#If you have any more questions on my thoughts re the archie comics or anything else like that‚ feel free to shoot me another ask!

[hadesknockedupintheunderworld]

Which era of Archie Sonic did you enjoy more? Pre reboot or post reboot?

Hmmm that's a good question. Idk I think I liked some of the writing post reboot better and I did like the new characters. I also personally think the removal of the love triangles specifically made the comic so much more enjoyable for me and opened up for better characterization for Sally. However, reading post sgw I did miss some of the old charcters (rip all those claimed penders ocs) and their now unresolved storylines, was sad at the loss of certain character struggles (like Rotor who was struggling between his health and wanting to be in the field again), and I missed how pre sgw had just some of the most insane or out of the blue plot developments/world building choices.

In terms of enjoyment, though, I'd have to say post reboot for the following reasons:

1. I enjoyed pre reboot for what it was more often than not, but I had my most fun during Flynn era. I liked how the Penders era moved things to being more serious, but I often felt like he had good and interesting concepts/ideas without the writing to back it up. Meanwhile, while Flynn wasn't perfect either, I felt like he was able to make a lot of those established relationships more believable to me, and while he also made some batshit plot choices he had more of the writing skills to back it up. This is all to say that aside from some stuff at the very beginning of pre reboot, it was a long while before I was able to really enjoy what I was reading instead of just taking things I liked where I could. Post reboot was a lotta Flynn, so despite the loss of characters and plotlines I enjoyed greatly, I at least felt like I could enjoy everything post reboot.

2. It didn't have all of those Sonic based love triangles. I know I know I'm a multishipper I ship Sonic with a lot of people but by god. I just could not take the Sonic/Sally drama anymore. Bunnie/Antoine was fine. Flynn actually made me believe in Julie-Su and Knuckles as decent partners. But by that point (and this is coming from someone who loved Sonic/Sally before reading the comic) everything going on re-Sonic and Sally's romance prospects with the opposite gender and each other was like beating a dead horse. And for Sally specifically, she had been recharacterized so so so many times pre-reboot just for the sake of drama that she often...didn't feel like her own character. So post reboot with the love triangles and the romance with Sonic removed I felt like we could really see who she was as a character and a clear vision of her ambitions/cares. I could feel like who she *is* wouldn't be changed on a whim for the purpose of plot.

3. As they say, people get better with practice. And while I thought some of his pre-reboot stuff was interesting, I felt like by post reboot era, Flynn had grown better at depicting the nuance of living under the eggman empire.

ㅤ

So yeah I guess I'd say, gun to my head? Post reboot. But it's really more complicated than that. I did enjoy both a lot, and especially in the last like 80 issues pre reboot. Pre reboot was wild an interesting in a way that I enjoyed with characters and storylines I loved, but it wasn't always written amazingly and contained much too many ongoing love triangles and mehhh canon relationships to me. Post reboot gave certain characters more time to shine as characters, reverted the pre reboot growth of other characters, delivered some of its nuanced situations better, and was largely written nicely, but you could often feel that the post reboot team was now restricted in a much different way than they were pre reboot (like, pre reboot's struggle was keeping up with existing storylines and relationships and keeping things true to what they have been, but post reboot's struggle feels more like it may have had some of Sega's restrictions we see nowadays).

In the end, though, I miss characters and storylines from both pre and post reboot after the cancelation.

[seenashwrite]

Dearest Nash, I've touched on this before in (I believe) in a discussion re: why some mainstream fics get oodles of notes while more original ones do not, *but* I wanted to get a bit more specific here. There are certain writers here whose writing has a definite vibe to it (if you will) that separates their work from others, and your name is one of the first that comes to mind. Bear with me, because trying to detail what makes your writing stand out is difficult while trying to articulate a Q

^ this is a gif with parts 2 - 4, just FYI

Hmmm… this is a bit of a brain buster. But I can answer it, and I think succinctly, maybe with a touch of that Spidey sense you mention:

Thank you for your inquiry, hope that helps! 

I kid. But this is a brain-turner. And a characteristic which, like you say, ain’t limited to me. I’d honestly throw comedians under this umbrella, too, not because I’m necessarily gunning for a laugh every time, but because it’s pretty much their job to take a “basic” (a tenet or fact of life or present reality or whatever) and present the observation with a twist. I think of storyteller comedians specifically, your Patton Oswalt-s, Maria Bamford-s, Kathy Griffin-s, and John Mulaney-s.

So if I can sum up, assuming I’m tracking with you, what you’re more or less driving at with the “how” is this –> Is there anything beyond simply personality, or an auto-pilot thought cascade (for lack of better terminology) that contributes? Are there things someone could do/be proactive about, to perhaps cause this same sort of reaction to happen in their brain?

I think there just might be.

Folks reading this, let me ask you a question, and you cannot look it up:

What was the name of the Sherpa guide who led Sir Edmund Hillary up Mount Everest?

.

.

.

His name was Tenzing Norgay.

Nash, what in the name of the frozen corpse of George Mallory does this have to do with Lion’s question?

I shall tell you.

My father told me that fact when I was quite young, so young I legit couldn’t even ballpark my age for you. The context was that having little facts tucked away in your brain may come in handy. Not in a Jeopardy kind of way, more in a conversational way. I’ve no idea why the man thought the Sherpa guide who led Hillary up Mt. Everest would ever come up during a conversation with enough regularity to justify my knowing that fact (aside from him randomly quizzing me throughout my life) but hey, I guess it just did.

But speaking of Lil’ Nash, the situation for her was that she was the eldest of all the Nash litter by miles… like seven or eight years, I’m not bothering to check. So I had a lot of alone time, and my grandmother was my chief babysitter, so prior to kindergarten and then til I was in about second grade (so: all day long during the week, then every weekday after she picked me up from school), I was pretty much always at her house. Yeah, there were toys, but not a lot to do. And I’d read. I’d been reading on my own for a decent while, not because I was some prodigy but because my dad read to me *constantly* when Lil’ Nash was Itty-Bitty Nash, and it “took”. My mom also, every time she went to the grocery store always - and I mean always - brought back a book for me. It might’ve been an Archie comic—-

Mandatory #fuck the CW’s Riverdale tag

—-or a Babysitter’s Club, or Sweet Valley High, Judy Blume, Madeleine L’Engle, Zilpha Keatley Snyder, you get my point. Some small paperback. It would piss Dad off because he’s a cheap bastard and two buck books once or twice a month were really gonna cut into the savings [eyeroll] but also, in a way, because I’d kill it in a half day/a day. Wouldn’t put it down. After awhile, I started writing my own silly little kid stories, then - and this is where the creative writing love came about -  I started writing soap operas for my Barbies. (When I was older - like, 5th grade? 6th grade, maybe? - none of my peers were still playing with Barbies, and I got made fun of when, at a sleepover, they saw my stash. And I was like - No, no, no. Those aren’t for playing. That’s my cast.)

Time went on, and when I was bored at post-church lunch/dinners, I would also read the old encyclopedias at my grandmother’s, the ones from the late ‘60s/early ‘70s that she had for my mom and my aunt. As I got even older and became fascinated with rooting through the boxes in gran’s basement, looking at all the cool old clothes, I stumbled upon my aunt’s collection of Whoa-Hooooo Shit There’s No Way My Grandparents Knew You Read These books. Those kinda Harlequin-esque ones, except my aunt’s tastes run close to mine, none were the same shtick with different covers, shmultzy-sappy romance, there was always some sort of intrigue along with the sexy times, and she also had, like, every legit V. C. Andrews (meaning: not the ones from the ghostwriter, this was way before her death) book.

What is my point? I read a LOT. Now-a-days, other than fanfic (which… straight up: I don’t read a lot of that, either. I peace out on probs 80% of it before the third-to-fifth paragraph. It’s gotta sell me fast, yo) I haven’t read fiction in probably, oh…. 12 years? I think the last ones were the first couple Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood. Wait, no! I lie! I read the 50 Shades books when I was traveling 2x/wk for a job about 4 years ago, and I needed the laughs. It worked. Oh my days, that woman can’t write. The screenplay might’ve been worse, it goes her, then Buckleming, then everyone else. It’s bad. In any event, past decade or so, it’s more historical stuff and true crime and science stuff and all that old fart jazz.

Okay, so that’s #1: Read. And not just anything, be well-read, and that doesn’t mean developing some level of expertise, by “well” I’m saying to cover the spread. You’re building your tool kit, is all. You won’t use most of it, but it’s nice to have options. You also don’t always have to get this stuff from reading now-a-days, because podcasts. Cover the spread there, too. Lemme look at my bookmarks…. 

[Spongebob narrator voice: A few moments later]

I’m back. Science - Skeptic’s Guide to the Universe; General current stuff without being news - CGP Grey’s Hello Internet; current events with shittons of pop culture, past and present - Greg Proops’ Smartest Man in the World; fun history stuff - The Dollop; entertainment stuff - How Did This Get Made.

#2: Keep a notebook with you and jot down turns-of-phrase that spark something in your brain - things you read on websites, on twitter, in articles, things you hear people say (real life, TV, movies, podcasts), and write it. Don’t snap a pic with your phone or make a note in your phone. There are studies behind this, I’m not hunting them down, you’ll just have to trust me, but there are, and it goes to being reflexive, a brain “muscle memory” thing, if you will. You’re not doing it to plagiarize, you’re doing it to dissect it, kind’ve like you did with the example you gave on me —> went from punch action to punch spiked with booze to a punch with a spiked gauntlet.

Which leads to #3: Mental dictionary. I have a large vocab repository, and it stems from the tons of reading - I stop and look up stuff if I either don’t know it, or it’s used in such a way that I think they’ve got it wrong and want to double-check that maybe there’s another usage I don’t know - and also stems from a drive to combat the (still fairly thick) deep South drawl I can’t kick, and not for lack of trying. But see, I couldn’t have whipped out that progression if I weren’t aware that one definition of “spike” is “to add alcohol to”, or of the common shtick in stories of spiked punch like at high school proms typically, or knew about the existence of spiked gauntlets / old school armor. 

And I guarantee you that a good chunk of people didn’t really “get it”, and just thought “Nash Be Nashin’, that nutty gal”. So they “get it” on that level, but don’t Get. It., if you see what I’m saying. And that’s fine. Maybe it got something cranking in the back of their mind and it’ll hit ‘em in the middle of the night, or they’ll be watching Game of Thrones or something, see a gauntlet and be like “Oh goddamnit, I just got a throw-a-way one-liner from three years ago” and have a chuckle.

Related, re: looking stuff up and things that people “get”? I didn’t know fuck-all about Twilight, but it seemed of import to the folks around 5 years younger than me, the Nashlings wouldn’t shut up about it, so I got a good working knowledge of it. Same with Harry Potter, and through it I got to “know” J.K. Rowling, who I find to be an exceptional writer, so that was great, and I’ve watched the movies for the most part over the years at Christmastime, and I don’t give the first shit about what “house” I’m in, nor do I care about what Patronus I’d fart, but I have a working knowledge of what those are, and horcruxes and who Snape and Voldie are, you get my point. I can keep up. But to do it, I had to take the time to look it up. One thing I would not trade for gold is Michael Sheen chewing the goddamn scenery in that battle segment from the last Twilight movie. Have I watched the movie? No. But that scene is the shit. And that baby CGI is horrific on several subtle levels. And not-so-subtle. I’ve digressed.

Back to those notes: So if you’ve got these notes jotted, you might see something else and think “I feel like that could’ve been snappier…. why do I think that….” And you’ve got a resource at your disposal, that little notebook. Hell, jot that thing down - things you think could be done better. I have in many documents a highlight around chunks of scenes for my big dog story where it says in bold above or below “DO BETTER”. Meaning: there’s a better way to get from A to B, but I’m just not quite there yet. I’m pretty quick on the uptake and can crank out something snappy on the fly (like say, in CASPN chat or when banging out a short reply or thank you note) but there’s definitely times I gotta slap a DO BETTER on it and walk away til that snappy something-or-other light bulb goes off. 

Here’s a recent one where I backtracked, matter of fact - that noir spoof thing I wrote? Along with my co-writer, Moscato? There was a line that I couldn’t hit with a good zinger, so I just said moments were going by like a fat hamster on a wheel, which is cute, but not really grooving with the setting/the vibe. Less tipsy, when I was correcting some inelegant formatting and a misspelling [sigh], I went “Oh! Why didn’t this occur to me last night? Right. Wine.” So the line is now about moments dragging like a rolling donut with a copper on its tail. Get it? The cop’s a fat ass. The donut-cop stereotype.

…….Fine, it ain’t my best, but it fits better. Moving on.

And this leads nicely into #4, and a specific tip I can impart - assuming you’ve got a passable-to-high level of vocabulary in your tool belt, practice messing around with making nouns into verbs, and twisting random stuff into descriptors and using bizarre words/things in metaphors/analogies. Like, I say “adulting” quite a bit. Ali - @littlegreenplasticsoldier - I thiiiink was writing recently about Sam being drunk, and he’s a tall wobbly Jenga tower on his last Jenga. Going back to the noir, pulpy detective style, try messing with the whole “S/he was like a ___ that ____”. Add on to stuff that’s well known - He was like a dog with a bone, if the bone was a ____ and he was a ____ and we were in a ____. (I have *nothing* in mind to fill those blanks, by the way, feel free to twist it into sumpin’)

What else…. okay, here’s a #5: In drafts, let yourself wander, and see what kicks out. It can be fueled by silliness or anger, but I don’t reckon you’re gonna get the “snappy” you’re aiming for if you’re down in the dumps and going full-court-press angst. The best stuff, IMO, comes from the space in between goofy and pissed, and that is The Land Of Snark. You can always re-style it to bend more dry or wistful should you need to, certainly, depending on the situation.

Have a sample of a primo Nash Digression that was fueled by ire in a recap from Season 12 (episode 19). I had said - RE: the random inclusion of the character Joshua, which still pisses me off because they burned a character that held massive potential for future stuff as he’d been shown to be the only angel with direct access to Chuck, so, y’know, that could never come in handy, like ever again in the series, right? - the following.

Mandatory pre-emptive #fuck Dabb

[Spongebob narrator voice] A few moments later —> 

On god, I have no idea where that came from, and here’s where we go back to ol’ Spidey up there, because end of the day?

All that other stuff’s the foundation, sure, but there’s always gonna be the weird iggy, the thing that can’t be learned or taught, whatever the quirky synapse is that fires off in my/our brains. In my experience, it’s an ADD-ish sort of jam mixed with the Nostradamus effect. Meaning, (A) we’re at Level 10, rapid fire thought processing >50% of the time, and (B) throw out enough stuff for long enough, some of it’s going to stick. And I whiff it plenty. Multiple times in CASPN chat I’ve been like “Whoo, tough room” when something falls flat.

A specific example: @mrswhozeewhatsis - and I think you saw this, but anyone else seeing this may not have - gave probably the most fantastic analogy I’ve seen regarding the whole “getting it” thing, and while it was on the topic of meaty plots that get too far into the weeds (my specialty) and how it can lessen appeal to a broader audience, it still applies here. 

She said “Sometimes, when I’m reading something of yours, I feel like there’s a joke I’m missing. It’s like watching Spaceballs without having seen Star Wars.” I say that to say - nobody’s gonna land references that cover the spread 100% of the time. And, y’know, fine. I figure maybe it’ll prompt someone to do a quick google for - well, let’s use Spaceballs. Most folks will no doubt get the Star Wars part, but maybe not Spaceballs. Maybe they’ll check it out, find something they enjoy. Or learn a new word. Or get a brainstorm for a story. Who knows?

Last tip: Don’t actively mimic anyone’s style. Much fail. And I don’t only mean because if they’re on a social Venn diagram with you, would likely recognize themselves in your stuff——

Takes a moment to wave to the peeps still trying with me! #bless your hearts

—–but because it’s fucking hard. I did it broadly on the noir thing, that’s not a hard thing, to homage generalities, but the way I’m messing with doing this on that silly Princess Bride series? Purposefully styling it like Goldman? It’s good  challenging and all, and it is making it feel more in the groove with the book/movie, but I have to be in the right frame of mind or it’s like fingernails on a chalkboard, and when I have pushed it, then gone back, it’s sloggy, soggy garbage.

I say all that to say: it’s an amalgam of brain-wiring/personality, and world/life perspective(s), and knowledge acquired over time. The first just is; the second will evolve in myriad ways, maybe for the better, maybe for the worse; the last is the one where you/we have control, we can fill bucket after bucket of information, and the well won’t ever run dry.

Sorry this took so long. I kept adding and subtracting. This is the edited version, if you can believe it. Welcome to Nash Brain. 😉

[jandjsalmon]

Same anon from last ask (re Britta, et al)! I was only being partially serious about tagging them (only so they can get some criticism that isn't laced with profanity and whining fans - BH fans are guilty of that as well). I agree with you about BH, and I think, ultimately, they will be okay. I guess I'm more curious about how you feel this whole B*rchie thing is going to end up. What do you think?

Oh I knew you were kidding, Grayface. I just lack any and all sense of humour so I answered honestly. lol. 

How do I feel about the B*rchie thing? I think it’s actually more of a non starter for me. I think that it’s not going anywhere for many reasons... but one thing I feel like a lot of B*rchie stans discount is Veronica. 

In fact - I’m more offended about this kiss on Veronica’s behalf than Jughead’s. Because Betty instigated a kiss with the guy her friend was just in a serious relationship (serious enough to be sexual at 16 anyway). Betty would have known how Veronica felt about him - despite their break-up or maybe because of their break-up and the reasons for it - and if she’d been behaving in character, she would have held back EVEN IF SHE HAD FEELINGS for him (something I don’t think she does more than friendship and lingering nostalgia).

It sits wrong with me that she’d do that to Veronica. And stans who are happy about the kiss don’t seem to care what it does to Betty as a character if both she and Archie were to carry on with it. It turns her into the WORST kind of friend. And Betty is nothing if not a good friend - comic canon and show canon. Betty sacrifices for her friends. She would NOT destroy her friendship with V over this. If she did - she’s be unrecognizable and NOT the Betty I fangirl.

To quote my dear friend, @bride-of-hobo - whom I love - and if you value insightful meta you should check out her blog... also, she’s a great person who has never been anything but kind to me and to anyone else on this hellsite and you’d be lucky to consider her a friend but I digress... 

I was quoting her (and it was actually in answer to a question about B*rchie sex thus the first line): 

One kiss, which ended with Betty looking mildly horrified, does not translate into sex. Archie is back with Veronica, and he loves her. All spoilers indicate Betty gets back with Jughead, too. The Riverdale writers are fond of drama but they’re not going to make their two leads into cheating assholes.

I think her quote is apt. I may not have a ton of faith in the canon!writers right now... but I trust that if someone shakes them - and reminds them of their characters... we may have some semblance of rational thought and we’ll get back on track with our core four.

Thank you again for the ask, Grayface. I appreciate the opportunity to flesh out some of my ideas. I’m not always married to them and I appreciate when other people take what I’ve said and make it into even better meta... so here’s hoping other people add their thoughts.

[tigerlover16-uk]

As someone who likes hearing your thoughts on DBSuper and anything DB related in general, how do you think Toyotaro's influence in the DB world will be remembered? Honestly the man has done nothing but disappoint by writing poor plot points while dissing many characters and putting Vegeta up on a pedestal. Granted, he's not the first writer to commit these mistakes, but if he keeps this up he'll never make it big in the manga world. Think he can make a comeback with the DBSuper manga?

It’s still strange to hear people actually have interest in what I have to say, but gratifying nonetheless. Thanks for that.

And honestly, God only knows on both accounts. Public opinion on things can radically alter within weeks, and greater time and reflection can give fans a lot of time to look deeper and re-evaluate their opinions on certain works, for better or worse.

Ken Penders was once a beloved writer for the Archie Sonic comics, with many of his stories being longstanding classics. Then his stupid lawsuit happened that resulted in all the characters he created being ripped out of the comic haphazardly, forced a reboot that nobody wanted, and was probably a factor in the recent unceremonious cancellation of the comic right before a 3-part story could be concluded and any kind of closure could be had on anything. So as soon as all that nonsense turned him into the anti-Christ for the Sonic fandom, people began re-reading his work now as more critical adults compared to as impressionable children and realizing that a lot of what he wrote, while there were definitely some merits (There’s a reason people were angry so many of his characters and ideas weren’t allowed to be used anymore), his writing actually had a ton of problems and some of his stories were outright stupid. Endgame gets the worst of it, going from a well regarded would-have-been ending for the comic that changed the series forever, to a subject of mockery for it’s numerous plot holes, weird character decisions and just overall messy story.

On the other hand, we have the Star Wars Prequels. People HATED those movies with a burning passion for years since The Phantom Menace proved a let down for many, and I mean they violently HATED everything about the movies and insisted they killed Star Wars as a whole.

Yet nowadays with the Force Awakens re-invigorating the franchise as a pop cultural juggernaut and yet splintering fan opinions further, many now admit that the outcry to the prequels was WAY overblown. While a lot of old school fans still hate them, many are now willing to admit they did have good ideas and moments and were more mediocre than bad, and there’s a generation of people who grew up on and love the movies more than the original trilogy (Myself included) that can more comfortably admit to liking them and discuss why out in the open without being attacked and ridiculed (Mostly).

The movies are still huge base breakers and will always have the reputation of being disappointing follow ups to the legendary original trilogy, but after Clone Wars proved to everyone that great things did and still are coming out of that era in the timeline, most are willing to admit that the movies weren’t as damaging as they once thought.

Both examples go to show that anything can happen with time. We can make predictions, but we don’t know for sure how something is going to be regarded five or ten or twenty years from now. Doctor Who was a complete joke after it’s initial cancellation and before the revival came around, now it’s a beloved mainstay of pop culture in and outside of my home country again. Even Dragon Ball GT, while not well regarded, is generally seen in a more forgiving light by more people now than it was for years after it’s initial airing here in the west.

Truth is for most of the time he’s been writing the manga, Toyotaro has actually been popular and liked by the fandom. Right up through the end of the Future Trunks saga portion of the manga, the man has had a swarm of Dragon Ball fans passionately insisting that his is the “True” canon of Super and superior to the anime in every way. There are still people that think that way.

It was only about the time he got to Goku Black’s first confrontation with Vegeta that a lot of people really started doubting him, thanks to how ill regarded manga Black is by most in the fandom, especially compared to how beloved he was in the anime even by people who don’t like the saga. And then came the revelation that Toyotaro re-used panels from his Dragon Ball AF fan manga for the series, and apparently incorporated some ideas from it, basically literally trying to canonize his fanfictions and apparently basing Goku Black’s personality on his OC Xicor (And as we’ve established, that worked out SO WELL for him), and suddenly a lot of people realized something was up.

Which paved the way for a lot of people that had been critical of the manga up to that point, such as @dragon-ball-meta here on tumblr, to shed some light on a lot of his questionable writing practises. His treatment of Goku in several instances that made him out to be more dismissive and in several cases annoyed with his children in particular starting to gain notoriety, which hit a breaking point when chapter 27 came out last month and caused an uproar over the “Goku didn’t know when Gohan was born and Vegeta called him a terrible father” nonsense that basically looked like it was canonizing the “lol, Goku’s a bad father” meme (The most disturbing part… Toyotaro has apparently said that Goku is his FAVOURITE character… yeah… let that sink in).

I think that was the final straw for many that basically turned the man into a joke for a huge portion of the fandom. It was one of the worst controversies I’ve seen in this fandom for quite some time, so naturally just about everyone was talking about it. The Japanese fandom I’ve heard was really ticked off about it especially, given Goku is still the most beloved character in the franchise over there, even being recently voted the most beloved anime hero by most age demographics in the country.

So, his reputation has already undergone a major shift since he started writing the manga. He still has his fans who will stick by him through thick and thin, but many people meet him and his work with a lot more scrutiny than they did before, and many people consider him a joke (Gochi fans especially).

If things continue the way they have been, I feel he’s likely to be regarded as “That fan artist that draws good stuff, but shouldn’t have been hired to write an official manga because while he had a few good ideas, he REALLY wasn’t up to the job” that’s what it’s looking like anyway.

Could he make a comeback? Who knows, despite my own outrage with the Goku moment last chapter and my issues with how the Zen Exhibition match is apparently being handled so far in the current chapter, the guy did have a good idea in giving us a more fleshed out introduction to the Gods of Destruction at the start of the Universe Survival saga. For all we know despite these issues, his handling of the rest of the story could actually turn out to be really great and people might prefer it over the anime. Anything’s possible, really. How many people thought My Little Pony’s latest iteration would become one of the most popular and talked about cartoons of the decade?

I kind of doubt that will happen. My problems I’ve already brought up aside, the manga cut out Krillin’s character arc, all of Gohan’s scenes, didn’t adapt the Resurrection F arc (Meaning it didn’t properly build up Frieza for his comeback here, so the manga can’t function as a self contained story with only the original Dragon Ball manga being necessary to understand things that happen in it), cut out the Hit two parter further building on his character and abilities, and further ironing out his rivalry and odd friendship with Goku, completely botched Frost’s character compared to the anime, while also screwing Piccolo over badly in their fight, as well as removing most moments featuring the supporting cast and even reducing Future Trunks to a foot note in a saga that was literally designed as an excuse to bring him back, and is known for rushing through the story compared to the anime in a bid to catch up considering how ridiculously behind Toyotaro has gotten thanks to the monthly schedule.

Which is an especially bad thing if he does that here, considering this saga has to accommodate the majority of the Z fighters getting character moments and good fights, including re-introducing Android 17 after a long absence, as well as introducing and fleshing out slews of new characters. And given his alterations to the Zen Exhibition match which really look like they’ll hamper Gohan’s role and screw Buu over completely, and his poor handling of the Super original characters that aren’t Beerus, Whis, Gowasu and Botamo in the last two sagas, I find it likely he’s not going to do a great job with most of them. Heck, I fully expect Krillin to get knocked out instantly as a joke rather than helping to knock out two opponents with Roshi and 18 and holding his own against Majora.

Again, I could be completely wrong and he could do a good job, and I’m just being judgemental and jumping to conclusions. But I’m finding it hard to be confident that he can make up for his set backs, even if he does end up doing some things better. Which isn’t saying much, his last two sagas he wrote did a few things better than the anime, and they were still worse stories overall.

If he does turn things around and actually writes a really good or even great saga and generally cleans up his act going forward, I could see Toyotaro making a comeback in the eyes of the fandom and being remembered in at least a more fond light than he is now. But if he screws up as badly as I fear he might and like he’s been doing lately, I can only imagine his standing in the fandom getting worse, and at best he’ll largely just be forgotten and ignored by most fans when Super finally concludes, or he’ll be a laughing stock. How that’ll effect his career in professional manga writing, I don’t know, but it likely won’t do him much good.

I guess this whole thing is a learning experience for fans wanting to start working on the actual properties they follow. Even if they’re extremely talented in one aspect (Toyotaro with his drawings) and have passion for what they’re doing, that doesn’t mean they’re guaranteed to do a good job if they’re on writing duties, and they better put their absolute best efforts into things and think things through clearly, because their contributions WILL be scrutinized and they will have a significant impact on the franchise in general.

A lot of fan artists and fanfiction writers do great stuff and deserve to be respected, I know people who have written stuff that’s better than professionally published stories and in some cases are better than parts of the series the fans were adapting from. But there’s a REASON why fanfiction writers aren’t usually hired to write for the works they follow, and why it’s often considered a bad idea. And Toyotaro in many cases has done a good job of proving that point.

I really don’t hate the guy, whatever you may get from how I talk about him. I just want to make that clear for everyone, especially anyone who likes his work reading this. I kind of envy him as a fellow fan for getting to work on writing an official Dragon Ball story, I’d die for that opportunity, and I will still give him credit wherever it’s rightfully due, especially with his art. I just wish he thought things through better and didn’t make as many questionable choices despite having so much more time and being in a better position to plan things out than the anime writers had.

Will Toyotaro make a comeback? Good question, probably not, but we’ll see. I’ll say this though, for all his problems his adaption and the things going on in and around it is at least interesting to talk about, and at least we’ll have some nice artwork and drawings of all our favourite characters to look at however things turn out.