#gender bend comedy

[choppedcowboydinosaur]

In speaking of gender bender comedies in manga and comics I remember when I was at book off once and stumbled upon this graphic novel about a transman magical girl. The premise is that there's this teenage transman (ftm transgender person) who one day is forced to become a magical girl. It turns out he comes from a long line of magical girls including his mother and she didn't bother to tell him. So now he has to become a magical girl which would probably mess with his gender dysphoria and shenanigans ensue.

It was a western graphic novel with the art style I would describe as something out of tumblr. I don't even mean it as an insult but like it feels like this was created by a tumblr artist. It looks better than what you would imagine as "tumblr art style". There were no sunburnt noses that the tumblr art style is known for. If anything, it looked like a competently made webcomic with pseudo anime influences. Basically, it's art style was the She Ra reboot cartoon but more weebish. The artist might even still have their page on this site. It's just something I thought was interesting. Especially, since with gender bender comedies it's usually MTF. While there are lots of FTM stories MTF tends to outnumber them.

[carolinemillerbooks]

New Post has been published on Books by Caroline Miller

New Post has been published on https://www.booksbycarolinemiller.com/musings/all-ye-need-to-know/

All Ye Need To Know

Retired scientist Ronald Mallett continues to work on the possibility of time travel.   Like Albert Einstein, he believes time and space are interconnected. That’s why he is tinkering with technology that will allow him to bend time as if it were in a black hole. Despite this seemingly hopeless pursuit, he invites us to imagine the possibilities that could occur if he succeeds.  Covid-19 could have been stopped in its tracks if we’d been able to carry a vaccine into the past.   Mallett says nothing about negative consequences that could arise when we fiddle with history. An ill-fated adjustment might recreate the Mesozoic Era. True, some people make a habit of looking backward. Mississippi’s legislature is nostalgic enough to resurrect the separate but equal Jim Crow laws of the 1800s.  Unfortunately, in their bid to defend state rights, they forgot about human ones.   Knowing little of ourselves, substituting the past for the present takes us into a tulgey wood of thorns and bogs. Writers from William Saroyan to Honoré de Balzac see our misadventure as the Human Comedy. By the phrase, they mean that ignorance gives birth to countless absurdities. These literary giants have spent many a candle-lit night in pursuit of them. The result has been an endless series of written comedies and tragedies. If vanity could learn from genius, we might survive…perhaps even grow wise from the exposure.  But imagination isn’t the sole purview of brilliance.  Lesser minds employ it, roo.  How else could QAnon exist? Belief is awkward to confront because it is impervious to evidence. If I prefer strawberry ice cream to pistachio, the question of accuracy doesn’t apply. Ambiguity, of course, is part of the human condition.  Quantum physics informs us that truth is relative. Reality lies at the intersection of matter and the observer. Any ignorance we carry en route alters what we perceive. Just as a black hole bends time and space, so black holes of the mind bend reality.      Lauren Boubert, a Republican member of Congress, provides an example. She has submitted a tax proposal to Congress based on her notion of geography. Since her knowledge of our country is limited to the continental United States, she leaves out Alaska and Hawaii. If her bill succeeds, these two states would have to fend for themselves. Or, they could form a separate but equal union which Mississippi might envy. Equally unburdened by evidence, a drag queen astounded 11-year-olds at an elementary school with the announcement that many genders exist. Seventy-three to be precise. With a little imagination, more be possible. The number has been growing. President Barrack Obama created the opportunity for these endless possibilities. Executive Order 13672 was his attempt to end lifestyle discrimination at the federal level.  The impression the document left was that gender was a state of mind. A Facebook friend warned I was dipping my toe into troubled waters when I wrote a blog about Executive Order 13572. But how could I ignore it? I’m an  English teacher. When I hear plural pronouns used in the singular, I bristle. Yet as an English teacher, I also know that language changes. The MLA Style Center, that arbiter of modern usage, already prods me in the direction of a new “they.”…Jules is writing their research paper on Jane Austen’s Persuasion;  Ari read the instructions to themselves [or themself] before beginning the test. Unfortunately, no one has alerted Grammarly about the change. K. Rowling stumbled into the gender crisis without the benefit of a friendly warning.  Not one to mock different lifestyles, she uttered remarks meant to defend women’s rights. But, we all know where the road of good intentions leads. Harpies soon descended and claiming the high ground, they called for a boycott of her latest video game, though it, like many of her enterprises, provides the lifeblood of numerous charities. J. K. Rowling needn’t have worried.  Isle Bryson made her point for her. Faced with an 8-year jail sentence, “they” claimed to be a transgender female, and at “they’s” request, “they” was sent to a woman’s prison. No sooner had “they” donned a uniform of one shade of gray, than “they” proceeded to rape two fellow inmates. Rowling’s video game, as it happens, suffered no similar harm.  Hogwart’s Legacy game enjoyed record sales. In this Barnum and Bailey world, a little humility doesn’t go amiss.  As homo sapiens, we are no more in control of our lives or the environment than earth’s smallest creatures.  We may shrug with indifference at an ant war unfolding beneath our feet, yet we fail to consider that Nature may take the same view of us and our endless wars.  Like Lauren Boubart, Nature shows a wanton ignorance of geography. We’d do better to ponder our place in the universe than spend time making up rules that discriminate.  If a child born as a girl wants to be a boy,  I doubt the moon will fall out of the sky for that ambition. If we are honest, controlling someone’s inner life is more difficult than controlling the outer one. How can we take charge of anything when we are blind to events that will occur over the next 30 seconds?  Some of us avoid the terror of a random cosmos by placing our faith in a god or gods.  I, too, feel the impulse. Nonetheless, when studies show that prayer is no more successful than a coin toss, I’m disinclined to take a leap of faith. Should I be wrong in my irreligious leanings and one day find myself in the presence of a celestial being, I’m certain to be struck with another conundrum. Shall I refer to this deity as “he,” “she,” or “they”? 

[flameswallower]

THE BEST FICTION I ENCOUNTERED IN THE SECOND HALF OF 2024!!!

A much longer follow-up to this post. (Can you imagine how much I'd need to type out if I hadn't split them up???)

Once again, I'm not listing movies, TV shows, video games, etc. I AM listing some web fiction and comics/graphic novels, because I feel much more qualified to judge and recommend those things.

____

Novels and Novellas!

Failure To Comply, by Cavar (2024): Reading Cavar’s Failure to Comply, I couldn’t help but think of the recent David Cronenberg movie Crimes of the Future. Both deal with dystopias in which bodies and their modification are strictly regulated, and people with unauthorized bodies form a vibrant, perpetually imperiled subculture on the margins. Both use this conceit to speak metaphorically about the plights of trans and disabled people, although Failure to Comply’s characters are also presented as literally, textually disabled and trans. But, although Crimes of the Future is often accused of being a “weird movie,” Failure to Comply is undeniably much, much weirder. Cronenberg is super normal compared to this.

Maej, by Dale Stromberg (2024): a doorstopper I found difficult to put down and finished inside a week; a work of very unapologetic genre fiction that’s equally unapologetic in its intelligence and dedication to doing strange, creative things with language; a high fantasy story I actually liked. The setting is the city of Sforre-Yomn, in the country of Hwoama, whose culture combines elements from across the continents of Asia and Europe. But Hwoama is matriarchal: men are subordinate to women, who dominate politics, business, the military, and nearly all other professions. As a result of this fact, almost all the major characters in the novel are female. By turns this presents a fun, simple, mischievous inversion of maleness as the unmarked default state for fictional characters, and meaty commentary on the social construction of sex, sexuality, and gender. Stromberg has cited Le Guin as an influence on Maej and, in the most complimentary way possible, this influence is evident.

Lote, by Shola von Reinhold (2020) is a gorgeous, funny, moving academic satire/mystery and love letter to Black modernism. It’s also very queer/trans and (in my personal opinion, perhaps not intentionally) very autistic. The title refers to a possibly-mythical clandestine circle of artists/magic practitioners who style themselves after the lotus eaters and seek transcendence via experiences of sensory and aesthetic pleasure. As with many novels that stand out to me, you won’t read anything else like it. I especially recommend this one if you want a completely unique, intellectually stimulating work of fiction, but are put off by the aggressively experimental and opaque style of Failure To Comply and by the SFF-ness of FTC, Maej, and Leech.

Walking Practice, by Dolki Min (trans. Victoria Caudle) (original 2022; English translation 2024) is a breezy, sexy *, gender-bending Korean novel about a poor amorphous space alien stranded on Earth after a spaceship crash. Unfortunately for us, this alien soon discovers that 1.) the most suitable food for it down here is human flesh, and 2.) with a lot of pain and effort, it can squeeze itself into the likeness of a variety of different human beings. It figures out hookup apps pretty fast, too, and then it’s off to the races. This may sound like creature horror, but it plays more as an exploration of identity and humanity, and a satire of sex, romance, and contemporary hookup culture. (*possibly less sexy if you don’t have a vore/cannibalism/consumption thing)

Love/Aggression, by June Martin (2024) is a BANANAS mundane fantasy-comedy about two trans women who are kind of best friends, and kind of enemies. Zoe (actress) is an arrogant, cartoonishly unpleasant minor celebrity who thinks she’s much more famous and popular than she actually is— but Martin manages to show how her personality is in part the sympathetic result of dysphoria and experiencing a lot of transmisogyny over the course of her life, and how she used to be a much kinder person before fame went to her head. Meanwhile, Lily (freeloader and aspiring tattoo artist) is a sweet, spacy, passive daydreamer, and a far more immediately likable character— but Martin manages to show how she is not entirely blameless in the ongoing drama with Zoe, how her passivity is sometimes the result of immaturity and selfishness, and how even when it isn’t, it’s a character flaw that keeps landing her in situations which kind of suck for all parties involved. They live in a magical Pittsburgh that is, conveniently, located right next to Los Angeles. Their friends include a BDSM cult leader and a nonbinary person whose name becomes “Dicks” in the first chapter of the story and who is never called anything else. (This character also happens to be the…owner? Custodian?…of an infinite, maze-like, reality-distorting building that is probably the most fun and least scary infinite, maze-like, reality-distorting building in all of fiction.) There’s vore in this one, too! But don’t go in expecting a particularly cohesive plot: Love/Aggression is far more about characters, relationships, and gags.

Maybe the Moon, by Armistead Maupin (1992) was inspired by the too-brief life of Maupin’s real friend Tamara De Treaux, a little person who depicted the title character in parts of the movie E.T. Her literary equivalent, Cady Roth, is a sardonic, fashionable, thirty-year-old little person who depicted a magical gnome called Mr. Woods in a beloved, albeit treacly, children’s fantasy movie of the same name. But since she played the role inside a thick rubber suit, and since the director of the movie felt it would spoil the magic to give her any credit, almost nobody knows that. Ten years later, she lives in obscurity on dwindling funds and struggles to find work…until, out of sheer desperation, she decides to take a job with a troupe of children’s birthday party entertainers. Romance, escapades, etc. ensue. Both a very funny book and a very sad one; it’s quite frank about death, about the ways Hollywood fucks people over, about the many ways that, especially if you’re marginalized and/or an artist, your life isn’t fair and isn’t ever going to be fair and “happy endings” probably aren’t what the world has in store for you. I think ultimately it’s sentimental in a good way; it has a big heart.

Leech, by Hiron Ennes (2022) is a total banger to finish out this year with! So glad I picked it up finally! Absolute genre jambalaya, this one: sci-fi, stuff that reads as fantasy despite having or probably having a “sci-fi” explanation, horror, Gothic novel (but not, crucially, a Gothic romance), mystery, medical thriller, character study, philosophical novel about ideas of consciousness, selfhood, individuality, and free will…there’s probably something in here for everyone reading this. You’ll love it, almost guaranteed, if you love the Gormenghast books. You’ll love it, almost guaranteed, if you love any Star Trek series. You’ll love it, almost guaranteed, if you love the science fiction of Peter Watts, or the horror of Gretchen Felker-Martin. You’ll love it, almost guaranteed, if you love The Thing (1982). The prose is lush, idiosyncratic, a bit purple, but it’s nothing too baroque, it’s all perfectly easy to read. The complicated, antiheroic protagonist/narrator is delightful and memorable, and I think Ennes did a great job at conveying unusual states of memory/selfhood/cognition through it/them/her. (Some of these states are not ones with which I have, or even could possibly have ever had, real experience, but some are, and I am always pleased to find those replicated in ways I can recognize and feel as “truthful.”)

Short Story Collections!

Stone Gods (2024) and Worse Than Myself (2009) by Adam Golaski contained several of the very best short stories I read this year— especially Worse Than Myself, which is also a slightly more accessible/“normal” story collection and the one I’d recommend starting with. Golaski writes eerie, dreamlike, bizarre fiction that frequently crosses over into horror— even including time-worn horror genre tropes like zombies, ghosts, and vampires. But let me tell you, Golaski’s “The Man From the Peak” (in Worse Than Myself) is a BAD time, like give-you-nightmares scary, and it feels like nothing you’ve ever read before, even though it’s about A Nosferatu. Not just a vampire, but a vampire that is explicitly described as egg-bald with big pointy ears and two sharp buck teeth. That’s the antagonist. And it fucking works. He makes it new. Please, please read Adam Golaski, you guys. It is astounding and unjust that he’s not popularly regarded as one of the 21st century’s best authors of weird short fiction. I don’t actually know if he could have/wanted to publish more than two collections over fifteen years, but I kind of feel like maybe if a lot of people and public libraries buy those two collections, he’ll have more space and incentive to write short stories, and/or more publishers will be interested in picking up another collection of his short stories?

Brave New Weird vol. 2 (2024) was a diverse, entertaining selection of stories. Some I’d read, some I hadn’t. A pretty good overview of the mostly small press horror/sci-fi/Weird fiction scene as it stands right this minute.

All Your Friends Are Here, by M. Shaw (2024) is almost the opposite of the Golaski collections, in a way: Golaski frequently deals with themes of nostalgia, the past, cycles that repeat without end, and timelessness or being outside of time. Moreover, most of his stories feel like they’d be immediately comprehensible to a person fifty years ago or fifty years from now, if not even further into the past/future (with, perhaps, a few footnotes of cultural explanation). But Shaw’s stories are, often aggressively, Of The Moment. And that’s not a bad thing, even if it means they may seem completely dated in a few decades. Shaw is interested in speaking directly to their place and time; directly to us. They’re not going to pretend we’re not all online, that we don’t all know (if against our will) what Ready Player One is— the longest piece in the collection, and one of the best, is a suitably pop-culture-reference-laden dunk/riff/spoof on, and rebuttal of, Ready Player One! These stories are angry and clever and sometimes suffused with a kind of exhausted tenderness. There’s clearly a Bizarro influence on some of Shaw’s work, but their writing is more sophisticated and restrained than what I tend to associate with Bizarro fiction proper.

Individual Short Stories (That You Can Read Right Now!)

“EGREGORE” by Samir Sirk Morató (2024) = clubbing, hallucinatory, girl on girl

“The Spindle Of Necessity” by B. Pladek (2024) = trans academic suspects dead author may have been a closeted gay trans man

“A History of the Avodion Through Five Artists” by Eric Horwitz (2024) = Borgesian, arch, Jewish

“Mad Studies” by Cavar (2024) = loneliness, cats, autism…like Failure To Comply, this is by @librarycards

“Alabama Circus Punk” by Thomas Ha (2024) = robots, the nuclear family, disintegrating language

Comics and Graphic Novels!

Tomorrow You Don't Know Me, by Raven Lyn Clemens (2024) is a subtle, moving, and unsentimental graphic novel about being a middle schooler with problems, and how sometimes those problems just kinda...persist no matter what you do or try or want, and no matter if it's fair. Even if you summon a demon to help you! Clemens is really skilled at depicting emotion visually, at communicating both the absurd goofiness and the deep, genuine pain of the outsize negative emotions her characters experience. All of her characters are at least a little wretched, and she also handles them all with great compassion, affection, and understanding. Check out her artwork at @ravenlynclemens please; it's fantastic cartooning even without any detailed narrative.

In Fair Verona, by Val Wise (2024) is a VERY gory, VERY nasty piece of lesbian Gothic fantasy horror-erotica. I love Wise's art. The bodies she draws, regardless of gender and build, are top-tier sexy and beautiful to me, which means he's often able to get me on board* with kinks and scenarios that would usually be too "extreme" for my taste. (*Genteel euphemism for arousal)

A Guest In the House, by E.M Carroll (2023) is an equally nasty and mean, but far, FAR less explicit and bizarre, lesbian Gothic horror story, told with the visual panache and inimitable art style everyone knows and loves Carroll for. It's a worthy successor to their previous material, and if it doesn't necessarily make enormous leaps from their earlier work in its writing, the drawing and coloring has gone from "already really good" to "some of these splash pages will blow your eyes out the back of your skull."

Expiry Date, by Sloane Hong (2024) is another lesbian/queer erotica comic. This one's science fiction, and is FAR more up my usual alley of kinks. Which is to say that the lovers are quite kind/polite with one another (in a lot of ways it reads as a meet-cute), but also one of them is a hired killer who dispassionately agrees to torture the fuck out of the other one David Cronenberg-style.

Once again, all my comic recs are by queer trans people! I think I made a pretty hacky joke last year about gay trans mascs specifically ruling in this field, but based on recent data, you just have to be a marginalized gender and not heterosexual to make amazing comics.

Web Fiction!

The Frenzy wiki is a fan wiki for an imagined TV series, telling the story of both Frenzy, a popular late 2000s ensemble cast drama-adventure-SFF show drawing equally from the likes of Twin Peaks and Supernatural, and how the existence of this show was mysteriously wiped from the face of our reality-- save in the troubled dreams of a select few. I would estimate it takes a couple hours to explore the whole wiki. (2022 or 2023?)

3D Workers Island is the phenomenal, if less ambitious, follow-up to Petscop. (I don't mean it's a sequel; it's just by the same guy and covers similar thematic ground.) Like its predecessor, it's more about dropping tantalizing hints than letting you in on "what's actually going on," and more about giving you a creeped out and vaguely depressed feeling than about scaring or shocking you per se. It's really smart and well-crafted in an understated way, and does a great job replicating early internet content. I would estimate it takes WELL under an hour to get through this story, although you will probably want to immediately go back and look for things you might have missed or not understood properly. (2024)

Martin's Movies is conventional, compared to the other two. It's a ghost story. But it's a very creepy, effective, well-told ghost story rendered through the unusual medium of letterboxd reviews (of course, these become increasingly diary-like and Not About The Film as the story progresses). I would estimate it takes under an hour to read the whole thing, it's like short novelette length. (2024)

[hopex4]

I cannot stress this enough of how amazing the HS production of TGWDLM is

Look at them GO OH MY GOD

Sam? ATE! Hidgens? ATE. GREENPEACE GIRL? HOLY HELL FUCKING ATE-

The changes are so FUNNY WHAT THE FUCK- the gender bends and how they use it to add more comedy? <33 UHG oh my GOD.

look at them go

"prove it butthole we're the army 🤓☝️" "Cooper... I want you to hold me... While I... Eat noodles!"

Also there are blue handprints in the bg and on Paul and Emma's shirts after the Intermission <3

Me too Sam, me too

"that is NOT the latte hatte" "yeah it is :[ "

[absolutebl]

Hello! I discovered your blog relatively recently so forgive me if you’ve already done this but would you consider compiling a list of all the times crossdressing has been done in bl? Whether as a plot-device, for comedy, for serious reasons, just all the times crossdressing as a trope has appeared.

In a similar vein if you wanted to explore it I’d also be interested in the breadth of trans rep in bl/queer shows and movies in Asian media and if that ever blends into the crossdressing (maybe also drag would be interesting to throw into the mix as well?). Also just an exploration of Queer Femme characters that are not made fun of or villainized by the narrative would be cool! Basically just exploring femme queer aspects in bl in all its good, bad, and I’m sure sometimes ugly forms!

Hi, welcome! Ooo, crossdressing. Frankly I can't think of many and I don't have great recall on this one so I will have to ask the feed.

BL's With Crossdressing

Meet You At The Blossom (China 2024) - major plot point

Nobleman Ryus Wedding (Korea 2021) - historical, entire premise

Kieta Hatsukoi AKA My Love Mix-Up! (Japan 2021)

Love Stage (Japan 2020) - major plot point (better executed in the anime version)

Love Stage (Thailand 2022) - major plot point better executed than either Japanese version

About Youth (Taiwan 2022)

I Told Sunset About You (Thailand 2020)

Jack & Joker (Thailand 2024)

My Bromance the movie (Thailand 2014)

My Love Mix-up (Thailand 2023)

I Am Your King (Thailand 2017) - this is Mark Siwat's first BL, and yeah, he's the one cross dressing (he plays the femme rich boy in Jack & Joker)

The Sign (Thailand 2024) - historical costume for the girl of the past being played by a boy is a gender mix of female/male attire, it's very clever

YYY (Thailand 2022)

I feel like Gun has crossdressed in one of his. Theory of Love maybe?

Mr Cinderella (Vietnam 2022)

My Sky (Vietnam 2017) - trigger warning

My Lascivious Boss (Vietnam 2021) - major plot point

Moots et al...... other (older?) BLs with cross dressing?

Others worth noting

Either the representation or the BL is in question, or it's not exactly crossdressing it's something else. Still, some obscure ones just in case.

Wait For Me at Udagawachou AKA Udagawachou de Matteteyo (Japan 2015) - may be triggering involves body dysmorphia and fetishization of trans identity, but if you can you should watch this

Spring of Crush (Korea 2022) - this is a bromance

Rainbow Prince (Pinoy 2022)

DNA Says Love You (Taiwan 2022)

Great Men Academy (Thailand 2019)

3 Will Be Free (Thailand 2019)

Love Sick 2024 (Thailand) - made an aggressively male character from the original into a newly out 3rd gender/trans character in the new version, very intentional modernization choice, fascinating. Directly addresses dead naming among other things in the few scenes she has.

Saneha Stories series from Thailand

You should follow Cooheart on IG he does some fantastic gender bending and crossdressing styles. He's the fashion icon gift that keeps on giving.

Thai BL has tons of representation and use of characters/actors of Thai third gender, a lot of which is for comedy. Rarely if ever in BL more like Diary of the Tootsies. I would say my favorite and most beloved 3rd G rep is in The Sign. But that is is different than what you asked for.

Femme rep I have talked about before, most specifically in the context of Daisy in Secret Crush On You......

More Queer Lens & Thai BL 

BL Linguistics & Queer Identity I Am Gay versus I Like Men 

Husband Wife Language in Thai BL (SOTUS, TharnType + a lot of 2022 BL) 

Thai BL Lacks Representation of Butch & Transgender Men (and why this has to do with Thailand's 3rd Gender) 

Thai Military Service & Thai BL

Hope that helps.

(source)

[heirloomgem]

Solo Leveling

Sung Jinwoo

Fanfic Series

The way the cookie crumbles - [Genre: Yandere, romance, comedy, drama, gender bend, bl, yaoi, ]

Serendipity Series - [Genre: Yandere, Romance, Drama, Angst, AU, Broken Engagement]

Infatuation Series - [Genre: Romance, Fluff, Slice of Life, Comedy, School]

Euphonious (omega verse) series - [Genre: Omegaverse, Romance, School, Comedy, Drama, possible yandere]

One-Shot

In which Jinwoo can be sly in ways he didn’t expect just for her - [Sung Jinwoo x Reader. Genre: Comedy, Romance]

Insatiable - [Sung Jinwoo x Reader August One-Shot Genre: Romance, Yandere]

Liu Zhigang

Thomas Andre

Status: The request box is open only for the monthly one-shot voting if the characters are chosen.

[jariten]

Roundup-catch up: September 2024 (〜Take me back to the Reiwa era arc〜)

After a rather all consuming and intense reading experience that took me 60 years back in time (I will get to that one another time) I wanted to get back to the present time, specifically 2020 to today, and explore what's new and buzzing in the manga landscape. Luckily had a couple titles sitting unread ready to give me the most productive reading week I've had so far this year.

Akari by Marco Kohinata is a work I don't want to go too in detail about because I think it's one that I think is better by just diving straight in so I want to describe a bit what it does artistically. Even before it became the norm to produce manga manuscripts fully digitally with programs like Clip Studio there's always been manga artists who challenge the "correct" way of how manga manuscripts should look with clean inked lines and nothing but screentone or crosshatching to add dimension. Like Taiyo Matsumoto, Hiroaki Samura, and Q Hayashida just to mention a few. But with the digital way of doing it becoming the norm and thus there being less time consuming and high risk ways to experiment with the expected form of a manga manuscript the diversity of artistic expression in manga is expanding. All the manga in this post have an expression to them only really possible to do in a digital medium or if analogue, made possible by the innovations of digital artists. Akari has a sort of charcoal texture to it that I haven't seen any other manga artist use giving it a really illustrative look that really elevates the emotional themes of familial estrangement and being at risk of falling to the margins of society that the work depicts. Its made me really look forward to seeing what the "average" manga manuscript might look like by 2030.

Last year I gushed a bit about the cutesy gag manga Yoko to Tora by Fuyuko Kurosaki which really charmed me with its truly adorable art, little world building touches and anything goes absurdist comedy. This mini project finally got me to pick up Heike Monogatari Yoru-kun no Hanashi. This anachronistic time slipped retelling of the tale of the arrogant Taira samurai clan and its conflict with the Minamoto clan backed by imperial interests. Recently orphaned Yoru-kun has spent most of his life with the spoiled but lonely rich girl Sara. But one day, he is suddenly kidnapped from our time to the Heian era by Taira no Kiyomori! (portrayed as a flashy rock star super villain obsessed with his wife) to play the role of his daughter in a grand scheme to marry the Taira clan into the imperial family. Yoru now finds himself living at the whims of his war mongering and arrogant new father, but at the same time finds himself sympathetic and invested in his new family. Because they aren't all that bad. Right? But what about Sara? She's not going to let Yoru be all alone in this strange story, right? The Heike story is retold with a maximalist, deeply anachronistic and absurd fashion by, I will already declare, one of my favorite contemporary manga artists.

There's clearly a "gender bending" aspect to have these characters take the roles of historical figures of the "opposite" gender but the role assignment is as far as that went. The only new item of clothing that gendered Yoru was a kimono overcoat worn over his school uniform while Sara was only gendered by a piece of armour worn on top of hers. And of course Yoru can have a baby, you can just go pick those up anywhere. Like, at the cabbage patch. Intentionally or not it becomes a farcical commentary on how gender is assigned upon you by others.

A lot of current manga are in some way colored by the pandemic and 2020 COVID lockdown era. After Shinzo Keigo was hospitalized from COVID complications he produced Hirayasumi. But his wife Natsuko Taniguchi was obviously affected by this time in world history and her personal life as well and produced her own manga in response to it. Fukiyose Residence introduces us to the flashy gal cashier at a non-franchise conbini. She talks loud, sits on a camping chair behind the register but her high spirits brings as much joy as annoyance to her customers. But her public self and private self couldn't be more different, which her neighbours in her apartment building learn one by one. A short but very sweet story about actually finding connection with those closest to you and the ways we transform ourselves through and for others.

Sometimes I don't do my due dilligence and check if I can get a title I'm eyeing in Japanese in english, but to be fair that overlap is just so rare that I lost the habit. But here I made a mistake, because last week Astro Biologist Pratess by Sarami got a translated omnibus release by Alien Press. That particular edition is not what I will review T^T but it's def one to check out. A classic coming of age during summer vacation with past lives from outer space a la Please Save My Earth and astral connections to an alien astro biologist brings 3 friends closer as they try to figure out exactly what they want from life. This is one I wish was just 1 or 2 volumes longer so all 3 characters got to be fully fleshed out but I enjoyed what we got and it made me feel even more excited about what manga is waiting for us in the near future. The work was also licensed in Spanish so if that's your preferred way to read do check it out!

[witsserviceablesubstitute]

Dear One Piece Fandom,

Would there be a Much Ado About Nothing fic where Sanji is tricked into believing that Zoro and/or Luffy are in love with him? Because (there should be) that's what I feel like reading right now.

(The Straw Hats could totally pull off a Shakespeare comedy. All the shenanigans, gender bending, chaos, and misunderstandings. The moments of genuine love and heart aching poignancy.)

[meowsgirldrawing]

Obey Me! Brothers as Fathers

Kinda part of that Poly! AU I’ve talked about before. So this can be read as either that or separate. The kids are all original characters, but MC can be read as any gender in this. Remember- this is Devildom so any way of kids happening could go. Either surrogate, magic ways, or natural so literally, anybody can read this. (Male, Female, Gender Neutral, whatever you prefer is all Welcomed <;3)

Not my best work, but I like it enough to post it. So yeah...

Enjoy^^

AOT Link- https://archiveofourown.org/works/46350262 

Masterlist- Link

Warnings?- Talks of violence (Satan’s), Use of the word Sl*t and derogatory terms/harrasment (Mammon’s) and that’s mostly it. Asmo calls someone a b*tch but thats basic Asmo at this point.

Lucifer--------------------- 

He feels the urge, the one he’s felt with his brothers for years. To sigh, to pitch his brow, an outward showism of his displeasure of the situation.

But he ignores it because he knows what reaction he’ll get from the little girl at his feet. She’ll curl up tighter, grip the plastic of her glasses tenser in those small hands of hers.

Practically achieve the exact opposite of what he wants.

He manages a silent sigh, joining her level in a kneel.

“Lillie..” The noirette head doesn’t budge much, if only, just to bury further. He doesn’t comment and instead runs a soothing palm across her back. Soothing out the creases along her small uniform. “What’s the matter? Do you no longer want to participate?”

The small crowd of parents in the auditorium is loud. If he were in his demon form, surely it would’ve been louder. Thankfully, this form allows him to hear his little one.

“....mnm…” Well. Barely.

“Darling, I can’t understand when your face is covered.” Gently so, when she picks it up, his fingers trail to cup her cheek. It’s damp. And continues to be so as new tears prick out and smear downward. His thumb rubs in little wipe-aways.

“..I dunno..I’m scared.”

“Scared of what?” For a man known for such high power, his voice stays low.

“The stage..I don’t want to go up..” Her eyes dart to the theater doors in front of them then back.

“And why’s that?” A small part of him feels like it’s wavering on powerless and helpless as her bottom lip wobbles.

“Cause…Cause I-I don’t want to..to embarrass you.”

Stab. Twist.

His sigh spooks her but she keeps her chin high at him. She knows lowering it back down won’t help either.

“Darling, you can never embarrass me. At the very least not on stage.”

“I can’t?”

“Of course not.” Lucifer offers a smile, and brings his hand to her head, gently pulling out the tangles in small strokes. “You want to know why?”

Her brow furrows, seeming entirely confused. When she can’t think of anything, the same eyes as his spouse greets him again.

“Cause you’re my daughter. And what’s our family known for?”

“..Pride?”

“Exactly. I have never been un-prideful of you. And I never will be.” He takes her glasses, her grip falling without hesitation. Giving them a good cleanse from tears and dirt of the dangling coat on his shoulder, he pushes her long locks away, mindful of the pins, and slides her glasses slowly back.

Cheezy at best, and his spouse will be surely teasing him about it later, but it brings a smile to her face. One shy but growing.

He helps her up, patting off her patterned skirt and button up. And once she looks composed, his arm finds her violin. It was a few feet away, a hazard that thankfully didn’t come true.

“Now…Lillith..”The face of a suddenly new girl shines back at him as he turns around, violin stretched for her grasp. “Do you no longer want to participate?”

A similar gleam to the one of a certain human flickers as she takes it. “ I do.”

“Good.” He bends slightly, kissing the 7 year old’s forehead, “Then do me even prouder, my dear.”

Mammon--------------

A snort escapes him before he can even want to try and stop it. Why should he? This is comedy gold!

The other demon, one tight in some odd get up, is basically begging to get away from his fiery hellspawn.

A 15 year old girl. He’s pretty sure if she had better control of her power, she’d be using it to make that pale hair of hers turn into fire, really playing into the ‘You fucked up really damn bad” card.

Just like his little human back at home.

What brought this whole thing on?

Simple.

As the father-daughter duo just finished up a nice day of shopping, trying to look for a new outfit for her 16th next Friday, they decided to stroll pass on the lonely street on their laughter-filled walk home. Sweet Varya was just-a bubbling with excitement, her two shaded eyes brimming with possibilities. 16. Sixteen. The big teen! While Mammon was a tad solemn at the idea of her getting bigger, another year gone until the pending day she won’t need her dear old man anymore, he couldn’t help but share the excitement. His sole focus was her and not letting anything make her upset today.

And he was doing a remarkable streak!.....Until someone had to jump in and ruin it.

“Hey sl*t!”

Mammon’s head snapped, finding the demon leering from afar. His daughter rolled her eyes and tugged on his jacket, “C’mon pops.” She already heard enough of this at school. Just ignore ‘em and move on.

“Hey!” They’re quick, making it across the street, following in from several good meters behind them, “I’m talkin’ to ya, b*tch!”

Mammon wraps an arm around her, something he questions why he didn’t before. His glare is searing from under his hood. “She ain’t interested, pal.” He feels a wack on his arm.

The other demon just up and ignores him, “C’mon beautiful, ditch this f*cker already, yeah?”

It went similar to this for a good minute longer, the two trying to ignore their presence, even Mammon moving to stop and wanting to ape on their ass but Varya pulls him away, claiming he’s worth nothin’.

The demon, hearing this loud and clear, starts spitting insult after insult at Mammon.

Varya’s been very calm about this, praying to get home without dealing with a fight she knows her dad will win, up until the demon spats out his last insult.

“Scummy f*ckin’-”

Within mere seconds the demon was forced to the ground.

Aaaaaand here we are now.

“Who gives ya tha damn right to talk ta my father that way?!”

“Nani?!” The demon screeches.

She may not be facing him, but it’s little thought of her appearance.

Gold lacing her irises, maybe the same tipping into her snow hair that dangles past her upper torso, teeth bared and baby fangs out. Varya not fearing a ting of holding back. “My old man is someone yer very lucky thinks more than fights, cause if he were anyone else, you’d be more than sobbin’ on tha ground right now, ya soddin’ sot!”

‘Soddin’ sot?’ “Must’ve gotten it from Satan or Luci.” His mumbles don't reach either pair of ears. Huh..He should’ve  gotten some popcorn if he knew this was gonna happen. Okay, obviously he’s not happy with hearin’ his little girl get called derogatory shit, but her reaction now… by-his-previous-father get him a camera cause this is amazing.

Though all good things must come to an end…

His back pocket vibrates. As his daughter keeps backlashing obscenities in front of him, the demon forever continuing to cower under her wrath, Mammon hums a little tune while plucking the device up.

His arms adjust all the bags he grasps onto one arm, unlocking the screen, a nice photo of his sweet human and their hellraising daughter of course, and dragging up the messages.

My Treasure: Are you guys on the way yet? I got the noodles on the way.

His fingers go fast. He hears some added shuffling upfront.

Mams<3: Ya better believe it. Might take a sec tho. Yer daughter’s dealin’ with some shrub.

My Treasure: Get her to kick their ass later then, otherwise she’ll miss the food.

“Yo, darls. Yer mom’s/pop’s askin’ for ya. We gotta get home quick if we don’t wanna miss dinner.” He calls out, shoving back his phone.

“Yeah yeah..” Just when the mess on the ground thinks she’s finally done, tired of her torment as she spins on heel. She has little to no hesitation in proving him wrong. 

Twisting back around and slamming down a good, and I mean good, few inch heel right into the ground. 

Mere centimeters from their groin.

Mammon lets a low whistle ride at the sight of short cracks in the ground. Guess she does have good control.

The demon is whimpering, shaking from his very core as their pale face is stuck at the sight. Their eyes flick up, meeting that dangerous gold. “Try somethin’ like that again….”

“-And you’ll burn all their favorite toy collections?!” Howls Mammon.

“What?” Varya’s lips pull into a pout, “Not my fault I guessed right.”

“Oh yes! ‘Cause that just made it even fuckin’ better!” His laugh goes echoing down the street.

“What do you mean? ‘Even better’?”

Mammon keeps the voice the same, full of humor, “Just knowin’ how ya think of yer pops.” He says it so nonchalant too. “I’m glad yer startin’ ta think that now. Be a pain if ya didn’t.”

Varya’s smirk wipes away, a frown replacing it. She...wasn’t expecting that. 

“...Dad.”

His hand that was at the gate, ready to just push it and follow in, stills at her palm on his sleeve, “The hell ya talkin’ about?” Her head shakes as if she can’t believe her ears.

“That…that you don’t think I’m some scummy fucker?” He reiterates.

“I’ve never thought that of ya?.. It be stupid if I did.”

Mammon may or may not have cried in his spouse’s arms that night.

Leviathan-----------

He should web search:

Can human/demon hybrid children survive long times in water?

His phone is just casually placed on the sink a few feet behind him, wouldn’t take long.

Like 5…or 10…or 1 minute long.

……………..

How long does it take for a human to pass out again??

He doesn’t have a f-ing clue! Oh..how he wishes MC stayed longer, they’d know exactly what to do.

Pressing the towel against his tank top, bending into his knee, he ruffles up his TSL patterned night pants, dipping a leg into the water.

The tub was big enough to be considered a kiddie pool instead of a usual tub, but still just as deep. His son just had to convince him to use it for bathtime, and he also just had to convince him of how great it would be to add in lots of bubbles.

Yeah.. His hand tries to wats away some out of his path, very great…said no one but his son.

“Rhomb!” His whistle beats into the sizable bathroom, “Come out! Pappa can’t see you!”

You’d think the bubbles would keep out a child of Rhomb’s age from trying to diver under constantly, yeah? Well, thanks to Mc’s grand and lovely mind- seriously it was quite smart at the time-, they were able to get tear-free bath bubbles, as he did keep going under water.

In the few moment’s Levi’s ever had, he once again curses his more aquatic biology.

Keeping a tight grip on his rolled up pants- they may be rolled up, safely out of water, but you never know!- he carefully shuffles around the bath, eyes wide alert for any shifting waters.

He has to go slow, otherwise, he might end up with a snappy toddler and his aching tiny tail.

And that just be- wait..

Woh, there!

At one side of the tub, closer to the one with a mirror, a sliver of light purple slides up then back down again, quick as a whip.

Following the slight wave of the water, it’s suddenly more clear despite the constant bubble brigade, he can see Rhomb’s pattern.

Swim around the ring, stop at the mirror and turn clockwise or counterclockwise. Huh…

In rare moments, here and there, he can see that dark purple mop of hair on his head tease the surface, eyes hidden well. But not enough, Levi can see him watching him. A tilt of his son’s head through the wading waters and he’s off swimming again.

A shiver runs up his back.

It’s like a damn shark.

Oh come on, you stupid otaku! You’ve been the Admiral of Hell’s Navy for millenniums! You’ve fought in the Great Celestial War alongside your siblings, dealt with un-amountable and hellish enemies even after, are you really going to be afraid of a tiny, pipsqueak, guppy-looking-

Yes. Yes he is.

First rule of having a human/demon child, class-Fish-

Avoid the chompers.

But- The water sloshes against a higher part of his leg, the yelp-worthy cold shooting up his nerves, if not, more. He has to get his son out before the cold sets in and a grumpy toddler won’t be the worst of his problems.

With that and an affirming nod to himself, he braces a leg, summons up his tail for extra leverage and gets his game face on.

Funny, he should’ve really been paying more attention….he would’ve been able to see the glimpse of purple riding up behind him.

Time blip---^^^

MC returns home close to an hour later, tugging off their jacket and half-hazardly tossing the keys into the stationed bowl.

Their call echos in their lovely abode, yet goes unanswered.

When pausing at the kitchen doorway, it becomes clear as to why.

Set in one of the dining chairs is Levi, eyes tinged a bit red around the dark look he gives off. Hollow and defeated.

The poor papa flinches as their 3 year old’s teeth sinks further into the dark purple tail coiled around him and his blanket. Golden laced eyes leering up at Levi.

“...Should I ask..?”

Levi only mouths one word, ‘Help.’

Satan-----------

Libbey has kept her head down since being picked up.

The school called up her father, explaining her little incident with another student at lunch, claiming she violently attacked the poor other demon. Satan had no will to believe it until he saw the photos.

Before he made any real assumptions, he turned to her and asked her reasoning for this attack.

Now they’re driving, possibly home. She can handle a phone being taken away, most likely grounded from anything fun for the week suspension that’s been bestowed upon her, but she dreads the impending lecture.

Oh dear, would Lucifer join? Both in the same room? Giving her a lecture that could last her unknowing mortal/immortal life as they know it?

Where’s mamma/papa when you need them?

“We’re here.”

Gnawing her cheek, she bites back a groan as she lolls her eyes up.

She’s fully expecting to see the suspicious opening of their homey gates, maybe the rare glance of Cerberus minding the perimeter in his patrol, a sibling or two out and about making their chaos known to the world.

She doesn’t get that. Instead, she gets a nice and cozy looking cafe shop, a simple yet cottage core vibe sign planted on the front, with a giant, winking cartoon cat next to an equally cartoonish coffee treat. On the outside, there are various sets of outdoor furniture such as tables and chairs sat under colorful and patterned umbrellas.

“...Are we at a cat cafe?” Her lips are close to making her mumble as her eyes stray on the collared cats wandering around the windows.

“Yep” He pops the ‘p’, grabbing his wallet. “Come on.”

Libbey gapes at her father getting out. When her brain catches up, she’s already scrambling out of the car, calling out to him, “D-dad! But-but I got into a fight!”

“Yeah you did.” Satan’s going at a leisurely pace, eyes glimmering at the myriad of cats that await him.

“I fractured his wing!”

“Yep.”

“I gave him lacerations all over, even on his tail! That’s one of the most sensitive spots on a demon’s body!”

“Oh yeah..” His feet falter in their next step, then proceeds with as little as a thrown over the shoulder, “That’s correct.”

Libbey hands twitch for her hair, “He possibly has a concussion for what I did!”

“I would suspect so after getting tossed like a ragdoll at a wall.”

“DAD!” Her hand clings to his jacket, tugging him back, “Why are we here??”

“Why wouldn’t we?” He answers, adding in a suspicious tilt of the head, “You were only defending yourself.”

“But I-”

“Libbey, I need you to understand this.” His sleeve escapes but soon lands a hand on her shoulder, “You may have lost some control of your anger. It happens, but I know you know better too. I will never punish you for defending yourself, alright?”

His hand shifts, now behind her shoulder to start nudging. When she tries to object, still flabbergasted at his response, he’s quick to shut her possible words up with, “Now get inside so we can play with the cats.”

Asmodeus--------

Circle number 1,589

Circle number 1,590

Circle number 1,591

Circle number-

“We get it, Asmo! You’re worried! Now pipe it down and join our show or get out!!” Mammon practically hisses. He’s here to get away from his counting based job, not to do something entirely similar.

Asmo stops steamrolling in his 1,592nd circle behind the couch. Leviathan is too engrossed into the film to comment his own coequal tease. Truthfully, it would fall on deaf ears as Asmo doesn’t hesitate to roughly spin around, seething at the teeth.

“I’m more than worried! I’m fretting!!!” His fangs threaten blindly to a nonchalant Mammon. Said brother’s offer is an uninvolved eye roll, flicking back to the scene playing out on the flat screen.

Asmo’s chest lets out a great huff, marching right over and in front of Mammon, arms crossed.

A resounding moan shows his brother’s discontempt, edging his head left and right to try and see the screen. “Amso! Seriously?!”

“My sweet baby boy is out there with a possible witch-bitch, all alone without me or our darling, MC to back him up! Who knows how his…date..could have been raised?!” Hurriedly, his pacemarking starts right up again, this time doing odd circles around the couch, “They probably didn’t even bring him flowers!”

“Didn’t he do the flower thing?” Levi avoids Mammon’s swats and hisses. He scoots away from their kicking and whining older brother.

“YES! But that’s because I raised him to be the perfect gentleman!”

“And MC.” Mammon relents once.

“Yes- But who knows how that other child thinks??” His feet pause in their momentum for a preferable deride, “My baby must be miserable!”

“Why are you so worried about it anyway?” Mammon’s finger rubs at his ear before flicking, “The kid is 16, almost 17 now.”

“Besides, he’s literally half demon,” Levi swallows down, licking off chocolate, “After passing nearly every single test Lucifer and Satan have thrown at him about self defense, I think Quinn can handle himself.”

That has Asmodeus, the always extravagant diva, screeching to a halt. Ugh! Yes, he knows his son if more than capable to protect himself if need be. But- he’s talking about mentally. Emotionally.

Beel may be the one picked out as the most emotionally in-tuned brother, especially when it comes to the kids, but Asmo….Quinn is his diamond in the rough, one that he prides himself in protecting as his might lets him.

 Especially when it involves his own sin.

These two won’t get it… Asmo scorns a final look over his shoulder, before retreating from the living room.

Time Blipppppp

Quinn lets the door close behind him, locking it up before ringing and tossing his keys into the bowl of many,many personally designed keys plotted abutting the door.

His whistling follows him into the dubbed ‘Kids’ Kitchen. It’s just an extra kitchen made for the kids to keep Beel from raiding all the attendants in the household of food.

He pops open a cold pop, leaning into the island’s top whilst thumbing through his phone.

Quinn lets slip a muffled chuckle at the photos he and the-honest-to-the-all-not-mighty cute witch he’s been able to treat tonight. Such a shy one too, hiding behind his arm in between getting jumpscared by a raunchy horror attraction after the next.

In face of horror, they continued to give him a bright smile in the midst of their excited hopping, so he’s confident they enjoyed it just the same. He’ll make sure to bring them to a more relaxed type of date next time however.

The silence that is 2 AM gets barged open by an Asmodeus sized battering ram.

Frantic footsteps, that are the only ones Quinn can detect but not ready for, fly for the kitchen entrance. Asmo darts around it’s corner, and immediately throws arms around Quinn.

“QUINN!”

The teen stumbles back, smacking his pop down to keep from spilling. His free arm clutches his dad’s robe, begging for steadiness. “ Dad?! ”

Asmodeus pops up and his hands flag to Quinn’s face, “Are you ok? How was the date??”

Although the dramatic behavior from Asmodeus wouldn’t be new to him, it’s late . Asmo’s usually in bed by now, clinging to his routine like a lifeline if no plans are made previously. All for the sake of his precious skin.

Quinn blinks once then twice, “Uh..Great?”

Asmo gasps as if he’s found out the worst news, “That’s a question! I knew it!” He nearly breathes out fire, hands planting at Quinn’s shoulders, “I promise you, you can tell me what happened! I will never judge you, my darling. No matter what it is!”

But..he thought he already told him what happened technically? He and his date had a night all year around Haunted Circus. They never changed plans. Even if they did so, Quinn promised to let them know in case they needed to know location wise.

Resting his own hands on top of Asmo’s, his voice turns odd, “..We went to the Haunted Circus like I told you we would, ate ice cream, and some popcorn. Y’know, the usual?” At his father’s crossed features, he adds, “We never changed location. I would’ve told ya if we did, pops.”

It takes a moment of silence between them. Then silk pink shoulders drop, “That’s it?”

Quinn nods, brow still raised.

Suddenly it’s like he never panicked, never cried. His mood completely flips like a coin, all preppy and piper once again. He releases a long sigh of relief, and shines a smile.

Quinn gets pulled into a hug, arms tight around his shoulders, “Thank goodness!~ I was working up an icky sweat there for a second! I’m glad you had a good time, baby!” He pulls back for a second, eyes flashing in gold mixed with high pinks, “Right?~”

For the sake of everyone, including himself, Quinn just nods. Only for his deadpan face to turn into a soft smirk when getting yanked into a new hug.

Eyes roll with no real meaning as he circles his arms right back, patting his Dad’s upper back. “Pops.”

“Hm?” Asmo hums into his shoulder, fiddling with his jacket.

“They’re ace.”

His body stills, waiting a beat or two, then relaxes, “Oh.”

Quinn can’t help his chuckle, squeezing Asmo once, “I’m good. Promise.”

Asmodeus sighs again, this time it’s heavy and as if he’s just released all his worries at once, “I know…I just-” His body sags, leaning tighter on Quinn.

“I know, pops. I know.”

“I love you.” He whispers. Part of him hasn’t a clue why. Another definitely does.

Quinn copies, grinning into his shoulder, “I love you too, Dad.”

Beelzebub-------

She’s so tiny.

Is tiny ok?

He expected her to be big, considered at least a bit above average for humans. Not only for her demon blood, but for his, the father’s, size. He gets compared to Diavolo himself a lot, and even without those teases, he knows he’s a big guy.

Yet…

She came out so little.

6 pounds, 8.5 ounces. MC said that’s considered a little below average.

Fingers, so frail and so gentle, touch the hand that hovers near her.

Beel gulps, glancing to his side. Belphie leans on his cow pillow, watching the interaction with a soft look, lidded eyes. The same colored eyes match in gaze.

He decided to stick to Beel as MC rested, planting himself down and staying silent besides small sighs of usual sleepiness here and there.

It’s like he could tell his nerves spiked up at the single thought of being alone with the newborn. Like he couldn’t trust himself enough, silently hoping for MC or Belphie, or any of his other brothers who were hanging out in the room next over.

“You’re fine.” Belphie mutters. His hand lays by his coddling arm.

“She’s small.” Beel whispers. The shock hasn’t made an inch of moving yet.

“I know,” His lip quirks, “Ironic, huh?”

“She might have my eating habits.”

A snort comes at the word ‘habits’ before Belphie starts silently chuckling, not wanting to wake the sleepy girl. “The only thing Lucifer might hate.”

“She can stay tiny.”

“Maybe, some of them human kids do turn chunky quick.”

“She might be more human.”

The thought came to mind more after she was born. Before, it was different, if was like ‘Oh, she’s going to have human blood’ and that was it.

No, now .  Now it’s different.

Now it hit- stabbed- slapped him square in the face, just as much as her squishy image did when she was passed over to him so gently-like. All bundled up, curled in a small, whimpering ball of proof of his love for MC. A love that has taken hold of him and molded, no, extended vastly over the same little baby in his arms.

He’s not a poet by any means. Sure, he acknowledges his soft persona towards his loved ones, but never been a poet or writer. But, he could have sworn the moment reminded him so much of those books Satan or Lucifer have read aloud sometimes.

It stunned him just as much as it scared him.

“Yeah.” His twin offers up a shrug, leaning back, “That’s what happens when a human and demon have a kid.”

“She’ll be more vulnerable.” Beel feels a frown come on, staring down at the swaddled infant. He’s seen the other side of vulnerability. It’s scary, suffocating, you feel as if you can’t escape from its clutches no matter how hard you try. It’s even worse if a monster is the one…

He swallows, facing morphing into a faint grimace, if a monster is the one eating you.

Second nature takes over, Belphie’s hand swaying up to touch his blanketed arm. “Beel.”

The ginger doesn’t move his head an inch, but his eyes glance back up. Belphie’s soft look is gone, but it lingers, only just barely. His brother needs to understand.

“She’s not going to get hurt.” Belphie’s finger lifts, pointing at a sleeping MC, “For one, she’s got a kick-ass parent 1 over there, who’s been through hell and back with us, literally, to the point that people would have to kill them to get to her. And even then, gotta deal with their return.” And with a grin like he’s used to this joke by now, “I should know, honestly.”

Before Beel can lecture him, Belphie side swipes his comment and continues, waving a hand to the door, “ 2nd, she’s got a whole squad of demon family members who’d stop at nothing to keep her safe, myself included.”

Beel watches his direction turn to him; he damps down the urge to squeeze his arms barely a centimeter, “3rd, she’s not only got more demons- including the King himself and his lame-ass butler, but a magical weirdo human, an angel and his dog. Plus-” Belphie smirks, a mix between soft and smug, as he waves towards Beel,

“She’s got one of the most soft-hearted, yet most unyieldingly protective Dad in all three realms, who’d I know already will succeed anytime someone so much as dares to breathe wrong in her direction.” With that, he crosses his arms and flops back in the chair. “She’s going to be fine, Beel. Everyone knows it, including you .”

Beel stares at him a second, processing everything. Thoughts swirl in his head, many wanting to disagree with Belphie, new ones ready to snap at those, and others that keep going back and forth between both groups.

Belphie doesn’t comment on his face, but Beel soon notices the eye widening and lip quirking.

He’s staring at his Frankie.

As soon as he joins, he gets why he can’t stop.

She’s looking up at him. Fingers gracing the pink and white blanket edge, gripping just a little in small fists before letting go; her mouth stays slightly open, as if vaguely gaping at the giant infront of her. Her hints of ginger hair peek through the blanket as she tilts her head faintly.

But the thing that has both twins stopping in their tracks,

The purple eyes. Tinged with the classical match of poppy red closer to the edge, they practically beam up, focused solely on him. For eons, the only other person the twin’s have known to have those eyes were each other. It was just about the only thing they had in common beside their brotherly love for each other and the people around them. Everything else had been different one way or another, from colors, to activities, to hobbies, to who they were as people.

Now someone else shared their eyes.

Beel feels his throat tighten for once. MC had been able to make him feel full for the first time when they met, a feeling that could barely ever change even if Beel himself tried to make it so. It seems that has extended too.

They hardly change effect as she suddenly grins, all gummy and squishy cheeks.

When her hand flies up, reaching for him, a shaky hand covers it.

He will protect her , Belphie’s hand pats his shoulder, a half chuckle/half covered sniffle meeting his ears, he promises.

Belphegor--------

“Papa” Patting at his cheek. More patting joins at his arm.

“Popi!” A whine at his right, echos that is the growl of, “Papa!” at his left.

Belphegor mutters a curse in the blessed Devildom tongue, shifting and flopping into a comfortable position. Away from his kids.

Behind him is a huff, Ryder hissing out, “Papa!”

“Papa is sleeping.” Waves off Belphie, tucking his arm back under his classic cow pillow. Too hyper for him. If the two didn’t look like him, both having a relatively noticeable amount of faded indigo hair, he’d think they’d be Mammon’s kids instead.

The noise dies down for a limited moment or two before two small bodies find themselves on him, one tugging at his arm while the other trying to annoy him by being as limp as possible.

“Paaaa!” River whines. Belphie’s eye twitches. His tail lifts, and goes on pushing at them. Shoo shoo. A drastically tinier tail swats back at it. Probably Ryder, he tends to keep his tail out more.

“Whaaaaat?” Belphie mocks dramatically in return.

Ryder, able to get the tail back enough, “We have a question!” the tail flicks and bops forward,  meeting his face. Sputtering, he fights it back, growling about ‘weirdo dad’. A smirk crawls on Belphie’s face. Ryder wacks the limb away again, glaring at his annoyance of a dad the whole time.

“What.”

It’s only now they pause in their annoying ways. The twins have a moment of looking at each other, sharing a silent conversation. Ryder looks insistent, small brows down in a frown. At the same time, River doesn’t glance around, but tilts their head with a pouty lip.

Belphie’s ready to close his eyes and sleep again. A hand pats his face. “Papa”

Lifting his hand, he covers their face right back. “River.”

Ryder does the talking, “ How are babies made?”

Nope.

Nope.

Nope.

His blankets dip further down as he rolls away, covering the back of his head with the giant pillow he’s always dragged around with him for major eons. “Go ask Mammon.”

Ryder’s huff flips with crossed arms, “ He said to ask you.”

“Yeah!” River’s tail swishes as he relaxes on the bed, belly flop style.

“Go ask Lucifer then.”

“He’s out with Uncle Diavolo.”

“King Diavolo!” Corrects River. But Ryder’s only response is, “Shut up.”

Belphie lifts the pillow for one second, flapping his tail at Ryder, “Don’t tell your brother to shut up.” A second later, he’s turning to River, “But don’t call him that.”

Again, with the small pout, but they sigh and nod. Although, it’s plainly clear it’s as reluctant as his morning schedule.

They seriously need to stop hanging so much with Lucifer. Loves his older brother, seriously, but he doesn’t need at least one of his kids mimicking him now.

It’s like a nightmare come true.

“Satan.”

“He started going on a lecture that we were too young to hear about it but-”

“Ryder asked him if that made him Lucifer’s kid.” Belphie snorts at River’s pointed finger. Ryder smacks it down without looking at him.

“We were kicked out of his room.”

Belphie’s face says it all. He’s amused. Not surprised. Maybe a tad impressed with their unconcerned attitudes about it. His kids are just as mischievous as him, quote unquote from MC themselves.

Poor Satan though, his co-CEO of Anti-Lucifer club.

Such shame.

Anyway-

“Asmode-” Belphie actually gives a good brain cell a turn there, then backtracks, shaking his head. Horror fills his mind at what Asmo could say, “Actually, don’t ever ask Asmodeus. I will catch you both if you do.”

His oldest twin scrunches his nose, the younger one sticks out his tongue and mocks a gag, “You think we’re stupid?” Ryder gapes.

“You think?” River echoes.

“How about Beel?” As weird as it is, Beel might know how to explain it the right way. And to kids nonetheless? Hell, he’d probably use the most oddly ‘child friendly’ way of explaining ‘it’ to a child.

“Out with Momma/Dad.” Both this time. River plays pattycake with the bed, patting his hands in a rhythmic motion.

Damn it. That means MC is off the list too. Ughhhhhh.

His head flies back under the pillow, “Then no.”

There’s a short growl before sudden weight falls on him. He groans, huffing into his pillow while River giggles out a call of their brother’s name then joins in at Belphie’s side.

“Tell us!” A proud demand from the hybrid on his back. Hands gripped into his hoodie, tugging and yanking with all his might. Belphie’s body did shift slightly, not enough however. “You don’t wanna know, kid.”

River half growls, “Yes we do!”

“Nah, kid. Seriously-” The two lock eyes. Their dad looks almost entirely serious for once. “You don’t.” There's been a handful of times their dad has looked serious, and for him to look close to it. They’re inclined to believe him.

They turn, opening their mouth to stop Ryder when he stumbles, somehow on someone’s back, and starts falling. A yelp escapes his lips, sliding as quick as lightning off their dad’s back and off the side of the bed.

Now the bed isn’t big. He’d probably get the most, a biggish bruise if he fell too hard.

Still, Belphie’s tail flies out, grabbing his son by the waist, and yanking him back to safety, back to him. Flipping back on his side, gently pushing River away a fair amount, he opens his arms and lets his tail drop the kid like an old fashioned airdrop.

Ryder would grunt at impact, if he wasn’t already swaddled by an unexpected hug by Belphie.

Wait,

 did I say hug? 

I meant trap.

 The arms around him are tough to beat, caging him in like a rat in a snake coil. As he squirms and snarls, desperate to get free, Belphie’s head plays with his hair, “Oh my sweet son. Oh my sweet boy.”

“DAAD!!”  

“SOOOO soso beautiful!”

“I’M A BOY!”

“You saying a boy can’t be beautiful?” He tsks, “Asmodeus is gonna be heartbroken.”

At first, River is laughing, been giggling at the sight since they saw Ryder safe. When eyes turn on them however, they’re immediately bolting.

Again the tail. Again the kid falling.

The twins are as different as the ying yang symbol. One is fighting for freedom, growling and hissing kiddie curses at Belphie; the other is giggling away and acting like they’re the same, but they’re really just snuggling in deeper and clutching onto Belphie’s left arm.

Noisy kids.  

Belphie smirks as he lets out another tease, furthering Ryder’s temper, his kids.

Heres the kids if people are interested- I will post more about them soon, so look out!

[redgoldsparks]

I have a few events coming up in February!

On Saturday February 1 from 10am-4pm I will be at LUMACON, the free library-run comic con at the Petaluma Community Center, 320 N McDowell Blvd, Petaluma, CA 94952.

On Saturday February 8 starting at 7pm I will be at launch party for the Cartoonists for Palestine anthology at Silver Sprocket Comics, 1018 Valencia St, San Francisco, CA 94110. Shay Mirk will be a special guest, we will likely do a reading, have an art raffle, and likely other cool activities.

On Thursday February 20 at 7pm I will be attending a screening of the gender-bending 1985 comedy "Something Special" at BAMPFA, 2155 Center Street Berkeley, CA, then speaking on a short panel afterwards with Jenni Olson. Jenni is curating a whole film series this spring called "Masc II: Mascs plus Muchachas". You can find tickets and all other information here.

[rhysdarbinizedarby]

Our Flag Means Death Costume Designer Breaks Down Season 2's Punk-Pirate Looks

Gypsy Taylor explains the surprising historical details that influenced the 'rule-bending' comedy's costumes

Rhys Darby, Our Flag Means Death (Nicola Dove/Max)

[Warning: The following contains spoilers for the Season 2 finale of Our Flag Means Death.]

Packing a ton of plot twists and emotional upheaval into a tightly paced eight episodes, Our Flag Means Death just concluded its tumultuous second season. Season 2 ends on a heartwarming note, with Ed "Blackbeard" Teach (Taika Waititi) and Stede Bonnet (Rhys Darby) settling down to open an inn together. This gives fans a satisfying happily-ever-after if the show ends here — although showrunner David Jenkins intentionally left things open for a potential third and final season, teasing a team-up between Stede, Blackbeard, and pirate queen Zheng Yi Sao (Ruibo Qian).

Along the way, Our Flag Means Death continued to deliver its unique brand of historical storytelling, offering a chaotic mash-up of 18th century sources and modern themes. Working in tandem with theatrical visual effects and a soundtrack featuring Kate Bush and Nina Simone, costumes play a key role.

To cap off the season, TV Guide spoke with costume designer Gypsy Taylor. Among other topics, we discussed Stede and Blackbeard's evolving wardrobe, the historical research behind characters like Zheng Yi Sao, and Taylor's favorite unsung costuming details among the supporting cast.

This season there's a lot of journey to the costumes. Characters are experimenting with self-expression. I'd like to talk first about Stede, who starts as a caricature of a foppish aristocrat, but looks a lot more practical this season. What was the vision for that look?

Gypsy Taylor: The story is that he's lost everything. Blackbeard's gone on a heartbroken rampage and he's destroyed everything that looks like Stede on the ship — which would include that wonderful wardrobe. You know, like how you'd throw your boyfriend's clothes in a box out the window.

Stede was on his boat heading to the island at the end of Season 1, just wearing this one outfit. We see him in a filthy version, he's been living in it for two or three months. Rhys [Darby] was a little bit disappointed because he was like, "Do I get to wear any rings?" And I was like, "No! You've lost them all!" Then as the season starts to go on, he starts stealing some other pirate clothes and he starts to get really sexy and come into his own gorgeous pirate self.

And he gets that cursed suit.

Taylor: The cursed suit was so much fun! That's the first time in months that he's seen something beautiful like what he used to own. It's on this Spanish ship, so we went with a dandy matador look. Rhys put the calico version of that on in the fitting room and instantly embodied this character. He was flicking the tails and spinning around and he stood up straighter and his butt clenched… It was magic to watch.

I love that dandy side of him. There's a lot going on in terms of gender presentation with the main guys. They're both trying to escape toxic masculinity, but Stede's also chasing this idea of being a badass, and then Ed is doing the opposite because he abandons his leathers. I'd love to hear your thoughts on that, and how Ed is for half the season wearing things like sackcloth and linen.

Taylor: The leather is very constraining, and it's very much his persona of Blackbeard. To lose all of that means he's lost his toughness, and that exterior that's sort of like armor. So we went straight for the opposite end and just put him in a rice sack that he'd made into a jumpsuit. The idea behind it was that Wee John had sewn it because he'd started to learn to sew and knit — the concept being that there [were] rice sacks below the decks, which was very common in pirate ships.

Once Buttons turns into a seagull, his clothes were left behind on the ship. So Blackbeard takes those linen clothes, and he's like, "This feels right, this is kind of light."

I don't know if you're able to speculate about Season 3, but given the symbolism of Ed's leathers, do you think we've seen the end of that outfit, or is it going to stick around?

Taylor: I can't say anything to Season 3, but I do know that in the finale the leathers magically come back. I had a conversation with [showrunner] David Jenkins because he says, "Well, we have to end the show with him wearing his Blackbeard leathers, that's what we all know of him." And I was like, "How the hell has he gotten them?" You know he's thrown them off the boat, into the ocean, never to be seen again. And David just turned to me and went, "He's Blackbeard, he can do anything." I thought that was pretty funny.

Taika Waititi, Our Flag Means Death (Nicola Dove/Max)

That's exactly the kind of fairy-tale logic the show thrives on.

Taylor: We often refer to it as Looney Tunes. It's not exactly historically correct. Funny sh-- happens and we all sort of took on that Looney Tunes theory of like, episodes change and something appears and then it doesn't.

The good thing with costume and pirates is that the way they get their outfits is they just steal them. So whatever we came up with, I was like, "Oh well, they run into a French ship and they've stolen a great leather jacket." Costume elements could appear based on that rule that pirates steal anything.

I'd love to hear a bit about the crew's looks. The show does a really good job of illustrating their personalities, but this season a lot of them also have this makeover where they start out wearing Blackbeard's goth/punk outfits, then change into something more comfortable.

Taylor: Characters like Izzy and Fang were already established in the Blackbeard gang, so we didn't change them too much. With Fang I added extra sperm whale teeth and extra studs. I got rid of his shirt and we covered him in tattoos. Time had passed and he'd evolved a bit. Izzy was very classic, so we didn't need to change him at all. He was pretty adamant not to be evolved as the other guys had been.

Frenchie and Jim, which are the biggest transformations we see, they've spent months at sea with Blackbeard, who is a tyrant. He's made them wear head-to-toe black, and they've had to piece together outfits from around the ship. So Jim is covered in all these ropes to make them look tougher, and their belt is a giant fish hook. Frenchie's an artist, and he's stolen a beautiful leather jacket — he's brought the little flag element into the back of his jacket with some embellishment. Then Archie just looks like she's picked out of a crowd of pirates from the Republic of Pirates.

As far as the other characters go, we continued on from Season 1 and just kept their same outfits, but three months later. They were stuck on an island, so I gave Wee John a little necklace that he'd tied out of old rings that he'd found. And we gave Olu some shells and pieces that they could've crafted on the island.

Once we see them all go to Zheng's ship, I wanted to keep elements of the Zheng uniform. So you see with Black Pete, he kept the shirt but ripped off the sleeves and got some new pants, and Roach kept the pants. It starts to become like a mesh of all the little adventures that they've gone through, or the trauma that they've gone through.

Our Flag Means Death (Nicola Dove/Max)

I love the contrast you mentioned between Izzy and the others. All the other characters are having fun experimenting with their looks, and Izzy is so static. Do you think he's more sure of his identity?

Taylor: Definitely sure of his identity, you nailed it there. He's also very sentimental, like he's got his mother's ring around his little scarf. You know his glove on his hand, he wanted to keep it on that hand and I was like, "Shall we add some studs to it?" And he was like, "No no, keep it as it is." He's just very much about routine and rules and sentimentality.

Even for Calypso's party, I was like, "How far do we wanna go?" Everybody's dressing up and covering themselves in flowers. Once we learned that he was singing La Vie En Rose I was like, "I think we should keep it classic." Just put a little rose here, and Wee John's done your makeup, and you'll look classic and beautiful.

This show has a really fun relationship with historical accuracy. I was interested to read that you do a lot of historical research, maybe more than other members of the creative team. How do you decide which characters should look more historical and which ones are more anachronistic?

Taylor: I always started with the historical first. I actually didn't know much about Captain Zheng, so I got really into the history of pirates. I would always start there, with that 18th century historical moodboard of the paintings that were done of them, or the etchings. Then I'd add our rule-bending concept, which was to make everything a bit more rock 'n' roll and a bit more streets of New York in the '80s.

I was able to push completely out of the historical, and put things like safety pins and screen-printing and bleach. You know, zips and studs, and all these things that are very 20th century costume elements, but on an 18th century silhouette.

Is Zheng based on a specific 18th century outfit?

Taylor: There's one really specific [etching], she's wearing those Chinese pants. I looked at a lot of 18th century Chinese work uniforms as well, I looked at one from a collection from a museum. We copied that exact neckline of an 18th century Chinese smock. The same with the shoes. I looked at some workers' shoes from the 18th century, and they had those kind of black ballet flats with a woven bottom and little white socks.

I was using beautiful Chinese silks and Japanese embroidery techniques that were used in the 18th century, and sort of mish-mashing it all together because she would travel the Silk Road through Egypt and Morocco, and collect all these fabrics.

Same with Anne Bonny. Again, there's some etchings of the real Anne Bonny — quite a famous one with her gun and her pants. I was like, "Oh yeah, I wanna start there and then I wanna sex her up a lot," because her and her girlfriend have a really great S&M relationship, really sadistic. I wanted to bring that fetish element into her. That's where the corset came from. We based that on an 18th century corset, but made it leather because it was more pirate-y.

The twist on her was that David Jenkins came to me and said, "This episode is basically Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?" And I was like, "Great, I love that movie!" So I went home and watched that movie, and noticed that Elizabeth Taylor has this beautiful necklace and this patterned blouse. I was like, "Let's recreate this pattern on Elizabeth Taylor's blouse," which is set in the early 1960s. So we recreated it and then made an 18th century blouse.

Driver Minnie and Rachel House Our Flag Means Death (Nicola Dove/Max)

I feel like this season the villains are the most historically accurate. There's this contrast: Ned Low and Prince Ricky have a formal look, like with the British naval uniforms, and then the good guys have this anarchic vibe.

Taylor: Yeah, I never really wanted to mess with the uniforms. That was actually a really fun one to get historically correct. We had the proper frock coats and the heavy wools, and the heavy brocade. Ned Low and Ricky were very much straight out of an 18th century historical book. But then with Ricky, I gave him the one black lace Madonna-meets-Michael Jackson glove, just to mess with it a little bit.

With Ned Low, once we had his beautiful Paganini-inspired 18th century suit on, David Jenkins was like, "I just picture him being silver." We painted his suit silver, and then art department and props came up with a silver violin, and makeup put these silver teeth in. So he's instantly turned into a rock star.

Finally, are there any little details that you'd like to highlight for viewers?

Taylor: One of the background characters that I love the most is one of these pirates when Stede is the maitre d' at Spanish Jackie's. His first encounter with a customer is this horrible swearing pirate. I'd been listening to a pirate podcast that morning on the way to work, and I was learning all about how many rats were on board. I was like, "I reckon that pirate should just have a whole jacket made out of rats." That's what you'd do with all the dead rats, right? You'd have a little fur bolero.

I asked one of my team members to make me like a hundred little fur rats. She'd hand-sewn all the tails and little feet and ears. Then we built this vest and they covered it in blood and dirt, and made it all like wet rats that had been living at sea for a hundred years.

That's the kind of thing you might see a fan wearing at a convention, a really specific background character.

Taylor: God, I hope so. You'd have to get in real close to see there's actually little tails all over the whole thing.

I'm trying to think of another really sweet thing. That whole Silk Road thing was really interesting to me. I found this museum piece of a necklace that was all these little leather satchels that collected little pieces along their travels. We started making this beautiful piece, and we ended up giving it to Auntie. It's these little trinkets from Japan and Egypt and Morocco; she wears all her souvenirs around her neck close to her heart. There's a lot of little things like that where we go into great detail and I give a little backstory, but maybe no one will ever notice. Or they might! You never know!

Our Flag Means Death Season 2 is now streaming on Max.

Source: TV Guide

[volleypearlfan]

Ranma 1/2 Intro for Newcomers

The popular classic anime Ranma 1/2 is getting a remake. Ranma tends to be a favorite among older anime crowds, but it's not very known by today's generation, and since the remake will lead to a spike in interest for the Ranma franchise, here is everything you need to know.

Ranma 1/2 was created by Rumiko Takahashi, the same author behind Urusei Yatsura, whose remake recently wrapped up, and Inuyasha. The basic premise is about a young martial artist named Ranma who is cursed to turn into a girl when splashed with cold water, and can turn back into a guy when splashed with hot water. He is engaged to be married to a girl named Akane, who has a hot temper and bickers with him a lot. Soon, Ranma, both in male and female forms, attracts multiple admirers who try to win his affection, as does Akane, resulting in a humongous love dodecahedron balanced with comedy and martial-arts action.

Things to know:

Ranma pioneered the harem anime genre, but it is very different from the stuff you see nowadays, since his harem is pretty small compared to others (he only ends up being engaged to three girls), and Ranma is not a bland self-insert like modern harem protags. He actually has a personality, agency, and is not perverted like other harem MCs. That doesn't stop Akane from mistaking him for one though.

There is a lot of wacky slapstick humor in the series, usually consisting of Akane punching Ranma. Akane and Ranma both qualify as tsundere characters. They do actually love each other even though they fight a lot, they're just too insecure to show it.

Other characters possess their own curses. Ranma's father is cursed to turn into a panda; Shampoo, one of Ranma's fiancee, is cursed to turn into a cat, Mousse, who has an unrequited crush on Shampoo, is cursed to turn into a duck; and Ryoga, who has a crush on Akane, is cursed to turn into a pig named "P-Chan"

Although martial arts is a big part of the story, I'd say most of the drama and development are centered around the romance stuff.

Unlike other shonen series, who stretch out their arcs, Ranma has multiple small, self-contained arcs focused on introducing new characters or martial arts techniques. A complete list of them is available here.

The anime has a lot of filler episodes (as in, not adapted from the manga), but a few of them are worth watching. My personal favorites are Akane Goes to the Hospital and Am I... Pretty? Ranma's Declaration of Womanhood

Ranma has a huge LGBT following due to its gender bending premise. Many transfems cite it as helping them realize they were trans. The title character is commonly interpreted to be a trans woman, genderfluid, bigender, etc. The latter episode mentioned above is a favorite among them because in it, Ranma hits his head and starts acting girlier, even in his male form. This is notable because Ranma usually seems to not like his female form. Like other amnesia episodes, this doesn't last, but Ranma seemed genuinely happier like this.

That said, the series is also outdated in some respects. Look no further than the Tsubasa arc. The character, Tsubasa, was originally thought to be a lesbian, which disgusted the characters. It turns out that he's actually a cishet guy who likes crossdressing, which relieves the characters, but still disgusts them because of the crossdressing part. It's painful to watch.

The earlier episodes of the anime have lots of uncensored nudity (male and female alike), even showing nipples. This gets dialed back in later seasons, though. I don't recall Ukyo, the last of Ranma's fiances, ever getting nude scenes like Akane and Shampoo did. It’s not pornographic by any means, it’s just kinda there.

All of the characters are flawed people (except for Kasumi) who do bad things, some worse than others. This is what makes the series funny and interesting

There is a perverted character named Happosai, an old guy who likes stealing girls underwear. Unlike a character like Master Roshi, however, Happosai is not a good guy. He’s one of the villains in the series and is consistently portrayed in a negative light, since, besides being a pervert, he abused Genma and Soun.

There are technically two runs of the original anime. The first run ran for 18 episodes before being cancelled. Soon, it came back with a much longer run called “Ranma 1/2 Netto-hen.” The martial arts figure skating arc episodes were supposed to be in the original run, but they were pulled because of then-current events. The arc involves P-chan being kidnapped, and around the time it was supposed to air, Tsutomu Miyazaki kidnapped and murdered several young girls. The arc was later aired as part of Nettohen, but on the Blu-ray and on streaming, the arc is included as part of season 1.

Ranma had some of the earliest “waifu wars” in anime fandom. In the early days of the internet, people would go into “trench wars” on forums about whether Akane, Shampoo, or Ukyo is better it’s Akane btw

Ranma has a very large fan fiction presence, so you’ll likely never run out of Ranma fics to read

Ranma has a large Mexican fanbase, and it is very easy to find fan pages and information in Spanish. It’s popular in Mexico for the same reason that Dragon Ball is - it aired on local TV in the 80s and 90s.

The anime was dubbed in Vancouver, and you might recognize familiar voices from the Ocean dub of Dragon Ball Z, Inuyasha, and Death Note. Brigitta Dau was the first voice of female Ranma, but after six episodes, she moved away and was replaced by Venus Terzo for the rest of the series. In the dub, male Ranma was actually voiced by a woman, Sarah Strange, at first, but starting with episode 65, she was replaced by a man, Richard Ian Cox. Good luck trying to unhear Inuyasha.

Besides the anime series, there are several movies and OVAs, some of which adapt manga stories.

The anime is available on Tubi, Peacock, and Hulu

[kiefbowl]

i think fred is funny in drag because he’s not wearing drag to make fun of women in general, he’s just in costume to make a silly character that happens to be a woman

You know, I think there is something to this. Personally, I'm a little more neutral on cross dressing for comedy in general. I understand the general arguments of "the comedy of men dressing as women is assumed inherent because 1. women are worth degrading 2. femininity is inherently humiliating and ridiculous" and yadda yadda a host of other arguments. I just don't like writing off ~gender bending~ art immediately, I find that's a fairly conservative knee jerk reaction. I'd rather take each piece of media as it is, examine it from multiple contexts, etc. So if there's cross dressing in a comedy, I think there's a difference between putting a buff man in a ridiculously tiny dress to go "tee-hee, shoes!!!" as the inherent joke, and a male actor being a female character or a female actor being a male character.

I think the most successful cross dressing is when the design gives only the vaguest suggestion of the other sex, but the general facial features of the person aren't obscured too much. This is successful, I think in part, because the differences between men and women are fewer than most people are comfortable with. Obviously, there are some very big significant differences, but also there are spectrum differences that are only more apparent to us because we culturally highlight them. Which is just a complicated way of saying a man that looks like a man can also have big doe eyes, and a woman that looks like a woman can have a hard cut jaw...or w/e. there can be a billion examples.

[desultory-novice]

Hey Dess! Are you officially back? I came up with a list of weird questions while you were out to meditate on while you rest your eyes! Some rotisserie chicken to go, if you will. First question: What are your opinions of Lololo and Lalala? Do you think they have any relation to Lolo and Lala from HAL's Eggerland series? Their offspring, alternate universe counterparts, reincarnations, whatever that thing in the anime was, etc.? Rest well dude 😘

In a matter of speaking! (Dess says, weeks later.) And weird questions are totally acceptable, as long as they're more like this! Cause it's a pleasant surprise to be asked about Lololo and Lalala!

Gosh, did you know, the first HAL game I ever played was "Adventures of Lolo" on the NES! I...couldn't beat it. I was too young to work out the puzzles. I loved how waddle-y Lolo was!!

(waddle...dee?)

So, for those not in the know, in Lolo's own series, he's... well...

:looks up the Eggerland series, since Dess had only played "Adventures of Lolo":

...Uh, wow, there were a couple of these, weren't there?! Huh, Lolo was a musician? And Lala was a dancer?! (Reminds me of my Marx and Magolor hcs... Oh no! Perfomance couple, my love...!)

Anyway, Lolo has a love interest named Lala who he rescues and marries and he becomes King Lolo and the two eventually have a kid named Lulu who is just like them but yellow!

In the anime, there are similar looking characters named Fololo and Falalala (although the "fo" was added to the English dub for.... uh, I have no idea why! ^^) who are, ahem... :checks cue cards: ...two halves of the same Nightmare Enterprises monster that were split in two as part of a money-making scheme and to hide from King Dedede that they were a super weak monster. They were somehow kicked out and taken in by the good guys after that?

(Did I get it right?)

As for Lololo and Lalala in game... ARE they from Eggerland?

I guess "from Eggerland" depends. To me, they've left their mark as 100% "official" Kirby characters. HAL Labs has included a number of cameo characters before, most notably in Dream Land 3 which not only had Chao from Yuyuki appearing in DL2 (who was turned into the "girl" Gooey in the English version) but bounty hunter Samus Aran!

For those who have any faith in the accuracy of the Kirby Encyclopedia, I want to note that Chao, Samus, and the others were noted to NOT be "true" Kirby characters. (Sorry, Escargoon fans, as the same was said of him and his appearance in Mass Attack...)

But not Lololo and Lalala! They seem to be their own characters, as distinct from their anime selves as anime Dedede, anime Meta Knight, and anime Kirby are from THEIR game selves.

(Which is probably good because that is seriously a weird origin story! There's something to be said about the delightfully gender-bending and even genderfluid-positive (!) idea that there is a fully capable masc and femme side to every person, able to live on independently - although HOW independent is arguable because Fololo and Falala never seem to want to be apart - but the fact that tacking a bow onto the girl side was the only way they could depict this was a little cheesy. I know, I know. Kid's comedy show ^^)

Another thing is that, apparently (?) before their origin as a single being is known, they are treated as siblings in the anime? (And yet, their episode is called "The Melody of Love." That's not...uh...)

While at some point (fandom wiki says in the promotional flyer for Twinkle Popo) they were called "a married couple!" I think I personally tended to see them as "together" rather than siblings and I can only assume that impression came from Adventures of Lolo since there was no way I could have seen the Twinkle Popo flyer.

That said, they're NOT the same Lolo and Lala (to me) because they're not cameo characters. And the names... Lolo and Lala's kid was Lulu but it's not weird for the next generation (or several generations down) to be named after grandparents or other family members back in the tree. But for them to both be named after one lends credence to "maybe they're siblings after all?"

....I think I just think of them as "Lololo and Lalala." I'm probably not going to ever draw ship art of them, so does it matter how they're related? To me, they're just together. From my first days with Kirby's Dream Land, once I got over the initial pleasant surprise of "Oh my gosh, It's Lolo and Lala from Adventures of Lolo!!" (Tiny Dess, they are LoloLO and LalaLA. Get it right!) they quickly grew to be like any resident of Dream Land to me! A familiar, comforting presence!

Well, okay, the whole "Castle Lolo" thing makes me see them as Dream Land / Popstarian nobility of a sort! Maybe not on the level of royalty, like his hammer-wielding majesty, although they DID side with him in the initial food-stealing incident! (They weren't chosen to protect a piece of the Star Rod, which is very interesting. Maybe the anime was onto something with them being "too weak?")

Either way, I'd say they're pretty laid back nobles, letting everyone use their castle for fights! Maybe it's one of those things where they open it up every now and then for parties and games?!

In short, while I have no answers, I like them well enough and I'm always happy to see a reappearance of them! And maybe next time they appear, HAL will let us know whether they're a pair or pairing!

(Although this is the same studio responsible for keeping the Ado / Adeleine debate going so probably not! ^_- )

[oneatlatime]

The Great Divide

Is this episode as bad as people say?

It starts pretty at least.

Would Little Miss Steals From Pirates really be a stickler for camping etiquette? Also, I have to agree with Sokka on this one. If you're lucky enough to live somewhere with such predictable precipitation that you can name your seasons after it, hell yeah don't prepare for off-season weather unnecessarily. Imagine the freedom that comes with not having to carry an umbrella everywhere.

Something that's occured to me is that Katara is always slapping Sokka around (usually for a comedy bit) but Sokka never gets to slap her back. We're like three minutes into this episode and Katara's already thrown sticks at Sokka twice. It's about time Sokka throws some back. There's probably some cartoon violence rule that says violence is only ok when it's gendered the one way, but isn't it about time that got changed?

When Aang namedrops his job a slowed down version of the flute melody from the credits music plays. Neat.

Really liking the banjo type music in this episode.

I have bad luck with spelling phonetically, so the tribes will henceforth be known as Prissy and Dirty.

Gotta say, Prissy seems to always be attacking. Looks like Dirty wouldn't even bother with the feud if Prissy didn't keep bringing it up.

That Canyon guide earthbends a seriously large amount of earth. Like Bumi quantities.

Another responsibility added to the nebulously defined Avatar duties: peacemaking between peoples. I figured he was just for spirit stuff.

Appa's weight limit is apparently at least 11 people plus supplies. Strong boy. Also, this episode he understands enough English to know where to go without a human steering him.

"Would you rather be hungry, or dead?" Love how that line is delivered. Also I get the feeling this poor guy's been working a customer-facing role for too long.

Tiny Momo.

More evidence that this guy is a Bumi level earthbender. Diverting a landslide in mid-air? Diverting a whole landslide's worth of momentum-heavy rocks without any contact with them? This is nuts. Throw this guy at the Fire Nation and the war would be over in ten minutes.

"Now we gotta help me!" Unexpectedly funny line.

You know, now would be a good time for the Avatar to know earthbending. Actually how does that work? Aang can bend all four elements, but I guess he hasn't unlocked earth yet? What unlocks it? Apparently not peril.

Told you that earthbending guide had worked too long in customer service.

I get it. This whole tribal conflict is a mirror of Sokka and Katara's fight at the beginning. I completely agree that Sokka would have the grounded practicality of the Dirty tribe, but I've never read Katara as a "you can never be too careful" type of person. If anything, she's the much bigger risk-taker, especially compared to Sokka. In the very first episode, it was Katara who (with Aang's encouragement) went on the Fire Nation shipwreck. In the second episode, it was Sokka who was carefully assembling the supplies required to rescue Aang. Frankly Katara and Sokka as written in any other episode would fit into the opposite tribes, although Katara wouldn't fit the aesthetic of the Dirty tribe. Maybe that's the point? That they're not so different after all?

"Well, I guess it's ok if everyone's doing it." I am abruptly reminded of the fact that I am an adult, not a member of the target audience of this show. That line awakened my disapproving mom voice with such force that I had to restrain myself from yelling "if all your friends were jumping off a cliff, would you jump too?" at the screen. Honestly, I thought that the fact that I am not the target audience would cause problems like finding the humour too juvenile or the plots too basic or preachy. Turns out the humour is not juvenile at all, and the plots are complex and sincere in a way that makes any message being delivered seem a natural consequence of the plot and the opposite of preachy. No, where my age gets in the way is when Katara acts her age in small ways that make me want to throw half a dozen parental figures at her, with great force.

Wanna bet that Gin-wei and Wei-gin were the same person, if they existed at all?

Add gullible to Katara's list of things she needs to work on.

The justifications for bringing in food are hitting 5D chess levels.

This is gorgeous. I'll side with the Dirty tribe just because their myth is prettier. Yes, I'm that shallow, but this episode is too.

Sokka maintaining the appropriate amount of distance from the conflict and not getting sucked in like his sister by focusing on food is a lovely touch. Both true to Sokka's less trusting tendencies and true to the fact that he is a teenage boy.

Don't worry Aang, you're not missing much.

This canyon guide's got wisdom. Impartiality is lonely, and getting out will be a team effort. Definitely not his first rodeo.

Every argument between these two tribes is started by the Prissy one. Would they just put a sock in it?

Don't let the praise go to your head honey. I don't think they took it like you meant it.

One-man-army Aang strikes again.

"You're all AWFUL!" Yep. I think that's the crux of this episode. The problems are tiny and stupid, but seem huge when you're in the middle of them. Another of the side-effects of being impartial is that sometimes the pettiness and irrelevance in the grand scheme of things of very heated debates is infuriating.

"I only took their side because they fed me." Sokka shines this episode.

How did Aang make the canyon crawler pile? First time I haven't been able to follow fight choreography.

Combination muzzle and reins? I wouldn't have thought of that in a million years. And are people who aren't airbenders/acrobats going to be able to pull that muzzling move off?

Apparently yes. Gotta love cartoon physics.

Congratulations to both tribes for having superhuman grip strength. Clinging to a moving giant bug thing at 90 degrees while ascending a several hundred metre tall canyon seems neither fun nor possible.

I love the fake-out resolution. No way would 100 years of oral history be forgotten because of one bout of co-operation.

I love the noise these two make. They sound like ducks.

The panda referee going completely without explanation is fitting, given that Aang is completely done with these people, and is putting in as little effort as possible to get them out of the way as quickly as he can.

Can you really forget 100 years of prejudice so quickly? I predict there will be some hiccups along the journey.

Someone get that poor canyon guide a cushy retirement.

Look at these faces. I have nothing to say about them, they're just worth looking at.

The purple sky in the last scene is a delicious colour. Also harmonises really well with water tribe attire.

Casually overwriting a century of oral history (otherwise known as culture) in order to get the stupid problem to go away is funny as hell, and putting two warring tribes on the path to peace is an objectively good thing to do. That being said, any anthropologist in the audience is cringing, and I would think at least Katara, who seems to be very aware of the cultural importance of her waterbending, would not be ok with Aang casually rewriting someone's history like that. And maybe an Avatar that lies that easily is not the ideal. It's certainly realistic - sometimes bullshit problems require bullshit solutions. And lying equally to everyone is technically impartial, right?

Final Thoughts

This episode is not bad. That is my ATLA hot take and I will stand by it. Do you know what this episode is? It's an episode where Aang and friends get to see what their more ludicrous adventures look like from the perspective of an uninformed outsider. I guarantee you that Aang & company's attitude by the end of the episode is an exact mirror to how the guards in Omashu felt after hosting them for a couple of days. 'Good riddance to that nuisance, may it never darken our door again. What a headache that was.' We always see Aang's adventures from within, with the context to understand what is going on. Riding a mail cart down a mail chute makes sense to Aang and the viewer, but the guards see it as a disruptive nuisance that needs to be stopped. Hating a member of the opposing tribe for a past betrayal makes sense to one of the tribe members, but Aang and the viewer can see that it's a disruptive nuisance that needs to be stopped if they want to get out of the canyon alive. I liked that the episode did let us inside both tribes' perspectives, so that they aren't entirely unsympathetic. But even with an understanding of the dispute, what essentially amounts to a century-long blood feud is objectively a bad idea, especially with the fire nation after both tribes. It's not like the fire nation will go after one but not the other; both tribes will just be earth kingdom citizens to them, as they are to Aang, the impartial observer.

This episode was sort of Aang & friends getting a taste of their own medicine. It also maintained a consistent attitude of not taking seriously the problems that people who are too involved are taking too seriously. I think that the overarching theme of the episode is basically 'it's not that deep.' Sometimes the Avatar's duties will include solving petty, stupid problems. Good to see that Aang has at least one workable, if ethically dubious, strategy for handling said problems.

I do feel that Katara's sudden goody-two-shoes characterisation in the tent fight in the beginning of the episode was incorrect, unless I'm missing or forgetting some time she's clung to the rules before. It was obviously to set up the episode's larger conflict on a micro scale between her and Sokka, but as I said in my post on the Warriors of Kyoshi episode, if you have to Flanderise your character in order to make them eligible for learning the lesson of the episode, maybe they weren't the right character to use to drive home the lesson.

Aang is so zen most of the time that I enjoyed seeing him lose his temper on people who absolutely deserved it. Sokka had lots of great lines this episode, and Katara was a beast with that water whip of hers. Looks like, much as I don't want to admit it, stealing the water bending scroll paid off.

It does bother me how every argument between the two tribes seems to be started by the Prissy one. I would have preferred if the two tribes were equally antagonistic, I guess that would just be fairer?

If this episode was aiming for Southern Air Temple or Jet levels of depth and emotion, then this episode would be bad. But this episode, to me at least, is clearly a goofy side trip style episode, like the King of Omashu. Makes sense to have some utterly irrelevant side adventure after and episode as dark as Jet.

As an unexpected bonus, Zuko's characterisation was wonderfully consistent this episode!

[tinyreviews]

Tiny Review: Kung Fu Panda 4. Wholesome passing of the staff.

I went into this with very low expectations. The franchise has been quite lacklustre. The previous movie barely had any story.  

But this one, like its theme, brings change. It’s commendable that they are transitioning the franchise past Po and into a new generation.

I love Po’s slow acceptance of passing on the staff. And look forward to Zhen’s heroic growth arc, in the next one.

Edit: OMG, I realized this so late... Po's awkward transition into bad jokes is a reflection of him slowly becoming a father-figure(dad jokes)!

Hmm, I can’t help but think of the MCU’s transition as well. I think this succeeds where Marvel failed, because Zhen is a wholly different personality than Po.  

Whereas in the MCU, the successors were mostly gender/race-bended bland copies of the originals.

Kung Fu Panda 4 is a 2024 American animated martial arts comedy film produced by DreamWorks Animation. It features Jack Black, Dustin Hoffman, James Hong, Bryan Cranston, and Ian McShane, with Awkwafina, Ke Huy Quan, Ronny Chieng, Lori Tan Chinn, and Viola Davis.