#and here’s my review: not incestuous enough!

[kylermalloy]

Tagged by @knivash—ty ty! 💖 I did one of these not long ago, but I’m doing it again. I’m a different person from back then 😤

Current song: The Call by Ruu Campbell. I spent like twenty minutes searching for “the dreamy song that had the line ‘roses in the wind’ in it somewhere” and when I finally found it, I started playing the whole album on loop. It’s very KV coded, honestly!

Currently watching: the 1998 Trigun! Also Fire Force.

Currently reading: Red Seas Under Red Skies by Scott Lynch. It got me through last weekend, when I unexpectedly had to move classrooms at work, all by myself. It kept my mind occupied and from getting too frustrated 🙃

Current obsession: still Trigun! It’s gotten worse, actually. I’m 20k words deep into planning a fanfic, and I’m…starting to put together a cosplay? Which I have never done in my life?

Tagging: @whitedahlia13, @laertez, @ouredentogether, @thesunwillshineclearer, @stilesssolo, @ryanthedemiboy, @theawfuledges, @thesabotagedandovershadowed, @freakazoidr17cr-5

[hudbannonarchive]

this was so salmondean of them

[insomniacacademic]

Alternative Dark Academia: Dusty Answer (1927) by Rosamond Lehmann 🕯️

There is not a doubt in my mind that Donna Tartt has read this and that the greek class in the Secret History is heavily inspired by these characters, down to the incestuous blonde couple (Charlie and Mariella, instead of Charles and Camilla) and the intellectual brooding leader of the bunch who is named Julian here, instead of Henry. I am stunned at how few reviews it has on goodreads and can not recommend it enough. Its a coming of age book of a young woman named Judith and covers her efforts to insert herself into this close knit friend group as well as her romantic feelings towards both men and women during her time at Cambridge. The TLDR: Like the secret history but instead of murder there is sapphic romance and unrequited love

[gamebunny-advance]

Sus.

I just need to get this story off my chest because it's been bothering me since it happened. It's nothing really relevant to what I usually post or anything that's happened here, so feel free to skip this "story" if the subject matter offends you.

Content Warning for minors in implied sexual situations.

So, Youtube likes to recommend cartoon review/analysis videos to me, even of shows I've never watched. Sometimes I watch them because I like watching people be passionate about any given subject.

But other times they can be a little cringe because it's still grown adults yelling about cartoons, ya know? I'm happy that they've got something they're passionate enough about to sink so much time and effort into a video, but that doesn't automatically make me share their enthusiasm, especially if it's coming from a place of a bad faith criticism.

For the most part, I just move on from videos that give that vibe, but I recently came across one that disturbed me in a way that no one in the comments was really pointing out because they were too busy agreeing with the sentiment that the cartoon in question was bad.

The video was about some reboot for Tiny Toon Adventures (I literally know nothing about it other than what the video told me, and at this point I'd rather not learn anything more about it).

The video had pretty high production values all things considered, with a lot of original animation and art, like actual lip-synching on the avatar and detailed backgrounds as opposed to the static sprites on single colored/patterned backgrounds I usually see among cartoon critics.

I didn't stay long enough for the credits or check the description, but presumably all the art was done by the speaker/creator. Due to this, I was impressed enough to stick around to see what he had to say. Generally speaking, you just don't put that amount of effort into something that you're not passionate about, and I'm here for the passion first and opinions second.

The first talking point was about how the show apparently changed the relationship between the lead characters, Babs and Buster Bunny, from friends/lovers to siblings. This was gotten across in the usual way of the speaker overacting how angry/shocked they are about what is honestly a mundane change in the grand scheme of things. This was turn-off number 1 because I don't find the "caustic critic" to be that funny, especially when it's in service to bad faith criticisms. But, that wasn't what really disturbed me.

What set off a red flag to me, was the "skit" that followed.

The speaker detailed a situation where children, illustrated as a young girl and young boy, who were fans of the new reboot would eventually go back and watch the original show and be corrupted due to them misunderstanding the characters' relationship as being incestuous. I thought that this point was heavily exaggerated (as bits of this nature tend to be), but it's still not what disturbed me.

What disturbed me was how one of the sight gags to illustrate this point was to show the children wearing character themed underwear.

I'm not saying the underwear was drawn as a separate prop that they were implied to be wearing. I mean that as a part of the gag, I was forced to briefly look at two children standing in their underwear for no good reason. And to get to that gag, the characters were first fully dressed in merch before revealing their underwear underneath.

So not only was I forced to look at two children standing in their underwear, but they were literally undressed in front of me to make that "joke".

And immediately following that, I'm also forced to look at the girl child wrapped up in a spiderweb about to be eaten by a giant spider to illustrate the point that the kids are now trapped in some sort of "mindweb" from the confusion.

So me, knowing that tying people in spiderwebs is an uncommon but real fetish, felt deeply uncomfortable by this scene occurring right after the children were shown half naked.

Like, I'm not accusing that creator of anything because none of this is proof of any wrongdoing or bad intention outside of the bad faith criticism of the show. But I will say that I was so disturbed by this that I literally couldn't watch the rest of the video, so I don't know if it got worse from there.

But to try and prove that I'm not trying to say this in bad faith, I'll grant a couple of "outs":

The children weren't drawn particularly realistically: they were stick figure-esque in comparison to the more detailed art in the rest of the video that I saw. If the artist really wanted to detail these children, they probably would have, so I don't believe the drawings were meant to be especially gratifying.

I also know that cartoon print underwear is a shorthand for the character wearing them to be obsessed with the cartoon on the underwear. It's literally a joke from the Spongebob Movie, so if this guy was old enough to have been a fan of the original Tiny Toons, then he probably would have been in the age range to watch that movie and internalize that joke (or seen it elsewhere in a different cartoon). So it's possible that he might not have considered the implications of showing a child in a similar situation.

Additionally, while I don't recall much of Tiny Toons, I know that it's one of those shows that while it's made for children/general audiences, has a lot of mature humor, so maybe he thought he was doing the same thing without considering the implications of what he'd done.

Which is basically the same justification as the last point, but really the only way I can imagine someone thinking any of that was okay is ignorance.

But your dear ol'Sammy has been around the block a few times. Even though I can easily make up reasons why all this could be completely innocent/accidental, I feel like I can tell the difference between someone who made an honest mistake, and someone that is incapable of hiding what they really are. And this is sadly falling under the latter.

I always hope that I'm wrong in situations like this. I hope that I'm just paranoid and there's no malice at play here because my goal is not to punish wrongdoing, it's to make sure that other people are safe. But I can't ignore a red flag once I see it, and it was driving me crazy that no one seemed to be acknowledging it.

I won't link the video here because I don't want it to spread around, but if you really want to seek it out, then I've probably given enough information for you to find it on your own and make your own judgement about it.

[bunnidid-reviews]

DID Series Review

Facts -

Series name: Fractale

Run time: 2011-2011 (11 episodes)

Fiction or Nonfiction: Fiction

Was there a diagnosis of DID? Not explicitly, no

Was the person with DID presented as evil for having DID? No

Major Trigger warning list:

- Heavy Religious Themes (talk of purity and sin and all that)

-Incestuous Sexual Abuse (nonexplicit but heavily implied)

- mild Anime Bullshit (Awkward sexual themes and fanservice of minor characters that all anime seems to have some of)

- Gun violence, blood

- heavy themes of government control and gaslighting

- themes of people going ‘crazy’ and suicidal

- attempted sexual assault

- Clones being created and evaporated as a government experiment (is this a trigger? It might be)

- the implication of purposefully created DID via traumatic experiences

Subjective Review(this is how I felt about it) –

Personal triggering scale from 1 to 10 (1 being not triggering at all, 10 being a badly overwhelming experience that might cause personal harm): it goes from 1-8 for me because the implications are close to home and it did send me down a weird spiral every time I watched the last episode. There’s also some fairly violent scenes

Personal relatability scale from 1 to 10 (1 being unrelatable, 10 being OMG THAT’S ME!): 9

Personal avoidance scale from 1 to 10(1 being eager to get on with it, 10 being impossible to finish): 2

My interpretation of the media(Includes spoilers):

Fractale takes place in a futuristic society that relies entirely on the Fractale System, which is kind-of like the internet + VR capabilities. Most people use avatars, or named in this series Doppels to travel throughout the world while staying stationary themselves elsewhere(?). The logic of it all is both explained throughout the series and also very vague and hard to understand

The story follows Klaine as the male lead who doesn’t use the Fractale system, instead living in a rural little town on his own, away from his parents. He doesn’t seem to care about anyone or anything but collecting tech from the old world(which would be our modern society). His whole life is turned upside-down when our interesting female lead Phryne flies into his life, evidently on the run from rebels trying to capture her. Phryne hides with Klaine and leaves him the next morning with a little pendant; the key to the Fractale system.

Within the pendant is a little girl Doppel named Nessa, who seems to have a both physical and digital form and is full of energy and attachment feelings

Everything about this anime is unoriginal, based heavily on Castle in the Sky I’m guessing, as well as maybe Ready Player One(or maybe Sword Art Online? I can’t say because I haven’t seen that one though). But somehow, by taking these honestly better Ips and mashing them together, they’ve made this incredibly unoriginal and bland piece of art. I couldn’t find anything interesting about Klaine to even root for him really.

A lot of the series is focused around The System Bad But Also The Rebels Bad Because They Are Extreme. So the message is very blurry and poorly portrayed, especially when we have the ending that… Both Are Good Enough Anyway So We Didn’t Change Anything Actually Despite Many People Dying For Both Causes. It’s…. really ambiguous as to what the fuck all this was for? The anime was made with a lot of spite and hatred for the anime industry and you can just tell there’s not a lot of love put into it, unlike other series I’ve watched for these reviews.

Except.. For the portrayal of DID. Which is what we’re here for.

Maybe it’s because of how vague the whole anime is, but it lends enough room for the portrayal of DID to be fairly accurate, which can vary wildly from individual to individual as it is.

To explain shortly, Nessa, the key to the Fractale system, is a dissociated part of Phryne. In fact, that’s explicitly what she is, as revealed in the final episode.

1,000 years ago, when the Fractale System was created, they chose a girl to be the key to rebooting the whole system if it was ever needed, essentially making her God. God was a 16-year-old girl with DID, as a result of her father molesting her. It was within this split  that they based the whole Fractale system’s stability on.

Now Phyrne had been cloned thousands of times to replicate the original God, but to no avail. One of the clones had been raised by one of the temple’s men as her father. He did some beep boop research into the first Phryne and found out about the DID, so he.. Created DID within her by molesting her too. Thus she split Nessa, who took on a physical form in a Doppel.

Throughout the series, we see the two parts interact a little more over time, from Phryne being negligent and cold to this attachment, pure part of herself, them hating eachother and slowly coming to understand and love eachother in a very DID way that’s honestly quite beautiful.

All of this is vastly interesting and I’m so furious they didn’t focus more of the story on Phryne and Nessa!!!! So much was centered around the boring main character guy’s personal conflicts of am I A Rebel Or Not which ULTIMATELY DIDN’T EVEN MATTERRRR AAAAA

Overall, the execution of the anime was really poorly done and honestly boring, but I actually loved the concept of Phryne and Nessa and I really wish there was more of them and their relationship. I’ll go into the DID a little more in the rest of the review.

What they got Right in my opinion:

-          The cause of DID being childhood trauma, in this case incestuous sexual abuse

-          Nessa, although a ‘happy’ part, encapsulates Phryne’s needs for love and attachment, and since she’s dissociated off the whole (and therefore condensed, as parts tend to be), her needs and intense and her reactions are easily triggered

-          Phryne being in a lot of denial and inability to confront the fact that Nessa is part of her

-          Phryne explicitly dissociates multiple times(eyes go blurry and blank, she goes limp, she seemingly looses time and doesn’t have the full awareness of what may be happening)

-          Phryne is notably strong-willed and confident but fawns ‘for the greater good’

-          Nessa and Phrynes relationship can only be described as someone coming to love their younger self in such a… Parts way, you know? Like the accepting that you’re eachother and you also love yourself and eachother and ugh, it’s just beautiful

-          Nessa and Phryne integrate/fuse at the end, and it’s shown later that they’re now one complete person with traits from both of them, just no longer separate

-          Oh, the insecurity and feeling worthless and unlovable from trauma is palpable

-          While I thought the incestuous father was portrayed to be pretty over-the-top, I really appreciated how fucked up and not okay and creepy they portrayed it, rather than going more of one of those anime grey area ways you see sometimes. I feel like he was ridiculous, but you felt the weight of what he was doing reguardless

-          The portrayal of Nessa being a Doppel  really fits into the magic/technology system of the world, where people already tend to have a separation between soul and flesh. It felt like the DID naturally fit in

What they got Wrong in my opinion:

-          Klaine is boring as fuck why do we focus on his inner struggles when theres literally so much more to be focused on around him

-           I couldn’t think of any glaring issues with the DID representation otherwise. Since things are left fairly vague, there wasn’t anything in particularly ‘wrong’ that they latched onto as fact

Would I recommend this to someone with DID to watch?:  Uhhhhhhhhh maybe. I think Phryne and Nessa are somewhat worthwhile, but it can be triggering and otherwise really bland to watch. I’ll just give you a similar vague message as the anime does: sure, whatever

[watching-pictures-move]

Movie Review | Megalopolis (Coppola, 2024)

Whatever else I think of this, it totally rocks that something this weird and off putting was made at this much expense and could be unleashed into multiplexes where it could be inflicted on unsuspecting mass audiences who were expecting something more conventional from “the director of The Godfather.” Few other movies look this lavish and this low rent within the same frame. It sounds like I’m just admiring the circumstances of its production, but I do think there are sequences of real power. The scene where the hero is canceled through the reveal of a doctored sex tape while he parties in Refn-o-vision is the product of a great filmmaker willing to marry their technical prowess to the bozo brained instincts they’ve developed from no longer giving a fuck. (I will say I’m not in love with the yellow tint much of this is bathed in, but I suppose it matches the lavishness of the characters’ milieu.)

Surprisingly I haven’t seen the usual late style defenders going to bat for this one. I think part of it is that it’s oddly paced, and I wonder if there was a longer version that perhaps let the dramatic and political dimensions of the material breathe, as the film as is is paced with breathless indifference. But on the level of politics, this does seem intended as an allegory for the dangers of populism, and to its fault doesn’t do enough to sketch out the conditions that the hero is trying to address or the grievances of the public. (I perhaps was not paying enough attention, but I’m not sure I understood why his invention was the right path forward for the city.)

The political tensions here are navigated at the level of the individual personalities at the top and their solipsism, which is maybe not a very good message but is likely true to Francis Ford Coppola’s worldview. But it also feels in line with the Roman epics he evokes on a dramatic level, lots of scheming and incestuous (figuratively and literally) relations determining the fates of the masses. On that point, he has a number of great actors giving very weird performances, although I must confess that out of my three favourites, two were the types that likely played into the whole cancel culture element. Jon Voight gives the kind of performance where he comes off unaware that he cameras are rolling, while Shia LaBeouf’s scuzziness understandably colours his scheming populist in interesting ways. My other non-problematic favourite was Aubrey Plaza as Wow Platinum, whose name matches the movie’s garish visual decadence, and who I refuse to believe is without some good in her heart even if all of her actions onscreen suggest otherwise. (I can change her…) Anyway, the scene where the three of them are united with a boner joke is one of the movie’s highlights. A friend that I went to see this with jokingly suggested that this is like a less explicit Caligula, but I don’t think he’s off the mark at all.

But also, I think Coppola identifies deeply with the hero’s need to create and give his vision to the public, so perhaps the movie treats his creations as self evidently good for a reason. And as hokey as it is, I was maybe a little moved by the optimistic note this ends on.

[teronsrickman]

— Ashes rain from the eyes The black abyss looks at us There will be no other road further If you go to hell, I will follow you —Дождь из пепла льётся из глаз Чёрная бездна смотрит на нас Дальше не будет дороги другой Если ты в пекло, я — за тобой

np: Би-2 - Пекло SPOILERS My review of the DLC about Vaas. I do not know English very well and could mistakenly translate some things, sorry: Finished with Jonsy Vaas Insanity and the feeling is mixed. As with FarCry NewDawn, if I am asked about DLC with Vaas, I will spend two hours explaining what I liked and what caused my dissatisfaction. That’s what I’ll do now. First, I’ll tell you what I didn’t like, I’ll tell you my headcanons and what I liked. And I didn’t like it .... VAAS IN LOVE WITH A SISTER. What is it, finally, what are you, Ubisoft, smoked together with Vaas? Let me explain why I don't like this incestuous turn of events. After the game, I lay down for the night and realized that I still don't like the love affair between Vaasa and Citra so much that I cannot accept this canon. I've been in the fandom since 2015, and for far too many years I perceived their relationship as brotherly and that was the drama of their conflict. And here we get Vaas with a flower in his hands, who, as a naive one, cannot write a love letter to Citra. It's crazy to go out of my mind, I have never seen such an OOC in the canon. This is very different from Vaas. Therefore, I ignore this turn of events. I also missed Jason quite a bit. Yes, from the very beginning of the DLC announcement I said that I would like details in the relationship between Vaas and Citra (got it, fuck), but that didn’t mean that Jason would only shoot me and aggressively call me names. He also lost some of his bakery. Because, despite the fact that he became a killing machine, I still always saw in him something of his former naive image, for which I also loved him. And then it was lost. This is all happening in the minds of Vaas and I do not believe that Vaas did not imagine conversations with Jason in his head, even the most absurd ones. He spoke like that about their connection in the third part, both of them were fooled by Citra and both of them would no longer be able to live a normal life. That's why I love their dynamics. Therefore, in DLC I did not have enough chances with Jason. Now on to the good and my heads. Actually, in my headcanons, the relationship between Citra and Vaas developed exactly as we were shown, only without romantic love. Vaas honors his family and is deeply attached to Citra. "Who the fuck are we without a family?" From childhood he does everything for the sake of his sister, and Citra, in turn, from childhood, manifests its essence and begins to break his mental state of Vaas, manipulates him. And when he grows up and sits down on drugs and piracy, then these factors, on top of that, make him a madman, coupled with his sister dripping on his nerves. Their opinions start to diverge early. Citra is conservative and tries to hammer Vaas into the Rakyat customs, and also make him his warrior, who will limply act according to her decree. I do not even deny that Citra really could have planned incest for the sake of the appearance of an heir, however, without that pretentious love that we were shown. Vaas is naturally against such an outcome, and at some point, his sister's ultimatum forces him to make a choice in favor of himself and piracy. "Who the fuck will you choose? Us or them?" - there was so much sincerity in this scream, because it was hard for Vaas to go against his sister. I think that being a pirate, he did not kill her, because no matter what, he remembers that she is his family. Perhaps even, as much as he would not want to kill Citra, he realizes that he will still follow her into the heat, if necessary. Only he will never obey. In such a discord, some time passes and Jason gets into the drama of his sister and brother. And then we already know how Citra rebuilds its route to him and already brainwashes him, overwriting the warrior. Here I can already understand the active lustful inclinations of Citra to Jason and so on. Vaas naturally sees this and realizes that she is just as trying to manipulate Jason as she once was. And that's why he compares himself to Jason, says that they are two sides of the same coin. Here's a headkanon. Would write fanfic, I don’t know .. I really like to hate Citra for her desire to make Vaas a weak-willed warrior and give birth to an ideal heir. And I really love to see how Vaas just drives him crazy and hurts, because he is very attached to Citra as a sister, and she gets up to such madness and puts him in front of a terrible choice. And for some reason in the DLC they made Vaas in love, this cotton love letter and his jealousy of Citra for other men - I really didn’t like it, I really ignore it and headcanon what I like I am madly in love with Far Cry. To see my favorite characters again was joyful, pleasant and warm to tears. And it was just as nice that my friends got to know them, I really appreciate it. In general, I can say that I like a lot in DLC and I would like to fix a lot, as I have already described. Because it is a shame again, as in New Dawn, to ignore the canon because of its absurdity. I would like to love the whole game at once, and such a canon stumbling block as the Vaas / Citra pairing just sticks in and does not allow to accept the whole canon. Therefore, the headcanonss are my headcanons :_)

[bws-main]

"Fiction directly affects reality! It's normalizing The Bad Things!!!!"

Ok. Prove it. Bring me peer reviewed, scholarly sources that are acknowledged by a multitude of real professionals that prove your point. Cite your sources. Show me your objective research. Prove that lolis/shotas directly lead to more cases of child sexual abuse. Prove that slasher films directly lead to more murders. Prove that first person shooters directly lead to more domestic terrorism. While you're at it, why don't you prove that Game of Thrones directly led to more abusive, incestuous relationships? Why not prove that My Hero Academia is directly leading to more high school children becoming terrorists? Why not prove that The Stand is directly leading to a more deadly pandemic?

All of those pieces of media are widespread and relatively well known around the world, or, at the very least, across more than one continent. It's ridiculous to suggest that some random person on the internet writing a fanfiction about anything could lead to the normalization of a topic, when a multi million dollar media franchise with 1000x the reach and influence doesn't.

The average human being can differentiate between real things and fictional entities by the age of six.

Whatever fiction a person enjoys doesn't normalize anything. They have enough cognitive thought to know that what they see on a screen isn't real, and isn't acceptable in a real context either. But just because something is bad in real life doesn't mean it's wrong to explore, indulge, or study it in a fictional context. It's completely harmless.

This topic has been spoken on multiple times in the last few years by professionals--you know, people that have spent years of their lives dedicated to human behavior, the psyche, and the effect of varying stimulants on them--and they all agree that consuming problematic fiction does not make you a bad person. The key difference between consuming, for example, a first person shooter game such as Call of Duty and actually committing such an act that is depicted? One is between an individual (the player) and a figment of their imagination (the fictional world in which they are immersed), while the other directly harms and traumatizes a real human being.

The same can be applied to virtually anything, people that enjoy horror movies, slasher films, detective novels, magical girl shows, anything at all--they know it's fiction. It's not real, it will never be real. No harm is being done, nothing tangible is being translated into their every day lives.

Fiction is not the evil you make it out to be. But if you're actively doing harm to other people over their harmless hobbies, you are the biggest evil here.

[myethos]

a public message to animecore and pink blogs: stop posting nekopara

TW for pedophilia, slavery, incest

I’ve seen an uncomfortable amount of Nekopara on my dash. I don’t know if it’s because of the anime, but it is not a remotely okay series. I understand the appeal, the character designs are very cute, but that is not remotely an excuse.

Details will be under the readmore, please reblog and spread this.

to begin with, here is the synopsis of the nekopara visual novels taken dirctly from the wikia

[IMG TEXT: Nekopara is a Japanese adult visual novel series developed by NEKO Works and published by Sekai Project. The first game in the series, Nekopara Vol. 1, was released on December 29, 2014. The series is set in a world where humans live alongside catgirls, known as "Nekos," and are able to keep them as pets. The games are fully voiced (except for the protagonist) and use a system called "E-Mote" that allows the in-game characters to be animated, instead of stationary sprites. The scenario was written by Yukijin, and the theme song was written by KOMEWORKS and performed by nao. ]

as you can see, it is described as an adult visual novel series. normally that would not be enough to label it as disgusting, however, if we look at the character’s ages, there begins to be a problem:

[IMG TEXT: Age: 9 months old]

this is the age of both of the poster girls, Chocola and Vanilla. Nekopara, being an adult game, attempts to justify this with the fact that “they age like cats, so they’ve reached sexual maturity!” But that’s not really an excuse considering the game also claims that catgirls have humanlike intelligence

[IMG Text: Catgirls, also known as Nekos, are an intelligent species of cat-human hybrids that live alongside humans in the Nekopara universe. Catgirls physically resemble humans with feline ears the same color as their hair , slitted pupils, a tail, and a cat-like mouth. ]

[IMG Text: Catgirls were once left homeless and living in the streets, but now they are domesticated by humans and aren't allowed to go anywhere by themselves without their masters unless they have a bell. ]

Nekopara clearly operates on some basis of slavery, even if you say “but they like it, so it’s ok!” that doesn’t make it okay. They aren’t even allowed to go anywhere without their masters without a bell.

Apparently the anime removes all the references to sex and even romance, so it’s somewhat understandable that if you don’t know the source and are new to anime you wouldn’t know this. However, I really don’t feel comfortable with seeing it at all, knowing the source.

EDIT (04/19/2020):

I have been informed by a mutual that Nekopara also features incest. Not only does the mc harbor parental feelings towards Chocola and Vanilla, and calls them lovers.

[Transcription will be added later]

Additionally, there is an incestuous subplot involving the MCs little sister, Shigure.

[Transcription will be added later]

Text that follows will be taken from a review cited at the end.

“ As mentioned previously, Shigure is fucking terrifying. It’s implied that all the catgirls are scared of her for conspicuously undisclosed reasons, while about 70% of her dialogue is spent expressing just how much she loves her nii-sama (and yes, it’s that kind of love). At one point in Vol. 0, she worries Kashou might have a girlfriend and plots to send said theoretical girlfriend naked photos of herself in order to sabotage the relationship (and, let’s face, probably get somebody arrested – she has to be like 12). If I were Kashou, Shigure alone would be more than enough reason to move out (as well as maybe get a restraining order). “

Text from the wikia:

“ However, despite her intelligence and elegant appearance, she is implied to harbour an incestuous and unrequited love for Kashou, her brother, occasionally lamenting how he doesn't seem as close to her as in the past. “

This just isn’t it, chief!

Sources:

Nekopara Wiki

Review link: https://visualnovelreviews.tumblr.com/post/139596251290/but-i-dont-wanna-fuck-my-cats-nekopara-vol-1

[fatesdeepdive]

Entry 9: NO

Before doing anything else, I built a lottery house in the castle. The logistics of there being stores and gambling houses within my personal castle, that my soldiers work at, that don’t just give me whatever I want is kinda weird. The lottery gave me a radish I fed to Lilith.

Support: Hana/Subaki

C: Hana confronts Subaki about his tendency to refer to himself as perfect. He brushes it off, because he thinks that he genuinely is completely without fault. This angers Hana, who brings up a time Subaki fell off his horse and challenges him to a duel.

B: The duo begin their competition. Subaki, despite not actually having any sword skills, manages to defeat Hana by studying her fighting style over several months and messing with her head.

A: Hana takes the second round, beating Subaki in a horse race. Hana reveals that she doesn’t actually care about beating Subaki, just about serving Sakura, and the two decide to suspend their competition.

S: Subaki states that he hates when Hana brings up the time he fell off his horse because he embarrassed himself in front of Hana. Also the duo apparently love each other now.

Review: Decent set up, lackluster execution. I do like Hana’s feelings of inferiority in comparison to Subaki, and Subaki is wonderfully arrogant during this line, but the resolution comes from a revelation Hana had off screen and feels anti-climactic. I felt nothing during the marriage conversation.

Support: Hana/Sakura

C: Hana and Sakura discuss their childhood friendship and the fact that Hana has been protecting Sakura since even before she was a retainer. Sakura states that Hana’s stubbornness pairs nicely with her own introversion.

B: Hana reveals that Sakura’s kindness gave her a reason to dedicate herself to becoming a master samurai. Sakura reveals that she chose Hana as her retainer, in spite of her age and objections from others, because of...a reason explained in the next conversation. Gotta love cliffhangers.

A: Sakura chose Hana as her retainer because of all the times she protected her as a kid, so many times that Hana is covered in scars. Sakura feels guilty over Hana’s scars, but Hana brushes it off, stating that her scars are a badge of honor because they were earned protecting Sakura. Small character design note: Hana does not have any visible scars in this game. She does consistently have a scar in her arm in Heroes, and inconsistently has a scar on her left thigh, but neither of those scars are visible in game. Maybe the scars are hidden below her headband?

Review: First off, these two deserve an S-Rank conversation. They have more chemistry than most of the couples in this game. Setting that aside, I enjoy Hana and Sakura inspiring each other to be better. I love the idea of Hana protecting Sakura from feral dogs and Sakura repaying her by making her a retainer, going against royal officials to do so.

Support: Sakura/Subaki

C: Subaki yawns in front of Sakura then pretends it didn’t happen, because he is too perfect to get fatigued.

B: Subaki makes a tiny slip-up when filling out a form and has a complete meltdown, launching into a self-depreciating rant. Hana brings up that she’s seen him make mistakes before, which only makes things worse.

A: Sakura comforts Subaki and he reveals that his obsession with perfection stems from his childhood; his parents hammered in the idea that he must be perfect at all times as to not embarrass himself in front of royalty. He brings up the time he fell off his horse in front of Sakura right before she chose him as a retainer and reveals that he’s thought for years she chose him out of pity. Sakura comforts him, saying that he’s amazing and his slip-ups only make him more charming.

S: Subaki renews his vows as a retainer, promising to always fight for Sakura even if he cannot achieve total perfection. Sakura accepts, on the condition that Subaki marries her.

Review: I actually really enjoyed this one. The main gag with Subaki is that he’s arrogant and thinks of himself as perfect. This line deconstructs that, showing him fall apart at the idea that he isn’t good enough. It didn’t go fully into it, but this line suggests that Subaki may have some real mental health issues, possibly stemming from an abusive childhood. The romance isn’t perfect, but I do like the idea of Subaki ending up with Sakura because she helps him learn to accept himself. Also for all of Sakura’s supports I’m going to pretend that she isn’t like fourteen, because otherwise they’re all super creepy.

Support: Corrin/Sakura

C: Corrin asks if Sakura dislikes her and Sakura, who has never once visited any Fire Emblem or Smash Brothers forum, states that no one could ever dislike Corrin. Apparently, Sakura is awkward and shy around Corrin because she sucks at talking to people. Corrin offers to help her practice talking.

B: Corrin asks Sakura some basic questions and Sakura freezes up from anxiety and can’t answer anyone. Corrin theorizes that Sakura is easily intimidated by other people.

A: Sakura reveals that she’s always so anxious because she heard a rumor that Nohr actually wanted to kidnap her, not Nohr. This rumor was evidently false, because it makes absolutely no sense from a lore perspective. Also, I question the idea that this is the source of all of Sakura’s anxiety. Her anxiety around Corrin, maybe, but it’s odd that guilt over her sister’s kidnapping that she’s known for years wasn’t her fault would make her anxious around other people. I mean, it’s more pronounced around Corrin, but only in this support line. Whatever. Corrin swears to protect Sakura and I guess that means her anxiety is cured.

Review: This conversation is mediocre. Sakura getting anxiety because of something a maid said once is stupid, but Corrin trying to help her get over it is okay.

You’ll notice that I stopped this at the A rank. Well, you see, Corrin and Sakura only have three, conversations instead of four because, despite Corrin having a variable gender, Corrin and Sakura are siblings and Intelligent Systems would never include incest in a Fire Emblem game. They’d never do that because that would be terrible.

Wait. What’s that? Why does it say on the wiki that they have an S-Conversation? Surely this isn’t real.

Oh god it’s real.

No.

No no no.

NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO.

What the fuck, Intelligent Systems? Why did you include incestuous pedophilic marriage in your role-playing game? Seriously, what the actual fuck?

And, looking at Corrin’s support list, it’s not just Sakura. Every single Nohr and Hoshidan royal can date Corrin. I don’t know what’s worse, Corrin having sex with her stranger blood siblings or having sex with the people she thought were her blood siblings for years. Fine. Let’s just do the stupid conversation.

S: Sakura reveals that she’s been dreaming about the sibling she never knew for years, imagining what Corrin would grow up to be like. It’s actually a decent idea, albeit one hidden in the evil cursed S-Support that I hate. Corrin asks if they live up to expectations and Sakura states that they exceed them. Then Sakura says that she loves Corrin. Romantically. Corrin, being the sane person, objects, pointing out that they’re half-siblings. I don’t know where this half-sibling thing came from, as far as Corrin knows both of them are the children of Mikoto and Sumeragi. I mean, it is stated in Revelations that Mikoto isn’t actually the mother of anyone but Corrin, but Corrin doesn’t know that yet. Whatever. Sakura pulls out a letter from Mikoto that she only read a few minutes ago that says, psych! Corrin and Sakura aren’t actually related. At all. So it’s cool to bang. Corrin instantly gets over the whole “Don’t fuck your little sister” thing immediately and proposes to Sakura. What the actual fuck.

Review Continued: If ninety percent of the S-Rank conversation is convincing the audience that, no, this isn’t incest, you know it’s bad. And sure, it isn’t technically incest anymore, but who cares? Corrin and Sakura didn’t know that until ten seconds before they screwed each other. This is an incestuous marriage and it’s fucking gross. The writers clearly know it was gross, but they included it anyway.

And here’s the big problem with the Hoshidan sibling marriages: Birthright is built on the premise that this is Corrin’s real family, that Hoshido is her real home. It’s literally called Birthright. But if Corrin isn’t actually related to the Hoshidan Royals, all of that falls apart. They’re just strangers. The whole concept of the game doesn’t apply anymore. Because Intelligent Systems couldn’t release a game where the player insert doesn’t fuck literally every character. And, until we get to the point in Revelations where that is properly revealed, I’m going to pretend I don’t know it.

We got some new characters at the end of the last chapter, so let’s talk about them.

Silas

Silas is a cavalier who went turncloak for Corrin at the end of the last chapter because of a childhood friendship Corrin doesn’t remember. His personal skill makes him fight better when Corrin is injured. I’m starting to notice just how many of these skills specifically relate to Corrin, which makes sense but is still kinda weird. His design is fine, nothing objectionable there. I do think Silas’s forgotten childhood friend backstory is a bit odd, though. And I’m getting sick of characters who are obsessed with Corrin.

Saizo

Saizo is Kaze’s twin brother who looks like twenty years older than him. He’s the slower but tougher of the duo, judging from their stats. His personal skill Pyrotechnics is basically just him blowing shit up, which as far as I’m concerned is his solution to all problems. His mask is really weird looking, but at least he’s visually interesting. Personality wise, he seems like a dick, but in a good way. Our army needs some common sense and he brings it.

Orochi

Real talk: I forgot this character existed until she joined us. Orochi is a mage...er, diviner who has the personal skill Capture, which I’ll talk about later. Her design is decent; I like the sultry hair pulling in her portrait, it gives off a lot of personality. I don’t have much to say, I forgot she existed before the end of last chapter and have no clue what her personality will be.

Birthright Chapter 8: Fierce Winds

Team Corrin travels up the Eternal Staircase, a massive subterranean tunnel that leads to the Wind Tribe Village. Kaze notices that the group is being followed and a group of faceless pop out. Kaze and Corrin slaughter them with ease. Unfortunately, after the battle, the faceless turn into Wind Tribe civilians. Iago appears and explains that he disguised civilians as monsters using magic. He learned it from his favorite movie villain, the Joker from the Dark Knight, who Iago thinks is actually the good guy.

The gang reaches the Wind Tribe village. Corrin decides to just waltz in because sneaking past would be suspicious. Wind Tribe members attack. Not sure how they know about the whole slaughter thing. Maybe one of the fake faceless got away? Whatever.

Our three princesses apologize to the tribe members and they lead us to their chief, Fuga. Then the battle immediately begins. Guess negotiations didn’t go well.

Also here for some reason is Hinoka and her two retainers, Setsuna and Azama, both of whom are absolute morons. But, like, in a good way. Setsuna falls in quicksand, doesn’t care, and Azama immediately declares her dead. The fact that Hinoka has to basically babysit her two idiot bodyguards is amusing.

Setsuna

An Archer that works as Hinoka’s bodyguard. Her personal skill, Optimistic, makes her recover more when healed by a staff. A thing they do a lot in recent Fire Emblem games is to have characters that are based around specific gags or tropes. These are hit or miss, but Setsuna’s gag of constantly endangering herself and just not giving a shit sounds funny. The faced half-covered by hair initially makes her seem cool, but when paired with the dopey face and her personality it makes her look completely distracted. I like Setsuna, from what I’ve seen.

Azama

A monk who seems to be ridiculously optimistic and laid back. His personal skill, Divine Retribution, hurts opponents who attack him when he’s unarmed, which is a really cool idea. Azama doesn’t seem to be quite as funny as Setsuna, but still seems entertaining. I have mixed feelings on his design. I can’t tell if I like the closed eyes or not. The puffballs and wild hair are dumb though.

It’s worth noting that, because we move first, Corrin’s army attacks without provocation. Remember, they can’t see the red labels on enemies.

This map takes place in a desert. We can use the Dragon Veins to make it not a desert, which is good, because Fire Emblem deserts suck. Halfway through the battle, we finally talk to Fuga. He explains that we must earn the right to explain by killing all of his men. Bit of a dick move, chief.

We beat Fuga fairly easily. This chapter was fine, but just fine. Not bad, just unremarkable. Fuga explains that he was friends with Sumeragi and knows a lot about Yato. Apparently, us killing all of his men was a test to make us stronger so we can unlock Yato’s true power. Apparently, Yato can link something called the Sealed Flames and destroy the world. Neat.

Fuga accepts our explanation of the civilian murders. Which makes sense, it was kinda dumb. Actually, wait. Why did that have to be a plot point? Couldn’t this chapter just have been Fuga testing us?

Before we leave, Corrin and Azura discuss that there may be more blades like Yato out there. They don’t ask Fuga, because reasons. Also Fuga gives us his son. Neat.

[rametarin]

I didn’t want to reblog another long post, so I’ll just say my own thing here.

Gatekeeping fandom is good, ackshully.

Especially since we have a certain pattern of person, call them, “SJWs” if you want, that deliberately creep into a fandom with their values and shamelessly, deliberately, use it as a platform. They CONSCIOUSLY do this. They DELIBERATELY do this.

And then they have the audacity to see false positives and imagine dog whistles everywhere of things outside THEIR orthodoxy in the fandom being -isms, or -gnies. Accusing the people already there of being “out of date” and “toxic”, when it’s neither toxic nor uninclusive- it just isn’t rearranging itself to accommodate Intersectional Feminism or giving Intersectional Feminists voluntary control over everything from how something works to how it’s defined.

That to them is tantamount to being Nazis. And that’s kind of how you can tell they’re the same sort of daft, disingenuous fucks that wrap up socialist or ancom shit in supposed social progress. And if they could they’re reshape EVERYTHING to match their sensibilities, because their sensibilities are, “our way or you die.”

If you spend enough time peeking through academic papers and colleges you even learn there’s a thing many of them do. Which is, “Queering,” characters on purpose, to make them unpalatable or untouchable to cis/het people. That’s culturally like raising a flag on something to annex it and landgrab it.

And if you say, “hands off, this character isn’t gay?” They pivot and declare you’re just a homophobe whom is afraid of change, tell other people that and then talk in the broad bruckstroke about, “society is really so homophobic/afraid of new ideas. :c”

These people don’t even want to be part of that fandom for the sake of being in the fandom. They just want it because they want the fandom to perpetuate their values and parrot their beliefs and spread it to everybody else that wants to participate in that fandom. Do you like this popular thing? Okay, you can have popular thing, but only if you hug this Courtney Love doll and buy it and pet it and love it as part of the package deal!

And as part and parcel of the demanding to not just define the fundamentals and parameters of a fandom, they also demand to reinterpret the history of said fandom based on how out of orthodoxy to their values they find it to their own beliefs. So, was the hobby primarily done by white men in the past? Then naturally they’ll automatically paint it with a broad brush and say, “this hobby was very unwelcoming to non-whites and women in the past because of icky homophobic and misogynistic men!” Regardless of how many authors were beloved by the fandom that were female, regardless of how many women were equal fandom members before- they weren’t the Intersectional Feminist types of fans, so clearly they were “closer to the Daughters of the Confederacy than real people,” right? That’s how that works, apparently.

So yes. We had a taste of this in the 90s, but the feminists/radfems at the time weren’t trying to infiltrate the fandom and take it over to be about feminism. They were shaming boys and other girls for liking the big booby comic book girls as sexist and objectification and trying to get comic fans to abandon comics in order to pressure the companies economically into changing.

“These comics are written and drawn by MEN! MAAAAALE GAAAAAAAAAZE!!! Sexualized girls are only okay when WOMEN are drawing them and writing them for the authenticity!” And there were not many women that either liked comic books or wanted to BE in them, so they’d maintain that impossible standard to try and coerce the boys to FIND women for the sake of having a woman on staff, just to assauge their, “icky boys aren’t allowed to do this without me declaring it wrong” qualm.

And true to form for Progressives, give an inch and within a short period of time they just want more, and declare what was offered before was just to mollify or patronize them. “Oh so women can tidy up and do the low work. Why no female CEOs in the company yet? Why not Editor in Chief?”

But the way the Intersectionals do it is new. Rather than just stay outside the fandom because “yuck it offends my sensibilities, it shouldn’t exist,” they try and appropriate the fandom and then contribute rules and policies for it.

We saw this in the years leading up to Gamergate. The Subverters infiltrated video game journos, got incestuous and buddy-buddy with both Triple A industry people and independent game creators and traded favors, financial, sexual and other, for good reviews. Folks like Anita Sarkesian trying to make a name for themselves by already being insiders and getting plugged by the conspirators to LOOK like she was anything more than a plant for that cause, using other peoples video game playing footage in her critique videos, styling herself a holistic “girl gamer” and waxing poetic about “those awful neckbearded dudebros questioning my gamer cred! Tch!”

And so that romantic boogyman became a thing that they perpetuated. “The gatekeeping, woman hating, manbaby Gamer.” Where they then added in racism and male chauvinism and traditionalism and transphobia because you know you can’t just leave it at “misogynist.” Not, “in this society.”

Gamers protesting and demanding that game journalist magazines state their relationships to the creators for full disclosure got them retaliating asymmetrically, though. The FBI investigated all those, “threatening and trolling social media messages” that supposedly got Zoe Quinn and Sarkesian to leave their houses, “for fear of an attack,” and they got nothing. A few of them were caught doxxing themselves on purpose on 4chan. Quinn herself being part of the SomethingAwful’s Crash Override forums, where they’d do shit like this to troll and harass people for fun. They KNOW how to false flag and make it look like a bunch of angry dudebros did it.

Statistically the number of harassing egg names was far lower than the messages either girl received that was NOT harassment or threats, merely replies they didn’t agree with or didn’t appreciate. And yet they still ran around screaming about “all those misogynistic dudebro gamers” that were “harassing and doxing them.” And that boogyman became the party line. That Gaming and Gamers were full of toxic, misogynistic, racist manbabies SOooOoOooOO intimidated by, “women finally in what they feel are THEIR spaces,” that they’d try to run them out.

That’s how they interpreted it and that’s how the history books they write will repeat it.

They try and make a great big public show about “entering this toxic space” to flip it and civilize it, but what they’re really trying to do is officially own it. As a fandom, as a space and as a culture. And that entails being able to say what goes, what’s acceptable and what’s not, and set the tone and culture for that space. Meaning, to be able to gatekeep the product.

Rather than just decry the product, they decide they’re just going to mutate the product by slow assimilation, until the product doesn’t even resemble the original product anymore. They do this shit with comic books, videogames, and now they’re working on doing it to beloeved novels and their fandoms. It’s like forcibly marrying them to terrible people, so you can never have a fandom WITHOUT those people in your space trying to insist their interpretations of things are original canon, ever again.

And the sickest part is, these people DO NOT stop at fiction. That’s why this shit is called Cultural Marxism. Because it’s not much different from the way communists and socialist guerillas act and operate when it comes to land, resources and industry. They take over public spaces and forums and use a combination of instittional corruption, terrorism and violence and vandalism in order to destroy or silence competition.

They’ve even infiltrated the Linux community and taken over most of that, via Linus Torvalds’ daughter. You can’t have ANYTHING around these people, because they just sit and wait and conspire to come in and make even a simple community mural to revolve around whatever social issue and specifically their philosophy’s take on it being THE only valid take on it that everybody else must now interact with, good or bad, but they can’t ignore it anymore.

This is, also, partially why they hate it when fandoms are gatekept by singularly powerful individuals. Like say, authors of their own works. They don’t like singular owners of enterprise and property, because it prevents the mob from taking them and then dictating TO the creator, “this is the PEOPLES property now. WE decide, as the most powerful clique, what is true and real with it and what isn’t.”

Because like what happened with Frank Oz of Jim Henson Studios. An activist gay writer declared that Bert and Ernie’s relationship was “canon gay,” because he wrote them as canon gay lovers. There was a great big information cascade as all these affiliated journo companies published articles about how “happy they were to see Sesame Street and the Children’s Television Workshop as representing LGBT people in public!”

Frank Oz spoke up, set the record straight, “These characters were made by me and a friend and were meant to depict a platonic male-male relationship. They aren’t gay but I’m glad you could identify with them.”

That poor old man caught so much shit. They called him a homophobe, said he was, “stealing Bert and Ernie from them,” that he should just shut up and “let people have this.”

No. Fucking no. These people are fucking conspirators, believe wholly in dominating and taking shit over by moving their people into a thing until they have the warm bodies and the institutional authority to crowd out oppositional voices, then have the audacity to SCREEEAAAAAAM bloody murder about the dangers of anybody else organizing to contest them because, “The Nazis are gathering to attack us poor innocent minorities!!” Counting on the ignorance and unsuspecting nature of people to not know such a thing is fake or the totality of the situation.

That’s why they’ll keep this shit on the downlow and call anybody that accuses them of doing shit like this a liar or a tinfoil hat wearing conspiracy theorist. Demanding evidence, in bad faith, knowing there’s little to no way to PROVE any of this UNTIL they’ve done it, and then declaring you to be invalid since you can’t prove the conspiracy.

Because if you can’t prove it with evidence, they’ll simply say you’re a Nazi trying to smear “good people.”

[myhistoryobsession]

a little more about that? I'm writing a paper on ancient Egypt and am super fascinated. Thanks! x <3

[Copied from your other ask: I know that you used to post alot about Egypt and that you dont really do that anymore, but you mentioned along time ago in your 18th dyntasy spam some interesting stuff like this (copied and pasted) "The mummy known as KV21A is not Ankhesenamun, but another unknown wife of Tutankhamun. The KV55 mummy is Akhenaten and KV21A is Ankhesenamun, but Akhenaten did not father Ankhesenamun. The KV55 mummy is not Akhenaten, but rather another member of the dynasty, possibly Smenkhare." Could you explain...]

Hi, anon! Wow, I’ve been getting a lot of these lately! My area of study is primarily British history, specifically the Wars of the Roses, so I don’t know how much help I can be to you professionally, but I think I can answer your question! 

Egypt’s 18th Dynasty is one of their more famous, especially with the way it ended. There’s been much speculation on the exact relationship between the latter members, and recent studies have analyzed DNA to uncover the truth. However, we must remember that DNA can’t paint a whole picture due to regular incestuous royal marriages. For example, double first cousins will genetically test as half-siblings. It’s essential to keep that in mind when reviewing the results.

Here is what we know surrounding familial relationships in the latter 18th Dynasty:

Akhenaten fathered six daughters with Nefertiti, including Meritaten and Ankhesenamun.

Smenkhkare succeeded Akhenaten and married Meritaten but died less than a year into his reign. He may be Akhenaten’s brother or a son by an unknown wife.

Neferneferuaten, a female pharaoh, succeeded Smenkhkare - she is likely Nefertiti.

Tutankhamun succeeded Neferneferuaten. His parentage is uncertain, but he may be a son of Akhenaten by one of his father’s sisters. He married Ankhesenamun and had two children, both of whom died young.

Here is what we know about their mummified remains via DNA:

KV35EL is Queen Tiye, mother of Akhenaten, KV55, and KV35YL.

KV35YL is an unknown daughter of Tiye. She is the mother of Tutankhamun.

KV55 is the father of Tutankhamun. He may be Akhenaten, whom historians have assumed was Tutankhamun’s father. However, he is not the father of KV21A (see below).

KV21A is Ankhesenamun - she is the mother of the two mummified fetuses found in Tutankhamun’s tomb. She is not closely related enough to KV55 for them to be father/daughter.

Therefore, everything I said in an earlier post is correct. Based on what we know about the familial relationships of the Dynasty and the DNA analysis, we may conclude:

KV21A is not Ankhesenamun but another unknown wife of Tutankhamun (extremely unlikely).

KV55 mummy is Akhenaten, and KV21A is Ankhesenamun, but Akhenaten did not father Ankhesenamun (unlikely, but possible). 

The KV55 mummy is not Akhenaten but rather another member of the Dynasty (most likely).

I think the main problem here is the assumption that Akhenaten fathered Tutankhamun - there is no direct evidence suggesting this. Modern scholars have finally started to question this, and rightfully so. If Tutankhamun was Akhenaten’s son, why did he not directly succeed his father? He would hardly have been the first infant pharaoh and certainly not the last.

I also believe it was unlikely that Nefertiti ever had any affairs - monogamy was huge in Egypt, excepting the pharaoh, and she and her husband were clearly devoted to each other. If Nefertiti did have an affair and got caught, it would spell disaster for her family.

My personal beliefs are that Tutankhamun is the son of Smenkhkare, who was Akhenaten’s younger brother and is KV55.

Smenkhkare likely married his and Akhenaten’s mutual sister, KV35YL (see above), and the pair produced Tutankhamun. However, KV35YL died not long after that. After Akhenaten died without sons, Smenkhkare succeeded as the closest male relative and married Meritaten, his eldest niece, to secure the succession. However, he died less than a year into his reign. Nefertiti as Neferneferuaten succeeded him, likely via a palace coup due to her sex. She most likely arranged for Tutankhamun, whom she would have known would follow her, to marry Ankhesenamun, her daughter, again to settle and secure the succession. After her death, Tutankhamun came to power.

My theory fits into the genetic analysis above - it explains why KV55 is the father of Tutankhamun, but not Ankhesenamun. Of course, it’s not perfect, for the reasons I’ve described above, and as we uncover more about the Dynasty, I might change my theory. But that is my theory for now.

Hope that helps, and good luck with your paper! Thanks for the ask! 

[skullsandwineglasses]

The Rebel Princess First Impressions (episode 16)

My first drama of 2021 and my first drama in 4 months. 

AvenueX’s harsh review piqued my interest, especially when she mentioned the high production quality of the drama and the list of talent that was behind the production of the drama. So I went into this drama knowing nothing about the plot, having high expectations for the production, and no expectations about the characters because of AvenueX’s criticism. I’ve always respected Zhang Ziyi because of her dedication to the art and her legendary filmography, but I wouldn’t call myself a fan. I agreed with AvenueX; ZZY has an aura and elegance that’s meant for mature, cold characters, so I was wary of her playing a Mary Sue who’s innocent and doted upon. 

I first saw Zhou Yi Wei when he played Zhao Liying’s classy, composed, protective, and rich older brother in My Glamourous Times. He’s not classically handsome, but there’s a measured confidence in the way he carries himself that exudes masculinity, and that’s also balanced by his more feminine qualities like his quiet, airy voice and his full lips. He also has an intense gaze that feels like he’s looking straight into the soul of whoever he’s speaking to. 

I also watched ZZY and ZYW’s collaboration on I Am an Actor, so I knew that the chemistry would be there between them. 

Okay, so enough preamble. Spoilers ahead. 

First 8 episodes:

I didn’t mind ZZY playing a young teenager. Yes, it does take a bit of getting used to, but kind of like the CGI in The Irishman, but it very soon doesn’t become distracting and you manage to suspend your disbelief. I came in expecting the worse, like an exaggerated caricature, but ZZY actually pulls it off quite well. Since this is a coming-of-age drama, it’s a given that the first few episodes are going to be about a main character who starts off as innocent, naive, and carefree. I’d rather have the main actress portray these young scenes than to have a completely differ actress do this. The first few episodes are meant to anchor you emotionally into the drama and to empathize with the FL. If you introduced ZZY after 8 episodes, you wouldn’t really emotionally connect with her since the trauma that catapults the character into maturity was experienced by the younger actress. So for me, the age was a non-issue. I was concerned that it would be cringey, but it wasn’t. It’s called acting ffs. Why can people play older characters when they’ve never been older, but people can’t play younger characters, even though they were once that age. I forgot how pretty ZZY is though. 

Sure, the FL is a Mary Sue, but I didn’t find her annoying. Maybe it’s because ZZY makes it work. Who knows. Essentially, everyone dotes in her, every man has a crush on her. She’s spoiled, she’s kind. She’s perfect. Her lineage is incomparable and powerful (even if a little incestuous). Not to mention a little corrupt as well. I guess she wasn’t annoying because she doesn’t try hard to be righteous. She has a privileged life and she’s just living with what she’s given. She only asks that she is able to have a love marriage instead of an arrange marriage. Typical, but understandable. 

My complaint is that I didn’t feel any chemistry between her and Zi Tan, the second prince. Unlike Ming Lan and Yuan Ruo in Story of Ming Lan, Awu’s first love just didn’t capture the imagination. Maybe it’s because ZYW’s Xiao Qi stole the show from early on, which made it hard to jump on board Zi Tan’s ship. 

Awu and Xiao only had a handful of interactions, but their chemistry is palpable (ZYW’s gaze is just....ugh swoon). They first meet that night at the festival where she unknowingly insults him and then he saves her and Zi Tan later that night. Then a couple episodes later, he saves her again when she falls off the roof during her escape from the crown prince. They only cross paths briefly 2 times in 4 episodes, and one of those times they weren’t even talking to ech other because she faints, and yet he’s totally taken by her. He’s a goner. But he know she’s out of his league, and so he keeps his feelings to himself, even though he can’t stop thinking about her and stays up at night staring at the moon remembering their 2 encounters. Talk about a slow burn. Insta love shouldn’t work, but again, it does here. 

I like Xiao Qi’s character. He doesn’t speak much, he doesn’t emote much, but he’s not the typical cold, distant, irritable ML from idol dramas. Xiao Qi isn’t afraid to love. He’s tender, gentle, composed, and calm. The sexual tension between him and Awu from when he rescued her to when they consummate their marriage is through the roof. He takes on the role of a husband by taking care of her, entrusting her fully with managing his household, puts her above everything else in his life, and always takes her side. He closes the distance between them while still giving her space, respecting her, and waiting until she’s ready. Even though he initially thought of himself ill-suited for her, once they’re married, he slowly wins her over. Episode 13 is obviously my favourite because that’s when Awu finally warms up to him. 

Honestly, this relationship only works because of the smitten looks that Xiao Qi gave her that night when they first met at the festival. Those few intrigued/amused looks carry this relationship for 13 episodes. And I love how he brings up that night again when he’s caring for her after he rescued her from Helan Zhen. 

Speaking of Helan Zhen, I find it funny how it sounds like Helian Zheng from The Rise of Phoenixes, and it’s played by the same actor too (edit: NOT the same actor. This is Yuan Hong who played Jin Si Yu in TROP, and a more veteran actor than than the one who played Helian Zheng. Should have known that ZZY would pick Justin Hong who has much more acting experience. TBF tho, with the facial hair, they look similar) and has similar costuming. 

In terms of the political storyline, it’s not bad, but it’s not great, so I see AvenueX’s criticism here. I haven’t watched too many political intrigues, but so far, nothing has been overly surprising or shocking. 

The level of acting and production definitely lives up to expectations, although I have noticed some jumpy cuts. Some of the night scenes in the palace also look kind of CGI though, especially the sky. 

General Song is great. The ML always has a loyal sidekick. The FL also always has a loyal maid, and a disloyal maid who betrays her. In this sense, the drama is quite formulaic. 

It’s also nice to see Kara Hui and Angie Chiu act opposite each other. Angie Chiu is obviously speaking cantonese, and it looks like Kara Hui also speaks cantonese when she has a scene with Angie Chiu, maybe to help her get immersed into the scene. 

Overall Impressions: My basic self is only watching this for the romance, which so far has been slow and minimal (but really good). Xiao Qi is completely absent in episode 16 unfortunately, which is about Awu gaining the respect of his army. 

I do think this is a good spot to pause though. There’s no angst yet. Awu and Xiao Qi are at a good place in their relationship, even if they’re temporarily physically separated for now. Emotionally, they trust each other. It’s them against the world. 

But I’m worried about the upcoming episodes. Based on comments from MyDramaList, it sounds like there are going to be misunderstandings by around episode 33ish, which I’m not happy about. I was hoping that it would be similar to Ming Lan and Gu Tingye’s relationship dynamic where they trust each other fully and there are no secrets or misunderstandings, and they work together against the antagonistic forces opposing them. But it sounds like the drama is going, to well, stir up drama between the leads. 

I powered through 16 episodes in 2 days, and only 41 raw episodes have been released. Which means that I’ll probably catch up within the next few days, and then I’ll have to play the waiting game until the finale at the end of February. So I’ll just take a pause now before things ramp up and I get too attached and maybe watch something else before coming back to binge this. 

[shiobookmark]

Ooh actually, new Utena theory.

So I've been following along with a certain liveblog (won't say who in case they see this, they don't like spoilers) and I've realised that while I like my previous Utena analysis it never really satisfactorily explained what the heck happened with Dios/Akio and Anthy.

All we really know is that Dios eventually exhausted his ability to save all the girls in the world, and Anthy stepped in to save him from an angry mob.

So just a quick aside to set the scene.

The reason Dios can't be Anthy's prince is that the fairytale prince is an explicitly romantic figure. A prince makes a girl his princess, his bride, and she is then loyal only to him. You could say it plays into notions of romantic chivalry as well.

There was a review of the film with Jesuotaku and Oancitizen which put this rather succinctly, to paraphrase:

A prince has to play a dominant role in a relationship, which means controlling his beloved in such a way that undermines her personhood, which will eventually destroy the fantasy of the prince anyway. Or else they have to be nobly self-sacrificial to all people and be unable to give their beloved special treatment, eventually sacrificing their own happiness and that of their partner.

Dios could not protect the person he really loved (Anthy) and still be a prince without either sacrificing his personal relationship with her and being a hero to all, or by forcing her into a subservient role.

As Dios, he tried to be a good person and hopefully help Anthy along the way, but as a result Anthy was left all alone in the world as he was too busy to spend time with her. He couldn't make her his princess because that would be a romantic role, and to be clear, at the time there were no incestuous feelings there. He loved his sister and wanted to be with her as a family, but his role as a prince forced them apart.

And when it eventually grew to be too much, Anthy decided to take on the role of a villain and hopefully free him that way. If the prince had been captured by an evil witch, he could no longer fight for the world. Maybe then they could be a family again, even if she had to be hated by everyone, it would be worth it.

The key thing is here, I don't think Anthy did anything.

She didn't seal away his power, she just claimed Dios for herself and herself alone. That was enough to get the mob angry enough to tear through her.

Maybe she did seal away his power to prevent him from being even able to fight, but if she did, surely she would have been able to give it back to him? Akio never seems to directly confront her about that, and I think he would. So unless it was a spell she could never take back and he was leveraging her guilt over that, I think something else happened.

But in any case, when Dios saw what the people he'd sacrificed everything for had done to his beloved sister, he lost it.

He probably killed them, but even if he didn't, he lost all faith in humanity as a whole. From then on, he decided he was going to be a prince to Anthy alone.

And at first it was everything she wanted. Dios was with her and yes she was in pain, she had to take all the hatred and resentment of humanity for his departure in his place, had to take all the blame, but she was happy.

But, as we covered, a prince can't be a prince to his sister. He can sort of be a prince to his beloved, but only if she submits to his authority.

So over time, it became twisted. Dios started forcing Anthy into that subservient role, tried to mould her into a princess, into his bride, rather than his sister. All the while he began to blame her for putting him in this position.

At some point, perhaps since that day in the barn, Akio was unable to access his powers.

Dios locked himself away in his own coffin, buried so deep down he could no longer climb his way out. Even worse than Anthy, he became almost entirely detached from his old self. And with it, his powers were gone. I think Dios sealed himself away.

And he was horrified to see what he had become.

So he used what little agency he had left to reach out to duelists. I don’t believe Utena was the only one or even the first. He reached out to anyone he thought had a noble heart, hoping eventually that someone would be able to help.

Akio found his own version of this, of people stunted by their traumas, so he used Anthy’s power to weave a garden where he could control everything and hopefully groom a prince powerful enough to break through to Dios’ coffin.

Anthy went along with it because by this point Akio’s successfully worn her down. Maybe she hopes he’d be able to return to his old self. She’s clinging to the past, hoping that one day they can be a family again. It’s also a bit of sunk cost fallacy, she’s worked so hard to help her brother surely just a little more won’t matter.

Dios didn’t know how to free Anthy, but maybe someday someone would be the prince he could never be. He lent them his powers as necessary, trying to raise one up to be strong enough to bring Revolution.

But his new self was always there twisting things. The cycle went on and on. It could be with the same players, it could be with new ones. Maybe they’re all going round and round in time. Maybe Utena is new, maybe she’s done this before. There’s lots of possibilities.

But either way, little did Dios know that no prince would ever be able to save Anthy. Anthy needed to make the choice to walk away. Anthy brought the Revolution. Utena just helped her realise she could still open that door.

[iatheia]

EDA reviews Part 6 - books 47-55

Previous part 1, 2, 3, 4 & 5

47) The Slow Empire - Uh, couldn't really follow this one at all. There are books when the first person narration works, but not here - too many jumps in setting, too little connective tissue, most of it told from the POV of a person who is barely connected to the protagonists? And that's even before they started repeating chunks of text wholesale between various parts - and I couldn't figure out if it was intended, or if it is the ebook was acting out on me. More than half way through the book, I still couldn't entirely tell what the story is supposed to be about, or if the plot has even started yet. Even having finished it, I find myself somewhat aghast. There are a few glimpses of something interesting, but for the life of me, I can't figure out what. 4/10

48) Dark Progeny - Also not really feeling it. It's not a bad story, but I do rather prefer a Doctor Who story to actually feature the Doctor and the companions front and center, whether they are POV characters or not. Here, though, they are barely in it - it's even more egregious than the previous one in actually giving the supposed protagonists stuff to do, and even on rare occasions we do switch back to them, it is all pretty generic. Anji developing telepathic abilities and the Doctor trying to calm her down all the while Fitz is freaking out in the background? Yes, please, more of that. Following around 20 interchangeable OCs that have nothing to do with the trio? No thank you. 6/10.

49) The City of the Dead - If you are invoking magic in a sci-fi universe, you need to be able to handwave it. It doesn't need to be awfully complex, "something something aliens, something something energy" is usually enough, but without it, you can't just throw magic about willy nilly. There are rules.

There are moments when it is a beautiful story, evoking a lot of dream-like wonder, and if it managed to remain a hazy dream, it probably would have been better for it. At the same time there is something very uncomfortably cynical about it, to the degree it left a bad taste in my mouth. There is a narrow line between not shying away from the ugliness of the world and deliberately making something ugly just for the sake of it, and often it felt like it was leaning towards the latter. Dunno, I started out wanting to like it, and feeling rather conflicted about it, but by the end became utterly indifferent. 7/10

50) Grimm Reality - Pure crack. Mind Robber wishes it could be as hilarious and off the wall as this story is. It throws every cliche fairy tale narrative device in the book at the characters and expects them to take it with the straight face, all the while realizing that the rules of the world are completely bonkers. And it manages to sustain this energy throughout, which is a no small feat. It's actually pretty exhausting by the end of it. Fairy tales stories do not belong to a lengthy literary genre, and even taking time deconstructing them, at 95K words becomes it becomes just too much - figuratively, and, on occasion, literally. Still, pretty great, I wish more books had its energy 9/10.

51) The Adventuress of Henrietta Street - *sigh*. My expectations were pretty low to begin with, and I still am somehow disappointed. Credit where credit's due - it is probably most coherent of the books from Miles. And at least it's better than Interference. That's really not saying much, though.

Honestly, if you've read any story about prostitutes, murder, satanic sex rituals bordering on blatant pornography, eastern culture and "mysticism of female sex" used for fetish fuel, written by a dude who clearly gets off on all of this - you've read all of them. There is really nothing revolutionary or compelling about it. On the list of "plots I never want to see in Doctor Who", they are definitely up there. And the Doctor is dying again, because it wouldn't be Miles's book without it. And he's, uh... living in a brothel, trying to marry someone, in order to, uh..... ritualistically tie himself to Earth, for, reasons? Did I read that right? After over 100 years of living on Earth and wanting to do nothing else than seeing the back of it, right. And writing books not quite about sex but definitely about sex. Because that's the thing the Doctor apparently does now. Self insert what self insert. And Fitz and Anji are just... there. On an occasion. All of it exposed on in a dull faux academic style without a shred of characterization, all the while absolutely nothing of note is happening, despite being a singularly longest EDA.

Just, if you hate the characters so much. If you don't understand what makes them tick to this degree. If you don't even care to learn. If you consider any established emotions they should have about the plot you are putting them through beneath you. Why are you writing in a shared universe to begin with? 2/10

(I did have an unintentional moment of hilarity with it, though. There is a character that is referred to as Lord ______, as if his name is censored. TTS would always pronounce it as Lord Underbarunderbarunderbar. Always gave me a chuckle).

52) Mad Dogs and Englishmen - A hilarious story, a very easy read, flowing from scene to scene. There are several occasions of fridge horror treated with levity that I would have rather have avoided. Plus, it is as incestuous as a book about books can get, and yet.... It is just absurd enough to work.

Plus, the whole, “His books are full of black magic, mind control...and perversion - moral and ethical and sexual. He is polluting the atmosphere of our group”, “What’s next? Rewrite War and Peace so it’s about guinea pigs?” - Oh, the shade. It is a good book in its own right, but just for this alone, 10/10

53) Hope - It's a pretty average book. Not outstanding, not horrible. Would have made a decent episode, all things considered, in a bread and butter sort of way. It does have some great ideas - the refuge of humanity, the conflict between Anji and the Doctor finally coming to light - not quite the type of conflict I was hoping for, though. If only it had a bit more nuisance, without neatly delineated black and white, if the antagonist didn't end up being a mustache twirling villain, if the Doctor didn't end up strong-arming everyone in a much more macho manner than he normally goes for (with a rather clunky dialogue). It had potential, even if it didn't end up being realized in full. 8/10

54) Anachrophobia - Very meh. The set up was fairly contrived, it never made me care about any of the characters, including whatever the hell the Doctor and co were doing, not to mention any of the secondary characters. Not terribly engaging, after a point I was mostly flipping through it. There is some big conflict brought up at 95% mark, and it is resolved in just couple of pages via a deus ex machina and a paradox. Overall, I might have said that I would have liked it better if I was in a mood for existential horror, but I took a break in the middle to listen to the Lease of Life - and it actually touches upon several similar themes, but with and outstanding character drama and much more graceful execution, which made this book look even more poor in comparison. 5/10

55) Trading Futures - I will give the author all the points for keeping an eye on the future. Perhaps, in 2002, predicting tablets being used as menus in fancy restaurants wasn’t that big of a reach, but I absolutely had a spit take when TTS has read to me something about “eye-phones”. There are some modestly clever moments throughout the book. Too bad that the rest of it is a complete rubbish. Not terribly original, either - a lot of ideas are copied directly from other books and other franchises. Reasonably entertaining, all things considered, but in a much more slapstick sort of way than was probably intended. 7/10

Overall impressions so far - This batch is, for the most part, fine. Some stories are worst than others, some better. With one exception, nothing horrendous, but nothing to write home about, either. They are, for the most part, serviceable. Individually, they have decent enough plots. But. There is very little character work. They can generally be read in any order, or dropped entirely, and you wouldn’t miss anything. The Doctor is mostly coasting from the excellent streak in the last batch, always in a spot light. I am starting to tire of the whole amnesia arc, though - it was good, but it ran its course, and at this point, with everything functionally back to norm, with barely a stray mention of it here and there, we are starting to be overdue for some semblance of resolution of all that. Henrietta Street is entirely a step in the wrong direction - not only it does nothing worthwhile for the characters, it’s just getting unnecessarily further into the weedworks, adding yet another plot thread that is forced on other writers to carry (they mention it occasionally, but it’s not like there is much to build upon) - rather viciously reminding of the previous mess of an ark “don’t you dare to think that it is over”. And I am so over it. Just, move on.

The companions fare rather worse. They are decent enough, they participate in action, in each book, they are mostly staying in character, with a handful of neat moments here and there (in a blink and you’ll miss it sort of way, though), they aren’t written off as an unnecessary burden to carry, which is an improvement. There is nothing meaty given to them though - they ask the necessary questions, do the things required of them, and generally stay out of the way when they are not needed. I guess Anji has at least some character driven moments, even though most of them are reduced to “I miss my dead boyfriend”. Which is... fine, we’ve all lost people, we all mourn them in our own way, but it has been 14 books since her introduction, and she is leaving in another 10. To have her character reduced to just that bit from her first book, with barely anything else to offer.... Plus, all the while, she rarely felt like she integrated into the team - because she is constantly eying her exit and returning to normality (even though she always decides to stay just a little while longer due to circumstances), it’s like from the very beginning she had one foot out of the door.

But while Anji is a bit of a one trick pony, at least she has that much. Poor Fitz gets absolutely nothing to do. The last meaningful book that addressed his character in any way was all the way back around book #42-43, and even that was just catching up on plot after his prolonged absence. He’s been essentially frozen since early 30s books. He is generally a fun character to have around, and does good supporting work, but can he please get something more impactful any time soon? Heck, by this point I’ll even take the recurrence of “finding a new love interest number 20 who will inevitably die by the end of the book” - it has been overdone, and it is certainly not a very exciting plot, not to mention reductive, but at least it’d be something. Though, I guess only one companion is allowed to carry that staple at the time, and right now Anji is it, two dead lovers is just an overkill.

And it is an absolute shame - especially when considering that on the other side, Big Finish was in the middle of streak of some of the best stories. Over the same time that these novels were published, we had audios such as Project Twilight, Eye of the Scorpion, Colditz, One Doctor, Chimes of Midnight, Seasons of Fear, which were full of character.

[robotslenderman]

Look, I’m a ball of unpopular opinions, so keep in mind I go completely against the rest of the aspec community here. But I’ve always had different thoughts on “more than friends” than other aspec people.

Keep in mind I am rambling and spitballing here, I’m just vomiting words. So there’s a whole lot of nuance and things I’m not taking into account. I’m not writing a peer reviewed article so if a lot of people end up seeing this, don’t expect it to be some PhD student’s dissertation. I’m just shitposting and I cannot be fucked to double check everything and put disclaimers everywhere.

To allos, “more than friends” means romantic relationships. To a lot of aspec people, “more than friends” invalidates friendships and their importance.

To me, both are (in my mind) wrong.

To me, a friend is someone you have things in common with that you hang out with sometimes and shoot the shit with. Of course a romantic partner is going to mean “more” than that! Of course someone you hang out with and grab coffee with sometimes that you don’t make life decisions around is going to be “just” a friend! The problem with having a problem with the phrase “just friends” is that it conflates important, integral relationships with people I’m (yes) just friendly with.

But that means that I see a close companion who you have a non-romantic/non-sexual relationship with as “more than friends” too. If you treat a person as a partner but you’re not romantically or sexually involved with them, yes, you’re still “more than friends,” you just happen to be “more than friends” with someone you’re not fucking or in love with. That person means more to you than someone you just hang out and grab coffee with.

The problem is that relationships are divided into romance or friendship, and there is a whole other space of relationships out there that are neither of those things. Yes, the example of the close companion above is technically a “friend” -- but they are more than that, the relationship is deeper than that. It is not casual, it is committed, it is intertwined, they are intertwined with you. There is a friendship in there the same way a healthy romantic relationship has a friendship, but there is a bond there that goes beyond the casual bonds we form with 99% of our “friends.”

There is a bond there in addition to that friendship that is not platonic, but is not romantic or sexual either, and the English language has no word for it. The closest we can get is “queerplatonic” -- but personally I don’t like that word because of “platonic,” which brings to mind the casual coffee-grabbing relationships that lack the intimacy of these bonds. It’s familial, but I don’t like that to describe it either because that brings to mind blood relations and an incestuous feeling should the relationship have “casual” sex in it, which some aspec people still choose to engage in.

Basically, what I’m saying is that I think the problem with the “more than friends” discourse is that by having a problem with the phrase “more than friends”, we’re insinuating that relationships fit into the allosexual categories of either familial, platonic, sexual and/or romantic, when there’s a fifth type of relationship that has no adequate word for it because it has an intimacy and a tight bond that is not associated with platonic relationships, but also lacks the romantic and sexual aspects of typical primary relationships.

“Friendship” is a poor word in the asexual community because it’s too vague, it’s too much of an umbrella term. It can refer to someone you chat to every week but don’t know shit about, or it can refer to your soulmate. That’s so vague. It’s not at all useful. Language is a tool, and this is a poor tool. We’re trying to use a hammer when we need to invent a saw.

There’s this whole other field of intimacy, relationships and bonds that just cannot be accurately conveyed with the word “friends.” I think us aspec people are expending way too much energy on trying to get allo people to unnecessarily unlearn everything they’ve ever been taught about relationships and not enough on accurately and actively differentiating between what they know as friendship and those intimate and close relationships that we have with our Special People. By talking about how the phrase “more than friends” is bad we’re muddying the waters. Our relationships with our Special People are not friendships as allo people are raised to see them, or even friendships as we have been raised to see them. They’re something else. But because we lack the language to describe them, we take the allosexual word “friends,” try to change the definition, and then wonder why people don’t realise how important our Special People are to us. 

I’m not even necessarily talking about queerplatonic partnerships here. Maybe your special person isn’t your partner, but you’re still more than friends and you’d take a bullet for them. Maybe you have several special people and none of them know each other, but none of them are your partners either, but they’re still more than friends to you.

We need new words. “Platonic” isn’t enough, not because friendships are inferior, but because friendships as allos know them is way different from our closest bonds as we know them, even with a “queer” slapped on the front of it. We need the language, we need the tools, to talk about this whole different dimension of relationships that allos don’t know about, that we’re only learning about ourselves. 

Even if we just use “bonded” or “special people” -- I think it’s better than trying to wrangle a square word into a round hole.