#given that i don't think art can even fully articulate why

[isleofair]

For the tiger and bunny ask game!

2, 12, 13, and 15 if don’t mind :)

Mind?!? I am SO excited that you came up with this, thank you and thank you again for the ask!!! 😍😍😍💖💖💖

2. Who are your top three favourite characters and why

Number one is definitely Nathan (my beloved) 💖💖💖. As for the why... I don't even know if I can articulate it properly, but I'll give it a try.

She is, in a way, about as different from me as a character can be (well, except for the fact that neither of us is one of the bad guys, I guess), and yet she resonates with me on a level I can't fully explain. If a show has just one explicitly queer character, I do tend to gravitate towards them, but with the way Nathan was handled in S1, this didn't really happen the usual way here. The fact that I find their identity so fascinating is definitely a factor, I suppose (it has... definitely given me thoughts, I'll say that much), but I think overall the reason I love Nathan so much is that if you look closely enough, pretty much every aspect of her has just as many facets as her gender, and yet deep down her character can be distilled into a very simple, very relatable core: she wants to be accepted, and she wants to be loved, just as she is. 🩷

Close behind her is Keith, who is a precious cinnamon roll angel bean of a man, too good for this world, we do not deserve him (like we don't deserve dogs)... And yet, much like Nathan, he is much more complex than he appears at a glance. He may be a bit of an airhead, and have what most people might deem to be too much faith in humanity, but he is not stupid, and in fact, he is not even that naive. He chooses to believe in people, to give everybody a chance, just as he chooses, over and over, to keep doing his absolute best for everyone. He's a treasure (and I find his silliest aspects and his struggles with communication very relatable). 💜

And third has to be Kotetsu, who was my initial fave, whom I relate to for more reasons than just being "middle-aged", and who hits my taste for the layered character cake of "silly goofball on top of a genuinely good heart on top of a vast chasm of unbearable sadness" pretty much spot on. 🥺💚

12. Favourite arc

OUGH. Let's go with the Jake arc. I genuinely love it and the other ones all have parts that make me too damn sad.

(The fact that I rewatched it over and over to put it into my favorite fic probably helps my love for it, as well. 😅)

13. Favourite non hero

BEN JACKSON MY BELOVED 💖💖💖

He's a great man and a loyal friend, while being a realist who calls out Kotetsu (not unkindly) when needed, and he has a lovely sense of humor on top of everything else. I. Love. Ben. 💚

(Honorable mentions to Kaede, Anju, and of course John and Johnjohn.)

15. Is there any character you wish we saw more of their family life

NATHAN AND KEITH NATHAN AND KEITH NATHAN AND KEITH

We know Nathan's sister exists and that they talk, but she's not in that picture in the nightmare in The Rising (maybe they decided she existed only when making the supplemental materials for the movie? Maybe they decided not to include her in the picture for clarity? Who knows) . And we see Nathan's parents, again, only in that nightmare. We actually do not know for sure what their current relationship is (although we know Nathan's parents were very loving and supportive when she was a kid, given the story about them making her a makeshift trophy when she failed to win an art contest in school, and how she still cherishes that trophy now). Were their lines in that scene things they actually said to Nathan, or were those more projections of Nathan's thoughts and fears, in the same way her old selves tell her she should just die?!? 😭

And as for Keith... we know NOTHING about his family. N O T H I N G. Just that, apparently, he doesn't have much of a social life, so if he has relatives, he probably doesn't see them often? I need to know more 🥺

(The Tiger & Bunny ask game!)

[curiosity-killed]

Hi....If you don't mind me asking, who are your favorite MXTX characters (top 5 from each novel)? And why? I'm sorry if you've answered this question before.

Aw of course I don’t mind! Though I feel like my answer is going to be a disaster bc I love these casts so so much aha let’s see:

✨ SPOILERS AHEAD ✨

MDZS/CQL

1. Wei Wuxian

Ah so I feel like this is obvious based on the sheer quantity of things I produce and the effort I put into hurting him 😅 but yeah! I love how much of a classical tragic hero he is and I love how much love he has and how that gets twisted around and shaped into a collar of spikes around his own neck. I saw gif sets of wwx before I ever knew about CQL and my reaction was “fuck. I’m going to love him” and I do! And I love that he does learn from his past and I love most of all that he learns to accept the love he is given and is able to make a happy ending in a place of being loved and held in respect and appreciation

2. Wen Qing

On the other hand, I did not expect to be like “mine now” with Wen Qing. Don’t get me wrong, the sexy immortal look got me but it wasn’t really till I started writing fic that I was like ohhhhh Oh Boy. Wen Qing is brilliant and ruthless, fiercely loving and aloof and cold. I love that she gets the lose-lose challenge of balancing what is right for her family vs what is right in the world, what she owes to her sect and what she owes to individuals. The golden core transfer is my favorite dubious science experiment in p much all media I’ve consumed. She gets to be so human—prickly and tough and also achingly gentle and afraid and putting on a tough face and sometimes still crying. “I’m sorry and thank you” ! Im!!

3. Jiang Yanli

The first fic I wrote for this fandom was literally “Jiang Yanli died no she didn’t” lmao I do feel like I underserve Jiang Yanli in that I often fall prey to using her to further the complexity that the male characters are permitted while denying her the chance to be given the same space for development and breath — something to work on! But in that, I really genuinely love how tightly she binds herself to her family and how she tries so hard to be what others need her to be—and then she does make a choice for herself and for a single moment at least, she gets to be loved and to be happy and to have this, a husband and a son and a place, for herself. And terribly I love how much she permeates the story still after death. She is the unspoken voice, the face turned from the camera but always still present, carried in the hearts and names and memories of the ones left behind

She deserved better but—I am weak for the tragedy of it all

4. Jiang Cheng

Another surprise (tho hardly surprising in hindsight): Jiang Cheng is just...horribly understandable. He makes terrible choices and his greatest heroism is undone by a choice made for him or, in the case of “killing the Yiling Laozu” is a lie. He is such a youngest sibling who doesn’t want to be the youngest until all at once, he’s the one in charge and he doesn’t want it at all. He is full of anger and hurt and so much love he doesn’t know what to do with it, doesn’t want it anymore, has no place to put all of its terrible, overwhelming flood.

5. Lan Wangji

I almost didn’t put Lan Wangji or Jiang Cheng on here and then I realized that this is sort of a list of characters I’m pickiest about in fic and...yeah. I think what I love best about Lan Wangji is his journey of grief and healing and through that, his decision to step into world. Where Wei Wuxian’s decision to travel and be removed from the cultivation world (in varying degrees depending on your headcanon preference lol) is really, really important to me, Lan Wangji’s decision to go from being an isolated lone agent working apart from the systems of the world to being involved and invested in changing those systems and working to make them better is also really important to me. I’ve talked before about how relatable Lan Wangji is to me (esp with regards to our interaction with the outer world) and there is something deeply hopeful and comforting about post-timeskip Lan Wangji being in his like mid-/late-30s and still making decisions and growing and changing and choosing to invest himself in the world and the future

yeah. i have thoughts here that I don’t really have the maturity, life experience, or articulation to put into words but Lan Zhan Good basically

TGCF

1. Xie Lian

suuuurpriiiiise!! Yeah honestly mxtx’s mains in TGCF and MDZS really just hit all my buttons basically. What appeals to me most of all about Xie Lian is, fittingly, how he is humanity taken to extremes. His capacity for incredible kindness and compassion is equaled with his capacity for cruelness and ruthlessness. His heaven-shaking highs are matched with calamitous lows. He is the hyperbolic of what it is to be human—and he is also the small moments, the wildflowers and the maple leaves and the mundane chores and the comfort of whispered conversations late into the night. I could quite literally go on for pages about what I love about Xie Lian but I am not Hua Cheng and can restrain myself LMAO

2. Hua Cheng

of all the characters on these lists, Hua Cheng is the one I’m pickiest about tbh! When I say I love him for similar reasons as Xie Lian I don’t actually mean this as being similarities between the two but the fact that both of them so richly convey mxtx’s points about the nature of humanity and what it is to be human. Hua Cheng is both the boldest and most arrogant of all and also the most vulnerable, the one who shies away from the truth because he’s braced for it to hurt and isn’t sure he can take it. He is gory blood rain and an umbrella to shelter a fragile bloom; he is a blade whose wounds only heal if he permits it and he is a sacrifice that he brushes aside as a fit of madness. *pats his head* this boy can fit SO MUCH inside him that he refuses to acknowledge

3. Jun Wu

Definitely my favorite antagonist in recent reading. I was doubtful of him from the start (something something issues with authority something something probably should talk to my theoretical future therapist shhh) but the unfolding of his reveal was so delightfully painful and exquisite that I was like “YES!!!” reading all of it. About the epitome of a satisfying plot twist imo. But about the character himself, I love how he parallels so many — Xie Lian in his rise and fall, his glory and disgrace; Hua Cheng in his fixation and ruthlessness; He Xuan in losing himself to the plot and not knowing how to move forward. I love that he feels beyond human in a way the others don’t—he’s so old and has gone through so much and he doesn’t feel things the way humans do anymore, doesn’t remember right how love squeezes the heart or how hate can exist without acting on it. I love that he thinks he knows how to control everyone and that it’s such mundane things that fool him: Xie Lian’s absurd stubbornness, Hua Cheng’s foolish faith, Yin Yu’s...emotional maturity??? Not Sure how to verbalize that one. But in the end, he is defeated by both the humanity of others and by his own—he’s so tired. He’s exhausted in a way that gods and ghosts aren’t meant to be. He is, under the armor and the masks, the curses and the power, human—benevolent and cruel, evil and good.

4. He Xuan

I love my fish man! No but really I love how He Xuan is so fixed on his one goal that he refuses to acknowledge anything else in his (after)life—which doesn’t make it go away. I love that he is left unmoored, purposeless through the very act of completing that which gives him purpose. I love his long con and the ways he clings to himself but loses himself not in the act but in the telling himself it’s an act. I love that he tries to be a moral man and then becomes a ghost king, a calamity. His reveal is also terribly badass and I do love his bone fish wholly unironically. Like I’m not going to get a He Xuan tattoo (for one thing I’ve been meaning to get a tattoo for 5 years and still haven’t gotten around to it) but also. B o n e f i s h

5. Mu Qing

Of course! The Jiang Cheng of tgcf lol Mu Qing (which my phone desperately wants to autocorrect to my Qing) is so...gah he’s such a mess! And he so fully commits to the belief that no one will ever see and understand him as he is but will always view them through their own convictions about him and his actions — which is simultaneously heartbreakingly lonely and also. Sir You Are a Clown. I genuinely think he’s owed apologies from both Feng Xin and Xie Lian for their treatment and assumptions of him and think that he would be HORRIBLY offended at the thought (while secretly touched? But like secretly even to himself). He will never explain himself and will just clam up tighter the more people accuse him and it’s such a self-sabotaging behavior and also so horribly relatable. I love u sir, you’re a disaster

SVSS I have not read but I do really like the moshang art 😂

[thefloatingstone]

Heya! I was just wondering, why don't you like magical-girl horror games/tv shows? (This isn't meant to be confrontational at all, I'm just wondering! :3)

Hey anon! :D no worries! This didn’t come across as confrontational at all!

This is gonna be largely more anecdotal than factual, and the factual parts will come from other people’s posts more than what I’ve made myself, and whose opinions on this I found as explaining emotions I’d felt myself for a while, without knowing how to articulate it.

(Under the cut because this is gonna be a lot of words. And gifs because of course I put gifs in things)

So I’ve been a Sailor Moon fan since I was about 13. (this is not the reason WHY I dislike grimdark Magical Girl Shows but its a good place to start). the Sailor Moon R movie was the very first DVD I ever bought and the first thing I ever saw of the show (I had seen anime before and had a good idea what it was but this was my first experience with Magical girls and Sailor Moon). And I remember very clearly how enthralled 13 year old me was at this story. About these girls a year older than I was, fighting this bad guy from outer space who badly injured Usagi’s boyfriend. And that no matter HOW MUCH Usagi reached out to the bad guy to try and understand him, just how much he RESISTED her friendship. I remember the scene where he grabs the Silver Crystal on her chest and tries to rip it off little me actively thought “holy shit! This guy just WILL NOT STOP!! How on earth can he be stopped if he just KEEPS COMING???”

But of course, in the end, Sailor Moon is able to reach him. She is able to offer understanding for his sadness, and when he finally realises her sincerity, he is “defeated” BUT. More Importantly. He is the one who ends up saving Sailor Moon’s life at the end as a last goodbye gift to Mamoru, the boy he was in love with and who Sailor Moon loves as well. Before he leaves forever.

So a thing here. Not ONCE while watching the film the first time, did I EVER think to myself “Just stab him, Sailor Moon!” or “Stop trying to reach him and just kill him!!”. Like, NONE of those thoughts came to mind. I was fully invested in seeing Sailor Moon stop the bad guy, not by stabbing or killing him, but by REACHING HIM.

So anyway. We move on and for a while as a teenager I went through that dumb phase where I thought every magical girl show was a “Sailor Moon Rip off” and that they must all be bad because of it! In part it was true, as Sailor Moon was the first Magical Girl show that had girls use magic to fight bad guys, rather than become Jpop idols or adults or anything along those lines. However, Just because something takes cues from a genre changer doesn’t make it bad… right?

So, as I grow up I start to understand Magical Girl shows. I get what they are. They are, at their core, about young girls (usually between 12 - 16) transforming into a magical alter ego to fight bad guys and protect or save a love interest as well as their friends (mentored by a small animal friend). And this idea just seemed like… so obvious to me? But I had the luxury of growing up with this idea. That girls could fight bad guys without being tom boys or masculine or “hot and sexy”. I had the Powerpuff Girls growing up after all. Girls could be heroes while still being girls and liking girl things and wanting to have boyfriends and loving their families and wanting to protect their friends! And magical girl shows are always about getting more and more powerfull, so that by the END of the show, you face the biggest meanest bad guy of all! And then you beat him in the end. And it takes great sacrifice and you lose things and even people you love, and you have to give up so much. But in the end you win! and the biggest bad guy is dead. And you get to live your life full of hope and happiness as you’ve granted the people of earth and your friends a safe and happy life. You have protected that which you love. And it was hard, but by believing in yourself and your friendship you did it! And now, even if something bad happens again, you are powerful enough to face it.

And then, in 2011, along came Madoka Magica.

I was recommended Madoka Magica by a guy who runs (to this day) an anime store in the city I lived. Saying it was a Magical Girl show with a darker edge to it. And told me “watch until episode 3, and you’ll know if you’d like it or not”.

Having watched Revolutionary Girl Utena by now, I was excited by what I considered a “Trap” anime. An anime that leads you to believe its one thing, and then after a few episode throws the curtain back and goes “HAHA FOOLED YOU!! THIS IS ACTUALLY SO MUCH MORE THAN IT SEEMED!”Utena did this as well. And Utena was and is my favourite anime. (tied by Sailor Moon.)

So I watched Madoka Magica and I liked it a lot!! I watched all 12 episodes, and it was hard, but by the time I got to the end, I felt rewarded for sticking through all the really terrible things that happened to the characters. I described it to other people as “It’s going to make you feel terrible and if you’re able to stick with it, it will reward you by the end!”. Some people saw the end of the show as rather hopeless, or stagnant, but I saw it as an empowering message. That even if someone tells you something is impossible, you should try anyway! Because you are more powerful than they realise! And THAT, I felt, is why all the suffering was important. Because it needed to challenge just HOW TERRIBLE being a magical girl is, and just what a bad idea it is, and even if you become one you can’t change anything. But then Madoka at the end plays the system against itself, and fixes things for every girl throughout history forever. And yes there are still bad times and friends still die, but she took away the dark core of the situation.

Also, Utena had given me a taste for genre deconstruction by this point.

So yay! a great show with a really unique take on the idea of “Magical Girl!” Awesome! There was nothing else like it!

….aaaaand then…. Madoka became super super popular. And that’s when the trouble started.

I found out a few months ago, that Madoka Magica’s writer and creator, Gen Urobuchi, (a man) created Madoka Magica with a very specific idea in mind; That women having goals and wishes are dangerous and lead to suffering. That girls should not have ideals and ambition. Because it will only hurt and punish them. And he wanted to show that in Madoka Magica by showing how, if no girl in the show had ever made a wish, none of the bad things in the show would have happened at all. He has stated this in multiple interviews.

Madoka Magica, however, was an anime, and had several people working on the show, not just one guy. So how much was altered and changed to circumvent his intentions I don’t know. But even if his opinions could devalue the show as a message of empowerment, it can’t change the fact that I WAS empowered by it.

But as I said, then Madoka Magica became OBSCENELY popular. But like… that was not the problem. What the problem was was… “an anime, written by a man, about cute magical girls suffering horribly, became popular with a male audience”.

And due to the insane level of popularity, this lead to copycat shows. And these shows did not copy Madoka Magica’s deconstruction of the genre, they did not copy the art style, they did not copy the deeper look at Magical Girls as a concept. They copied the idea of “Grown Men making shows about cute really moe looking girls suffer horribly for a male audience”.

And during this surge of Madoka copycats, I watched “Yuki Yuuna is a hero” and I HATED it.

Yuki Yuuna is a story about a group of girls who are given the opportunity to become magical girls and help make the world a better place. They are already all part of an after school club called “the hero club” where they do things like volunteer work, or babysitting, or helping out at libraries etc etc. So the idea of becoming REAL heroes and saving the world?? Of course they absolutely want to do that!!

So they get essentially tricked into this situation where they fight giant monsters who come to destroy the world, and they each have a “final move” they can use to destroy these monsters. However, after a difficult battle which had all of them use their biggest move at least once to protect each other and save the world, they all find themselves slightly injured and, weirdly, a part of their body stops working. One girl becomes mute, another loses sight in her one eye, another hearing in her one ear etc etc.

The show goes on to explain that, in becoming magical girls, what these girls have really become, are sacrifices to the gods to protect the earth. And each time they use the gods’ power, they sacrifice a physical part of themselves to use the power of the gods.

So these girls essentially get slowly MAIMED throughout the series, because they wanted to make the world a better place! They didn’t even get wishes like in Madoka! they LITERALLY just wanted to save the world. And they were punished for it.

And just in case it wasn’t clear who this show was for, ALL their transformation sequences are accompanied by aggresive fanservice shots.

of these 14 year old girls.

And that’s where the entire idea of “Grimdark Magical Girl” show fell apart for me as a concept. And I didn’t bother checking out any more.

And what did we get after this?

Magical Girl Raising Project. a show where a group of CHILDREN who want to become magical girls have to Battle Royale each other to fucking death until the last child standing

And now the recent Magical Girl Site. A Magical girl show that includes Domestic abuse, vicious school bullying, self harm etc etc.

Even Re:Creators, a show I LIKE had this with their ONE magical girl character, Mamika. I am extremely pissed off that Re:Creators decided that Mamika, the magical girl, is the character that had to be killed horribly so that her death could motivate OTHER characters into action.

The only reason I am able to swallow this in Re:Creators, despite being angry about it, is that before she died, Mamika was shown to possibly be the strongest character in the whole show. To the level of being completely OP. And the fact that she died because she tried to reach the main bad guy, knowing full well she most likely would not survive, but she wanted to try anyway.

It still makes me mad, but at least it does take the sting away SOMEWHAT. Especially since Re:Creators is not a magical girl show. And its entire point is to dissect all its characters by removing them from their own anime and video games and forcing them into a reality where they have to face things they would not normally have to worry about in their safer, more genre-based universes.

“Dark Magical Girl” or as I like to refer to it as; “Grimdark magical girl” shows are now the most popular versions of the magical girl genre.

a genre that STARTED as manga written by women for girls to read and feel empowered by. They have now been turned into a genre for teenaged to adult men to enjoy cute moe girls in horriffic torture porn. (see. Because torture makes it MATURE and ADULT).

They are no longer shows spreading messages to young girls about believing in themselves and their friends and their own power, but are instead torture porn for men.

There is an excellent post by a tumblr user called @timemachineyeah which I link to all the time regarding this topic which I will do so again here;

https://thefloatingstone.tumblr.com/post/165077370034/i-cant-remember-if-youve-posted-about-this#notes

And in the OP’s words (emphasis mine):

“[…]That’s not subversive. That’s our whole fucking lives. That’s what we get everywhere else. Nothing a girl does can be right. We’re bad to have ambitions and to want things. Even the “nice” things we do are dismissed with ulterior motives as soon as someone decides they’re done with us.

And I fucking hate people calling it “so profound” and whatever, when it’s ultimately torture porn and the message isn’t even deep.

And more than that, I hate that it’s success has spawned a series of knockoffs, so that now moe torture porn grimdark magical girls has become the most common iteration of the genre. So we had the incredibly ableist (OMFG WORST SHOW EVER MADE) Yuki Yuuna is a Hero, and we’re getting the “Magical Girls have to CULL EACH OTHER in a grim CHILDREN-LED FIGHT TO THE DEATH” of Magical Girl Raising Project and like I’m so fucking done with these grown ass men making shows for other grown ass men shitting all over girls’ power fantasies and thinking that shitting all over girls’ power fantasies is something new and subversive and not a reassertion of the status quo.“

Does that mean I think men can’t make magical girl shows? Of course men can make Magical girl shows! Revolutionary Girl Utena is an ENTIRE show about the patriarchy and its destruction of girls and the role of women in society and the eventual triumph of our female heroes OVER PATRIARCHAL BULLSHIT ITSELF” and it was created by a man!!

Namely Kunihiko Ikuhara!

And not only did he make Revolutionary Girl Utena, but he is large responsible for not only making Sailor Uranus and Sailor Neptune a couple in the original anime, but for largely fleshing out their motivations and drive in the anime, making season S of Sailor Moon PROFOUNDLY better than the exact same arc in the manga!

But this is not what is happening here. Heck, I have a suspicion one of these grimdark shows might have originally been written by a woman.

What’s happening here is not about who the creator of these shows are, it is who these shows are INTENDED for. And what their intent as a show is. And yes. a lot of Magical girl shows have the intent of selling merchandise. Let’s not pretend PreCure or Jewel Pet are trying to become feminist icons or anything. But even if their intent is merely to sell toys, they STILL have the function of telling girls to have hopes and dreams, fight to protect their friends, and that it is OK TO DO SO WHILE STILL BEING A GIRL. Something American tv wasn’t doing at the time! Instead all girl characters from America who were “tough” were all tomboys who hated pink and refused to wear dresses, a la Spinelli in the cartoon “Recess”.

It was not until Sailor Moon showed up girls were taught you don’t HAVE to be a brutish loud angry tough girl to believe in your own power.

But now the magical girl genre’s most popular shows are not about girls being powerful and having dreams and protecting the earth.

It’s about how much our cute moe looking protagonists can suffer. For having the audacity to want to having power to protect others.

[thefloatingstone]

I get that you can feel like you are wasting space or that you are not doing enough with your life,but honestly you are doing more than enough even if you think you are doing the bare minimum. You haven't fully given up and you can give the pretense of being a fully personally active person (which you don't need to be to be valid) and that's more than most people can do anyways-so good work! And thank you for keeping on trying to be something and not turning into the void or something ;)

I’m gonna be answering the couple of asks I got last night about this which is why you guys are gonna be seeing these now, ok?

Thank you anon. I’m feeling a little more together this morning after some sleep and some time. (I still had a pretty bad time in the shower though but it went away slowly).

I was really gripped last night by the idea that maybe I’m one of those people you see on the internet sometimes, who THINK they’re doing ok, and THINK they’re good people who have their life together, but people on the outside can see they’re really just worthless trash. People who THINK they’re doing good getting money for art and commissions but it’s obvious to outsiders they’re just fooling themselves. And who THINK they’re functioning adults but they’re spending all their money on things like legos and video games and have no grasp on what it means to actually be an adult with bills and obligations and looking after themselves.

And I was just suddenly gripped by a giant panic of “how am I different than these people?” and I went into a spiral thinking I’m probably just as bad as them, and if that’s true then I’m honestly just a worthless piece of trash only taking up space and giving nothing back to other people but frustration and annoyance at how deluded they are about themselves and their situation.

I don’t think I explained that very well in my posts but I was kinda spiralling out of control and it was after 2 in the morning and I was also tired. So my ability to articulate my thoughts wasn’t the best.

I don’t know if it’s “more than most people can do” because I feel like I’m really bottom of the barrel in those terms. ^^; but like... I AM trying in many ways. I really am I feel. But I’m worried the ways in which I’m trying to improve are things I shouldn’t use to trick myself into thinking I’m ok. I’m worried its just fake progress, and hiding how worthless I actually am to myself.

I’m sorry I’m repeating myself now. I think it’s how my thoughts swirl and repeat themselves over and over, so I end up saying things I’ve already gone over because my thoughts are going over it again and again.

But as I said, I’m feeling better about it today. At least I don’t feel like a complete waste of existence today.