#superamatista

[eat-a-dicker]

well, on the surface level, yes, but i firmly believe rei is just an entitled young man.

he definitely is a lot more intelligent than we are ever lead to believe, it's just not something UY prioritizes. one of the first things about rei that we learn is not only does he not speak any earth languages, but he also prides himself on being the most conventionally attractive man in the cast.

rei chooses not to learn any earth languages because he already has a culture he fits into. he doesn't need to learn anything else besides what he knows because his good looks will let him coast by in life without a second thought.

he is urusei yatsura's narcissist. a man who only prioritizes what he knows and what he wants, and this is why his and lum's relationship fell apart. he is handsome, yes, but he also has a stark unwillingness to engage with anything unfamiliar due to his entitlement. the man is selfish and stuck in his ways because the society he came from never challenged him to learn and grow in meaningful ways.

urusei yatsura criticizes cishet male culture a lot and rei is the character who embodies toxic masculinity in UY to T.

this is also my biggest issue with rei and ran. ran isn't a one dimensional wife blob of a character, she's an abuse survivor who's only been chasing rei for extremely superficial reasons. her entire persona of being a sweet hyperfeminine girl is only there to deceive her enemies and hide from real emotional confrontation. interestingly enough, the only character in the series ran ever opens up to in a real, authentic way is lum herself.

ran and rei as the series ends, are paired together, but it's this extremely superficial depiction of what looks like a situation that's going to implode fast and hard when ran finally discovers that rei doesn't care about her in a real way, he only cares about what she can do for him. funnily enough, this is not how he feels about lum. rei ends the series just as in love with lum as he was at the start, which. kinda says a lot about him. there definitely was a lot of him we didn't see.

[ladyloveandjustice]

I've been thinking about what makes a character “relatable” and that made me think about how Fullmetal Alchemist is always praised for its female characters (and I agree, they're great!) but I don’t know if any of them could be considered “relatable”. Do you think any of them are? Besides Sheska

I actually think the reason I connected to Winry so much back when I read the manga was because I do relate to her quite a bit. Her geeky passion for automail reminded me of my own passions (and that why I’m scared that I feel so disconnected from my passion lately, off topic...), and I think what I especially related to was that her struggle revolved around feeling helpless. Around feeling she could do nothing more than wait and be locked out of the loop. It’s a struggle that comes up for me quite a lot, and I think it’s a struggle a lot of people share. It’s hard and scary, feeling like you’re powerless. It’s hard to endure tragedy and keep getting up every day. Winry didn’t have a life that was wrapped up in the bigger action scenes, and helped people in ways that weren’t always noticed, and a lot of times she felt like she didn’t make a difference, and I think that’s a big reason why I connected with her. Plus there was the fact she was very emotionally driven, and cried easily, and so on. I’m not like her in a lot of other ways, but there was something expressed with her character that resonated strongly with me (especially at that time) otherwise I wouldn’t have been able to ramble about her so much.

I dunno if that’s the specific kind of “relatable” you’re talking about, but those are my two cents. If I do strongly connect with characters, I often do have some kind of common ground with them, even if they’re not like me in a lot of other ways. I would agree characters like Izumi or Olivier could be hard to relate to, but I can also see people relating to like, May’s goofiness when it comes to love or Riza’s self loathing.  

[gabzilla-z]

superamatista: Tamao's crush wasn't even reciprocated. Poor girl

fandom was never nice to shy girls with crushes on the main character, especially back then

tbh her future self turning into an Anna clone that ends up caring for the son of her old crush and the girl he married felt written by somebody who hated her

truly a fate worse than death shipping wise, what is this? Vampire Knight?

flaydowsk: Who was the incest ship? Horohoro and sister?

Yoh was shipped with Hao, his evil twin/ancestor reincarnation

[jageunyeoujari]

what's the twink aesthetic? because I've seen pretty much every somewhat attractive thin guy with no facial hair (or very little...) get called "twink" regardless of age or sexuality XD

(...this is a joke ljfhfgh) (junkrat is not a twink)

FOR REAL, ppl misuse twink all the time to the point it’s meaningless but it’s a young, thin, hairless, & relatively attractive gay man w a boyish face. kpop idols are mostly all like that bc that’s appealing to their demographic of mostly young women (but obviously it’s not actually intentionally gay as an industry which is why i said it’s a twink aesthetic tho).

but yeah, online it gets referred to any man tho..... imagine saying soldier 76 or mahershala ali are twinks (real examples)

[thankskenpenders]

not to be rude but, how do you write a good m/f romantic relationship? Not “what NOT to do/bad examples”, I mean good examples. Because I’ve seen a LOT of people who say they dislike straight romance that’s “too unrealistically happy all the time and has no drama”, but then all the other problematic tropes appear.

I don’t think a couple needs to be happy ALL the time, but I do think showing them actually enjoying each other’s company and being supportive of each other is a huge step that many writers miss. In their quest for drama, some writers take “well they can’t ALWAYS be happy, there needs to be CONFLICT” and create couples who are almost never happy

If you do want drama, though, it’s good to actually think about what the SOURCE of the drama is. Many writers seek to create conflict between the two lovers, which isn’t INHERENTLY bad, but often manifests as constant bickering, childish love triangles, cheating, drama caused by simple misunderstandings that should have been resolved quickly, or–in the worst cast scenarios–unintended depictions of emotional abuse

Here are just a few other options to make things dramatic: Maybe some life circumstances or external conflict are keeping the couple from getting as close as they’d like. Maybe they start out as enemies, but start to realize that they have good chemistry and a lot in common and set aside their differences. Maybe they’re worried that they’re starting to grow apart. Maybe one or both parties is actively striving to be a better person for the sake of the relationship. It could be an INTERNAL conflict for one party, rather than a conflict between the two of them. Maybe they’ve known each other for a long time, and they’re only just now realizing that they like each other and dealing with the ramifications of that. Maybe unforeseen circumstances bring them together. Maybe one party discovers something about the other that complicates their relationship

Or, hell, the drama doesn’t even have to center on the relationship if it isn’t specifically a romance story. You can have the couple go through any number of conflicts caused by external forces, and show how they try to get through it together

There are lots of options, really! It’s just that we see the same few stories retold so many times in popular genre stories and sitcoms and whatnot that they start to clog up our minds. And hell, even a good number of those tropes I listed earlier aren’t total trash, they’re just overused and often poorly written

If you want some examples of stories with straight romance that I actually like, here are a few: The Good Place, which has several romantic subplots and shows that love triangles can actually be tolerable if the characters just talk it out like ADULTS instead of trying to stab each other in the back. Eureka Seven, which is maybe my favorite anime ever, focuses on a teen love story where the characters both strive to be better people for each other, and it also has mechs with hoverboards and great music. The recently released Spider-Man: Far From Home made Peter and MJ just precious–and hell, I liked their older counterparts in the PS4 game, too. The Secret of Monkey Island was one of the earliest games to subvert the damsel in distress love interest trope. And Cucumber Quest has a sweet fairytale romance subplot with Carrot and Princess Parfait (and also a bunch of lesbians)

And hell, on the subject of Sonic, he and Sally are pretty good together in most episodes of SatAM

[bogleech]

there's a recent manga that you might enjoy, called Heaven's Design Team, an edutainment for adults (lol kinda) of human-looking supernatural beings who create animals the way designers and artists work on commissions. Scientfically accurate but not from a historical POV (it's a comedy), it even includes sources at the end of every chapter. Also there's a cute goth lady who loves "gross" animals, a snarky fashionable trans lady, and the reminder of how truly weird koalas are.

Oh this does look like a top-notch concept from just the first page I saw on google

[mononokehunters]

7,8

7. Something that makes your character happy

Genuine human compassion. Seeing people be kind to each other, just because they care, makes Kusu really really happy. An older sister treating her brother, neighbors helping each other clean up after a storm, a woman taking in a stray cat. All the little direct things people can do to be kind. It's a sign that it's possible for people to learn and grow and maybe his tenure in this position won't last forever, as unlikely as it is.

Other than that a fresh bowl of ramen is a close second.

Hyper is easy to please, he's happiest when he's out and being the center of attention with friends.

He'll settle for ramen too tho XD

8. Something that makes them laugh

Not much. You may get a chuckle out of Kusu at bitter irony. He sees way too much of it and at some point you just have to laugh. So, gallows humor basically. A well placed pun might get a snort out of him too.

Hyper would get a huge kick out of Japanese comedy duos.

[forthegothicheroine]

one picture from a pamphlet of the infamous witch-hunter Matthew Hopkins shows several witch familiars, most of them in animal form, with their respective names. All I could think is 1)why do you hate single women living with pets and 2) these familiars would make a great team of magical beasts

Familiars always look so cute in movies, even when they’re supposed to be scary.