#they'll just name a female anime character with magic

[magical-girl-hell]

dudes with a clear disdain for the genre will really walk into a conversation about magical girls and go, “actually my favorite magical girl is...” and then name some character who’s not even a girl.

[cjcroen1393]

So I've been hyperfixating on a Vocaloid Monster AU lately.

It started with me wanting to expand on the WOEFULLY underutilized concept of the PowerFX Vocaloids being "Classic Monsters" and just kind of... spiraled out of control from there. Now I have a LOT of ideas for Vocaloids, UTAUs and other vocal synthesizer characters as monsters for this AU.

So, specifically:

PowerFX:

Sweet Ann and Big Al = Frankenstein's Monsters (canon, more or less)

Oliver = Werewolf (I was inspired by this headcanon I found over at the old Vocaloid Headcanons blog and it hasn't left my brain since)

Yohioloid = Vampire (just LOOK at him!)

Ruby = Witch (I decided to round out the "classic" Halloween-style monsters with the only one that seems to be consistently female in these situations; after thinking about it though, it still fit, especially with the little star pattern in her jacket)

The ZOLA Project (based on their Carnelian designs)

Kyo = Vampire (Carnelian!Kyo has bat wings and bat = vampire)

Wil = Zombie (I actually don't know if Carnelian!Wil is specifically supposed to be a zombie, but someone said he looked like one so I went along with it)

Yuu = Werewolf (the furry, animal-eared hat and tatters/tears on his outfit scream "werewolf")

Other Vocaloids:

Aoki and Merli Lapis = Faeries (canon, obviously)

Aurum = Ghost (their aesthetic is supposed to be "a 1930s radio producer", so I thought why not make them an ACTUAL 1930s radio producer who died and now haunts the abandoned radio tower they used to work at? And yes, I know Aurum isn't technically a Vocaloid/won't be one when they're released, but let's ignore that for now)

Avanna = Witch (she gives off "magic user" vibes to me)

Daina = Kitsune (because foxes)

Dex = Werewolf (because wolves and also his voice provider made an entire song about him being a werewolf so canon)

Fukase = Demon (mostly just vibes in this case)

LUMi = Mermaid (because she's part jellyfish)

Luo Tianyi = Angel (canon)

Mayu = Vampire (it's in her aesthetic; I like to think she tries to bite people she's in love with so they'll never leave her)

Meika Hime and Mikoto = Forest Spirits (canon)

UTAUs:

Chikune Kenta = Vampire (canon, obviously)

KYE (Fuyuki Kaisei) = Dragon (he likes reptiles and also dragons are cool)

Kasane Teto = Human/Demon Hybrid (hence, "Chimera")

Kurobousuku = Werewolf (his name is literally "black wolf")

Namine Ritsu = Witch (another one based on vibes; also it would be funny for one of the few male witches in the story to also be a crossdresser)

Scott-129 = Alien (sort of canon)

Sekka Yufu = Yuki-onna (she's speculated already to be a "snow spirit" and a Yuki-onna seemed to be the most fitting choice for her)

Yuutsukoe Karasu (Kellyn Werner) = Tengu (sort of canon)

I want to do something with this idea, and I have some plot bunnies floating around in my head, but I'm not certain if I'll get around to it.

[twst-drabbles]

I dislike the immediate assumption that the reader insert is Female and this goes for all sorts of media that have their mc as ambiguous. I have seen people completely disregard and harrass others because their mc-insert doesn't their own idea of who the mc is (which is usually female).

It's none of their business what other people do with their insert. Really, it's as simple as leaving things well enough alone. One can be angry and frustrated but express that to one's self, either in the pillow or the bathroom. Don't care for the justification or the long reaches they'll do to prove that they're right, keep that to the little bubble.

Happens in Arknights as well with many people assuming the Doctor has to be male, cause all the biggest gacha's have the main character be male by default. I remember trying to get into Alchemy Stars cause I liked the characters designs and the gameplay seems serviceable. Got to name my chara and all that. And then the character was referred to with he/him pronouns and I bounced. If I get to name the character, then you better make fucking sure this character isn't referred to with he/him or she/her.

Arknights doesn't do that. The Doctor is only ever referred to with they/them and I love it. So to see these far reaches to justify that this doctor is, in fact, male is just, sad. Hell, even the anime it got made the doctor ambiguous and people were trying to see if the doctor was male or female, automatically ruling out the option of non-binary. You can only be one or the other, not anything else.

"Prefect has to be female, Prefect has to be male!" How about we leave it the fuck alone cause it really doesn't matter??

"They're in a boys school, they have to be male!" Well Prefect doesn't have a speck of magic in them and yet they were called by the mirror anyway, so why does the Prefect have to follow that specific gender rule like it's somehow more important than the magic rule?

"They have to be female cause this game was obviously made with girls in mind!" It is a common troupe, the whole girl in a boys school kind of thing but then the Prefect would be referred to with she/her pronouns rather than the ambiguous ones we get. Not much of a leg to stand on.

Preferences are fine. You can write exclusively for female readers or male readers, the problem comes with assuming that what you have in your head is actually fact cause you know the minds of the creators somehow. Once again, scream into your pillow when those irrational feelings arise. I promise you, you will get used to it eventually. That knee jerk reaction to "correct" will fade out.

[randomidiocyncrazies]

For the ask meme! K, T, U?

eyyyy thanks for the ask!

K - What character has your favorite development arc/the best development arc?

Youko from Twelve Kingdoms! She starts out as being a wishy-washy people pleaser who doesn't really stand up for her own values and is kind of a hypocrite (e.g. ignoring the unpopular girl in school even though she knows it's wrong, and then earnestly advising the girl to be less gloomy to fit in better/so people won't bully her etc), and then she went through a period of being a paranoid nihilistic jerk after a ton of Bad Shit happened to her—like y'know, being isekai'd and hunted by deadly demons who are specifically out to get her, almost being sold to a brothel, the discrimination she gets being an otherworlder etc—but ultimately she's like fuck that i refuse to give up on the goodness of people and stands firm when her values are tested

(also the ending of the rebellion arc is rad as hell. "I would have every person in Kei feel like a king [...] I would have them each be the master of their own domain, and this starts with the freedom to stand proudly, with their head held high, in front of anyone [no matter their rank]—as my First Edict, I hereby decree all forms of prostrations abolished")

T - Do you have any hard and fast headcanons that you will die defending? 

Answered here, but have another! Eris Willamette, from the obscure anime GEAR Fighter Dendoh, has an embarrassing (in her opinion) middle-name: Xena. Her parents are megafans of the show, and while she is fond of the show too, good luck getting her to admit it.

(the meta reason for this headcanon: Xena was used as a nickname for the dwarf planet Eris back when it didn’t have an official name yet)

U - Three favorite characters from three different fandoms, and why they’re your favorites.

Oozora Yuujin (Appmon)—hm. a lot of why i like him so much is a major spoiler, but there's just something delightfully unhinged when the Big Good of your cartoon asks a 13 year old kid if they're willing to give up their life for a friend, and implies that doing so is the pinnacle of their positive character development; to become the best version of themself, they must sacrifice their life to save a friend... and then the kid is just like "of course i'll die for my best pal! what, is that supposed to be a hard decision?"

Oda Shinichiro (2.43)—people who are passionate about something and know they'll never truly excel in/be the best at it is my kryptonite lol, so a volleyball enthusiast who is too short to play the way they wish they could play and only got this far with sheer love of the sport hits all my buttons! I also really like that he sees himself as fundamentally selfish, and while he's not entirely wrong about that, he's also the dependable heart of the team (I also like that he's feels selfish but would still go for his goals, even if he feels a bit guilty/ambivalent about it—"sorry, but go along with my selfish whims for a bit longer" indeed)

Youko (Twelve Kingdoms)—aside from all that i've said about her previously, i encountered the Twelve Kingdoms anime as a pre-teen. so a lot of the other magical adventures featuring female leads that i watched/was aware of at the time have romance as a central part of their character arcs, and it was really refreshing for baby ace me to see a cool female character whose character growth and adventure story isn't dependent on her romantic interest in a dude, but is instead about her becoming a braver, more compassionate person who is more willing to be true to herself. also i really like her light/minimal armor look in the rebellion arc lol

[ask prompts here!]

[lmaster37]

spoilers for ROS up to around ep. 30. i genuinely believe ROS will hit hardest if you go into it fully blind, but i realise that's a hard sell. for what it's worth, it's a really neat sci-fi story with interesting moral problems, good queer rep, neat magic systems, and a nice art style. the main pairing, as well as many of the side pairings, is gay. there's a minor nb character. there are major female characters. there are major characters of colour. the mysteries and twists are largely satisfying, at least to me. i personally really enjoy the ending.

under the cut, there's a short description of what i consider the setup (relatively spoiler-free, if you make an exception for things you learn in the first couple of episodes), as well as two more major elements of the story which i omitted from the previous paragraph for spoiler reasons. one of them is revealed in the mid-S1 finale, the other becomes apparent throughout the S1 finale/the beginning of S2.

next reblog, there'll be a more narrative retelling of the first half of season 1, up to and including the first major twist. i will attempt to emphasize the parts which i find compelling, which means it'll be quite different, stylistically, from the actual webtoon.

It will, naturally, include major spoilers for the first thirty episodes.

OH BTW i almost forgot but i was rereading messages from when i got a friend of mine to read ROS and this webtoon has absolutely BALLER music !! and some incredible animations !! literally the fight scenes go so hard for no reason

[i was gonna put some quotes of theirs here, but he hasn't texted me back yet wrt whether he's okay with that. suffice it to say that i have been Peer Reviewed and u should trust my opinions bc i'm objectively correct always [/joking] ]

room of swords deals heavily in time travel, specifically time loops. the cast are characters from across history, each with their own story and their own power.

it also reckons a lot with narrative framing and morality: a lot of actions will be recontextualised and reframed with new knowledge later on, and what seems clear-cut at first may not always be so easy. after all, some ends may justify even desperate means, and rarely do we have all the facts when we must make judgements.

what does personal responsibility mean if you're no longer quite the same person?

the setup for season one is as follows: gyrus, an astronaut, wakes up alone in the wreckage of his spaceship. he receives a fragmented radio transmission and decides to follow it, in the hopes of reuniting with his crew.

shortly thereafter, he meets a knight by the name of tori. tori is, as becomes quickly apparent, not from the same time period as gyrus. reluctantly, they decide to team up after being confronted (and nearly captured) by a big fantasy creature guy.

(during their first small adventures, gyrus is able to access some form of magic, which comes as a surprise to him: perhaps he knows himself less well than he thought?)

they will, over the course of the next few episodes, meet sylvia (a cave woman), nephthys (a prophetess/healer from ancient egypt), and kodya (a hunter/soldier from ~19th ct. russia), and team up with them. strangely, though, both nephthys and kodya appear to know more than they let on...

all of this is preceded by a mysterious message, proclaiming that this ragtag group of heroes have been chosen to conquer this world where past and future fuse. they are tasked to complete the room of swords to open the gate to freedom. and, as is traditional: they are warned that not all of them will survive this journey. and just WHAT is that timer in the sky ticking down towards?

i'm sure they'll be fine though.

if any this sounds interesting, go give ROS a try! it's genuinely one of my favourite stories. i love the characters (gyrus/kodya has been one of my main ships for years; v good for rotating in your head while you're waiting in line or travelling somewhere).

(some more spoilers for their character dynamic: i love narrative parallels. i love mentor/mentee stuff, especially with the things you'll learn in S2. big fan of when one partner has to semi-consensually semi-kill the other. they would do sooo well in a fluffy slice-of-life romcom but alas, they are stuck in the time loop sci-fi oops-there's-a-bit-of-horror-now webtoon instead. what if the world was ending and we were like sooo married. what if i trusted you even when i knew i shouldn't. what if i trusted you even when i knew you shouldn't trust me. what if i trusted you with my life but not my secrets. what if i knew we would hurt each other before this was over. what if i knew i would hurt you. what if i needed you. what if i knew you wouldn't hate me even after all i will do. what if i needed you. what if you would always know me. what if i ne—)

(what if i would always come back for you?)

working on a room of swords (webtoon) post rn and just checking, do any of you happen to know ROS? is anybody here interested in hearing about this gay little webtoon?

(you will be hearing about it regardless bc it's been years since i read ROS for the first time and i still have brain worms)

(i also want to get back into creative writing a bit more bc currently i have One (1) Fic i ever work on and it has spiralled far out of my control, which means now i actually have to do Planning to keep this somewhat coherent, which makes it much harder for me to actually Write)

[the-sinful-voice-witch]

The time has come! I am talking about my sweet pink girl Amy Rose!!!🥰🥰

TIME TO LOVE AMY ROSE part 1:

AMY'S CHARACTER

Amy Rose the hedgehog Aka the very first female ♀️ character in sonic games also the first playable female, also the only existent female hedgehog and the only hedgehog in the games whose name doesn't start with S. Associated with red and Pink roses🌹and loyal love, armed with a huge hammer she can summon at will, able to do magic with tarot cards and see people's fortune 🔮, car owner, boxing lover🥊, acrobatic abilities, amazing cooking, unbreakable will and faith for others, casual fourth member of the sonic team but also a capable leader of her own team: team Rose, brave with a huge temper and love for ice cream 🍦 with a really big heart ❤️

And yet....

Amy Rose was a really unfairly wasted character at (least at the beginning let's see how things go in the future, I'm rooting for justice for my girl): She was conceived to be basically Sonic's Minnie mouse and she was his girlfriend in her first appearance in a manga where she wasn't even pink and had a different hair but after that in her first appearance in the games with the exact same haircut as sonic... Playing as damsel in distress and apparently she already knew Sonic and was already in love before being kidnapped by metal sonic and Sega team decided that instead of a relationship they'll make a one sided obsessed crush on her part🙄 because that was so.... Funny Ajjj Thankfully at least she got a makeover with a more stylish look with a different haircut and looking a bit older and I completely fell in love with her i mean her young classic design is super cute but... This: 👇is supreme 👌

But my problem was that... 😔 even though I Loved her concept and hated what she was... Her personality had good traits sometimes but she was used too much as a not funny comedy relief with the fucking dumb stalker girl obsessed with getting into the hero personal space and trying to push him into marry her and all her personal life and plot/reason of existing and casually be there in the games was that she was looking for sonic! To hug him and ask him for a date no matter the situation making her so obnoxious!!🤦🤦🤦🤦🤦🤦🤦 Ajjj enough please stop! That is so tiring!!This character deserves better! Also she is too often portrayed as weak and being kidnapped or just be a bother to the sonic team that they leave her behind... Excuse me? How dare they make a girl that likes do boxing and can summon and Weald a fucking hammer bigger than her head look weak and useless???? For real??

Exactly weasel, that's the reaction everyone should get from my girl and his hammer 🔨❤️

And well the version of her i hate the most was in the first tv show she appeared Sonic X... Damn she was awful... Repellent, annoying, clingy, whiny, pushy, obnoxious, loud and even mean! This Amy is one of the few Amys I can believe is twelve because of how Immature and childish she was 😑😑😑 yeah she had her good moments but very few! 😠😠 She was never allowed to be in important fights because she wasn't even considered as a fighter she was just a spoiled girl who swings a hammer like a madwoman... That wasn't even intimidating in a good way and there was a very important scene with shadow that i loved in the games that stupid anime took away from her and was given to the character i hate the most! (That completely useless tag along wanna give pity kid) but of course they conserved the embarrassing scene where she hugs shadow by accident because of course this Amy can't help save the world but had to look dumb and colorblind 🤬🤬🤬 seriously why this mistreatment to Amy?? I bet that is was so over exaggerated because they thought it would make her fun... Guess what? It didn't! She deserved better!!! Ajjj and Sonic X Amy is not the only annoying Amy... In almost every game she has to do her stalker thing and depending of the writer I guess, she was more or less childish or mean or dumb 🤦🤦🤦... Thankfully that might finally stop!! 😤😤🤩🤩

Ironically a terrible sonic game that lead to a cancelled weird but fairly funny tv show changed everything, Sonic boom has a lot of things i hated but its existence did also some good 😊😊 like how our girl evolved for the better after how people reacted to her sonic boom version and Im gonna talk thoroughly about it in part 2! See you there 😚💋💋

[twsted-princess]

"Now there dearies, not need to cause any more ruckus. Unless you want to get on Lord Heng's bad side~"

(picrew linked here)

Bio

Name: Dān Yú (丹瑜)

Nicknames: Vixen, (Gaungtang) Lady Yú (dorm mates)

Voice Actor: Ami Koshimizu

Gender: Female (She/Her)

Age: "Don't you know it's rude to ask a lady her age?" (Over 1800 years old, physically she's 21)

Sexuality: Pan

Height: 6'2

Race: Human? (Nine-tailed fox spirit)

Homeland: Paradise (The spirit realm)

Birthday: 4/12

Starsign: Aries

Family: Unknown

Occupation: Student, Head Tormentor of Konghuang

Based off: Original character (based off Daji)

Professional Status

Dorm: Konghuang (@ellovett)

School Year: Fourth

Class: 4-A

Best Subject: Animal Languages

Club: Mountain Appreciation (makes her lackeys do the climbing

Dominant Hand: Left

Favorite Food: Alcohol, (any kind will do) Hot pot with luxury meats, Human souls

Hated Food: Fried tofu

Likes: Fine clothes, Jewelry, Rich food, Being pampered, Animals, Music, The opera, Getting to punish misbehaving students, When a will is broken and the sufferer is complaint

Dislikes: When her needs aren't met, Those who hurt animals, Anyone with a strong will, Unruly students

Hobbies: Lounging around being served by students

Talents: Taking the absolute longest to get ready for class (aka stalling)

Unique Magic: Twilight of the Red Moon (红月的黄昏)

Using the souls she's collected over the centuries she transforms into the true nine tailed fox. Increasing her strength, speed, defense and magical output along with her intelligence.

Backstory

Sly. Manipulative. Someone who views others as mere dolls to play with. That is Dān Yú, the sadistic fourth year of Konghuang. Sure she may put on a smiling face and treat first years like small children but don't let her fool you. Underneath is someone who cares little for mortals, only every interesting in what they can do for her. As the head tormentor it's her job to deal the extra labor onto students who fail to meet Gaungtang's orders and if certain students catch her eye she'll make sure they suffer specially. Being overworked to the point of collapse and limiting food, work with constant mockery they'll break into someone who'll serve her faithfully to a t. Of course she's loyal to her leader but the moment the crown slips she'll have it in her claws, though she'll have to get over her new-founded laziness and dangerous petty side. Rumor has it she looks very similar to an old queen, one who ruled a kingdom with fear and terror as the idiot king doted on her every whim. They say that she was chased out the land while changing into a fox. There's even another that tells of the queen being made from a goddess hellbent on punishing the king for thinking he could make her a wife, leading to the king's demise but..........those are just silly little stories~

[acey-wacey]

More Lovestruck Headcanons

A/n: I'm having fun with this so more headcanons for the main characters of Lovestruck: Choose Your Romance.

Sweet Enchantments (human)

-She has a snort laugh that she thinks is really annoying but her chosen love interest thinks it's cute.

-She appreciates the nuanced taste of rich coffee but to her, hot chocolate feels more like home.

-Even if she has magic in the route, she is still amazed by tiny fireworks.

-Her favorite holiday is Halloween and she always finds someway to decorate the cafe.

- She will buy anything that looks like human stuff from the goblin market. It makes her feel less lonely without her family.

- She loves to watch the sunset on the water outside the cafe and will sit on the docks for hours just thinking.

- She sneaks into Leora's office to read her magic books.

- She puppy-pouts when she doesn't get her way.

- She is really good at distinguishing foods by smell so sometimes she guesses scents to entertain patrons.

- She is very good with names and will not forget a person who visited the cafe even once.

- She is naturally curious and it gets her into a lot of trouble.

Sin with Me (in the circus)

- She tries to learn the performers acts sometimes but it never works out.

- She really likes the umbrella academy. I cannot explain this to you.

- She also really likes comic books. This probably has something to do with why she like she umbrella academy.

- Despite her parents owning a bike shop, she didn't learn to ride a bike until she was 15.

- She used to like the Pinterest Perfect aesthetic and now has a box of fairy lights she no longer uses.

- She has trust issues because the first person she ever dated ghosted her after a week.

- She could lift half her weight and she knows she could but she doesn't tell people because she thinks they'll think it's weird.

- She doesn't have any specific body insecurities but cares a lot about what people think of her.

- She is selectively empathic which means she can only relate to someone she agrees with.

- She has a chart of constellations and info dumps on her chosen love interest.

Ever After Academy (female)

- She watched anime religiously with her brother in middle school.

- She has a clear phone case filled with printed out manga panels.

- Her bi awakening was Lust and Envy from Fullmetal Alchemist (ace: that was me)

- She will do anything on a dare, even if there's no money involved

- She has a little bit of a savior complex and has caught herself thinking "I can fix them" more than once.

- She and her brother moved around a lot so they are each other's best friends

- Because of moving around so much, she isn't used to having friends for very long.

- She makes friends very easily but has never had a best friends besides her brother.

- She is the extrovert that adopts introverts.

- She gets into a lot of mischief but she's only ever gotten in trouble when she punched a guy for calling her brother the f-slur.

- Speaking of, she will completely ignore a bully until they insult her brother. Same goes for him.

- She always texts people pictures of things that remind her if then just so they know she's thinking if them.

- She has a froggy hat. That is all.

- She had a pick-me phase in middle school where she wouldn't wear pink even though it was her favorite color.

[gascon-en-exil]

Dark Deity Pre-Release Character Opinions

This isn't actually a tier list, but someone helpfully created a template for this game and it's as good a way as any to do a little visual showcase for this cast. Characters are listed by their class sets, which are fixed but offer a nice variety in terms of promotion options. My opinions on each are as follows, from left to right in each row. Most characters have introductory profiles written up on the DD subreddit, if you'd like to check them out yourself.

Warriors

Alexa

You know those buff female blacksmiths in Echoes and Three Houses that some people wish were playable characters? That's pretty much Alexa. Can't say I'm too hyped about her myself, but warrior + tomboyish female character will do that for me...or not do it, I suppose.

Benji

Seems to have been written to become a meme, and I still can't decide whether that's clever or stupid. Kind of like Raphael only with a bigger emphasis on training than on eating, and with brotherly devotion replaced with brotherly angst that might theoretically go somewhere if the character isn't reduced to being a goofy joke all the time.

Fenton

Doesn't have a character profile, so as far as I know he's just a generic dwarf because DD swaps out its inspiration's loli dragons and other vaguely fetishistic shapeshifters for the two most cliché non-human races in Western fantasy. I wonder whether his VA will voice him with a Scottish accent, to go all in on the (ironic?) laziness. There are a handful of elves in the playable cast, but Fenton is the only dwarf so for better or worse he's representing.

Helena

She's the embodiment of the FE exotic swordswoman archetype, but curiously DD seems to have turned that broad ethnic brush inward. Helena's last name is apparently a Japanese verb, her art shows her with a spear (as in the association of the naginata with women), and she studied and trained in a monastery that seems to blend elements of Buddhism and Shintoism. Not sure how all that fits into the larger setting yet, but at this point she's still got more background development than Petra.

Irving

Our Hero, the one front and center on the cover art. He sounds a bit on the blander side as far as lords or lord equivalents go, with his most promising hook for me being his established friendship with Garrick (see the ranger section). At best I can hope for a bit of a romantic friendship dynamic, although they sound a bit rougher overall as they're military academy schoolmates I wonder why DD went with that instead of lordlings of different territories.

Rogues

Brooke

Looks like Camilla; has a backstory like Niles. Cleavage aside though the sexual element of both is toned down here, and there might be some sapphic bodyguard shenanigans to be had as her current employers are a pair of highborn sisters further down this list.

Cia

For some reason she reminds me of Tressa from Octopath Traveler, only bustier and a bartender rather than a merchant. She's still just a small town girl with big city dreams, and this being a tactical war game following those dreams will inevitably involve stabbing people.

Corvan

Hard to judge him at the moment, as his profile was only the second written and so isn't terribly detailed. He's a moon elf with scholarly interests, apparently. Still, as of right now he's the only rogue who doesn't slot loosely into either a ninja/assassin or pirate aesthetic, so that's kind of neat. Also, he's one of several characters to have FEH-esque beach fanart made of them already, so clearly someone's into elf twinks.

Ford

A former officer at the military academy Irving attends and a smuggler who dotes on his niece, Ford has major dad energy. Per developer reveals he's also bi, and as I mentioned before I'm totally fine with that. More bear sex, please - but what guy in this cast would hop in the sack with Ford? Only time will tell. His personal skill makes him extra dodgy, which combined with the mug of booze in his art makes me think of WoW brewmasters who dodge-tank through the power of being wasted.

Wren

Like Brooke, he's an assassin from a foreign nation - in his case the same one as Helena so presumably he's a not!Japanese ninja. I'm not really feeling him at the moment. What is it about Hao'Fen (the city/territory he and Helena come from) and massive families? That comes up in both their backstories.

Rangers

Caius

I feel like this is the third or fourth character to grow up in some slum or other; at least they've all been in different towns so far. The relative rarity of noble characters is certainly different from FE, but it reduces the political stakes which leaves me wondering a bit about the story. Anyway, Caius is a small town desert hunter who learned how to make arrows out of animal bones. How aerodynamic is bone, I wonder?

Garrick

Irving's BFF and seemingly the Hector to Irving's Eliwood, only with more flirting (his intro doesn't specify that Garrick is flirting with women, but I'm not going so far as to say that indicates anything). He's the academy headmaster's son, with a strained relationship with his father for some of that hotheaded lead tension. Notably, his VA is the one I'm most familiar with in this cast, as he's the voice of Revali from Breath of the Wild as well as love interests in two different erotic gay dating sims I've played. In other words, I know what this guy sounds like making awkwardly simulated sex noises...and I have no idea what to do with that information.

Maeve

She's a half-elf with a very storied background, so much so that it's all rather hard to follow her exploits when little of what's being described has been fully revealed yet. I'm expecting her to be a mid/lategame recruit, unless she's dropped in early on to reveal that (sun) elves exist or something.

Rose

Imagine if Bernadetta were a commoner, although we can only hope they'll be less screaming. Alternatively, Neimi without an obvious boyfriend. She won the beach contest so now she has official swimsuit art, which I guess makes her a top-tier waifu in the eyes of players who care about such things.

Sophia

A ranger in the "has animal companions" sense, although whether that will come into play mechanically aside from her personal skill - Butter the ferret can attack with her! - remains to be seen. Her preference for the company of animals is explained by a lack of social graces, so prepare for klutz-related humor. Of note to those interested in F/F is that her introduction specifically brings up her connection with Sloane (see the mage section) and how close the two of them are.

Clerics

Faust

Doesn't have a profile yet, so not much to go off other than his decidedly unhinged look. The cleric class set does feature some darker-flavored options, so presumably he's more naturally aligned with those. His VA was announced to be the YouTuber behind So This is Basically Fire Emblem and other similar videos, so I'm picturing a kooky and somewhat demented Henry type.

Lincoln

Also lacks a profile at time of writing...clerics get so little love. The Discord has identified him a bland blond paladin sort, but as we know from the likes of Perceval and especially Dimitri that doesn't necessarily mean he'll be boring (or not gay).

Maren

The soft-spoken healer type, and also a childhood friend of Garrick although her intro sibling-zones him but then this game is inspired by FE so who knows if that'll stick. She may have some interesting thoughts on the theology of the setting, as there seem to be several faiths and she's said to have a complicated relationship with her own. I will be utterly shocked if she's not either Irving or Garrick's eventual love interest.

Samara

One of two princesses of the country of Aramor, which appears to be loosely inspired by the Middle East. Heaven help us if the Khalidstans ever get wind of this game. Unfortunately aside from her bond with her older sister (in the mage section) and the knowledge that Brooke has been hired as their bodyguard there's not much to Samara at the moment. Hopefully the clerics all do some comparative theology in their bond conversations, and this isn't like Sacred Stones where none of the clergy characters from different countries ever compare notes. The succession crisis involving Samara and her sister vs. their less-loved cousin the king's son might be a major plot hook? It's still too early to tell.

Vesta

Much like Maeve her backstory has entirely too much going on to really follow at the moment. Basically she's a human who grew up in a sun elf city because Reasons (seriously, I don't know what they are) and was called to a clerical vocation and also something about taking a journey. Has an unfortunate case of silly boob armor, which unlike a certain other character probably won't be rectified this close to release.

Mages

Alden

Maren's precocious younger brother, also basically Ricken up to and including the comically oversized hat. As a unit he follows the tradition of Donnel, Mozu, and Cyril of having a personal skill that buffs his stat gains, so it's safe to say he's a growth unit. At least he'll probably join early.

Liberty

Comes with dead brother angst and a connection to the "aspects" system that will hopefully make more sense once I've played the game and know how it functions both mechanically and from a storytelling perspective. Otherwise she looks to be a busty older - as in, not a teenage - mage in the vein of Calill.

Monroe

Got the first ever character profile, so it's really short. He's the son of a duke and sounds like a bit of a snob, albeit one that can make explosions happen to back up his haughtiness. He's got some scarring around his eye that surely must come with a story. Someone also made featured fanart of him in Heroes summer banner style, so I guess he's got somebody horny already.

Sara

Samara's half-sister, with comparable fantasy Middle Eastern flavoring. Has an interest in discovering magical artifacts and being a just ruler in the event she winds up on the throne (so, almost definitely), and she and Samara travel around with the assassin Brooke as their bodyguard. There's maybe some lesbian possibilities there? Either way, Sara has enough development where I could see her as a major supporting character.

Sloane

Comes with a genuinely fascinating backstory involving manipulative double-crossing parents, an education in the cruelties and deceptions of social life (reflected in her personal skill), and disinheritance - and yet it's all likely to be overshadowed because she may go down as DD's equivalent to Fates's face-touching. Her initial art is even more revealing than Camilla's, and while the developers later gave her a more modest redesign after negative feedback I get the feeling that this controversy may live on. Her introduction mentions her hunting for both heirs and heiresses and she's now been linked to Sophia, so safe to say she's another confirmed bi character.

Adepts

While the other class sets are standard fantasy fare adepts require a bit more explanation. They have innate magical abilities and appear to be feared and distrusted most places in the setting. Functionally they remind me of adepts from the Golden Sun series, if anyone is familiar with those games. The classes in the adept group tend more toward physical/magical hybridization than those of other sets, so that will probably be their mechanical niche. Oh, and their default weapon type is lances, which is a plus in my book.

Aurima

Along with Caius and the royal sisters, he's another one from the desert nation of Aramor. An arena fighter who got touched by a god in what I assume was a non-sexual way and came out of it with a new appearance and adept powers. Also, he's confirmed to be over 40 - how often do you see that in games like this?

Bianca

Looks like a more carefree Mathilda from Echoes. She's a ranking officer in the Delian army which sounds like it'd sit uneasily with her adept powers. Her profile describes Lincoln as her close friend, which is still about the most we know about him at this point.

Elias

This guy's writing plays more into the fairly standard coding that comes with adept powers, as we know they manifested shortly before he was going to confess his feelings to a male paramour and afterwards he was forced to flee his homeland and wander the world. He also spent time among dwarves, so insert short bear jokes here? In the present he's attached to Cia in what seems to be a platonic way; maybe she's a fruit fly, or maybe she just likes having a friend who can light drunken assholes on fire? Elias is definitely into guys, but I would still be a little surprised if he turned out to be totally gay as that's such a rarity in these sorts of things.

Iris

Oof, another lengthy and rough backstory. Iris had better parents than Sloane, but she also had to deal with permanent facial scarring (hence the mask) after a bandit kidnapping and the stigma of manifesting as an adept pretty much eliminating the prospects of her making a good political marriage. Also, she and Elias both come from Neullais, which is prominently featured on the continental map on the DD subreddit but doesn't seem to come up all too often in backstories. I think it's a not!France? Hard to tell.

Thae'lanel

A World of Warcraft blood elf, flowing anime hair and apostrophe'd name and all. I like WoW so that's not terribly grating, but as he has no profile yet there's little else I can say. Thae'lanel is mentioned in Maeve's introduction as a member of a sun elf group called the Exiled, which I'm guessing is tied to his adept status in some way. He and Maeve form yet another adventurer/bodyguard duo.

[bookio]

Tender Is the Flesh (2017) Agustina Bazterrica

Swedish title: Exquisite Carcass (2022)

Not a story for fainthearted, you really have to mentally prepare yourself going into this book because it's a disturbing dystopian novel where a virus wiped out all the animals, so humans have evolved into a cannibalistic society. Some humans are specifically grown to become meat, skinned for clothing and other stuff we normally treat cattle.

We follow on the shoulder of a male worker (who's name i forgot, maybe it was Marco?) who's basically a team leader in one of the biggest slaughterhouses. He check cattle conditions, does some meat chopping, handle paperwork and manage new recruits. There are two main plots surrounding this main character. One is that, his wife has left him temporary because they recently lost their baby son and are in mourning. And the second one is that, he receives a living "exclusive meat" in form of a young woman as gift, to keep in his barn.

A lot of things happen so i'm going to mention the parts that stuck with me, because they're jumping around in my head and need to be let out. So, SPOILERS:

• How cow and pig slaughterhouses work today, is exactly how this human-meat is sorted and prepared too in this book. They're in cages, sorted, mistreated and shaved. However it seems the female humans are often in risk of getting raped - this is illegal, but mostly because the company call this "contaminated meat" and have to destroy them later. I think the rapist may be turned into meat too as punishment? Not sure.

• On page 83, it's dramatically presented like a big twist that the human-meat cannot communicate, because their vocal cords are genetically removed. But when it hit i went "wait, you already told us this" and had to double check, and yes on page 32 they casually talk about it quickly. So the suspense built up for the reveal came as if the author had forgot she already wrote it.

• "Exclusive meat" is human-meat that has been chemically injected and modified to grow quickly, but been treated more carefully and set on strict diets to "flavor" the meat. Like rare expensive food. This is the woman MC receives, she's been on almond diet and is physically around twenty years old but mentally like a child.

• Some human-meat are skinned to make fashion or furnitures. Black people are most wanted for that. While others are fattened up drastically, to harvest fat from.

• A common problem the factory has is fake unemployed people sneaking in to record the process for kicks, to spread on the web. MC despise this very much and isn't shy to call or kick them out.

• Mosquitoes, birds and dogs are present in the book, but is too hazardous to touch due to the virus. Some people wear umbrellas because of fear to be hit with contaminated birdpoo.

• Homeless or poor people are named "scavengers" and are allowed to take whatever they want from the slaughterhouse's disposable pile of "rejected meat".

• The government allows cults to make "sacrifices" to the slaughterhouses to calm the religious hysteria. Them thinking their meat will be blessed in family's bellies, but in reality their meat go to scavengers. It was kinda scary but entertainment to read how the cult mightly chant about being the bigger person and powerful, but then totally freak out when realizing the slaughter process is very real and mechanic. Nothing magical about it.

• "Urlet" is a hunting ground for rich people. They make me sick! They buy athletics or black males and pregnant women for their meat hunting games, and then celebrate with BBQ. They also have this shady side business where they'll loan you money, and if you are unable to pay back, you have (i think) 24 hours to avoid the hunters to clean your debt. When MC visit, they've just shot and killed a rockstar who'd failed to pay what he owed.

• If one doesn't want your family elders or passed away friends to end up on a platter, you have to witness the cremation and sign legal papers by their passing, to prove they didn't get eaten.

• MC randomly visits a experimental hospital. It's very out of character but it's noticeable the author really wanted to show the medicine aspect of human-meat society. Firstly, the female doctor has a really cringy introduction. I had to read it twice to be certain how absurd it was. She present herself as "not like other woman that blindly follows the call of their natural biology", therefore is a independent female scientist. Why. Why did you write it like that, so weird.

Here's some of the experiments they make: how the brain respond to getting injected with heroine every day, how long a heart can beat with the human alive but heart exposed, no eyes, only breathe in nicotine, a kid's reaction to unresponsive mother that has been sedated. MC asks what we all are thinking "Isn't the purpose of these experiments already kinda obvious?" which makes us realize is basically a torture factory.

-

I think it's important to state the question, in a society where consuming humans is the new norm, are there anyone with good morals left? MC likes to think so, and the story really wants him to be that good example.

Even though he go against the mistreatment of human-meat, his actions speak otherwise. He claims to be vegetarian, but eat meat to please others. When finding some hidden puppies, he pet and imagine giving them a home but then turns his back when the puppies are found out and killed infront of his eyes.

He first take care of his given gift (the living naked woman-meat), but when cleaning her up, he get so aroused that he quickly has to have sex with the butcher woman he knows. He later can't control himself and rapes the female-meat anyway, but claims it's for pity and out of love. Yeah right.

When MC realize she's pregnant, he names her Jazmine and keeps her locked inside a room with water bowl and food. Like a hamster in a giant cage. He caress and sleep next to her, til the point of her developing Stockholm syndrome.

An annoying thing i have to mention, is MC's constant definition of himself as "the man with a dead son, married to a broken women". I can't tell if it's to remind the reader or just simply self-pity for his character, very repetitive to the point of awkwardness.

His sister is the "bad guy" of this book, for not caring about their demented father and for recently buying a full frozen human to keep in special freezer, for food consumption. As if him having sex with his human-meat isn't just as bad.

The book ends with MC calling his wife over for the secret birth of his child with Jazmine. She's overjoyed having a baby after the loss of their son and we think they're gonna be some sort of poly relationship, but no. Immediately when the kid is born, MC kills Jazmine, showing he's just a bad as everyone else. And his wife being a caring nurse, also showing her true colors by exclaiming "hey, she could have given our more babies!!". Disgusting!

It's disturbing how normal everything is presented despite many of the characters showing sign of instability (cause by cannibalism i guess). But even if the book was really awkward at times, it was 100% fresh and terrifying. I definitely won't look at meat the same way again tbh. 4/5 stars

- - - - -

Sensor (2019) by Junji Ito

One of the prettiest hardback books of Junji Ito, however not one of his strongest works imo. It's definitely a personal preference, but space aliens doesn't scare me much, idk why!

It also awkwardly reminded me of a story i wrote in high school? My story was called "Key of the Universe" ("Universums Nyckel", sorry for cringe) and surrounded a character that one day landed on earth with no memory, but had the ability to communicate and see through space & time. Sent by the souls of other planets to save earth from incoming danger! In my story, they had a human sidekick and could run really fast, always chased by crazy agents! The end of the story would have the main character fulfilling it's purpose and sacrificing themselves to save earth, but also through this act find tranquility. I outgrew this alien plot but..

..that's basically the story of Sensor too !!

A woman is born from golden volcanic ash (in shape of strings of hair) and can sense a great monster approaching earth. Her sidekick is a journalist man and she's chased by a cult that worship the incoming monster.

She however see through time and space, to connect with another guardian, a Christian preacher called Miguel (it's Jesus) who was taken by the cult and crucified (like Jesus) when trying to introduce tranquility mindsets . He became one with the universe and with the main girl too.

The book doesn't really have a proper explained ending, like most of Ito's work, things are just described to fade away without any explanation after many days of madness. 2/5 stars