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Want to get more people into the thing you're nominating? Have an extra character tag or two to offer for a shared fandom?
Use this post to promote your canons and coordinate nominations with other fans!
Use this post to promote your canons and coordinate nominations with other fans!
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FANDOM NAME: Kamisama no Inai Nichiyoubi | Sunday Without God
WHAT MAKES IT GREAT: According to legend, God abandoned the world fifteen years prior, and thus people are no longer able to give birth and cannot find rest after death unless buried by a mythical "gravekeeper." The protagonist, twelve-year-old Ai, is one such gravekeeper for her tiny, isolated village. After tragedy strikes her village, she resolves to set out on a journey to save the world God has abandoned, and along the way she makes new friends and discovers how humanity has adapted to this slowly dying world.
WHERE CAN I FIND IT? Crunchyroll! It's twelve episodes with a bonus episode on the BD/DVD set. The series is very beautiful, and you can see that beauty for yourself in the opening!
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FANDOM NAME: Toji no Miko | Katana Maidens
WHAT MAKES IT GREAT: Girls with swords! Young girls known as Toji wield special swords to hunt supernatural monsters called aradama. The first episode starts with a tournament, but it quickly becomes an action/thriller series as protagonist Kanami and her friends find themselves involved in a plot involving aradama-possessed humans and the truth of the great disaster from twenty years ago. The anime has a good variety of female characters and plenty of femslashy subtext too.
WHERE CAN I FIND IT?: Crunchyroll! You can also check out the opening and ending themes on YouTube:
Opening 1
Ending 1
Opening 2
Ending 2
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FANDOM NAME: Yoru no Nai Kuni | Nights of Azure
WHAT MAKES IT GREAT: A love story of two star-crossed women! Long ago, a demon known as the Nightlord threatened to purge the world into an eternal night, but the Nightlord was defeated by the First Saint, spilling blue blood over the world. Arnice was one such young woman touched by the blue blood, turning her into a half-demon, and now she uses her powers to battle demonic fiends. When her mission takes her to Ruswal Island, she is reunited with Lilysse, a beloved friend from her school days. Lilysse was chosen as the next Saint, expected to sacrifice herself to prevent the Eternal Night, and as Arnice seeks a way to save Lilysse from her fate, romance develops between the two women.
WHERE CAN I FIND IT?: Nights of Azure is an action RPG for the Playstation 4. There's also a sequel called Nights of Azure 2: Bride of the New Moon that focuses on a different set of characters, and it has the same bittersweet, romantic atmosphere as the first.
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FANDOM NAME: Code Vein
WHAT MAKES IT GREAT: Code Vein is a post-apocalyptic action RPG, and a rather difficult one at that, and while it takes place in the same universe as the God Eater series, you don't need to be familiar with God Eater to enjoy Code Vein. You play as an amnesic protagonist who bands with other revenants - humans who died and were revived as immortal vampiric beings - to battle the monstrous Lost and find a way to survive in a dying world. As mentioned above, the gameplay is pretty difficult, but there's also a free demo available if you want to get a feel for the difficulty yourself.
WHERE CAN I FIND IT? Code Vein is available for the Playstation 4 and XBox One.
Ghost of Tsushima
Main themes/tropes: What it means to live honorably, surviving against impossible odds and at great cost, the consequences of war and violence, complex family dynamics, dealing with survivor's guilt, identity kink, rescuing family, finding peace, and the cuteness of fox spirit shrine guides.
The cast:
- Jin Sakai, last of his clan, iron woobie who is kind and was thrust into extreme violence from a young age. Suffers, a lot. Has a strong affiliation to animals.
- Yuna, the thief who saves his life at the start of the game and becomes his ride or die ally. Strong, fiercely loyal, and practical about what it takes to survive against an enemy stronger than you - that is, sneak up on them and slit their throat. Has guilt connected to her tragic past.
- Lord Shimura, Tsushima's leader and Jin's uncle/father figure who takes Jin in as his ward at a young age. Fellow iron woobie, who is strict with his code of honor.
- Sensei Ishikawa, esteemed archer, cranky bastard, and man looking for his student/daughter figure, Tomoe. Has a complicated past.
- Lady Masako, last of her clan and out for blood. She will not rest until she has justice for the murder of her family. A kind woman whose pain changes her.
- Ryuzo, Jin's childhood friend and skilled warrior. It's complicated. Main fandom ship; Jin reminisces in a hot spring about dressing up as maidens with him.
- Taka, Yuna's brother and esteemed blacksmith, a gentle soul with a tragic past who has been captured by the Mongols.
- Norio, a warrior monk with PTSD from being tortured, who bonds with Jin and is inspired by him.
- Kenji, a sake merchant who is trying to do good within a questionable moral code. Good friend to Yuna, Taka, and Jin.
This canon is pretty much tailor made for darkfic, whump, and hurt/comfort. It's also great for magical realism, supernatural, or fantasy elements. It's visually stunning, which fanartists take full advantage of, and the relationships between the characters are complex, tender, and compelling. The game is pretty much on rails, for better or worse - your dialogue and fighting style doesn't effect the end. Jin makes some choices that I've seen players find frustrating because they wanted to stick to the samurai code. There's a multiplayer element that is in addition to the main game which is pretty fun. There's a sequel in the works!
It's only available on PS4 and PS5, but there are LPs on youtube if I've piqued your interest!
The Folk of the Air by Holly Black
Do you like the kind of protagonist who stabs herself through her own hand to prove her loyalty to a superior? Do you like your protagonists so driven that they would burn the world to the ground, including themselves, to get control? One that isn’t handed any power, so must carve it out for themselves, by any means necessary?
Then The Folk of the Air by Holly Black might be for you! It follows the struggles of Jude Duarte, a mortal in the faerie realm of Elfheim. There are some YA tropes in the first book, but they are mostly subverted by the end so never fear if at first it seems not for you. I was honestly thinking of not finishing it halfway through the first book, but now it's one of my favourite book series.
And the dynamic between the enemies is so damn juicy and iddy! Plus, the end of the first book is gloriously bloody and grim and will gear you up for the second book, which is basically “Trust Issues: The Novel” — although it’s also full of: politicking involving Jude who has the subtlety of a brick to the face, kidnapping, betrayals, power struggles, fancy parties with exquisitely beautiful people in exquisite outfits, family drama, hot sex scenes and hotter intimate-but-non-sexual scenes.
The fae in this series are cruel, tricksy, and without empathy. Mortals in general are seen as beneath fae, easily dismissed and useful only for entertainment. This leads to some toxic but very enjoyable power dynamics. They see mortals as beneath them. It also sticks with the lore that fae must always speak truth, which nets Jude some power because of her ability to lie.
Where to Find It: Any good bookshop! I also would recommend the audiobook; that's how I consumed it and the narrator is fantastic.
What I’m Requesting:
- Jude/Cardan are our enemies-to-lovers in question, and are replete with opportunities for darkfic and noncon. As well as wanting stuff set during the books, I’ll also be asking for post-series and some canon-divergent AUs (and one heat related AU). Their dynamic is so dysfunctional, they are absolutely obsessed and violently opposed to each other. Cardan is self-indulgent and sometimes cruel, and Jude is, as mentioned, driven beyond reason. They are both self-destructive in very different ways, and, especially in the first book, both keen to keep the power in any interaction. I love all shades of consent or non-consent between them.
- Taryn/Nicasia are my dark horse femslash ship. They don’t get as much interaction as they should, but Nicasia is a cutthroat Princess of the Undersea who thinks herself better and more beautiful than anyone on land. Taryn is Jude’s twin sister, and she’s fairly naive at the beginning of the series but slowly hardens as things start to go very, very wrong for her — but I don’t want to spoil too much! They both also loved the same man at some point. I will be looking for both consensual relationships (including some infidelity from their canon relationships!) and vicious dubcon — possibly noncon too, I haven’t decided.
- Jude & Eva are mother and daughter. Eva dies in the prologue of the first book, and I will be making some requests for time travel tropes that lead to them interacting. There’s a lot that remains mysterious about her mother, and lots of space to explore Eva’s relation to the fae (since she was once married to one) and her escape from Elfheim. Jude, having been brought up by Eva’s ex-husband, has never had any mortal warmth to her family relations, and I’d love to see how it would fuck her up to see what she missed. Or to discover complicated, uncomfortable things about her mother’s actions.
Sinbad (TV)
Medium: Live action TV
Length: twelve 45-minute episodes (alas, it only lasted one season)
Where to Find It: In the US, at least, it's free to watch on CWSeed. However, it was originally a Sky TV series, so it might be on different services in the UK.
What It's About
In an alternate, magical Ancient Arabia, a (hot) street rat type, named Sinbad accidentally kills the heir to the kingdom. Not only is the king's out for revenge, but also Sinbad's grandmother casts a curse on him. The curse says that if he spends more than a day and night on land, the collar he wears will kill him. So, he runs off to sea, where he meets a motley crew of (other hot) people. They have a lot of adventures of the week, while dealing with the overarching issues of Sinbad's past. It's a 'misfits form found family on the high seas'!
Random Delightful Details
• Naveen Andrews plays the king's evil brother. He is frequently shirtless and wearing a lot of kohl eyeliner. This alone is worth the price of admission. He is obsessed with Sinbad and has a lot of interesting sexual tension with a sorceress.
• Did I mention that Sinbad wears a collar? That starts choking him to death all the time? It's amazing.
• Sinbad keeps getting kidnapped and dubconned into sex.
• The rest of the characters are really fun to hang out with (and also gorgeous, in deliciously diverse and interesting ways—no generic CW hotties here). Everyone is a woobie with some OTT backstory. The ensemble creates a great team. You've got the street rat, the pickpocket, the muscle, the scientist, the princess, and the cook. They start out very wary of one another, not wanting to be stuck together, and sometimes even backstabbing one another. But by the end, they're all ride or die about one another.
• Lots of "on a boat" tropes and imagery (ex. looking at the stars, getting stuck in storms, racing other ships), if you're as into that as I am.
• The scenery is gorgeous. They filmed the whole show in Malta, on beautiful blue water and in pretty abandoned beaches and coves.
• There are some fantastic guest stars (British character actors likely bribed by free trips to Malta).
The Request
Sinbad/Gunnar is a great (non-canon) ship. The actors have fantastic chemistry and the characters are constantly eye-fucking or dramatically rescuing one another. Gunnar is an ex-Viking mercenary who is haunted by the violent horrors of his past. He is now a merchant, and wants to be a better person, but he fears that he'll never escape the killer he once was. There's something about Sinbad that makes him stick around (even at cost to himself). My heart!
In Short
It's not, like, a good show. The plots of the week don't make a ton of sense and are often resolved via deus ex machinas. But the cast has SO much chemistry, and really manage to sell this nonsense. The whole thing is so attractive to look at… it's just fun and pleasant overall. I find myself rewatching it all the time because it puts me in a good mood.
Just in case you want to see the hotness, I'm talking about the guy on the far left and the guy on the far right (though Anwar, in the middle, is also ADORABLE).
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ZOMBILLENIUM
WHAT IS IT ABOUT?
A critique of capitalism which uses monsters to portray class struggles, but also directly tackles things like unionization and the speculative nature of the stock market. Though the director of the eponymous park, Francis, had the best intentions when opening the park and intended it to be a place where monsters could live without being persecuted, the need of money to keep it running eventually lead to the involvement of both human and demonic investors — with the humans demanding profit and the devil demanding souls, it quickly became an exploitative workplace where workers choose between either being stuck in a terrible job for all eternity or being sent to hell.
The comic itself follows Gretchen, a witch and an intern at the park whose sole objective is that of making it close and saving the souls of everyone who ever signed theirs away.
WHAT'S GOOD ABOUT IT?
It has gorgeous vector art, the characters are flawed but endearing enough that you care about what happens to them, and it has plenty of hilarious moments between the drama and social commentary.
LENGHT: 4 volumes currently in English + 1 currently only in French
WHERE CAN I GET IT? The comic’s english release is currently available online via https://www.comixology.com/Zombillenium/comics-series/10432 , and there are hardcover versions available.
THE REQUEST
Jaggar/Francis. In vol. 3, Jaggar is sent to the park in order to improve the way it runs (basically, make sure it sends more souls down to hell). While Francis represents a well-meaning boss who finds himself forced to participate in a system that he knows is ultimately bad because he sees it as a necessary evil, Jaggar represents ruthless capitalism devoid of any moral compass except the aim of coming out on top. The way they’re opposites is even reflected in their designs!
Their interactions are an antagonistic delight to read, and Jaggar spends the comic poking and prodding at Francis’s weak spots to try to get a rise out of him. There's also dialogue that pretty much estates that Jaggar likes men best when they're angry, and who better for that than the guy he ends up fighting with over being unable to agree about how the park should be handled?
no subject
WHAT'S IT ABOUT?
A videogame player who clears the last level on a dungeon in a videogame finds himself 'invited' into the world of the game and has to clear the dungeon again to leave.
The story has a pretty good balance between Tsutomu having outside knowledge (being able to understand how monsters aggro onto the fighters, the ways players make balanced parties work) and the world being natural and organic and taking offhand mentions of events and making it into a fully functioning society. The battles are clever and the characters are charming and the stakes are generally pretty low.
WHERE IS IT?
Manga (Currently Chapter 35): https://mangajar.com/manga/live-dungeon
Webnovel (Currently Chapter 65): https://www.divinedaolibrary.com/live-dungeon/
FANDOM The Villainess Lives Twice
WHAT'S IT ABOUT?
Artezia Rosan helps her brother – the emperor's illegitimate son – take the imperial throne… only for him to decide she knows too many secrets and is too dangerous to him to live. Rescued by the emperor's only real opposition, Grand Duke Cedric Ebron, she initiates a forbidden sacrificial ritual to change things… only to wake up years in the past.
Basically a time travel fix it featuring a main character that knows an awful lot about the state of the world and how to manipulate it.
WHERE IS IT?
Comic (Currently Chapter 55): https://sawateam.info/the-villainess-lives-twice/
Webnovel (Currently Chapter 73): https://www.novelupdates.com/series/the-villainess-lives-twice/