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A Little Vice (Trans Magical Girl fic)

Voted best in category in the Users' Choice awards.
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GreatWyrmGold said:
Could be worse. My brain has been trying to figure out how a Something Wicked crossover could work. Hampered primarily by the fact that we still haven't seen what Zaiyu and the Estil's invasion plans could look like in practice...
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"True, but that could also lead to a very funny scenario where Mitl makes a legion of killer trees or something for one episode but doesn't get caught doing it, and then later on Castitas is yelling at Noir about all the evil things he's done and goes 'Not to mention the time you made a Resinner who made all the trees in the park come to life and start attacking people! We still haven't found that guy!' Only for Noir to go, 'What are you talking about? That wasn't one of mine. Invidia, Avaritia, was that one of yours?' Leading to the dawning realization that there's a whole new side in this conflict that neither of them knew about. Clearly, these are clever masterminds letting the two fight each other in the open while they work in the shadows, and who knows what they've been doing in the meantime or what their ultimate goal is.

Meanwhile, out in space, Mitl has completely forgotten about the whole thing while Shayin and Zaiyu and Rins are all trying to work out, with varying levels of frustration, why and how the fuck someone would use precious magic to make a fidget spinner monster."
 
Oh yeah, there's Temperantia's money. Michael is getting it from somewhere. Cooking the books, perhaps? Or she is running a legitimate business.
Theaxofwar said:
I can't help but wonder if, some time in the future, she and Lupin and maybe Superbia manage to actually beat them
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Oof, this would hit C hard.
And it is possible. Much as C refuses to acknowledge it, they were a critical support to Inessa, later supporting the other Saints. Now, they not only lost C, but there's the stress of facing them and seeing them self-harm. Temperantia and Castitas have a closer connection, while Diligentia has a tendency to overexert and burnout.
Imagine if the Saints get hurt badly, or C thinks they got permanent damage or straight-up died. So much trauma
Sterr said:
The seed is causing chest growth in C, so there are permanent changes out of costume. The magical HRT, at least, isn't rescindable, so she'd be able to switch to hormones after it's over.
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Ah, that's nice. No take-backs. Join for the HRT, quit after you get it.
Spectral Waltz said:
I don't know how they're going to do it exactly, but it seems like they certainly can with a little bit of luck and a lot of help and care (and maybe an asskicking or two when needed), so I ultimately believe that they will because the alternative would be a tragedy and I don't want this to end as a tragedy.
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Jeez, imagine. The Saints are grievously wounded. Invidia, horrified, defeats the Beasts herself* and lives as a recluse in the Abyssal Forest, never reached again by those who cared for her.
Although the vampire countess living in a gothic castle in a dark forest is nice imagery.
*Maybe because they're weakened from fighting, they don't expect a backstab or Invidia can just do something in the Abyssal Forest to bring down the whole operation.
 
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Spectral Waltz said:
I guess some of my assumptions about this story are based on the core assumption that this story will have a happy ending. Or at least, an ending where the protagonist is in a better place than where they started.

I'm also confident that while accepting themselves as Invidia Bat is an important step to halting C's current downward spiral, any improvement while stuck as a beast will be extremely fragile and cannot be solidified until they break free from that.

I don't know how they're going to do it exactly, but it seems like they certainly can with a little bit of luck and a lot of help and care (and maybe an asskicking or two when needed), so I ultimately believe that they will because the alternative would be a tragedy and I don't want this to end as a tragedy.
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As I've mentioned before, this whole "anime" seems in line with Pretty Cure and other 2000s actiony magical girl shows, which are positively drowning in the redemptive power of friendship (and lesbian homoeroticism which in this fic has been replaced with textual lesbian attraction). Combined with the already-existing redeemed Beast, the fact that every Beast except Superbia is basically sympathetic, and the overall tone of the fic as a downward spiral for C that we just hit the breaking point on...we're in the darkest hour here, but I have every confidence that things are going to turn out positively for both Invidia and Avaritia around about episode 24.
 
Nerdorama said:
As I've mentioned before, this whole "anime" seems in line with Pretty Cure and other 2000s actiony magical girl shows, which are positively drowning in the redemptive power of friendship (and lesbian homoeroticism which in this fic has been replaced with textual lesbian attraction). Combined with the already-existing redeemed Beast, the fact that every Beast except Superbia is basically sympathetic, and the overall tone of the fic as a downward spiral for C that we just hit the breaking point on...we're in the darkest hour here, but I have every confidence that things are going to turn out positively for both Invidia and Avaritia around about episode 24.
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That's about exactly what I was thinking with my '3-4 chapters left' prediction since the last chapter was episode 21 and unless I've missed a tick we've been going 1 chapter = 1 Episode so far.

Though the finale might be a double feature~
 
Aranfan said:
Most pretty cure seasons are 4 cour tho.
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Nerdorama said:
Don't they generally have a two plot structure where the first half focuses on getting the team together and overcoming the first adversary while the second half is about dealing with whatever was behind them?
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That would mean that the show would continue with C and possibly Lupin joining the Saints at the end of this cour while stopping Superbia is the subject of cours 3 and maybe 4 (assuming there's no greater scope villain to worry about).

But on the other hand, while the road to recovery is a long one, I don't know if Shaddel is planning to take us all the way through that or if we'll just get the start of C's journey to self actualization through self acceptance and end on an 'and the adventures continued'.
 
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Spectral Waltz said:
That would mean that the show would continue with C and possibly Lupin joining the Saints at the end of this cour while stopping Superbia is the subject of cours 3 and maybe 4 (assuming there's no greater scope villain to worry about).

But on the other hand, while the road to recovery is a long one, I don't know if Shaddel is planning to take us all the way through that or if we'll just get the start of C's journey to self actualization through self acceptance and end on an 'and the adventures continued'.
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Either is likely for this fic, honestly. In terms of the anime and analyzing it as a framing device...Superbia's too lame to carry a 52 episode anime. Scary? Awful? Absolutely. But the man's got negative manipulation skills without his SPACE EYES and he can't keep more than two Evil Generals on a good day, zero of whom respect him.

Also, he's Pride.

He's going down by ep 26, whether that's the end of the show or the midpoint before the 72 Demons or whoever show up. Long odds on Invidia taking over as the big bad, but as much as we love a dark power fantasy, I don't think C has it in her to do world domination.
 
I think we need to know more about the Abyssal Forest. The front man is pretty lame, but the power isn't coming from him, and the reason he's in charge seems to be mostly because he says he is and got the wolf and the shark to accept.

The implication that they were all aliens, and left to come here for unspecified reasons may also hide the real villain.
 
Nerdorama said:
He's going down by ep 26, whether that's the end of the show or the midpoint before the 72 Demons or whoever show up. Long odds on Invidia taking over as the big bad, but as much as we love a dark power fantasy, I don't think C has it in her to do world domination.
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Maybe Lupin is taking over for the rest of it. Like ey're angered by all of eir teammates getting flipped and eir boss getting taken down, and ey resolves to do things eirself.

Ey're definitely more insightful than Superbia, and I could see em gathering a whole new team of Sinners, all loyal to em, to fight the Saints.

Edit: I'm bad with pronouns that aren't the base three lol.
 
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Avaritia is easily the most competent antagonist in this story, but ey're also barely a villain. Eir entire shtick reads more like small-scale civil disobedience and property-crime protest than "evil" in the first place, at least if you bracket the usurpation of agency inherent in turning someone into a monster.

EDIT: Honestly, eir shtick isn't even Greed. It's really twisted Generosity. "I'm going to give you the ability to break out of society's repression, whether you like it or not." I don't see a lot of megalomania there either.
 
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In regards to the "greater bad", Lupin did say that where eir from forced people to be "good" to their own detriment, could be that the greater foe, once superbia has been taken down, is whoever superbia, avaritia, and gula fled from/rebelled against.
 
It's possible, but it's also possible that the thing they're rebelling against is some combination of benign or imaginary. If Superbia is Jordan Peterson, the entity forcing people to be Good could just be "woke SJWs". Lupin's worldview comes from Superbia, who is about as reliable a narrator about moral issues as C is about her self-worth.
 
But Lupin pretty obviously doesn't come from supurbia, so eir... I want a kinder word than issues or baggage? That's pre-existing, and he just exploited it.
 
I got confused earlier and I was wrong about Luxuria already having existed once. That said, unless I missed something or another Sinner got yeeted in the first cour without much consequence, we're on only four of seven sins so far: Superbia himself, Avaritia Doggo who has apparently been around a long time, Gula Shork who became Temperance Atwater, and the newly-minted Invidia Sky Pupper. It would be hard for all three of Acedia, Ira, and Luxuria to have suitable spotlight time along side defeating Superbia in a single third cour.

Actually speaking of Temperance (and the sudden jokes about Michael being a forgery crime lord), how much if anything DO we know about what her life was before becoming Gula? Unless what Superbia tried to do to C was a one-off (which I doubt), that would mean Gula was once a troubled human too- one of whom very little is known. Whatever fuckery was involved, I seriously hope this does not mean that the old C will be stricken from the memories of or seem good as dead to whatever non-magical girl people knew C before all this started.
 
I bet shining virtue angelic heart would have some top fanfics on ao3

like there'd be some "character reacts to the show" ones which would be kinda poorly written but really cathartic, there'd be some excellent lupin/inessa enemies to lovers coffee shop AUs which would be all like 21k words with 6/6 chapters and they'd be really sweet, there'd be a great crackfic on page 2 where everyone lives in the same apartment complex but nobody knows each others identity and Michael keeps trying to persuade Superbia Dragon from watching YouTube Shorts during Thursday game night

and there'd also be a random ass 400k word naruto crossover that would be really weird but also have a really wholesome sasuke/invidia bat redemption romance

god I wish this show actually existed, I'd probably have realized I was trans like 5 years earlier ;-;
 
A villain after Superbia is kinda hard. If they're relevant to this story rather than something dealt with just in the show, they need to be relevant to C and their relationships, so either Avaritia or Disappeared Anime Mom seem like the options to me. I don't see C's dad getting involved. Or the current Saints falling. And Michael being the final villain just doesn't fit.
 
A few things that I was thinking about in regards to the story while I was reading it and which had been not quite talked about as often.
A dragon is often associated with luciferan figures and the snake of Eden, which would make sense for Superbia and the whole symbolism of the fruit and knowing _sin_ .

But what throws me off also me wondering as Pride is part of the sins , while Michael is not part of them .

With the usual symbolism I would assume that Superbia is one of the dark generals and all that which also raises the question how he became like that .

Aves talking about their past makes it more clear that she and him at least spend quite a while together before earth ,and I don't think they had TV in Heaven/Hell/the Forest.

Based on Tempies child talk I feel that she and Greedy grew up together .

And they are not unused to mortality as it would be with a angel, but instead with our society.
Now that could be a Ali/En situation but I feel that whatever their homeworld is/was (space /dimension etc) was one that was closer to totalitarian controll as it would make Sense with how they all act.
(tbf a spaceship could make sense with how it seemed they had TV stuff from years/decades ago. )

But despite how interesting that worldbuilding is , it does not matter for our story as It is not core to our protag Narative.
 
General_Urist said:
I got confused earlier and I was wrong about Luxuria already having existed once. That said, unless I missed something or another Sinner got yeeted in the first cour without much consequence, we're on only four of seven sins so far: Superbia himself, Avaritia Doggo who has apparently been around a long time, Gula Shork who became Temperance Atwater, and the newly-minted Invidia Sky Pupper. It would be hard for all three of Acedia, Ira, and Luxuria to have suitable spotlight time along side defeating Superbia in a single third cour.
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Temperance/Gula makes the virtues and vices seem pretty strongly linked, so we can probably cross Luxuria and Acedia off the list. Not in a "fanfics with Acedia Cat and Luxuria Bunny would be violating canon" way, just a "I don't expect canon would include them" way. As for Ira...I wonder if Michael is Patientia. That would make things nice and clean.
 
GreatWyrmGold said:
Temperance/Gula makes the virtues and vices seem pretty strongly linked, so we can probably cross Luxuria and Acedia off the list. Not in a "fanfics with Acedia Cat and Luxuria Bunny would be violating canon" way, just a "I don't expect canon would include them" way. As for Ira...I wonder if Michael is Patientia. That would make things nice and clean.
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I've thought about it, and Patience is definitely going to show up at the very end of the first arc climax. Because patience.
 
Well, the society the Noirs and Temperance came from would make sense, since the Saints aren't defenders of the status quo, so being at odds with it is a natural progression. and it would fit with the themes of the fic of abuse, prejudice and imposed perspectives. The Abyssal Forest has also been shown to have entities in it, and have a connection to the human soul and the Tree of Knowledge, so some symbolic intelligent plant monster could work? Maybe it was behind Superbia and after beating it, they do the society arc. Although it might feel cheap when you can fight the social forces in the form of people instead of an avatar of them.
 
You know, the thought occurs-

How's Inessa gonna explain C suddenly going missing to her parents???

Because like- They're obviously gonna immediately leap to terrible conclusions from C suddenly vanishing. Will Inessa have to finally come clean about the magical girl stuff? Or will she just guiltily suffer in silence, not able to say anything as her parents freak out with worry?
 
To be fair, "I saw C turn into a Beast right in front of me" is both true and gives them an explanation without needing to fill them in on anything else necessarily. Still worrisome, obviously, but it's possible Inessa might consider this half-truth better than the full truth or dead silence.
 
Lexica said:
You know, the thought occurs-

How's Inessa gonna explain C suddenly going missing to her parents???

Because like- They're obviously gonna immediately leap to terrible conclusions from C suddenly vanishing. Will Inessa have to finally come clean about the magical girl stuff? Or will she just guiltily suffer in silence, not able to say anything as her parents freak out with worry?
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Well, C's mom unfortunately isn't a concern. And magical girl stuff isn't completely concealed—this setting runs on superhero rules, not urban fantasy rules. It's entirely possible to just tell C's dad what happened.

But I kinda don't want anyone to. Both because I don't want to subject C's dad on anyone (except maybe Superbia) and because I don't know whether he'd even notice. I mean, C already ran away from home...
 
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