#It’s my year!! I was born in the year of the metal/golden dragon hence the character design change

[ovytia-art]

Happy Lunar New Year to everyone that celebrates!

[tigerlover16-uk]

What do you think is the biggest difference between Frost and Frieza?

Frost is smarter than Frieza.

Frieza is a great villain, but he’s not much of a chessmaster. He got by because he was a born prodigy who never needed to train to be the most powerful being in the universe. He just overwhelmed his opponents and civilizations he wanted to conquer with his sheer power and sending swarms of minions at them.

And while he’s not unintelligent, far from it he can be smart when he needs to be, he does end up undermining himself with bad decisions. Wiping out the saiyans because they might pose a threat to him someday wasn’t a bad idea, for example, but keeping a few of them alive to help do his dirty work is what ended up bringing Goku to Namek, and thus led to Frieza’s downfall. Him playing around with Goku for as long as he did and not killing him first instead of Krillin when he had everyone cornered were also prime example of said cockiness.

And while those events were also just bad luck and he couldn’t have known what would happen, his overconfidence in his own abilities and never bothering to train and gain better control over his full power was entirely his own fault, since it caused him to lose to Goku both times they fought. Not perfecting his Golden Frieza form being the worse offense, it made sense for his character to rush to earth right after gaining all that power given everything we know about him so it wasn’t poor writing, but it WAS incredibly boneheaded of him, even with his back up plan.

It’s Frieza own poor decisions and overconfidence in his own power that constantly gets him screwed over, so while he’s an entertaining and well written villain, easily my favourite, I wouldn’t call him an especially smart one since it took him until the Universe Survival Saga to finally start learning from his mistakes and be more pragmatic.

Frost was in a different situation.  While he was definitely still powerful, he lived in a universe where the general population doesn’t seem to be as weak as the inhabitants of universe 7 outside of the Z fighters and a few gifted warriors here and there. The saiyans are an intergalactic defence force, and if Cabba, Caulifla and Kale are any indication they’re generally much stronger than the universe 7 saiyans usually were before they went near-extinct, their two strongest warriors before the genocide only reached a power level of about 10000 after all. We don’t know anything about the Metal Men, but if Magetta is any indication I bet you they’re a bunch of tough cookies. Namek in this universe apparently has fighters strong enough to compete in the tournament of power.

And of course, there’s Hit the legendary assassin, who Frost already seemed very much aware of when they first shared a scene together. Take all of these people into account, notice that Magetta at least gave Vegeta a much harder time than Frost did in his final form, and notice that we don’t hear or see anything of any family Frost has, so it’s possible there’s presently no King Cold in this universe and thus likely he wasn’t born into evil royalty so would have likely had to work his way up to power from scratch, and it’s pretty obvious that there was no way Frost could have just bulldozed his way through the universe with an army of pirates to conquer whatever he wanted the way Frieza handled things. He’d have faced opposition that could have probably stopped him, or someone would have just hired Hit to take him out quickly.

So, Frost had to compensate for his different circumstances by becoming clever, pragmatic and more skilled in his fighting style and how he handled his planet selling business strategy. hence, he manipulated everything to make himself look like a hero while he was really doing things that were just as horrible as most of Frieza’s antics. Albeit we don’t know if he caused any full on genocides because of how he operated, but Frost definitely left a lot of orphans with his actions.

Frost isn’t beyond getting his hands dirty. He fought pretty fairly with Goku in his assault form and then against Piccolo before both of them started to really overpower them, but Frost usually prefers to go for more pragmatic and tactical maneuvers in his fights. Like how he manipulated things in his fight with Roshi and Vegeta to trap the latter with the mafuba.

And really, it’s hard to argue that his manipulative tactics don’t garner great results. He was around doing his crimes many years after Frieza was beaten and then killed the first time, and he was only found out because Jaco happened to catch him in the act of poisoning his opponents and then Vados straight out told everyone what kinds of evil things he gets up to. And if he’d actually managed to beat Vegeta, keep in mind, CHAMPA WOULD HAVE HELPED HIM GET AWAY WITH IT ALL ANYWAY.

Frost only loses because he rushed in to attack Vegeta (Albeit he didn’t know anything about Vegeta or how fast and powerful he was. If he had Frost would have probably been more careful), and then later in the Tournament of Power because he got too comfortable around Frieza, who decided to give Frost a taste of his own medicine and stabbed him in the back before Frost could react. Both are genuine mistakes on his part, but they’re not overly stupid, they’re just bad luck in one case and momentarily poor judgement in the other.

Frost losing his temper and trying to shoot at Frieza from the stands was probably the only genuinely stupid thing he ever did, and he paid the price for it like he deserved for everything he’d done. But then again, he’d lost everything already before the tournament, and he’d just had his last chance to repair his business and life suddenly ripped away from him by a guy he’d foolishly trusted.

If his team didn’t actually lose the tournament, he could very well have been erased by Champa anyway afterwards for losing if he was in a bad mood, and even if not Cabba and probably the rest of the team wouldn’t have just let him get away scot free. He looked like he was having trouble processing the full weight of what his elimination meant for a moment after being ringed out, and then Frieza made fun of him and his abilities, rubbing salt in the wound. A moment of poor judgement and passion in the midst of realizing his life was truly ruined is excusable, honestly.

Other than that though, Frost always gives off an air of being in control of any situation, and unlike Frieza he’s not normally prone to angry outbursts when he doesn’t get his way. Which is why the one time it happened was significant. Even after Vados revealed he was really a planet brokering pirate, he just took a moment to laugh and gloat about his business strategy and then casually prepared to walk off stage. Because hey, the cat was out of the bag anyway, might as well have fun rubbing his atrocities in everyone’s faces while he could.

Frost may not be the strongest fighter around, but he’s capable of being a genuine threat to much more powerful opponents, including the likes of Goku and Vegeta, through sheer ingenuity, cunning and improvisation. And that’s not something we tend to see a lot of in Dragon Ball villains really, at least the major ones. It’s refreshing to see a villain who’s less powerful than most of our heroes who could still beat them just because he’s smart.

Frost was an interesting villain honestly. I was disappointed that we didn’t get the good version of Frieza we all thought we were getting at first, but in retrospect I’m pretty happy with how his character turned out anyway. It was still pretty fun to watch him, and he was a less conventional take on a alternate universe counterpart than what we thought we were getting, which really is Toriyama’s style when you think about it.

Too bad he died. Ah well, minor Dragon Ball villains rarely last long, at least he left an impact in the time he had. Hopefully he gets revived at the end of the tournament so we can see just a bit more of him in the future, but I can’t complain too much if that doesn’t happen. The way Frost died at least felt appropriate, in the end his downfall came from being manipulated and stabbed in the back by an even BIGGER scumbag than he was whom he thought he could trust. Fitting after the stuff he pulled, huh?

[dmtrtyping]

The First Series (Hita, Candala, Evident, 용, Rêverie)

Five seemingly unrelated words, some with deeper meanings than the others. Coming from different languages and manners. They have one thing in common, they symbolize the different highlights of my life. And perhaps, if you look closer, yours as well.

Hita is Sanskrit word, it can be interpreted as happiness or prosperity. Hita is derived from the phrase “Tri Hita Karana” in Hinduism. Tri means three, Hita means happiness or prosperity, and Karana means cause. The phrase literally means three causes of happiness or prosperity. The main idea of Tri Hita Karana is a human’s three relationships in life. The relationship between humans, with nature and it’s beings, and lastly with God. The phrase is there to remind us to not only love the people around us, but also to appreciate nature and everything that comes with it. Not to forget, it reminds us to always be thankful for God’s blessings.

Candala is an Indonesian word, though it is rarely used in everyday conversations. It is no surprise that many might not know of it’s existence or meaning. Candala means condescending, feeling unworthy or looking down at yourself. For a word with such a negative manner, it is interesting how it can represent the struggles of today’s society. Especially the younger generations.

Evident can be defined as plain or obvious; clearly seen or understood. Just like our life, there are things that can be clearly seen, something obvious to the eyes, something ordinary. But there are also things that our eyes fails to capture, perhaps something so plain or obvious that we took them for granted. Here’s a reminder for those who lived so fast, they forgot to pause and be in the moment.

용 is a Korean word, you read it as “yong”, meaning dragon. I was born in the year of the metal dragon, or the golden dragon as some might say. It is a part of the Chinese Zodiac which changes every Lunar New Year. I like to think that it truly embodies who I am as an individual, hence why I truly held onto this zodiac of mine to push through the rough times. Although occasionally, I found myself realizing how hard it is to live up to it’s name. I may be born as a dragon, but I still have to proof that I am worthy of it.

Rêverie is the French word for daydream. A series of pleasant thoughts you have, usually about things that you would like to happen. Our minds are capable of so many incredible things, including daydreaming. From starting fresh, to exploring old european cities, from meeting strangers in rundown bookshops to hearing life stories from the street pianist. Daydream is the child of your wandering thoughts and imaginations. 

This first series encapsulates the full circle of one’s soul. From being God’s creation, to having the first encounter with humans, with nature, with animals. to know what familiarity is, what home feels like. To acknowledge their own emotions, to become fully aware of their weaknesses and downfalls, to struggle, then to be able to stand back up again. To pick up the pieces, to start noticing details they might have missed before, to become appreciative, to fall in love with the idea of living. Then to find the confidence and fire within them, to fight for their beliefs and thoughts. And lastly, to dream, to let their minds wander off into the distance, to set their souls free. Unbounded by the realities of life, and the mortality of humans. 

dmtr.