#villainesses

[astastories]

I imagine Harley looking at the camera 

[pageofpanels]

[plumbley-bee]

Welcome back to I READ THIS AND NOW I HAVE SO MANY THOUGHTS!!

Today's installment;

The Character That Loves Books is such a natural cliche it barely even registers to me anymore. I didn't even bat an eye when Even Monsters Like Fairytales opened with Sylph and her love of reading. Why would I? You have to assign some sort of trait to your main character besides what's about to happen to her. Why not a love of reading?

But then it wasn't just reading. It was stories. Every kind of story. Sylph loved every tale that could be told. Honestly, I'm a little envious of the life she ends up living. If I could live and die consuming stories like breathing, I think nothing would bring me more peace than that. Although I could personally do without the scary man being there, lol.

But that's just the thing, I was so certain this would be a love story steeped with justice and revenge when I started reading. I wasn't even all that excited for it. It's just what I assumed, and I was bored and wanted to read something.

But this is not a love story, and it's not a revenge one either.

It's just.. one that needed to be told.

It's Sylph and Kanna's story.

In perfect protagonist fashion, they start out as blank slates. Neither evil nor exactly pure of heart. Just two people who exist to wait for something to happen to them, and for someone to tell them what the right thing to do is.

Both lived as aimless byproducts of their own life, drifting through it exactly how they should with no real thought towards trying to get what they actually want.

Excellent grades, decent family, good friends, a future that was practically guaranteed to them. One neither of them really asked or was excited for, but a future they could count on.

That future gets rudely and cruelly ripped away from them, and not even for a good reason.

They are "Killed" and left with nothing but their name. Forced to find a way to survive at all costs with very little knowledge or insight in what is happening around them.

They find something to hold onto and do so desperately. They are willing to do whatever has to be done to protect the new life they're living.

They are one in the same, from the very beginning to the very end of the story.

Unfortunately, Kanna's story starts before Sylphs. It had to, of course, for her to eventually start Sylphs story in the first place. However, unlike Sylph, who gladly let go of who she used to be, Kanna didn't truly let go and start over until she moved to Fantasy Alaska.

When she transmigrated, she never really left her life as "The High School Girl Kanna" behind. She just also became "Kanna The Heroine" (and eventually Villainess) she let the knowledge of her past life influence her decisions because, understandably so, she still has not processed that this world is real. She can't help but view everything through the lens of a story because it's behaving just like one, she is adrift in this strange new place and her only stability is that maybe, if she follows what she's convinced should happen, she could be guaranteed a good life.

Both her and Sylph grew up very safely, following the obvious path set out for them because, why wouldn't you if that means you'll live comfortably? I think the main difference between Sylph and Kanna at the end of the day, though, is their willingness to let go of who they were.

Sylph refuses to give up books and stories. She didn't even ask the King to let her live and instead only wished to be with her books. She let's her old home get raided, and people she knew slaughtered because she did not want to give up what she loved. This, in her eyes, makes her a villain.

Kanna, on the other hand, is still clinging to everything that shaped her before. She has not processed her death at all and is deeply traumatized from it. She wants to survive and is still stuck in the cycle of trying to do what's expected of her because that's all she's ever known when it comes to navigating the unkown. The fear of her life being as out of her control as the day she died makes her willing to get rid of even the things she loves in order to survive.

This, in everyone's eyes, makes her a villain.

But romantic, platonic, read it however you want, Kanna loved Sylph.

Before the story, before any true endings or villainesses or betrayals, when it was just two kindred spirits tucked away in the library sharing their love of stories, they loved each other.

But Sylph could never be a safe and comfortable choice because Sylph was the only and biggest anomaly that stood in the way of security. She represented not knowing what would happen next, an embodiment of the unkown and uncertainty. Trusting her would be the same as risking her life in Kanna's eyes, and she couldn't go through that again.

But once she succeeds in cutting out that threat, she's left floundering. She clung to the "right" choice with no ambition or reason other than thinking having an answer was better than chasing uncertainty. She let her fear drive her to destroy what made her happy, and in the end, it cost her everything.

Sylph clung to what she loved and let go of her past to the point where she's not even angry about what happened. She leaves who she used to be behind and gains a life she never even dreamed of having.

It's why she goes by just Sylph very early on in the story when she chose to truly live. Kanna only let's go and becomes just Kanna by the end of it because she clung to her past up until that point, constantly looking to it for answers.

It's what makes her last words to Sylph hit so hard at the end, when she confirms a long since dead, but once mutual feelings of care. It's why it's so bitter-sweet. They were once each other's very own tucked away slice of happiness in an otherwise very distressing and aimless life. It wasn't much, but it was something good just for them. Kanna couldn't choose that, though. She's going to try now and is willing to struggle if it means being happy, but the person who probably understands her more than anyone else will never be in her life ever again.

Kanna will have a harder time finding her own happiness because she already let it go a long time ago, but she's finally accepted starting over and finding things that will make her happy, just like Sylph. This, in my opinion, is what makes them both the protagonist.

Star crossed friends, two people so alike yet put in circumstances where there was never going to be a better ending for the two of them. They both made each other bolder, more expressive. They changed and shaped one another to the point where even though they will most likely never see each other again, a piece of the other person will always be inside them in the form of a story.

Stories are wonderful. They can help you connect with and understand people. They are these beautiful gateways to new ideas and peaks inside someones mind. They can also be limiting with their tropes and plot lines. Stories can shape us, and they can divide us all the same.

We can learn and grow thanks to the stories we carry from our past. It's good to remember where we came from. It's even better to carry the stories of things now lost to us. But to let it shape every decision you make to the point where you push away and hurt what you actually care about in order to cling to a false idea of safety will only be the thing that harms you in the end.

We don't actually know what will happen in the future, so all we can do is care for and protect what we have now. Things happen for no reason all the time. Good people die for no reason, and people can be kind for no reason, too.

Just like how there was no real reason for kanna to die to that driver. There was no reason for her to reincarnate, and there was no reason for Sylph to be different from the original work other than the fact that it's just how the story goes. Maybe there's a world where they can coexist in their stories. Maybe there's one that exists where they got to stay in that library and enjoy their books until the end of their days.

That's just not this story, but unfortunately, it being written this way is one of the reasons I think it was such a good story to tell.

[thestrangesunshine]

A bunch of hot toku villainesses that I'm very normal about.

[wonderwomanart]

The Cheetah by Luis Valero-Suarez

[moon-bunny24]

[4dmc]

An old gif of Lilith fading to her actress Robin Riker

Lilith in Teppen

Concept art by Talexi, Alessandro Taini

I also want to add Claire Blustin who would do some of the DmC 3D modeling art, with her focusing on the final figure of Lilith and Phineas. She has more, most on the flying enemies, baby demon faces and an alt costume for Dante.

Ok so originally Lilith was the one who was gonna transform

But I do like the final output. It reveals how viscerally evil Lilith is. Also personally Lilith is the personification of a lot of the violent body shifting of a woman's body. I love how they acknowledge that.

I know people are uncomfortable about women's issues and we will always have to talk about how exactly should we portray them in fiction. But I personally never like sanitizing or just brushing over it.

My only wish was that there's more screen time to her villainy. Maybe show how she operates and how she is privately.