- Location
- England, unfortunately.
- Pronouns
- She/They
Finally the story is fighting the real issues of housing and gentrification.
A Little Vice (Trans Magical Girl fic)
- Thread starter Shadell
- Start date
- Original Users' Choice!
Voted best in category in the Users' Choice awards.
Snowe
lesbe frens?
- Pronouns
- She/Foxxo
this one definitely deserves a reread on a time when i have more mental capacity than 4am, and also a reread in the context of the previous few chapters
i really love works that i need more time to process because of how emotionally deep they are, and this is definitely one of them
amazing work shadell, as always
i really love works that i need more time to process because of how emotionally deep they are, and this is definitely one of them
amazing work shadell, as always
- Location
- Not the asylum anymore
- Pronouns
- She/Her
why does it hurt so good
why does it have to be over
why does it have to be over
Snow
Doka
- Pronouns
- She/Her
I want to smack her with a blåhaj. 🤦♀️
- Location
- England, unfortunately.
- Pronouns
- She/They
I'm not sure you're strong enough to lift up Temperance, though you're welcome to prove me wrong.
AlephNull
Chase the Sun
Can the Magical Girls of Sustainability prevail over the vile Suburbia and his lackeys Gentrification, Car Dependency, and Zoning Laws? Will the parents of Magical Girl Public Transportation cave to social pressure and move house straight into the jaws of Suburbia?
Find out next time on The Magical Girl from the 15 Minute City!
- Pronouns
- She/Them
happy for the girls but god do i hate michael. like literally how dare she. deserves a good slap but 'it's not saintly to be mean'. (even when its to respect yourself)
also 'is this kiss a friendship thing' chiro u are killing me xD
also 'is this kiss a friendship thing' chiro u are killing me xD
mackhaon
Blame it on my misspent youth
- Location
- Kyiv
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Should have gone for a shotgun.
Saint shotgun princess sounds better anyway
Angelic Saint Humanitas, by Snowe
Snowe
lesbe frens?
- Pronouns
- She/Foxxo
one of the things i really liked about this story from an visual perspective, theres a lot of visual storytelling that's done with the protagonist's appearance, who she is, who she was, who she wants to be, it really does express a lot
so i feel like its my due to render that from an art perspective
ive drawn c, ive drawn chiro, so…
Gentle as a spring breeze, Angelic Saint Humanitas takes the stage!
(confession: this is literally the first bit of magical girl media ive consumed so i stole renu's outfit design)
so i feel like its my due to render that from an art perspective
ive drawn c, ive drawn chiro, so…
Gentle as a spring breeze, Angelic Saint Humanitas takes the stage!
(confession: this is literally the first bit of magical girl media ive consumed so i stole renu's outfit design)
- Pronouns
- They/Them
It gives me a big Touhou vibe, only missing a hat.one of the things i really liked about this story from an visual perspective, theres a lot of visual storytelling that's done with the protagonist's appearance, who she is, who she was, who she wants to be, it really does express a lot
so i feel like its my due to render that from an art perspective
ive drawn c, ive drawn chiro, so…
Gentle as a spring breeze, Angelic Saint Humanitas takes the stage!
(confession: this is literally the first bit of magical girl media ive consumed so i stole renu's outfit design)
Snowe
lesbe frens?
- Pronouns
- She/Foxxo
well i suppose she does have a halo i forgot to draw…
Icipall
Don't worry, we can fanfix that!
- Location
- Cold snow fields of Finland
Very cute, would headpat.
- Location
- England, unfortunately.
- Pronouns
- She/They
Look, I'm sorry to Chiro, but while she's cute as heck as Humanitas, she looks easy as fuck to 1CC.
- Location
- Attached to a wall
- Pronouns
- She/Her
I'm imagining that someone the in the administration is like; 'thank the Saints, Charlie was Chiro was here all along.' now that Chiro is going to openly 'fake' being a trans girl and then start to work on unifying the paperwork.
- Location
- Belgium
At least Chiro got the good side of envy.
Instead of trying to tear others down, she tries to pull herself up.
The good side of envy: Fake it till you make it...
Humanitas: Virtue of Humanity = Refinement, civilization, learning, and generally being cultured.
The gradual fulfillment of best human potential, the achievement of reason and fairness in all classes and in all affairs of men, and the joint product of the creative actions of legislators, poets, artists, philosophers, inventors, and educators through the ages.
Or, you could consider it: To strive to become the ideal you you can be.
Fake it till you make it indeed.
Just like Chiro has the good kind of envy, Lupin has the good kind of Greed.
She sees what she wants, and just goes for it, doing everything she needs to do to get it. As long as you keep that 'Everything' within reasonable boundaries, greed is not evil.
And, even if you take umbrage to their methods, Lupin did give C what they needed. Even if C didn't quite realize they needed it.
You know, Temperance used to be Gula Shark.
Does she still have that seed in her? Or did it get destroyed?
At least, the Angelic Saints now have 2 former Beasts in their group, even if at least 1 of them is technically still a Beast.
And they nearly got Lupin as well.
Because, well, Lupin, Chiro and Temperance know fully well that just Sin or just Virtue will just break a person.
But the correct balance between the 2 will help a person grow.
And Chiro still has 2 spare Seeds that can be used to supercharge her own Seed of Sin. And she now bears a Bracelet of Virtue.
That Bracelet is clearly made out of a Branch of the Tree. And the Seeds come from that same Tree...
Why does that feel like the basic recipe for a Super Mode?
Even if Micheal claims the powers are not meant to mix.
That sounds more like some sort of misconception that is the whole reason of the conflict...
- Pronouns
- They/Them
Oh. Oh no.
Oh you poor girl.
Trans girls will go on a multi episode dramatic showdown with all their friends and enemies rather than realise and accept that they too can be trans without needing to pass a single gatekeeper they didn't put there themselves.
bookwyrm
Doom of Public Libraries
- Location
- Wichita, Kansas
I mean the OG story of the forbidden fruit was Knowledge of Good and Evil, and the seven deadly sins are supposed to mirror the seven heavenly virtues. In many theologies sin is just natural human behavior but misapplied, a hollowing of your own traits and characteristics and great potential into selfish harm with the absence of god/goodness/the light side of the Force.
- Location
- Earth
- Pronouns
- He/Him
I know. Would it be too much to ask you to pick a placeholder title?
...
No, this is fine, I won't rush you. I've been writing posts in a nameless fashion for a while...
Interesting. But the narrator has a point.
Perhaps? Girl, I've seen your inner monologue, you were grateful when you thought Inessa was gonna kill you.
I guess magic HRT has some lingering effects even once you go off your meds.
Glad she still has something. Some little remnant of the briefly happy girl.
Maybe more than a little.
You've seen Magical Starlight Princess Knight Orion: Lovely Star, right? Surely you realize character arcs are a key component of magical combat.
Avaritia gets it, and I'm not sure ey've ever seen any anime! (Maybe Inuyasha?)
Hm. That should work pretty well if ey find Temperance first. Ida...bit of a crapshoot.
Of course Superb Snake's advice for his Invidia brat starts with "Remember how awesome I am".
It's the year-round sportsball training. And also the magic, but Inessa has that too, and she's a big softy.
Huh. I wonder if—
Right, right.
What does this look like to Michael? They're standing around, Inessa's double-traitor friend is clutching his(?) purse and staring at mirrors.
Oh. Maybe she's more perceptive than I give her credit for.
<3
A bat girl to the end.
I wonder if you can customize your Saint appearance after the fact.
So I take it you don't have very many bits of strength. Possibly not even a full byte.
See, this is the magical girl fangirl I know you can be!
You couldn't defeat the Saints when there were two of them and three of you. Even if you don't lose one-on-three, you're not likely to win.
Also, literally all of their actions both before and after you took the Invidia name indicate that they still want to see you.
Man. It's so hard to imagine Inessa as the Beast of Anything if her fox-grin shatters with a single blink.
I can't tell if that's some kind of joke or if that's just what Temperance Atwater thinks a good name sounds like.
Cast. Iron. Eggshell.
Temperance is gonna have her hands full.
After all that—
You know what, fine. You like the name, that's what's important.
I see where you're coming from, but among other problems, a shotgun isn't a curved piece of wood with strings under tension, like a certain Saint's weapon.
The other problems are, I assume, obvious.
My intuition is that the seed will be a recurring temptation for Chiro, at least for the next cour or two. The promise that she could get stronger, do more to help her friends, if she just gave into her worst urges again.
Maybe Michael could figure something out, but:
- It would probably be a way to power the whole team up
and give them new costumes to sell toys of, rather than something unique to Humanitas and maybe Temperentia - They're not going to fire Chekhov's Gun before they wring some temptation angst out of it.
- Pronouns
- They/Them
I am honestly also really curious about what Uriel's deal is?
- Pronouns
- She/They
Chiro also conveniently has two of them, for the two Saints who don't already have a Seed in their chest.
Just saying.
Anyway. God. This fic has been a Journey. Love it, wonderful, so much to say about Chiro's journey toward self-acceptance and how she's made it past a big hurdle but isn't there yet and that's fine and she's good and the whole thing is overwhelming just coming off a first read so let's talk about the mechanics of Saint Humanitas instead.
So, we see the Saints here finally resolve into something that very much resembles a team in a tabletop RPG or a video game, which fits given how fights go in this universe and the fact that they're clearly meant to fight as a team. Castitas and Temperantia as strikers who attack from the front and the flank respectively, and Diligentia as your melee "tank" that absorbs damage for other characters and pins the enemy down. Humanitas forms the missing component, the Support. Support/healer is really just perfect for Chiro and how she conceptualizes herself, and for Kindness as a Virtue - someone who admires and supports and builds up others but, as seen here, is just as vital and decisive as any attacker or defender. Kindness binds the team together and pushes it forward - something that Chiro did even before she was a Beast or a Saint, but now she can see it and apply it with actual magic.
Humanitas is also themed as a musician - something that ties in quite thematically as "harmony" and bringing the Saints together nd coordinating them, and also as a direct "good counterpart" to Invidia's sonic bat attacks - instead of sceaming discordance, we have beautiful music mean to uplift oneself and others. Plus all the song metaphors for how Invidia viewed Sin and desire. Very nice. This also ties back in to the "support character" bit - not only does magical music as a means of aiding heroes recur throughout many heroic legends and mythologies, but that whole modern video gamey notion of the "adventuring party" draws from two archetypes for support characters - your priest, who invokes divine aid, and your bard, who inspires through song or some other performing art. Bards get nearly as bad of a rap as MMO healers do traditionally, but anyone who's played Dungeons & Dragons or like, Fire Emblem will tell you that they may be the most important people on the field if properly constructed and deployed simply becaue of how their abilities act as a force multiplier.
Also speaking of mythology and legendaria...
The fan or chronicler of heroes coming along to support them is a well-known trope, but this put me in particular mind of two things. The first is Gabrielle from Xena - the chronicler-bard who's emphatically not a fighter on the level of the hero she cares for but is just as vital to the journey as the Warrior Princess herself (and also half of the most homoerotic dynamic between women you could get in America in the 90's). This connection, along with the use of a lyre as her instrument of choice, also put me in mind of the Muses of Greek mythology - you know, the ones you invoke to tell the heroes' story.
Also giving the girl with terminal impostor syndrome a "lyre" is too good of a pun. I have to leave that one to Temperance in-text, I cannot bring myself to use it before her.
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Sin? Virtue?
Nah, the ultimate power of this universe is that indestructible fucking eggshell. To literally everyone's constant frustration.
I have this image of the season 2 villains being these monsters that draw power from the lies people tell themselves. The Saints fight them by teaching people to accept themselves. And then the darkest hour we-are-all-fucked moment is when they start drawing power from Chiro and her first instinct is to try to go on a personal journey to accept that it's okay to be a boy. Temperance might actually kill her.
Well done on finishing this.
Allegoriest
Entomology Enthusiast Extraordinaire
- Pronouns
- It/She
Amazing end to an amazing series. Really digs in to just how painful self acceptance and letting yourself be vulnerable can be.
What's really fun is how much this felt like a finale to the second season in a three season hypothetical Shining Virtue Angelic Heart show. Uriel is still waiting to be revealed as the real big bad, Avarita is missing, there are leftover seeds lying around, and Chiro's personal journey isn't quite over yet. But Chiro at least got to a healthy and stable point so she can take her time now, and that just speaks to the real life ongoing messiness of transitioning instead of wrapping everything up neatly with a bow.
What's really fun is how much this felt like a finale to the second season in a three season hypothetical Shining Virtue Angelic Heart show. Uriel is still waiting to be revealed as the real big bad, Avarita is missing, there are leftover seeds lying around, and Chiro's personal journey isn't quite over yet. But Chiro at least got to a healthy and stable point so she can take her time now, and that just speaks to the real life ongoing messiness of transitioning instead of wrapping everything up neatly with a bow.
also, this is how you really know she's a lesbian
mackhaon
Blame it on my misspent youth
- Location
- Kyiv
- Pronouns
- He/Him
He stands at the gate of Eden with a fiery sword, so gatekeeping mostly