#cardcaptor sakura really got me though

[cuchufletapl]

Some people discussing tropes in media need to get a better grip of the examples they're using, particularly when the tropes in question are bigoted in any way, because Jesus Christ does it detract from your point when it looks like you didn't even watch or read the thing.

I've just come across someone talking about scarce female representation and the Smurfette principle in kids' media, and the "cartoons from her childhood" that she cited having this problem included Neon Genesis Evangelion and Cardcaptor Sakura.

Like, the problem you're talking about is real but you've lost me with those choices.

[surreal-duck]

catch you!!!

[shy-sapphic-ace]

I JUST FINISHED CARDCAPTOR SAKURA WHAT AM I SUPPOSED TO DO WITH NY LIFE NOW 😭💕

[icantalk710]

🤔

[miraculouslbcnreactions]

I wouldn't really agree that boys are just arm candy in magical girl shows and only there to look cute. Yeah, sure the girls' friendships are the focus, but the boys are usually very much involved in the plot and most shows do explore their feelings about the odd things that happen due to magical shenanigans even if they aren't in the know (It's why ML baffles me even more with how they screwed up Adren's arc when he's the deuteragonist, when all these boys are supporting cast and get well rounded arcs)

I'm not much of a winx fan, but the specialists were very much not arm candy. Did the girls talk about them being cute? Yes, it's what teenage girls do. Did the narrative suggest they were good looking? Yes, but that's standard for most love interests in any genre. But we still got scenes with them talking amongst themselves about how they themselves feel and they got a fair share of badass fight scenes even if they wield no magic. A large amount of episodes actually included the boys and girls working as a team solving a mystery or fighting a villain. The girls might deal the finishing blow but the boys were still integral to the plot.

I hope this doesn't come across as hate, it definitely wasn't my intention. I'm just a bit too passionate about the magical girl genre.

I do think you have a good point with ML having a problem choosing a genre or blending two genres successfully.

For the CCS fans, I will add though that Cardcaptor Sakura had both Tomoyo and Syaoran serve as sources of motivation for Sakura. And both Sakura and Syaoran collecting cards even if Sakura is the only one who could seal them and yet never made you question whether Syaoran was even necessary for the job the way ml does with Chat.

I wasn't trying to say that boys have no part to play in magical girl team shows or that they're always treated as having no lives beyond the girls, that's why I mentioned that the Winx Club boys - aka, the Specialists - have their own (mostly off screen) lives and occasionally show up help the girls:

the boys are usually off doing their own thing and only occasionally show up for a date or to give the girls a ride on their cool bikes or magical spaceship

Even then, this is certainly a simplification of the roles that they play in the story, but I kind of had to simplify their roles down to their base components for the original post's discussion as I was talking in broad strokes of how these stories are written.

In terms of those broad strokes, the Specialists are absolutely only there for shipping fodder. That's why each one is assigned to a girl from the start and why their main role in the narrative is supporting their assigned love interest or causing relationship-based drama for their assigned love interest. If it weren't for shipping, then the Specialists would not exist.

While the Specialists do have fleshed out characters and may even effect the plot, the execution of those elements is designed around the girls. A really obvious example of this is the character Timmy, who has character development as the boy's tech guy. Why is he into technology? Because he's the designated love interest for the fairy of Technology and we have to show why they're a good match. Along similar lines, the boys don't really get plots that are removed from the girls because this is the girl's show. Every episode features one or more of the Winx, but the boys are optional and often don't appear.

This is because, narratively speaking, the boys are just love interests and that brings us back to Miraculous' big problem. You can't have a show where Adrien is written like a Specialist while also being part of the Winx Club and where Alya is written like she's part of the Winx Club while technically being more of a Specialist in terms of power set and actual narrative role.

I'm was thinking back to my memories of various Winx Club plots to find one that really highlighted what I mean here and I remembered that one of the big dramas in season one was the reveal that Bloom's love interest - Sky - was in an arranged marriage and had just never told her. As it turns out, that's a great example of what I'm talking about re Adrien!

Is that plot line technically based around Sky and letting his life effect the plot? Sure, but the fallout of that reveal revolves around Bloom, not Sky. The story doesn't really care how Sky's feeling as the conflict progresses. Instead, it focuses on how it affects Bloom and her friends because of course it does! She's the main character. It would be really weird if that plot suddenly focused on her side character love interest and his friends during one of her darkest hours/biggest moments.

Think of that and then consider how the ending of season five is written. Notice any similarities? Sure, this is Adrien's family drama, but because he's just a Specialist, the focus isn't on him. It's on Winx Club member Marinette and Adrien only shows up at the end for a kiss. That is the problem. That is what I'm talking about when I say that Miraculous will randomly write him as if we're watching a magical girl team show where Adrien is just the love interest.

In fact, let's really dig into this example because it's a good one.

You can have a look at the transcript for the finale episode of Miraculous season five here and see for yourself that Adrien doesn't even show up on screen until the final scenes when the big drama is over. The Winx Club wiki also has episode transcripts, so I took a look to see what happened in Winx land during the arranged marriage reveal plot (I love that this is a thing. It's so useful for fact checking myself!) This is the script for the episode after Bloom learns the truth. Sky does not appear even though his lies and family drama are the fuel for this episode's events, which are a major part of the season's arc. Note how perfectly that matches Adrien's writing?

Similarly, Sky's dialogue in the reveal episode is all about Bloom. He's worried about her learning the truth and thinking less of him. To match that, here's Adrien's only real dialogue in the penultimate episode of season five (full transcript):

Adrien:(Covers his ears.) I cannot transform... (Looks at his ring and tries taking it off.) Plagg: What are you doing?! Adrien: I'm not in my right mind. I'm too angry — at myself for falling short of Marinette's love, at my father for sending me here in London, at this stupid app and these rings that use my image... it makes me sick! This nightmare is giving me the horrible feeling that, if I transform, I'll get akumatized and destroy everything with my Cataclysm — Marinette, Ladybug... (Takes off the ring and hands it to Plagg.)

Switching back to Winx. After Bloom learns the truth about Sky, bad things happen because she's depressed. This results in her and the Winx going off on a journey to learn the truth of who Bloom is. After the girls share this big plot moment and Bloom gets her mojo back, the boys show up to be their ride home and to give Bloom her romance moment where Sky wins her back by declaring that he broke off the arranged married because he loves her.

Sky notably doesn't get an arc about choosing between his arranged marriage and his true love. We don't even know that the marriage is broken off until he tells Bloom because that was never really a conflict as far as the narrative was concerned. Of course he's going to pick Bloom! He's her designated side character love interest! He only exists to be with her. We don't need to treat this as a serious thing for him. The arranged marriage plot was never about him anyway. It was about giving Bloom a reason to have a darkest hour moment that moves the plot forward. Similarly, Sky calling off the marriage is nowhere near as important as him telling Bloom that he's called off the marriage to be with her in a grand romantic gesture.

This perfectly mirrors Miraculous' season five ending where Adrien doesn't appear until after Marinette is done fighting her big girl power fight against his father. As far as the writing is concerned, that fight isn't about him. His connection to the villain only really matters in terms of how it affects Marinette's actions during the final battle. Then, when the battle is over, Adrien shows up to give Marinette her big romance moment because, while the plot may be driven by Adrien's family, he is not a Winx club member. He's just a Specialist. Or, in the words of the head writer:

[image text: She's Barbie, he's Ken. You don't like it. I get it. It won't change. Anything else?] (The full, even more damning context of this tweet can be found here.)

What else can I say other than, "I rest my case."

Oh, and also that I didn't take this as an attack. I just thought it was a good opportunity to really dig into the nuances of this and what I was talking about in that original post as I never know how obvious this stuff is if you don't closely study story telling. As this case study hopefully shows, if a show is about a group of girl friends using the power of friendship, then their love interests may have important roles, but the boys are never going to be more important than the girls and most of the boy's screen time will be focused on romance and how their existence effects the girls because it's ultimately the girls' world. Without them, the show wouldn't exist. Without the boys? Well, then we just wouldn't have a romance plot.

[bluepurpz-j]

OBEY ME OC: Yue Lee 💛

Recently got back to playing Obey Me again, and though I've already shown a few artworks of Yue here in my page, it is finally time to introduce my daughter (the one who actually looks like me🤗)

So, to start... Yue is actually based off Haruhi Fujioka from the anime Ouran Host Club Highschool (the personality a little bit) and her name Yue came from another anime which was Cardcaptor Sakura (there's a character that was named Yue, and I thought how much of a wonderful name that was).

Yue is 19 (season 1), she goes to university and works a part time job. She follows the same routine everyday, you know... wake up, go to school, work, then home to finally rest; and while to many this routine sounds boring and bland, Yue prefers it this way since she never really dreamt of a life outside of what she's used to. Her life didn't have meaning, or moreover, she didn't give it one.

That is until she was suddenly swept up her feet and transported to a world that she never knew existed, and that was the Devildom, where she met beings who were far from human such as herself. After being announced that she were to be their exchange student, it was then her endless life cycle started to break and took a new turn.

Which the quote, "The day you were transported to this world, was the day when life started to have meaning."

I actually made a comic about Yue's first visit to the Devildom for a school project and I'd be happy to share it soon once I tweak it a little bit. I'm so passionate about her lore, and I can't wait to make artworks in which she interacts with Gizelle!!

Here are my earliest posts about Yue (Check it out!):

Yue in her RAD Uniform

Mammon x Yue Fanart

[randomlonelymusician]

Hi......If you don't mind, can I ask, what are your top 10 (or top 7) favorite media (can be books/ manga/ anime/movies/tv series)? Why do you love them? Sorry if you've answered this question before......Thanks....

Hmm, let's see! I'm quite bad a ranking things, so here's a tentative list of my current faves:

10. MILGRAM Project

This one is a little more recent for me, as my sister got me into it. MILGRAM is an interactive music video project, and while I'm not the biggest fan of DECO*27's music, I love the idea that this project presents. You're able to vote if a character is forgiven or unforgiven based off of the information given through a music video. I quite like some of the representation it has, especially with it having a character with DID.

9. Monster (Naoki Urasawa)

It's just a manga (and anime!) I like a lot due to it's compelling storytelling and antagonist. It was also cool being able to point out actual locations from the series in Germany.

8. To Your Eternity

While I fell of a little bit from the manga, this series still holds a place in my heart. (The Previous Era, at least.) The manga especially is so heartfelt, emotional, and spiritual, with it's exploration of humanity as a concept. And it contains best boy Kahaku,

7. Cardcaptor Sakura

It may be the nostalgia talking, but I love this series so much. It's so sweet and adorable, and some very sweet LGBT representation. Anyways, Sakura is my icon.

6. Lacey Games Series

Lacey Games, being an indie horror series by creator Ghosttundra, holds a special place in my heart. Though short and still incomplete, it's exploration of abuse and trauma through a horror format is beautiful and compelling.

5. Bocchi the Rock!

I feel so represented by Bocchi. Never before has anything conveyed what it feels like to have social anxiety while being so hilarious and fun.

4. Monogatari Series

I have an insanely complicated relationship with this series. On one hand, it's problematic and has elements that I find horrific. But on the other hand, it contains so many stories of young women overcoming trauma and adversity, creating a very powerful narrative about the struggles of growing up. Also I love Senjougahara.

3. Neon Genesis Evangelion

Evangelion is dear to me because of when I watched it. Without going into details, it really swooped in at one of the worst points in my life, and allowed me to feel. It's a capsule of loneliness.

2. Revolutionary Girl Utena

It's the ultimate queer girl revolution. Besides it's strange and unconventionalness that I love, Utena tells a story of escaping the cycle of abuse, and all the details that perpetuate it.

1. Oyasumi Punpun

I have no words besides it's the best thing I have ever read, and that I will never read again. Nothing will describe the feelings that it gives.

[shachaai]

Twenty Questions for Fic Writers!

I was tagged by @zipegs. Thank you, Hunter! These were interesting questions to think about.

Tagging: @needcake and @dr-fumbles-mcstupid! No pressure on either of you, but have at if you'd like.

1. How many works do you have on AO3?

198! Hetalia really upped the work count out of all my fandoms, but I also crossposted a lot of my better Yu-Gi-Oh fics from my days back on FF.net. I've still got a huge amount to crosspost from LJ, DW and tumblr though.

2. What's your total AO3 word count?

998,583. It's taken me 14 years on AO3 but my next fic update is going to finally take me over a million words and I'm so excited!

3. What fandoms do you write for?

My main fandom right now is Hannibal (and the associated HEU), but I'm also working on some uber long Hetalia works in the background. (The latter won't see the light of day until they've got a substantial amount done for them.) I started out posting fic online with Yu-Gi-Oh, then Death Note and Yuri on Ice. I've also worked on a lot of fics for CLAMP's works, primarily Tsubasa, Cardcaptor Sakura and XxXHolic.

4. Top five fics by kudos?

Due to the kudos requirement, this is obviously only from my stuff on AO3 (because I actually think an anon work I wrote on a kinkmeme back in the day would also feature here otherwise). 1. Commencer Par La Faim (Hannibal) - 1,470 2. The Lindworm's Lullaby (Hannibal) - 503 3. if(touched by love's own secret)we (Yuri on Ice) - 382 4. Apples (Tsubasa: Reservoir Chronicles) - 379 5. Heartbox (Hetalia) - 299 The last one completely mystifies me.

5. Do you respond to comments?

I really try to. I've got much better about responding to comments in the past few years, I think, but I'm still more likely to remember to respond to comments on WIP longfics than on oneshots. (Sorry!!!) Lately, I've fallen into the habit of replying to comments on the most current chapter of a multichaptered fic as I'm doing the final edits on the next chapter, because they often prompt me not to forget things. ;;; (So, if you receive a belated reply to your comment on a WIP, I'm likely going to update it soon.) I really do appreciate every comment though, and they've been such a source of inspiration and good feeling over the years. I'm still going back and trying to say thank you to comments left on my works years ago... It's late, but I do want to express my thanks.

6. What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

Bold of you to assume I ever finish anything. I don't tend to write works that have endings that fall primarily into the angst territory (I don't think!). Bittersweetness, usually. A lot of my hetalia stuff is technically angsty because it's open-ended and based on real history and history sucks. Obviously it's not posted yet, but the ending to Commencer Par La Faim is probably going to get people coming after me with torches and pitchforks. For posted works, I guess I'll go with my first ever completed multichaptered work from my YGO days: Both Sides of the Border. The whole fic is an exploration of love, remembrance and death (as best as I could write it as a purple prose-obsessed 15 year-old).

7. What's the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

Bold of you to assume I ever finish anything x2. Many of my hetalia oneshots fill me with the warm n' fuzzies due to their endings. Yes, this answer is a cop-out.

8. Do you get hate on fics?

None currently, but I have done on multiple separate occasions in the past.

9. Do you write smut?

I do, but it doesn't come to me easily at all. I wish I was a better smut writer and I'm really working on it, but I still don't think my current stuff is up to where I want it be. People seem to enjoy it though, so I must be doing something right? At least a little?

10. Craziest crossover?

...Sorry, I'm blanking. I wrote YGO/Harry Potter back in the day, and I've Daemon AUs all over the place (His Dark Materials). CLAMP fanworks are all, technically, huge crossovers.

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Once, a YGO piece I'd rather not mention now. My concepts have gotten ripped off a bunch over the years though - which I wouldn't even mind, I'm delighted to share my ideas freely (and, hell, not have to write the fics I want to see myself!), but if you're going to use my exact phrasing (and hours of research!) in your work could you at least give me a mention? It's a little hurtful sometimes, but I try not to let it bother me unless it's super overt.

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

I gave full permission for someone on a private Chinese fanpage to translate any of my engport works into Mandarin, and I know they translated a lot of the oneshots! (Obviously, I can't link you.) athousandnights translated the prancing and pawing of each little hoof into Mandarin. VanessaLocke translated Splinters & Mosaics into Vietnamese. @dr-fumbles-mcstupid/Dr_Fumbles_McStupid is also currently poddficcing my WIP fic, Poems - translating to audio.

13. Have you ever co-written a fic before?

Yes! In every kind of way. It's wonderful to do with a friend/someone you have a good rapport with, and it's a good way to develop a friendship, I think. I still find the thought of co-writing with a stranger assigned to work with me nerve-wracking though, and those situations have never worked out terribly well for me in the past. @-@ I'm currently doing a lot of 'alpha reader' work for a few friends. It's the writing part of writing a fic that isn't really putting down the words. (Plotting, pacing, research, editing.) I'm too busy with my own solo work to do any more right now.

14. All time favourite ship?

Haven't got one. I've got my darlings across every fandom I've looked at and written for.

15. What's a WIP you want to finish but doubt you ever will?

>> << Honestly, if it's something I want to finish I refuse to doubt that I will finish it. There's always hope.

16. What are your writing strengths?

Writing about food and scents. I've been told I'm pretty good with conveying the senses associated with them pretty well, and I've been scolded frequently by readers for making them hungry with my food scenes! (This is a fantastic source of glee to me now that I'm writing in a fandom where the food is, often, people. Accidentally converting people to cannibalism one fic at a time.) I also think I'm pretty good at writing about clothes - how they look, how they're put on and taken off, the sensation and movement of fabric - and capturing the voices of characters. Also, mostly because of a lot of the above, establishing a setting by sneaking in lore.

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

Long and extremely complicated sentences. I'm trying to get better at this, but commas, hyphens, colons and semi-colons are my comfort blanket. (Periods? Never heard of her.) The utter inability to shut up. Every fic is longfic these days. ...How incredibly slowly I write.

18. Thoughts on dialogue in another language?

It can be incredibly interesting, scintillating and useful, adding a lot to a fic - in moderation. Dropping huge paragraphs in the middle of your work in a language that isn't the main one you're writing in is just confusing and offputting, in my opinion, but sprinkles here and there offer insight into your worldbuilding and your characters' backgrounds/voices. I do occasionally write characters speaking other languages in my work, but I've usually got to have a good reason for it. I don't always provide translations either - but when I don't, it's also for a reason. XD;;; It's usually either that I'm keeping secrets from the reader, I think the speech is evident given the context, or I want the reader to have the delight of discovering what what I've written means (this usually means it's a funny pun).

19. First fandom you wrote in?

Cardcaptor Sakura - or Cardcaptors, as the dub was called in the UK. I was 8 and got hooked, and got my two closest friends hooked, and I got so upset that it finished I wrote fanfic for it to tie up loose emotional ends in the plot. XD;;; The first fanfic I ever wrote and posted online was for Yu-Gi-Oh, on FF.net. I was 11. The first chapter was up for a week before I read more works and realised how bad a writer I was, and I took it down immediately. My first months in proper fandom were a sharp learning curve!

20. Favourite fic you've written?

I'm gonna be a sappy loser here and say 'everything I've written (even the unposted stuff) for the Gods AU' and Commencer Par La Faim. I'm so glad I worked up the courage all those years ago to approach Eden (@edencomplex) and Hoof (@hoofae) and ask if I could write something for this cool AU they were chattering about and drawing stuff for. I found two wonderful friends and a wider home in a little corner of fandom, and the AU itself really expanded my ability to research things and develop different writing styles. I'm working on more things for the AU now because I really do want to finish it as my, Hoof's and Eden's legacy - and, of course, in Eden's memory. Commencer Par La Faim is a WIP, but I think it's rapidly become a favourite for me because it's the culmination of so many different things. It's brought me friends in the Hannibal fandom. It's a crowning - and bloody good, imo - example of my developed and mature voice as a writer. And it's so fun to work on. I also think it's a fantastic little bite of the a/b/o trope. I've done a lot with a/b/o across fandoms and over the years, and CPLF has really drawn all my scattered thoughts together and, I think, made something really unique amongst all the different presentations of it online. I'm still working on the fic, of course, but I'm proud of what I have achieved with it so far and I believe it will continue to be beloved to me.

[meimi-haneoka]

Cardcaptor Sakura Clear Card Chapter 71: Comments + JP-ENG translation differences

(pic courtesy of Dyoring on Twitter because the JP one criminally covers the costumes) Looks like I'm still alive after that bomb that was chapter 70, huh? 😂 Welcome back to our monthly appointment with angst with the commentary on Cardcaptor Sakura Clear Card, everyone! Last chapter might have bent me, but I'm not broken yet! Mwahaha! And yet, I can't say this chapter completely healed me, far from it! Sure, it's full of fluff and happy feelings...but man, how we feel his absence here. It's so apparent and glaring that it hinders the complete enjoyment of the chapter, which I'm sure is totally the feeling CLAMP wanted to elicit from us. If you care even a little about the new characters, you can't help but feel a sense of "this is not how it's supposed to be", while reading this. Fortunately, the cliffhanger at the end gives us good hope for the kids to start get into action to solve this mess at the earliest, hopefully with the help of someone we were waiting for? In the meantime, let's explore this chapter and all that it talked about...I don't have particular translation mistakes from the ENG version to report this time around (thank god).

Gif of the month, and then we go!

The Color Page

Well, this was a surprise? I didn't expect a color page like this, opening the very last volume of Clear Card Arc, but it's also true that there can be a quite powerful meaning behind those four outfits. They're literally representing the first discrepancies that originated after Kaito's rewriting of everyone's memories. Sakura's eyes are closed, she appears to be very pensive, no, actually as if she's contemplating something. About to make a decision. As she stands literally in the middle of all those outfits, this can be interpreted as way to convey how she's in the middle of these two lives they have lived and are living right now, and she's probably the one who can really do something about this whole mess. The conjunction ring. "Which outfit am I going to choose to wear?" isn't the frivolous question it might seem, but in this case it actually means "which life will I decide to keep?" Tough question, for an even tougher answer. But remember what Touya onii-chan said. "When it's up to me to decide what's real and what's not, then I decide to go with what I don't want to lose".

Besides the hidden meaning analysis, this is also a nice way to have set in canon the colors of *all* the main outfits for the play. (●ˇ∀ˇ●) (nice to know Akiho's Alice outfit actually got a gradient blue on her shirt!)

A New Life

The chapter starts with a very, very familiar scene, which might not have been drawn exactly the same as the original one, but it's definitely designed to remind you of it: the very first scene of volume 1, with Kero (and this time, Suppy) waking Sakura up to go to school!! I see what you did there, CLAMP 😏 In their latest Twitter Spaces where they talked about Clear Card, they did mention how the last volume would serve as a way for things to come full circle, and what's better than making a reference to the very first pages of chapter 1? We have the same Sakura introducing herself to the readers (breaking the 4th wall), same Kero shouting that it's time to go, same Sakura getting ready (this time she's evidently in a hurry though). We're clearly being introduced to her new life (that only we know is new) after Kaito rewrote their memories thanks to Momo's book. And well well well, what do we have here?? It's the very first panel of the chapter, no, of the volume, and we're already spotting something off, here??

Oooh, the Kinomoto home....grew an additional portion of itself?? Or did they build it in the few months that passed from the school play? I wonder what for...? heheh...(already knows)

But that's not the only surprise! We just need to turn the page and we are immediately taken aback by Sakura getting ready...with a new school uniform, which represents her second winter uniform (the one reserved for the colder months, just like it happened in Tomoeda Elementary) while she tells us she soon will be attending the 2nd year of Tomoeda Middle school!!! I was completely shocked when I saw her total-black new uniform!! I have to say that the idea of unifying the top and the skirt in a one-piece dress is definitely good, I really like it, but I thought that having even the black tights might be a little bit too much. Later we'll discover she's got black boots too. I'd need to see this in full color to judge! I predict the tie and decorations will be red! 👀 I want to point it out now, since Sakura says it immediately, but the French translation made it sound like she's already starting the second year of middle school, and honestly the ENG translation with the choice of words kinda infers the same: but from what we'll see in a few pages, we're in full winter (it's about to snow too) and Japan usually gets spring vacations between March 25th and April 5th (right between the end of a school year and the beginning of the next) so it cannot be really that imminent. I predict this could be February/early March at best. The JP text says もうすぐ which means "soon" but that can also only mean they're just in the last month of the school term.

So we basically had another mini time skip of about 5/6 months, considering the play very likely took place in September (kids were already wearing their long sleeved uniforms but some guests to the school event still wore short sleeves). If you ask me, it doesn't look like Sakura grew much in these 6 months. 😂

And when she quickly goes downstairs, that's where we find the other surprise (which was actually expected): AKIHO IS COOKING IN THE KITCHEN, apron over her uniform and all!! Yeah, remember? Thanks to the rewriting of their memories, now they're living their life as sisters! In fact, we see them interacting in a friendly and comfortable way, which is totally reminiscing of how they were interacting even before this big change happened. And yet, personally, I have a hard time getting used to the new arrangement. 😅 Sakura introduces Akiho to us as her twin sister, confirming they live together with Touya and Fujitaka too.

Sakura tells us people often comment about how they resemble each other very much, and as if on cue, Mokona sensei provides us with yet another very cute double feature of Sakura and Akiho smiling happily and lovingly at eachother. As much as I want Akiho to go back to her real family, I have to admit this panel totally melted me. ❤️ My lovely Akiho looks so happy....and that's why it also hurts a lot. Well, here come the first explanations of how this hell of a change can work at all, in this situation!! Apparently, Akiho has always suffered of fragile health ever since she was young (....) so she always lived with great-grandfather Masaki to get treatment and rest. With some friends we have been joking that, if this is the result of what Kaito wrote in the story he wanted for Akiho, he must have watched lots of soap operas, because the justifications totally seems at the writing level of one! 😂 Sakura says Akiho came back home to live with them only recently. And while Akiho excitedly yells that she's cooked the no-fry croquettes that Sakura taught her the recipe of, we also find out from narrator Sakura that this is probably the reason why Akiho still addresses her in a very polite way, with suffix -san and all. And sigh, my heart here broke a little because the no-fry croquettes....was the recipe Sakura taught Akiho specifically for Kaito, and that she successfully prepared for their date, eliciting a delighted comment from him. ☹️☹️Now she's still cooking them for her loved ones...but it's different. ☹️ Aaaaaa but here comes Fujitaka, ready to have breakfast and go to work, greeting both his daughters.........gosh, this sounds so weird. Will I get used to this madness before this chapter ends?? As it normally would be expected from him in this situation, Fujitaka addresses Akiho with a -san suffix too, so narrator Sakura says that probably that's also where all Akiho's politeness comes from. Fujitaka says that Touya conveniently left very early for his job, and Sakura adds that he'll go straight to his university classes afterwards. Uh uh uh, I wonder why CLAMP didn't want to show us Touya's reaction yet. Did he notice anything...? Fujitaka-papa gets ready to taste Akiho's croquettes....and with a delighted face he says they're delicious!! ......I mean, this totally works. Look at these two dorks faces, they light up in the same way. 🙈😅😅

Narrator Sakura keeps telling us about Akiho and how she transferred to her school before summer (and behind her, in the flashback, we can see the name Kinomoto Akiho written on the board), that she participated to the play for the school event and all...and that she wants to make so, so many happy experiences now that she's with her sister, to make up for the time they spent apart.

The girls leave the house and we get a chance to see the coats of the second winter uniform too: they're very pretty and compliment the whole outfits very well (they got big scarves and gloves too!). Some snowflakes start to fall down and Akiho just needs to sneeze once to unleash the scariest kaijuu in Sakura: ....that of the fussing big sister! 😅😅 she gives her her own scarf on top of Akiho's one and feels with her own forehead if she's getting a fever, demanding to know immediately if she starts feeling unwell! 😅😅Akiho worries that Sakura would get cold in this way, but she doesn't want to hear any of it!! Awwww, how can I not melt in front of this? 🥹My gosh Sakura really is super protective of Akiho here...and we immediately get another character to remark that: our dear Tomoyo!! She comments on Sakura's behavior in JP with this funny way which could be translated more or less with "powerful big sister manners", and I cannot really disagree! 😂 Akiho states that she's feeling better now, that she doesn't experience pain like before...but Tomoyo just knows that Sakura will worry no matter what, and the girl in question confirms so herself: because Akiho is someone important to her. Akiho cannot really do much else than blushing with happiness and thank her...😊 Tomoyo gives the final touch to this scene with one of her kind but sharp comments: "Maybe sister complex runs in the family!", making reference to a very early joke in CCS where Yukito teased Touya telling him he had a sister complex for how he's always so protective of his younger sister: well, guess what, now said sister gets to have the same complex towards her twin too 😂😂

We proceed with the chapter and we have Sakura meeting Syaoran in front of the school, showing us how nice and elegant the male second winter uniform (well, we mostly see the coat) is! Syaoran comments how cold it got overnight and as the caring and loving boyfriend he is, he inquires his girlfriend about her health. Luckily she's super healthy, and apparently, as she says herself, the Cards are too! Yessss, folks, it seems the Sakura Cards are back with Sakura, now!! Sakura didn't have a particular reason, but apparently the previous night she summoned Mirror to have a chat! Syaoran asks what she wanted to discuss about with him, and Sakura announces that she was thinking about telling everything to Akiho. Everything that happened while they were apart...about Tomoyo and her costumes, about Kero, Yukito and Yue, Kaho, Eriol, Nakuru and Suppi....and most importantly, about the Cards.

Now, before we proceed, I would like to talk about two different aspects that really stood out for me from this couple of pages. First: the relationship Sakura's got with her Cards. As I was saying, it seems the Sakura Cards are back with Sakura, and judging by the panel where Sakura says she wants to tell Akiho about them, the Clear Cards don't seem to be part of this scenario. The panel shows both Clow and Sakura Cards (because of course Sakura would need to tell her the whole story), but no Clear Card is present at all. We can only infer that probably everyone forgot about the Clear Cards too (although I still think they exist somewhere, it's just that they're hidden/sealed for now), and that Sakura might not have her problem with the uncontrollable powers anymore. Did Kaito fix that problem for her too, in some way?? Did he really go that far to ensure everyone's happiness...? And another thing I noticed, is that Sakura seems more...comfortable with the Cards and her own powers. Summoning a Card just to have a nice chat is the complete opposite of what she was doing at the beginning of chapter 1. She had put away her key, saying "I don't use it much anyway...and maybe it's better like that". The next thing you know, the day after she started producing incidents and Clear Cards. You see, I'm not sure how accurate this is, but ever since this started I've always thought that the problem with Sakura's rampant powers was caused by something of psychological nature. Since the production of the Cards seemed to be so connected to her emotions, in the beginning her power was so chaotic that the Cards were pretty much originating randomly (Gale does seem really random and not based on any thought or memory Sakura had), to become more and more connected with her thoughts and desires along the way. The more she got in touch with herself and her desires, the more the Cards were produced as a result of those, and eventually Sakura found out on her own that the Cards were originating from her own wishes. But that did not end there, because the Clear Cards started to change again when Sakura started to finally listen to Syaoran's advice to look into herself and listen to the stirrings of her heart, and started trusting her intuition and powers more: from merely following her wishes, the Cards started to take the appearances of her loved ones, which would become important later on in Clockland to help her remind who she was. Basically, anticipating her needs. Even if we didn't see an immediate reaction from her, finding her loved ones on her way contributed to wake up her conscience, with the final coup de grace from Akiho and Syaoran. So where I'm getting at is....could it be that Sakura's connection and trust in her magical powers, in this gift she's been blessed with, has become so strong that it ended up stabilizing it? While she was detached and almost refusing it before, dismissing her intuitions as "it's just my imagination", now she's learned to accept it as a part of herself and trust it more? If this is the case, I think that would be a very lovely character development for her. We'll see if I got it right.

The second thing is that I cannot help but noticing again how Kaito really avoided changing any important part (save for adding a sister) of Sakura's life: everything is still as it was before, the events in her memories still happened as they happened, it's just that everything that concerns Akiho has been staged differently, in order to fit her in.

Syaoran, as the honest and straightforward boy he is, comments that probably what Sakura wants to tell Akiho will be a shock for her twin, Sakura doesn't deny that but confidently replies that knowing her, she'll accept the situation just fine. Syaoran wonders if that will really be the case since she doesn't have magic (he poses the uncomfortable but necessary questions), he's evidently worried she might feel somehow less for not being blessed with that gift....and here Sakura replies something that I publicly thanked CLAMP for on my twitter account, because it was time for a character to spell it out:

JP: (Yes), because Akiho-chan is...a very kind and strong person.

Kind, because she would accept whatever concerns her dear sister with the purest heart, devoid of any jealousy. And strong, because she'd be able to withstand the inevitable feeling of comparison that would ensue. Yes, because Akiho IS strong. She's resilient. She wouldn't have survived her trauma and abuse if she wasn't strong. She wouldn't have that single crumb of information about her parents that connects her with them, if she didn't keep stubbornly insisting with her clan to tell her something about them. She wouldn't have stubbornly insisted when she saw her most important person shutting a door in her face because he couldn't share his burden with her. I beg you to not reduce her character to just a girl we should pity on, because she's nothing like that. Let's drop the narrative she's "passive" right now. Otherwise when we'll see what is probably about to happen, she'll seem "out of character" for you. When she's always been like this, all along. Syaoran comments that Sakura really trusts Akiho, and wonders if it's because they're twins... Again, Sakura shows how wonderful she is, but most importantly, how her emphathic nature helps her amplifying her foretelling powers without even realizing it. Because she makes a very relevant comment: JP: "Even if she weren't my twin, I'd still believe in her. Because feelings and emotions aren't measured with time"

Again, let me clap my hands till they hurt. Because I can't count how many times, along the years, I've seen Sakura's bond with Akiho being dismissed or questioned just because they've been knowing eachother for short time. "Why does she fusses about Akiho so much? She's barely arrived shortly ago!" This is Sakura crossing the T's and dotting the I's for everyone. The value of her bond with Akiho isn't measured with the length of time they've spent together. If she feels she loves her very much despite knowing her since short time, that love is true and genuine nonetheless. As for someone who's able to experience very strong bonds with people in short time, what Sakura says here feels extremely validating on a personal level, too.

This reminds Sakura that she wants to talk to Akiho about someone else too....with a blush, she says she wants to tell her about Syaoran, how they met, how he's always coming to her rescue, and also...that he's her most important person ❤️ (the trademark definition!)

And here Ohkawa is finally paying her dues by writing this cute lovey dovey moment between SyaoSaku in the chapter, where the two lovebirds hold hands (scandalous!! 😂) and share a romantic forehead touch that shows an intimacy that is unrivaled by what we've seen of them till now, while Sakura says (with a hint of sadness?? Am I imagining things, or are her intuitive powers at work again?) that she would like to hear from Akiho about her most important person too. Yeah. I would like to hear about that too....

And as if to say "WELLLL, ABOUT THAT-" Sakura suddenly falls into a dream-state, and guess who she finds in front of her, in a scene that is a complete reference to a panel from chapter 6?

YEA, you guessed it, it's MCF!! 😂 our Mysterious Cloaked Figure just can't avoid bothering Sakura even in her new, rewritten, happy life, but lo and behold, when Sakura asks them who they are, they remove their hood without any drama!! And who could it be under that hood? Dear CCS fans, this chapter was shorter than usual with just 25 pages, but oh my gosh, if it didn't end up with a surprising cliffhanger that actually makes you go "WHY DIDN'T I THINK OF THAT BEFORE?" 😂

Young Lilie to the rescue!

A young Lilie stands in front of Sakura, introducing herself:

"I'm Lilie. I've crossed [time] and [dreams] to meet you"

Oh my gosh how cute she is, smiling brightly as usual! 😍 Since here she's clearly Sakura's age, we can see how young Lilie used to have her hair slightly longer than her daughter Akiho at the same age. ❤️ What is happening here? For those confused, or who aren't familiar with CLAMP's other manga, I'll copy-paste here what I've already written on my Twitter thread. What Lilie did here is customary in CLAMP's manga. People with lots of power are capable of crossing dreams, even in a different point in time. That's why Lilie says "I've crossed TIME and dreams to meet you". Lilie is already a Yumemi, so it isn't suprising at all that she can work her magic on dreams. She probably attempted this when she was still alive, of course, and about 13 (Sakura's age). Think of it as a "videocall from the past". Lilie is, at current state, of course still very much dead. She isn't revived or anything. This is a "communication" Sakura received from Lilie from the past, because of course she already knew how things could go and she made sure to reach out and help however she could. Remember Clow at the Final Judgement? He also left a "message" for Sakura from when he was still alive, through a dream. Time travel with your physical body might be another story altogether, but visiting people through their dreams is very "customary" in CLAMP's manga 😂

Now, we only need to see what Lilie will tell to our dear heroine. If she will spill the entire story, or if she'll give the necessary basic info but will wait for the girls, or rather, for her daughter to remember about Kaito on her own. Maybe with a little push. Of course I had already imagined (and even warmly called for) an intervention from Lilie, in some kind of way, but I guessed she would go talking to Kaito, as a ghost or something. That's where CLAMP surprised me again, making her go to talk to Sakura instead, and also revealing that MCF was her, or rather, one of the MCFs we have seen throughout the story. Because I'm still convinced that, basing on the scene, MCF wasn't the same person everytime. We have seen how sometimes it was Syaoran (and we'll probably find out why). Sometimes we have seen them outside Sakura's room, on a lamp post (and I imagine that one could've been really Akiho, maybe in a moment in her dreams when the artifact took control of her). We have a MCF often accompanied by a Dragon, we'll need to see who exactly that one is, too. Well, all in all, a few hours later I can say I digested this chapter a bit better, but man at first it was really hard. All this fluff, all this blushing, these warm feelings...people doting on Akiho, seeing her so happy....and I couldn't stop thinking about him....our Kaito who gave everything he could give of him to make this become true....where are you now...? ☹️ If I pause long enough to think about it, the stinging feeling comes back. I'm sure they'll come rescueing you soon. And you'll be so shocked, because the last thing you're expecting is that anyone would come searching for you. Claiming you back. Oh there's so much you're gonna learn, very soon, Kaito. And I can't wait to see it!!

Okay, let's now recap the next release dates for what concerns chapter 72:

April 1st, on CLAMP’s Youtube channel (digital, JP and other languages) April 3rd, on Nakayoshi (paper and digital, JP)

The situation is still the same with the digital releases, so for now we'll have to make do with reading the chapters on Youtube, first!

I remind you that there's also volume 14 getting released on March 31st! And on April 1st there's also SAKURA FES 2023!! Yay!! See you for next chapter and as usual my inbox is open for your asks!

[lyerra]

Tales of Vesperia CCS AU headcanons - PART I

So the other day I was looking at a lot of niconico ToV videos, and I found a Cardcaptor Sakura opening parody with Estelle and other ToV characters, which prompted me to think about how such an AU could really work. I got to talk about it a little on discord, and since the more I talked about it, the more ideas I got, I thought, why not?

So, here's a list of stuff about the pre-canon setting of a CCS AU with ToV characters.

Estelle (Sakura) is the main character. Her name is Estellise Heurassein, and she’s 16 years old, in her first year of high school at St Vesperia High. Her father died in a plane accident when she was young but she lost her mother about a year ago. Her friends call her Estelle.

Yuri (Touya) is the son of Estelle’s parents’ friends. His parents also died in the same accident Estelle’s father did. He went to the orphanage, then often switched foster homes until Estelle’s mother decided to take him in about 4 years ago. He and Estelle grew even closer as siblings since Estelle’s mother’s death, and the two of them live alone in their family home. He’s 18, in his 3rd year of high school at St Vesperia High and has the reputation of a troublemaker. He spends most of his free time doing part time jobs, claiming he doesn’t want to live off Estelle’s charity.

Yuri has the ability to see ghosts, as well as some ability to feel magical and spiritual powers, though he doesn’t really understand the full extent of it. This ability caused him some trouble when he was a kid, as he would tell other people about what he saw, but no one would believe him. Estelle’s mother seemed to know, however.

Flynn (Yukito) is Yuri’s childhood friend. They went to school together as kids and Flynn somehow always ended up in the same school as Yuri, even when the latter switched schools when he changed foster homes. He’s the student council president at St Vesperia High, and he and Yuri always butt heads, but they’re also very close friends.

Yuri eventually questioned all this, as well as all the strange things about Flynn – the fact that his parents were never home, for example. Yuri was scared to ask at first, but upon realizing that Flynn himself probably didn’t realize he wasn’t human, and since he knew there were many strange things in this world, he decided that he didn’t care what Flynn was – he was his best friend, and that was enough.

Estelle met Flynn when Yuri got adopted by her mother, and she’s had a huge puppy crush ever since. Yuri acts as if he doesn’t notice, and Flynn is entirely oblivious to it.

Repede (Kero) is Yuri’s dog. Yuri and Flynn found him as a wounded puppy and saved him. Flynn couldn’t take him in, so Yuri asked Estelle’s mother, who was okay with keeping the dog. Yuri knows Repede’s not really a dog, and he guessed that the reason why he understood him so much – or that Repede was so smart – was that he was some sort of magic entity, but he feels a sense of kinship because of his powers. Repede doesn’t dislike Estelle, but she takes it very personally that he seems to like Yuri much more than herself. Having him around when Estelle’s mother passed was a great help for both Estelle and Yuri.

Ioder (Tomoyo) is Estelle’s cousin and best friend. It’s partly thanks to his parents that Estelle and Yuri are able to keep living in their house together. Ioder wants to be a fashion designer, and he always gets Estelle to try on the outfits he designed.

Raven (Terada-sensei) is Estelle and Ioder’s homeroom teacher. He’s a bit weird, but he can be reliable as well!

Judith (Mizuki-sensei) is Yuri’s ex-girlfriend. She’s actually a bit older than him in this AU. She has the power to see in the future, and the reason she and Yuri became close in the first place was because of their shared experience of having spiritual powers. She broke up with him before going to study abroad, but the both of them are still on relatively good terms.

Patty, Karol and Nan could be some of Estelle’s classmates. Not entirely sure about them yet but I’d like to have a short arc about Karol and Yuri!

ill link part two here when i make it!

[au-wannabe-the-very-best]

In my SI-Red fic he's gonna name all of his Pokémon, because he WILL be meeting Ash so I wanted a way to differentiate Red's Pikachu and Ash's other than just gender. Red's is a girl and her name is Hoshiko. It means star child. Ash continues to call his Pikachu just Pikachu, and thank god for that because he'd be awful at names.

Other than names though, I'm going with a theme that Red would be more suited to contests, and each of his Pokémon sort of have a title. Almost like they were a Clow Card from Cardcaptor Sakura, actually. Hoshiko's title is The Thunder. And if Red were a card, he'd be The Quiet.

It's the reasoning behind the name of the fic, if that wasn't obvious.

I'm actually really excited because I've got more than half of Red's team planned out, their names, and their titles. And the neat thing is that other than Hoshiko, they're all canon characters from the Pokémon anime, so you may have already seen them before! Who knows, maybe one of them was originally meant to be Ash's Pokémon... wink wink.

If y'all wanna ask me about the fic I'm willing to answer stuff, and I encourage you to ask because it gets me super motivated. I've got an outline and already started on the next chapter, but extra motivation is always welcomed.

[layingeggs]

Lost Kingdoms monsters that I like

Lately I've been playing a gamecube gem called Lost Kingdoms. It's kind of like if the Dark Souls crew got drunk and marathoned Cardcaptor Sakura and made a game about it.

Hang on, I can talk about this without mentioning Dark Souls.

It's kind of like if a bunch of Japanese young men obsessed with JR Tolkien growing up got drunk and marathoned Cardcaptor Sakura and made a game about it.

I want to talk about the monsters. Not necessarily the 'best' ones or even my personal favourite ones. Specifically the ones that made me unconsciously do my babytalk voice every time they appeared onscreen. Same as when you're out and about and see a cat you recognise.

This is banshee. Her card art shows her looking kind of like a nun in bondage? That's already very cool imagery, sex appeal aside. Sex appeal included just makes her better.

Look closely at her in game model, you can see she has a wispy tail like a ghost. But the affect of the tail becoming slightly transparent towards the end is not very visible.

When I tried showing my wife another of my favourite cards, a worm, she thought that that was this one. Without visible transparency, banshee does kind of look like a worm. Maybe she would have been a better monster as a worm! But ghost girl is good too.

And yeh, I took these pictures myself. There's probly better ones out there online, but I wanted to get the pictures of the actual cards I had collected, the friends I made on my journey with this game. They are my babies. They are my girls.

This is carbuncle. Maybe the first monster in this game who I really fell in love with. We're already off to a great start. Some kind of armadillo or pangolin with long floppy ears and forehead gemstone.

What you're not getting in pictures though is the noise. This creature makes a kind of sea animal singing noise? Like a gentle playful seagull. Very sweet.

I filled my deck with as many carbuncle as I could in the early game. Was useful back then. Sadly doesn't keep pace with the difficulty of later game levels, so I don't have as many decks with baby carbuncle in.

This is cockatrice. She's kind of, the first secret boss you can find in the game? Sort of? To me, I think she was the first notable challenge I really overcame. Also, some of the starting game monsters can be leveled up to evolve into her. So I feel like she's almost my starter monster if that makes sense?

Very cute. Very sweet. Though of course a pretty standard cockatrice. Turns you to stone. Very useful in early levels. Still useful in later levels.

Crystal rose. Pretty lady. Boobies.

She reminds me of the flower girl in Castlevania Symphony of the Night. One of the few characters in media to give me distant aching girl feelings from childhood all through to adulthood. I wish I was her.

Sweet baby rheebus. Kind of a useless card? My introduction to this card is that sea monk can be leveled up and evolve into rheebus. Lost Kingdoms plays some nasty tricks on you like this. Rheebus is very good, but also a weaker version of sea monk. Allowing sea monk to evolve into rheebus makes your deck worse.

A lot of evolutions are like this. Monsters can evolve into weaker monsters and totally waste all of the experience points you painfully collected. Honestly, I hate games that do this. But I choose to enjoy Lost Kingdoms for its other better qualities.

I've never ran rheebus in my deck. Weak and not very useful card. But I do love her all the same.

Any time I find a rheebus lying on the ground in levels, I pick her up and play her. I know she's weak, but it's a free rheebus. I want to give her the chance to come out and play outside.

She's like, what? A kitty cat with goat horns and covered in rich foilage? And she has a cyclops eye that looks very dorky in the ingame graphics.

I'm not sure how much of that is part of her body. Or if it's maybe obscuring her true body. Is that eyeball even hers, or is it the plant's eyeball?

Cute girl. Pretty girl. Beautiful lady. She's a bird. Birdy bird. Birdy girl lady.

Siren. I love her. She's great.

In the game, she stands perfectly still and damages anything that gets close to. No luring in and enchanting and eating alive like you'd expect from the namesake. She's more of an attack musician than a hungry hypnotic predator.

Maybe they could have played into that angle more. But I just enjoy that the artists created a cute or horny character design where the only human element is the head. Makes me feel like fromsoft and myself perhaps share some similar tastes.

This monster used to be my favourite until just last night. It's whip worm. The best monster in the game, bar none.

Lost Kingdoms is set up in such a way, that you have to be aware of a number of factors when building your deck and playing your cards.

-One issue is that each card has a limited number of attacks and missing even one attack is very costful for you.

-A second is that each card costs a resource called magic stones and starts eating your health if you run out of stones.

-A third is that you always have two objectives. Defeat the enemies, and explore the level to find more cards, which requires using up your precious attacks on destructible terrain.

Whip worm is the complete package. She melts enemy health even when she's fighting against type advantage. She costs so few stones you won't notice spending them. And, her attack involves her spinning around you and damaging everything that comes near. So you're not limited to just a few attacks, she just pours out constant damage everywhere you walk, destroying destructible terrain with little cost and meeting both main objectives at the same time.

The creature herself is a funny one. I'm not entirely sure what I'm looking at? She never comes out of that shell thingy so no idea if it's her body or a thing she found on the ground somewhere and made her house.

You can see in the card art she's got those big beefy arm muscles, but she doesn't punch or scratch or anything. In game, you can see she tucks herself in to that shell thingy. The only part that comes out is the tail.

Is she actually a worm? Who knows. I love her.

Oh, another little detail. Carbuncle is also a monster who spins around you and attacks everything close, and she can level up and evolve into whip worm! Since carbuncle is an early game monster, and she was my first favourite, I got this nightmarish game breaking brute quite early on!

This is tiger mage. And last night I learned something about her that shocked me utterly. I sincerely believe that this is the greatest monster I've ever seen in my life.

In the game, she's also another game breaker. You summon her, she waits to pounce enemies with somewhat decent damage, and she halves the stone cost of all cards.

As soon as she becomes available, you've gotta run tiger mage in your deck, surely? Some tough late game enemies will kill her easily but most enemies actually struggle with her, and she's amazing support for all other cards.

And the monster is cute, right? A little kitty cat tiger wearing a mage robe. That's so cute!

That's wrong. Look closer.

I somehow never noticed until playing the game last night when I happened to stand next to my kitty tiger mage and zoom the camera in while waiting for her to murder a goblin. Please take a look at these pictures.

The tiger isn't actually wearing that mage robe at all. There appears to be some sort of mage wearing that mage robe.

Except this also is wrong. The "mage" riding the tiger, hangs limply on the tiger's back most of the time, and only occasionally puppets up to cast a spell for attacks. She has no face. No hands. What exactly is this creature? Is this a creature?

Another disturbing element, and really the reason why I never saw the mage in the tiger mage before, is that the tiger herself is so animated. She growls. She leaps and pounces. She rears up for attack during the attack animation. I always assumed the fireball came from her mouth and the robe was just flailing around from the energy and movement.

At first glance, you have what looks like a wizard riding a tiger, but look closer and it's more like a tiger playing with a doll, right? As if the tiger is pretending that they are the animal companion or pet of a more powerful creature who's the actual monster?

To add to this, there's one more non-cat element. Those bat-like wings. I always figured they were the tiger's wings.

But if you look at my screenshots, you can clearly see the wings lift when the "mage" "stands up". Those are the "mage's" wings.

So this thing that appears limp and lifeless most of the time and has no hands and no face, does actually have at least some partial organic components?

What is tiger mage? Who is tiger mage? Which one is the tiger and which one is the mage? Is the tiger the mage?

I don't know if this is a reference to an established fairy tale creature or game monster or something that I'm not familiar with. Would love to know more if it was.

Finally is doppelganger. She might be my last favourite card. The last one who's capable of making me absent mindedly blurt out "It's doppelganger! :D" every time I see her.

All the other cards left for me to collect at this point are all big divine and deific. Have huge stone costs, often have effects that are very flashy but ultimately actually terrible in gameplay, and the monster design is just like an animal, a monster, looking kind of mean. Not girl. Not baby. And not my own personal aesthetic of mean either.

Doppelganger is very useful in gameplay, and she's a doppelganger, right? She can take any form she wants. But she takes your form! She's a cute girl! I love her. I also enjoy the weirdness of the player character finding a card that clearly has her on it. Carcaptor Sakura had one of these too, and she had a base form that the card art showed of what she looks like before she copies you.

I like doppelganger's card art. Thanks to the awkward use of colour, it looks distinctly like she is checking out her bum in the mirror to make sure she is getting the correct amount of undies rising up and skirt rising down.

But actually, that's not her bum. It's a magical artifact that this game calls the runestone. It's just an unfortunate choice of colour. Skin colour on a round surface and clothing colour on a strap like material. It's not her bum.

Though if it were her bum, then I would appreciate the irony(?) of a doppelganger copying your form and then checking herself out in a mirror. That's cute.

As you know, the legend of doppelgangers is that they are an omen of death. If you see someone who is your complete double, then it is a signal that soon you are going to die.

Lost Kingdoms represents this with doppelganger insta killing anything she touches. Including you. Let's have a see of what that looks like.

[angelshizuka]

I've been playing a lot of Cardcaptor Sakura: Memory Key the past week (though, my sister's been playing even more and is always ahead of me... like damn, sis) and it's really re-awakened my love for this anime. Tbf, it never went away, it was just more a back of the mind thing for a while.

It really brings me back to my first time experiencing CCS in the early 2000s when it aired on Dutch TV here. Though, actually trying to watch it was hell... They only aired one episode every saturday at 9:00AM (you know you're determined when even as a kid you willingly wake up that early on the weekend, since this was before you could plan recordings on your TV) with zero reruns and when they got to episode 57, they went back to episode 1 and stopped entirely once they reached episode 10 again.

It's never been on Dutch TV again since and I will forever mourn the Dutch dub I grew up with, because it's literally impossible to find recordings of the episodes (at best the intro is on YouTube), so has basically become lost media. I don't care how cringe it probably was, it's still my childhood.

I also remember how Syaoran was one of my first fictional crushes (before anyone gets their panties in a twist, I was literally a pre-teen myself back then) and my sister used to tease me about it. And Sakura and Syaoran were one of my very first ships before I even knew what shipping was. I still love their relationship so much, they're too adorable for words!

[self-loving-vampire]

I can't remember what the very first anime I watched was at all but I do know that during my childhood - before I even started going online to find stuff and relied on whatever was on Salvadoran TV - I saw at least a couple of episodes of the following.

Dragon Ball (original, Z, and GT).

I didn't like DBZ nearly as much as everyone else in Latin America seemed to. A lot of the fights felt not only slow but also kind of mechanically uninteresting.

Cardcaptor Sakura.

I surprise myself by feeling this nostalgic over such a cute and soft show. It's very different from what I normally like. I guess even I have a softer side sometimes (@thirteen-jades this is not an invitation to forcefem me).

Corrector Yui.

I have very few memories of this show. It was about an internet magical girl or something? I want to rewatch it sometime.

Ranma 1/2.

My parents explicitly forbid me from watching this, so of course I did it anyway when they were not around. They really didn't like the idea of a character who could transform like that. I only watched this one pretty early on before scheduling made it difficult to even find so I had only vague memories of it prior to a rewatch I started with my girlfriend.

Pokemon.

I got into Pokemon before anyone at my school knew what that was. I remember that much. I was more of a casual fan (could not play the games for the longest time since my parents thought games Encouraged Vice) and only watched the anime for a while before falling off eventually.

She was great, though:

Sailor Moon.

I have memory gaps about this one as well. Pretty sure I watched less than 10 episodes total, out of order. I think it was on a channel I didn't really know the schedule of, and at the very least I'm pretty sure it wasn't the same one that had most of the other shows on this list.

Digimon (all series up to and including Frontier).

I know they're not really comparable but I think I preferred the designs in Digimon over the ones in Pokemon. Also, I distinctly remember that this scene in particular poked at my ryona and defeat kink before I even knew what sex was:

Monster Rancher.

What the hell even happens in this show? I remember some of the monsters but absolutely nothing about the events of even a single episode. All my memories of it are just gone.

Yu Yu Hakusho.

Felt way more interesting and varied than DBZ to me, and I also found the characters to be more appealing in lots of ways. Still only remember it vaguely, though.

Rurouni Kenshin (oof).

In hindsight the fact that Soujiro was my favorite character makes me eventually becoming a Kohaku kin kind of predictable. Anyway, I think this was one of my favorites and also a good source of fuel for my growing ryona kink. Love shows where attractive men injure each other so viscerally (one of them even gets a chunk of his shoulder bitten off in a major fight).

Unfortunately, the creator completely sucks in such a way that also makes parts of the show feel hollow now.

Mon Colle Knights.

Only vague memories of this one too. It was decently cute, I guess?

Saint Seiya.

The Latin American dub of this is actually so much better than either the English dub or the European Spanish dub it almost feels unfair. Even the opening sounds about as good as the original, and I say this as someone who generally thinks Spanish is an ugly language with bad vibes. No wonder it seems way more popular in Latin America relative to the US.

Cyborg 009.

It was okay, I think? Not really into that older style of cyborg design. I can barely remember much else.

Yu-Gi-Oh! (only the original series at that time).

Like with Pokemon, I was into this before it became big in my area. I haven't forgotten nearly as much about it as I have with many of the other things on this list either. Especially where the first season is concerned I'd say I remember everything reasonably well (obviously not the turn-by-turn details of every duel or anything but yeah).

I notice that with a lot of the shows on here the main draw for me really was just seeing all the cool monsters, but I did come to enjoy the game and just the sincere insanity of the setting too. I also now associate this with master and Past Me.

Duel Masters.

Mimi was kind of cute. I liked her outfit. The show itself was... kind of weird, to be honest. It's one of those shows where the dub was basically a joke (more so in English, though).

Captain Tsubasa.

Those guys can get really intense about football. Can't remember much other than an episode where a guy is trying to overcome a fear of being hit by the ball or something? Pretty sure I only watched this one when I was stuck somewhere where I could not watch or do much else.

Plus some others I am also failing to remember. Genuinely kind of distressing how hazy my memories of these things are.

[theminecraftbee]

hey so i started writing a fake script for the magical scar au, and i was just thinking. (if the first episode of the show didnt start with like. backstory lore) what if it started with like a shot of a tree. and theres two birds on the tree. a blackbird and a sparrowhawk...

then i did bird research and it turns out that sparrowhawks can in fact be predators to blackbirds, so yeah. there goes my little hint at the beginning of whats to come...

or well. you see i wanted the starting scene to be like a nice morning, a nice day, so scars in a good mood and all that, so i dont really think birds attacking each other would be a good start. but like singing birds at the start are probably not a thing in magical girl shows either huh

but also hear me out. the two birds start a scuffle as the camera pans away, so we never see the conclusion. maybe scar could comment on it ? i dunno. but yeah sorry to come rambling to your inbox i just got thoughts.

i feel like magical girl shows usually start with backstory lore (?) so ofc the hypothetical show could start with that, but jellie could also explain it all later in the episode... i feel like the latter would make more sense so that scar and the audience learn at the same time ? but i dunno. thoughts ?

OOOOOH that actually sounds really cool. and TO BE FAIR... plenty of magical girl shows start with weird symbolism. i've mentioned tutu, right? i've absolutely mentioned tutu. ("once upon a time, there was a man who died." what an opening line.) but like, i DO really like that as a concept!

and like, yeah, jellie probably explains the basic backstory - jar is broken, it's now scar's responsibility - later in the episode. and yeah, starting with a BIT of backstory lore is fairly common, although everything isn't normally explained in the beginning! just a little bit of stuff as the heroes will initially know it, or to do intrigue. one of the themes with this au in particular, after all, is that jellie's original simplistic "spirits out bad, go get them back into the jar, be a magical girl" is actually a bit more complicated than that!

like, it's not uncommon to start with SOME exposition, but normally not too many details - scar and the audience WILL learn what's going on at the same time.

anyway yeah if there are any important first episode details its scar trying to help jellie at some point before knowing who she is, and scar breaking the jar, because those are references to the first episodes of sailor moon and cardcaptor sakura respectively, so i think they're fun to keep around.

also, i know @eloquentornot did their version of episode one at one point! it's over here! this isn't to say you shouldn't continue though - i'd love to see your script for it, too. see what different vibes are come up with!

[spurious]

Fic Writer 20 Questions

Thank you for the tag, @wonkyelk & @sga-owns-my-soul!

How many works do you have on AO3?

103, a number which recently shot up due to me posting all of my random tumblr ficlets to my AO3 account lmao. Previously it was, like, 70.

2. What's your total AO3 word count?

267,356

3. What fandoms do you write for?

Currently it's pretty much all SGA all the time over here. I am enjoying dabbling in Genshin when the mood strikes though, love the yuripeans <3

4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

Twenty Questions

Ink and Wings

Five Times Rodney (and John) Visit the Millers

Solitary in a Wide Flat Space

Abercrombie & Rodney

5. Do you respond to comments? Why or why not?

Yes! I try to, at least, though sometimes my responses are painfully delayed. I like hearing what people think about a story, I want them to know their comments are loved and appreciated, and sometimes you end up getting into a discussion like back in the Good Old Days on LJ.

6. What's the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

Man I really do not write a ton of stuff that doesn’t end happily /just went through all my fics

Angstiest ending of things I've posted is probably either the Kanjani superheroes AU or the apocalypse akame fic? Has my tolerance for writing lengthy angst lessened with age?

7. What's the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

As I said above, most of my stuff seems to have relatively happy endings. If I were to pick I might say O I Think We Should Be Brethren, because it takes the longest and hardest journey to the ending, which makes it feel more impactful to me.

8. Do you get hate on fics?

I got one "hate" comment on the Kanjani cannibalism fic from someone who thought I was sick and needed therapy, or something to that effect. Otherwise, nope.

9. Do you write smut? If so what kind?

Yes. I would say my smut wheelhouse is kinky porn with feelings, I guess?

10. Do you write crossovers? What's the craziest one you've written?

I do not.

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Not that I know of.

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

I believe one or two of my fics in Johnny's fandom were translated into Russian and/or Chinese?

13. Have you ever cowritten a fic before?

Not to completion!

14. What's your all-time favourite ship?

how dare you make me choose between my children

15. What's a WIP you want to finish, but doubt you ever will?

Story I started for a fic exchange in, like, god...2014 or so? In which Yoko kisses Hina, then hits his head and wakes up in a world that's just a shamelessly silly amalgam of J-drama tropes. Sometimes I read through the doc and go "man i wish the author would update"

16. What are your writing strengths?

Sensory description, wanky poetic bullshit, smut, scenes with no more than two people in them, banter-y dialogue

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

Endings, complex plots, ensemble casts, scenes with three or more people in them, transitions, being a complete baby about taking criticism, endings, endings

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language for a fic?

I don't see a reason for it? You either need to add a gloss with a translation (if your POV character and audience are intended to understand it), at which point you may as well just write "Screw you, McKay," Zelenka said in Czech; or you want it to be incomprensible to the reader, at which point you may as well just write Zelenka muttered something in Czech as he stomped away. If your reader happens to understand the language you've written in and you're not confident in it, they'll be annoyed by the weird grammar you've gotten from google translating it, and even if you are, you're losing the effect of someone having said something that your POV character shouldn't understand.

......................apparently I have an Opinion on this? who knew.

19. First fandom you wrote for?

Cardcaptor Sakura, when I was like 13? I may have posted it on FF.net but if there's a god it's been lost to the sands of time. I do not think it was very good.

20. Favourite fic you've ever written?

Shouldn't be surprising at this point for me to pick O I Think We Should Be Brethren for this, right? I just think it's neat.

Tagging (I've seen this one circulate a fair bit so apologies if you've been multiple-tagged): @audioletter @sparrowsarus @texasdreamer01 @luredin @alienfuckeronmain