#not part of the main story in fact if you're actually following it here you're probably lost i don't remember if i've introduced logan i mi

[casuallyanidiot]

Imagine Being stuck in the novel of a Yandere author...

Kina a soft continuation of this post.

You get hit by a truck and end up in a story! Fortunately you're not the villainess destined to die a horrible fate. In fact, you get the luxury of being the main character and getting the hopeful happy end. Unfortunately, you don't recognize any of the plot points or the names of anything.

That part of it sucks, but you figure you could just follow how you assumed the story would go.

But you find it strange how much the male lead looks like that creepy guy from your work. There's a weird pit in your stomach when he sung your praises, and you can't help but recoil a bit in disgust when he kisses your hand. You know that it's your role in this story to end up with this guy, but geez he's so weird. If the two of you weren't in some weird historical fantasy world, you were sure that he would constantly be glued to your side.

Then you realize that, oh, hey you don't actually have to stick in the direction the plot of this world is trying to lead you in.

You find that the Northern Duke is quite cute, actually, and though he isn't as detailed as some of the other characters that were probably focused on more in the novel, he's still sweet enough. So, when the Male lead proposes to you, you politely reject him and run off to be with your new lover.

But when you arrive at the Duke's estate, you find that he's... the male lead?!

"You're not- how are you here?!" You say with narrowed eyes. The male lead merely smiles at you, if not a little confused. "My love? What are you talking about? Am I not your beloved Duke?" He laughs and spread his arms wide as if to embrace you. His skin feels colder than before for some reason, though you try to brush it off.

Your life in his estate was extremely strange from then on. It was like no one else could tell that the Duke had been replaced. He looked and acted completely different from before, and when you asked the staff about it, they looked at you as if you were the crazy one. They suggested that perhaps the two men were more alike than you initially thought, and that you should focus instead on settling into your role as his happy, unquestioning spouse. You tried not to frown, but with the way their eyes glazed over anytime you began to ask too many questions, you didn't think it mattered if they saw or not.

Your new fiancé was rather clingy. Annoyingly so. You had been trying to stand his lecherous touches and less than innocent advances for weeks now, to believe that perhaps you were crazy and had somehow mistaken the Duke and the Male lead for each other like everyone said you had. That it was just some byproduct of getting reincarnated.

But then you ended up speaking to a gardener.

She was obviously just a background character, one that probably wasn't even meant to be mentioned in the pages of this novel. She didn't even have a face, and her voice was disjointed and soft. When she spoke, her words echoed in the back of your brain as if she wasn't even meant to speak.

"The lord? He's been acting strange ever since you arrived here my lady," She said. You had to blink to make sure you heard her. To make sure she was actually there. "And his face doesn't look quite right. I'm glad you noticed, my lady. Someone has to."

When you sought her out the next day, she had disappeared without a trace.

You decided that whatever was happening with the estate, the Duke and his servants, was far too strange for you to ignore. Perhaps you had strayed far too much from the original plot and setting of the novel. Either way, it wasn't worth all the trouble. Not when the very thing you sought to avoid with the male lead seemed to follow you. Not when the world seemed to be shifting to try and keep you in the plot.

Wherever you went from then on, You would keep seeing the male lead appear. But it was the same as with the Duke. A character that was unique in appearance and personality would suddenly morph into him. And no one would notice. It was like it was completely normal to have dozens of copies of the same man occupying different names and roles.

You feel insane, like you've broken something in the world.

It's one night where you finally snap and stab one of the weird versions of the male lead where you find out the truth. You're panting and covered in blood, a knife gripped in your shaking hand. There's a manic relief that grasps you right then and there. Because, these characters aren't actually alive. They can't be. Not when they all have the same exact face and voice, smiling at you with empty eyes and words that don't feel like anyone would actually say them if this weren't a book.

You let out a sob of relief that for once you're not being reminded of the man who lurked around the corners of your pervious life. He made your skin crawl with the constant muttering under his breath, with the way he watched you. You did not want to see him in these, awful, awful mockeries of real people.

All you want to do, is have a happily ever after in this stupid novel.

Your eyes go wide and you let out a noise that's halfway between a sob and a laugh. The figure shambles up, seemingly unaffected by the wound in it's side. The face of the male lead, no, of that awful wannabe author, stares back at you without a care in the world.

"Did you get it out of your system? [Name]?" It asks you with a polite smile that doesn't reach the eyes and a tilt to the head.

You collapse to the ground, whimpering as the figure approaches you and pats you on the head. It said your name. Not the main character's name, your name from the real world. You swallow thickly as the puppet of a character kneels down with stilted motions. It's like every little movement is being directly controlled right now. As if it's being written right before your eyes.

"Are you ready to behave now?" It asks like you're some scared pet, and not a living, breathing thing that's being played with like a doll.

Your lips tremble as you nod. You feel something in your mind shatter as you realize that the happy ending written for this world was definitely not intended for you.

[elizabethrobertajones]

kriles summer trust top is kinda problematic tho... lalafell r smol and should be wholesome.

Aw, come on.

I'm sorry but I have to disagree because within the fiction, lalafell are just as mean, gross and horny as anyone else. Gegeruju is a perv, and the whole Ul'dah Syndicate is full of evil little bastards. On the good side, lala are just as complex and grown up as anyone else - Tataru courts followers and dances in a skimpy outfit in the Forgotten Knight, Giott is a roaring drunk stereotypical fantasy dwarf (not to mention whatever the heck is going on with the Tomra and Komra dwarves in general tbh :P). And Lamitt's story was sweet but it did involve her having adult feelings for Ardbert.

Like, really, I can only think of 4 completely wholesome lala out of a cast of hundreds, and they happen to mostly be the ones we've interacted with a lot (Nanamo; Pipin who is a Heroic Knight archetype; Papalymo, who was a grumpy old scholar man; Krile). But that's more about them being main characters serving roles in the narrative rather than indicative of how lalas behave as a whole. In fact after going through ARR, meeting Pipin and finding One Good Ul'dahn Lala is an enormous relief (since the other one is apparently dead now).

And Krile is a main character now so she's allowed to step out of the shadow of being uwu cat hoodie girl who wasn't written with much depth outside of being serious and earnest and rather spooky; she's actually 22 years old according to the first wiki I found - regardless of if that's totally accurate she's definitely meant to be a peer of the other adult Scions and they all treat her like an adult. Her introduction cutscene has her ribbing Alphy as an older friend laughing at how a much younger one used to behave, so we're supposed to immediately understand on meeting her that she's post-teen since she knew 11 year old Alphy and was of course older than him since he was a freak entry into the Studium at that age. Probably a necessary writing moment because establishing lala's age with hilarious moustaches or deep voices or whatever is a part of how the game has to present them.

Out of the fiction, I know lalas are part of a much wider trope that people do find problematic as a whole (e.g. just because in universe Tataru has babes across the globe and that's normal to everyone involved, who are consenting adults in a world which wholly understands Tataru as a consenting adult, is it actually really creepy that it's happening at all because her body type is toddler-esque? Is it weird in general that lala emotes are SO baby in the same way miqo emotes are SO kitty?

ffxiv definitely goes waaay further into borderline creepy territory than many games with smaller fantasy races in it, when it comes to how lala look, so yeah I know it's a fraught area and can be discomforting to see the game present child-shaped people as having adult desires and a thing some people understandably set aside along with other elements as things they're not happy with co-existing in the game with things they really love.) We can absolutely talk about that on a meta level of how we relate to the game and feel about it, just like things we find racist or uncomfortable in other ways e.g. eng translation Hien's treatment of Yotsuyu being a really problematic point.

But, that's one thing, versus talking about us here in fandom and how we relate to it, and I think your ask is, well, really not very deeply considered on any level, but I think is talking about how we as fandom relate to lalas, based on an inaccurate reading of them in the game, meaning you're really not even analysing a thing about it and therefore your ask comes more in the terms of policing how we should FEEL about Krile's beach outfit, and dictating that we SHOULD find lalas smol and wholesome, and that therefore there's an inherent problem in anyone reacting positively to the outfit, rather than critiquing its place in the game in the first place. Having hit a cognitive dissonance in seeing swimsuit Krile existing you've come to me to complain it's problematic rather than taking any actual meaningful action. Ergo, this is a fandom problem to you, not a game problem. WE should find it problematic and say so, you are implying, shocked that so many people looked at a post about the beach outfits and no one commented as such.

Aside from lalafell being fictional and at no point other than the visuals are they treated as children (and emotes aside, playing through the MSQ as a lala wol you easily fall into seeing them as an adult because of course all the cutscenes share the same level of gravitas no matter what you're playing or what clown costume you have on any player), there ARE actually real humans who are built somewhere closer to lala than not, and would be drawn to playing any of the smaller races in a game (like, gnomes in WoW, halflings in D&D, etc) because that's just their chance at representation. And because FFXIV doesn't have anything other than precious moments doll-shaped people the look might be great in the sense that they have the proportions of a cherub statue and it is a lot harder to meet in the middle than a halfling (notoriously hairy middle aged bastards and much easier to read as adult, though that doesn't exclusively represent people who've had growth developmental differences), that IS still the only representative option some people have in the game and if they want to indulge it rather than play something else with proportions forced on them by many games, then what the hell is wrong with that?

And they WILL go to bat for lalas and get upset when people say that they have to be precious baby characters who act like children. I've seen that on tumblr: there's a whole lala community who keeps kinda low key and away from everyone else by their own admission BECAUSE as soon as they get too much attention they're deluged with hate for playing characters who have adult desires and dress fancy - or, you know, like any other random slutty elf WoL. The fact I wandered onto lala blogs at random and saw that complaint on the first pages should speak to how often they have to deal with it. And, again, within the fiction of the game their characters are completely 100% normal and doing what other lalas who are written by the game do as well. I KNOW those blogs are out there and they'd be scared of getting this exact ask, and it would greatly upset them and ruin their day and put them off having any interaction with the community, which fucking sucks. We're here to have fun!

That said I'm not a weirdo anti all up in others' business, it's also fine to just like lalas and stuff without some huge circumstantial justification like "they look like me" - or - "my IRL wife" or whatever - you can also just play a lala or ship with one and it's like, your business. If that's all you're doing and it's not a hypothetical child molester who also has a whole gallery of lala porn that the cops find when they impound the computer full of REAL CHILDREN stuff as well it's never going to be anyone else's business anyway, ever, and that's like, one hypothetical awful person for a whole fandom of normies who are just surprised by how much idk Pipin's deep voice rocked their world and changed their whole perspective on what a hot character was.

Like, granted, that one HYPOTHETICAL weirdo will make everything rancid because there are people waiting to jump on people who like lalas, but also it still won't actually change what other people are doing into being Evil just because someone who actually hurts children found lalas attractive too. That, again, was the hypothetical awful person's problem and not theirs. And in no way can we just casually imply ALL people who like lalas are just inherently going to be dangerous, like real children, or enacting a private psychodrama teetering on the edge of all that.

They could in fact be completely average and boring psychologically and also have a crush on Tataru. Or, I guess, normal amount of weird for a fandom, but basically average XD In a fictional world where these characters are treated as adults, even normal people will naturally end up drawn to them as adults because, well, that's the story that's we're all engaging in. It's not inherently a thought crime to do so, because, weirdly, thought crimes don't exist.

Also, of course, people will literally discourse that hobbits are child-coded and shouldn't be shipped or seen as sexy, despite the most famous halflings, who made the entire halfling race as a generic brand, all being middle aged, hairy, smoking, drinking, guys with normal adult desires and mindsets. I mean yeah Elijah Wood was 18 when they started filming LotR (over several years so he was Krile's age by the end :P) but also Frodo celebrated his 40th birthday before setting off on the Ring Quest in the book and he was the baby of the group aside from Pippin.

In any case, there's no fucking winning and so I can understand completely that if a fucking Hobbit from Lord of the Rings gets shit for being short, and people are getting called a perv for fancying Sam Gamgee, then why not just embrace it with a Lalafell because you're literally damned no matter what in the eyes of someone who won't meet a LOTR HOBBIT where he stands as an adult man.

There's some DEEP puritanical brainrot going on online and I don't want to be a part of it whatsoever, so it means accepting lala likers for the sake of protecting Merry and Pippin's right to be seen as hot, than like, I know which side of of the line I'm dragging my beach chair. It's not even a question. I'm defending people who think lalas are appealing.

ANYWAY none of this is my business, I don't even find lalas sexy, I just think Krile looks nice in her cute summer top and it's lovely that she's getting fashion advice from her besties, and there's a million reasons to be happy about that and for her as a character, and only miserable bastard reasons to go "aurgh aurgh it's problematic" and condemn the game and everyone who plays it just for enjoying something. Lalas are NOT smol and wholesome, they're short and people, and that's fine.

[dailydragons]

I am not immune to this propaganda…

Do you like long fantasy series, but are tired of authors never finishing them?

Do you like interesting magic systems?

Do you like when characters form intense even psychic bonds with animal companions?

Do you like your heart getting ripped out of your chest and then stuffed back in full to bursting and but then ripped out again to get stomped on but it turns out you like that too uhhh let's call it... intense yearning

Do you like dragons? Of course you do, why else would you be on this blog!

WELL DO I HAVE THE BOOK SERIES FOR YOU!

The Realm of the Elderlings is a 16-book series is comprised of four trilogies and a quartet. All of which have been finished. Yes that's right, Robin Hobb saw other authors who can't seem to finish their multi-book fantasy epics and said "I will finish mine 4 different times to show you it's incredibly easy actually." She also has written multiple other series (some under the pen name Megan Lindholm), set in different universes.

So, where to start?

The components of RotE are:

The Farseer Trilogy

The Liveship Traders Trilogy

The Tawny Man Trilogy

The Rain Wild Chronicles

Fitz and the Fool Trilogy

The three bolded trilogies above are told from the perspective of FitzChivalry Farseer, one of the main/major characters in this universe and my eternal blorbo. The Liveship Traders trilogy and Rain Wild Chronicles are told from several points of view, and happen in chronological order between the series above and flesh out the worldbuilding, lore, history, etc.

For the most complete look at the universe, you can of course read everything. However if you want to stick with just one character, you can read the three bolded trilogies only. And of course, if you don't want to commit to a metric ton of words either way, you can just read the first trilogy and see what you think. Though I do think the levels of joy/pain/adoration increase with each work as you get more invested in the characters, of course.

OR. You can in fact read the Liveship Traders trilogy or the Rain Wild Chronicles quartet completely independently of the others. I actually started with Rain Wild Chronicles because those books have the highest concentration of dragons--it was actually a follower of this blog who recommended them to me, and I decided to jump into those rather than commit to The Whole Series (which at the time was only 13 books not 16). But I loved the writing style and wanted to learn more about the world, so got into the rest, and now I actually think the Rainwilds books are the weakest of the bunch (though I still enjoyed them initially)!

But You're Following This Blog, DailyDragons, So Here's The Part Of The Pitch You're Actually Invested In

Now I will be up front that you don't get many dragons in the first trilogy. There are a kind of dragons that appear at the end but dragons are not the main focus of this one. However Hobb learns from her mistakes about not including tons of dragons in her fantasy world and you get more in the next parts of the series.

The Liveship books deal with sea serpents and dragons in very interesting ways I don't want to spoil, though it's a slow build. But VERY fascinating reveals into the dragon's biology, life history, and magic.

The plot of the later half of the Tawny Man Trilogy revolves around dealing with how the world of this story used to have dragons but they have practically gone extinct. Less direct contact with dragons but still a dragon-centric last book.

Rainwilds is chock full of dragons. Including as POV characters. Can't complain about lack of dragons here at all.

Fitz & The Fool Trilogy is lighter on the dragons at first and then they show up en force at the end. Ta da!

anyway please read these books and join me in my eternal suffering. wait, suffering? nevermind who said that. shhh. it's fine. you will love fitzchivalry farseer. you will love the fool. you will never be the same again.

[project-sekai-facts]

How are we feeling about ensekai’s emu3 translation!!! (I’m mad)

(if you remember the 3 whole posts i made when asahi got de-gayed on EN you'll know i am mad too and that this is probably going to get long)

i don't like to be too cynical but it was so obvious that they were going to change that line, i had a feeling since the event first released on JP and after the incident with Asahi where I went through and tracked down multiple other examples of EN removing queer subtext it became clear to me that in no way shape or form was "emu-chan really loves nene-chan" making it to EN without getting changed. what i didn't expect was them changing Nene's line after Luka's comment, which actually makes this whole situation far worse than many of their other instances of toning down queer subtext.

for anyone who isn't aware of what happened, in chapter 5 of the current Emu event, there's a scene where Nene, Rui and the Virtual Singers are talking about what would cheer Emu up. The vsingers all talk about how much Emu loves spending time with Nene, leading to the following exchange

If you look for them, any fan TL of this scene will be something similar to this:

Luka: ...Fufu. Emu-chan really loves Nene-chan, doesn't she? Nene: Th-that's nothing special...

EN's official translation is this:

So what's the issue? I'll start with Luka's part. In the original text, she uses the word daisuki, which can mean to "like a lot" or "love". It's a word you will see frequently in the idol/idol-adjacent genre of games, due to its ambiguity in that it can be read as either platonic or romantic when used towards a person, and often will be used in ambiguous situations so that it's harder to confirm the writers' intentions either way. so here, fans of the emu/nene ship could view the fact that emu loves spending her time with nene as more on the romantic side, but people who don't like the ship could view it as platonic and move on.

while they didn't translate daisuki directly, Luka's line still works, and still contains the ambiguity that works as ship tease in the original text. it's a perfectly fine localisation that still conveys the original intent. despite that, there is something to be said about EN's consistent refusal to translate daisuki as love in most instances when it's not used on An/Kohane (but then again, EN has literally teased An/Kohane on their twitter account so is it all that surprising?).

Here's some examples:

Aibou no koto ga daisuki de / he loves his partner -> he cares about his partner very much (The Power of Unity chapter 7 when Kaito is comparing Arata to Akito and Toya)

HARUKA-CHAN, DAISUKI DAYOOOO!!! / HARUKA-CHAN, I LOOOOOVEEE YOU!!! -> You're the best!!! (Dear Me, As I Was Back Then chapter 4 when minori is at an ASRUN concert. this one isn't actually that great of a localisation)

Honachan no koto daisuki dakara. Kore de iinda yo. / I love Honachan, so this is fine. -> I want what's best for her. And this is it. (Leo/need main story chapter 14 after Saki tells Honami she won't bother her anymore)

Minna daisuki de - taisetsuna tomodachi na no / I love them all - they're my dearest friends -> They're all amazing, and very dear to me. (Leo/need main story chapter 17. this isn't good either)

What's particularly amusing about that last one is that there's a second official translation for it that I assume was done by JP staff (since EN never promoted doing the Journey to Bloom subs like they did back when they provided subs for Petit SEKAI) that actually keeps the word daisuki as love.

Yeah. I love all my friends - and they mean the world to me.

It's a better localisation than the official EN team one.

Questionable localisation choices aside, Luka's line is fine and is actually in line with the original. The issue with this localisation very much lies with Nene's part, because that is an entirely new line.

In the original text, Nene's "that's just normal" or "that's nothing special" or however you choose to TL it, is meant to be her questioning Luka's statement, since all the things that the other vsingers said that Emu liked were pretty normal things like going shopping and playing video games with nene. To Nene, these things are normal activities for them to do together, so she gets embarrassed by the fact that Luka concludes from that information that Emu loves Nene. When I dissect it like that I think you can really tell what the writers were going for here lol.

"That's just us being friends" does still convey the idea that Nene thinks these activities aren't anything out of the ordinary and she isn't sure why the vsingers are picking these out as some of Emu's favorite things to do, but it's very different from the original line. "But those are just normal things we do together" is something I just came up with on the spot, but it's a lot closer to the original text and still conveys the same meaning. The fact they changed the line to "that's just us being friends" is, honestly, not even subtle that they're covering up queer subtext. The original scene was very clearly written in as ship tease, and EN mentioning "friends" for no reason, especially since the word nor anything close to it was not used in the original, is instantly a red flag because it's like the go-to for queerbaiting and censorship. This was intentional. There was no need for them to specify that the relationship is platonic, Luka's part is ambiguous for a reason so that fans can view it how they like.

Just to top all this off, here's Rin's original line just before that Luka+Nene interaction:

Oh, and! And! She said that playing games with Nene-chan is also super fun!

And here's Rin's line from the official EN translation:

That's not the same thing, but even more weirdly, the incorrect part (super fun->really loves) is a correct translation for the part changed in Luka's line. So, they can do it, they are willing to say "really loves", just not in the right places. Maybe because Rin's part is less personal than Luka's part? It's strange actually, this isn't the first time they've done this either. Off the top of my head I can think of an example from Shiho's Varied Kindness 2* story where they translated the word "suki" as really loves, despite that being much stronger than the original word used (and the fact that daisuki is used a lot in the Leo/need stories and it's incredibly rare if not entirely unknown for them to translate it correctly).

It's not subtle that they're trying to remove implications of the characters possibly being queer, they did it in curtain call and they did it in walk on and on, and multiple times before then too. And considering some of the content in this year's events and the amount of times they say daisuki alone, it's gonna keep happening. honestly i hate the fact that i keep trying to justify the translations in these posts. these translations are intentional. what happened in the curtain call translation back in october says enough. when a character who uses explicitly romantic language towards another guy passes as a straight character in the translation you know they're doing it on purpose.

oh and once again, it's only the EN server that has this issue. The scene in question was translated almost word-for-word on the TW and KR servers.

read fan translations. they're better than what EN gives us and people put a lot of effort into them.

[theloganator101]

The Great BNHA Review: We Live in a Society

The world of fiction! The place where everything in the story happens. So when you're worldbuilding there are many things to take into consideration to make the world of your story feel alive.

From the people that inhabits it, the cities, towns, villages, and locations the characters live in. And even having a set of rules to follow to avoid plot holes and help the world they live in make sense.

Much like how despite technology being more advanced compared to real life, yet still not being able to have flying cars or advanced robots. Those kind of things can sometimes break immersion in the story, and as a writer you would want to avoid that as much as possible.

HOWEVER! The world BNHA takes place in doesn't make a lick of sense when you think about it for more than thirty seconds, and the foundation of the world breaks the more you think about it.

Case in point, UA!

I think at this point we all can agree that UA wasn't an actual school and instead a glorified boot camp to train child soldiers to fight. And for a series called MY HERO ACADEMIA!! There's hardly any academia in it at all.

Apparently Hori didn't wanna bother with that part of the series and being forced to write "boring" scenes and just get back to the exciting battles. Like where're the scenes of the class studying for their latest tests? Where're the scenes of the kids doing their favorite activities? Where're the scenes of them bonding with their superiors?

WHERE'S THE FUCKING ACADEMIA PART OF THIS GOD FORSAKEN SERIES!?!?!

You can't just name it My Hero Academia and only give us 20% of what the show is called! It just feels like false advertising at this point!

Also about the whole child soldier thing? Yeah let's go deeper into that.

Why are we relying on TEENAGERS to fight in these big battles and save the world when they've only been in hero school for a single year? That's literally like forcing teenagers to discover a cure of a disease when they've only taken a year of biology class!

And yeah, I get it, it's an anime so it's expecting you to suspend your disbelief, and they already had experience with fighting villains before so it would make sense to recruit them. But again, these are fucking teenagers and we shouldn't be relying on them to fight battles the adults should be able to handle!

This is one of the biggest problems of having your story take place in a world similar to modern real life, because here adults actually gives a shit as to what children go through and knows it would be fucked up to send them to fight in war! And the excuse of it taking place in Japan and thus how they do things is different compared to most countries is NOT GOING TO CUT IT!

These grown ass adults should KNOW bringing kids to fight in a war is fucked up and should NOT be encouraged! But since they're so desperate they choose to get them involved! The only exception to this is Rock Lock since he already knows this!

Okay, let's step away from the whole child soldier thing and focus on something the story never gave us introspection of... the fact that we never got to see how quirkless people are really treated.

It's explained that 20% of the population is quirkless, so almost a quarter are born without it. And from what we saw of Izuku's life with it, discrimination must be a common thing in their society. So it would make sense to explore that since it's tied to the main character's backstory and how he's going to make things better for others like him.

... Except that's not how it goes.

We never get to see how the life of a quirkless person is like, we never get to canonically see Izuku interacting with someone like him with the only exception being Melissa. But the thing about her is that she grew up on an island and her father a respected scientist, so it's kind of difficult to tell how the quirkless life is like if this is the only example we get... and it's not a good one.

But wait! There is a canon major character that was also quirkless like Izuku! And it's Yuga Aoyama. And how did the story treated him?

Oh it was revealed real late into the story with no awareness and treated him like shit for being an unwilling traitor, then replace him with Shinsou who whined and complained his way into the Hero Course.

Uhh, what the fuck?

And the worst part about all this is that Izuku has no reaction or acknowledgement whatsoever! He doesn't sympathize or feel less alone, he doesn't comment or say anything about this! So it's like what's even the point!?

Oh don't worry, we'll come back to this whole Izuku not acknowledging his past later in the review! But there's one more thing I wanna talk about in this world.

Is how blatantly biased society is to the Heroics occupation.

From what we've seen and learned, people are not allowed to use their quirks in public. And that the only way would be able to legally use them is to have a provisional license... which is only obtained if you're training to be a hero.

Uhh, but what if you don't wanna go into heroics? What if there is a person who wants to be a comedian? A layer? A construction worker? What if they have quirks that they think would help them in their jobs? Would they get in trouble if they tried using their quirks on the job? Is the Provisional License exam the only way to be able to use your quirk freely? Is there another test people can take to get one if they don't want to go into heroics?

Yeah you see what I'm trying to say here?

Since Hori's so focused on getting to the next big battle that he barely thinks about the world BNHA takes place in and leaves holes in the process. The world of BNHA feels more like a dystopia where heroics is all that matters and that anything else is boring and not as interesting. And since the world itself is so flawed, that I don't feel immersed into it at all and all I have are these questions on how things are run.

So in the next part, we'll be taking a look into the themes and messages the story tries to tell it's readers... but oh boy, did it really fumble with it's messages.

[all-wrung-out]

Whumpblr Intro

Hey! I've gone far too long without actually making an intro, despite having this side blog up for a bit. So here we go!

I go by Tac when I'm interacting online (my main blog is calligraphic-tac, and that's my chaos-corner where I try to post things I like, things that inspire me, and my more general writing, when I can actually get words out). Pronouns are she/her, although they/them are good backups.

I've been into whump for as long as I can remember, but in my 33 years on the planet, I only learned last year that there's a whole community for it. I'd heard the term "whump" before, and kind of knew what it was, but never made the connection to the type of media I like.

There are some whump tropes that I'll always enjoy, but the favorite flavor of the week is usually on rotation from the following list:

Superhero whump

Kidnapping

Defiant/Stoic/Strong/Snarky Whumpees

Self-sacrificial Whumpee

Pushing oneself until collapse (especially for Heroes/Leaders)

Whumpers who feign rage, but are actually very calculated and careful in their treatment of Whumpee

Whumpers who actually lose their temper, especially when triggered by a defiant whumpee

Team whump

Non-human Whumpee (especially when it pertains to the good, old-fashioned "what makes us human" trope)

Drug/poison whump (Fucked up balance and altered perception, anyone?)

Medical whump (specifically, medical treatment, but "This is gonna hurt.")

Lab whump (especially testing the limits of a living weapon or attempting to forcibly manifest powers that may or may not exist)

The good, old-fashioned Beating trope

Pinned/Trapped

Drowning/asphyxiation

Environmental/Wilderness whump (extreme temperatures and survival)

Animal attacks

Used as bait

Infected wounds (especially when it comes to treatment of said wounds)

Self-surgery or self-care

Mind control (Specifically, conflict between Whumper/Whumpee within Whumpee's mind while Whumper tries to take control. OH! And Whumper causing Whumpee to experience things that didn't happen; I have a really neat story idea for this one!)

I'm sure I'm missing some, but I suppose I can amend this post when I remember some more. Some of my whump tastes are also kind of specific, so listing them concisely can be a challenge.

Not going to list my squicks here. (As the saying goes: "If you don't want someone to get your goat, don't let them know where it's tied.") However, if you're looking for NSFW-type whump, I don't typically write that. (Not for other folks, anyway; I'm rather terrible at it.)

I used to write a lot as a kid, but was often ashamed of my affinity for whump, so any time I tried to write it, I chickened out and wrote something else. I still wrote plenty of action and peril, but the whump was usually not as heavy as I initially imagined.

I've also been in a bit of a writing slump for... oh, goodness... It's going on 14 years now. I really want to get out of it, so I'm hoping whump writing will help.

Fun fact about me: A lot of my stories are grown from a kernel of whump. I think of a specific scenario I want to put an OC through, and then a whole story grows out of it.

Some of my favorite whump blogs include: @whump-me @whumperofworlds @allthewhumpygoodness @emmithar-blog @soheavyaburden @whumperfultime @roblingoblin285 @blackrosesandwhump @evilwriter-originals I'm still collecting whump blogs to follow, so feel free to interact if you're one such blog!

Also, I'm going to be rusty as hell, so please bear with me while I get my writing brain reinstalled in the ol' skull-housing.

Last thing (I know this post is long already): I've seen the way the whump community interacts and I'm happy to be a part of it. I'm not especially social myself, but I'm nonetheless proud to be part of such an amazing group of folks. Keep rockin', y'all!

[my-rose-tinted-glasses]

We Are

A lot has been said about this show over the last 15 weeks. And despite what some people seem to think, most of it has been positive. I tend not to write much about shows in general, and stick to making pretty gifs of the shows I really like. The fact that I made exactly one set for the entire duration of this show should tell anyone who's reading that this will not be glowing review of the show. I'm not going to be mean, but if you loved the show and don't wanna do read someone with a different opinion, I beg you to stop reading. Also sorry if this is less than coherent but I'm tired so I won't be re-reading this a hundred times like I usually do before posting. Which also explains why I don't write a lot here.

We are - the story

One of the things that have been said about this show is that it lacks a plot. I would agree that the show as whole does not have single plot, but a series of plots. At it's most basic definition a plot is a series of events that shape a larger narrative. In the case of a linear plot there is a major plot line that follows the narrative from beginning to end with changes throughout. I'm not going to go into it, there are several ways this can be done depending on the type of narrative but most commonly it goes, beginning, rising, climax, falling, resolution. Now there's no such thing in this show as a whole. No single plot line. There is however several plots inside it, and these different plots do follow their own lines throughout the show. Every couple has its own plot line. And if we could only watch one couple at a time as if they had their own separate show, it would look just like any other bl, although it would certainly not be all that original. I think the friendships are what ultimately brings it all together but that by itself is not a central plot because it basically remains unchanged throughout. It's the anchor but it's not what moves the narrative forward.

We are - the ships

Once again, if you are a die hard fan of these ships do not read any more. Before I talk about them individually I just wanna say that @italianpersonwithashippersheart made an excellent point here about the fact that since we were familiar with most of the ships here, the show had an easier job in making us care for them. All the couples had their own storyline, with different stages of their development happening at the same time. And for the most part the show didn't have to spend a lot of time selling us on the relationships. It made use of a solid, reliable product that could be repackaged and resold. This is not necessarily a bad thing nor is it a new thing. It's thai bl.

Phum & Peem - The main couple. And in my opinion the least interesting one and the one most wasted here. Look, PondPhuwin are good together, this is their third show as a couple so they are a solid bet. So why not give them something with more depth? Why did I have to watch them exchange longing looks for the better part of this show? Don't get me wrong, they are great at it. Pond specially could teach a class on how to stare lovingly into Phuwin eyes. But lord was I tired of it. I mean, I'm sorry but I was fast forwarding through some of their scenes together because I've seen them all. I didn't count them but the amount of times they fell into each others arms must have been some sort of record. Sure, Phuwin is great at the facial expressions, Pond's hair ir gorgeous and he should be doing shampoo commercials, and yes, they can pull off the 'you're the only person in the universe in this moment and time loses all its meaning when I look into your eyes' thing. But enough is enough.

Q & Toey - It's fine. They're fine. They're actually much better than in My School President. Both of them I think improved a lot in their acting. But their story didn't do much for me. I enjoyed Q's change after they were boyfriends, I thought it was fun, but the drama before that, I thought, was so forced so I was not really all that invested. Also not a fan of the jealousy plan even if it did give us some entertaining moments with the friend group. I don't know, they just didn't click for me.

Tan & Fang - Is Tan one of the most adorable simps we've had in thai bl? YES. Did the boyfriend moments of this couple make me grin like an idiot 80% of the time? YES. Did I believe in the reciprocity of this relationship from the start? NO. Tan was the only reason that this relationship had me invested. His loud and unapologetic love for Fang filled the gaps in this particular love story. But the way it started made me have to work extra hard to believe the rest of it.

Chain & Pun - They were my favourites from the start. I waited 15 weeks for that kiss. Was it worth it? honestly, probably not. But at least they delivered in the end. That scene was everything I could've wanted from those two even if I wish it had happened sooner. The change in casting might've been the reason why it had to be this way so I'm not complain about that because ultimately I really enjoyed their story. Marc delivered as usual. Poon was so endearing to watch and his face is lovely. They remain my favourites and I wish I had a bit more time with them.

We Are - The friendships

This is what kept me going. When the episodes dragged and I found myself a bit bored, there was a big group moment and it brought me back to the show. When this show started, in my monthly breakdown I said I thought that @bengiyo comparing watching this show to watching the actors IG reels was a good way to describe the experience. But for me that wasn't always a bad thing. Just like with the couples, the fact that I knew these actors and they knew each other made me feel more connected to those ensemble moments. They felt very natural and grounded, and ultimately I could relate and be touched by them. I think that it's the show's biggest strength.

Well, this got longer than I expected and I never really know how to end these things so in conclusion. It was good fluff, with good friendship moments and solid acting from the couples. I will however forget most of it by this time next week, specially with the amount of ql's I'm watching at the moment.

If you've made it to the end, thanks for reading. 💜

[taytaay131313]

DEBUNKING THE “KARLIE BETRAYED TAYLOR BELIEF”

Disclaimer: this post is taken from Reddit and it was put together and posted by this user : OddDragonfruit6179 I just made it into Tumblr post.

This is for people who might be new to Gaylor side of the fandom and to those questioning the “betrayal” surrounding Taylor Swift and her masters and Karlie Kloss. This is also an answer to anonymus messages about the line in the song It’s time to go believed to be about Karlie Kloss / When the words of a sister come back in whispers that prove she was not in fact what she seemed not a twin from your dreams she's a crook who was caught.

PSA - Personally, I exist as a Gaylor because I love interpreting Taylor's Queer themes that don't specifically revolve around certain muses & the beautiful way they can exist on their own. I am also not 'Late-Stage'-Anything, haha. But, saying that, it's amost impossible to ignore the elephant (or Giraffe) in the room when it comes to Karlie & Taylor's storytelling since Reputation. It seems there are some very firmly-held beliefs about 'what happened' (including Gaylors), and a lot of them revolve around the idea that Karlie 'betrayed' Taylor during the Master's Heist era of June/July 2019, 'feeding information to & siding with Scooter Braun' - which are often used to debunk Gaylor interpretations as a blanket shut-down. Given the latest drama with Selena & how she recently spoke up about slandering Taylor on TikTok, it reminded me of how we have a lot of evidence from both Taylor & Taylor's inner circle that this was probably not actually the case, and how quickly rumours & interpretations get adopted as 'fact' without any proof - something I think Taylor's also tried to get across with her music, too. I wanted to do a little deep-dive into this side of things to remind us all that we simply cannot believe everything we hear - there's always a lot more to celebrity stories than the loosly-held general beliefs :)

What was the big 'betrayal' in 2019?

If you're new here, welcome! The supposed 'betrayal' revolves around Taylor's Master's Heist in summer 2019, when Scooter Braun (millionaire celebrity manager) bought Taylor's entire back catalogue of music, leaving her without ownership of all her previous music. Taylor was at a turning point in her career, having just ended the 13 year contract that she'd been tied into since she was 15, and was just about to release her first fully-owned album 'Lover' She wanted to buy all her past music, allowing her to have full freedom & ownership going forward - yet it was allegedly sold to Scooter from underneath her, meaning he would be the one profiting from all of her life's work from Debut to Reputation & leaving her without any ownership rights of all her past work. (This is now why she's re-recording her 'Taylor's Versions' of her past albums.) How does Karlie tie into this? Karlie had been a huge part of Taylor's life since 2013. As Gaylors, most of us believe they were much more than friends & Karlie was the main muse for Reputation (2017) & multiple songs on Lover (2019). Karlie had signed with Scooter Braun in 2015. In 2016, Scooter was involved in the Kimye 'Taylor Swift is over controversy', being included in a photo Justin Bieber posted online to taunt Taylor (which Justin later said Scooter had nothing to do with). As she was Scooter's client, Karlie was immedietly caught up between Scooter Vs Taylor rumours, leading her to tweet this:

In early 2017, as the Kimye drama grew, Taylor stopped sharing her private life on social media. From 2017-2018 she releases Rep, goes on tour, ends her contract with Big Machine & begins working towards releasing Lover. All the while, rumours are consistently following both Taylor & Karlie about 'whether or not they're still friends' because they'd not been seen together. A lot of people believe they were still in each other's lives (there are multiple masterposts going into the possible romantic side of things), but the narrative is all over the place: In March 2018, Karlie tells the NY Times: 'don't believe everything you read' & that she and Taylor as still 'very close'. In July 2018, Karlie announces that she's engaged to Josh Kushner and Taylor doesn't publicly comment. In August 2018, Karlie attends the Rep Tour & is brought to the front pit when Taylor sings 'Dress'. In October 2018, Karlie has her first 'wedding' with Josh (up for personal interpretation if this is Lavender or not) - Taylor doesn't publicly comment. The same month, Karlie's YouTube shows her apartment is still full of photos of Taylor & her family/friends (not Josh):

In the first half of 2019 Taylor is finishing writing Lover, which include themes indicative that she is extremely up/down, full of anxiety & has push a 'lover' away: "I'm terrified if you ever walk away" (Cornelia Street), "We were crazy to think this could work, but we might just get away with it" (False God), don't wanna keep secrets just to keep you" (Cruel Summer), " jump from the train, I ride off alone" (The Archer), " blew things out of proportion, why'd I have to break what I love so much? I need to say hey, it's all in my head, I'm the one who burned us down, sorry that I hurt you, I don't do this to you, I don't wanna loose this with you" (Afterglow), "Saying goodbye is death by a thousand cuts, I look through the windows of this love, even though we boarded them up, chandalier's still flickering here" (DBTC)

What actually happened in Summer 2019?

Taylor begins promoting the release of Lover. In April 2019 she unveils a butterfly wing mural which looks extremely similar to Karlie's butterfly wings from the VS Show where they met & then continues to be ridiculously gay-on-main. She releases You Need To Calm Down, where she's the Sherriff of the Gay trailor park with Bi hair, and ME! on Lesbian Visibility Day... there's endless flagging in clothing/theming. She was getting very 'loud'. Many people believe she may have been leading up to 'coming out' officially, either with the album and/or the Miss Americana documentary that was in the process of being filmed. On 23rd/24th June, Karlie has her second 'wedding' (a big party). Taylor doesn't attend. Scooter does (he's close friends with Josh).

Within a week after he's at this party with Josh & Karlie, Scooter then flies to Nashville and completes the sale of Taylor's masters. The sale is partially funded by the Carlyle Group, who is in business with Kushner Companies (Josh's family's business).

On 30th June (the following weekend), Taylor announces that the Master's Heist has happened & how distraught she is. Lots of celebrities speak up against Scooter & many of his clients (Demi Lovato, Justin Bieber etc) speak up in defence of him. Karlie remains silent & doesn't make a statement either way.

On 3rd July, Perez Hilton starts stirring shit by saying that 'Taylor is no longer close to Karlie because she found out Karlie was telling things about her & her career to Scooter! It began circulating that 2 of Taylor's close friends, Ashley Avignone & Claire Winter had liked the tweet, 'confirming' that this was the case to those that follow gossip sites. Karlie is then photographed at events/lunches/trips with Scooter multiple times throughout the rest of 2019 - further ‘cementing' this idea for fans.

The final blow for this theory came when Taylor released Folkmore (2020): in the song 'Time to Go' she sings "When the words of a sister come back in whispers, that prove she was not in fact what she seemed, not a twin from your dream she's a crook who was caught", which many fans immedietly assumed was about Karlie.

Where are the cracks in all this?

Taylor's other friends: Obviously, social media is only a partial glimpse of a story, but it is very suggestive of behind the scenes information. The reaction to the current Selena controversy was what reminded me of her friendship with Taylor, after she stuck up for Taylor on a video of Hailey Bieber. Selena's been very close to Taylor since they were teenagers. In October 2019, shortly after the Master's Heist, she did an interview where she was in tears talking about how important her friendship with Taylor was, and how much she loved her & her family:

...so she would've been very much on Taylor's 'side' if Taylor has had an awful betrayal from Karlie, right? Yet in November 2019, just 5 months after the Masters Heist , she's very publicly supporting Karlie, too:

..and they have both consistently continued to support eachother ever since, right up to Selena's latest birthday:

In terms of social media, many of Taylor's current close friends & people she's worked closely with continue to follow Karlie (despite following a very limited number of people). This includes Taylor's oldest childhood friend, Abigail (who only follows 285 people - Karlie still follows her back), Haim The Band, as well as Danielle & Alana Haim on thier individual accounts, and Sadie Sink:

Karlie also continues to follow Taylor herself and Taylor's brother, Austin:

We also have two more of Taylor's very close circle, Ryan Reynolds & Gigi Hadid, liking posts about Karlie's 30th birthday in 2022:

What about Perez Hilton's claims? Baring in mind this is the ONLY 'evidence' that exists to support this story, I tried to find the original tweets about 'Karlie telling things about Taylor to Scooter', and low & behold: they're ALL gone. That includes Perez's & the 'Taylor Swift Updates' tweet that was supposedly liked by Taylor's friends. Gone, deleted, non-existent. Why would they have been deleted if they were true & Taylor wanted that story out there? Who made sure they were, from all accounts involved, and only those? Interesting.

What I did find, however, was some tweets and likes from the same friend, Ashley Avignone, discussing how none of Scooter's clients have been able to speak out against him or leave him because of their contracts (this would include Karlie):

What about Karlie 'siding' with Scooter & continuing to work/hang out with him? There were definitely pictures of Karlie continuing to spend time with Scooter after the Masters Heist. However, she was under contract. She never defended him or tried to reason about what he'd done. In fact, she left Scooter as soon as she possibly could. She hasn't been seen with Scooter since 2019 & she signed a new contract with a different manager in 2021. It's also relevant to note that Taylor's other close friend, Ed Sheeran, was also managed by Scooter at the time & didn't speak up publicly either. Taylor reportedly attended Ed's wedding in September 2019, yet Ed continued to stay with Scooter & publicly party with him well into 2021 (so, clearly, if there is an issue with Karlie it wasn't just because she continued to work with Scooter in 2019).

Last but not least, the music:

Throughout her albums since the Masters Heist, Taylor has consistently written about heartbreak & betrayal in different ways. Although 'It's time to go' has been grabbed by many fans as 'proof' that Karlie betrayed her, but most stories just aren't that simple. Taylor is a storyteller. One song doesn't equate to every emotion/situation that Taylor was feeling. As many of us do, I believe there's a clear arc of Taylor painting a picture throughout multiple songs, of how she thought she had been 'betrayed' & the pain of that, but later realising she was just blaming the person she had loved in order to get through it all. Others have done amazing, full analysis of these songs, but in terms of 'betrayal' specifically: In Hoax we see the raw pain of feeling hurt by the one she loved alongside what happened with the Masters Heist (this song is full of Karlie references & Taylor very clearly says she was writing about both love & the Masters Heist in the LPSS): "My eclipsed sun, this has frozen my ground / You know I left a part of me back in NY / You know it still hurts underneath my scars from when they pulled me apart, but what you did was just as dark, darling this is just as hard."

In Closure, we see that she's harbouring a lot of anger & isn't ready to move forward or past her pride: "Yes I got your letter, it wasn't right the way it all went down, looks like you know that now / I know that it's over, I don't need your closure / I'm fine with my spite / Guilty, guilty, reaching out across the sea that you put between you & me"

In Coney Island, we begin to see her taking accountability for her own role in the relationship breaking down in the first place (which ties in with Afterglow): "Sorry for not making you my centerfold / It gets colder & colder as the sun goes down / What's a lifetime of acheivement if I pushed you to the edge / Did I leave you hanging every single day / Did I paint your bluest skies the darkest gray?"

In Happiness, we see this accountability clashing with the hurt she still feels about the way it all ended, but ultimately acknowledging she can't make Karlie the villain (suggesting she never actually was one) & wants to forgive her whatever role she did play (when she's ready). Hope she'll be a beautiful fool who takes my spot next to you, no sorry, I don't mean that, I can't see facts through all of my fury / I can't make it go away by making you the villain, guess that's the price I pay for 7 years in heaven / All you want from me is the green light of forgiveness, You haven't met the new me yet, but I think she'll give you that"

Later, in The Great War, we see a continuation of reflecting back on the same themes - telling the story of feeling hurt & betrayed, shutting the other person out, but realising the other person was also being equally hurt by it all / was never the person she should've been blaming: "Cursed you as I sleep-talked, tore your banners down, took the battle underground / I drew curtains closed, drank my poison all alone" (processing her pain through putting an end to the loudness of Lover & writing Folkmore). "Somewhere in the haze got a sense I'd been betrayed/ telling me to punish you for things you never did, so I justified it" (Taylor's acknowledging once again that the other person hadn't actually done what she thought they had) "You drew up some good faith treaties / Tears on the letter / My hand was the one you reached for" (could be a callback to the letter' in closure & suggests the person was trying to make peace). "Your finger on my hairpin triggers, soldier down on that icy ground, looked up at me with honour & truth, broken & blue, so I called off the troops" (icy ground could be a callback to 'you have frozen my ground' back Hoax).

So where does that leave us?

Who the hell knows? No one does, but I love reading all the theories when the rest of the music is tied into it all! But in regard to there being a 'betrayal', given how there was never any concrete evidence that Karlie did anything wrong in the first place (& how the only tweets alluding to it have mysteriously dissapeared), the continual association with Karlie from some of the closest people in Taylor's life, Karlie leaving Scooter at the first chance she got & the arc of the 'thought i was betrayed but I was really just heartbroken & being dramatic' story from Taylor, I am now a firm believer that there wasn't a 'big betrayal' from Karlie in regard to the Master's Heist.

The rest of it is all up for guesswork. Taylor definitely felt betrayed by something at first. We know there were already break-up songs on Lover written before the Master's Hiest which suggest Taylor was the one to push her lover away, yet they were still dappled with hope that she'd get them back. Potentially, Karlie had already been pushed away & had sought security in her long-term partnership with Josh/decided to marry him. After the engagement & 1st wedding, this is when we see Taylor's very 'loud' Lover Era - could this have been an attempt to 'prove herself' to Karlie & make a statement about what she was willing to do? However, Karlie was already comitted to Josh & had gone through with the 1st wedding. Within a 1 week period of June 2019, Karlie doubled down on going through with her 2nd wedding to Josh & her manager bought Taylor's Masters, making it extremely risky for Taylor to continue to make a career-changing choice of 'coming out' (if that's what she'd been intending to do). Could it have been orchestrated by Scooter (& Josh?) in order to keep Taylor closeted? Could Josh have been involved financially in order to put a stop to the rumours about Karlie after they'd already comitted to marriage & keep his business deals/ family connections safe from speculation? Could Karlie simply have been trapped in the middle of all of it & torn between her loyalty to both Taylor & Josh, causing an already heartbroken Taylor to 'kick the cat' and initially put the blame on Karlie for the way it all happened? (If you factor in the possibility that both Karlie & Josh might be closeted & had eventually comitted to a consentual Lavender Marriage, it makes the risk of Taylor exposing them even bigger. Josh was tied up in Billionaire conservative circles & relied heavily on his business partnerships in the Middle East & Asia, as well as pressure from the Trump side of the family. We have no idea what kind of pressure he & Karlie may have been under behind the scenes).

Who the hell knows - but if Karlie had directly, intentionally been involved in such a big betrayal to Taylor, I HIGHLY doubt her best friends/family would be having anything to do with her.

Folkmore shows a clear theme of working through different, conflicting emotions, & then in Midnights we're back to seeing the Karlie-coded songs being portrayed as a big, authentic love (not one that was hate-filled or hurtful)...so at the very least, I'm definitley on the team of believing they have worked through whatever they needed to & have drawn a line under it all :) + a little update since the Eras tour started we have seen some of Karlies friends attend the show such as Derek Blasberg (her long time best friend), Cara Delevingne…Gigi Hadid revealed she will attend the Eras tour and go to as many shows as she can and she was just recently seen with Karlie in Mumbai. I hope this post made some things more clear for everyone not knowing this side of the story.

[elkonigin]

Inuyasha Meta - Sango's Relationships

Let's take a moment and talk a bit about the main relationships that Sango has within the story.

Inuyasha

Okay, these two are siblings that aren't actually related. Inuyasha gives her that brotherly relationship that she's been looking for after the loss of Kohaku. Especially at the beginning when she thinks that he's actually dead.

And when she discovers that Kohaku isn't dead, Inuyasha is the one to make her see reason and stops her from killing her brother to save him from doing anything else evil.

Inuyasha should be anti-brother, but he's not. Because he understands family and what it should be. Inuyasha protects Sango from doing something that he knows that she's going to regret.

But these two seem to banter and argue back and forth like siblings and I think that's what gives Sango some sense of normalcy, because Inuyasha makes her realize that family doesn't have to be blood, and that she has people who care about her here.

Kagome

Ah yes, Kagome. The ultimate best friend duo. Kagome allows her that opportunity to have a female friend. I have no doubt that Sango had a ton of male friends because of her profession, but Kagome lets her be soft and feminine, and brings her those things that define her as feminine.

Kagome offers her the duality of Sango's nature. Sango wants to be feminine; if she didn't, then she wouldn't be wearing her traditional wrap skirt all the time (which I also think Sango uses as a disguise part of the time to let people misjudge her and then BAM! she enters ass kicking mode).

Kagome also serves as a confidant, allowing Sango to therapeutically release all that negative emotion and her confusion in her attraction to Miroku. Kagome is the normal girl that Sango wants it to be, however, she is allowed to be both soft and ass-kicking all in the same sphere. Kagome lets her see that it is possible to be both AND be accepted for it.

Miroku

Now, so many people argue that Sango deserves so much better than Miroku, and I say that you're wrong.

Was Miroku a terrible person at the beginning? Yes. But a lot of this stemmed from the fact that the man thought he was going to die within a few years, and had to literally pop a baby out of some woman in the hopes that maybe he would finally get rid of Naraku.

Both Sango and Miroku were living to die. Sango was willing to die to destroy Naraku and save her brother, and Miroku was just counting down the days until he was sucked into the void.

We see Miroku's habits change towards women once he was engaged to Sango. Miroku might have been a player, but he's devoted to Sango. There's also a distinct change in how he acts. Miroku wants to live once he realizes that he has something to live for.

Sango is Miroku's reason for living, and Sango finds a reason for herself. Revenge is no longer her primary focus, and we her be a little selfish for just that one bit in her desire to be with Miroku and be a married woman. Miroku's willingness to die for Sango and her despair over the thought that he might die before her, renews her passion for fighting Naraku, not for revenge but for the life she desires to have.

Kirara

So we have the dynamic duo here. Kirara is Sango's constant companion. She is loyal and faithful, and helps Sango whenever she's in danger or needs assistance. We know that Kirara loves Sango. This much is clear.

And it's obvious that Sango loves Kirara, judging from the first scene we see them reconnect after the deception of Naraku is revealed. Sango thought that Kirara had died defending the village, and Kirara had spent the entire time attempting to defend the village, even after it fell, because Sango had asked her to.

Kirara is happy to follow Sango and group along as they travel with hardly a care or concern, even when she's treated more like pack mule and transport.

However, both are greatly respected, and this is the relationship that gives our hearts joy and makes us all wish we had a little fire cat as a personal companion.

Kohaku

These two have to be the kindest siblings you've ever seen. Our first introduction to them is where Sango is reassuring Kohaku over his place in the village and as a demon slayer. She's reassuring and motherly, and even when her brother murders everyone that she loves, she still tries to comfort him as he dies.

Even as Kohaku attempts to attack Kagome and kill her, she tackles him to the ground and is willing to him herself, because she knows that even though it would destroy her to kill her brother, she's willing to suffer as long as he's not. Sango knows what her brother would want, and she'd do her damnedest to carry out his wishes.

Because when Sango loves, it's full force 100% inescapable care and affection whether you want it or not.

And after everything is done and over, there's no hard feelings between them. Sango doesn't hold what happened to the village and her family against him. Think about it. This is a lot to just let go, and Sango immediately forgives him, because she knows that it wasn't him.

I feel like I could go on more, but I think this is more than enough. 😂

[benis-chillin]

IDW's Fang the Hunter and the failure of Neo-Classic Sonic

(In case you're stupid, this is an opinion piece made for discussion)

Greetings, boys and goyles. I'm Benis, otherwise known as Benis Chillin, Sonic lore enthusiast and fanfic writer. I say the latter part because I want people to know that I'm well aware that many of my criticisms are based in the fact that I'm a writer, and unlike most people, I try to run more by objective canon than my whims. I explain it more here.

And per those standards…The current state of Classic Sonic SUCKS.

Now, I am a Modern Sonic fan through and through. I LIKED the 4 main Classic games when I played through them, but Sonic Adventure was the one that truly hooked me in. The world established by that game, and the ones that followed, just have my interest more, and I would prefer things be made in service to THAT.

However, to the greater detriment of society, Sonic Generations happened, and Classic Sonic was reestablished as part of the brand after years of Modern Sonic being THE face of everything, with even collections of Classic games using Modern Sonic artwork. And with the environment of the internet in the 2010's, it's no surprise that they decided to let Classic be its own sort of "brand" with Sonic Mania(bleh)and Forces(less bleh).

But they had a fun spin on it: A split timeline.

As explained above, Classic Sonic was given his own little mini-continuity to run around in, which is actually a brilliant idea, from a brand perspective. Original Classic Sonic had the creative freedom to do whatever the heck he wanted to, since he was the main Sonic. However, new Classic material, or Neo-Classic material, as I shall now refer to it, if left in the main timeline, inherently has the “prequel” problem where things HAVE to have some kind of hook for it to really be worth having another branch of the brand available. I wouldn’t say EVERY brand has this problem, but even the most masterful uses of that format have to deal with the fact that the future is predetermined, and Neo-Classic Sonic material just does not have the leg room to work around that problem.

So, split the timeline, and just do whatever with it. It’s an AU, go nuts! Let a part of the brand reset and grow in a different way for that audience who isn’t into that Modern stuff!

And we had a promising enough start with the 30th anniversary comics! Full of interesting returns that you didn’t really see in the mainline books. Heck, we got an actual look at the design of Metal Knuckles, that was pretty rad!

Bark, Bean, and Fang also had an appearance that made their old Archie team somewhat canon, after they only appeared as illusions in Mania.  Sure, these characters were neat in the Archie comics, but getting a proper form of that in a continuity free of that Satam Stank was nice. This particular comic being a separate thing from my main love, while not diving into the weird stuff that would turn me off from it, inherently made the comic more interesting, even though I’m not much of a Classic Sonic fan.

And so this sentiment continued through the next specials, but something else began to shift on Sega’s side. The dumbassery of single timeline was stated to be the new status quo, and they started acting as such with new Sonic material.

Sonic Superstars came out, too, and my feelings on that are known. Now, after his appearance in the comics had been a bit of a treat, even if you didn't like him, Fang was in an official Sonic game again, with 3D renders to boot!

...But he was still the same jackass with barely any personality that he was before. Because Superstars was TRYING to be like 3&K with its storytelling, while lacking basically every element that made 3&K's storytelling work. Combine the lackluster story and music, both of which were caused by the idea of it being a Neo-Classic game, with the fact that the graphics were 3D, and now the question is being raised of, "Why wasn't this just a Modern Sonic game?" 

Cause from an outsider's perspective, it being a Neo-Classic game only served to hold it back in a ton of ways!

For example, the character of Trip. She seems well liked in the Sonic fanbase, but Sega's kinda funky with how they handle characters being both Classic and Modern. Sonic, Tails, Knuckles, Amy, Eggman, and Metal Sonic seem to be allowed to exist in both parts of the brand, but that's it. 

Knuckles Chaotix is said to be canon, but the Classic Chaotix are unlikely to appear anytime soon since Sonic Heroes soft-rebooted them. Mecha Sonic was allowed to appear in the Modern "Scrapnik Island" mini-series, but I suspect it's seen by Sega as a "modern reboot" rather than a character being allowed to co-exist between the two brands again. Heck, they didn't even have the guts to show the Classic versions of the characters during the flashbacks, even though logically, they were still referencing 3&K.

 So will Trip be allowed to appear in any meaningful way in the future? Probably not, the way things have been going.

So, if all Classic characters can only appear in Neo-Classic material, then the Neo-Classic material has to be as good as it can be, right?

Well, that's where the Fang mini comes in.

Written by Ian Flynn, who has very much been showing how utterly stretched he is across so many Sonic projects lately(even if I would still regard him as a fairly decent writer, just...Has his limits), the Fang mini is the epitome of BORING! 

The basic story is that Fang and his gang are seeking out, "The eighth Chaos Emerald," visit a few people who tell him it doesn't exist, and then Eggman sends him to deal with the Hardboiled Heavies going rogue.

Along the way, Fang is just randomly a dick to his friends, and they end up abandoning his ass at the end because this comic is, for some reason, a direct prequel to Sonic Superstars, and we apparently needed an explanation of why they weren't there?

If my summary didn't sound that bad to you, it's because you don't have to go through the grueling wait that being an IDW Sonic fan entails.

Seriously, the wait between issues of IDW Sonic has become a real problem the past few years. Ever since the Metal Virus ended, the main book has had a massive problem with pacing. 

And sure, there are arcs and ideas I like there, I AM a fan, but not a lot HAPPENS in each issue compared to earlier in the book's run. Even re-reading them, the pace is oddly slow for a book about a fast character, and the issue especially persists here...On top of the main book being paused for a bit so THIS shit could come out.

(Current arc is doing better, though, so hope they keep that up)

Issues 1&2 are wasted with Fang harassing Sonic and Knuckles for a bit that, guess what? Goes nowhere! And then we briefly divert to Fang and co. in a watery old Eggbase so Eggman can capture them and actually get the plot going…3 issues into a 4-issue mini! Then, we finally get to the main event, where all will be revealed! And…

It's the Warp Topaz from the main book. The Hardboiled Heavies found it in a cave, where nobody ELSE knew it was, so it can't be the source of the 8th Chaos Emerald rumors.

Like I told ya, that went NOWHERE!

So they fight the bland-as-shit Heavies, Fang adds the Warp Topaz to his hover bike thing, and the airship is wrecked, leaving Sonic and Tails to have no idea what just happened, their involvement being a complete wash.

And our story ends with Bark and Bean rocketing off in little hovercars that just raise the question of why they didn't use those when Fang threatened to kick them off in Issue 2, since he has no say in whether or not they launch.

I actually managed to ask Ian Flynn about this on the Bumblekast, and this was his response:

Worth noting that the final issue has an additional editor that didn't work on the previous issues. Not saying EVERYONE'S blameless in this, but if I had to choose a weak point…

This mini-series encapsulates every little issue the Neo-Classic line has had since they officially eschewed split timeline.

 It feels the need to go out of its way to explain shit that doesn’t matter, like where Bark and Bean were during Superstars, Fang having the Warp Topaz, but not using it during Superstars creates a gaping plot hole that will not wash away, and it not going away at the end brings up a lot of timeline issues that I can only hope that Knuckles special resolves! 

In fact, why didn’t HE get the mini!?

Even in his Classic state, Knuckles has a LOT more to carry a story with! From the secrets of his island, to the mysteries of his people(which Adventure and the Frontiers promo animation hinted at), to even just doing his own treasure hunts! Heck, you could even pin him against both Fang’s crew and the HBH, and you’ve got enough of a banger to hold 4 action-packed issues right there! 

But no! Instead, we get a book that seems written to depend on the personalities of the protagonists…When said protagonists barely have any personality.

Like, let’s consider Team Chaotix from Sonic Heroes ALONE. Vector is the loud, bombastic leader with a love of music, and true detective skills, as showcased by him figuring out that their employer was Eggman on his own by Rail Canyon. Espio is the disciplined, if a bit full of himself, ninja, taking down the bad guys with stealth and precision, while also being somewhat melodramatic. And Charmy is the excitable ADHD kid of the group who may occasionally want to go off-track and play around in the giant casino area.

These characters are simple, yet so full of personality that you immediately like them(unless you’re a 2010’s YouTuber). THESE guys can hold a narrative.

By comparison, what do Fang’s gang have after 3 comic appearances and Sonic Superstars?

Fang is a hired goon who has goons, Bean is “funny” bomb man, and Bark is the silent strong guy with a soft spot.

That is really it.

And this was FINE back when they were still in “Sega forgot us” territory. Being obscure oddities that we would rarely get in stories actually did a lot of heavy lifting for their more limited personalities. Despite what the current writers seem to feel about such limits, judging by Silver and Blaze's current "vacations" in the main book, characters being rarer can actually endear you to them.

But now, these guys aren't really that rare. In fact, I’d say they’re about equal to Team Chaotix in terms of mass media exposure within the past 5 years, and they’re considerably lacking in comparison. 

Hell, even compared to the characters created RECENTLY in IDW and the Modern games, they're pretty lackluster. Yet I'm supposed to care about these assholes just as much as those guys?

Which, really, is how ALL of the Neo-Classic media feels these days.

Look, I get that Neo-Classic Sonic media doesn’t want to step on the toes of Modern Sonic. I do. But I really think it needs a good shake-up.

Quit treating it like it’s this special thing, because it isn’t anymore. Find a more solid identity for this branch of Sonic if you want it to survive, cause THIS doesn’t cut it anymore.

AND ACKNOWLEDGE THAT TIMELINE SPLIT ESTABLISHED IN A MAINLINE GAME, DAMNIT! THERE’S A STORY IN UNDOING THAT! TELL IT, OR I WILL!

[writingquestionsanswered]

I've got all the writing structure/craft books, watched tons of advice videos and have been checking out novels to learn by example. But just because I can write doesn't mean I can write a book. This is hard. At what point should any writer consider taking writing courses or hiring a book coach?

When to Consider a Course or Book Coach

Reading books, reading craft books, and watching advice videos isn't enough to teach you how to write a book. You also have to practice...

Imagine if you'd never sewn anything before, had never pieced together and hand sewn or machine sewn anything in your life. You could spend years reading books about sewing and garment construction and could watch hours upon hours of sewing videos on the internet, but that doesn't mean the first time you sit down to actually sew a garment, you're going to end up with a garment worthy of a ritzy department store...

Writing books IS hard, even if you've written a lot of them. I've written a dozen books (though they're not all published), and I still don't find writing a book to be a piece of cake. Part of that is just because different books present different challenges--and where you are in life can also play a big role--but the point is, no amount of learning or practice is going to make it easy.

There's an unfortunate myth among aspiring authors that being an author looks like this: spending some time learning to write, writing your book, and voila! You have a book to publish! The truth is very few authors publish the first book they ever wrote, and if they did, they probably have mountains of short stories and/or fan-fiction or other writing behind them. Most writers write two or three books before their skills are honed enough to write a publishable book. Which doesn't mean you can't write a publishable book on your first try, it just doesn't happen a lot.

So... writing courses... there's not a lot you're going to learn in a writing course that you haven't probably learned from reading, reading a lot of craft books, and watching a lot of advice videos. Certainly, anything you would learn in a writing course you can learn online for free. The main benefit of a writing course is the interaction with others, but even that is really dependent upon the teacher and your classmates. You really have to go into it with a thick skin, knowing that the opinions of your teacher and classmates are not the end all be all.

Writing coaches can be great but they're expensive, and you get more out of the experience if you go into it with a complete or near complete WIP that you want to query or publish, but can't quite get where you want it to be.

So, having said all of that, before pursuing either a writing course or coach, I would recommend trying to finish one or two WIPs to at least first draft stage, but preferably second draft stage, and see how you feel. They don't have to be good. In fact, if you haven't completed a WIP before, they're not going to be your best work (because that comes much later), but remember that part of the writing process is taking the "rough draft" and improving it, and revision is where you really start learning things.

Ultimately, though, follow your gut and follow the path that feels right to you. ♥

•••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••

I’ve been writing seriously for over 30 years and love to share what I’ve learned. Have a writing question? My inbox is always open!

♦ Questions that violate my ask policies will be deleted! ♦ Please see my master list of top posts before asking ♦ Learn more about WQA here

[welcometothejianghu]

Welcome to another round of W2 Tells You What You Should See, where W2 (me) tries to sell you (you) on something you should be watching. Today's choice: 伪装者/The Disguiser.

The Disguiser is a 2015 spy drama set in Shanghai, 1940. It follows the adventures of four wealthy siblings, all of whom are to some degree engaging in coordinated espionage, subterfuge, and other general acts of sabotage against the brutal occupying Japanese force.

I need to mention the Nirvana in Fire connection up front, because yeah, if you've seen that, you've probably noticed some familiar faces already. And the comparison isn't unwarranted! The stories are completely different, but they're both character-driven, complex, subtly cheeky adventures that manage to keep that tense intrigue going throughout the narrative. Like Nirvana in Fire, the Disguiser's on the heftier side -- 48 episodes -- but they go by at an incredible clip, so that it never feels long.

I have done a rec post for this before, and I stand by everything I said there. However, I figured it deserved its own for-real rec post, so here we go with five specific reasons I think you should give it a try.

1. We're all comrades in horny jail

This is an intensely horny show, starting from -- but absolutely not stopping with -- the main quartet.

These are the four Ming siblings. Only the elder pair of them, Ming Jing and Ming Lou (both on the passenger side of the car), are blood-related to one another. Ming Tai (also in the back seat) got adopted into the family when he was young enough that Ming Jing's relationship to him is very maternal.

Meanwhile, Ah Cheng (driving) was somewhat less thoroughly adopted when he was around ten, meaning that he's always weirdly marginal when it comes to who actually counts as part of the Ming family. He's a brother, but also he's a servant. Sometimes he's in the family photos, and sometimes he's left out of them. His name is legally "Ming Cheng," but basically no one ever calls him that.

What this means is that you've got four incredibly attractive people who are all legally but mostly not genetically related to one another, keeping secrets both with and from one another, yelling at one another, running headlong into danger for one another, sleeping in one another's beds, and occasionally demanding some members of the family spank the others. Is it hot in here, or is it just them?

And it's not just that these are pretty people up in each other's business. Nearly every interpersonal interaction among all the main characters is at least background levels of horny, because of how high the stakes are. The tension running throughout the show is intense -- and of course it is, because these are spies in life-or-death situations, trying to keep their cool so they don't get killed. So many of the relationships are built on lies meant to charm and seduce their targets, which is of course going to be sexy. But when they're built on honesty, they're all the more intimate for that disclosure, because being open with someone about your real identity and allegiances is putting your entire life into their hands.

To be clear: When I say the show is horny, I don't mean that it's erotic or salacious, or that you're going to get a peep of anyone's naughty little comrade, or anything like that. This is the horniness of lingering glances and shouting matches and power imbalances and guns pointed at chests. It's a combo platter of smouldering Victorian yearning mixed with action-movie adrenaline. It's the delicious, redirected horniness you get when sex isn't on the (canonical) table, so all that fraught energy has to go somewhere.

Get to the part in Episode 6 where Ming Jing gets out the short whip. You'll be glad you did.

2. Bad, bad bitches

Some of the baddest bad guys in the show are ladies. In fact, I can't even tell you about all of them here because of spoiler reasons. There are two, however, who deserve special mention.

The first and most prominent is Wang Manchun, member of the Japanese-controlled government's intelligence service, who is one of the best antagonists I've seen in anything. Perfectly coiffed and devastatingly intelligent, she's a member of a powerful Chinese family who has chosen to work for the Japanese-controlled intelligence bureau. She can be genuinely warm and sweet, almost girlish even, when she's around someone she likes. She can also torture a dude to death without smudging her eyeliner.

Her fatal flaw is that she's so in love with Ming Lou -- and so mistakenly convinced that Ming Lou is in love with her -- that it makes her make some extremely bad decisions. When was the last time you saw the handsome gentleman be a honeypot?

I feel okay spoiling you about the fact that these two do not end up together. Ming Lou does not see the error of his ways and start returning her feelings -- which is what I was damn near certain was going to happen for almost two-thirds of the show. I was braced for the show to come in singing the praises of the redeeming power of heteronormativity! NOPE. She's crazy and she needs to go down.

(I do have some issues with how she goes down, but ... well, you'll understand when you get there.)

The other baddie, Nantian/Minamida, is a stark contrast to Wang Manchun. There is nothing delicate or femme about her. She gets given the worst hairstyle and the most unflattering outfits. The actor's features are already strong, and the way the show makes her up doesn't allow a single inch of softness to slip out. There is one point where she gets to dance with Ah Cheng, and she's painfully wooden. It'd be funny if she weren't so dangerous.

As the section chief of the Japanese forces in Shanghai, Minamida is a formidable foe. She's smart. She's mean. She's incredibly suspicious of all these smiling Chinese people who surround her, because she doesn't know which ones are legitimately sucking up to her and which are just waiting to drive a knife into her back. Just plain killing her would be easy. Killing her and getting away with it? That's what's going to need a plan.

The actor is also Japanese! In fact, they've gotten a fair number of Japanese actors to play the Japanese characters, but she's the only one who also speaks Mandarin competently and doesn't need to be overdubbed by a native speaker. She's scary and intense and kinda makes your skin crawl. It's great. She's great.

And while we're talking about bad girls, I'm also going to shout out Yu Manli in here, because while she's not a villain, she's absolutely a morally grey character -- and I love her to itty bitty bits. She's about three inches high and weighs about five pounds soaking wet, and she will murder the heck out of you. Baby girl.

3. It's queer in here

The original novel is not danmei. No boy-kissing has been censored, because there wasn't any in the first place. The author/screenwriter is a lady, but not one who dabbles in BL. This does not merit the "Censored Adaptation of a Same-Sex Work" tag on MyDramaList. Censorship didn't do anything to this one. It was never gay.

That said, the show is massively queer, in that it lauds textually the normative experience of getting married relatively young and having lots of children -- and then gives you so many characters, both heroes and villains, who don't do that.

I mean, we've got:

Adult unmarried siblings living together

A grown woman who has intentionally remained unmarried in order to manage her business and family interests

Two adult brothers, both bachelors, who basically live in one another's back pockets

In fact, plenty of people who seem to have forsaken marriage and children in favor of their various active patriotisms

"Life and death partners" who have to fake-date their way through a couple spy missions

A teenage girl sold into sex work who offers to marry the man who saves her and is politely turned down for her own good

The same teenage girl pulling a black-widow routine and using multiple other marriages as a pretense to murder dudes

A couple whose marriage is forbidden by their families, except they do not end up together

A guy who has to break up with his real girlfriend so he can pretend to be with the spy colleague he lives with

A single woman who adopts a child

Two orphaned young adult siblings who adopt two children not that much younger than they are

A heterosexual relationship between people who are functionally equals in their various underground organizations (which don't want their members having romantic relationships with anyone)

A note on that last one: There is a cishet normie love story that runs the length of the show. A lot of people dislike it; I think it's cute and fine! But no matter what you think of it, you have to note the sharp contrast between this prescriptive tale of young love and everything else that's going on around them. There's a lot of lip service paid to how their marriage and the children they will presumably have someday are the ideal, but it's certainly not the only way people live, or even live well. In fact, everybody else treats their romance a little bit like oh, thank goodness he's doing this so we don't have to.

Other aspects of heterosexuality are similarly praised in concept, but not really shown in the best light. There is a lot of filial devotion involved here, but overwhelmingly toward parents who are dead. Living parents, by and large, either are absentee or just plain fucking suck. The show even has very few married characters anywhere in its principal cast, and most marriages that even get so much as mentioned either are portrayed as scummy (because the husband sucks ass) or ended because one of the partners died. Even the very idea of marriage, while praised in theory, doesn't thrill most of the characters. At one point, when Ming Jing brings up the idea of Ah Cheng's getting married, Ah Cheng cannot extract himself from that conversation fast enough.

What this really does mean is, when it comes to heteronormative ideals, the show frequently says one thing and does another.

Do I think the show is queering things on purpose? Absolutely not. This is instead one of those situations where there's such an underlying assumption that heterosexual desire and family unit construction are universal constants ... that the show barely actually gets around to portraying those things as good.

What you get instead, then, are a lot of powerful interpersonal ties that cannot be satisfied by marriage. The most intense loyalties in the show are between people for whom heterosexual pair bonding is not a social or narrative option. Therefore, those intimacies form along different pathways, many of which fall way outside the socially acceptable parameters of marital respectability and reproductive obligation. People love one another fiercely in sometimes unconventional ways. It doesn't get much queerer than that.

I'm also going to put the phrase "the inherent eroticism of letting someone who loves you shoot you with a sniper rifle" right here and walk away. Perhaps it will intrigue you. Perhaps it will intrigue you extra to know this happens more than once.

4. Jin Dong in menswear

That's it, that's the selling point.

Okay, wait, I do have something to add: In a sea of strong performances, his is arguably the best. He absolutely nails this tone of quiet, competent exhaustion the whole way through, making his Ming Lou this perfect gentleman on the verge of collapse.

You learn (somewhat confusingly) in the very first episode that Ming Lou is an important minister for the economy under the new (Japanese-controlled) government in Shanghai -- except, no! He's actually secretly the captain (codename Viper) of the local KMT division, working to undermine the occupying Japanese forces -- except, no again! He's actually -- and this is the real one this time -- head of intel (codename Cobra) for the Shanghai CCP underground.

(I bring up the codenames because my first time through, I didn't fully realize that they were attached to his different identities, and I just thought the occasionally spotty translation couldn't agree on which English word to use for the same snake.)

Living this three-identities-deep life is taking its toll on Ming Lou, but you know what? He's also a damn professional. He comports himself in exactly the manner he's supposed to behave at all times. And Jin Dong sells it beautifully, this carefully restrained exterior that houses a passionate heart.

This to me is the reason his relationship with Ah Cheng is so precious: Ah Cheng is the only one who understands, because Ah Cheng is living the same life of nesting-doll secrets. It's easier on Ah Cheng, though, because he doesn't have to be the face of it all; he just gets to smile and do whatever his da ge tells him to. They are each tasked with taking care of the other in ways great and small. I'm not going to spoil its context, but one of the most powerful moments in the show is when Ah Cheng says matter-of-factly that he knows his life is worth less to Ming Lou than other people's are, and Ming Lou, to put it mildly, pointedly disagrees.

So yeah, this is The Ship.

If you consider their relationship entirely fraternal, theirs is an incredible dynamic of trust, dependence, vulnerability, and sacrifice. If you consider it fraternal and spicy, well, it's still all that, but also enjoy picturing them tenderly removing each other's really nice suits piece by expensive piece.

5. You gotta spy hard!

Imagine the spy media spectrum where at one end you've got James Bond and Mission: Impossible movies (sexy, glamorous, high-tech), and at the other end you've got the Rebel and John LeCarre novels (grueling, well-reserched, realistic). The Disguiser is well toward the latter end of that continuum. It's got a bit of a Hollywood gloss on the whole mechanics of spywork, but man, not much of one.

Despite what the title suggests, most of the spies in this show are exactly who they say they are. Ming Tai is the only one of the siblings who assumes temporary false identities as part of his spycraft, and even he really can't do that anymore once he's back in his native Shanghai, where he's the recognizable youngest son of a prominent family. They all have to be spies in plain sight, which is equal parts a hindrance and an asset. You've got to see Ming Jing do-you-know-who-I-am her way out of some shit. It's great.

There are some legitimately tense scenes and escapes, and I like that most of the threats are overcome by quick thinking and very good acting. The schemes that our heroes pull off work because our heroes understand what makes certain people tick, and other people can't pull that shit on our heroes because our heroes have one another. It's smart spywork that stops short of being grandiose. Even the big plans that involve several steps rely less on supernatural feats of timing, and more on just trusting human nature.

The show is definitely spinning a propaganda yarn about how the noble Communists saved the day during the '40s, and in doing so it takes some pretty entertaining liberties with history. Even so, the particulars of the political philosophies are absolutely secondary to the conflict. You're never going to get a scene where two guys excitedly detail just how much Mao rules. At best there's some blah-blah about freedom and love of country that could be transposed onto any nationalist ideology without a lot of work. If you asked me, based only on information provided by this show, to explain the difference between the KMT and the CCP, my main answer would be, one group uses a code name that's one kind of snake, while the other uses a code name that's a different kind of snake.

And honestly, it's kind of nice. All you really need to know is that the Communists are cool, the KMT are okay but definitely less cool, and the Japanese and anyone who works with them fucking suck. I can do that! I grew up in a sports-watching family. I'm used to being sat down in front of the television and told, we want the guys in the blue uniforms to beat the guys in the white uniforms. No sweat.

The plot does fall down more than a little bit in the final act, due to a combination of intentional obfuscation on the drama's part, a couple things that probably should have happened onscreen instead of off, and a sudden rash of stupid-ass decisions made by one character in particular. But by that point, you're invested enough that you might as well see it through to the end, right? The dismount's a bit shaky but ultimately satisfying, as the genre goes.

I'm going to say the same thing here I said in the Nirvana in Fire rec post: This show is not for everybody, but if this is the kind of thing you like, it is a fantastic example of that thing.

bonus: And speaking of Nirvana in Fire...

Here's the full set.

Basically, if you watched Nirvana in Fire, you owe it to yourself to see the Disguiser. It’s another smart, character-driven drama, and you get to see a lot of your favorite actors in radically different roles, costumes, and relationships. (And speaking of costumes, both shows apparently have the same costume designer? That's range.)

Going to give this one a shot?

It's unfortunately a little hard to find. In my region (i.e., the US), KissAsian and YouTube are as good as it gets, both of which have their drawbacks. Some others among you may be lucky enough to be in a region where Viki will show it to you (which is where the KissAsian subs come from in the first place). There's a horrible set of machine translations running around out there, so beware of those; you'll know immediately you've tripped over those when they don't translate any of the onscreen text crawl at the start.

And speaking of the subtitles: Both extant sets, to put it politely, leave something to be desired. You can generally tell what's going on, but there are times you'll have to work for it. This is definitely more annoying when you're trying to follow a smart spy drama than it is when you're breezing through a low-intensity fuzzy xianxia mess. You actually have to pay attention to this one.

As a bonus, pretty much the whole thing was filmed in Shanghai Film Park, so if you're missing Dragon City, well, here it is! This was in fact the first Republican-era show I saw after watching Guardian, and I spent a lot of time going, hey, I know that street! ...like a nerd.

You can feel the brotherly love.

[alice-the-demon]

(Long post, content warning for mentioning r*pe and animal genitalia halfway through. I ask you to read it fully to understand what happened without misunderstandings and to not be vulgar if you want to make comments about me. Thanks.)

Hey guys.

You might be wondering why I haven't been posting art in the past few days. "Wow, Alice that it's not being active here? What a shocker, it's not like that's the first time this happened!", you might be thinking, "She's either working on something very big or just slacking off as usual!"

If you actually thought that, one point you're right, but the main reason is another and it's what I'm going to explain here.

I initially didn't want to tell you guys what was going on in the past days, because firstly I know that most of you here don't use Twitter and secondly I didn't want to make you preoccupied. But it's not fair that I keep this kind of thing hidden from you, I want to be honest so that you get a full view of what happened. And it's about this post I made. 👇🏻

On July 31st/August 1st a guy on Twitter accused me of making a comic where I badly tackled the topic of s*xual assault and that somewhere else I retweeted a content including "animal genitalia".

The first response I showed here I made it out of stress, frustration and tiredness, because when a friend of mine showed me the post of the accusation it was around 10-11pm in my country, I was tired and fed up with the fact that this is the second time that I got called out for the same reason and to apparently being falsely accused of z**philia. I wanted to resolve the whole thing quickly, I wrote my response with capital letters and bold in some parts and I went to bed, hoping that this story would die out soon.

When I woke up I noticed how my response's quotes were filled with people being mad and disappointed at me for the tone I used and that I didn't resolve a thing. In fact, because of this I lost over 20 followers there. I was shocked and saddened by this, I realised that I should've stayed calm in such a serious situation and actually act like an adult instead of berating the guy who accused me. So I wrote a second response, apologising for my behaviour and actually explaining myself (I won't post it here so I'll just make a recap of what I wrote).

First of all I apologised for the tone I used in the first response and the reason why I acted that way. Secondly, about the "animal genitalia" part... I won't go into too much detail because I don't feel comfortable explaining that situation here, but to summarize quickly the repost the guy was talking about was in the alt account I made on Twitter where I draw adult stuff, I explained the misconception and resolved it by undoing the retweet. (And btw for your information, I don't support z**philia, or p*dophilia for that matter. I might have weird tastes but I'm not mentally sick, that's for sure)

Finally I appropriately apologised for the comic I made. If you don't know which one I'm talking about, it's a Hell Tower Q&A I made where someone asked how an Angel becomes "fallen", with me answering that it happens when the said Angel falls into sin and reaches their breaking point. And to show the "breaking point" I wanted to show an action that it was clear that what they've done is wrong, and I've decided to show an attempted s/a.

Now, there's nothing wrong with talking about r*pe and s/a in media, in fact the guy who grabbed the girl in the comic got dragged away before he could do anything to her and sent in Hell for it. The problem is how I used this argument, using it as an excuse to showcase an imaginary scenario instead to tell a topic with seriousness. Without mentioning that I showed it without any warning when I first posted it.

R*pe and s/a shouldn't have been tackled this lightly, it's a serious matter and there are people who suffered and/or still suffers from it to this day. It wasn't my intention to hurt anyone like this because of my art and I apologise for my stupidity and carelessness, as I'm taking a break from my usual drawings I'm doing my best to get better and be more mindful when talking about serious stuff like this.

As I'm writing this I've locked both my Twitter accounts to avoid getting more hate bombs. Also I temporarily locked the Tumblr account for a day because some anonymous guy wrote something nasty about me through the Hell Tower's mailbox.

It's true what it's done is done, and no matter how much I want it I can't change the past. But I can get better in the present and change my future by slowly becoming a better person and it's what I want to do.

In fact, the other reason I'm not being active is because I'm making an important comic about the girl who almost got assaulted, both as a final apology and to give a closure to this situation once and for all. The story will follow Hilda (that's the name of the girl) talking about the toxic relationship she had with her best friend to a psychologist the day after the event, how they met, how it evolved and what consequences have brought to the girl's psyche.

If you managed to read this far, thank you so much. I'll do my best to be a better person and to make sure to not repeat history in the future. As a lil treat enjoy this lil doodle I made of my favourite Archangel X Imp couple. And I know that this is the tenth time I say this, but I really love you folks for understanding and appreciating me. ❤️

[shuttershocky]

Something that's really standing out to me about FF16 as egregious (apart from the very obvious fact that there are no people with any skin tone darker than a light tan, not even as NPCs) is how /little/ Jill talks.

Like she's in the party more than she's out of it, but she has no lines outside of hideout NPC lines or as part of main story quests, and even then a vast majority of them are her talking to Clive and saying very little to anyone else, simply following behind Clive as the second banana while he interacts with the world. When Jill talked to Lady Marleigh inside the Iron Kingdom i legitimately got bewildered she went a whole conversation with someone else other than Clive. I don't think she actually gets to have that in any scene prior.

You're wandering all over the world running errands for people like any Final Fantasy protagonist but your dog never barks unless it's scripted and your one constant partymate never says anything. It feels so strange in contrast with FF15 where Noctis and his boys never shut up, ever, with a billion lines commenting on everything from Noctis being a whiny baby about the heat or headaches or his car to Ignis shamelessly stealing recipes right in front of the restaurant owners.

I'm not asking for Whedon banter here but so far there is only one major female character that isn't a villain and her defining character trait is that she barely talks to anyone other than her man. Come on.

[beautifulpersonpeach]

BPP, oh my god, the MHJ New Jean's news?? Do you have any thoughts? That's actually insane! What do you think is going to end up happening with New Jean's?

*

Ask 2:

Have you read about what’s happening with Ador and Hybe? What do you think?

*

Ask 3:

The TEA today about Ador Ceo was sad but not surprising. BTS is the story of betrayal by outsiders.

I was surprised when Tae worked with HER for his album. I didn't see that collaboration coming.

I have to wonder if she purposefully misled Tae into a "mid" album. Look, Layover isn't a bad album but its not a masterpiece regardless of what Tae solos believe.

The results are so different between albums like JITB, Astronaut, DDAY, Indigo, Face and Layover its crazy. The depth/personal experience reflected in those albums is undeniable while Tae's was all surface.

Golden is departure and its own thing. JK went for global popstar and achieved/ate!! His choreo reflected his status as part of 3J and his vocals were on display. Gorgeous!!! (Had to add that in because in this house we don't leave out members)

I feel bad for Tae today realizing he worked with a traitor. I will always wonder what he could have released if he had just worked with the Bighit team instead of Ador Ceo.

Maybe you have more insight into all this?

*

Ask 4:

Sooo... what are you thinking about this inter-hybe conflict between belift and ador? I know you're a nj fan but I think I've also heard you say that people are too quick to call things a nj copy, so I'm curious what you think about mhj's claims. I'll be honest that I thought that what I've seen so far seemed kind of unhinged-main-character syndrome to me but I also don't follow these groups and don't know how deep this goes. Certainly, I think mhj has been very deliberate and successful in building nj's brand, but I found this public argument unnecessary and potentially damaging to both groups. What kind of fallout do you expect?

*

Ask 5:

Bpp! Thoughts on the Min Heejin Hybe mess? I thought we were done with the corporate drama but tuns out no!

***

There's really nothing to say... yet.

News leaked that HYBE has leveled some allegations and accusations at ADOR, most likely based on a tip off, and launched an audit to ascertain if these allegations are true - in HYBE's statement confirming the audit, they don't name the people accused, but the news leak makes a point to name Min Heejin specifically, keeping the name of the VP who is accused of committing the acts unknown.

Min Heejin has responded in an exclusive interview and statement by ADOR, that she's innocent of most of the accusations and that this dispute started because HYBE has refused to curb inter-label plagiarism of her ideas with NewJeans. She refers specifically to Be:lift's new girl group Illit, noting how everything from choreography to visuals to styling to sound is based on her ideas, without proper attribution to her from Belift, nor an apology for what she calls blatant theft of concepts she's developing at ADOR. She accuses Bang PD of being complicit and prioritizing short-term profit over long-term viability of the new groups he's pushing out.

There are reports (unconfirmed) that HYBE has called for Min Heejin to resign. If ADOR doesn't call for a shareholder meeting by tomorrow, HYBE has indicated they might sue. The fact the meeting is being called before the audit is concluded, has all the hallmarks of a textbook corporate power play move, and implies to me something else than what I'm seeing most people here allude to. But still...

--

...there's nothing to say because what we're seeing is the middle innings of a power play game. There's simply too little info to make any decisive statements.

I immediately get a headache whenever things like this happen in k-pop because, even for more innocuous subjects, there's nobody more mind rotted than the average k-pop stan. And before long we'll have people whose only experience with executive/corporate power struggles is watching Succession, giving us endless takes in endless discourse. And this particular discourse is going to be more annoying because (1) Min Heejin is a woman who is already widely disliked, (2) There's an overwhelming amount of intersectional motives and interests both within and outside HYBE given the nature of the dispute, which typically leads to people infusing moral language into the discussion. It's going to be the HYBE-Kakao-SM discourse on steroids (and even in the HYBE vs SM drama, we had far more information to go on that what's available in this case).

I mean... Anon 3, you're already convinced this is a story of "betrayal", and claiming she is a "traitor", and you're tying a corporate power struggle to BTS. Not like I'd expect to see anything less from most other people to be honest.

This is really a dispute between Min Heejin and Kim Taeho (Belift's CEO), with increased grievance due to Taeho supposedly enjoying Bang PD and Park Jiwon's support and Heejin, supposedly, not.

The fallout, predictably, is going to be nasty. Given all the above. NewJeans is slated to have a comeback next month, Illit is only just ramping down debut activities while ENHYPEN is just starting the final leg of their FATE+ tour. If HYBE is indeed demanding MHJ resign, it's likely they only mean for her to resign from the CEO role but remain as the Creative Director of NewJeans - because the reality is that if there is no MHJ, there is no NewJeans. And it's that reality that in my view, is the primary leverage MHJ has. And she doesn't strike me as the sort to bluff. The worst case scenario is she leaves HYBE completely and NewJeans is put on hiatus, or the members sue to break their contracts with HYBE to follow her while she courts outside investors, similar to the Fifty Fifty situation.

Inter-label competition and drama is expected in a company like HYBE, it's wonderful because it can yield truly incredible results and unique approaches, but also potentally horrible because it can result in cases like MHJ's vs HYBE. There are ways to properly manage this competition to prevent the latter case, but I can't say I've seen any indication that with Jiwon nor Bang have done so. I said above that MHJ leaving HYBE completely is the worst case scenario for NewJeans, but it looks like the scenario most preferable for certain parties given it's one of the only viable outcomes from having this news broken this way. And so, most likely to happen. Unless Bang PD develops some hitherto unseen business acumen... so yeah I'm not holding my breath.

I have nothing insightful to add. My opinions about the suits at HYBE and Bang PD's business decisions for the last 2 years have skewed mostly negative, and that's not changed in this case. I'd rather not share my full opinions because I feel they run contrary to the dominant talking points here, and partly because they're not fully formed and nobody here is paying me to fully develop a view. I'm really not going to do that work for free.

We're all just going to have to wait and see.

What I will say though and something I find particularly interesting, is that HYBE has been accused of what Min Heejin is alleging, since at least the start of last year. Also, Belift in particular has been accused of plagiarism since the start of the year, twice, on issues unrelated to NewJeans. The first was when 'mobiius_music', an indie music producer on Instagram, accused them of lifting his music almost bar for bar for ENHYPEN's 2023 GDA dance break. The second was when Kelley Sweeney, an American choreographer who shares her routines on Instagram and tiktok, accused Belift of using her choreography for Illit's pre-debut practice without credit. Both times it was for low-level offences as it wasn't related to official music releases or album content, and so in that way Belift is better than bigger and more known agencies, but it still reflects a lax vetting process in the best case and unethical creative practices in the worst.

Anyway, my concern is for the artists involved while the suits try to play god with their careers. I can only hope that whatever happens is only the best possible outcome for all involved.

[foxufortunes]

Having a day, mostly because plotting out the back halves of some fics, where I think about my complicated feelings on how AFTG's main trilogy ended. And I don't mean Riko's death and everything surrounding that and the lack of falling action following that (I'm not a fan, I prefer a long period behind the climax but like, it's an author's choice, it doesn't ruin the series, plenty of my faves also do that) or at least, not entirely that. I mean, not so much the details, but the broad strokes, and in some ways going back to my post and some thoughts about how Riko starts as Kevin and Andrew's antagonist and ends as Neil's, how Nathan feels like an antagonist but is actually just a scary man here for torture and then to be killed off by a guy who's been mentioned a handful of times and never appeared before that moment, and how that's reflected in the order of the third books events even though logic would dictate the torture and murder should be the more serious threat and therefore the climax rather than the game with the mafia brat on live TV and that Andrew is basically Neil's antagonist for the first book.

And because, for some reason, I have to do this whenever I engage with this series in a critical way: I do not hate the series or Nora, this is not hate, I love AFTG, have read it at least a dozen of times and I in fact do not waste time engaging critically with series I do not enjoy. I find engaging with media critically and looking at its good and bads to be a good way to connect with it and improve my own work. If there's room for civilised discussion, great, if you're going to tell me "you're wrong" I don't care, one's personal reading of a series cannot be wrong, simply not the same as yours, go away.

So this is going to be a bit messy, so bear with me, but I always find it interesting that the torture and potential murder of Neil, and his reverting to Nathaniel, and the family connection is all treated as a simple stepping stone while Riko and the finals the grand climax. And I think it's sort of a symptom of how the blended reality of mafia and sports has sort of skewed the priorities of the story. Logic dictates that in a mafia (and most stories) the biggest threat to your life should be the biggest plot point and therefore the climax, while the sports drama ofc has the finals as the finale (and I could do a whole other essay on how for all AFTG is gritty and dark, it plays the actual sports drama narrative of underdog beats the champions and wins it all with surprisingly straight and by the book). So yeah, one would think that the life threatening and family drama would come as the real climax, especially since, as I said, Riko starts as Andrew and Kevin's issue while Nathan is Neil's.

But then Riko's attention shifts almost entirely to Neil. Now, there's an argument that Riko becomes the trio's issue, and in some ways that's true, but thinking about the last match, the climax where it all comes to ahead, Riko and Kevin are doing totally their own things, Kevin has already broken free of Riko via changing his tattoo. In many ways, this should be Andrew's real moment. As a sports drama, this is where Andrew gets control of the defence line and takes Riko down striker vs goalie, especially after the set up of the first match in TRK. But, instead he gets Neil in and Neil leashes Riko.

And now, I do sorta get this, it's not like I'm saying this is awful why did Nora do this, it's just a curiosity to me that I'm trying to think about and figure out my real thoughts and feelings on. Because by shifting Nathan to an overarching background "ooooh but my dad" threat, Riko is Neil's actual antagonist, and while this can work as a "he's our antagonist" and "Riko created his own weakness by training Neil", it doesn't so much for me because it's still Neil who takes him down. It's Neil who's there when he's shot. It's all Neil. (And loosely, I think this is related to how some parts of fandom, especially in fics, especially raven!Neil fics, make Neil either uwu so soft and sad and useless, or op as fuck to the point where he's the best boy at everything ever where even Riko and Kevin aren't, or both, but that's a different ramble.)

And here's the thing, Kevin and Neil should be up the other end of the court. Kevin is proving himself amazing, as he should, and Neil should be with him. This should be the moment Andrew and Riko finally face off, and that Kevin and Neil finally see Andrew do what Andrew does and trust him entirely to just shut Riko out (or yk, enough to win the match) because he's been practicing serious with Kevin (amazing striker and Raven) and Neil (fucking fast) and have him protect them from Riko, as he promise, by protecting that goal while they're busy. Neil has faced Nathan and come out on top, Kevin has faced his mental block and declared himself queen and is ruling the court. Riko is now nothing to them, they should focus on their goal ahead. It's Andrew's turn to face down Riko. But it's Neil. Now, there's an argument this is Andrew finally accepting help and teamwork, and that the narrative constantly undermining Andrew's ability to protect his people is actually about him letting go and trusting them, that his protection is more mental stability for them to stand up for themselves, and Andrew does protect Neil from Riko in the end, and I do get all that. But it's not a great example of team vs person, especially from a sports drama perspective, because exy isn't quite built for team vs person more line vs person and even then the combo plays aren't really there, and if you want to sport drama to be the central narrative, then maybe let them prove themselves in the sport?

I told you I have complicated feelings about this.

Which brings us to Nathan. While Riko is the sports drama villain who has fascinating depth and layers if you want to look for them, Nathan is a puddle of a character, only mildly deeper than Drake and only because he has more screen time (do not make me talk about Drake and Nathan as villains as how this fandom seems to criminally underthink them in favour of mwhahaha evilz, because evil for evil sake is not nearly as scary, do not because I will start talking about BSD!Mori and why he's terrifying) although with some interesting quirks to his personality one could dig into and draw parallels with if one wanted him to be more than scary evil torture guy. But the problem with Nathan is that he's such a big, looming terrifying presence, set up as Neil's antagonist but also not. Nathan is so big and terrifying, but he and his people aren't in Neil's life until they're one scene. He's a ticking clock until death. But the problem is, how does Neil deal with him? See, even putting the whole "isn't Nathan the bigger threat so why isn't he the climax" thing aside, Neil doesn't really defeat Nathan. Nathan is too big, too scary, too much, and AFTG too dark on the mafia side. So Nathan is defeated by a guy who's been mentioned a handful of times, turns up just time then, then disappears again until the finale where he mostly just stands there. And people can argue "it's a plot twist" or "it's realistic" but this is a narrative, not real life. Things mean things. And Nathan was set up as just too much and too strong, and too looming. Neil couldn't stop him. Neil didn't let anyone help him (something, I've talked about being and we see in TSC, Neil thinks Neil is always right and his way is best and doesn't tend to consider other options, again, not "omg so wrong" but Neil is a flawed character, here's how I perceive one of his flaws), and he didn't even tell anyone, so of course he had to be saved without warning by a guy we've never even met before.

And, like I said, I'm not saying "oh book bad" or "this better", just that I have a lot of mixed feelings about this, and that just because I adore the books as they are doesn't mean I can't also think about things that I might change (that's what fanfic's kinda for? you know, let Seth live, let Janie be a character, all those little things you might like to see but don't detract from your love of the books).