#and the mangaka actually let them end up together

[lurkingshan]

Japanese QL Corner

There is still only one JBL airing live, but thankfully it's a banger, and we are blessed with another great Japanese drama with queer themes in the meantime. This first show is on Gaga and the second is available via fan sub, and I highly recommend watching both!

In other news, The Novelist appears to be coming off Gaga soon, and I don’t yet know if it will show up anywhere else (it is no longer on Viki). If you’ve been saving it for a rainy day, I encourage you to watch it ASAP. You can also submit a comment to let Gaga know you want them to keep it!

At 25:00 in Akasaka

This show is killing me softly, and its penultimate episode was excruciating in the best way. I screamed out loud when Shirasaki balked and told Hayama he wanted him to stay so he could get into his role, and I swear I could see Hayama's heart cracking in two. I have never been so upset and scared to see a sex scene start, and I was so very relieved that Hayama put a stop it before he could damage himself further. I guess he finally found his limit, and I was glad he values himself enough to say no to Shirasaki in the moment. Juxtaposing that heated scene with the sterile and choreographed sex scene for their characters drove the knife in further. And what a place to end things! It's not yet clear if anyone will be running, but I stand by my opinion that Shirasaki is the one who keeps dealing the blows, so he's the one who needs to gird his loins and finally be honest about why he's asking for these things from Hayama.

Bonus: Ossan no pantsu ga nandatte ii janai ka

We have the privilege of watching this one thanks to the hard work of @isaksbestpillow, who has now subbed the first four episodes of this wonderful show. This drama is about a middle-aged salaryman who realizes his old school values and failure to keep pace with the changing times is ruining his relationships--and he actually cares! Through a friendship he forges with his younger gay neighbor, Daichi, Makoto sets out to "update" himself so that he can better understand and connect with his coworkers, his kpop-loving wife (Mika), his mangaka daughter (Moe), and most especially his queer and gender questioning son (Kakeru). This is a loving and sympathetic portrayal of a man who has been failed by patriarchy and fallen behind the times but who genuinely loves his family and knows he needs to do better, and the younger man with a generous heart who helps him do it. The story is funny and poignant in equal measure; for every moment where Makoto has you groaning out loud at his misogyny, toxic masculinity, and general ignorance, there is another where he brings you to tears with his sincere effort to change. And I love that Daichi is not just theoretically gay in a tokenizing kind of way; he has a boyfriend who is an actual character with a storyline of his own, and we get to see them in scenes together. I love this show and can't wait to see what happens next.

Over to @bengiyo to add on a manga report.

[kimbapisnotsushi]

it's akaashi's birthday!!! you guys know what that means!!!!!!!!!! have some timeskip special headcanons about akaashi and co. let's go!!!!

i think akaashi deserves a spin-off about his misadventures in the manga department honestly

gekkan shoujo nozaki kun. sekaiichi hatsukoi. bakuman. there is a lesson to be learned here people!!!!!

tenma gifts him a planner for his birthday and the first thing he does after opening it is mark all of tenma's deadlines. which he also has recorded in his phone calendar. AND he has them memorized. AND on sticky notes scattered throughout the office

tenma: you know i got you this planner so that you wouldn't have to put sticky notes everywhere, right? akaashi, sleep-deprived and running on five cups of coffee: time waits for no one, udai-san

the office has a special "akaashi keiji emergency rest kit" for when he falls asleep at his desk

it's got a blanket if it's cold, a pillow they tuck under his head, a bottle of water and snacks they leave next to him if he gets hungry/thirsty when he wakes up, and an eye mask that they put on him after they take off his glasses

idk i think the whole office really loves akaashi

and he really loves them back!!!! they're a team!!! they work together!!!! deadlines might be hell but at least it's a hell they're united in!!!

akaashi finding love and contentment and happiness in a place he initially wasn't sure about is everything to me okay

also i think he wingmans tenma and akiteru. i think it'd be very funny.

akaashi knows it's bad when he catches tenma drafting a whole new romance plot and he's like "udai-san. please. you have something due in five days you canNOT be doing this right now"

honestly akaashi just wants them to get together so that tenma will stop being dreamy and distracted and ACTUALLY focus on getting his manuscript done on time

and then they DO get together and akaashi is subjected to even more dreamy sighs and staring off into the distance and whatnot

tenma is such a disaster you guys i love him

ALSO YOU KNOW HOW MANGAKAS HAVE A LIL MASCOT TO REPRESENT THEMSELVES IN THE AUTHOR'S NOTE. TENMA'S IS DEFINITELY SOME KIND OF CROW

someone asks tenma if he has a favorite pro vball player and tenma says "hinata shouyou" with the BIGGEST smile on his face and hinata almost cries

LMAO HOW FUNNY WOULD IT BE IF KENMA OFFERED TO BANKROLL AND DEVELOP A ZOMBIE KNIGHTS VIDEO GAME

i mean i barely even know what zkz is about but based on the title i feel like it'd make a good video game

yachi can help design . . . lev and komi can voice act . . . yes . . . it's all coming together . . .

NEVER MIND I KNOW WHAT IT IS I READ A TRANSLATION OF THE LIGHT NOVEL IN THE MIDDLE OF WRITING THIS

he wrote zkz in a restaurant are you SHITTING me udai tenma i love you

so apparently it got discontinued?? instead of allowing tenma to finish it the way he wanted?? so when tenma hears that kenma wants to make a video game out of it he ends up in tears

kenma's like "well it might have failed as a manga. but i think it'd make a pretty good video game, if you want to help out with that"

god everything about it makes me want to cry actually. tenma who is still chasing after his dreams. and akaashi right there, learning how to be better. learning how to be passionate. learning how to give tenma his all. because he's TENMA'S editor and he'll be damned if he doesn't do it well.

udai tenma in an interview about meteo attack: "yes, i am sad i didn't get a chance to end zkz in a way that would have made me happy. it was my first series, and that's always going to be precious to me. but meteo attack is one i'm looking forward to. it's a story about learning how to fly, when everybody else has long since been trampling on your wings and telling you that you can't."

sorry i did NOT mean to get this emotional over them. but now i am. and i am going to be thinking about it forever

meteo attack def gets raving reviews from players in the pro volleyball league, especially from hinata shouyou

[nathanielzalexandria]

You know what?

A big FUCK YOU to all those people who said My Hero Academia/ Boku no Hero Academia was straight and the canon ships will be straight and "of course Izuku and Uraraka are the end game ship and that we should get our "gay fanfic agenda" out of their hero show. (Sorry to the izuocha ship but they aren't ending the journey with cannon status)

The moment I found out that Magne and Tiger was trans i knew there would be gay romance. If the mangaka is okay with outright stating that Tiger is trans in his character description why in the fuck would he not be okay with putting his mc in a homosexual relationship.

And honestly, if Katsuki was a female he would have just been called a tsundere and all those "this is a bad pairing" peeps would mostly ship it. But that's neither here nor there because we aren't talking about the obvious main character ship. (You can hate it but don't pretend this is a crackpot ship fanfiction peeps/girls and gays pulled out of thir arse.

Secondly, Uraraka. While she may have started off "wanting" Izuku but after she meets Toga she starts to question his feelings for him. And nearly every conversation they have is about love and what it means to them. The pasta has been put to boil for so long, why is everyone surprised its bubbling? That the pasta is ready?

Okay, let's say you missed out on the subtext leading up to this story arc. On the official artwork that has them together. It happens but if you are following the manga from chapter 388 the cover has them interlocked with each other and close enough to kiss. The fucking tag is "THE CONCLUSION TO THEIR TALK ON LOVE...". And from around the end of 390 (and before but especially at this point), every chapter is about them, and Toga feeling alone and isolated and Ochaco trying to reach out and talk about love. And even if you did not catch that, this recent chapter has a reporter saying "A girl and her feelings can change the world" blatantly hinting at this outcome.

I'm just saying, that if by "You've got such a lovely smile!" You did not see what was coming there is no helping you. Your bias blinded you because there was nothing to be so shocked about. You should not have been so utterly blindsided by "I want to talk about romance, Himiko-chan!"

And if your argument is, "What about Izuku?" The boy has rejected one and is oblivious to the other. Also, this chapter has Ochaco talking about Toga's smile. Yeah, she calls it lovely but you know what else it's called, genuine and she tells Toga she should never hide her feelings while showing a flashback of Izuku smiling. You know, the guy who bottles up his feelings and pain until it hurts him a la the Vigilante arc? The line is clearly comparing Toga to Izuku and asking her not to be like him.

So take the fucking win Togarakas/togachacos your ship has been validated. It has been canonized for those with willing eyes to see. And if you honestly believe that Izuku and Ochaco are actually getting together in the end, and that "...then I'll give you my blood for the rest of my life!" Isn't akin to, "I love you. Most Ardently.", "I like you... very much. Just as you are." , "In another life, I would have really liked... Just doing laundry... and taxes with you.,", "I came here tonight because when you realise you want to spend the rest of your life with somebody, you want the rest of your life to start as soon as possible" and that these words were about Izuku and friendship then this is the biggest cope I've ever seen. You are being obtuse

[waitmyturtles]

TL;DR: My analysis of the quiet tone of the Cherry Magic movie -- the overarching theme of the movie was the development of family between Adachi and Kurosawa. 

Well, I’ve turned this space temporarily into a Cherry Magic hovel, a kind of messy sanctuary, really, maybe a cave full of hoarded passing thoughts, rising and cresting emotions, lots of SIIIIGGGHHS, at least two and a half re-watches of the movie, many reblogs, plummeting away my phone battery on consuming more and more gifsets. I regret not being here on Tumblr for the original series, but I feel like I’m more than making up for it by doing all I can to contribute to the dialogue around the movie, which I want to continue doing, meta-style!

Two things have cropped up in my reads of reviews here and on Twitter, one about the tone of the movie, and the other about the pace of growth between Adachi and Kurosawa. I think the first point goes into the second, so here we go:

I’ve seen a lot of comments about how the movie was quieter than the series. I reblogged a quick statement on quiet Japanese BLs earlier this weekend, and I also learned a bit about what the OG CM fandom hoped for with the original series way back when, when there were rumors of a real kiss for the final episode, and how the fandom was slightly let down. 

I think there’s an interesting dichotomy between heat and quiet in the kind of Japanese BLs I tend towards. If you read this space, y’all know my top three -- CM, Kinou Nani Tabeta, and Old Fashion Cupcake -- generally trend toward the quiet, with the slight exception of OFC, which turns up the heat in a panicked moment of revelation.

As I thought about this point, I asked myself -- why the draw towards quiet development and/or contemplation?

For me, all three of these dramas, especially KNT, center on family -- actively creating family, dealing with existing family, and/or managing expectations of creating a future family. 

If you’re Asian, as I am, the thinking on and managing of family issues is, in my opinion, the dominant issue that you spend the majority of your life dealing with. That’s not to say that in Western lifetimes, less time is spent on family issues. What I mean to say is that family issues, I would argue, take up more of your brain space and your sense of morality and ethical engagement in humanity if you’re an Asian, as opposed to the manifest destiny of the West. When I was right out of college, for instance, and rolling with a majority white hipster crew at that moment, my friends would comment on how I’d visit my family’s house once a month. That was tooooo much for them. And they’d legit tell me -- you care too much about your family, you need to separate yourself from them.

These are surface-scratching statements, and if you’re Asian, I know you’ll immediately guffaw at how ridiculous and impossible it would be to even BEGIN contemplating how to “separate yourself” from your family. It’s taken me a LOT of my old lady years to even come to grips with the fact that I needed to live an independent life away from the expectations of my family. And for hundreds of millions of people in our Asian cultures, those Western notions of “separation” and “independence” simply don’t exist. You can cohabitate, be co-dependent on, be enabled by your family, and that is just fine. Family is the structure that gives meaning to the lives of many Asians, without question. 

So to say that the movie tends towards the quiet, I think, possibly bypasses what I think is a major point that the movie is trying to make, both in a cultural arc and in the actual storyline: We are seeing Adachi and Kurosawa making a family together, THEIR family together. 

IMHO, the king of family-oriented BLs was KNT. Both Yoshinaga Fumi, the mangaka behind KNT, and Adachi Naoko, KNT’s screenwriter, deliberately gilded the KNT script with the tadaima and okaeri greetings that you hear when someone comes home at the end of the day. That set-up was meant to indicate that Shiro-san and Kenji considered themselves family to each other -- because, you might be saying tadaima to your parents when you’re a child, or your spouse as an adult. 

The clues to Adachi’s thinking about family are apparent. There’s the moment where he gives advice to his chief about the chief’s complaining wife. There’s the moment in the office when Rokakku and Fujisaki are talking about their lives, the very moment in their lives where they are single but happy at work and with friends. There’s the moment when Adachi picks up the mail and sees his name and Kurosawa’s name, while coming home. 

And of course, the gorgeous moment in the kitchen when Adachi states his desire for a public and permanently committed relationship with Kurosawa. 

Adachi is creating his new family in that moment. 

I want to tie this together with a comment I read on Twitter about how Adachi’s personal growth matched Kurosawa breaking down his walls of perfection, and how he originally projected his perfectionist nature on their relationship. We remember in the series Kurosawa being ULTRA cute in the office after Adachi’s original confession, saying he was going to create the best first date ever; and then all the practice dates they had; and all the planning that went into the Christmas date. 

Those walls began breaking down a little bit in the last episode of the series, and we saw that even more as the movie began, when we realized that they had not, indeed, bonked, as we thought they had, on Christmas Eve. When Adachi’s hunger interrupted their potential love sesh, Kurosawa was like, WEEEEELLLL, through gritted teeth -- I’ll still be patient for Adachi. 

That’s life. But as I originally wrote in my first review of the movie, what I didn’t expect to see in the film was that the movie would be utterly dominated by Adachi’s internal growth INTO the relationship, and how that ultimately steadied Kurosawa to be okay to be weak in front of Adachi, and in his own (Kurosawa’s) life. We know this is a HUGE DEAL, a HUUUUGE DEAL for Kurosawa. He mentions it in the essay he writes for Adachi’s family. He states it as a major point of being devoted to Adachi to his (Kurosawa’s) mother. Breaking down his walls is a major life moment for Kurosawa -- and it would not have happened without Adachi becoming his family.

Because -- family, often, is about rejiggering and redefining one’s boundaries, and creating new ones with the people you’ve chosen. If you’ve chosen well, and right, like our boys did, then your partner gives you the strength to do this major lifting.

AND: where else do we see these boundaries being rejiggered, besides between Adachi and Kurosawa themselves?

We see them in the family scenes. I think that the movie devoted a LOT of time to the family scenes says a lot about what I said earlier about Asian cultures.

I swear to jebus that I nearly had multiple heart attacks during the family scenes. Besides Kurosawa’s mom’s very apparent sadness and confusion, Adachi’s mom had me at moments, even though she outed herself as a fujoshi, basically, lol, when Kurosawa showed up. Why the heart attacks?

These confronting kinds of conversations to family about things like marriage -- I mean, I don’t know if I have the words to describe HOW MOTHERFUCKING HUGE THESE CONVERSATIONS CAN BE FOR MANY ASIANS. Like -- these conversations can be the culmination of a lifetime. They can destroy you. Y’all, if I wrote about what happened to me when my family learned I was dating my husband (in a cishetero relationship, peeps! Interracial and interfaith, yes, but otherwise, not really rocking the boat here!), I probably wouldn’t finish writing without breaking down in tears for an hour. It was horrible. My family couldn’t handle the growth, simply put. 

This Asian family dynamic that an individual’s original nuclear family unit carries SO MUCH WEIGHT IN THEIR APPROVAL OF WHO YOU ARE AND WHAT YOU DO -- I emphasize here that this theme was major in the movie. The movie NEEDED to spend time on this in order to achieve Adachi’s dream of permanence with Kurosawa. Adachi NEEDED to tell Kurosawa that he (Adachi) would be present in front of Kurosawa’s parents -- because Adachi KNEW that Kurosawa would NEED Adachi there, because of how BIG that BIG CONVERSATION would be. I’m talking BIG, here, BIG. And I believe that the movie’s OG Japanese audience understands this very implicitly and very, very deeply.

Adachi NEEDED to grow into himself -- he needed to lose his magic, his crutch -- and needed to FIND himself to be the strength and pillar that Kurosawa would need to face his family. I want to take this point, make it into a Cherry Magic teddy bear, brand it with Gelato Pique, and place it on a mantle. 

In order to face their families, our guys needed to become family. And that’s why I think the movie tended towards the quiet -- because THAT kind of growth takes a lot of internal work that comes out in the quiet moments of intimacy with the people you’ve chosen and you love. 

[jonathan-samuel-smith]

I'm gonna share it here because I don't have any other place to put it and if you dislike it's ok ignore this

But I have had this specific idea in my mind for days now where Damian is secretly trans, they just fear telling it to their family because they know everyone is just waiting for them to become batman or the demon, they're under a lot of pressure and then meet this boy (from school probably - both always meet in the art room when is nobody around, more calm to work)

They end talking a lot about art and stuff because they're in the same club, in one day Damian told this boy that they are always drawing their ideal girl but not "I would love to date her" but "I would love to be born as her, if I'm a girl I would love to be her" way

They keep meeting like that, sometimes they just talk about art, life or stay in silence. This boy ends up falling in love with Damian in both ways. Some stuff happens and Damian telling him about being Robin and their emotional struggling

This boy also has problems and the art room is a safeplace for them

At some point they kiss and decide to run away for their family together, start a new life with a new name in some God forsaken place

Years pass (maybe 3-4) and Danny (Damian's new name) is now a housewife in this farm, she always uses gloves when she goes in the small town to do stuff (bat paranoid still alive) and the boy is her boyfriend/husband, they're happy, they have animals then big bad stuff happens and Danny safe the day (everyone knows something is off with that couple but they accept it because they're nice) unfortunately there was a hero in that city and the hero saw what Danny did, then start investigating who is Danny

The hero then starts stalking the couple because they think her way to fight is too similar with the league of assassins and dislike it, Danny dislikes her stalker but doesn't kill them

Shit happens (again) in Gotham and Danny knows it, worrying about her family and with all the stalking things she decides to go back to Gotham, her boyfriend / husband doesn't like it (he hates it actually)

Honestly I have so many no happy ideas about this fic, this fic could end really bad but also some cute ideas like Danny and her partner save money for this new life and stuff, or they first kiss, the joy of wearing a dress in the street for the first time

Idk if I'll write this or just suffer with this idea, also Damian's new name could be: Danielle/Danny, Yesenia (Arab name) or other still doesn't know (I just want to talk about this with someone)

Oh yeah, Trans MTF Damian, like I kept almost writing with my "Damian the Mangaka" Fic! I've always moreso liked trans FTM Damian because I'm trans FTM and if I was going stealth I'd hate for someone to write a fic where I'm a girl. But like, Damian isnt a real person, nor stealth FTM, so it's just a weird little hyper-empathy thing.

I love the name Yesenia! and I love her retiring. Consider: BF/Husband is FTM. T4T gotta love it. Also for your consideration: Bf/Husband is Jon (maybe trans maybe not). ALSO for your consideration: GF/Wife is Jon. She goes by Sadie. She's super into the headpats meta. Loves stuffed animals. Yesenia coming out inspires her to come out as well and Yesenia is like "my yuri fantasies are coming true."

Yesenia looks just like Talia. It's adorable. She loves having long hair. Sadie is a butch lesbian and Yesenia thinks its soo attractive. She starts sending Sadie memes about crushing on butch women and Sadie is like "...do you like me?" Yesenia is like "What haha whatever gave you that impression?" "Well.... I like you. I can be your hot butch gf." Yesenia dies of gay panic (very sad story) just kidding they get MARRIED!!! LETS GO LESBIANS! I so so love jondami au where they are rebellious teenage lesbians. I want them to have sleepovers where they look back and go "Oh that whole thing was one giant egg moment."

[sojirosteacup]

Finally reached volume 27. 26 just about killed me, and I'm so anxiously excited for what's to come.

what are your thoughts sojiro and the kimono tying scene? I doubt there's any emotions on his part, but it seemed he took longer/more care with Yuki's than with Tsukushi's. He said it was because of Tsukasa, but I wonder what you think?? Am I reading too much into this or was he telling the truth?

Sojiro's feelings are a complicated topic for everybody involved.

Before answering your question, I'm going to warn you that it might be a little spoilery depending on how much you remember the manga ending.

and it also turned into a dissertation

Now going to the actual answer:

On one hand, he was just doing his job and probably tied the yukatas of the other characters (oh God, imagine the comments Sakurako made), or at least of the ones who don't know how to tie a yukata (which gives us... uhh... idk how many of them know how. I'm gonna bet Shigeru knows and maybe Akira too). And Makino has always exaggerated their relationship in her head and was even more alert than usual because of Yuuki's confession at the shop.

On the other hand, Sojiro feels a lot of affection towards Yuuki. You can see how he treats her in a much softer way compared to other girls, like in the yukata scene you mentioned, and how he is always interested in the topic of her. Sojiro is also a very horny gentleman (or at least he wants to believe he is) so he tries to act nicer to girls he has some kind of affection or attraction to at least before he sleeps with them.

(But also the way he treats Makino is not a good comparison because these two are like annoying siblings who pick on each other, so he would be harsher to her no matter what. lol)

Sojiro's actual feelings are a complicated topic I believe even he is unable to give a clear answer about. The boy has fallen in love in the past (with Sarah), so he is definitely able to feel romantic attraction, but he feels unable to do it again because of his childhood trauma. But at the same time he wants to feel love again!!! He is still looking for it during one of his outings at the ending of Hana nochi hare:

Poor Akira being the therapist friend again

And it's tragic! Stop Sojiro's suffering! Let my man be happy! With Yuuki! It's why I prefer his ending in the Kdrama and the versions after it. They give him a more hopeful ending. I get the message the mangaka was trying to send by making them not end up together (players won't magically change with the power of love and insistence). And I think she is right in a real life setting, and their story in the manga is beautiful in its own way, but I also care too much about Sojiro to see him suffering even five years after the ending. lol

I can fix him.

Or make him worse.

But going back to the topic of Sojiro and Yuuki, Sojiro claims he can't love Yuuki because he is not sexually attracted to her but (besides the obvious scene near the end of the manga) he has shown sexual interest in her at the beginning of the manga during a party.

(It sucks that all my sources are not in english so i can't put it here but, chapter 17, volume 3. Let's all pretend there is an image here.)

Knowing this, and how much he would call her cute back then, I believe his interest in her did start as some kind of sexual attraction, maybe even a crush, but it died as soon as she became closer to him. Again, that's his trauma working.

Knowing this, can we say Sojiro's affection to Yuuki is romantic in nature? Who knows! It's not unlikely, considering he falls for her in many adaptations. But Yuuki is very important to him either way and that's why he was acting like that during the yukata party. He cares about her in his own way.

[tvrningout]

i grew up on disney | plots & dynamics ft. chiyoko

if you see something that you would like to write, please tap the heart and i'll approach you <3

main verses

gimme old classmates from school and college who see she's kinda the same but also very much not the same; gimme old friends who dropped her back when she was getting bullied in middle school and who feel bad about it now; gimme people who used to be really close to her before she transferred to a new school; gimme any and all dynamics with history <3

i was thinking that chiyo got her tattoos done by yoshi's older sister, but!! i wouldn't mind letting someone else take that role. it'd be a kinda neat dynamic bc she would need to build trust with this person to get some of the tattoos in more revealing areas, yet :' ) she probably hasn't revealed much of her life to them. i'd love that dynamic of being close yet distant and trying to bridge the gaps

as a mangaka, chiyo has an agent and employees at publishers she deals with often enough; she has fans who she might run into; she has people who might work with her to animate her manga; and she might work with others to bring their own stories to life! gimme work-related connections pls and thanks <3

since chiyo has history with kojirou, her ex, that impacted her greatly, i would love to kinda explore that with someone, be it in a romantic plot or between friends. chiyo encounters ko bc of her work ( he, too, is a mangaka ), and it's clear that there's something unresolved between them at least on her side. someone should force her to talk about it : )

using this post as a visual aid bc even though chiyo doesn't easily admit why she doesn't ask for help, this still captures the essence of what i mean when i say i want her to meet and be pushed by someone who notices a lot more than she'd like them to. i want them to notice her habits and call her out, be it in a bit of an admonishing tone or a comforting one. crack that shell wide open!!

big pain if anyone ever actually wrote this with me, but: your muse developing feelings for chiyo and working up to confessing to her, and she looks so sad. she stops them and her eyes are a lil shiny bc they're her best friend, she loves them, but she doesn't love them the way they want her to. and she's so scared of losing them -- they can see it, feel it when she grabs their hand. she's scared of ruining everything if they finish their confession bc it's happened before. she doesn't want to lose them bc her dumb heart can't return their feelings. maybe there's an ending where they get together, or maybe they work through the awkwardness and they're closer friends for it, but either way <3 pain <3

jjk

ngl, i might end up rewriting chiyo's jjk verse, but for now, i'd love to see her frustrated bc her sorcerer colleagues and friends are all risking their lives while she has to just let them. she can only watch from the sidelines and provide support when she's able to as a manager, and she hates it a little

she would have been in school around the time of all the mess with geto was going on, i think about a year or two behind them? so there's a chance for pre-established connections as same-year classmates and seniors and whatnot

gimme chiyo chastising the younger sorcerers for being reckless but also acting as an older sister figure who looks out for them pls and thanks <3

spiderverse

this scenario! bc oooh conflict : )

in general, be it with canon characters or oc's, i'd really love someone to get chiyo to talk about shiori. she meant a lot to her -- chiyo doesn't casually date, nor does she date anyone that she didn't first befriend over a long period of time. and the thing is!! chiyo never actually got to admit her feelings to shiori. so there's a lot of unresolved feelings concerning her, and i just want someone to get chiyo to talk about it.

shiori was her universe's gwen, so i do think it'd be interesting to see chiyo interact with any version of her. they're different people, but i think chiyo would be wary bc gwen dies in certain universes and!! she's not in a position to handle that emotionally rn

gimme all the mentorships pls and thanks <3 the more i write her in this universe, i do think she'd get along with just about anyone tbh -- she just might disagree with them on occasion, but that's normal and healthy and makes for some fun threads!

big bonus points if her mentor is friends with her mom, yuzusa! i want someone to help her with that awkward situation pls :' )

i love multiverse shenanigans, but i also love the idea of chiyo having regular friends/mentors/etc. who discover she's jorogumo! so gimme that too u3u

ALSO give me her universe's harry!! bc they're supposed to be great friends, but things are weird and strained after the whole green goblin thing!! that wasn't her harry, but chiyo knows it could be one day, and i so badly want to write how that friendship is affected by that knowledge. do they manage to break canon? do they not?? let's find out!!

dorverold

tbh i think chiyo would default to learning about herbs and how to utilize them for healing and poisons and whatnot bc her physical ability would be a fat 0, but that just means your muse could attempt to teach her how to fight and laugh when she falls on her butt :’ ) and maybe there’s a lil physical tension too bc sparring means getting close and sometimes pinning a person’s arm behind their back and taunting them : ) but yeah, if you laugh at her she’ll get mad and competitive and that’s always a fun dynamic! gimme sparring partners for her!

i'd also love someone to just straight up not trust her at all bc her background story is vague and convenient as is her connection with mal. i want someone to think she's a spy working for edmund or maybe an evil spirit trying to sabotage the free army. i want someone to confront her and chiyo goes " man do i wish i was a spy but actually the truth is so much more far-fetched "

lemme brainstorm a lil more for this one and i'll add more later <3

bg3

man if i don't want a mentor/mentee dynamic between chiyo and another druid. halsin naturally comes to mind bc chiyo comes from the same grove, but i'd be happy with any muse who fits into a mentor role <3

in general i pre-established connections, so anyone from the grove, her former village, or whatever other connection we think of would be cool!

chiyo struggles with her faith a lil bit in this verse -- she believes deities exists, but she struggles to believe that they really care about the mortals who worship them. she's respectful towards them and whatnot, but when she prays, it's like going through the motion rather than believing she's heard. i wanna explore this with a muse who is pretty devout, especially bc i'd eventually like to touch on the favor that eilistraee shows chiyo

chiyoko " i feel the weight of everyone depending on me " hisakawa vs muse who thinks she needs to stop worrying so much about others and think about her own self interest for a change

since she naturally ends up assuming the role of " tav " and thus the leader of sorts for the group, i'd love to explore the discomfort that actually brings. just because she can't stop herself from helping others in their time of need doesn't mean she's having a good time doing it asdf

[halt-kun]

Jujutu Kaisen Chapter 270 - A dream's end

We continue dreading near the end of jujutsu kaisen today.

I'm intrigued where this is going, it seems like the end will be weird. Like with MHA i'm expecting everyone to complain or say it's the worst ending as always.

I remember that from Naruto, The promised neverland, a bunch of stuff actually. Well it'll probably be bad but a good ending in manga is rare so I'm not expecting much.

Oh, sweet

Megumi and Shoko on Tsumiki's grave

Well I get you Shoko, you take care of the bodies even though you don't believe in anything past it

Last rites can also just be a form of respect without any meaning behind them

Wait TENGEN IS ALIVE

or is it just remains ?

That immortality techniques is fucked up

alive after being consumed

ewwwwww

Okay so no Tengen is well dead but her barriers are preserved

Oh the principal is not being a dick for once

Well, they can put stuff in place and then be young and happy

Well maybe the principal is going to sacrifice himself ? He seemed weirdly determined

Maybe a form of pact ?

To maintain the barriers

Ah yes, will they get rid of the incarnated players ? Will they agree ? Not that they have much hope of surviving

Oooh, Maki is being nice

well what about the poor dudes and gals whose body are being controlled ?

Weird exception Maki

Well Maki will end you my guy, you're strong but she is too

Oh nooo, the french mangaka

Jean Charles was it ?

urgh

(says a french guy)

I PASSS

have fun drawing your manga my guy

?????????

OH NO

KENJAKU ???????

Oh my god, well be gay and do fun scenes together. I'm pretty sure this is not Kenjaku and Gege is baiting us but we never know

WHO ?

UUUUH ?

Well who are the top brass now ? No more big clan alive ?

Good luck Higuruma

Angel ? What again ?

This is always confusing when they keep jumping between characters but I get that Gege doesn't have the time and page number to properly conclude every loose ends

But the ones he does are werid

Oh no, not a random relationship brought from just one interaction

PLEASE GEGE NOT THAT

WHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

again Gege, who are these people

I'm lost and I don't care about that

EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEW

okay it's maybe a random return to normal missions ?

Well that's not good, sorcerer will keep dying to curses then

Until the next earth, sea, forest and human curse appear ?

No HE DEFINITELY MORPHED

KILL HIM NOW

IT'S A TRICK

WHERE IS THE CURSEEEEEEEE

KILL IT NOW

One last mission ?

Okay well let's go

the last chapter will be weird

all of this was so weird

I'll see how I feel about all this after the last chapter

[lacependragon]

I'm still waiting for the part where My Hero Academia goes:

"Actually this society isn't sustainable. One for All is leaving us forever and we continue to push adults and children to the brink. Just because All for One is gone doesn't mean big villains won't appear again. We need to work together to rebuild into something more sustainable that doesn't glorify brutalizing yourself and burning out as fast as possible to save a few more lives."

Because right now I'm sitting here going.

Okay cool you beat the villains. You know, the group that was mostly made up of people rejected by society through no fault of their own, abused, beaten, groomed, and trained to be perfect little monsters by someone else or by All for One.

Great, you stopped Tomura, the most victimized of them all.

Cool, you killed All for One, the guy who started it all.

What are you going to do what all these victims of the system? What are you going to do to ensure this never happens again? What are you going to say to point out that this pain glorifying burn out hero society you've built isn't fucking sustainable.

And I have to hope that's why My Hero Academia is going on so much longer than the war ending, according to the mangaka. I have to hope that's what he's building to, instead of another bad guy or "Somehow Palpatine has returned".

Because if you spend years, literal years, exploring why villains exist, and showing all the pain these kids go through as a result of adult heroes not being prepared or burning themselves out and breaking, and showing the flaws of this society and then don't change that society at all? Never acknowledge what caused this plot to begin with?

Then what's the fucking point of this entire story?

If you're not going to say "Hey the system that let All for One steal Tomura should change". If you're not going to say "The system that let these kids walk the streets in pain and fear while no one cared except to say 'a hero is coming' should change". If you're not going to say "This system which I have shown extensively does not work should change".

Then what' was the fucking point of even writing the damn thing?

Like. Endeavor knows he needs to change. But what about the society that created him? His father? That made quirk marriages viable and legal? What about the society that broke Rei so badly? That helped create Touya?

If this damn society ends as it began. If the only difference is motherfucking Izuku at the top and half the top heroes dead or retired because they broke themselves to try and save the world. If breaking yourself is still the only way to do it, and children still suffer, and people are still apathetic, and the only fucking change is that All Might is gone and so is All for One and ~magically~ that makes everything better--

Then it means nothing worth listening to. And the last decade has led up to nothing.

No amount of power of friendship or overcoming the odds means jack shit when society ends as it began and society was so much of the problem to begin with.

The opening of the motherfucking show is "Not all men are born equal" and Izuku goes on to explain how it's all because of fucking society.

So if the series, manga, show, WHATEVER, doesn't SAY ANYTHING about that society doesn't TRY TO CHANGE IT after everything if we END with the SAME LAWS as we began-

Then this was pointless authoritarian bullcrap.

I mean yeah it says a lot of other things. But nothing I can't get better elsewhere.

This is a problem I have with a lot of superhero media. Particularly the MCU. Which is why it's so wild to me I'm having the same problem with a fucking anime. Half a world apart and drinking the same kool-aid.

Please let me be wrong. Please let Hori just fucking write about society and Izuku changing things. Make him a little politician. An activist. A voice for the people. Just do something that tells me that you know this society needs to change. Give me something that tells me the characters want this society to change.

Otherwise I really feel like the climax of the war kinda. Destroyed a lot of the earlier messaging in the series.

[seoafin]

I think Akutami is just going for a tragic end. Like, it's obvious he hates Gojo, and ending the series with Gojo being the last standing would add even more to the "Throughout the Heaves and earth, he alone is the strongest."

Which SUCKS bc even gojo wanted the kids to get strong!!! He wanted strong allies so he WONT be alone!!! Akutami could have kept him in there longer, and have the kids actually do something, since they couldn't fall back on gojo anymore. I wish Yuji had that win against Mahito, instead of Kenjaku just absorbing him like a Pokémon. Or better yet, NOBARA. LET HER GET A WIN. SHE COULDVE WON, AND SHE SHOULDVE. Killing off Yuki, for what? Sidelining shoko and miwa and every other female character except Maki?

And what was the point of the culling games? Bringung in military forces? If Gege has a plan and is somehow able to tie this all together I'll be impressed. But only if he finally utilizes his female characters the way they should have always been, like he did for Maki. He did SO good with her, what happened to the rest?

Sorry I'm still ranting, but to add on to Akutami's misuse of his female characters-- Shouldn't women in the jjk universe have an advantage?

Momo was talking about how woman in jjk need to be perfect, just to be accepted. Disobedient woman in the zenin clan can have their mouths sewed shut. Adding in the general woes of being a woman, wouldn't that lend for greater storage or a more unique type of cursed energy?

Add THAT onto what our female characters have faced. Miwa lost Mechamaru, and she even tried to go up against Kenjaku even when he warned against it. And he almost used that Uzumaki cursed thing (i believe) on her. Her brother is in one of the colonies. (Honestly I feel she's one of the most underutilized characters). Nobara isn't from a great clan like Megumi or freakishly fast and strong like Yuji, even if we haven't seen I'm sure she has some problems with feeling left behind, that little girl in her still searching for a grand escape, her Saori. Momo already has spoken of the troubles of women sorcerers, so I'm sure she's been battling this image and ideal for a while. Do I even need to mention Maki and Mai?

NO BUT I DO NEED TO MENTION SHOKO.

"I was there too you bastards." Like??? She was in the generation with the two greatest sorcerers! She bore witness to it all!! What about Riko??? The Star plasma vessel, who im sure wouldve completed the trio of the strongest sorceres had she lived, and then there's Shoko, again.

Why is it that even when Akutami uses his female cast they always end up as some sort of character growth or regression or stepping stool for the male cast? Yuki and choso. Riko and gojo/geto. Kenjaku and Tengen (who I think is female). Angel and Megumi. TSUMIKI and Megumi. Nobara and Yuji. Like????

no i agree it just doesn't make sense. like is the whole point of jjk not gojo ushering a new age with strong allies??? why would akutami bring him back when the students have barely begun to actually do anything without gojo's help. AND NOBARA'S STILL NOT BACK???? ig this is confirmation that she's never coming back ugh. akutami killing off characters when he has no more use for them is so detrimental to the narrative. i truly believe nanami should've survived. but oh well :/

i just feel like his unboxing reiterates how dependent everything is around gojo! it's to the extent that other characters begin to become static because of how much everything revolves around gojo's strength. i was really looking forward to the students getting more of a spotlight.

the thing about akutami is that im pretty sure it's not even as intentional as other mangakas. akutami follows a pretty perfunctory story structure and when it comes to utilizing his characters he seeks to have his characters perform a single purpose and then when he doesn't need them they're gone. instead of dynamic characters we get flat characters or they just die before they ever really get a chance to shine (nanami). it sucks all around tbh but i do think gojo is going to die. akutami's kinda sick like that so. i'd also rather gojo die than any students LOL

[fu-miruku]

Hello, thanks so much for coming back with new fluffy updates! Hope life is going easy for you as well :)

I have a question and I'm sure I'm not the only one who have thought about this at least once, especially with the recent updates and the ones before, since Toshio started living with Shindou.

Do you think Shindou actually loves Toshio romantically the way Toshio feels for him? Bcs so far it seems very one-sided. I know that Shindou will always be a tsundere character and with Toshio being much younger (physically and even more mentally), the mangaka might try to mitigate the 'moral burden' coming off from that notion with depicting Toshio being the one constanctly seeking affection and physical intimacies, so that Shindou remains an upright gentleman. But can't help feeling like Shindou is just going with the flow or giving Toshio anything he wants bcs he feels bad about the boy's situation and takes it as his responsibility to make him happy. I wonder if Shindou's feelings towards Toshio will be more clarified on the next chapters? Would love to hear about your thoughts, sorry for the super long ask!

Hi there! Thanks for the kind words anon :D I like answering questions like this about the story, and talking about this series in general, so no worries <3

First of all, let's go back to Volume 2 Chapter 9 for a bit, when Shindou talks about what he feels towards Toshio in the early stages of them living together.

Shindou says that yes, he does like Toshio. Flabbergasted, Toshio can't believe it at first and questions if Shindou really means it. Shindou replies that there's no reason for him to lie about that. I think these panels might answer a few of your questions about Shindou's intentions.

Of course, the panels above simply show an insight on Shindou's initial thoughts when he first took Toshio in. After they spend more time together, in the start of the "Left" volume, the first chapter ends with Shindou still wondering about the nature of their relationship.

As the chapters go on, I’m sure that while more questions are raised, some will also be answered, whether it be regarding Shindou’s feelings, Toshio’s identity, or where their relationship stands among it all.

I think seeing how their relationship is explored further in the following volumes is essential, and you'll also appreciate how Shindou's thoughts changed from volume 2 to the end of the sequels :))

Honestly, I want to go more in-depth about Shindou's feelings, but that might be more appropriate when we're all on the same boat story-wise. Hopefully I can sum up my thoughts better and share a short write-up when I finish uploading everything.

Please bear with me until then </3 I might have ended up blabbering too long again, haha. I’m sorry that this is a non-answer, but I think it makes more sense when you read it for yourself! For now, I hope this satisfies your question anon.

[loopy777]

Yeah, the brutal demand for quality and excelence in the japanese weekly grind for Manga artists means that even the best of them experience burnout at some point or discover their plans didnt quite go as they wanted it too.

Because of this, even excelent manga tend to have at least one terrible or subpar arc, when things just did not come together.

As i said, i think there are plenty of better manga and animes that FMA, but there are very few of them that doesnt have such a dip in quality at some point.

And thats the series that are overall good, plentyu have a bad arc and never really recover. Naruto pre timeskip was better than FMA, and the peak of what shonen could be... Post timeskip it eventually fell off a cliff.

Bleach had a very interesting world, and peaked during an arc where it essentially was a giant murder/political mystery... With a spectacular plot twist at the end... But it never managed to reach that level of quality again, and meandered through to a finish line, where both anime and manga got cacencled at different points(despite what some like to argue) for shitty quality. Hell the manga was cut short during the final battle itself. Thats really bad.

The list goes on and on.

To be fair, one bad arc isn't exactly limited to manga, or shonen. You'll find it in many excellent series.

Hell, while not really an arc, even ATLA, amazing as it was had one episode which almost all fans utterly despises.

Also about the peanut gallery... Us talking about it, actuqlly reminded me that one of the best Fights Luffy ever had, actually had the Villain, Katakuri, basically go:

"Damn this peanut gallery is annoying... Lets get rid of them before we kick things into high gear."

And then he knocks them the fuck out so that him and luffy can have an epic battle in peace. It's not the funniest scene in the world, but when i actually look at it on a meta level, yeah, this fight is so much better speciffically cause Katakuri removed the damned commentary track.

Okay, that's almost worth going through all of One Piece to get to, considering my gripe. XD

I have to wonder about the weekly grind for manga compared to American comics. Sure, you can cover a lot more territory in 50 issues a year compared to 12, but in practice, does that hold up for most action manga? Is having a single writer-artist superior to having a writer who works with a rotating artist team?

I would argue that having a full writing team is inferior to a single writer, and American comics seem to agree with me as writers these days seem to stick around for an uninterrupted run for at least a year before leaving and never looking back, and that's when the book isn't writer-owned. But considering manga art is a group effort, anyway, it seems like it would be a simple shift to having a larger team who do every other issue or something like that.

And a shift to every other week as a standard probably wouldn't be hard to accommodate. It still gets installments out fairly frequently, and I'd argue that manga has largely decompressed in order to manage its update schedule, so I think we'd see a natural speed up in pace and the storytelling wouldn't be any slower. I suspect that even the writers who don't fumble things just learn how to stretch things or tread water with their stories in order to give themselves time to recharge or resolve creative issues, so giving them that week's buffer would just result in things tightening up.

But I'm just speculating as an ignorant Audience. I can't draw, I've never written anything professionally, I've never even worked on an amateur comic, and I know very little about the manga industry except that they come out bundled in weekly anthology magazines and about 15,000 mangaka die every year from overwork. As someone from an engineering background, my solution when a machine is burning itself out is to run it slower or stop covering up the vents. And I have no idea what that second option would look like in the comic industry.

[colorisbyshe]

what are some yaoi manga or anime you recommend? im having an anime phase again and none of the people who i get recommendations from recommend me gay things

i mean.... there's... majo to neko..................

the rest? i cannot say

i'll be honest i don't keep track of most gay manga i read, especially the manga that is like... actively dicks out.

i actually haven't read a lot recently. there's a lot i've dropped because it Couldn't Be Fucking Normal for Five seconds and the the rest of manga i have read are like... ao no flag which i fucking hated and bitched about here for like a week nad then non-gay stuff... like i've been reading hunter x hunter for like half a year now becaues i keep getting distracted. i have fully stagnated in the greed island arc and then i keep going back to refresh my memory and getitng stuck again

the stuff i HAVE read hasn't updated in 6+ months an di hate promoting stuff that is incomplete and isn't in active production

since i haven't read a lot of the "hasn't updated recently" stuff in a while, ic an't remember if there's Classic BL Bullshit Lite that i was able to skim over because I have grown immune nad so many manga have striven hard to lower the bar (like the "no no yes" stuff classic to any romance/erotica genre where like everyone involved clearly wants it but someone has to say no and someone has to fucking ignore it??) and I'd rather not endorse that. like on this front i THINK black or white by sachimo has a scene like that but it's integral to them working on a healthier sex life. same with given except that one is... worse than black or white. i still post given fanart here so i like... i guess given still has my seal of approval but... well... :|

and worse i'm always afraid that if i rec a normal Not Bad BL series someone is gonna be like "did you know the mangaka also a doujin about 14 year olds fucking" and i DIDN'T know and i'mg oing to have to kill myself. i'm still recovering from promoting blue period (not even a BL) just to find out the mangaka did incest doujins of teenagers.

so like...... all i can offer is majo to neko

or like lets all get gay baited by buddy daddies together please

or maybe i'll start atching and posting all the gay BL dramas... i promimse to not get betrayed again like i did with KP... or to watch ones that are more interesting than happy ending romance which sucked

i was thinking of starting ameiro paradox and reading the manga

if its weird... whoops i'm sorry for bringing it up

[alexiethymia]

Yo, when was someone going to tell me that Yokoi and Seki from Tonari no Seki-kun ended up married??

TFW when even a gag manga fulfills your OTP dreams better than most other shounen or shoujo manga.

[uzuuzuking]

i love the dn angel anime for its slow burn unrequited-love-turned-requited-love between riku and daisuke, as well as the gay undertones between satoshi and daisuke. but i hate the budding relationship between satoshi and risa they forced at the very end... daisuke has two hands! one for riku and one for satoshi! you may be wondering, “summer what the fuck are you talking about?” to which i say: don’t worry about it

[epickiya722]

Okay, seeing people saying Horikoshi's writing sucks now and whatnot made me realize that maybe this is his breaking point. I'm not joking.

Look, writing in general is not going to be top tier all the time. People, stop expecting it to be.

Especially, when during the eight years of creating a series, you get death threats, complaints, and all this other drama to the point that it will reflect on your writing because guess what? Your health is broken down.

I bet Horikoshi does feel super stressed nowadays and try to hold it together. I'm just saying, he probably didn't expect BNHA to be as successful as it is so this is new to him. BNHA is his longest story. He has done other works, but they're not acknowledged like BNHA is because they don't even run a whole year.

This is a guess, but maybe he's adjusting to having a huge series like BNHA. People don't just adjust to having a successful series in a snap, especially when their previous works don't be as acknowledged and whatnot. His previous work Barrage came out 2 years before BNHA was introduced. Barrage, like his other works, ran for a year. Just a year. Some of them just being one-shots. He didn't have to work with a lot because at the time, he probably had didn't feel he shouldn't work with a lot. When BNHA started, Horikoshi probably felt like "yeah, I want to take this on. I want to work with a lot more. I have a lot more confidence and I'm more comfortable".

BNHA has a lot of themes, a lot of characters and huge plot, okay? Yeah, this isn't nothing new. Stop acting like BNHA is the only series out there with a lot going on with it.

It is a lot to handle and because so, some details will be forgotten and things probably won't make sense. And there are some things I don’t like myself that happens, but give credit where credit is due. Horikoshi does have some good points with this series that are often overlooked because PEOPLE ARE THE WORSE. For goodness sake, the man draws hands like it's nothing and we all have had that phase of drawing characters with their arms behind their back because we're shit at drawing hands. And let's be honest, Dabi didn't even need a backstory before he got a huge fanbase. One look at him and girls were all over that.

As someone who does write as a hobby, I can tell you that when I get into my story, I do go overboard. I create a lot of characters and sometimes I have to jot down details to remember them and try to fit them in a plot. That comes from excitement.

Excitement Horikoshi and other mangakas, authors and artists probably felt when they finally get their work recognized enough to be big. Excitement that, over the years, become stress because "fans" do nothing but criticize, criticize and bitch and send death threats and call people slurs and names.

Horikoshi probably had bigger plans for BNHA, he probably had other plans for some of the characters and wanted to go a different route with some relationships but decided maybe it's high time to hang it up because "fans" only can seem to complain.

It's what a lot of you do nowadays with any series. You hold way too many expectations for a series and not go into it with an open-mind and decide to enjoy it for how it is and that you have entertainment so you won't be bored with yourselves.

Keep in mind, BNHA is also an anime and we all would be lucky if BONES didn't decide to give it a rushed ending like many other animes in the past have (Blue Exorcist, Rosario + Vampire, etc). So with an anime in the works, Horikoshi is also occupied with that.

I'm not saying he's the best guy or anything. Not saying everything he has going for BNHA is good. Again, there are some things that make me go "WHY?"

What I'm saying is, this fandom and other fandoms need to start looking at the creators like they're actual damn people. They're not gods and they're not perfect. They're fucking people.

They work on something and want to share it with the world, but oh my goodness what a shocker! People want it to be perfect! They want it to cater to them only because they're entitled.

If a story sucks, it sucks. If it's good, it's good. We can have our opinions. It's fine.

However, I think everyone needs to be reminded that time, energy, and money goes into big projects and can affect the health of someone.

It's like how people always want to ask fanfic writers "when are you going to update"? First, stop asking that. Second, uh... THEY'RE PEOPLE, TOO. They have families, jobs, days were they have to take a mental health break.

I honestly just hope once BNHA ends, Horikoshi just step away for a while and take a break. For anybody who does creative works, take a break and get yourself together.

It is unfair that people can't seem to enjoy anything anymore before criticizing about "problematic characters" or "this doesn't make sense". Just shut up! For goodness sake, there has never been a story or anything without its flaws! It happens but that doesn't mean to nitpick about it ALL THE DAMN TIME!

Have you ever thought that maybe people create things that make them happy and want to share those things because that they want other people to be happy?!