#which like. i don't know how to tell these authors that making your main rep for brown people a religious terrorist organization

[angorwhosebabyisthis]

re: this post and its tags:

[racism mention, extremely violent fatphobia after the cut cw]

eight is a really interesting character--much more so than the writers intended him to be, tbh--and it's a real shame that both the authors' racism and the fandom's behavior drove me away from getting invested in him for so long.

the racism i was just like 'wow this is beyond me to even begin to unpack at this point in time. jesus.' but also. the entire fandom using their love for them as a reason to make endless rabid hate posts about your fave, in many of which they fantasize about 'slitting open the fat bastard's belly and gutting him like a pig,' and getting dozens of notes for it will put you off a character a little bit. just slightly 🤏

[bestygogirl]

BEST YGO GIRL: SEMI FINALS

Match 2

please use this as an opportunity to say why you like a character, not why you don't.

Propaganda under the cut!

Isis Ishtar

gorgeous, very caring sister, strong duelist, and the only woman to ever make Seto Kaiba squirm

anyways. not only as mentioned above is she the first woman to make kaiba squirm, but she was by all means going to beat him if not for the millennium rod's millennium interference. yami marik admits that she's a strong duelist with a strategy that's been working for literal years-- and given that she's not like, a professional duelist, thats pretty impressive

she also recently got some really cool meta bumps and let me point out that an "ishizu deck" now includes obelisk the tormentor-- which we knew she had prior to giving it to kaiba, but i think it only solidifies my opinion that she very much could wield an Egyptian God Card, an exclusive little club for top tier duelists

as a character she presents herself with an amazing amount of poise and grace, shes compassionate and kind and stays with mai and serenity even though she only just met them. shes struggling through living the past 5 years of her life drowning in guilt for her family's tragedy just because she wanted to make her little brother happy and shadi is a fucking liar. shes foretold her own death and marches towards it grimly but with so much love in her heart. and even then shes 20 years old and holds an important position in the egyptian government that typically requires a doctorate degree AND has been dealing with mariks off-and-on bullshit entirely by her lonesome. she also likes to flex her fortunetelling a little which is awesome i think she should do that more that scene where she tells the guy exactly how the stele is being transported was so everything

speaking of shes got such an attitude. "is it your destiny to waste my time?" iconic. never seen before will never be seen again. watch the duel between her va and joeys its so fucking funny

shes excult. shes doesnt flinch in the face of god nor death. seto kaiba and yami marik respect her. shes so sad and so sweet and battle city couldnt have happened without her.

also her parallels with kaiba are what motivate kaiba to give yugi the card he needed to beat marik.

kaiba, in duelist kingdom, was ready to jump off a ledge if yugi didnt let him through to face pegasus while trying to save mokuba out of sheer desperation to save his little brother. he KNOWS what that dedication feels like and the iron kind of will you need to have to make that kind of gamble. isis is being so fucking legit with what shes saying and he respects that and her judgement enough to change his mind and not only watch the duel, but give yugi a card that eventually helps him win, even if he has no real confidence in the odds. but theres a CHANCE, which is the same thing he taught her when he beat her in a duel. the layers its her faith that moves him to act. which is so crazy

anyway vote isis shes my best friend forever and a real rep for all the 20 year olds who honest to god did not sign up for this bullshit

Aki Izayoi

An abuse victim who isn't the perfect passive figure but gets to work through her complicated feelings about power, agency, and family. Even with Yusei's help, she is the star of the show when she learns to control her powers and reconciles with her father, it is so fun that a ygo heroine gets to take such an antagonistic role bu not be shamed for her anger

please vote for my main girl, aki izayoi. aki was led to believe she was a monster from a young age by her father, who treated her powers like it made her unworthy of love. as a result, divine was able to swoop in and take advantage of aki's low self esteem. for years, aki believed herself unworthy of love and was molded into a living weapon at the hands of authority figures in her life. she was taken advantage of, and thus when she finally comes face to face with yusei, she refuses to believe he could provide her with unconditional friendship. who would want to be around a monster, after all?

aki also nearly beats yusei TWICE in a duel, bringing it down to a single turn difference. she comes toe to toe with him, and it truly is the result of who dueled better. she remains a fierce duelist, btw. the second season, aki gets her duel runner license, and immediately nearly beats the ass of a tournament winning turbo duelist - to the point where once again, a single card is the deciding factor. that's right: she nearly won. if not for a single trap card, aki izayoi would've won.

a fierce duelist who was shaped into a loving, caring woman despite years of being beaten down by the world: aki izayoi. vote for her now on your phones.

[luffy-is-aroace]

Do you have the source in which Luffy was confirmed aroace? I’m making a project on the ace and aro communities that includes a list of aro, ace, and aroace rep in media and I can’t find where it was confirmed, but I hear everyone say he is. Thank you.

luffy is very very much aroace coded but neither he nor the author have ever directly said the words "luffy is asexual" - one piece's canonical queer rep is limited to transgender characters

that being said, here's the relevant passages, and some context if its needed:

in chapter 516/episode 411, luffy stumbles across boa hancock, the worlds most beautiful woman, in the bath. she has an ability to turn people to stone when they feel some amount of "love, lust, or adoration" to her; ie. when they are attracted to her. heres how it goes:

this is the first time hancock meets a man who isnt affected by her power. it basically suggests that, by not turning to stone, hes not attracted to her at all.

eventually, she develops a crush on him, and she wants to marry him, which he outright rejects (chapter 598)

in regard to the "mero mero" moment, a fan noticed a discrepancy, and asked the author about it in the SBS corner from volume 54. luffy had previously responded to the naked body of a woman the way all the other guys did. oda decided to blame it on luffy imitating his friend

"That's not the Luffy we know." "When Luffy is alone, his reaction is what it was with Hancock. He's interested, but he's not entranced by her." Luffy acting in a certain way because Usopp does - going along with the mood of the moment, or performing, or however you want to say it - feels awfully aspec to me. It's definitely a common aspec experience to try and force yourself into amatonormative - or, in this case, I guess allonormative? - behavior.

In the SBS for volume 88, oda was asked about why luffy called a woman a "beauty" at one point. The response:

Luffy understanding physical attractiveness as a classification, understanding it but not caring about it - that suggests he probably doesn't experience aesthetic attraction (appreciating someones appearance, disconnected from sexual/romantic attraction). this definitely speaks to my experience as an aroace individual.

also, this isnt necessarily evidence for luffy specifically, but moreso a general answer - in the SBS for volume 34, oda was asked if there would be romance between the main characters, and he brushed it off:

my impression, personally, is that Oda is generally fairly uninterested in pursuing any romantic relationships between his main characters.

in conclusion, I personally feel like the evidence here suggests that luffy is aroace, or at least aspec, given some of Oda's wording (which is probably a little up to interpretation, given it's been translated from japanese). His answer in volume 54 has always felt like a retcon to me, like Oda only came to a conclusion of sorts on this when Luffy met Hancock, and had to go back and find some reasoning for why Luffy would have responded that way. Luffy, more than anything, wants to have an adventure, and romance and sex aren't part of that for him.

I'm not gonna try to police how people view Luffy. it's not healthy for me to do that - luffy and his aroaceness is something that's very very personal to me and itd be way too messy. In addition, in the past I've had people point out that this evidence would only necessarily suggest luffy isnt attracted to women, and he could be gay; I personally don't see him that way, and I seriously doubt Oda would make that choice in canon, but people can do what they want. I think, however, it's pretty telling that a lot of aroace and aspec people see themselves in him.

This morphed into something of a modern take on my thesis here instead of just answering your question; sorry about that. I'd be interested to see your project when you're done, if you're able and willing to share!

[sometimesthatsbetter]

Everything I've read in Jan. 2024

Yona of the dawn

Yona was the first story that i read this year and damm was it the right way to set the tone for the year. It's a story that has all of the elements that I adore in the fantasy genre, its got the action, political drama, the multi-facted characters. I won't be saying much about this manga because i have already have an older post talking about my favorite aspects, so if you want more in depth thoughts you can search for that

Kashoku no shiro

Now here is a fun setting, Taisho era Japan with supernatural elements. Quick run down of the story, people are being affected by a mysterious disease that makes flowers bloom all over their bodies, once the flowers wilt so does the person but there are cases where they recover and become even healthier. But plot twist, the ones who survive will become demons who feast on human flesh. So thats where our protagonist Shiraume comes in, she acts as 'bait' for these demons, essentially luring them out for her master to slaughter

If i had to tell you what drew me to this story, it would be the art style, like it is drop dead gorgeous. Also the design of our heroine is just my type too which is a bonus

Plot wise it does feel a little all over the place, it jumps persecptive quite often. Like it jumps form a detective story, to a josei love story, to Demon slayer which feels kinda jarring for me. But the backstory of our protagonist was done quite well, one thing i can praise is that our heroine isn't a simpering doormat. It's true that she has lived a hard life but she just keep living in the best way that she can manage. Shiraume is never the type to mope around or bemoan her fate, she takes charge and endure, she does everything in her power to live for her loved ones.

Its a good read all in all, but since theres only about 20 chapters that are out i can't really tell if this is gonna flop or not. I'll be keeping on eye on it to see if the author manages to get it together.

Bibliophile princess

The most mediocre otome isekai story i've ever fucking read. Its vanilla, like 'sex with the lights off no kinky shit' vanilla.

Story-wise, it's a very simple set up. Book enthusiast Elianna is in a contract fiancee relationship with the crown prince who i cannot be bothered to remember or google the name of. She is beloved by all of the staff memebers, all the secondary male characters love her and she has a great family but oh no! It seems that the prince has fallen for another woman, which means that her engagement with the prince will be ending soon. Yeah if your an otome isekai reader you can guess where this is going, villainess tries to ruin our heroines rep by spreading false rumors yada yada yada...

Similar to Kashoku no shiro, what drew me in was the art nouveau style. I mean the amount of details in the illustrations are amazing, coupled with the dreamy pastel color palette it creates this feeling that you really are in a fairy tale world

One of my main problems with the first volume is how weirdly structured the story is. Like it begins with the prince asking Elianna to enter a contract relationship with him and them jumps to a four year time skip for no apparent reasoning? Like we don't get to see alot of romantic development between them so now suddenly Elianna is in love? But moving on, i felt like Elianna has like little to no self awareness or agency. The first volumes conflict is about how this noble girl is rumored to be the princes lover and is planning to take Eliannas place. At this point you would expect to see our heroine stand up for herself and assert her place in the court right? Wrong. She was basically left in the dark about whats truly going on until the end of the volume. It was revealed that the noble girl was a villain all along who was trying to frame Elianna for shit she didn't do, also conveniently our MC has a mile long list of accomplishments that we as the reader didn't know about, and apparently she didn't either. So yeah, the male leads basically was protecting her for the whole story and she just wandered around feeling insecure about being replaced

Cold game

Do you like the story of king Henry the eighths six wives? Do you wanna see all six of them do a battle royal for the chance to become queen? Do you like crossdressing heroines? Well look no further than Cold game

Our MC is princess Aruna of the B kingdom, yes i know weird name but bare with me here, who is meant to be engaged to the king of the E kingdom. But here's the sus part, he already has a queen from the S country but he's demanding another wife from the B country? Quite the odd request but since B is weaker than E they had to comply with the demands. Aruna knows she's being sent as a sacrificial lamb but her lord father told her to hang on for a bit, one day he will get her out of that place. So to protect herself, Aruna swap places with her handmaiden and pretended to be crossdressing knight.

One of the best things about this story is the political intrigue. Like from the get go, we are shown that the court is a brutal place where an inconspicuous letter can be the cause of your down fall. People here will always watch your every move, everyone fears one another to an extent. Also the side characters are so fucking cool, like these people can star in their own spin off kinda cool.