Trope Symptoms: obsessive brothers in the way of romance, clueless sisters/sister figures, a reincarnator or transmigrator step or adoptive sister changes the story a bit too much, frequently set in a BL novel transmigration series, boundaries pushed but not crossed,
Genre/Sub-genre: Boys Love (sort of), romantic fantasy
I think my biggest question as I started this segment of Smolder is “are Graham and Anita gonna smash?”.
As we covered last time, the Anitaverse is not kind to characters of color and their characters get assassinated in a way that white male characters usually don’t… unless they (allegedly) represent one of Hamilton’s former loves. Graham is one of those characters that has never felt like he was respected in the narrative. He was a character who was mildly annoying and almost instantly removed from the running for a shot at being one of Anita’s sweeties… and it was frustrating because Graham is not good enough to be a boo but serial rapist and murderer Olaf might be? It’s infuriating.
Trope Symptoms: bisexuals don’t exist, binaries abound, gay dudes in canon are now heterosexual in the transmigrator’s real life, tragic backstory as a reason for being gay, female transmigrator, stolen capture targets, a series so homophobic and gay at the same time,
Genre/Sub-genre: Boys Love (sort of), romantic fantasy
As Seen In: I Ran Away From the Hunter, I’m Engaged to an Obsessive Male Lead, Taming My Villainous Brother, Surviving As A Maid, Touch My Brother and You Die, The Princess of Convenient Plot Devices, Let’s Hide My Little Brother, I Became the Younger Sister of the Regretful Obsessive Male Lead, I Became The Servant Who Received The Crown Prince’s Obsession, This BL Novel Is Ruined Now
If you’re an avid webtoon reader, you may have caught the images from and responses to Get Schooled chapter 125.
The chapter utilizes racial slurs, a Black character being racist against Koreans, drawn along the lines of racist caricature, and subject to antiblack racism.
The chapter started going viral on TikTok and Tumblr and, about 24 hours ago, was pulled from the English version of Webtoon. (It is of course still up on the Korean version and there’s next to no chance that it will be pulled there.)
Here’s the thing about Get Schooled: if you know anything about modern South Korean conservatism, this won’t be a surprise to you. If you’ve actually been paying attention to this webtoon – which has used a radfem (but not… technically in the way online leftist US-ians use it to stand in for “terf”) elementary school teacher as a creepy bad guy in one arc – Get Schooled kind of… highlights a lot of concerns of the modern day conservative (male) youth especially in Korea.
Obviously.
It is a Korean webtoon.
I stopped reading the series during the arc with the “radfem” teacher because, as someone who’s friends with several Korean feminists and who keeps an eye on the news/feminist thought, theory, and practice there… I was able to recognize the absolutely unsubtle dogwhistles and bullhorns at play in that arc.
Sachio Kurumizawa is an omega mouse manga artist, and Ukano, the alpha fox, is his editor… but Sachio can’t help but feel uncomfortable around Ukano.
He always seems to look at Sachio with predatory eyes.
One night, Sachio goes into heat at an omega-only bar, and Ukano saves him.
Unfortunately, Sachio has no idea how long he’ll stay in heat… and then, Ukano offers to help him stop it.
Will Sachio say yes to getting between the sheets with Ukano despite his terror of being devoured…!?
Thinky Thoughts
Omegaverse is obviously a majorly important thing in my life. I am always reading it, thinking about it, and writing it. I only haven’t put out some horrifying Mahito/Junpei omegaverse yet because there are so many other, worse AUs that I’ve been busy with.
Anyway, I got into The Foxy Mouse’s Romance because… I saw a TikTok about it. For a site that punishes you for basically wiggling a toe out of step, the social media platform sure has become the main first site/sight for me when it comes to spicy webtoons and manga.
When we last left Anita, she was busy being all up in her feelings because her pretty pretty dress has triggered her latent mommy/stepmommy/grandmommy issues about her appearance. Obviously, we’re still here in chapter fourteen. Anita is still upset. She’s so upset, actually, that she trips and almost falls in the middle of the street, something that triggers Rodina’s mockery and makes Ru defend her against his sister.
(Which, kind of makes it clear that if Rodina doesn’t get brainwashed… she’s going to die. She can’t live and be that opposite Anita to the point where her brother chooses to defend Anita over her.)
So let’s start with a meaty quote:
“It’s a spike heel on cobblestones, guys, anyone can trip,” I said, but I stayed where Ru had put me with his arm around me and him between us. I let myself put most of my energy into shoveling the emotional shit that I could feel inside my head and body. Emotions didn’t just live in the head, or the heart, they burrowed down into your gut, they poured over your skin, they filled up your eyes, they spilled out your fingertips and toes. Emotions were everywhere if you just let yourself feel them, and I’d worked hard to learn how to feel instead of stuff everything out of sight until it erupted in rage or made terrible choices. I was concentrating so hard on working my issues that I didn’t hear what Rodina said to me.
“I’m sorry, Rodina, what did you say?”
“I said, have you ever seen us trip, any of us?” Rodina asked, peering around her brother at me.
I knew the us meant the Harlequin. “I’ve seen you all mess up in fight training.”
“We can lose, but that’s not the same thing as tripping on a stone. You are so damn mortal, my queen.”
“Yeah, yeah, I know I disappoint you, Rodina, you aren’t winning any prizes with me either.”
“I feel your pain and confusion, and it hurts me that you are so unhappy, but tonight I simply don’t seem to care.”
Anita is so full of emotions and I get it. I get it. But it’s also… she only just told Ru and Rodina that she didn’t care that they were sad about their third sibling’s death because he tried to kill her. So why on earth is she expecting Rodina to ever have empathy for her when she’s made it clear that her empathy won’t be aimed at them ever?
Femme fatale Veronica is sentenced to death for obsessing over the prince. With her life now in danger, she boards a ship to escape, unaware that it belongs to her archnemesis, the alluring Prince Halid. He agrees to help her, but only on the condition that she pretends to be his wife!
My Thoughts:
In the introduction to Edward Said’s Culture and Imperialism, he notes that he “looked especially at cultural forms like the novel, which I believe were immensely important in the formation of imperial attitudes, references, and experiences”. He goes on to say that:
“I do not mean that only the novel was important, but that I consider it the aesthetic object whose connection to the expanding societies of Britain and France is particularly interesting to study. The prototypical modern realistic novel is Robinson Crusoe, and certainly not accidentally it is about a European who creates a fiefdom for himself on a distant non European Island.”
I have wanted to cite Edward Said in an analysis of Lies Become You from the second that I saw the first chapter of this Korean webtoon and noped out of it last year.
Deep in the heart of 19th Century London, a young nobleman named Cain walks the shadowy cobblestone streets of the aristocratic society in which he was born. Forced to become an Earl upon the untimely death of his father, Cain assumes the role of head of the Hargreaves, a noble family with a dark past. With Riff, his faithful manservant, and Mary Weather, his 10-year-old adopted sister, Cain investigates the mysterious crimes that seem to follow him wherever he goes.
Thinky Thoughts
The sequel to the original Earl Cain series (first published in 1991), Kaori Yuki’s Godchild is one of the single most formative pieces of media in my life. Honestly, between this and Angel Sanctuary, Kaori Yuki’s body of work has actually shaped a huge portion of my interests and personality. Even my early writing as a tadpole owes to her brilliant worldbuilding, capable writing, and gorgeous art.
After being involved in a car accident together, Hajin is asked by Sihyeon to take care of Sihyeon’s younger sister after his death. Hajin never expected that to mean he would wake up in the hospital in Sihyeon’s body instead of his own. Even worse, Sihyeon was an infamous idol who would do anything for money, had multiple sponsors, and was apparently about to abandon the boy band he was a part of to sign a new contract with a larger agency. At first, Hajin believes the public’s negative opinion about Sihyeon, but the more he learns about Sihyeon’s miserable circumstances, the more enraged he becomes. Determined to get revenge in Sihyeon’s stead, Hajin decides to reach out to an old acquaintance for help. However, the deeper he goes into his revenge plot, the more people he becomes entangled with…
Fairytale stepmothers are notoriously wicked. But after a children’s clothing designer is reborn as young Princess Blanche’s stepmom, she’s determined to break the mold and shower her daughter with love. Now she just has to convince the girl’s cold-hearted father to do the same. In her quest to make a happier home for Blanche, Abigail begins to uncover secrets and schemes within the palace. Will devious forces tear the Freidkins apart, or can Abigail stitch them back into a family?
My Thoughts:
Here’s some unexpected Stitch Lore ™ for you: I actually ranked Snow White at the bottom of my favorite fairytales… up until I read the first volume of this series’ novelization a couple years ago. I read the first volume and went “wait… maybe Snow White deserves rights”.
Note: I did use dictation software for part of this so if there any errors well… even with me going through and editing… I am sure I missed the opportunity to correct things.
Returning to the Anitaverse, our convenient witness has gone off to give a formal statement about what she saw and experienced with the vampire on fire. While the young woman does not seem to think anything is amiss, Anita makes it clear in her internal monologue that this is just the first step on analyzing and unpacking whether or not she was responsible for a murder.
One of the things I find really interesting that shows up in this chapter, is the use of texting on the page. Part of this book when Anita texted one of her loved ones, her internal monologue is what carried that information to us. We got the details of the texts but not the words themselves. In this book, in this chapter specifically, we actually see the text messages on page with Anita texting back and forth with Ethan, one of her guards and possibly lovers.
It’s a little thing that isn’t even new — texting on the page is used to convey emotion and narrative without using direct dialogue in a bunch of novels I’ve been reading across the past decade and a popular YA series was built around texting –but it almost gives me hope for Hamilton bringing the series into the 21st century proper. Anita is a character who used a pager well past the point where people used pagers.
I was in high school, having never seen a pager in my life, but Anita was still getting pages to come to the different crime scenes in Saint Louis. Any update is a good update here, because like I said last time one of the big issues with the Anita Blake series for me is that it really lacks a sense of time and place.
His girlfriend is super popular, but he’s the only one who sees her turn bright-red! A rom-com about a boy and his over-embarrassed girlfriend!
Thinky Thoughts
Don’t Blush, Sekime-San! sits at the same table as Komi Can’t Communicate and The Dangers in My Heart. All three series are those contemporary male fantasies where a short semi-loser and a tall girl that’s just a little weird (or a lot weird, in Anna Yamada’s case in the third series) wind up in a warm relationship after some trouble. The difference between the three series is that Don’t Blush, Sekime-San!… isn’t about an easily overlooked guy or a loser. (I say this with warmth because I like Tadano from Komi and Dangers stars a Junpei Yoshino-looking little freak that I adore.)
Maomao, a young woman trained in the art of herbal medicine, is forced to work as a lowly servant in the inner palace. Though she yearns for life outside its perfumed halls, she isn’t long for a life of drudgery! Using her wits to break a “curse” afflicting the imperial heirs, Maomao attracts the attentions of the handsome eunuch Jinshi and is promoted to attendant food taster. But Jinshi has other plans for the erstwhile apothecary, and soon Maomao is back to brewing potions and solving mysteries?
Stitch's Media Mix 
You must be logged in to post a comment.