[ SECRET POST #4949 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #4949 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.


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04.
[The Untamed]


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05. [SPOILERS for BNA: Brand New Animal]



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06. [SPOILERS for My Next Life as a Villainess]



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07. [SPOILERS for Sex and Vanity]



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08. [WARNING for sexual harassment]



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09. [WARNING for sexual harassment]



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10. [WARNING for discussion of rape]


















Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 00 pages, 00 secrets from Secret Submission Post #708.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

[fscom]

06. [SPOILERS for My Next Life as a Villainess]
https://i.imgur.com/kdccF2n.png

[(Anonymous)]

I don't know anything about this IP in particular, but I stopped paying attention to any harem stuff because I would always end up shipping the main character with somebody other than the designated true love interest.

[(Anonymous)]

Aw, I quite like Maria, especially in the Book of Desire ep, where she’s the sensible one who’s trying to keep things on an even keel. I wouldn’t mind Katarina ending up with her, though it wouldn’t be my first choice.

I definitely ship her more with the girls than the guys, though. Mostly because she seems to actually think about how pretty/attractive the girls are much more. The only one of the guys she seems to have any real physical reaction to is Nicol. I know with Jeord and Keith in particular her experiences and worries about them kind of override any potential thoughts she might have in those directions, but it’s still noticeable. And with Alan sometimes I genuinely wonder if he’s asexual or aromantic. Or maybe just slow coming to realisations. Though he might be well matched with her there, at least.

The pair I really don’t want to end up together is Katarina/Jeord. Partly because it’s your bog-standard romance endgame pair that’s been done to death, and partly because Jeord’s possessiveness really really bugs me. Mary bugs me a little bit in that regard too, but it’s not as strong and socially-backed as Jeord’s.

(If I’m ranking the options, then the Ascart siblings are joint first, then Alan and Maria, then Keith, then Mary, with Jeord last. Rafael is currently a dark horse and I’ve no idea where I want him in the runnings)

I have no idea where it’s going to go from here either. Though I think a cool plotline would be the LIs somehow finding out about her reincarnation and what their other selves did in another world. That would be cool.

[(Anonymous)]

Do you ship Katarina with both the Ascarts at once, or you just rank them equal first? No judgement either way from me, btw, just curious. My rankings are similar, though I put Keith equal last because the whole 'they're adoptive siblings so it's not incest' thing drives me mad.

[(Anonymous)]

Honestly, I've complicated feelings about that. I like her with both of them individually, so they're definitely equal rank first. I don't know about her having a relationship with both of them. It feels like it could work, so long as they weren't also with each other, but there's also lots of difficult places it could go with things like jealousy between them, developing feelings between them, how Sophia would actually deal with the fact that it would likely be Nicol Katarina could actually marry and publicly be in a relationship with. I feel like she thinks she would be fine with it, but might stagger when she actually has to live it. Of all possible trios among the cast, this one might be the most complicated and have the most potential to go wrong.

Keith is also complicated, he just gets more points on a personal level than either Mary or Jeord. It's fairly obvious that his regard for her was always not exactly brotherly, so I don't have an incest vibe from his end. The problem is her end, because she clearly does think of him as her brother. So it's complicated.

[(Anonymous)]

Hm, yes, agreed on all points. One thing I like about the Ascarts is they're the ones I'm most confident would be happy if Katarina chose one or other of them? Like, if she married Nicol then Sophia would be happy for them. The whole harem is pretty nice and wholesome, but the Ascarts top the list of 'mutually supportive members of Katarina's harem', imo.

[(Anonymous)]

Yeah. They are the two who really feel like they would be genuinely content in the knowledge that the two people they love the most are happy together. Well. Maria and Alan have a bit of that vibe as well, but they're wouldn't be as happy for both parties as the Ascarts would be for each other.

Though I do like that this is a show where you really feel like a full harem ending could be a thing. Jeord and Mary would need to calm down a bit, and someone would really have to sit Katarina and Keith down to discuss familial relationships and their views thereof, but it does feel like a thing that could happen. All of the harem would back each other up. It's lovely.

[(Anonymous)]

Did you mean Mary and Alan? Because I think they'd be happy for each other but they'd keep fighting for Katrina's love, in a way - like, 'If you slip up even once, I'll steal Katrina and make her happier than you did!' sort of thing.
But yes, ♥♥♥ to the harem ending. I'm always a little disappointed by how few harem series don't go for the Tenchi Solution (and that most of the ones that do are sleezy). And even though I like different members of the harem more than others, I like all of them, and I really like their relationships with one another, and how nice and supportive they are. It's great.

[(Anonymous)]

No, I meant that Maria and Alan both feel like they'd be genuinely happy for whoever she chose. Maria because she's nice like that, and Alan because he's still only vaguely fumbling towards a realisation of feelings beyond friendship at all. I honestly keep forgetting that Mary/Alan was a thing in the original timeline. Mostly because Mary in the current timeline is just using it to steer him away from Katarina. I think Mary, like Jeord, is the one who's going to really struggle if Katarina chooses anyone else. Though I do think she'd soften eventually. She'd just take it among the hardest initially.

And yes, part of the reason the harem works is that they've all developed inter-relationships among each other, not just with Katarina. It's where Jeord does shine, to be fair to him, his relationships with Alan and Keith are a lot of fun.

[(Anonymous)]

My friend is adopted and hates the "it's not incest because they're adopted" justification, but Katarina/Keith is her OTP and she doesn't see it as incest because they weren't raised together from birth. They're stepsiblings who became officially adopted after their parents were married.

[(Anonymous)]

They're stepsiblings who became officially adopted after their parents were married.

Sorry, I had trouble parsing that sentence for a second. It sort of makes it sound like they had a parent each who married each other, so it took me a second to untangle it.

SA

[(Anonymous)]

This is the OP by the way, and reading it over I know this looks like very r/thathappened story, but it's honestly not.

[(Anonymous)]

I'm not familiar with this series - is there a reason everybody has a real name but Jeord?

[(Anonymous)]

I mean, I've seen it written as Geordo, and a couple of times as George, so I think it's just a Japanese-to-English transliteration thing? Nicol is slightly odd too, since it's not the usual male form, though it does exist. Given that his sister is Sophia, I feel like they were aiming for Nicolas.

[(Anonymous)]

Well, it's set in a fantasy world, which often use combinations of real names and fantasy names that sound kinda like they could be real names but aren't. That's just par for the course in that type of setting.

The thing that bugs me the most about the names is that there's both a Maria and a Mary. They sound less similar and are written less similar in Japanese phonetics (Ma-ri-a or マリア and Me-a-ri or メアリー) but if you're going to use Western/pseudo-Western names, at least have some basic knowledge that those are practically the same name.

[(Anonymous)]

Maybe the writer did know, though. Why shouldn't two characters have very similar names, if slightly different regional variations? I know a lot of Sineads, for example, and three of them were in the same friend group.

[(Anonymous)]

I like Maria but - well, it's the problem I see with all the 'I'm the villainess in an otome game' stories (yes there's enough for that to be a subgenre). The otome heroine is either a manipulative two-faced bitch who's deliberately getting all the men to dance in attendance to her, or she's sweet and kind and mild and about as exiting as toast.

[(Anonymous)]

Maria's entire point is that she's kind of poking at the latter. Yes, in the GAME she's about as exciting as toast, but we get to see her home life in the actual world.

When she first activated her powers, she became shunned by everyone around her, her father left because he assumed his wife cheated with a noble, and her mother distanced herself and so Maria kind of buried herself in studies and dreamt of magic school being better, only to have that torn to shreds because she was the ONLY commoner and a lot of people treated her like shit for having the audacity to have magic while not being noble. She acts sweet and kind and mild because she's worn down as fuck but refuses to not be the change in the world she wants to see.

[(Anonymous)]

Ayrt - I hadn't actually watched enough of the anime to learn her tragic backstory, but it makes sense. I'm very fond of Honda Tohru from Fruits Basket, who is similarly a sweet cheerful girl with childhood trauma and abandonment issues, but who a lot of viewers find shallow and dull.

[(Anonymous)]

That's a really typical backstory and motive to be kind though. The other anon here likened her to Tohru, who I also find the blandest part of her canon. She's just such a good person even being treated like shit can't stop her from finding the strength to be nice! It's an interesting idea in theory, but it's been done to death and is pretty much the template for a shojo heroine that's being attempted to give depth to.

[(Anonymous)]

You sound like a bitter bullying victim who hates the world tbh