#waiting until i can properly see their dynamic in the manga

[orngbanana]

[maochira]

Confession (Keiji Togashi x reader)

My first Ao Ashi x reader!!

Tags: gn!reader, reader is an artist, no manga spoilers (basically this is in the middle of season 1), Aoi and Otomo appear as well, not proofread

You've been Togashi's classmate for months now, and at first, he intimidated you and you didn't care much for him. But your friends often dragged you along to watch Team B's matches and you found yourself focusing on Togashi the most out of all the players. And as time passed on, you found yourself feeling excited whenever you saw him walking onto the field and even more when you got to see him in school every day. It really didn't take much longer until you developed a crush on the defender, despite the fact that you've never talked to him properly and you're pretty sure he doesn't even know your name.

And at some point, not only did you find yourself watching his matches, but you also started coming to watch Team B's practices if you had the time to. As an excuse to have a reason to go, you always brought your sketchbook along to sketch the players to practice dynamic poses. You really tried your best to draw all of them, but then found yourself drawing Togashi the most - even though his hair is always hard to figure out.

And of course, your friends quickly picked up on the fact that you have a crush on him and keep teasing you about it because they want you to confess to him. But you're so sure Togashi still doesn't know who you are, even though he notices how often you come to watch him at practice and matches. He's wondered about it for a while, but always shrugged it off as you being a fan.

Because of your friend's teasing, you had to promise that you'll confess one day. You said it'll be when your sketchbook is full because that usually takes you a while. Just with this particular one, you didn't even realize how much faster you're filling it because you've been using it a lot more since you started drawing at Team B's practices.

Today is like any other - you came to watch Team B at practice and draw while you're at it. And suddenly, you're on the last page of your sketchbook. You're already dreading drawing on it because you know as soon as you do, it'll mean you have to tell Togashi about your feelings. You promised it to your friends. There's no going back.

As much as you're dreading this moment, you're waiting at the exit of the training field to watch out for Togashi. Many of his teammates leave and barely any of them look at you, but the moment Togashi approaches the exit accompanied by Aoi and Otomo, all of them recognize you instantly.

"Isn't that (Y/N)?" You hear Aoi saying from a bit of a distance, but you can't figure out what Otomo answers him. Togashi doesn't seem to have any reaction to your presence. Maybe he really doesn't know who you are?

For a moment, you debate with yourself to just leave and act as if nothing ever happened. But then Aoi runs up to you and is about to greet you. Although, before he gets to say something you force your sketchbook into his hands. "Give this to Togashi-" You tell him quickly before running away as fast as you can.

All three boys are equally confused and look after you, especially Aoi. He looks down at the sketchbook you just put into his hands as your words repeat in his head, so he hands it over to Togashi.

"What is this?" He asks in a tone that sounds a little irritated. He doesn't understand why you ran away so quickly.

"I don't know. They told me to give it to you," Aoi shrugs, "Look into it."

Otomo already knows where this is going. He saw the obvious blush on your face when you gave your sketchbook to Aoi. Otomo curses Togashi in his head for getting a confession before he did.

As they continue walking back to their dorms, Togashi flips through the sketchbook. "I don't get it..." He mumbles as he flips through the mix of your personal art and all the sketches you made while watching Team B's practices. He notices very quickly that he was drawn the most. He opens his mouth to say something else, but not only his voice but also his steps stop when he reads what you wrote on the last page.

"I like you. A lot."

[goron-king-darunia]

Rank the ships from dotnw?

All of them? I'm not sure I could even name all of them, there are so many characters and so many possible ships. I'll just go with the ones I've seen and if you want another one or some other ones to be included, ask for them specifically.

Emil/Marta: E for Effort. This is clearly the main and intended canon ship. They tried. I could theoretically write a version of Marta and Emil that I might find appealing, but I generally just do not like them together. 0/10. Never seen a fic about them staying together that I enjoyed. I can see why it's popular because in a vacuum, the two have an interesting dynamic, but none of the canon materials ever made me see anything good between them. (As with other judgements, these are subjective. If you like this ship, no shade, just saying this is a NOTP for me and you will not be able to talk me into it. I have seen the fics and talked with the fans, I just cannot stand Marta as she's written.) Ratatosk/Marta: C for Chemistry. There's substance there. As much as I don't understand, Ratatosk clearly likes Marta and wants to keep her safe, even though she doesn't treat him with the same kindness as she does Emil. At least Ratatosk can stand up for himself, though. So I wouldn't feel anxious of Marta taking advantage of him like she would for Emil. 2/10. Could be excellent with a competent writer or the most toxic stuff you've ever seen with an incompetent writer (though you can't do worse than the Crestoria Writers who made Marta the literal worst when she says IN FRONT OF RATATOSK that she can't wait for him to leave so that she can fuck Emil.) Richter/Aster: S for Sexy. Top Tier unofficial canon ship. Buff awkward introvert nerd who is desperately trying to stay sane and twinky confident extrovert nerd who was never sane to begin with is such a delicious dynamic. 10/10.

Richter/Emil: S for Sad/Angst and also Sexy. You can make this work ANY way you want it to. Tragedy, love against all odds, starcrossed lovers, destined lovers, enemies to lovers, friends to lovers. The literal bread and butter of the franchise. You can turn it into anything and it will be good. Always gotta have a pinch of conflict since Richter clearly sees a bit of his younger self in Emil and wants Emil desperately to grow and be better. But, like, the sad/angst is what makes it juicy. 10/10. Richter/Ratatosk: P for Potential. I can see this working with enough setup or with a soft enough Ratatosk. Canon Ratatosk would take FOREVER to get to the point of being soft enough to work with, but Richter can live for 1000 years so that can still work. Delicious for PWP or for a long, drawn out enemies to lovers fic where they fight and they fight and they fuck and they fight until they form a reluctant softness for each other and then absolutely cave into each other because they're too similar and too different and as much as they anger and bewilder each other they're also the only other person to understand each other. 7/10. Needs good writing to pull it off but very juicy.

Richter/Aqua: W for Wasted Potential. The manga clearly wants us to think there's something there but they don't do anything with it. I'm not opposed to it, but it needs the right setup and context and Aqua needs to chill the fuck out and start as Richter's friend. 3/10. I can definitely think up some juicy stuff for them, but I prefer Aqua as Richter's queer platonic BFF who crushes on him but understands she can't force him to like her back and just wants him to be happy, even if it isn't with her.

Aster/Rilena: D for Dynamic Duo. The manga suggests in one line (that may or may not be properly translated) that Aster and Rilena were engaged. I think this was to lampshade how Rilena knew Aster had a birth mark in a place you wouldn't see in his normal clothes because he wears a high collared coat and shirt. I don't buy that for one second. If they WERE engaged, I 100% headcanon it as Rilena agreeing to be Aster's beard so Aster could be gay for Richter and Rilena could be very asexual in peace without getting hit on buy other guys and girls. 10/10 for chaos scientist buddies where Rilena has all the braincells and common sense but is equally as willing as Aster is to ignore her better judgement to pull off crazy shenanigans. Richter is the cautious member of the bunch but he trusts Rilena before he trusts Aster, even when it's clear that they're both taking insane risks. If she had gone with them to the Ginnungagap, Aster would have lived for sure and Sheena would have been there to help make a pact with Ratatosk. 1/10 for a romantic or sexual sort of relationship. I can see how that dynamic could work, I really do. Of all the straight couples so far, Aster and Rilena would be the healthiest and most realistic/easiest to envision. I just do not buy it for one second that they're anything other than BFFS with each other.

Emil/Lloyd: H for Huh? I guess people just like shipping the protags and because Zelloyd was a popular ship, people easily swapped to Emil/Lloyd for another dose of enemies to rivals to lovers. I do not see the appeal other than the fact that it's a yaoi ship and they both have some relatable struggles of being protagonists and some good angst fodder for Emil having to come to terms with his anger even when he finds out the Lloyd he was mad at was actually Decus. 0/10. Not saying it's a bad ship, just saying it's definitely not a ship for me and I do not see the appeal. As with Marta/Emil, this is functionally a NOTP for me. Emil/Aster: A for Absolutely. Introvert shy boy with identity issues and extrovert goofball who is very secure with himself both gush over how cool they think Richter is and foster a mutual affection for each other. 9/10. No notes. Just some good blond boys exploring the world with each other.

Emil/Ratatosk: C for Crackship. Absolutely love the self-cest vibes and potential here. Again, I prefer a softer Rata than is canon, but I absolutely see the appeal. Something something self love and something something loving the self through loving the other. 7/10. I'll read it from trusted sources but it's not a very popular ship and I can see people either taking it way too seriously or way too cracky and ending up with something unreadable for my tastes. But excellent potential. Richter/Aster/Emil: O for OT3. Excellent and impossible unless we get really wiggly with the rules of the canon very quickly. Still. Love it. 12/10, no notes. I am willing to break canon for this to happen and also so thirsty for AU. Real Emil/Richter and Real Emil/Aster and RealEmil/Richter/Aster: I for I'm the only one thinking about this. Depending on how you interpret the canon, game Emil and Real Emil are either two totally different people or the same person through weird soul absorbtion means. Ratatosk's powers are more concrete than Verius's powers but still INCREDIBLY WIGGLY and while it's heavily implied that Emil is just Ratatosk's kindness made manifest and his old personality splitting off from his new, grumpier one, I 100% see where some theories come in stating that some of the things game Emil knows about Real Emil are too coincidental to not indicate some sort of memory convergence. I personally consider Emil to be a part of Ratatosk that essentially became his own person who just happens to use Aster's body and Emil Castagnier's name, so the potential for a world in which the Real Emil didn't die and got to be part of the party working to save the world is just so juicy. We know very little about the Real Emil too, other than some JP only journal entries that were on the DotNW website that were thought to be written from the Real Emil's perspective. He was still a soft boy and seems to have considered Lloyd and the rest heroes, but other than that, he's a blank slate. So he's incredibly fun to play with. 8/10. I'm the only one I know of working on a fic like this and I am loving the hell out of it. I really should get back to writing and finish it though! Alice/Decus: P for Problematic (affectionate). They are perfect for each other and I mean that in the most affectionate AND most derogatory way. Absolutely toxic foundation for a relationsip. 0/10 real life recommendation. Do not emulate. But also profoundly romantic in ways that a healthy relationship simply cannot be. The codependence, the willingness to kill for each other, the toxic and blatant onesidedness, the palpable sexuality. Again, 0/10 for real life emulation but 8/10 for the fucking drama and romance in the purely fictional sense. Aster/Ratatosk: S for Science. I have only seen this very rarely and at least one of them was a sort of PWP angst story my partner wrote that was definitely not meant to be romantic. But Aster is fascinated by Summon Spirits. And Ratatosk is one. And Aster is an optimist and idealist who sees the best in everyone. So 100% I can imagine Aster getting weirdly freaky with Ratatosk "for science" just to see what sex with a Summon Spirit is like and what a summon spirit is capable of. 7/10. Some juicy potential there, but as ever, I'm pretty sure I enjoy a softer Ratatosk than most for these things. Richter/Aster/Emil/Ratatosk: F for Foursome. Just the sheer number of bodies involved has potential, especially if Ratatosk can shapeshift at will. Absolutely crazy and carnal. Not exactly an OT4 for me, but I definitely see the potential and I would not mind some fics of this type more often. 8/10, but I would probably only enjoy it from trusted sources because, again, if Ratatosk is too abrasive, I don't like it as much.

Richter/Colette: C for Crackship. They get one interaction but I can 100% see a whole lot of potential there. If I could see Richter as preferring women or not having the option of Emil, I would 100% see this as a good candidate, though I am 100% basing this off of their one offscreen interaction. Crack to the max but I'm a sucker for Richter with a woman in this case and this case alone. Colette is like a puppy dog. Even if you don't really like dogs, you can't help but love her. Richter is not immune to this I think. Would definitely take a slowburn to establish more than just that one interaction and build chemistry, but I am here for it. 9/10, but only to me. Alice/Marta: T for Toxic (affectionate.) I have mostly seen (and utilized) this ship to just get Marta out of the way, but, like... They're so toxic that I can somehow see them fixing each other.

Ratatosk/Mithos: T for Toxic (derogatory.) Absolutely vicious and catty exes that WILL fight CONSTANTLY and will not give a single shit about any collateral damage. 10/10 for drama, 0/10 for something I want to see on screen as a main focus.

And that's all the ones I've seen! If you want me to rank any other specific ones!

[misspines]

Yes Yes. He Akimeno is a good shipp... as long as you don't think about the psychological implications behind Himeno's feelings

But he waits! Put that chair down first, okay? Before you throw anything at me, let me explain what I mean

First of all, let me clarify that I myself support this ship. In fact, the reason why I'm in the fandom is because of that image of them together in the opening theme of the anime. So, I'm not saying this because I'm a hater or something!

Ok, let's start with the thesis:

Himeno is a very eloquent and likeable character within csm. He has a very attractive personality and I'm pretty sure it's hard to feel uncomfortable around him. I dare even say that he may be comic relief for the show.

She is properly introduced in chapter 14 of the manga (5 of the anime?) and we can get to know her more thoroughly. She is presented as a relaxed and confident person who seems not to take work very seriously. Although —I insist— this last impression may be due to an attempt to relax the tense atmosphere, because let's remember that in this mission Aki and she are in charge of the rookies

A proof of my point, before you enter the hotel:

When they find they can't get out of the eighth floor:

From the moment they realize that they are trapped on the eighth floor, we see how Arai and Kobeni begin to break little by little. Kobeni with a little more strength xd. Even Aki is a bit stressed by the situation. But not Himeno. She maintains the same cool and calm personality with which she entered the building, almost as if the situation doesn't faze her at all

With the flashback of how she introduces Aki to nicotine and then the cigarette that they share in the present, you can see some chemistry there. "These two are cute", you even think

But we can question this cuteness from this moment on:

Let's see. Aki and Himeno are the superiors here, however, Himeno is Aki's superior. Even though they both have novices in charge of her, Aki still calls her "senpai", which means there's still a difference in rank there. But despite this, Himeno seems to easily accept Aki's wishes. I mean, they don't even debate what to do. Come on, Himeno didn't have any affection for Denji, because she doesn't hesitate to ask him to eat later. It may be that in her work dynamics Aki is the mastermind of the operation, but I personally question this scene because, the most logical thing would be to sacrifice one to save several, right?

Despite all the commotion they are going through, Himeno remains undeterred. It's not until here she mentions using her sword that she seems to react:

It's not a reaction you'd call "desperate." But it is immediate. Aki hasn't even finished processing the thought when she's already refusing, preferring to sacrifice Denji (when she previously didn't want to, going against Aki's wishes) than sacrifice Aki; even when the sword seems to be the only solution they have

And with this, Himeno's sanity seems to start to take a nosedive. In something slow and almost imperceptible until it happens. I didn't notice it myself until after reading and watching the anime episode several times. When Kobeni hurts Aki, she has finally reached breaking point:

The calm personality is gone. There are no jokes anymore, there don't even seem to be clear thoughts anymore. All there is is a scared and fearful girl to be reliving trauma so directly and life. Personally, Himeno's fall in this arc is one of my favorite parts

However. I was speaking at the beginning of this incredibly long testament of the possible psychological implications behind Himeno's feelings. What do I mean by this? Himeno seems to have an attachment/dependency towards Aki. It's like Himeno is a red roof and Aki is the plug in the leak. Himeno has lost many companions, he has seen many of the rookies in her charge die. But Aki seems to be the exception to that. Aki is the only one who has survived long enough to get to train her own fledglings. Thus, having Aki alive seems to have become some kind of sick need in response to her earlier trauma. It doesn't sound quite cute anymore after reading the last part, does it?

But anyway, this does not mean that this is a bad ship (as I said before, I am here thanks to them). Nor that you stop shipping them or think differently. In fact, with this weird theory I've put together in my head, I like them better. Feels almost Shakespearean, don't deny it

[skania]

Replies to ONK Asks

If you've sent me an ONK-related message these past two days, the reply is below the cut!

Since ONK is taking over my blog, I'll work on a Masterlist so stuff is easier to find. In the meantime, please don't hesitate to use the search bar at the top of my blog to check if I've already replied to a particular topic!

Indeed, the fandom at large seems to be hit with a very serious case of confirmation bias. It doesn't only apply to the ships, either. For example, those who want Aqua to be Light-lite will let this bias cloud their interpretation of Aqua's every action lol

The obsession thing is genuinely hilarious though because of the cognitive dissonance 😂

You and me both! If Akane has to play one of the B-Komachi members, it would be nice to see Kana sharing her experience with her so Akane can understand her better. I'm also curious as to how their dynamic will be affected now that Akane has hardened up. I don't even know if Kana will be able to get a rise out of Akane anymore, but I kind of hope she does because Akane has been looking so stoic lately 😭

Aka's pacing is a hot mess. Sometimes the story moves at a snail's pace, and sometimes it moves at the speed of light lol

I'm glad we're finally diving deep into Ruby's mental state and her past as Sarina!

Thank you for this first ramble! I'm glad it worked 😂 I completely agree with you, the intimacy between Aqua and Akane really stands out and it's difficult to ignore. I think this is precisely why some feel the need to deny as much of it as possible: they have convinced themselves of the outcome of the manga, but still feel threatened by Aqua and Akane's dynamic. So, they try to explain it away in a fashion that won't question their desired endgame; hence all the bad takes about how Akane was just a tool to Aqua, etc.

I get how frustrating it can be, but I think that at the end of the day it's up to Aka to prove these people wrong, not us. All we can do is try to provide our perspective, but some people won't change their minds unless Aka delivers an Aqua/Akane ending. And even then, some people will still be in denial until the end of time lol

Re: your PS, I think that if Aqua/Akane happens, Aka will necessarily have to revisit their relationship before then, so people will be able to see it coming and will have time to come to terms with it. I imagine the 2nd Season will help as well because it's the Akane season, so anime-onlies will realize things aren't as set in stone as S1 may make them seem.

Hi there, anon!

On Akane and Ai

On Akane and being "obsessed" with Aqua

I haven't written anything on the third reason because I've thankfully never seen it, but I agree with everything you said!! Besides, the manga itself explains that Akane is hit harder than your average person because of how earnest she is. Instead of tuning out those messages, she felt like it was her duty to face those comments head-on. If anything, I feel that this only makes her even more amazing because she was able to come back from that stronger than ever 😭

Not at all anon, thank you for sharing your thoughts with me! ❤️

I've given my opinion on the former here and here. As for Aqua's happiness being "fake", the lie lies in the fact that Aqua was building his happiness on running away from the truth. Aqua's "freedom" period and his relationship with Akane during it is something I'd love to write about properly later though, so I'll make a mental note to address this then!

and what's your opinion about people saying akane is crazy which is why she's "flawed?"

My opinion is that this hot take is not worth engaging with 😂 It's funny to see people wasting time with made-up flaws instead of discussing Akane's actual flaws though.

I imagine they'll announce S2 next week, so hopefully they also give us a tentative release period! I don't mind waiting for a bit as long as the quality is as good as S1's. If they go for 2 cours this time, Season 2 will truly be the Akane season.

I think the confirmation bias is likely even stronger in manga readers because they've been along longer. I've practically stopped checking OnK out in social media because some takes are just way too bad lol

Hi anon! I'm sorry, I left out the Kishimoto-related stuff because I didn't want to get sidetracked 😂 but to be perfectly honest with you, I'm not an Aka expert. I've only read one other work of his, Kaguya. I have no idea of whether he can be influenced by popularity or not because, in Kaguya, the intended ships also happened to be the most popular ones. The closest thing to a love triangle was pretty much just a distraction and a means for him to explore admiration and unrequited love lol

I do think that Aka is the type to go with whatever suits his vision/fancy best, though. I think he is more likely to be influenced by his own wants rather than the fandom's.

As for the anime, I'm honestly not sure how the merch gets decided. My best guess is that this season they're focusing all the marketing on the "Idol" side of the story, while next season the marketing will highlight the "Acting" side of it. There's no denying that it's pretty disappointing to see collab after collab with no Akane in sight though. I also think they shouldn't have added the recap episode right in the middle of Akane's arc; they should've waited and aired it one episode later. I feel that it kind of stalled the momentum Akane was building with the anime-only fandom, but that may be just me lol

However, what we need to pay attention to is how the anime handles certain scenes. The music cues. What they add, what they cut, what they change. Aka is the type to work very closely with the anime team and to give them information about the story in advance. So if they highlight certain scenes or make them more/less impactful than they were in the manga, it could mean something.

[minmin-pal]

I was floored when I searched jjba in the site I usually watch anime at and there were so many options, i kinda got confused but i found a 'watch order complete guide' so that's fixed but i never knew jjba didn't have that many fillers? apparently, all the ova's related to the story so it's recommended to not skip anything, excited to watch it tbh, long continuity types r a grind but the complex storylines are pretty rewarding when they finish im p sure, excited to see the animation too tbh

and ohh u both watched the prev seasons together? were you both able to understand the plot properly? (/genquestion/lyttheart) it never rlly occured to me that people watch anime 2gether since i usually rewind a lot (/lytheart) and oh wait, i'll make sure to hold off on reading the manga till after i finish watching the show then, ty for the warning :')! (/gen)

even though it got spoiled for you, i hope you were still able to enjoy stone ocean! (/gen) and yea i'm gonna need to agree, the character design for j geil is so wel-done it actually warrants an actual physical reaction from the audience (physical "yikes" from me lol), it really does fit his character or what i assume his characterization is meant to be xp does it make sense that the first time i saw his design i assumed his head was either: a rotten food or literal turd? idk haha(/lytheart) the art style definitely is dynamic and unique i can agree (/positive)

and ohh, using album song names as attack/power names is actually so clever, i don't know if i would've understood the reference until a few weeks but yeah it is deffo really smart(/gen) is there any other similar references like that? and woah, so kira is like a very plot relevant char (at least for those seasons im assuming) and oh part 1/2 are different from the others? looking forward to seeing how tbh but i'll find out when i watch that scene :D (/positive) a 'flaw' btw? i'm resisting the urge to find posts about it and watch for myself (/joke/lytheart) that sounds super cool

and i just searched for 'jjba part 4 rohan blue hair' scene, i don't know if i found it but i found some other scenes with different and p unique colorings. i'm really curious how they integrated that with the anime actually though i imagine it was around the fight scenes since those scenes typically have the most effects? and woah, his design definitely looks nice tbh, i don't know why but the bit about you saying "kinda cuz theyre pretty not bizarre (in comparison.)" reminds me of that one meme with the guy in yu-gi-oh w/ the normal hair as opposed to literally even in the series lol

and ohh, on rohan, i haven't seen many 'self-insert' type characters, at least not ones that have had good fandom reception?) but he does actually sounds really cool as a character from what you've said, i'm looking forward to seeing him carry the manga economy for a bit haha, that'd actually be a good promotion stunt now that i think abt it lol and yea no worries, ramblings r ver fun to read (/lytheart)

tbh i haven't seen much from csm aside from the makima memes and a fanart about one of the demon designs but it deffo looked very cool! and ohh, kobeni? she's a major character ryt? i never knew her name before but she looks super pretty tbh, and yay i'm glad you like her,! (/lh) i've heard the series gets kinda dark at some scenes? not sure about the specifics really, but from the scenes you've shown of him, denji's humor is pretty funny ngl xD and yikes for makima, idk anything about her tbh but if it's major spoilers i assume it's important to the story,, and yeah not liking her as a person is p understandable :'))

you've mentioned you read spyxfam and kimi ni koisuru satsujinki(found out the english trans is something like 'Killer In Love')? could I ask what you like about those? any scenes stuck out to you? liked and disliked chars maybe? (feel free to skip any questions btw!) slice of life is definitely a very fun genre tbh, is there maybe any anime/manga/whichever media that you don't particularly like maybe? or your just not that fond of? (random question so feel free to skip if you'd like to again btw) this got a tad long lol, sorry bout that! take care and thank you for answering the past few asks i've sent :D (/gen)

last bit- ur new pfp and banner looks super cool btw! is that kobeni? i just noticed the pins on her hair lol so i'm p sure, looks nice (/gen/lytheart) i was replying while reading the post btw so some bits from this myt not make 2 much sense--

YAYAYAYA the certified best way to watch it is to watch part 1 & 2 (phantom blood + battle tendency in the same like period of time?? like dont take a break after phantom blood ends (by break i mean stop watching for a month) then you watch 3, 4, then the rohan kishibe ova's. if ur in it for the fact its jojo id say to watch the anime ova version, then to watch the live action one later whenever you feel like it- its jojo but not art so it doesnt really pack that exact same punch after the ovas you watch part 5 and then 6 the one thing i'll say about jojo (other than every other thing ive said :D) is that araki does not give a fuck he WILL kill the characters you love and he will NOT feel sorry even the main character isnt safe i honestly would not reccommend reading past part 6's manga because part 7, 8 and 9? havent been animated yet the mangas just good to read because its the original you feel araki's like self in it (more) or whatever

(this is a Long one. like genuinely)

we both understood the plot really well jojo can be confusing, but.. almost... everything is eventually cleared up and its great also ,. the FORESHADOWING in this series is unreal. it does not exist thats how crazy it is /j

i still enjoyed stone ocean aswell i knew what happened but it still was like "w w o w that just happened" also it was the first time id seen cgi used in anime and it was super cool

the using song names for abilities stuff is like, really reoccuring i think almost every power after part 2 has some musical/tarot connection theres a lot more obvious (?) examples of this like "man in the mirror" named after the michael jackson song, or notorious b.i.g, or the one named metallica depending on the kind of music you like its more easier to pick up on the references

kira is VERY plot relevant. so plot relavant i insist you do not search him up at all it might be hard cuz ive been gassing him up but once you get there youll see why part 1/2 are different for a big reason which will become immediately clear 10 minutes into part 3 for that reason a lot of people say to skip the first two parts when starting but i just say No....? like. theyre plot relevant, they set the stage, and they bring in joseph and jonathan!!!! those guys are amazing and telling people to skip those part because what? cause its not like the rest is such a slap in the face them not being the same is the point!! part 1 and 2 are set way back like way back like with cowboys so theyre not going to have the stuff/ thing that made part 3 forward different because they just werent there technology wise!!! part 1 is such a charming part because jonathan is literally such a sweet heart like SUCH a sweetheart and part 2 is brought together by joseph and these other 2 characters (spoilers) plus part 1 is literally the most important season ever. i wont say why but. it is. season 3 only works because of the stuff it takes from 1 and 2, literally in show or just in like writing or art (as in the people from part 1 and 2, and the way the storys work) I AM RAMBLING.

uhhh rohans coloring switches and all or the big color changes like

that ^ aren't always cause of big scenes (though that one kinda is) thats whats cool about it though?!?!?!

honestly i think rohan started as a self insert but just became araki's favorite character which is so fun because its like no way a side-ish character got his own ova AND live action version hes just him (on the topic of the live action rohan ova--- i am SO glad they didnt make him. irl anime. becuz like whats the point then just watch the anime hes honestly just real rohan and its great they didnt make the actor dye his hair neon green or anything)

the devils in csm are super cool i love the designs cuz theyre. they re all so unique :DD i dont recall which but one of them really reminded me of like the collosal titan from aot (which is another show i really like) uhh you should def not search up ANYTHING having to with aot also like jojo its a series i watched with my brother :D he'd already watched it but he wanted to show it to me ANYWHP denji reminds me of joseph from jojo humor wise sorta. like ever so slightly (i kinda like denji more cuz hes just he makes me do that little throat laugh where you make no sound but you did definitely laugh

about sxf and killer in love it seems well ill staft with spy family but i love it because . found family is one of my favorite tropes ever ALSO LOID AND ANYA/ ANYA AND YOR'S RELATIONSHIPS R SO SWEET i have never awwed over fictional characters like i awwed over everyone in spy family

theyre so. :holding_back_tears:

i jus love how sweet it is. killer in love though i love for.... sorta the opposite reason i first liked it because the way the mc felt about this girl was just. really the same as how i feel about this.... one girl... ive mentioned her before i think so flatout i like it cuz i related to the mc but BUT hes kinda a serial murderer which is why i have to ask you to take everything i say with a grain of salt he is one flawed mc. like hes fucked actually hes mental but like.... i get it.... like i reread it and the entire time i was like yeah you do you bro i get it. ALSO ITS GENUINELY SO GREAT WRITING WISE AND VISUALLY it has no right being as pretty as it is visually like i censored the words cuz theyre spoilers but

its!! ITS SO its so prettyyyyy.... (also i really cant show where i relate to the mc-- cuz theyre spoilers aswell really but!! i can show you him

idk if itd register but he was ALWAYSS my layouts until really recently usually him and this one scene where he's holding a knife as the banner

for spy family i have no characters i hate honestly, but for killer in love i heavily dislike this one boy.

i dislike him so much... that i . dont remember his same

hes just not it if you read it youll see why theres another character like him,you actually meet him wayyy before this guy, and theyre both bad in the same way but the other guy is just so pathetic that i cant hate him. cause like i get it

uhhh i dont really like isekais or fanservice romance animes if its a romance anime and the main character is a brown haired boy, i 9/10 times skip it cuz theyre usually a miss the only isekai ive ever stomached is devil is a part timer and i just couldnt watch season 2 this one isnt particularly a genre but if the female interest looks 15 and has. double d's not that there arent girls built like that but if you cant make good female designs, you probably cant write a good story either (the only exception being one piece- but holy hell i cannot watch it. i know its great but what is. THIS?)

they all are the same girl and then you look at the male designs you get

are they from the same show????

another trope.. well design i hate and throws me off is Thigh Highlights. chest highlights. shoulder highlights. this one more applys to artists than anime honestly but 9 times out of ten if someone does little white highlights on their big breasted teenage looking characters chest they probably like little kids i have to say it 9/10 times they love children thats just how it is second i notice the shading like that i just cant trust them

also i dont mind how long it got dwdw im super glad you send these cause it always has me rethinking on stuff i like and forming newer opinions really :))

the new layout is kobeni!! im glad it looks nice to you :D (also the lengths okay with me.. usually t takes me a while to formulate everything so i go back and forth with drawing and continunt these... which is why some ideas might feel disconnected... everything made sense though) ive gotta like. give you a aname or something youre..... uhh idk if youd feel comfortable sharing so u are. uuh custard? :D

[a-bit-too-much-of-a-zelda-fan]

Well, I did it. Tonight three friends and I played through the first six levels of the game. It was a fantastic time. I don't know if I can properly express how happy it made me. But I'll try, below the cut.

See, I first got the Four Swords manga when I was probably 9 years old. I loved it so much that I got my parents to go on ebay and buy this game. I got to play the singleplayer just fine, but I never had a GBA, nor did I have any friends that had one. Despite wanting so desperately to play multiplayer, I never got to, until tonight. I'm going to stress the fact that I have spent most of my life wanting to play this game with friends.

So I'm going to talk about how it went. I'll just use the colors they played as their names. Blue was a little shit in the beginning, picking us up and just fucking with us. He mellowed out over the play session, but it felt so fucking good when he was docked a ton of points for being voted the most bothersome. He went absolutely ballistic during combat though, so he pulled his weight.

Red was a goofy li'l guy, mostly doing the right thing but getting a little scattered and just wanting to do his own thing sometimes. I said "Red, get over here," more than a few times. Especially toward the end, he started doing whatever he could to just kinda steal our force gems.

Vio, though? Vio was chill. He stayed on task, he got shit done, and he administered punishment for Red and Blue when they were being naughty. Consistently voted for me as the most helpful, and I mostly did likewise. He somehow managed to get most of the heart containers. I'm very aware of how these friends somehow mapped on to the manga characters pretty well.

Me? Well, I was Green, of course. I was the leader, keeping everyone on the right track, reigning in the chaos when I really needed to. I've played FSA all the way through just once, a couple years ago, and through the first five levels within the last few months. So I remembered the solution to most of the puzzles. I'm sure the dynamic will change slightly as we get farther into the game. It will be less "go here, this is what we're supposed to do" and more "I think this is what we're supposed to do, go there."

But the chaos of getting us to work together was so fucking fun, man. I'll follow up on this with a post about some of the... interesting game design of FSA, but basically, it was a wild time. It's also a completely different play experience from singleplayer. Having friends to laugh with as we went through it was so good. The banter, the teasing, everything. It was... it was just a really fun time. Exactly what I had wanted for all these years. I can't wait till I can have everyone back so we can do it again. Thanks, guys.

Oh yeah, it's Gamer Time. I have never played Four Swords Adventures in multiplayer mode, but I finally figured out how to emulate it and get my computer to run it without shitting itself. Time to get some friends over and have a fucking blast. Woo!

[sophiapathic]

Sk8: The Infinity - A Take on Love

Because my six unfinished assignments can wait until I throw this into the void, scream for five hours and after my voice gets hoarse, I resort to watching the beach episode on loop until next Saturday.

This was entirely sparked by the recap episode, which really pressed the reak havoc and theorize button in my brain. I am truly losing my grip on reality. Help. I apologize in advance, creatures of Tumblr. 

Me right now:

Anyways... 

I saw people mention here and there screaming that “we need canon relationships and they will get trust issues if a romance isn��t confirmed by the end of the series”. I think that mindset is harmful to have in this case. You can’t really avoid being disappointed if you get into the series expecting it to deliver on your wishes of gay romances. So, this might be controversial, but stay with me please. The anime and manga are both confirmed to be based primarily about the characters themselves and of course the sport -skating. I was hoping to take a closer look at what the series intends to do with certain dynamics and relationships according to yours truly. I also want explain my reasoning behind it not being queerbaiting, though it being inherently queer-coded, through the current lense of the canon.

Sk8: The Infinity is unquestionably a love story.

We need to state the genres this series is in, because some of us tend to forget. It is in fact not a shounen-ai, not a yaoi, not a romance, not even a josei. Say it with me it is a series in: COMEDY and SPORTS.

(Source is the official US Sk8 website.) The spotlight is udoubtedly on skating and what it means. Another important highlight of the show is how the definition of the sport relates to the characters, and how vastly different they are from what we expect. For example, when we see Shadow first, we pigeonhole him into this vulgar indecent rock and roll persona, only to find out later that he is actually a stweetheart at a flower shop. Joe is another very good case study. When we first see him we think of him as a womanizer muscle-head, later we find out he has a heart of gold and is very emotionally intelligent. We’re also quick to judge Miya as the cold, unfeeling prodigy then we discover how lonely and normal he is on the inside. And so on and so on. 

The show continues to defy our expectations of what each character should be like. In a way it is about breaking the conventional stereotypical roles we subconsciously assign to certain looks. We see that even in anime, multifaceted characters can exist without distrupting or damaging the delicate dynamics of a traditional sports anime. We successfully established the second focal point of the series as disproving stereotypes and presenting strong, diverse and unexpected personalities.

How about the defition of skating? What does it mean in the context of Sk8: The Infinity then? Where does a love story come into the picture? Skating is repeatedly described as a ritual of love within the anime, an idea that our villian, Ad*m, is obessed with. In a sense skating is a language of love canonically.

Then skating itself is love. Throughout the series we see varied styles of skating therefore different ways of expressing love, affection. We get to experience several metaphorical ways of “being in love” through characters skating with each other. Each dynamic shows us a type of love. Healthy, disfunctional, outright abusive. 

The way Reiki teaches Langa to skate can be interpreted as a direct metaphor for someone learning to love again after losing a person close to them. Langa’s father has died and Reiki literally brings him out of his shell again. It can also be interpreted as a queer kid’s experience of a world of romance that feels similar to his previous one, that being snowboarding, yet it still being new and different. Skateboarding. When due to Reiki Langa’s potential is discovered and his hunger for more and more develops, especially next to Ad*m, Reiki’s main frustration stems from them not being well-matched or on equal footing anymore. He feels like he cannot give Langa what he needs anymore. Which would obviously go againts the literal description of a healthy romance. Two people with mutual respect who both bring equal assets to the table. He feels like he needs to catch-up to be with Langa again. The only thing he doesn’t consider is Langa’s deep appreciation of him and the fact that literally he was the one who helped Langa experince the feeling of love again.

Kojiro and Kaoru’s relationships, to me, is very much representative of two people  wanting to be in each other’s presence, but due to their different language of love, miscommunicating horribly. Them bantering and insulting each other is the only way they know what to do with the other. The only way they can ensure the other’s attention and eyes are on them. This has worked so far. They are literal opposites, but both have a very clear definition of their form of love. To Joe skating, or love itself, is about the feeling and going with the flow. Being spontaneous. Whereas for Cherry, every move needs to be calculated and executed perfectly in order to be “efficient”. Their frustration comes from both wanting different things from the other, but not communicating their need properly. Despite this, they stick together due to a magnetic pull they obviously feel towards the other. The attraction is there, the trust is there, they are even well-matched in skill as we see them neck-to-neck constantly. They could give each other what the other wants. Only if they could express themselves well... This is why Joe pushes Reiki towards reconciling with Langa. he wants them to not fall into the same trap of not stating their  needs and thoughts properly.

Now Ad*m and Langa are obviously problematic and I don’t really want to have to explain, honestly guys. I really don’t  (since I have trauma regarding this subject), but I need to go into this a little bit. This is a textbook toxic predatory relationship. Where the older, twisted, damaged person, has an obsession with a young, outstading child. He wants to lead him into “Paradise” and show his “Eve” what love is really about. (Ain’t that disgusting you guys...) His form of love is inflicting pain, so I really can’t imagine a scenario where he and his “Eve” live happily ever after and everything is fine and dandy. He needs someone who he can torture. He literally is looking for someone who can handle his way of expressing affection, his “love hug”, who has the same type of crazy eyes for adrenaline and danger. His Eve. In his distorted mind, this all makes sense and Langa is that someone he was looking for thoughout the years. The problem is, he disregards Langa’s side where the relationship becomes problematic.

Cherry and Ad*m during their younger years seems to be a very innocent infatuation on Kaoru’s end. It is a one-sided relationship where someone is in love with the idea of a person long gone. They were discovering the world of skating, or the world of love together with Ad*m taking the lead. Cherry immediately became infatuated with him, wanted to learn his love language, wanted to be at the same level he was. It probably started very innocent. At first, Ad*m being gentle, because that’s how Tadashi was with him too, then after whatever happened between those two, Ad*m, disappointed in the way of love, or skating, Tadashi showed him, returned to what his aunts taught him. Maybe after injuring Kaoru with the “love hug”, therefore eliminating him from being his potential partner, started looking for his “Eve”, gradually became more agressive in love as in skating. Kaoru was distraught and wanted the Ad*m he originally learned love from back. Holding out some hope even years after. Trained to get used to his “love hug”, to literally condition himself to be able to get close to him. Ad*m, however showed Cherry brutally that he truly cannot handle his way of love.

Ad*m and Tadashi. *sighs* As of this post, I don’t really have enough information to give you a good overview of what I see this relationship representing. As far as I can tell Ad*m was abused horribly and to ease the pain and make him forget, Tadashi showed his another way of expressing affection. Skating or love. Basically a first love gone horrible bad, scarring an already abused child and turning them into a monster. Tadashi himself reinstates this during one of the episodes. It was his fault that Ad*m turned out the way he did. Their love slowly became strongly abusive throughout the years. Tadashi is stuck in it because he feels like he deserves it. This is a metaphor for  dangers of an emotionally and physically abusive relationship, where one person feels responsible and the other is using power. Tadashi’s guilt keeps him next to his master and he even endures abuse, now he is trying to break out and show Ad*m he messed up and I think this could potentially be a good representation of how difficult that process truly is. 

As far as Reiki’s, Miya’s, Shadow’s skating goes. Their main arc relating to love is first and foremost learning to accept themselves and aprecciating their uniqe way and style of skating. Only after can they become people who can truly be accomplished in love/skating (in Miya’s case I’m obviously talking about platonic feelings). Each of them had a preconception of their persona in love/skating, which gets questioned heavily throughout the series. Miya gets defeated, Shadow’s soft side gets discovered, Reiki... well. I get sad. :c Even though he taught someone to love again, to appreciate life again, he ended up discovering how dissatisfied he truly is with himself... These three all need to learn to love every aspect of themselves to reach fulfillment and to really experience healthy human relationships.

Sk8: The Infinity is unquestionably a love story, without explicitly being a romance, meaning that it is a tale about love, both romantic, platonic and everything inbetween through a queer-coded lens, showing both dysfunctional, abusive and healthy relationships, ways to express emotions and even delves into self-love and the idea of nature versus nurture in the villian’s case.

That is why I, personally don’t scream for a canon couple. To me, the show gets its main point about affection and love across, without making any of these relationships explicitly stated. Not to mention that it does justice to both of its assigned genres. Comedy and Sports as well. Yeah sure, I wouldn’t complain, but I think these dynamics are more than satisfying to watch, and much deeper than bishounens wanting to bang each other, which is, in my opinion, inherently sexualized. If they want, yeah they can confirm, make it canon without forcing it to be a center storyline. Hell, I would even be happy about it. I would clap with all of us. BUT, as the series currently is, I really see it taking the other route because of the above. This way audiences who want a yaoi or ikemen going at it, won’t be disappointed with the series when they find doesn’t revolve around that, straight viewers will just find it flamboyant, and people who look for subtext and want to read between the lines will certainly do that with the amount of crumbs and hints the writers gave us. 

We don’t need outright, written in black and white gay representation in Sk8 to experience very real types of love. The queer theme is secondary to me, just like queerness is, in most people’s lives. Yeah sure, it is a big thing, but not the only attribute a person has. My life doesn’t revolve around my queerness. I rarely talk about it. If I was a main character this would be a side-arc. Just like Sk8 doesn’t revolve around the characters coming out. It’s just them living their lives and possibly being queer while doing so. If you look at it this way, it is almost normalizing attraction between same-sex people by just showing it as regular love. If you can, why not interpret it this way, so it can be a liberating experience instead of a disappointing one.

Please don’t attack me! I am fragile and this is only my opinion. c:  *crawls back into her hole*

[redrobin-detective]

I still know nothing about Kaito Kid and Conan except what I see through you. BUT. The recent post about Conan not discovering Kaito Kid because he can—play? With Kid? Not in a manipulative way, but in a “I can genuinely just enjoy this, and not keep up a facade or worry about innocents dying.” It’s giving me Emotions. Does Kid reciprocate in a “this kid is brilliant, but not malicious“? Can he genuinely play a bit with Conan, or is his mission too important?

Yup! It’s one of the reason the dynamic between the two is so much fun (and is covered extensively in fanfiction). Both Shinichi and Kaito are very competitive, ridiculously high intelligent people who feel bored by every day life. It’s why Shinichi chases after murderers and Kaito does his death defying stunts. Though they’re on opposite sides of the law, they have a mutual respect for the other Kaito respects Conan’s intellect, boldness and tenacity while Conan in return respects Kid’s physical and mental abilities and his strict adherence to non-violence. Heists are a challenge for Kaito to outwit Conan while Conan gets a mental workout without worrying about bodies.

This ask made me go back in the manga and categorize some of their interactions so I’ll put that under the read more if anyone is interested!

This is from the first meeting, Conan initially dismissed a common thief but the complexity of Kid’s note intrigued him enough that he staked out a building to confront him. Look at how excited his stupid little face is.

 (I just love this shot, look at that art) A legendary rivalry begins here! Kid is confident, not worried and Conan clearly has no idea what to make of this thief is bold white.

Kid’s still playful, confident but clearly this child is more than he appears. Kid gets away and, Conan, who hadn’t expected much out of him, now puts his brain into high gear which results in this delightful exchange a few days later when Kid stole the Black Star Pearl.

Here’s Conan finally acknowledging Kid’s skills as a thief and disguise artist (That’s Kid impersonating Ran, Conan’s unofficial big sister and Shinichi’s love interest. There’s a lovely line in the anime stating that Kid chose that disguise as his own challenge to Conan). Note that in their first meeting Conan is very determined to capture and jail the thief for his crimes. Kid is also forced to acknowledge Conan as a threat. Its stated at the end of the chapter that he had to swim to shore since Conan cut off his escape. Both thief and detective leave the encounter interested in their own way.

This is their second meeting. Kid’s clearly got his eye on Conan, waiting to see what he’ll do meanwhile Conan is actively looking for ways to unravel the trick and take in the thief. I made another post a while back about how much bolder Kaito, the second Kid is compared to his father, the first because Conan egged him on in a way.

but when he does figure out the trick! Look at that compliment of Kid’s talent for magic and misdirection. He’s still focused on capture but there’s a genuine respect building.

Kid makes his getaway but Conan tags along. They’ve progressed to the witty bantering stage of their rivalry. Conan is waiting for a good moment to tranquilize Kid but they’re able to playfully debate philosophy. Much different than even their last meeting. Also in some translations, Kid notes that he’d hoped Conan would come to this heist indicating that he too enjoys the thrill of the close chase. He’s so good that few people provide a good challenge, until Conan came along.

Next heist, Haibara calls Conan out for his open enthusiasm but you can clearly see how intrigued Conan is by Kid’s magic. Boy can’t wait to ruin his rival’s day and expose his trick on live TV.

Look at that smug smile

Kid used a stungun on Conan at this heist so Conan kicks a soccer ball at him which also tags him so the police can identify him. They’re both clearly having fun. It’s not just about the mission now, it’s a physical and mental chess match between two masters. Conan also acts less and less like a child around Kid, showing off his more serious, adult personality either out of trust or just losing himself to the game.

At the Ryoma Heist we start to see a slight shift in dynamic. Conan still unraveled the trick, chased after Kid but he’s able to talk casually and even lets the thief go without a fuss. He claims its because Kid helped uncover counterfeiters but that’s semantics. They’re slowly edging away from rivals and closer to friends. They also both give up a bit of personal information about their mothers despite how closely the two of them play their secrets close to their chest. Shinichi plays pretty fast and loose with his secret here but he knows Kid isn’t going to talk.

Kid even actively helps Conan keep Haibara safe from the Black Organization (the series big bads) risking his own life and identity. Look at them bicker, just like old friends. We see Conan again acknowledge Kid’s skills and Kid bitching at Conan for dragging him into his bullshit. This is the first time outside the Iron Tanuki affair where we see them on the same side and, you know, they make a pretty good team. 

He lets Kid go at the Blush Mermaid Heist a few days later as thanks for the above bullshit though he steps aside when Sera (who’s face Kid stole for the disguise) high kicks him in the face which was some well deserved poetic justice. Conan doesn’t even pretend to apprehend Kid at this point.

They know each other by this point, Conan has something of a sixth sense when Kid is watching him. 

Kid as well is able to read his favorite critic’s face and know that his brilliant mind is making deductions and getting closer to the truth. And he’s smirking about it, he calls Conan a “critic” in their first appearance but he clearly likes watching the boy work either out of respect for the skill or just because someone can finally keep up with him.

Look at how playful and casual this interaction is, a far cry from their first meeting. Conan is comfortable enough to all but reveal his identity of teen detective, Kudo Shinichi (his most closely guarded secret) and Kid is acknowledging that he too is on the hunt for a specific gem which he usually doesn’t advertise. Conan lets Kid go without issue and Kid is pretty upfront about what he’s doing. Their posture is relaxed and they have smiles on their faces, they could easily be old friends.

It’s not a normal relationship by any means but these aren’t normal boys. It makes me wonder how they would even interact outside of a heist since they’re both so open with each other and yet there’s so much in between them. I always say Detective Conan and Magic Kaito are two sides of the same coin. If only Gosho would stop teasing us with these interactions and have the two of them team up properly.

[icy-blue-rose]

You know, I think what gets me the most about 2.43 seiin koukou danshi volley-bu, is that like, I've seen and read multiple sports anime/manga, or even just regular anime/manga, that start out with, well, a conflict or falling out between two major characters in the story (or sometimes even a random side character to add some backstory depth)

But my problem with so many of these conflicts, probably stems from 2 things.

1. The conflict is usually presented in past tense, like we dont even learn about the falling out until later and its through flashbacks.

And like dont get me wrong, this is done well and a great way to do these arcs dont get me wrong.

But they are like, always like this.

2.the falling out is usually always seen from the perspective of the "pure" protagonist or the one who was "hurt the most" by this conflict.

Essentially these falling outside and conflicts are almost always seen through the eyes of the one who isnt at fault or "has the least amount of blame" for said falling out.

And I hate it sometimes.

Keyword sometimes lol.

But really, and the odd time you get the story from the one who is "at fault" you know the dark edgy brooding one.

The conflict is almost always caused by their own internal/external problems, which often leads to-

A misunderstanding with pure character.

(Which can either cause pure chara to do/say something that WORSENS the other characters internal or other sort of conflict causing the falling out/fight.)

Or the pure character just misunderstood everyone and failed to communicate with the other character properly.

(There are plenty of other examples but I'm to lazy to write them)

And while it definetly adds depth to the characters, often times it's just eh.

Not because this way of writing these arcs is bad per-say, but because the lack of connection you have with it.

Due to the fact that these arcs are usually shown in past tense, and through only 1 characters eyes, you feel bad about the incident but you dont really, emotionally react to it you know?.

But then, suddenly, a sports anime with too much power came into being.

2.43 seiin koukou danshi volley-bu

Now this show had 2 (3 as of tomorrow) episodes, and an awesome novel being kindly translated by *seiin-translations* so if you want to consume another form of the story while waiting for new episodes highly recommend reading the novel.

Anyways-

The series quite literally starts you off with the conflict arc.

Which I actually wasnt expecting.

You are there during this conflict, you see it up close, you are experiencing the whole (or at least some of the whole) of the conflict first hand.

It's being set up right before your eyes, its painful and feels so angsty.

And the best part? There is no "pure" character filter being put on it.

Its two complex characters who suck at communication who are both genuinly at fault for what happened, while one may be more at fault than the other, it lies with them both.

It's a genuine painful, hurtful breakup, and you FEEL IT.

It wont be all better the next day, you can sense it.

This is the big turning part for their dynamic and relationship and how everything will develop.

It feels so fresh but really, it just WORKS with hooking you.

You, the reader/watcher experienced the conflict and breakup first hand.

You feel connected and invested and genuinly want to see then resolve things. You want to see the new dynamic this incident will create and that's so huge for me tbh.

Because alot of series fail to hook me with their flashback conflict arcs.

There are many I love, that are well written or even just genuinly enjoyable to read.

However, I very rarely see an arc like this, written how it's written and I absolutely adore it.

This is like a super pointless ramble at 1am, however I stand by my opinions on this and really think people should give the series a chance, even if it's just for how they handle the "conflict" arc.

[innovativestruggles]

Daisuke & Suzue’s Relationship - A Consolidation Post

Hey gang, so given that we have 2 episodes left and absolutely zero idea as to what Daizue’s relationship is, I have decided to put together a spectrum of information. A lot of the stuff I am posting here have already been speculated to some degree, but it is nice to have it all in one big post where you can see what’s been gathered so far.

When I write about speculations, I always base everything on canonical evidence. Of course, there will be elements of personal bias and opinions intermeshed within, but I will try and separate facts from opinions as much as possible so that you can also draw your own conclusions.

For the purpose of this post, I will exclude all novel content, considering the anime is vastly different from the novel. I will start with the OP and work my way towards Episode 9. Originally I was going to wait until Episode 10 to complete this post, but I decided that it probably wouldn’t matter, considering Daizue’s relationship may not be revealed until Episode 11 and they most likely would be focusing on the battle with Shigemaru in Episode 10 rather than delve any deeper into Daizue’s relationship.

WARNING: This is a long post

The Opening

I want to look at this from the perspective of a complete newbie, who has zero knowledge of the novel or what the fandom is speculating. When looking solely at the OP, this is how it is seen;

1. Suzue is a beautiful character who is heavily sexualised

2. The show centres around a handsome rich boy with unlimited money

3. Selling the idea of sassy detective work

Suzue plays the perfect Bond girl trope. From the way she is shown in the OP in lingerie, to being tied to Daisuke’s car, to being bridal carried at the very end. As a newbie watching this OP, all I see is, hot rich guy and his hot, sexy, gorgeous sidekick woman whom he develops a sexual relationship with. 

If we all take a step back and just see the bigger picture, anyone, including non-anime watchers, who look at this OP would immediately associate Daisuke and Suzue as some sort of couple/love interests or two characters with immense sexual tension. There is no doubt about that.

So what am I trying to say here? Well, it is clear as day that the FKBU creators were deliberate in the way they showcased Daizue’s relationship. The OP is a foreshadow of what is to come or it implies the way the entire show is set out. 

But y’know...to me, the biggest foreshadow was that bridal carry!

Oops...wrong one...I meant this one below 😏

Episode 2

We are skipping Episode 1 as Suzue did not debut until Episode 2.

1. Suzue’s introduction She introduced herself as Suzue Kambe. That was it. Normally, whether it be in an anime or manga, a person would introduce themselves and their relationship (whether directly or indirectly), to another character. This was deliberately left out to keep viewers guessing.

2. Daisuke’s non-existent response Daisuke did not elaborate on his relationship with Suzue. Remember when Haru said something along the lines of “a woman with black hair entered this building,” to which Daisuke replied “woman with black hair you say?” There was no further explanation of who Suzue was to him or how they knew each other, or what sort of relationship they have.

3. Haru’s question was diverted When Haru asked Suzue, “who the hell are you?” Suzue’s response was “I’ve been following Daisuke’s orders...” Again, no further elaboration/explanation. The question was also diverted and she did not properly answer his question.

4. Haru’s assumption Haru made the assumption, as we found out in Episode 4, that Suzue and Daisuke are married. But this was not explored at the time in Episode 2. Again, another deliberate attempt to conceal information, considering we did not even get to see Haru’s assumption of Daizue’s relationship at the time.

5. Suzue’s use of Daisuke’s name No use of nii-san or nee-chan to indicate a sibling relationship and no honourifics were used. The interesting thing here was, Suzue was shown to drop the honourifics from Daisuke’s name in only this episode. Whether it was a mistake or a deliberate attempt to drip feed viewers information at the time, we don’t know. But let’s just say it was a deliberate attempt on the creators part - it needs to make sense. What I’m trying to say here is that Suzue should be in a relationship close enough to Daisuke to be able to drop the honorific but also be in a professional/lower position to continue addressing him with ‘sama.’ So in essence, Daisuke and Suzue’s relationship is most likely more complex than meets the eye.

6. Suzue’s professionalism Daisuke and Suzue’s relationship is too formal and professional to be considered to be some kind of sibling/family/close relative situation. Suzue works for Daisuke. That is the end point. She follows his every instructions and obeys all his orders. Even if she were a Kambe, she has to be a very, very, very distant relative to even submit to that level of obedience. If she were a closer relative but of a lower ranking than Daisuke’s family, there is absolutely no way she would be put in such a subservient position (more on this later).

Based on the 6 above points, personally, what I see is a deliberate attempt to create drama amongst fans lmao! But jokes aside, you cannot take it on face value that they are just relatives (or siblings at the time when it was first released) because as you can see, there are so many clues in this episode alone that does not make any sense.

Episode 3

Suzue only made a brief appearance here but I’d like to add a couple things.

1. Grandma’s focus on Daisuke Grandma barely acknowledged Suzue, and given that Suzue herself is a Kambe, I find this incredibly odd. Grandma was very focused on Daisuke, from his work relationship to his behaviour, and Suzue was...ignored.

2. Grandma explicitly stated to Haru about Daisuke that she is “his grandma” This piece of information was only available in the English subtitles. Remember that in Japanese language, there is no ‘his’ or ‘her.’ It is gender neutral. But I take it that the subtitles are official subtitles which gave us a bit more of a clue into Daizue’s relationship. We know at this stage here that Grandma is only Daisuke’s grandma and not Suzue’s.

With the above 2 points, if Suzue were a sibling or a closer relative, there would be more focus on her too. And I know the show is about Daisuke and Haru, so why would Suzue get any attention? But precisely this is the reason! Because the show centres a lot around the Kambe family conflict and you would think Suzue would be more involved in this conflict if she were closely related. But she is not involved. To me, this just screams outsider. Poor Suzue.

Episode 4

Alright, here we go on this roller coaster episode. 

1. Suzue addressed Daisuke as ‘Daisuke-sama.’ Kudos to know this because no bloody sibling would say this shit to their elder sibling. So that theory has been written off long ago now. 

Anyways I’d like to point out that there are times where lower members of a family, known as ‘branch’ families, would address the head family with polite honourifics. It’s quite rare nowadays in modern Japan, but in saying that, richer more exclusive families may still tend to do this and some still fight over the title of head of family. So in essence, anyone who succeeds as head of family (together with their immediate family) will obviously be addressed with polite honourifics. 

Just to let you know, branch families can either be closer relatives or very, very distant relatives (so distant that it is negligible they are related to the head family). We don’t know how big the Kambe family is and what the dynamics are like when it comes to the next successor. The bigger the family, the more likely members will want to fight over the title for head of family - usually once when the current head of family and their immediate family are all dead. What I’m trying to point out here is that Suzue may well still be a relative (I’m not gonna deny that during this first point I’m making), considering the above explanation I just made.

2. Daisuke did not elaborate on the type of relative Suzue was to him Another obvious one here. The creators love playing games with the viewers. The fact that Daisuke did not elaborate on his relationship with Suzue was a huge red flag. In the sense that we do not know whether Suzue is a close relative, a distant relative, married into the Kambe family or adopted. The creators are still keeping the viewers guessing!

3. Daisuke’s body language and expression This may be more opinionated base, but you can make judgements for yourself by rewatching the scene again. When Daisuke tells Haru that Suzue is a relative, there was almost a stilted, discomforting demeanour, as if he did not want to discuss the topic. This was heavily exacerbated and reinforced by his tone of voice, which may indicate he could be hiding something?

4. Haru’s assumption that Daisuke and Suzue are married Considering the fandom thinks Daizue look so similar, Haru clearly didn’t. So on his end, they looked more like husband and wife than siblings or relatives..

5. Suzue’s infatuation with Daisuke It was too obsessive. Lovey dovey and just ... plain questionable. I mean, Suzue could still be a relative and do this but the way it was set up was very jarring. As in, Suzue displays a sense of professionalism and obedience towards Daisuke that screams master and servant - not infatuation. 

Normally in anime shows where a character is infatuated over another, there isn’t that simultaneous level of professionalism displayed between the characters. So whether the character is a relative or not, it would be believable. But in Suzue’s case, professionalism + infatuation + relative does not make any sense to me. Also, Do NOT confuse loyalty with professionalism! They are two separate things. Suzue displays both! Characters you see in other anime may display loyalty and infatuation. The biggest incongruence to me with regards to Suzue is the infatuation and professionalism!

From something like this...

To something like this...

6. Suzue attended to Daisuke’s everyday needs Honestly if this wasn’t the most jarring thing, I seriously don’t know what was. I swear, not even the lowest member of a branch family would attend to a head family’s every day needs like a servant/maid. It makes no sense. Considering Daisuke is rich enough to have multiple maids that could attend to his every day needs, and that his butler Hattori could probably do what Suzue does, I do not understand the need for Suzue to do all these personal things for Daisuke.

7. The anime creators deliberately did this episode in a way that would confuse fans even more When you add: Daisuke saying “Suzue is a relative” + Suzue’s weird infatuation + addressing Daisuke with ‘sama’ = you are going to get the biggest explosion of confusion. 

It almost felt like the creators wanted to balance things out for the viewers. That is, “I want Daisuke to say Suzue is a relative, but I also don’t want the viewers to think she is a relative either.” There you go, they nailed it with this episode.

8. Daisuke cooked for Suzue At first I didn’t think much of this scene other than Daisuke’s weird way of making up to Suzue for being petulant LOL. But then I thought about how Grandma and butler were just standing there, uninvited to eat food made by Daisuke...it just goes to show that Daizue’s relationship runs a lot deeper than meets the eye. More important than Grandma that is for sure.

Episodes 5 and 6

Suzue did not make much of an appearance in these two episodes, but what I continued to see was the undying loyalty and continued professional relationship between Daisuke and Suzue. Despite Suzue’s injury in Episode 5, she continued to assist Daisuke (or tried to) in a manner that screams ‘I am forever your servant. Ask and ye shall receive’ kinda vibe LOL 

When she knows Daisuke is safe, Suzue keeps her cool, calm demeanour and powers on with the professionalism, but that weird infatuation kicks in otherwise... what an odd relationship they have...

Episode 7

1. The lack of Suzue in the family photos No Suzue could be seen in the family album. And yes, some people pointed out the baby in the ‘pink’ onesie was Suzue. Could be. But highly doubt it. Someone mentioned that the onesie used to be red but faded over time to a pinkish colour because it has been more than 27 years. That’s also a plausible explanation. Tbh, that entire photo album just screamed Daisuke.

2. All other photos pointed to the fact that Daisuke was raised as an only child No Suzue present or any indication that she was there at the time those photos were taken

Episode 8

Oh boy, the fun episode LOL

1. You can try and see it both ways here.

a. Suzue was just trying to warn Daisuke about HEUSC. That was all. Nothing else.

b. Definitely fanservice. Suzue could have done this in so many other ways. It was obviously a deliberate part on the creators’ side to bring forth a sexually suggestive scene that really further questions Daizue’s relationship. And the way they zoomed in on certain features (yeah we love their lips almost touching and Suzue’s ass in the air whilst her legs were pressed in between Daisuke’s) perhaps suggested something more explicit between the two (or implied to be in the future), but then again, the zooming in of their lips could just emphasise HEUSC’s ability to lip read rather than anything sensual. But ya know, I reckon it probably was both. 

Again, this whole scene puts more question marks on their relationship as to ‘What kind of relatives are they?’ or ‘Are they really relatives?’ or ‘What is their true relationship?’

**

Zooming in on Suzue moving her ass and legs in between Daisuke was completely unnecessary unless they are implying something sexual. Yeah goodbye.

This was obviously more necessary to describe HEUSC’s ability to lip read...but the way it was zoomed in and emphasised between them...

2. The creators made Haru see Daizue walk out the room A hugely obvious attempt at forwarding Daizue’s relationship. I mean, putting Haru in that position completely threw the spanner in the works. He was obviously informed by Daisuke that Suzue “is just a relative,” yet he saw them walk out from Daisuke’s bedroom looking all...well...looking like they just had the most amazing time in there. 

Even though it was obvious to us viewers what Haru was thinking, we were never shown Haru questioning the situation in relation to ‘Wait a minute, didn’t Daisuke say she was a relative? What the f did I just see then?’ We don’t get that point of view from Haru so we don’t know what he was speculating in relation to their relationship. I mean, Haru could just be as confused as we were! The only advantage Haru got over us viewers was that he could have just asked them for more clarity around their relationship. Clearly he was just being too polite lmao

3. Daizue did not attempt to clarify the situation I mean, unless they were both stupid and seriously thought Haru wouldn’t think they got up to no good, despite it being so clear as day that Haru thought otherwise, they did not say anything. Again, another deliberate part on the creators’ side to create further confusion. They really like making Daizue keep their mouths shut when it comes to anything to do with their relationship backstory...

**

The creators went one step further and made Daisuke adjust his shirt. LOLOL

And even further by making Suzue’s hair all messy and dishevelled...

4. Suzue mentioned ‘your father and mother’ to Daisuke when discussing HEUSC Big red flag here that would completely forever bury the sibling theory. It sounds to me that Daisuke and his family are very separate from Suzue.

Episode 9

We are in the present now!

1. Daisuke tells Grandma that only the Kambe family, that is, he himself and Grandma, could infiltrate the system This may imply that Suzue is not a true Kambe or she may have been adopted into the family. It would also help discredit the theory that she may be a lower ranking member of the Kambe family/a branch family of the Kambe. It may also imply that Daisuke may have been hiding something from Haru about Suzue when he said ‘Suzue is a relative’ or he was outright lying.

Other materials

Their appearances

On surface level, they do have some similarities but if you look a bit closer, their eye colour is different (Daisuke’s is a deep blue and Suzue’s is more violet), hair colour is different (Daisuke’s is more black and Suzue’s is more charcoal) and eye and eyebrow shape are different. Tbvh, if they made Suzue’s eye and hair colour completely different, you would see the contrast more. It’s just that the creators deliberately designed the two this way to evoke more confusion.

Concluding opinion: It is obvious to me that the creators are drip feeding us information about Suzue. Here with this post, even when analysing it on a spectrum, I gathered two things from it over time.

a) Suzue is not a blood relative

b) The relationship between Daisuke and Suzue is a lot more complex

Just remember that Daisuke trusts Suzue with his life. So the level of mutual understanding and trust between the two is incredibly profound.

Again, these are all very speculative and a lot of the fandom have garnered their own information over the course of the episodes. This is what I (and a lot of DaiSuzu fans) have dissected so far. 

Although the entire show is centred around Daisuke and Haru and their detective work with regards to the Kambe family, I feel like Daizue’s relationship is like that mini side story. Whether they will delve into it or not in the next two episodes is anyone’s guess really. As I said earlier, if anything, the reveal would most likely occur at the very end of Episode 11.

Anyways, share your thoughts and feel free to refute! But PLEASE, be respectful.

P. S. I will keep adding to this if I think of more stuff. It’ll be part of a new “edit section.” I’ll just reblog it so people can see it easier!

[rwbyconversations]

The Scarlet Letter: Let’s talk about RWBY’s male LGBT rep

I have been sitting on this post for nearly four weeks waiting until the 15th due to the Before the Dawn spoiler rules.

So let's start with a blunt statement: RWBY's male LGBT representation has not been good. If the series' handling of female LGBT rep is good (which... well there's worse shows) and the general standard for how you write LGBT characters in a show like this, its handling of male rep has been... how not to. And Before the Dawn kinda solidified the idea in my head that the show's handling of its male LGBT cast just isn't good enough, either by the standards of when RWBY began in 2013, or today in 2020 when compatively massive steps have been taken over the past decade to show a more diverse list of characters... or at least a more diverse list of female characters.

I don't wanna make this a pissing match over how over-or-under-represented male or female LGBT characters are, but I feel like it's safe to say that the majority of the trend-setters for modern romances, especially in western animation, have been between women. Korra and Asami from Korra, Chloe and Max from Life is Strange, Marceline and Bubblegum in Adventure Time, (insert the relevant Steven Universe characters here, never watched it), and more recently, Adora and Catra in She-Ra and Luz in Owl House.

Compatively, while studies have shown that in general male LGBT characters get more appearances on a purely numerical level, in general they're more one-off characters there to pad a roster, or played more for comedy (see Josh Gad in the Beauty and the Beast remake or the gay guy in Avengers Endgame that was more notable for how hard China and Russia snapped him out of existance). The only big male-LGBT focused media I can think of from the last decade would be Yuri On Ice, Moonlight, IDW's Transformers: More Than Meets The Eye (Chromedome/Rewind best pairing fuck you Roberts for issue 16) Love Simon, and the anime adaptation of Banana Fish.

So it's no surprise that RWBY basically follows these ideas. It's big romance is (unless the writers are very stupid) going to be between Blake and Yang, their first out character was Ilia, Coco got sent to the Book Dimension where she confirmed "I use my sunglasses to perv on women without their knowledge" which uh... yeah you can definitely tell RWBY is written by men... and Volume 6 had Saph and Terra being a good example of an LGBT couple without any real drama. In the last three years alone, the show has drastically increased its lesbian and bisexual characters, alongside even including its first out trans character in May Marigold (albeit only revealed on Twitter). In general, these depictions of sexuality have been pretty OK. Would have liked it if Ilia wasn't immediately written out of the show after Volume 5 as it made her feel a bit more disposable than intended but whatever, subject for another day.

RWBY's male rep though is a bit spottier. There's the plant bois in Volume 5's premiere, we nearly had Pilot Boi until some last-minute revisions, and... Scarlet.

Why Scarlet's a bad launchpad for male LGBT rep

I don't like Scarlet or how his sexuality has been handled. Scarlet's homosexuality wasn't revealed in the show, or by the writers, or even in anything that's actually canon. He's confirmed gay in his sole of dialogue in a non-canon fan anthology, where the manga's Twitter team had to say that Miles suggested the idea and approved of it.

In short, Scarlet is Dumbledore'd, where his sexuality is revealed in out-of-show material and in a way that doesn't make it supremely obvious (Miles himself never commented to confirm this so this news was limited in how far it could spread. I'm genuinely curious how many people still don't know Scarlet's gay), and Scarlet himself is a nothing character who was written out of the show after Volume 3 and only reappeared in Before The Dawn, half a decade after he vanished. Compared to Ilia, as this came out after Ilia's entire arc in Volume 5, it's not a great starting point for mlm rep. But things would have been forgiven if it had gotten better, if the show did have more male LGBT characters introduced, even just on the Saphron/Terra level of just being around for a few episodes before leaving. Then it would have been a misfire but then we could all say "Things got better."

It... didn't. Which is why when Before the Dawn released in 2020, a full two years after Scarlet was first confirmed gay, while the franchise had more than doubled its wlw rep, Scarlet remained the one male character in the entire franchise who had a name and liked men. I remember vividly a fake leak for After The Fall which claimed Yatsuhashi would come out to Velvet and admit to having a crush on Fox. And I remember as well how many people were disappointed when it was said to be false, because it would have been nice for Yatsuhashi's character, especially after the fleshing out he gets in the CFVY books. If Yatsu had come out as gay in the books I'd like his writing enough to say he's a good case for rep, albeit with the caveat of "This is all in side material." But in reality, the leak was fake and Coco was confirmed gay instead.

Unfortunately, Before the Dawn proceeded to ruin Scarlet and made me at times feel genuinely uncomfortable as a queer man! Let's talk about that.

Before The Dawn is crap and Scarlet's writing is borderline offensive

I hate Before the Dawn. It's... bad. I read it while on a vacation and the only solace I had about the entire thing was that I'd bought an M&M chocolate bar. The bar was finished before the book. That bummed me out. It's not a very well written book, the prose is very Early 2010s YA Writer, none of the characters are memorable and there's various Fun Incidents like "NGDO using children as bait for Grimm," and "Neptune's hydrophpobia being used as a threat to torture him and the scene is played for comedy."

Theo was cool. I can't wait to see him as written by good writers, he should be a highlight of the Vacuo arc.

I had two hopes for Before the Dawn- "Don't be bad," and "Let Scarlet and Sage be well written." I'd liked how After The Fall had handled some of its characters (barring, y'know, Coco perving on women), especially Fox and Yatsu who were surprising in how much I liked them. I was looking forward to seeing Myers give Sage and Scarlet similar treatment- two relatively nothing characters meant he'd have a blank slate to write them however he wanted, he could give them unique personalties and if nothing else it could be cool to see their Semblances.

And then I read the book. (Sage fans I am so sorry for you, you got baited harder than Johnlock fans)

Scarlet's a giant dickhead in the book. It's his sole character trait and his inner monologues go on, and on, and on about how much he hates Sun, how he revels in mocking him. Most of his dialogue is sarcastic put-downs about Sun and how lame he is, and Sun is never properly allowed to defend himself or point out how going with Blake meant he was able to help save Haven Academy.

(hey remember when Sun in Volume 6 expressly says to Blake "I was a bad leader for ditching Neptune and the others, and I need to work on that" only for Before the Dawn to have him staunchly refuse to accept that he let the team down? I don't think Myers did but I do)

Scarlet being a ratty bitch would be one thing if, again, the franchise had done more rep. He'd still be a badly written character, but it wouldn't sting as much. But because Scarlet is still the only expressly confirmed male LGBT character in canon (the book teases that Nolan is gay but there's never confirmation either way beyond him smiling at Scarlet), it means that he has to represent that entire ideal. So when the one gay man in Remnant is being an asshole and a snide loser, that means that by extension, this is how the franchise sees gay men. And that fucking sucks! I wanted to come out of Before The Dawn singing its praises, I wanted to like the book, but it was a massive letdown, especially coming off of the other big 2020 RWBY controversy involving gay characters.

Yeah. We're doing this.

Clover and Fair Game: Technically not queerbaiting. BUT:

Let's pre-empt this: Clover wasn't queerbaiting, and Fair Game, while cool and I dig it, kudos to them for becoming one of the top 5 RWBY pairings on AO3 in one year that's fucking impressive (I say with mild malice as an IronQrow main), never had a chance. The writing never seriously boosted it barring one interaction which was flirty (them talking in the lobby of the Schnee Manor), and everything else was out of show boosting through the social media teams and CRWBY hyping it themselves by saying they liked it. If you wanna blame people, blame the animators who went off-script with stuff like Kim Newman adding the wink as a deliberate nod to the Volume 4 waitress, or the social media team deliberately using the same policies for Fair Game as they do for Renora and Bumblebee.

It wasn't Eddy's fault that things escalated, and he himself has said that in retrospect, he should have warned people that this never had a shot.

But I can't blame the Fair Game fanbase. Because Fair Game took off like wildfire. It came right as the fanbase began seriously asking for more male rep, Qrow's pretty hot, and the Clover wink came right after the Great IronQrow Reawakening of November 9th, 2019. The rocket was primed, and they rode it to the moon. Finally, to these people, after seven years RWBY seemed to be doing something with mlm rep in show. People started getting into RWBY just for Clover and Qrow's interactions. And if heroes were boring, Watts and Tyrian also had a fantastic dynamic that made Nuts and Volts one of the more popular villain ships overnight. Things seemed to be turning around! RWBY was remembering that gay men existed! You could hear the choir sing!

... And for those people, that meant that episode 12 hit like Truck-Kun.

People got pissed. People were horrified. And it didn't help that some members of CRWBY had said in the build-up that episode 12 would have some shots that made them nauseous (probably the Tyrian thumb thing) Out of context, it looked to these fans like CRWBY were basically laughing at their suffering, like they were saying "Lol, you thought you had a chance, get fucked, I hope your vomit burns on the way up."

Yeah, Fair Game was never gonna be canon, and I think some people ran too far with it. But in the wider context of how desperate RWBY's mlm community had gotten for basic crumbs of content? I can see why they'd run with what they had. The writers aren't at fault for what happened, but CRWBY didn't help matters. And that desperate mix of what felt like official backing from the crew, jokes about how cute the ship was, and the hope that finally the show would have onscreen rep? I can see why people ran with it.

So why is the show more lackluster in depicting mlm characters?

Money. Let's be honest, most RWBY fans don't care if the show doesn't have good male rep. I'm willing to bet some of you reading this won't care and just dismiss it as not being that big a problem. I don't think the writers care if the show doesn't have good mlm rep because they're not poaching that market. They're after what they see as a bigger, more lucrative market, which in this case is female LGBT rep. That gets people buying games, watching shows, raising awareness and boosting awareness of your property, which means you make more money. In short: Two women kissing hits more markets and generates more attention than two men.

Am I saying that Miles, Monty and Kerry deliberately sat down seven years ago and said "We're not doing gay men because it won't generate enough ad revenue and traffic to be worth the loss in revenue from homophobes?" No, that's silly. But I'm saying that it's less important for them, and it shows in the things that are small and add up. Things like Miles not verifying Scarlet's sexuality or retweeting the manga account's confirmation to spread the message (compared to how he enthusiastically confirmed Ilia being a lesbian himself during the Reddit AMA). It shows in how Pilot Boi would have been the first mlm character only to die in his second full episode until M&K were told about the Bury Your Gays trope. It shows in how Shannon believes that Ozma is "megaqueer" and Miles jokingly laughs it off instead of confirming it, leaving it to just be Shannon's headcanon. It shows in how actor shipping is compared between the mlm and wlw ships, where Arryn and Barbara's frequent pushes for Bumblebee are seen as "official confirmation that it's endgame" while Michael and Kerry saying they enjoy Seamonkeys is treated as "well it would be cute if they did it, but they're never going to."

I'm not gonna say anything like "CRWBY are gonna have Qrow end up with a woman like Robyn out of spite against the bad apples of the Fair Game crowd." I'm not gonna say that I don't think CRWBY cares about male representation in the series. It is, however, definitely a low priority for them, and because that leads to gaffes like Scarlet's writing in Before The Dawn being offensive in his depiction, it only makes the contrast between the sexes all the more painfully apparent.

I'm kinda tired of waiting for Rooster Teeth to show that they do care about mlm. I'm kinda tired of RWBY's male rep being written like it came from a 1993 time capsule where I have to enhance the screen to see a guy holding a sign of Sun's abs or be content with the only onscreen rep still being the plant bois in Volume 5. I'm tired of how often the crew dances around answering basic questions about sexuality (and age, and birthdays, and heights, and so on) by treating it as a spoiler question, as if just wanting to know what way people swing would ever be a spoiler. I'm just... tired of all this. When the best mlm rep in Rooster Teeth's history remains the two dads in Camp Camp who show up in a few episodes, that should say something really bad about your company and your biases (To say nothing of the recent Red vs Blue seasons and their blatant queerbaiting for Grif and Simmons and the whole can of worms that is Donut).

I'd like to not feel like I'm borderline unwelcome because I'd like to see two men in this show kiss, and that the sole thing that represents people like me in this show is some British twat who complains about sand.

I'd just like to feel like my sexuality isn't a joke to Rooster Teeth (or at the very least, be like Donut and have it be a funny one). But at this point after the last few years? I feel like a very uncomfortable punchline to them. And it just sucks.

[natsubeatsrock]

What Mashima Could Have Done To Improve Nalu (And What He Should Do With Nalu Now)

What could Mashima have done to make Nalu work for someone like me? 

Wait, this isn't the rewrite...

I've wanted to make this post for a while. More accurately, I've wanted to make a post about this topic for years. Recently, I've gone through several different drafts of this post with drastically different types of approaches to this topic. However, I feel like this is the right direction to go about this topic.

Obviously, the vast majority of fans like this ship already and are counting the proverbial days until it becomes canon. But I know I'm not the only one who thinks the ship could have made more sense. And, it doesn't seem like Mashima isn't against playing around with the idea of this ship. (I'm not talking about specific spoilers here.)

So, I've decided to point out a few different ways Mashima could have worked Nalu into a better sense of becoming canon through the course of the original series. These are based on what I've heard regarding Nalu on both sides. Near the end, I'll include my suggestion for the best possible route Mashima could take regarding Nalu, especially at this point in the sequel.

Change #1: Natsu Leaving at Chapter 416

Let's get this one out of the way now. The big thing that turned me off to Nalu is how Natsu left at the end of the Tartarus arc, and I know I'm not alone in this. There are two camps of logic about why this is bad. Most people are in the Lucy camp which focuses on Lucy's broken bond with her friend. I'm more in the Natsu camp and focus on how his leaving betrays his ultimate goal of protecting his friends. Either way, Mashima didn't do much to make people who didn't already love the ship like it.

I don't think the argument should be made that Natsu shouldn't have left. He needed to leave to get stronger and if the guild was going to break up, their splitting up was inevitable. There are ways that Mashima could have handled Natsu leaving Lucy that aren't "write her a letter and leave". Given their relationship, he absolutely should have told her to her face that he had to leave and why. That's just a matter of being a good friend.

That's another reason I feel like it's important to start here. Mashima could work to further their relationship from a friendship to a romantic one. However, if their friendship is strained, there's no reason to start that in the first place. With that out of the way, let's talk about how Mashima could have made their relationship more romantic.

Change #2: Clearly Change their View of Each Other

It's not as if Natsu and Lucy's views of each other were consistently positive. It's weird to see that Natsu was dismissive and kind of exploitative was of Lucy early on in Fairy Tail. Of course, this changes throughout the series. Natsu and Lucy come to have a really cool friendship and one of my favorite partnerships in anime and manga.

However, there's no moment where Natsu or Lucy comes to a definite "Oh, I love them" realization. While the other ships in the Big 4 have at least one moment you can point to where the perception of a character towards the other noticeably changed, Nalu doesn't have that. The idea that they could be a couple is brought up every now and then. However, it's always treated as a joke and dismissed almost as quickly as it's brought up. If Mashima were to take Nalu seriously, this kind of moment would be crucial to their progression from great friendship to definite romance.

It's not even as if this couldn't happen. I've seen Nalu fans point to a few different places as possible moments for this to happen. However, my personal favorite moments happen during the Tenrou Island arc. At the beginning of the arc, Lucy looks at Natsu as he's sleeping and mentions how cute he looks. Later on, Natsu sees Lucy struggle against Kain and hears her say "It's more fun when we're together". I think both moments could have been reworked to start them on the trend of starting a romantic relationship with each other.

Change #3: Define Natsu and Lisanna's Relationship As Platonic

Depending on who you ask, we already got this during Tenrou Island. After all, Lisanna told Lucy to take care of Natsu before they went to fight Hades. A lot of people see this as the sign that Lisanna gave up on being with Natsu romantically. (If you can't tell, I'm restraining myself from arguing against this.) Mashima could have made this purpose of the moment more obvious.

Regardless, we didn't get a similar moment where Natsu and Lisanna realize their relationship has changed since Edolas and can't currently be romantic. All we got is a moment that might indicate that Lisanna thinks Lucy is a better romantic fit for Natsu. As someone who's been advocating for more of Lisanna, this change could lead to some interesting moments. Lisanna doesn't have problems with either Natsu or Lucy that would result in any ill will between them. I don't think that should change regardless of how feelings are written regarding Lisanna and the duo.

[insert discussion about Mashima's comment in France here] 

Change #4: Give Us A Real Confession

I've said this plenty of times already. We did not get a confession from Natsu at the end of Fairy Tail. The fact that people are arguing that a straight-up confession would be "out of character" for Natsu and Lucy is proof enough of that. If Nalu was meant to be, this would be an obvious inclusion.

Opinions are all over the place regarding how that ought to play out. Should Natsu confess first or should Lucy? Will their confession be more composed or frenetic? That's not so much of my concern. What matters most is that a confession actually happens for the reader to see.

Honestly, it's a shame that so many different romantic ships can get away with happening without seeing definite romantic confessions, especially in battle action shonen series. I've gone through 11 years of nonsense with these characters. If they end up a couple, I want to see the confession, at the very least.

And those are my suggestions for changes.

You'll notice that I haven't talked about romantic progression in this post. That should be obvious when talking about this kind of thing. I think it's hard not to write characters falling in love if you know you're building to a couple being romantic. Fans are more likely to see it in places it isn't happening. Mashima has proven himself capable of writing good romance time and again in both of his big running series. Of course, we're waiting to see if he'll do it again with Edens Zero.

Though, these are changes that would have to take place regarding the original series. If Mashima wanted to do any of these things, it would be too late to properly do them. With that in mind, here's what I think is the best thing Mashima could do with Nalu, especially at this particular time in the sequel.

Destroy Its Chances.

No, seriously.

To be clear, I'm not advocating for Mashima to give us less ship tease fakeouts or meaningless rejections. I'm not asking that he simply not make Nalu canon. I seriously wish that Mashima would make explicitly clear that Natsu and Lucy cannot and will not ever enter a romantic relationship with each other. I simultaneously wish he would stop playing with the idea that they may start one in stuff outside of canon, like Twitter sketches, omakes, and spin-offs.

I've had a lot of time to sit with Nalu as a possible ship. I've thought over and over about what's wrong with it. And I can't think of anything fundamentally wrong with Nalu. The worst thing about it is the nonexistent progression from friends to lovers and Natsu leaving in chapter 416. I'd add fanservice, but pretty much every Fairy Tail ship has egregious fan service moments.

When people talk about Nalu not being a good ship, there are worse things they could be talking about. They could talk about how one person is clearly pushing for a relationship the other isn't interested in. They could talk about how their relationship started off with one brutalizing the other. They could talk about how Nalu is incestuous or pedophilic. However, when we talk about the ships in Fairy Tail, these topics don't come up regarding Nalu.

Like, people don't like Gruvia because of the dynamic between them. For people to like that ship, you'd basically have to rewrite their dynamic entirely. I know someone who would only make Gruvia canon in its current state if it were an abusive relationship. My suggestions for Nalu don't even change that much about their relationship.

The real issues I have with the ship stem from the fandom itself. The Nalu fandom considers any and all moments that involve Natsu and Lucy as a sign that they can become a couple soon. This ranges from "understandable arguments regarding certain scenes in canon" to "irrational interpretations regarding Twitter sketches". All of it's treated with the same cavalier attitude of Nalu's impending canonization. This is all despite no confession, no indication of romance on either side, and an omake literally made to dissuade people from this idea.

I can't say that Mashima will never make Nalu canon. But if he plans not to make it canon, I want it to be clear that Nalu is never going to be a thing. Leave no sense of ambiguity for readers to argue that it might happen in the future after the series ends. When I read the last chapter of the sequel, I want Nalu's prospects to end with the series.

"But what about the fans who spent years following the series hoping for the ship to happen?"

What about them?

I'm not saying this as someone who has no interest in the ship or empathy for its fans. I could and probably should, especially given the stuff I've seen happen over the years. But I'm not. (People can just as easily point to any of the various extreme Nalu haters like... a certain someone.) No, I have no patience for this view considering another perspective I hold.

I came into the fandom enjoying Fairy Tail. I started this blog because I wanted to talk about the things I liked about it and places I disagreed with fans about it. As time passed, I started to like the series less and see more issues with it. Many of the things I came to like about the series started to annoy me more and talking about this series became more of a chore than anything else.

However, I came to have a renewed sense of love for the series as I revisited it. I found new things to like about it and reconfirmed my enjoyment of the things that previously annoyed me. Consider the ship I talk the most about positively on this blog is likely not going to be canon officially. I'm still here and I still love the series.

I find it hard to believe that fans can come this far into the series only because they want to see their ship happen. I get that this sentiment is popular to hear fans say. However, I can't believe that all those people are so deeply invested in Nalu being canon, as opposed to other aspects of the series, that the series would be ruined for them if it didn't happen.

This is a series that's almost a decade and a half old. We've had more spin-offs, omakes, and tie-ins than series many times more popular than Fairy Tail have received. We just got an anime game that actually isn't just another arena fighter and a sequel has been greenlit. There has to be SOMETHING that these people can come back to and appreciate about this series OTHER than Nalu.

And if there really is nothing they can come to like about this series than Nalu? If they really come to hate the series over their ship not happening? If we really see a fan meltdown over the ship not happening, then...

Good riddance to them!

I know plenty of fans who bowed out of the series after realizing the series wasn't great. I'm still following a few of them for other stuff. Almost every one of them came to the conclusion long ago that the series wasn't as great as they'd like it to be and moved onto other things that interested them. They handled it calmly and left the fandom without a ton of drama. A couple of them even drop in to make new fan content every now and then.

I can respect a perspective that acknowledges a series isn’t doing what you want it to do and decides to engage with only the elements that matter most to an individual. I can respect a similar perspective that decides to cut ties with a series or fandom over how canon plays out. I can’t respect or sympathize with a perspective that says canon is worse because one’s wishes for it weren’t fulfilled.

I'm not even saying that it's wrong to not like how Mashima handles a ship. I still don't like how Graytear played out. You're allowed to feel that Mashima's handling of any part of a series isn't great. However, I don't think the series is worse for what it did to Graytear. Fairy Tail wouldn't be worse if Nalu didn't happen.

I'd argue it would be better, but that's enough for now...

[kob131]

 https://rwbyconversations.tumblr.com/post/626550438587678720/the-scarlet-letter-lets-talk-about-rwbys-male

Can’t even say I stan RT since I helped in developing your own break in RT’s abusive business practices.

So let’s start with a blunt statement: RWBY’s male LGBT representation has not been good. If the series’ handling of female LGBT rep is good (which… well there’s worse shows) and the general standard for how you write LGBT characters in a show like this, its handling of male rep has been… how not to. And Before the Dawn kinda solidified the idea in my head that the show’s handling of its male LGBT cast just isn’t good enough, either by the standards of when RWBY began in 2013, or today in 2020 when compatively massive steps have been taken over the past decade to show a more diverse list of characters… or at least a more diverse list of female characters.

So how do you make good male LGBT representation? If we’re talking about how something is done badly, you’d think some ground rules would be established. ... Yeah, he never does that.

It’s big romance is (unless the writers are very stupid) going to be between Blake and Yang, their first out character was Ilia, Coco got sent to the Book Dimension where she confirmed “I use my sunglasses to perv on women without their knowledge” which uh… yeah you can definitely tell RWBY is written by men… and Volume 6 had Saph and Terra being a good example of an LGBT couple without any real drama. In the last three years alone, the show has drastically increased its lesbian and bisexual characters, alongside even including its first out trans character in May Marigold (albeit only revealed on Twitter). In general, these depictions of sexuality have been pretty OK. Would have liked it if Ilia wasn’t immediately written out of the show after Volume 5 as it made her feel a bit more disposable than intended but whatever, subject for another day.

A. What examples do we have of Bumbleby being canon? One or two animation things and voice actors? Cool, when’s White Knight becoming canon.

B. I’ve heard Barbara say similar shit. Acting like that’s a male thing is fucking sexist.

C. I’m sorry but by every single standard of LGBT writing I’ve heard-wouldn’t they be considered tokens and flat caricatures? Since they’re so irrelevant and have so little character? They’re barely even characters INCLUDING their kid. 

Sorry but considering how there’s no ground rules made for what is good LGBT rep- I can only go off what others have said. And so many, OVERWHLEMINGLY MANY, people have said Saphron and Terra aren’t good. 

D. Okay the Illa thing is yet another example of why ground rules need to be set. Saphron and Terra BOTH are written out in Volume 6 so wouldn’t they get chewed out too? What makes Illa getting written out different or more disposable?

RWBY’s male rep though is a bit spottier. There’s the plant bois in Volume 5’s premiere, we nearly had Pilot Boi until some last-minute revisions, and… Scarlet.

Look about the same as the female LGBT audience to me. Why is this so bad?

“Why Scarlet’s a bad launchpad for male LGBT rep”

I don’t like Scarlet or how his sexuality has been handled. Scarlet’s homosexuality wasn’t revealed in the show, or by the writers, or even in anything that’s actually canon. He’s confirmed gay in his sole of dialogue in a non-canon fan anthology, where the manga’s Twitter team had to say that Miles suggested the idea and approved of it.

In short, Scarlet is Dumbledore’d, where his sexuality is revealed in out-of-show material and in a way that doesn’t make it supremely obvious (Miles himself never commented to confirm this so this news was limited in how far it could spread. I’m genuinely curious how many people still don’t know Scarlet’s gay), and Scarlet himself is a nothing character who was written out of the show after Volume 3 and only reappeared in Before The Dawn, half a decade after he vanished. Compared to Ilia, as this came out after Ilia’s entire arc in Volume 5, it’s not a great starting point for mlm rep. But things would have been forgiven if it had gotten better, if the show did have more male LGBT characters introduced, even just on the Saphron/Terra level of just being around for a few episodes before leaving. Then it would have been a misfire but then we could all say “Things got better.”

Why should I care?

See, part of the job of a critic is to make the problems understandable to the audience. I emphasized ground rules because it gives the reader a base level understanding of what constitutes as good in this case. Why should I think Scarlet is bad when Saphron and Terra are on the same level and you said they were at least acceptable?

It… didn’t. Which is why when Before the Dawn released in 2020, a full two years after Scarlet was first confirmed gay, while the franchise had more than doubled its wlw rep, Scarlet remained the one male character in the entire franchise who had a name and liked men. I remember vividly a fake leak for After The Fall which claimed Yatsuhashi would come out to Velvet and admit to having a crush on Fox. And I remember as well how many people were disappointed when it was said to be false, because it would have been nice for Yatsuhashi’s character, especially after the fleshing out he gets in the CFVY books. If Yatsu had come out as gay in the books I’d like his writing enough to say he’s a good case for rep, albeit with the caveat of “This is all in side material.” But in reality, the leak was fake and Coco was confirmed gay instead.

I remember the same leak. Yatsuhashi also disappeared at the same time and even if he was fleshed out-he’s still irrelevant to the show so wouldn’t he be bad? And if it’s about having fleshed out characters, why did Illa whose a fully realized character get shaded while effective background characters praised?

Unfortunately, Before the Dawn proceeded to ruin Scarlet and made me at times feel genuinely uncomfortable as a queer man! Let’s talk about that.

And people said the same about Saphron and Terra and people get backlash for praising them over other lesbian characters.

I hate Before the Dawn. It’s… bad. I read it while on a vacation and the only solace I had about the entire thing was that I’d bought an M&M chocolate bar. The bar was finished before the book. That bummed me out. It’s not a very well written book, the prose is very Early 2010s YA Writer, none of the characters are memorable and there’s various Fun Incidents like “NGDO using children as bait for Grimm,” and “Neptune’s hydrophpobia being used as a threat to torture him and the scene is played for comedy.”

A. NDGO is repeatedly shown to be massive assholes in the book.

And B. I can’t really find anything wrong there. In one of my favorite shows, Justice League Unlimited, criminals get threatened with actual torture and even death and it’s treated as a joke. Yeah the context is different in that the victim are criminals but both the villains and Neptune get over it so quickly I see no real problem here. Especially since Jaune’s own low self worth was a joke up to Volume 5.

Theo was cool. I can’t wait to see him as written by good writers, he should be a highlight of the Vacuo arc.

Don’t go blaming E.C. Myers for this- Miles and Kerry helped. You’d have to call them shit writers too.

I had two hopes for Before the Dawn- “Don’t be bad,” and “Let Scarlet and Sage be well written.” I’d liked how After The Fall had handled some of its characters (barring, y'know, Coco perving on women), especially Fox and Yatsu who were surprising in how much I liked them. I was looking forward to seeing Myers give Sage and Scarlet similar treatment- two relatively nothing characters meant he’d have a blank slate to write them however he wanted, he could give them unique personalties and if nothing else it could be cool to see their Semblances.

You know how frustrating it is to see people blame Miles and Kerry for shit that Monty had a hand in and may have even been responsible for?

Yeah well we finally found the flipped version-

Miles and Kerry worked with Myers on the book. Just as Monty is just as much at fault as Miles and Kerry, they’re just as much at fault as Myers.

And then I read the book. (Sage fans I am so sorry for you, you got baited harder than Johnlock fans)

I thought we were talking about male LGBT rep.

Scarlet’s a giant dickhead in the book. It’s his sole character trait and his inner monologues go on, and on, and on about how much he hates Sun, how he revels in mocking him. Most of his dialogue is sarcastic put-downs about Sun and how lame he is, and Sun is never properly allowed to defend himself or point out how going with Blake meant he was able to help save Haven Academy.

You mean like how character criticized Yang for being so reckless even though she was trying to save Blake?

It shouldn’t matter what the intent or results are- Sun and Yang still did bad things and affected the people around them. They should be criticized, especially Sun here since A. He’s still doing it in the book, B. He hasn’t had any real flaws in the show which means his dynamics and interaction are limited and C. This addresses what people bitched at him about in Volumes 4 and 5 thus robbing them of the excuse to chew him out anymore.

(hey remember when Sun in Volume 6 expressly says to Blake “I was a bad leader for ditching Neptune and the others, and I need to work on that” only for Before the Dawn to have him staunchly refuse to accept that he let the team down? I don’t think Myers did but I do)

Remember how characters in RWBY don’t always learn their lesson, especially when it’s related to mental issues like...say....losing their parents and trying to run from their problems?

Also remember how MILES AND KERRY ALSO HELPED WRITE THAT BOOK?

Scarlet being a ratty bitch would be one thing if, again, the franchise had done more rep. He’d still be a badly written character, but it wouldn’t sting as much. But because Scarlet is still the only expressly confirmed male LGBT character in canon (the book teases that Nolan is gay but there’s never confirmation either way beyond him smiling at Scarlet), it means that he has to represent that entire ideal. So when the one gay man in Remnant is being an asshole and a snide loser, that means that by extension, this is how the franchise sees gay men. And that fucking sucks! I wanted to come out of Before The Dawn singing its praises, I wanted to like the book, but it was a massive letdown, especially coming off of the other big 2020 RWBY controversy involving gay characters.

Fun fact: LGBT people can be assholes. 

In fact, Scarlet would be the ONLY LGBT character to be snide in the show. Kind of makes him unique in that regard. ...If he was an asshole in canon. When in canon, he’s portrayed as hurt and bitter over Sun’s repeated irresponsibility and doing what anyone would do in his situation.

So honestly, he’s pretty fucking human which I would praised BEYOND being LGBT.

Yeah. We’re doing this.

Remember, you choose to do all this.

Clover and Fair Game: Technically not queerbaiting. BUT:

But nothing. Once again, without any ground rules for what you constitute as ‘queerbaiting’- I only have myself to rely on. And just about every serious definition says Queerbaiting is baiting LGBT rep or pairings to get people to watch the show.

Issue? Not only was Fair Game not used to promote the show, there are other LGBT characters in RWBY. You can’t be queerbaited anymore than a straight person can be ‘straightbaited’ (We’ll be getting into SO MUCH MORE than this later...).

Let’s pre-empt this: Clover wasn’t queerbaiting, and Fair Game, while cool and I dig it, kudos to them for becoming one of the top 5 RWBY pairings on AO3 in one year that’s fucking impressive (I say with mild malice as an IronQrow main), never had a chance. The writing never seriously boosted it barring one interaction which was flirty (them talking in the lobby of the Schnee Manor), and everything else was out of show boosting through the social media teams and CRWBY hyping it themselves by saying they liked it. If you wanna blame people, blame the animators who went off-script with stuff like Kim Newman adding the wink as a deliberate nod to the Volume 4 waitress, or the social media team deliberately using the same policies for Fair Game as they do for Renora and Bumblebee.

So nothing I should give a shit about since marketing teams often work detached from the actual product and are notoriously CUTTHROAT.

It wasn’t Eddy’s fault that things escalated, and he himself has said that in retrospect, he should have warned people that this never had a shot.

But I can’t blame the Fair Game fanbase. Because Fair Game took off like wildfire. It came right as the fanbase began seriously asking for more male rep, Qrow’s pretty hot, and the Clover wink came right after the Great IronQrow Reawakening of November 9th, 2019. The rocket was primed, and they rode it to the moon. Finally, to these people, after seven years RWBY seemed to be doing something with mlm rep in show. People started getting into RWBY just for Clover and Qrow’s interactions. And if heroes were boring, Watts and Tyrian also had a fantastic dynamic that made Nuts and Volts one of the more popular villain ships overnight. Things seemed to be turning around! RWBY was remembering that gay men existed! You could hear the choir sing!

... You JUST said that show didn’t bolster the ship aside from one interaction (one that pales to the shit I use to say in private to fuck with people). It was obviously NOT meant to be a serious component of the show. If people got into a show for something it was never meant to stick to- it’s their own fault for when that part falls away.

… And for those people, that meant that episode 12 hit like Truck-Kun.

People got pissed. People were horrified. And it didn’t help that some members of CRWBY had said in the build-up that episode 12 would have some shots that made them nauseous (probably the Tyrian thumb thing) Out of context, it looked to these fans like CRWBY were basically laughing at their suffering, like they were saying “Lol, you thought you had a chance, get fucked, I hope your vomit burns on the way up.”

Yeah, Fair Game was never gonna be canon, and I think some people ran too far with it. But in the wider context of how desperate RWBY’s mlm community had gotten for basic crumbs of content? I can see why they’d run with what they had. The writers aren’t at fault for what happened, but CRWBY didn’t help matters. And that desperate mix of what felt like official backing from the crew, jokes about how cute the ship was, and the hope that finally the show would have onscreen rep? I can see why people ran with it.

Ah huh ah huh ah huh-

Now do that for the first three Volumes of the show with a bigger fan favorite, more build up and kill one half of it off at the end of the show’s big dark turn while the creators are even MORE unsympathetic.

Sorry but when compared to Arkos, this looks fucking minscule. And you invoked the Arkos comparison due to the numerous parallels. And just like with the Arkos fans, I’ll disregard this without a second thought.

‘But Mlm are STARVED for content-’

Then go somewhere else. I’ve been saying this to your Wlw AND Straight counterparts for years. You are not entitled to have ‘a meal’. The show didn’t advertise in universe around rep- That is not the point. This is like saying you hate nachoes because it dares to have chips instead of more toppings.

So why is the show more lackluster in depicting mlm characters?

I don’t think you ever answered that the question ‘is the show’s mlm lackluster?’ because you spent a third of this post talking about something you basically admit doesn’t count.

Money. Let’s be honest, most RWBY fans don’t care if the show doesn’t have good male rep. I’m willing to bet some of you reading this won’t care and just dismiss it as not being that big a problem.

I dismiss all the romance related shit as not being that big of a problem, so what?

I don’t think the writers care if the show doesn’t have good mlm rep because they’re not poaching that market. They’re after what they see as a bigger, more lucrative market, which in this case is female LGBT rep. That gets people buying games, watching shows, raising awareness and boosting awareness of your property, which means you make more money. In short: Two women kissing hits more markets and generates more attention than two men.

I’d believe that if not for the fact that there is barely any lesbian merch for RWBY, which would be the key way to cash in on that market and squeeze them for as much money as possible. In fact, there’s barely ANY shipping merch from Rooster Teeth. Rather unusual if they’re trying to cash in on a market.

‘Well what’s YOUR explanation?’

Easy: Misandry and moving goalposts.

Guys notoriously get shat on in the fandom more than women. Jaune is STILL being called a spotlight stealing MAry Sue and numerous people are siding against Ironwood because he’s a man. So making good male LGBT rep would just be inviting more pipe bombs in the mail.

And a large amount of people like to claim RWBY has yet to give GOOD female LGBT rep, constantly raising the bar to get what they want. And considering they make up the original hatedom in the show- they naturally hold more power.

Tl;Dr- You fucked yourselves out of good male rep by having male characters having any focus whatsoever be a death sentence.

Am I saying that Miles, Monty and Kerry deliberately sat down seven years ago and said “We’re not doing gay men because it won’t generate enough ad revenue and traffic to be worth the loss in revenue from homophobes?” No, that’s silly. But I’m saying that it’s less important for them, and it shows in the things that are small and add up. Things like Miles not verifying Scarlet’s sexuality or retweeting the manga account’s confirmation to spread the message (compared to how he enthusiastically confirmed Ilia being a lesbian himself during the Reddit AMA). It shows in how Pilot Boi would have been the first mlm character only to die in his second full episode until M&K were told about the Bury Your Gays trope. It shows in how Shannon believes that Ozma is “megaqueer” and Miles jokingly laughs it off instead of confirming it, leaving it to just be Shannon’s headcanon. It shows in how actor shipping is compared between the mlm and wlw ships, where Arryn and Barbara’s frequent pushes for Bumblebee are seen as “official confirmation that it’s endgame” while Michael and Kerry saying they enjoy Seamonkeys is treated as “well it would be cute if they did it, but they’re never going to.”

The whole point of AMA is answer questions, one of which was ‘is Illa a lesbian’ among SEVERAL others.

Yeah and Illa gets called a psycho lesbian. 

Yeah and no other voice actor headcanon has been accepted. In fact, Kara pushes for White Knight and the writers don’t even so much as acknowledge that unlike Shannon. Also I dunno what ‘megaqueer’ means but his only on screen relationship was straight so that’s probably why it wasn’t confirmed.

Not the creators, don’t care.

I’m not gonna say anything like “CRWBY are gonna have Qrow end up with a woman like Robyn out of spite against the bad apples of the Fair Game crowd.” I’m not gonna say that I don’t think CRWBY cares about male representation in the series. It is, however, definitely a low priority for them, and because that leads to gaffes like Scarlet’s writing in Before The Dawn being offensive in his depiction, it only makes the contrast between the sexes all the more painfully apparent.

Again, the female side ain’t much better. Fuck, the straight side isn’t much better. This was never a focus of the show.

I’m kinda tired of waiting for Rooster Teeth to show that they do care about mlm. I’m kinda tired of RWBY’s male rep being written like it came from a 1993 time capsule where I have to enhance the screen to see a guy holding a sign of Sun’s abs or be content with the only onscreen rep still being the plant bois in Volume 5. I’m tired of how often the crew dances around answering basic questions about sexuality (and age, and birthdays, and heights, and so on) by treating it as a spoiler question, as if just wanting to know what way people swing would ever be a spoiler. I’m just… tired of all this. When the best mlm rep in Rooster Teeth’s history remains the two dads in Camp Camp who show up in a few episodes, that should say something really bad about your company and your biases (To say nothing of the recent Red vs Blue seasons and their blatant queerbaiting for Grif and Simmons and the whole can of worms that is Donut).

And their best rep in wlw according to some people is a psycho lesbian. 

This is all just personal opinion that is next to useless without the basis needed for clear understanding. I don’t know what you would consider good male LGBT rep aside from a squeaky clean good guy...and many would decry that as condescending and unrealistic.

What can they do except ignore EVERYONE and just do whatever they feel like?

P.S. Someone’s representation is NOT their view on LGBT people. Especially since, as I have said, the reception of said rep can be outright contradictory.

I’d like to not feel like I’m borderline unwelcome because I’d like to see two men in this show kiss, and that the sole thing that represents people like me in this show is some British twat who complains about sand.

Oh fuck off. I’m also apart of a minority group (autists) and yet you don’t see me winging about how unwelcome I feel because there’s no autistic characters. I relate to characters like Ruby not because they have shallow autistic traits but because I constantly struggle with the same ideological dilemma Ruby does: the struggle to keep doing good in an uncaring, cruel world. THAT is what you should find relatable and welcome. Not something like sexuality.

I’d just like to feel like my sexuality isn’t a joke to Rooster Teeth (or at the very least, be like Donut and have it be a funny one). But at this point after the last few years? I feel like a very uncomfortable punchline to them. And it just sucks.

Cool-Welcome to club. You know, since EVERY sexuality has been used a punchline by Rooster Teeth.

Your sexuality should be the LAST thing that you use to find being welcome, especially with a god damn company. And you have no one to blame for your feelings but yourself here. 

Your post is damn near useless and I don’t even know how honest that RT stuff is considering Miles and Kerry get away while E.C. Myers gets blamed for stuff you don’t like.

[kunoichi-ume]

7. List your NoTPs from each fandom you’ve been in. 8. How did you get involved in your latest fandom? 17. Who was your first OTP and are they still your favourite? 23. Name a fic you’ve written that you’re especially fond of & explain why you like it. 41. List and link to 5 fanfics you are currently reading: 46. If someone was to read one of your fanfics, which fic would you recommend to them and why? 😁

ThisFanfiction Questions

Wow that is a lot of questions, nosy much? Jk thanks friend :D

7. List your NoTPs from each fandom you’ve been in. 

I don’t know that I have proper NoTPs just ones I am not really fond of - especially in fanworks. Idk why but for some reason fanfiction about a canon couple is just boring to me, I already know they are together so why would I need more stories about it? 

One Piece: Luffy and well... anyone. He is too in love with adventure to have a romance and lets be real, always feels like a little kid unless he is in one of his “gotta win or everyone is screwed” serious moments. 

Fairy Tail: I do not like Ju.via and Gray, enough that I don’t even want to chance her name ending with this in her tag because many people in that fandom are toxic and last time I dared say I don’t like this ship I got bitched at for it. Sorry, I just don’t find stalking someone until they give in to be romantic. 

Naruto: I do not get people liking Sasuke with pretty much anyone, but especially Sakura or Naruto. He is an ass to them repeatedly and they both deserve better - and being very honest, he deserved much stricter punishment for all the ship he pulled. 

Star Wars: I am going to preface this with this: I haven’t seen Clone Wars. Not all of it. Probably won’t. But I don’t like the Obi-Wan and Satine relationship. Everything I have seen of it just doesn’t jive for me, even though both voice actors are adorably sweet and meeting them was a blast. 

Swtor: I have not done all the romances yet, so this may change, but the SW and Jaesa is just... disappointing. Its mostly about her being possessive and manipulative and very little actual romance. The other SW relationships prove is doesn't have to be that way, so why is she? I get that they were probably going for the whole “fallen Jedi going balls to the wall crazy” but yeah, didn’t need to happen and I hated it so much I cut the romance planes I had for her and Tully even though I already planned to write it differently. 

8. How did you get involved in your latest fandom? 

I started playing Swtor and didn’t know about the romance options so when I could suddenly flirt with Doc I even stopped playing to turn to my husband and go “omg I can flirt with this guy?” He knew this of course and was just like “yeah...” (Honestly I had made a trial account for swtor when it first came out and if I had known about the romance options in the stories I probably would have staying with it instead of forgetting about the game). It was only a matter of time before I wanted to write a story about Noara and Doc, because I did totally ship them until a certain blond Mandalorian made his presence known.

17. Who was your first OTP and are they still your favourite? 

First otp... I think that would be Nami and Trafalgar Law from One Piece. I love them so much, even now despite not being active in the fandom and soooo behind on both the manga and the anime. They are not my current favorite though, that has to be Noara and Torian. 

23. Name a fic you’ve written that you’re especially fond of & explain why you like it. 

Oh goodness a fic I am especially fond of? And why? Thats a tough one because I have little bits of love for all of them but I mean.... A Poor Stand In is probably one of my favorite things I have ever written for many reasons, the subject matter, approach and reactions mainly. Plus it just makes me laugh, I find it very funny on a lot of levels. Still waiting for someone to ask me wtf is wrong with me that I wrote this but since no one has maybe people are more into Khem then they like to admit? ;)

On a more serious note I am very fond of Well Played Cadera because I like the blend of Noara’s anxiety and fears, the arguing, the humor. Torian is a little shit in it and is so right to be, and it works too. He is figuring out how to get his Jedi to listen to him, even if it means taking off all his clothing. 

41. List and link to 5 fanfics you are currently reading: 

I have been terrible about reading fanfiction lately but  seeing as how my Goodreads challenge is sitting at 98/30 for the year I am going to cut myself some slack and just say I am on a sicfi romance novel kick that is taking precedence over fanworks. That being said there are some that of course I am following and even if I am a little behind on I totally intend to catch up. 

Heart on a Trigger by @cinlat

Part 4 of the Meet Me On The Battlefield series about Mandalorian turned Republic Trooper Fynta Wolfe and Aric Jorgan, plus a large cast of other amazing characters (like Cormac, I love that big fluffy teddy bear). I am sure anyone paying attention to my blog is surpsied I am keeping up with this one, I get sneak peaks at updates before they come out (or are even edited properly) and my girl Noara is a small background character. 

Something Better by @shimmersing

This was recently finished and omg, I need to go read it all but I just know it’s going to be good. I adore the way Shimmer writes Aitahe and Erithon and, honestly, it being a non-canon couple availabe in game makes it just that much more appealing to me (because no matter how this JC and Trooper end up together, it’s new to me and not just rehashing the game, makes it exciting!).

Abundance of Faith by Laivaaja

The Summary: Star Wars Fan Comic: Emperor Palpatine's suspicions of Darth Vader grow intolerable, which will cause the Empire and the Imperial Navy to be torn into two separate directions. Several officers will step up in this time of confusion, and Darth Vader will form new surprisingly faithful alliances.Yeah that’s it, great art, comic book story telling, Vader being surprised by his men. It’s a fun ride. 

Chaos and Opportunity by @inquisitorhotpants

I haven’t read it in a while, but anything I have read as many times as I have this one needs to be on this list. I love the dynamic between Marr and Kryn and how their relationship develops and the way this story doesn’t accept canon (I was so concerned about Marr’s in game death and at least in this story about them that didn’t happen and I for one am thankful for it).

The One That Got Away by @punsbulletsandpointythings

Another SW but not Swtor one, this one has so much wonderful angst, fluff, humor and love in it and every update has left me dying to know what was going to happen next. Give me some time travel possibly doomed from the start romance any day. 

46. If someone was to read one of your fanfics, which fic would you recommend  to them and why? 

Humm... of works only written by me probably I’ve Got You even though I haven't updated in ages (I have been working on it the last few days though, that has to count for something) because it is what really got me back into writing after not doing it in a long time and the main story really exploring how a Jedi and a Mandalorian can work out in a relationship. 

Of things I wrote with @cinlat Thunder and Scars for sure. The whole undertaking of this fic was both so much fun but also such a labor of love and heartache. There is one scene in it that even thinking about it now makes me tear up a little and I am not usually that emotional. Exploring those emotions through Noara and the family she found with Fynta, Cormac and Aric was a wonderful learning experience both for her as a character and me as a writer. 

[drink-n-watch]

  Halloween is just around the corner and although this episode of My Hero Academia may have seemed fairly cheerful on the surface, there is a darkness brewing that is slowly starting to weigh everything down…

I just hopped right into it there. Whew, must be getting excited. Sorry about that. I had another good but unreasonable busy week. How is it going on your end Crow?

  “Unreasonably busy” is a really good way to put it. Glad we got through it! But I think you hit the nail on the head when you mentioned a brewing darkness. That last shot… But, we don’t want to get too far ahead! Oh, I’m bold, and yeah, we’ll have spolilers.

So this week, Deku had to secure his working studies program at the Nighteye agency and as we already know, he did not make the greatest first impression. 

Turns out Nighteye is a devoted All-Might fanboy just like Deku though, so they bonded over their shared love of the old no. 1 hero and Deku got a second chance to prove himself in the form of a simple task. All he needed to do was to somehow get Nighteye’s seal from him and his spot would be secure. It’s a pretty meaningless contest all things considered. What do you think Crow?

Let’s talk about how it played out first, but I’ll say this: I was seriously annoyed with Nighteye through this whole sequence. Especially with how it ended! For someone who has such a high opinion of All Might, Nighteye had no qualms about substituting his judgements for the previous number 1 hero. Plus, as we saw with how he treated Bubble Girl, the whole idea of respect just doesn’t seem to occur to Nighteye…

Things went as you would expect. Deku failed, but in the most extra and dedicated way possible and got the internship anyways. Nighteye even admitted that he was always going to give it to him as he had decided as soon as he learned about it (told ya!). That wasn’t the important part. 

The important part or should I say partS were that 1, Nighteye was fully aware that Deku had inherited All For One and no one was surprised by the revelation and 2 Nighteye honestly believes that Mirio is the better candidate.

Interesting dynamic creating a worthy and capable rival in Mirio changes a lot of things. Up until now, Deku had the likes of Todoroki or Baku to contend with, except Todoroki is suffering from PTSD and has to sort himself out before thinking of becoming no 1 hero, while Baku is 50% villain if not more. Mirio is very similar to Deku in many respects. Optimistic, respectful and open, it’s very difficult to root for one above the other which creates a very interesting conflict!

Yes, it does! If it were almost any other student, I don’t think Izuku would be as rattled. All of them are competent, and some of them have potential for greatness, but in terms of being number 1, with the exception of Todoroki, I’m not seeing it.

But Mirio is practically All Might Junior! He’s so obviously heroic and so amazingly powerful that Izuku has to wonder if he measures up

I have to admit, all through the test, I hoped that Deku would be smart enough to add randomization as a test — throwing the papers and books that would move without his decision was a perfect way to test the extent of Nighteye’s powers. I was disappointed that Deku couldn’t manage to get the stamp himself. 

And I think he was disappointed, too. That’s got to eat at his confidence.

After Deku’s personal trial is over, we go back to the school to find out that he’s really the only student to have had any luck so far. Unlike the previous internship, the work studies program puts students directly in the line of danger, and as such, most professional heroes are not willing to take the risk and do not have the insurance for it. 

Nevertheless, it seems no. 3 hero Hawks has put in a request to work with Tokayami (birds of a feather!) while the renowned 3rd years are taking an interest in talking with Kirishima, Tsuyu and Uraraka. I wonder what that’s about!

They seemed afraid to hope — and with Aizawa’s deadpan delivery, it could be anything. I like how this show takes things like liability insurance seriously. It’s a small thing; and maybe I shouldn’t get so excited about it. But it’s the kind of thing that makes the world feel real.

In the closing scene, we find out that it all comes together, in that not only will Deku have to keep an eye on Overhault, but he actually meets him and (ED unicorn girl) Eri in person during the after-credits tag. Exciting things are certainly coming up!

In my notes, I said that scene “felt like doom.” The anguish on Eri’s face as she looked back at Overhaul, the calm glowering power coming from Overhaul himself, and Deku’s usual open expression just seemed to set the stage. I have no idea what’s coming; I’ve not read the manga. But that scene felt momentous. 

Next episode is promising!

As I was listening to Aizawa explain the background considerations of hero internship, it struck me yet again how much I like the core premise. Although My Hero Academia doesn’t beat us over the head with it, but it is stated right from season 1 (and whispered throughout) that in a world of heroes for hire and morals for money, virtue becomes irrelevant. The strength of your character is secondary to the marketability of your skill.

This isn’t a very hopeful message, and you may think I’m way off the mark as the universe of My Hero Academia has always been presented to us through Deku’s rose coloured glasses. But there have been a lot of hints to that effect. I mean the entire character of Endeavour is pretty much a personification of this. And I like this theme. I don’t think it will be pleasant to see Deku run up against these bitter realities, but it’s something I have never seen properly explored in a tale for all audiences and I hope I do get to see it in My Hero Academia.

You have this amazing habit of zeroing in on the heart of the matter. I was thinking about that as I watched Nighteye once again disrespect a character (seriously, I’m really angry with him for how he treated Bubble Girl). It’s the classic “might makes right,” but far from being a cliche, the writers are dramatizing its effects through this whole world. It’s the theme that made Stain such a viscerally powerful villain. I couldn’t bring myself to say he was wrong. His reaction to the problem of heroes not being heroic was extreme, but he was right. 

And so are you.

The reason I still have any respect for heroes is because of individual heroes, like Deku, All Might, Aizawa, and even Mirio. There are others, of course, but even among our cast, as you mentioned, Baku is half villain himself! 

I, too, really hope we see this idea develop during this season. 

Another element I’m basing this impression on is the subtle running theme of “faking it”. It doesn’t matter how weak, scared or defeated you feel, a hero must appear strong and in control. That’s All Might’s entire schtick. Be a “symbol”, inspire the masses! It’s really endearing but it does work both ways.

It doesn’t matter how cruel, greedy or ruthless you are, as long as you LOOK the part, as long as you can give a heartwarming interview, then you two can be a symbol of justice. We heard Nighteye say it again. You can”t let them know you’re worried. Authenticity is a weakness, and weakness is bad….

I actually hurt my neck I was nodding so hard in agreement. Based on the previous, it looks like my idea won’t pan out, but do you think that All Might might have chosen Izuku as the next One for All precisely because he’s different? Precisely because his goodness comes first, literally before his heroism, and everything in him flows from that?

In other words, is All Might trying to change what it means to be a hero? Even if I’m wrong, I love how they’re playing with this idea.

That would be sweet. Mind you I have a feeling All Might isn’t all that great at planning ahead. He never really had to after all. With that quirk, he could power through any situation, and later on, Nighteye would have been there to advise him and he sees the future! We’ve seen All Might get himself in sticky situations a lot because he didn’t consider his health or took things for granted. He’s a bit prone to acting first. I think that may be a factor in why he chose Deku. The boy seemed like a hero in the moment.

After these three episodes I have come to realize something, I much prefer to binge My Hero Academia. Don’t get me wrong, I’m enjoying watching along, a lot in fact. But the momentum of the story just doesn’t suit bite-size in my opinion. I would have watched these last three episodes and probably a few more in a single setting easily, and that would have made a cohesive opening arc. As it is, I’m sort of waiting for the story to get started almost a month in.

I can’t find any flaws in your logic! But as I think back across these three episodes, that last shot of Overhaul, Eri, and Deku keeps coming back to me. If we consider the first three episodes as the tag, maybe things are about to kick into high gear. And I can’t wait!

  My Hero Academia s4 ep66 – Looming Darkness Halloween is just around the corner and although this episode of My Hero Academia may have seemed fairly cheerful on the surface, there is a darkness brewing that is slowly starting to weigh everything down…