#then but it did the trick everyone else ~) but her female leads are super distinct

[karouvas]

there are definitely things to critique about cc’s writing and her writing of female chars but I do not think “all of them are the same” is one of them sorry like idk how you look at Clary Tessa Emma and Cordelia and are like “ah yes these are the same people” :/

[dcptcnx]

yandere chuuya with childish female port mafia executive reader whose ability is teleportation??

reader gets along with tachihara and akutagawa and throws party with tachi??🥰

Silly Tachi...

pair: Yandere!Chuuya x f!reader

genre: a shitty yandere, quite literally, like super awful

words: 757

a/n: i'm so sorry, nonnie. i tried, i really did...but i'm so bad...

Being an executive in the infamous Port Mafia was a thrill to you. Made you feel powerful. But you still acted like you were a child. And it sort of aggravated Chuuya, but he trusted you. That is, until you started hanging around Tachihara.

Using your ability to play pranks on mafia members was how you and Tachihara hit it off on your friendship. Teleporting around, placing gag pranks around hoping someone would fall for them. Chuuya ended up being one of your victims of the old ‘Bucket of Water’ trick. You had just filled the bucket up, and perfectly placed it on the door, only for him to walk through early, soaking himself. Luckily with you, you were able to teleport away before he could prevent you from doing so.

Which leads us to the present day. Tachihara and Akutagawa decide to throw a small party, inviting everyone in the Mafia. You think nothing of it, and insist Chuuya go since he usually hermits himself. It was obvious that a few of the members found you attractive, and you liked to egg them on, but for some reason, Chuuya was angrier than usual when you would do that. So arriving at the party, you were wearing the tightest blouse you owned, shoulders covered with your leather trench coat, shorts that just barely covered your ass, and leather thigh-high heels. Music playing, you and Tachihara decide to prank a few people, and Akutagawa being the first victim of the night.

You approached the tall, raven haired male, smiling your biggest, and conversing as you normally would.

“How’re you, Ryuu?” you swayed just a tad, flaunting your outfit subconsciously, causing him to blush when he caught a glimpse of your cleavage. In turn, you blushed as well, as you were not trying to make a move. Pulling your coat to hug you more, you decide to lean in, hand reaching behind him so you could speak into his ear over the loud music. Upon doing so, you had placed a sign on his back, a sign Tachihara made, that said ‘I Eat Ass’ in big letters. You said something along the lines of, “Hey, I think Higuchi-san wanted to talk to you about an upcoming mission.”

He believed you, and once you turned to go back towards Tachihara, the giggle fits erupted. Tachihara has been infatuated with you for a while, and he decided to throw this party, in hopes to win you over. But the moment his hands snaked themselves around your waist, a threatening aura appeared behind you both. Slowly cocking your head to the side, you see Chuuya, emitting an anger about him that scared you.

So your only response was to get far away. You knew Chuuya was dangerous when he was angry, but this was more than just 'Angry'. From your distance, you could see Chuuya grab Tachihara but his jacket, and drag him into the hallway, away from everyone. You used your ability to teleport to the doorway, to eavesdrop on the event happening between the two.

“Keep your filthy paws off her, or else I have to remove them myself.”

“C-Chuuya, please, it's a misunderstanding!”

Chuuya was not having it. A red glow illuminated around Chuuya as he grabbed Tachihara’s neck. He slowly would squeeze, gravity crushing him with agony, as the glint of metal met under the chin.

You couldn’t keep watching and not help. So you intervene. Teleporting, you popped in between Chuuya, and a near-lifeless Tachihara.

“Let. Him. Go.” you barked out, which in response, Chuuya clicked his tongue, throwing Tachihara in the ground. Chuuya then turned to you, as you began to help Tachihara up, only to snatch you away, gloved hand gently encasing your throat. As Tachihara regained strength, Chuuya pointed his knife back at him, with a death glare as his grip on you tightened.

“I’d think again, before touching dear Y/N. Next time, I won’t hesitate to crush you.” Angry, he unconsciously squeezed the hand that held your throat, choking you a tad.

“And Y/N, don’t think you’re forgiven. Nobody is EVER allowed to have you but me.”

Chuuya loosened his grip on you just enough for you to catch a breath, before he turned back to Tachihara, spitting at him, and throwing his knife into his leg. And because he used his gravity, the knife felt 10 times heavier when it hit, it caused Tachihara to scream in pain.

But nobody could hear him, as the music was still too loud.

[sparklingdisneyprincess]

Having Amber know for weeks affected fans view of her and why it was not done well.

In the tags on a reblog of one of my posts, someone mentioned that the scene where Amber tells Mark she knew he was a hero was bad writing and I low-key agree. I plan on doing an analysis on that specific scene later, but today I wanted to get into why the way the writes handled that situation just wasn’t great.

Keeping in mind the context of who the writers are can somewhat explain the  thought process behind the decision. The creators of the comic book said themselves that's the comic book very often pokes fun at superhero stereotypes and tropes. One of the main stereotypes in superhero comic books is the main non-super female love interest being upset with the male superhero love interest for constantly flaking on her/being unavailable trope. In this trope the conflict is typically resolved when the female love interest is told or discovers in the moment usually by so accident that the male love interest was the superhero the whole time and the revelation is suddenly supposed to negate all the negative emotions that the female love interest was put through and everything just ends up fine. 

In today's time it wouldn't matter if he was a superhero or not. He still made her feel terrible, he still lied. I do think women today wouldn’t allow that to excuse all the hero’s behavior especially when it was evident that said behavior was hurting them. 

We know the writers like to poke fun at stereotypical superhero comic book tropes and plot points, and a good way to do that it to utilize trope subversion.

Trope subversion definition:

A subversion has two mandatory segments. First, the expectation is set up that something we have seen plenty of times before is coming, then that set-up is paid off with something else entirely. The set-up is a trope; the "something else" is the subversion.

Pure trope subversion vs Partial trope subversion:

Executing a “Pure trope subversion” means to follow the blueprint for “Trope subversion” to a tee. The writer sets up the story with essentially no hints that the outcome will be anything but traditional, and then proceeds to suddenly turn the outcome on it’s head in a way that was unanticipated. In the case of the “Partial trope subversion” it’s the opposite. The writer will drop subtle hints and clues teasing that the outcome will not be traditional for the trope. The hints must be subtle because the writers goal is still to trick the reader into believing that the traditional outcome will occur.

The main problem with them writing it as a pure trope subversion is that Amber ends up looking really bad and that people already didn’t like her as they wanted Eve to end up with Mark.

The set-up of the secret identity relationship trope leads us to believe that the female was mostly if not completely unaware that their male love interest is a hero. They often times are suspicious, but the dots don’t usually get the chance to connect before it’s all revealed. Going with that type of trope set-up leads the audience to believe that it’ll end like it always does. The girl will feel sorry for her actions and completely forgive the hero (even though I don’t find think that’s realistic), so instead of it going in that direction they subvert it. They have the female love interest (Amber) figure it out herself and silently not be in the dark for a period of time till it’s revealed that she knew. This is fine unless it’s written as a pure trope subversion because the traditional trope buildup includes anger over canceled plans, late arrivals, and feelings of neglect. That anger makes the female love interest look completely irrational in the case that she knew! (Though perhaps she was not truly angry over those things after she discovered the truth, but she was angry with him lying and couldn’t tell him that without saying she knew, so she expressed her anger through those situations instead of the main reason??? Hmm, I just thought of that and that’s an interesting theory for another time.) Anyways...

I found that the trope subversion making Amber look so bad to be a glaring issue that should have been weeded out in the writing room. They had to have known how it would be perceived. There’s no way they wouldn’t. The only logical reason they’d do this is if they plan to go through with what I suspected was happening at the beginning of the show, which would be that the writers are telling us that Amber is not Mark’s endgame and that she’s just taking up space until Mark and Eve eventually get together. The only problem with that theory is that they had Mark and Amber get back together at the end of the season which is another trope subversion. In the usual love triangle bait-and-switch trope the first female love interest the male superhero chooses gets booted out to make room for the second girl in the love triangle who he was apparently supposed to be with the whole time, however the writers didn’t got through with that trope. They instead subverted it (whether purposely or not) by having the original couple get back together and setting it up in a way that shows the couple potentially growing stronger, rather than him staying single and eventually ending up with female love interest number 2. The writers even took the subversion a step further by setting the outcome up in a way that showed potential for female love interests 1 and 2 to actually start a beautiful friendship instead of a rivalry. 

I’m honestly confused by what the writers wanted us to perceive. If they wanted us to root for Amber and Mark why set them up like that? To prove that they can move past it? But who will support the relationship after everybody now hates Amber? It is contradictory, so I’m very confused. I did write another post speculating that though Amber knew Mark was a hero, she did not know he was Invincible. The theory does shed more light on the situation and it resolves a lot of issues, but it still doesn’t negate the fact that the use of a pure trope subversion in this instance made Amber look really bad. Especially when people would sooner find ways to cancel her, rather than attempt to understand why she did it. To understand someone does not mean to agree with or support them, but it reminds you to humanize the other person, a value we are all owed. 

If the writers had not done a pure trope subversion and instead decided upon a partial trope subversion the fallout would not have been nearly as bad. If they had done a partial trope subversion they could’ve allowed Amber to be more patient in some of the later scenes, while showing that even though she’s patient, she’s also very upset. It would show more understanding on her part, however I think Amber was actually already understanding of his situation. What she did not understand was the lying and how it seemed that he didn’t even care enough to lie well. She was hurt that he didn’t trust her and during their relationship she was constantly questioning whether or not he was serious and if he actually cared about her and honestly we questioned it too as an audience! Imagine how frustrated she must’ve been those 5 months out of 6 when she didn’t know why he was lying to her. 

Amber and Mark didn’t have any relationship issues that I noticed aside from his secret identity. Their dynamic was interesting to watch in my opinion because Mark wasn’t phased by Ambers weird sense of humor and her having essentially no filter, in fact he embraced it and was also snarky in return. He liked that she has strong core beliefs and clearly enjoyed spending time with her. Even though Amber is sarcastic and pokes fun at Mark she finds his enthusiasm to be endearing and often laughs with and smiles at him. Heck, she even approached him first! They’re just two teenagers dating and it’s nothing too exciting like it’s usually portrayed in media. They text, go on dates, make out, enjoy the others presence without really needing to talk, it’s just nice normal dating stuff and it’s realistic and lowkey, and I really liked seeing it. Upon my first watch of the show I liked Amber and Mark together, but I didn’t see the chemistry. I think it’s because everything about their relationship needed to happen in the span of 8 episodes, but also that the reasons why their attracted to each other are very subtle. They don’t shove it in our faces, they just place it there and if you caught then you caught it, if you didn’t then you didn’t. It took me re-watching the episodes a second time to realize why Mark and Amber enjoy being with each other. The body language speaks volumes when you also pay attention to the little things that go on between them. I’ll probably make a whole other post about it because I think it’s something to talk about, but yeah.

In conclusion either the writers truly didn’t realize the outcome of their choice, the writers knew the outcome and did it on purpose to set the audience up to root for Eve and Mark, the writers knew and set it up in order to later on grow/redeem Amber and strengthen her and Mark’s relationship by having them over come it, or they didn’t think it’d be a big deal due to assuming that the trope subversion would take everyone by surprise and that we’d like it.

(If you made it to the end, I’m impressed cause this was long. Also, shoutout to the person who first brought up this topic in the tags. I didn’t realize I felt some kind of way until I started typing and couldn’t stop. It was honestly kind of cathartic😄 I didn’t tag you cause I didn’t know if you’d like that but, thanks for unintentionally giving me the motivation to write this!) 

[yurimother]

Top Yuri Anime Poll Results

Whether it is subtext or explicit, cute or sexy, school love or gay action thrillers I love yuri anime. These series either focus on or contain elements of female same-sex relationships. Pride month is the perfect time to look back and reflect on the best of this genre. I teamed up with OG Man of The Yuri Nation (yurination[dot] wordpress[dot] com/) and together we put out a poll asking what you thought the top yuri anime series were and over 1000 of you responded submitting almost 5000 different entries. We spent hours combing through the data, analyzing and commenting on the results and we would like to share our thoughts with all of you. Enjoy the reflections of me the yuri critic and OG the dedicated yuri fan!

These are the Top 20 Yuri Anime as voted by you

1. Bloom Into You - 692 Votes

OG: Be it East or West the YagaKimi took the world by storm. Citrus and BiY once again taking the top two spots remains unsurprising.There is something undeniably fascinating about our leading ladies consisting of an asexual slowly coming to love her senpai back but restraining herself for various reasons. The biggest one being said senpai having a deep case of self-loathing and a fear of romantic reciprocation, also for various reasons. She is like “I love you but please do not love me back”. Then there is one of the most popular “cursed” lesbians of all time in Sayaka, the fantastic adult side-couple (The world needs an anime starring lesbian adults/mothers) and the various other characters who have their own interesting tales to tell. The series absolutely deserves a spot in the Top 10 though it would not be in my personal Top 3. Oh and as Yurimother said the presentation was fantastic.Visually stunning from start to finish in my opinion. Special mention goes to the criminally underused first-person “camera”. So cool.

YuriMother: I agree with this series deserving a spot in the top ten even if not the number one slot. For me, it was good but not great. Moments such as the aforementioned adult couple as well as stellar art and a phenomenal score made this series enjoyable but they were not enough to overshine the problems of the narrative. For the love of the Yuri Goddess, this series is crying out for asexual representation but insists on carrying on with its confused romance. Enough complaining though, many people love Bloom Into You despite its faults and I agree. The characters are interesting and lovable and it manages to tell a yuri story more real and complex than the typical fluffy girl meets girl narratives.

2. Citrus - 452 Votes

YuriMother: The presence of Citrus and Bloom Into You prove two things to me, the importance of recency, as both anime aired only last year, and the sheer popularity of these series. Both had established and extremely successful manga runs which were adapted into English by the publishing masters of yuri, Seven Seas. Citrus is a contentious series, to say the least, as it includes elements of (non-blood related) incest and non-consensual actions as part of Mei and Yuzu’s “relationship.” However, if you possess the magical power to turn off the part of your brain screaming at you that those aspects are deeply problematic or if you seek a different interpretation then Citrus can be downright WONDERFUL. I actually loved this anime series for its characters, amazing animation, and salaciousness. As OG said, it is an operatic concussion of emotion (seriously everyone in the series needs therapy) but my is it fun to watch. The Citrus anime also holds a special place in my heart, as the first serious piece I ever wrote was a review for it over on Okazu (nice plug)! Citrus is certainly not for everyone but those that stuck with it and overlooked some of the problems ended up loving it.

OG: Here we are again with Citrus at #2. My thoughts on the series remains the same as in the previous two lists I discussed (the Akiba Research and goo Ranking Japan lists), overrated. Good soap opera/telenovela-esque series but my feelings on the cast are mixed (which I imagine was the writer’s intent). My main issue has always been the obstacles repeatedly challenging Yuzu and Mei’s feelings for each other instead of it focusing on “Hey. We like each other but our parents got married. What do we do? Can we keep our desires for each other in check?”. Instead it is one newcomer after another who want to eat either Yuzu or Mei and Yuzu repeatedly asking herself if she really wants robo-stepsister patties? I will give the anime adaptation credit. The story was easier to enjoy animated than drawn. It also helped that I grew up in a telenovela loving family. The characters’ actions, reactions and emotions were depicted better in the anime. I still consider the show’s greatest accomplishment being the humanization of Mei-Tron. In the manga it took a post-epilogue continuation to show readers “Hey everyone. Mei-Tron was human all along.” whereas in the anime I sensed the small bit of humanity quicker than in the manga where I continued seeing her as a block of wood with a brain up to the point where I dropped it. Harumin though is the greatest regardless of anime or manga adaptation. Bless her. Regardless of how I feel about the series I get its massive popularity. After all, were the rest of the story to get an animated continuation I would gladly pick it up...Not the manga though.

3. Sakura Trick - 342 Votes

OG: There are fans who understandably would disagree with Sakura Trick’s praise but I will always defend it and the anime as one of the very best in the genre. First off it aired at a time where animated on-screen close up kisses (specifically consensual ones) between ladies were rare. Haruka X Yuu’s relationship was believable for the most part. Even their season finale resolution, them not getting what being “in love” meant at the time, made sense though I get why it left some scratching their heads. Probably not the best “manga lure/bait” end I suppose. On the bright side Kotone X Shizuku’s story definitely did not have the two doubting their true feelings for each other. I do hope Kaede X Yuzu eventually hooked up in the manga as they too had potential to be a lovely couple.

YuriMother: Sakura Trick has no real narrative, no great insight, and offers little intellectually. As a teacher, it makes me furious, as a fan of yuri, elated. The anime is beloved for its plentiful soft service, presenting a plethora of kisses, cuddles, and awkward thigh shots (ew). However, it was one of the first anime to include this much explicit yuri service without being pornographic. All the characters were cute and fun, even if there was little in the way of development or complexity, it worked for the series. If you want something to make you think or to learn about yuri, pass over this one. But, if you want a cute and meaningless anime definitely watch it.

4. Yuru Yuri - 337 Votes

YuriMother: OG may not be a fan of Yuru Yuri but I certainly am, which is fairly obvious to anyone who observes that a solid 20% of my communications occur in the form of gifs from this series. It is hilarious, cute, and playful. Just like Sakura Trick, this anime is an easy watch with ultimately little substance. However, the part of me that is not rolling of the floor laughing every time I watch Yuru Yuri lives in a state of pained existence with the knowledge that this work of all things ended up being so popular when people are telling interesting stories about queer women and people in actual relationship that manage to still be funny and adorable while having something to say.

OG: The undisputed most mainstream friendly yuri series there is. It is also one of the funniest. My one gripe is that excluding a select few the main draw of the show besides the comedy and yuri is the ship wars, meaning (almost any girl can be shipped with each other). Not a fan of that but hey, it brought Namori the big bucks so who am I to judge? In any case not much else to add. It deserves all the adulation it gets but the free for all shipping irks me. Reminds me of how they botched Chika X Riko in the Love Live! Sunshine!! Anime. If you were going down the Riko X Yohane route from the start then why give us Chika X Riko in the first half? Ship wars yo. Tch. Hopefully I properly explained myself..

5. Kase-san and Morning Glories (Asagao to Kase-san) - 289 Votes

OG: Still wish this got a 12-13 episode anime. The glorious movie showed how much it deserves one. Whether it will happen or not remains to be seen. In any case the beauty of Kase-san X Yamada is how simple their romance is. No strings attached whatsoever. It is as straightforward as a self-proclaimed “ordinary” cutie, Yamada, having a crush on the super cool school beauty Kase-san. Said beauty is revealed to be just as “adorkable” as Yamada. The other highlight is their story not ending once they officially started dating (as is the case with many romance stories) but that being only the beginning, like real life. From then on, side-stories aside, the two biggest challenges for the two is Yamada accepting that it is okay for someone as “ordinary” as her to be the “cool babe”s girlfriend and Kase-san finding different ways to express her love/hunger for the cutie. As for the OVA, cramming the second part of the first series in an hour definitely had the downside of excluding some important moments, yes, but it at least covered some of the best moments in the manga. The first half of the story was summarized in a five-minute music video. One last thing. The animation, though a bit too brought for some, was glorious. It also had some long pauses which were effective (The bus stop scene being the most infamous) but while I did not mind them at all even I will admit some pauses went a bit too long. A small nitpick all things considered. Fingers crossed one day we either get that 12-13 episode anime for the first series, the sequel or both. That is one of my dreams.

YuriMother: At last, an anime that I do not have to react cynically to! Kase-san is one of the single greatest works of yuri animation to ever to be created and its glory is rivaled only by the manga from which it originated. Despite being only a one hour long OVA this adaption told such an engaging and realistic (finally) story of romance and personal growth. We get to skip the meatless girl meets girls arcs and get into the depth and complexity as Yamada and Kase work to further their relationship. They struggle with the fact that they are two different people who want different things out of life and love and have to actually work on their partnership. Kase-san also includes signs of physical affection and love that are never lewd, immature, or gross, I do not even think I could refer to them as “service”. However, for me, Kase-san’s greatest victory (both the anime and manga) is in its escape from school romance, which in this genre is often a shelter from reality, allowing for women to be in relationships without actually being queer. Kase and Yamada instead make an effort to continue their romance and build a life that includes their relationship once they graduate in a triumphant final act. This anime is a slap in the face to the class S stories and sloppily sexualized works which proliferate the yuri genre. Asagao to Kase-san shines as a holy beacon for the greatness that this genre can achieve.

6. Puella Magi Madoka Magica - 286 Votes

YuriMother: Hurray!! For two entries in a row, I get to talk about series that I wholeheartedly adore without having to constantly attach caveats. Puella Magi Madoka Magica is not considered by all to be yuri, and that is certainly not what it is best known for. PMMM is however famous for twisting the tropes of the magical girl genre and creating one of the most cohesive and thoughtful narratives ever put to screen. This series summoned a new era for the magical girl genre (what OG humorously referred to as the “Moepocalypse”) but no other title managed to top Madoka Magica’s runaway success. Every aspect of this work is highly polished including character designs, a phenomenal soundtrack, and superb writing. This is not only the definitive work of its genre but of all postmodern anime. Whether or not one is a fan of yuri every anime fan should give Madoka Magica a watch.

OG: Meduka Meguca. Its impact in the “Moepocalypse” (Shows where cute and sexy girls consistently suffering physically and emotionally. These are usually dark magical girl shows.) genre and legacy are undeniable. It deserves all the praise it gets. It scarred many unfortunate souls, Homura is a legend in yuridom, Kyouko X Sayaka are glorious (Especially in Rebellion), Meduka’s Mom Junko is a Top Tier Sexy Mama, Charlotte the Witch is a very strange girlfriend and of course Hitomi is a walking anti-fun meme. The animation, especially the creepy doodle like monsters known as Witches are memorable. However, it is not my favorite Moepocalypse show. That honor goes to Yuki Yuna is a Hero.

7. Strawberry Panic - 224 Votes

OG: Like it or not Strawberry Panic is a yuri classic. I have a strong feeling that like many readers around my age (31 during this writing) this was their first 100% yuri anime. The cheese is real but it is the yummy kind of cheese and I loved almost every minute of it, except Amane X Hikari. That was the weakest of the love stories going on. Poor Yaya trying too hard (Not saying this in condescending way. She literally tried too hard). It is like a young adult lesbian novel but more fun. I mean Nagisa X Shizuma might as well be “Lesbian Twilight but not crappy”. Let us be honest, Shizuma is a vampire. Chikaru is an undisputed goddess and Kagome is the cutest.

Oh and I will repeat this statement till my last breath…

#TamaoWasRobbed.

YuriMother: I may be almost a decade younger than OG but even for me Strawberry Panic was my first yuri and it more than earns its nickname as the “gateway yuri,” although last year’s Citrus and Bloom Into You may be presenting serious contenders for this title. If for no other reason than nostalgia, Strawberry Panic remains my favorite yuri works but this ridiculous soap-opera of an anime does deserve a fair amount of recognition. I see Strawberry Panic as the culmination of the S subgenre revived by Maria Watches Over Us. However, this work succeeds at both parodying many of the tropes of S and yuri while breaking a few. However, its greatest accomplishment is introducing many of the young western fans of yuri to the genre. Strawberry Panic, you are an overly dramatic mess but thank you for all you have done.

8. Revolutionary Girl Utena - 176 Votes

YuriMother: Another gem of the yuri genre, actually scratch that, if works like Kase-san are gems then Utena is the minerals from which gems form. I think that is how it works, I am not a geologist. My poor analogies and subtle nods to Steven Universe aside, Revolutionary Girl Utena is one of the single most important works of yuri anime, possibly even more so than Sailor Moon. These two works were the dawn of the current age of yuri, an era spurn on by social progress and the internet into a place where more yuri works featuring honest depictions of homosexuality are flourishing. Utena laid the groundwork for queer representation in anime and for that I remain forever grateful to this masterpiece.

OG: I must confess. While I saw the movie long ago and thought it was cool I have yet to sit down and finish watching the main series. I cannot say much about this show other than it is another yuri classic. Possibly one of the biggest. I think I will leave this to Her Holiness because even if I had seen it I do not consider myself someone who possesses the sufficient intellect to properly explain why this is a legendary show.

9. Flip Flappers - 132 Votes

OG: I would need an essay to explain why this show is legendary. Let me see. It is a story of a girl who discovered her gayness thanks to her growing attraction to a lovable idiot/genki. There are references to Western media, dimension hopping (including Class S Hell), self-discovery, a sexual orientation journey, a tree, armored wedding gowns, crazy third wheels, Ku Klux Klan stand-ins…You know what? Just watch Flip Flappers. It is a hot mess of random, crazy, creative and thought provoking awesomeness with a wonderful dose of gayness. Glory be to PapiCoco. However, as Her Holiness mentioned this is essentially Ikuhara-san levels of weirdness (though not as complicated I feel) but as the plot thickens it all (sort of) starts making sense...eventually. That tree yo.

YuriMother: Flip Flappers was almost too strange and abstract even for me, and that is saying something. However, upon further examination, one of the most interesting works of yuri is revealed. This heavily stylized anime delves deep into the sexual maturation of its protagonist while examining the yuri genre and representation in media. Flip Flappers is the perfect marriage of heavy visual style and intellectual substance. Definitely give them one a.. err better make that three watches, as you will want to be sure to get everything out of this beautiful series as possible.

10. Miss Kobayashi’s Dragon Maid - 131 Votes

YuriMother: This series is the closest anime fans have to a lesbian couple having a family that we have, and that is a shame. I LOVE family narratives, outside of the yuri genre Usagi Drop is my favorite anime. To me, seeing women balance life, a relationship, and children is some of the best queer representation there is. However, for every point in Kobayashi’s favor, there is also a glaring fault. Kobayashi is a modern woman in the workforce providing for herself and her “family,” but is borderline abusive to Tohru. Kanna is an inquisitive child being raising by two women, but there are weirdly sexual scenes featuring her. As previously mentioned on this list, if one can silence the reasonable part of the brain this work becomes enjoyable, hilarious, and adorable. Unfortunately, its faults prevent it from being more than an amusement and I seriously doubt that they will fade in the second season. But hey, it sells a ton of figures so… YAY!

OG: This series is one of the closest yuri fans have to a series starring a lesbian couple with a daughter and it is wonderful. Is the tale of an eternally grateful dragon who wanted to repay the human who saved her life, albeit drunk, by becoming her live-in maid. Tohru being a dragon girl had incredible power and could easily crush everyone in sight but preferred to try and understand humanity so she could live in peace with the woman she loved. It of course was hard at times but thanks to Miss Kobayashi slowly growing to accept her back (romantically she had a ways to go) and the two raising the adorable bundle of mighty puff known as Kanna they became a happy family. How long this relationship will last and whether Miss Kobayashi would come to fully love Tohru back romantically remains to be seen. I have high hopes it can and will happen. Kanna X Riko is precious (Yes. Even that scene). We even have a potential BL couple, which is nice. Not a fan of Lucoa X Shouta the shota. Not because of the age gap but it not being my kind of romantic comedy. It is the same reason I have a hard time buying Tsubame X Misha from UzaMaid. Mya-Nee X Hana from Wataten...maybe. At least Mya-Nee showed she is patient. Back to Dragon Maid. Great series. Naughty of course but great.

11. Sweet Blue Flowers (Aoi Hana) - 119 Votes

OG: Megane girl falls for a cutie but has a hard time confessing to her to the point she gives a relationship with another girl a try. Said other girl has troubles of her own courtesy of her own views on what love. Do not get me started on the OTHER girl who likes megane’s girlfriend. I did not even mention megane girl’s first love interest who she herself eventually begins questioning her feelings for the glasses wearing maiden. While this is well known throughout the history of yuri anime Aoi Hana made it clearer than ever that Yuri + Classical Music go hand in hand. Plus the show is quite pretty. Ultimately enjoyment of this series depends heavily on viewers’ patience.

YuriMother: Aoi Hana was ahead of its time in many regards. Most yuri during the early twenty-first century was unrealistic and melodramatic, especially with the revival of S stories. Aoi Hana instead presents a calm and realistic story that we still rarely see in yuri anime today. Instead of relying on tricks like service or comedy Aoi Hana presents a serene and character-driven story which is matched by equally calming scenery. It is certainly not the most thrilling watch, but a slow and beautiful slice of real life that remains one of the all-time strongest yuri works.

12. Yurikuma Arashi - 99 Votes

YuriMother: Yurikuma Arashi is strange, to say the least, but this is not out of the ordinary for legendary director Ikuhara, who also directed Utena. Parallels are easily drawn between this work and Flip Flappers, as they are both complex and encoded with enough symbolism to drown a bear. Yurikuma is one of my favorite works in the yuri genre and I have had more than a few heated discussions about interpretations of the work, including one memorable occasion when I was visiting a college professor and we ended up in a shouting match in the middle of the hall. However, while Flip Flappers holds a high degree of polish the same can, unfortunately, not be said here. Yurikuma Arashi has more than a few scenes of fanservice many of which overly fetishize the characters and relationship and some of the symbols, particularly lily flowers and the word “yuri” are practically beaten to death with an object I refuse to come up with because I am starting to have my fill of symbolism. However, despite some of its sloppiness, Yurikuma is one of the single most interesting and well-formed anime out there and analyzing it is practically a right of passage for seasoned yuri fans.

OG: Yurikuma Arashi is my favorite of Ikuhara-san’s series. To me it was the least complicated of his works but even so I needed help to understand the show. Luckily I had plenty of assistance. The meat of the story is more complicated but put simply it is about a war between a group of bear girls (and some human girls) who want to freely express their love and/or desire/hunger for each other and another group that amounts to Right to Censor from WWF. Like I said it is far more complex than that but that is the gist. The anime is quite ecchi and it has good reason for it. Again the gay bears are the more liberated of the groups and them getting more sexy scenes is meant to showcase that. Our heroine has good reason to be grumpy and a divine entity was introduced alongside a certain someone from a certain dark anime we already discussed.

In the end it is a show starring lesbian bear girls. I love love stories between women and i love bears. It was obvious I would end up enjoying this one. Like other complex stories it is not for everyone. Shows like Flip Flappers, Utena and Yurikuma have something of a learning people will have to get accustomed to in order to enjoy them.

13. Whispered Words (Sasameki Koto) - 88 Votes

OG: To me Aoi Hana and Sasameki Koto were always connected despite the former being a drama and the latter a comedy. Both star a female protagonist struggling with how to best tell the girl she likes her true feelings whereas their love interest for one reason or another makes it all the more challenging to get their feelings across. Both shows aired during a time yuri was not as popular of a genre as it would become over time. Perhaps if they had come out a little later when yuri was becoming more popular in the mainstream they would have fared better…Then again they may have helped set the groundwork for future yuri shows so it’s just as well they came out when they did. In any case both good shows worthy of “best of yuri” lists. SK has the dynamic of the megane in love and her somewhat airheaded love interest who specifically likes “cute girls”. Poor megane has a hard time figuring out what the airhead defines as “cute”. The show also features an amusing side-couple of an ojou-sama and her tsundere girlfriend. Not to mention the somewhat controversial side-girl who plays a more prominent role in the 2nd half of the anime. Heck, even Mr Crossdresser himself is cool. Let us not forget Miss “Ha Ha Ha!” Another really good show that I would love to see the rest of the manga get animated someday but considering most anime are essentially manga commercials and the SK manga ended the odds of a 2nd season are close to 0.

YuriMother: 2009 was a great year for yuri anime, with both Sasameki Koto and Aoi Hana, among other works, airing. But while Aoi Hana sought to resist many of the common tropes of the genre and tell a simple grounded story Sasameki Koto appears to have looked a the list of every convention possible and say “yeah I can do that.” It has melodrama, comedy, one-sided love, friend love stories, I worship this genre but even I think there is a limit. However, Sasameki Koto is one of the most competent yuri anime works of the current era. While all the tropes are present most of the problematic aspects of the genre are not. The story is well written, characters enjoyable, and art that is really well done for the time. I enjoy every watch and if I ever want to quickly download the genre’s tropes into another person's head I need only duct tape them to a chair and throw on Sasameki Koto.

14. Riddle Story of Devil (Akuma no Riddle) - 77 Votes

YuriMother: Akuma no Riddle was highly anticipated back in 2014, sporting a premise of student assassins that, while certainly not unique, was outside the norms for the yuri genre. It promised a dark and thrilling take on the yuri genre that would not become popular until the yuri horror trend a few years later. At first, it looked like this would be successful with an excellent setup and some pretty compelling characters but ultimately Akuma no Riddle fell flat and became more derailed as it continued. The monster of the week style of episodes left little room for complex plots and plans or proper character development, which is a shame because of how engaging so many of the assassins were upon original presentation. However, this show still has some of the best action in the yuri genre, placing it alongside series like Cannan and Utena despite its flawed storytelling. If nothing else, the anime may compel one to read the manga, which expands the story and characters more than the show was given time to.

OG: Professional assassins secretly gathered at an academy in an attempt to take the life of a seemingly innocent cutie to win the ultimate prize, one of whom wishes to protect the adorable redhead. Yes the manga, which is pretty much a Director’s Cut, is better and the anime would have benefited from having 20+ episodes instead of 12 and a delightful beach OVA but the show did a good job of showing viewers what each assassin was like, their motivations (though many of their origin stories were summarized in written biographies during commercial breaks viewers needed to pause to read) were clear enough and the duels, as brief as some of them were, had enough spicy goodness in them to be memorable, especially the ones in the latter half of the show. Oh, and although the manga wrapped up after the anime it had a very similar ending.

15. Revue Starlight - 72 Votes

OG: Gay theater girls who strive to become the top star, meaning the best actress or lead actor of the cast. How do they do it? By working hard and overcoming their personal hardships? Yes. That. What makes this show so wonderful despite being almost a year old as of this writing is not only do the ladies all have interesting stories to tell but so does the stage. Every song, prop, movement, dance, gesture etc. It is like the performers and performances are united. It is like in Spongebob where not only does the person in the boots tell a story but the boots as well.

Oh yes. I almost forgot to mention the mysterious underground theater and talking giraffe. Never forget the talking giraffe from Hell. #Wakarimasu.

Super cool and super gay.

YuriMother: Bushiroad continuously gets better at what they do, creating media franchises of cute girls filled with music and making mountains of cash from smartphone games. Inspired by the likes of Love Live, they created BanG Dream and last year Revue Starlight. However, where these franchises fell short Revue Starlight success. It never twists its characters to tell a story but rather creates compelling arcs around them. I thoroughly enjoyed and agree with its place on this list.

16. Konohana Kitan - 68 Votes

YuriMother: I know of Konohana Kitan for its constant presence at yuri events more so than the anime or even the manga. It is adorable, relaxing, simple, and fun. While it does not add anything super substantial to the genre it does not take anything either or present any objectionable material. The “plot” is nonexistent but that does not matter, as it is not trying to tell a story or make commentary, just be fluffy and simple.

OG: Konohana Kitan to me is a Girls Club (Cute girls doing cute things) and iyashikei hybrid anime. It is visually stunning as it is relaxing with Yuzu pretty much one of the cutest demigoddesses in existence. She of course is a chick magnet but her heart will forever belong to Satsuki.

17. Destiny of the Shrine Maiden (Kannazuki no Miko) - 65 Votes

OG: The other stuff on the show is still not that great but ChiMeko will forever stand the test of time as far as I’m concerned. Top 10 for their love story alone. Yes. I know THAT ONE SCENE continues being controversial and talked about every time curious new yuri fans witness greatness…but I will forever defend Chikane because I get where she was coming from. Would I have done something different? Yes. The thing is you need to put yourself in her shoes and understand what she wanted to accomplish and how far she would go to get it done. Kotoha is best side-character and Souma Ogami is real man’s man who does not deserve the hate. He was an honorable warrior to the end. He fought well and accepted defeat like a man. Plus his yell is inspirational.

YuriMother: My feelings on Kannazuki no Miko are incredibly mixed. It has many of the worst facets of early current era yuri anime, tropes include S, rape and… am I reading this correctly, demon mechs? Worst of all it presents a cycle, a never-ending loop that haunts the characters in the overarching plot and it does not resolve it. If a work ever presents such an element, like Puella Magi did, it must be overcome or confronted at least. Its presence makes the already cringy story feels cheap and lazy. However, I love the two female leads and their difficult relationship. I love the music, especially the hauntingly beautiful ending theme, and the final moments of episode 11 are some of the greatest seconds I have ever seen in an anime. I cannot wrap my mind around my view of this series but at the end of the day, I understand it. I do not believe that work like it would ever be warmly accepted today but for its time it does stand as a breakout piece of yuri anime.

18. Princess Principal - 61 Votes

YuriMother: Princess Principal is one of the best anime of the past few years. It had everything, an interesting premise, great characters, an incredible soundtrack. Alongside all this is the sharp writing and thrilling story. Princess Principal did everything Akuma no Riddle wanted to with an intriguing and action-packed story featuring strong characters. On top of all this, the animation is top notch. A six-part movie sequel is planned which has me somewhat concerned, but I am glad to see that it is being continued as the ending to the series was one of its weakest aspects. Now if you will excuse me, I need to listen to some jazz.

OG: Cute and sexy gay spies in a dramatic British Steampunk setting. What more do readers need? Allow Her Holiness to elaborate a bit further. Currently waiting for the multi-part cinematic continuation.

19. Izetta: The Last Witch - 60 Votes

OG: I am known for loving shows people do not think as highly of. Izetta: The Last Witch is no different. I love this show so much. Besides how certain events transpired some complained about the depiction of WW2. Basically think about people ranting about storylines and content featured in certain Call of Duty and Battlefield games. Here however, it is clearly a fictional great war inspired by WW2. I was invested in the following:

-The cute and sexy ladies.

-Seeing two badass lesbians lead an army against an evil empire.

-FiZetta’s romance. This of course being the major highlight. I love FiZetta so much. My sexy lesbian babies and Anne X Grea’s mentors. They taught them everything they know after all.

It is similar to how I felt watching Kannazuki no Miko where my focus was primarily on the leading ladies’ developing romance. The difference is that unlike Kannazuki I was also somewhat entertained by our heroines’ enemies along with their allies. Basically viewers’ enjoyment of the show depends on how seriously they take their history and are willing to overlook the liberties this story takes with its depictions of the weapons, military and the familiar evil empire. FiZetta are one of my favorite lesbian couples of all time.

By the way, in that famous scene, yes they did. Viewers just have to squint their eyes to see “it”.

YuriMother: Another show that I consider to have squandered its potential. I know that lots of people enjoyed this one, including OG but I could not bring myself to finish this constantly mediocre series. Perhaps I am tired of alternative light-fantasy European-war inspired plots. Trying to stand out in this bloated genre is difficult and Izetta fails. Izetta started strong and hooked many viewers with its amazing visual and auditory polish but this was quickly lost in the plot which, while set up well, struggle to gain any ground of pay off what had been established. On the yuri side, it did not really do anything interesting or satisfying, with plenty of scenes feature the character’s standing next to each other looking cute and one or two moments of actual yuri. I am glad that some of you were able to enjoy this one more than me at least.

20. Maria Watches Over Us (Maria-sama ga Miteru) - 57 Votes

OG: Like Strawberry Panic this is a “Like it or not” classic. Despite being a Class S show it did its own thing and became a pioneer for . It’s also responsible for the many yuri jokes related to all-girl schools in anime.Shimako X Noriko best Grande and Petite Souer! Yumiko X Sachiko were great too as the two grew to better understand each other. Most memorable scene for me was the panda costume. Even Sei is a sleeper icon in all yuridom. Yoshino X Rei had a very interesting dynamic. I actually think they are the real pioneers of relationships between cousins. Thank you YoshiRei. HaruKana, Kaede X Sara and several others owe you two much appreciation.

YuriMother: Another great and significant series, Maria Watches Over Us, took the tropes of early yuri works, Catholic schools, a lack of men, piano scenes, and emotional relationship rather than physical ones and turned the dial up to 11. For better or worse, it single-handedly revived the Class S genre and was copied (and parodied) endlessly for over a decade. However much I complain about S I actually do not think that we would have the current age of yuri without its popularity and proliferation at the beginning of the century so I owe a big thank you to Maria Watches Over Us for that. Ignoring its historical importance and literary significance the anime still presents an engaging plot with wonderful characters and more butchered French than my last trip to Europe. It is certainly worth a watch and worthy of a place on this list.

What do you think should be on this list?:

YuriMother: As I previously said, this is a pretty perfect list. As far as missing titles I can think of the following.

Simoun - not the greatest in terms of plot or animation but it had cute service and a fun action-packed plot.

Kashimashi: Girl Meets Girl - This series may be strange and present the dreaded love triangle but it did its best to tell a transgender narrative in 2006, naturally this involved aliens, and I applaud it for its attempts.

Cannan - This series is light on the yuri but heavy on the suspense, action, and amazing character designs. The terrorist plot is exciting and the final train fight featured in the series is one of the greatest action spectacles in anime that somehow manages to remain grounded.

OG:

-Harukana Receive: Best all-female sports anime ever made. Plus the gayness is not subtle at all.

-Mikagura Gakuen Kumikyoku: Eruna Ichinomiya is an underrated yuri icon. While not the first of her kind (That honor, I think, goes to Galaxy Fraulein Yuna) she set the standard of cool and inspirational badass lesbian protagonists who are proud of who they are and...also happen to be super perverts. Eruna made it cool to be such a protagonist. It is nice seeing a lesbian lead who does not care what anyone else thinks. She is hungry for cute girl booties. While she often loses her control in the presence of pure beauty she, as an inspiration for others like her, has enough self-control to not go overboard (most of the time).

-Symphogear: Symphogear is love, Symphogear is life. Hopefully Season 5 will keep up the good work.

-Rinne no Lagrange: My favorite mecha anime and the reason I embrace OT3s when the signs are there. Not the greatest but man was it fun. Plus Madoka Kyouno is still sexy.

-Yuki Yuna wa Yuusha de Aru: My favorite Moepocalypse anime of all time. Yuna X Togo taught me to love and trust some people outside my closest family again.

-Mouretsu Pirates: If someone were to ask me “Hey OG. What to you is the perfect anime?”. I would tell them Mouretsu/Bodacious Space Pirates.

-Kashimashi: Girl Meets Girl. Thanks to the first fan commenting and reminding me of it. Definitely worthy of a spot. #HazumuWasAlwaysFemale

Final Thoughts:

OG: Pretty good list and close to what mine would look like were I to make one. Reason I have yet to do so is because I do not feel confident enough to pick a favorite yuri anime of all time. Favorite yuri manga and couples? That I can do, but anime always seems to give me a hard time choosing my absolute favorites. Like I said though, a potential yuri list of mine would look something like this. I also found it interesting how similar the Top 10 are among both our respective fanbases and visitors to the poll conducted by the Akiba Research Institute.

YuriMother: I may have done most the complaining and left the praise to OG but I actually and really happy with this list. I think that every title presented is a worthy addition and while I would certainly move some higher or lower than their current placing I do not believe that these are too far off from my own opinions, which is surprising for a popularity poll. More than anything I am thrilled to see that works I dislike that I thought to be popular did not make this list. Perhaps I should have more faith in people and their opinions. Everyone did such a wonderful job voting and I am so grateful!

Thank you so much everyone for reading and for voting in the top yuri anime poll. To see the full results of the poll and to support yuri news, reviews, and content, check out the YuriMother Patreon. Happy Pride Month

[nomadicism]

In that one Voltron post about Keith in Voltron Force, you mentioned that "I don’t think that many western writers would ‘get’ that archetype". What do you mean by that exactly?

Hi! Great question, thank you for the Ask!

I’ll start this off by stating that when I say something like “western” or “American”, I don’t mean to conflate the two. The latter is a part of the former, and the cultural context is relevant to why I said “I don’t think that many western writers would ‘get’ that archetype.”

Not “getting it” comes down to DotU Keith’s original archetype is that of the super sentai team leader, and that’s not a thing that exists in the western popular media culture (we have something different in place of that). And, kind of like how westerners frequently misinterpret ronin and samurai, if you don’t grow up with it—both the culture that created it, and as a common story type within popular media—then you probably won’t ‘get’ it, at least not without a lot of study and work and awareness of what super sentai is about (and that’s true of anyone’s perception or experience of another culture’s media). It takes time to ‘get it’, and in some case one might not ever fully get it (and that’s okay).

The more I try to figure out super sentai—and the +40 years of popular Japanese culture around it—the more I realize that I have more to learn. Just like with super robot stories—while it’s really about selling toys and entertaining people—there’s something else to it, like the why of how its entertaining. That something else is the cultural time-and-place conditions that gave rise to super sentai and super robot in the first place. Those conditions did/do not exist in the west. Different cultures have different kinds of heroes, kind of like how Superman was borne out of the time-and-place conditions of his creators.

Super sentai team leaders (and for this, I’m including anime with super robot combining mecha team leaders that are based on the super sentai formula) are similar to pre-80s American super hero team leaders in comics, and thus some of the difficulties in writing them also happens in super hero comics too. This is how DotU Keith becomes Voltron Force Keith-with-all-the-toys, even though the story is supposed to be about the next generation of Voltron pilots or whatever (I never got the feeling that they made up their mind about that). It’s an awkward merging of two similar but different types of stories that come from different cultures. I don’t say that to imply that such a merge can’t be done, it’s just easy to do awkwardly (or worse).

What follows is some breaking that down a bit more:

VF Keith (and later iterations of Keith to a certain extent) is an example of the American tendency to de-emphasize the team-aspect of leadership, as well as the leader’s soft skills, while emphasizing solo action hero skills and lone wolf traits, and adding Marks of Specialness. I’m not sure if other western cultures have the same kind of Individuality vs Collectivism dynamic that we do in the U.S., but that’s something I see at play in how Americans write team leaders. It’s not a problem in the “Action hero has a backup team” story (and I think that type of story comes from the placement of the Individual over the Collective), but it doesn’t work well in a super sentai story where the Collective is structurally more important than the Individual, and the Leader is important b/c of his innate personality-based traits or virtues that inspire and bring together the Collective to save the day.

Technically, a super sentai leader doesn’t have to be a great leader, or the most qualified. He just has to inspire through personality and by being a virtuous paragon. It can be hard to quantify what a virtuous paragon is, but it is not the same thing as a moral paragon in the western sense, even though the virtuous paragon occupies an analogous place in a story. One could say that I’m splitting hairs there, but there is a distinction between “virtue” and “moral”.

So at first, DotU Keith had the super sentai team leader feel as he wasn’t changed too much from his counterpart in Golion. The most noticeable change to Akira’s character as Keith in 80s Voltron were that his spiritual traits were de-emphasized due to broadcasting/syndication rules at the time. Those spiritual traits are not a requirement for a super sentai team leader, but within the context of a Japanese story, they help define the leader’s soft skills and shape the kind of virtuous paragon he’s supposed to be. (that’s a tangent into some heavy cultural analysis though).

By the time we get to Voltron Force (nearly 30 years later), we run into the 90s Superman problem with DotU Keith (e.g. how do we make the boy scout relatable? plus edgy characters are en vogue). Voltron Force’s solution to that problem was to keep adding new traits/skills/marks of specialness to Keith in order to make him “more interesting” (in some cases, those traits/skills/marks of specialness were already present in other characters). The assumption is that “more interesting”, is how to get people (in this case boys aged 7-9 or 9-12) to pay attention to and relate to a character that was never meant to stand out in that way to begin with.

In the context of super sentai, of course Red Leader is the bestest Japanese Everyman and will lead his team to victory, but he doesn’t get all the toys, and he needs the team to come together to form the giant robot at the last minute. And since he doesn’t get all the toys, then that means that he doesn’t get all of the traits/skills/marks of specialness that are associated with having all the toys, nor does he get into conflict situations where resolution is completely dependent upon his ability to be the solo action hero or lone wolf with lots of toys. This is where Voltron Force goes wrong with Keith…and VLD S6-S8. (Arguably that could be S3, but a lone wolf/solo action star temporarily stepping into the moral-or-virtuous paragon’s leadership role can totally work as part of a growth arc.)

The problem here is the conflation of leadership with being “the most interesting” or being the solo action star, or that to be “the most interesting”, one needs to be edgy lone wolf. That’s literally not the point of a team-focused story, and that is not the place of a super sentai team leader.

In DotU, Keith doesn’t need to be the martial arts master brawler, that’s Hunk. Keith doesn’t need to be the tricksy-ninja, that’s Pidge (DotU de-emphasized that from Golion where Hiroshi had a ninja lineage). Keith doesn’t need to be cynical one that sees through the enemy’s tricks, that’s Lance. Keith doesn’t even need to be the heart, that’s Allura (in some cases the super sentai team leader takes on a larger heart role, but the real heart will always be the female character). Part of the super sentai team leader’s archetype is that he’s got a few things he’s great at (usually one combat skill set + driving/piloting + tactics), and he has flaws that are made up for by the rest of the team, as each member embodies the other archetypes that make up a super sentai team.

One of those flaws is a certain kind of naiveté, for example, Lance wouldn’t have gotten hit by a rock from behind by Lotor during a duel, as he never would have agreed to the dual in the first place, as Honor™ is not an innate part of Lance’s being. Honor is a virtue, and as the virtuous paragon, Keith’s sense of honor plays into his naiveté. Duals are honorable! Lotor gave his word, he must have honor! HAH. No. Honor in this context is an innate quality, and that’s very important for a super sentai team leader, even in an odd-duck combining mecha show like Voltron. 

Not to be that weeb with a “the Japanese prize Honor” take, but they kind of really do when it comes to how to define villains and heroes within certain types of stories. Virtuous, noble, and honorable villains (or antagonists) exist, and they get a completely different kind of death (arc resolution, sometimes in an eastern tragedy this leads to the hero’s catharsis) than a villain who is dishonorable, or without honor (those are not always the same thing). The western concept of honor is different (that’s not a value judgement, and of course variations exist b/c not all western cultures are the same).

In the US—when we’re not appropriating samurais for cowboy westerns—we tend to make honor into more of an aristocratic thing (thanks England), and that’s exactly what Voltron Force does to Keith when they slap on a secret Arusian lineage and special parental legacy of an Arusian Honor Guard. That completely undermines Keith as a virtuous paragon. He doesn’t need any of those things…and again, wasn’t the story supposed to be about Daniel, Vince, and Larmina anyway?

A secret lineage would be the kind of thing you’d give to one of those three, in which case, that would be Daniel or Vince, since Larmina is already related to Allura, even though Allura told everyone that her entire family was killed by Zarkon when Keith et al first met her and Coran. Being Arusian and royalty were Allura’s toys, Keith didn’t need them, he already had enough toys. This is a way in which the writers didn’t ‘get’ the archetype, and tried too hard to make it into something else.

The DDP and Dynamite iterations of Voltron still “give other characters’ toys” to Keith, but it’s not a problem b/c those iterations are separate continuities that begin (or reboot) in a way that is not super sentai. A few of the super sentai trappings remain, but they are much more like American super hero comics, and that’s fine.

In DDP Voltron, Hunk’s martial arts prowess is given to Keith, but Hunk gains a different archetype in return (that I really love and wish I could have seen more of). Hunk still has combat skills, but his archetype is not the big dude kung fu brawler. Even though DDP Keith has gained DotU Hunk’s toy, he’s still well balanced between solo action star and team leader, since he is only team leader b/c that’s what he was assigned to do. He’s not there to inspire his comrades through innate virtuous qualities. He’s there to lead a hail Mary mission for the most powerful weapon in the universe that everything thinks is a space fairy tale.

Dynamite Voltron Keith is okay, but he kind of falls into the solo action star trap in parts of Vol 2. VLD started off strong with a different archetype for Keith, but ended up giving him all the toys as was done with VF Keith.

Any continuity can do what they want, and use different archetypes for the characters, but if part of the goal is to start off with that DotU feeling (or like actually continue the DotU story), then those writing should try to get a better understanding of why all the characters (not just Keith) are the way that they are in DotU (and Golion). And also question why there is this inclination to single out Keith as a solo action star, rather than one part of a five person whole. The inclination isn’t right or wrong, it just is, and it has consequences for characterization.

[emeraldspiral]

So, my initial theory was that the thing Hayward was hiding was that he implanted Evan Peters into Wanda’s world to be a mole posing as her brother with a lame excuse about “not wanting to be reminded of the past” to explain him having a different face. How Hayward managed to get him in with enough free will to be able to fish for information is still a question. Maybe it had to do with the fact that the “show” shifted into the early 2000s and became a mockumentary sitcom with fourth-wall humor. Like, they already knew they could get things in that fit the era and they wouldn’t be changed, and the way things were going they could’ve made a prediction that the format would change to allow for them to send a “drop-in” character who would work within the show’s format.

After thinking it over a bit though, I’m leaning back toward the idea he’s some guy Wanda “recast” as her brother, since she couldn’t have the real thing and Hayward’s secret is something else.

Another possibility is that this really is Quicksilver pulled over from the X-Men universe. But the only thing I feel that supports that so far is that he talks about one of Wanda’s kids having super speed like it’s a hereditary trait, which would only make sense in the X-Men universe. Like, I know in superhero comics, parents who weren’t born with their powers can still pass them onto their kids even though that shouldn’t be possible. But the kids usually get the same powers as their parents. In X-Men, where all the powers are genetic, it makes sense for Wanda to have a kid with her brother’s powers because both of them have the super speed gene inherited from one or both of their parents. But it doesn’t make sense in the MCU for one of Wanda’s kids to inherit abilities that have only ever existed in one person who didn’t contribute any DNA to his creation. This could also be a hint that Wanda’s kids aren’t real, just constructs of matter rearranged and given sentience by Wanda’s magic. Like, she wanted to relive her childhood vicariously through her own children, so she made one of them like her and the other basically a clone of her brother, as she remembers him. Which is why they not only have the same powers, but the same personalities and identical Halloween costumes.

Right now, there’s still 3 episodes left in the show and only one decade of television left before we catch-up to modern times, which even if the MCU takes place in an AU where corona never happened, Wanda’s been dead for 5 years, so she wouldn’t even know what late 10s/early 20s sitcoms are like. Realistically, if Wanda became an Avenger in 2014, she was probably too busy to keep up with sitcoms. And if she was orphaned at age 10 (which would’ve been 1999) and subsequently “adopted” by HYDRA, she probably wasn’t even watching that much TV in the new 10s.

So, I’m thinking the last 3 episodes are going to be a 3-parter that all takes place in a late 2000s/early 10s sitcom world that unravels and becomes a hodgepodge of all the eras we’ve seen before, maybe with some bonus scenes taking place directly in Wanda’s fractured psyche.

The fact that Wanda doesn’t know how she did everything I feel kinda hints that there is another person behind it all, which goes with the theory that “Agnes” is really Agatha Harkness and her husband “Ralph” is really Mephisto. But the way Agnes was acting in this episode doesn’t lend itself to that reading though.

Not to mention that so far, everything that seems to be “hinting” at that reveal is just stuff that fans think might be references to the characters and not actual character or plot beats in the story. Like, her wearing a witch costume or a certain brooch or showing up to conveniently move the plot along isn’t the same thing as like, establishing that Wanda had a foster mom or some other female figure in her life who Agnes could turn out to be, or having characters comment on the fact that they can’t figure out the identity of a major supporting character in Wanda’s show, or Agnes saying anything overtly cryptic or sinister or indicative of outside world knowledge or suggestive of a motive or ability to control or manipulate the situation.

So yeah, with the lack of genuine set-up it feels like if that is the twist then the scene from this week’s episode is just a giant narrative cheat. Like, she has no reason to behave that way except to fool the audience, but they’ll try to make it seem like they were clever and tricked us with sleight of hand, rather than an outright lie, by having her explain in her upcoming motive rant that she acted like that to fool Vision in-universe.

Like, with Zemo, we knew from the start that he was out to destroy the Avengers and details sprinkled throughout the film indicated that Sokovia and his family had something to do with his motive and the scene at the beginning with Bucky had something to do with his ultimate plan, so it feels like pieces of a puzzle that all come together to form a clear picture when we get to the reveal in Civil War. With Mysterio and the gang, the reveal of everyone’s motives and abilities was mid-film, so rather than feeling like an unearned twist that wasn’t set-up, it became the set-up for how the rest of Spider-Man Homecoming should logically play out.

In The Crimes of Grindelwald on the other hand, we don’t know the entire prophecy to begin with so we can’t possibly connect any of the red herrings dropped in order to come to the false conclusion they wanted to lead us to before they deconstruct it at the end, and the correct conclusion would’ve been straight-up impossible to figure out regardless because it outright contradicts established lore.

In WandaVision thus far, it doesn’t really feel like they’ve set Agnes up to be the puppetmaster and it feels a little late to do so now. The only way I think they could pull it off and not make it feel like an ass-pull is if they really hit the ground running in the next episode. Like, if they have Darcy desperately trying to communicate what she found that Hayward was hiding coinciding with people finally remarking on how they don’t know who Agnes is, or bringing up that someone in the town is in witness protection again, or Agnes’s facade cracking under scrutiny from Wanda, and then at the end of the episode Darcy is finally able to drop the bomb that the thing Hayward was hiding is that Agnes is another “meta-human” or has some connection to Wanda.

[beyblade-is-life]

Blind Kyoya

Blind Kyoya AU

-he gets both pissed off and cocky when people underestimated because he's blind

-refuses to wear the glasses that blind people wear because he doesn't want people to pity him

-the reason he won't wear blind people glasses(I can't remember what they're actually called ok) is the same reason he won't use A cane or a stick to get around

-he also refuses to get a seeing eye dog for the same reason

- is the friend that always says fight me when someone says something that pisses them off

- Kyoya just out walking minding his own business. Random Person: umm excuse me kid but you shouldn't be walking around without a parent or someone to help you. Kyoya: Fight me

- on the flip side of that he said "bite me" to Gindaya one time she actually bit him and he never said it to her again

- hates when people try to baby him because he can't see

- blind wild child™

- relies heavily on smell and sound to get around

- Which means if it's raining or there's any loud noises and there's too many people and he's around a crowd he can't take one step without falling flat on his face or on his ass

- Gindaya always laughs when this happens

- and while she's laughing Benkei is panicking because he's worried that Kyoya might be hurt

- the first time it happened around Nile he didn't know what to do or think

- when this happened around Demure he like Benkei was worried but Demure unlike Benkei believed Kyoya when he got back up and said that he was fine and that he just misstepped

- Kyoya can't hear or smell anything because of the crowd he trys to move forward but gets bumped into by someone and falls on his ass "hey kid watch were your going next" Gindaya: 😂🤣. Benkei: KYOYA BUDDY ARE YOU OKAY ARE YOU HURT. Nile: 😕⁉️ Demure: is he ok? Kyoya getting up: I'm fine I just misstepped

- they did eventually get to where they were going because Nile had enough common sense to call an Uber

- kyoya might be blind but he does know how to swim and he's really good at it

- he is also really good at soccer and basketball and no one knows how he does it

- hates it when Madoka makes a comment about him being blind and how he should be more careful

- punched Chris in the face once because he said "what good is the handicapped one going to do"

- Team Wild Fang + Gindaya also had a few things to say to Chris after that little comment of his

- Benkei is Team Mom™

- in the main story Kyoya meets my OC through Madoka but in the blind Kyoya AU he meets my OC Gindaya because she finds him sitting on a park bench during monsoon season in the middle of a storm takes him back to the Face Hunters Warehouse where she later on becomes the only female in the Face Hunters

- Benkei and Gindaya are the only two members of the Face Hunters that actually stuck with Kyoya when he decided to disband them

- they stayed with Kyoya not because he was blind and they see him as a disabled person but out of respect and because they care for him and because they know that boi will not properly take care of himself unless someone is there to make him

- Kyoya really loves mest more pacifically he loves the smell of meat cooking so if Team Wild Fang is out walking around and they pass a street food stall with cooking meat nine times out of ten that's the direction Kyoya will go and then Benkei will follow which leads to everyone else follow

- Gindaya also loves meat which is why if they're out walking around she keeps a close eye on Kyoya if he starts sniffing and then goes off in a random direction that means theirs street food nearby and she's definitely going

- Gindaya Nile and Demure are the only ones that are actually okay with Kyoya wandering around by himself Benkei it's not okay with Kyoya wandering around by himself because he's afraid he'll get hurt

- when someone underestimates Kyoya after they get into a Bey battle with him that's when they realize that Kyoya is a top class blader(him being top class is very debatable) Kyoya usually has a ego boost for about a week after beating whoever underestimated him

- will not admit it but when it is storming and he has to stay inside he actually loves to cuddle

- favorite people to cuddle with: the entirety of Team Wild Fang + Gindaya

- he's the leader of Team wild Fang™

- I always headcanon Kyoya as having dark brown hair and dying it green that does not change in this AU his natural hair is still dark brown and it is still dyed green

- the reason for it being dyed green he asked Benkei and Gindaya to dye his hair for him so he would match his Bey

- he asked them because they were the only two members of the face hunters that he actually trusted and he still trusts them

- Gindaya carries a first aid kit literally everywhere they go in case Kyoya does something dangerous stupid and life-threatening

- Nile: should we stop him *looks at kyoya about to jump off a waterfall in Hawaii* Gindaya while opening the first aid kit and looking through it: he'll be fine.

- Benkei was panicking from on the ground

- Demure refused to look

- and Nile already had 911 typed into his phone ready to call if something bad happened

- Gindaya had already got everything she would need from the first aid kit

- nothing bad happened and everyone was shocked that they A. didn't have to call an ambulance and B. For the first time ever they did not need Gindaya's first aid kit

- Benkei did pass out when Kyoya actually jumped off the waterfall though

- Gindaya got the whole thing on camera

- I fully believe that they are YouTubers when they are not traveling the world and they feed Kyoya random things to see if he can actually tell what it is

- one time they gave him pure salt

- lion boi™ was not happy

- likes to use his blindness as a way to play tricks on people

- Gindaya and Nile help him sometimes

- Team Mom Benkei does not approve of this but gave up stopping the 3 along time ago

Let me know if you want a part 2 of this

Also I was inspired by this post https://nevs-sketchbook.tumblr.com/post/171416342907/so-i-super-headcanon-kyoya-being-blind-it-both

By @nevs-sketchbook

[sifeng]

China’s Mary Sue

Growing up in America, I always saw Mary Sues as these perfect, destined type of heroine. So you can imagine my surprise when I went on Chinese social media and found people calling Jiang Xiaoguo, a character from Twenty Your Life On, who is plain in looks, of average talent and who comes from a less than stellar background, a Mary Sue. So, I did some digging and found that apparently in China, besides also meaning perfect angels, Mary Sue can also describe plain, simple girls who are ordinary in every aspect. Nothing sounds wrong with that right? Except, these simple Mary Sues attract the attention of a male lead that is far from ordinary in any aspect (think Meteor Garden or Scarlet Heart). A rant below:

(Remember when I said Yingluo is definitely not a Mary Sue? Well this new type of Mary Sue kind of includes her too! It just goes to show how Chinese netizens are willing to literally hate on any kind of female lead! No matter how different from the norm + unproblematic they are!)

This is an interesting character. There’s nothing wrong with the basic characteristics, as the matter of fact, their basic storyline (minus the romance) makes complete sense. It’s just your average person growing up to become a successful adult. I really don’t see anything wrong with that. I also don’t see anything wrong with their character - after all, isn’t 80% of the world the exact same? The only thing that is annoying with this character is the fact that they attract guys that are far beyond their league. Why? Most people don’t like this because it’s unrealistic, which is definitely true and you can dislike it for that reason, but, I have to ask who is watching a drama to see a realistic relationship? Cdramas (especially romantic ones) thrive off of clichés, and yet those exact people who enjoy them are also the ones who yell “ew a Mary Sue!” 

In America (or the Western World), we dislike Mary Sues because they are annoying, they (when they appear in young adult fiction stories) often act as bad role models for the young people reading them, they can be subconsciously sexist as people who read those stories develop the idea that the “other girls” are so boring or silly or evil and I must be like this bad-ass lady who tears down everyone else. But we do people dislike Mary Sues in China? Because her love stories are unrealistic, because exceptional people like an unexceptional girl. So there’s nothing wrong with her, there is just a lot of hate towards her romance storyline.

A poster for Twenty Your Life On: (from left to right) Duan Jiabao (段家宝), Jiang Xiaoguo (姜小果), Liang Shuang (梁爽), Luo Yan (罗艳)

So yes, I suppose Jiang Xiaoguo is a Mary Sue (she is simple, and two rather exceptional guys like her), but I still don’t really understand whats wrong with this type of Mary Sue. Besides being an overly common trait, I really can’t find anything innately wrong with this setup besides the fact that it will anger thousands of Chinese netizens who feel jealous that though they might be more talented, or better looking, or more pleasant than these Mary Sues, they don’t get the handsome guys like she does. Yes, I suppose Jiang Xiaoguo’s actions and their consequences are a little unrealistic, but she really will put in a lot of effort to get jobs or do good in her job. Perhaps the actions themselves might be impractical but at least the attitude she holds towards life is respectable and young people ought to learn to be courageous and hard working like her. She has more than just “everyone loves her” as a personality trait! 

Pictures from Twenty Your Life On: (from top to bottom), Guan Xiaotong (关晓彤) as Liang Shuang (梁爽), Bu Guanjin (卜冠今) as Jiang Xiaoguo (姜小果), Li Gengxi (李��希) as Luo Yan (罗艳), Dong Siyi (董思怡) as Duan Jiabao (段家宝)

Everyone seems to hate Jiang Xiaoguo because two guys like her, but they love Liang Shuang (also from Twenty Your Life On)! Liang Shuang is another one of the main characters, and she’s actually a really cool character. She’s super confident (to a kind of amazing level really), and really selfish. I think it’s really interesting that a female lead has this type of personality, and I actually quite like her, but that doesn’t make her a better person than Jiang Xiaoguo. Liang Shuang has some really big problems (not to say Xiaoguo doesn’t - because she does - but they aren’t really huge problems that could hurt the people around her). When she and Luo Yan (another main character) are on the bus together, Luo Yan is harassed, and Liang Shuang steps in and records the entire thing on her phone (because she had been taking selfies before). She then posts the video on social media because she wants to raise awareness, however, in the video Luo Yan pushes her. It is revealed that Luo Yan only pushed her because the creepy guy tried to attack Liang Shuang, but of course that’s not in the video. So the other two friends (Xiaoguo and Duan Jiabao) try to convince Liang Shuang to take the video offline because Luo Yan is getting majorly cyberbullies for something that is definitely not her fault. Liang Shuang refuses because her video has gone viral and she’s getting a lot of followers. Also, once when faced with a product she was offered to advertise, but that could be harmful to the skin, she tricked other girls in the dormitory to use it and watched the results. And why? Because she’s way too pretty to possibly get harmed by this mask, but everyone else can suffer because they're ugly ducklings in comparison. So people like this character because she’s different, and they are totally willing to forgive her for all of these (rather cruel) actions. But when faced with Jiang Xiaoguo, a Mary Sue, they will hate on her for breathing. She can help Liang Shuang deal with a cheating boyfriend, and support her friends when they are down, and yet - she’s the annoying one?

Besides, I feel like, if these male leads have a reason to like her (a valid reason not some stupid one like - oh she’s not like the other girls). Then I don’t have a problem at all! I just want well-written romance storylines that aren’t toxic, I really don’t require this completely new and innovative relationship. Besides, realistic relationships are way too boring to be shown on television, for example, in Twenty Your Life On, Luo Yan’s main pairing is her friend who studies for graduate school with her. He is really nice, but just kind of boring. I don’t really feel interested in watching their romance develop because 1. there isn’t that much chemistry and 2. it’s just so boring. (Nothing against either or them, since I love Teresa Li and I quite liked the guy in My Huckleberry Friends). I am even more annoyed that people are really hating on the actress because Jiang Xiaoguo takes up screen time. I tried to watch an iQiyi sneak peek and literally half (if not three-fourths) of the comments were just hating on her and her actress. It’s absolutely disgusting, especially given that this show has just started and has only gone one-fourth of the way through. 

This was just a rant about how annoying Chinese netizens can be towards female characters, even when it’s unwarranted. If they were complaining about how she has too much screen time, perhaps I could agree, but they are just insulting her solely because two talented and handsome guys like her. That is just so wrong on so many levels. (Now this is solely a theory and it’s most likely wrong but... could it be that people are actually jealous? I see so many comments literally hating on Xiaoguo’s appearance, her actress’s voice, even her actress’s acting ability - which is actually really good - and yet no one hates on anyone else in this show. I really don’t understand. I really like her character actually, especially in the first episode).

I’m actually kind of sad. This show is so good, it deals with some very interesting topics and features conversations that are quite meaningful. And yet, all the fans care about are who gets the most screen time or oh my god this girl is so annoying because guys like her. They're missing the main point!

[christiewryte]

World of Warcraft: Shadowlands spoilers ahead.

Alright so sorry but I just gotta rant right now, because I got to the point last night of having to make my Covenant choice and I just

can’t.

For two reasons. One, because I really only give half a shit about any of the factions, so I’m really not chomping at the bit to swear my soul to any of them. And two, because it’s such a stupid fucking asspull that I have to choose one at all.

Literally the only explanation given for why I’m choosing a single Covenant to dedicate myself to is so that I don’t “spread myself too thin.” But that’s obvious fucking horseshit, because by this point I’ve already quested through between 50-90% of the physical landmass of each Covenant’s zone depending on which, and resolved a shit ton of problems that they’d all been struggling with since before I ever arrived. I fast tracked through years’ worth of the Kyrian ascension process in a matter of hours, became the chosen of the Necrolords’ Primus, delivered Ysera to rebirth, and rebuilt the shattered Venthyr rebellion and exposed the Master’s betrayal of the pantheon, and run multiple errands to the supposedly inescapable Maw in the process. The idea that I’ll be “spread too thin” is obvious nonsense even before getting into the fact that I’ve never had a problem saving more factions than these measly four all at the same time in past expansions, and made only even more bullshit by the fact that this restriction means I can only complete the storylines of each of these zones that I’m supposedly invested in by playing four different characters at endgame. This bullshit excuse that I’ll be “spread too thin” actually does the exact fucking opposite and makes me spread myself thin if I want to finish all the storylines.

So let’s talk about those storylines, and why I don’t care enough about any of them to have a strong opinion on which to join.

First off, the big problem: the entire premise of Shadowlands is that this is the literal Warcraft afterlife. The Shadowlands are where mortal souls go when they die, and transition to their eternal existence as part of the Shadowlands.

So why doesn’t it feel like it?

Let’s start with the most egregious example in the Night Fae of Ardenweald. Each Covenant and its zone represents a different afterlife tailored to the needs of different lives. The Kyrian of Bastion take souls that dedicated their lives to duty. The Necrolords of Maldraxxus take souls that craved battle. The Venthyr of Revendreath take wicked souls that need redemption, while those that are beyond redemption are thrown into the Maw. And the Night Fae of Ardenweald take

uh

They never actually talk about why mortal souls end up in Ardenweald, or what they do there. The entire pre-Choice story is about the souls of nature gods being reborn. I think I did maybe half a dozen quests that had me interact with mortal souls in the entire zone, they were all in the first chapter, and the only thing they revealed about the relationship between mortal souls and Ardenweald is that mortal souls take cute animal forms there.

So there we have the five afterlives, encompassing all five kinds of mortals:

Dutiful

Bloodthirsty

Evil

Super Evil

Immortal Nature Gods

This lack of development is hardly unique to Ardenweald, though. While we at least get the basic idea behind what kind of souls end up in each afterlife, it’s largely to totally inconsequential to any of the stories going on, all of which are focused entirely on people we’ve never met before, have nothing to say about their past lives, or both. The Necrolords actually come out best in this regard, as the familiar faces of Draka, Lady Vashj, and Alexandros Mograine all show up throughout the pre-Choice quest experience, but with the exception of Vashj passive-aggressively sniping at you a few times about being part of the raid group that killed her, none of them ever talk about their mortal lives. This is especially galling in the case of Mograine, who we rescue from the Maw with the assistance of his undead son, who gave his life to save his father’s soul from damnation, and clearly has things to say to him, but Alexandros just brushes him off with, “We’ll talk later,” and rushes back off to Maldraxxus to have one inconclusive fight with a traitor before the pre-Choice storyline is over and you’re shuffled off to Ardenweald.

Otherwise, Ardenweald gives us the Ysera’s rebirth as the capstone to its pre-Choice questing and an expy of Ursoc (which is extra ironic as they made an entire cutscene about the Night Fae letting Ursoc’s soul die), Revendreath gives us a few quests where we torment the soul of an inconsequential boss from the MoP reincarnation of a Vanilla dungeon and one instance where a recurring character confronts a moment from their mortal life (and then immediately brushes it aside), and Bastion gives us Uther in an antagonistic role. This last one is at least conceptually interesting as it engages with the nature of how mortal souls are treated in Bastion (they have to give up their memories of their mortal lives as part of the ascension process to become Kyrians), but falls flat because Uther’s involvement never amounts to more than a couple cameos where you don’t engage him in any way whatsoever, and the last time he comes up is to establish that he doesn’t know about the obviously evil shit the rest of the anti-memory wiping side is up to.

This is a massive waste of setting the expansion’s story in the afterlife. The easiest trick they could have used to make us invested in the Covenants and understand what they’re each about would have been populating the pre-Choice storylines heavily with known characters. This would have given us emotional connection to the various Covenants through the pre-existing emotional connections to those characters, and helped us understand who belongs in each afterlife and what it has to offer to mortal souls through our pre-existing understanding of those characters. The only reason the Necrolords are even in the running for my Covenant choice is that my main character is a female orc from the Frostwolf clan who was inspired to become a shaman by Thrall’s example, so serving alongside his mother would make a lot of sense for her. Hell, if Draka was a soulbind option (and oh boy, are we gonna come back to soulbinds), I’d probably go Necrolords despite Maldraxxus easily being the zone I want to look at the least.

Other than these few returning faces, everyone that we meet in the afterlife pre-Choice is someone completely new, and none but the Accuser and not!Ursoc offer even the briefest glimpse of their mortal lives. For that matter, it’s very unclear which denizens of the Shadowlands are mortal souls, and which are native creatures. It is explicitly spelled out that mortal souls ascend to be Kyrians in Bastion and souls that find redemption in Revendreath can become Venthyr, but what the hell is going on in Maldraxxus where everyone seems to be transformed into one of a limited number of forms specific to the realm, except for Draka, Vashj, and Alexandros, who all retain their mortal forms? Mortal souls barely seem to exist at all in Ardenweald. Do they eventually become the various fae creatures that populate the zone, or is Ardenweald really so oriented entirely toward the rebirth of nature spirits that there are only about a dozen mortal souls in the entire place?

And the big question that doesn’t ever seem to be addressed: what happens to souls that die in the Shadowlands? Do they just come back and restart their afterlives? Is there an after-afterlife they go to? Or are they uberdead, erased from existence? If it’s the former, why do any of the people here get upset about someone else dying? If it’s that last one, you’d think a lot of the Shadowlands’ denizens would be a lot more hesitant to engage in deadly combat. If nothing else Maldraxxus, where you’re welcomed to the afterlife by having to be the last soul standing in a giant battle to the death, would be kind of a shit reward for a life lived according to the place’s ideals. But nothing; everyone’s attitude toward dying in the Shadowlands is exactly the same as the attitude toward dying expressed by anyone in any of the living realms we’ve battled through over the years.

Combine the unfamiliar faces with never addressing what dying after death means, then throw in bog standard quests about harvesting lumber or controlling the local animal population, and the Shadowlands really doesn’t feel like an afterlife. It’s just another new set of zones that brings up death conceptually more often than usual in the course of sending us out to make it happen nonconceptually. Maldraxxus and Ardenweald in particular are basically indistinguishable from any Scourge- or night elf-heavy zone from previous content, respectively.

Well, what about themes and aesthetics? Well, aesthetically the Kyrians are all about that Holy Light, the Necrolords and Venthyr are two different flavors of undeath, and the Night Fae are just another in WoW’s proud tradition of nature = druid = night elf (ffs they couldn’t even be bothered to name them something else). As an orc shaman, none of those fit me. Night Fae is probably the closest, but even that’s screaming “DRUID” so loudly and exclusively that I don’t feel right there. Honestly, how hard would it have been to toss in one of the troll loas or some elementals somewhere in that zone?

Thematically, the Kyrians are about duty, which sounds appropriate for my character, except for the whole, “sacrifice your identity,” thing. The Necrolords are all about might making right, which is the toxic orcish attitude my character has always tried to lead her people away from, even before taking into account that “might” in this definition appears to include might borrowed from a bottle, built out of other people and made to do your fighting for you, and assassinations, to go by the Five Houses of Maldraxxus. I cannot stress enough just how badly the Night Fae failed to explain why anyone who isn’t a druid or at least a night elf belongs in Ardenweald, and while the Venthyrs’ redemption shtick fits my character’s desire to lead the orcs onto a better path, their preferred method is years upon years of torture, which seems a little hypocritical.

So what’s left? Pre-Choice questing has done a shit job of actually connecting me to any of these places, so... I guess I should decide based on the characters? The interface for choosing your Covenant identifies your three possible soulbinds for each choice, and... wait, what the fuck are soulbinds?

No, seriously, this comes all but entirely out of nowhere. Soulbinds are mentioned only a few times in all of pre-Choice content, and it’s solely by the Kyrians. It’s never mentioned by anyone outside of Bastion, and the Kyrians are never anything but vague about what it actually is. The closest understanding the game offers before suddenly introducing it as a power progression system (and not even explaining that fully at this point) until now is a short optional quest chain in Bastion where you deliver a wreath from one NPC to another, who then gets all bubbly, explains that giving a wreath to someone you’re very close to is a symbol of asking them to be your soulbind, and then sends you to pick a flower that she and the other woman planted together at their favorite date spot years ago so she can give her answer. Going by this, soulbinding sounds like it’s a practice specific to the Kyrians, for whom its like marriage (and like any good Disney princess, I want to afterlife-marry for love, and not a dps boost). Now suddenly, we’re presented with three options per faction for soulbind partners (two of whom we’ve already been told are in a soulbind with each other? seriously, wtf is this concept?), some of whom we’ve interacted with for a grand total of five minutes by this point. The Necrolords have an option I’m not sure I’ve even actually met yet.

So... there we go. I’ve got to make a forced choice that it makes no sense to force in the first place about which simultaneously poorly explained and narrowly defined faction full of strangers that don’t act like they’re dead I want to pledge myself to.

Fuck it, it’s probably gonna be Venthyr just because their teleport spell is more useful than a summoned vendor or a second Ghost Wolf.

[hellzyeahwebwielingessays]

Superior is INDEFENCIBLE! Part 1: Why MJ SHOULD have known ‘Peter’ was an imposter in Superior #2!

Part 2

I wanna talk about some of the comments made regarding Superior Spider-Man #2 on this podcast. It starts at the 18 minute mark.

The person who voiced the comments under discussion also had some follow up in a messageboard regarding the episode.

So first let’s define what those comments were. Basically it’s all a defence of Mary Jane’s obliviousness to Doc Ock pretending to be Peter in Superior #2. I say defence it’s more of a finger wagging/pointing at the people who had a problem with it and were calling it out.

Mary Jane Watson is not real so stop getting upset about her potentially being raped

If Doc Ock did rape her that wouldn’t be Marvel claiming that it’d be okay to rape people because Otto is a villain

He calls out someone who claimed that Doc Ock ‘technically’ raped Mary Jane by tricking her

If no one is having sex with anyone it is not rape

He tries to justify MJ’s obliviousness like this: Imagine being in a relationship with someone for many, many years. You guys break up and spend a lot of time apart not even in contact with one another and then a few years later you see each other again and hang out regularly in the same social group. There is still an unspoken distance between you two because you weren’t intimate to the same degree as you were when you were together. In that amount of time someone changes. In this case Peter he has had a lot of crazy Avengers adventures since he and MJ broke up. He’s a financially successful member of HORIZON labs, a fact that surprised MJ and hurt her because he did it without her. And now when MJ and peter were back together there has been a few years between the last time you two were together and Peter has done a lot of growing without you. Even though you hung around as friends you don’t act the same way around your friends as you do with an ex that you were now getting back together with.

He goes on to argue that MJ is noticing some differences in Peter that she is commenting upon.

He continues by addressing MJ’s deduction of Peter being the Chameleon in Spec #245.  He claims that there were big differences between that situation and Superior #2. Chameleon didn’t have Peter’s body, he was merely using a hologram of it so there’d be ore subtle differences. At the time Peter and MJ were married whereas in Superior #2 they were not. Otto could address any subtle difference MJ noticed by simply bringing up something only Peter would be aware of.

During Spec #245 and the Clone Saga Peter and MJ were more in tune with one another since they were married

‘Chameleon can't make himself as tall as Peter is....same weight....the voice will be similar but can't be 100 percent the same....Ock can though.’

So let’s unpack all this.

“Mary Jane Watson is not real so stop getting upset about her potentially being raped”

I trust I need not go into a detailed explanation about how emotional investment into fiction works.

Instead let’s consider this from a moral perspective. Many if not most female characters in Marvel and DC had gotten the short end of the stick and MJ circa 2013 (when this issue was released) perhaps more than many.

99% of the time rape in superhero fiction, especially to women, legitimately comes from a place of sexism or misogyny. The understandable sensitivity of the topic is such that it’s utterly repugnant to had milked it for cheap tension the way Marvel had done at the time.

And to do it with such a beloved and iconic character, the leading lady of the Spider-Man universe no less. No, that was simply out of order.

That’s not a ticking time bomb that should even BE in a Spider-Man story in the first place.

The PRINCIPLE of the matter is what most people were upset about.

“If Doc Ock did rape her that wouldn’t be Marvel claiming that it’d be okay to rape people because Otto is a villain”

Again, most people were not concerned over this.

What they were concerned about was the damage it’d do to MJ and Otto as characters were Marvel to go through with it and indeed the damage it wound up doing to Doc Ock specifically because he attempted  to rape MJ. Until a retcon is employed it will be forever canon that Doc Ock WOULD had raped MJ by deception if given the opportunity; a concept this poster denied on another thread just FYI.

But why would fans feel such a way? Why is Doc Ock doing that somehow worse than attempted mass murder with a nuclear bomb or orbital space technology?

Because everyone reading super hero comic books is totally awwere that death is not only reversible, but that within the context of DC and Marvel’s defined morality systems rape is a special kind of evil.

TVTropes lists off some infamous examples:

“Identity Crisis: Dr. Light was evil, but he wasn't evil until it was Ret-Conned that he had raped Sue Dibny in the JLA watchtower. Following the retcon, it's become standard practice to write Light as a serial rapist. Quoth Plastic Man: "It's like that's his power now."”

“He calls out someone who claimed that Doc Ock ‘technically’ raped Mary Jane by tricking her”

Okay. If someone did say that then they were in the wrong.

But Otto was still exploiting and violating Mary Jane’s sense of trust and emotional intimacy by preying upon her feelings for Peter.

Worse he violated her in other ways (in terms of privacy if nothing else) by accessing Peter’s memories of being intimate with Mary Jane.

The closest real world equivalent to this would be breaking stealing someone’s property breaking into it for the express purpose of seeing private photos given to them by their lover which you proceed to masturbate over…Whilst the person you’ve stolen from watches in horror and yells at you to stop…

Except in context it’s even worse than that because Otto literally feels  the sensation of Mary Jane’s body in spite of her never giving him consent to do that.

Maybe you could argue that is not rape or sexual violation. But it’s unequivocally some  form of serious ethical violation.

“If no one is having sex with anyone it is not rape”

Even if we said this statement is technically accurate (which can be debated depending on what counts as sex), the issue is one of violation  which can take many forms beyond just sexual violation.

“He tries to justify MJ’s obliviousness like this: Imagine being in a relationship with someone for many, many years. You guys break up and spend a lot of time apart not even in contact with one another and then a few years later you see each other again and hang out regularly in the same social group. There is still an unspoken distance between you two because you weren’t intimate to the same degree as you were when you were together. In that amount of time someone changes. In this case Peter he has had a lot of crazy Avengers adventures since he and MJ broke up. He’s a financially successful member of HORIZON labs, a fact that surprised MJ and hurt her because he did it without her. And now when MJ and Peter were back together there has been a few years between the last time you two were together and Peter has done a lot of growing without you. Even though you hung around as friends you don’t act the same way around your friends as you do with an ex that you were now getting back together with. “

This is the big one that needs discussing. First of all here is another poster who had some astute comments:

“While you made a good case for why Mary Jane would realistically not figure out right away that her beloved "Peter" was really Doc Ock, there were, however, two very big strikes against this.  In the first place, Dan Slott himself has repeatedly acknowledged that Mary Jane knows Peter better than anyone else.”

This is totally true and it even precedes Slott’s tenure too. She offered Peter insights into himself towards the end of BND and encouraged him to get with Carlie. 

Early into Slott’s run she advised him to tell Carlie to truth. 

She was able to inspire Peter into action during Spider-Island by pointing out he was still special in spite of everyone possessing his powers.

She reaffirmed his uniqueness after the crisis was resolved.

And she set his mind straight at the end of that story. In fact her big take away from this story was a greater  understanding of Peter because of her experiences saving the city with his powers.

She continued to connect with Peter and offer clear insights into his deepest inner nature in the ‘’I Killed Tomorrow’ arc.

She was one of the few people in ‘Ends of the Earth’ who had absolute faith in Peter to save the entire world from the Sinister Six. She was so confident that she exploited the lowered real estate prices due to the crisis and purchased a nightclub.

In the immediate aftermath of ‘Ends of the Earth’ she was again a confidant who offered him advice and understanding over his inner problems. Specifically his guilt regarding Silver Sable’s ‘death’ during the crisis.

She did this again in the ‘Alpha’ storyline, this time zeroing in on stuff connected to his childhood and Uncle Ben’s influence.

Now, we can (justifiably) take issue with the specifics of the above. We could argue they were out of character or misinformed or what had you.

But the point is that Slott was framing  Mary Jane as the person both closest to Peter and the person who didn’t just comparatively understand him best, but who simply got  him on an incredibly deep level.

And yet when inconvenient for the plot all that went out the window.

So Mary Jane was clearly  contradicting Slott’s own personal definition of her.

The astute poster continued.

“After all, she has known Peter was Spider-Man practically since day one, has been in a continuous on-again, off-again relationship ever since they first met, and has lived with him for years.  This is someone who, by all accounts, has been intimate with Peter on every single level.  Even after brief periods of separation, someone who has been that close with someone else is going to know things about them that other people would not.”

Again this is very on point. Prior to Brand New Day (let alone Superior) and across at least 5-10 years of their lives Mary Jane had known Peter Parker when:

He didn’t know she existed

He knew she existed but hadn’t met her

They had been acquaintances

They had been friends

They had been casually dating

The had been going steady

They had been serious

They had been drifting apart

They had drifted apart and become exs

They had been becoming friendly again

They had become friendly again

They were friendly but had awkward sexual/romantic tension

They were friendly but had not-awkward sexual/romantic tension

They had become confidants

They had become BFF

They were BFFs/confidants who had not very subtle romantic/sexual tension

They had been the above and were falling back in love

They had been the above but had fallen back in love but weren’t dating

They had been the above, had fallen back in love and were practically dating but in denial about it

They had been the above, had fallen back in love, were practically dating but only barely in denial about it at all, to the point where they were making each other breakfast in bed and locking lips

They had admitted their feelings to one another and become engaged

They had been married

They had been married and had major tensions

They had been married and separated

They had been married and were trying to maybe patch things up

They had been married and were back together and patching things up

They had been married and had successfully patched things up

And amidst all that they’d been expectant parents, grieved a miscarriage, she’d seen Peter pushed to a breaking point due to grief or mental instability.

Amidst all that Peter definitely changed. But outside or the above mentioned extenuating circumstances, he had literally NEVER acted like he had been acting whilst Otto was in control of his body.

In fact the Peter Parker she would’ve met again during the 1980s after they broke up the first time would’ve gone through FAR more growth and changes than the Peter between OMD and Superior. Shit it was during this time period where MJ was explicitly said to had been able to read Peter like a book.

Bear in mind this was when they hadn’t spent years of their life together and when she didn’t know the details of how/why he became Spider-Man. It was even written with the intent that she didn’t know at all. And Peter had not yet learned MJ’s own origins and thus become more emotionally intimate with her either.

Equally it can be argued that Peter had changed and grown much more between between their trial separation under Mackie and their reconciliation under JMS when he’d become a school teacher, told Aunt May the truth and considered his powers having mystical roots.

Yet he didn’t act this drastically  differently.

He is literally not even talking  the same way he used to before.

Even if you act differently among friends or colleagues than privately with your partner, the idea that MJ believes that because of Avengers adventures Peter suddenly speaks totally differently is ridiculous. It’s even more ridiculous when you consider how she can observe him speaking similarly outside  of interactions with herself.

Not to mention she is friends and roommates with Peter’s most recent ex-Carlie Cooper and observed their interactions whilst they were dating. Peter didn’t act this way and Carlie could confirm that for her.

Additionally, let’s consider MJ has some psychology and acting training, meaning she’s very  good at getting inside people’s heads to understand them. A great example comes from ‘Soul of the Hunter;

And she was able to sense something was fishy about Norman Osborn when she met him. This occurred when she didn’t know he was the Green Goblin and Norman himself had amnesia and didn’t know it himself.

Plus she’s extremely socially savvy and so you would imagine she’d be great at picking up on subtle behaviours like body language, etc. Even if Doc Ock had Peter’s body he would be unlikely to carry himself the same way simply because he’d had no idea how  Peter would had carried himself in the first place.

So MJ wouldn’t need to had been married or living with Peter for a while to pick up on the nuances of Otto’s behaviour;  not that he’s even being nuanced or subtle in the first place.

But it goes even deeper than this.

Peter and Mary Jane were not like a regular couple. And no that isn’t some Disney-esque miracle love at first sight nonsense either, it’s simple psychology.

As the astute poster noted, the length of time MJ has known Peter and been close to him would mean she’d be able to see through Otto.

But it’s not just that they were friends, confidants, lovers or life partners during this time.

Peter and MJ are one part romantic couple, one part war veterans.

In real life soldiers who fought side-by-side with one another, especially if the situation was very traumatic, forge an extremely potent mental/emotional bond. This is obviously accentuated if there was a pre-existing positive relationship, like if they were friends or family.

A very good albeit fictional example would be the relationship between Captain America and Bucky in the MCU.

Peter and MJ already had a generally positive relationship before they began to fall in love with one another. And they were one another’s best friends by the time they were married. Under Slott’s pen it was also clear that they were one another’s closest companions prior to Superior.

The deep bonds between them would’ve been accentuated through shared tragedies and deeply personal experiences. These would have included their respective origins which echoed one another’s lives growing up. But more poignantly it included enduring emotional pain and trauma together.

Gwen’s death which was the catalyst for their romance.

‘Kraven’s Last Hunt’ which forced the pair to confront their greatest fears now that they were newlyweds.

The death of their child, which is an experience that can often result in the ending of a couple’s relationship. In Peter and MJ’s case they grew closer as a result.

Their life on the run after Peter’s identity went public and Aunt May was dying in a coma. Peter and MJ had options of escaping the situation at the cost of their relationship but instead reaffirmed their commitment to one another.

These are just some  of the myriad of traumatic and testing life experiences Peter and MJ shared together. Experiences that they helped one another get through. The pattern of behaviour for the two of them was clear. Emotionally or mentally traumatic situations made them grow closer. And quite apart from traumatic situations there is an element of physical  danger heavily involved in this too.

There have been countless times MJ has been rescued by, or relied upon Peter to rescue her from danger.

Peter himself has been rescued by Mary Jane’s physical intervention.

And like him she’s been more than willing to make sacrifices in her life for his sake. This can be something like her career opportunities but have also included risking her life to see him from harm.

But more frequently her presence in his life as ben an empowering force that has enabled him to save himself, a fact he has actively attributed to Mary Jane.

So yes. Peter and Mary Jane are incredibly  comparable to soldiers. Just soldiers who happen to also be in love with one another too.

It’s not just the mere existence of these traumatic bonding experiences either but the high frequency  with which they have occurred. Any one  of the things Peter and MJ have had to endure might have broken the strongest of couples, the best of friends. But so many of them? Seeing their lover/friend Gwen Stacy, their mutual friend Harry Osborn, their brother/friend Ben Reilly and  their baby die? All within a 10 year time span?

No.

It is just absurd to strictly apply how the majority of regular couples behave to these two.

And it is equally absurd to argue that they within a mere year or two (during which time they were still in one another’s social circles half the time, still close friends, still confidants, AND had underlying romantic feelings for one another) that they’d fall so far out of synch.

Absurd that MJ could be so blind as honestly presume merely having adventures with the Avengers or becoming a successful scientist could have changed Peter so drastically. And changed him drastically only within the context of private romantic moments, not whilst he was interacting with anyone else.

Absurd that either of them could genuinely not tell an imposter when they see one. This in fact came up during the marriage more than once.

Obviously we have the Chameleon situation, but MJ within like a month of living with Peter she could easily tell (on a dark rainy night no less) that Kraven the Hunter wasn’t the real Spider-Man.

Sure, he was way more violent than Peter normally is. But in a then very recent arc Peter had gotten pretty violent when MJ was threatened.

And for the record MJ didn’t realize ‘Peter’ was an imposter after she witnessed Superior Spidey deliver a similarly violent beating in Superior #6.

During the Clone Saga Mary Jane confronted one of Peter’s clones and deduced him as a fraud.

However she immediately recognized Peter when she saw him. For context she was running for her life at the time, Aunt May’s funeral had been (at best) two days earlier, Peter had been arrested for murder immediately after the funeral, she’d been abducted (twice) by a scary new villain called Kaine and as far as she knew Peter had been locked up in jail, unaware of her plight.

Rationally it made no sense for her to presume the Spider-Man in front of her was the real guy. And yet she just knew because of the bond between them.

Shit, Aunt May deduced the Chameleon (who is a MASTER of disguise) was an imposter in spite of him being far more subtle than Otto was. She could tell simply because she had raised Peter, in spite of being in the dark about him being Spider-Man for years.

The astute poster corroborates further corroborates my points:

“Likewise, as I believe Zack pointed out, the changes "Peter" underwent since Amazing Spider-Man #698 weren't exactly subtle.  In fact, by the end of Superior Spider-Man #2, Mary Jane essentially acknowledges that Peter has changed so much that it seems as if he's become a completely different person.  Given all of her past experiences with Peter and how intimately involved she was in his life, wouldn't it stand to reason that she would logically conclude that if Peter is acting like a different person, then maybe he actually is a different person and not Peter?”

Let’s move onto the next bullet points.

“He goes on to argue that MJ is noticing some differences in Peter that she is commenting upon.”

“He continues by addressing MJ’s deduction of Peter being the Chameleon in Spec #245.  He claims that there were big differences between that situation and Superior #2. Chameleon didn’t have Peter’s body, he was merely using a hologram of it so there’d be ore subtle differences. “

“‘Chameleon can't make himself as tall as Peter is....same weight....the voice will be similar but can't be 100 percent the same....Ock can though.’”

I know I’m adding the final point here but it seemed appropriate.

Let’s consider the fact that Chameleon was merely making I seem like he had Peter’s body whilst Otto id in fact have Peter’s body. Thus MJ would pick up on the subtle differences.

Well first of all MJ would be picking up on various subtle and unsubtle behavioral  differences in Otto as I spoke about above.

Second of all this mentality does not fly. Partially because I am honestly struggling to remember a time in canon that anyone noticed physical differences between Chameleon and the genuine articles. Maybe I am forgetting something, but IIRC he impersonated Jameson and managed to fool both his old friends, colleagues and family members (including his wife).

Additionally the idea that there would even be subtle differences is extremely questionable because Chameleon at the time could perfectly recreate anyone he wanted. His powers and technology was such that he was able to simultaneously disguise himself as Peter Parker AND cast a secondary hologram of Doc Ock. He isn’t just wearing a disguise or hologram but rather physically transforming his body and clothing into a perfect replica of his target. These abilities are detailed in ASM #307.

He basically just needs to get a good enough look at his target and he can totally become  them.

In the story in question he had Spidey rendered unconscious, unmasked him and even had the time to drug, imprison and disguise him in an effort to make him believe he was someone else.

So yes, Chameleon 100% could’ve perfectly replicated Peter’s body. Height. Weight. Pimples. Everything sans his powers.

This means there were no physical differences MJ was picking up. She just figured it out the moment he kissed her and she knew the truth.

So MJ could tell Chameleon was an imposter in spite of him having identical lips to Peter due to his powers.  And yet MJ couldn’t tell Otto was an imposter when he kissed her in ASM #700.

This should be enough to call bullshit on the OP because of the sheer goddam number of times MJ must have realistically kissed Peter before.

But let’s say for the sake of argument that in the Chameleon story it was only because MJ had kissed Peter in recent memory that she could tell the difference. That she wrote off Otto’s kiss as there having been such a long time since they’d kissed that maybe it would just naturally feel different. This argument is critically wounded because less than a year before ASM #700 (in-universe) MJ and Peter did  share a kiss in the deplorable ‘One Moment in Time’ storyline.

Oh and let’s not forget that MJ was able to deduce Peter from his biologically identical  clones!...Twice!...Under stressful  life and death circumstances!...Whilst pregnant!

“At the time Peter and MJ were married whereas in Superior #2 they were not. Otto could address any subtle difference MJ noticed by simply bringing up something only Peter would be aware of.”

Yes MJ and Peter were married when she recognized his imposters. I’m going to address that point later as it’s more relevant there.

As for the latter point though it holds no water.

Yes, Otto could bring up something only  Peter would know about, like how he once proposed with a crackerjack box.

But Mary Jane is aware that she lives in a world of shape-shifting Skrulls, mutant telepaths and A.I. intelligences based upon the brain patterns of human beings. All of these concepts have included the imposters having private memories from their subjects.

Looking like someone else AND having access to their memories or private information is totally possible.

Not to mention an imposter could simply keep their subject locked up and torture them for information.

Ah, but none of those things originated from the Spider-Man brand. Surely it isn’t fair to use the entire Marvel universe for context because then nothing would ever make sense.

Okay, then let’s confine this to just Spider-Man specific characters and concepts.

Alien symbiotes are shape-shifters that form telepathic bonds with their hosts. They can often control their hosts’ bodies too. So not only might a symbiote be controlling Peter but it could very well be someone else with a symbiote, one who has bonded with Peter and thus has access to his memories.

The Winkler device was a machine that could brainwash people but also cause them to become irrational and violent. Ned Leeds and Captain Stacy were among it’s victims. It is possible Peter has been brainwashed by that or a similar device, hence he’s acting out of character but he’d still remember intimate things Either way it’d be a cause for concern.

Peter’s robot parents were shape shifting A.I. creatures, and the one based on Mary Parker actually risked her life to save Peter because she genuinely loved him. So, she had artificially inserted memories that could recreate a feeling as potent as love.

And here is the big one…fucking clones.

Peter’s clones have his memories up to the point the DNA sample from his body was separated. But the Jackal had methods of actually updating the memories of clones so they’d be identical in mind as well as body. This is how Ben Reilly, in spite of being grown from DNA donated before Gwen’s death, had all of Peter’s memories from after that point.

Not only does MJ know that but for a long time she believed the man she married was  a clone and that Ben Reilly was the original Peter Parker. As a result the man she was involved with from 1975-1995 looked and acted identically to the man she’d been dating prior to that. He remembered when MJ shut the door after Gwen’s death. He remembered the first words MJ said to him. He remembered their first kiss in the airport. He remembered all this stuff even though he wouldn’t have been the real deal. The fact that he turned out to be the genuine article eventually doesn’t matter because Ben Reilly knew all that stuff too.

So his knowledge of private information is absolutely not proof he is the real Peter Parker.

“During Spec #245 and the Clone Saga Peter and Mj were more in tune with one another since they were married”

Mostly I’ve already addressed these. First of all MJ was clearly in tune with Peter prior to Superior as witnessed by all the Slott stories above.

And for other reasons listed above she and Peter wouldn’t have fallen out of tune with one another to the point where MJ could be so gullible. Additionally, they were clearly still mostly  in tune with one another on both other occasions they broke up and became reacquainted with one another. I refer you back to how MJ was said to be able to read Peter like a book following their first break up. Again, this was when she was written to not know he was Spider-Man. That changed with retcons but even so she didn’t know how, when or why he was Spider-Man. He didn’t know her own origin and they hadn’t had nearly as many of the serious and intimate life experiences they’d have later in life.

However, more poignant proof can be found when we jump to the JMS run. To be clear between OMD and MJ’s reintroduction into ASM over a year elapsed and then we can guesstimate another year elapsed between then and he start of Superior. But Peter and MJ were interacting in that second year, as witnessed in those Slott stories.

In contrast Peter and MJ had been drifting apart and not been seeing too much of each other face-to-face between ASM v2 #1-13. This was due to various factors, chiefly MJ’s busy modeling career, Peter’s Spidey work and the fact that they were both keeping secrets at this time. They had also been drifting apart emotionally too.

In ASM v2 #13 MJ was seemingly killed in a plane crash and presumed dead for six months. 

Six months where she was locked in a room, all alone. Her abductor never even spoke to her most of the time. 

She even, developed PTSD as a result.

It was heavily implied upon her return that the time between ASM v2 #1 and her return had been almost a year. 

Shortly after her return she and Peter separated and we don’t know how long elapsed between then and their eventual reconciliation in ASM v2 #50. However long it was, Peter and MJ only saw one another face-to-face once for at best maybe 6 hours tops; and that’s being incredibly generous. They also spoke very briefly on the phone to one another. On one occasion Peter tried to call her but hung up.

So that’s at least a whole year in which they had been seeing little of one another, drifting apart and had zero contact for over 6 months. So you know, that would mean they had less time together than prior to Superior. They’d have been less  in tune here than at the start of Superior.

And yet in the issue they reconcile they are still in tune enough that they finish one another’s sentences and are thinking the same thing.

They also fall back fairly easily into their old habits together even though they took it slow. They weren’t trying hard to rediscover how one another had changed.

Again, it can be argued that Peter had actually internally changed and grown far more between his first and second break ups with MJ and their respective reconciliations than between OMD and Superior.

I’m not trying to say that Peter and MJ wouldn’t have been comparatively more in tune whilst they were married than at the start of Superior. Just that they would’ve remained mostly  in tune and not have been so out of tune that MJ could’ve been fooled as easily as she was.

The proof of this can be found in ASM #604. For the first time in over a year Peter and MJ get a chance to talk following their separation. They are still so in synch that they can speak in unison.

All in all…sigh.

See this guy?

He used to be ‘on side’. He used to be a PeterxMJ shipper. He talked about doing a petition to prevent OMD before it happened. He used to speak out against the badness that was BND and Slott’s run but over time he gradually drifted into being…well look my inner angry emotional assessment would say he’s a traitor. Perhaps that is not the technical term. He basically became someone who would never speak about the marriage other than to bash ‘fanboys’ (as he’d call them in a needlessly aggressive and petulant tone of voice) for still being concerned with it. Whether that was not ‘being over’ the erasure of the marriage or for basically talking up MJ’s importance.

To speak personally about this for a moment, I used to look up to this guy.

No seriously his work on this and another podcast along with his essays in the late 2000s and early 2010s were partially a revelation to me.

Back in 2012 when I discovered his work the idea of actual in-depth analytical essays on Spider-Man was still pretty new to me. The idea of someone not talking broadly on the characters but diving into the details of the narratives and following them sequentially? Man, that shit was an inspiration  for some stuff I do here and on other blogs. I’d still recommend some of his earlier works.

His understanding of continuity I once thought unparalleled. Now days, and especially just looking at the above, not so much. It helped me to learn more about the history of these characters and stories.

It seems that I discovered his backlog at the wrong time because I think he had already drifted farther out to become, well, what you can see above, by the time I started listening to that podcast.

I thought that surely these guys, who must clearly know about the subject than I do will call out this crap for what it is. Surely he would? And on Superior #2 most of them did. But he did not.

I remember in 2013 struggling to process that. I looked up to him. I thought that since he knew so much about Spider-Man and so much more than me that he could not be wrong. So either I was wrong or he was wrong which called into question everything else he’d said about the subject matter. Everything else I’d taken his word for was called into question.

I’m older, wiser, uglier and less forgiving now.

I see the situation for what it was.

Someone who used to be good at their job slipping, becoming interested in other things and for personal reasons seemingly getting frustrated with (unfairly) with certain other people and having that taint their stance going forward.

And it feels so wonderful after 7 years of this being at the back of my brain to finally let it out.

I think one more post addressing Superior #2 ought to do it though.

P.S. He got huffy about MJ noticing Peter said toodle-loo to her in Superior #10.

So Peter saying a common phrase he could’ve picked up anywhere (even in the months between issues #2 and #11) is more worthy of complaint than the immeasurably more obvious shit from Superior #2.

Part 2

[idontwanttowhy]

Review: Holiday Love ホリデイラブ (2018)

A frustrating Fatal-Attraction-esque jdrama

Synopsis

Takamori Azu (Riisa Naka) has been leading a seemingly perfect life with her husband, Takamori Junpei (Takashi Tsukamoto) and their daughter Nanaka. However, her world crumbles when she is told that Junpei has been cheating on her with a part-time co-worker, Izutsu Rina (Matsumoto Marika)--by Rina's husband, Izutsu Wataru (Nakamura Tomoya) no less. To make matters worse, she discovers that Rina won't let go of Junpei and is doing everything in her power to destroy their relationship. A rollercoaster of betrayal, mistakes, and obsession ensues.

AC Overall: 8/10, be prepared to be mad

So this drama is about people being unfaithful in their marriages and the tolls that takes on themselves, their relationships, and their families--and ultimately how they dealt with it all. I was very frustrated throughout the drama, partially because of the cheating and partially because of how everything panned out. But what kept me watching was the mistress, Rina's, plans to be with Junpei, despite both his wife's efforts and her husband's efforts to separate them. Be prepared for Fatal Attraction-level obsession. Matsumoto Marika did a great job playing the obsessed, unstable mistress. Give it a watch for the mess of it all, from will-they-won't-they get back together drama and possible revenge cheating, to unhealthy obsessions and extreme ~moves~ because of it. Some of it was predictable, but the execution was creative at times. And it's pretty short, good for a binge.

AC Review (Spoilers, and very long)

Ngl, this drama had me Fuh-RUS-TRA-TED practically the whole time. Bc I 1) could not understand Junpei for cheating and 2) tbh still don't understand how and why Junpei had two women who wanted to be with him. But I digress. Actually no, this whole review is going to be a digression. First ep we see Junpei fucking some other woman and they talking about "I wish I had married you" and love and blah blah blah. Which makes it decidedly not an "I fucked up and my dick slipped" situation. Not that the latter is better bc they're both shit. Idk if it's better if someone "slips up" because of a lack of control, or a strong love towards someone else. Jury's still out. But Junpei whispered sweet-apparently-nothings into this woman's ear for a YEAR, and dead acted like nothing was going on at home. And then had Rina assed out in front of his wife and her husband talking about "I didn't say all that" like suuure want receipts? So ultimately everything was his damn fault. Anyway. My girl Azu, blessherheart, was completely blindsided when Rina's (very attractive though also very abusive but very attractive and why would you want Junpei over him but yeah he's abusive so I get it but if he wasn't then...) husband showed up with a beat-up Junpei talking 'bout "he's fucking my wife, what are we going to do?". And poor Nanaka! The children in both marriages suffered the most bc they really were just innocent bystanders who got caught up in the bull and will probably have some trauma because of it. Like Nanaka was such a happy spirit but got depressed when she lost all her friends! My heart really went out to her.

Anyway anyway. So my girl Azu did the right thing at first--had Junpei's ass sleeping in the car and everything, which I loved, and was determined to divorce him. But then she got tricked into (almost) sleeping with a Japanese Micheal Cera (simultaneously old- and young-looking somehow) by a client-like gurl. I was proud that she stopped it (and he didn't continue without consent) but like, her sister and best friend's response was like "how could you (almost) fuck a stranger" and I'm sitting here like "she was drunk? he was blackmailed into this? she thought she knew him at least a little? and she realized she didn't want to and didn't actually have sex with him? and where was this energy when they found out about Junpei??". And then the best friend proceeded to give shit advice, talking about "don't tell Junpei, it'll ruin his ego" when realistically, she shoulda just told him the minute she decided she wanted to be with him still (which I'll discuss later) bc they were split up at the time, and he did (arguably, though maybe not, still depends on the person's pov) worse. But no, he found out through the mistress (of course!) and thus put Azu in purgatory. Her flip in the decision to be with him again was because he had always been there...which I get (prob bc of my scorpio sun) but ughhh I wish she hadn't welcomed him back so easily. Like yeah, say you still want to be with him, sure, but make him sweat at least a little more? Make him beg? act different? idk. She made him feel too comfortable too quick, which made him feel more entitled to being upset about her and JMichael Cera talking about "I know I shouldn't be mad, kedo..." and making my girl Azu sad, which leads me to...

THE MISTRESS. with her baby voice. wtf. And Junpei couldn't keep his dick in his pants even after all the shit. I mean, they didn't fuck but dude was acting sus again around her, which was just more fodder for her in the end. (His only other female co-worker watching and knowing everything was me the whole time. Like, you dumb, dumb man). He was waaay too nice after all the shit, letting her into his dorm and letting her do him favors so he felt guilty and letting her try to talk him into leaving his wife. I was sooo mad that after all the mess, Junpei still didn't grow any balls to say to her, point-blank, "I'm not leaving my wife, please leave" until way too late for me. And she really, and i mean REALLY, went out of her way to get Azu to cheat and molded him like putty. I had no faith in Junpei. Throughout the whole thing. Dude is spineless. And...so was Wataru, but in the macho-man kind of way. Controlling to hide his insecurities. Violent for no reason (did we need the r. scene? fuck) But in the end, he was the one that caved the least when it came to the cheating, trying to figure out what happened, and taking concrete steps rather than the wishy-washy moves Azu and Junpei were making. And then he grew as a father after kicking Rina out, because then he spent time with the kids (after his mom said she had a life lol) and they ultimately chose him in Tokyo which was super interesting and redeeming...wait wait wait but he was still very abusive and there is no excuse for that. I really had to stop myself--whenever he wasn't yelling at grown ass adults and breaking shit--from thinking that he was a good person. The struggle. But this man really said everyone's dumb, and I low-key agree. I could understand him the most (though it doesn't excuse anything, ik ik). But I would've changed the locks too.

We gotta talk about the best friend too. I watched on viki with the comments, so throughout the show people were like "oh they should be together" and shit, which had me kinda tight because I really appreciate when shows allow for platonic friendship between a cishet- man and woman? Esp without one professing their ever-present love to the other. Dude gave shit advice but ultimately was the only one thinking straight and suspecting Rina was behind it all. And then actually doing the groundwork to prove it. And he sent her new clients when the news of the affair broke and everything. And and he had Nanaka's approval. Honestly there wasn't anything to dislike (except the shit advice...).

The ending tho, was the kicker. Homegirl put on a whole play for the company and really sought to end his life. I expected something, bc how could someone as obsessed as she was just back off? (and he deserved it bc Junpei didn't sacrifice enough for me, got around everyone knowing about his affair but had his wife's business out on the street, didn't have to lose his job like he was supposed to, etc...) but I didn't expect a performance. The flair. A1.

This show didn't necessarily have me gasping (except for that scene)--more like "wow I saw that coming but wow they really did that". Good stuff. And I learned that in Japan if a spouse cheats or otherwise does something that's cause for divorce, they have to pay a compensation fee! Wild.

If you made it to the end of this rant, I appreciate you ;

[kennedysfm]

。·    .    ˙        ⌈    hailee    steinfeld    +    cis    female    +    she    /    her    +    the    polymath    ⌋        yo    ,    have    you    meet    that    KOOK    ,    𝐤𝐞𝐧𝐧𝐞𝐝𝐲    𝐯𝐚𝐧    𝐝𝐞𝐫    𝐲𝐚𝐞𝐠𝐞𝐫 ,        yet    ?    —    no    ?    well    ,    to    give    you    a    little    heads    up    before    you    do    ,    they’re    a    TWENTY    ONE    year    old ,    INTERN    AT    A    TECH    FIRM    AND    ASPIRING    COMEDIENNE ,    and    have    been    coming    to    coston    each    summer    for    TEN    YEARS    .    since    i’ve    known    them    ,    they’ve    reminded    me    of    𝐨𝐯𝐞𝐫𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐤𝐢𝐧𝐠    𝐚𝐧    𝐢𝐧𝐬𝐭𝐚𝐠𝐫𝐚𝐦    𝐜𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧    ,    𝐭𝐡𝐫𝐢𝐯𝐢𝐧𝐠    𝐨𝐟𝐟    𝐭𝐡𝐞    𝐥𝐚𝐮𝐠𝐡𝐭𝐞𝐫    𝐨𝐟    𝐡𝐞𝐫    𝐥𝐨𝐯𝐞𝐝    𝐨𝐧𝐞𝐬    ,    𝐬𝐩𝐨𝐭𝐢𝐟𝐲    𝐩𝐥𝐚𝐲𝐥𝐢𝐬𝐭𝐬    𝐟𝐮𝐥𝐥    𝐨𝐟    ‘    𝐡𝐢𝐩𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐫    ‘    𝐚𝐫𝐭𝐢𝐬𝐭𝐬    ,    𝐚    𝐩𝐡𝐨𝐭𝐨𝐠𝐫𝐚𝐩𝐡𝐢𝐜    𝐦𝐞𝐦𝐨𝐫𝐲    ,    𝐢𝐧𝐚𝐩𝐩𝐫𝐨𝐩𝐫𝐢𝐚𝐭𝐞𝐥𝐲    𝐭𝐢𝐦𝐞𝐝    𝐣𝐨𝐤𝐞𝐬    ,    𝐧𝐞𝐫𝐯𝐨𝐮𝐬    𝐬𝐰𝐞𝐚𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐠    .    usually    they’re    quite    𝑏𝑒𝑛𝑒𝑣𝑜𝑙𝑒𝑛𝑡    &    𝑗𝑜𝑐𝑢𝑙𝑎𝑟    but    just    make    sure    you    keep    an    eye    out    for    them    around    town    because    i    heard    can    be    quite  𝑜𝑣𝑒𝑟-𝑎𝑛𝑎𝑙𝑦𝑡𝑖𝑐𝑎𝑙    &    𝑛𝑒𝑢𝑟𝑜𝑡𝑖𝑐    as    well    so    here’s    hoping    they    aren’t    the    ones    to    undo    this    whole    peace    pact    they    have    going    on    this    summer    .    but    just    between    you    &    me    ,    i    kinda    hope    it    all    falls    apart    .    the    rivalry    keeps    this    whole    boring    town    interesting    .

* tw death 

okay    so    this    is    kennedy    !   forgive me she is a new muse imma just ramble JEKHERJWHKERW

grew    up    in    san    francisco    ,    california    ,    to    a    dad    who    owned    a    major    high    -    end    sports    equipment    brand    equivalent    to    like    .    nike    p    much    .    mom    was    a    cognitive    therapist    who    took    in    some    major    clients    so    life    was    p    good    for    baby    ken    !    she’s    an    only    child    and    it    shows    kjekwekwje    .    her    parents    were    incredibly    loving    ,    particularly    her    mother    ,    who    balanced    out    her    dad’s    stern    expectations    with    a    delicate    touch    .    ken    was    p    happy    as    a    kid    ,    living    in    a    swanky    ass    penthouse    and    enjoying    her    parent’s    hard    work    !

her    maternal    grandparents    retired    out    to    coston    which    is    where    kennedy    spent    her    summers    .    the    season    was    major    time    for    brand    deals    to    pick    up    so    her    dad    was    international    on    business    and    her    mom    had    an    influx    of    clients    ,    so    it    worked    out    well    for    ken    to    have    a    summer    away    to    enjoy    a    change    of    pace

she    was    always    pretty    bright    but    her    teachers    described    how    curious    it    was    to    see    kennedy’s    two    sides    .    when    it    came    to    classwork    ,    she    was    focused    and    kept    her    head    down    ,    tending    to    keep    to    herself    to    ensure    a    job    well    done    .    they    explained    what    a    notable    storyteller    she    was    on    the    flip    side    ,    thriving    off    the    attention    she    got    when    she    described    something    that    had    happened    on    the    playground    in    such    detail    and    with    such    phrasing    it    would    hook    the    attention    of    many    ,    if    not    most    ,    of    her    peers    .    her    parents    had    always    known    this    ,    kennedy    and    her    penchant    for    putting    on    elaborate    skits    at    home    whenever    the    two    of    them    could    spare    5    minutes    to    dedicate    to    her    antics

she    took    to    the    engineering    side    of    things    rather    efficiently    in    science    classes    ,    leading    to    an    enrollment    in    a    STEM    magnet    high    school    that    truly    fostered    her    talent    for    robotics    .    bright    ,    vibrant    ,    and    enthusiastic    about    her    craft    ,    with    a    personality    and    a    work    ethic    that    readily    charmed    a    handful    of    her    professors    ,    she    landed    herself    a    spot    at    the    prestigious    california    institute    of    technology    .    college    was    where    kennedy    truly    blossomed    ,    able    to    explore    herself    and    her    passions    outside    of    the    rather    structured    lifestyle    she    had    been    brought    up    in    .    she    experimented    more    with    her    style    ,    reached    out    to    mingle    with    new    people    ,    and    did    things    nobody    would    have    ever    expected    from    the    rather    studious    girl

kennedy    became    known    throughout    her    circles    for    being    the    storytelling    friend    ,    recounting    adventures    with    her    group    in    such    a    way    that    she    commanded    the    presence    of    the    room    ,    making    people    double    over    with    laughter    and    feeling    herself    glow    under    the    knowing    that    she    was    bringing    so    much    entertainment    to    so    many    people    .    though    she    never    considered    herself    to    be    a    performer    ,    more    and    more    she    found    herself    enamored    with    the    experience    of    making    people    laugh    ,    distracting    them    from    whatever    their    life    may    look    like    ,    and    hoping    to    push    to    give    people    at    least    a    moment    of    happiness

she’s    blasting    through    college    with    ease    until    a    phone    call    at    the    end    of    her    sophomore    year    upends    her    life    as    she    knows    it    .    her    dad    is    incoherent    explaining    her    mom’s    sudden    collapse    in    the    middle    of    a    session    at    work    ,    an    unexplained    occurrence    even    beyond    the    understanding    of    the    medical    examiner    .    with    her    mom    being    perhaps    the    closest    thing    to    a    best    friend    ,    she    didn’t    take    the    passing    lightly    .    kennedy    buries    her    mourning    in    her    work    ,    a    forced    distraction    from    the    devastation    she    experiences    at    losing    the    one    person    she    really    ever    felt    herself    with    .    she    takes    up    more    internship    hours    ,    more    lab    hours    ,    shuttering    herself    out    of    a    social    life    to    the    point    that    all    she    does    is    pad    her    resume    and    pass    out    on    her    bed    from    exhaustion    and    crying    herself    to    sleep

it’s    a    heartbreak    for    there    to    only    be    one    van    der    yaeger    parent    present    for    her    graduation    ,    a    moment    that    kennedy    takes    upon    herself    as    somewhat    of    a    decision    to    try    and    stick    to    a    career    that    would    make    her    family    legacy    proud    .    of    course    ,    she    adores    the    concept    of    entertaining    others    ,    but    the    sheer    unlikelihood    of    ever    getting    anyone’s    approval    pursuing    a    lifestyle    like    that    is    enough    to    push    the    thought    into    the    recesses    of    her    mind

she    graduates    top    of    her    class    and    the    silver    lining    to    it    all    is    a    formidable    offer    to    do    an    internship    at    a    major    tech    company    in    silicon    valley    .    she    takes    it    up    without    hesitation    and    is    preparing    to    start    in    the    fall

the    rivalry    has    never    been    major    in    kennedy’s    mind    until    last    year’s    incident    with    the    pogues    ,    since    then    she’s    been    on    edge    with    the    prospect    of    issues    escalating    beyond    someone’s    control    .    she’s    not    the    type    to    discriminate    on    the    basis    of    a    stupid    label    ,    but    out    of    hopes    to    keep    everyone    in    one    piece    ,    she’s    rather    hesitant    when    drama    starts    to    stir    .

personality    wise    ,    kennedy’s    best    known    for    wearing    her    heart    on    her    sleeve    .    she    SUCKS    at    keeping    secrets    and    you    can    usually    read    her    emotions    right    on    her    face    .    she’s    a    chronic    over    thinker    which    is    rather    ironic    for    someone    who    seems    to    have    no    filter    ,    endlessly    spouting    off    whatever    mindless    thoughts    she    deems    valuable    for    the    sake    of    sharing    .    she    has    a    plethora    of    expressions    that    deliver    what    her    words    can’t    and    is    often    the    one    in    the    friend    group    making    commentary    when    LEAST    asked    for    .    she’s    got    a    big    heart    and    likes    to    see    her    loved    ones    thriving    and    happy    .    she    hesitates    to    say    something    mean    or    lie    to    someone    and    will    often    phrase    things    in    the    most    convoluted    way    due    to    her    hesitation    with    confrontation    .    she    ain’t    want    no    SMOKE    fr    .    on    the    plus    side    ,    that    makes    her    super    earnest    and    straightforward    with    her    sentiments    —    she’s    not    the    type    to    pretend    to    be    anything    she    isn’t    and    tries    to    live    her    most    authentic    life    (    when    it    suits    her    bc    shes    .    a    bit    of    a    hypocrite    jwhejhwe    )

though    she’s    got    a    definite    neurotic    streak    in    her    ,    she    has    a    sense    of    confidence    that    allows    her    to    just    push    forward    and    go    on    with    her    life    ,    though    she’d    rather    streak    naked    in    the    middle    of    her    family’s    jewish    synagogue    than    to    fail    at    something    .    her    grades    and    her    work    ethic    are    motivated    by    a    joke    her    mom    used    to    repeat    to    her    after    having    seen    it    on    facebook    :    ‘    you    better    get    good    grades    ,    you’re    asian    not    bsian    .    ’

on    the    note    of    middle    aged    memes    ,    kennedy’s    most    notable    strength    is    her    sense    of    humor    ,    something    she’s    been    lauded    for    her    whole    life    .    the    bitch    is    the    DEFINITION    of    comic    relief    and    is    just    so    stupid    funny    !    she    doesn’t    handle    tension    well    so    her    go    -    to    response    is    simply    an    attempt    to    lighten    the    mood    ,    often    with    a    well    -    timed    quip    that    will    do    the    trick    .    she’ll    occasionally    miss    the    mark    and    just    make    things    more    awkward    ,    which    in    that    case    ,    watching    her    squirm    is    funny    enough    lmao    .

in    terms    of    weaknesses    ,    her    tendency    to    over    -    think    make    her    often    act    on    impulse    before    having    thought    a    situation    all    the    way    through    —    she’s    so    prone    to    want    to    over    -    do    things    ,    she    under    -    thinks    as    an    attempt    to    be    ~spontaneous~    and    will    often    misread    or    fuck    up    a    situation    that    could    have    been    easily    avoided    kwjehrwr    .    being    so    in    -    tune    with    her    emotions    means    she    has    a    tendency    to    overreact    to    things    on    occasion    or    be    completely    devoid    of    a    reaction    ,    whichever    the    roulette    lands    on    tbh    .    she    can    cry    for    2    hours    uncontrollably    just    because    someone    else    is    crying    ,    or    repress    emotions    until    they’re    so    pushed    back    they’re    untouchable

not    a    spitfire    by    any    means    she    just    wants    2    be    friends    and    make    everyone    laugh

coston    is    a    break    from    her    fancy    fast  pace    life    and    a    place    for    her    to    come    back    into    herself    .    she    represses    so    much    of    her    personality    in    order    to    be    taken    seriously    that    sometimes    she    starts    to    feel    inauthentic    in    her    own    skin    ,    so    the    ability    to    be    around    a    place    that’s    less    judgy    (    although    admittedly    ,    kooks    are    pretty    judgy    )    is    still    something    she    treasures    greatly

[nobody-wants-ice-cream]

The Umbrella Academy in: The Triwizard Tournament

Chapter 5.1 Number Five’s Research

Thank you @seven-misfits and @tehmoonofficial for your amazing beta skills!

https://archiveofourown.org/works/21340549/chapters/54740578#workskin

Five couldn’t sleep after his encounter with Reginald. It had been 45 years since he had been to private training, but seeing the restraints again had brought back the scared thirteen-year-old he thought the apocalypse had trained out of him. 

Reginald used to tie him in any sort of restraint, like chains or a straightjacket, to an electric chair. If Five couldn’t jump out, he would be electrocuted. It had taken thirty years of drunken conversations with Dolores to finally admit that he and his siblings were abused as children. Being back in that room was terrifying in a way Five had forgotten. Its sudden reintroduction was a blast of ice being poured down his back. 

Instead of sleeping, Five decided to look up a charm to brew coffee- which ended up being Calida Capulus while pointing his wand at a mug with coffee grains in hot water- and then set to work reviewing documents in Reginald’s office. That coffee Allison got him would prove to be very useful. 

Speaking of Allison, her rumor would work in his favor. Reginald couldn’t touch them. More importantly, if Five was caught, then he couldn’t be punished with individual training. He could browse Reginald’s files enough to paint a pretty decent picture of what their lives were like in this universe. 

Just after they turned twelve, the seven of them became superheroes. Vanya and Ben were their heavy hitters. One particular note disturbed Five. “When Number Seven’s powers become too much to contain, I will have to stun her and put her in the isolation chamber. Her powers are essential,” read the disturbing red journal from their toddler years. 

According to 400 Offensive Spells, “The stunning spell should not be used on subjects under 100 pounds or 45 killograms as the magic will overwhelm the castee and may cause permanent damage to the nervous system or magical core”. Vanya was placed under this spell as a very young child over and over again. Five had a small idea that Vanya’s powers prevented the damage from being permanent. He didn’t know how that would be possible, but that irrational hope stopped him from murdering Reginald in cold blood. 

The Commission made him a killer, but he never enjoyed his work. However, after hearing the atrocities Reginald committed on his siblings, he was willing to make an exception. Stunning Vanya was only the tip of the iceberg. The things done to himself and to the version of himself native to this universe were barely a blip in his anger. 

Five skipped around to his section. The book said that this Five’s interest in time travel was a fleeting interest that went away when Reginald brought him books on the runes to create a time-turner. When Five looked up what a time-turner was, he was disappointed in his other self. A device that takes you back or forward a few hours was a party trick compared to what he had the potential to do. At least this version of himself didn’t get himself stuck in the apocalypse. That would have been difficult.

If I time traveled now would I end up appearing here in this universe or would I be stuck in the future in mine? Five mused while moving around some of the papers that surrounded him. 

That was the last bit of semi-coherent thought Five had. He passed out surrounded by books and papers. Specifically, blueprints for a magically expanded Minerva Aircraft, complete with six dorms and a master bedroom. 

&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&

“Five. Five. Five. Wake up. Five, wake up. Five, you can’t keep doing this, man." It was Luther being his personal alarm clock again. 

“Mu, wus goin on? Five more mins, Luth,” Five tried while rolling over. 

“Nope! Get up.” Luther pulled Five up and managed to get him sitting up while slumped against Reginald’s desk. 

“Five, how many times have you fallen asleep here? It’s been months, what more do you possibly have to find?” Luther asked. Five had spent his nights in August and September in Reginald’s study reading his notes and pursuing magazines and newspapers that mentioned the Umbrella Academy in any way. 

“When was the last time you slept in your bed, Five. This isn’t healthy." Luther snapped his fingers in front of Five’s face, “Hey! Focus.”

Five opened his eyes again. He had been up until three in the morning due to a teen magazine bender. Those vapid things were somewhat addictive. Not that he would admit it to anyone. 

“I need to know what’s going on.” Five did feel lethargic. He worked and worked until he passed out trying to figure out this timeline. If they wanted to stay off the Commission’s radar, they needed to keep the timeline as consistent as possible. Five struggled to keep his head upright. 

“Hey, did you know the seven of us are the only ones Dad adopted? Everybody else is a boarding student.” Five shared. He was starting to feel more alert. He reached for his mug and the Bunsen burner he used to heat up his coffee water. 

“We have thirty minutes before breakfast. You should clean yourself up,” Luther said before leaving the room. 

Five scowled. Luther didn’t have to get him up this early. Five decided that teleporting to the bathroom was a bad idea this early in the morning and decided to walk so he could find an unoccupied one. He stared at the floor and shuffled his feet like a pissed off thirteen year-old the whole time. At least they weren’t required to stick to one bathroom like in his youth.

&&&&&&&&&&&&&

“The elusive old man finally decides to join us! How was your bender? Any wild stories? Amputee hookers? Or were you holed up in Dad’s office the whole time?” Klaus greeted. His bright smile and teasing words were grating. Five scowled at him and picked up the carafe of coffee that Mom had taken to leaving at their table. 

“Well, Klaus. I actually had a wild time. You know teleporting a girl or three in the room wasn’t too difficult,” Five snarked back. Five wasn’t actually interested in the whole sex thing, but Klaus didn’t know that. In fact, nobody except Dolores knew that the idea repulsed him. Besides, Five had a feeling that telling his siblings that he had been up all night reading J-14 and Seventeen would lead to more judgement that he just wasn’t prepared to deal with. 

“Did you actually?” Luther looked green in the face. He put down his knife and fork and gave Five his full attention. 

Five raised his eyebrows and took a sip of coffee. He would neither confirm nor deny. 

“Right, um, moving on. You missed Pogo announcing that we were to report to the foyer for an announcement. One through Twelve. It’s supposed to be super important,” Allison attempted. 

“Who cares? Five, did you-” Ben was cut off by Mom announcing that it was 7:53 A.M. 

“We better go and see what the old man wants.” Five teleported out of the room and into the foyer. 

He was met with Number Ten who looked up from her book in surprise when Five teleported into the room. 

“Hey, Five. I still get surprised when you do that. Any ideas for what the Headmaster wants to talk about?” Ten must have left breakfast early, “Thirteen and Fourteen were pretty pissed that they aren’t included in whatever this is.”

“I don-”

“You know, he hasn’t really talked to his seven science experiments in a while. Did you guys do something? Maybe Three heard a little rumor?” Ten was starting to piss him off. Her tone was condescending in a way he threw people’s heads through walls for. 

“Se-” He was cut off by everyone else entering the room. He was going to question the nickname ‘seven science experiments.’ As if she had the right to call them that!

“Hey Five, hey Ten,” Number Eleven greeted. Eleven was tall, thin, and very good looking. They were extremely androgynous, hence the neutral pronoun. They wore their uniform with the sort of confidence that Five had only seen in himself, Hazel, or Cha Cha. For a split second, Five wondered if Eleven had ever killed anybody, but then he saw Eleven had uncalloused, delicate hands. Those were not the hands of an assassin.  

“Do you think something went wrong? Maybe the rumor-” Allison whispered. Five gestured towards Ten with pointed expression so Allison would shut up. 

Just as an awkward silence was draping itself around the room, Sir Reginald Hargreeves walked in. He stalked around the room and did not look at Five or any of his siblings. 

“The Triwizard tournament is a grand and noble tradition that has lasted throughout the ages, until modern history. You students are amongst the lucky few with the honor and the privilege of submitting your names to the Goblet of Fire. Do not disappoint me. Report back to breakfast for your schedules!” Classic Reginald Hargreeves. Short, simple, and as cold as possible. 

Immediately, whispers broke out amongst the strangers. Excited curiosity and nerves filled the room. Five hoped that it wouldn’t be him. He had proven himself already. Eight, Nine, Ten, Eleven, and Twelve filed back into the kitchen. Diego left with them.

Luther addressed the group with, “We should really plan-”

“Haven’t we planned enough?” Klaus clapped Luther on the shoulder and flounced after Diego. 

“Why is it still a Triwizard tournament if we’re joining as the fourth school?” Ben mused behind him. 

“Well,” Vanya piped up to his left, “Quadwizard tournament sounds pretty stupid.”

“It sounds like lazy writing to me,” Allison twirled her dark hair around her index finger, “Like some poor marketing executive or some bad author didn’t want to come up with a better name.”

&&&&&&&&&&&&&

Several weeks later, the Academy was buzzing in unrelenting energy and unmitigated chaos as numbers One through Twelve packed their belongings in the single, large suitcase they had each been allowed to bring. 

“Ben! Have you seen my left- never mind!” said Allison. 

“Ow! Sorry, Seven,” said an unknown person. The voice was female, so could have been Eight, Ten, or Twelve. Or possibly Eleven. Five didn’t know what they looked or sounded like today yet. 

Diego could be heard sneering, “Watch, where you’re going, Twelve.”

Five calmly packed the basics. The Commission taught him well. It took him two minutes to pack some uniforms, toiletries, and his school supplies. The same could not be said for the others who were frantically putting things in their suitcases. The Minerva would have dorms once they landed, but there was no point in bringing anything to decorate with. Ben would probably bring enough to make the space feel normal. 

They were going to be sharing rooms in number order. One and Two, etc. Five took a moment to feel bad for Vanya, who would be sharing with Number Eight. 

Then a thought occurred to Five. Five had spent months researching how to assimilate into this universe. Why not try to go home? 

As soon as it was there, the thought was gone. This was home. His siblings were here. Right? Five felt disoriented. His thoughts moved through his brain like jello. Then he simply stopped thinking about it. 

What was he doing? Packing for the tournament! According to Ben and Luther, this would be a dangerous ordeal. The goblet would pick the best candidate. If anyone was going to be picked, it would have to be him for his siblings’ sake. He was the oldest and most experienced. 

Then he remembered that he had already proven himself. So why did he feel the overwhelming desire to win this tournament?

&&&&&&&&&&&&&

On the morning of October 30, 1994, twelve children and their Dad/Headmaster boarded the Minerva Aircraft on their way from The Umbrella Academy to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. 

The plane ride was almost completely silent. There was still chatter, as Reginald was piloting the Minerva.

Allison and Five were poring over a wizarding teen magazine called Witch Weekly, which was distributed worldwide, while speaking in low voices that couldn’t be heard over the plane’s engine. 

“Since when are you the heartthrob?” Allison poked him and then the picture of him surrounded by tiny hearts. 

“I don’t know! That’s weird right? I guess in this universe I didn’t disappear when I was thirteen and now people think I’m attractive or something? I don’t get it. Who was the,” Five put up air quotes, “‘heartthrob’ in our universe?”

“Klaus and Luther had pretty strong followings,” Allison paused to think, “When we were fifteen, Ben had some sort of cult? And I was the only girl so...yeah. Oh, and Diego was popular towards the end, but no one could figure out why.”

Klaus was looking at the magazine in front of Allison and Five with interest. He raised his eyebrow at Five and gave a small wave before going back to his drawing. 

Eight, Nine, and Twelve were playing a card game a few rows above them. They were oblivious, unlike Ten and Eleven, who were talking in hushed voices and looking at Allison every now and then. Eleven’s hair was a bright shade of electric blue today. They had opted for lithe, feminine curves and the female uniform, but a very close cropped pixie cut. Five barely recognized them. Ten was attempting to ask Eleven to grow their hair longer so she could braid it. 

Luther was watching this argument with an apathetic look on his face, while Diego watched with interest. Maybe he thinks it will turn into a fight or something? 

Ben was completely oblivious to all of this and kept his nose stuck in Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them. 

“Please, Eleven! It will look really good,” Ten pleaded. 

“For the last time, no. Piss off, Ten.”

“Fine. Sorry. Eight! Can you deal me in?” Ten demanded.

“Yeah, sure,” Eight started shuffling her cards again. 

Diego looked somewhat disappointed at the de escalation and went back to sharpening his knives. 

“Hey, Three, Five! Can I borrow your Daily Prophet?” Eleven asked from across the aisle. 

Since they had already gone through all of their copies of that newspaper, Five said, “Sure,” and handed them the October 29th copy. It was the most recent thing in the pile. 

The rest of the plane ride passed like that. Eventually, Diego borrowed their magazines as well once he ran out of knives to sharpen. 

The Minerva flew on through the clear sky. 

[axther]

🗨️ Hi! Can I please request a Bnha matchup, if it’s not too much to ask. I’m a 5’1 pan female with long hair that fades from red to blonde. I am very curvy/busty and I am very insecure about it, which leads to me shutting myself out from others. I am very soft-spoken, intelligent, and extremely patient. I love to play the ukulele and sing! I really just want someone who can defend me, I have been bullied for most of my life because I am really shy. I’m also an INTJ. Thank you so much!

Let’s get this show on the road babeeyyyy!!!! Finna go off!!!! 

#1 is...Bakugou! 

Okokokok so the aforementioned patience?? 

You’re gonna need a lot of it 

The first time y’all met he probably was going off about the new transfer who was too quiet

And how he wanted to beat the shit out of her to prove his dominance 

And you’re just like ‘ok :|’ 

And bakugou?? 

Scared.exe

Why??? 

This is the first time he can remember in forever that someone didn’t really react negatively to his comments 

Midoriya always had a sort of ‘no kaachan!!’ reaction

Kirishima would tell him it wasn’t manly

And even Todoroki would just tell him that he didn’t stand a chance 

So why did this foreign chick so cool about it??

At first it really pissed him off, but then he realised several things. 

One, you never really tried to defend yourself when people said something that would’ve at least irked anyone else 

Two, you didn’t socialise a whole lot compared to the rest of the class. It was comparable to Tamaki Amajiki in terms a shyness, though you never turned to face a wall. 

Three, you were cute. 

Like, really cute.

like... 

T

Tiddy 

This boy would love it 

He does his best not to show it nor to oogle but 

He really likes your body 

Plus a redhead??? 

Exotic isn’t the right word but here it is 

So you’ve definitely caught his attention

He realises very quickly that bullying you isn’t the solution to gaining your respect

He just sees that it makes you withdraw even more 

So he begins lowkey befriending you 

Now 

His way of going about it kinda sucks 

But he’s trying 

This includes, but is not limited to: 

Going off on Mineta and Kaminari if they comment on your body 

Studying together 

Listening to you play the ukelele

Slowly but surely he realises that regular boy/girl friends don’t have sleepovers at each other’s dorms 

And that he doesn’t smile around everyone else as he does with you 

And that his heart doesn’t jump around when he’s around the others as opposed to being alone with you 

And that his eyes don’t wander the same as when he-

yeah so he realises he has a crush 

And because he’s emotionally constipated, this has him screwed over 

He lays in bed at night, face bright red, thinking about the most scandalous thing ever-premarital holding hands 

He’s whipped 

If you catch him staring at you, he’s spin away and just say that he was looking at something else 

And he has no idea what to do about this 

So he just keeps quiet 

Until one day 

Monoma is talking shit about you and how you’re so shy for someone trying to be a hero

And see now, Bakugou usually just either ignores it or says something sharp and then ignores it. 

But this time? Something in him snaps 

He has no idea what it was, but he spins around and begins ripping Monoma apart, almost literally. 

He’s got him by the neck of his shirt and is howling into his face. 

‘She’s better and stronger then you’ll ever be, you fucking dipshit quirk thief! At least she can rely on herself for her own fights, while you have to whimper and mope around waiting to touch somebody like a fucking pervert! You wish you could be her with how much you talk about her, huh? You know a lot for someone who’s supposed to hate her! Back the fuck off of my girl!” 

And the hall drops silent. 

Everyone’s side-eyeing everyone, there’s a confused silence, Monoma’s eye is twitching while he slowly turns blue, before Bakugou realises what he said. 

‘I fucking said what I said, assholes! She’s my fucking girl!’ 

Takes your hand and runs all the way back to his dorm 

There he turns and looks down at the ground, trying to find the words he wants to say because this was not how he wanted you to find out, if at all 

He hates being so blushy and nervous and he feels like a schoolgirl and he wants to blow it to oblivion 

But he glances up and sees the heavy blush on your face and his heart just goes 🥴

‘I..’

He hesitates, before clenching his fists and spewing it out without looking at you in the eyes. 

‘I fucking love you.’ 

#2 is...Kirishima! 

Now 

He’s very very extroverted 

We all know this 

And he wants to be friends with everyone in the class

So when he notices that you don’t really talk to people, he’s all over it!! 

Before you know it, he’s tagging along with you to places and he’s talking about a new restaurant and if maybe you would want to go 

And let’s be honest 

The boy knows he has a crush on you since day one 

He sees this beauty walk through the door and he just goes ‘😳🤔🥴🤔’ 

So there’s that going for him

He’s surprisingly good at hiding his crush?? 

He always acts super chill and sweet with everyone so you don’t suspect a thing 

Until one day you’re talking with Mina and she’s like ‘I tried asking Kiri if he wanted to go see Killer Slayer 300 Part 7 but he said he already had a date to see it with someone!’ 

And you’re like ‘...it’s me. I’m the date. I’m the DATE????’ 

And then the secret’s out 

Mina spills it to EVERYONE and the boy is so embarrassed

He feels really bad like was tricking you or something and he starts trying to avoiding you 

And I am so sorry 

But you have to make a move 

He will think forever that he was emotionally...deceitful??? Something along those lines.  

Like he didn’t want you to think that he was one-sidedly dating you 

So when you hunt him down this means several things

One, that you had enough initiative to talk to him despite being so shy, so that already tells him that you really want to talk about this 

Two, that you really did like him

And three, that nonetheless, you wanted to see him 

This makes his heart ‘!!’ and through the entire talk he’s got a blush and he’s trying to avoid saying outright that he loves you in case it derails the entire conversation

So when you talk the leap and say it first, he fucking SHOUTS it. 

‘What?! For real?! I love so so much babe!!!’ 

#3 is...Momo!

Big tiddy gang 

There was an unspoken allegiance the first time you two met eyes 

And instantly you two are hangin out 😤

Every night is spent in each other’s dorms, just vibing and talking about life 

Momo needs that kind of casual support, and oh boy is she getting it 

And you are getting a kinship with a fellow intellectual lady!! 

You two are super patient together, and if anyone has a problem, the momo-y/n gang has got them 

You become a mom figure despite being so shy, because momo does her best to help you out of your shell 

And naturally 

You guys formed an anti mineta union 🙅🏻‍♀️

He said one (1) word about your boobages and Momo, for the first time in her life, genuinely went OFF 

‘That is so disrespectful! How do you intend to become a hero if you always harass women? If we wanted to, all of us girls could have you expelled and even potentially sent to jail! If you do not stop this behaviour towards Y/N, then I will have a word with not only Aizawa-san, but also with Principal Nezu!’ 

Everyone, much like Bakugou going off, is shook but on a much greater scale. 

Momo?? Capable of rage on this level?? 

Impossible 

Mineta is cowering, and while he thinks it’s also kinda hot, he is also very aware that his entire existence is on the line 

You’re watching Momo with shock, but also a mix of blushy embarrassment, pride, and ‘oh god that’s my wife’ 

Later that night while you two are chilling in Momo’s dorm, she looks over and tells you, very quietly

‘I think I’m in love with you.’ 

You look over with a soft, shy smile. 

‘I think I love you, too.’ 

@shslpotato

[evolutionsvoid]

While the name "Bog Hag" may bring to mind some kind of witch that hangs around swamps, it is actually referring to a member of the True Siren family. In other cases, people may think Bog Hags are some kind of vengeful nature spirit, shambling piles of muck, branches and vines that seek to devour intruders. Despite these tales, Bog Hags are avian in nature, though there is an explanation for the marsh spirit monster mix up. Like all other True Sirens, the Bog Hag possesses four taloned limbs and a pair of wings. They also sport the pair of external larynges that the family is known for, as those help with its vocalizations. Though the Bog Hag  is equipped with large wings, this species very rarely flies. The clogged and crowded canopy of the swamps and bogs it dwells in makes flight quite difficult for a creature of their size. The most aerial use they get out of these limbs is using them to boost their jumps, like when they seek to roost in a tree. At all other times, these large wings are kept close to the body, almost creating a cloak around them. This is because the Bog Hag uses their wings for camouflage, helping them blend in with their environment. The green hues help them melt into the vegetation, but they tend to add a little extra to this effect. Certain feathers on the outside of their wings are equipped with tiny barbs and hooks, which can stick to things like a bur. As the Bog Hag slinks through the swamp, its feathers will snare a variety of vines, moss, algae and other stuff to slowly build an extra layer of camouflage. Given enough time and resources, the Bog Hag can completely enshroud itself in a cloak of vegetation and muck, which gives rise to the tales of swamp beasts. Another reason why people believe these disguised creatures to be supernatural beings is the way they seemingly emerge from the scenery. Any pile of moss or overgrown stump could suddenly rear up and lash out with razor sharp claws, which leads to this idea. This is because Bog Hags prefer to hide behind this costume so that they can avoid predators and ambush prey. The grimy cloak will make them invisible to hungry eyes and it will also provide a natural odor so that their own scent is masked. When resting or waiting for food, they shall hide behind this disguise and remain perfectly still. If one is not extremely attentive to detail, you can easily walk past a Bog Hag without even knowing it. If you are on their menu, though, it is highly unlikely that they will let you stroll by in one piece! Despite their sharp talons and hooked beak, Bog Hags are omnivores. Even then, their diet leans more towards fruits, nuts and vegetables than it does meaty prey. That is not to say they don't snack on critters and lost travelers, it is just a majority of their diet is vegetation based. Sharp claws let them slice through root and vine, while their massive beak easily shatters tough shells and rinds. Foraging is usually done during the night, that way they can feed in peace. This also means that they can use this to catch other creatures unaware. Sleeping critters can be snuck up on and devoured, and those that are out roaming the darkness can be fooled by their deceptive cloak. If it detects nearby prey, the Bog Hag shall wrap itself in its wings and wait. If the ignorant beast ambles by, the siren will lash out with beak and talons. When ambushing prey, the Bog Hag will seek to grab hold with its talons and then use its powerful beak to crush the skull. It turns out a tool for cracking nuts can also be used on bone.

  If its prey does not seem to be going their way, the Bog Hag can use their old family trick to bring them closer. Using their own vocal cords and their external larynges, Bog Hags can replicate an insane amount of sounds and calls. Add to this a wicked intelligence, and you got yourself a beast that is a master of trickery. If their target prefers flesh, the Bog Hag will mimic the cries of wounded prey. If it happens to be mating season, the calls of a female member of the species will get most males to rush blindly to their doom. The tricks and cons they pull are nearly endless, as they never cease to come up with new ideas for luring prey. If all else fails, the Bog Hag will resort to its hypnotic song. By running through a wide array of pitches, tones and rhythms, the siren will find a song that has an entrancing effect on its target. Such a process uses a great deal of energy, so it is often used as a last resort. If the Bog Hag is successful in finding the perfect song to effect prey, it will put them in a blissful trance. Those under their spell are completely oblivious to their surroundings and their own safety, as they stumble straight towards the singing creature. If they do not have the mental strength to resist the song or if no one is around to snap them out of it, they will happily walk right into the cruel talons of the Bog Hag. It is said that those who meet this fate aren't even aware of their deaths, as they are too lost in the song as the beak delivers a fatal bite. Like all other sirens, Bog Hags are widely feared and reviled creatures. Their slimy disguises are frightening to many, and even an uncloaked one is no pretty sight. Their entrancing song is something many travelers and explorers are scared of as they slog through the swamps. Though humans and other flesh based creatures may be potential prey to the Bog Hag, they are rarely their primary target. These creatures will only eat meat from time to time, mostly when opportunity presents itself. What they really want are fruits, nuts and other plant based foods, which happens to include dryads. Compared to all other sirens, the Bog Hag is the one member of the family that seems to prey mostly on the dryad species. Others may take our kind as food if they have the chance, but Bog Hags are the one who directly targets us. Like the beasts of lore who thrive on human flesh, these creatures love the taste of dryad organs. When they hunt live prey, they are mainly looking for a dryad to fool and consume. They seek out those who are alone or are far from help, so that no one can save them from the siren's song. When a proper target is found, they may try to mimic the sounds of a lost sister or one in trouble. Cries of distress are hard for many to ignore, and these creatures know that. If the dryad does not fall for it, they will quickly turn to their song and hypnotize them. Those who are not strong enough or fast enough to block their song will succumb to its effects and become the siren's dinner. When dining on dryads, Bog Hags prefer to feed on our head growths, brains and other internal organs. The remains of a dryad who fell to a Bog Hag's spell will often be headless and their body will be torn open and hollowed out. Such a sight can be found in the bogs and swamps, as many Marsh Dryad communities have to deal with these predators. This is one of the reasons why many hunters and foragers never go into the wilderness alone, and why nightly watches have to have at least two members. No one wants to succumb to this fate, and I got to experience such fear! My first encounter with one of these creatures was when I was traveling with a foraging group of Marsh Dryads. We were far from the village and decided to set up camp for the night. Due to the harshness of the territory we were in, we decided to have a watch. Two of us would stay up while the others slept, and then we would switch after a few hours. I was paired with a dryad named Lacocoa, and we were to take watch during the darkest part of the night. Before we even took over, they had the two of us tie ourselves together with a long piece of vine. It was like we were a two plant rope team! This was to keep us together and aware of each other's condition, and I must say it worked perfectly! As we sat around with our glow pods, I felt myself starting to doze off. Nothing was really happening, so boredom was starting to make me tired. At some point during my drowsiness, I heard a weird hollow noise in the distance. It wasn't super loud or threatening, so it took me a bit too long to react to it. As it droned on, my mind scrambled to remember what it belonged to, and before I could recall it, my rope belt began to tug. Being pulled off my log seat certainly jolted me awake, and I quickly looked to see what Lacocoa was doing. There she was wandering towards the dark trees outside of camp, without a weapon or light in hand. Even when I called to her, she didn't respond, she just kept stumbling forward like a drunk man. She was even oblivious to the fact she was dragging me along! I hurried to her and grabbed her before she could go any further. When I looked at her face, I saw she was completely out of it. She stared mindlessly ahead and she barely had the strength to keep her head up. Her mouth hung slack and she was drooling all over the place (which actually quite common for Marsh Dryads, but you know what I mean). It was like she was lost in a dream, so I quickly woke her up. A hearty shake and shout right in her face snapped her awake, and she jolted as if I electrocuted her. She was confused of what happened, seemingly oblivious to what happened during her trance. Since I was a rookie at all this, I woke up the rest of the party to make sure everyone was okay. With everyone roused and awake, they moved to scare the beast away. A handful of explosive seeds and flammable spores were bundled together and chucked into the forest. The resulting burst of light and sound sent the wildlife in a panic, as well as the Bog Hag responsible. Through the chaos, I could hear a terrible screech of the startled creature and the sound of heavy wings. They said that it fled and was gone, but that did little to comfort me. When it became our turn to sleep, I asked if Lacocoa wanted to stay tied together, just in case. Though I thought I would be ridiculed for my fear, she immediately agreed to the idea. It took me a moment to realize that she was still shaken from the incident, and was probably scared of the same thing I was. It was nice not to be alone with this fear but, even then, I still slept like crud that night.   Chlora Myron Dryad Natural Historian ------------------------------------------------------------- Gotta get more sirens in here! Always gotta have more!    

[hillnerd]

How Tonks was reduced to a love interest, how she pressured Remus into marrying her, how Remus and Tonks were queer coded and the author purposely put them in a straight relationship. These are some from the top of my head.

Ah! Gotcha. Ok, well first of all- I’ve always loved the idea of the dynamic of Remus and Tonks- sweet professor type with punk happy-go-lucky punk gal. (and frankly am Biased since that dynamic is similar to me and my husband. He’s all tired and greying and sweet and math-y/sciency/technical while I’m all energy, and color and silliness.) 

Tonks was reduced to a love interest

Ok so I think there is this idea that independent women are not allowed to be involved with someone romantically in a story because it somehow undercuts their value. I get that line of thinking. I think this idea stems from the very real issue of women in stories ONLY being romantic interests in stories, with little else to their character. The token female in a series that is reduced to little more than a romantic interest for the lead? Yeah- that’s valid criticism. However, for a side character to have a romance? I don’t see how that is a bad thing. It doesn’t make kickass Auror Tonks any less kickass to be in a romance. She was always a very loving and sweet character, so having this side story of hers in the books wasn’t a weakness.

I do think, though, that showing her as this hollowed out shell all through book 6, and not showing any of the development of Remus/Tonks in the books was a mistake by JKR. I had shipped Remadora before book 6 due to a great fic (Shifts by Fernwithy) as I saw their interactions as cute and flirty and was on board- but wish it had more on page development. The whole ‘mystery of why Tonks is sad’ was a bit weak and I much rather would have seen hints of their romantic relationship instead of a year of that. We also don’t get to see much of Tonks as herself after the battle of the 7 potters. Remus we see multiple times, but not Tonks- and then at the final battle she’s all distracted and ‘where’s Remus’ which I did not care for again.

So yeah  I get the criticism of how Tonks was handled in this. Much of her spark and agency was taken away, without the formation, love and happiness of their relationship getting much screentime. We were told, not shown, most of it.

how she pressured Remus into marrying her  

That is not a fair criticism people put forth. There is NO proof of this- and I think people are just bitter than it's Tonks/Remus happening- so they go out of their way to misinterpret Remu's regrets he tells Harry. The reason he 'regrets' marrying Tonks is he thinks he's a burden to her. I've done the same when I'm dealing with my depression/ptsd/disability. I am like 'gawd, my poor burdened husband. He's be so much better off without me!' That is my anxiety and mental illness talking- obviously I have no regrets being married to the best man in the entire world (sorry everyone else! but it's true! :) ) But when you are self-loathing and triggered, you say crap like that. Remus is about as self-loathing and self-sacrificing character as you'll find. He's smart, kind, and wonderful- but he's got some real self-worth issues and how he handles his relationship with Tonks.

All she is guilty of is LOVING him- and trying to make him see he is worthy of love. That scene in the hospital wing where their lovestory is finally revealed shows this very clearly.

Anyone who interprets this as her unfairly pressuring him is a bit deluded, or bitter, or has reading comprehension issues imo.

how Remus and Tonks were queer coded and the author purposely put them in a straight relationship  

Oh THIS one. Yeah... The internet wants everyone to be gay. And when *false shock* most authors don't write that into their heteronormative books, people act like it's a big shock, or will say characters are queer coded and act like they were tricked.

So straight people can have punk hair. Straight people can have AIDs-like diseases. :P And like, that's all that could MAYBE be seen as 'queer coding'? Honestly.

Anyways- I think it's a shame that there is so much hetronormativity in our media/books etc. But I also don't think that JKR pulled any bait and switch with Remus or Tonks.

Personally, I see Remus as bi, and Tonks as Pan- but that's my own headcanon.

I think a LOT of people got super obsessed with Wolfstar wayyyy back when book 3 came out- and by book 5 it was in a frenzy- so when this out of nowhere romance came in that shut down all those gay dreams for the characters, people lost their damned minds- and it's never quite calmed down.

Personally I didn't see how wolfstar could have been a thing when Sirius betrayed Remus so deeply with that prank when they were kids, and then mistrusted Remus so deeply he thought he was a traitor and not Peter. Like, the timeline isn't very good for a relationship to have been there. Sirius is so obsessed with James that I just have never seen it as canon.

However I love the fanon versions of Wolfstar, and like the AU idea that Wolfstar was a thing for a while, then Remus did that whole 'I'm not worthy of LOOOOOOVE' thing and retreated and THAT's why Sirius thought he was the traitor. But by the time he's free from azkaban it's too late for them, he's a different person, and now Remus and Tonks are a thing.  

In the end- I really like the concept of Remus/Tonks and always have. The execution left something to be desired. I would have been a-ok with ALL the sadsack stuff they did with Remus and Tonks if we’d seen more of a build up of the happy stuff too.