#these kind of tropey scenes | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

alexiethymia · 6 months

Text

MaoMao's Way of Affection

[spoilers up until LN 12 and WN 10 so read at your own risk]

After such a long time, we finally get a hint of reciprocation when even without orders or prompting, it's MaoMao herself who seeks out Jinshi after the harrowing ordeal she went through.

I'm not sure how the WN will differ from the LN but her words with how she describes Jinshi's arms around her, "heavy but not immoveable" and Jinshi asking her to make him let her go and eventually opting not such that she ends up falling asleep in his arms actually perfectly describes their relationship.

Despite their problems, I do adore this relationship. On the one hand, you have Jinshi who ends up falling for someone who cares not a whit for his appearance. MaoMao is actually the perfect person for Jinshi to fall in love with because of his complex. Should he succeed, he can be assured that his looks had nothing to do with it. For the first time in his life, Jinshi can fight for something with his own above average, but not excellent capabilities.

And tropey as it is, I think MaoMao does have a soft spot for that slightly pathetic part of Jinshi. Honestly, to compare him to the person she respects most in the whole world? A daddy's girl through and through. In other words, MaoMao, even as she denies it, is not impenetrable to that earnest side of Jinshi and because of that, even as she might snark and say she's just following orders, she can't help but be his support - a useful tool rather than a useless burden.

I love how the both of them mature and progress and how the relationship reflects that. As compared to that forceful scene back in LN5, it's actually this innocent scene that cements the progress they've made and that they're slowly meeting each other halfway. Jinshi tries to restrain himself, and MaoMao, thanks to Chue, slowly stops trying to hide behind that convenient excuse.

Because the thing is, MaoMao is a hypocrite. In the same way, she rebukes Jinshi for not being clear, she also gets to hide behind vague half-truths. Why not say no once and for all? "I don't want to be your wife." Is it just because he's the Imperial Brother? Compare and contrast how she treats Grand Marshall Kan for example. And even if he is the Imperial Brother, MaoMao knows in her heart of hearts that Jinshi wouldn't ever punish her for rejecting him. She knows, after everything, that he just isn't that kind of person (the certainty that he wouldn't ever be involved in any assassination plots, the almost unconscious instinct to prevent something she knows Jinshi wouldn't want even if it might be for the good of the country or for her own safety as long as she plays dumb). I really do love how like Suiren, MaoMao is his ally. (No wonder mother-in-law Suiren approves.)

Isn't it more painful - for Jinshi - and more troublesome - for her - to continue to have this hanging between them? But MaoMao is only human. There are things she knows would be the best course of action as long as she operated solely on rationality, but unexpectedly, Jinshi - despite not knowing it - brings out that irrational part of her. She knows it would have been in her best interest (if her best interest truly was to escape the marriage) to just let Jinshi continue being vague, to not put a name to his intentions, she later realizes that this is Jinshi's own consideration for her, but her true emotions push forth. She knows it - what Jinshi feels for her, compares it to a lovestruck patron, so what gain does she get from hearing it verbalized out loud?

She struggles with his special consideration for her, the proof of deeper feelings, in his words and actions. I think she would be able to justify it in her mind and accept being his wife if she knew it was only because she was a useful tool. Because if so, then she could also justify it to herself that she was staying with him only because he was useful, that it was solely on the basis of reciprocity.

I mean the reality of the world they live in is that it's not a place to cultivate love. Marriages are political more often than not. Within MaoMao's way of looking at things, a marriage of convenience might have been more palatable. For Jinshi's part, I can see him being ready to accept that even if MaoMao does accept his proposal, she would marry him while not being in love with him. On the flip side, I think part of his strong motivation to break away from the Imperial family would be to remove, without a doubt, from MaoMao's mind that she would be punished for rejecting him since he would no longer have that power. In other words, part of Jinshi is ready for MaoMao to reject him but he wants it to be solely her choice. In other words, he would also want her to give it to him straight just like she demanded he do for her.

Speaking of special consideration, it is hard to say whether MaoMao's actions towards Jinshi are those she would do for any other patient (since she's actually softer than she gives herself credit for), but the things she does without orders are telling - like stroking his hair while putting him to sleep, kissing his cheek, ingesting something she knows she's allergic to without his knowledge for a plan to sniff out his enemies (pity this didn't make it to the LN), getting mad that his accomplishments were getting stolen from him despite him not caring about it, and glaringly - attempting to break a taboo the person she respects most in the world imposed on her, just so she can better take care of Jinshi. For all that MaoMao is comfortable in her place in the world and doesn't want to venture out of her comfort zone, calling it too troublesome, she does exceed a lot of her limits - true because of that unexpectedly strong sense of duty - but also because of or for Jinshi.

MaoMao acknowledges to herself at this point that no other person besides Jinshi can give her the same comfort. She does want to have a child someday, if only for the experience of giving birth. It may not be a burning passion, this may not be enough for her to call it love, but I can also see a scenario where she accepts Jinshi because he's the only one she would be comfortable with so that she can give birth. In other words, another convenient excuse. But conversely, even after succeeding in having MaoMao for a wife, I can see Jinshi still pushing because for once in his life he can fight his hardest and win or fail on his own merits and no one else's, and also simply put, he loves her and so he would want her to love him back. Even if it isn't the norm in the world they live in. He'd still want to continue fighting for that elusive flower. A perfect push and pull. In other words, it's up to them how they decide to meet each other half way. And I'm excited to see what the future holds for them.

#jinmao #jinshi x maomao #kusuriya no hitorigoto #the apothecary diaries #knh #spoilers #maomao #jinshi

1K notes · View notes

massiveharmonytiger · 4 months

Text

So I think Gabe's portrayal was really intelligently done in the show and I'm pretty dismayed at the negative reactions. I'd argue that TV needs more portrayals of abusers that seem harmless and victims that make efforts to advocate for their own agency because that is what abuse often looks like in the real world. Yes, sometimes abuse is as in your face as with Gabe's introduction in the book version (which the show was still pretty true to, I'll discuss that below) and the other portrayals we've seen on TV, abusers being explicitly threatening or violent, victims cowering and showing visible distress, all that usual, tropey stuff. However, I think more education is needed on all the ways abuse is subtle, because this misunderstanding and this view of abuse as this black and white thing is often the reason so few victims get help, so many abusers get away with it and so many of the people around the victim and abuser, at best, are surprised when the find out what's really been happening, and at worst, defend the abuser because they're so harmless, nice, upstanding, pick your adjective and there's no way they're capable of that.

Source: https://www.domesticshelters.org/articles/identifying-abuse/the-silent-ways-abusers-control

I feel like a lot of the fandom has already fallen into this trap somewhat. Gabe from the TV show is too nonthreatening, bumbling, pathetic, silly, idiotic, nowhere near scary enough to warrant getting petrified by Medusa's head. He doesn't look like an ABUSER. And yet we're confronted with so many markers of abuse in that scene.

Gabe is harmless…

And yet he's verbally abusive to outsiders. The guy that leaves as Percy is arriving has experienced an interaction with Gabe that warrants Percy apologizing for Gabe's actions only for him to apologize back because he gets to leave, Percy doesn't. He's concerned. Sure, Gabe is fat shaming and yelling about eating fruit at the moment. The absurdity of the topic doesn't make it any less inappropriate or abusive btw, because its about the abuser having any excuse to display their dominance and power over you even if the subject matter is batshit. Ever see cases where one person in the relationship (usually a man) will police the other's clothing (usually a woman) because it's too revealing, too tacky, too whatever. That's abuse.

Gabe is harmless…

And yet he's verbally abusive towards Percy. He sarcastically greets him with the cruel nickname "genius" and immediately picks a fight with him. Percy refuses to engage because he knows, from experience, what being goaded looks like. Wrap your head around that. Kids older than him are out there having catfights and making stupid "your mom" jokes, but this infant has so much experience facing conflict, he already knows what steps to take to steer away from that kind of drama and stay in safe territory. He only engages a bit when he hears about Gabe answering Sally's phone. Anyone who's answered a friend or partner's phone before will probably consider Percy's anger and indignation a little bratty and unwarranted. The issue here is that Gabe is someone who ignores boundaries. The issue isn't that he answered Sally's phone, the issue is that he very likely did it without permission. Based on Percy and Sally's reactions (Percy is angry, Sally is resigned), he's someone who's regularly done stuff like look through Sally's phone or purse without her permission. Percy makes it clear that this is not okay, and he gets dismissed. Gabe just answers "whatever's ringin'" and Percy is made to look like the one overreacting. This is what abusers do. They're never in the wrong. And then, the cherry on top of the blue icing, he blames the victim. "What're we doing Percy, every time." Gabe's the one who picked the fight, but by the end of it, Percy's the one being blamed. This is so commonplace and anyone who's been through this knows how maddening it can be. This is such a short interaction but they pack so much into it.

Gabe is harmless…

And yet we find Sally sitting outside in the rain on the balcony, as if she's trying to ground herself after a traumatic experience. As if she's trying to bring herself into the present and not dissociate because when Percy arrives she needs to be there for him. She can deal with the Gabe stuff AFTER Percy is safe. I'll get more into Sally's interaction with Gabe in Part 2 because a lot of people were confused by the fact that she was so firm with him. There's an explanation, I promise.

A lot of people also expressed concern that we wouldn't see Gabe's truly monstrous side before he gets petrified but from what I can see, the shows been making great use of flashbacks and exposition, so I'm pretty sure this will be addressed. Percy and Sally are the heroes. It would be counterintuitive for the show to establish that and then not give them a blatant cause for turning Gabe into stone.

#percy jackson #percy jackon and the olympians #percy jackson and the olympians #sally jackson #gabe ugliano #tw abuse themes

854 notes · View notes

linkspooky · 1 year

Photo

Jujutsu Kaisen, Chapter 215 Thoughts

Yuji remains one of the most interesting shonen protagonists in the manga. Precisely because being the protagonist affords him no special breaks. The world of Jujutsu Kaisen is challenging for everyone to live in, especially Yuji. Now, Yuji after losing Sukuna has basically lost his protagonist status. He’s lost his entire purpose for becoming a Jujutsu Sorcerer in the first place because he can no longer become the sacrifice to permanently exorcise Sukuna. Yuji is no longer “special” and never really was in the narrative. Whenever Yuji acts like a shonen protagonist in the shonen manga Jujutsu Kaisen it never works out for him.

More thoughts underneath the cut.

1. Hero to Zero

What struck me with the whole Sukuna and Yuji fight scene is how tropey it was. Stop me if you’ve heard this before. In a shonen manga the villain suddenly appears easily knocks out the rest of the hero’s friends. All hope is lost and the protagonist looks dead, until they get back on their feet again and start fighting back through sheer force of will alone.

Yuji was having his protagonist moment when facing down Sukuna. He even gets to make a speech. Yuji and Sukuna faced off with their opposite philosophies, Sukuna beliving the weak should be crushed and put out of their misery, and Yuji continuing to fight Sukuna even if he’s too weak to make a difference. Yuji was determined enough to resist being sliced apart by Sukuna’s cleave technique. Not only is Yuji strong enough to fight back, but he also has Megumi fighting back from within in a show of the power of their bond.

Not only that but Yuji is shown to have unlocked a new level of strength for as-of-yet-unexplained reasons. Sukuna’s line of dialogue that it’s Kenjaku’s meddling, he either unlocked a heavenly restriction on his body, or Kenjaku was planning something else for Yuji when Sukuna left his body. Either way, Yuji survives being punched through a building and falling several stories.

Yuji fighting Sukuna at this moment is stronger than he ever was before. He gets the last minute power that shonen protagonists all seem to get at the most convenient moment possible. Maki also shows up at the right time where it looks like Yuji might have a fighting chance, especially with Megumi fighting back from within. Maki just like Yuji is at her peak physical strength. Her fight with Naoya allowed her to climb a greater height than before. She was strong enough to massacre the entire Zen’in Clan, and now she’s even stronger.

Maki is strong enough at this point that even Sukuna is acknowledging her strength. Maki and Yuji have near-perfect teamwork and neither of them is holding back, they’re both fighting with the intention to kill Sukuna if that’s what it takes to stop him.

They fight with everything they have, both of them having a recent power-up, and they still lose. They lose because of outside interference because Kenjaku and Ura-Ume both have plans that Maki and Yuji are unaware of. There are outside factors that are bigger than either of them no matter how individually strong they may be.

Yuji has all this strength, he just keeps getting stronger and yet at moments like this there’s nothing he can do but shout at Sukuna. Sukuna just finds all of his efforts laughable. This scene is clearly a parallel to this.

Yuji even repeats the line and has the same moment of realization. Think of how much stronger Yuji has gotten between the young finish and reverse punishment arc. How much he’s grown. He was strong enough to face Mahito. He accepted Mahito’s statment that they are the same, and resolved to continue killing curses as a cog in the system. Yet, after all this time Yuji ends up in the exact same situation. He is as powerless to save Megumi as he was to save Junpei.

This happens because Yuji is not the protagonist of a shonen manga. Jujutsu Kaisen is a deconstruction of the kind of story Yuji thinks he is in.

2. The Protagonist of Reality

Yuji’s assumption that everything will work out fine once he releases Gojo from the box, and finishes playing his “role” just reeks of storybook logic. Yuji employs narrative thinking a lot. Basically he assumes that the world works like a fictional story. Instead of everything being random and meaningless, events are connected to each other, those events have meaning, and things progress naturally towards an ending. Which is why Yuji says that Megumi and Gojo gave him a “role” to play, like he is a character in a cast of actors performing on stage and reading off a script.

This is not to say that Yuji thinks fiction and reality are the same thing. He just employs narrative thinking as a coping mechanism. He thinks of his life like a story and gives himself a part to play in that story to give his life meaning. If you think about it, Yuji’s trying to cope with an extremely tragic situation even before Sukuna is unleashed. He is a fifteen year old who will never grow up. His only living family member died at the start of the story, and the few friends he does make through his new school are always risking their lives. He is afraid of losing them. Then he does lose them.

Yuji goes through a lot of suffering, and at the end of that tunnel he doesn’t see a happy future, no he’s going to die for the sake helping others. Yuji is trying to reconcile his death by giving himself narrative purpose. He wants to die a meaningful death because he can’t accept the unfair reality he has to die young.

Whether or not Yuji actually sees himself as the main character in the story he’s telling is up for debate. This is not much of an answer but he does and he does not. Yuji clearly does not see himself as important as Megumi and Gojo. They’re the ones who gave him a role to play. That makes sense because they were already Jujutsu Sorcerers at the beginning of the story, Yuji is just the stranger who wandered into their world by accident, he wasn’t even born with a cursed technique and he can only fight thanks to borrowed power from Sukuna. He also only sees himself as a cog in the machine and constantly belittles his own importance.

At the same time, Yuji can have quite an ego sometimes in a sneaky way. Gojo tells Megumi that someone like Yuji is always swinging for the fences and even likens Yuji to himself. Also, Yuji’s martyr complex still puts himself as the center of the story. It’s his sacrifice that’s going to save everyone. His sacrifice is important, and matters, and he has a function as long as he plays his part.

Yuji may regard himself as the main character, or maybe the selfless savior of the story, but the people around him do not. Especially Kenjaku who created Yuji and played author for a good portion of his life.

Kenjaku mentions that Yuji has no longer specific role to play. He’s just the firestarter, it was his actions that started the story by eating the finger and becoming the vessel to Sukuna. What he says here, and the fact Sukuna was already registered as a player in the Culling Games before Yuji entered the boundary (and Ura-Ume was preparing the bath in advance) all imply that Kenjaku always knew that Sukuna was going to leave Yuji’s body. Yuji’s purpose wasn’t just to be Sukuna’s host like Yuji assumed it was.

Sukuna also reveals that what we as the audience and Yuji himself assumed that Yuji being a one in a thousand special vessel that can contain Sukuna without losing control or dying is not actually the case. Sukuna could have jumped into Megumi’s body from the beginning and was merely biding his time.

All of these things that made Yuji special, the attributes that made him the main character have essentially been stripped away. He was made into a vessel by Kenjaku, but Kenjaku has no specific plans for him anymore. He was set to serve as Sukuna’s vessel, collect all the fingers and then be exorcised but now that Sukuna has jumped bodies he no longer has that purpose. He no longer is able to just simply die to save the world because it’s Megumi who is possessed by Sukuna now. They might not even be able to free Gojo considering Angel’s fate is now up in the air.

This is what makes Jujutsu Kaisen unique as a manga, whenever the characters assume that things are going to work out the way they would in a story they get punished. This isn’t just Yuji who’s affected by this. Megumi loses his body to Sukuna because he assumes he can save Tsumiki and makes the mistake that she’s a princess waiting for him to rescue her. Therefore he doesn’t notice that Tsumiki isn’t even acting like herself. Hana is grievously hurt by Sukuna for assuming the exorcism worked and she managed to rescue Megumi with the power of love. That leads her into walking into an obvious trap and not listening to Angel’s warning.

These characters all walk into obvious traps and pitfalls because they’re not looking at the reality in front of them, they’re blinding themselves because they want the world to be more like a story.

#yuji itadori #megumi fushiguro #sukuna #hana kurusu #angel #jjk meta #jujutsu kaisen meta #jujutsu kaisen #jujustu kaisen theory #jjk spoilers #jujutsu kaisen spoilers

444 notes · View notes

morglien · 2 months

Text

actually no now im gonna talk about it now! yes theres the scene with the knife fight. yes people like it. (maybe for a reason? who cares anyways) yes if you look at the ship for less than 5 minutes you can summarize “oh they don’t like each other, they must be enemies to lovers”. but if you actually look at the ship for more than two seconds you actually get to see their arcs and how they do respect each other, and hell if you’re even playing as shadowheart or lae’zel and playing the characters correctly, they can share some sort of chemistry there! even look at their backstories. two characters who have been wronged by their goddesses. two people who are used as tools for a higher purpose. if you play the game a certain way, they’re both characters who are learning to actually live their own lives despite their religion. they’re people who have been conditioned to understand the world in one way; it is cruel, so you must be cruel back. they did not have a soft or kind backstory in any sense due to shads’ shar worship and lae’zel’s githyanki uprising with vlaakith as their leader. maybe people like the ship far more than what is there at surface value? maybe people like the chemistry that these characters can possibly have. if you can’t understand that or even try to look into the ship than the Bare and Obviously Little Media Comprehension that you may have, yeah, maybe they are tropey. but if you actually read into it and see them what they could be as a couple, you’ll see there’s FAR more for their dynamic than the shallow “enemies to lovers”. and anyways people can do whatever they want forever who gives a shit even if they don’t look into that deep and just like the enemies to lovers who cares. get a life if you judge people on their ship preferences, loser.

#spitting on you rn anon. PTOOIE. Get out of here #shadowzel #shadowheart #lae’zel #bg3 #baldur's gate #baldurs gate #baldurs gate 3

101 notes · View notes

copperhawkthoughts · 5 months

Text

Fearne’s mom’s backstory is basically the plot of a Dark Fae Booktok Romance trilogy

Book one, The Sorrowlord’s Delight, is the standard tropey “untameable, sexy young woman faun swept off feet by handsome, charismatic, evil misunderstood vampire werewolf demon prince fae” and ends with Birdie & Ollie’s climactic escape from the Sorrowlord’s keep to live happily ever after(???)

Book two, The Songbird’s Flight, starts off as the promised domestic bliss epilogue with Birdie & Ollie building a happy little nest, but quickly takes a turn when the heavily-pregnant Birdie is kidnapped by her ex and her labour is induced in a weird and frankly kind of unsettling, I-am-still-reading-a-romance,-right?, ritual involving evil mages and the evil, haunted red moon. The climax of this instalment is somehow now a heist(??) as Birdie & Ollie team up with Morri to save infant Fearne from her father’s clutches. The book ends as Birdie makes her dreadful, necessary bargain with a deeply grey Morri to keep Fearne safe.

Book three, Fate’s Daughter, is widely panned. The narrative’s frequent and seemingly non-linear timeskips in the first act prove confusing, as the story switches back and forth between scenes of Fearne growing up with Morri over the course of nearly a hundred years in the span of a couple chapters, while spending several more following Birdie & Ollie on the increasingly implausible run from the Unseelie Court over only half a dozen years. No one is sure how the math works, but it proves a convenient - if, again, unsettling - device for aging up the baby from the last book into the sexy ingenue the genre is more suited for. The latter half of the book focuses heavily on Fearne’s adventures, all but abandoning Birdie & Ollie, and ends on an unsatisfying note with several major plot threads hanging.

No one is really sure if or when book four is coming out.

#I literally don’t know what any of this is #why did I come here to post one idle semi-amusing thought #and end up writing a synopsis/review of a fake romance trilogy?#what the fuck copper #critical role #bells hells #fearne calloway #birdie calloway #cr spoilers #cr shitpost #critical role spoilers

75 notes · View notes

dirty-bear-rick-sanchez · 1 year

Text

I have some kind of mixed feelings about part 2 but some things I appreciate under the cut (messy and non-linear):

I love that we’re getting more content from the other team leads this season and also that we’re seeing interactions between them that we haven’t seen before? Like Glenn and Myc bonding over looking different in the first episode? Brett and Andre defending Gigi in that episode? Brett and Andre friendship in Rontagion?

This kind of falls into the top one but Reagan and Gigi becoming gal pals and Reagan having her first ever female friend? I love it

Also the Reagan and Brett dynamic is top tier this season. Brett is so supportive of Reagan and I also love that they’re allowed to be so affectionate but still platonic friends (no offence to Breagan shippers, it’s just not my cup of tea and I just love Reagan and Brett and platonic besties).

Myc being a nerd who ran away from the other mushrooms because they were mean to him is a great backstory. Tropey? Sure, but I love it.

I also love that Ron actually says he would’ve liked Reagan to confess to him in the broom closet (like she originally planned) - they really are good for each other

Andre fucking his own clone is great. Honestly he was just an icon this season

I thought it was actually nice to get some actual development of Reagan and Tamiko’s relationship this season. It’s nice that their relationship is considered salvageable (not so keen on how they handled the thing with Rand but I did like that Reagan still put her foot down and sent him to Shadow Prison X)

The dynamic between Rand and JR this whole season is great and I love their college flashback as well.

JR definitely lost the games on purpose every year so he could be humiliated by kissing the ring in front of everyone (you’re telling me this man doesn’t have a humiliation kink?)

Also the dynamic between Rand and the head of the Illuminati was great and the second we had the reveal of Ron also controlling the head of the Illuminati I just knew what was coming but I still loved when it happened anyway (the kiss)

I don’t know if I should admit to this one but I definitely found it hot how Rand was being humiliated in front of everyone at the games

Brett having a secret passion for puppets is adorable and I love it

Also the Hand family ranking their children every year is hilarious and extremely in character. Made me feel so bad for Brett, I love it, 10/10

I like that we’re getting recurring appearances from minor characters like Mothman, Grassy Noel, Kate (and RepliKate, what a great name)

The fact that Myc’s dream timeline was one where he was pregnant is fucking adorable

You’d better believe I cried when Reagan forced Brett to his own dream timeline and when he returned because he made notes on his poster

Also at the reveal that Reagan saw the only way for Ron to be happy was for them to break up and chose his happiness over their relationship. Also I know some people weren’t fans of Ron because they felt like he was unnecessary/rushed but honestly having a gender-swap of the typical ‘female love interest is just used as character progression for the male protagonist’ felt pretty progressive. I also liked how he was shown to be similar to Reagan and actually had his flaws presented similarly to hers (e.g. not getting on well with people) even though female characters are often hated for the same flaws that are excused or even enjoyed in male characters

I have to admit that the end scene with the robes ‘how could she? After all, she’s only human’ was fucking cool

I loved everything about Alpha-Beta this season

And finally, thank fucking Christ that Ron wasn’t revealed to secretly be Reagan’s brother or something because as an RnM fan I can’t take much more incest at this point

Side note to that last one: fun little theory that Ron is actually a clone of Reagan (one of them can be trans, as a treat) and it was revealed and that’s what actually lead to the clone fucking discussion at the start of that one episode but they erased their own minds and everyone else’s and let Andre take the fall (either it was intentional and they set that up as a distraction or it was unintentional and Andre just happened to be fucking his own clone anyway, take your pick)

#inside job #inside job spoilers #inside job part 2 #inside job part 2 spoilers #reagan ridley #ron staedtler #brett hand #andre lee #dr andre lee #gigi inside job #magic myc #glenn dolphman #rand ridley #jr scheimpough #alpha beta #alphabeta #alpha-beta #tamiko ridley #i’m definitely forgetting some characters

446 notes · View notes

choices-and-voices · 5 months

Text

Okay, so I know I’ve already made literally forty posts about The Cursed Heart Book 1, but. There’s one more scene that I really want to talk about before I move on. To me, it’s the scene that explains what the entire book is about –

See, back when The Cursed Heart Book 1 was being released, I remember that Tumblr was overflowing with criticism of the MC. Every second post was about how ‘it’s so annoying to always be playing the fish out of water’, or ‘it’s so boring to always be playing nice’, or ‘it’s so frustrating to always be playing naïve.’ And yeah, those criticisms are valid for a lot of Choices books, but… they’re not really valid for The Cursed Heart. Because the MC being like that is the entire point of the story. The Cursed Heart is a fairytale, and a key characteristic of fairytales is that they have a moral, and the moral of The Cursed Heart is one of the most classic in the genre: that kindness and love conquer all. MC is an innocent outsider because they are meant to contrast the scheming culture of the Fae. MC is sweet and gentle because they are meant to demonstrate how goodness can be a strength. MC is ridiculously trusting because they represent a world where people don’t hurt one another. And literally the essence of the plot is that Kieran has been hurt in that way, has been ‘cursed’ by their heartbreak to become lonely and manipulative and cruel, and MC is the symbol of a better world that restores their hope and finally brings them back from the brink. Yes, it’s a sappy, tropey story, and yes, nobody is obligated to like it. But also, nobody can say that it would be a better story if MC was different, because if MC was different then it literally wouldn’t be the same story at all. For once, the MC has been written with a distinctive personality that serves a narrative purpose, rather than just being a blank slate whose sole characteristic seems to be be horniness, *glares at every other current MC except the Blades one*. And I don’t know about you, but – I find that really, really cool.

#it’s my personal opinion that TCH is criminally underrated #and I could bring up way more arguments than this one but I figure we can take it slow 😅#playchoices #choices: stories you play #the cursed heart #fandom essay #screenshots #original post

66 notes · View notes

rydiathesummoner · 7 months

Text

JILL IS STRONGER THAN WE THINK: No I'm serious, here's why (all the spoilers)

When I finished FFXVI my feelings about Jill were… ok she's fine. We got her in the party after her time in the Iron Kingdom so she was physically weak. Even her powers were not as strong as Titan or Bahamut. She shone bright when killing Imreann, but then seemed relegated to the background for the rest of the game. She's even captured twice and requiring her boyfriend to save her. In 2023 that's so tropey it hurts.

However after too much overthinking, I think she's pretty great. She's well thought out. The problem is that sometimes the storytelling is too subtle and as an overtired and always stressed modern gamer I missed a few things about Jill.

Thinking back, how was Ultima defeated? Why couldn't Ultima posess Clive? Not because of Clive's physical strength or his massive pecs, but because of his Will. In the end, Clive's Will did not break or falter. Ultima fights with physical strength sure, but he usually gets what he wants throughout the story by breaking people's Will.

Jill's Will never breaks. Not once. Even when facing death from Kupka. She lives through torture and abuse but always remains in control of her Eikon. A broken Will is an Eikon out of control.

Ultima causes Clive's Will to break at Phoenix Gate. He also loses control with Garuda.

Joshua's Will breaks after seeing his father killed.

Benedikta's Will breaks after losing Garuda. Garuda gave her a sense of power and control, especially over men (who had hurt her in the past).

Kupka's Will breaks by eating the mothercrystal to gain more power. He did this at the suggestion of Harbard, who worked for Barnabas, who, well…

Dion's Will breaks after constant frustrations with his family, and Ultima manipulating him into killing his father. It should be noted that Ultima had to work pretty hard for this one.

Barnabas had no Will the entire story. He volunteered it to Ultima. Arguably the most physically powerful Eikon was the weakest when it came to Ultima's machinations. He genuinely thought Ultima would let him be reborn.

Obviously this leads to Cid, who also has an unshakeable Will and maintains control during his short time in the game. Both Cid and Jill influence Clive to strengthen his own Will. So why did it seem to me the Cid was a strong dominant, but Jill was just kind of meh?

I feel like this is an area the writing could have used some tweaks. Cid showed his strong Will by defying everything Valisthea stood on and creating an entire movement about it. This was a huge part of the plot. There are scenes where Jill could have primed out of control to save herself (Kupka and Barnabas's abductions for example, a yellow-eyed eikon could probably break crystal fetters) but the game doesn't really put that idea into the player's head. "Oooh is she gonna go crazy before this big dude cuts off her head and destroy Rosaria?" like they could have shown her struggling, or her eyes turning slightly yellow before regaining control of herself.

Or since Barnabas was Ultima's puppet, the scene on the ship could have been used as a way for Ultima to try to break her Will, but she resisted. In both cases, her resolve didn't seem tested and she seemed more like a plot point. I don't think this is intentionally how her character was written, but a side effect of making Clive the entire focus.

Our human monkey brains tend to lean into a Might Makes Right mindset, but physical strength was not what Valisthea needed. It needed the strongest Wills to save itself.

#ffxvi #ff16 #final fantasy xvi #final fantasy 16 #final fantasy #jill warrick #clive rosfield

97 notes · View notes

duckprintspress · 1 year

Text

Welcome to May Trope Mayhem!

May Trope Mayhem is a multi-fandom/original creation event open to writers, artists, and content creators of all kinds! We’ve put together a list of 30 of our favorite tropes (plus one day for you to pick YOUR favorite!), one per day through the month of May, and we encourage creators to join us for this month of fun tropey mayhem.

Our goal is to promote motivation and help with habit building, so we’re encouraging people to keep their ficlets under 1,000 words, or if you make art or a gif or some such, to stick to a sketch or a single image.

This event is primarily held on Tumblr, but you’re welcome to participate anywhere Duck Prints Press has an account (you can see all our current platforms here) and we’ll keep our eyes on our tag everywhere!

How can you participate? It’s easy! There’s just a few simple rules:

to participate, write a ficlet or a poem, create art, make a gif, or create any other content that you want, aligned with the prompt for the day!

post your correctly tagged fills to Tumblr, and we’ll reblog them! We’ll retweet works on Twitter, retoot those on Mastodon, you get the idea. 😀

you must tag warnings such as gore, MCD, sexual content, etc., so that people can avoid triggering material!

please also tag fandom and ship, so people can find what interests them!

we ask that you put the tags at the top of your post, so they’re easy to find.

if you write more than 1k words, please use a read more.

if you write something with NSFW content or potentially triggering material, please put the entire story under a read more.

Ping us (duckprintspress) or tag your creations “#may trope mayhem” and so we can find them! We’ll reblog all fills that follow the above rules and are posted between May 1st and June 8th, 2023.

If you post to AO3, you can also add them to our collection there!

You don’t have to sign up, just post your fills. You don’t have to be a member of the Press nor do you have to be following us. You don’t have to be part of a specific fandom. We’re open to all ships, genres, formats, etc.! You don’t have to post fills on the corresponding day, though we ask that if you’re creating for a day that hasn’t happened yet, please wait for that day to post.

This is a low-pressure event, held in good fun, and we look forward to seeing what you create!

Who We Are: Duck Prints Press LLC is an independent publisher based in New York State. Our founding vision is to help fan creators publishing their original works. We are particularly dedicated to working with queer authors and publishing stories featuring characters from across the LGBTQIA+ spectrum. Want to always hear the latest? Sign up for our monthly newsletter! Want to support the Press, read about us behind-the-scenes, learn what’s coming down the pipeline, get exclusive teasers, and claim free stories? Back us on Patreon monthly!

#may trope mayhem #may trope mayhem 2023

256 notes · View notes

bthump · 2 months

Note

hello! i hope im not bothering you with this ask or anything, but i really love your blog and the thoughts you write, so i wanted to ask if you any other titles you would reccomend that are similar to berserk (not necessarily in terms of setting, but mostly the Vibe) and deal with similar themes (i watched and read devilman!). i would accept anything tbh, be it a book or movie or a series. thanks in advance, hope you have a good week! :)

Thank you very much, and yeah I'd be happy to rec a few other things I like that have some similarities! Some of these similarities are pretty thin lol, but tbf Berserk is pretty unique, at least in terms of media I'm into, and I've seen some good homoerotic movies recently.

Anime/Manga:

Claymore is compared to Berserk fairly regularly, and it's not just for the big swords. There's no griffguts equivalent, but it's got medieval fantasy monster hunting vibes, similar themes wrt human nature (though more shounen, power of love-esque lol), great action scenes and cool monster designs, and a lot of great female characters with interesting relationships, which isn't similar to Berserk but it's a bonus by itself.

I've also seen Vinland Saga compared to Berserk, and again there's no griffguts equivalent, but there's a very Griffith-esque character who has an AU where Griffith became king the old fashioned way vibe, and a central theme is revenge.

An anon a while ago made the point to me that Light from Death Note is similar to Griffith in a few ways, such as wanting to create a kind of ideal world, and being very charismatic and having culty followers who view him as a god.

Books:

tbh I have a bad memory for books I've read, but here are a couple I read specifically because of Berserk similarities:

I read As Meat Loves Salt by Maria McCann because I was told it had griffguts vibes, and it did. Medieval lone wolf is recruited by idealistic blond mercenary who wants to create a utopia, falls in love with him, and gets fucked over. It's very dark, darker in some ways than Berserk, but it was a good read imo. More in depth post on it with warnings here.

Captive Prince by CS Pacat is known for the author having based one of the characters partially on Griffith, and you can tell lol. It's a fun read if you don't mind or are into the tropey sex slave setting, with an engaging gay romance that has surface similarities to griffguts, though the vibe of the relationship was fairly different to me. But like, the political scheming felt like a Golden Age AU to me. It's been a while since I've read it but for warnings there's rape, csa, incest, and sex slavery not portrayed positively but like, used as erotic scene setting if that's a dealbreaker.

TV Shows:

Hannibal! It's got intense homoeroticism, it's got betrayal, it's got an operatic level of intensity, it's fun to dissect analytically, violence revenge and trauma are significant themes, one character tries to escape his life ruining feelings for the other by killing him, and it's just a great time.

Yellowjackets also has strong themes of violence and how it's a temptation, and though I wouldn't compare any of the relationships to griffguts exactly, there's an intense tragic homoerotic friendship that haunts one of the characters decades later.

Xena has a campy overpowered anti hero dressed in black leather wrestling with their inner darkness and in love with a blonde, also a flirty exes kind of relationship with a god (though that's hetero lol). Not really similar tonally and no griffguts equivalent, but it's got some similar themes wrt violence, revenge, human connection saving your soul from darkness, etc, and it's a gr8, fun show.

Black Sails has a kind of love vs revenge thing going on, as well as an attempt to overturn the social order and create a utopian kingdom. In some ways it's similar in tone as well, often pretty dark and violent, but with some very funny moments, and set in a fictionalized historical setting. No griffguts equivalent, but all these shows are extremely gay.

Movies:

Ladyhawke gets a lot of comparisons to Berserk, and may have been one of Miura's inspirations since he cited Rutger Hauer movies. Starcrossed wolf and hawk themed lovers, medieval setting, significant eclipse, it's got the vibes.

Hellraiser is one of Miura's stated inspirations iirc, and I mean yeah lol. It's the godhand as sadomasochists. Idk that there's that much in common in terms of theme, but the aesthetic is there.

Yk what? The Lost Boys. Homoerotic, campy fun, brooding teen is recruited into a gang and has sexual tension with the leader... that should count.

Star Trek: The Motion Picture starts with Spock trying to purge all his emotions after we can only assume breaking up with Kirk, and failing, and it's a parallel to a godlike being learning to love.

Okay hear me out on this one... Sweet Smell of Success is like if there was no Guts and instead the homoeroticism was between Griffith and the King, and it was set in the New York world of 50s gossip columnists, and look, I recently watched and adored this movie and I want to rec it. And hey, it's about doing fucked up shit to feed your ambition and being pretty and charming while you do it.

The Favourite is about a servant seducing and manipulating her way to power in a royal court, kind of an f!Griffith AU without a Guts if you look at it a certain way. But also it's another movie I love and want to rec based on at least one similarity lol.

Uh, Merry Christmas Mr Lawrence is about a dude wanting to fuck a hot charismatic and guilt-ridden blond guy but being too repressed to go for it? Great movie in general. Also Midnight Cowboy is about trauma induced gay repression while we're at it.

And finally, Paul Verhoeven's sci fi trifecta of Robocop, Total Recall, and Starship Troopers have virtually nothing in common with Berserk in terms of theme, character, relationships, etc. But the tone feels exactly like the Black Swordsman arc to me lol, to the point where I've always said that the only live action Hollywood adaption of Berserk I'd accept is the one Verhoeven directed in the 90s in an alternate universe. Miura was directly inspired by one of his 80s movies that I've never seen, Flesh and Blood, and yeah, I feel like you can kind of feel the inspiration.

I have other rec lists, as well as things people have recced to me often on the basis of similarities to Berserk/griffguts that I haven't checked out yet, in this tag, so I'd highly recommend browsing through it for more media suggestions. And if anyone wants to jump in with more recs for things that remind you of Berserk in some way, please do!

#ask #b #anonymous #not berserk #theme: opinion #if you only watch one black and white movie in your life and you're a fan of fucked up homoeroticism sweet smell of success #is a winning choice

31 notes · View notes

jamisonwritestf2trash · 7 months

Note

hi hello hi

i love ur headcanons, they're the most canon headcanons i've ever read 🫣..

was just wondering if you could write some about what you think the mercs favourite bands/musical artists would be 👁️

What Are The TF2 Mercs Favorite Bands/Music Artists?

————————————————————

Awe tysm! Of course, I can, I love writing about music 😭 I had to delve into the depths of my Spotify to actually see what bands I know, that I should pick for these guys. This totally isn't me projecting btw.

I ended up just giving them a band they like and a singular musical artist.

(I've been forgetting to specify or elaborate on this, most of the time, unless mentioned, these silly's are in present day and not like the 60s lmao.)

————————————————————

SPOILERS FOR THE BOHEMIAN RHAPSODY MOVIE! (Also a little angsty, sorry <3)

————————————————————

Demo and Hozier oh my god, its insane how much he likes him. I don't know how to elaborate on this further, but like, "Would That I"??? I feel like he loves that song! Also, I feel like all I have to say is "Take Me To Church" and I know some people will understand that immediately. This man just uses music as escapism, of course he likes Hozier.

Will Wood and The Tapeworms is a band that I've already deemed one of Demo favorites because of "The First Step." but this man just genuinely loves all of the songs. "The First Step", "Front Street", "6up 5oh Copout (Pro/Con)" and "Hand Me My Shovel, I'm Going In!" Are his favorites though.

————————————————————

Engie is a hardcore Dolly Parton fan. I know it's played out, I know it's obvious, I know its tropey, but I can't deny that this man loves Dolly Parton. Like this man is head of the fan club and I won't stop saying it. It would be wrong for me to pretend he doesn't heavily relate to "9 to 5."

Also loves the Chordettes oddly enough? He thinks all the way they sing is beautiful. He adores the cover of "Hello! Ma Baby". But is also a sucker for the popular ones, "Mr. Sandman" and "Lollipop". I will say though, it's utterly disturbing to the other mercs when it's like midnight and they get up for something and just here a really softly played "Mr. Sandman". Only one not disturbed is Medic, but like, it's hard to disturb a man who also has been known to play those old eerie songs at odd hours, they bond over this.

————————————————————

This man loves Elton John, he loves how he can relate heavily to some of the songs and then just genuinely enjoy other ones with no other meaning. Like he'll listen to "I'm Still Standing", and feel a lot of emotions from it, and then like "Crocodile Rock" will come on and just vibe to it.

Heavy also likes the Beetles. I don't know I just think he likes way the songs are sung, and the meaning he pulls from the lyrics themselves. Reads into music a lot and values being able to do that. Likes songs about love, and the Beetles are great for that. Don't get him started on "I Want To Hold Your Hand", and "Eleanor Rigby".

(Uh did I make this man have kind of old man music taste? Yes. Am I wrong, and will I apologize? No. He is old!) (Affectionate)

————————————————————

MARINA being Medics favorite is a mix of him being a teen girl in my mind, and an actual genuine ability to relate to some of the songs. I will say this until the day I die. This man has never felt good enough. Not even once. He's always working to try and get better, and once he does get better he's moving the goal post of getting better. Has played "Are You Satisfied" more times than you can count. "Oh No" and "Hermit The Frog" are also one's he finds himself both loving and relating to.

Would you guys be mad if I said this man was obsessed with Queen? (I am not projecting here, I swear!) Similarly to Heavy, he's a sucker for a romantic song or two. Loves "Good Old Fashioned Lover Boy" Also you want to talk about not feeling good enough, loops "Bohemian Rhapsody" Have you guys seen the Bohemian Rhapsody movie? You guys know the scene where Freddie (Rami Malek) is singing "Bohemian Rhapsody" and sings the line "I sometimes wish I'd never been born at all!" and has a slight break because he realizes he just actually said that? Yeah. That's how Medic feels when he first hears the song. But on a lighter note he also likes "Killer Queen" and "I Want To Break Free."

(Went crazy on this one, I really just need to make an entire breakdown on Medic one of these days 😭)

————————————————————

Scout is a Tom Cardy fan. I don't know how to elaborate without just yelling "Mixed Messages" like come on. Also, have you guys heard "H.S" Man he loves that song! Also oops another mini headcanon inside a headcanon, Sniper introduced him to Tom Cardy when he had "Read Between The Lines" playing one day.

Mindless Self Indulgence is a tad self-explanatory but who am I not to explain something in graphic detail? Gives him such confidence and makes him feel so cool. I already headcanon that he loves "Get It Up" so it's only natural that his favorite band made a song he loves. I stand by what others have said. Trans boy swag, well also a mix of that and white boy swag. White trans boy swag makes a Mindless Self Indulgence fan.

————————————————————

Sniper- Honestly? I racked my brain for this one, and I'm going to get silly with this. I'm going to say he likes George Ezra, purely because "Budapest" reminds me so much of him. I think he'd love that song. Another case of putting his emotions into his music or more like, liking music that conveys his emotions? Ough the song just gives me Sniper angst vibes.

Uh controversial opinion, what the frick??? Oingo Boingo fan. Again something I can't but he loved "Dead Man's Party" It's just a song he's always really liked. "No Spill Blood" and "Controller" are also ones he likes. I feel like "weird" music is his favorite genre of music.

————————————————————

I hate to say it but Spy is a fan of Olivia Rodrigo. I'm not going to lie, he's the second most teen girl-coded person on the team. Sings "bad idea right?", "Brutal", and "good 4 you". Sings them in the shower, the other mercs are sick of it 😭

Is it too much to say Mother Mother for the fact that I love Spy angst and can see him crying over "Arms Tonite" and relating to "Verbatim" so hard it's insane? Ugh, I live for Spy angst. I want him to be happy too but it's so easy to put angst😭. (Also I can't stress how much "Wrecking Ball"

————————————————————

Soldier is a sucker for AC/DC. Dad music (I say this with love, I get why people like AC/DC they have good music.)This man is just a criminally insane dad, in my mind anyway. The other mercs have been woken up to "Highway to Hell" once or twice and have let Soldier play "Thunderstruck" as hype music before a battle.

I think he likes Tom Petty, like how are you going to tell me he doesn't love "I Won't Back Down" and "Free Falling" just loves the sound of the music itself (if that makes any sense) more focused on the sounds instead of the actual meaning.

————————————————————

Pyro is a huge fan of Jack Stauber. They adore the music. Enjoys the pop of "There's Something Happening" and loves the slow and sad sounds in "Cupid" Ugh they just love Jack Stauber so much. The only issue they had was when they first listened to "Bumblebees Are Out" it caused a meltdown, poor Pyro was reminded of trauma they forgot. Engie had to calm them down for an hour after. (They're okay, don't worry!)

PYRO IS A JUGGALO 100% I WILL DIE ON THIS HILL. They kick their legs while listening to "Imma Kill U". Listen to "My Axe" and replace any mention of an axe with their flamethrower, in their head. I'm just imagining an AMV or just seeing Pyro walking to "Boogie Woogie Wu" and scaring the shit out of anyone and everyone.

————————————————————

I finally finished it 😭 I had like five asks? All at the same-ish time and I was so hyped but then my brain decided to revoke all my motivation. It's okay though I just pushed through it. I love being able to answer asks!

An ask about about Medic and Junji Ito's Gyo coming tomorrow hopefully!

#tf2 #team fortress 2 #tf2 headcanons #team fortress headcanons #tf2 hcs #tf2 demoman #tf2 engineer #tf2 heavy #tf2 medic #tf2 scout #tf2 sniper #tf2 spy #tf2 soldier #tf2 pyro

54 notes · View notes

emotionallychargedtowel · 1 year

Text

the persistent and the cute

Over the last few days, there’s been a really interesting discussion in the comments of my reblog of the gifset @tinngun put together of the Utsukushii Kare season 2 finale kiss. I’m transplanting it here because 1) it seems like @tinngun could use a break from all those notifications and so forth 2) the conversation was totally getting buried and I think it might be interesting to folks who probably wouldn’t see it without it being brought back out into a main post. So, first, here’s a quick recap of what I posted when I reblogged the gifset post in the first place. Well, the part that’s pertinent to this conversation, at least. I commented on the tropeyness of the scene, including allusions to Hira and Kiyoi’s sexual relationship, which (from what I hear) gets quite a bit of time in the novels but by virtue of TV as a medium, is mostly not portrayed in the series. In other words, since this part of the relationship isn’t shown directly the vast majority of the time, it has to be sketched out through these allusions, including what I’d consider coded language.

With regard to the coded terms, I brought up something @bookittyboop had mentioned to me previously, that “persistent” and “cute” have specific meanings in BL/yaoi/other related genres. Basically, someone labeled as “persistent” is more active/forceful sexually and someone labeled as “cute” is yielding/more passive, with these roles being mutually reinforcing (i.e. the more yielding the “cute” person is, the more forceful the “persistent” person becomes).

Then I talked about the way Hagiwara Riku’s voice shifts in the line, “Sorry, Kiyoi. I can’t wait any longer tonight.” I had checked out some clips of other roles of his and noticed that among other things, he really seems to use his voice to differentiate between characters. This helped me to notice how distinct his “can’t wait” voice was, and I thought this was probably a voice belonging to the “persistent” part of the character. And I was less sure about this, but I thought Yagi Yusei was playing into this as well by reacting to the voice by kind of melting/going all floppy in response to it (he’d been fairly swoony before that, but it definitely seemed to be going up a notch there).

Then @xnoel, perennial fountain of information, pointed me to this quote from an interview translation (highlighting added):

So yeah, this seems like confirmation! I mean, what else would Yagi be referring to when he talks about “Hira’s ‘dark’ side” than this authoritative husky whisper thing?

Then I got some really great comments which I’m going to share here with permission, in part because I asked if anyone could point me toward more information on the “persistent”/”cute” thing.

The ever-helpful @nieves-de-sugui said:

a little bit of translation notes for your analysis! Hira is saying, literally, "I can't hold back (anymore)" and it's a very tropey sentence to say in BL (and shoujo) right before getting it on. It's also the main indicator of taking over/taking charge of the sexual encounter. There's a lot of one taking over and the other giving in. (I think there's a lot here about how Japanese people relate to sex and how it should be done).

(I said I’d run into this trope in Kdramas before as well.)

And then the kind and knowledgeable @bookittyboop pretty much took me to school on the whole persistent/cute dichotomy! They left comments in two clusters at different times so I’m putting a little dinkus (the line of asterisks or symbol that marks a transition between sections) in there to show where that was. Oh, and I took out some greetings/closings and stuff like that for flow purposes. Here we go:

The best source I can think of (because otherwise this is the kind of thing your get through osmosis once you've watched enough Japanese media) is @absolutebl's post [link added by me] on the whipping boy trope, though there is more to it. I would classify Hira as a whipping boy/attack dog/service top and Kiyoi as more of a kuudere than a tsundere as well as a spoiled prince/pampered princess.

Their characterization and dynamic (and derivatives) is a staple not only in bl but in Japanese media. You've got a male character (Hira) who is the unassuming or even the loser archetype but unearths or shows a "manly" and protective side in benefit of his loved ones (many times after his "cowardice" or "uselessness" has let them be hurt) and slowly makes something of himself.

Then you got a (normally female) character who is a combination of cold and aloof (kuudere) or prickly and explosive (tsundere) but actually wants to be cherished and uses the gruff exterior as a way to protect herself from heartache/rejection.

The first archetype normally admires the second and wants to be at their service while the second sees the potential in them and the adoration makes them feel safe. In normal circumstances the first character has a submissive personality and the other a domineering one. The second character is also going to find emotional vulnerability extremely difficult to express. But in certain circumstances, there is a "mom friend hack" button.

* * *

When character 2 opens up/shows vulnerability, character 1 identifies a need in the other to be cared for and takes confidence from being chosen to provide that. There's also gap moe (duality cuteness) and horny "I'm gonna worship you so good you will forget everything else,” "gotta get top marks at satisfying you," and "you're so cute I wanna eat you up" buttons.

The second character in turn feels attracted, safe and tethered by that show of confidence and let's themselves (their barriers) go more and more . Those energies feed into each other and that's how you get to our kiss scene. Sometimes(Kiyoi's case) they add coyness and shyness ("no, that's too much you beast") because God forbid the tsundere/kuudere lacks plausible deniability when they go back to their senses. (there's a "baby it's cold outside"element too)

This is where @absolutebl chimed in to say they thought @bookittyboop was doing “a GREAT job” with this explanation.

And I agreed, and thanked them for the time and effort involved in such a useful explanation, but asked about the “mom friend hack” because it was new to me. Here was their explanation:

The mom friend is the responsible, caring one, prepared for any eventuality. If you're a generally anxious person but also the mom friend, you've got a hack where you handily navigate situations which would normally be embarrassing or anxiety-inducing if it's for your loved one's benefit.

For example:

-Buying condoms, pregnancy tests, emetics or other "embarrassing" stuff

-telling waitstaff they got an order wrong and to please change it

-asking a teacher to explain something again or revise an exam score

-giving a jerk a piece of your mind

Basically, you may not be able to stand for yourself or even make perfectly mundane, normal requests for your own sake, but the power of love lets you rationalize things, be brave, and do it for others.

I just realized I probably didn't clarify enough. Hira's thing is not exactly a "mom friend hack" but it's similar to it in the sense that "being needed" lets him overcome a mental block.

And they added, re: my theory about Kiyoi’s response to the Persistent Voice:

As for the kiss voice and Kiyoi's reaction, I too am convinced that was all on purpose. Bl drinks from yaoi manga, which has a treasure trove of visual cues and tropes. If there was a manga version, we'd probably have seen Hira suddenly get wolfy ears and shiny eyes + Kiyoi blushing like a maiden (maybe a fade to black with the dirtiest onomatopoeia known to man) to signal someone's getting railed within an inch of his life 😂. This is the real life equivalent.

So, yeah. Lots to think about here. I’m glad to know I seemed to be on the right track. It’s funny how there is so much material out there about some tropes and genre terms (googling seme and uke will get you more results than you know what to do with) while other tropes are harder to find anything about. (If only because of the vagaries of search terms, which might be a factor here.) If nothing else I’ll have this post to refer back to and I hope others will do the same if they find it at all useful.

Thanks again to @bookittyboop and @nieves-de-sugui for their thoughts! And to the illustrious @absolutebl for chiming in with praise (for @bookittyboop) and confirmation.

postscript:

There are a couple of things I keep noticing about that kiss scene since this discussion that I wanted to point out. I guess the fact that, due to both of my reblogs, I had a gifset of the scene at the top of my profile for three days probably has something to do with it.

First, I hadn’t noticed how much Kiyoi really is slipping into a “cute” persona even before the Persistent Voice is used--just in response to Hira’s first kiss. His eyes get very soft and he does that affectionate head-bonk but the pièce de résistance, to my mind, is the rather childlike way he sticks out the end of his tongue. So, yeah. The first stage of cuteness comes before the Voice is even used.

Second, I hadn’t even reckoned with just how floppy Kiyoi gets after the Voice. He’s swaying around so much that Hira keeps having to grab him so he doesn’t just keel over. He’s gone almost boneless.

I guess it’s just really fascinating to me how this set of tropes can be so pervasive in one culture (or at least noteworthy chunks of it) and yet almost entirely novel to me. I mean, I was aware cultural differences existed, of course, but sometimes getting hit by the reality of them is still startling.

#utsukushii kare #utsukushii kare season 2 #utsukushii kare 2 #hira x kiyoi #persistent x cute trope #bl tropes

140 notes · View notes