#like it was about unrealistic expectations and general weirdness about nudity

[moe-broey]

...

[natsmagi]

I hate to be rude but do you know how to draw body fat or are you just gonna make tsumugi a stick with boobs over and over

THE "I HATE TO BE RUDE" AHAKGSQKG3KWHQJSUANSHDNGN PLEAAAAASEE ANON DONT LIE TO URSELF U KNOW DAMN WELL THIS WAS WRITTEN WITH CONDESCENDING INTENT LMAO but to answer ur question; yea i do! admittedly im not the best at it as i lack experience (i dont draw nudity very often so the opportunity barely arises) but i do have a general understanding of how its meant to look and yes i will continue drawing tsumugi as a stick with big boobs over and over! because this is the body type i headcanon her with and i think it suits her. i know boob sizes arent that deep, but a figure like hers carries a more "motherly" vibe to it (theres a reason we say "mommy milkers" n shit after all) plus it adds to her "hot klutz anime gf" energy. theres a Reason this portrayal is so common in the broad enstars community (including JP/KR/CN/etc artists too). when coming up with femstars portrayals my priority is not in giving you representation (that was never even there to begin with); it is to try and translate what made the character good in the original and keep that energy in this new version. now, sometimes adding a larger bit of diversity DOES help translate over the characters energy, and its a win-win for all! it just simply is not how i picture tsumugi in my head (but this does not mean i eat up those different portrayals of her any less!!! i think its super fun to see and she will always be absolutely gorgeous!!!!). if you disagree with my headcanon of her you quite literally do not need to consume my art. no one is forcing you to look at what i make. Pick up a pen and draw the tsumugi of your dreams yourself

and before anyone brings it up: yes!! skinny ppl can have big busts!!!! crazy, isnt it?? ud never expect it from the way yall discuss it! boob sizes are determined partially by fat, yes, but also genetics and if uve undergone pregnancy (the mommy milkers.....) so its INCREDIBLY weird to see people constantly talking about how those of us who draw tsumugi like this "dont know how women look" when yall dont even research the shit you spew. the reason "big boobs skinny waists" is something we've been fighting against in media portrayals is because there was a time where that was ALL THE PORTRAYAL OF WOMEN WE'D GET. THAT IS UNREALISTIC. women come in ALL shapes and sizes, and to dictate what women Can or Can't look like is fucking misogynistic and i cant believe you people dont realize this. i cant believe you dont realize the harm in what you say. alot of skinny people with big busts end up getting breast reduction surgery because 1. those mfs are heavy and 2. everyone sexualizes them!!!!!!! their bodies are viewed purely as something pornographic!!!!!! and no one wants that!!!!!!!! which shit like THIS (something being wrong with having big boobs) perpetuates. often times they hide their busts by wearing baggy clothes, which hides their figure and they end up looking a few sizes bigger just to avoid being viewed as an object. its sad!!!!! and now theres a new wave of people BODYSHAMING THEM??????? and for what??? because men think big boobs are hot???? why can women only exist in contrast to men???? why must women always think about how men will react to how they look or behave?????? why cant women of all body types just EXIST. why must there ALWAYS be someone we punch down at???? bodyshaming isnt suddenly cool just because youre shaming something men get off to

so, i have a question for you too! genuinely, what is wrong with drawing tsumugi like this? what is the harm? theres like 6 characters out of the 49 in enstars that i hc with big busts, so its not like im reducing women to this body type, and its queer people and women who are my target demographic. so whats wrong with it? im genuinely curious

[juiceastronaut]

Okay so. I watched Q-force. And I have no idea what I think about it.

Imma just be rambling so I'll break down the characters and my likes/dislikes about them before giving my plot breakdown at the end. Only the main/prominent ones because I don't have time.

Steve Maryweather-Easily the best character out of them, with Deb being a close second. He could've very easily fallen into the trope of being someone who was incompetent but expected the world anyway, but he doesn't. He graduated top of his class, and despite his quirks is a genuinely competent team leader, and wants the best for his team. He wants to prove that he and his team are competent enough to get recognition, and has a genuine faith in the people around him. It was refreshing to see him hold his team in a genuine high regard, where a lot of times it's like "We're shit but lets do this thing now" He's a genuinely well-rounded character, and (and forgive me if this isn't the best way to frame this) it feels like being gay is an important part of his character, without encompassing the whole thing. I thought Benji and his relationship was super cute and I was sad when they broke up. I was afraid he was going to be, like a second but worse Twink with the stereotyping but gladly fell away from that.

Deb-I thought her and her wife were super cute (though I hate how the wife is designed ngl adjafkldajfd). I liked Debs character, but I feel like she had a lot of racial stereotyping that wouldn't be inherently obvious unless you were looking for them, her being the strong one, and also the "mama" type at the same time. No one treated her with disrespect, and her lesbianism seemed to be more authentic but I feel like there wasn't a lot of thought put into what these tropes were and why they were bad. Her being black and making her the mama type, as well as the big strong type could be read as tasteless. Again, I really liked her character but these were some things I noticed while watching.

Twink- You know, I didn't really like him at first, I thought he was the epitome of all the bad stereotyping (though I'm just glad him and Mary didn't get put into the same category). His humor isn't my taste, and it just kinda seemed like someone for half of his lines went "what twitter stan language can we put in here?" And sometimes it was a bit too random for my tastes. However! I do like that his drag was considered important and was an integral part to a lot of missions they went on, and not just "Ah look at that dumb gay trying to find reasons to dress in drag." His talents and expertise were both respected and, save for Buck (which his whole point was supposed to be offensive anyway) no one undermined Twink for his femininity. His back story is also kinda random but did play a role in the missions as well. Still, personally think he's the worst character. Plus, he's French so minus four-twenties amount of points.

Stat-You know, in a show where everyone was stating what letter they were every few seconds I was surprised that I had to look up that Stat was trans. I...liked her character for the most part, except the part where she was fucking a robot. Kinda weird ngl, outta left field, and with her being trans I wonder if her having that sort of relationship is problematic for her. Love her design tho, love me a hacker girl. She's also listed as "ambiguously gay" tho showed to have mostly girl love interests but, okay.

Buck-He's the straight guy, emotionally repressed haha and he's bigoted. Did think it was funny later on when he was more "accepting" but managed to be even more infuriating about it. Tied with Twink as worse character but you know they tried to do stuff with him.

Vee-Really liked me a boss lady, but kinda weird how they bait-and-switched us with her actually being a lesbian, then go "no she's straight tho" in regards to Karen. I thought her and Mary's relationship was cute, wish I saw more of it. But she did feel like a random plot device in later seasons, what with her disappearing and reappearing when it was plot relevant. (Tho she HOTOHOTHOTHOT bikini episode WOOOWEEEE)

....

Okay, so now the plot....which. it had one?

It felt like it was flip flopping back n forth about whether it wanted to take itself seriously or not, and it seemed to decide on serious more towards the end, but then it would have this random plot element that would be so out of left field it would pull me out of my suspension of disbelief. See the whole "Back cracking to unlock memories" plot point. This back and forth on whether it would be a comedy or not I think weakened both categories it tried to play into.

If I had to compare the show to anything it would probably be Futurama, but the thing with Futurma is, its set in the future, so you're suspension of disbelief is allowed to stretch a bit more because all the wacky quirky stuff can be attributed to future shenanigans. Q-force, to my knowledge, is set in the modern day, which makes the wacky stuff that much wacker, because it's set in our modern times, which you apply the rules of everyday life to.

A lot of the problems that I had with Q-Force is, in the attempt to write specifically about the "gay experience" revealed that the writers have really only had a very specific experience of interacting with gay ppl, what I call the "Urban Gay" experience.

The fact they're in West Hollywood, and all the things that were listed as "universal gay experiences" but were only things that you'd be exposed to if you were in the city. I think a flavor of "white gay" can be implemented here too, which Q force has exactly one black woman, who manages to be the only lesbian.

That coupled with the fact that, there's a difference between having Twink naturally being a drag queen, the whole team being gay to some degree, and the fact they interact with the gay community often without Drawing Attention to all of those things and self-congratulating itself on concluding it. Funnily enough, Q-Force had examples of doing this right and doing this right. Right way: In the second or third episode where Mary found that guy with the flash drive to the uranium in it and seduced him in the gay bar. Relevant that it was gay without overtly drawing attention to it. Wrong-Way: Having Pride go on while Girl Boss was trying to take over the world.

And, for the show that promoted itself as representing the gay experience, there were...two gay men, one lesbian, one trans person, one straight guy and...no bisexual people. Also no nonbinary people. Like of course it's unrealistic to include every single identity but you're one bisexual person who appeared for one episode and was promptly blown up. And also showed to be...more off than the other characters, what with the stealing of silverware and all. Just, bisexual people are already forgotten enough as it is and not including them in the show, but you include two gay men just kinda reads as tasteless to me (as a bisexual person, obviously).

Which makes it so weird that Stat was left "ambiguously gay" when she could've easily been bisexual (which still would be problematic because of the robot-fucking but at least you got the B in there somewhere in the main group)

Overall, it tried to market itself as the "be all end all" of what it was like to be gay, but ended up excluding the exact people that get excluded in real-life lgbt spaces. This combined with the indecision with what kind of show it wanted to be managed to make it fall short. If you arent the very specific type of gay person who lives in a city environment and doesn't fit the stereotypes showed you're not going to feel "seen" by the show.

Weirdly though, I didn't hate watching it, and I would probably watch another season if they managed to make one. The parts that did work, I think worked really well, and even the bad parts just read as tasteless, and not actively terrible. If they focused less on making "hey I'm gay" jokes every three seconds and just let each character be what they are I think the show would be stronger for it. And I think they'd find less problems overall if they did that too. In the mean time I'll just be here side-eyeing the whole thing.

Edit: I forgot to mention, and this is a problem a lot of adult TV shows fall into, that because they got the clear to show nudity/sex they felt like they *had* to show nudity and to a lesser extent sex every episode. So just that whole "Haha adult=sex obviously."

Oh! And this generally goes for the whole "shove it in your face" part, but a lot of the characters who are bigoted were shown to be. Very blatantly so. And not to say there isn't blatantly bigoted ppl of course they are but I don't think that's where you see a lot of bigotry nowadays. This was sort of touched on during the show but more of a jokey manner, but I think it would've been more realistic if we had more "girl with a gay best friend" kinda bigotry as opposed to the "I'm literally hurling slurs at you" bigotry, especially since they're in Cali.

[tyonfs]

Hi its that anon who asked the question about smut about Jisung. I have another question. Do you think its okay for minors to read smut??? I’m 18, and i started reading smut pretty recently. But i’ve known about it since i was like 12 lmao. I’ve read it too but i was just so confused about it i was a baby so i didn’t understand but now i’m coming back to it like “oh 😦😦😳”. Idk personally, its weird for me to think that kids would read smut about these ADULT guys, and i feel like they should stay away from it. But at the same time its not like hormonal 13 year olds can be controlled- 😭 what are your thoughts about it ??

also can i be 🍬 anon?

hello again anon !! and yes you can take the 🍬 emoji it's so cute 🤲

i think it would be hypocritical of me to say they can't read smut LOL i also discovered smut at a young age on wattpad but i don't think it was good enough for me to get into reading it regularly 🚶‍♂️ tbh i think tiktok has rlly influenced a lot of people to read smut and enjoy it?

i think the question would be how much sexual content is appropriate for minors because it is perfectly normal for a teenager to get curious (i was the same way). media pushes sexual content towards teenagers in the form of jokes, shock factors, and straight up nudity tho so it's not surprising that teenagers do start to get curious

there's a lot of stigma around things like that tbh. as a teenager i was so scared to discuss a lot of things and changes i've noticed because everyone was just too shy to talk about it. but !! our body and hormones don't wait until we're 18 to have sexual urges and emotions so it's super healthy to explore it

obviously we can't control and monitor what minors do on this site, but i think the issue with minors reading smut and relationships in general in fanfiction distorts their perspective on what a relationship should be like and what sex is like. fanfiction sugarcoats and exaggerates SO much as well as treads the line of what's risky and what's safe during sex, so kids end up with a very skewed outlook. that's why i think it's kind of dangerous to consume such content and expect things to be like that??

the same issue comes up with porn too because porn is so unrealistic, so people just expect sex is going to be cloud 9 all the time. so like it is harmful to keep minors in the dark about sex yk but also fanfiction and porn is not the best way to learn about it

what i don't think minors should do tho is write smut. personally, as an adult, i would be so uncomfortable if i saw smut written by a minor and i'm actually not sure if that's an issue on tumblr but i see it a lot on wattpad and it's 🚶‍♂️

if minors do consume nsfw content, it's perfectly normal to be curious of such things. as someone who writes smut tho, i'm 100% uncomfortable with a minor coming into my asks and talking to me about smut or requesting smut because there is an inherent difference in power. so that's why it's super important to check tags, warnings, and listen when nsfw content creators tell minors not to interact

[thewhitefluffyhat]

Art

What is this review?

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Good

Gekidan InuCurry is back!

Half of InuCurry (specifically, Doroinu) returns for the game, and his designs continue to be creepy, cool, and just plain awesome.  Witches are just as unsettling and beautiful as in the anime, and new additions like doppels can sometimes be even more so.  Meanwhile, the transformation sequences he storyboards are the best in the game.  And he also did a few magical girl character designs - they’re definitely something to look forward to, for anyone who hasn’t been spoiled on them already!

Mixed

Character card art

Good news: If you want to, it’s easy to have a full team of characters with non-fanservice-y outfits.  Heck, it’s even pretty easy to have a full team of magical girls designed and illustrated by women!  

Furthermore, when the girls are leveled up, their outfits don’t change – instead, the art gains more elemental effects and dynamic poses rather than making their clothes devolve into I-can’t-believe-it’s-not-lingerie.  As a result, girls like Felicia might not have the best costumes, but since their final art prioritizes looking badass over fanservice, I find I’m not as bothered by the original design.  (Your mileage may vary, of course.)

That being said, while you can choose which art you want to use for each character… there are also some pretty darn bad illustrations.  And there are some girls who just don’t have a good option.  

(For a more in-depth discussion of the character card art, see my addition to @otapleonehalf’s post here.)

Extra costumes

One usually nice addition to the game is alternate outfits for the character you set on your home screen.  While some of the outfits are very fanservice-y (swimsuits gonna swimsuit), many are also unproblematic cute and fun.  Plus, since these aren’t new gacha characters and the costume unlock sticks even if you only obtain the character later, they’re a bit more friendly to collect for nonpaying players.

Live2D animations

This is the first time I’ve played a game with the Live2D engine, and I’m impressed.  The animations are rather “tween-y”, but they have lots of secondary motion and some great character details.  Character traits like Kako (above) and Sana’s shyness or Tsuruno’s restless energy are sold just as much through their unique animations as through their dialogue, which really helps the characters feel like people rather than archetypes.

Also, despite what you might expect from a Madoka Magica spin-off, there are no hurt/defeated portraits for the cutscene models.  The battle sprites have alternate poses for low health, but there is no clothing damage or blood.

Unfortunately, that Live2D animation I mentioned?  Also includes jiggle physics on the girls with larger breasts.  Thankfully, only a few girls have it to a noticeable degree, but the ones who do… hm.  The effect isn’t  unrealistic, I suppose, (that is, not weird bouncing whenever the character breathes, just secondary animation when the character makes a large or sudden movement), but I still wince whenever I see it.  You couldn’t afford more than one body type or skin color, but you can afford this?  A bad sign for the game’s priorities.

Bad

Transformation sequences

Wow, it’s weird to say this about a magical girl franchise, but honestly?  The transformations are probably the worst part of the game.  It sometimes feels like they just exist as an excuse to see leering closeups on some girls.  (Ironically, the nudity that got altered for the Taiwan and North American versions was one of the less objectifying examples.)  

And even beyond that, they’re boring!  Most girls pose, get a brief sparkle of their associated element and bam, that’s it.  Plus or minus some boob jiggle of course.  (sigh)

SHAFT really let everyone down here, and it’s another place where it’s tragic to consider what could have been.

However… as I mentioned above, if you get lucky enough to roll one of the original series magical girls, you’ll get a taste of that possibility.  Those sequences were mostly handled by InuCurry, and the difference is night and day - they’re creative and delightfully surreal new transformations.  If only the rest of the game had lived up to that standard…

Lack of body diversity

One of these girls is a semi-famous model and the other spent her life training to master the naginata - good luck guessing which is which based on their body types, since below the neck, they’re nearly identical.  And these two are not alone - every girl in the game has this Barbie doll-esque frame, with only small variations for height and (you guessed it) breast size.  

On top of that, there’s only one, very pale, skin tone.  Boo!

Thus, while I can understand the resource argument for this reuse, it’s to such an extreme that the result ends up looking off-puttingly lazy in a game that is otherwise has a lot of care and attention to detail.  

It also actively hurts the story.  There are characters who are said to be athletes, or who are sickly and spent a long time in the hospital, and so on.  Yet unlike the animations, the actual designs work against those characterizations, since everyone is the exact same level of generic cuteness.  Probably the most blatant example is when a character is stated to be beautiful in dialogue - for all we know, maybe she’s actually plain and it’s the person talking who has a weird opinion!

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