#basically this books really cool

[thebrideofreanimator]

some behind the scenes photos from the 1925 phantom of the opera, from the book i have on the making of the film :]

[egophiliac]

I have never been more concerned for a JP update from your art than I am seeing a Cheka knowing the context of Leona’s dream.

My bois ok right?????? My sweet nephews ok right??????

well

uhhhh

I'm sure the real one is fine :)

[hanzajesthanza]

andrzej sapkowski in the witcher presents his reader with many curious and refreshing takes on the fantasy genre, such as "what if dragons were good" and "what if elves were incels"

[aroaessidhe]

2024 reads / storygraph

The Sword of Kaigen

standalone fantasy set in a rural mountain village at the edge of an empire that still holds traditional values, with families of powerful water/ice magic warriors

follows a powerful young heir who begins to question his beliefs about the empire when a new boy comes to his village from the city

and his mother, a housewife who has tried to forget her youth as a warrior and vigilante in the city since she moved back home to a loveless marriage

when there’s a violent attack on their village that they’re unprepared for, everything changes, and she has to embrace her old skills to protect her family and people

[kyouka-supremacy]

(╥﹏╥)

[problemswithbooks]

BNHA Ch. 429

So, I guess Toga is dead, and people are losing it.

I get why people liked her--she was actually queer, being pan/bisexual. She was representation for them and that's rare in shonen manga. But here's the thing--she was bad representation at best and insulting at worst. Nor do I think she was made queer because Hori really wanted to represent a queer girl. Himiko was always the author's poorly hidden fetish--she just was. She liked girls as much as boys because Hori wanted to draw a girl touching sexually on another girl. You can see this in how he draws her and Ochako in solo pics together.

I mean, people seem to understand this when it comes to Momo and her outfit being overly sexual or that both Himiko and Hagakure's Quirks either leave them naked or they have to be naked to use them. These are excuses to draw girls in a sexual manner. Himiko being into other girls is the same thing and that's the kindest interpretation.

Given how Himiko acts and her Quirk being heavily coded sexual desire, and therefore her use of it against someone unwilling being sexual assault, it could just being playing into harmful stereotypes of predatory gays.

As a queer person myself I just found Toga insulting. She was designed to be overly sexual and give the male author a female character that he could draw being suggestive with his other female characters. When he did flesh out her character, her backstory was eventually the trope/fear of straight people, that gay people will be so overcome with their lust that they end up sexually assaulting them.

In the end Ochako accepts this part of Toga and says she'll giver her blood forever, but as much as a lot of readers took that that as some deep lesbian confession, for me it really fell flat. Hori never really gave any of the main kids time to actually learn about their villain or show how that changed their minds toward them. Shoto only works because Touya is his brother (even though he admits he barely remembers him). But Ochako goes from not thinking of Toga at all pre-first war, to one thought about her during her speech, to suddenly caring about her so much she--given how Toga's quirk is coded, is willing to essentially fulfill Toga's kink for the rest of their lives.

It's weird and it comes out of nowhere. It's made even stranger because Toga doesn't actually change or show remorse for anything she did, which included personally hunting and murdering people before she joined the LOV. None of the death and destruction she is also partially responsible for is brought up either, something that Ochako was rightfully upset about during the first war when less people and property had been destroyed. Ochako just accepts everything about her suddenly and her past serious crimes are forgotten so they can cuddle and cry.

Am I shocked Toga died--a little. I didn't think Hori would have the guts to kill off a young girl character, especially one that he clearly got a lot of joy drawing in sexy poses. But at the same time, once he killed off Shigaraki and ended Touya's story with his slow death, I'm not surprised he went the same route with Toga.

This isn't Naruto--Hori isn't really kind to characters that do something wrong, especially if they don't try and change. Enji, Bakugo, Hawks, and Aoyama all sort of got punished for what they did. Enji is the worst off, being permanently crippled, missing an arm and burned everywhere. Bakugo's hand is damaged, his heart weaker, plus he feels bad that Izuku lost his Quirk so they can't compete the same way he wanted them to. Aoyama, despite doing way less wrong and even helping his class during the forest raid, still leaves school because he doesn't feel he earned being there yet. Hawks lost his Quirk and even though him running the HPSC could be seen as good for him, Hawks always wanted a break, but now he has one of the most time consuming and stressful jobs out there.

So, if this is what characters who actively did good things and even changed and fought to be better get, what would characters who never changed and never did anything positive for anyone but their friends/themselves get?

Before the last Arc started, when so many people said the LoV were 100% going to be redeemed I had doubts and always thought it wouldn't make sense with how the story presented redemption or treated other non-LoV villains in the past. That if the main LoV did get some happy ending where they were bffs with the main cast it would clash with how other characters had been treated.

That doesn't mean that I think how Shigaraki, Toga, and Touya ended up in the manga was well done. I think their endings fit far better then a last minute redemption would have, but at the same time you can feel how rushed everything has been since the end of the first war arc. Hori was done with this story months if not years ago, yet he was contractually obligated to finish it. Because of that I think he left out as much as possible. As much as I think he's written some pretty obsessive stuff, particularly towards women, I can't really fully blame him cutting corners or the story being shit at the end.

We know Manga authors, particularly those that work with Jump are treated like shit. That they suffer incredibly long hours at times not even getting to go home for days. We've gotten messages for Hori saying he's sick quite a few times. On top of that, weekly story telling is not a great way to tell a cohesive narrative. Ideas probably change week to week or at least month to month and you can't go back and change the last chapter no matter how much you need or want to. Then you remember he also gave a lot of ideas to the people who made the movies, which would also change his plans for how he wanted the main story to go.

The story is bad--it has been for a while, but I think a lot of people put their hopes on their favorite characters getting a happy ending, even when there were signs that probably wasn't going to be the case. I know how much it sucks when a character you love gets a shitty ending (Stain was my fav, but he got an absolute dogshit ending) but at least, knowing what I know about the industry I can't really blame Hori the way I see some other people doing. Criticize it, sure, but saying Hori hates his readers or is horrible writer isn't true. BNHA was popular for a reason--he's great with characters and the beginning of the story had some great pacing. We'll never know, but I wouldn't be surprised if BNHA could have been amazing if Hori had been treated better and the story hadn't needed a chapter every week.

If anything BNHA has taught me how much a story suffers when authors/artists are treated like crap and forced to work past burnout.

[themyscirah]

Heard about TK wanting to write WW for 100 issues and do a Trinity spinoff?

Yeah.... that's the word on the street 😔

To be honest with everybody though, I don't think he's hitting 100 issues. I think Tom King THINKS he will be writing 100 issues of WW comics, but I'm very skeptical. Like it's true he got pretty close to 100 issues when he was writing Batman, but that was during Rebirth, when comics were being published twice a month. At a normal monthly pace, 100 main title issues works out to be a bit over EIGHT YEARS. Even with specials and annuals and possible events (or the Trinity spinoff) compressing that timeline, there's still no way in my mind that Tom hits 100 issues in any less than five years. He spent three on Batman. You know, Batman, his #1, the guy he has to bring up every issue? Do we really think he's going to spend over twice as long on Diana?

Like personally I'm just not convinced that Tom King cares enough about Wonder Woman to write her for that long. Like I think he likes her, and I think he thinks she's cool, but reading his book he seems to love to put the focus anywhere except on Diana. Like all the narration is done by the villain (meaning we don't get Diana's actual thoughts on any of this) and the backup are all TK's audition to write supersons (so we're losing page space that could be utilized to develop the current narrative in favor of possible future stories with no plot relevance)

Like idk. Tom King is talking the talk and I think he has the power at DC currently to walk the walk if he really wants to do it and his hype squad keeps sales high, but he hasn't convinced me so far with his work that he has it in him to see out so many issues of Wonder Woman, especially when Diana finally defeats the Sovereign, and if Trinity gets her own book, like what is he going to do with his remaining 80 issues? Actually telling WW stories?

It seems to me from what I've read of his WW and interviews abt it is that this "100 issues of Wonder Woman" thing is coming from his opinion that Diana deserves a 100-issue run, rather any great, passionate love for Diana that would actually motivate him to write her for that long.

So anyways, my stance is that if he's really putting in a long one (however long it may be) we just hope for the best, (Diana getting her narration boxes back and being central in her own story again, Trinity getting booted back to Themyscira to be forgotten raised offscreen, etc.) and try to make the most & wait it out

[juney-blues]

99% of conversations on anarchism about here are hampered by people having no clue what anarchists are talking about when they refer to "the state", including, it seems, the anarchists themselves.

[megumi-fm]

hi i have been inactive for a while due to the chk chk boom. hope you understand.

[wastrelwoods]

wow.........he wouldn't fucking say that.......at the end of the day he just wouldn't.....he would be deeply offended by the idea of being ASKED to say that

[butchnavi]

got queerbaited into reading a book by chatgpt. is this rock bottom

[bmpmp3]

also on that end though - it does always surprise me when white people completely and utterly miss mixed race coding in like books and other fiction. which i guess i shouldnt be surprised because of how bad they are with any racial coding at all really like (gestures vaguely at the hunger games rue situation for the past 15 years) but like straight up they dont see it? they don't even see...

[elizaisdunn]

been super busy lately and haven't been able to create anything of substance. but here's a sketchy thing I made of one of my OCs! her name is Meg and I love her very much :)

[aroaessidhe]

2024 reads / storygraph

Walking In Two Worlds & The Everlasting Road

YA sff set in the near future where an opensource augmented reality is commonly used like social media, and there’s also a completely virtual fantasy game version

follows an Anishinaabe girl who who’s the top player in the VR game, and is constantly fighting to keep her place against the misogynist neo-nazi group in second place

as well as her real life, dealing with being a shy and self-conscious teen growing up on the Rez, and her brother having cancer

and a Uyghur boy who’s moved to her community from China after finding acceptance in an online community (even when he doesn’t agree with their more extreme views) - but when he gets to know Bugz, he has to decide who truly deserves his loyalty

great mix of sff and culture, the future while also very real community traumas of the past (and present)

[thegreatestheaver]

Can't wait for the Electric Dreams reaction today :]] (I'll probably put it on and watch at the same time) (I'll also look into Murder Drones at some point)

SQUEE SQUEE SQUEE WE CAN HAVE A MOVIE NIGHT YAAYYYYYYYYY!!!!!!!! IM HAL… AND IM HOLLOW… THE MOVIE NIGHT BROTHERS🔥🔥🔥SQUEEEEEEEEEEEE I JUST WOKE UP PLEASE IGNORE THE FACT THATITS LIKE 4PM BUT. IM GONMA TRY TO GET MYSELF TO GO TO THE STORE SOON FOR MOVIE TIME SNACKS :))))))))) pins yoy agsisnt a wall and puts my hand on your chin before putting my hands on your throat and choking you and FUCKING KILLING YOU PLEEEEEKKKK CHECK OUT MURDER DRONES ITS SO GOOD I SWEAR I SWEAR I SWEAR I SWEAR I SWEAR INSWEAR ISWEAR I SWEARRR PELAPLPASPLLPELPALEPKRJPOHJIPOEAGRHIHOPIGRE[PGRBRGJPOFPOJSPOWQPWLAPLPLPWWPLPAPLSPL PLAPLSLPEPAPLE PLEEEEEEEEEEEEEKKK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[empoleon]

dex complete (again) :D

i had so much fun playing thru the indigo disk!! looking forward to the epilogue event too ^_^