RULE, BUT SOMETHING I DO ASK:

Some RPers really love to abuse the format buttons. I can't read stuff that looks like House of Leaves. Please don't do that with me, even if you do it with others.

Sum:

My life has not been easy. I've actually outlined two big triggers I run into a lot in this fandom (they send me into a rage): the "garnish human default English with exotic Japanese" (which is also bad writing. Look at Edgar Allan Poe. Murders in the Rue Morgue is really terrible writing in many ways, and random French thrown in is one of them) and the "hot sexy sinful gay." I'm also not sure I can handle running Ichigo through a transphobic scenario. Beyond that, I don't think I really have anything that will get my blood pressure up and you instantly blocked. I urge you to also share yours with me and others you play with.

DON'T PANIC WHEN I DON'T IMMEDIATELY REPLY. IT PROBABLY HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH YOU:

Finally, I work on-call. Sometimes, I have eight days off in a row. Sometimes, I'm heading back from getting groceries, and my boss is asking if I can be in the next city over in seven minutes and work graveyard for the next eight days. When I'm at home, I have no kids, partner, roommate, or even pet goldfish. As long as writer's block stays away, I have no impediments to replying. When I find myself with long stretches of work-sleep-work, I'll be sure you know I'm gonna take time to reply. If I find myself suddenly called in, I won't be able to do it same day. If I'm having trouble proceeding the plot, I'll bounce ideas off you. Generally, you'll know what's up by the next day at latest. So don't freak out if I don't reply pronto. I'm kind of a desk jockey sort of, but in social work with severely physically ill people, so it's not exactly a job I can just be looking at the Web during. Lots of emergencies. I don't approve of goofing off at work anyway, but I do always need to have an ear out. (And I already only have one functioning one!)

"YOU LOOK FAMILIAR":

Blog username means "My name is Ichigo." It was the only thing I could think of that named it for its purpose. I've rp'd before, but that blog was attached to other ones where I drew the ire of trolls, or that shared permissions with people who turned out to be very bad people. I didn't have a whole lot on my rp blog, wasn't terribly active, so I decided to start fresh.

Feel free to ask questions!

[sparklyjojos]

Some final commentary on Cosmic

which turned into yet another analysis of JDC, Tsukumojuku and Jorge Joestar because I have zero self-restraint. Half this post is searching for overarching themes and wacky theories, have fun with my ramblings I guess

[big spoilers for Cosmic and Tsukumojuku, not really for Jorge Joestar]

While I decided to finish Cosmic first, the recommended reading order is Cosmic (1st half) -> Joker -> Cosmic (2nd half). I guess this better ties both books together and helps avoid some Joker spoilers that are in Cosmic. The new edition even encourages it by labeling the tomes of Cosmic with Ryu and Sui, and Joker with Sei and Ryo. So you’re supposed to read “Seiryo in Ryusui” *rimshot* The cover art is also meant to be put together in that order (notice that the last cover also connects to the first though, and you can try putting the shorter edges together too):

On the book’s theme, and some meta:

I’m actually glad I’ve read Tsukumojuku before this, as it gave me a solid grip on the meta and the ridiculous detectiving. It made me LOVE the very ending, especially the “walking towards the end of the story with this tiny last moment lasting forever” part -- in hindsight of Tsukumojuku’s ending I almost cried at this point. The meaning’s a bit different, of course: Tsukumojuku has the triplets realize they should leave their daydream, and so it was both a sad and joyful ending, with them trying to stretch their last moments being ‘Tsukumojuku’. Cosmic has Juku and Yasha being a little apprehensive but determined to reach ‘the end of the story’, and at the end, they’re happy and joking around while (wittingly or not?) walking into eternity as the book ends, and with it their existence (...which doesn’t sound nearly as dramatic when you know there's a sequel).

Adding to that, I believe the last words imply the author (=the heavens forever watching over the characters) is joyful about the end (’the heavens themselves laughing’). Note that when Juku (or is it?) first appears in the book, in that post office scene, right after the 19 consecutive tragedies we just had to read through, we learn that ‘the heavens have been crying, but now it was as if they started laughing’, and Juku looks up at the sky and smiles. The end of the epilogue has the second-person someone (the reader?) be sad about the book coming to an end, with statements like ‘just two paragraphs remain until the end’ (and there really are only two short paragraphs in the book left after this!), and describing the heavy rain that starts in those two paragraphs as ‘the heavens crying’ (so... the sadness of both the reader and the author?). Finishing a good book, whether as a writer or a reader, is indeed both a joyful and a sad event. Similarly, the detectives are all happy and inexplicably sad when Juku claims the case has been solved. (There’s an echo of this theme even in Jorge Joestar, when with mere 15 pages left until the end of the book Jorge cries because ‘this adventure’s almost over’.)

I love the reccurring existential theme having to do with being a fictional character. It wasn’t as in-your-face as in Tsukumojuku, but it was there. While I skipped that in recaps, one of the locked room stories features a delusional man who believes he’s just a character in a novel. While scary, this belief is somewhat comforting too, and he notes it’d be nice to have a role to fulfill; to die with the sense you achieved all that you were meant to do, that The Author loved and appreciated you for who you were, and that you’re going to live eternally through a novel. (Jorge Joestar has Tsukumojuku mention how having a role to fulfill under Beyond’s care gave him comfort -- same thing, really.) But the character understands that all stories will eventually undergo destruction, and dreads it. Of course, the final message of the book, strengthened by the final events (the cult’s failure, Shiranui dying right after Juku’s birthday, and even --the book itself ending--), is that we have to accept that nothing can last forever, and the old will be replaced by the new, stories included.

When Juku and Yasha revealed the culprit’s initials, I honestly thought that he’d turn out to be the author, and the reason why they got different initials was that Juku saw the pen name (Seiryoin Ryusui) and Yasha the real name (Kanai Hidetaka). Since Yasha seemed shocked that Juku said ‘S’, I thought it meant that Yasha saw a full name but neither of the initials was ‘S’. I also thought Otohime’s advice -- to ‘look at the events from a distance’, to ‘withdraw yourself from events’ -- actually meant you have to look at the story from a distance... that is, lean back and look at the book you’re holding, which has the author’s name on the cover. Later, the sudden fourth wall break during the press conference scene, with the author prompting the reader to think carefully about who the Locked Room Lord may be, and writing his signature right under that question, only made me more sure. And there were a bunch of scenes before the Big Reveal in which other JDC characters reacted to the solution with feeling as if their world was destroyed, or getting drunk, or stressing out rather hard, so I expected they got hit with existential crisis upon learning The Truth, and that Juku will just go full meta and say that the culprit is the author: the one who really designed and 'committed’ the murders. Though with the book ending as it did, it’s not a stretch to say that Seiryoin really IS confirmed to be the true Locked Room Lord. In a way.

Other random comments:

This book is positively untranslatable. It features stuff like extensive kanji wordplays; messages in Caesar cipher but using the dictionary order of hiragana; deciphering a number as if it was an old-fashioned pager message; or reading the final message by putting the first syllable of the last kanji of the victims’ names together. And that damn Matsuo Bashou pun. All the name puns, really.

The language is rather hard, definitely harder than Maijo’s works. I think I’ll take some time to get better Japanese skills before going for Joker. (The JDC book I expect to enjoy the most is The Simons’ Case, though -- young Ajiro dadding over solving a case with kid Juku sounds amazing, and it’s a lot of fans’ fave)

For some reason, the main characters sure like to have the ‘castle’ kanji (城) in their names, like 鴉城 蒼司 (Ajiro Souji), 龍宮 城之介 (Ryuuguu Jounosuke), and  天城 漂馬 (Amagi Hyouma). ...I can’t help but notice that a certain 城字 ジョースター (Jouji/Jorge Joestar) would fit right in, lol. He pretty much is a meta-detective already, what with all the confidence and insight he gets from his Beyond.

I live for Ajiro’s and Juku’s relations. LOVE this stressed detective dad being proud of his ridiculously kind detective son.

Unexpectedly I also loved the friendship between Juku and Yasha. (With added tears because, y’know. Inugami Yasha. Investigating with Tsukumo Juku. Being friends and stuff.)

I like Ryuuguu Jounosuke quite a lot, both because of his character / reasoning skills, and because he’s as canonically aroace as he can be in a 90s book. not that you’d know that with all the Hikimiya/Ryuuguu yaoi fanart on pixiv

Unfortunately, I can’t praise Seiryoin for good rep as he’s miserable with other representation. The locked room chapters feature the depraved rapist bisexual trope, then a Bury Your Lesbians trope, and then this weird thing where a young guy has a gay crush and concludes that he must have become gay because he was abused by his mother (???)... but as it later turns out, in reality (ie. not in the manuscript) the object of the crush was a woman, so the gay part didn’t even happen. The fuq? Also there’s a one-scene-only black woman officer who’s only there so we can be told how physically strong and intimidating she is and I’m not sure how I should feel about that. I’m also pissed off that when a male detective uses vague reasoning out of nowhere, more a supernatural feeling than anything else, he gets called a meta-detective and is oh ah so elite and amazing!, but when Nemu does it it gets called ‘woman’s intuition’ and ‘fuzzy reasoning’ and she’s not considered a meta-detective, fucking really? (Maybe it is a little different, idk, she wasn’t detectiving a lot in this so we didn’t really see what she’s capable of)

On the other hand, I liked that the way Juku encouraged Nemu to become a detective involved using his connections to arrange meetings with other disabled detectives, so she could talk frankly with them and get a feel for how high-tier detectiving while disabled (esp. in terms of sight-related disabilities) is like. That’s a nice detail.

Speaking of him... Tsukumo Juku is pretty Mary Sue-ish in this, which I don’t mind (and I would be more surprised if it didn’t turn out to be intentional later), but I can imagine other readers not really liking him that much. I’ve read that Juku unfortunately doesn’t really get deeper characterization until the Carnival books, where we learn fun little stuff about him, eg. he’s horrible at cooking, and his ringtone is the opening for Manga Nippon Mukashi Banashi (an old anime introducing little kids to folktales). (I’m wondering whether or not the Kintaro thing in Jorge Joestar is related to this somehow? I don’t have many spoilers for Carnival, maybe there’s more folktales references... aside from the Ryuuguu family’s names referencing Urashima Taro, that is. And now I wonder why Jorge gets a folktale-related kids song stuck in his head so easily hmmm)

It was never explained who sent the manuscript to JDC. So far, judging by the scene with the beautiful androgynous person at the post office, and retroactively by the entire Story-sending mess in Tsukumojuku, I’d say it was Juku himself, somehow. A time-travelling Juku from the future, maybe? I don’t know anymore, man, but I’ve read that previous cases of the series come together in Carnival, so here’s hoping it gets explained better than as “a ghost did it maybe”.

For the longest time I kept wondering where the personality dissonance between this Juku and the Detective God in Tsukumojuku came from. Why would this ever gentle, kind and forgiving character be written as some vore murderer monster dude? So, here’s my current Reaching Theory TM. We know the Detective God really is ‘an Angel’ as he claimed, since in the Seventh Story, Tsukumojuku realizes that he himself is actually not ‘the Angel’ but ‘the Beast’ (he thinks about it during that, er... awkward chest pipe moment, if you remember). Now, canon Juku actually is compared to ‘an angel or a god’ in Cosmic, and it’s a good descriptor: he’s kind and forgiving, but has the sorta detached, not-quite-human air; he’s androgynous, unnervingly perfectly beautiful, and one shouldn’t look directly at him for too long. The Detective God, on the other hand, is an Angel in the same way those demons from Jacob’s Ladder are: only when you stop holding onto mortal life (the imaginary world in Beyonds’ case) and accept your death (accept you have to go ‘outside’), you may notice they’re actually angels who have been trying to help you realize the truth. Through brutal means, but still. I guess the Detective God was created by the part of the Beyonds’ subconscious that understands they have to accept the reality, or something. He’s a bit like Silent Hill monsters in this way. Note that the person the Detective God mainly attacks (and possibly talks with him off-screen earlier) is the Original. And the Story it happens in, Fourth (II), is the point after which the Original probably started thinking about the plan involving killing everything they hold dear to make them face reality. It was really Detective God who first made the Original and the Second One aware of ‘God’ -- even if indirectly: getting them to think about ‘God’ by making them refute the claim that Seiryoin is their God, getting them to think about what the presence of ‘the canon Tsukumo Juku’ before them means for their own existence. Or Maijo just likes to write hard vore and i’m thinking too much

[iason-mink]

Have you seen the new preview clip of the show on twitter? What do you think about the show?

//Alright. I sat and watched the clip. I watched it five times. I am going to explain my thoughts on it below thoroughly. 

Iason.

No offence to the actor’s performance at all because I think this was a directorial and/or casting call error but Todd Haberkorn as Iason Mink???? Come On. His voice doesn’t fit. Like. At all. It’s not deep enough. Not confident enough. Not commanding enough. Not sensual enough. And far too loud. He needs to sound like a cold, terrifyingly-sadistic monster that would whisper sexual nightmares into your ear while you’re sleeping.  Iason needs someone with a deeper register to convey these qualities to an English audience. Even Kaneto Shiozawa, Iason’s original VA, (who had arguably the best seme voice I’ve ever heard) had a register for this character (when he was speaking louder than a whisper) that was too high, if he’d been speaking English. In Japanese it was perfect, but different tones and different ways of speaking convey different things in other languages so simply trying to match the tone and vocal “quirks” of the japanese VA in the English VA, is not going to work. That, unfortunately, is what it sounds like they did here.

They really needed to get someone with a voice like (god and I hate to say this but) Markiplier from youtube. That’s what would be needed here to convey someone like Iason, who if you watch other versions of this, speaks very quietly for the vast majority of his dialogue, because he has the sheer dominating power in his voice and words to do so and still be obeyed without question. In fact Iason only raises his voice when he’s with Riki, for the most part. That shows how unhinged Riki makes him at times and is a crucial point in conveying development and emotional shifts in his character.

The reason I suggested Markiplier is because he is someone with a deep base register and an authoritative, charismatic vocal presence that would still be austere enough to convey Iason’s high-class indifference even when whispering. Like when he does his super serious let’s play voice, the one when he’s reading notes and things in dramatic games that’s low and quiet and sultry and has that hint of something more that you can’t help but want to listen to? That’s the kind of resonance Iason needed in English to get his character across. 

Not to mention the motivation in the scene they chose wasn’t supposed to be about Iason showing power or control, which is what came across in the acting. He’s indifferent and cold toward Riki only because he can’t admit to himself yet that he cares as much for him as he does and he’s putting on a front. Inside he’s breaking watching him run away. His speech to himself internally as he’s getting into his car is just him posturing to himself, trying to convince himself that things are going to go the way he wants them, because he doesn’t know how to process the idea that things might not go that way. 

Riki. 

I’m sorry, but he sounds like a BL uke version of some “BELIEVE IT!” shounen hero character. It’s obvious they didn’t look much at the original anime or the books before casting/directing thisbecause that’s where you see Riki’s history, his life before he came to Eos, and all the suffering he endured with Iason. In the remake these things are touched on briefly. I understand time constraints and scheduling and things like that limit the amount of research a studio can do, I really do. I just wish the director could have done more. The things that we would have seen later on in the series, had it not been cut off at 4 episodes, are the important things about Riki’s character in particular that would be important in conveying his character in English.

Before Iason spent three years destroying him, Riki was a motorcycle-riding street-fighting BADASS. He was the leader of a GANG and not just any gang but the TOP gang in a slum filled with them. He beat the shit out of people for fun on the daily. He oozed so much natural leadership and charisma that people fanatically gravitated to him. He was running shit. At 15. That’s why it took such a monumental effort for Iason to break him, and even then he never destroyed his pride completely. I’m sorry to say, but the actor they chose makes him sound much too naive, young and “bright”. If Riki was a stereotypical uke character with a typical BL “tragic past” then yeah, sure, the voice they gave him would be fine. That isn’t the case with him though. He’s not a typical “uke”. Nothing about this series is typical. If the yaoi genre were Game of Thrones then Ai no Kusabi would be the king sitting his ass on that iron throne surrounded by dragons and knights and shit.

All in all, Riki is a broken alpha-wolf of a man and you cannot hear that in this casting. The thing that makes Ai no Kusabi groundbreaking is that both Iason and Riki are dominant characters in their own respects. They are both bad people in their own ways. Iason, by design and choice, Riki by instinct and circumstance. Only their coming together because of Iason’s whim of fancy makes them take on this bizarre master/slave relationship structure. Both their voices need to reflect a dominant quality in English and sadly the studio has failed to do this for them thus far.

Hopefully my reasoning assuages any misconceptions you may have that I am saying I dislike this simply because I anticipated disliking it from the get go. There really are reasons I don’t like it, this is a thorough analysis and I not only explained why I feel the way I do, but provided suggestions on what needs to be changed to improve it. 

Also, I’ll still buy this and give the whole thing a fair shake once it’s released because I know they aren’t finished yet and things can change.

So far though? I really hate to say this, because I love the ai no kusabi series and really wanted this to be good, but sadly this is the poorly researched mediocrity I was expecting. 

EDIT:

Upon discussing this with a friend, if they digitally deepen both actors voices it would be MUCH better and fix things a bit. Not the acting per say which lacks proper motivation, but just…the tones. Sort of. *sigh* 

[ghoul--chan]

Episode 8 of Katsugeki/ Touken Ranbu. I have nothing to say but wow. We saw the aftermanth of the battle of last weeks episode. Saw the second unit come back together. And at the end see them head out for a new mission.

Overall a calm episode, loved every minute of it. Saw more of my favs.

The fact we saw the aftermath was interesting, i had never thought in game that there would be stuff happenening, i always asumed the guys beat them before they had the chance to do anything really major, and in a sense i was right, but seing the minor things. Man that stung, those people losing loved ones, just people in general dieing that shouldn't have died. Man Honebami i seriously feel you. Also the first unit offering the victims of the aftermath food that was lovely to see, also they do this out of their own will not because their saniwa asked them to. Can i get a sepparate show just focusing on the first unit? Like have both shows run simultaniously, because i also love the second unit and don't want one over the other.

Speaking of the second unit. Izuminokami still has some mental scars of the last mission, dispide it being a succes just barely, still there was a lot that went wrong, but hey it was their first mission together, and now they have gotten to know each other better im sure they are gonna kick some ass next episode. But yeah i wonder how Izuminokami's mental scars are gonna kick in. Also with Mikazuki right before they leave he tells them the important part they need to remember, i wonder how that is gonna pack out with Kane-san's already weakened mental state, but i feel like in the next episodes somewhere kane-san is gonna come to a conclusion on what his words in episode 6 ment, because on one hand Mikazuki is really direct with words (at least in game he is, and in this episode to) but in his and Kane-san's conversation he was kinda vague, then again Kane-san was being vague in his questions too, i need to watch the scene again before i can come to a conclusion here. But really Mikazuki really fits the bill of a mentor character, he gives answers to others questions but also doesn't completely spell it out to them, it might seem he didn't really help much at first but later they wil realise what he ment with those words. I feel that in one of the last episode's Kane-san and Mikazuki will have a conversation again just to let this come full circle.

O boy i talked a lot on one tiny part, but next the parts were we got to see the Second Unit come back together again, loved it, also Mutsunokami XD seriously he just makes me smile when he's on screen. And yeah like Horikawa said he and Kane-san really are alike in some ways yet are also different. Anyway just putting it out there if Kane-san really didn't want him back on the team he would just have told him to get lost right after they greeted each other instead of letting him trail behind them, so yeah Mutsu's freakout not really needed if you think about it, but it shows character in the fact Mutsu needed to hear the words that he was still in the team, i like that.

Also everyone giving Tonbokiri the same gift of Daifuku XD, but they tried at least. I hope he packed some for on the journey as a snack or something. God the anime makes me like Tonbokiri even more than i already liked him. Good job Ufotable.

Also Shokudaikiri showed up even if it was for a tiny bit. Huray for sword dad to finally have some lines in this show, even if it was only for talking about a tomato and giving Turumaru an okey to go. I still loved it.

I know this show is not for everyone, but please respect people that do like the show. But i will say this show has some good action, and the characters... Well they are kinda tropey, but what i know about the characters thanks to the game, i know there is more to these guys that you might initally think, its a historical anime so yeah do some research, anime doesn't explain the events and previous owners of the swords, so you may wanna look this up. But yeah it's japanese history so for their home audience they probably don't have to go into much detail, and game players of course. I wish i knew what most of these event were but i don't, but i still watch it to see my guys animated, and focus on the stuff i do know, and i'm statisfied with this. And most complaints i've seen on the show were just petty at best, the most heard complaint was "were are the female character?" Like really people, if you don't like an all guys cast just watch one of the hundereds anime with all girls casts. And they also all pretty much dississed this show as a yaoi instandly, well guess i can say all this girl cast anime are all Yuri anime. Which i know they aren't. Seriously what happened to just letting people watch the shows they want without complaining right at the first or second episode. Just let us enjoy our shows in Peace.

[rainbowravioli]

hi again, yes about the interview in particular and if you have new thoughts on S2 (because i know you already wrote some predictions and problems that could occur) that would be great!!

Alright then.

So this trainwreck of an interview. This was a wild ride. Just when you think there is no possible way to be more disappointed with the YOI staff, we get this. After this interview, Yuri on Ice can’t claim praise over representation. It can’t.

I’m going to cover the points that I found more…distressing, let’s say. If there’s anything I don’t touch upon that people want me to comment on specifically, feel free to send me an ask. All the bolding in the quotes will be my doing for emphasis of certain points.

Let’s start with this really, really worrisome thing:

Regarding Yuuri and Victor’s scene after the FS, I was fine with it being interpreted in any way. However this is the part that had more response from overseas, I was even directly asked “which one it was”. And then I heard from Japanese people too that some had an argument with their friends over whether they kissed or not, or they just hugged. I was surprised that people would want to know the truth. Up until then I had always thought that people wanted to be able to interpret fiction how they preferred. But seeing the reactions that this episode received, I realized that even if it’s fiction, inside people’s mind this series exists as a world of its own and so they believe that there must be a correct truth, an exact answer somewhere.

First of all let me say that I am very glad there’s finally been mention of the Japanese fandom asking about the kiss or hug thing because I was getting very tired of the whole “lol silly westerners~” thing. That said…how is she surprised that people want to know? If she’s writing this story about two male characters being in a romantic relationship, especially amidst the sea of fanservice bait and toxic yaoi bs, people are going to want confirmation that these two characters did kiss! Mind you, I am team “it was a kiss” and have been since the episode aired, but it’s highly irresponsible of Kubo to just adopt this nonchalant attitude of “I’m fine with any interpretation.” She shouldn’t be fine! This to me says that she was never actually concerned at all with giving anyone representation. 

Victor is asked whether he would like to fight Yuuri as an athlete, but he really doesn’t think that. Actually many people were expecting to see Victor and Yuuri confront each other in a match eventually, however Yuuri is also “trying to win to prove Victor’s skating”. The director and I shared this same opinion when we wrote the series.

Yeah this one is just here for me to go, thanks for the further evidence that Victor was originally meant to retire! Miss me with that “Yuuri skates for Victor” thing though, Yuuri deserves better than that. 

Yurio’s FS is still incomplete, but I wanted to show how he was able to obtain a new strength and elegance thanks to the presence of Lilia, Yakov, his grandpa and JJ as a rival. I also depicted his aggressive side when he changes the composition of the program to win, and the fact that he still isn’t able to win against JJ, which is another trial that he needs to overcome.

This is here as an example of what I mean when I say that an author’s intentions are all well and good but the work needs to speak for itself. In this case, JJ was never a trial for Yurio to overcome. He was set up as such, but Yurio never actually had to win against him because JJ ended up self-destructing in the end.

In a meeting with the director I asked her a very basic question: “Why does Yuuri want to win?”, and she replied “Well, he has never won a gold medal so far, of course he wants to win!”. I thought that made sense. Yuuri, who has never won an international competition, wants to win a gold medal before retiring. The “origin” of his desire to win is in fact pretty simple. He has been able to work hard so far because he wants to win a gold medal and is confident that he is good enough to succeed. I inserted that monologue because, even though Yuuri might look weak, he actually has been fighting the whole time.

First of all WHAT? You’re the main writer of the series! You should know your main character’s motivations! How do you not know? How could you have been writing him without knowing it? That’s basic character building! Second of all, she apparently doesn’t know her own characters at all. Because Yuuri Katsuki is not confident! This is a character trait AND a plot point, that’s repeatedly mentioned by other characters and by Yuuri himself! W H A T?!

I was told that the words “please take care of me until I retire” are actually something that real skaters say when they ask someone to be their coach. When I heard that, I thought that this was the perfect timing for Yuuri to tell Victor. At this time, Victor doesn’t take these words in the sense Yuuri really means, which is “until the end of this season”. He left Yuuri fighting alone in a tournament, so I think he was very torn about whether he should apologize and about what he should tell him when they met again. But then Yuuri told him “until I retire”, and I think Victor was probably really happy because it meant that Yuuri still needed him even when he was far away. Victor didn’t think that Yuuri would retire after the end of the GP Final, and he didn’t clearly decide until when he would continue being Yuuri’s coach, therefore I believe that he was happy to hear Yuuri’s feelings, to know that Yuuri too wanted him to be his coach until the end.

Absolutely no mention of Yuuri and Victor’s relationship being anything beyond that of coach and athlete, absolutely no mention of “that sounds like a marriage proposal”. 

What Yuuri bought is pair rings. When I looked it up I found out that buying a pair was cheaper (LOL), and I also thought that if they were going to wear something matching this would be good. There are actually many real skaters who wear accessories as “omamori”, protective charms. More importantly, Yuuri has been giving Victor fresh surprises until now, and I wanted him to get a new item, a weapon to fight in the final match. When I suggested the rings to the director she was like “Yes, that!!” (LOL). We were like, “yeah, a cornered athlete would do something like that!” More than implicating something like a wedding, it’s similar to members of the same circle deciding to have a matching item.

I AM LAUGHING AND CRYING GUYS! LAUGHING AND CRYING!

Platonic! Wedding rings!

But wait wait! It gets worse! Because we have this to top it off!

Victor is surprised by Yuuri’s action but understands him, so he makes a wish upon the ring telling him “show me the skating that you like the most”. In the China tournament he said things as if he was testing Yuuri, he “broke” his heart, so here he finally vows to the ring that “he will completely trust what Yuuri decides” and is determined to do what he can as a coach.

That entire scene was a platonic scene between coach and athlete, it’s what this is saying. It was never meant to be a proposal on Yuuri’s part! So there actually was no canon Victuuri proposal. Victor announcing they are engaged is not a proposal, it’s an announcement. One that Yuuri doesn’t even confirm. And then it’s never brought up again. ARE THEY EVEN ENGAGED?!

Platonic wedding rings! How do you pick wedding rings as a platonic symbol for your characters to share?! Remember how people joked about the rings being platonic because people still didn’t see Victuuri as canon? Those ‘just a bro buying wedding rings to another bro’ things? Well Kubo says they are platonic! Canonically platonic wedding rings! This is even better than #trancendental 

There’s also a moment where Yurio thought Victor was smirking looking at the ring. Like Yurio says in this scene, people tend to believe that athletes “die as competitors” when they stop and “become stable”. But I think that Victor, more than anyone else, is sensitive to this topic and is worried that people will say that about him, or that he will actually become like that. In this scene Victor wasn’t smirking, he was starting to think about his future.

Pray for Victor’s lost characterization. He’s truly dead.

Yuuri makes an attempt at adding a quadruple flip in his SP, but actually in the beginning I wasn’t planning to have him jump so many quads. The increasing level of real life competitions prompted me to add a realistic feeling by showing how you can’t win if you don’t have multiple quads in your programs. The reason Victor jumps a quad flip together with Yuuri during his performance is, more than something he does as a coach, something that comes from his feelings as an athlete.

The flip means absolutely nothing for how Victor feels about Yuuri. Nothing.

The reason Yurio could pull off his best performance is that many elements like his experience and the environment surrounding him all blended together perfectly right at this time. From an external point of view young and strong athletes somehow tend to look like they are “destined to win”, like they are performing a program prepared to win. However, every single second of their performance is the result of their efforts. I wanted to show this with Yurio’s SP.

Gonna quote @soobaki on this one “maybe bc theyre literally always the protag in every other series and yoi was supposed to subvert that but then didn”. If you wanted Yurio to be the protagonist so badly, you should have just made him the protagonist from the get-go. 

When Victor is watching Yurio’s performance we cannot see his expression because I myself haven’t decided what the truth is, like whether he is frustrated because Yurio beat his record, or he wants to surpass him again, or what else.

Lady. LADY! L A D Y!!! You! Are! The! Writer! If you don’t know, who knows???

In the end I’m really portraying every character thinking that I want them to win, and especially in JJ’s case, he has a power that makes you want him to win.

JJ won bronze because author favoritism. There. It’s explained now. Honestly, read the way she talks about JJ in the entire interview. At this point I’m sure she likes him more than Yuuri. Hell, at this point I don’t think she likes Yuuri that much.

I could touch upon every single point of episode 12 believe me, but here’s my top offenders.

What Victor told Yuuri right before he starts is performance, more than something that he really thinks deep down, is what he came up with when thinking about what could encourage Yuuri Katsuki the most, so basically it’s “Victor playing the role of Victor as Yuuri expects him”.

……………….

I have no words.

No, wait, I have many words. Starting with, what the hell? So…I really dislike that scene. I think I made my feelings for that scene obvious. This just makes that scene worst. So Yuuri tells Victor to be true to himself and Victor…acts. He’s not being sincere. Victor goes back to playing a role, the role he thinks Yuuri wants him to play. This is utterly heartbreaking. And really unhealthy as far as their relationship goes! There is not positive way of reading this. 

Regarding the scene where Victor hugs Yurio before the competition, he didn’t do it because he was begging for his help to stop Yuuri from retiring, or because he was asking him something. He just wanted Yurio to skate at his best, it was his genuine feelings of support for him, as if he was saying “go and do your best!”. After all, until this scene we never really saw Victor support Yurio. It’s an action that cannot be explained with logic. 

Ok well, you didn’t convey that, did you? Some basic scene set-up and character acting was sorely missing from that scene. Still, RIP manipulative!Victor theory. Small blessings.

That said, here’s Kubo forgetting her own canon again. We never saw Victor support Yurio until this scene? You sure?

Are you really sure about that?

She also keeps saying that certain character’s actions or thoughts or feelings “can’t be explained through logic” and all I have to say about that is this: cheap excuse. You’re the writer, you should know how to explain your characters.

The selfish decision ultimately taken by the selfish Yuuri Katsuki was to continue competitive skating. I think there were many reasons that led to this conclusion. Not only what Victor gave him, but Yurio’s performance in the FS also managed to pull Yuuri back to the ice, and maybe he was influenced by the other athletes’ performances too. 

Yuuri Katsuki? Selfish?! Yuuri who spent most of the series thinking about people other than himself? Yuuri who had a mental breakdown over the idea that he was keeping Victor from happiness? Yuuri who had “accepting and admitting to his desires” as part of his character arc? Yuuri who had to be pushed by other to do the things he wanted for himself? Ok so she clearly doesn’t know her characters.

She “thinks” there are many reasons that led to the conclusion of Yuuri continuing to compete? Please enlighten us. Other than “we wanted a s2 and didn’t know how else to pitch it, also give us your money”, what other many reasons were there? Narratively, I’m pretty sure not even Kubo knows, considering the “MAYBE he was influences by the other athletes’ performances too”. 

This interview guys. I’m pretty sure it shortened my life span. Character derailment, retcons, continuing to insist on the at this point blatant lie that the finale was planned from the start (I would still be furious about it, but I would respect the staff so much more if they admitted they changed it at the last minute), and still no confirmation of a romantic relationship between Yuuri and Victor, on the contrary. I don’t really have new thoughts about s2, other than the fact that it’s not looking great. Not looking great.

Platonic wedding rings.