#ALSO Even if there weren't an audience out there who'd love it you should still be able to feel comfortable writing what you enjoy.

[snakebites-and-ink]

I've seen multiple awesome writers worried that people aren't going to like one of their series because it's "not real whump" or some similar sentiment, so I feel compelled to say this.

Some people prefer physical whump

Some people prefer emotional whump

Some people prefer psychological/mental whump

Some people like recovery arcs

Some people like fluff and comfort after the whump

Some people like whump that focuses more on angst

Some people like plot-heavy whump

Some people like worldbuilding-heavy whump

Also, the more niche a piece of writing is, the more happy the people who enjoy that niche will be to find something that fits it

Basically you can write whatever you want and there will be an audience somewhere who loves it.

[shinidamachu]

I also noticed in my reread of the manga that the anime made Kikyo seem more powerful. In the manga Inuyasha easily parried Kikyo’s attack when she was first resurrected and chose to throw aside the sword to reason with her, and even got ready to strike her down and cracked his knuckles in order to bring Kagome back. In the anime he was easily overwhelmed by Kikyo and was only saved by Kagome waking up. I’m seeing Sunrise’s bias 🙄

And there's nothing wrong with making Kikyo seem more powerful. Inuyasha was constantly getting upgrades for Tessaiga without us as much as batting an eye over it.

The difference is that we were there when he found and got Tessaiga. We were there to see him struggle to master it. We were there for each and every single breakthrough. We know the how and we know the why.

Kikyo's power-ups, on the other hand, seem to come out of thin air most of the time. I'm sure she must have worked for it, but it wasn't shown, so there's a bit of a disconect between her journey getting there and the audience, which makes her achievements turn out to be not as satisfying as they could have been.

It's like, we know what the stabilished powers of a pristess are and so we think we know what Kikyo's powers are limited to, but then she does something new that doesn't fit that criteria and our only explanation is that she was the most powerful priestess of her time. Which makes sense, but also tells us that it's not important how she came to be so powerful, only that she is.

So why should we care when she uses a new trick? It's probably something she has known how to do for a while, anyway. We weren't rooting for her to get it right. We weren't anticipating it. We just roll with it.

The problem is that, in order to make Kikyo seem more powerful, Sunrise often gave her scenes where Kagome was originally the one kicking ass and taking names. And that's what I have issues with. Take this scene for instance:

Kikyo is the kind of character who doesn't do anything without a reason, so why would she interfere? She doesn't really knows Koga. She has probably no idea of his connection to Inuyasha — and even if she had, I don't peg her for comeone who'd care, considering how she treated Kagome most of the time. Koga is a demon with two jewel shards. Why help him out instead of taking them from him herself or waiting Naraku's incarnation finish the job to sweep in and do it? Because in the manga, Kagome is the one who saves Koga:

Which makes infinitely more sense and proves that there was no actual reason behind this "creative" change other than making Kikyo look cooler. The entirety of Sunrise's adaptation is full of these little shenanigans. Do you want to see a practical example of how this affects the general perception of the audience regarding the characters?

Here's Kagome diligently destroying a Naraku puppet to save an unconscious Kikyo. She actively uses the bow and arrow she didn't know how to shoot in the beginning of her journey to save someone she judges to be her love rival. And she suceeds without overthinking it or breaking a sweat.

But Sunrise thought it would be better to just do this instead:

The result? People naturally praise Kikyo for being the biggest girl boss in Inuyasha for stuff that was originally done by Kagome:

Don't get me wrong, it's great that people will appreciate Kikyo — this was exactly what Sunrise was going for, anyway — but it rubs me the wrong way that it came with the price of Kagome getting constantly criticized for being a "damsel in distress" who never does anything.

When your adaptation changes the story so much that people wrongfully perceives your female lead as useless despite the many, many scenes you still animated of her saving the day — and specifically saving the life of her supposed rival, who they judge to be much stronger and independent than her — that's when you know you fucked up.

And the worst part is that people are either blissfully unaware of this irony — because they haven't read the manga — or straight up dishonest about it.

The funny thing is: Kikyo didn't need any of that. What Sunrise did was the equivalent of taking original scenes of her being kind or compassionate and giving it to Kagome instead. It wasn't necessary. Kikyo was stabilished as a powerful woman from her very first appearance:

Kagome was the one who needed to prove herself in battle because she was the 15 year modern girl who was tossed untrained in the middle of a feudal era "life or death" situation. She was the one I wanted to see exploring and using her spiritual powers, because that's what her character needed to grow.

What Kikyo needed was humanization, glimpses of the ordinary woman she has always wanted to be. Empowerment is important, but it's also multifaceted and it falls flat when it focuses on power for the sake of power.

I'd gladly exchange any of those changes for scenes of Kikyo coping with taking a human life or using women's souls to stay on the world of the living. Scenes of Kikyo realizing she has become the very thing she used to fight against and how seeking for revenge affected the people she loves.

Scenes of Kikyo regretting decisions she can't take back, scenes of Kikyo bonding with Kaede both before and after her death, scenes of Kikyo acknowledging the part she played on the way her relationship with Inuyasha ended and apologizing for the hell she put him through over it.

That's how you make her character relatable and empathetic. That's how you highlight her complexities and makes her interesting. Kikyo being pretty while shooting arrows is absolutely stunning on screen, but it does little to create a truly emotional attachment to her character, at least for me.

As for the particular scene you brought up, Inuyasha was, in fact, easily overwhelmed by Kikyo in the anime. When she first attacks him, he just... lets her.

While in the manga, Inuyasha is quick to dodge it.

He does try to defend himself in the anime. However, Kikyo's arrow manages to stop Tessaiga's transormation and almost hits his heart.

None of which happens in the anime, where Inuyasha not only defends himself but also actively pushes back.

Sure, Kikyo still succeeds in zapping the hell out of him, but only because Inuyasha threw Tessaiga aside to reason with her, like you pointed out. When that didn't work, he cracked his knuckles in order to strike her down, before realizing he couldn't do it and then Kagome comes in with the save. In the anime, he didn't even try.

And the hug I mentioned, when he's attempting to appease Kikyo and she cries on his arms for a moment? Completely erased in favor of making her push her elderly sister aside twice and hurting Inuyasha more than originally intended while also referring to him as "beast", "monster" and "half breed."

I understand why Sunrise wanted to give Kikyo more screen time – she's a key character and people seem to have a good time drawing and animating her – but they focused mostly on making her look "cool" by kicking up a notch on the whole "vengeful spirit" thing and ended up shooting themselves on the foot by going too far.

They really thought the nonsense added scenes, like Inuyasha watching her bath or telling the audience they were always by each other's side – while actually showing them sitting far apart, Inuyasha being left to chase after the carriage she was in instead of being there with her, etc – would make up for the hug they cut out in order to give Kikyo more "badass" moments.

That's because they realized the couple had no substancy whatsoever and to remedy that, prioritized telling us that they were together for at least a couple of seasons instead of making the effort to show us this so called deep love. The hug was meaningful and made sense. Inuyasha dramatically laying on the ground while mentally screaming her name after telling her she needed to return the last piece of Kagome's soul – which is how Sunrise decided to end the episode – did not.

Especially because in the manga, he checked on Kagome before...

And after he left to try and get the remaining piece of her soul back – knowing what it would mean to Kikyo.

Plus, while obviously sad about Kikyo's "death", he also seems to accept this was for the best and acts like he is pretty much ready to move on.

Not to mention how he panicked when Shippo brought up the possibility of Kagome not being Kagome anymore and how absolutely relieved he was when he realized it wasn't the case.

And if this wasn't enough, he spent a good three panels blushing over Kagome right after the whole ordeal.

Those scenes had two purposes. One was to solidify, once more, Kagome as her own person to the audience and to Inuyasha, as well as a love interest. He had the opportunity to get Kikyo back and still wanted her to return the soul – even if it meant Kikyo would cease to exist – because he didn't want to risk Kagome not waking up or not being herself anymore, since he was already falling in love with her. Kikyo herself guilt trips him about it when he tries to convince her.

The other was to contrast Inuyasha's first reaction to Kikyo's ressurection and the information that they were both set up with his reaction after he was told that Kikyo died for him and therefore he owes her his life. The former consists on him standing up for himself and rightfully seeing himself as a victim, the latter consists on him blaming himself out of proportion based on a blalant lie. That's why in the manga he takes her "second" death so well, while the others really take a toll on him. In the anime, however, it's like he is already blaming himself when she falls off that cliff.

I attribute this change of attitude to another scene Sunrise thought fit to delete:

Of course the anime also has Inuyasha denying Kikyo's accusations, but he is way less effusive about it in there. Originally, when he realizes they were fooled into thinking they betrayed each other, he acts like they were both at fault for distrusting each other and are, therefore, even. So when she "dies" there's nothing he can do but wish for her to rest in peace and move on despite how sad it makes him.

All of this really sucks, because as you can see, the changes they did in favor of Kikyo either didn't work on her favor at all or heavily impacted the characterization of others – Inuyasha and Kagome especially – in a negative way, in addition to creating huge inconsistencies plot and narrative wise.

TLDR: yes, Sunrise's bias is obvious. And ironically, I think if they had liked Kikyo less, she would have been a much better written character because they wouldn't be afraid to give her the development she needed.

[mario8th]

I've Become The Leo DiCaprio Pointing Meme Any Time Shizuku Is On Screen And Its A Problem But Did You See How She Was In A Suit!?!?!!!??!?!

For Hunter X Hunter Episodes 44-47, I've finally cancelled my Crunchy sub (corporate mergers are vile) and booted up the show on my "hacked PS2"

Which didn't affect my experience at all negatively, in fact it looks better and I don't have to deal with the crunchy app being crap. But the "copy" I "found" has seemingly edited some of the Hunterpedias to make Killua and Gon black. Which like, hell yeah, but was also unexpected EDIT - Cohost User @ Bongasaur let me know that, apparently, The Show Just Did That. Their research implied It was apparently due to the episodes having aired at the end of Summer break, and is to represent the kids who came back with tans. Weird!

Anyway these episodes had a lot riding on them. The Media Club Plus cast (at least those who'd seen it before) hyped them up quite a bit. And. Well. I enjoyed them.

Melody continues to be lovely, I especially liked how she brought in her theme diegetically into the show. Love when that happens.

Definitely called what would happen to the ten whatever they were called. What I think really set me off was the designs. Yeah, the four introduced at the start were all weird. But they weren't interesting. There were nobodies in the Hunter Exam arc with more care put into their designs then these 10 jabronies. (Still thinking of you blowjob brothers). But again, they were a useful tool for introducing how strong the Phantoms are.

It was also funny, after like three whole episodes, that we're abruptly reminded that Gon, Killua, and Leorio are Also Still In This Show. It was also a fun rug pull when Togashi was setting up Yet Another Tournament arc only to have it end before it even started.

Okay, let's see. How much else can I write about before talking about the bulk of these episodes. Oh, Yeah! I also really love the twist of Kurapika making further moral compromises by agreeing to work with Anime Joker. Good stuff

Alright, fine. There was fighting. It was good fighting.

But what bugged me. At the end of 44 Kurapika tells us about his wager. That he'll only ever use that move on the Phantom Troupe or else he'll die. And then it repeats at the top of 45.

And it shouldn't have been brought up at all.

The thing that Jojo's does really well is layer on the surprises throughout the action to keep the suspense up. And Hunter x Hunter just does not do that.

Think about How Cool it would've been if we see Kurapika use this move a couple times, and then finally reveal that This Move Could Kill Me if I wasn't using it On You, the Spider I'm About To Kill.

It would retroactively add stakes to what we thought was simply a really powerful move, and it would let the reveal come at the climax of the mini arch, not stuck somewhere in the middle. It should have been saved! But for some reason he just. Says it. Unprovoked. To the audience. And then its repeated again, to pad out episode length I guess.

It certainly doesn't help that I just finished my Eva rewatch to prepare for my screening of the film Wednesday, And Dungeon Meshi has been Killing It these past few weeks. I have shows to directly compare this against. And yeah, neither of them are truly comparable to HxH, but I enjoy them a lot more. So when I watch this set of four episodes that have been talked up A Lot, but not finding myself enjoying them especially more than any of the other episodes. Well, I dunno. It's a good show, I'll give you that. (even less related Bad Batch has also been great, as well as the Rebels episodes AMCA is covering)

I hope Kurapika meets up with the other boys soon.

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[whumpthefuck]

THIS!!

I am a firm believer of two things when it comes to writing.

1- No matter what you write, how you write it, or how well you write it, there is always going to be someone out there who is going to LOVE your story.

2- No matter what you write, how you write it, or how well you write it, there is always going to be someone out there who HATES every part of your story.

The goal is to not let either group (mainly the second) get to you. You will always have fans and you will always have haters. acknowledging this and accepting it I think is a great way to have a much healthier relationship with how you feel towards your writing.

I've seen multiple awesome writers worried that people aren't going to like one of their series because it's "not real whump" or some similar sentiment, so I feel compelled to say this.

Some people prefer physical whump

Some people prefer emotional whump

Some people prefer psychological/mental whump

Some people like recovery arcs

Some people like fluff and comfort after the whump

Some people like whump that focuses more on angst

Some people like plot-heavy whump

Some people like worldbuilding-heavy whump

Also, the more niche a piece of writing is, the more happy the people who enjoy that niche will be to find something that fits it

Basically you can write whatever you want and there will be an audience somewhere who loves it.