#one of those classic OH SHIT THE PROTAGONIST IS SO POWERFUL

[grubus]

I simply adore the ?? expressions this boy makes. does he look tired to you. does he look. fed up??? befuddled??? confused??? does he look like he has only so much time left to live, and yet, things keeps happening and he is just ??? about it?

badass sect leader in the background enjoying her own personal soap opera. Like yes. Good. This is why he was accepted, clearly, I don't believe her when she says it was Talent. She found out who he was related to and went :D FUNNY and that is how he got yoinked.

[kaijuposting]

So, I always find Fifth Lord scenarios to be a bit challenging to come up with, because like, the Four Lords are thematically connected to the four elements (Lady Dimitrescu = Earth, Lady Beneviento = Air, Lord Moreau = Water, Lord Heisenberg = Fire - it's on the stone carving Mother Miranda showed Ethan while disguised as the old woman, if you missed it.) And then you have Miranda covering the Spirit thing, if that's a thing you reckon as an element.

So.

*Cracks knuckles*

I've decided to figure out where and how the fuck Ethan could fit into this scheme, if he were going to be a Fifth Lord.

So, Ethan's job is being a systems engineer, although Capcom doesn't specify what kind of systems engineer, but I think that we can agree that systems engineering in general is an air thing; at least if we know some traditional elemental associations.

So this means that Ethan is filling the same slot as Donna. Now, it's unclear if Donna has an actual job here. Sure, there's her doll making, but it seems to be more of a hobby than an actual profession. She doesn't seem to be actually running anything.

But in any case, there is one system that is going woefully unengineered around here, and that any sort of modern communications system. Oh sure, the lords and Miranda can apparently call each other over the phone, and Heisenberg has an intercom system for the apparent purpose of flirting with and/or traumadumping on protagonists, but the rest of the people? I don't think these people even have a functioning post office. I don't recall seeing a single mailbox around the village anywhere.

And if there's no post office, nobody can mail any letters or buy anything through through mail delivery, and That's Just Terrible.

Yes folks, I am in fact proposing Ethan Winters, Lord of the Post Office.

Now of course, Ethan might find himself a little understaffed as they're getting things set up. And this means that he might have use those untapped mold powers and make some guys; maybe kinda like the Molded from RE7. And since this is Ethan Winters, who presumably doesn't want to scare the shit out of everybody, he might put some Big Googly Eyes and Friendly Uniforms on them, like so:

Now of course, I imagine Ethan's mailmolds will have a little trouble getting chased around by stray lycans, but I'm sure he can solve that by reminding Heisenberg that Chased Mailmolds equal Package Delays, so if Heisenberg wants to get his classic vinyls in a timely manner, he'd better make those lycans behave.

[thedawningofthehour]

doth!draxum is the type of villain you want to squeeze really tightly in your fist and scream at him in angry tears but at the same time acknowledge his absolute genius.

ngl i see a lot of fics with intentional holes in villains which the protagonists use to save the day and yada yada (which is still obviously important sometimes), or just blunt personality traits that do not add up to the character as a whole when you think about it; like "oh, i, draxum, will hate the very beings i have created and treat them like absolute shit just because i can, despite the fact that if i treated them properly then they'd thrive and be open to whatever plans i have for them because they actually understand what i am doing for yokai and be met with little to no resistance and, /bonus/, have (some) kickass son(s)"

there are still a lot of good fics with this but. idk. it really just doesn't strike me as something draxum would do.

doth draxum is the complete opposite and is just so downright realistic. i haven't angrily loved a villain like this in a good while. fact, i dont even think villain is the right term, since what he's doing could potentially save both yokai and humankind alike from an even worse fate. reality sucks and draxum already knows that, and he taught galois that too. donnie just viewed it as draxum killing off the human race(might be wrong on that part since i need to go re-read) and didn't quite take in the actual crisis approaching.

what i just spewed might be literal bullshit but. it's my bullshit.

anywayssss love the writing sm can't wait for next chapter even if it'll break this poor little heart even more.

I don't want to start ragging on other writers/artists here. They had their own visions for how their creative works would look and Evil Draxum fit that. That's fine. It's just a different vibe than what I wanted, that's all.

I think the point a lot of Grimdark Draxum people get hung up on is the scene where he throws Leo off the roof, with the whole "I will not hesitate to destroy you" thing. (sidenote, I do not have Leo be salty about that NEARLY enough) From there, yeah, he does look like a ruthless villain who would do classically evil things just because he can.

But Draxum is one of those characters whose words say one thing and his actions say another. He does hesitate to destroy them. Not Leo, he legit thought Leo was going to die and didn't give a fuck, (in my canon he did this because Leo is his least favorite-he wouldn't have done it to the other three) but he deals with them all several times before coming to the conclusion that they have to die. And even after he assembles Evil Justice League and does a whole music number about killing them-he stands there and asks them to join him again. He has a group of pissed-off mutants at his back who all really hate the turtles and got all excited for murder. He's 100% willing to burn those bridges and piss those guys off if it means he doesn't have to kill his turtles. And even then, after giving them what he explicitly states is their final, point-of-no-return offer...he's out there trying to convince them again, using Lou Jitsu as an in with them. Draxum does not want them dead. He's willing to kill them, but it's established that Draxum is willing to sacrifice just about anything for his cause, so that's not saying much.

And then another thing is his behavior at the end of s1 when he gets close to the dark armor, with the whole kidnapping the boys and threatening to torture them to death in front of their father kind of thing. Yeah. That was fucked. I feel like the dark armor and the taunting of power really, really fucked with Draxum's head. In my canon Cass kind of snapped him out of that when she told him that the armor would all but kill him, and he realized how far gone he was. Cass and Gale kind of serve as good grounding points for him now.

Also, I just want to point out, this was the face Draxum made when he first laid eyes on his creations:

That is not the face of a man who is ambivalent about them dying.

So yeah, while Draxum's original plan for Donnie was not as fluffy and affectionate as what he ended up going with, it wasn't cruel. He would have still fed him well and made sure he was getting enough sleep because those things would have affected the quality of his work, he would have provided medical care because what use did he have for a sick or injured engineer? Taking care of Donnie was worth the extra time and expense because a healthy Donnie would be more productive and would do better work. Just in terms of numbers, it made more sense to be decent to him. There probably would have been some mental and physical abuse, but mostly just to make Donnie reliant on him and keep him from rebelling.

Also he still absolutely thinks of the change of plans as purely a numbers thing. It would simply produce better results of he did it like this. Feelings never came into play here. Baron Draxum does not get attached, especially not to turtles who cuss him out while strapped to his lab table.

Oh no, Draxum is 100% genociding the human race. He's willing to mutate some of them-mostly kids, because they aren't shitheads yet and he thinks they might be redeemable. This isn't exactly mercy-this is something real-life colonizers do to ethnic groups they're trying to destroy. Take their kids and make them 'their own'. That was the whole deal with residential schools and there are definitely people who utilize international adoption to 'save' and Christianize non-white babies. Draxum genuinely believes that humans are evil by virtue of being human. Most human adults are too corrupted, but he might be able to save some of them by mutating them, and the children deserve a chance to be saved.

It just kind of goes to show what a shit situation we're in that That is actually something that could halt the impending mass extinction event caused by climate change.

[dia-oro]

part 2 !! ☺️💀☺️💀☺️💀☺️💀

Why there’s so much rape here?!?!

again, Rin don’t half the bullshit the author make her suffer for sesshomaru character development.

the dead dove it’s dead thank to naraku and the demon of the pearl, sometimes the pearl itself.

When inuyasha it’s not part of the main couple they love to clean the floor with him, intellectually.

If you want to see rin happy and AlIvE clap clapping your hand’s.

for every fic someone make kikyo and kagome having a good relationship, 1 of seven naraku’s is transforming in the ultimated disgusting red flag, so red that can make you abandoned the story. So beware and brave yourself.

Please don’t make koga villain by almost raping kagome, I beg you…

some make the character act Oc’s, some good and forgiving, other’s it’s a Mexican tv novel, some wild ride.

And they forgot kirara exist-

It’s neat when the subplot is with movie information.

When there’s a cameo o the protagonist it’s one of those that only exist in the inuyasha games, you are lucky you just discover gold.

may the unjustified hate to rin is now intensified thank to yashahime. Beware of what a salty author can do, you wil cry.

‘they are my child now’ it’s a trope in this fandom, trust me.

you will know the diference between shinto, manor and castle no matter if you don’t want it.

anticlimactic ending for the villains may be a thing, blame rumiko for do it a canon event and now it’s a common act.

your happy ending may be in reality bittersweet when it’s kagome staying in her time, it’s the demon pv is there you will cry.

they may kill kagome but don’t worry she go better (and her soul whole) . kagura say fuck the history and go away it’s a classic, hey she live at least so this also the ultimated fuck you to naraku.

your tears will give the author more power.

some ship fandom are pretty fanatical so they also are a warning.

again some fans are the worst enemy of author and another fan, some even accuse of fraud a author for using a linear for the trama that was already 385&3 times reuse.. and even taken down a fic for this belief.

all the yashahime kids deserve better.

A cheating kagome it’s always a call for hate to a author and their fic, yes it’s disgusting but still shit go hard there for the own author.

Ifs you’re lucky your favorite author is doing some cool books in Amazon and are as neat as their fic. Probably use a hades x Persephone type of couple for romance or just do it’s best with japonese folk romance 💘

chippo is only accept as always beloved baby fox, no, we need a good time skid to accept a less pure baby chippo.

better than the brothers are the father and mothers 👌🏽👌🏽👌🏽👌🏽 trust me, ignore the orden but any of them in the main couple are prrrr.

The best horror sometimes.

two chapters before the end, the author can and will destroy your stability.

Time paradox go brrrrr

some inuyasha fans really go hard in time theory.

some make with cero need means kagome friends, so much bitching and no vibing.

Mary sue kagome can be accepted sometimes but others are just so much.

naraku what the fuck- ‘ it’s a canon even for the reader, don’t question it, is surprise.

new husband material? For kagome ??? Oh wait there’s towa now, look like a second bicicle was born.

may sesshomaru be a thickhead and that it’s what make the lore don’t be cut, so much could be stopped if this man is no so proud and-

ignorant kagome is s classic.

Inuyasha with problems of ire too.

Some things that happen can make you question who hurt the author so much.

the sometimes inuyasha fanfic reader struggles

they may talk in advance japonese sometimes in middle of a spanish/English fic and the writer never writes a note sayi no what is.

if you don’t know of japonese folklore well you are aware that the fic may be your japonese story class.

be ready for japonese kanjis and no glossary.

if you don’t know what a Shinto is or shire you will may find trouble.

some writers are japonese lore accurate obsessed so again be ready to Story class.

you may see oda nobunaga here if you’re lucky.

be ready for the omegaverse that it’s not a omegaverse. Remember inuyasha and sesshomaru are half dog so pack mechanics can be common folk.

if the fic make rin a villain or chippo just stop, breathe and go for another one, trust me.

most sesskag are a love triangle that is more like one side with the true couple just being idiot to lovers.

Naraku should be his own warning ⚠️

May kagome be everybody pure inocent bicicle.

Theres 50% that kikyo is suffering a Ron the death eater trope if the main couple have kagome.

The readers are sometimes the worst enemy of the fics and by this the worst enemy of another reader.

beware of some fic are best gore quality, some people love remark that demons are no the most merciful creatures or just sengoku cruelty, beware.

be ready to learn japonese old culture at finest.

May rin suffers the author cruelty just to make sesshomaru have is own character development, beware you will cry.

if you don’t like Oc’s in fandom fics be ready because the author can make the most lovable or menacing ones.

Be ready to cry, for what? Is a surprise.

[alparlaboratories]

Are you perhaps interested in some... Pokefic?

Hello I am here today to be a shitty fic salesman if I may.

Tell me friends, do you like Pokemon? Do you like fics? Do you like fics set in the Pokemon world, more specifically those who take the existing story of a region and expand upon it while adding a whole bunch of shit that (probably) no one asked for but the writer is too off his shits to care?

And MOST IMPORTANTLY, do you like Sinnoh? Some Dawns and Barrys, some Cynthias perhaps? Do you want to experience the story of Platinum from a new perspective now that the remakes disappointed us so greatly?

And, finally… do you like fics that are not only very long (almost a million words long Jesus Christ) but also 100% complete?

In that case, you might be interested in Child of Thorns, my original, cool and sexy Sinnoh adventure fic.

Now, the previous description and accompanying cool-looking cover might have peaked your interest, but you still probably don’t know anything about the fic. Well, here’s a few things that Child of Thorns can offer you:

1) Reasons to read Child of Thorns:

–> Have you ever wondered what Dawn would be like if she were a depressed theater kid who wakes up every day and chooses violence? That’s the protagonist of this story! Her name is Inyssa (Dawn is her last name).

–> Do you like flawed protagonists and coming of age stories? Do you like Pokemon fics where the main characters aren’t 11 years old? Do you like characters with abandonment issues and social anxiety slowly learning to heal over the course of a journey filled with Pokemon, fighting and adventures?

—> Do you like realistic depictions of trauma, mental ilness and complicated family issues without it being overtly grimdark? There’s always gotta be some hope, after all.

–> Have you ever wanted a trainer journey where protagonist and rival travel together, including all the slow burn classics we know and love? What if both of them are bi? What if they’re also super open and affectionate with each other while constantly denying themselves the possibility that they see each other as more than friends?

—> Do you like stories where multiple characters and forces and entities are all struggling for power while those left below must gather together to clear the dark clouds hanging over the horizon?

–> Do you like Pokemon fics where the author fucking loves writing battle scenes while listening to JRPG battle music at full blast and feeling like he’s high on coke? Do you like some good shonen goodness with lots of explosions and pretty lights and cool moves and a protagonist that is utterly terrible at naming attacks and everyone makes fun of her for it?

–> Do you like Cyrus? Team Galactic and its commanders? A Team Galactic who’s not just a bunch of idiots and actually have an understandable motivation? How about Cynthia and her well-intentioned if morally gray personality? There’s lots of that here.

–> How about some cool mythology? Cynthia being Sinnoh’s Lorekeeper and a whole bunch of lore and legends about the lake trio and the humans they used to bond with? What if that started happening again? The answer is in this fic!

Oh shit, look at all these reasons! There’s some more stuff, but I don’t wanna make a grocery list when you could just find it all out for yourself.

Also, I have to ask…. do you like OCs in Pokemon fics? If not…. well, you do you, but if you do, then boy do I have some OCs for you.

2) Cool OCS:

We’ve got Metchi! An ex-Team Galactic grunt who is now determined to oppose both her previous companions and the forces behind Sinnoh’s government as a whole.

She also possesses the fabled cool glowy eyes that all good protagonists must have. If you ask her what said glowy eyes are about, she’ll probably tell you that it’s because she’s trans and that makes her cooler and more anime, but there’s probably something more to it. Read to find out!

We also have Reiko! A league challenger from Kanto who is buff and has a sword she likes to swing around, more often than not to the active detriment of her lofty goals and ideals.

She also has some cool glowiness to her but it’s different from Metchi’s glowiness.

There’s also Percy, Reiko’s boyfriend! If I had to guess he’s probably the richest Kalosian trans man in all of Sinnoh, though unfortunately all that money can’t buy him a way out of his family drama or his inability to not be a bit of an asshole.

Man, those sure are some OCs right there.

3) But don’t take my word for it!

Here’s what readers and reviewers have to say about the story.(Disclaimer: I love all these people and I would and will die for them.)

4) The end or something:

So anyway, if you’re interested in anything of what I’ve listed and if you wanna read a lot of me writing cool battles and political intrigue and a whole bunch of other shit with the cast of Sinnoh and more, feel free to give Child of Thorns a read!!

AO3 (recommended)

Royal Road

FFN

And if you wanna hang out with some pals and see some more CoT art and memes, join us in my discord server! Code is   sHey6Tw  

[bnhasalt]

If you could replace Bakugo with any hero students from a different schools included as Midoriya's main rival who would you choose

oh dang, well. Ok, so, you'll have to take this with a grain of salt because I haven't actually caught up to mha in ages. So you might know some characters I don't / something i mention may no longer be accurate etc etc. But i'm gonna try so let's go! [Let's just take the porcupine out of the equation completely for a second. Assume he didn't pass his entrance exam and cannot exist as a classmate, only as setup dressing for izu's backstory.] Right away class 1a offers at least 3 really solid options for the healthy 'everyone benefits and gets stronger from it' genre of rivalry. IIda, Uraraka and Todoroki. Of course there's a lot of variation in between them, Todo's much closer to a more classic rival archetype- at least before the sports festival fight- whereas IIda and Uraraka are more so just pals with a good dose of friendly competition from the get-go. Then you have the other class students like Shinso , Monoma etc. Only noting those two in particular though because they fit the rival memo better, right? Welllllll... Monoma only became as hostile towards class 1a as he did BECAUSE of b_kugo. If he's not in the picture, aka noone provoked EVERY OTHER CLASS asserting they're better than them, he'd have no reason to be that petty. Probably still would be because he IS a theater kid but not enough to warrant a full rivalry I feel njsbnfj especially with someone like izu who's just. you know. a good person that doesn't mock and start shit with people for no reason. And Shinso did have a mini-rivalry-esque characterization in the festival but I wouldn't really count that because he was just trying to get into the hero course, means to an end, nothing personell kid. Then you have more similar situations with the provisional license students, but once again these characters are very minor and even the ones with the most screen time were still just trying to pass that exam same as anyone else. So generally, in my opinion, none of the background/secondary characters really works as a longtime rival to izuku. Partly because these are all students just trying to pass their exams, and partly because izuku is simply not a character that a rational person would just. Hate. For no reason. *cough*. A lot of other rivalries in similar media rely more on the protagonist themselves having flaws that may cause such a relationship to form. Being arrogant, reckless, overconfident and/or convinced they are or will inevitably be the best there ever was etc etc. That's not necessarily good or bad, always depends on how it's handled. Izu, however, is just not that type of protagonist. His main flaws lie more in being extremely self sacrificing, to the point where he can act without thinking, gravely injuring himself in the process, and stuff like that. Which means the only way you can really have that ClassicJackass™ flavor of rivalry is if the Other Person is a completely deluded asshole that sees breathing as competition. In a way forcing the protagonist into the dynamic in retaliation, even though it's not even remotely balanced and no matter what the emotional power imbalance will always be too big to ignore. You see where I'm getting at. Truth be told you cant really replace B_ku as a rival and have the same dynamic, because the dynamic REQUIRES someone that's as huge a piece of shit as he is. However that's just assuming we are looking for that specific dynamic. We don't have to be, and in that case any of the original three work perfectly well as friendly rivals. And if you're just looking for a meme answer instead of this whole spiel about what would work in the story, i'm going to say Ibara. I just think it'd be really funny.

[veliseraptor]

Hi, Lise......I can't help but want to ask (if you don't mind), what are your favorite (that you personally like) books or movies/ tv series that contains lesbias and gays? Thanks if you want to answer.....

wow I completely forgot this ask was sitting in my inbox and has been for a long while. and uhhhh the thing is here that I actually...feel like I don't have a separate category in my head, so much, for "media that has queer people in it" and "media that doesn't"? which like. feels weird to say, but when I get questions like this, or requests for recommendations, I always...struggle to parse these things out. and also to parse out, for instance, "books that read as having queer elements" from "books with explicitly queer characters."

but I guess if I'm gonna try...most of these are going to be books, with a few exceptions.

BOOKS

Doctrine of Labyrinths is a four book series that comes stamped with a whole list of content warnings (rape and child abuse chief among them, probably) but is also one of my favorite series of all time, so, you know.

The Masquerade series by Seth Dickinson also comes with a big "IT'S SAD. IT'S SAD AND DARK" warning, along with content warnings for serious societal homophobia, but is another one of my favorite series of all time. it's not that I hate happy queer stories or anything, I just tend to like stories that aren't happy

The Locked Tomb Trilogy by Tasmyn Muir which you've probably heard about by now, but honestly I think the common tagline of "lesbian necromancers in space" really doesn't...cover it? It's funny, it's weird, it's unique in terms of setting, story, and magic system, it's doing some very interesting things and I can't wait to find out where Muir is going with it. it's very much stylistically not something that's going to work for everyone, but I would recommend giving it a go and finding out if it works for you.

I loved the series by Lara Elena Donnelly that starts with Amberlough, but that one's definitely Rise of a Fascist State and therefore might not be everyone's cuppa right at the moment.

Oh, Imperial Radch by Ann Leckie is very queer, not in terms of, like, "these characters are explicitly gay" but more in terms of what she's doing with gender. I don't know that I'd say it's a central part of the book but it's an important enough piece of the worldbuilding at least that I'd put it here. I don't actually remember, textually, but Machineries of Empire also feels very queer to me in a similar sort of way. A queer theory sort of way, maybe? idk.

this one's a sort of...not for me exactly but it was cool rec, but The Priory of the Orange Tree by Samantha Shannon was very classic fantasy in a lot of ways, but gay, and with some fresh twists on old tropes.

COMICS

The Wicked and the Divine by Kieron Gillen and Jamie McKelvie. look, it's just really good and not just for the queer. I need to do a reread from the top.

TV

I am really enjoying Motherland: Fort Salem actually, which I feel like people either aren't aware of or watch the first couple episodes and get turned off, but. one of the three main characters is lesbian, and sticks her hand down another girl's pants in like. the second episode? maybe even the first one, I don't remember.

Person of Interest doesn't introduce its gay until later in the series, but if you're anything like me as far as what you want in relationship dynamics you're in for a treat.

Yes, it is an animated children's show, but She-Ra and the Princesses of Power gave me such a gift it still makes me emotional because I'm going like. is this what it feels like to get what I want, canonically, in a piece of media? wow.

look, I'm putting The Untamed on here because (a) it is based on a gay webnovel and is pretty fucking gay considering the limits of censorship, everybody in the cast knows it and is playing it, and (b) some of the secondary relationships come off, I would argue, even gayer in the live action, probably because there are actor people putting them right in front of your face. (because the discourse is what it is: censorship isn't progressive, etc., but this is my list and I'm putting MDZS on here too.)

THOSE CHINESE WEBNOVELS I WON'T SHUT UP ABOUT

like, seriously. I mean, look, they take some work getting into because reading works in translation that come from a culture that you (general Anglophone you) may or may not be familiar with on one level or another actually does come with having to learn some shit and get used to some new things about genre and style, and reading webnovels maybe even more so, but as far as I'm concerned it's worth it.

so far the ones I've read are (titles in English, with common abbreviation, mostly from the Chinese) Heaven Official's Blessing (TGCF), Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation (MDZS), Scum Villain's Self Saving System (SVSSS), The Husky and His White Cat Shizun (erha or 2HA), and (still finishing but at this point feel pretty comfy recommending) Clear and Muddy Loss of Love (JWQS).

there are several others on my list that I've had recommended and just haven't gotten to yet. my favorites personally are probably TGCF and 2HA, but I'm pending a reread of MDZS with a different translation to do my final assessment there and JWQS is giving me a lot of very good shit.

(I feel like I have to mention, because I'd be remiss if I didn't while I'm talking about ~personal preferences~, that the Coldfire Trilogy is astonishingly queer in my memory for one of the central relationships although it's been years since I read it, admittedly, and the Lymond Chronicles which is a series I love dearly is also incredibly queer, particularly for a series written in the 60s, and is like. juuuuust barely shy of having a canonically bisexual protagonist. and does have an explicitly lesbian secondary character, though fair warning, she, uh, does have it pretty rough.)

there's also some books that didn't make it on here even though they have queer characters because I felt like the queerness of those characters was not really key to the story, for instance the Broken Earth Trilogy by N.K. Jemisin, which is fantastic in its own right and I would recommend to everyone, but didn't quite feel like it fit this post.

I'm almost certainly forgetting stuff, but I did my best.

[losergender]

i tried to open chapter 7 earlier and my computer literally crashed i couldn't make this up if i wanted

"he almost sounds... kind" no he doesn't get yourself together

"the annoying part was patro was right" what does this sentence mean. nvm just understood it o7

she cares so much about classical music for no reason T___T

we got lore on the snake pet. apparently she's another spartan's animal protector but her guy is "gone"

THE SNAKE IS FLIRTING WITH A JAGUAR??? AND THEY'RE SAPPHIC??? AND THE SNAKE JUST CALLED THE PROTAG HOMOPHOBIC WHAT?!?!DFGF

they leave her clothes in her bedroom for her and they give her like a bra in every size possible for her to choose from and i think that's actually a good detail idk

oh of course spartan blood is too acidic to test. of course. how could i not think of that.

she's fluent in ASL but i don't think it was ever mentioned which is a bit random (specially when w her being hoh could have been quite easy to bring up) (then again the author doesnt seem to remember shes hoh and visually impaired very often)

"maybe it's always been awkward. i tended to have that effect on people, specially men" please shut up

i see 0 chance of these two men being horribly and uncalledly mean because of hidden personal reasons that have shaped their personality (which with how straight up abusive they are is not enough) and i'm sure it's gonna be a "they were born like this!" situation which is even worse and ew

"swearing is a sign of a weak mind" you've been swearing the whole book

"i wasn't sure i had ever felt pleasure" not even 3 chapters ago when you were watching porn in the school library? :( really?

"our power would rip you through shreds from the inside out. it would tear you to pathetic pieces and BOIL YOUR WOMB" when they inevitably have horribly written sex i hope his dick is 2 inches

"sounds like an average menstrual cycle" rare protagonist W

STOP MENTIONING YOUR EMMY NOETHER AND CARL GAUSS FANFICTION FOR THE LOVE OF GOD

"do you have math books?" "no. i'm not a loser" okay i did chuckle

this world building sucks so bad that i have to pause my sweet maisie peter's "want you back" to fully comprehend this shit

"there was a strange creaking, a groan, heavy panting and more creaking" please tell me those fanfics taught you enough to not go check plsplspls

NOT THE EMOTIONAL SUPPORT ITALIAN FROM HER DREAMS AGAIN. (he's telling her she'll survive) (at least i think it's a him) oh he's not even being supportive he's also really mean

the evil mental test she has to survive has the following categories:

"thagorean" (maths ft. philosophy). why would she split pythagoras' name? i don't understand

"lost classical lore" this cannot be serious

"discipline and power (d and p for short)" there's a marina song about that

bonding with an animal protector

no comments

btw they just assumed her father is zeus based on the fact that she's blonde (but ig that if she has to be hercules it makes sense)

"i wasn't a bird girl. no one had proved birds weren't spying on us" alexis for the love of jesus christ and his virgin mother

"why were they always flying" BECAUSE THEIR LEGS ARE SHIT THEY'RE BIRDS ALEXIS

i hate this guy but i can't blame him

important piece of info but in chapter one she mentions this one neighbor that was so insufferable that someone had tried to kill him by hitting him with a shovel in the head and she keeps talking about stuff he used to say and she says "paul (pre-shovel)" and "paul (post-shovel") all the time

why are you ancient greek and wearing a toga

"one boy in the group wore a golden laurel crown" omg zagreus!!

i don't get why if there are so little of these guys and so little of their women why they're so insistent on killing everyone. like call me crazy but one would think that not killing people reduces the death rates by a bunch

welcome to sunny reacting to stuff in which sunny reacts to stuff. in this tumblr post, we're dealing with blood of hercules (the i'm a girl and as it turns out i'm hercules book) because i'm doing So Bad Mentally that i am in dire need of something that will make me laugh.

chapter 1 reaction below

montana?? out of all states?? okay go off

"kids at school called it apocalytic core. i called it hell" already laughing. i love my life decisions.

SUPERSEED I'M SORRY WHAT?

"if you wanted to live (i didn't)" you and me both bestie

does the author know verb tenses

i'm saying so little bc otherwise the post would be huge. every single sentence is hilariously bad this is so silly

summary if anyone is interested -> pretty unclear dystopian setting, 10-yo befriends an echidna named nyx and then gets a foster brother delivered to her room the next day. the titans are like superhumans killing normal people and the "spartans" are 12 protector families (8 are olympian, 4 are cthonic and those are dangerous murderers or something).

[magicalgirlagency]

If you don't mind, could you talk more about this Daybreak Illusion anime, and why it was bad?

With pleasure.

I might struggle with remembering some bits and pieces about Daybreak Illusion, because despite being born out of Madoka Magica's success, this anime is very very very obscure and easily forgotten.

However, to my luck, a magical girl blogger by the name of @mew-cake (a.k.a.: CakeoftheMews on YouTube) has made a video summarizing and explaining the anime, so y'all can get up to speed on things! She's honestly a lifesaver, 'cause I ain't watching that anime myself for shit!

The video is titled Daybreak Illusion Tripped On Its Face, if anyone's curious.

But, I'll give you my version of the facts...

So, here's the plot's summary:

A young 12yo girl by the name of Taiyou Akari discovers that she has tarot-based powers (she's The Sun card) after her mother's passing. She's later scouted by an organization called Sefiro Fiore, with a team of tarot-based heroes specialized in exterminating wicked beasts by the name of Daemonia.

The thing about Daemonia is that they are innocent civilians who were infected/corrupted/possessed/whatever-the-fuck-happens-to-them-because-the-anime-never-bothered-to-explain-in-rich-detail by evil demons, but they cannot be saved and return back to normal, so the girls have no other choice but to murder these innocents and put them out of their misery.

Akari, our protagonist, is the only girl who can hear the Daemonia's thoughts, listening to their cries of help; which at first it sounds like a solid idea and a catalyst for a huge change in the series... except that this was never brought up again, and every civilian still died anyways.

Y'know, back in the days, we used to throw a Starlight Honeymoon Therapy Kiss on them bastards.

One shot of those, and these corrupted victims were as good as new.

And I don't know much about the ending, but it seems that it ended with everyone dead like the Ugly Barnacle tale, because why not? Why not make everyone's lives even more miserable? As if they weren't content with sexualizing 12yos non-stop.

Yes, it was one of THOSE animes.

The girls' designs look like they came out of a l*licon hentai doujin that you could easily find on those shady websites, one of them is corrupted and transformed into a she-wolf monster going around with their tits and pussy all out in the open (and she was in one-sided/unrequited love with the MC, so I can't help but feel this was yet another demonization of sapphic folk...), and the villain wants to impregnate the 12yo MC and won't fucking shut up about it every single time he's on-screen (oh, and did I mention that the aformentioned villain was heavily implied to be the MC's FATHER?! Hopefully, I don't need to explain to you all why this is gross and totally not legal?!)

So, yeah; this is Daybreak Illusion. A huge waste of time, with fap material for l*licon otakus to relish on, and heavy on the shock value. It's not just bad, it's pure SCUM.

If it serves as any consolation, Magia Record (the game, NOT the anime because we do not talk about it) has a tarot-based magical girl on their ever-growing roster, named Meru Anna, who was a former comrade to Nanami Yachiyo at the Mikazuki Villa.

Unfortunately, she's canonically deceased, as she sacrificed herself in battle to save her friends when her Soul Gem was grimy, and became the Disclosure Witch Etteilla.

Despite the fact that she's dead, her Magical Girl Story reveals that she has become a guardian angel of sorts to Yachiyo, alongside Yukino Kanae, another colleague who perished (mind you, due to Madoka existing as a mortal in MagiReco, the Law Of Cycles is not a thing, so there's not an afterlife for Puella Magi like in the original series).

And, if you're craving something classic, there's CardCaptor Sakura, I guess. I mean, don't get me wrong, this one's the most tame out of the bunch; but there are the gross implications that Sakura and Tomoyo are second cousins, and several references to pedophilia (with Sakura's parents, and an actual teacher/student relationship).

I used to like it as a child, but now that I am more critical of anime, I think it's meh.

Though Tomoyo's fashion sense is still legendary; that's an universally accepted opinion.

[roadmotel]

Hi!

This is a super long ask and I hope it's interesting instead of annoying.

I have just finished reading the book "The Carnivorous Lamb" by Augustin Gomez-Arcos, and one of the main plot points is the love between the protagonist and his brother. Needless to say, many passages reminded me of the brothers. And then I thought I'd send them; even if they're not material for your blog, I thought you might enjoy taking a look, since the book has a very beautiful and evocative style... If it's not your thing, I apologize in advance! All in all, I love your blog and I hope you're having a nice week <3

Here it goes:

Father coming in at neutral moments to plant a kiss on my forehead, then hurrying out (did he love me, I wonder?), my brother, rooted to the spot, devouring me with his eyes. The house gone mad, blind anarchy stealthily taking it over,

Page 28

This ritual of waiting, which I have lived minute by minute since five o’clock in the afternoon last Friday, strikes me as completely useless. It brings me nothing new. Written in my cells when I was a child, it has ruled my behavior ever since. And my behavior has never been more than an appendage of yours, somewhat like a dog’s tail in relation to the dog. What can I do, though? When someone else’s life is the only space you have to live in, you can’t choose but to wait. Whether you come as a lover or an executioner, I am ready to receive you. More ready than ever. With all the obligations that waiting for you imposes on me. But don’t come as a brother, to profane me in the family blasphemy; if you do, my waiting for you will assert its rights. So open the door. Come in.

Page 55

I no longer had any trouble understanding the softness of my brother’s look, and the ever stronger, fiercer desire I felt to melt into him. With me, he acted like a creator. He sensed—no, he was sure—that he was shaping me day by day into the image of something special that he loved unconsciously. And passionately.

Page 70

I felt I should minimize the whole thing, but was petrified by a hardness on his face I had never seen before. A dangerous light glinted in his eyes, and an animal’s clenched teeth showed between his tight lips. The black-and-blue mark someone else’s hand had put on my behind had enraged him—even though I didn’t always emerge unscathed from our own wrestling matches. A savage heat started burning in my flesh, and I suddenly felt proud of having caused the bruise, which had the magnificent power of showing me the strength of my brother’s passion. My skin became translucent, the better to show Antonio my pre-adolescent frailty. He couldn’t take his eyes off my bruised flesh. “The bastard! The bastard!”

Page 90

“I won’t even let my parents raise a hand to him. Do you think I’m going to let you?” “I am his teacher, not his.…” “…brother,” finished Antonio, in a voice as sharp as a whip-crack. “I’m his brother. Me.” They watched each other in silence. No need to explain further.

Page 92

Within me, my brother’s presence stirred a craving for apocalypse. The Latin words falling softly from his lips tickled the most secret parts of my body, as if he were speaking directly to me and not to God.

Page 167

I could detail the disturbing contents of your dreams, the things you yourself don’t know, one anxiety after another. I could tell you if I knew the right words … but who could prompt me, who could give me those mysterious words? I know you so well, I can’t describe you. There is a you of you I can certainly describe. But I can’t tell you a thing about the other you of you, my you.

Page 235

You cross the hallway. You try to open my bedroom door, but it is closed. And locked. You order me to open it, as if I still belonged to you. You beg me to open it, as if you still belonged to me. But I don’t open it, and I don’t stop shouting.

Page 255

You lick our tears from my eyes before they stain my face, like someone trying to get drunk. You feed on us. And you say: “Easy, easy. I’m here.” But I know you don’t want me to stop, because you really do need to feed on me.

Page 256

And this is a classic passage, you might have seen it around before:

“I love you because you’re mine. I love you because I possess you. I love you because you need love. I love you because you’re disorder, and I don’t like order. I love you because when you look at me I feel like a hero, and always have. I especially love you because I’ve finally understood that I can’t talk about my love to anyone else but you, and that’s what real love is. Two beings who make up one solitude, one silence. And I love you because touching you makes me feel I’m more of a man than anyone.” You look at me as if you were in me. And you are in me. And outside me. Everywhere.

Page 262

oh please don't apologize! i’ve actually read this book, i think i’ve even posted a few quotes from it on here. it's incredibly well-written, unsettling, and confronting. funnily enough, i actually found out about this book because years ago i watched the film from beginning to end (also about an intense sexual relationship between two brothers) and there was a quote from it that i really liked:

“i love you because you’re mine. i love you because you need love. i love you because when you look at me i feel like a hero. it was always like that. i love you because when i touch you i feel more a man than any other man.”

so i googled it and the carnivorous lamb popped up and i read the premise and was like wait was the movie based on this book? but there was no acknowledgment of the book in the movie’s credits and i couldn’t find anything about it being an inspiration for the movie on wikipedia so i was like holy shit. then i read the carnivorous lamb (and loved it like it’s really incredible) and realized that from beginning to end completely ripped off the book. even the opening lines in from beginning to end are super reminiscent of a specific passage from the carnivorous lamb. 

the movie opens with:

“i was born with my eyes wide shut. sure, everybody is born with their eyes closed. but mine were closed so tight, they formed wrinkles. i remained with my eyes closed for more than two weeks. my mother, contrary to expectations, didn’t worry [...] while he [brother] stared at me through the thick, soundproof nursery glass window, i without any reason opened my eyes, and looked straight into his.”

and in the book, ignacio says:

“from the moment i opened my eyes, an incredible sixteen days after i was born, you [brother] were always sure of everything where i was concerned. it was all laid out in advance for you, even the unexpected. do you remember? mother used to say i was born with the will to stay blind forever.”

god, apologies for my rant but that literally always comes to mind whenever i think about the carnivorous lamb like how did they get away with just straight up plagiarizing agustín gómez-arcos in that movie lmao? anyway! thanks for sharing your favorite quotes i actually have a couple of these highlighted in my book!

[brawltogethernow]

So, I don't think I've ever asked you this... what IS the whole point of the Spider-Sense? It really seems like something that only exists for writers to ignore or work around when they want to inject Legit Tension into a story.

I’ve thought about this power so much, but never with an eye to defend its right to exist, so I needed to think about this. The results could be more concise.

Ironically, given the question, I have to say its main purpose is to ramp up tension. But it’s also a highly variable multitool that a skilled creative team can use for...pretty much anything. It does everything the writer wants it to, while for its wielder always falls just short of doing enough.

I went looking through my photos for a really generic, classic-looking example to use as an image to head this topic, but then I ran into the time Peter absolutely did not reimburse this man for his stolen McDonald’s, so have that instead.

A Scare Chord, But You Can Draw It

That one post that says the spider-sense is just super-anxiety isn’t, like, wrong. It’s a very anxious, dramatic storytelling tool originally designed for a very anxious, dramatic protagonist. I find it speaks to the overall tone of the franchise that some characters are functionally psychics, but with a psychic ability that only points out problems.

Spidey sense pinging? There’s danger, be stressed! Broken? Now the lead won’t even KNOW when there’s a problem, scary! Single character is immune to it? That’s an invisible knife in the dark oh my god what the fuck what the fU--

Like its counterpart in garden variety anxiety, the only time the spider-sense reduces tension is in the middle of a crisis. But in the wish fulfillmenty way that you want in an adventure story to justify exaggerated action sequences, the same way enhanced strength or durability does. Also like those, it would theoretically make someone much safer to have it, but it exists in the story to let your character navigate into and weather more dangerous situations.

For its basic role in a story, a danger sense is a snappy way to rile up both the reader and the protagonist that doesn’t offer much information beyond that it’s time to sit smart because shit is about to go down.

Spidey comic canon is all over the board in quality and genre, and it started needing to subvert its formulas before the creators got a handle on what those formulas even were, and basically no one has read anything approaching most of it at this point, so for consistent examples of a really bare bones use of this power in storytelling, I’d point to the property that’s done the best job yet of boiling down the mechanics of Spider-Man to their absolute most basic essentials for adaptation to a compelling monster of the week TV series.

Or as you probably know it, Danny Phantom. DON’T BOO, I’M RIGHT.

DP is Spider-Man with about 2/3 of the serial numbers filed off and no death (ironically), and Danny’s ghost sense is the most proof in the formula example of what the spidey sense is for: It’s a big sign held up for the viewer that says, “Something is wrong! Pay attention!” Effectively a visual scare chord. It’s about That Drama. And it works, which won it a consistent place in the show’s formula. We’re talking several times an episode here.

So why does it work?

It’s a little counterintuitive, but it’s strong storytelling to tell your audience that something bad is going to happen before it does. A vague, punchy spoiler transforms the ignorant calm before a conflict into a tense moment of anticipation. ...And it makes sure people don’t fail to absorb the beginning of said conflict because they weren’t prepared to shift gears when the scene did. Shock is a valuable tool, too, but treating it like a staple is how you burn out your audience instead of keeping them engaged. Not to go after an easy target, but you need to know how to manage your audience’s alarm if you don’t want to end up like Game of Thrones.

The limits of the spider-sense also keep you on your toes when handled by a smart writer. It tells Peter (everyone’s is a little different, so I’m going to cite the og) about threats to his person, but it doesn’t elaborate with any details when it’s not already obvious why, what kind, and from what. And it doesn’t warn him about anything else-- Which is a pretty critical gap when you zoom out and look at his hero career’s successes and failures and conclude that it’s definitely why he’s lived as long as he has acting the way he does, but was useless as he failed to save a string of people he’d have much rather had live on than him.

(Any long-running superhero mythos has these incidents, but with Peter they’re important to the core themes.)

And since this power is by plot for plot (or because it’s roughly agreed it only really blares about threats that check at least two boxes of being major, immediate, or physical), it always kicks in enough to register when the danger is bearing down...when it’s too late to actually do anything about it if “anything” is a more complex action than “dodge”.

Really? Not until the elevator doors started to open?

That Distinctive, Crunchy Spider Flavor

The spider-sense and its little pen squiggles go hand in hand with wallcrawling (and its unique and instantly identifiable associated body language) to make the Spider-Person powerset enduringly iconic and elevate characters with it from being generic mid-level super-bricks. Visually, but also in how it shapes the story.

I said it can share a narrative role with super strength. But when you end a fight and go home, super strength continues to make your character feel powerful, probably safer than they’d be otherwise, maybe dangerous.

The spider-sense just keeps blaring, “Something’s wrong! Something’s wrong! God, why aren’t you doing something about this!?”

Pretty morose thing to live with, for a safety net! Kind of a double edged sword you have there! Could be constantly being hyperattuned to problems would prime you for a negative outlook on life. Kind of seems like a power that would make it impossible for a moral person to take a day off, leading them into a beleaguered and resentful yet dutiful attitude about the whole superhero gig! Might build up to some of the core traits of this mythos, maybe! Might lead to a lot of fifteen minute retirement stories, or something. Might even be a built in ‘great responsibility’ alarm that gets you a main character who as a rule is not going to stop fighting until he physically cannot fight anymore.

Certainly not apropos of anything, just throwing this short lived barely-a-joke tagline up for fun.

One of my personal favorite things about stories with superpowers is keeping in mind how they cause the people who have them to act in unusual ways outside of fights, so when you tell me that these people have an entire extra sense that tells them when the gas in their house is leaking through a barely useful hot/cold warning system that never turns off, I’m like, eyes emojis, popcorn out, notebook open, listening intently, spectacles on, the whole deal.

It also contributes to Peter Parker’s personality in a way I really enjoy: It allows him to act like an irrational maniac. When you know exactly when a situation becomes dangerous and how much, normal levels of caution go out the window and absolutely nothing you do makes sense from an exterior standpoint anymore. That’s the good shit. I would like to see more exploration of how the non-Parker characters experiencing the world in this incredibly altered way bounce in response.

It’s also one of many tools in this franchise hauling the reader into relating more closely with the main character. The backbone of classic Spidey is probably being in on secrets only Peter and the reader know which completely reframe how one views the situation on the page. It’s just a big irony mine for the whole first decade. A convenient way to inform the reader and the lead that something is bad news that’s not perceivable to any other characters is youth-with-a-big-exciting-secret catnip.

Another point for tension, there, in that being aware of danger is not synonymous with being able to act on it. If there’s no visible reason for you to be acting strange, well...you’re just going to have to sit tight and sweat, aren’t you? Some gratuitous head wiggles never hurt when setting up that type of conflict.

Have I mentioned that they look cool? Simultaneously punchy and distinctive, with a respectable amount of leeway for artists to get creative with and still coming up with something easily recognizable? And pretty easy to intuit the meaning of even without the long-winded explanations common in the days when people wrote comics with the intent that someone could come in cold on any random issue and follow along okay, I think, although the mechanic has been deeply ingrained in popular culture for so long that I can’t really say for sure.

It was also useful back in the day when no artists drew the eyes on the Spider-Man mask as emoting and were conveying the lead’s expressions entirely through body language and panel composition. If you wiggle enough squiggles, you don’t need eyebrows.

Take This Handwave and Never Ask Me a Logistical Question Again

This ability patches plot holes faster than people can pick them open AND it can act as an excuse to get any plot rolling you can think of if paired with one meddling protagonist who doesn’t know how to mind their own business. Buy it now for only $19.99 (in four installments; that’s four installments of $19.99).

Why can a teenager win a six on one fight against other superhumans? Well, the spider-sense is the ultimate edge in combat, duh.

Why can Peter websling? Why doesn’t everyone websling? Well, the spider-sense is keeping him from eating flagpole when he violently flings himself across New York in a way neither man nor spider was ever meant to move.

How are we supposed to get him involved with the plot this week???? Well, that crate FELT dangerous, so he’s going to investigate it. Oh, dip, it was full of guns and radioactive snakes! Probably shouldn’t have opened that!

Yeah, okay, but why isn’t it fixing everything, then? Isn’t it supposed to be why Peter has never accidentally unmasked in front of somebody? ('Nother entry for this section, take a shot.) That’s crazy sensitive! How does he still have any problems!? Is everything bad that’s ever happened to characters with this powerset bad writing!? --Listen, I think as people with uncanny senses that can tell us whether we are in danger with accuracy that varies from incredible to approximate (I am talking about the five senses that most people have), we should all know better than to underestimate our ability to tune them out or interpret them wrong and fuck ourselves up anyway. I honestly find this part completely realistic.

*SLAPS ROOF OF SPIDER-SENSE* YOU CAN FIT SO MANY STORIES IN THIS THING

The spider-sense is a clean branch into...whatever. There is the exact right balance of structure and wishy-washiness to build off of. A sample selection of whatevers that have been built:

It’s sci-fi and spy gadgets when Peter builds technology that can interface with it.

It’s quasi-mystical when Kaine and Annie-May get stronger versions of it that give them literal psychic visions, or when you want to get mythological and start talking about all the spider-characters being part of a grand web of fate.

Kaine loses his and it becomes symbolic of a future newly unbound by constraints, entangled thematically with the improved physical health he picked up at the same time -- a loss presented as a gain.

Peter loses his and almost dies 782 times in one afternoon because that didn’t make the people he provoked when he had it stop trying to kill him, and also because he isn’t about to start “””taking the subway’’””’ “‘’“”to work”””’’” like some kind of loser who doesn’t get a heads up when he’s about to hit a pigeon at 50mph.

Peter’s starts tuning into his wife’s anxiety and it’s a tool in a relationship study.

It starts pinging whenever Peter’s near his boss who’s secretly been replaced by a shapeshifter and he IGNORES IT because his boss is enough of an asshole that that doesn’t strike him as weird; now it’s a comedy/irony tool.

Into the Spider-Verse made it this beautiful poetic thing connecting all the spider-heroes in the multiverse and stacked up a story on it about instant connection, loss, and incredibly unlikely strangers becoming a found family. It was also aesthetic as FUCK. Remember the scene where Miles just hears barely intelligible whispering that’s all lines people say later in the film and then his own voice very clearly says “look out” and then the room explodes?? Fuck!!!!

Venom becomes immune to it after hitchhiking to Earth in Peter’s bone juice and it makes him a unique threat while telling a more-homoerotic-than-I-assume-was-originally-intended story about violation and how close relationships can be dangerous when they go sour.

It doesn’t work on people you trust for maximum soap opera energy. Love the innate tragedy of this feature coming up.

IN CONCLUSION I don’t have much patience for writers who don’t take advantage of it, never mind feel they need to write around it.

[lassieposting]

Bit late and random but it's the anon you leave food out for here to give away I am also bi and I think exactly the same as you about bi val pretty much, every time Derek offers me representation my reaction is to slowly, hesitantly take it and say "thaaaaaaaaanks..." while rolling my eyes, in much the same way one accepts their least favourite flavour of sweet from an annoyingly enthusiastic uncle-type-individual. Ironically I feel I had more in common with her before the bi shit started up.

What I find really amusing is that Landy actually did reasonably well at representation when (and only when) he wasn’t trying. 

Oh god, this got long, anon, my ass rambled.

tldr; I'm glad actual bi people dislike bi val (or how Laundry handled bi val) as much as me, this will probably offend at least one person but i don't really care, Dirty Laundry wrote better rep when he didn't mean to write rep at all, and if he ever starts trying to "represent" groups I'm part of I'll take him out back like a dying horse and shoot him.

Like, yes. He had stupid and potentially offensive shit - I say potentially because what offends one member of a group won’t necessarily offend all of them. His attitude to mentally ill people is, frankly, disgusting. We’ve had “Skulduggery can’t be abused, he doesn’t have feelings”. We’ve had “eVeRyOnE iS bI eVeNtUaLlY”. We had Ping, who seemed to be pretty much universally offensive. And that's what's always going to happen when a straight, cis, white, wealthy, male author tries to write marginalised groups he doesn't know shit about, because inevitably he's going to fall back on stereotypes.

But we also had:

SEXUALITY REP: Phase One's nonstraight characters were treated like the straight ones, and like, isn't that the whole point? There was no need for a massive Coming Out Story TM to grab for those sweet sweet Woke Points, because sexuality isn't supposed to be important to mages. I never understood why Val needed that whole Coming Out Panic storyline. Like...Des and Melissa are ridiculously supportive, encouraging, loving parents. They accepted you dating a ~19 year old when you were ~16. They accepted you revealing you could do fucking magic and that you'd been lying to them for like seven years. They took your undead buddy in stride and the most pressing question your dad had was whether magic toilets exist. There is zero reason to think that "I'm bisexual" is gonna be the thing that makes them flip and throw you into the streets in disgrace, Valkyrie. Come on.

Tanith had girlfriends and it was just mentioned casually, because it's normal.

China had massive UST with Eliza. That was an opportunity right there to not only include a f/f relationship, but also to bring back one of the few precious surviving characters from Phase One, using characters and a relationship that already had several books' worth of setup and tension and interest from fans.

The Monster Hunters have a casual conversation about which one of the Dead Men they'd date.

Ghastly has a conversation with Fletcher about the pain he's been through being in love. He never uses any pronouns.

It was confirmed at one point re: the Dead Men that at this point, after 300-odd years, everyone's been with everyone else at some point.

Thrasher is gay, and while Scapegrace's...everything...is treated as a joke/comedic relief, Thrasher's love for him isn't. He's completely devoted to Scapegrace, and that in itself is not played for laughs, even though the rest of the scene usually is. Thrasher's description of their first meeting is essentially a love-at-first-sight situation for him.

"ABNORMAL" RELATIONSHIP REP: Age gap relationships are normal for mages. Off the top of my head, using only canon, canon-implied or almost-canon ships:

Ghastly/Tanith (~350 year age difference)

Tanith/Sanguine (~250+ year age difference)

Tanith/Saracen (~350 year age difference)

Caisson/Solace (~250 year age difference)

China/Gordon (~400 year age difference)

Kierre/Temper (~500+ year age difference)

If you include fan ships, there's also things like Mevolent/Serpine or my Mevolent/Vile, which are both ~600 year minimum age gaps based on the timeline, or Valdug (and its variations) which is ~400 years.

Now, whether you consider this kind of rep positive or negative is up to you, but it’s there.

MENTAL ILLNESS REP: more like "Which characters in this series don't have a mental illness or a personality disorder?" I have some of these issues, but not all of them, so this is just how I read it, but:

ADHD: Skulduggery

Dissociative Identity Disorder: Skulduggery & Vile

Dissociation: Skulduggery again, most notably in DD and DB

Schizophrenia (or similar): Valkyrie & Darquesse, Valkyrie "seeing" Darquesse's ghost thing in Phase Two

Impostor Syndrome: Reflectionie

Autism: Clarabelle

Trauma/PTSD/CPTSD: Skulduggery, Valkyrie, China, Ghastly, Erskine...pretty much everyone has a believable, understandable, morally grey trauma response in this series. People struggling with trauma are spoilt for choice of characters to see themselves in.

TRAUMA REP: This series is a trauma conga line, but everyone has a believable, understandable, morally grey trauma response in this series. I see little bits of myself in more than one Phase One character.

Childhood Abuse (of varying degrees & types): Skulduggery, Carol & Crystal, Omen, Fletcher, Ghastly, China, Bliss, Sanguine...

Estranged Family: Skulduggery abandoning his crest, Fergus & Gordon, China & Bliss

Bad Romantic Relationship: Skulduggery is also very clearly an abuse victim. He’s got a solid history of romantic attachments to women who manipulate, use and gaslight him for their own agendas.  There's a whole paragraph in SPX about how Abyssinia broke him down, isolated him from his friends and preyed on his desperate need to be loved, all classic abuse tactics.

And I’m personally a huge fan of this backstory for two reasons:

1) Society likes a plucky victim in media. The "My suffering made me stronger" type of victim. And it's not always like that in real life. Not all survivors come out of their abuse stronger or kinder or more understanding. Some of us come out cold and fucked up. Some of us end up as emotionally stunted, bloodied-nails-and-bared-teeth survivors, broken in ways that can't be fixed and sustained by enough rage to power a small sun. But society doesn't like to tell the story of that kind of survivor, because we're not usually a likeable protagonist. When we're shown in media, we're usually the sympathetic villain, or maybe the antihero. But Skug is someone who's done awful things and lost pretty much all his faith in humanity and been burned more times than he can count, and he still makes the conscious choice to try and be the good guy when he could so easily go Evil Supervillain on the world, and I don't know about any of y'all, but I've modelled myself on him in that. I've made the choice to do something good when all I really want to do is just become a horrible, shrivelled ball of nastiness and revenge. And that's because I saw him do it and realised that I could do that too.

Skug is an incredibly capable, strong, masculine Man's Man. He gets in fights all the time, and he usually wins. He's military, an industry that's Really Bad for stigmatizing weakness and mental illness, and he's right up at the top of the hierarchy. Almost everyone is afraid of him. He's a straight up cold-blooded killer. Skulduggery Pleasant is precisely the type of person who's not normally portrayed as a victim of anything. Nothing about him screams "victim" at all. But his abuse history is insidious. He's so conditioned to respond in a certain way to abuse from the women in his life, probably from a very young age, that despite all that strength and capability and stubbornness and ego, he just goes along with it. And it's an established pattern going back hundreds of years. He keeps going back to China, even though he knows she's bad for him and his friends keep telling him to stay away from her. Abyssinia latched onto him when he was traumatized and vulnerable and weaponized it against him to make him easier to control - and when she reappears, hundreds of years later, she jumps straight back into using, tmanipulating and gaslighting him and not only does he let her, he doesn't even seem to realise that behaviour is abusive. He thinks it's normal! That's how he's always been treated by his long-term girlfriends, with the notable exception of Wifey. Even when Val is being fucking nasty to him in the first couple books of Phase Two, sniping and lying and blaming him for everything under the sun, he just takes it. There's no attempt to tell her she's being unreasonable, no telling her to fuck right off and give her head a wobble, no defending himself even when she's bitching over something that isn't even his doing. And this is a man who has an absolutely gleaming steel spine the rest of the time; Skug has no problem saying no to anybody else, but he can't get past the way he's been taught to treat the important ladies in his life. Skug is a walking reminder that anyone can be a victim of abuse, even the ones who seem least likely to be susceptible.

GENDER REP: This one is the most iffy out of the bunch and definitely was not done very well in the eyes of the people who matter most, but I'll include it anyway because it mattered to some.

So there's Nye, who's...agender? Genderless? And uses "it" pronouns? Nye was generally considered horrible rep because it's also a war criminal and experiments on people and I've seen people say "Well I don't want to be seen like that" but? It's still possible to be a war criminal and also genderless. I never saw the two things as being related or relevant to each other.

There's also Mantis, who's in exactly the same gender/pronouns boat as Nye and always seems to be forgotten about, which sucks because Mantis is a war hero. It fought for the Sanctuary during the War and they never lost a battle when it was in command. It's called out of retirement to fight for the Supreme Council in LSODM, ends up fighting alongside Skulduggery during the Battle of Roarhaven, and ultimately dies attempting a very brave, very risky strategy. Mantis is, unreservedly, one of the good guys. It was also my introduction to sentient beings using "it" pronouns, and did it in a way that felt natural, so when I met my first person online who used "it" pronouns and hated to be referred to as he/she, it was...weird, but not as weird as it would otherwise have been, because I was like, "Oh yeah, like the Crenga. Okay."

And then there's the Scapegrace sex change plotline, which...I might have an unpopular opinion on this one. From what I’ve seen, trans people don’t seem to think was handled well or with any sensitivity at all. I’m not trans, so if the trans community says he was being offensive to them, I’m not going to claim otherwise. But...I first read the Scapegrace plotline as a young teenager in a tiny rural school with zero diversity, going through a period of being deeply confused about my own gender identity. He was more or less my first introduction to the idea that genitals =/= gender. I was relieved, at that point in my life, to read someone having a lot of the same thoughts I was having about being in the wrong body. So while it may have been badly done and yeah, the series would probably have been better without it, it did make at least one kid suspecting she might not be cis go “Huh! So there are other people who feel like this.”

Thrasher is also implied to be legitimately trans/gender-questioning, and that's not played for laughs either.

So? Phase One, while it absolutely had faults and issues and things that were just "Oh god why", was actually full of rep, at least compared to the other series that I read as a child/teen. But? As soon as Dirty Laundry started trying to be woke? He fucking sucks ass at it. Aside from confirming Phase One's hints that Skug has a background of abusive relationships, every single attempt at shoehorning rep into Phase Two is Bad.

The painfully OOC, forced, badly-written awkwardness of Val suddenly being rabidly horny for women out of fucking nowhere. The stilted, forced cringiness between her and any of the women she's flirted with - contrast that with Sorrowscorn's interactions, full of natural chemistry that had us all like 👀 I mean, I never shipped Val/Melancholia, but I could always see why people did - they had miles more chemistry than Val/anyone in Phase Two.

The fucking mess that is v*litsa, because if someone says "I'm really not interested in friendships/relationships right now", clearly the route to true love is to bulldoze their boundaries and forcibly insert yourself into their life and proceed to treat them like a delicate soft uwu flower, completely ignoring the horrible things they've done, while gleefully damning their best friend as an irredeemable monster for the exact same things, which is. You know. Gonna affect your so-called love's self-confidence and self-esteem because she knows she's no different to him. Y'all know I love an angsty ship, an unhealthy ship, a ship with fucked power dynamics, but I literally cannot roll my eyes any further back in my head at this shit. I never read Demon Road, but from what I've heard from friends who did, it does seem like every time Laundry tries to write an f/f ship, he comes up with a cringey abusive/manipulative caricature and tries to call it rep, and he needs to Stop.

Val's Mental IllnessTM arc. It's funny how he wrote Skulduggery as a wonderfully complex character with deep-rooted psychological damage and long-lasting trauma, but believes he wrote a character with "no feelings" - but when he tries to delve into the damage the world of magic has done to Val, he turned her into a weak, whiny drug addict who treats everyone around her like garbage and is so selfish and dislikeable that I? Honestly can't even reconcile Phase Two val with Phase One val. They're two completely different people. He's shown on Twitter that he doesn't have any respect for mentally ill people, and it shows. Other mentally ill people might see it differently, but the whole thing just makes me go "yikes".

Never, who has no personality outside of being genderfluid, and whose pronouns make no sense. I'm sorry, I have never met an nb person who insists that you change from male to female pronouns multiple times in a sentence, every time you refer to them. It's confusing as fuck. Now I have been told that Never has apparently received some character development in the last couple books, and if so, fair play, but I quit reading after Midnight, and Never and the rest of the personality-less new characters introduced in Phase Two who just seemed to be 2D Stereotypes to snag Woke Points were a big part of why, so. Development too late, I'm afraid.

(Now, if anyone is looking for a well-written genderfluid character, I recommend the Tawny Man trilogy by Robin Hobb. I have a lot of issues with her as a writer, and unfortunately I hate her POV character which puts me off the series as a whole, but she wrote the Fool/Amber/Lord Golden and their gender identity/approach to sexuality with so much more respect and realism. That is the kind of rep nb people should be getting: 3D, complex, realistic characters whose gender is only a tiny fragment of their personality, not the be-all-and-end-all of their existence. You know. Like cis people get. Nobody wants to be represented by a 2D cardboard cutout stereotype.)

Anyway idk how much sense this makes it just really amuses me that Laundry would include all this rep completely unintentionally and then go on Twitter and remind us all that actually he's a massive asshole via insensitive/offensive tweets about the groups he'd actually done a fair job of including (i.e. Skulduggery has no feelings, mentally ill people should find another series to read, the bullshit about Val being "heteromantic bisexual" on Twitter and then spouting all the "the woman she loved uwu" shit in the books (proving he has no idea what he's talking about), eVeRyOnE iS bI eVeNtUaLlY. He can only write half-decent rep when he's not trying and he inevitably outs himself as having a really shitty attitude towards those people anyway, proving that ultimately it's all either unintentional rep or performative wokeness.

[ginmo]

How do you think the Bran and Jaime’s meeting will go in the books? I’ve read theories guessing he might end up as King Bran’s Hand, meta where the writers want him to become a mentor or father figure to the Starks in a full circle of his redemption arc, while others don’t want or think he should be involved with the Starks long-term either because of his and his family’s sins against the Starks or because they view his arc as reclamation rather than redemption or atonement. 1/2

This is what GRRM said about Bran and exploring time. 

“It's an obscenity to go into somebody's mind. So Bran may be responsible for Hodor's simplicity, due to going into his mind so powerfully that it rippled back through time. The explanation of Bran's powers, the whole questions of time and causality - can we affect the past? Is time a river you can only sail one way or an ocean that can be affected wherever you drop into it? These are issues I want to explore in the book, but it's harder to explain in a show.” - Fire Cannot Kill a Dragon

Hodor’s name reveal is neat and all, but Bran’s power to manipulate the past doesn't exist just so we can randomly learn Hodor’s pointless name origin. That would be ridiculous unless the scene was used to introduce that ability. Hodor’s name reveal is important to the narrative, and I believe its purpose is to set up a much bigger event/reveal involved around Bran interfering with the past, not just observing it. I’m pretty sure GRRM was hint-hinting to D&D about this, which is why he told them about the random ass Hodor scene that was already written, thinking it would be obvious what that means for the overall plot and letting them run with it but………………..

Because of this, I think it’s possible Bran brought himself to where he is. 

IF Bran isn’t involved in The Push, then he could have been involved with Jaime killing the Mad King. I kinda like the idea of Bran playing into Aerys’ madness, causing him to stock up on wildfire around the city, because then the wildfire would be an essential future plot element for a bigger purpose towards the end of the series and it would be a question of time, “a river you can only sail one way, or an ocean that can be affected wherever you drop it,” but for the entire series. (And, as someone with a passion in astrophysics, I’m a sucker for discussions around time. BUTTHAT’SJUSTME) 

Do I totally subscribe to this theory? Eh. I’m still not convinced Bran is King of All of Westeros for reasons, but I’m open-minded. I DO think Jaime is surviving the series, for reasonsssss, so I’m putting that disclaimer out there right now. I will never claim with absolute confidence that he is surviving though because, I mean, nobody fucking knows, and there’s an argument for death. I’m just going off of narrative clues that I perceive to be clues, and taking other character arcs into consideration. After literally drawing up a table because I’m weird, the column for Survive has more evidence and justification than the column for Dies, so that’s why I lean the way I lean. SO with that being said, I think it’s possible he has more of a political future.

IF this is what GRRM is writing, Jaime would still be responsible for pushing him, of course, but future Bran would want to be pushed. He'd be setting everything in motion to create the butterfly effect that makes it happen. 

Even if that isn’t what GRRM had intended with exploring time, it’s highly likely Bran’s character development is taking him down a path of apathy over it, meaning he wouldn’t be needing Jaime to do something for the purpose of redemption for him. 

Speaking of Redemption…

-deep breath-

I’m going to go off on this a bit because it IS relevant, I swear. 

“Limits of redemption” is probably the biggest wtf interpretation fandom has when it comes to what GRRM actually said. I’ll try not to go off on it too much here but -

Interviewer: Both Jaime and Cersei are clearly despicable in those moments. Later, though, we see a more humane side of Jaime when he rescues a woman, who had been an enemy, from rape. All of a sudden we don’t know what to feel about Jaime.

GRRM: One of the things I wanted to explore with Jaime, and with so many of the characters, is the whole issue of redemption. When can we be redeemed? Is redemption even possible? I don’t have an answer. But when do we forgive people? [...]  I want there to be a possibility of redemption for us, because we all do terrible things. We should be able to be forgiven. Because if there is no possibility of redemption, what’s the answer then?  [x]

I bolded “we” from the interviewer, because it gives context to GRRM’s answer with “we” being the readers, not the characters or Jaime himself. (I think there’s another interview where he says “limits of redemption” but it’s in the same context. I could be wrong but I SWEAR I heard it. Anyway…) 

“I kind of tried to ask, ‘do you think he’s changed?’ to get him to talk about Jaime’s redemption arc, so he said something like he wanted to explore the concept of forgiveness and whether it’s possible to be forgiven for doing such horrible things, and that his goal was to ask the question, not give an answer.” [x]

Fandom thinks this is the characters giving Jaime forgiveness, and maybe there will be a small element of that in the books, but the question is for the readers. No, Jaime is not actively seeking redemption from people. His redemption is for himself, through living his best life, by rediscovering the person he used to be. Yes He Will Be Redeemed and No He Will Fail assume redemption is some arbitrary checklist determined by One Big Act, and they’re answers to a question GRRM doesn’t want to give an answer to. 

The purpose of Jaime’s POVs is to ask the readers, and the most obvious moment of this was the bath scene. GRRM smacks us over the head with the Aerys confession, and then as we’re introduced to more and more of his POV chapters, he slowly chips away at the Jaime illusion that was intentionally established the moment he pushed one of the perceived child protagonists out of a window. It’s brilliant, and I’m sorry GRRM that a large chunk of your fandom is too dense to get it. How frustrating lol. I’ll be insulted for him. (I’m legit wondering if his recent angsty tweets about grey and redemption about real life stem from a concern that his fandom won’t understand the point of the series.) 

To give you an idea of where these people are coming from, at least one BNF idiot on Twitter believes redemption hasn’t been explored with Jaime yet. 

But uh… 

GRRM mentioned his intent is to “explore redemption” after delivering Jaime POVs, because... it’s... not a spoiler… he’s already exploring redemption, because the question is being asked TO US. We were supposed to have an “oh shit” moment, realizing this is more complex than the surface level, biased perspective we were delivered at the beginning of the story. “Maybe Westeros and my protagonist have it wrong.” -cough- the people in the village in BatB -cough- 

No matter how much fandom likes to pretend they love GRRM for pushing the boundaries of fantasy, they secretly fucking hate it. They love to be comfortable, dude. That’s why they read this series as if it’s a clear cut Good vs. Evil, because a) ego and b) that’s easy. If GRRM was writing Jaime as doing everything with ill intent then…. his… question isn’t being asked. They think everything he does right now is selfish and Bad, so they’re waiting. They want it spoon fed to them. They want classic fantasy. They want Starks = Good, Lannisters = Bad. 

But… if the author sees Jaime’s actions as grey and complex, enough to ask the question to the readers if he’s redeemed in their eyes or not, then he’s not going to write an endgame that punishes the character for narrative payoff, because he doesn’t see his actions as “sins” or “crimes” in the same way that these people are. Once upon a time, a person on tumblr reblogged one of my posts and said that Jaime will rape Cersei before he kills himself and that will be his endgame. But GRRM doesn’t view Jaime as a rapist, so he’s not going to write Jaime as a rapist. I’m bringing that up, because it’s the same phenomenon. People can ignore authorial intent all they want, but NOT when it comes to predicting narrative trajectory. The general fandom is terrible at that lol. 

The exploration of redemption for Jaime comes in the form of confronting his disillusioned self and everything attached to it. Before someone thinks, “lolllll he isn’t disillusioned” 

 “he actually was a very idealistic young man who was disillusioned by life” [x]

Jaime’s redemption is the path of returning to that idealistic man for himself. It’s by feeling ashamed of the things he’s done to hide his love for Cersei. It’s by gaining independence and detaching from the toxic relationship that caused a mess outside of them. It’s by wanting to be like the knights he admired in his youth, and like the woman warrior that inspired him. 

So when I think about narrative payoff for Jaime, I don’t see it framed as him being “punished” for actions viewed as “crimes,” when GRRM clearly established those “crimes” as complicated and grey with a character already going through some positive development, and especially when the characters judging are written to be flawed as well.

On the other side, having him be “punished” by succumbing to hatred and anger is for sure giving an answer (this just… -sits on hands- don’t even get me started on THIS fucking hot take). That answer would be a clear, solid, “No, no matter how hard he tries to turn his life around, he can’t be redeemed, because he’s a hateful, angry, fucked up person.” I’ve legit seen people think “limits of redemption” is a boundary of redemption drawn in the sand that Jaime is walking towards but he won’t be able to cross it. I-......................... 

And what’s even the point of his handchop if scenario number 2 happens?  

“And Jaime, losing a hand, losing the very thing he defined himself on is crucial to where I think I want to go with the character. And he questions what do you make of yourself if you’ve lost that.” - GRRM [x]

(I’m going to put this quote in every post sorry not sorry) 

So he’s going to take Jaime on this big identity journey just for him to be like “lol nah he isn’t that” …?? That makes the loss of his hand meaningless, not “crucial.” Is it really crucial for him to lose his hand if he’s bringing him back to the beginning? Is it really crucial for him to lose his hand to make himself realize he’s hateful and a failure and murder Cersei and then himself? No. He could have still met Brienne and been inspired by her knightly ways, attempted to live a better life, found out about Cersei’s affairs, etc. He doesn’t need to lose his hand to reach a point of fucking murder/suicide lmao fuck (not saying he’ll do that but I KNOW people are thinking it). 

The loss of his hand is “crucial,” because GRRM has bigger endgame plans for him in the form of politics, and the journey to believably get there requires the forced loss of his warrior identity and everything that the hand symbolized. 

AS FOR THE ACTUAL HAND THEORY...

Even though I’m undecided on it, I CAN see it IF Bran is King. I get it. Jaime’s missing his right Hand, he becomes the Hand to the kid he pushed out the window. Hardy har har. I understand how that would be pleasing.

And we all know GRRM said something about how the best ones for power are the ones who don’t want it…  

And… this suspicious scene at the very beginning of the series… 

“You should be the Hand.” 

“Gods forbid,” a man’s voice replied lazily. “It’s not an honor I’d want. There’s far too much work involved.” 

Bran hung, listening, suddenly afraid to go on. -AGOT

BUT IF that happens, it wouldn’t be there as some sort of #atonement #forredemption. It would be there because of Jaime’s growth as a character after developing into a political player, after asking himself, “what do you make of yourself if you’ve lost [the swordhand]?” He’s no longer the warrior he once was. He dislikes any sort of political position, because he feels most alive with a sword in his hand. But that was Warrior Jaime, and the point of “what do you make of yourself after you’ve lost that” is Jaime going down a different path after discovering that Warrior Jaime has died. I mean, he’d never be actively seeking power and thinking it’s the best career ever, like he’d probably be all -sighhhhhhh- about it, but he’d be doing the responsible thing and what’s necessary. He’d make himself useful in a new way. 

“The Warrior had been Jaime’s god since he was old enough to hold a sword. Other men might be fathers, sons, husbands, but never Jaime Lannister, whose sword was as golden as his hair. He was a warrior, and that was all he would ever be.” - AFFC (Do I really need to make a post about how GRRM foreshadows? Mr. Bran: “I never fall”...?)

Jaime losing his hand was the narrative consequence for The Push, making all of his development post handchop -ALL OF HIS POVS- the redemption theme. It was the hand that pushed Bran, fucked his twin, killed his king, swung the sword against fandom’s Precious Protagonists… 

“You ought to be pleased. I’ve lost the hand I killed the king with. The hand that flung the Stark boy from that tower. The hand I’d slide between my sister’s thighs to make her wet.” - AFFC

So if Jaime becomes his Hand, it would be the two characters meeting in the middle, not Jaime groveling at his feet, begging for forgiveness, framed as a punishment for sins - “sins” that fandom views as “sins” that need narrative payoff, because they don’t understand intent. 

[tribow]

I’ve had enough of these godamn boring ass isekai premises. How in world are all of the isekai concepts set within nearly the exact same medieval western fantasy environment?? I’m gonna lose it. I get it, the genre is popular and you want to subvert it by turning the protagonist into weird things, or having the protagonist play a very specific role instead of making the protagonist be a power fantasy. Yet it never crosses anyone’s minds to change the up the kind of world people fall into!?

It’s always medieval western fantasy and maybe sprinkle some RPG stuff in there. Yeeahh, like Dragonquest and other classic RPGs. You can’t be that bad at world building that you have to use what literally everyone else uses right? Everything looks the same!!!

Where’s the isekai where the fantasy world is like a steampunk or solarpunk world? How about a world that is similar to our own modern society but OOPS there’s highly destructive monsters. What about an isekai suffering through an apocalypse when the protagonist arrives?? A world with very dense forest and massive trees the size of skyscrapers?? I’ve seen the floating islands setting used in some places why not have an isekai take place there?

What about other fantasy/mythology instead of western medieval? There’s some isekai that use medieval Japan, but you can go further than that. Have some heavy focus on youkai??? Oh! I dunno use Chinese mythology instead? Greek mythology isekai? The Mayans were on some wild-type shit you can use that as a basis.

Oh you want to use inspiration from games? Have ya seen the intensely intimidating atmosphere Dark Souls’ environment is? No one wants to try to replicate that? What about platformers? You got huge colorful worlds with those. What if someone got isekai’d into a party game? Hmmm? Has that not crossed anyones mind? What about the unsettling otherworlds aesthetic that something like Metroid has?

Why is it so much of it the same!??!? If you were put in any of these worlds how would you react?

[ladyloveandjustice]

Winter 2020 Anime Overview: Toilet-Bound Hanako-kun

Ok, so let’s get this out of the way first, 1. I adore this story so much and 2. Toilet Bound Hanako-kun has a horrible, horrible English title that is not actually at all representative of the story’s content and I have no idea what happened when it came to the team choosing that name. To the average English-speaking viewer/reader, this name 100% implies gross stuff and bathroom humor, and there is none in this show. 

A Japanese reader on the other hand, would be more likely to recognize the name Jibaku Shounen Hanako-kun as a spin on the classic ghost story “Hanako-san of the Toilet” only A BOY THIS TIME WHHHHA?” Basically, the story goes that a girl named Hanako in a red skirt haunts girls’ bathrooms in Japanese schools and if you knock on the third stall and call “Hanako-san” three times, she’ll appear. She might grant you a wish or pull you into Hell or something else, it varies.

(Her Wikipedia image, aww.)

Anyway, I dunno why the English title didn’t at least go with “Toilet Ghost Hanako-kun” or something that would have gotten the premise across even a  little better (HE NOT TECHNICALLY BOUND BY THE TOILET EVEN, HE CAN GO ANYWHERE IN THE SCHOOL GROUNDS THE BATHROOM IS JUST HIS HOME BASE), but our boy Hanako haunting the girl’s bathroom only leads to broad jokes about our heroine being tasked with cleaning the bathroom and “dude you really shouldn’t be in here” comments, it’s pretty incidental. 

Now that THAT’S out of the way, let’s talk about my LOVE FOR THIS STORY

Hanako-kun tells the story of a “regular” high school girl named Nene Yashiro, the mischievous and mysterious school ghost she befriends, and all the other weird monsters, exorcists, spirits and curses they encounter. It’s got a gorgeous, colorful bold aesthetic and art style that combines gothic and cute! It has a great mix of humor, intrigue, angst and fantasy action. basically if you love ghosts, monsters, Japanese mythology and legends, supernatural-human relationships, supernaturally fueled angst and drama, stories about trying to fix an unfair system the world has set up, wistful romance, a good shoujo manga with a Lot of Feelings (yes this is a shonen technically I’ll explain that later), weirdo dorks becoming friends AND MUCH MORE...this story will have something that will resonate with you. It’s got a lot going on, and it’s a ton of fun.

Hanako-kun is really one of those surprising stories that fits right into a hole in my story-loving heart I didn’t realize was still there, or that I’d actually been carrying since childhood. I love ghosts, see, and have since I was a kid!!! I knew this, but I kinda forgot how intensely I love them until this show reminded me again??? That’s because regular ghost stories/mysteries/whatever- I like them, but they don’t quite do it for me in the way more character-driven ones exploring the nature of being a ghost and humans and ghosts trying understand each other etc do. Stuff that really gets into the tragedy AND the fun fantasy aspect of ghosts, and plays the long game with it- and Hanako-kun scratches that itch perfectly.

Getting a little bit deeper into the premise of Hanako-kun, Nene is a very brave and sweet but not-all-that-bright girl (or, to put it more bluntly, she’s an idiot in the best way) who has a lot of romantic fantasies and insecurities and is VERY focused on them. After hearing a rumor at school that “Hanako-san of the bathroom” will grant wishes, she wishes to be able to confess to her crush and finds out its actually a weird ghost boy her age named Hanako haunting the bathroom! A lot of things happen, and she ends up cursed and bound to Hanako-kun, but also ends up slowly forming a friendship. 

Turns out Hanako is the ghost in charge of the “seven mysteries/wonders” aka seven powerful supernatural entities that haunt this school (he’s number seven). These apparitions only supposed to terrorize students a LITTLE, because apparitions need to have rumors spread about them to remain in the human world.

(‘HAVE YOU HEARD?’ Oh hey shadow girls from Utena see you’ve moved to a new school.)

The rumors also generally dictate how powerful and dangerous the apparitions actually are- but SOMETHING MYSTERIOUS is changing the rumors around the school and making the apparitions go berserk and actually harm humans. So Hanako needs a human assistant to change the rumors and help him calm and seal the apparitions! That’s where Nene comes in.

Hanako himself is a very fun character- he’s very chaotic and revels in his whole “ gremlin ghost” persona, and is upfront about being a bit of an asshole. BUT he also makes his kindness, often good intentions and the fact he’ll have his friends back when it counts obvious from the beginning. B U T! He’s also got darkness and hidden depths to explore, and a lot of his persona is affected and masks deeper issues! 

Our ghost boy is genuinely A TAD unstable deep down (as in he straight up has several untreated PTSD symptoms and that’s as disastrous as you’d expect) and packing some serious tragic backstory, as you might expect from a kid who died young and carries around a butcher’s knife, and it’s gonna come back to bite him and and all who care about him hard. 

 Especially when an overly enthusiastic exorcist named Kou Minamoto shows up! Kou is another one who’s very dumb and very good, a wannabe-shonen-protag with a heart of gold and strong sensitive, domestic side. He rounds out our main trio. Also he gets a tragic, emotionally intense relationship with yet another ghost boy that sings to my heart.

(Yes Hanako’s helping Nene to do the thing)

You may be able to tell, this story has INTENSE good-shoujo vibes despite technically being a shonen in a way that I love- it’s story very driven by big emotions, a variety of fucked up and tragically complex relationships, teen hormones running wild, etc, and it’s just delicious. 

Nene is the normal-person-audience-surrogate-girl in a way that is more common for a shoujo protag, and the way her emotional connections to everyone, her sweeping romantic fantasies and her interiority are consistently in focus when she’s there- yeah, she’s definitely a plucky shoujo protag, 100%. And I’m all about that!!!

 One thing I especially appreciate (though this comes across more strongly in the manga than the anime thanks to the anime rearranging things) is when Nene finds out about Hanako’s Heavy Baggage, she actually takes some time to herself to consider whether she can handle dealing with someone with these intense issues as a kid who’s never encountered stuff like this before- it’s not assumed by the story that the Sweet Girl is Obligated to help the Tragic Boy. I go into more detail about this part in this part here, but it’s that kind of attention to Nene’s needs that makes her role in the story work. Hanako and Nene and everyone’s struggles to get the hang of and properly navigate honest communication and mutual support in relationships are often really great and real-feeling

The story has a lot more things I love packed in to it- a dorky-but-still-deeply-unsettling villain gang who’s screwed up interactions are just as fun as our protagonists, yokai, A CURSED LIBRARY, some great ladies in addition to Nene, meditations on the nature of life, death, themes about fighting nihilism, and so on...I could seriously go on forever. It’s good stuff, and there’s lots of good weird supernaturals to meet.

The story’s also got tons of intrigue! The overarching plot and Hanako’s Mysterious Past is still in the process of unfolding, but it’s been great drama every step of the way! As mentioned before, the story also really relies on funny character dynamics, interaction and development to carry the whole thing and balance the drama.

The anime itself does have some pacing issues bc they crammed a lot into the first season and rearranged some stuff- an entire two chapter arc was skipped and was unlikely to be covered in the anime and some parts are noticeably rushed. I still really like the anime and it’s a solid adaptation. I love how much of the manga’s detailed aesthetic it managed to keep as well as the amazing voice acting and it made a few small but important additions. But there are some notable bumps- of course this just led me to go binge the manga (up to volume 12 is legally available digitally) and BOY DO I NOW LOVE THIS STORY EVEN MORE. 

Now obviously, just because it is Exactly My Shit in a lot of ways doesn’t mean Hanako-kun is the much quested for “unproblematic fave”, there’s several caveats you should probs be aware of- its shoujo vibes also mean some classic shoujo ~Problematic tropes~ and a couple shounen ones. 

THE LIST:

-Just as a general content overview thing: if this wasn’t clear the show deals heavily with death, body horror and other horror aspects. There’s heavily implied suicide and abuse and so on- as mentioned, the main character is traumatized and shows a lot of symptoms of PTSD, and Nene has to struggle to navigate her relationship with him because of this, as does Kou.

-Hanako himself has the whole ~loveable pervert~ and ~slightly possessive shoujo bad boy~ schtick going as part of his mischevious persona. In the anime so far, he never actually gropes or comments on not-in-his-naughty-mags-people’s breasts or anything of that level thankfully, but he’s very flirty, clingy, will loudly bring up porn, fond of the ol’ *says something that purposefully sounds sexually possessive* HAHAHA U THOUGHT I MEANT SOMETHING DIRTY RIGHT LOL ACTUALLY I DIDN’T.”

(My unnecessary ‘this part is kinda interesting!’ ramble: Nene always lists “sexual harassment” among Hanako’s flaws (she loves listing them), but doesn’t get visibly uncomfortable with his flirtiness or seem to mind it most times, which at least makes the whole thing more tolerable for me.

(since she doesn’t seem to mind that part and its clear he does it bc of actual affection for her, it’s actually p. cute how huggy he is.)

 The one time it does cross the line and genuinely upset her, it’s treated seriously, Hanako is genuinely regretful and apologizes. That’s one of my fave moments in the story and the way it’s handled is well done.

 This incident that he’s honestly pretty socially clueless as kid who died young and a lot of his bravado is to cover that up and keep people at a distance- this is a trope into itself that can use unpacking but I do at least appreciate that this is a considered character trait that’s part of his whole messed up package rather than something that thrown in there Just to Be a Fanservice Trope. (Especially since the manga confirms he never acted particularly pervy while alive, further cementing this is an affected persona). 

-There’s a running gag around Nene’s insecurity over her thick ‘daikon shaped’ ankles and boys treating her badly for it. 

One one hand, her body image issues are relatable, on the other, it feels cruel and annoying just how much the show finds ways to bring it up and humiliate her over and over again.

(My unnecessary “this is part is kinda interesting” ramble:The one thing i did realize that despite bringing it up constantly, we at least have no “i’m going to do this to lose weight” or “go on a diet” rhetoric,like this is just part of Nene’s body type and she knows she can’t change it? Which is kinda interesting. And I’ve spotted what might be foreshadowing something plot relevant’s going to happen with her ankles (I DON’T KNOW HOW, BUT GOD I PUT NOTHING PAST THIS STORY) so uh yeah??? either way it’s not good tho)

-”Obsessive and twisted love” is a running theme in this story, and while it’s generally acknowledged as unhealthy, it can be played for comedy in a way that could make viewers/readers uncomfortable. There’s a couple characters who’s entire thing so far is “obsessively in love with this one person” (and the one only focused on in the manga so far is one of the least interesting characters tbh ugh)

-The antagonist of the show is a member of a main character’s family, and the manner he acts towards pretty much everyone, including (and really especially) his family member,  verges on seductive. This is presented as deliberately unsettling and treated as a marker of how unstable and scary he is- and though the backstory between them hasn’t been fully delved into, it’s pretty much all but confirmed he abused this family member physically and emotionally.

-The story has like, A LOT of queer subtext and pretty-heavy queer coding for one character especially, but the few times queerness blatantly comes up in the story, it’s played as a joke in the “haha that’d be kinda weird” way (aside from the rando boys who have a crush on Teru, handled pretty neutrally). It’s not as malicious as a lot of animanga can get (ONE MANGA INCIDENT ASIDE), but it’s something to Be Aware Of, and it makes it clear we’re unlikely to see subtext rise to text and makes some moments feel baity.

-And probably more I might have missed! The manga also has Some Shit in addition all the Good Shit that hasn’t been adapted yet, an early arc has Hanako crossing a serious line etc. 

BUT despite how messy it is, I think it’s clear I have a lot of love for this story. In fact, I wouldn’t trade away a good chunk of its messiness (DEFINITELY SOME JUST NOT ALL), it kinda works for the characters and works in the “this story really feed my inner teen” way. Some of the trashy parts are exactly My Trash, basically. 

So, I knew I’d ramble on for a while when I talked about his show, but if you’ve read this far, thanks, and I hope that means you’re gonna check out and maybe enjoy this story, bc i need more people to join me in Hanako Hell.

[alparlaboratories]

Are y’all perhaps interested in some... Pokefic?

Hello I am here today to be a shitty fic salesman if I may.

Tell me friends, do you like Pokemon? Do you like fics? Do you like fics set in the Pokemon world, more specifically those who take the existing story of a region and expand upon it while adding a whole bunch of shit that (probably) no one asked for but the writer is too off his shits to care?

And MOST IMPORTANTLY, do you like Sinnoh? Some Dawns and Barrys, some Cynthias perhaps? Do you want to experience the story of Platinum from a new perspective now that the remakes are so close by?

And, finally... do you like fics that are not only very long (more than 100 chapters jesus christ where has the time gone) but also near completion? 

In that case, you might be interested in Child of Thorns, my original, cool and sexy Sinnoh adventure fic.

Now, the previous description and accompanying cool-looking cover might have peaked your interest, but you still probably don’t know anything about the fic. Well, here’s a few things that Child of Thorns can offer you:

1) Reasons to read Child of Thorns:

--> Have you ever wondered what Dawn would be like if she were a depressed theater kid who wakes up every day and chooses violence? That’s the protagonist of this story! Her name is Inyssa (Dawn is her last name).

--> Do you like flawed protagonists and coming of age stories? Do you like Pokemon fics where the main characters aren’t 11 years old? Do you like characters with abandonment issues and social anxiety slowly learning to heal over the course of a journey filled with Pokemon, fighting and adventures?

---> Do you like realistic depictions of trauma, mental ilness and complicated family issues without it being overtly grimdark? There’s always gotta be some hope, after all.

--> Have you ever wanted a trainer journey where protagonist and rival travel together, including all the slow burn classics we know and love? What if both of them are bi? What if they’re also super open and affectionate with each other while constantly denying themselves the possibility that they see each other as more than friends?

--> What about a Pokemon fic where you really gotta squint to find anyone who’s straight? I mean, Barry’s parents probably are, but who knows!?

---> Do you like stories where multiple characters and forces and entities are all struggling for power while those left below must gather together to clear the dark clouds hanging over the horizon?

--> Do you like Pokemon fics where the author fucking loves writing battle scenes while listening to JRPG battle music at full blast and feeling like he’s high on coke? Do you like some good shonen goodness with lots of explosions and pretty lights and cool moves and a protagonist that is utterly terrible at naming attacks and everyone makes fun of her for it?

--> Do you like Cyrus? Team Galactic and its commanders? A Team Galactic who’s not just a bunch of idiots and actually have an understandable motivation? How about Cynthia and her well-intentioned if morally gray personality? There’s lots of that here.

--> How about some cool mythology? Cynthia being Sinnoh’s Lorekeeper and a whole bunch of lore and legends about the lake trio and the humans they used to bond with? What if that started happening again? The answer is in this fic!

Oh shit, look at all these reasons! There’s some more stuff, but I don’t wanna make a grocery list when you could just find it all out for yourself. 

Also, I have to ask.... do you like OCs in Pokemon fics? If not.... well, you do you, but if you do, then boy do I have some OCs for you.

2) Cool OCS:

We’ve got Metchi! An ex-Team Galactic grunt who is now determined to oppose both her previous companions and the forces behind Sinnoh’s government as a whole. 

She also possesses the fabled cool glowy eyes that all good protagonists must have. If you ask her what said glowy eyes are about, she’ll probably tell you that it’s because she’s trans and that makes her cooler and more anime, but there’s probably something more to it. Read to find out!

We also have Reiko! A league challenger from Kanto who is buff and has a sword she likes to swing around, more often than not to the active detriment of her lofty goals and ideals.

She also has some cool glowiness to her but it’s different from Metchi’s glowiness.

There’s also Percy, Reiko’s boyfriend! If I had to guess he’s probably the richest Kalosian trans man in all of Sinnoh, though unfortunately all that money can’t buy him a way out of his family drama or his inability to not be a bit of an asshole.

Man, those sure are some OCs right there.

3) The end or something:

So anyway, if you’re interested in anything of what I’ve listed and if you wanna read a lot of me writing cool battles and political intrigue and a whole bunch of other shit with the cast of Sinnoh and more, feel free to give Child of Thorns a read!!

FFN

AO3 (recommended) 

And if you wanna hang out with some pals and see some more CoT art and memes, join us in my discord server! Code is  sHey6Tw