#im very excited to put her in the protagonist role

[flythesail]

This Tristan and George fic has so much potential to explore them as individuals and the way they overlap thematically and I—

[rebuke-me]

actually sorry i'm making this a separate post too so i can put it in the tag and itll show up. if u read my reblog on my previous post its literally just the same material sorry.

long post of my analysis of gender, tropes, and the musical be more chill ahead

so. i'm going to start with the wider overarching ideas of teen romcoms. im mostly thinking the mean girls/princess diaries/that sort of movie. early 2000s kind of cheesy kind of problematic at points but still having that nostalgia.

in most of these sort of movies, theres a very structured plot. the lead girl is an outcast, a weirdo. she's either childish or unattractive or a nerd or a loner. she frequently has a best friend (or a few) who are somehow more of insert "undesirable" trait here. usually, this best friend is also more eccentric, more outwardly strange, rejects the idea of the popularity.

the lead girl also has a crush on a guy who's unattainable, he's interesting to her, she's never talked to him a day in her life but she swoons over him. she's in love with the idea of A Boy. (and frequently, the guy has caught the attention of a popular girl who functions as her rival, whos prettier, and better liked, and has more of the traits the main girl desires.) she sees her male crush with the popular girl and loses hope.

the lead girl gets a chance to change her life- maybe she's noticed by a popular girl- who offers her a chance to be something else for seemingly arbitrary reasons. through this, she gets a makeover, a way to be as pretty as the girl shes a rival of. she also lies or embellishes herself to be attractive to people around her, especially the guy she likes.

the girl climbs the social ladder, she gains the attention of the popular boys and the romance she's been craving. she's desirable now. (and sometimes shes desirable in ways that aren't good for her, sometimes shes used as a way to show off or make people jealous, not for her, but for what she's become). she goes to a party that goes horribly wrong. her quirky weird best friend blows up at her.

the main girl also sees the intricacies of people she's never thought to have flaws, to have issues. even the girl who she's competing over a guy with. she realizes that idealizing people who are just like her, deep down, doesn't work. she hits rock bottom, loses everything, and then has to forcefully gain it back, make things right, and then she gets the guy at the end.

every single one of those plot points happens in be more chill, but everything is genderflipped. the main girl becomes jeremy, an insecure guy, making the narrative more about toxic masculinity than toxic femininity. the insults are about jeremy's looks, yes, but more prominently about his sexuality- something that men are traditionally a lot more insecure about than women, in most cases. he's a hopeless romantic. he's insecure. he's awkward and anxious. he's all the traits of a traditional teen movie romcom protagonist, but male.

the quirky girl best friend becomes michael, whos the outgoing, exuberant, eccentric friend. he's at a different place in his life than jeremy, whos fixated on popularity. he gets upset when his friend changes and leaves him behind.

the Male Love Interest becomes christine- unattainable but excitable. she's more than just a hunk for the main lead to be attracted to, but she serves the purpose of getting jeremy out of his comfort zone.

the popular girls become two separate archetypes of maleness, with jake and rich. jake takes on the romantic lead- popular, cool, athletic, effortlessly attractive, and the rival of the lead for the romantic attraction of the love interest. he's still operating under toxic masculinity. he lashes out with anger, he's not kind at times, he's seen as unintelligent.

rich takes on the almost gretchen-weiners-esque "popular girl" role. he's still popular and cool, but he's almost trying too hard. he's just as angry and aggressive, he's trying hard to be something he's not. he's also the one whos an analog for queerness, which is an interesting flip- think the "its like you're in love with me or something" bit from mean girls. he's the one who offers jeremy a chance for something different, a do-over.

the squip, while not a direct analog for anything in traditional romcom movies (since its kind of a nebulous. scifi concept) stands in for the literal themes of these sorts of stories. its toxic masculinity, its popularity, its the voice in your head telling you to tear others down, to pry out information, to push your way to the top.

the popular girls are particularly interesting, because as individuals, they kind of mess around with everything a bit. while everything else has been pretty cut and dry, they're all a mix of a bunch of things. they serve the roles of the popular guys in these sorts of scenarios while being very stereotypically feminine.

chloe is the mean girl, the leader of the pack. in teen movies, she'd be the star quarterback, the ex of the romantic rival, the one who is the peak of toxic masculinity- which the musical flips to make about toxic femininity with her (and brooke.)

the next paragraph is going to talk about Do You Wanna Hang and touch on SA, if you don't want to read it, skip to the next italicized section.

chloe also functions as something all too common in teen movies. she pushes jeremy into a sexual encounter he doesn't want to be in. she's not even interesting in him, as a person, but him as an object, something usually reserved for women in fiction. she does it as a power play, a way to get back at other people. she attacks his looks, his attitude, and this is when the downsides of "being popular" start to reveal themselves. (side note, this is an INCREDIBLY problematic trope to me, especially in its original form, because it enhances the idea of "if youre attractive you want this" type deal. a what were you wearing sort of attitude towards sexual assault. instead of treating it like a tragedy, its almost a status symbol.) and because the main character is a male- its never addressed further. its brought up in a singular line between the popular "guy" stand-ins.

i am done talking about this topic you're safe now

brooke is also intriguing, because shes one of the only characters in this concept that doesn't seem to have a direct parallel. if i'd have to give her something, i'd probably mark her down as the male sidekick to the popular guy, the one who doesn't get anything other than being the best friend. but she does get something, by virtue of her being a girl now. she's a viable love interest, or at least a status symbol.

jenna falls into a similar category to me- a character who only serves to bolster the reputation of the main character. she takes on the role of information spreader, which is a traditionally feminine role.

i could also talk about how i think that its interesting that while most of the actions in be more chill that are given to people of opposite genders (e.g. romantic rival, call to popularity, quirky best friend, the Do You Wanna Hang problem) the MOTIVATIONS for the actions are still aligning with the gender of the characters. like, rather than the gender of the original trope. if that makes sense.

anyways i scrolled back and realized i had like 10 paragraphs im gonna stop now but. yeah. gender in bmc is fascinating to me

[beatricebidelaire]

i don't really do jacques/ernest much and like it's hard for me to read them that way, but then i was playing around with ideas and put netflix!J into it instead of book!J and then i suddenly thought, hmm i might be able to do netflix!J/ernest. idk. im not sure. but netflix!J has this vastly different vibes from book!J that i just ……………. anyway. anyway!

implied jsjs

__

well, he promised esme he would make an effort. not that promises to esme ever meant much to him, he can promise her many things and still not make an effort for single one of them, claiming that it wasn't he who promised her anyway. or that he changed his mind. or whatever.

but still, ernest is sort of bored right now and things at the hotel has fallen into some kind of - routine. he aches for something exciting to happen, but hopefully something not on a wide-level that would affect the balance of the schism. just something on a personal level, to spice things up a little.

so, he says to jacques snicket, the heroic agent of vfd. the james bond type, "are you simply making up scenarios in your head, imagining jerome squalor in distress, just so you can heroically save him from his situation, be the hero you would always like to be?"

the problem with jacques snicket is that he's much too dashing for his own good, and quite aware of it himself. an even bigger problem is that jacques snicket is ridiculously attractive, so much that even things that would've sounded completely idiotic coming out of the mouth of a less attractive man, sounded somehow charming when he says it. ernest is aware of jacques snicket's flaws beneath his charming, dashing, heroic image that could've made him the secret agent protagonist of action films. ernest has no illusions about jacques snicket.

ernest also has no history with jacques snicket (like olaf), nor harbored any crush on jacques snicket (like some of the volunteers who he will graciously not name), but he's willing to admit that jacques snicket is not without his charms, that objectively speaking jacques snicket is quite attractive, and ernest is not a man without any appreciation for aesthetics. jacques snicket is stupidly heroic and has ideas about vfd that ernest pities him for, but he is dashing, objectively speaking. in a secret agent protagonist of an action film away. he looks at jacques snicket and feels like this guy walked straight out of a movie. he's entertaining. ernest is certainly entertained. at this hotel, one has to know how to find entertainment for oneself to survive the routine.

ernest has no delusions about jacques snicket, has no nostalgia about jacques snicket, has no history with jacques snicket, has never had a crush on jacques snicket and not about to start now. that said, jacques snicket is the very definition of adventurous and ernest is bored right now and wouldn't mind some low-stakes adventure, just for one afternoon, something that wouldn't change the balance of things between sides.

and he can trust jacques not to do any actual harm to him or take advantage of him because jacques snicket is, deep down, beneath his dramatic flair and heroic gestures and secret agent abilities, a noble person at heart.

so, ernest continues on, "you need jerome to require saving, so you can swoop in and save him heroically, but does he really need your saving? or do you just yearn to play hero too much? you've been enjoying this role too much and you can't stand the idea of he might not actually need your help -"

jacques' eyes flash dangerously. he grabs onto the collar of ernest's hotel manager uniform. "keep. jerome's. name. out. of. your. mouth."

"possessive much?" ernest grins sharply. "only you can use his name? jerome squalor, love of your life -" the grip on the collar tightens, and ernest's words got cut off for a moment. his mouth twists a little, partly in pain, partly in amusement, and he takes few seconds to compose himself - as much as his current position would allow him to, and says, "it must pain you that you're not able to act out the action hero fantasy with him. but you don't always need to be saving fragile millionaires from their wives to feel dashing and heroic, you can also be tackling a villainous villain to the ground and teaching him a lesson - after all, i hear that's what heroes do." he smiles, tauntingly. brilliantly.

the dangerous aura surrounding jacques seems to dissolve the more ernest goes on, morphing into an amused expression. which is about to be expected. jacques may be completely oblivious to certain sides of vfd, but he gets around too much to be oblivious to a bold invitation like this.

"why," he murmurs, in a low tone that makes ernest almost shiver. "are you offering, E?"

ernest denouement's boring afternoon is about to turn into something deeply satisfying.

[mcspoofyvt]

MARRIAGE TOXIN BABY YAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH

This recommendation will contain somewhat light spoilers, but nothing that should hurt your experience in reading it

Marriagetoxin is an action comedy romance manga series about the head of a family of assassins who decides to seek out marriage in order for his sister to be with her girlfriend instead of being forced into a marriage to continue the bloodline. He ends up seeking out the help of a swindler who helps him in his love life.

Marriagetoxin does indeed have queer representation, though it is more subdued than the initial tweet I saw recommending the manga portrays. This is neither a bad thing, and the series doesnt hide its queer representation, its just not (as of right now) a major element of the plot. This could change in the future, but currently it holds no bearing on the mainplot.

The main protagonist’s gay sister has so far not made many appearances in the main plot, though I do not mind this so much for a couple of reasons. For one, her gayness is very much explicit whenever she has made an appearance, we actually get to see the girlfriend and a little slice of what their relationship with each other is like. I do hope we get more appearances of those two because I do like them and think they can serve as a good example of the kind of life the main protagonist is seeking out. Secondly, the main plot is in fact about the brother’s search for marriage and did not set the expectation for anything else. I think mostly as a way to hook people on reading the manga, people wanted to play up the queerness of the story, which is there but not as a big element of it (so far). If the book had set out the explicit expectation that the sister was going to be a major element of the story, I would be more frustrated with it. I wont disagree with people that there could be more gay elements within the story, but I think some people are putting their own expectations upon it when the story from the beginning tells you what it is.

The secondary protagonist of the story is what I read into as a genderqueer character. Current translation Ive been reading refers to the character as a man for the most part, though the character seems to be comfortable in taking on the role of a man or a woman and usually represents feminine in the story. I dont have the language knowledge necessary to determine if the translation is accurate on this account, but from what is widely available that is what seems to be where the character is at.

I do have to give a content warning for incest as there is a character who is the main protagonist’s cousin who has romantic feelings towards him. So far the character has only showed up in a couple of chapters, and is rejected by the main protagonist. Its still an uncomfortable element I wish was not in it but from whats currently out is not something that is focused on or indulged in.

Otherwise, I have a blast with this manga. I hope it does more with its queer representation but its a big fun ride all around and Im excited to read more!!!

[gabe-killed-me-with-ace-cream]

Ich habe 8.945 Mal im Jahr 2022 etwas gepostet

5 Einträge erstellt (0%)

8.940 Einträge gerebloggt (100%)

Blogs, die ich am häufigsten gerebloggt habe:

@tarantula-veins

@asher-orion-writes

@tarantula-ash

@evenedelweiss

@dogboydeathgrips

Ich habe 1.578 meiner Einträge im Jahr 2022 getaggt

#<3 – 567 Einträge

#dnd – 295 Einträge

#neon glow – 271 Einträge

#toh – 138 Einträge

#sanders sides – 111 Einträge

#cardinal sins – 90 Einträge

#critical role – 82 Einträge

#yup that's me – 64 Einträge

#for future reference – 49 Einträge

#janus sanders – 48 Einträge

Longest Tag: 112 characters

#and idk what happened exactly but i think the gabriel of the group was like and then when we ate it he was like

Meine Top-Einträge im Jahr 2022:

#5

idk if there's even a remote point of talking to u about my ocs babe, all you do is listen to me talking about my ocs.

Anyway let's talk about Caspian. I know u wanna know about Caspian.

Caspian is a support character to the protagonist of Oak, Ash and Thorn.

He was under Fairweather's care for a while, making him another Siren who is also a pirate (at least part time), as he travelled with her for many, many years.

He is technically a merman, half human and half siren, and has lived peacefully among both humans and Sirens in his 330-year-life span.

Like Fair, he wears a mask to conceal his scales when amongst humans. He has the power of compulsion and weather manipulation, as well as a power completely unique to him - the ability to raise the dead that had drowned at sea. This was a gift to him from the forest after he took over his place as a cardinal sin.

*giggles* I Do wanna know about Caspian!! :D

He sounds absolutely fabulous and intriguing (and I don't know if you ever confirmed my theory, but 👀👀👀)

Also the ability to raise the dead, holy fuck, please say more :0

0 Anmerkungen – Gepostet 25. Oktober 2022

#4

Happy Blorbo Blursday!

For a character of your choice: are there any extremely formative experiences that happened before the book and/or aren't mentioned in the book? If so, what is it, and what effect did it have on them?

Y'know, it took me a while of thinking, bc I'm not currently writing anything, but I am a DM, and as such I always have a story to tell

So! I will go ahead and say if you're part of the Froysil campaign, maybe don't read the next part XD

But there is a character that I'm very excited about introducing! It's name is Moirah and when it was very young it was "sacrificed" to keep an ancient being from wreaking havoc on the world. In reality it made a deal with the being, so they now share one body (the being grants Moirah powers and in turn they get to see the world through its eyes)

0 Anmerkungen – Gepostet 29. Juli 2022

#3

Oh yeah!! I write sometimes and I’ve picked up doodling again too! I really enjoy crafts and photography too but am sadly terrible at both :P

Well then I'll happily invite you to join Three Too Many Fics, originally only a writing server we now welcome all art forms!! We're always happy to have someone new join, and our mods work hard to put out fun prompts regularly :D

0 Anmerkungen – Gepostet 5. Juli 2022

#2

hi!! Do you have any discord servers you would recommend? I’m new to social media as a whole (I’ve lurked on tumblr for ages though) and I’ve been meaning to get more active socially… You seem to be very kind and welcoming so I thought maybe you’d have recommendations? Ty in advance

Hi :0

Honestly I'm not in a lot myself, mostly just friend servers, but if you're interested in writing or art (or crafts, photography, music, cosplay etc) I got a server or two that you might be interested in :0

3 Anmerkungen – Gepostet 5. Juli 2022

Meine #1 des Jahres 2022

You now require being surrounded by plants to live. What plants do you choose?

Jokes on you, I already require that XD

Uhm, succulents for sure, I've got a bunch of babies that I'm trying to rise, then my beloved Diva and, hmmmmm,,, oh yeah, my rubber tree, of course! Maybe some edible ones for cooking?

Oh and definitely chamomile, yarrow, lavender, plantain, ground ivy and chickweed!! Oh and blueweed(/chicory), of course!!

And then a fruit tree or two to round it out, and a field of pumpkins :D

(This is of course assuming I have a proper garden too)

Edit: I forgot about dandelions and daisies and violets and lesser celandine and I'm sure many many more, they just bring me a lot of joy XD

4 Anmerkungen – Gepostet 27. April 2022

Hol dir deinen Tumblr-Jahresrückblick 2022 →

[circular-time]

#so she might at least have tried to moderate that and answer questions about her past while hiding her present

i hadnt put it together like this but yeah oh thats exactly what shes doing! trying to offer yaz some insight in past concerns while still hiding new concerns (not like shes been doing such a great job talking about past concerns but the intention was there :P) which is obviously not what yaz wants like, yeah she wants to know about what was up but she also just wants the doctor to trust her with all things i think

and your tags about men writing relationships between women are on point too but im also like. why would they be good at that you know? like i think it's fine if men cant write relationships between women super well, just let women write! asdhkfjh just get a woman to write! (im still of the opinion that not having a female showrunner for the first female doctor was a big missed opportunity. like im very happy with what chibnall has done but that choice just doesnt make sense to me at all)

On the one hand YES YES YES RACHEL TALALAY SHOULDA BEEN SHOWRUNNER ARGH or at least more female writers to write/edit this.

But on the other hand I don't wanna let Chibs off the hook for using Jack and Dan (and even Ryan) to tell Thirteen and Yaz how they feel and act as catalysts for their relationship arc.

I started writing this about 6am and it somehow turned into one of my LONG POST IS LONG essays with lots of thinky thoughts, so... SPOILERS to Eve of the Daleks, and...

See, female writers write male characters broships and relationships all the time, and we don't think twice about it. Aside from fanfic, if you look at any genre, from mystery to SF, there's some pretty notable guy-guy friendships and teams written by female authors from Bunter and Peter Wimsey in Dorothy Sayers to Kirk, Spock and McCoy in ten jillion official Star Trek novels including (especially!) those penned by @dduane .

It's like how little girls grow up learning to identify with and empathize with male protagonists from Christopher Robin and Frodo to Luke Skywalker and Captain America, but there's still a lot of people — even folks we like such as Peter Davison — who don't realize the limitation they place on boys or the ramifications it has for society down the road by saying they need male role models because (obviously) they can't identify with a female protagonist such as the Thirteenth Doctor.

I dunno. I didn't watch the Marvel movies (gasp), but was there a female character stepping in all the time to moderate the relationship and facilitate communications between Steve and Bucky? Seems like that wouldn't be necessary to play out that kind of drama.

I'm happy that Yaz's crush on the Doctor isn't subtext and is being written as Just A Thing That Happens, never mind they're both women, she's had a crush for a long time, obviously, and the Doctor's very fond of her but It's Complicated (tm), and that's good drama. I really did cry when Yaz cried and said "what am I gonna do, Dan?" because bloody hell, we've been there, and okay it's even more of a mess because the Doctor is an alien who is hiding even her NAME, but that particular cry of distress parallels the experience of a queer person (a) realizing they're queer and (b) not wanting to destroy a great friendship when you don't know whether your friend would be freaked out by finding out their same-sex BFF has a crush on them. Because there's no going back when you say it, and that is always a danger.

THAT is real, and I commend Chibs for writing that bit of gay angst 500% spot on.

And I love the character of Dan. I can see why everyone was excited about John Bishop. I wish it had been a different season he came aboard, not during the only season we'll probably EVER get that had the the opportunity to explore a friendship/BFFship/somethingship between two women (why is that so, so, SO RARE in media, rarer than a transit of Venus in SF?) but given that Chibs is a limited writer who wants to be more inclusive but seems most comfortable writing female protagonists who are as repressed and uncommunicative and antisocial as a lot of male nerds 😉 Dan may have been the best way to get over the writer's block he seemed to be having in getting Yaz and the Doc to (gasp) actually COMMUNICATE. Except they still haven't. But there's at least some overtures on the Doctor's part, so maybe she'll say a few things five seconds before regenerating.

I'm okay with an f/f ship in canon that's doomed and doesn't play out. That happens with the m/f ships with the Doctor as well: it's a side effect of the Doctor hanging out with a species with such a short lifespan and different life experiences who can only see a few facets of them. As long as it plays out in a way that's true to character, and so far, it has. I hope the Doctor and Yaz will finally, FINALLY talk. And I hope Chibs can find a way to let Yaz get out of this ALIVE having become the person she wants to be, instead of having her whole life ruined by or changed in tragic ways by the Doctor, which seems to be the default companion exit of new who. That's one thing I liked about classic Who, that companions found themselves by traveling with the Doctor and made a better life with what they'd learned through their adventures, rather than becoming sucked into the Doctor's orbit like a planet getting too close to its star and getting burned/damaged/torn apart/violently flung away. Chibs gave Ryan and Graham a classic Who ending, and signs point to him intending to do the same for Yaz, so I have hope.

Which just leaves us with a big juicy question mark of bittersweet angst over how much more Thasmin we'll get before the end of all this. Because it's not the ONLY thing we want out of Jodie's last two eps, despite the fact we've been waiting for it so long. We want Thirteen (and Yaz!) to be heroic and wonderful characters and have a few more good times and great adventures before the end. This is just an added layer that's gonna make Jodie's departure hit us even harder than it would've already, despite her Doctor really being A Bit of an Asshole sometimes behind all the fun and and curiosity and mad delight and courage and feral daft Doctor-ishness.

... All of which is just my own biased opinion, obviously.

[lunabonita]

My Webtoon Recommendations

These are webtoons that are all 10/10 for me. Of course it doesn’t have to be a 10/10 for you, so just a reminder, do not attack me for liking a webtoon that you do not. These are my opinions and we are not going to have the exact same taste. Please be respectful.

Your Throne

Genre: Fantasy

Chapters: 75

Status: Ongoing

-

“Tensions are brewing under the seemingly calm surface of the Vasilios Empire, a kingdom ruled by the Imperial Family and the Temple. Lady Medea Solon has lost her place next to Crown Prince Eros, but resolves to win back whats rightfully hers. Will she reclaim her throne?”

You know whats amazing about this webtoon? The summary leads you to think that what shes winning back is the prince. Wrong. Shes trying to win back the throne. I love how this webtoon doesn’t try to make it a girl focusing her goals on a man, but on power. Medea is such a strong and well written character that you can’t help but love her.

The second protagonist Pschye, who of which is the person who took Medeas place as Crown Princess, is the complete opposite of Medea. At the beginning you hate her, but as the webtoon goes on and Medea and her get a better understanding of eachother due to them switching bodies as a wish from God, you begin to root for them as they team up to take over the throne from the Crown Prince.

The art is so beautiful and I constantly found myself at awe from the amount of detail put into it.

-

The Makeup Remover

Genre: Romace

Chapters: 78

Status: Ongoing

-

“After years of being told to focus on studying, Yeseul feels lost when she starts college and is suddenly expected to pay attention to makeup. When a chance encounter with brilliant makeup artist Yuseong leads to her taking part in a televised makeup competition, Yeseul begins to question the role that makeup and appearance play in society.”

This was created by one of my favorite webtoon creators Lee Yone. Their art is just so amazing and their stories always include such good topics.

For instance, The Makeup Remover’s theme is loving yourself for who you are. It shows how people treat you based on your looks and as someone whos struggled with that kind of thing for a while, this webtoon really touched me. The main character Yeseul is such a relatable character, even when trying to reject beauty standards, she still came subject to the pressures of living up to the people around her. She struggles with trying to love her own appearance and I really like that this webtoon didn’t try to be like, ‘fuck the beauty standard im better than that screw pretty people!!!’ it actually showed realistically how people struggle with self-image. I also love the main love interest because oh my god, we need more men like him please. He doesn’t care about Yeseul’s appearance and genuinely loves her for her personality.

Also, art is amazing. The author is so talented and you should support them by reading and liking the chapters.

-

Surviving Romance

Genre: Horror

Chapters: 14

Status: Ongoing

-

“When Chaerin Eun becomes the protagonist of the romance novel she is reading, she expects a fairytale ending with the novel’s love interest, Jeha. But when a bizarre twist makes her realize the story is not playing out as it does in the book, she’ll need the help of an unlikely character from her class to defy the new storyline and find her happy ending - if only she can figure out who this ‘Unknown Extra’ is first!”

Hands down one of my favorite webtoons by a long shot. You ever see a webtoon and think, ‘oh yeah, thats going to be a good webtoon’? Thats how this webtoon was for me. It was so good that I spent hours searching for other chapters that hadn’t been uploaded to webtoon yet on other manhua websites. I discovered it because it was also by the author of ‘The Makeup Remover’.

If there is one thing you need to know about me, its that I am a huge horror fan. So when I saw that my favorite author on webtoon had a horror themed webtoon out? You bet your behind that I binged it. Let me tell you, best choice ever.

Think of it as if ‘Ino’s Law’ and ‘Quarantine’ were combined with amazing art and a badass MC.

The Remarried Empress

I love how it is set up to the point where she cannot ‘quit’ until she completes the novel. Creating scenarios where she must survive while meeting the standards in the book. It is such an amazingly written webtoon and I cannot wait for more chapters to be released.

-

Genre: Fantasy

Chapters: 82

Status: Ongoing

-

“Navier Ellie Trovi was an empress perfect in every way - intelligent, courageous, and socially adept. She was kind to her subjects and devoted to her husband. Navier was perfectly content to live the rest of her days as the wise empress of the Eastern Empire. That is, until her husband brought hone a mistress and demanded a divorce. ‘I accept this divorce… And i request an approval of my remarriage.’ In a shoking twist Navier remaarries another emperor and retains her title and childhood dream as empress. But just how did everything unfold? “

Am I in love with Navier? Yes.

I absolutely adore how this story was set up. The first chapter begins with the big divorce scene, followed by Navier saying that she was going to be remarrying someone else since he wants to divorce her. This sets up a picture that gets completely shattered as you read the chapters. How everything falls into place with the reason behind the divorce and the remarriage is just so well written. The art is so good and and everything is just so insanely well done.

I absolutely love Naviers character, from her regalness and devoted loyalty to her role as empress, all the way to her petty moments and times of sadness. She is truly a character that you want the best for, and I cannot image anyone not liking her. Also the story is just so capable of making you feel emotions. I’ve laughed, cried, and got angry during the course of reading this webtoon. I love how betrayed I felt when the emperor brought home his mistress. It felt like I was in Navier’s shoes!

This is such a well done webtoon and I'm so excited for Navier to get all of the good things she deserves in her new Kingdom and with her new husband.

-

Witch Creek Road

Genre: Horror

Chapters: 74

Status: Ongoing

-

“A survival horror about love, acceptance, death, and revenge. And sexy flesh-eating demons. Yeah, it has those, too.”

This series seriously mind fucked me. The way that this story is set up, you don’t see the full picture until the later chapters. Season two literally blew my mind. It is also very gorey so keep that in mind if you don’t like that kind of stuff, but for me that makes it all the better. It is just so wild and crass that you can feel your heart pumping in anticipation.

They even have their own website that goes further into the lore because it’s just so wild. Also the art style is just so amazing, because it complements the story and horror theme so much. You hate most of the characters because they suck, and it is so satisfying when they are killed. Also it has it’s sad moments but I think it is a nice break from the horror so it isn’t so overwhelmingly scary.

I binged this series and I recommend reading only a few chapters a day so you don’t overload your brain.

Other then that, an amazing webtoon. Seriously, go read it, support the author, so much work goes into the story and art that it’s insane.

-

Dating With A Tail

Genre: Romance

Chapters: 36

Status: Ongoing

-

“On the dawn of her 29th birthday, unlucky-in-love Yunha discovers a shocking family secret: she’s started growing a fox tail, the mark of an ancestral curse. She must find her fated love before her 30th birthday or she is destined to become a fox forever! Even with her new-found enchanting power to attract men using her scent, will one year be enough to break the curse before it’s too late?”

Oh my gosh this is just such a good webtoon. It has amazing art, story telling, and characters. The true love interest was there the whole time, the villain isn’t who you’d expect it to be, and the spirit who cursed her is just! Im not going to spoil it but go read this webtoon!! It is so good and deserves more love.

Also Yunha is just so relatable?? Like she put off finding the woodcutter (her fated love) for 29 years and waited last minute to find him. Homegirl is me trying to do a project for school. Also to get rid of the scent that makes men attracted to her, she just starts eating a ton of garlic and that is just so funny to me.

Also I would go to church for the priest anytime if you know what i mean ;)

-

Omniscient Reader

Genre: Action

Chapters: 53

Status: Ongoing

-

“Dokja was an average office worker whose sole interest was reading his favorite web novel ‘Three Ways to Survive the Apocalypse.’ But when the novel suddenly becomes reality, he is the only person who knows how the world will end. Armed with this realization, Dokja uses his understanding to change the course of the story, and the world, as he knows it.”

I cannot get over how high quality this story is. The world building is phenomenal, the art is fantastic, and the characters are very fleshed out. This deserved all the hype it has gotten so far and more.

I love the ‘mc thrown into a different reality’ trope so much. Just like with surviving romance, Dokja’s world became the story he was reading. Also a very cool aspect of the story is the level up and the fact that its like a game. Earth has turned into this show for god like creatures to watch and it follows Dokja trying to survive. I also really like that TWSA has a protagonist, but Omniscient Reader’s protagonist is not the protagonist that was in TWSA. There is just so much lore and I’ll say it again, the world building is just phenomenal.

The Ddokkaebi’s and Dokja’s interactions are also just some of my favorite moments from the story so far. And oh my goodness I would die for Lee Gilyoung. Thats it, thats the tweet. That little boy could probably kill me with his giant praying mantis and I would let him if it would make him happy.

-

Not So Shoujo Love Story

Genre: Comedy

Chapters: 45

Status: Ongoing

-

“Romance super-fan Rei Chan is ready for her first boyfriend and she knows just who it’ll be: the most handsome boy in school, Hansum Ochinchin. But her plans for the perfect story are derailed when the most popular girl in class declares herself a rival… for Rei’s heart?! This is the year her not so shoujo love story begins!”

This is just such a cute webtoon. The style is very appealing and while the humor can be childish and weird sometimes, it still has made me laugh a lot. I know the humors not for everyone but just keep in mind that it does get better as the story progresses and gets more serious.

Also its a gl! I’m really unable to find good gls these days that don’t fetishize wlw relationships. Rei being painted as a mean trouble maker whos just misunderstood and Hana being the ‘perfect girl’ who only wants Rei’s attention is such a cute dynamic. They balance each other out and better each other. Also stan Rei for constantly sticking up for Hana even if she doesn’t necessarily like her in the beginning, she has very good morals and sticks to them.

Also the defying stereotypes in this webtoon? Just god-tier. Really makes you think twice when you judge someone just on first impressions alone.

-

Odd Girl Out

Genre: Drama

Chapters: 264

Status: Ongoing

-

“After a successful winter break makeover, Nari is finally ready for her high school debut. But somehow, she ends up friends with the three prettiest girls in school! Follow Nari as she tries to navigate her brand new high school life surrounded by beauties.”

This story has made me cry multiple times. A lot, even. It is just such a beautiful tale of friendship and finding support in people who are unlike those around theme. It also tells a great story about how anybody can be the ‘odd girl out’. Be it the fat girl, the beautiful girl, the rich girl, or the laid back girl.

It goes so deep into its characters that you even feel bad for the minor antagonists. It really makes you feel for the characters and the reasons behind their actions. Also I know its long, believe me I binged all 260 chapters in the span of three days, but oh my god it is worth it. Also I know the art is kind of off-putting, in fact that’s kind of why I put off reading the story, but I’ve honestly grown to love it and the writing is so good that the art could be literal stick figures and it wouldn’t matter.

The story is amazing and also I just love Nari. She’s just the best.

-

Gremoryland

Genre: Horror

Chapters: 67

Status: Completed

-

“Six old school friends are invited to be the first visitors of GremoryLand, a new horror theme park that promises an experience as unique as it is spooky. But once this experience starts there is no turning back, and they find themselves tested beyond what they imagines, facing their most desperate fears in order to survive.”

This is definitely one of those stories were you kind of need to turn of your brain and choose to ignore ‘plot holes’ while reading the early chapters because this story definitely gets crazy if you don’t know the ending. Believe me if you stick with it it will all make sense and the satisfaction you get from finding the ending is just so worth it.

The story is so good, and who Gremory is you would literally never suspect. When it was revealed who Gremory was and how he was able to create Gremoryland is so fucking mind boggling that you would never guess. I had to do a double take. It wasn’t like one of those random characters with a vendetta type of twists, but like one you can pick out from clues throughout the story.

Its so good and twisted and just so worth at least giving it a chance.

-

These were some of my favorite webtoons on the app! Of course it’s not all of them because unfortunately there is a 10 image limit. I also made this because I’ve run out of new webtoons to read and would love if you guys commented some of your own recs. I can also do a part two with other ones I liked if y’all want more recommendations. You guys can even request specific categories like Drama or Sci-Fi and I can tell you my favorite ones from that genre.

Also a reminder - if you disagree with any of my praise of these webtoons be respectful about it. At the end of the day it’s my opinion and you don’t need to be rude when disagreeing with that opinion.

[chironshorseass]

I am so happy for Leah and I can't in good conscious drag the casting online while people are being violently racist towards her but man this casting.... I'm so tired of the white main character with side characters of color and I saw it coming a mile away with the trio. Percy being a poc would add so much depth to existing parts of his character and would be so much more important not saying that Annabeth isn't also important and this isn't a monumental decision in itself but Percy is Percy he's THE main character the series is named after HIM every spin off etc etc is built off the back of his existence and instead of taking the risk with him they pick the other two it's like saying you can be important but not TOO important idk Black Annabeth always seemed like a trade off for White Percy and I didn't want white Percy so I've been festering in hard-core aversion to Black Annabeth for like a year and now I gotta fight racist anti-black losers and my own annoyance at the casting I've been fighting the second one since Walker announcement though and I know myself so once the shows in front of my face I'm gonna enjoy it instead of focusing on the parts that annoy me.

i do think percy as a poc makes so much more sense and i was dissapointed that the actor is white (tho im also excited for walker; he's gonna make a great percy regardless) BUT i don't see it as a trade-off either. i agree that the protag being white while his other two friends aren't is....well. it's common innit if the cast director is feeling Woke bc ofc the protag has to be white ofc percy has to fit w what riordan had in mind since the beginning ofc it pleases the weird racist fans and ofc he also gets brownie points bc ha!! if we want to be inclusive let's just put two actors of color as the supporting characters while we're at it! yeah this is common and im sure ricky is proud of himself but i also think that casting is complicated and for a tv show that's already so famous they must've looked at hundreds of different profiles as a MINIMUM, 'till they found the perfect one. like yeah percy's the protagonist and haha haha yay so many ppl r clapping themselves on the back for JUST that haha he's white congrats! i agree that that isn't. great. but that doesn't mean annabeth had to be white! or that she had to be a poc! keep in mind that we could've won with ALL of the og trio being represented by black, indigenous, asian, latino actors whatever booo let the theater white girls cry all they want whatever. so it didn't have to be either Black Percy or Black Annabeth and in the end they chose leah as annabeth bc she was the best fit for the role...out of alllll the actresses they looked at.....the majority of which must've been blonde at the very least lol. which is why. i rly...dont see it as a trade-off. yeah. en ee way again im very much happy for leah and i think she's gonna be perfect as annabeth and even tho it's sad that obviously percy wasn't a poc i don't exactly see it as a tradeoff. bc. u know what's done is done! congrats walker and leah and aryan!!

[ninakaina]

why do you like maria kaina so much? ì'm just really curious.

this is the most exciting question i’ve ever gotten in my life

[image id: a screencap from the pathologic wiki, which says “personality: femme fatale.”] 

EDIT: im gonna make this into a video essay sooooooo read it if you want or stay tuned for a video in like a week and a half

first of all, i’m a lesbian and she’s a goth girl. secondly, she combines many of the tropes that i adore in female characters, and i’ll try to get into some of it as concisely as i can. in short: femme fatale, magic woman, scary woman, cassandra, sublime. i’m going to draw some concepts from the essay “the woman in the red dress: sexuality, femmes fatales, the gaze and ada wong” by jenny platz in the beginning here.

in the scope of their function as femmes fatales and the ways they transcend the typical boundaries placed on femmes fatales, ada wong resident evil and maria have a lot of similarities beyond obvious similarities in design (you can see patterns forming in my interests but also if you don’t know anything about ada this should still all make sense). so we’re all on the same page, a femme fatale is a woman of dubious morals and unknown or false motives who uses her sexuality and wit to get what she wants from men. the femme fatale has a long, uncertain, and pervasive history, and a love-hate relationship with the misogynistic writers/audiences/societies that create her, but ada and maria break free of many of the tropes that allow the femme fatale to be part of a misogynist power fantasy. together they have functionally very similar relationships to their male protagonists, although i wouldn’t say maria cares about daniil half as much as ada cares about leon if at all, in which they’re more than willing to lie to the men and put them in harm’s way to achieve their own unclear ends, while serving an essential function in keeping them alive, often without their knowledge (in the changeling route, maria sends daily letters to clara to keep daniil from getting murdered by artemy).  they add an element of unease verging on horror to their games through their sheer power - which stems from a weaponized womanhood, the player’s unfolding understanding of the vastness and nature of their power, and the fact that you have no idea what they’re going to do with it. the weaponized womanhood is relevant here because in theory, to a male audience, it adds its own level of horror, but to me it adds a level of love.

like ada too, and unlike the typical femme fatale of books and movies even in the modern era, maria is never purified or punished; in fact, she only becomes more powerful over the course of the game. her death can only come via the plague; there are no plotlines where she may die. even when she’s caught red-handed by artemy in patho 2, he has two options: to tell her father, who is unlikely to stop her and even less likely to punish her, or to note that this is maria’s world and we’re all just living in it and move on. in classic she can get married at the end, but not for love and it’s made explicitly clear that her husband’s role is to serve her, like victor served nina; instead of finally conforming to a patriarchal mold like the archetype would predict, she again uses a man to advance her agenda. (she still deserves better though. killallvlads2020)

another similarity between maria and ada that’s also the biggest way they diverge, is their expanded power of body over the typical femme fatale. where typically the femme fatale is just a wickedly smart, sexy woman (good for her), she has little power beyond the sexualization of her body, and little recourse when she’s in danger besides getting a man to help her out of it. the way this is subverted is the most obvious in ada, so it’s a good lead-in; her power of body also translates into fighting skills greater than that of most of her peers-- she uses acrobatics and melee attacks more often than other characters, making her distinctly equipped to survive without anyone’s help and destroy her opposition. maria, obviously, is not a fighter, and she’d die immediately if she was locked in a police station with zombies, so at first glance she seems to fall more into the wicked damsel aspect of the trope. but thematically and functionally, pathologic is not a game about physical fighting or even physical power. in a game world where guns and bullets are exceedingly rare while information (as well as picking truth out of lies) is the form of power that gets characters to the end alive, maria has, in herself, the access to more information than any male character. aside from mark’s (and grief’s) special role as the fool, clairvoyance and particularly mistresshood are specific to women, and come to maria from the steppe. she’s also “sensitive to lies and deceptions” and “can instantly see one’s true colors”. she is shown barefoot in pathologic 2, which symbolizes her personal and physical connection to the wild earth, a power of body in itself. maria and ada are both apex predators, perfectly suited to their particular environments and narratives- on that note, maria is never endangered at all, aside from typical plague mechanics and distress in her issues with aglaya.

okay, enough about ada wong. beyond her connection to the femme fatale trope, maria’s narrative in itself also draws on a really compelling archetype. i mentioned that maria is never purified or punished, nor really endangered, but  that doesn’t mean her story is without tragedy. instead, her tragedy is more personal and psychological, as she’s one of several characters who deal in the theme of lost childhood, and maria’s particular refrain has a hint of lost humanity. these are characters who are forced to grow up, often too fast, and for whom growing up carries an inherent trauma where some aspect of who they were or who they could have been is ripped away from them. i would also call maria and capella’s stories lost girlhood, since there’s a lot of... you know, it feels like stuff that mitski would sing about. i could talk for ages about “i can hear [your mother’s] voice [in you]” and how effectively it’s played for a bittersweet horror. in classic we are very clearly shown maria changing from who she is at the beginning, acting completely differently, and it’s left unclear as to whether this is simply the new maria or her mother’s spirit is literally possessing her (again, some obvious metaphor here). in pathologic 2, they make a change that i really love. maria has already taken up the mantle of mistress or at least claims she has and is in the process of change-- “a mistress in the making”, but it’s mentioned that artemy remembers her from before he left the town. 

he says “i remember when you were just a kid. who would have thought you’d grow into-- this?” if you read my writing, you may have picked up that i seriously fixate on this piece of her narrative. from when she was a girl (16 at the oldest) to when she’s 21, she’s changed so much as to be almost unrecognizable, and more than unrecognizable, she’s become a complete mystery, a nightmare. this is a tragic horror, in the sense that tragedy is horror that’s already happened. from the uncanny valley of the familiar turned unfamiliar, the creature-that-was-once-maria, the not-quite-nina, to that same sense of loss as someone who was once just a girl is forced to be more grown than she is and more grown than any person should be expected to be. as anna angel wears willow’s hair, maria wears her own. that one haruspex line asks a thousand, unsettling questions to which we can expect no answer. who was she before? who is she now? what happened to her? when did she change? what has she lost? what has she gained? is this who she wants to be? did pressure from her mother shape her, or grief over her mother’s death, or something else entirely? is this who she was always going to become, or could she have been something else? all of these and more lead into the central questions that define both the dark/scarlet mistress and monster movies: what is it?, what is it capable of?, and what does it want? these questions are, naturally, never answered, although it’s likely we’ll get a little more insight into her motives in the bachelor route of patho 2. 

stepping back from the specifics of mistresses, this again carries strong themes of coming of age and lost childhood/girlhood; the idea that in order to ascend so to speak and to take on role greater than you are, you have to either destroy yourself or be yourself destroyed. maria’s version of this story is, again, a tragedy. she is plagued by the stress of her destiny, haunted by nightmarish prophetic visions (which fucking DANKOVSKY doesn’t even BELIEVE), and completely alone, so much so that to express her love physically would destroy the object of her love, and yet she is still the incredible femme fatale i was talking about before. this is where i end up with the quote i captioned my painting of maria with: “a girl burns, and the sublime blossoms.”

i used the word sublime to describe maria twice in my writing, in that quote and in “her eyes are fierce, dark, sublime.” this is literally the best word i can come up with to describe the scarlet mistress, and the sublime is a big concept in aesthetic theory, but one which is hard to describe in itself. i try to portray elements of the sublime whenever i write or draw her although i’m not THAT good yet lol. it doesn’t have any physical or functional criteria except the feeling it causes (for a good example i think of the earthrise photo). this quote on the sublime, by edmund burke, feels very reminiscent of the way nina is described in game: “the passion caused by the great and sublime in nature, when those causes operate most powerfully, is astonishment, and astonishment is that state of the soul in which all its motions are suspended, with some degree of horror.” it’s awe-inspiring, it’s scary, it’s a force of nature, both refined and wild and personally impersonal, and it’s pretty much the only word i have for the iconic maria quote.... you know the one. “and you know, mother, that forge is me. sometimes i wake up with a burning in my chest, and the sky becomes crimson. in that very moment, if i kiss someone, they can see it too. it’s true.” 

one last thing i LOVE about maria is the power of self and autonomy she retains, especially in 2. in the diurnal ending as the utopians are planning to cross the river (which was her plan in classic), maria says she doesn’t want to; she wants to stay and create, not art or buildings but people, to bring them into the sublime. her cruelty is how she nurtures those around her, as opposed to capella whose nurturing is in many ways cruel. and it’s in the diurnal ending that we first hear the title “crimson mistress”; where in classic, nina was the scarlet mistress and maria became the scarlet mistress, in 2 nina was the dark mistress and maria becomes crimson. there is no question that she’s not her mother. after all she’s endured, she forges herself into something new, not necessarily brighter but more visceral, takes her mother’s legacy and makes it her own.

so i guess tldr: what’s not to like about maria kaina?

[artsybanchou]

I’m a big fan of 80s/90s anime and Ranma 1/2 played a big role in my childhood. The premise has sooooo much food for thought when it comes to looking at gender and specifically the performance of gender. I’m about to get INTO it, so, here’s your warning-- read more is a ramble. (LONG ramble)

Oh ho ho ho! WELCOME TO MY HELL!

Aight, so let me set the stage for you-->

Two people, who should not be parents, have a kid. The father, Genma, a fairly successful martial artist, takes their just-born son on a training journey without consulting the mother. By training journey, I mean that they travel all over the world with little to no money, either stealing from or scamming people in order to make sure they can eat, under the guise of training the son, Ranma, to become the greatest martial artist of the “Anything Goes” school of martial arts. One of the most frequent scams the father pulls is promising his son’s hand in marriage to various families in exchange for a dowry before running off with both his son and the dowry, never to be seen again. This-- inevitably-- comes back to bite them in the ass. But more on that later.

We don’t get to see a lot of Ranma’s childhood on the training journey, just the occasional��incredibly horrific flashback to something that would become a national incident were it to happen in the real world. For example, at one point in time, his father finds a Chinese pamphlet of an ~ancient lost Chinese art~ that is INCREDIBLY POWERFUL!!!!! wow! It’s called Neko-ken. So he decides to teach his six-year-old this technique, although he can’t actually read Chinese so he does it based off the diagrams-- which detail a process of collecting a good number of cats, starving them for a few days straight, and then tossing his son, covered in fish sausages (possibly tied up, can’t remember), into the pit to fend for himself (and not be eaten alive) for hours on end. Surprise, surprise, Ranma comes out incredibly traumatized and with an intense fear of cats (something his father would’ve seen coming if he was able to read Chinese as the pamphlet says that someone would have to be crazy to try to teach someone this technique and that it causes severe psychological damage-- also could’ve been avoided if his father had any common sense or fatherly instincts, but hey that’s just asking too much of Genma). This is not the result his father wanted, so he tries to “fix” it by doing the exact same thing multiple times, just with different cat foods wrapped around his son because... I genuinely don’t know what his thought process was but yeah. So that’s just a tiny snapshot of what his childhood was like as well as how much of a massive idiot his father was. And since Ranma never interacted with his mother, guess who had the greatest influence in his development (yay........). (save him) (also this is based off my memory from watching the anime YEARS ago, so some small details might be wrong but the big, overarching “his dad is a terrible person” thing is still very much true even if some of these smaller details aren’t)

When Ranma is a teenager, his father brings him to a Chinese training ground full of cursed springs. The tour guide repeatedly tries to explain what exactly this place they’re visiting is, but the father and son pair are two hard-headed idiots and get right to sparring. Ranma knocks his father into a spring pretty quick only to be caught off guard when his father reemerges from said spring as a panda and grand slams our protagonist into another one of the cursed springs. Our manly man martial artist protagonist emerges from this spring as a dainty, busty teenage girl. /The horror./ The panic from both Ranma and his father’s deeply shaken fragile masculinities gives the tour guide enough time to reveal that they had fallen into the cursed springs of the drowned panda and the drowned girl (one guess who fell into which one) and that anyone who falls into a cursed spring will take on the form of the life form that drowned in it. They can return to their original bodies by being splashed with hot water but, from now on, every time they’re hit with cold (or even apparently lukewarm) water, they’ll change into these new cursed forms.

Now, I’m sure you all saw this coming from the type of man that Ranma’s father is based on everything I’ve said so far, but Genma is the worst(TM). So Genma is all, “no SON of MINE can be a GIRL! >:((((((” and Ranma, who has been raised for his entire conscious life by this man, and only this man, is also very much not Okay(TM) with this because he’s a man, a manly fighting man who was raised to be the manliest of fighting men who fight. He can’t be a GIRL. 

Except he totally can. Because these two start taking advantage of Ranma’s feminine body pretty much immediately in order to continue running scams so that they can eat and whatnot while traveling. Of course, Genma constantly shames Ranma by saying things like, “I can’t believe my son is such a failure of a martial artist, being a girl! I’m so ashamed!” and whatnot at every opportunity but especially when they are in an argument and Ranma is winning or if he needs Ranma to do something for him. He frequently manipulates his son by using this kind of guilt-tripping language as though it’s Ranma’s fault that his body is like this. Nevermind that they both frequently profit off of Ranma’s female body for scams, Genma still puts Ranma down for having it and Ranma internalizes that because he’s 15 and his father is the only person he’s ever known.

And I’m sure we all hate Genma now, as we should, because fuck Genma. What kind of woman would ever marry Genma? (And we assume a woman is married to Genma because how could a man this bigoted do anything other than marry a woman all traditional and whatnot). If only Ranma wasn’t taken from his mother so young. Maybe he would’ve turned out a better person~ Well, uh, bad news, lads :/  So, by the time we meet Ranma’s mom in the series, we’ve known most of these characters for a chunk of time. It’s already quite well established how terrible of a human being Genma is. Ranma may or may not have started the episode out admitting he doesn’t know much about his mom after being asked about her. A standard set-up. I don’t quite remember all the details of the episode, only the important things-- here’s the important thing: Genma’s wife, Nodoka, made Genma swear something to her before he took their toddler on a training journey all around the world. He had to raise Ranma to become “a Man among Men” (and we’ll talk about how she defines manliness) and, if he failed, then both he and Ranma must commit seppuku. 

Yeah, that's right. 

If her son isn’t enough of a man by her standards then he has to commit ritual suicide.

Her son who now transforms into a girl every time he is touched with at least a ladle’s worth water that isn’t steaming.

(hey have i mentioned save Ranma yet? save him seriously)

Her definition of manliness? All the shit the misandrists of tumblr swear is the inherent evils to all men. She thinks her son needs to be unapologetically forceful in /all/ he does. Especially in his romantic forays :///// (yeah this is going where you think it is)

When she does decide he isn’t manly enough (because Ranma was being sexually harassed by an old man who forcibly put him in a sailor outfit, no im not kidding, happosai, said old man, is a whole other element of the show that like holy shit) and tries to get him to commit seppuku, the solution the cast comes up with is to have Ranma “peek” at (his friend? girlfriend? fiance? frenemy? roommate? it’s weird-- technically they’re the two romantic leads but their chemistry is like -5 because she constantly physically hits him for things that really aren’t his fault and just ://) Akane while she is bathing and that will prove his manliness to his mother so that he doesn’t have to literally die. Will having Ranma be a fucking voyeur prove his manliness to his mother, you ask? Yep. This is Manly(TM) and so Ranma gets to live another day. Yay. Once again, molestation saves the day. (aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa) All of this is played off as a joke, for the record. No character is really acknowledged as being “a bad person” for any of this behavior-- not molester Happosai, not trying-to-kill-her-own-child Nodoka, etc. 

So these are the people who made Ranma. Who shaped this kid with the ability to spontaneously switch between male and female bodies (presuming he has water on hand). Also, obviously, Genma had more influence seeing as Ranma never saw his mother between the ages of two and (I think) 16(?), but. regardless, these are the people who shaped his understanding of gender. For all intents and purposes, our lad should be such a pressure cooker of toxic and fragile masculinity that he just about commits seppuku himself every time he ends up in his female body. 

But he doesn’t. In fact, Ranma is largely comfortable in his female body as long as his father isn’t trying to hold said body against him (wait did that come out wrong?). Ranma has no hesitations taking on his female form for something as little as a discount on ice cream. He makes the statement, “when it comes to eating out, being a girl is the only way to go”-- because he’s able to get an extra scoop for being “cute”

There’s a scene very early on in the series about exactly that which has always stuck with me. It opens with Ranma in his female body at a cafe with Akane and they both order fancy ice cream parfaits. Ranma is extremely excited and exclaims, “I’ve always wanted to try one of these!” 

Akane replies with, “don’t tell me you’ve never had ice cream before.”

And Ranma proceeds to explain that he’s never had ice cream like /this/ because it would be too embarrassing for a guy. When Akane asks if he isn’t embarrassed now, happily shoving huge spoonfuls of ice cream into his mouth, he responds with, “hey, I’m a girl now. It don’t count.” Akanes shoots back with a “REAL girls don’t eat like that” (because our lad is eating with such gusto-- he’s living, he’s thriving, he is demolishing that parfait and there is ice cream all over his face) 

He goes, “I’ll eat it however I want.” And then finishes the whole thing off and proclaims that he wants to order the chocolate one next.

Moments like that were the ones where I loved the show the most. We can see Ranma’s insecurities about his masculinity (thank you /soo/ much for that genma) in that he isn’t willing to perform an ‘unmanly’ action in public in his male body. He can’t be *seen* eating girly ice cream. But when he is admonished for not living up to feminine standards in his female body (eat more daintily), he just goes, ‘i’ll do what i want’. Young me really resonated with that, being born with a female assigned at birth body and growing up in Texas. 

It feels like there’s a trans narrative buried in the steaming hot mess that is this work by Takahashi Rumiko-- and it is abundantly clear that was never her intention so I wouldn’t exactly recommend trying to give her an award or anything. She said that she wanted to write a work with a male main character but was so worried about how many male readers she had, she made the decision to make (as she described) a half-male half-female main character (essentially so she could have her cake and eat it too if you will-- all the self aggrandizing fantasies of a male protagonist her male readers could imagine themselves as along with a copious amount of fan service-- the great majority of which was at Ranma’s unwilling expense in his female body which like ://////// (remember that old man I mentioned before??)--  with the female protagonist body). And, like, I’m not saying Takahashi Rumiko is a terrible person or anything-- I don’t know what her beliefs are, I only know her works which are quite old at this point. Takahashi Rumiko is a big deal in the mangaka world because she was one of the first big shonen mangakas who was openly a woman. Normally, men wrote shounen (which literally translates to boys) manga and women wrote shoujo (which literally translates to girls) manga-- the genres were literally divided along gender lines in terms of their intended audiences but also, to a certain extent, their creators. If a woman wanted to write/draw shounen, usually she had to use a pen name that sounded fairly masculine in order to not impact the perception of her work. Takahashi Rumiko was working in that environment so I would understand why she’d want to be careful but, at the same time, I still kind of hate a lot of the things that she normalizes in her works. Especially assault. Both physical and sexual assault she constantly used as a punchline. Not as much anymore. Her most recent work I’ve read was Rinne and the punchline with that one was that the male lead is super poor, literally penniless, and is constantly starving so hahahahha humor amirite? Pain being funny seems to be her through line now that assault is off the table. At least he isn’t constantly getting whole ass tables thrown at him by his love interest as though that’s supposed to be a cute relationship dynamic (Akaneeeeeeeee). I digress. Takahashi Rumiko’s works played a big fucking role in my childhood from Ranma to Inuyasha to Lum (which I encountered well into my teens and therefore didn’t jive with at all because I’d finally learned sexual assault =/= funny and this was one of her more dated works) and so on and just--  I don’t know if I can watch her older stuff the same way I used to. I’m scared to try, honestly. Because some of the ideas behind her works are so interesting-- like Ranma 1/2-- but then you have to sit through episode after episode of a teenage boy in a girl’s body being sexually assaulted by a remorseless old man only to try to fight back at which point he is physically assaulted but also he still has to grovel to and respect said old man because he’s his father’s master and therefore he has to learn martial arts from him but the old man is constantly wagering Ranma having to pose for him in incredibly skimpy outfits if Ranma wants to learn literally anything and alsso RANMA IS FUCKING FIFTEEN/SIXTEEN JESUS CHRIST IS THERE NO FUNCTIONING ADULT ANYWHERE IN THE VVICINITY SAVE HIM!

I NEED TO DIGRESS

It feels like there’s an unintentional trans narrative buried in this anime. It’s not a fun one (but most trans narratives aren’t either so). This is a boy who knows he’s a boy-- even when his body disagrees. He frequently asserts that “he’s a boy” even when in his female body because he is. He’s a boy. He’ll reference being a girl “in appearance” like with the ice cream parfait scene earlier, but when it comes to identity statements, he’s always a boy. This narrative is about him navigating gender presentation and societal assumptions in order to live however he wants. He’s constantly contending with his own forms of gender dysphoria, whether that be his own gripes about doing anything unmanly (eating ice cream) or the very real threat of his mother fucking killing him if he does anything unmanly (aaaaaaaaaaaa), and he navigates tons of threats by choosing how he presents himself.

There are characters that are in love with the male “version” of Ranma and want to kill the female “version” of Ranma (who, for the record, goes by the name Ranko) and vice versa. The Kuno siblings are a great example. Kodachi is in love with Ranma (and is not above literally fucking using date rape drugs on him to get to him) and wants to fucking kill Ranko whereas Tatewaki Kuno, her brother, is in love with Ranko (the lovely pigtailed girl, he calls her) and has literally sent assassins after Ranma. Ranma essentially has to choose between being sexually assaulted or physically assaulted every time he runs into either of them in terms of what body he is presenting. 

I feel like I should let you know, ye who have actually read this far, that Ranma is able to protect himself pretty well from the assault. Like, our boy ain’t dead. Later on he literally fucking kills a god because he’s really passionate about martial arts so he puts all of himself into it and god damnit does his effort show but, honestly, his ability to protect himself shouldn’t mean that it is okay to assault him. Assault is assault. And just because he can fight back doesn’t mean he always does. Akane, his main love interest, regularly sends him through roofs and across town with the force of her Up + B (aka magically appearing hammer), usually for things that aren’t his fault in any way. Akane actually came to the conclusion that Ranma was a pervert when she (fully dressed) walked in on him (naked because he was in the bath) even though the bathroom was obviously occupied. She constantly gets mad at him for things that are beyond his control and then takes her frustrations out on him by literally beating him up and he never fights back-- which is admirable of him but also made me never want to root for their relationship because that isn’t a red flag, my dude, that’s a red planet. the whole of mars is out here trying to warn everyone that this relationship is the most toxic thing since RoundUp.) 

Usually, when watching a show, you get really invested in the character’s aspirations. You want them to ‘get the girl’, ‘get the promotion’, ‘become the pokemon master’ and whatnot. All I ever wanted for Ranma was for him to fake his own death and run far, far away from everyone who ever knew him as “Ranma”. He’d have to fake his own death, obviously, because otherwise his father and Happosai would track him down because, for his father, Ranma is a walking meal ticket and, for Happosai, Ranma is a teenage girl he can sexually assault at any time. Those two would chase Ranma to the ends of the earth if they thought he was trying to get away from them so--

Ranma. Help him.

There’s so much more to dissect with this show. It’s kind of accidentally a great way to look at gender presentation, especially all the terrible negatives that come with constrained gender roles. I use He/Him pronouns when talking about Ranma because it is abundantly clear that he sees himself as a man and I respect that. Sometimes nonbinary-me is like, but think what a gender-fluid icon our boy would be-- literally switching perceived genders via fluids-- and I think that version of Ranma would be a lot happier than the canon one but, I think the canon Ranma is an important reflection of what a lot of people go through, cisgender, transgender, and beyond, when trying to parse what it means to present a gender and the roles you’re supposed to play. 

Maybe Ranma can go on a journey of self-discovery with his own gender after faking his death and escaping Nermina. 

I was all over the place writing this but this isn’t an essay and I’m not being graded so ha fuck you (excpet no not really fuck you because you either a) read this whole thing or b)scrolled down to the bottom to see if i’d get to the fucking point already-- which for the record, I don’t really-- and either way it means you were a little curious what I had to say so thanks I guess). None of this is exceptionally well-thought-out. I wouldn’t exactly stamp this with any kind of official gender discourse seal. It’s all just food for thought. 

[iridescentides]

hey hey hey!!! this is ur descendants santa 💜💙🎅

so, do you have any headcanons for changes in the characters’ appearances? something you wish we could see on screen? and honestly even free to tell me any thoughts and hopes for your present ♡

HI FRIEND!!! thanks for messaging me, the secret santa stuff is so exciting!

i guess i dont really think about the characters appearances that often? i havent read the books or anything like that, ive just watched the movies. i like the gifsets where people change uma to different colors, like purple instead of blue or something like that. but idk i dont pay much attention to the costumes n stuff. i think every characters hair looked best in the third movie,,

ooh okay hopes for my present? im not sure but lemme list some of my favorite things about descendants.

i think the thing that ultimately got me into descendants was how gay it is honestly? d2 is my favorite bc of all the malvie content, and the introduction of harry and uma who are both gay disasters lbr. and the third one is my least favorite bc of how obvious it was that they were trying to undo all the accidental gay shit they did in the second movie 😂

my other favorite thing about the franchise is the way (in at least the first two movies (i like to ignore the third movie completely)) it explores the concept of assimilation, and the conflict that ensues when a marginalized group of people cant conform to the norms of the dominant culture. because of an institutional barrier put in place by the people in power, the isle kids grew up poorer and with less opportunities than their auradon prep counterparts. but taking them out of their neighborhood isnt enough to “fix” them, and i especially love that the main lesson of the second movie was mal learning to accept her roots and embrace where she came from (saying “i will always be the girl from the isle”). i love that the resolution in the second movie involved evie fighting to uplift other kids who grew up in their neighborhood. i love the statements that these plotlines make about socioeconomic disparity and for me as a person of color, i like to look at it as an allegory for racial disparity as well. 

and then my next favorite thing is a pretty popular one for descendants fans: the found family!!! the way that the vks are pretty much the only disney protagonists with unloving parents. the very subtle but impactful abuse plotline, and the statement that is made when they finally choose to defy their parents instead of being stuck in the cycle! the way they band together to love and support each other!!! i really love the core four, and i wouldve loved for uma to be able to join into that dynamic as well. the end of d2 was so emotional in the way that she saw a hand reaching out to her but couldnt bring herself to accept the invitation. umas relationship the the assimilation plotline is important to me bc she is so noticeably loyal to her home and her culture, even when given the opportunity to join the flashier, “better” side. she is tough and has a hard time accepting affection as a result of her upbringing. i wish she had a more prominent role in d3 but instead it had to be the mal show bc i wouldve liked to see her be rewarded more for the ways she consciously stepped outside of her comfort zone to work together and help the others. 

idk what im trying to say anymore but!!! im very excited to keep talking to you, i dont have any specific gift ideas but just know that my favorite characters are uma and evie so anything featuring one/both of them would be awesome!

ALSO i recently started a tag on my blog for things that i care a lot about and theres not a ton of descendants in there BUT you can find info on like,, my favorite songs and stuff if thats useful. maybe something in there can give you some ideas. the tag is #things that matter most

[pacifv]

HE MEGA RP PLOTTING SHEET / MEME.

First and foremost, recall that no one is perfect, we all have witnessed some plotting once which did not went too well, be it because of us or our partner. So here have this, which may help for future plotting. It’s a lot! Yes, but perhaps give your partners some insight? Anyway BOLD what fully applies, italicize if only somewhat.

Mun Name: Mik      Age: 26      Contact: IM, discord

Character(s) I rp: Eden ( in bleach ) -- I have other ocs but that’s another story Which muse(s) inspires you the most atm?(for MM): Eden... ? Current Fandom(s): Bleach , so far Fandom(s) you have an AU for:  more fantasy esque ones?  My language(s): spanish , english  Themes I’m interested in for rp:   Fantasy / Science fiction / Horror / Western / Romance / Thriller / Mystery / Dystopia / Adventure / Modern / Erotic / Crime / Mythology / Classic / History / Renaissance / Medieval / Ancient / War / Family / Politics / Religion / School / Adulthood / Childhood / Apocalyptic / Gods / Sport / Music / Science / Fights / Angst / Smut / Drama / etc. Themes/Genres you have an AU for: fantasy , religious

Preferred Thread length: one-liner / 1 para / 2 para / 3+ / novella. Asks can be send by: Mutuals / Non-Mutuals / Personals / Anons. Can Asks be continued?:   YES / NO   only by Mutuals?:  YES / NO. Preferred thread type: crack / casual nothing too deep / serious / deep as heck. Is realism / research important for you in certain themes?:   YES / NO. Are you atm open for new plots?:  YES / NO / DEPENDS. Do you handle your draft / ask - count well?:  YES / NO / SOMEWHAT. How long do you usually take to reply?:  24h / 1 week / 2 weeks / 3+ / months / years. I’m okay with interacting: original characters / a relative of my character (an oc) / duplicates / my fandom / crossovers / multi-muses / self-inserts / people with no AU verse for my fandom / canon-divergent portrayals / au-versions (as main or only verse). Do you post more ic or occ?:  IC / OOC. Are you selective with following others?:  YES / NO / DEPENDS.  

Best ways to approach you for rp/plotting:  IM since this is pretty much new . just slap me with that and if you have some ideas , better --- if not let just brainstorm with what we have in hand . 

What expectations do you hold towards your plotting partner:  some minimal idea of the context and eden’s character . some ideas if possible . more than often I have gotten people straight up jump with no clue of what even is going on in my side character wise . 

When you notice the plotting is rather one-sided, what do you do?:  depends , most likely really stop trying or let it sink . I’m not much of a person who would pressure for ideas when they don’t even come naturally for me in these kind of situations . 

How do you usually plot with others, do you give input or leave most work towards your partner?:  First of all , ask what they particularly want and if they read the bio . and of course , have their bio as well ( if oc or any relevant hc on vague canons ) . I am honestly a bit shy on the input but if I found a ground to start letting my imagination loose ( like , something in common between characters or something that clicks well with my muse ) I can suggest several things . but in any case , I’m pretty passive and it’s a lot of gives and takes . 

When a partner drops the thread, do you wish to know?:   YES / NO / DEPENDS. - And why?: depends on the thread , the time and the interest . things that go downtown in the excitement scale are :/  and I can’t blame anyone for dropping a thread . not all the time you will have muse for them , tho , if it was a relevant thread I would ask at least . - What should your partner do when dropping a thread?:  pretty much free to tell me or not . I’m no one to judge.

What could possibly lead you to drop a thread?:  losing muse , interest , time ... pretty much the same . feeling like my muse is going too OOC for the sake of the other muse or smth .  - Will you tell your partner?:   YES / NO / DEPENDS.

Is communication in the rpc important to you?   YES / NO. - And why?:  I am very old school and having some OOC interaction to at least know how things are going , it’s as much as I can ask here .  - Are you okay with absolute honesty, even if it may means hearing something negative about you and/or portrayal?:  I mean , I should . it can turn me off a bit but it’s just natural ? there’s no way something can be perfect or be of someone’s taste . plus I am not that smart to be fully aware of all the things around the motif and IRL information I use on my muse . I’m no book , buddy. - Do you think you can handle such situation in a mature way?  YES / NO.

Why do you rp again, is there a goal?:  development , exploring the muse , seeing what works and doesn’t work . often new blogs for me are basically prototypes , they are and will  most likely have minor or major modifications as my imagination starts working and getting excited . besides , in the basics , you can hardly manage to cover all ( if anything ) of how one’s muse would react to X situation .

Wishlist, be it plots or scenarios:  a lot of quincy lore , come up with more personal connections with other quincies , fully develop a backstory and a post war scenario . cultural exploration  --- relationships of all kinds . 

Themes I won’t ever rp / explore:  pretty much I am fine with anything as long as we don’t cross the gross line . but I’m not afraid of the dark .

What Type of Starters do you prefer / dislike, can’t work with?: absurdly basic and with no context given . not even have an idea of what is the deal between muses . I can squeeze my brain but there is as much as i can do with little information .

What type of characters catch your interest the most?:  quirky ones , conflictive ones , most likely muses with specific motifs that spark my interest -- deepness . Aesthetically interesting ones . but overall , those who have out of the normal personalities . 

What type of characters catch your interest the least?:  personalities that doesn’t work or do not harmonize with the context of their characters . that’s all I can say .

What are your strong aspects as rp partner?:  I am.... creative ? gdi I did this meme already but it’s hard to reply these two ones. I am easily excitable . if we end up in a ship , expect me to be pampering af . I really enjoy the exploration of relations between people , emotions and psychological stuff tied around it . I do like casual and also very deep things . I’m not afraid of dealing with heavy topics . I like horror ???? also I am very into the secondary character role , as in : my muse is here to help your muse to grow or insight . that stuff . not much of a protagonist role in RPs. 

What are your weak aspects as rp partner?: I’m .... very.... sporadic . My mood is annoying esp when I’m “new” blog around kind of thing . I’m shy , even if I don’t seem so --- I get pretty anxious over details . I am impatient --- with myself . I want to do so many things at the same time I end up overwhelmed . 

Do you rp smut?:  YES / NO. Do you prefer to go into detail?:  YES / NO / DEPENDS. Are you okay with black curtain?:  YES / NO. - When do you rp smut? More out of fun or character development?:  mmmmmmmmm , both. Depends on mood and context tbh . - Anything you would not want to rp there?:  nothing I can think from the top of my head.

Are ships important to you?:   YES / NO. Would you say your blog is ship-focused?:   YES / NO. Do you use read more?:  YES / NO / SOMETIMES. Are you: Multi-Ship / Single-Ship / Dual-Ship  —  Multiverse / Singleverse. - What do you love to explore the most in your ships?:  again , I’m big mood for interpersonal relationships ( romantic or not ) , the pros and cos of certain traits , ideology clash , personality clash , anything that comes in a relation that could make it come and go .  - What is your smut tag?: unholy.

Are you okay with pre-established relationships?: YES / NO. - And what kind of ones?: all are hella okay for me . pre- est is my jam bc jesus christ the awkward first encounters make me go blue screen .

► SECTION ABOUT YOUR MUSE.

- What could possibly make your Muse interesting towards others, why should they rp with this particular character of yours now, what possible plots do they offer?:  the fact she is basically a “religious fanatic” , with a quirky personality and a questionable morality , considering she has an inner conflict between the wellness of her race and her loyalty towards yhwach . At least pre war . post war , she has a flipped personality were she is mostly bitter and more angsty but will go from fanatic to straight up hater . 

- With what type of Muses do you usually struggle to rp with?:   bland personalities ? not sure myself , Eden is pretty much ready for anything since her personality is pretty laid back . I guess I would say shinigamis in general --- since she basically is stuck inside Silbern . - With what type of Muses do they usually work well with?:  Quincies , ofc . and people who are willing to put up with her crap .

- What interests your Muse(s) in general:  the prosperity of the quincy , doing a proper duty , order , tea , annoying the fuck out of people . being eerie ....  - What do they desire, is their goal?:  the ideal world as thought by Yhwach --- later on simply for her kind to survive after losing the war and being left to their luck . - What catches their interest first when meeting someone new?:  mmm , appearance  and reactions to her witty or narcisistic comments .  - What do they value in a person?:    loyalty , uniqueness . - What themes do they like talking about?:  most likely about the order of the army , tea stuff , herself (?) , but she is also a lot for debates and insight . - Which themes bore them?:  rebellious , silly thoughts . justice related topics . anything that critics her loyalty/life style . 

- Did they ever went through something traumatic?:  the first war was enough ? most likely losing comrades --- yhwach sacrificing the quincy for power later on .  - What could possibly trigger them?:  the simple sight of anyone laying a finger of the quincy for being against their views .   - What could set them off, enrage them?:  nothing. she cannot literally , physically get angry or enraged . but if we are talking bitter , that would be completely post war and it’s just the mention of yhwach’s name or those who went to god’s palace with him .  - What could lead to an instant kill?:  invasion of silbern , chaos . 

- Is there someone /-thing they hate?:  chaos , rebels , shinigami , anyone against the quincy . - Is there someone /-thing they love?:   her race , her pride , herself .

Is your Muse easy to approach?: YES / NO. - Best ways to approach them?:  just .... come to her and say hi . she is literally wandering around silbern all the time ( quincy speaking tho ) . for others , eh ... good luck . and wait post war (?) - Where are they usually to find?:  Silbern ... then Siberia . 

Something you may still want to point out about your muse?:  She is no saint , clearly . She has a questionable sense of things like loyalty and preservation of her race . she is honestly all over the place

CONGRATS!!! You managed it, now tag your mutuals! ♥

Tagged by:  honestly stole from @skyvar​  Tagging:  no one in particular.

[chanchanchanko]

I Favor the Villainess!

Title: I Favor the Villainess / 私の推しは悪役令嬢。/ WataOshi Author: Aono Shimo Synopsis: Former office worker Oohashi Rei is reborn as Rei Taylor, the protagonist of her favorite fantasy otome game! But instead of pursuing the three male leads, Rei only wants to woo Claire Francois, the curly-haired, ojou-san-type villainess. Despite Claire’s efforts to rebuke and bully Rei for her commoner status, our protagonist only finds it ever more endearing. Rei’s courtship might only be off-putting and confusing at first, but Claire slowly finds herself respecting her pushy and mysterious classmate.  Genre: comedy, fantasy, romance, shoujo, shoujo-ai

read up to chapter 3 on mangadex 

my thoughts under the cut!

very cute!! highly recommend!!! a rare wlw take on the isekai trend

ohhhhh my goooodddd this is soo cute i love seeing romance play out from the perspective of the woo-er rather than the woo-ee because you get to really see claire’s charm points. we love an ol fashioned tsundere.  As the protagonist, Rei is refreshingly clear about what she wants and how she plans to get it. At the same time, I appreciate how she’s not all keikaku-y and is honest/earnest about her fondness for Claire. Rei’s original life is spent at a black company (eg a company that overworks its employees and has crazy overtime) and she finds escape in this particular otome game, which is super relatable. like, i would go bonkers over my fav fictional characters if i met them in real life?? i get the sense that the author understands what it’s like to be a fan lol which makes it easy to sympathize with Rei (her extensive knowledge of the world is explained by the fact that she wrote fanfic and had to replay the game over and over to get the minor details right which is like, a mood). 

also:

same babes. (also as a personal note, i don’t think her treatment of claire ever gets like, too creepy if that makes sense? it’s a personal preference but i dont go for stories that have the characters be like, full on stalkers to establish their interest)

as for Claire, she’s your typical tsundere, drill-toting villainess made loveable. she’s very clearly a hard worker and trying her best to fulfill the role she sets for herself. she might make unreasonable demands, but she’s confident in herself and she honors her word. 

ugh what a cutie

the chemistry makes a lot of sense to me and overall i find the whole story very charming. the characters have a maturity that grounds the interactions to feel real/meaningful even in a fantasy/comedy setting. The artsyle is cute and also respectful (no obscene flashing of the boobies), although i cant say i Looove rei’s character design. im excited to see where this goes, and i! can’t! wait! for claire to fall in love?? 

look at her what a good egg

[soleilstm]

(  jennie  kim  ,  twenty  -  one  ,  &  cis  female  )  who  ?  these  days  ,  it’s  all  about   soleil  ‘ sol ’  ryu   ,  who  comes  from    san  francisco ,  ca   and  is  making  headlines  as  an    actress    .   she  currently  has  a  fan  count  of  38k  ,  no  thanks  to  the  rumors  of  them  being  peevish  !  but  ,  on  the  other  hand  ,  their  most  devout  fans  say  they’re  actually  wilful  .  last  i  heard  ,  they  caused  quite  a  buzz  when  she  got  casted  for  the  lead  role  in  the  next  a24  film  !  it’s  no  wonder  they  remind  me  of   glitter  eyeliner ,  bitten  fingernails ,  the  quiet  grey  before  a  thunderstorm ,  deep  breaths  before  leaving  the  house ,  sickeningly  sweet  fake  laughter  &  the  addictive  flash  of  the  cameras   . 

     hi hi, how are y’all doing ? my name is bea, i’m twenty yrs old, i use she/her pronouns and i’m from the gmt tz ! i’m super excited to be rping with y’all and i hope my brand new muse sol might spark some interest in a few people so we can plot, plot and also plot ! you can find a little bit more about her underneath the cut as well as a couple wcs. if you like this post i’ll assume you want to plot and IM you, so click the heart at your own risk ! x 

statistics.

background. 

the  story  goes  as  following:  man  meets  woman.  both  man  and  woman  are  fresh  out  of  med  school,  trying  to  survive  their  internship  as  the  only  two  immigrant  interns.  they  get  closer  and  closer.  two  years  later,  a  baby  girl  is  born.  she  is  not  who  this  story  is  about.  she  is  the  warning,  to  the  man  and  the  woman.  she  says  ‘  you  are  great  doctors,  but  you  are  not  good  parents.’  sadly,  they  don’t  hear  her,  because  they’re  busy  at  work  while  a  nanny  takes  care  of  her.  she  grows  into  a  lonely  toddler,  until  that  fateful  moment,  at  age  five,  when  the  protagonist  of  this  story  is  born.  they  say  she  cries  and  giggles  in  the  delivery  room,  making  sure  no  one  can  miss  her  or  ignore  her.  even  her  own  mother  can’t  help  but  stare  at  her  scrunched  up  face,  stuck  between  a  frown  and  a  laugh.  they  call  her  soleil,  for  the  sun.  or  sol,  to  her  older  sister,  who  finally  has  someone  to  play  with.  

the  years  pass  the  ryu  family  by,  settling  into  a  peaceful  routine  for  the  most  part.  sol’s  parents  are  at  work,  vying  for  another  promotion.  her  mother,  olivia,  stops  by  the  house  every  once  in  a  while,  because  she  heard  daughters  that  grow  up  without  a  mother  turn  elsewhere  for  attention.  and  really,  she  won’t  have  either  of  them  falling  out  of  track.  there  is  a  path  laid  out  for  them,  of  science  and  medicine  and  upholding  the  family  legacy,  that  she  reminds  them  of  every  time  she  hugs  them  in  that  precise,  medical  way.  sol’s  sister,  rose,  listens  intensily.  sol,  on  the  other  hand,  becomes  very  good  at  pretending  she  is,  as  well.  it’s  all  thanks  to  the  theater  club  she’s  joined,  after  getting  a  half-asleep  signature  from  her  father  on  the  one  day  of  the  week  he  sleeps  at  home.  she  excels  at  it,  forming  her  own  little  world  where  they  can’t  see  her.  except  for  rose,  who’s  determined  to  make  her  care  about  what  their  mother  cares.  so  sol  goes  along,  because  she  doesn’t  want  to�� hurt  rose.  she  would  never  do  anything  to  hurt  the  only  sincere  hug  of  her  life.  

but  peace  can’t  last  forever,  and  this  she  learns  on  her  junior  year  of  high  school.  her  mother  finds  her  early  acceptance  to  juilliard  by  accident,  stumbling  home  after  her  congratulations  party  for  becoming  chief  of  surgery.  rose  is  long  gone  by  then,  graduating  top  of  her  class  and  enrolling  in  medical  school.  sol  had  gotten  so  good  at  pretending,  they  all  believed  she  would  follow  suit.  in  that  very  moment,  sol  walks  in  to  see  her  mother  rip  the  letter  to  shreds,  her  face  a  massive  red  welt.  they  fight,  the  entire  night.  her  father  comes  home,  and  they  fight  some  more.  there  is  no  way  she’s  pursuing  this  nonsense.  there  is  no  way  she’s  ever  becoming  an  actress.  no  matter  how  much  she  cries,  cloudy  skies  taking  over  her  delicate  features,  they  don’t  hear  her.  they  never  hear  her.  she  gives  in.  she  accepts  her  fate.  she’ll  follow  rose’s  path,  if  that’s  what  they  want.  they  hug  her,  still  as  mechanical  as  ever,  and  she  goes  to  bed.  the  thing  with  being  as  gifted  as  she  is,  is  that  lying  becomes  an  art  none  of  them  will  ever  appreciate.  so  she  packs  her  bag,  a  hundred  dollars  in  her  pocket,  and  escapes  with  the  moon  high  in  the  sky.  

she  wishes  she  could  say  her  path  after  that  moment  is  without  flaws.  that  none  of  it  involves  days  upon  days  of  couch-surfing,  of  scrambling  for  minimum  wages,  of  terribly  missing  the  life  she  had  before.  at  night,  she  goes  to  sleep  wondering  if  her  dream  is  worth  all  of  this.  and  when  the  sun  rises  in  the  morning,  she  wakes  up  knowing  it  is.

after  that,  she  hustled  doing  a  lot  of  short  films  that  went  for  the  most  part  unnoticed  while  waitressing  on  the  side,  until  one  of  them  actually  made  it  to  a  major  film  festival  where  she  began  to  gain  traction  and  more  movie  roles.  it  wasn’t  until  she  got  the  role  of  joi  in  blade  runner  2049  two  years  ago  that  she  really  made  a  dent  and  got  noticed  by  the  big  producers.  now,  she’s  lives  her  life  day  by  day,  putting  her  work  above  everything.

personality. 

sol  is  the  most  stubborn  person  you’ll  ever  meet.  nothing  can  ever  get  in  the  way  of  what  she  wants,  and  it  doesn’t  matter  how  long  or  how  hard  she  has  to  fight  for  it.  .  .  she’ll  get  it,  in  the  end.  despite  her  confident  persona,  she  is  also  extremely  anxious.  she’ll  always  see  everything  through,  but  she’ll  spend  the  entire  time  imagining  everything  that  could  go  wrong.  it’s  a  part  of  herself  that  stays  perfectly  hidden  behind  gummy  smiles.  she  can  be  unpredictable,  as  well.  her  patience  levels  dim  day  after  day,  and  before  you  know  it,  something  that  made  her  smile  a  week  ago  now  irritates  her  to  no  end.  fame  definitely  has  something  to  do  with  it.  the  more  love  and  admiration  she  receives,  the  harder  she  finds  to  control  her  moods.  basically,  she’s  turning  bit  by  bit  into  a  diva.  right  now,  you’ll  miss  it  if  you  blink.  but  she’s  steadily  running  towards  it.  she’s  an  introvert,  and  though  she  can  carry  a  conversation,  she’ll  need  several  hours  to  recharge  afterwards  from  the  effort.  it’s  common  that  after  shooting  a  movie,  she’ll  retreat  into  her  apartment  for  a  week  or  two  without  contacting  the  rest  of  the  world.

connections. 

i’m  a  lot  more  open  to  either  brainstorming  or  fitting  in  your  wcs  buuut  i  could  see  one  of  these  three  tbqh.  but  like  i  said,  i’ll  mold  into  yours  or  we’ll  make  something  from  nothing  !

childhood friends if  anyone  comes  from  the  bay  area,  maybe  they  let  sol  couch  surf  at  their  place  for  a  while.  they  know  each  other  better  than  anyone  else,  but  it’s  also  something  really  chill  and  sweet.

rivals in  the  industry  could  be  a  lot  of  fun,  as  well.  they’re  always  battling  it  out  for  roles  and  polls  and  all  of  that,  maybe  it’s  positive  and  drives  them  to  do  better  or  maybe  it’s  just  a  lot  of  cattiness  and  low  blows  because  why  not  lmao.

exes, from  the  beginning  of  her  hollywood  chase  and  now  that  they’re  both  rising  it  got  harder  and  harder  to  be  with  each  other  so  they  called  it  quits  for  the  sake  of  their  careers  but  there’s  still  a  lot  of  lingering  feelings  and  jealousy  and  all  that.

[iheartgod175]

A Guide to LOST SONG - Part 1

AKA The anime that made me love Konomi Suzuki

When I stumbled across Lost Song on Netflix, I didn’t know what to expect. The style looked vaguely interesting, and I could tell immediately from the title that it had something to do with music. So I gave it a shot.

And boy howdy, am I glad that I did. This anime is not flawless, but there are so many things I loved about it that it almost outweighs the bad. It exposed me to Konomi Suzuki, who I absolutely love now. And it made me love Yukari Tamura even more, if that was possible. The fandom is small, but it’s passionate in sharing its excitement and knowledge of this anime. And for a while I thought of doing a review, but it hit me to do a guide for the anime to introduce others to it. 

So, let’s get into the bare bones of this anime, shall we?

(I’ll be writing my own synopsis since the one on Wikipedia is terrible)

(NOTE: LIGHT SPOILERS AHEAD!)

The Plot

We have two protagonists, Rin (voiced by Konomi Suzuki in her first acting role) and Silver-Haired Nanoha-I mean Finis (voiced by Yukari Tamura). Rin is a simple country girl who’s adorably ditzy, loves to eat food and most of all loves to sing. Finis is a beautiful but clumsy and airheaded songstress hired by the Capital to use her songs to aid the kingdom’s war effort. Both of our female leads have the ability to sing Spirit Songs, songs that can manipulate the four elements of the world and bring about miracles.  Both of them have problems related to their singing: Rin’s grandfather, Talgia, forbids her from singing for mysterious reasons, and she finds support from her older sister Mel and younger brother Al, the latter of whom wishes to go to the Capital to become a scientist (despite his numerous failed inventions). Finis’ songs, while vital to ending the war, severely shorten her lifespan, and she is seen as nothing more than a tool of war by the Capital’s war effort, namely by the prince, Rudo Bernstein (more on him in a bit). The only people who see her as a person are her servant Corte and Henry Leobolt, a knight assigned to protect her by Prince Rudo.

Certain events--the burning of Rin and Al’s village and the deaths of their sister and grandfather, and Finis and Henry’s forbidden romance amidst the war--set the stage for Rin and Finis to finally meet. Will the last song be one to save the world...or destroy it? 

The Characters

Lost Song has a host of characters, both male and female, that have an important role in the story and all get their own time to shine (although some characters do get the short end of the stick, as I’ll explain in part 2).

I’ll be breaking them down as best as I can, hopefully with as few spoilers as possible!

**NOTE: I’ll be using the Netflix translations for their names until further info is revealed (like how to actually spell them correctly)

Rin

A village girl with a passion for singing

Greatest wish is to travel to the capital to sing at the Star Song Festival

Blessed with an amazing voice, but is banned from singing by her grandfather

Possesses a mysterious power to both control the elements and create “miracles” with her songs

Loves her family and friends dearly

Blames herself for her sister’s and grandfather’s deaths as her song led Bazra to her village

Occasionally ditzy, gluttonous and sometimes hard on herself (due to the aforementioned deaths of her family), but is otherwise a sweet, selfless girl who tries to understand others

Will recklessly throw herself in danger to help those in trouble

Finis

The Capital’s Songstress who is also referred to as a goddess by the capital’s army due to her Power of Songs

Also blessed with an amazing voice (YUKARI TAMURA, DUH)

Her songs are used for war, so she is seen as a weapon by many of the Capital’s elite, namely Prince Rudo

Continued use of her songs shortens her lifespan, a fact known to her servant, Corte

Falls in love with Henry Leobolt, a knight assigned to protect her during the war, due to him treating her like an actual person.

Is eventually forced to kill people with her songs so Rudo won’t kill Henry

Very airheaded and has NO sense of direction, but is otherwise a sweet woman.

Al Hawkray

Rin’s adopted younger brother and Mel’s biological younger brother 

An aspiring inventor and scientist whose inventions sometimes fail at the worst possible time

Constantly points out how things involving songs are scientifically impossible

Travels with Rin to the capital after their village is destroyed and his grandfather and Mel are killed

Despite his bad luck, several of his inventions have proven to be useful as weapons (ie. his Star Bombs)

Greatly admires Dr. Weissen

Often the butt of everyone’s jokes, much to his annoyance

A little salty with his companions, but cares for them nonetheless

Has an unrequited crush on Rin

Pony Goodlight

A former Court Minstrel who travels around the country

Rin and Al’s first companion

Left the Capital and her job for unknown reasons

Is also a pretty good singer (her VA, Chiaki Takahashi, is Azusa from iM@S after all), with a knowledge of many Legendary Songs that she teaches to Rin

Likes to think of herself as mature, but can be somewhat temperamental

DOES NOT like to be called old. Or ugly. 

Also hates bugs

Likes to drink and gamble 

Has the hots for Henry Leobolt (calling him “Hottie” on several occassions)

The Lux Sisters (Monica and Allu)

Allu is the oldest, with short red hair and red eyes

Monica is younger with brown hair that covers one eye, and wears a strange rabbit suit 

They are Rhythmists who were working for the capital to manufacture Echo Devices for the war

They originally went to the capital to become Minstrels in the Court Orchestra, but gave it up to earn money to heal their mother’s blindness

When Rin heals their mother with the Song of Healing, they join Rin, Al and Pony on their journey to the capital

Allu is the braver of the two, but can come off as rude and harsh to those who meet her. Very protective of Monica, and has a habit of randomly drumming on objects at times

Monica is quieter, cowardly (having a habit fo falling asleep when in danger) and speaks very little. Is also a very good singer and can imitate any song perfectly after hearing it just once

Both are good friends with Rin (who healed their mom) and often tease Al (much to his chagrin)

Mel Hawkray

Rin and Al’s older sister

The only one who supports Rin’s singing talents, and is said to spoil Rin a little

Dies in the first episode, but appears a few times (in Rin’s dreams), and is mentioned by both Rin and Al

A sweet, nurturing woman who loves her siblings

THE MOST underused character in this whole show

Corte (pictured on the right)

Finis’ servant, who serves as a mother figure

Is practically glued to Finis’ side, though Finis loves her just as much and can’t function without her

Is always worried for Finis’ safety, but will put her life on the line to protect her

Supports Henry and Finis’ relationship

Dislikes Prince Rudo (then again, who doesn’t like him?) and knows of the danger he poses to Finis and Henry

Talgia Hawkray

Rin’s adoptive grandfather and Mel and Al’s biolgical grandfather

Kind old man, honestly, but is strict, especially with Rin

Bans Rin from singing for unexplained reasons, which causes a strain in their relationship

Also dies in the first episode, but appears later on in some very important scenes detailing Rin’s past

Along with Finis and Rin, he’s a fairly important character (if minor)

Henry Leobolt

A knight from the famous Leobolt family who is Finis’ bodyguard

A strong, brave and caring man who sticks with his ethics

He owns a family sword that is said to never break or rust, and is a master swordsman who can take down a whole army

Is wholly against war, but will not hesitate to defend himself, his men, or those he’s sworn to protect

Falls in love with Finis, and as a result is moved to the frontlines by Rudo as punishment, but manages to survive and command his own team of men

Knows of Finis’ curse and hates to see her suffer for his sake

Dr. Weissen

An eccentric old man who happens to be a renowned physicist, inventor and scientist

Has a croissant on his cane for random snacking (no, really he does)

Crotchety at first, but is actually a kindhearted old man

He originally did research to help people, but was then forced to build weapons of war under Rudo’s rule

Lost his entire lab, his assistants and his inventions to the Capital, which made him lose hope

Takes on Al as his assistant after Rin restores his lab and becomes his mentor

Prince Rudo Bernstein IV

The prince of the Capital

A cold, heartless, ruthless person who will kill those who oppose him in a heartbeat

Is disliked by many of the populace (and for good reason)

Is engaged to Finis (who dislikes him)

Hates Henry Leobolt, especially after he falls in love with Finis, and tried to kill him by putting him in the frontline of the war

Uses Finis as a tool of war, and eventually convinces her to use her songs to kill people by threatening to kill Henry

Bazra Bearmors

The General of the Capital’s army

A ruthless man who uses others for his personal gain

Is rivals with Henry Leobolt and tried to kill him several times throughout the show

Destroyed Weissen’s lab and also killed Rin’s grandfather

A powerful swordsman who can go toe to toe with Henry

The only other characters I can think of are the men that eventually join up with Henry after Rudo puts him on the frontline, but they’re minor, and not even the official site lists them as characters ^^;

Part 2 will kind of go into a bit more details about what to look for in the plot following episode 7, where things REALLY get kind of crazy, as well as my general opinions on the characters, the music and the general tone of the show.

If this mini guide had you interested in the ainime, then that’s great! I’m hoping that more people catch on to watching Lost Song. It really needs more love!

~iheartgod175, out!

[eggoreviews]

12 ‘Unpopular’ Viddy Game Opinions

I’ve seen this topic floating around a lot, but didn’t think I had enough ‘unpopular but maybe not’ opinions about games to make a post. Turns out I do! So if you see this and I say something blasphemous, remember it’s just my opinion and my personal experiences with the games I list. Hope you enjoy or hey, maybe even agree with some of this!

Note: Can’t stress enough. This is just me. Also, spoilers under the cut!

12. The opening of Kingdom Hearts II isn’t as terrible as everyone says

Okay, so it’s not brilliant, but at the same time, I don’t think it’s the worst. For those not in the know, KH2′s opening is a basically a massive slog where you play as a character you don’t know or care about with seemingly no real link to the events of the previous game. The general consensus is that there’s some interesting stuff in here, but it’s buried among endless dialogue that really doesn’t mean much. And they’re right, but I really think there’s some great stuff here that people tend to gloss over. The music and the motif of Twilight Town is atmospheric, there’s some genuinely intriguing plot elements that are woven into Roxas’ story and believe it or not, the stuff that happens here is intrinsic to the rest of the game. So yeah, it drags on a little, but I don’t think KH2 would be miles better without this opening.

11. I loved Breath of the Wild’s final boss

One of the problems I see talked about with Breath of the Wild is that the boss fights are fairly mediocre, especially the very last one, Dark Beast Ganon. And I couldn’t disagree more. I think every boss in the game is wonderfully crafted, intense, challenging and great for testing you on what you’ve learned throughout the game by encouraging you to make creative use of your slate powers and the flurry rush technique. And while Mr. Pig Man at the end here is sort of easy and short, it serves as a brilliantly epic finale to damn near perfect game. While the difficulty is mostly gone after the mammoth fight with Calamity Ganon, it’s still just as intense as you frantically fire off arrows into the massive beast in front of you. Plus, the design of this thing is one of the best looking monsters in the game, so I really don’t understand the dislike for this ending.

10. I really like Crash of the Titans

Okay, so maybe childhood nostalgia has something to do with this pick, but every Crash fan I’m aware of seems to hate this game. But I don’t really know where the hate comes from! I played the PS2 version of this and I thought it was a genuinely fun 3D platformer with a variety of locations, good visuals, well-designed boss battles and even a vague story you can sort of follow! The game’s main gameplay feature is also brilliantly integrated, as using Aku Aku to possess various monsters throughout the game keeps everything interesting. One thing I will say though, that tiger dude you have to fight about halfway through is the most annoying thing I’ve ever had to endure in a game.

9. Life Is Strange: Before the Storm is BAD

I loved Life Is Strange when it first dropped, so I was beyond excited when they announced a prequel from Chloe’s perspective. But I really think they dropped the ball and they dropped it hard. But everyone else seems to adore this game! For me, this wasn’t a touch on the original. For a start, they dropped out one of the main mechanics of the first game, the time travel, which they then replaced with a much less interesting ‘Backtalk’ feature, which was then only used about twice throughout the game. Instead of interesting, developed characters reacting to genuinely dangerous or heartfelt situations, it felt to me like a bunch of one-dimensional teenagers who are edgy for the sake of being edgy. Chloe spends the majority of the game being a dick to her mother and bunking off class to spend time with Rachel, who she has literally known for like a day and their sudden relationship drops out of nowhere. Not that I didn’t enjoy the emotional moments of their relationship, it just didn’t feel like it stemmed from anywhere, unlike Max and Chloe from the first game. And the game’s attempts at villains were also rubbish compared to the first, with Damien (random scary knife guy who doesn’t really tie into the plot that much) and Eliot (who doesn’t appear for the whole game and suddenly goes full incel on Chloe when she breaks into Rachel’s house). Yeah I think you can tell I had some problems with this one.

8. Dishonored: Death of the Outsider was also a hot mess

I LOVE the Dishonored series. The first game and its DLCs are amazing, the second game was arguably even better. And then this happened. In this one, you play as Billie Lurk, a character I love, and Daud comes back, a character I also love. But both of them are incredibly badly written and it doesn’t feel like there’s any development to them or even much reason for them to do what they’re doing. This entry took the mystery surrounding the Outsider and basically did a big poo on it, giving us the revelation that he was apparently HUMAN this whole time. I think that was the nail in the coffin that made me sort of think this was a bit rubbish. While the combat and side missions were as brilliant as ever, the level designs felt less creative than other entries in the series and lacked variety or colour, all the side characters were entirely forgettable and to wrap it all up, they killed Daud offscreen. Out of nowhere, they just killed him, mentioned it offhand in a cutscene and that was that. If you like this game, fair enough, but it kind of baffles me that more people don’t see this in the game.

7. Mario Galaxy 2 is good. It’s just sort of good

Some people cite this as being one of the best 3D platformers of all time, and that’s fair enough, but I just kind of see this one as ‘good’. Sure, it has a good, satisfying control scheme for the most part, the level design is creative and the bosses and puzzles are pretty standard for a Mario title, but still enjoyable. However, sometimes, the floaty physics and weird knockback effect from jumping into walls led to quite a lot of unfair deaths, especially if I’d been punished for messing up already by losing a life, only to then immediately be punished again by falling into the void. Plus, I found Yoshi near impossible to control at some points with the motion controls. So yeah, this one is genuinely enjoyable, but I don’t think I’d personally put it with the best of all time.

6. I LOVE Dragon Quest IX TO DEATH

This is a game in a legendary franchise that consistently almost always see ranked at the very bottom of the pile in the series. But I really don’t understand how or why. Okay so your protagonist and party are basically silent and don’t have a lot of character, but I don’t see this as a reason to totally write off the game! The side characters, villains and story are all amazing and well-developed, the world is huge, colourful and interesting, the monsters are brilliantly creative and Dragon Quest’s signature lame sense of humour is gratefully carried through the whole game. The music is always brilliant and atmospheric and the bosses are just as memorable as each character you meet. What was everyone’s problem?? This is genuinely one of the best RPGs I’ve ever played and if you haven’t had a chance to pick it up, it is so, so worth it.

5. Sonic Adventure is a broken mess

So before I kick this one off, I’m not someone who hates Sonic and I’m not here to slate the whole franchise, but considering this game is often considered to be one of the best in the series, I thought it was definitely worth addressing. When I first played this, I literally couldn’t believe this was made in 1998, AFTER Mario 64 and yet it’s so broken! The physics and control scheme are totally wonky and hard to control, the unending amount of glitches make a fair amount of the stages almost unplayable, the voice acting and facial animation is cringey and oddly broken and yet, this was all on the Dreamcast. The most powerful console of the time. And I don’t think I even need to mention how boring some of the later stages get, with Big the Cat’s fishing section being the main offender. I can’t vouch for Adventure 2 as I haven’t had a chance to play yet, but I really hope it isn’t like this.

4. Dragon Age Origins is the best Dragon Age

Dragon Age has always been a popular RPG series, but I think it properly shot to fame once Inquisition dropped in 2014. And don’t get me wrong, I liked Inquisition! The world was colourful and expansive and the characters were fairly memorable, but I still think the best experience you can get is in the series’ first entry, Origins. While it’s pretty easy to see that it’s slightly dated considering it’s ten years old now, the best characters and story in the series I think is here. Each companion you recruit is varied and developed and the story wraps up brilliantly in the end with each companion and army you meet playing a different role in the final battle. Plus, I kind of can’t forgive Inquisition for making Leliana lose her sense of humour and making her kinda boring.

3. Oblivion is better than Skyrim

Okay so I’m not sure exactly how unpopular this is, but I just thought Oblivion was miles better than Skyrim ended up being. Just to clear it up, I still love Skyrim and I thought it built on the series’ combat system and variety of enemies really well and still provided an enjoyable experience. But Oblivion feels like more of an adventure you feel at home in. The story is dense and full of twists and turns. The soundtrack has some of the most atmospheric music I’ve ever heard, the world is full of bright colours, each city is vastly different and has its own lore and I found some of this to be absent from Skyrim. I’d go into more detail, but I think the simple fact is that Oblivion had so much more I liked than Skyrim.

2. I don’t think The Witcher III is all that amazing (in some regards)

This by no means says that I don’t like the game, because I do, but I think it has more flaws than people let on. Now, don’t get me wrong, a lot of the stuff people praise about this game is true, the quests are in-depth and masterfully crafted, the characters, especially Geralt, are extremely memorable. In fact, Geralt is one of my favourite game protagonists. But most of the problems I had were in terms of the gameplay. The combat, while fast-paced and satisfying, can sometimes feel a little finicky, so a lot of precision is needed. However, I felt that the world itself didn’t particularly interest me and the music is often ambient but outside of combat, isn’t anything special. Mostly though, the leveling system I found to be a bit wonky. I did absolutely everything I could in the first area of the game; all the side quests, treasure hunts, killed a whole bunch of monsters etc. And then I arrive in the second area and find I’m too underleveled to do literally anything. The majority of the quests have too high a level cap, a lot of the monsters kill me very quickly. And because the bulk of EXP farming is in the quests, I’m sort of stuck in an endless loop of constantly not being strong enough to do anything. On top of that, all my equipment keeps breaking and I’m finding that repair kits are extremely few and far between and that makes me even WEAKER. It’s something I’m gonna need to persevere with I think, but hey, this is just my experience with it.

1. Ocarina of Time, as amazing as it is, may have overstayed its welcome as best game of all time

I reckon this might be the most controversial, so it’s number 1. Let me preface this by saying I really like Ocarina and I agree that it was innovative for the RPG genre at the time. There’s a hell of a lot in this game that we have to thank for the games we have today. But considering how far the gaming industry has come since then and the sheer amount of high quality games we’ve been getting year after year, is still fair to call this the best game ever? When more recent games have taken what Ocarina started and built upon it? Games like Breath of the Wild, Horizon Zero Dawn, Red Dead Redemption II, God of War all gave us expansive, beautiful worlds and a story you can really get stuck into. And all the time, more and more games of this caliber are coming out. So yes, of course Ocarina of Time deserves a place in the hall of fame, it was revolutionary and still holds up really well today! I just can’t help but think there have been plenty of games since then, as flawed as some of them may be, that have improved upon the formula tenfold since Ocarina’s release.

Thanks for reading if you got this far! Just to reiterate, these are all just my opinions and my experiences with the games I mentioned, so pls don’t attack me. Got any viddy game opinions you think are sort of not popular? Drop them down below if you feel like it!