#and the main characters there are also mostly teenagers in the beginning!

[rosakuma]

First Impressions Off of Ouno Nanae Student 1B!

Hello and happy Tetro Blue prologue day! We kick off the beginning of another wonderful, fun, scary, and most likely going to be depressing season of Tetro! We get to see each of the students everyday from now on during the 30th of June and the rest of July. We of course are starting with our lovely airheaded contortionist Ouno Nanae! I wanted to write down a list of thoughts I felt based on her first appearance(well more of voice debut than physical, that’s not until July 16th).

Starting off with the new background for the video

As we see, Seki updated his monitor and now in a very white space within the plane. This either means the plane entirely is just pure white or this is supposed represent Ouno’s main color White for her.

Also fun detail you can see is that Seki brought one of his personal items from the lab to the plane, being his best dad mug :) .

Its both sweet and sad to see how now Seki stuck in the plane he most likely cannot see his family, thus the only thing left remaining of a reminder of him is this mug that maybe his daughter gave him…..

BUT WHO CARES!? THIS AIN’T ABOUT HIM, LETS GET BACK TO OUR MAIN FOCUS, THAT BEING OUNO NANAE!

So as we see in the footage, Ouno currently up in her room trying to practice a certain position for her act. Feeling that its boring and the audience might not like it. With her is a teenage boy voice by anonymous according to the description.

We can assume this boy is a friend or possible partner of Nanae’s since she trusts and wants him enough to watch her act routine for one of her shows. We know for not a relative though with her referring to her mom and the fact she’ll get all “nosey” if she sees him.

It seems these two are close though with how he tries to tell Nanae her act is really good, she’s just tired of it from doing it multiple times. Perhaps if we get a Ouno Nanae spotlight, we could ask her a question regarding about who he is and what is his relationship with her.

Speaking of potential questions, another one can be asking based on what troupe she works with and her relationship with them! Base on her casting call description though in terms of her being “too trusting due to general naivety”. Perhaps she has a strong bond with her troupe to cause her to put her trust into others like they did for her.

Continuing on, we then have her voice which is very accurate to the casting call description being airy, lifting, and mid to high pitched tone.

Now, I definitely didn't expect her to sound like this but….I LOVE HER OH MY GOD!

She sounds soooo sweet and silly, its so much charm put into it. I gotta say that Rainy Day/Lemon did a wonderful job portraying her! And knowing Von loves to hear her voice, I can’t wait either to hear more of it for her interview and the rest of the series!

I am aware earlier today a lot of people were nasty about judging it since it sounded strange at first. Which btw I know its confirm she just talks like this and it's not a speech impediment or any other issue, but regardless if she had one or not, you should never ever make fun or insult anyone voice. It is disrespectful to the VA and to anyone who sounds like Ouno. Also just plain rude in general. Though please don’t take this as you have to like Ouno’s voice, but just don't make fun it or diss the VA’s voice acting skills if you don’t vibe with it. It might grow on you perhaps and if not, its cool as long we don’t act mean to the VA or anyone who sounds like this.

I will say…I am kinda bummed that Ouno just talks like this regularly and not because of a disability. Mostly because it would’ve been cool to see more representation in Tetro of voice disabilities or even if Ouno herself was deaf like Harada was in Tetro Pink. But oh well, not that we won’t be able to enjoy her character fully and besides, we’ll get more great diverse rep to explore for this cast either way!

We’ll have to wait to see a full grasp on what Ouno will fully be like during the killing game, but I can tell already she seems like she’s going to be one of the sweet characters of the cast. But also might be taken advantage of too(I’m side eyeing you Ikeda YOU BETTER LEAVE HER ALONE-).

Can’t wait for my boy Ninomiya tomorrow! ^^

[lurkingshan]

Heesu in Class 2: A Lovely Queer Kdrama

This wonderful little show has come to an end, and I want to talk a bit about why I enjoyed it so very much, because it has been one of my absolute favorites of the year. Let's break it down!

Before I jump in, let me address the elephant in the room: this series is loosely based on a manhwa of the same title--and I do mean it when I say "loosely"--which has been the source of much consternation among manhwa fans who were hoping it would be closer to its source material. It's not, and it's not trying to be. The show took a fairly simple BL manhwa and gave it the full kdrama treatment, building out the world around Heesu and altering much of the story as a result. The show is entirely its own thing, and I am reading and judging it based only on what it set out to achieve with its narrative, not on how it compares to the manhwa.

The Narrative Structure

The most crucial thing to understand about this show from a narrative perspective is that despite being labeled as a kbl, it's really structured like a kdrama. Most kbls are two to four hours total and laser focused on the romance, with little time spent on other characters or the wider world. And that's understandable given the constraints they are typically under on both time and budget. Heesu is different. With 10 50-minute episodes, its officially the longest kbl ever made, if still shortish for a mainstream kdrama (those are usually 12-16 hours). And the creators took advantage of that extra time to make what is basically a kdrama/kbl hybrid that largely mimics structures and tropes from mainstream kdrama.

Specifically, the show deploys a really classic kdrama romance trope that I refer to as the love rhombus, where four characters get into messy lines of attraction that start out mostly one-sided and mismatched before eventually settling into two pairs by the end of the story. It also includes heavy emphasis on friendship and family relationships, and uses all its side characters to parallel and mirror the main story. If you watch kdramas regularly (as I do), you've seen this structure in lots of shows and have a good sense of how the story is going to play out. If you don't, and come to this show expecting it to behave like a typical kbl, you may end up confused. This show cares about a lot more than the main romance.

The Lead

Heesu is our lead, and I find him to be such an endearing character. He feels like an actual teenager in the way he's a huge mess of contradictions. Sweet and kind, but also frequently selfish and short-sighted. Generous and committed to helping others, but also kinda mean and quick to jump to wrong conclusions if someone gets on his bad side. He is the core driver of the narrative, as ultimately this is his queer coming of age story. When we begin the show, he is hiding himself from all of his loved ones, nursing an obviously doomed crush on his best friend, and badly misreading many of the people around him because he's so caught up in his own struggles.

The Friendships

There are multiple important friendships in this show, but the rift between Heesu and Chanyoung is at the heart of the story. They are longtime best friends who have started to become distant from each other as Heesu pulled back and began hiding himself upon realizing he has romantic feelings for his friend. Heesu's feelings, and the fear he has about Chanyoung finding out about them, has come between them and started to weaken the trust they have in each other, and Chanyoung begun pulling back in response. We follow as Heesu meddles in Chanyoung's relationships and struggles with whether and how to tell Chanyoung how he feels, and Chanyoung in turn tries to get Heesu to tell him what is going on with him. They are also joined by their mutual friend Hosik, a delightful character who brings so much fun to every scene he's in and has his own little love story.

The other important friendship, and one of my favorite relationships in the show, is between Seungwon and Jiyu, another pair of longtime best friends. Seungwon ends up dragging Jiyu into his mess when he pretends to like her as a cover for asking Heesu for help, and ends up coming out to her to explain himself. I love their friendship and the way Jiyu balances calling him on his lies with covering for him with others until he works up the courage to come clean. She's a real one.

The Families

I also love that this drama gives us a sense of Heesu, Seungwon, and Chanyoung's home lives. Heesu lives with his three older sisters, and his close relationships with them, and the way they've clearly influenced him to be more in tune with his emotions, is delightful. Seungwon, in contrast, has a much more solitary home life. His parents are divorced and his mom now has a female partner and travels frequently for work, so he's often alone. Chanyoung struggles with his father, who compares him unfavorably to his older brother and threatens to disown him for following his passions. These family relationships give the boys more shading and help us understand their motivations and the choices they make, and also set up some important parallels in the narrative, with Chanyoung's struggle with his father mirroring Heesu's fears about coming out. And in the end we get to see Heesu slowly work toward coming out to his sisters and Seungwon talk to his mom about her same sex relationship and how it affects him, both of which I found so lovely and rewarding.

The Romances

Like all love rhombus kdramas, this show has two primary pairs, with Heesu and Seungwon's queer romance at the center of the story and Chanyoung and Jiyu's romance serving as a thematic foil. Seungwon is pining after Heesu the entire time but hiding it, while Heesu is working through his feelings for Chanyoung and getting increasingly confused as his feelings for the two boys begin to shift. Jiyu and Chanyoung connect and get together fairly early on in the show as Heesu and Seungwon struggle much longer to get on the same page and sort out the various untruths they've told each other. And that is entirely the point! The queer characters in this story have a lot more obstacles to overcome and a lot of legitimate fears about revealing themselves; for them it's not as easy as just confessing and moving on if it doesn't work out. I loved the contrast of these two romances and also found both couples so easy to root for, especially given how generous they all were to each other as they sorted out their mess.

The Themes

This show is entirely rooted in the queer experience, with Heesu using his love of space and astronomy to draw thematic ties to his experience of life as a gay teenager in a non-bubble world. The astronomy metaphors the show deploys work so well to make the story feel coherent and connected, not to mention inspire the gorgeous visuals used to highlight these themes. This story is all about Heesu's journey to tell his loved ones his truth, to sort out what he wants from the people around him, and to find the courage to reach for his own happiness. All of the side characters are beautifully fleshed out into real and whole people, and their stories all mirror Heesu's own struggles and inform his emotional landscape. In the end, we get to watch Heesu mature, fall in love, sort his relationships, and achieve comfort and happiness with who he is. It's a great ride, and I highly recommend it for anyone who cares about queer stories.

[kass-peridot]

NOW THAT I'M DONE BEING IN DISBELIEF OVER THE FACT THAT AN SU SPINOFF WAS CONFIRMED, I wanna talk about my wonders and hopes and theories for this show.

Im wondering if there's going to be any animation changes in Lars of the Stars. And if there is going to be one, is it just going to be a subtle upgrade or more dramatic changes? I'd be fine with most things but I'm just wondering if there would be any.

Side note, Idk if I pointed this out in my last post but ADORE the logo. Lars would 100% be the kinda guy to use spray paint as protests to stuff and they are definitely gonna be protesting authorities so I think the pink spray-painted star is really really cool. I also LOVE the skull in the "of" as a nod to the skull gauges that Steven brought Lars in the Lars of the stars episode. the font is also very much giving star Wars vibes which I feel is fitting. It also makes me feel like (this is just a silly theory) they might lean into more of a darker tone throughout everything? I know that SU was already pretty dark sometimes but it feels like this is gonna be more mature, like for older more teenager audiences, especially since they know that the fan base of Steven Universe has grown a lot.

With that said, I really hope they have Lars begin to grapple with and be thrown into the true realization that he is going to live a lot longer than his family and (most of his) friends. Humans aren't built to be able to withstand immortality mentally like gems are, mostly because gems aren't often friends with organics that live shorter lives. I hope they put Lars through a kind of depressive arc for him to really carry the weight of that.

I also hope we see Steven in the show, but at the same time I hope he's not a major character at all, because he should be done with dealing with gem stuff.

I really hope we see more of the OG main gems. I hope that Lars needs their help at some point for whatever reason and forms some kind of bond with some of the crystal gems. I also NEEDD to see Lars and Peridot meet each other.

Considering the description of the show stated that we would be going into the past, present, and future of Steven Universe, I hope that they tackle a lot more backstory for the diamonds, maybe even their origin since that's what a lot of people have been asking about.

I hope we get to see Connie fight with Lars at least once. I hope we get to see Connie in general

I NEEEED RHODONITES BACKSTORY BROBRO

I also wanna know more about the gems that make up fluorite.

I hope we meet a character named Citrine.

I hope we learn a bit more about Lars relationship with his parents and I hope we get to see him and Sadie hanging out once or twice at least

I hope we see Shep at least one more time, they were pretty cool

I will likely post more of this stuff when I think of more. also I wanna hear other people's theories and hopes

[mono-blogs-art]

23.5 - Sapphic Highschool Fluff Done Right

You'd think that a "classic highschool romance" is easy to do - but sometimes what seems easy takes a lot of effort to pull off right. 23.5 is simple, silly, lovingly crafted fluffy excellence with a fantastic cast and will give you butterflies like you didn't expect it to! Here's my full review - totally spoiler free this time!

Summary: Overall: 9/10 - I really, really loved it! Genre: Highschool Rom-Com Watch if you're looking for...: tooth-achingly sweet fluff, a wonderfully diverse and well-developed queer ensemble, a classic teen rom-com that will still get you in your feels Watch out for...: no warnings necessary Length: 12 episodes averaging about 45 mins each Where to watch: GMMTV's YouTube channel, all episodes are available with subs in multiple languages!

Full title "23.5 องศาที่โลกเอียง" (The Earth's Axis Tilts by 23.5 Degrees), based on the novel of the same name by author Blue, the show strides new territory as production company GMMTV's first major lesbian/GL show. It stars "Milk" Pansa Vosbein and "Love" Pattranite Limpatiyakorn, who have previously played sapphic side couples together on other GMMTV shows and now get their time to shine as 23.5's main characters.

Ongsa just moved from Phuket to Bangkok and knows no one at her new highschool - except her older sister, her weird cousin, and Sun, a girl in her new class who she's had a crush on for months. While incredibly awkward in real life, Ongsa's online persona "Earth" is able to communicate with Sun effortlessly and soon, Sun falls for Earth - thinking it's a guy, and not knowing that it's actually Ongsa. At the same time, Ongsa and Sun get closer at school as they try to revive the school's astronomy club with their friends.

If I could just sum up the show in one word it would be silly. It's funny, cute, and whimsical like you'd expect what happens when you revolve around a mostly nerdy and/or awkward cast of teenagers. There are tons of goofy sound effects, cute music ("Tilt", the shows opening title sequence, is the best opening of any GL show I've watched this year), and we get all the classic teen rom-com tropes happening. Just gayer. It was cringey in some parts - mainly why I feel like I can only give this show a 9/10 - but inoffensive to me and I still really enjoyed it.

Ongsa: One of the strongest points this show has is that it has an excellent heroine - Ongsa is incredibly fun and relatable. Whether it's watching her spiral when she gets into something too deep, or fearing for her as she traps herself in an increasingly greater net of lies, she's entertaining and captivating and I found myself really rooting for her through it all. Her decisions feel real and even when she fucks up, you can't help but want to help her. She's kind, but incredibly scared and cowardly too. Milk is great at physical acting, it really makes Ongsa feel like this awkward, lanky teen that wishes nothing more than to have a quiet life but keeps getting into Situations™️. She's just a baby closeted lesbian stuck between her first romantic feelings and the pressure of everyday highschool life, and badly equipped to handle either of those things. Even though she has no idea what she's doing, ever, ultimately she decides to be better and admit that she needs to work on herself, for herself. Ongsa is one of my favourite protagonists of this year, and I think she really deserves it.

Sun: Much like her namesake, Sun is a ray of sunshine. She's popular, pretty, smart, and kind to everyone, not to forget confident and selfless. Also, she drives a cute yellow scooter. You immediately understand why Ongsa has a huge crush on her: she's the classic crush in any highschool rom-com. In the beginning, that's all we really see of her - the way Ongsa sees her through her rose-tinted glasses. But what really makes Sun interesting is what we see in the second half of the series. When things start to go wrong, Sun starts to really open up and becomes touchable. She's easily jealous, irritable, and a bit of a crybaby. Just like Ongsa, communication is hard for her (even if she is doing marginally better than Ongsa), but unlike Ongsa, she thinks she's straight. Seeing her start to put 2 and 2 together about her feelings towards Ongsa is wonderful to watch, and I could watch her little face of queer joy any day on my screen. Sun's side of the story is given just as much thought as Ongsa's is and I'm incredibly happy that we got to see it. She's just too damn cute!!

Side Characters: In my opinion, 23.5 especially shines in its supporting characters - and this is never more true than with Aylin. I think I'm not exaggerating when I say you should watch this show just for her, because she's the best character of the show. I off-handedly referred to her in my summary as Ongsa's "weird cousin" but Aylin honestly deserves an entire essay of her own - I love her so much. Aylin is alone, and she's alright with it. The only people she talks to is her family, and she refers to everyone simply as "human". Aylin is obsessed with finding aliens and spends all of her time with her gadgets trying to receive signals or crafting and researching in her room. She involuntarily gets dragged into Ongsa's love troubles as she becomes her confidant, and although Aylin is stand-off-ish at first she begins to really start caring about Ongsa and the others. What I like about Aylin is that her loner nature or strange hobbies aren't mocked or fixed by the show, she only expands into unfamiliar territories she was too scared or hurt to do before. She starts making friends, she starts sharing her interests, and she falls in love.

Other than Aylin, the most fleshed-out side character is Alpha, Ongsa's older sister. Her little arc of trying to take care of her sister and her younger cousin but also being frustrated at always being left in the dark was nice. Alpha's friends from the student council - Marwin, Ton, and Luna - are also fun, especially Luna, who gets her own sideplot as the first person to befriend Aylin. In Ongsa's class, we also have Tin and Charoen as her first friends at the new school, who quickly figure out that she likes Sun and support her. Each character is distinct and meshes well into the ensemble. And having so many fun characters together makes the show lively and feel real.

I could not leave this review without talking about the side couples. And we get 2 entirely separate sapphic sidestories, additional to OngsaSun's main story.

Nida, Ongsa's English teacher, and Bambam, who is the astronomy club's supervisor, have their own little romance when the kids are asleep. Although both of them are adults, the characters are goofy enough to still fit well into the show's tone - and they are just so stupid and CUTE. I was utterly obsessed with their scenes and I'm glad we got to see them. The actresses are also both trans, so to have a middle-aged, sapphic sideplot about two trans women was heavenly. I could watch a show just about them.

I could say the same thing about the other secondary romance plot, which revolves around Aylin and Luna. In a really interesting way, they are the mirror pair to Ongsa & Sun, fulfilling the Popular Girl X Weird Girl trope, but the dynamic is completely different. Seeing Luna claw her way into Aylin's heart and then have Aylin come out by herself and let Luna in all the way was just kind of a show-stealer. Whenever we got to the two of them, I got giddy. Not to bash OngsaSun in any way - but AylinLuna was my top pair of the show.

Visuals: 23.5 also looks great. The colors are nice, camerawork is good, and like I said, the opening title sequence is amazing also in visuals. It's the one I actually go back to watch and don't mind not skipping. The theme of the solar system, particularily for the Earth & Sun metaphors and the recurring alien theme give everything a nice framing and allows the characters to come together organically. I thought it was used pretty well. We've got so many space lesbians this year, man.

"Is it for me/you?" - Conclusion

Now I'm gonna be totally honest: I've been out of highschool and lost interest in highschool stories for a while, whether it's manga or dramas. I'm just not 17 anymore, and I don't need to revisit my own 17-y.o. drama via proxy. When 23.5 was recommended to me, I wasn't sure if I'd actually end up liking it. And don't get me wrong - although I'm not the target audience, that doesn't mean I don't love that shows like this exist. Quite the opposite actually. There always needs to be more queer stories told for all different kinds of demographics!

All that being said - I went in with low expectations and was blown away just how much I loved 23.5. It is so well made, characters are relatable and taken seriously by the narrative enough for everyone to enjoy, even if I don't have the problem of failing my classes anymore. While all things around highschool anxieties are discussed - your first love, first kiss, bullying, clique anxiety, and what you're going to do after graduating - and maybe that won't be relatable for you, I personally found it all packaged up nicely within the different stories of 23.5. Things like sex and homophobia don't really come up. So if you're looking for something spicier or more angsty, then I suggest you go looking elsewhere. For everyone who's on board though: I highly recommend giving 23.5 a try!

I've been extremely impressed with GMMTV's shows so far - I'm currently watching Pluto and impressed and obsessed with it - and so I'm already excited for Milk & Love's next projects together that have already been announced. 2025 is looking delicious, and I hope they can keep improving further. Until then, my time with 23.5 will remain in good memory.

Thanks for reading! Go enjoy watching, and if you do, leave me a message. Cheers!

^ me when I'm born swagless but forced to be a natural girlcharmer

[thekimspoblog]

I can't say this is a project I would ever feel passionately about enough to write an actual screenplay, but let's say for the sake of indulging a fantasy, someone from Blumhouse or A24 approached ME to write a "Jeff the Killer" movie...

My treatment would be a PG-13 dark romance, psychological thriller, and horror-comedy, with a decided leaning towards character development and comedy rather than horror. Mostly, I just have this image in my head of a very snappily-edited trailer utilizing a mashup of "What's the Matter with Kids These Days" and "Teenagers Scare the Living Shit Out of Me". The premise can be summarized as "When a charismatic older boy moves in, an affluent American suburb breaks out in a rash of teenagers attacking adults and each other." The film would heavily feature direct homages to "Blue Velvet" and especially "Edward Scissorhands", but the narrative would actually have the closest resemblance to something like "Village of the Damned" or "Children of the Corn". The point would be to really tap into the emotions of a parent with a troubled child they have no idea how to reach or even discipline, and what it feels like for that frustration to be compounded when the child seems to readily embrace the authority of an even worse influence. The alieness, inscrutability, and untamability of youth culture. The fear of getting old, losing your edge, forgetting what you once knew in your gut. That you barely got a taste of the world belonging to you before the next shiny new thing has already muscled you out, and being powerless to warn the next generation it's a repeating cycle. It's a nightmarish heightened reality where every moral panic the news has ever peddled feels vindicated.

Jeff would not be the main character. Instead we follow an unnamed fourteen year old girl, who at the start of the movie is still reeling from being diagnosed with signs of severe personality disorders (which only makes her feel more socially isolated), and is clearly holding onto a lot of resentment that her parents impeded her dreams of being a child star out of fear the industry was too seedy and would distract her from school. After being suspended for an altercation with a classmate, the girl begins to seek out movies which reinforce her perception of herself as a psychopathic killer. Her parents are clearly repressive, narcissistic, hypocritical, have their middle-class priorities backwards, and are arguably verbally and psychologically abusive, but there's still no question that the intrusive thoughts she begins indulging about killing them are NOT a solution. It's also clear that she wants to lash out at the drab conformity of adulthood that awaits her, that deep down she isn't special, but has no idea how. Jeff moving into the big creepy old house on the hill is framed like the start of a more conventional haunted house movie, but it becomes quickly apparent that the house ISN'T haunted; it's a regular dilapidated death trap and the threat is that nobody who's attracted to it or feels at home living there could be well. But after a brief period of the heroine being dismissive of Jeffery as a poser, the gothic romance of the creepy mansion enchants her and Jeff's general foul-mouthed speaking-truth-to-power vibes suck her into the little cult of personality forming at the house. From there, she is fully under Jeff's spell, and yet he still can't manipulate her into doing anything part of her wasn't already contemplating. As their edgy romance progresses, this is when parents start turning up dead. We know Jeff is behind it, even if the girl is too brainwashed to see it, but a mystery is still built up around the hierarchy of Jeff's followers and which disciple killed which adult.

The main mechanic of this story is the way the movie would repeatedly build up the audience's empathy for characters, then rip the rug out from under them. Everyone's a victim and no one is innocent. And Jeff himself defies explanation: When he first recounts his tragic backstory to Girl, we get a full unbroken nine minute retelling of the traditional Jeff the Killer lore: Relentless bullying, abusive perfectionist parents, brother falsely accused of murder, maiming and reconstructive surgery. But as the movie goes on, we get more flashbacks of Jeff's origins, and the details begin to contradict each other. At one point, Jeff tells a story about how he used to be a timid boy, but after a cult murdered his entire family, upon returning to school he embraced a kind of dead-inside "fake it til you make it" mindset that allowed him to succeed in all his endeavors and ultimately infiltrate the cult and turn it against itself. In another story near the end of the movie, Jeff's career as a serial killer began when he had an encounter with a cryptid akin to the Angel of Death itself, which personally cursed him with a mission he has no free will to resist carrying out, to be an emissary of its message. In another story he was chewed up and spit out by Hollywood and method acting broke his brain. The bulk of the runtime would be the slow burn of the girl peeling away the lies of Jeff's character and growing from enraptured to disillusioned with him. The man and woman Jeff moved in with aren't his parents; they're his hostages, which recontextualizes some of their "abuse". And this isn't even the first couple he's done this to since killing his actual parents over ten years ago. Oh that's right! By the way, Jeff isn't seventeen like he said; he's twenty-eight. And our protagonist isn't the only teenage girl he's promised to run away with once she "cut out the rot from her life". I'd like to think of something a little fresher, but the most obvious trajectory a story like this could go culminates in a Veronica Sawyer-esque showdown between the final girl and the ex-boyfriend who speaks for her dark passenger. I think by this point Jeff should basically split into two different figures: the frail and pedestrian appetites and vanities of a man who kills to feel special, and the eternal self-perpetuating disease Jeff tried to sew himself into the mythology of. His human body lays dead at the girl's feet, defeated, but vapors of television static form a ghost that flashes her one last knowing smile before walking off confidently into the fog. His laugh following her all the way home.

As far as the Blue Velvet homages, I would borrow dialogue said by both Jeffery Beaumont and Frank Booth, and let them both bleed together coming out of Jeff's mouth in a way that only gets more uncomfortable if you understand the reference. The version of himself Jeff wants his victims to see - sensitive, artsy, protective, angry at the cruelty of the world - masks a fragile brute hungry for control who has no problem punching down when it serves his ego. His demeanor in a scene can shift very suddenly, and it needs to be jarring every time. The original CreepyPasta was never high art, but the one thing it did well was serve as a time capsule of the Dark Suburbia setting. The symmetrical shot composition and pastel/candy color palette would clearly be going for a 1950's retro aesthetic, but great pains would have to be taken so that the actual interior set and costume design feels specific to the era the original story was written in. It would be a difficult balance to strike, but if the film's look succeeded in making 2006 feel like a fairytale - distant enough to be nostalgic and at the same time recent enough that we never escaped its shadow - I think we could have something really different and special here. For years, critics have mocked how every character in Jeff the Killer's universe is armed to the teeth and yet the adults are useless in the face of a couple cartoon bullies, and that's actually what started to inspire me. Because while it's very obviously just a plot hole in the original story, there's a real irony there which - if done correctly - could at minimum be mined for comedy. It's an absurdity but in a strange way it feels realistic.

In general, I would take a very "OOPS! ALL SOCIAL COMMENTARY!" approach to the screenplay. The movie throws out so many theories about where Jeff came from and why he's doing this; the police, teachers, and town hall talk in circles speculating on why the kids listen to Jeff and how to diffuse the situation, that it becomes white noise after a while. It lampshades the idea something as simple as an allegory in a horror movie can help us to better understand real world tragedies at all. The closest the story gives to a serious answer is what my criminology textbook calls "Social Control Theory" - basically that it's more constructive asking why people are ever good than why they are sometimes evil. A very specific set of conditions had to be true for the American Dream to ever give the illusion of viability, and by 2006 that dream was already succumbing to entropy at a rate nobody was ready to admit. Symbolized by the opening shot of the movie where the neighborhood is all watching a solar eclipse, and Jeff enters the mansion for the first time just as the eclipse is ending. The tone is very nihilistic, but the goal is to criticize all reductive narratives, including nihilism, and so at least with our main character's arc, the implied resolution is that mental illness and free will are not mutually exclusive, that oftentimes being an asshole is a path of least resistance we have to actively struggle against, even if that struggle looks different to each person. Sprinkle in some moments where the Girl stops herself and exercises some basic common decency, and have those moments not necessarily save the day but at least prevent things from getting worse. A lot of what supporting characters say about/to Jeff can easily be read as being about Trump if the audience wishes, but I'd be more overtly interested in characterizing Jeff this way as a means of calling Brian Warner a transparent loser and satirizing the way countercultures reflect the exploitation of the dominant culture. Our heroine's odyssey of looking for authenticity, in its place finding more bullshit, and having to form her own conclusions about what needs to change.

So yeah. That's my elevator pitch. As always, all creations by Annie Trinty are in the public domain. If you liked this post, don't forget to reblog.

[supahstarrr]

rambling about the love triangle, what michael & kit represents for jentry

a good handful of the criticisms about the love triangle and the romance in general in the show are completely valid and i agree with a lot of them... like i truly do get it when people say they rather not have romance in this show. but honestly i found the love triangle in beginning to be quite interesting since it showed potential in the dynamics. i feel the writers did not *fully* utilize the meaning within the dynamics that was already there and instead mostly used the triangle for entertainment. it would've been way more better for the writers to take advantage of the meaning to explore it for the audience to study it, which they partially did but its clear at some points they prioritized showing romance for the sake of entertainment reasons

in the beginning, Michael being representative of the "normal" and Kit being representative of the "unusual" that the main character is struggling with is such a compelling introduction of a love triangle, considering that we're introduced to our main character struggles with normalcy, the past, her powers, and the underworld being set up to be the main thing for this season. Micheal is teenage boy who is quite normal to the point of almost being the ideal of it—he's a football player with good influence whose able to socialize with people. but also he is a childhood friend who is still disturbed by the past fire, so he is not even just being representative of the "normal" but also the past that Jentry constantly struggles with.

Kit fits the norm so much to the point he leans towards being a deviant. he is very conventionally attractive, he says and does the right things, he's so polite and composed, yet also remains detached. he's so close to perfection to the point he's "unusual" or "out of bounds" (like the underworld). but also he is the "new kid" of the school, being the potential of something new or a different kind of future that Jentry can't get with Michael.

Noticeably, Jentry also struggles with being unusual in social and physical terms (underground world & possession of powers), and she pushes herself to the future for the sake of normalcy so much to the point of not addressing the past. this is reflected by the way the romance in the dynamic between Jentry and Kit is quite fast despite her feelings still remaining with Michael (the past), the attraction from Jentry's end being so strong because she's enticed by the image of him (the future or moving away from her past), plus how unusual they are & feel fueling the connection. the speed of their romance is also reminiscent of how fast Jentry became connected to the underworld.

Then what these guys represent for Jentry gets explored more. Michael as a representative of the "normal" is somewhat broken down. he is quite unsure his future & himself despite being perceived as being secure in his identity and how much he's seen as a good teenager mostly relies on how much he pleases others (especially authorities but also his peers) even if he doesn't want to do those things. though in a sense these traits are normal in teenagers (thus being a representation of the "normal"), those traits also deconstruct norms which are typically social expectations that are thinly-veiled unattainable ideals for most teenagers to achieve. thus Michael shifts to being representative of the deconstruction of "normal"—which absolutely goes well with Jentry breaking down the lies, truth and secrets behind what is normal for her (ex: her grandmother as a guardian, the lack of her parents)

but on top of that, it turns out he has quirky powers of his own. his powers are interesting considering he is the "normal" (then "deconstruction of normal") and "past", considering they are outside of normalcy and are related to the future. despite having these visions, he remains unsure about them and the future in general. its hinted that his parents know about the powers, yet never told him about it. which is interesting noting that these parents pushed him to be normal. through the relationship with his visions, his parents knowing about his powers while pushing him away from the knowledge of them—but also pushing him towards what made him normal (football), and also his desire for doing something new, it shows that being "normal" held him back on his potential unrelated to norms & expectations, thus contributing to him as a symbol for deconstruction of norms.

Kit as the representative of the "unusual" is not just reinforced but strengthened when he's revealed to be a demon. this reveal really does reinforces him being the underworld that Jentry is connecting to, though the connection mostly revolves around her being taken advantaged of by the many demons in that world—just like what Kit has largely been doing throughout the show. yet there is more added to him as a symbol. he becomes the physical form of Jentry's insecurities, being the demon that she think she is. Jentry has avoided and taken advantaged of the "demon" (power) within her at various points of the series, which is similar to the way she does the same to Kit. despite being a demon, the show humanizes him as it shows he is a multifaceted being cable of emotion that he may not be able to describe. through the acknowledgment of the demon that is Kit having traits likened to humanity, Jentry is able to address the "demon" she sees in herself by humanizing herself. and so Kit's death can be seen as a the death of Jentry's perception of herself.

with the context of Jentry's story being to accept the powers and the connection to the underground world as something definite in her life, along with the themes around taking control and Michael slowly getting used to his own powers, him as a symbol is framed differently. Michael is the deconstruction of *society's* definition of normalcy to make your own version of what's normal for you! with the (possible but likely) establishment of the romance in the dynamic between them at the end of the show, it represents Jentry reconciling with and finally addressing the past that she has constantly mourned about. with Michael largely being associated water (that being a big theme in his visions) and Jentry being associated with fire, it shows a "balance" between the two of them as she's worked on herself and that work is ongoing. in a way he goes back to being a symbol of what is normal, but specifically according to Jentry's definition.

i just want to emphasis that there's so much potential even right from the start. i also believe that the outcomes of the triangle—the dynamic Jentry/Michael being endgame, and Jentry/Kit having hints of chemistry for a while but is doomed to perish makes sense for the narrative. the endgame relationship being off and on does make sense, although it is a concept not executed greatly since the show is so vague with them establishing their relationship and them breaking up to the point that was not the message given to many viewers. Kit's death (in the love triangle and literal terms) makes sense, and it is to me the most satisfying outcome of the triangle despite the execution of it being questionable among some of the audience. i'd say that these characters' existence & the emphasis on Jentry's dynamic with the both of them (romance or not) are needed for the story. it is also very interesting to see what the guys represent for Jentry having some shifts and recontextualization, which is reminiscent of the constant life & rebirth topic going on through out the show with the rules regarding to spirituality and the underworld

there's no question that the execution of the whole triangle wasn't that great. there can be so much meaning drawn from the love triangle and what it means for Jentry's story. yet many viewers are dissatisfied with it to the point of some wishing there wasn't any romance in general. it is understandable, though i fear that the love triangle was so lacking to the point the meaning & potential that's already there is missed by the audience and diminished by the writers.

i especially have more complaints towards Jentry/Michael, which fell short to me (and many others apparently) despite it supposing to be the endgame relationship that's meant to be rooted for. there is some hint of the "opposites attract" thing going on with the two that strengthen by the fire & water associations with Jentry & Michael. the both of them are set up to be the opposing elements that are needed together to balance the two of them out. though there is definitely stability that can be seen from especially Jentry but also Michael as he has constantly jumped to girl to girl despite his strong feelings for her, that "opposites attract" trope is hardly reinforced by Michael's personality traits.

Michael's character... needed some more work in this season. he's such a "safe" character that the traits that would translate to flaws and/or concerns in real life (emotionally cheating on all of your partners, cheating by kissing someone else despite having a current partner, and jumping to girlfriend to the next) are portrayed as traits not meant to show depth, and in fact are things to gloss over or be happy about for the sake of rooting for the endgame ship. the traits that could've acted as an extension of to already existing traits (his trouble with commitment could be an extension of his constant self doubt of himself) are not touched on, because those traits are meant to be glossed over. there could've been more opportunities to explore him more and yet there are hardly any, which makes some of the meaning between Jentry/Michael not shine as much as it had the potential to.

and it was very clear that people behind the show did not know what to do with Michael's character, which makes him and his relationship with Jentry lacking even more. which is quite unfortunately, because i'd argue the dynamic is one of the most important ones in the story... and yet the writers prioritized the drama that come with it instead of the potential depth of the ship. Sigh. Still like this show though! It's just... maybe there could have been more... to the romance...

[thealexchen]

What do you think will happen in Tape 2? I think, based on the trailer and the reminiscing flashbacks, we're gonna do something to Corey's bike, by keying it, or choosing to do something worse, and then he'll burn the hideout as payback and cause a forest fire. I feel like we might get a choice that determines what happens to Corey. Like, do we save him, or let him die in the fire? Also, I'm curious what could be in the box. If it turns out to be a head, I am gonna scream.

I don't think it's a head!! 😂 It's the size of a shoebox and you can hear something small rattling around inside if you turn the box around. If anything, it might be Swann's VHS tapes of that summer or her old camcorder. I don't do a lot of theory crafting, so just bear with me here.

From the reveal trailer, we definitely know Fawn's Rest/Curse will sadly burn down at some point. The group in 2022 speaks about it in the past tense in a way that implies it's not there anymore, and Swann also implies she "lost" a lot of her sentimental items before she moved like they were destroyed instead of simply misplaced, and a lot of those items were in the cabin.

Given DN's track record (like Nathan and Victoria), Corey and Dylan are likely red herrings. This game might not have a main antagonist at all, with its pacing and smaller cast of characters. More likely, the fire could've been an accident, since there's a prominent fireplace in the cabin, and it spread into the forest.

Alternatively, Kat could start a fire at the ranch out of anger at her family-- maybe her beloved fawn Gertie was killed, or the Abyss is affecting her mental state. All the girls' eyes glow purple the day after they see and throw something into the Abyss, and it seems to be strengthened by anger and hate, given how the purple glow shows up on Corey's face and he seems to become physically hurt and feel threatened by them enough to leave the scene.

In the very beginning of the game, the girls are running for their lives from a person in a wolf mask. I think that's most likely Corey. If he's a red herring, either it's a prank gone wrong, or the Abyss is affecting him.

Some other theories I've seen mostly on Reddit:

You as Swann have to make some big choices during the fire, and her appearance in 2022 could be choice-determinant (a possible reason why all her 2022 scenes are in first-person. Like, maybe she has burn scars depending on your choices).

Kat is trapped in the Abyss and possibly still 16 years old. Either she jumped in herself, or the girls made some insane trade to keep her alive and healthy.

Kat is in the Abyss and that's why the group can't remember the summer of 1995 clearly

Swann got affected by the Abyss somehow and it altered her appearance or memories

Time travel/shadows theory: The freeze-frame shadows of various characters (discovered to be Swann, Corey, and Kat) are their characters across time. The person who says "Bloody Mary" back to Swann sounds a lot like... adult Swann. Could that be her stuck in a time loop or briefly sent back to 1995? Another example is in the last scene of Tape 1, when Swann, Nora, and Autumn in 2022 briefly see their teenage selves in the parking lot of The Blue Spruce the night of the concert. Swann looks down at the box, back up, and they're gone again. Stylistic choice, or did they actually see their past selves?

The fifth girl theory: Some Redditors have speculated that the Abyss affected the girls' memories to the extent that they forgot an entire additional person. The box says "I WAS THERE" and "REMEMBER 1995" and the game has a few odd moments where the camera is no longer behind Swann's shoulder but from the POV of someone else. Fake cameraman, or secret fifth girl? I don't think it's as likely for DN to introduce a whole new character at the end of the game when they put so much effort into characterizing the quartet, but it's fun to think about.

Kat sent the package across time

Or, Kat sent the package in the present day and is secretly alive

Dylan sent the package

Pam and Gus sent the package

Pam and Gus are the secret villains or they're involved with the supernatural happenings in Velvet Cove

The possible "fifth friend" sent the package

Nora isn't actually married anymore and she's putting on a front for how happy she seems (okay I know this one is much more lighthearted but I wanna see endgame canon sapphic middle-aged relationships! Please!!)

The game will not have a happy ending (it's Dontnod, but the game also opens with Swann either agreeing or not with her mom's take about happy endings at her book club)

Call me crazy but... I think the girls might be queer. But I'm not sure yet. /j

Thank you for asking!

[annashafransky]

Continuing the "Unpopular Opinion" column: the problem of Ahsoka's existence as a character, both in terms of plot and morality. And today I will also touch on the topic of such a phenomenon as "the gray side and gray Jedi, respectively".

Let's start from afar and start with more superficial reasons for the character's problem. Of course, I understand that many people have already said this, but I will still say it - Ahsoka is an absolutely unnecessary character who should not have existed at all. The fact that Anakin was given a padawan is absurd, since we all remember how the council did not trust him from the first episode and that in the third they did not want to give Anakin the title of master. They knew about Anakin's immaturity. And training a padawan is a matter of great responsibility ... especially during the war + it's nonsense that they sent a child to war. (Although in general this show began to portray the Jedi as hypocrites and idiots, but now we are talking about something else). Also, the question arises as to why she, a girl who grew up in the Jedi order, behaves at the beginning of the show as impudently as Anakin, or even worse.  Although Filoni justifies himself by saying that Ahsoka was NECESSARY to reveal Anakin (which he didn't need), Lucas honestly said that Ahsoka was needed solely to attract teenage girls (which once again proves that TCW is nothing more than a fanfic to sell merch and such) + I would like to add about the, to put it mildly, strangeness of her design. Of course, I don't live in the US and may not understand something, but doesn't it seem strange to you that for a children's show they made a character of a 14-year-old girl who runs around in a bra? And not just in a bra, but in a tube top. Of course, I understand everything, fanservice and all that, like Princess Leia in an iron swimsuit, but at least Princess Leia was an adult. You can also remember that Padme was 14 years old in The Phantom Menace, but Lucas did not allow himself to sexualize her, even when she did not dress like a queen on Tatooine.  And the original designs of Ahsoka were not like that, they looked quite normal. But oh well, that's subjective.

And now let's start with objectivity. Ahsoka, from the very beginning of her appearance, began to pull all the "blanket" onto herself, both in terms of attention in the series and in the plot itself. Not only did she undermine the potential for the development of Anakin and Obi-Wan's relationship, but she also dealt a serious blow to Anakin's relationship with Padme. In essence, in some sense, they took Anakin's traits that he had in the second episode and, having hyperbolized them as much as possible, gave them to Ahsoka, while turning Anakin himself into a parody of himself from episode 3, although in fact we should have seen Anakin's transition from the state of the second episode to the state of the third (which Genndy Tartakovsky did in his animated series, but I wrote about that). Also, despite the fact that Ahsoka mostly doesn't care about Anakin based on her actions, she is made almost as important to him as Padme, if not more important. She was given the role of the one who makes Anakin come to his senses during "attacks of the dark side", although this role in the prequels essentially belonged to Padme. Even with Ahsoka, Anakin feels more comfortable than, like... with his wife. Ahsoka was supposed to be a secondary character, but in the end they made her more important than Padme, who, by the way, is the third main character of the prequels.

Ow more specifically.Ahsoka is rude, self-confident, does not understand the word "no", and most importantly, thinks that she is always right (in general, this is a problem with almost most of Filoni's female characters in the Clone Wars, including their parody of Padme. For some reason, according to the writers, a strong woman is some kind of self-confident boor ...). She can be sweet and pleasant only when she is in charge, she is in the spotlight, when she controls the situation, but when some kind of competition or objection to what she does appears, she immediately gets offended and angry, simultaneously insulting or humiliating the one who did it. As an example, this looks very good when, for example, Stella does not hit the droids with grenades, she supports her, but when Stella shows herself as a good sniper and Anakin praises her, Ahsoka gets angry that someone, and not her, got the attention and begins to openly interfere with Stella, moving the targets.  And when Stella even hits them like that, Ahsoka just says "good job" with sarcasm and anger. Or when she and Anakin were on the slavers' planet, she is clearly offended that she has to play the role of a slave and openly taunts Anakin about it, who essentially should have a trauma about it and she knows it apparently (I write "should" because his trauma from slavery is also openly ignored), and then she deliberately behaves not like a slave, essentially setting herself and Anakin up, while getting angry at Anakin for calling the queen more beautiful than her. Hell, even Anakin didn't behave so disgustingly in those same films that are supposedly "imperfect". And yes, she didn't grow or change at all, as fans assure. If she did learn any lessons, they were forgotten in the next episodes, or simply repeated. 

Moreover, she never really admitted her mistakes and always found an excuse for her actions, and most often it was the script itself that did it, in the person of other characters, who said that "Anakin was a bad influence on her." Yes, she was openly rude to the MASTERS, but at the same time she was good, and Anakin was not, although he, unlike Ahsoka, has an excuse for such behavior, since he did not grow up in the order all his life (another problem with the show is that Anakin's evil is presented in the same way that other Jedi do, only for some reason in his case it is only bad, because, I quote TCW fans: "Anakin was initially predisposed to be evil" ... yeah, that is, when someone who "was not initially evil" does this, then he can be forgiven, is that how I understand it??)the worst part of her impudence, which for some reason everyone turns a blind eye to, was in the arc where she was accused of a terrorist attack. This arc could have demonstrated her resilience and calm, contrasting with Anakin, but this potential was safely drained, because she eventually runs away, setting herself and Anakin up, and also again, like many times before, demonstrates her complete disrespect for the council, the code and the Jedi in general. And she didn’t even go to the council to offer her point of view, since her ego simply does not allow her to even admit that she has to justify herself to anyone. Moreover, in that arc she, the one who is generally deprived of any reputation in her situation, narcissistically claims to Ventress that she will achieve her pardon.  Yes, even the fact that she left the order can be interpreted as an attack of egoism in the spirit of "how dare you test me like that, I'm the best, you're unworthy of me", spitting on her duty to the Republic, the order that essentially raised her, and directly to Anakin. And even in season 7, the situation has not changed. What can I say, she openly says that she wants to be allocated clones to attack Mandalore not because she wants to be fair, this is another of her smug desire to prove herself. And the control shot in the head is that she actually sets Darth Maul on the clones, although she knows that they are not guilty of their decisions because of the chips, but again finds an excuse for herself that she did not kill them (very convenient. It's amazing why in our world a murderer is considered not only the perpetrator, but also the customer of the crime? 🤔).  And this character should be an example for association and imitation for children?...

Now the technical reason why she is a total Mary Sue. Yes, sometimes she gets it, she loses and all that, but as I said earlier, it never leaves a mark on her or a serious blow. And it would be okay if TCW were something like a typical American comedy, in the spirit of "Phineas and Ferb", where the same thing is repeated, but with different situations. But TCW by its structure (or tries to seem like it) is a plot-driven animated series, designed to educate children with serious themes. Even Anakin sometimes got it so bad that he even passed out, but Ahsoka always avoided such serious consequences. No scars, no severed limbs. At most, she got electrocuted a couple of times and got dirty.  She also holds her own confidently with the same Grievous, although in the third episode it was clearly emphasized that an experienced master was needed for the operation to eliminate him, and even Obi-Wan had a hard time with him (although, let's be honest, in TCW Grievous was greatly underestimated, both intellectually and in terms of abilities. Well, I don't believe that Grievous from TCW is the one whose death would put an end to the war, as was stated in the third episode. In the animated series, he's just some kind of buffoon). She also, a year or two after she left the order and promised not to use the Force anymore and all that, calmly fights not just anyone, but Darth Maul, who in the first episode was able to kill such an experienced Jedi as Qui-Gon and almost killed Obi-Wan, but was killed (yes, for me, he was killed. I consider TCW as a fanfic) solely because of her arrogance and premature sense of victory.  And Ahsoka actually defeats him in a fair fight, when he has robotic enhanced legs. Another "thank you" to Filoni for devaluing the prequels, this time "Battle of the Fates". Remember how the clones easily killed the Masters during Order 66? Ahsoka survives Order 66 too. Not only does she easily deflect blasters, she also makes a hole in the floor with them to escape. Also, for some reason, unlike other clones, these didn't all shoot at her at once in one of the scenes, but ran up one by one and shot one by one. I've never seen such a level of plot armor anywhere. Moreover, unlike Anakin, she is not the chosen one and should not have such abilities. Yes, Anakin trained her, however, as I said earlier, she hasn't been in the order for a long time, and again, those same Masters were easily killed.but the most important thing is not that. Remember, I was talking about the script justifying her. Well, the most striking example of this is that when she was accused of a terrorist attack, she showed her immaturity, but then, when it turned out that it was a test for her, she is not scolded, not expelled, but on the contrary, returned and, moreover, ready to give her the title of Jedi at the age of 16, which EVEN THE CHOSEN ONE HIMSELF did not achieve, ALTHOUGH SHE IS MORE IMMATURE THAN ANAKIN! Honestly, judging by this cartoon, the Jedi are far from being better than the Sith and Anakin was simply gaslighted... 

And finally we come to the final topic of this post - the gray side and how the same Jedi were exhibited. First, you need to get acquainted with what art is based on, no matter whether it is drawing or literature. The most important principle of art is contrast or, more simply, conflict. In the same painting there should not be "gray" colors, there must be a contrast - darkness and light, black and white and, as in the case of star wars - the Sith and the Jedi. TCW, to please the same Ahsoka, blurs the concept of good and evil, exposing the Jedi as goats and hypocrites, which completely devalues the moral of the prequels about the inferiority of evil as such. Now, judging by other works following TCW, gray is the best. And this is done by the way to justify the fact that Ahsoka literally survived everything, but for some reason she is not going to help those she knew, living for herself, which, judging by the original essence of SW, is selfishness and the commands of the Sith.

However, now the meaning is - "she is not bad, this is just the way the world is, and Ahsoka has such a big heart!"

I don't know, this is not the same as teaching children harm, such morality cannot be... taught to ANYONE...

[grandwitchbird]

MASSIVE spoilers for Clair Obscur. Do not read this if you haven’t played the game.

Musings mostly. Under a cut for your safety.

Through the Looking Glass: False protagonists, earning your tragedy, and teenage heroines.

Clair Obscur begins by tricking you. This is good storytelling. All stories are lies of course, and the really good ones are the best at lying. They get you on their side. They earn the trick. And usually they manage to say something true in the process.

Gustave is not a protagonist let alone the protagonist of Clair Obscur. This is pretty obvious to anyone who’s played a lot of jrpgs (that tiny ability tree) and certainly to anyone versed in narrative strategy. Everything we know about him, we learn from another character, making him feel likable but a bit hollow. Of course, this also helps with the trick. If you’ve played jrpgs, you’re quite used to blank slate protagonists designed to enable projection and reflection. But here it’s a straightforward false protagonist. Gustave dies at the end of the first act. He dies protecting the heroine, Maelle. He dies so that the main protagonist of the game–Verso–can step into his rightful place. He dies as a reference to Aerith’s sacrifice. He dies to set up several very necessary thematic dominos. It’s a wonderful trick.

Those who know not, that they are not.

All of this hinges on Gustave’s relative blankness. If you’re not especially susceptible to projecting onto characters, this moment won’t have much emotional impact, and the mounting dramatic stakes will contrast nicely. If you are susceptible, you’re now primed for the increasing tragedy of the story. Regardless, your time with Gustave and his relative blankness has set up everything that matters in Clair Obscur’s story. Gustave doesn’t know he isn’t ‘real’. Neither do we, even as we start to catch onto the trick. We’re too invested in the struggle he represents. He’s fighting for a fictional tomorrow for people who only ever existed in the mind of a child and his grieving family. You too can take up that fight. You can step into Maelle’s denial and create a doomed fantasy. And the real gift of this game is that you’ll want to. You’ll want the bad ending. It will rip your heart out to make Alice leave wonderland. You’ll have to kill your real protagonist to do it. You’ll have to hurt the heroine. You’ll have to give up the dream of ever seeing these beautiful fantasies again.

Tomorrow comes. For those who come after.

Gustave is the map to what’s ultimately asked of the player, a clever and twisted use of the tendency to self insert in a game that’s treading very familiar jrpg ground. Verso, in contrast, is equally unreal yet a true protagonist. A reflection that’s become self aware and self contained. He’s more demanding as a character, resisting projection and pushing our perspective into his own. Importantly, he knows he’s in a story, so he can take control. Which is why he can bring about a good ending. The end of the cycle.

You can of course refuse. Specifically, the heroine herself will refuse the call to live. To step outside her role as heroine in a fictional world. She’ll lose herself in her reflection. And you’ll want to do it. You’ll want to force the last piece of a dead man’s soul to continue endlessly creating a false version of himself to suffer under the denial of our heroine. You’ll want to bring Gustave back for her. Maybe for you as well. But it’s cruel. The refusal here isn’t just immaturity. It’s pathological. It’s destructive. It’s hollow. And you’ll feel it. In Verso’s ominous recital. In Maelle’s regret. Alice needs to go back through the looking glass in the end. Refusal is something worse than death.

[kghnzen]

persona 5's portrayal of sexual harassment: what i liked and what could be done better – SPOILERS FOR MOST OF THE GAME! TW for mentions of SA+pedophilia!

felt like talking about this because i can't find anyone summing up all my thoughts.

first, ann's character:

what i liked: i thought the writing of the initial arc and introduction to ann's character was really well done; her emotions were reflective of a teenager in her position, with the guilt she felt and the subsequent (or arguably, everpresent) anger. shiho also faced this abuse and almost tried to k!ll herself because of it, which is crazy realistic. also, the nude model thing wasn't that bad. especially in royal, the jokes at her expense came off more like "haha ann, this weird guy wants you to model for him nude" and less like, "i WISH ann would get naked!" (although i did hate morgana's whole thing about "preserving her chastity, but he's generally protective of her so i'll let it slide.) i think that the whole strategy she had to unlock madarame's door was cute and witty, especially how we get to see her dorky acting. she can be used for jokes without it being about her body and that's awesome!!

what i wish was done better: what i most hate about this arc is what happened to ann's character throughout the main story afterwards. if you choose to pursue her confidant seriously (which i think every player should with every confidant but i digress) you will get a wonderful storyline about a girl who wants to become stronger for herself and her friends – if you don't, you just get a character who was taken advantage of at the beginning, and who's situation is then callously poked fun at time and time again afterwards through the narrative. all the times ryuji and morgana ogle her only take away from the message of her character from the first arc. and don't get me started on how hard they nerfed ryuji during the middle of the game – guy who hates scumbags is made to act like one every business month... time and time again, ann is shown to be either outcast or taken advantage of for her looks, and then her own teammates, her closest friends, are used for gags at her expense. for what? cheap laughs? there are way better ways to implement comedic scenes (cough cough everything yusuke does)

next, ryuji's character:

what i liked: everything about the shinjuku scene in royal. these queenie ass gay guys pull up and try to turn ryuji into a drag queen, and joker, tired of ryuji's incompetence, is like... yeah dude rock that shit. morgana is like, "hope he discovers himself..." i think it's fucking hilarious and an accurate representation of shinjuku's nightlife (at least, the presence of drag queens is accurate.) next, i love his attitude towards the girls in his team... mostly. he treats them fairly and like a member of the team, albeit a little cheeky in his interactions with them (often wanting to talk to joker about how he "sees" them as "girls." i honestly find no harm with that, it isn't overstepping any boundaries, just guy talk portrayed realistically. in the end he always sees them as people, not just the abstract concept of "girl," and is able to maintain a connection with them as people, which i think lends to his good naturedness. even the maid scene i didn't mind – he's a teenage boy, of course he's curious. there's definitely flaws in this but that's for the next section.

what i hated: everything about the shinjuku scene in vanilla. unlike it's royal counterpart, vanilla's shinjuku scene has ryuji getting felt up and ogled, while joker finds the whole debacle funny. as the player i seriously wanted to help him get out of the situation, but the game doesn't let you cause it's just for laughs. if it's for laughs, why am i not laughing?? the other issue with this scene was the fact that the people doing this were gay guys in shinjuku, presumably queens or something? this is portraying gay/trans characters as pedophilic FOR LAUGHS, which is extremely harmful and the worst queer stereotype, even if they are just npcs in a minute long cutscene. i greatly appreciated the change to dialogue in royal. i also hated how they had him (and morgana) treat ann sometimes. i talked about this in ann's section, but by watering down her character to Hot Bod, they're also watering down the guy's characters to primitive man seeing boobie for first time. ryuji actively hates kamoshida for his treatment of students, including the sexual harrassment. it goes against half of the points against him that were made in the first arc. not to mention, he's a total mama's boy. i honestly find it out of character for him to be so rude to ann; to think she's attractive? sure, to objectify her? girl he's known since middle school and fights against and has a sibling-like bond with? absolutely not. side tangent, morgana also would never in my mind. i mean, he calls her Lady Ann... that's such high respect! just watering down characters all around for no good reason, ESPECIALLY in the dessert car scene, ugh.

last, joker's relationships with older women:

what i liked: nothing. besides the friendship. but i'm not talking about that, i'm talking about the romance routes...

what i despised: okay i don't have much first hand experience because i refuse to romance persona characters (idk, the mcs are all gay to me, even as kotone, i couldn't romance a man, this is only tangentially related though, let's move on) but anyways, the fact that women twice the minor character's age are available to romance and he still can't partake is preposterous... get my boy a cigarette. jokes aside, takemi being able to drug him and having that be played off as a joke is just horrible and is actually sexual assault. it's the most explicit the game has gotten in portraying that and it's... for jokes. and meant to be seen as enjoyable. yeah okay... i'm having the time of my life.. (Sarcasm.) in any case, i fucking love takemi and wish she wasn't turned into a weirdo. the guinea pig jokes are funny!! i like it when she teases him!! the issue is that the teasing becomes more than teasing!! which is scary! same goes for ohya and kawakami, although i like them a bit less. i do think joker has valuable friends and allies in all three of these women, and the option to romance them almost ruins it for me. it's crazy that cougars are more acceptable than gay romance.

tldr; ann and ryuji's characters were nerfed + we should be allowed to romance yusuke ❤️❤️❤️ thank you for reading if you stuck around this long. would love to hear more thoughts. byebye!

[thiscityneedslessfog]

Rise Kujikawa's Endless Stage: Marukyu Striptease

Marukyu Striptease and Himiko are horrifying. Here I’m about to walk you through why Rise makes me utterly feral in a semi-coherent rant (because this dungeon very immediately made her my favorite), her character is actually top notch. I love this cocker spaniel looking girl.

A recap of the origin of Japanese idols (with numerous links!)

So, I really do not think Rise can be understood without knowledge of the idol industry in Japan. People mostly associate this with South Korea now (or, I do, at least, especially since Teddie’s player is basically the Korean version of a weeb so I learn a lot about Korea from him!), but Japan is where it originated. Though, not the word.

The word "idol" appearing in Japan stems from the 1964 French movie "Cherchez l'idole," or as we know it in English, "The Chase." It's believed that French singer Sylvie Vartan is what sparked the image of the Japanese idol we know today. In The Chase, Vartan performs the song "La plus belle pour aller danser.” Which apparently became such a hit in Japan you’d think it was a bullet.

https://wotakuhakase.com/2018/10/17/idol-101-the-beginnings/

Sakai Masayoshi (Sakai's his last name, he chooses to keep Eastern order when writing in English, which I will respect) pins the Okinawan Saori Minami (南沙織), aka CYNTHIA, born Akemi Uchima, as the first true idol in Japan, when her song 17-Sai (17 Years Old) became a hit in 1971, as shown on Page 56 of the December 1971 issue of the Billboard Magazine. [Sakai][Billboard December 1971 issue]

I think that the emergence of Saori Minami in 1971 is a fitting starting point for the age of the idol when teenage boy and girl singers conquered the mass media. The seventeen-year-old Saori Minami, who came out of Okinawa before the islands reverted back to Japanese control, rose instantly to stardom with the song Junanasai (17 Years Old). At a time when Japan was finally putting the trauma of the defeat in the war behind it with the Tokyo Olympics in 1964 and the Osaka Expo in 1970, and amid a powerful movement to find a resolution to the issue of Okinawa, another symbol of the defeat, Saori Minami captured the hearts of consumers, particularly those who were young at the time, with her cheerful, neat appearance and the touch of foreignness about her (Cynthia was both her nickname and her baptismal name). The timing was such that her future husband, the photographer Kishin Shinoyama, has said that he thought the singer was the product of a national policy to improve the image of Okinawa ahead of the restoration to Japan.

- Sakai Masayoshi

There are male idols, but these will not really be discussed as Rise is a female idol and there are gendered differences in presentation.

I'd mention how television influenced the popularity of the idol phenomenon, but to be honest I think the importance of the TV and its influence throughout the game should be its own post...

The Idol's Image and Lack of Control

In Patrick Galbraith's article "Labor of Love," he discusses the work of the idol and how they market themself to fans. He primarily focuses on female idols. He discusses "underground," "street" and "net" idols, but here he discusses a common link between the three, how their biggest ideal is to put on a role considered "cute." The main reason for this is because idols and youth are considered interlinked and influences on their fellow young Japanese.

In his ethnography of idol culture in Japan, Hiroshi Aoyagi suggests that the role of an idol is to successfully navigate social maturation and develop a persona that is “publicly adorable.” Idols are introduced in magazines and on television as ideals for the youth of their time. They are also carriers of information about lifestyle and fashion for people more generally. Especially as models, singers, dancers, personalities and actresses, idols also embody the ideal of a creative, communicative subject who works well with others and gains their love and support, an ideal that began to rise in many post-industrial nations in the 1970s and took hold in Japan in the wake of economic recession and flexible employment in the 1990s.

He says that being cute is what makes the idol lovable to her fans in the first place. He also discusses how an idol being considered "uncute" makes them considered a failure of an idol, discussing the Sophia 48 (later called Sophia mellmuse), who were a fan group of the Akihabara 48 (AKB48) in contrast to the AKB48 and the way they were unfavorably compared to the AKB48. These people are not even idols, they just do dance routines, but are treated similarly to genuine idols around them… so what’s the point in not considering them underground idols themselves?

If an idol labors to be cute and lovable, then the rejection of SPH48 as “uncute” by these haters was taken by the group to be a failure. In response to the perceived crisis, SPH48 made renewed efforts to improve the quality of their idol performances, which is to say to be as cute and lovable as the idols that they mimic.

Which segues well into the more screwed up side.

I imagine if you're as much of a weeb as I am, you would know a bit about the dark side of the Japanese idol industry, but if you are not like me, then here's a rundown.

Did you know that Japanese idols aren't allowed to date? Ian Martin's 2013 Japan Times article discusses the humiliation of Minami Minegishi after she was seen leaving the home of another idol, as she was dating him, which was disallowed by her handlers and her fans, and he discusses the reasoning behind an idol not being allowed to date. I bolded the part I considered most important--I'm sure Martin would agree.

The central problem of groups such as AKB48 is the defence that by dating, idols are ruining fans’ fantasies. This is key to understanding not just AKB48 and their sister groups, but pretty much all idol culture. The groups are not just selling music, they are selling a fantasy narrative. It’s one that everyone knows is fake, which is why it is imperative that fans’ suspension of disbelief be maintained at all costs — with severe punishments for those who step out of line.

[Source]

Not to mention how this fosters entitlement from usually an idol's male fans, which we see in-game via Rise being stalked, but her situation is frighteningly typical. There's a BBC article dated from 2019 about a stalker tracking down an idol who was graciously left anonymous (who knows how badly she'd be victim-blamed otherwise...)

Following his arrest later that month, he told police he was a big fan of the woman, who was described as a 21-year-old "Japanese idol" in local media reports. The suspect told police that after zooming in on the image of her eyes, he used Google Street View to identify the station. (Hibiki Sato, the stalker in this article) also said he had studied videos the woman shot in her apartment, looking at details such as the placement of curtains and the direction of natural light coming through the window to try to determine exactly which floor she lived on, reports said.

[Source]

(As an aside, these aforementioned points are actually very similar to Mayumi Yamano's situation, her murder was very much a particularly severe symptom of this "mask over matter + entitlement" phenomenon, but this is about Rise, not Yamano.)

Also, idols are highly sexualized, even as minors. Ian Martin again describes it in this article, but he’s not the only one to speak about it. Haruka Udagawa wrote an article in The Mainichi about the epidemic of mistreatment against these teen idols and interviewed people fighting for the rights of these idols.

Yumeno Nito recalls one girl was taken to a venue without receiving a job description and then suddenly forced to wear a swimsuit. According to Nito, the girl was crying because she didn't want to participate in the event.

[Source] Betsy Reed in an article of The Guardian talks about the sexual exploitation of teenage girls, and talks briefly about its ties to the idol industry.

The fetishisation of Japanese schoolgirls in Japanese culture has been linked by some academics to a 1985 song called Please Don’t Take Off My School Uniform, released by the female idol group O-nyanko Club, and re-released by no less mainstream a group than AKB48, one of the highest-earning musical performers in Japan and whose single Teacher Teacher sold more than 3m copies in 2018.

[Source]

There’s also just a casual mention by Rise in the physical exam scene about her measurements being slightly exaggerated by her agency, which is implied to affect how she’s first seen on the Midnight Channel, as her chest is portrayed as larger.

How does this shape Rise as a person?

We see a bit of Rise's idol persona, but not a lot. But what we see of Rise normally during her story arc is that she genuinely is a kind and sweet person, considering she gives Yosuke, Kanji and Yu extra tofu because they treated her like a human being and didn’t put her on a pedestal, but insanely tired because of the constant attention she can’t escape. She’s softspoken because of it, and when Yosuke, Yu and Kanji warn her about the Midnight Channel Killer, she assumes they’re talking about a stalker—which she’s used to at this point. She’s understandably implied to be distrustful, considering she couldn’t confide in a soul, as she mentions in her Rank 7 dialogue.

Marukyu Striptease

Marukyu Striptease is based on an “adult theater,” or... a stripclub.

I'll call attention to a few enemies in the dungeon, the miniboss, the level quotes, and the general designs of the stripclub.

First, let's talk about a couple of the enemies that strike me, since we can’t cover all of them or we’d be here all day—namely the Death Seeker and the Liberating Idol.

The Death Seeker, which shows up on floors 1-4 of Marukyu Striptease, is wildly fitting--mimicking the designs of the floor. Rise is being perceived at every moment, judged at every moment, even when she doesn't want to be. Furthermore, it’s the Hermit Arcanum, which represents introspection and soul-searching—exactly what Rise is doing throughout her character arc and why she’s called off being an idol.

The Liberating Idol's name speaks for itself, to be honest. It shows up on floors 3-10, and since it’s based on the Virgin Mary, could also be seen as representing her purity being tantamount to her image, while she wants to be free from everyone’s prying eyes.

I feel like the Amorous Snake, her miniboss, also speaks for itself, to be honest. It inflicts ailment inducing physical spells because idols have to work even when they’re sick and is a blatant metaphor for how she’s constantly sexualized—when she genuinely wants to connect to others but firmly believes people will only care about her looks and the fact she’s a now ex-idol. Also, it’s the same Arcanum as her—Lovers, which is all about choice.

Now for the design of the place, it's a stripclub. It has silhouettes of her with no obvious clothes, it has silhouettes of lipstick markings in the shape of kisses, it’s all the ways that she’s objectified by the public.

But the biggest detail I want you to notice is the floor. The floor has eyes. Everywhere. The whole public is watching her. Rise cannot have a second of rest to let down the mask. She is always being watched, even when she brings herself out of commission—the stakeout to protect her from the Midnight Channel Killer has Detective Adachi and the Investigation Team discover a stalker, whom they mistakenly believe to be the Midnight Channel Killer.

Rise's Shadow, Himiko

Himiko is far and away the most terrifying of the Shadows in my eyes. As a shadow, she is a perfect representation of Rise's public image and mistreatment being brutally internalized.

Let's start with Himiko's namesake, the shaman queen of Japan who ruled Yamatai. This bleeds into her relevance as a Persona once she is accepted and soothed. The main source of knowledge for Himiko and Yamataikoku's existence is in Wei Zhi, describing her diplomatic missions to Wei. In Akiko Yoshie's Gendered Interpretations of Female Rule: The Case of Himiko, Ruler of Yamatai, she discusses the veil behind Himiko despite her nationwide fame thousands of years after her death.

Regrettably, while Himiko's name became broadly known, the image that the public came to embrace departed greatly from the historical reality. We now examine how postwar scholarship misinterpreted and misrepresented [Wei Zhi.]

[Source]

She talks about how Himiko's dynamic with her brother as her assistant makes modern scholars believe that Himiko's brother was the true ruler behind Yamatai. How does this tie into Rise and the Shadow named Himiko? Rise herself actually has very little power over her life, and despite her fame, power is taken away from her just as it is from the image of Himiko, despite the face Himiko was genuinely the one in control of the kingdom--Yoshie notes that upon the mention of the same phrase with the later Emperor Yuuryaku (real name Wakatakeru) doesn't get interpreted as his assistant Wowake having all the power, and asserts this is related to misogynistic readings of Himiko's rule by scholars.

The second point concerns the entry that "[Himiko had] a younger brother who assisted her in governing (tasuke osameta) [the kingdom]." To what extent did her brother govern? This question has evoked a frequent gender-biased response, namely, that the actual ruler was the brother, not Himiko. We can consider this question by examining other, comparable uses of the same term, "to assist in governing" (tasuke osameru). Precisely the same phrase is inscribed on an iron sword, found in a burial mound in eastern Japan, dating from the latter half of the fifth century. The inscription states that a chief named Wowake served the great king Wakatakeru, mentioned previously, and "helped [him] govern (tasuke osameta) the realm.'"

Both Himiko and Wakatakeru had someone who "assisted" their governance. But scholars have interpreted the meaning of the exact same phrase differently for the two rulers- one female and the other male. In the case of Himiko, the phrase came to mean that she relinquished her rule to her brother. In the case of Wakatakeru, no scholar infers from the inscription that Wakatakeru left the governance to Wowake and remained a figurehead.

[Source]

Again, power is taken away from Rise Kujikawa just as it is taken from Himiko, but in Rise's case it's not by scholars misogynistically interpreting her, but by her managers and fans forcing her to keep up a specific facade in order for her to be loved.

Now, off of the historical Himiko and onto Himiko the Shadow, Rise's Shadow. You’ll notice throughout Rise’s dungeon that Himiko will always be performing, calling you her fans and herself Risette, and a lot of her dialogue has euphemisms for stripping. Himiko is a representation of Rise's internalized objectification, sexualization, and terror at what she'll find when she drops the mask. Will she find nothing? Were her terrible "fans" who objectified her correct? Is she truly just some doll for the public with nothing behind? When she quit her job, she quit in order to search for her "true self." What will happen if they were right? It's emphasized by the fact Himiko's berserk form is completely faceless, and her body is plastic and featureless, a mix of colors put together.

Her physical appearance does not help with this, being shown in a gold swimsuit(?) and she only has two expressions. Her eyes are unnaturally wide, giving her a wildly unnerving smile.

But Himiko also shames Rise, mocks her desire to be seen as real and her genuine enjoyment of some of the fame she gets. After all, in Rise's Rank 9, she talks about how she did genuinely enjoy some of the fame she got as Risette when she successfully admits and begins to truly accept that Risette is a part of her, too.

Because again, Himiko is saying all this because she is Rise's fear incarnate. That's why Himiko is disturbing--she in particular is an embodiment of fear, that repressed fear that Rise Kujikawa is a husk. Himiko knows that Rise’s been stalked, Himiko knows about the dating ban imposed on Rise, she knows about the way her reputation could be violently ruined—she is a piece of Rise, after all. She remembers all this. Her presentation is a result of all this. And Himiko calls out how terrible it all is and how tired Rise is of being Risette--how she feels forced to play the role at this point and has genuinely no control over her life, and she isn't allowed to express frustration over it at all, a genuinely horrible experience.

Rise, of course, does gain genuine confidants and people who she can take her mask off around in the form of the Investigation Team, and realizes how complicated of a person she is, which is how she soothes Himiko and has her transform into her Persona. Rise is still a bit scared after the whole ordeal, as she still denies she and Risette are the same person, but begins to realize that she’s not just one thing, but multifaceted. When she wasn't quite allowed to be, originally. Himiko is Rise. Risette is Rise. There's so many facets of Rise.

One last thing: you know how I mentioned idols aren’t allowed to date? And then in her Rank 4, she says she’s marrying Yu to get her old manager Inoue off her back. I think her openly flirting with Yu is an act of rebellion against the crushing control over her back when she was an idol—she hated that lack of agency. And now that she can actually act on her feelings without the whole world trying to tear her limb from limb for it, she flirts as much as she can. It definitely helps that Yu doesn’t seem to mind!

But all this is why Rise is my favorite Persona 4 character--her dungeon and Shadow, and what it means to her. Her dungeon isn't even my favorite, I've done a very spoilery writeup about my top two together, but she is my favorite character.

[krakapi]

I'm probably not the first person to say this, but I really don't understand all the hate Genmui receives. It isn't illegal, they aren't related, nor are they toxic.

The two main reasons I hear every fucking time as to why people dislike this ship are that :

A. They're too young

B. They only ever interacted once

Addressing the first part, that being that they aren't of age to be dating. That's false. Most teenagers begin relationships (although not long lasting) as, well, teens. Additionally, Genya (16) and Muichiro (14) share the same 2 year age gap as Zenezu (Zenitsu x Nezuko), an extremely popular, canon and hetero ship in the franchise.

Zenitsu (16) and Nezuko (14), do end up together after Muzan's defeat, and have kids, who then have kids, etc. However, before marriage, Zenitsu was absolutely in love with a then demon Nezuko. That's cute and all, if we just ignore the fact that Nezuko herself was turned into a demon at 12. Demon's don't age. Meaning, even if she was physically able to age herself, mentally, she is a young girl. Which, in itself, is kinda icky if you ask me.

As for the second claim, that being that they rarely had any interactions. Although in the manga it is indeed true that we don't see them talking together often, it's important to realize that Demon Slayer was a very rushed, short series. Therefore, it was very direct, and focused mostly on the plot. Aside from that, it is known that Muichiro and Genya are good friends with Tanjiro and company. It's displayed in this cute lil' manga panel :

(Zenitsu keep your hands away oh my god...)

They probably are relatively close, so it's safe to say that "behind the scenes", they hangout. Also, and not to bring up another canon HETERO ship, but Inoaoi (Inosuke x Aoi) literally have the same amount, if not less exchanges than Genmui. Heck, most people agree that them being a couple is random, no matter the adorableness. Listen, I don't want to pull the homophobia "card", but with the past two comparisons I've used, and the fact that Genmui is a gay pairing, it's difficult to say otherwise.

With that being said, I've also seen alot of people claiming that because Demon Slayer takes place during Taisho era Japan, these characters would be 100% straight, or even... homophobic. First of all, L opinion. Just because the society of that time was more openly against queer people, does not mean that they didn't exist. Many people of the lgbtq+ community back then did not ever get the chance to come out of the closet.

Second of all, the Demon Slayer Corps is known to be accepting of all people. You can't expect to maintain a secret military-like organization if you're too picky on who's joining. The most prominent and talked about example is Mitsuri Kanroji, who was praised by Kagaya for her incredible strength, which was deemed weird by society for a woman. As a Demon Slayer, you're basically reduced to a human sacrifice, ready to give up your life on a whim. Who the fuck really cares about what gender you wanna make out with?

Anyways, to conclude, Genmui is an overhated ship <3 If you really dislike it that much, you can sit in the corner and be miserable.

[mahou-furbies]

Now caught up with Mermaid Melody Aqua

When this originally started my involvement was mostly about gawking at Lukia's design and I only read a couple chapters before dropping off, but now I'm caught up. Aannnddd how do I put this... it's hard to gauge how critical I can be since this is clearly aimed at a younger audience, and also romance stories aimed at tween girls are already such a punching bag, but... this is the first time I'm considering if I should give a mal rating of 1/10 to a manga. I've read other Nakayoshi series and for the most part have been able to find something like or at least end with a wishy-washy "I'm not in the target audience but I guess it's okay for what it is" sentiment, but this one just has so many issues, in addition to a myriad of stuff that personally pisses me off.

The story is about the original series' heroine's teenage daughter Lukia, who, as anyone who knows anything at all about this manga, looks exactly like her mother for no reason. The ocean is in danger again and Lukia has to marry this one merman to prevent a catastrophe, but she is in love with a human boy, who doesn't know about her mermaid identity and is into both her human and mermaid personas separately and struggles to choose. There are also some magical girl battles. So not that unusual of a shoujo premise.

I tried to think of what my biggest issue with the manga is, but it turned out to be difficult since there are so many to choose from. For starters, I can't think of anything I like about Lukia. Obviously for someone who is into fun anime designs her look is an immediate 0/10 for being an exact copy of an existing character, but it also makes the story harder to follow at times when it's difficult to tell if a character is supposed to be Lukia or her mother. But even apart from the character design she's just so bland, and doesn't have much other passions than lusting after a boy and doing the plot, and even with the plot she's just sort of passively stumbling through. Like in the part where she's being pushed to be with her fiancé and she just limply goes along, and overall it feels as if she spends like 95% of the story looking flustered.

The boys are pretty generic shoujo love interests, and in general in control of the situation while the heroine blushes and follows. They also have little else going on outside chasing Lukia, and get into arguments with each other over who gets her while she feebly stands on the side (her opinion is irrelevant).

However despite the people in the main love triangle being extremely unlikable to me, somehow I'd say that the returning MMPPP cast draws the shortest straw in terms of characterisation. The former heroine Luchia has two roles; either she is the butt of the joke as an embarrassing mum, or an obstacle to Lukia's romance who pushes the arranged marriage, and both are depressing when you consider how she was originally a typical magical girl heroine. More often than not Luchia and her friends are more often than not written like immature teenagers, and at their lowest swoon over how attractive Lukia's fiancé is (all the while the readers are shown how unhappy Lukia is about having to marry some rando).

Lukia spends majority of the series thinking about men, and she doesn't really get proper friendships to balance that out. At the beginning the series does introduce a new mermaid as a friend to her, but they quickly fade into being just an accessory to Lukia. It feels like when the series wants to have a "the heroine is doing fun stuff with her girlfriends!" scene, it just has Lukia hang out with her mum and her mum's friends (who never grew up), which is kind of cringe.

Then there's the fanservice aspect; this is a shoujo series but it sure likes to have Lukia wear tops that show off her sizable rack and skirts short enough to show her butt cheeks. In one scene Lukia is just flat out naked so the main guy can walk in on her. And the mermaid tails have been drawn to display the curves of their legs, which to me creates a kind of grotesque effect when it looks like their feet have been cut off from the ankles.

Then finally some complaints about the overall storytelling, it's just so clunky. Like Luchia reveals that Lukia is a mermaid and already engaged, and Lukia runs off in anger. Next page she is introduced to the mascot and has some banter with him, and two pages later it's already the next day and we're at school. You would think that Luchia would at least try to talk a bit more about how her daughter's life is about to take a huge turn, but apparently nothing that was important enough to show to the reader happened during this time. In general there are a lot of moments where transitioning from one scene to another, or even from panel to panel, is noticeably clumsy. Characters also feel like they act just however the scene needs them to.

I am aware that there are plenty of women and girls who are into this kind of love stories where a big strong man shows up to swoop the blank slate heroine off her feet (just think about the popularity of Twilight and 50 Shades), and I would imagine that Mermaid Melody Aqua is aimed at 12-year-old girls who want a "sexy" romance with hot boys totally devoted to the viewpoint character. But I've never been there so I can't relate, and if I had to think "well someone else probably likes this" every time I think of writing a review I could never criticise anything. So let's just close with the sentiment that with the laziest character design imaginable, wet rag of a heroine, super conservative gender roles in the romance, inconsistent and dull characters, undignified portrayal of original series heroines, unappealing fanservice and overall weak writing this is a good contender for my least favourite manga ever. The story isn't over but it's hard to see how it could crawl out of this hole.

[booksandchainmail]

@the-yuri-librarian

Will someone please tell me if any of these series have lesbians

(in regards to this post)

Of the two web serials featured in that meme:

Pale Lights, by erraticerrata one of its 2-4 protagonists is a lesbian. There hasn't been much in the way of romance for her yet, but the series is pretty early on, and also romance-light. One of the other female protagonists is possibly bisexual, and the male protagonist is ace. Pale Lights is about new recruits to an elite god-hunting organization in a gunpowder-and-sail era world that is also entirely within a massive cavern full of strangeness. Ongoing

Twig, by wildbow umm. ok. so how do I put this. It has ambiguously bisexual girls in an situationship? It got a lot of submissions to a yuribait poll tournament. Also in the main cast is a trans girl. I cannot in good consciousness recommend this on the basis of lesbianism, but I do like it. Twig is about a group of child lab experiments/field agents of a biopunk empire. Complete

Other web serials that may be of interest to you!

A Practical Guide to Evil, by erraticerrata Protagonist is a bisexual woman, and almost all of her romantic interests are other women. PGTE has my favorite slowburn romance of all time. Also in the main cast are (at least) two more bi women, and an aroace man (there are more queer characters depending on how you define main cast). In a medieval fantasy world where narrative tropes have metaphysical weight, a new group of villains begin fighting smarter to overcome their narrative disadvantage. Forty years later, a teenage girl from a conquered country, seeing how heroes have failed, chooses to become the Squire of the empire's Black Knight. Tagline: Do Wrong Right Complete

Katalepsis, by HY Lesbian protagonist, largely lesbian supporting cast, including a couple trans women. Lots of romance, including an expanding polycule. A young woman tries to rescue her twin sister, who was erased from reality as a child by an eldritch entity. Tagline: A web serial of cosmic horror, urban fantasy, and making friends with strange people Ongoing, almost finished (with the first "book"/major overarching plotline)

Necroepilogos, by HY I think literally the entire cast of this one is queer women (including at least one trans woman) having homoerotic moments with each other all the time. A bioengineered supersoldier wakes millennia after her death to find the world a wasteland, populated by women resurrected from across history who must now kill each other to live. Tagline: Lost girls in the ashen afterword Ongoing

PGTE/Pale Lights and Katalepsis/Necroepilogos would be my primary recommendations. Some other webserials:

Some of wildbow's other serials have more lesbians than Twig, but it comes with caveats: Worm (and its sequel Ward) are, uh, controversial for how they handle lesbians. Pale is much better, but I'm also only 1/3 of the way through so I can't vouch for it entirely. Pact has a single important lesbian character.

I lost interest and didn't finish Heretical Edge, but it does have a poly lesbian protagonist.

Time to Orbit: Unknown is not particularly lesbian in specific, but it is largely queer and genderqueer.

Another option of thing I read is quests and original/fan fiction on the forum site Sufficient Velocity. The downside here is that they mostly have really irregular update schedules (unlike the above serials, which update 1-2 times a week on a fixed day) and are prone to being abandoned. I'd recommend looking at how often/recently thy update before starting. With that caveat, some titles with lesbian (or bisexual) females leads and queer romance: Petals of Titanium, The Last Daughter, Lieutenant Fusilier in the Farthest Reaches, Castles of Steel, On the Road to Elspar, Mercy (and Other Costly Mistakes), Pound the Table, and A Little Vice

[lemonycranberries]

there's a bunch of parallels to be made between wicked and mo dao zu shi, as many people have already pointed out (see: these reddit posts, these animatics). but i was thinking about how wangxian's roles in comparison to elphaba and glinda can be considered to reverse over time. i mostly see people comparing wwx to elphaba and lwj to glinda, and sure, there's a lot of comparisons to be made there, but try to consider another angle.

in the cloud recesses, when they're teenagers, lan wangji is a disciplined, hardworking, intelligent student with a lot of pressure put on him to honor his family and their reputation, beloved by his teachers but witout any friends around his age, except perhaps for his brother; much like elphaba. meanwhile, wei wuxian isn't exactly the most dedicated disciple, and breaks quite a few rules without caring about it, which doesn't exactly make his teachers love him, but at the same time, he's popular and loved by his colleagues (who mostly dislike lan wangji, either finding him a sort of teacher's pet or being afraid of him) - while also being seen as a relatively frivolous person who just wants to enjoy life; in that sense, he's more like galinda (if we're looking through a queer galinda lens, we can also say both characters are very entrenched in comphet and very oblivious to their same-sex attraction, with galinda supposedly being a boy-crazy, girly girl and wei ying being very flirtatious towards women, and claiming to have been with many of them without even considering the most remote possibility that he could like men too).

but then, let's skip to both pairings in their adulthood. wei wuxian, that formerly popular, charming individual, is now the yiling patriarch, a previously very talented, advanced young man who's considered different from others in his society because of his methods, something that used to make people admire him and then became his downfall; he started to be hunted and blamed for all evil that ever happened, becoming the biggest public enemy in the cultivation world, and a legend of sorts, nearly a mythical figure, the represention of evil itself. at the same time, despite being warned by those who loved him, he didn't back down in doing what he thought was right (also defending a vulnerable and marginalized group that was being ostracized and blamed for doing evil things - the remaining wens - like the animals were), officially cutting all ties with the respected, traditional cultivation circles and running away to the burial mounds, very aware that this would make him be hated and turned into a villain. eventually, after losing people he loved, he started actually leaning into this evil version of him that was publicly known, comitting so called "evil" deeds while stricken by pain, and soon after, he died on hiw own, while the entire world celebrated his death and talked about how he deserved it because of how he'd done certain things, a lof of them not being true (note: both pieces of media begin this way, with the viewers/readers being introduced to the story with celebrations of the main character's death - and in both cases, said character wasn't actually - or permanently - dead). i don't even have to say how extremely similar to elphaba's story his story is in that sense (and you could still find more similarities, like both characters being morally gray or both characters being very attached to their siblings and going at extreme lenghts to protect them; i could go on). now let's look at lan wangji, who used to be that stubborn student disliked by many of his peers. in the current time, he has become hanguang-jun, a strong authority figure, respected by everyone in the cultivation world and widely considered an example of righteousness and Good. always very put together, always elegant, always where the chaos is; he's often resolving conflicts and is looked upon and admired as someone trustworthy and strongly virtuous. he was offered the chance to join wei wuxian in what he was doing at the burial mounds, years ago, but he declined, which led to him only being capable of helplessly watching from afar as the person who mattered the most to him grew to be more and more misunderstood by society at large, and consequentially, more and more hated - and persecuted. he was then forced to watch as the entire world celebrated the death of said person, never learning the truth about what had actually happened and who he actually was. does this remind you of anyone?

so basically, what i mean is that teen wei wuxian, a popular, likeable, enjoyer-of-life (or perhaps dancer-through-life) galinda, became a brilliant, but villanaized, ostracized and misunderstood wicked witch, like elphaba; while young lan wangji, a disciplined, introverted, hard-working elphaba, grew to be a respected and admired authority figure who was actually in deep suffering because of the way he lost the person he loved - not unlike our gal glinda, the good.

[therealkaidertrash21]

Ok, this is the essay I've been talking about, defending kaider. Keep in mind that I'm 15 and English is not my first language, so I might've said something wrong. Also, this is veeery formal because that's what I was taught to do.

Like in all fandoms and all canon and non-canon pairings, kaider sometimes receives comments regarding their dynamic saying that it is not a good ship, that it is not well written, or that they do not go well together. Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, however, there are several good arguments against this position.

Firstly, the main aspect that is often criticized about kaider is how quickly the characters "fell in love" and it is often referred as "instalove" even though, if it is carefully analyzed, it becomes obvious that this is not true at all.

Kai, Cinder's love interest, develops a romantic interest in her since their first meeting, this is a fact. But it does not mean it was instalove. Because instalove is love at first sight, when a character thinks the other is their soulmate and wants to be with them forever after only taking a glance at them. However, this is not what happens with kaider. Kai is interested in Cinder and asks her out multiple times but he is not in love, it is very obvious he is just a teenager who has a crush on a girl. This is not rare in real life. This is not unrealistic at all.

In addition, it is impossible to say Cinder's feelings are anything similar to instalove. She doesn't instantly develop feelings for the prince. At the beginning of the story, she does think about him and is interested in him, but her feelings are not particularly strong or obvious yet (partly because she is repressing them).

Secondly, another aspect that is often used to say kaider is a bad pairing, from Cinder's side, is that she is a "not like other girls" character, when she technically is not. This is almost a separate subject, but in essence: Cinder does not say she is not like other girls as a way to put herself above them and denigrate them, she does this because she is insecure, as a way to place herself below them.

Finally, often people criticize this pairing because they think Cinder would be unhappy if she married Kai, because she never wanted to be queen. But the reasons why Cinder did not want to be royalty are not simple. There are many reasons: 1. Cinder does not want to fail her people, 2. she thinks she will not be accepted by the citizens, 3. She desires anonymity. None of these reasons are actually about ruling a country, and once she overcomes these things they would not affect her.

Some might also argue that since she was queen, and then abdicated, she doesn't want to rule. But the reason for her abdication is mostly about her political position. She believes a monarchy is bad for Luna, since monarchs can easily manipulate their citizens (which they have done before). That is the true reason for her abdication. And even after her abdication, she still dedicated her life to politics as an ambassador, which she was not obligated to do.

In conclusion, even though kaider might seem badly written sometimes, this is not true. It is deeper than what it seems. The characters are complex, the reasons why they act in certain ways are very complex as well, as they would be in a real world scenario. Everyone has the right to have their own opinion, but it is good to analyze deeper, rather than only retaining a first impression or a superficial analysis.

also, credits to @impossiblesuitcase because I based most of the sixth paragraph on their post about a similar topic.