#male fanservice??? no way???

[chaikajpeg]

kageyama tobio | haikyuu

reference photo: link to the japanese website

model: Ran Takahashi, photo shot by 矢島康弘 (Yasuhiro Yajima i think)

[threewaysdivided]

Feyli's Fancy Florals

More Dan Jones & Dragons? More Dan Jones & Dragons.

Bringing the number up to four with Feyli, the Flower Crown's born-again Dhampir Druid and sole wielder of feminine wiles (played by the talented NicholeGoodnight), all dolled up for a night of lying her butt off, stealing from rich people and smuggling small woodland creatures into upper-class venues.

More Flower Crowns Gala Outfits: Morenthal | Gelnek | Hobson

Design talk and also some bonus art under the cut:

Gotta say, Feyli's outfit was definitely the most tricky out of the set so far. Nichole gave quite a specific description of the details in Feyli's dress (a blood-red gown with black roses around the top, black rose-vines trailing down the body and a dark lace cape) so a lot of it was figuring out how to translate those elements in a way that felt nice and balanced, then adding some complementary embellishments for fun. Each Flower Crown has been pushing me to learn more program tricks and Feyli certainly gave me some fun new challenges to figure out.

For the dress itself, I ended up going with an off-the-shoulder mermaid-skirt gown in attempt to find something that would look nice on Feyli's body-shape and show off the roses without utterly destroying the line mileage if I wanted to draw her in it again later. (Still ended up doing the skirt-embriodery by hand so task failed successfully).

Accessory-wise I thought it would be fun to crank the "roses" theme up to 11, since Feyli really leaned into that with her alias and cover stories, so I threw in some rose-embroidery finishing to the edges of her lace cape (shout out to ClipStudio users rainbowgrimart and 얀얀씨 for their ornate lace and jewellery brushes, which were an absolute lifesaver for the detailing) and also traded up her usual hair-wildflowers to match.

Whether Feyli canonically wore her antlers to the ball is a mystery, but since she can change those now and Nichole did mention her keeping the hair-flowers I thought it would be neat to give her a smaller but more formal set of sparkly silvered deer-horns to fit the dress-code. I also had some fun playing around with her hair and make-up since it was a black tie nobles event and I figured Lady Infiltration might go the extra mile to style herself for the evening. She's the only party member with long hair, I had to.

The jewellery was mostly just goofing. I really wanted to give her a version of Tante Padva's "slit throat" ruby choker necklace from Erin Morgenstern's The Night Circus since I felt like Feyli's backstory and Nichole's description of the dress would vibe with that aesthetic. For the rest, I figured silver would be a cute way to have her be matchy with Coil and contrasting to fellow-infiltrator Morenthal. Plus I thought it would be funny to give her a bunch of rings and loop-bangles since she's such an incorrigible fantasy-gachapon girlie.

Once I realised that Feyli had somehow managed to bring a bag with her rescue-rat companion, Soli, and recently-acquired copper dragonscale lizard through the cloak-room weapons check, I knew I had to find a way of including them as well. They're hard to see in the main drawing but I had so much fun with them that I decided to do a bonus sketch:

(Also feat. Pocket, the Party's new intrusive thoughts generator fairy friend.)

Double-bonus detail crop because I quite like how Feyli's expression-work and hair turned out:

[litchi-tea]

*pops bottles* We won lads🍾🍾🎉, now all they need to do is drop swimsuit Ulquiorra, Aizen, Gin and Shinji so I can live peacefully

[zahri-melitor]

Part of me still can’t believe that DC has now put out multiple annual Pride books.

Like in the 90s the content we got was things like Dini drawing Harley/Ivy as fanservice (for himself) and like…Bea and Tora being besties in a comic together.

Then it was the early 2000s and still most of what we got was artist fanservice and very deep friendships and a bunch of referential jokes.

And by 2011 we COULD have lesbians (hello Kate Kane, Maggie Sawyer, Renée Montoya, etc) but you know, they’re not allowed to be happy. Like yay, open non-cishets on page (given this is also the era of Alysia Yeoh) but also editorial is only allowing this under strict conditions.

And now it’s the 2020s and writers are being allowed to go “you know how so and so has read as a very repressed queer for years? They are. Surprise!” and put more than a Token Non Straight person/couple in a book. (But also. We are still terminally afflicted with fanservice of best friends, and cmon at this point for some of these pairs I’m like ‘put up or shut up and let them be best friends’)

[rougekithes]

Aot ended like three years ago almost, or the manga did, and you'd think I've come to terms with everything, but when I see OP/ED compilations for aot, I still wanna throw up because of how unnecessarily the Ere/Mika thing is thrown into my face. I can overlook the parallels of The Rumbling and Under The Tree because they're musically so damn good, but why the sappy visuals for the others.

feels like a less offensive version than JK Rowling trying to retroactively add something to the story that shouldn't matter. 4 1/2 seasons of no eremika romance, or any proper hint of eren reciprocating but trust, he loved her romantically all along, here its in the openings and endings.

[finnieforkys]

I started reading Me and Roboco out of boredom and nostalgia for Doraemon. I was expecting some crude gag manga with mean-spirited humor but i'm pleasantly surprised. A lot of the humor came from how nice the characters are to each others instead of the usual "wacky characters bullying the straight man butt monkey" i was expecting, just really wholesome friendship and found family stuff. I like that the main character, Bondo, is allowed to be wacky sometimes too, not just reacting to other characters' antics. The manga isn't without its problems tho, there some questionable stuff that got throw in sometimes (a probably racist panel, typical male characters perving on the girls stuff, etc. ) but they are minor enough that they didn't really affect my experience. The humor also relied on referencing other Jump's series a lot too, i stopped reading shounens so most of the jokes went over my head but i don't really mind it.

If you like the original Doraemon manga, Saiki K, Gintama or Crayon Shin-chan, you'll probably like this. Noted that Me and Roboco is a pure gag manga so you shouldn't expect any coherent plot or overarching story arc. It can also get repetitive sometimes but that's a plus from my personal opinion.

[imblocking-you]

I'm not even halfway through the episode but like what do people think of Oshi no Ko, my classmate recommended it to me and they aren't aware of my very judgemental thoughts and this blog and they appear to really like it but I kinda think the anime is weird. Am I just chronically online or is there really a better storyline going on in here that I haven't uncovered yet?

[valeriehalla]

I am so utterly fascinated by “Saki”, the 18-year-running mahjong manga in which you, the reader, become gradually, frog-boilingly aware (over the course of nearly two decades’ worth of mahjong tournaments) that none of these girls are wearing underwear and most of their boobs are slowly expanding.

I need you to understand that I have, like, an anthropological level fascination with this comic. From the perspective of someone who is also a comic artist and writer, two things delight me about it:

the fact that I understand completely how an artist gets from “the fans can have a little hint of skirted asscheek” to “the pussy is completely out on center page” over the course of 18 years; and

the way in which the pussy being out is treated by the characters and diegesis as being utterly unremarkable.

Okay. Point 1. The frog-boiling.

Let me put this in perspective for you. There was already a meme about how the characters in “Saki” don’t wear underwear when I was in middle school. I am thirty now. Okay? And it’s still going.

In the time since, this has stopped being a joke. It is now indisputable canon. This is not because anyone outright says it at any point. It’s because the underwear ran out of places to hide. I’m obsessed with this thought: somewhere in the over 20 volumes of “Saki”, there is a panel in which underwear was objectively deconfirmed. And it would be so hard to figure out where that panel actually is. Maybe the artist didn’t even realize it when she drew it! The frog? Boiling!!

And of course there is also the breast expansion. I don’t know how to put a spin on this. They are just expanding. Like, this happens a lot with artists: you define a character as being, in your mind, “the one with the big boobs”, and over the years you emphasize that trait further and further so that the signal doesn’t get lost in the noise. It’s just that normally—in like a wildly popular manga series about mahjong published by literally Square Enix, for example—normally there would be a point at which the boobs stopped getting bigger. Like, an editor would step in or something. Or you would get to the point where you cannot draw the character in the same panel as her mahjong tiles without her breasts spilling over the tiles, and you’d go, “Well, this is now untenable.”

That did not happen. There is no ceiling. The frog is soup.

Point 2. The complete and utter mundanity of all of this.

It’s like this, okay: there’s no shortage of trashy ecchi manga out there. There’s a million other comics doing wildly bawdier things with wildly more improbable bishoujos.

The vibe with “Saki” is different.

It’s hard to explain this, but it feels like the world of the comic is fundamentally uninterested in the fanservice happening on the page. I cannot describe it as “leering”, because I cannot conceive of a person in the story from whose point of view one would leer. I think the artist is probably into it—I can’t imagine anyone is making her do this—but “Saki” the comic has no opinion on the matter.

There are essentially no male characters in “Saki”. Like, there was one guy? Kind of? At the very beginning? But he is gone now. They put him back in the toybox. He does not exist. It appears to be some level of canonical that in the world of “Saki”, almost all humans are women. Those women are sometimes romantically into each other. According to comments the artist has made on Twitter (which I cannot source), they have lesbian baby technology, so it’s no problem. It’s so much not a problem that the story is about mahjong, instead of any of that.

So, like, the fiction here appears to be this: this is the, like, meta-narrative of the fanservice of “Saki”, right: it’s just normal that they don’t wear underwear and their boobs are arbitrarily big. It’s been normal. It was normal before the story of the manga began. It’s just how things are. Nobody bats an eye about it, and if they do, it’s in sort of a lesbian kind of way so like what’s the problem, we love lesbians here. This is literally normal for girls.

The fanservice simply diffuses into this all-encompassing aura of disembodied, ambient sluttiness. The framing of the panels demands you acknowledge it, and the story demands you already be over it, because it’s mahjong time now, and we’re playing mahjong.

Do you get??? why I’m so fascinated??? Are you not a little enraptured???

Anyway, I have no idea how to end this weird post. I guess the conclusion is that women stay winning????

[sunderwight]

PIDW but it's a game.

You play as Luo Binghe, the lowliest disciple of Cang Qiong Mountain Sect's Qing Jing Peak. The first part of the game proceeds more or less like a semi-normal fantasy dating sim -- Luo Binghe is bullied and downtrodden, but can seek help and opportunities to build relationships with various female characters, like Ning Yingying and Liu Mingyan. The game's interface implies a truly staggering number of potential romance candidates to unlock, however, so it makes sense that the first part in your disciple years doesn't get you very far in any of the routes.

But then for the second part, things start to shift. You get an option that seems to amount to asking whether you want to make things better for Luo Binghe or not. When you click the obvious choice, that you do, your previously cold and ruthless shizun seems to go through an inexplicable change of heart. You get a weird kind of fanservice-y scene featuring him during the Skinner Demon Mission. Then he features extremely heavily in the Demon Invasion Mission, only to turn up as your companion in the Dream Demon Mission.

After that, it seems like you've gotten onto his route, somehow? Why does the scummy male teacher even have a route in a game like this, though? You try to check for player guides but you can't seem to find any. You try reloading older saves and making other selections, but no matter what you choose, you end up finishing the Dream Demon Mission by moving into Shen Qingqiu's house, and the routes for Liu Mingyan and Ning Yingying and the briefly-encountered Sha Hualing are all greyed out.

But maybe that just means they're inaccessible for advancement for now, or something. And a lot of games have plot points that are on rails, and you can see where Luo Binghe actually getting a place to live would be one of those things. The format of the game changes as well, going from a relatively loose sequence of scenes and interactions to a daily management style, where you have tasks to complete (make shizun breakfast, go to morning lessons, cultivate, do chores, etc) and only a set number of hours in which to complete them. You have affection points, but any time you try to spend them on anyone other than Shen Qingqiu you get an error message. There are dialogue options for flirting with other characters, but they're always greyed out and impossible to select.

Still, you can unlock scenes. A lot of them are just long slow shots of Shen Qingqiu doing things, like reading, or lecturing, or eating. You get missions, and sometimes you meet female characters who seem to unlock new possible romance paths, even though they're still constantly greyed out. Maybe this part of the game's just especially on rails? Waiting for the actual harem-building segment? You kind of like a lot of aspects of it anyway, though. Luo Binghe is an especially compelling character, not at all like the usual sort of non-entity placeholder main guys in games like this. He definitely has personality.

But then you get to the third part. The Abyss. Shen Qingqiu pushes Luo Binghe in, and suddenly you're wondering if you've somehow reached a bad end. You were saving up some of those affection points for later, maybe you should have spent them all on him? Was there something you did wrong to make this happen? You're not even sure why he's thrown poor Binghe away, he was cold and cryptic about it, and now you're wondering if all the time you spent distracted by other things was time you should have spent farming a better relationship with him. You can't help but wonder where you went astray, because Luo Binghe will not stop wondering about it, and wondering about it in ways that make you feel oddly like he is accusing you, the player, of making the wrong choices... but in a way that could still plausibly be aimed at himself, as a character. You feel bad. You kind of want to restart, but you also can't bring yourself to abandon Luo Binghe. You have to see this through, to help him make it to the other side.

Regardless, the Endless Abyss seems like it must be an inevitable plot development. A lot of the game shifts to account for it. There's even an option to essentially select this "thought" from Luo Binghe's internal diatribe, that this is inevitable, and it seems to turn off the litany of recriminations for a while, although sometimes it also results in Luo Binghe... glaring at the screen?

At you?

Anyway the daily management system goes out of the window, and instead there's an energy bar now. Encounters with monsters or the occasional demon woman will lower the energy bar, how much depends on what you choose and how the encounters proceed. Sometimes there are romantic/sexy responses for interacting with the demon women you meet, and they aren't greyed out, but if you try and select them the cursor will jump to another option. You think there might be something wrong with your mouse? Sometimes you get Luo Binghe glaring at the screen scenes afterwards. When Binghe's energy bar hits zero, you're offered two choices -- "sleep" or "think of shizun". Sometimes even if you pick "sleep" the cursor will still jump to "think of shizun", and you'll be treated to another one of those slow lingering scenes of Shen Qingqiu. Except they are becoming increasingly strange, obviously warped by the exhaustion and trauma of the situation, so that aspects are eerie or even disturbing. For example, sometimes Shen Qingqiu seems to be missing limbs, or eyes. Sometimes there's blood on his hands. Sometimes the food he's eating is rotted, or the bamboo house background looks like the Qing Jing Peak wood shed. That kind of thing. You don't mind the idea of harm coming to the man. He deserves it, really, for pushing Luo Binghe into the Abyss. But the few times you try and select options along those lines, the UI glitches again.

Also the "think of shizun" option only restores a quarter of the energy bar, whereas resting restores all of it. But if you try to go for too long without doing it, it will lock you into choosing it successively for a long time.

In addition to the energy bar, there's a calendar. It's not all that sophisticated or even consistent, and it's clearly meant to reflect the fact that Luo Binghe has troubles accurately judging the passage of time in the Abyss. However, the longer you spend in the Abyss, the more violent and unhinged things start to become, and the more the UI starts glitching to reveal disturbing messages, and the more often Luo Binghe "glaring" scenes happen. So you decide to do your best to get Binghe out of here as quickly as possible. This part of the game must be broken, but hopefully if you can make to the next segment, it will work properly again.

Eventually you get to the Xin Mo Mission, which is the last part of the Abyss section, and Luo Binghe escapes.

But the weirdness continues. Worsens, even. You still get missions to like, take over the demon realms and infiltrate Huan Hua Palace, all cool stuff, and you still meet girls who seem to unlock possibly romance paths. But most of the time everything is greyed out. There will be 5 dialogue options but maybe only 1 or 2 of them will be selectable. Parts of the menu are inaccessible. You don't have an energy bar anymore, you have a Xin Mo corruption bar, and it just keeps steadily rising. Sometimes you're presented the option of propositioning a character to "mitigate corruption", but if you try and click it the game glitches or the cursor freaks out and it fails. Sometimes the game crashes outright, and when you reload your last save, it starts with Luo Binghe glaring at you through the screen. You still get the "rest" and "think of shizun" options at times, but neither one helps the corruption bar.

Then. Jinlan City. You reunite with Shen Qingqiu. There seem to be a lot of options for acting vengefully towards him, but they're all greyed out, except for a few which let you chase him down or manhandle him a bit. The whole segment is frustrating, full of weird fanservice-y moments but also mired in how little Shen Qingqiu will say, how often he insists on evading or running away, and how Luo Binghe doesn't seem to have the right prompts to actually get him to explain himself. At times it seems like the "think of shizun" mechanic is bleeding over into the real interactions with the character, so that you can't tell what's really going on vs what are the manifestation of Luo Binghe's trauma or even hallucinations. The Xin Mo bar has maxed out. You have to catch Shen Qinqiu. Catch Shen Qingqiu. Catch Shen Qingqiu--

Then suddenly the bar is at 0, and you're watching Shen Qingqiu's lifeless body fall towards the ground, his energy expended in the effort to push back the corruption. Like, all of his energy.

You catch Shen Qingqiu. Or at least, you stop his corpse from hitting the dirt.

Now the game art is crisp and clean again. All the weird UI artifacts and blocked-off menus are either gone altogether or else working properly. The sound, which had been very gradually deteriorating with low-pitched ringing and muffled portions, is normal. You can hear characters gasping and distantly shouting, and birds chirping somewhere, the ragged cadence of Luo Binghe's breaths, while the camera focuses on Shen Qingqiu's body.

Huh, you think. That's a sort of dramatic resolution to that plot arc, and it raised more questions about Shen Qingqiu than it answered, really. But at least it's over with now? Does this mean Luo Binghe can finally start to recover, or advance other plots?

Then everything blacks out. You get booted to the main menu, or something that looks like it, except the only option you can select now is the New Game+ one.

When you click it, it seems like you've started the whole game over again. Except that there is a Xin Mo corruption bar, greyed out, already waiting for in a corner of the screen. And instead of starting out with a view of Qing Jing Peak, you start out with the young Luo Binghe looking directly towards you. Like he's staring through the screen. It's the basic starting point character, except he already has his demon mark on his forehead, and his expression is way more cold and calculating than anything the junior protagonist would have worn.

"Don't get in my way," he warns.

Then the game proceeds like a visual novel with extremely limited choices. The old selections and the menu for various romance routes don't even appear, the menus have all changed again, this time oriented entirely around hiding Luo Binghe's demonic cultivation (while building it) and managing daily choices and Shen Qingqiu's relationship status. A romance game with only one romance route, and it's the treacherous crusty old teacher? Wtf? But otherwise it seems almost normal, except for the special faint-lettered red options that sometimes appear in weird places on the screen, suggesting things like preventing the Skinner demon from catching you unawares, or saving Shen Qingqiu from Without a Cure poisoning, or keeping out of the Endless Abyss.

Those options seem like they should create different outcomes, and you click them whenever they show up, but they consistently fail. As if there's some other force in the game pushing things back onto the rails no matter what you do...

Anyway, eventually you get through the main plot again, and Shen Qingqiu dies once more. This time the game keeps going from that point, however, with quests to try and find ways to resurrect him. You're starting to wonder why you're still playing -- after all, you signed up for a harem game, not this tragic gay love story? You're not even gay! It's just that Luo Binghe is such a compelling character. You decide it's time to take a break, though, so you get up, do some stretches, go to the bathroom, etc.

It feels like someone's watching you.

You've definitely been playing that game for too long. Sometimes you think you catch sight of Luo Binghe's face out of the corner of your eye, in the bathroom mirror or on the black surface of your phone's screen, just before you turn it on. But when you look twice or turn your phone off again, nothing's there. You call your little sister, to apologize for dropping off the face of the earth for a bit, and you joke about getting too invested in this weird game that might be broken? She hasn't heard of it, but she sounds a little worried as she suggests maybe coming over and taking you out to lunch, or something.

You decline -- she's got a lot on her plate, and she mentioned already having plans earlier -- but then you promise to get some fresh air anyway. But when you go to head out, somehow you find yourself turning away at the last minute. You try again, and yet it's like you just keep getting distracted before you can open the door. After a few tries you give up, swallowing down your growing unease. You take off your shoes and coat. When it comes to it, you really do want to find out what happens to Luo Binghe next.

The game is running.

You don't remember turning it back on...?

The screen is focused on the familiar image of Shen Qingqiu's preserved corpse. You can see Luo Binghe's hand in the frame as well, transferring qi in yet another familiar sequence, the one that seems to run at the end of every in-game day. There's some text.

Is it you? the red letters ask, scrawling and flickering, as if someone is attempting to write directly onto the screen. Are you the one behind all this? Thwarting me at every turn?

Yes/No options appear in the game's usual font and position. You try to click "no", even though you're unsure and feel like you must have missed a scene somehow. But the interface warps and when you hit "no" it changes to Stay Silent.

I can't figure out. Are you here to help me, or get in my way?

Help/Harm. You click "help" but again it changes to "stay silent" afterwards.

What do you want from me?

This time there's no option to select at first. Then, as if being shoved onto the screen by some alternative function, a text box opens up. Like the kind that some games have for implementing cheats or selecting character names. This particular game has never shown such a function before, Luo Binghe's name was locked in and you don't even know if it has cheats. The cursor blinks, and somehow it feels as if you have only one chance, and if you don't take it now, it will be gone forever.

You type in "help" and barely manage to hit enter before the interface blinks out. No list of prompts or possible options appear.

Shizun? the red text scrawls, shakily.

Then the whole game crashes.

You wait, but it doesn't start up again. You try to run it again, but you can't find it on your system, somehow. Really weird. Even if it had crashed, it shouldn't have gotten deleted? But you still can't find it. You start to feel genuinely alarmed. Not only can you not find the game on your system, but when you try and search for it absolutely nothing comes up. You try and go to the online shop page for it, but you can't remember where you actually got it from in the first place, now that you're thinking about it.

What bullshit is this?

What, was the game actually some kind of virus? It couldn't have been. Also who would make a virus like that? You get up and pace, trying to make sense of it.

It's gotta be some kind of mistake. Maybe you've just missed too much sleep, you're not thinking right. You'll take a break and when you come back you'll realize that you were just looking in all the wrong places, somehow.

You head over to the fridge to grab something to eat.

You can't remember the last time you went shopping, but the food in there is probably still fine. Right?

[apas-95]

honestly kinda annoyed by the new Shaun video where he goes to extreme lengths to say how he's actually completely fine with sexualised, objectifying depictions of women in games, but finds their characters to be boring - to the point of doing so about a character named 'loli big-boobs' who he assures us he's fine with people liking.

like, he manages to understand that the point of all the blatant fanservice and objectifying portrayals of women is done so as to assert male control and female exclusion of the medium, to communicate who is and is not considered a valid audience and subject of the work - but, like most breadtubers, fails to put this specific insight into a more general theoretical basis, in this case, the fact that the objectification of women is not simply a coincidence, not just being used because it happens to call back to some era of video games people liked as children, but specifically because the objectification of women is, in and of itself, regardless of any nostalgic cultural zeitgeist it supposedly calls back to, a way by which men exclude and marginalise women.

cus like, that's the thing, right? it's not just 'playing up early 2000s game tropes to pander to a specific crowd of gamers', it's objectifiying women to pander to men who are afraid their dominance over women is fading. acting like the sex-doll female characters are basically as neutral and happenstance as big meters on the interface is a completely superficial argument that completely sidelines misogyny. but yeah like congrats, you're a dude who doesn't have a problem when female characters are put in bikinis

[floralcavern]

The difference between male wish fulfillment vs female wish fulfillment in romance anime

There’s kind of a different gaze that can be targeted to in romance anime. 

In male wish fulfillment anime romances, there’s usually a much heavier emphasis on the male love interest’s pov than the female’s. Also, women tend to be much more.. objectified and there’s an unnecessary amount of fan service. An example of this is Rent a Girlfriend and Don’t Toy With Me Miss Nagatoro. It’s more about the male lead being hit on by.. really horny women than actual romance.

However, in female wish fulfillment anime, it tends to be more told from the female’s perspective. The way the male love interest tends to be written is to make him emotional and aware and.. kind, rather than objectifying him or even making them horny, because women.. we don’t really want to be lusted after like that, typically. We’re already objectified enough. My favorite example is Kimi Ni Todoke: From Me To You. Kazehaya admits he’s a ‘pervert’ but in a respectful way. The writer doesn’t make him fully pure or naive or anything like that. He’s still a teen boy. But in this series, the male character is written to be sweet, emotional, and aware but he’s not stripped away from his inherent masculinity (nontoxic masculinity!). Not just.. a guy, if that makes any sense. Meanwhile, in male wish fulfillment anime, the women are just women, rather than characters. Again, I hope this makes sense!

Now, I’m not saying all romance anime that’s written from the female’s perspective is the best! I think MY Love Story!! is a good example of this! The main character is a male and he’s a genuine, total sweetheart while still having a sense of masculinity! And the female character isn’t objectified! And I would even say even say that this show could be considered a male wish fulfillment romance, based on how it’s written.

And then there’s shows for both, like Kaguya Sama: Love is War. In this show, the two love interests have complete equal power in focus, making them feel completely balanced and real. Neither are objectified and both get treated like humans. Same with The Apothecary Diaries, if not more so!

Anyways, sorry for this ramble. I just really like (well written) romance anime. And I will leave off with a list of romance anime recommendations!

•Kimi Ni Todoke: From Me To You (adorable, fluffy, amazing character development, doesn’t beat around the bush the entire fucking series. Half of the manga is pining and the other half is the complexities of being in your first ever relationship as you try to navigate it all)

•Snow White With The Red Hair (amazing female lead with cool world building and interesting dynamics)

•MY Love Story!! (SO CUTE! Amazing show about not judging appearances)

•My Happy Marriage (Really wholesome Cinderella type story)

•Kaguya Sama: Love Is War (hilarious. I actually recommend the dub. Genuinely really sweet)

•Sasaki To Miyano (so sweet it’ll give you cavities)

•Tomo Chan Is A Girl (there is sadly quite a bit of fanservice in this. I’ve seen way worse, but ya. If you’re wanting something to watch with your parents, this may not be it. Mostly just close ups on boobs)

•Monthly Girls Nozaki (romcom that leans really heavy on the comedy more than the romance, but I love it too much to not recommend. Watch it in the dub, you won’t regret it)

•Fruits Basket (Really sweet)

•Toilet Bound Hanako (THE MANGA! READ THE MANGA! DON’T LET THE TITLE WEIRD YOU OUT, I SWEAR IT IS INCREDIBLE! READ!)

•Komi Can’t Communicate (I would, however, like to apologize for Yamai ahead of time. The entire fandom hates her, don’t worry. There’s also quite a bit of fan service in this one 😔)

•Toradora (haven’t seen it in a while, but it’s a classic lol)

•Horimiya (Another romance anime that doesn’t beat around the bush!)

•The Ice Guy And His Cool Female Colleague (SO. CUTE. AGHHHH. Despite it being ice themed, it certainly makes me feel warm and fuzzy)

•Love, Chuunibyou, and Other Delusions (so silly, amazing story about maturity while also keeping your inner child alive)

•I Want To Eat Your Pancreas (be sure to bring tissues! You will cry!)

•Kamisama Kiss (I really like the characters and world building in this one. Sadly, we’ll probably never get another season 😔)

•Words Bubble Up Like Soda Pop (SUCH A CUTE MOVIE! Amazing feel good romance that just makes you happy)

•My Little Monster (not my usual first recommendation, but it’s an overall fun watch… still so desperately want another season. False hope lol)

•Ouran High School Host Club (an absolute classic romcom. Another situation where I actually recommend the dub)

•Apothecary Diaries (AGGHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!! …full stop. I love this show.)

•Princess Tutu (I LOVE THIS STORYBOOK SETTING! And Ahiru is so silly. She’s just a duck, she can’t handle all these responsibilities!)

[brujahinaskirt]

It's not even about the vindication of calling a ship, okay. It's that the supposedly anti woke studio wrote about 3 million words of medieval fiction centering the relationship of the two main characters who are in most ways (or in all ways if you follow the obvious canon momentum of the story) meant for each other, as counterparts who help each other survive the great travails of their lives and who challenge/complete the other to become fuller, braver, kinder people. It's so clear these two people are soulmates, platonically or romantically, something observed consistently by the world around them and by themselves.

Except their society (feudalism, Catholicism) dictates that they are intended to be completely incompatible by nature and divine law. Not just for the obvious fact they are both men, but they are separated by what is arguably an even steeper chasm of social class. Their existence even as friends utterly spites, interrupts, and threatens feudal order right down to its theological and philosophical roots. They should not see each other as human and yet.

It's the fact that they do. The fact that the entire story has been about this--that these two protagonists fit together, undeniably, and grow to love each other fiercely (a love that deepens superbly from their knee-jerk playful puppy-friend-love in kcd1 to something selfless and mature by the end of kcd2). And they do so despite the immense opposition by their world, their social circles, their faith, and indeed their fandom.

And yes, it really does fucking matter that all of this culminates into a deep onscreen romantic love (if you get out of the way and allow it to) between two fandom-beloved male main characters (not just side characters rammed in for an optional gay romance but THE main characters of the duology; the "you" as in the player character and your erstwhile dick-jokes bro you have perhaps grudgingly at first been invited as the audience to love) in a historical fiction story that has been wrongly touted by the worst of our contemporaries as the holy grail of cultural conservatism.

Holy shit. Warhorse -- y'all. I'm sorry I doubted you. So few game writers understand how love works and indeed how people work, let alone translate it so well onto the screen.

Calling this an "optional romance" is not technically incorrect, I suppose, because it's true you can opt out and choose to remain platonic friends. But this language feels like a disservice, as if Henry & Hans's romance is a typical RPG wham-bam fanservice makeout with a minor fan fave character who never interacts meaningfully with the player again. Or as if it's a Bioware-style "give this NPC the right gift and do their side quest and you get to see a jankly ugly-bumpin' montage" situation.

Kingdom Come: Deliverance is so very much not that. The "main, optional" romance scene in question is just one consummation event of two people who have been growing up and falling in love in front of us over the course of some 200-300 (or god knows how many) hours. The fact these protagonists openly love each other is very much not optional.

This is, sincerely, groundbreaking storytelling in this medium and this genre. How fucking cool that we all got to see it now.

[littleprinces]

Fanservice

Fromis_9's Jiheon x Male Reader

After an exhilarating and playful day at the annual Waterbomb Festival, the members of Fromis_9 return to their dorms, drenched and exhilarated. The festival, known for its intense water battles and energetic performances, left the girls exhausted but happy.

...but after that, Jiheon decided to head out to a nearby bar for a quiet moment alone. Unexpectedly, she ran into one of their fans. Recognizing her instantly, the fan was both excited and nervous.

"Hey, I've seen you here before." I said, extending my hand.

"I'm Jiheon. Nice to meet you," she replied, shaking my hand.

We made small talk for a while, and I could feel the tension building between us. I knew I had to make my move, so I asked her if she wanted to get dinner with me.

To my surprise, she agreed.

We went to a little Korean restaurant down the street, and the conversation flowed easily. We talked about our jobs, our hobbies, and our families. I could feel myself falling for her, and I could tell she felt the same way.

After dinner, we went back to my place. We started making out on the couch, and I could feel her body pressed against mine. I ran my hands over her curves, and she let out a soft moan.

"I want you," she whispered in my ear.

I picked her up and carried her to the bedroom. We undressed each other slowly, taking in every inch of each other's bodies.

'You are so sexy in your last waterbomb, i want to fuck you' I whispered on her ear

'I think this is fanservice for my loyal fans' Jiheon smirk and moan softly.

"You're so beautiful," I said, staring into her eyes.

"So are you," she replied, running her fingers over my chest.

We started kissing again, and I could feel her hands exploring my body. She wrapped her legs around me, and I could feel her wetness against my cock.

I slid inside her slowly, savoring the feeling of her pussy wrapped around me. We started moving together, and I could feel ourselves getting lost in the moment.

"Fuck, you feel amazing," I said, burying my face in her neck.

"Yes, harder," she replied, digging her nails into my back.

I started thrusting harder, and she met me stroke for stroke. We were both covered in sweat, and our moans filled the room.

"I'm close," I said, panting.

"Cum inside me," she replied, pulling me closer.

I couldn't hold back any longer. I exploded inside her, filling her pussy with my cum.

We collapsed onto the bed, spent and satisfied.

"That was incredible," she said, panting.

"Yeah, it was," I replied, smiling.

We lay there for a while, talking and laughing. I could feel myself falling for her even more.

After a while, she got up and went to the bathroom. I could hear the sound of the shower running, and I knew I had to join her.

After a while, she got up and went to the bathroom. I could hear the sound of the shower running, and I knew I had to join her.

I walked into the bathroom, and she was standing under the water, washing herself off. I walked up behind her and started kissing her neck.

"I want you again," I whispered in her ear.

She turned around and looked at me, her eyes filled with desire.

"I want you too," she replied, kissing me deeply.

We started making out under the water, our hands exploring each other's bodies. I could feel her wetness against my cock again, and I knew I had to have her.

I picked her up and pressed her against the wall, sliding inside her again. We started moving together, our bodies slick with water.

"Fuck, you feel so good," I said, panting.

"Yes, harder," she replied, digging her nails into my back.

I started thrusting harder, and she met me stroke for stroke. I could feel myself getting close again. I start to cum into her pussy again.

And we ended up spending the whole night together until we were exhausted

[sideblog-usernametaken]

Ok so Dandadan analysis time because I've been seeing some of the old conversations about it again. So two things about Dandadan (Not the only things but two important ones):

One of the over arcing themes is bodily autonomy

This series is a romcom

Rant below the cut.

A major reason people don't like Dandadan and/or are willing to dismiss it outright is because of the SA scenes. More specifically, a lot of people believe these scenes are fanservice and have no narrative reason to be there. They do have a narrative reason to be there though. These scenes aren't supposed to be fanservice either they're intentionally supposed to be upsetting/unnerving (I won't get into how here because other people have articulated this better than I can, and they will continue to do so as long as this misconception exists).

When people think of "violations of bodily autonomy" or "violations of consent" they usually think of rape or sexual assault. It is the beginner's example to the concept, largely because everyone with common sense agrees that rape and sexual assault are bad so it's easier to point out why they're bad. This also makes it easy place to start a narrative around bodily autonomy.

The very first scene of Dandadan is of a guy trying to coerce Momo into having sex with him even though she clearly doesn't want to. The same episode/chapter directly puts this kind of behavior on par with rape and sexual assault by paralleling the time Momo kicked him to the time she kicks the rapist aliens so hard she breaks their space ship. It's very clear that the narrative's stance is that not only are rapists bad, the people who aren't legally rapists because they technically got "consent" first (through coercion) should be treated with the same level of disdain. This isn't the kind of thing that you write into a series without legitimately thinking about the dynamics of consent and bodily autonomy.

Continuing on: The series also touches on the double standard between male and female victims of sexual assault. Okarun gets laughed at for having his genitals stolen, and Seiko just does not believe Momo got abducted by aliens. This very clearly parallels how in real life people will believe male victims got assaulted, but their assault is also brushed off as not that important or something they "should've enjoyed" or a sign of weakness. Especially if the assaulter was a woman. Meanwhile female victims are usually accused of lying regardless of any evidence they provide. These two things hold constant in Seiko's reactions throughout Dandadan. She literally rides in a space ship but doesn't believe aliens are real, and even when she's helping Okarun she's usually also doing a bit at his expense.

Going even further, Dandadan also branches out into other forms of violations of bodily autonomy that aren't thought about as often. For the sake of the analysis I'm going to do bullet points regarding each character. Fair warning: There will be major spoilers here so if you haven't read the manga keep scrolling until you stop seeing bullet points.

Acro Silky: It's very easy to point out that she was a sex worker, but what I don't see is people talking about the other ways she had to sell her body to keep her and her daughter afloat. She worked in janitorial services (A lot of manual labor) and as a store clerk (A lot of standing). Individually these two jobs are not necessarily coercive, they're not great but they aren't pulling you into something you didn't know about from the start. The thing is though, none of these jobs pay enough by themselves for Acro-Silky to make a living, meaning none of them are properly compensating her for her manual labor. This is an instance of manufactured consent, while she technically agreed to take these jobs, it's clear that she wouldn't be working all of them unless she had to. This is kind of an expansion of the coercion from the guy in the first scene but on a societal level where Acro-Silky wasn't in the position to be able to say "No" and move on. As a result, her freedom is restricted. She can't spend nearly as much time with her daughter as she wants to and she can't afford to get her nice things either. To top it off, any time she did spend with her daughter she spent physically exhausted because of her work.

Mr. Shrimp: Similarly to Acro-Silky, Mr. Shrimp is forced into work he does not want to do because of limited options and the need to support his child. What sets him apart though is that he's a migrant worker and his employers physically abuse him because they can get away with it. This is an exact parallel to how migrant workers are treated in real life. He even goes to work on a farm and it's potrayed as him making an honest living to support his family which is exactly what the majority of migrant workers are trying to do. Mr. Shrimp doesn't technically "have to" work on a dairy farm now, but he chooses to enthusiastically because it's his only option that doesn't require him tk disregard his morals.

Jiji: Jiji is an example of bodily autonomy violations of minors in regards to medicine. This one is a bit more complicated so stick with me here. When the Evil Eye starts possessing Jiji, the adults around him unanimously agree it needs to be exorcised and start preparing for the ritual. When Jiji decides "Hey, actually I want to try to co-exist with him" Seiko is his only adult advocate, and even she turns around on the idea when the Evil Eye has a close call with Momo. This parallels how in real life adults will make decisions for the children in their care regardless of their wishes, and how even the adults trying to be accommodating will still go against the kids' wishes sometimes. It also does a good job of accurately capturing the nature of these disagreements too, because yeah the Evil Eye is a problem so it's understandable why all the adults want to just get rid of it even if Jiji doesn't agree. But Jiji's stance of "Yeah this will be a pain but it's one I want to deal with" is also understandable. Like, imagine instead of an exorcism we're talking about getting an amputation that would be technically helpful but isn't strictly necessary.

Vamola: One of Vamola's initial goals when she's introduced is to find a strong man and have kids with him. This isn't something she actually wants to do but is something she has been obliged to do because she is one of the few survivors of a planetary genocide. She has been marked as her people's only chance at a continued survival because the rest of her people are too old to have children. Her mother and the rest of the surviving Sumerians gave everything they had to get her off planet safely as "the last thing left on Sumer to defend" so she has unfathomable amounts of pressure and survivor's guilt to go out and have kids. She doesn't get to figure out if she wants to have kids or not, that's just something that has already been made up to her and her only choice now is with who. Luckily, the story currently has her in a position where she can have peers, a (comparatively) normal life, and she doesn't have to think of her mother's request for a while. But even if it's not the primary focus in her life right now it's still there.

Rin: At a very young age Rin was forced into the role of caretaker. With a bedridden grandmother, a deceased father, and a mother who had to work long hours to make ends meet, Rin had to learn to be independent fast. She was basically forced to, otherwise her already unstable home life would break apart even further. To make things worse, Rin knows the predicament that she's in and her mother doesn't yet. Rin's mother thinks she "got lucky having such a good kid" and doesn't realize the pressure has gotten bad enough that Rin is already giving up on her passions to take care of her grandmother to give her mother a break. Mostly because Rin knows their family doesn't really have any other options and she doesn't want to place an even larger burden on her mother by adding more grief on top of it. It's essentially the "parent running themselves ragged to support their kid" story we've seen at least twice now but from the perspective of the child.

Zuma: Similar background to Rin where his father died and he took on a caretaker kind of role for his younger brother. Except his brother dies and this absolutely breaks his mother, to the point she commits suicide and tries to take him with her. Zuma is in the position where he has lost both his caretaker and the person he took care of, and he is fully aware of why that happened. This manifests as rebellion and him forming a gang that protects kids at his school from bullying and harrassment. He's becoming a caretaker again, but this time it is an active choice he has made. He doesn't technically have to start his gang or protect anyone, he has an adult taking care of him now and if he wanted to he could spend the rest of his highschool years stepping back and being a kid again. But he doesn't, and society labels him a delinquent for stepping in when the adults who should have didn't. This is another way that Dandadan shows how minors often have their opinions dismissed by adults who believe they know better.

Much shorter less spoilery rant:

Dandadan is a romcom. I have seen too many people complain about basic romcom shenanigans as if it's bad or generic writing instead of being genre conventions. "Ugh, there's a love triangle," Yes romcoms tend to have those. "Ugh, so many girls are into Okarun," Yes, and a lot of guys are into Momo, they both get romantic rivals because it's a romcom. "They keep going back to the romance and I don't like it," It's a romcom there's going to be heavy focus on the romance, you disliking that is a genre preference not a writing issue.

Like, do people not understand the concept of blended genres? Yeah this is a Shonen battle series but it's also one that has decided to be a largely character driven romcom. This is like someone walking into a horror comedy and walking out complaining that there were jokes and the horror would be better without them. The jokes are the point and the horror is a vehicle to get there. If you don't like jokes, go find a pure horror movie to watch.

[animentality]

I've been on a sports anime binge for the last month and I'm reminded of why I will always love sports anime better than any other kind of anime.

1) Male dominated cast like most anime but at least there's a justification for it. Also, barring a few exceptions, there's more fanservice for women than men since it's a bunch of sweaty guys in locker rooms, with like one token female manager here and there. feminism.

2) Male dominated relationships but it's fine because it's justified. Also gives them the opportunity to be gay as fuck, and it's justified because sports are gay as fuck. gay rights.

3) no goddamn love subplots because it's sports, goddamnit. fuck your romance subplots. we ball.

4) it's an action story without stupid dimension warping world breaking super powers that get yanked out of someone's ass when the author writes himself into a corner. now they still pull shit out of their asses but at least it's just some new dumbass pass or whatever.

5) no one fucking dies, they just lose the game and come back to narrate the next game.

6) because it's centered around sports, there's no threat of the author running out of ideas or fucking up their plot by going the wrong way. you either do the tournament arc or character development. either way, it's hard to fuck up.

also addendum: I love character focused stories more than anything. sports anime might focus on the sport but it's also very much about the characters and their relationships to each other and the sport.

so.

< sports anime >

built better. I'm not taking questions or comments at this time.

[demonslayerunhinged]

Unhinged rant >:(

Demon Slayer fandom discourse

I want to start this by saying, I know that Demon Slayer isn't an explicitly queer manga/anime because Shōnen Jump, but I believe that Demon Slayer is for the queers and has lots of themes that we can identify with like love, acceptance, loss, guilt and strength.

Despite what these stupid, smelly, ignorant, power-scaling, non-ass-washing, Cheetos-dust-snorting, once-a-month-showering, dude-bros would have you believe, Demon Slayer isn't just another battle Shōnen anime/manga, it's a love story and about the perseverance of the human spirit and if that doesn't speak to the queer experience then I don't know what does.

Plus, I don't know how Gotogue-sensei is as a person, but I think the fact that she managed to make one of the kindest mcs in shōnen speaks volumes about her disposition. I don't think she would be one to reject queer fans identifying with her story so well.

In these recent times, it seems like everything is going to shit, the world is slowly regressing into the dark ages destroying decades of progress and trying to distract ourselves from all this by engaging with the fandoms we love is hard because everything seems to cater to cis, straight, white men.

To be honest, I created this blog mostly out of spite, but I also wanted to carve out a tiny space for myself where I can talk out of my ass and not have some decrepit reddit dude bro go all 'well, ackshually ☝🤓' on me, and I'm happy to have met so many like-minded people.

So, I've compiled a list of answers to the common types of nonsense drivel these fuckers post in response to shipping and queer discussions and theories about Demon Slayer. You can copy and paste whenever and wherever you encounter these black holes of ignorance and stupidity if you want.

In the Taisho era, there were no gay/queer people: This is one of the dumbest statements I've ever heard, and the fact that it's a really common response really shows how we've failed as a society. Queer people have existed for ages all over the world, Japan has an extensive queer history. Demon Slayer is based on samurai culture and samurai culture was really, really, really, really, really, really, really gay. Sure, it had rigid roles, but that doesn't make it any less queer. A quick Google search would go a long way to nourish that dried-out, shrivelled husk you call a brain. Go read a book you walking condom ad, your parents and education system have obviously failed you.

It's forcing sexuality into the story: We literally had a whole season dedicated to the mcs going to the 'entertainment district', we have a sexy man with three wives who talks about 'loving' them all equally, we have the abundant male fanservice, one of the mcs talks about women on the daily, we have a boy who eats demons and is horny shy around girls all the time, we have his brother who exposes his tits because he's proud of them, we have a demon who was essentially a sexual predator that targeted 16-year-old girls and ate them, the main villain shape-shifts into a woman to 'get' information as a Geisha, we have a girl who literally lusts after almost everyone she meets but yea no lets not force sexuality into it 🙄.

I don't care: Okay cool, but I value your opinion as much as I value the shit I took this morning.

It's who they are as a character that matters: Sexuality is a part of a person's character. Your sexuality defines your experiences, decisions, options and outlook on life. That's why you as a straight man can be so ignorant.

It's forced*(I really hate this one): Honestly, fuck you. Why is it that you only think something is forced when it doesn't revolve around you and your experiences? You guys are fine with tons of anime/manga that sexualize women and girls to an insane degree even when it doesn't make sense, but that doesn't stop you from consuming and glazing the hell out of the authors, but when we talk about including queer characters suddenly it's forced? Your existence is forced, and you can just eat shit.

I don't like it: Who the fuck do you think you are dictating how other people consume and interpret the media they consume? How about you go hump your smelly, cum-encrusted anime body pillow.

Men can be touchy/emotional with each other without it being gay, it's just our western standards: No it isn't the majority of shipping activities and works come from Japan, which wouldn't happen if it was just part of their culture. We're not stupid, we know men and boys can be friends without it being sexual, and we know when a friendship is just that, and then we know when two guys are straight up pining for one another.

It's not canon/the mangaka didn't explicitly state it: They can't because of Shōnen Jump, so a lot of them pass off information about a character through subtext, metaphors and allegories. They also don't have to, things don't have to outright stated or 'canon' for them to make sense and if you need them to be so for you to understand or enjoy the story then a moment of silence for your head since it's without a brain.

It's not common: Despite Shōnen Jump, there are lots of mainstream anime/manga that have queer characters: One Punch Man, Hunter x Hunter, Dr. Stone, Windbreaker, Jojo's Bizarre Adventure, Naruto, Gintama, Dragon Ball Z, My Hero Academia, Fairy Tail, One Piece, Attack on Titan, Tokyo Ghoul, Jujutsu Kaisen, Chainsaw Man, Blue Period and that's not to talk of the ones with queer subtext like I dunno ALL Sports anime/manga to ever exist!

Why do you look for LGBTQ in everything?: It might be hard for straights to understand but growing up queer and looking for a connection causes us to develop what we call a gaydar that helps us identify characteristics, mannerisms, features and vibes from a person that screams 'ONE OF US! ONE OF US!'. It's only natural, and our gaydar doesn't suddenly turn off when we're consuming media, especially when it's media that we love and hold dear to our hearts. It doesn't matter if the mangaka inserted these characteristics intentionally or not, that doesn't stop us from picking up on them, and why should it?

Shipping is stupid: So is power-scaling, but that doesn't stop you assholes from making thousands of posts, creating YouTube channels and sharing content about it and cramming it down our throats. It's even worse because it's from grown-ass men.

The characters have no chemistry/they hate each other: A lot of queer ships have more chemistry, history, interactions, personality and development than a lot of 'canon' straight couples. It's literally a trope in media that all a man and a woman need to be in a relationship is to be in close proximity to each other, then their relationship goes on to be drier than salted crackers in silicone packets scattered in the Sahara desert. Well, I guess you can't blame the creators, you write what you know after all.

I know this is a lot and I know how angry I sound right now, but I'm so sick and so tired of all these guys who are as useful to the human race as pieces of freshly shat out dog turds that have been thrown in the grass by the sidewalk in a hot summer afternoon, who can't see past their lice-infested neck beards trying to make something as colorful, interesting, joyful and queer as anime and the fandoms fit their own boring, stupid and misogynistic worldview.

In Conclusion, Demon Slayer is amazing, horny* and unbelievably queer.

*I'm talking about the male fanservice btw :)