#love this ridiculous webtoon

[srdcovka]

my favorite mi-ae panels -`ღ´-

[franeridart]

The Housecat Philosophy - Ep 37

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[mistress-of-vos]

I'd make a longer post (and maybe one day I will) but since Lore Olympus, the story that introduced me to webtoons is coming to an end I'd like to say something:

I can't believe it is considered problematic. It has to be one of the sweetest, fluffiest, simplest stories I have read (hence why I still like it, it's a relaxing read before bed) and somehow it got too "kinky" for mainstream. It's laughable.

Everytime I dare to click on their tag or look for the # on Twitter or FB I see people clutching their pearls as if Lore Olympus were brainwashing teenagers into marrying a non existent God of the dead and have babies with him. What the hell?

The fact that people think LO is too dark makes me laugh. A single episode of Rick&Morty, BoJack Horseman or HQS has way more explicit content and dialogue. In fact!!! If it were up to me LO would have gotten genuinely kinky!!! All it does is have some surface spicy tropes that get sugar coated to not make puritans awkward and tbh that's sad. LO and the author get terribly hated anyway for daring to portray the most common female fantasy.

And this all makes me laugh but also mad because you'd think LO at least has some genuine dark themes but no? At most we have Persephone's trauma due to Apollo's abuse and yet that topic is treated as a therapy pamphlet because people couldn't handle an imperfect victim. Hades is a wife guy who shows little to no anger. Hera was re written to be sort of a feminist so that people stopped being annoying about women having emotions.

LO is a sweet, simple story with tiny spicy things here and there that were eventually pushed aside because people couldn't handle it. I wonder how Rachel feels about this, because at the beginning the story was extremely spicy and the only crime was being published in a platform as webtoon, full of people who can't differentiate reality from fiction.

Is LO a masterpiece? Idk! I enjoy the story, it's very self indulgent for me, but I won't go and analyze every detail to see how it should be labeled as it's not meant to be a perfect media. It's meant to be an entertaining, nice story of romance and it does that job very well. This need to demand perfect writing while also crucifying authors over "dark" themes is ridiculous and contradictory.

And I keep wondering, if these people loathe LO so much, why dedicate all that time to the infinte posts they make about how they would have told the story? And all those re tellings are boring! It's always "So Persephone and Hades won't ever kiss here because she's a lesbian. Also he doesn't appear at all. And Demeter isn't an abusive mom! Oh and everyone is ugly because gods shouldn't be beautiful! And Apollo isn't evil he's uwu baby. And no toxic relationships here, Zeus is a good husband!"

Sweet Gaia, you guys wouldn't handle Saint Seiya having Athena in the body of a teenage girl with big tits and who's constantly in the edge of breaking her virginity vows. This attitude screams of jealousy and puritanism and both are disgusting.

TLDR: LO being too problematic for people is both funny and annoying. I wished it actually were as kinky and dark as people insist it is. I'd pay for a toxic romance, but that being said, I LOVE it very much as it is and it's nice to have a re telling that, while not pretending to be loyal to mythology, didn't go for a route of sanitizing all the myths. I hope that once it ends haters will move on and let real fans and the author alone. 🙏

[jaysgirlx]

Hey! First things first, I absolutely adore your writing. I though about something for Jason. Well, that request only makes sense if you've read Batam: Wayne Family Adventures on Webtoon (if you haven't, read it! It's awesome). In chapter 5, the Batboys have a push-up competition during the day and by dinnertime everyone is almost dead from tiredness and pain in their arms, they can't even eat, I thought of the reader feeding Jason while the others laugh or beg for it help too.

awww thank you for the compliment and I have read the Batfam comic!

❥ pairing: jason todd x batfam f!reader au

❥ warnings: just jason begging for help and attention (we need more of these)

❥ wc: 474

"Sweetheart pleaseeee"

"Jason Peter Todd, you are a grown man, figure it out"

"C'mon just feed me, it won't kill ya"

"Would you like for me to kill you?"

"No ma'am?" He said looking back at his dinner ate full of food. You then looked over at the rest of the brothers struggling to even move their arms and sighed. You looked around the room, reminding yourself how ridiculous all of this was. Then looked at who was shoving his face at his food like a toddler.

"Fine, I'll feed you"

The room went silent quickly and all eyes fell on you for a brief moment. Tim dropped the spoon that he had been holding up with his food and Dick looked like he was about to burst into laughter.

I'll never live this down, will I?

"Awww you're the best-" before Jason could finish you shoved a spoonful of his food into his mouth and repeated that act. By now everyone at the table was laughing and not necessarily at you but at Jason who seemed to almost be choking on his food.

"Wait, wait-"

"You wanted to be fed so I'm feeding you Jay,

"But-" another spoonful of rice.

"Now stop talking while your mouth is full!"

No matter how annoying this man was, you loved him endlessly.

-

After quite an eventful dinner, you were now lying in Jason's arms though it was just less than an hour ago that you had been shoving food down his through like a mad woman.

"m'sorry baby for annoying you," Jason said holding you close to his chest. He stroked your back, gently massaging some rigid or tense areas. He loved playing around with you but never when it upsets you. "I didn't mean to make you mad"

You giggle and cup his face into your hands, "It's okay Jaybird, plus it was fun shoving all that food down your mouth" you say, pinching his cheeks softly, which were now probably sore from all the food you had shoved in his mouth. C'mon you know he deserved it, even though you could've been a bit nicer.

You could never truly be mad with Jsson even when he did things that annoyed you all day. The feelings you had for him cancelled out any other feeling you got. You hadn't even been mad when he enacted that stupid contest with his brothers. You knew it was ridiculous but you liked that about him, you liked that Jason still loved to have fun and be competitive. It gave you a reason not to worry about him, not that you really had to.

The way the two of you just lay there in each other's arms always made you feel warm and fuzzy, there was no way for you to be mad at him at this point. You just wanted to enjoy the time you got to spend with Jason even if he was annoying for the majority of it.

"It was fun for your babe, not me for me"

"Then next time feed yourself!"

"Whatever say, pretty girl"

"Jason-"

"You still like me right?" Jason asked half seriously, half joking. He hoped that he hadn't upset you but he couldn't tell, he was really bad when it came to reading you. "Cause I get it if you really are angry" he said quietly.

You sigh with a soft smile painting your lips, "I could never be mad at you Jay"

[genericpuff]

Familiarity in the Unknown - The Book Written by Tiny Paws

So there's this story you may or may not be aware of. It's about a rat who, despite being a rat, expresses a deep love for creating and cooking, often through unorthodox means and yet - throughout the unorthodox - compels us to think about the virtue of art and our own place in the world.

I know, completely absurd concept, why would a rat be cooking? It's ridiculous - but absolutely beautiful in its execution and simplicity. Our main character exists within a world that is treacherous, endlessly massive, occupied by strange creatures that could hurt him - even kill him - where good food and joy is hard to come by and living for oneself is against the tenets of his society's herd-mentality - but he is able to persevere and break through the difficulties of this world through his joy for food, for cooking, for the fire and smells, for satisfying his curiosity of the unknown, for expressing himself through the creation of art and, subsequently, for the love of the community and friendship that only grows in response to his sincerity.

Who am I kidding though, you know who I'm talking about, I don't need to keep patronizing you with wordplay and flowery descriptions. I'm obviously talking about The Book Written by Tiny Paws-

The Book Written by Tiny Paws isn't really a comic that I found so much as it found me in my daily scroll through my feed of notifications, featured in a user-submitted post to the /r/webtoons subreddit, discussing their newest update. There are a lot of comics that get promo'd in these communities and for the most part, none of them really ever compel me to read them, usually due to elements outside of the creator's control - they aren't a genre I'm interested in, the art style isn't gripping me, I'm just not in the mood to pick up anything new, etc.

But every now and then, something breaks through my own mentally enclosed barrier and reaches the innermost parts of my brain. And strangely enough, this time around, it was this little guy:

I did not know his name. I did not know what species he was supposed to be. I mean, he looks like a rat at first glance, but he also has little webbed feet like a platypus. I didn't even really pay much attention to what he was saying at first - all I could look at was his sincere little face. And once I snapped out of the cuteness hypnosis and read his dialogue, I suddenly found myself already hooked even before I read a single page. I wasn't sure what to expect, just so long as I could see more of this cute little guy.

By the end of the 9 episodes it had available at the time, not only was I more in love with this tiny creature than I was when I started, but I had the realization that this was going to be one of those rare, magical occasions when a piece of work would grab me and refuse to let go.

The Book Written by Tiny Paws is, to put it simply, a story about a creature known as "Firemaker" trying to find his way back to his herd after being separated from them during a flood so devastating that it drowns the earth beneath its waters. We are shown immediately the nature of this world - barren, bleak, cruel - but Firemaker describes it with the curiosity and wonder of a child experiencing all of it for the first time.

We're also immediately introduced to another core character - a stranger named "Vagabond" who does not seem to belong to a herd.

From its first two pages alone, The Book Written by Tiny Paws exceeds in what many comics struggle to do - it not only introduces us to its main character through his personality alone, but presents us the creator's approach to storytelling and worldbuilding: familiarity in the unknown.

Throughout each episode, alongside Firemaker, Vagabond, and the others who come and go throughout the world, we learn about how this world operates, and how they have been surviving in it. We learn that the flooding is actually a regular enough occurrence that creatures like Firemaker count their ages by how many rains they've survived. We learn that there are other creatures described only by their physical traits, and are left only with our own assumptions based on their word choice and imagination as to what they're referring to. There isn't any sign of human life, but human-like intelligence is present as creatures like Firemaker and Vagabond are able to communicate, count, multiply, use tools, and, as we see above with Firemaker, make logical connections between cause and effect (even if they're initially wrong).

Many of these concepts are familiar to us, if not absolutely mundane and outdated, but through the eyes of Firemaker and Vagabond, we get to see those same concepts re-contextualized in a world that is unlike our own. In this way, The Book Written by Tiny Paws asks us to re-explore the mundane through the eyes of creatures that rely on our privileges for their survival.

And when it's not re-contextualizing, it's introducing us to new concepts entirely that make this story and its world feel wholly unique. One such unique concept is the way in which they count - a system of multiplication through simple geometry.

It should be mentioned, before I get in any further - the creator of this work, Nolinno, proclaims themselves as "more of a physicist than an artist", and while I do believe they're not giving themselves enough credit for the art (which I will get into soon), their passion for physics shows immensely, showcasing not only their love for learning, but their affinity for teaching as well. It takes someone who really knows their stuff to be able to explain it as simply as possible for the layman such as myself to understand - and even then, not everyone who is well-trained in their field of study can necessarily teach it well - and yet Nolinno has done an extraordinary job so far of explaining their story's concepts in ways that are both simple to grasp and rewarding to master. Specifically, they reward the readers' ability to retain information and engage with it through their own conclusions, largely by creating opportunities in the text for that information to become relevant.

One of the earliest examples of this is when Vagabond initially reveals his age to be what first-time readers will assume is the number '11', and from there we can assume that '11 rains' must be significant as Firemaker seems astounded by this.

But then, we immediately find out that Firemaker himself hasn't learned to count that high, prompting Vagabond to teach him how to count higher than 3, which is when we get to learn the actual details of that aforementioned counting system built on multiplication and geometry.

It's through this explanation that we learn that Vagabond isn't 11, but the text doesn't explicitly tell us - it asks us as readers to instead follow along with Vagabond's teachings and come to our own answer.

And so, I'm not going to tell you the answer here either! There's a top comment on this particular episode that's gotten it right (as confirmed by the creator like a very proud elementary school teacher, awww), but consider that more of an answer key if you want to know if you got the correct answer. And if you feel like Vagabond's explanation here is too limited or you want more examples, nothing to fear - Nolinno has given us a study guide!

What I adore about this is that as much as I'm intimidated by mathematical concepts like this, I genuinely appreciate when a creator puts in the effort to establish ground rules like this, and in such a natural, sincere way. It challenges you just enough to compel you to try, but not so much that it's completely alienating or overwhelming.

And thanks to Firemaker's characterization, we don't feel so alone in learning these concepts, either. Firemaker's own inexperience on account of being only "three times three" years old (he's 9!) he makes a perfect surrogate for the audience to learn about the world through him. This isn't an uncommon storytelling trick, but can often come at the expense of the character's own personality - after all, if a character is constantly having to be a surrogate for the audience, it can lead to them becoming more of a blank slate without any voice - but Nolinno has accomplished that balance perfectly through Firemaker's curiosity and vulnerability. Firemaker being 9 years old and still inexperienced doesn't rob him of his own skills - more so, it's clear that he's fulfilled a specific role for his pack, and now that he's been separated from them, he's now having to learn the skills that were likely reserved for other members of his pack.

This also makes him a perfect foil to Vagabond, a creature whose past is still shrouded in mystery but is clearly experienced and can act as the parental figure or "older brother" to Firemaker - but we're always left wondering why Firemaker has left his pack, and whether or not those survival tactics were taught to him through his pack or learned the hard way after leaving. It ultimately leaves us wondering what Vagabond's true motives are, and whether or not he can be trusted as a role model to Firemaker. Fortunately, nothing so far has made me or even Firemaker doubt his capabilities or motives, even earning himself a new name-

-but in a world so unpredictable, who's to say that Vagabond's own motives are entirely pure?

After all, as we soon learn, not all creatures are kind in this world.

Again, in case it needs reminding - Firemaker is nine. Though 9 years old for a rat-platypus creature may not be equivalent to 9 years old for a human, it is still very much communicated to us through the narrative that he is a child and, as such, is going to have his safety threatened in this world the same way a child often would in our own - through the cruel actions of untrustworthy adults.

But, as I mentioned already, Firemaker is never made to be the constant ball and chain of the pair. Though he may just now be learning how to count and multiply higher than 3, he's earned his name through his own particular skills that can be used to not only save himself from starvation, but save others from ambush through the use of smoke signals.

Of course, as much as I can gush about the narrative, I also wouldn't forgive myself if I neglected to mention its art style which, despite being created by one person who claims to not be much of an artist, wonderfully complements its theme and tone. I would go so far as to argue that this is one of those stories that just simply wouldn't work as effectively as it does if it had a full color art style. The contrast of black and white between the environment and its characters, as well as the simplicity of the character designs against the more detailed designs of the architecture and props, makes for a brilliant visual presentation that - like the worldbuilding - expresses itself clearly without overcomplicating anything. Through its art - just like through its writing - it asks us to try and find familiarity in the unknown.

And best of all, when things do get complicated-

-it harshly reminds us how quickly a simple and beautiful thing can turn ugly and cruel.

Even though it was initially Firemaker's cutesy little face that suckered me in, the worldbuilding that Nolinno has expertly crafted through their own knowledge and affinity for teaching others has stolen the show. And that's a quality that I find is quite rare in fantasy works nowadays, but just like the culinary arts of that other rat who's far more well-known, it came from a completely unexpected place.

Nolinno has accomplished what I find a lot of budding fantasy writers struggle with - they have successfully created a world that is full of its own unique qualities, and communicated it clearly to their audience in a way that is both engaging and rewarding. Unlike others who often put the lore before the story - usually by dumping every bit of exposition, conlang definition, map and political chart on their readers before they've had a chance to even read the first page or know the main character's name, often out of fear that all their prep work will have been "wasted" if they don't reveal all of it immediately - Nolinno simply shows us their world and its inhabitants as they are, without the need to justify itself, and invites you to join along at your own pace, with helpful little bits of knowledge communicated through the narrative to help you find your way. It's okay if you're not entirely certain of how this world works, because you're not travelling alone - so too are Firemaker and Knower finding their way.

As someone who was raised on the works of Jeff Smith (BONE) and Bill Watterson (Calvin and Hobbes), and even found their own passion for fantasy writing through both comics and video games like The Legend of Zelda, I have a lot of appreciation for stories like this that can be appreciated by all age demographics, and I've found myself almost disillusioned by the current landscape of conveyer-belt media today that often fails to live up to even a fraction of what we remember existing 20 years ago, existing only to pad a rich executive's bottom line. This has only been further exacerbated by the advent of generative AI that's now threatening the integrity and livelihood of artists both within the industry and outside of it.

Suffice to say, just like the world that Firemaker inhabits in The Book Written by Tiny Paws, our world is very bleak right now. Even still, its characters still find their moments for joy, for rest, and for play, and the comic in and of itself reminds me through its existence that there are still wonderful works being made that are capable of making me feel as curious and excited as I did when I was reading BONE cover-to-cover at the age of 12.

Those moments and those stories feel harder to come by than ever, but I'm happy to say that The Book Written by Tiny Paws is one of them, new memories that I'm happy to have made and am eager to continue to make - familiarity in the unknown.

[cocogum]

Ankama Shop is wild for this…(and i love it)

A few weeks ago, I came across this cute Amalia figurine that I found on the official Ankama shop and I couldn’t resist buying it.

When I eventually received it from the mail not too long ago and opened it, I couldn’t help but snort cuz omg I gotta point something out.

Now first of all, lemme just say that yes, the figurine was gorgeous and beautifully packaged. There were no problems with the figurine itself, nothing was broken.

It’s not the figurine I wanted to address but rather the quote that came along with it.

You see, apparently when you buy a wakfu figurine of a character, they come with a small quote that belongs to them to represent who they are as a person. The quote can come from the game, a manga/webtoon panel, or just the show itself.

Out of all the quotes Ankama could’ve plastered on her, guess what quote they used for her :

Now at first glance, this quote might sound sweet and encapsulates how Amalia is an empath at heart and dislikes bloodshed especially if it’s for something ridiculous and pointless.

BUT IF YOU REMEMBER WHEN AND WHERE SHE SAID THIS, YOU’D THINK ANKAMA WAS TROLLING!!!

She said this when she wasn’t in her right mind and told Yugo he was replaceable when she knew she could get that eliotrope ass instead, are you kidding me-

Ankama you’re screwing with me, right?

Please say yeah.

LOOK ME IN THE EYES AND TELL ME THIS ISN’T REAL STOP PLAYING WITH ME‼️‼️

[evilwickedme]

hey it’s me from the Batman posts! (the one that left the tags abt wanting to get into Batman but having no clue where to start)

If its not too much trouble, I’d love any advice on where to start with Batman or Batfam(?) stuff, I saw someone suggest reading the Batman: Wayne Family Adventures thing on webtoon as an intro to the characters so I’ve been doing that, but I’ve got no clue about any of the official comics or shows/movies/etc. I’ve never read a comic series before so everything is super new to me.

I know different series(?)/versions(?) can be wildly different bc of different writers and stuff, I definitely trust your taste on what would be good / enjoyable bc the posts you’ve been reblogging are like 90% of whats gotten me interested in the first place

Thank you, and absolutely no rush!!

Hey I am legit SO happy that you sent me this ask this is literally my favorite thing to do!!!!

So to start with I do actually agree that wfa is a good starting point but for a different reason than I feel most people would recommend it. The thing about wfa is that it has a consistent design for every character, is humorous, touches not only on the main batfamily members but also many extended members, other noteworthy people in Gotham, and the batfamily's cast of friends and teammates as well. This means that while its approach to characterization is incredibly fanon-y, it's a good basis for how to continue. You read wfa, and you know that Dick is the first robin, wears ridiculous costumes, was batman for a bit, is nightwing, part of the teen titans... this isn't a lot, but it's just enough to orient yourself before jumping into some of the most convoluted art ever created, aka the comic world.

Another tip I'm gonna give you is to let yourself be confused. I think the people who end up sticking with comics are people who are aware that if they pick up a comic it's very likely the writers and artists have read and worked on comics that you haven't read yet or even heard of, so you're always going to be missing something. That's fine. If something is really important to the plot, it gets explained; if it's not, it's windowdressing. Often there'll be little boxes saying what comic and issue they're referencing, so if you find it interesting you can just go read it - otherwise, if it's not there, you can google it, or go to any comic fan and ask "hey do you know what this is about?" and if they know, they will answer. There is nothing a comic fan wants more than to explain how to get into their favorite character/s, trust me.

Anyway this has been a very wordy intro but here are some potential starting points for the batfamily!

Bruce Wayne

You know who he is. Pick up an issue of Batman or Detective Comics and he's there. Pick up an issue of any other DC comic and there's like a 30% chance he's there too.

Batman: The Long Halloween

Noir style, investigative, early in batman's career, two face's origin story

It has a sequel-ish story called Batman: Dark Victory that's almost as good

Batman: Hush

Batman: Year One

Frankly there's not going to be much information in this comic you don't already know, but also, it's a classic, so might as well

Batman: A Death in the Family & Batman: A Lonely Place of Dying (crossover with the new teen titans)

First story is Jason's death, second is Tim's introduction and arguably the start of the batfamily being a family

Tim drags Dick back into the fray in ALPOD. It's just sort of the kind of thing he does

Do NOT confuse A Death in the Family with Death OF the Family, which is a much newer story, and Not Good

Batman: Under the Red Hood

Jason's villain arc! More details below

Batman himself isn't actually my favorite but you know he's got some decent stuff since he's, uh, the main character. DC doesn't have a multiverse the way Marvel does - and getting into that would be a whole separate ask - but their elseworlds are stories about the characters in different situations. Some ones I've heard good things about include Gotham by Gaslight, Dark Knights of Steel, Batman: Last Knight on Earth, and I keep meaning to get into Batman: White Knight, which is a whole other universe on its own. I've been trying to get into more modern batman stuff and unfortunately I just haven't clicked with anything.

Dick Grayson

Guy has been in a lot of things. If you read a random Batman comics from before 1980, there's a good chance he'll be there.

Teen Titans and The New Teen Titans and Titans (1980s-2000s)

I haven't read enough of these to say much of anything, but he's a founding member of the TT

Nightwing

His post-Robin superhero identity. At first only present in NTT and occasional Batman comics, but eventually he gets his own miniseries in the early 90s, followed by an ongoing. Recently-ish started reading them and they're angsty and very 90s in a lot of ways but I'm enjoying it

Modern Nightwing titles also exist. For sure.

Batman & Robin by Morrison

In one of DC's ten million crises, Bruce "dies", and after a short story called Battle for the Cowl, Dick ends up becoming Batman. Damian is his Robin. It's an interesting time for batman comics, although not necessarily the best writing that Dick has ever gotten.

Batman: The Dark Mirror

Also a great story for the Gordons. Bruce is back from the dead, but Dick is still Batman in Gotham. This was my first even Batman comic and it's really good.

Obviously there's other stories, such as Grayson, where he becomes a super spy for a bit. There's a million and a half reading lists for Dick out there as he's a massively popular character and he's one of the characters DC is pushing the most right now. As with all the rest of these, these are good entry points; from there I trust you to find your way

Barbara Gordon

The original Batgirl, sort of (nobody really brings up bette kane unless they're pointing out that babs wasn't the original Batgirl, she's just not important). She appears sporadically in silver and bronze age batman comics and detective comics, but she quits being Batgirl shortly before being raped and shot in the spine by the joker in Batman: the Killing Joke, which I purposefully did not put on my rec list.

Birds of Prey

Babs-as-Oracle at her best.

Batman: The Dark Mirror

Babs' long lost brother comes back to town. It's fucked up.

I've been reliably told to stay away from her Batgirl runs - most people who are a fan of the character don't like that they retconned Oracle away and it's mostly not very well written. There's a comic called batgirls that lasted about a year that included her, and it's okay.

Jason Todd (my beloved)

MY MAN

Batman: Second Chances

Collected edition of Jason as Robin, so much fun. Extremely silly at times since it's the 80s.

Batman: A Death in the Family

For obvious reasons.

Then he's just sort of dead for 17 years. He shows up in heaven in a Green Arrow issue and is occasionally brought up or shown as a hallucination, but that's about it.

Batman: Under the Red Hood

There's a new crime lord in town and he's so smart and talented and hot omg I wonder who he is!!!!

The collected edition also comes with the annual that reveals how he came back to life

Task Force Z

This shouldn't be as good as it is.

Jason gets recruited to work with a team of undead villains

Jason gets called a hot a bunch of times, and is shirtless a lot. This doesn't matter but you know, like, yeah it does.

For Robin!Jason there's also Batman: The Cult - which I finally got my hands on recently but haven't read yet. For Red Hood!Jason there's lots of stuff, but most of it isn't very good or is actively bad. Most people will tell you to stay away from Red Hood and the Outlaws, and they're right, although the 2016 run is better. Most people will tell you to read Batman & Red Hood: Cheer, and they're wrong, it's ass.

Tim Drake

Frankly this boy has no flops. Or very close to it.

Batman: A Lonely Place of Dying

Tim figured out who Batman and Robin are at AGE NINE. Respect.

After this he appears in various Batman and detective comics issues, I haven't read any of these.

Robin

The first Robin to get his own ongoing! Like with Nightwing, it started with a miniseries (a few of them, actually) and got turned into a long running series from there. Lasted like 200 issues, too.

Tim FUCKS.

Not Steph's first appearance, but most of her appearances pre-2009 are in this series.

Young Justice 1998

It's insane in all the best ways. Cars have sex on panel. They play baseball to save the world on an alien planet. A power of friendship speech prevents the end of the world. In the first issue, a woman develops breasts so big she falls on her face.

This team eventually breaks apart and Tim along with 3 other teen heroes nicknamed the core four (Superboy, Impulse, & Wonder Girl II) become part of Teen Titans 2003, which I haven't read and is also a bit of a flop era fashion wise for everyone anyway. I do have the volume of TT03 where they meet the versions of themselves from the future and I plan on reading that soon-ish.

In the mid 2000s basically everyone Tim loves dies. Steph died in 2004 ish after a very short stint as Robin. Tim's mom dies, then his dad is murdered, and it's unclear what happened to his step mom, but she was in Bludhaven, which had an atomic bomb dropped on it. Impulse becomes kid flash becomes the flash becomes murdered, and superboy gets killed while saving the world. Steph does turn out to not be dead after all and Impulse and Superboy come back from the dead eventually but by God he's having a tough year BEFORE Bruce "dies".

Red Robin 2009

After Bruce "dies" and Dick becomes Batman, Dick makes Damian his Robin and nobody believes Tim that Bruce is still alive, so he steals the Red Robin costume and goes on a mission to save his dad!

Not a comic to read first because it's so uncharacteristic of Tim as a person, but definitely something to read as soon as possible, because it's ridiculously good.

After flashpoint/n52 Tim doesn't have his own ongoing for a while, but he does come out as bisexual in an early issue of Batman Urban Legends (2021) and he got his own ongoing called Tim Drake: Robin in 2022 which was ugly AF and yet cancelled far too soon. There's a Young Justice run from 2019 I haven't read yet.

Stephanie Brown

For her I would go to Google, bc I haven't gone down the rabbithole enough for her yet. I know her first appearance was in a batman comic where she became spoiler to spoil her dad's plans - her dad being a third rate villain called the cluemaster - and she almost kills him, so good for her. Afterwards she appears every once in a while in various comics, most notably in Robin, where she and Tim as Robin start dating despite him knowing her identity but not the other way around.

Robin 60s (I don't remember the exact issues)

Steph gives birth and gives her baby up for adoption

Robin 126-128

Steph becomes Robin when Tim quits for his still-alive-but-not-for-long dad.

War Games

Steph does a fucky wucky and accidentally starts a gang war which gets her killed

There's another Robin arc where she comes back and it turns out she was never dead, Leslie (the family doctor) simply faked her death and sent her to Africa to recover

Batgirl 2009

Her first and only solo ongoing, but it's really good

She also appears a lot in Cass's Batgirl ongoings, and occasionally shows up in yj98. Her most recent series in Batgirls, which isn't very good but her interactions with Cass are very gay, and we've all been shipping it for 20 years at this point, so frankly it's long overdue. Unlikely to become canon tho, unfortunately.

Cassandra Cain

She doesn't use a lot of words, so neither will I. Probably.

No Man's Land

Frankly I am terrified to read this, it's so many goddamn issues, but this is her first appearance. I have one "volume" and it's as big as the fucking Bible.

Batgirl 2000

She's the first Batgirl to get an ongoing. The one from 2008 I've been reliably told isn't very good. She's absolutely terrifying in the 2000 one, I approve.

Outsiders 2016

Supposed to also be good for Duke content. I think at this point she's going by Orphan? Idk she's had a lot of names.

Idk I prefer Black Bat

Spirit World

Mini series that recently ended. Soooooo good. Alyssa Wong is a top contender for favorite modern writer.

She's mostly a background character. Bc DC is both sexist AND racist. She was also in batgirls.

Damian Wayne

Frankly he's my least favorite of the batkids, but that's not his fault, he's been a victim of a lot of really racist writing.

Batman: Son of the Demon

Somehow both his origin AND an elseworlds that doesn't count. Not required reading, but Bruce and Talia are madly in love in this.

Batman by Grant Morrison

After UTRH and before Dick was forced to become Batman Morrison reintroduced Talia's son, who in this version was a rape baby bc apparently brutalia weren't in love and Talia drugged Bruce. Fucking fine, I guess.

His character growth during his time as robin is sweet tho.

Robin 2021

His only solo ongoing, pretty good

Super Sons

He had two team up comics with then fellow child Jon Kent, son of superman, and it was fucking adorable. Then they aged up Jon to 17, so they're still friends, but Jon has his own shit going on.

Duke Thomas

He's REALLY new, and I haven't read any of it, I'm sorry.

Robin War

Batman and the Signal - I finally got my hands on the first issue of this last week!

The Outsiders 2016

Frankly they should capitalize on the Duke & Cass friendship/siblingship more often.

Alfred Pennyworth

I haven't read it, but there's a series called Pennyworth about his days as a spy for the crown. Supposed to be pretty good.

Kate Kane

The Jewish lesbian batwoman of our dreams

Batwoman: Elegy

Her introduction

Also, it's written by Greg Rucka, and if he can do one thing, it's write sapphic women. I'm not even joking.

Get the newer edition that has both of her original Rucka stories

Batwoman ongoings

She's had a couple, they're both supposed to be pretty solid, I've only read a few issues here and there

Batman in other media

Animated: I'm currently watching Batman the Animated Series for the first time and it seems to really get Bruce as a character, even if Robin will be there one episode and his existence will be a plot hole in the next. The Justice League animated series has also been fun so far. Teen Titans have gotten a number of animated adaptations all of which have pretty strong followings. There's an animated show called "Young Justice" which is a Teen Titans show and I refuse to watch it (it has a very devout following, but all that means is that the Young Justice - All Media Types tag on ao3 is just the same as Young Justice Cartoon and I have to filter heavily when looking for yj98 fics). Lego Batman is a REALLY fun film, and I think it turned into a whole franchise.

Live action TV: I have watched the first season of both Titans and Gotham, but both of those were before I was into the batfamily as a concept. My impression of Titans is overall negative and my impression of Gotham is overall positive.

Live action movies: There are so many Goddamn Batman movies. I like the Dark Knight Trilogy, but even calling it "based on" the Dark Knight comic trilogy is giving it a lil more credit than it deserves. The Batman 2022 is massively popular with the comic fandom for a reason - I'm not a big fan of it, but I did enjoy laughing at the movie so at least there's that. Batfleck sucks. I haven't seen anything else, up to and including the Joker movie. Oh, and Birds of Prey was really good, but that's not Cass.

Video games: The Arkham trilogy is well loved and I have indeed just bought it, but I haven't gotten to it because I'm currently working on Gotham Knights and uh. Okay so listen. This game is a lot of fun and I will be finishing it. But it's like. Got a massively antisemitic plot point. I can't even say I don't recommend it, I'm genuinely enjoying the game a lot. But I've never seen anybody bring this up, and it's bugging me.

ANYWAY I'm sure I've missed a LOT but this is introductory so you know I'm giving myself grace. There's characters I completely skipped and I'm sure mega fans of characters I haven't read much of will be offended that I said such and such about them but you know it's only been about a year and a half since I started reading dc comics and I'm still figuring it all out. And I probably will still be figuring it out for the next decade. To me that's actually part of the fun of it.

[absolutebl]

This Week In BL - I’m pleased with what’s airing, but conflicted about what’s ended & getting started

Aug 2023 Wk 1

Being a highly subjective assessment of one tiny corner of the interwebs. Organized by which ones (in each category) I’m enjoying most.

Ongoing Series - Thai

Laws of Attraction (Sat iQIYI) 4 of 8 - Omg the way the bodyguard (handler?) looks at the rich kid. Gah. I see why @heretherebedork​ loves these 2. But I really hate him (not the handler, the kid). Fun fight scene. I love lawyer babygirl SO MUCH. HE WILL BE MY 2023 FAV CHARACTER. I’M CALLING IT. This ep, Srs? You’re killing me. Suits! Pussycat bows! And then... The Public Claiming!!!!! One of my favorite tropes! And openly flirting? Boys. I’m getting spoiled. Wait… is that…? NO SINGING. Ah well, Thai BL giveth and Thai BL taketh away. 

Hidden Agenda that isn’t hidden (Sun GMMTV YouTube) ep 4 of 10 - I like the script for this. It feels like the conversations they have are very honest to a uni experience. It’s comfortable and breezy. I did not expect the kiss. Bit early in the arc. There is either going to be a lot of backend drama, or a long domestic honeymoon period. (Bet you can guess which one I vote for.) 

Low Frequency (Sat iQIYI) ep 5 of 8 - It’s moving along in a Ghost Host kinda way (minus the killer chemistry). I’m not mad about it, I don’t think I'll remember it tho. 

Be Mine Super Star (Mon Viki) ep 5 of 12 - My ambivalent relationship with this drama continues. Cohabitation trope. Punn is basically a huge puppy trying to spoil/cuddle/fuck his pretty kitty prince. It is what it is. Meanwhile, I just want more of Big Daddy & the Hot Doc. (Also the name of my burlesque show.) Why does Kevin have more chemistry with Ashi in a 1 min long scene than Punn has had… ever? Is this nascent bad boy effect or nascent 2nd lead syndrome I’m feeling? (Meanwhile Ben! Hi! Long time no see!) 

Be My Favorite (Fri YouTube) ep 11 of 12 - Whatever. Trash(ish) watch here. 

Dinosaur Love (Sun iQIYI) ep 6 of 8 eps - Aw pretty baby is unhappy his bf got injured. But also very blushing maiden. This is profoundly NOT GOOD. 

Wedding Plan (Weds YT & iQIYI) ep 3 of 7 - I have decided that Lom’s theme song is BigBang’s Monster. Listen. You’ll see what I mean. Also BigBang = also very problematic but banging. What I’m saying is, I wanna punch Lom so bad, I went slightly bonkers. Water sports are addressed. A trash watch is happening!

Ongoing Series - Not Thai

Jun & Jun (Korea Thurs Viki) 3 of 8 - How DARE they make me love this show so much? I feel personally attacked. The smell thing! Gah. The way they automatically go informal in private. The flirting. The language. The suits, the EVERYTHING. It’s embarrassing how much I rewatch the final bits of each ep. 

Stay By My Side (Taiwan Fri Gaga) 6 of 10 eps - I adore this ridiculous show. (I just realized that the actor playing Jiang Chi played Ray’s evil 2-timing bf in About Youth). Baby boy is quite clueless. Sweet dreams tho. I love them both so much. The washing his jersey scene was so fucking cute. Couple’s numbers, couple’s keychains, bridal towel, kisses. Thank you Taiwan for NOT activating blushing maiden. However, confident gay/confused bisexual is a go. And we got us some justifiable angst. Sigh. I’m so happy. 

Sing My Crush AKA Follow The Wind (Korea Weds iQIYI) 1-2 of 8 eps - supposed to have released in the first half of 2022 this is a adaption of Myung’s webtoon, from the director of My Sweet Dear, and Love Tractor’s production house, basically Korea does About Youth. It’s sweet (the singing bits are easy to skip) and very much a story of young first love but less stiff than KBL’s usual high school fare (kinda Taiwan feeling). I like it but that very imprecision in production makes me concerned for an HEA, especially with such a low MDL rating. 

Tokyo in April is... AKA Shigatsu no Tokyo wa (Japan Fri Gaga) ep 8fin  - Rough final episode, but it does end happily. Fortunately, I had some warning for my personal triggers, but this is Japan and they did go dark. Full review below. 

Minato's Laundromat Season 2 AKA Minato Shouji Coin Laundry Season 2 (Japan Thu Gaga) 5 of 12 eps - Shin is so cute and proud and boldly out. I love him. Movement in the relationship with both couples, even if it’s movement into arguments and misunderstanding. I suppose we got 12 eps they need to do... something.  

Stay Still (Hong Kong Tues YouTube) 1 of 5 eps - It’s confusing. And… not good? Some flashbacks some present day? 

It’s airing but ...

Stay With Me ... NO I WILL NOT! And you can’t make me.

Review: Tokyo in April is... AKA Shigatsu no Tokyo wa

I had to chew on this for a while but here’s where I ended up. 

Two young men with a shared tragic past reunite and fall in love all over again, but the past will not stop hunting them. Based on a manga, this office set reunion romance is GREAT… damn it. It’s Japan in full on soft focus which means it gets emo, abusive, and chewy. These two characters are giving parts of their souls away in a desperate attempt to shape themselves to the expectations they have of each other. 

Japan gave us the Bed Friends that Thailand could never even imagine. But here’s the thing: I don’t enjoy my BL this heavy and cutting. I know that for The 8th Sense crowd this is peak BL and I can’t argue with the fact that the romantic devotion, domesticity, script, and acting IS all on point. It’s just not my personal preference for that point to be so damn sharp. I appreciate that this being 2023 I have the luxury of consistent quality (especially from Japan) and thus the ability to say… 

I acknowledge that this SHOULD get a 9/10 but I can’t emotionally go higher than 8/10 

RECOMMENDED BUT KNOW WHAT KIND OF BL THIS IS AND TRIGGER WARNINGS LIKE CRAZY 

Japan = sticking to its lanes like their BL is on rails. 

Next Week Looks Like This:

Starting: 

8/11 Love Class Season 2 (Korea Fri Viki) 10 eps 

8/12 My Personal Weatherman AKA Taikan Yoho (Japan Sat Gaga) 8 eps 

Still Coming August 2023

8/19 Love in Translation (Thai Sat One31) ? eps - Two strangers start working in a cafe together.

8/19 I Feel You Linger in the Air (Thai Sat Gaga) 12 eps - The time travel historical romance many of us have been waiting for. 

8/20 My Universe series (Thai Sun iQIYI) 24 episodes - This is sampler pack BL, 12 pairs, each pair gets 2 eps, not sure on the order they’ll drop. Known couples include EarthBank from Destiny Seeker and KaownahTurbo from Love Stage!!!, mostly fresh faces otherwise. Jane to direct several.

8/22 Kisseki: Dear to Me formerly known as Miracle (Taiwan Tues ????) 13 eps - From screenwriter Lin Pei Yu (We Best Love, H3: Trapped) features a student doctor forced to take care of a gangster. I love the premise and like the writer, Viki or Gaga will get this one.  

8/24 Man Suang (Thailand movie, domestic cinema release) - historical drama about Thai burlesque with KP’s MileApo. Tong is in this one too?

8/? Why R U? (Korean remake) is supposed to be out this month, filming started in sept 22. I find everything about this hilarious. I mean if Korea remakes it, we lose all the sexy and then... would we have a story at all? No we would not. Not even for six short eps. It’d be like one of those mesh shopping bags.

Oh yeah, Only Friends is coming. 

2023 forthcoming BL master post (see comments, some are inaccurate, NOT KEPT UPDATED)

THIS WEEK’S BEST MOMENTS

Hidden Agenda. I love them. 

Public claiming with the waist grab maneuver! A true hero. 

But I think we can all agree that THIS is the hero all love triangles deserve. (both Laws) 

(Last week) 

[finisnihil]

Watching the general populous of Webtoon hate Rashta from The Remarried Empress so violently, to the point of making her ridculing nickname a synonym for The Other Woman archetype, is really exhausting for a number of reasons, with the main one being that there are numerous female main leads of similar stories that fit that characterization of her more.

I love The Remarried Empress but the readers love to blame Rashta for EVERYTHING that happens in it, when at the end of the day, Rashta is just an antagonist. I know! Shocking! Rashta is not the driving force of the story! You know who is? SOVIESHU.

Sovieshu has always been the main villain. He is the one with all the power, he is the one who created a situation that pit these women against each other. Rashta was a slave because her father was a criminal, being Soveishu's mistress was a means of survival. Like, of course she sucks ass at scheming! She never had an education, and Sovieshu stalled on giving her one because he was ATTRACTED TO HER CHILDISH DEMEANOR. Soveishu liked Rashta because she was what Soveishu wanted from Navier and she sucked up to him in the ways he wanted! Because she needed to in order to survive! Her mistake was becoming paranoid, arrogant, and cruel to continuously provoke Navier, but that was also at the urging of another man: Duke Ergi! Because Rashta is uneducated and vulnerable and she thinks he's her only support system! She went through the trouble of ousting Navier at Ergi's suggestion and Soveishu began to just use Rashta as a baby factory, because as Rashta became like Navier to survive the political world and as he realized he lost Navier, he stopped caring about her. He never saw her as a human, he only saw her as a slate to project on the child version of Navier he was still in love with.

Now, i'm not gonna deny the heinous shit Rashta has done nor am I defending it, she is the antagonist, she does do cruel things that can't be excused, and that's factual. But the tragedy of her is that she was set up to fail by every single man in her life. She started seeing the women around her as competition because of those men. She never once had power and her frustration at her powerlessness and her disillusionment is valid. Navier was protected by her status as a noble, but Rashta had nothing and watching her crash and burn is satisfying but also sad. In another comic, she would be the female lead, and she would be safe and happy, she would be loved. To see the fandom boil her down to some man stealing bitch is really sad because it takes all the focus from Sovieshu. Instead of ripping him apart for using a system to abuse the women in his life, everyone rips apart Rashta for lashing out as a victim of that system.

You know who fits this dynamic more though? Diana from For My Derelict Favorite. Diana is a saintess with healing powers who was mistreated for being a commoner and married the Crown Prince. Hestia, the protagonist, targets her for revenge for a numerous amount of reasons, but what makes their conflict interesting is that Hestia is her equal. They were both commoners, they both are beloved by the world's god, they both rose in their station. The difference is that Diana is everything Rastha is percieved as. She still acts like a victim of the class system, despite the fact she's the crown princess and now has power and luxury. She looks down on the other nobles for their spending and ridicule of the lower class, yet doesn't realize she's become just like them. She casts aside Caelus for killing the novel's OG villains to save the empire, but has no problem acting like nothings wrong despite her treatment driving him to try and take his own life. She thinks herself objectively right and special and the minute anyone criticizes her, she turns on them, her husband included. She makes it a goal to steal Caelus from Hestia in order to hurt her and validate her behavior, thinking Caelus still loves her over Hestia. When Hestia makes soap accessible for the common people and makes advancments in changing the nobility's views of the lower class, Diana nitpicks her for it, because she can't stand to see Hestia take the limelight. She uses her power and privilege to bully and abuse others and then runs crying when she's called out on it.

The difference between these stories is clear. Rashta has no power and isn't the main villain, she doesn't have equal standing as Navier. She does a lot of her actions out of desperation for love and to survive while still being cruel. Diana and Hestia come from equal status; Diana is the one in the most power. She abuses the systems meant to mistreat those like her for her own benefit and nothing more. Helios is the antagonist while Diana is the villain, because it is Diana's actions that push the plot, akin to Soveishu. Helios and Rashta make things difficult, but they're really only along for the ride, and their interference in the plot happens because of the villains their characters serve.

[pruneunfair]

Women who deserve better, both in story and writting. *Spoiler warning*

Isabella de Mare

Shes who I think of when someone asks me which character has the most wasted potential. She's a horrible human being with no other qualities but that was fine because she was set up at first as this conniving mastermind behind it all, her whole monologe about not putting all your faith in men was pretty badass and she even knew Ceasre would fall out of love with her eventually, girl just wanted that power. Unfortunately authors didn't want her to be smarter or even as smart as the FL so they dumbed her down into a spoiled green tea bitch with a low intelligence stat.

Rhyse Sinclair

Honestly she's one of the better green tea women I've seen, I like that instead of her immediately trying to mess with Edith she's trying to be her friend and actually does a good job playing the role of the sweet saint while dropping hints of her new rotten nature. I think she was originally a sweet girl who wanted the best for Edith until the Author started to influence her more and more.

Iris Van Conrad

Correct me if I get something wrong cause i just started reading this one. While Iris is annoying and just the typical punching bag designed for the FL to basically say "I'm not like other girls." I kind of pity her, she's getting humiliated every which way. In the beginning the FL pours wine on her for insulting her dress and a comment said that was classy? That's literally the opposite of how to handle a situation with class, she's not hard to dislike but not hard to like either, I want to hope she'll become a real threat but it's unlikely

Rashta Ishka

Ah, the iconic Rashta and probably one of the most famous green tea bitches. This girl was done dirty by both the story and the writting. She's the anti-sue to Naviers Mary sue. She was a slave sold by her father, was taken advantage of by one of her masters and got pregnant, her child was then taken from her by her master and he gave her a dead baby he claimed was hers and that's only a slice of what she goes through.

Nobody really likes her, she's regarded as a stupid slave who barges in on the empress, Sovieshu happily takes advantage of her to try to make Navier jealous and her only friend is manipulating her into ruin, all while any chance at her being complex is destroyed by the writers who turn her from a smart grey character/Villainess to another wicked punching bag to be used as a stepping stone for Navier and Heinrey.

Aisha

Basically Rashta but even worse. She never succeeds in any of her plans or schemes and is always one step behind the girlboss protagonist Robelia. Aisha exists to be the "other girl" fans can make fun of. The moment the protagonist shows up, the ML (who I'd beg to differ is the sole conflict and not her) ditches her to be with Robelia now that's she's "interesting" leaving Aisha to basically throw childish tantrums as she fails to be better than the FL and worse yet, the writer justifies Alexandros cheating and is viewed as misunderstood while Aisha still a pick me concubine who's only personality is trying and failing to win over Alexandros.

Minthe

The only one who's not from a manhwa. Minthe is proof to me that no one on webtoon really cares if your a mistress just as long as your the protagonist. She is one of the few character in lore olympus written with acknowledged flaws and reasons to be upset, Hades gets in an emotional affair with Persephone and apparently she's evil for not sucking it up and being reasonably upset, she's often a victim of prejudice by the other characters and is literally called "nymph trash". Even the fans would ridicule her for being upset and getting in the way of the creepy ship between Hades and Persephone to the point of bodyshaming her and being overly happy when Persephone turned her into a plant. In the end Minthe gets a half-assed arc and leaves the story forever.

Diane Poitier

One of the other well written women in historical manhwas. She's treated pretty badly by everyone including her brother and the Emperor who she tries desperately to keep by her side and she wrongfully takes it out on the protagonist Adelheid but whats different between her and other concubines in other media, Diane was there before Adelheid so it gave a reason why she was defensive (not an excuse but a reason). Seeing her break down when Adelheid actually cared about her broke my heart and really showed just how little worth outside of the Emperor she really has for herself and makes some pretty nice character development for herself and died realizing she blamed her problems on the wrong person.

[saebeau]

Perfect Marriage Revenge is already my comfort drama and will be put on repeat frequently. These 2 virgins made my 2023!

As a person who finished the novel and, currently, is reading the webtoon, i aprecciate that they didn't change much of the story while doing the drama, honestly i'm even in awe that they put many interesting details that make the scenes more rich.

To me, all of this helped a lot for the better understanding and enjoyment of the drama, and of course, filled many non answered in-between parts left open in the novel and it's sooo refreshing to see, honestly!

I'm here today just give some facts till' today's episode, from the novel and the webtoon, that yall might find cool. I'm going to try to put in order ok?! NO SPOILERS AHEAD!

1 - Yi Joo dies hit by a car right after hearing a very "heartfelt" conversation between her husband and sister on their 1st wedding aniversary. She even buy a cake for that piece of shit! I liked that they put the detail of her husband covering her sister eyes on her dying spot.

2 - Yi Joo's paintings and art are pretty much on the drama, either the novel or the webtoon, they don't pay much attention to it. Yi Joo mostly wants just WJ Retail from her family in the story, period. Personally all the thing around her art gives her way more motives to get revenge and i love it!

3 - Se Hyeok is pretty much annoying both the novel e webtoon but is getting more lines on the drama. His motives are pretty much the same. Yoo Ra.

Se Hyeok is a "long time friend" of Yi Joo (everything being set by her stepmother). Yi Joo marries him not because of a "affection" like in the drama, it's much more like he is her safe haven, a person she trusts and can live peacefully (even at the cost of being in-laws with his shitty family). There is no love, romance or anything. They just live together living their lifes apart, interacting as friends. Her life with Se Hyeok looks a lot like the beginning of her life with Do Guk, no eating, sleeping or doing things together. In the drama looks like that too but with Yi Joo pinning over him a little bit but he doesn't care. Yi Joo romantic life does not exist before Do Guk.

4 - As Yi Joo dies by an accident, she does not know much about her stepmothers plans so, her rage is much more driven by the betrayal of Yoo Ra, Se Hyeok and all the lies and manipulations around her life, of course, things escalate as she keeps discovering everything. But the part of her stepmother unpluging her support machine is *chiefs kiss* and confessing everything was well made and put, and i give that a applause because makes Yi Joo more hurtless.

5 - I just wanted to point that this is Yi Joo's first kiss, maybe Do Guks too, i'm not sure, i'm gonna search it. In the novel and webtoon, if i'm correct, there's is a whole conversation about kissing on the altar on their wedding day, which they do and that's Yi Joo first kiss. Saying that pretty much explains her whole relationship with Se Hyeok.

6 - For Yoo Ra, some of you could have a glimpse of her future until now. She is much more driven by her mother ideas, plans, feelings and her own obsession on being better than her sister in everything, as Do Guk pointed out, which worked until now. But well, you all saw the ridicule she passes when she makes her own decisions and is driven by her envy and hatred for Yi Joo. Man, it will get worse, just wait and see.

7 - SHOUT OUT to pretty much everything else being as much alike as the novel and even the webtoon than i thought it would. The actors and actresses and doing a fantastic job, much love to SUNG HOON AND JUNG YOO MIN for their amazing performances that bought to life life the perfect Do Guk and Yi Joo that i was expecting.

Much love guys!

[winns-stuff]

LO RANT:

Because why not? I just don’t understand the way that fans think, on one hand we can’t associate or even compare Lore Olympus to the myths because they’ll say “well it’s her retelling she doesn’t have to do things exactly alike” but on the other hand when you’re talking about the story by itself they’ll then try to counter whatever argument against Lore Olympus by saying “this is what they did in the myths!! why are you guys mad at greek mythology??” so which one is it because it’s giving me a headache. I get so tired of seeing the exact same argument from fans it’s so redundant and I mean that in the nicest way possible, I’m sure a lot of you are great people but the things y’all say and do for this comic is insane.

Rachel is adding yet another sex scene and people are rightfully angry. We’re in the climax where the world is basically in an apocalyptic state and the gods are all in danger of having no mortals to worship them and give them any purpose and it’s all because of Persephone, no one is thinking “oh yeah this is the perfect time for intimacy” and if you wanted to give fan service to those who are craving it you should’ve did it in a more calmer setting?? No one is threatening Rachel and telling her that she needs to add these ridiculously high stakes to her comic which prevents her from smoothly writing NSFW of the main couple, she’s literally doing this herself which is one of the reasons why it gets so annoying whenever fans get mad at people for being upset or disappointed. She’s doing this to herself, am I saying harass the woman or cyber bully her? No but that’s not what a lot of these people are doing, in every single webtoon especially one as big as Lore Olympus you’re going to have people who view your content differently or disagree with the way you’ve written things. I’m not trying to encourage the idea of changing your entire story to bend to those people but a large majority of your fandom are starting to have the exact same complaints and it’s clear that your plots are not being fleshed out at all, these people are just asking (no, begging really) for a cohesive story not a masterpiece.

Which brings me to my next point, all of the criticisms and explanations many critics have been sharing are entirely valid. You cannot put a sex scene as a replacement to storytelling, it just never works since it adds virtually nothing to what’s happening. Especially right now when, like I said before, Rachel is starting to spiral the plot into chaos (I’m not being insulting by saying this it’s literally chaos it seems like all of the characters are in trouble) and introducing or welcoming back a lot of intriguing plot stories and characters that many people are excited to see. To make an odd and unnecessary shift to romance in the middle of absolute destruction is crazy, especially when none of it is earned. I’ve said this in my later rants but I’ll say it again because it’s true, the romance between Hades and Persephone has no stakes and it never will it seems since Rachel doesn’t even allow stuff like that to happen. Nothing about their romance keeps you straddled on for the ride or leaves you at the edge of your seat which is why so many people are bored with their dynamic if there even is one to begin with. Slow burns and other romances are all about the payoff that’s what everyone’s here to see, after chapters on chapters of wondering if their love will brave the dangers around them and between them we finally get our question solved with appropriate intimacy.

Lore Olympus as a whole rarely wants to develop actual relationships in real time, it only skips to “the good bits” while completely ignoring the fact that the entire bonding experience between your ships and your fans rely heavily on us actually witnessing their chemistry/bond and being shown why they should be together, not being told by forces outside of the relationship.

All in all the potential sex scene is just terrible timing on Rachel’s part and it should’ve been done while literally nothing was happening to avoid all of the backlash that it’s getting now.

[genericpuff]

"oh my god, the comic that opened its plot by saying that removing corporal punishments from schools was a bad idea and the teachers need to go back to beating up students turned out to be racist, who could have seen this coming!!"

Listen, okay, I don't want to dunk on the people who enjoy Get Schooled and genuinely didn't see the racism coming, but like... as someone who doesn't read Get Schooled and checked it out to see what the plot was even about following all the controversy these past couple days, y'all, the description is a hard fucking pass.

And I still checked out its first episode to give it more benefit of the doubt and... nah fam. Not saying we should have seen the racism coming a mile away but I'm baffled as to why people read this at all. I'm all for manga and webtoons with senseless or comical violence, but you still need to set the baseline for where that violence is taking place and what context it exists within. Naruto? Yeah, sure, students fighting the teachers, this is a fantasy universe based around the ninja arts, makes sense they're gonna fight each other and it seems like a mutual agreement. Assassination Classroom? The teacher literally isn't human and he's training his students on how to kill him otherwise he'll destroy their whole planet. Shit, even fucking Matilda handles it better because it's one kid being abused by the principal and that principal is so ridiculously abusive that the parents don't even believe the abuse is happening (to the point that this form of abuse and manipulation is often nicknamed "The Trunchbull Method" because it's designed to be so absurd that no one will believe the victim), so it winds up being on Matilda's shoulders to use her newfound gifts to teach her a lesson - but the story itself is meant to remind adults that kids are people and just because they're smaller and weaker than you doesn't give you a free pass to be abusive.

Point is, in all of those examples, you can create that suspension of disbelief in how the teachers and students behave towards one another because their entire plots require suspension of disbelief.

But Get Schooled is literally just... it's set in Korea, it's a normal high school story, there's nothing supernatural or unique going on with the students or the teachers, and there's no moral or lesson it's trying to express, it's literally just taking real life and saying, "hey, adults should be allowed to beat up kids". When has combatting violence with more violence ever been a solution in that kind of context? Why is this a comic that even exists, let alone on a platform that's regularly marketed to teenagers?

It's depressing. And just for the record, I was spurred on to make this post by the recent response from the team behind Get Schooled regarding the VERY racist plotline it recently released on the Korean version of the app.

Like... this is shit WT shouldn't have even been allowing to fly under the radar to begin with. The bar is on the floor. I also love how the creators of Get Schooled admitted to the fact that they were raised in a homogenous society but still thought they were up to the task of "bringing the issue [of multicultural racism] to light", when they, in fact, do the complete OPPOSITE within that episode by suggesting, "actually, if you're mixed race then you're the REAL bad guy, it's the pureblood Koreans who are the oppressed minority, there are so many immigrants these days!!" And "stopping hatred" sure is a big claim when the entire point of their comic is combatting hatred with hatred, or in Get Schooled's case, bullying with corporal punishment.

Yikes. Big fucking yikes.

[kazutakas-pinch]

Social Media Habits

Yuiji

Yuiji feels absolutely chronically offline to me. He constantly forgets to text his friends back and they've learned that they need to call him if they have anything important to say. He made an Instagram account because Hongou and Mayu forced him to follow them back and he's pretty indiscriminate with following classmates back when they ask him to because he doesn't really use the app. When he's waiting for the subway or his friend, he might scroll through recommended reels. Once in a blue moon, he'll post a blurry story of him petting Azuki.

Yamato

Yamato is pretty internet literate when it comes to browser stuff, but he doesn't spend much time on social media. His Instagram has less than 10 pictures on it and they're all from major events like winning the school soccer league or family vacations abroad. 233 accounts follow him and he follows 7. He always texts with perfect grammar and full sentences.

Hongou

Hongou only regularly uses three apps, but he's always signing up for new ones and forgetting his usernames and passwords. He's a huge Twitter user for following idols and is constantly commenting a string of heart emojis when they post selfies. He and Mayu relentlessly send reels to each other and he sends Yuiji silly posts when he's sitting right next to him to see his reaction. Recently, watching Yuiji's reaction to real or cake videos has been his favorite go-to.

Nacchan

Nacchan's not big on social media, but she's very attentive to her messaging apps and never leaves people on-read. Occasionally, she likes trying out baking hacks and aesthetic recipes that come by her feed. Most of her phone time though is spent on webtoon apps and she'll never admit how much money she's spent on unlocking chapters. She also loves customizing her phone's wallpaper and icons into cute themes.

Seki

Seki had a bad middle school phase of being a social media warrior with engaging in fandom fights on reddit and tumblr. Yamato just had to ask him once why he was in such a bad mood at soccer practice, and Seki deleted his accounts immediately. He has a healthy, vanilla relationship with social media now, though TikTok did briefly threaten to pull him to the dark side.

Mayu

Mayu's too easily fed up with stupidity to use social media regularly. She follows news outlets, cute animal content, and likes all the videos that Hongou sends, but she refuses to use any social media app that forces recommend content. If she can't pick and select the specific accounts that she wants to follow, she won't do it. She enjoys longform content the most and will play video essays on random topics or podcasts as background noise.

Sakura

Sakura constantly vagueposts and never replies if his followers or irl acquaintances ask him what's going on. He never posts selfies, but will post an occasional aesthetic picture of him raising his hand into the sun or his shadow on a bridge or some shit like that. He follows dumb accounts specifically to laugh and ridicule them. He never comments, but they frequently anger him and his boss constantly questions if it's healthy. (it's not.)

Akiyama

I've made this headcanon in my sleeping habits post, but I 100% think Akiyama is a doomscroller. Miyano had to force him to delete TikTok when it was first released because Akiyama just couldn't escape. Akiyama schedules MV drops for his favorite artists, follows a few too many twitch streamers, and has a toxic relationship with gatcha games. He wants all the waifus and his RNG is horrible.

Hibino

Hibino watches thirst trap TikTok under his covers and he can't really use social media in public because his fbi men have absolutely clocked how horny he is and his recommendations are shot.

[sweet-roulette]

・❥・ Kotoko Facts, part 1・❥・

・❥・ Since her English isn’t too good, she has both a kinda thick accent (of a Japanese person speaking English)

・❥・ She is very dependent on Google Translate to help her communicate with English speakers, she CAN speak proficient English, but like any introvert learning a new language, she’s not confident in it, so she’d rather use Google translate and recite whatever it says. 

・❥・ The problem is that Google Translate tends to translate Japanese to English a little wrong, with it usually translating too formal when Kotoko’s actual vocabulary consists of a lot of Japanese slang and such.

・❥・ Aside from the English problems, she also has a slightly DIFFERENT accent when speaking Japanese itself! She does speak standard Japanese, but she’s also from Kobe, where a dialect called Kansai-Ben is more commonly spoken. So instead of saying “Ikura Desu Ka?” (いくらですか?)”, which means “How much is it?” In standard Japanese, she would say “Nanbo? (なんぼ?)” which means the same thing, but in Kansai-Ben. The link to another post about it is here!

(more under the cut)

・❥・ She pretends to hate cute things. Kotoko claims she’s “too cool” for anything cute, but secretly, she’s obsessed with plushies. Her room has an entire corner hidden from view filled with stuffed animals. 

・❥・ Competitive eating. Despite her refined appearance, Kotoko has a surprising ability to win eating competitions. She can devour a ridiculous amount of spicy ramen without breaking a sweat. Shinyu once bet she couldn’t finish a bowl, and she made sure he paid for that mistake.

・❥・ She’s an accidental cat whisperer. Kotoko has a habit of attracting stray cats wherever she goes. She’ll deny it, but she has a soft spot for cats and can often be found feeding them in secret, muttering that they’re “not supposed to like me.” It plays into the inside joke that Kotoko is like a black cat.

・❥・ Sleep-deprived fashionista. Kotoko has a habit of staying up way too late working on some chaotic plan or finishing work, and she’ll show up the next day looking impeccable despite only getting three hours of sleep. When asked about her secret, she simply smirks and says, “It’s called ‘being better than you.’” 

・❥・ Keeps a list of sarcastic English comebacks: Kotoko has a digital and physical notebook specifically for writing down English sarcastic remarks and insults she thinks of during random moments. She uses it when she’s feeling uninspired during her exchanges with Shinyu or when she needs to spice up a conversation.

・❥・ Fear of butterflies: Despite her fearless personality, Kotoko has an irrational fear of butterflies. She’ll go absolutely still if one flies near her, then dramatically pretend she wasn’t scared if someone points it out. She calls them “creepy little spies.”

・❥・ Guilty pleasure: Sappy romance novels or webtoons: Kotoko secretly reads trashy, over-the-top romance novels or webtoons. She’ll pretend she’s reading something highbrow or a mafia report when caught, but in reality, she loves the cheesy drama that she can go gossip about to Rei or Hwayeon. She has several fake book covers for the romance novels she reads.

・❥・ karaoke queen: Kotoko loves karaoke but only sings absolute chaos songs — screamo or really offbeat tunes that throw everyone off. When someone dares to ask why, she’ll just say, “Because it’s fun watching people’s faces when I go off key on purpose.”

@happy--prince

LMK if you wanna be tagged in part 2!

ppl who might be interested?

@the-mafias-muzzled-dog

@myluckymoon

@paintedgrilledcheese

[t4tails]

Lore Olympus is so bizarre to me as a hit. It's mainly a webtoon, right? And like don't get me wrong there are a lot of shitty webtoons but alot of them have something that someone wants. Boyfriends is a psuedo diverse cast that has as many poc as a Utah Catholic school, so racist liberals loved that one, a bunch of corny romance of varying qualities, 3 different power fantasy technically not isekais that have ridiculously high quality unique art, so many experimental peices with the unique format, and what got popular was a romance(kinda? I read a bit and I still can't tell what it's trying to be.) With an art style that isn't used a whole lot but also isn't like. The most beautiful thing ever? It's like. Chalk cell shading, which is interesting, admittedly, but not interesting enough to hold an entire comic, you know?

yeah its like. bizarre lol. im pretty sure it was even slated for an animated adaptation at some point? idk if thats still happening but its still weird it ever was