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sou-ver-2-0 · 5 years ago

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Why calling it "logic versus emotion" makes sense

At the end of chapter 2 in Your Turn To Die, the player is forced to choose between killing Sou or Kanna. Kanna frames this as a choice between "logic" and "emotion," where saving Sou is the "logical" choice and saving Kanna is the "emotional" choice.

Personally, I love the writing in this part. I think it's the strongest writing in the whole game. However, since joining the YTTD fandom, I've read various posts from fans who don't like calling this a simple choice between "logic" and "emotion." For them, it felt like an emotional choice to save Sou, while it was a logical choice to save Kanna. After seeing this argument so many times, I decided to unpack my feelings on it. I also wanted to write my own defense of why calling this a choice between "logic" and "emotion" makes sense, at least to me. For me, it all comes down to how it’s written as a choice between two opposing worldviews, and I don’t focus on the little technicalities. I’ll also argue that the game is using descriptive language, rather than prescriptive language.

But first, we have to deal with a strange irony about this choice:

For the genre-savvy player, yes, it IS "logical" to save Kanna and "emotional" to save Sou.

Before writing anything about this choice, I need to acknowledge that Sara and the Player are two different people. They're obviously connected, and they inform each other's feelings and choices, but they still exist in different worlds. Sara is actually trapped in a Death Game. The Player is vicariously experiencing what it would be like to be trapped in a Death Game through a fictional story.

I'm not going to argue that Sara necessarily likes Kanna more than she likes Sou, and thus it is more "emotional" for her to save Kanna. It's possible to play Sara as someone who isn't that affectionate of Kanna, and she can act generously towards Sou. That's not the main issue here.

The issue is that the Player expects the fictional story to go in certain directions based on the morality of their choices, while Sara has no such meta expectations. The Player can reasonably expect to be rewarded with a happy ending at the end of YTTD if they make the "correct" moral choices. Saving Kanna feels like the "morally correct" choice on a gut level because she's a child, while Sou is an adult. So the Player may choose to save Kanna purely for logical reasons. They're not trying to be selfless or wise; they just want a reward from a videogame. And...they're not wrong! Immediately after saving Kanna, the player is rewarded with a cathartic scene with Joe, cluing us in to the idea that choosing Kanna is the "good path."

Meanwhile, if the Player saves Sou, they're saving him in spite of knowing that this could logically lead to a "dark path." You might save Sou because he's a fascinating character, or because you're curious what will happen, or simply because you think he's cute. These are all emotional reasons. Maybe you don't expect any "happy" rewards if you save Sou, but you still expect the story to be exciting with him around.

Speaking for myself, I want to see both the Kanna and Sou routes for reasons that are both emotional and logical. I sympathize with both characters, and I want to analyze them as they continue their arcs. I just think they're great characters connected to fascinating themes about humanity.

In other words, the Player is going to have all sorts of feelings about this choice based on the safety of their separation from the Death Game. It's only a videogame to us. We're not actually killing a child or a young man. We still feel sad about the story, but it's a safe sadness, one we can control. You can make your choice based on which type of tragedy is more interesting to you in the moment.

So that's how the Player experiences the choice, but what about Sara? Does it still make sense to call it a decision between "logic" and "emotion" for her? I would argue, "yes." First of all...

"Logic" and "emotion" are descriptive terms for the argument styles of Kanna and Sou, respectively.

Using "descriptive" terminology means that we attempt to classify language as it is actually being used. Using "prescriptive" terminology means that we dictate how we should be using language.

When Kanna calls this a choice between logic and emotion, you might have thought she was being prescriptive. You might have thought something like, "You can't tell me how I should feel about this." But I think Kanna was simply being descriptive of the language she and Sou were using. It's a fair assessment of their opposing argument styles.

Kanna argues that you should vote for her by appealing to your sense of logic. She eloquently makes the case that Sou has proven himself invaluable to the team with his computer hacking skills. He came extremely close to finding an escape route just before the second Main Game began. With more time, he could find another one. If he dies, there is no one else in their party with his valuable skill set. She also effectively weaponizes her own helplessness by arguing that she is a "useless" child. She states that dying for the greater good "is the only thing she can do." What I love about Kanna's argument is how she twists Sou's own words against him, since Sou has been using coldhearted logical arguments since the beginning. She shows how much she's learned from him, and she's even able to outsmart him.

Sou argues that you should vote for him by appealing to your emotions. He furiously makes the case that he is the most hated member of the team and that you should give into your hatred of him. He says that the choice ought to be obvious based on your feelings. He calls Kanna stupid. He keeps shouting "Stop!" and "No!" He waves his arms in despair. He resorts to threats and exclaims that he will never forgive anyone who votes for Kanna. Sou's argument is compelling because we have never seen him so vulnerable before. Even with his strong will to live, he has an even more desperate will to save the little girl he's grown to care for. It's devastating to watch such a man break down. After losing his previous eloquence, he is forced to bare his soul and pray that that is enough.

However, even with all that in mind, you could still argue on a technicality that some of Kanna's statements are emotional while some of Sou's statements are logical. For example, when Kanna says that she is useless, this reflects her emotional state since she has low self-esteem. And when Sou starts threatening people, it's logical to take his threats seriously.

But there's something deeper at work here than technicalities. There's still something at the core of their arguments that makes the choice to save Sou "logical" and Kanna "emotional."

At its core, this debate is about how to measure a human life's worth. Do you measure a human life based on how "useful" they are? Or do you recognize a person's worth based on their humanity alone?

This is a choice between two worldviews, which the story calls "logical" and "emotional."

In the logical worldview, you prioritize a person's usefulness over their humanity for the greater good. Also, you must be willing to use people like tools for the greater good.

In the emotional worldview, you refuse to reject anyone's humanity, even if it threatens the greater good. Also, you must accept that some moral causes are more important than survival.

If you vote to save Sou, then Sara prioritizes the greater good; theoretically, the group can use Sou to escape. But being willing to use Sou this way rejects Sou's humanity, because we would be using his talents against his will. For Sou, escape is not worth the cost of Kanna's life. Sara also rejects her own humanity by treating both Sou and Kanna as objects instead of people. Kanna is discarded as a useless object, while Sou is kept as a potentially useful one. This is why Sara guiltily calls this "the worst possible choice" when she makes it. And it's why Sou seems to care more about revenge than survival in this route; there is no meaning in a world where we must sacrifice children.

If you vote to save Kanna, Sara does so knowing it may be harder for the group to escape without Sou's skills. But she embraces Sou's humanity by allowing him to follow his heart. She also strengthens her own humanity by refusing to cross a moral line. This is why Sou actually keeps his will to live in this route and mounts a desperate escape before his death. Because there's still meaning in a world where Kanna is allowed to live. He still dies, but with peace and purpose, and having repaid Sara for freeing his true heart.

In any case, you may still disagree with the semantics of "logic" and "emotion" to describe these worldviews, though they work for me personally. I have one more point to address.

Is it really logical to save someone who threatens you?

At this point, I'd like to talk about the most logical member of the group, the character who immediately votes to kill Kanna: Keiji Shinogi.

You, the Player, may believe that Sou will get his revenge if he lives, because it would make a compelling story. And Sara, a high-school student, may be reasonably afraid of Sou's threats, because Sou has tried to hurt her before. Even though the text doesn't portray Sara as being afraid of Sou in this moment, I understand why the Player would fear for Sara's life. In other words, a logical reason to kill Sou is because you don't believe you can control him. How do you force an adult man to behave?

Enter Keiji Shinogi, who doesn't hesitate. Keiji is stronger than Sou, and he's wicked smart. He's confident in his own abilities. And he understands vengeance better than anyone. He doesn't underestimate Sou, who has outwitted him before, but he decides to accept the risk. Like Sou, Keiji has a ruthless will. I believe that one reason Keiji voted first was because he wanted to assure everyone that "your friendly policeman" would keep Sou in line. So even though Sara doesn't act afraid of Sou in this moment, Keiji is there to calm any hypothetical fears the Player has.

And Keiji commits to this role! In the beginning of Chapter 3, in the route where Kanna dies, the first thing Sou does is disturb the group peace. He puts on his "tough" mask and pretends that he never really cared about Kanna. In response, as everyone else is fidgeting nervously, Keiji laughs and calls out Sou on his bullshit. He eviscerates Sou emotionally, effectively putting Sou in his place and forcing him to be submissive, for now. It's Keiji's way of reminding Sou that they already know how weak he is, and Sou isn't going to get away with any tricks under Keiji's watch. Even if Sou's only "trick" in this case is to pretend he has any pride left.

From a storytelling perspective, I'm sure that these two will keep playing their power games, and Sou is likely to regain the upper-hand eventually. But from an in-universe perspective, Keiji looks like he knows exactly what he's doing in this scene, and Sou looks like a fool who better do what he's told. That is, if he doesn't want Keiji to skewer his heart in front of everyone again.

So where am I going with this?

My most generous interpretation of Keiji's vote is that he decided that Sou's life had value inasmuch as he could use Sou. After all, it's not like Keiji spared Sou out of compassion. Keiji just said that he hated Sou more than anyone he's ever known--and Keiji already killed someone else he hated. The harsher interpretation of Keiji's vote is that he fully expects Sou to die later due to his zero percent survival rate, which would make Kanna's presence technically more of a "threat" to Keiji's own survival. However, I prefer to think that Keiji was swayed by Kanna's brilliant defense of Sou's usefulness. That's because Keiji isn't a simple monster; he's a complex man who still wants to "serve and protect" the group...in his own way.

To follow in Keiji's footsteps and vote with "logic" means that Sara decides to trust Keiji's judgment. We know that Keiji is one of the smartest and strongest characters, in addition to being Sara's reliable ally. This is why I think it's still "logical" for Sara to save Sou in spite of his threats. Because Keiji is still there.

Conclusion

That's why framing the choice as one between "logic" and "emotion" works for me. I see it as a choice between two worldviews, one in which people are valued for their usefulness, and the other in which people are valued for their humanity.

I understand that the Player is going to have their own thoughts and feelings about this choice. Believe me, I was heartbroken too! I really wanted Sou to redeem himself and live. And I think Sara even feels the same way, since she pleads "Don't kill our ally!" when Safalin threatens Sou. It's still possible that Sou could redeem himself in the route where he lives, but I imagine it will be more important that the Player faces consequences for killing Kanna. But no matter what happens in Chapter 3, it doesn't change the fact that it looked possible in Chapter 2 for Sou's skillset to save everyone, and everyone was operating under that mindset.

I think that the writing in this game is stellar so I wanted to defend the story's framing. It surprised me to see folks who had reacted to it differently, but that's all part of the fun. It got me thinking about how interesting it is that the Player and Sara view things differently. It also got me thinking that what seems like a logical choice in the moment could feel like the wrong decision in hindsight.

Thanks for reading!

#yttd #your turn to die #sou hiyori #kanna kizuchi #sara chidouin #keiji shinogi #shin tsukimi #kimi ga shine #your turn to die spoilers #meta #mine #this is absurdly long haha sorry #sou and kanna #my meta

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shinahb · 4 years ago

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December favorites 2020!

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GREETINGS

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Hello,

So we have finally reached another year happy 2021! let's all hope this year will be kind to us, as I have mentioned in my previous favorites post, I finished my work term and now will be working on my art more

so please look out for more art coming soon!

also this maybe a little too early to think of but I was thinking of opening an etsy store to sells stickers/ keychains, this was a project that was on my mind for many years actually, but I have never really considered starting it

Please let me know if any of you would be interested if I do start one.

I would also like some ideas as to what type of characters from what show would you like to see merchandise from. I know there are some franchises that are not well known and most people wouldn’t be able to find so much as a fanart of that particular character/show

so if you could all let me know what you’d like to see in the shop I will highly consider it, with that being said I don't have any anime recs this month, mainly cause I was very busy in the month of December and have not watched any dramas or anime in a while,

so just a heads up, that part will not be included this month. The only thing I was watching is bunch of end of the year award shows, so like the drama awards and melon music awards and MAMA awards...haha that seems really boring to discuss so i'll skip that.

My friend and I were discussing and thought that they should rename these music awards as the BTS awards because they won so many lol.

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MANHWA/MANGA/WEBTOONS

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This section of the favorites is on fire! you don’t even know how far deep the rabbit hole i`ve dug myself into.

I finally was able to save my progress and crawl back up to list a few of my favorites/ updates of the old favorites and a special segment to ones that triggered a raging response due to utter frustration

Let’s start with a review of the manhwa I have read and discussed so far

Recap:

1) Whose baby is it? (ongoing)

2) Social temperature (ongoing)

3) Salad days (ongoing)

4) To be or not to be (ongoing)

5) Path to you (completed)

6) Here u are (completed)

7) BJ alex (completed)

8) No way, vampires don't exist (ongoing)

so some updates on the previous ones that I have listed out so far, with the exception of the completed ones.

1) Who's baby is it? ; last time I read up to chapter 72 and now they have up to chapter 126 and I have to say so much more has happened in terms of story and relationship development and I especially love the development between

yi yun and his relationship with jinyao, they are acting more and more like a married couple without even knowing it. You see a gradual change within the two of them that shifts from being very comfortably being able to talk about their problems to one another to

physical touches that would make them both nervous, I don't mean physical in a sexual way...it's not at that point yet, it's just holding hands and being near each other makes them, nervous and as an audience I felt that nervous energy

and it makes as the audience appreciate the development even if it is slow, it becomes more realistic over time.

Needless to say, I am still a giant fan girl of this author and her story and I can't wait to see this week’s chapter

2) social temp; I said that I have read the novel so I pretty much knows what happened in the new chapters that were just out, this manhwa is updating a little slow so I have to wait to really comment

When they go further, there is a scene soon that will be the turning point of their relationship so I am excited to see that in the manhwa

3) salad days; There is also a slow development here as well in terms of relationship building, so far they are working on their careers as professionals and dealing with bullying and jealousy from their peers

But it's all part of life so I appreciate that the author included these aspects as an important part of the story and not just focusing on romance alone.

4) To be or not to be; you'd think a person who had studied Chinese for 8 years would be able to read the raws....nope,LOL

So far the story is going into a good direction so I'm hoping to see how this new development will play out in their relationship

5) no way vampires don't exist; I have and fanart and long post dedicated to this alone, so please refer to those for more details. I am happy this is updating again and hopefully all of it will be translated in no time for others to enjoy

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Welcome to heaven

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Okay so that is all for the old ones that I have read, I will include updates throughout my favorites now and then if it is still ongoing.

now let's look at some new ones that I have found this month, these are just a few of the ones I selected out to talk about, but I have read much more as I have said and these were the ones that were the most memorable

1) Unintentional love story- "Wonyoung gets unjustly suspended from work after getting caught up in a corruption scandal. But when he accidentally discovers the chairman's favorite artist Yoon Taejun living under an alias, he is tasked with a tricky new mission. Could this be Wonyoung's chance to get his job back?"

This is the summary from the licensed lezhin website, and it pretty much sums up the story, it is still ongoing right now so I can only comment on how I feel about it so far.

I really like this story its really straight forward and focuses mainly on the two characters and how their relationship went from business partners to eventual lovers

it has minimal drama and works on moving the relationship buildup between the two main characters and I really appreciate that, it makes me less frustrated, since you know there is always that one a-hole that will never take no for an answer

i will discuss that later for the other ones I plan to discuss. But so far the story is straight forward and cute, and I really like wonyoung he is really adorable. This is a manhwa but not in the form of a webtoon, so it's black and white and read in traditional manga style

if you like a straight forward story and development please give this a read, you will enjoy it.

2) Karasugaoka Don't Be Shy!! - "Sou Izuhara, the leader of the crime prevention group "VOICE" that protects east Karasugaoka, realizes he's in love with the man he keeps butting heads with and leader of the rival group "Karasukai," Tetsuji Shinba...!?"

omg finally a manga recommendation? lol. you have no idea how much trouble I had remembering the title of this manga, I didn’t save it into my bookmarks and I usually did that if I was going to talk about it in the favorites.

I went through 5 websites to figure out the name but at least it was found. This story is both comedic and cute and it was a perfect break from the dark stuff I have been reading, I don't believe it has been updated in while so I'm not sure if it will ever be picked up

but there is a decent amount of chapters to get started on. But as the description says that it is a story about two crime prevention group leaders, they look like thugs but they prevent crimes from happening, so like an anti bullying campaign that recruits volunteers. two of the leaders from the largest groups apparently doesn’t get a long

on the surface but one of the leaders Izuhara really in fact admires the other leader Shinba. they start to get along after shiba went to izuharas territory to take care of some suspicious activity on that side and accidentally discovers a whole new side to izuhara due to the fact that he wasn’t wearing his glasses and didn’t know he was talking to shinba

and invited him to hang out together for that day. lol. You probably know the direction this is heading; it all starts from interest in a person right?

anways, I never recommended a manga yet so this would be a good one to read,it has a balance of a good romantic comedy.

3) Semantic Error- "Computer science major Chu Sangwoo is the epitome of an inflexible and strict rule-abiding person. While working on a liberal arts group project with freeloaders who don’t put in any effort, Sangwoo reasonably decides to remove their names from the final presentation. But he didn’t imagine how involved he would become with the person whose study-abroad plans were messed up because of that project. The involved person: the campus star who everyone knows, Department of Design’s Jang Jaeyoung. He has everything from skills, looks, family background and good relationships except for 1 big problem: Chu Sangwoo. What happens when an engineer and an artist whose personalities are like oil and water have to work together? Jang Jaeyoung is like a semantic error in the perfect world of Chu Sangwoo. Will Sangwoo be able to debug this?"

this has got to be one of the most accurate portrays of an antagonist relationship start off ever, it was really comedic and relatable at the same time, if you are in current group assignments and are or have suffered the same as sangwoo, please let me know cause I know I have.lol.

there’s only 16 chapters so far and I believe it hasn’t been updated in a while either so I don’t know if it is discontinued or not.

I can't wait to see the development between the two male leads, because their relationship right now in the manhwa is really hilarious and worth the read.

side note, not that this will ever be considered as a k-drama but I would like to see sangwoo being played by kim soo hyun, because he looks like him in the drama it's okay not to be okay.

4) Tied up in twins- " The story starts off with three friends Jiwoo, sohee and woojung who had been friends since high school began to developed complicated feeling towards one another, woojung had been in love with sohee and sohee had been in love with jiwoo who was in love with woojung, things turned for the worse when jiwoo got drunk one night out and decided to confess his feelings to woojung by going to his apartment, he found 'woojung' standing outside and invited him to go drinking, he finally was able to let out his feelings and 'woojung ' accepted them without hesitation. Jiwoo felt like he was on cloud nine at the moment and slept with 'woojung' that night after thier feelings were made mutual. Turns out 'woojung ' was not actually woojung himself but his twin brother sarang, not knowing this fact he spots sarang with a man from his past eunji that used to bully him during his military service which made him confused and angry that 'woojung ' might be playing with his feelings. Sarang then confessed that he is the twin brother of woojung and both of them decided that that night was a mistake and that they should just forget about it as it didn't happen. Of course fate had other plans as they keep running into each other during difficult times and decided to become friends. It didn't take them long to be attracted to one another which lead them to end their previous relationship, sarang especially was suffering from his cheating boy friend's abuse and jiwoo with his one sided feelings for woojung. After a series of events sarang and jiwoo found that their feeling for each other were mutual and started to dating, which poses a lot more obstacles than either of the two had bargained for...."

This is actually my very own summary since I can't find one for this manhwa, I also did and fanart and discussed why i really like this story in that fanart, so please check out my art for my thoughts on it! Shameless self promo....

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Welcome to hell

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ooo now it's time for the fun part.LOL. Now let me just say that there is sometimes a fine line that defines what shounen ai and Yaoi are, sometimes stories is listed as both because one story that starts off like shounen ai will suddenly become yaoi

I define yaoi as a story that includes all the things that i'm uncomfortable with, which is emotional trauma from sexual abuse, sexual harassment and rape, physical abuse, suicide etc

these stories usually include some or all of the listed above and could make you uncomfortable in many ways, so as a warning if you are bothered by any of that even a little please don't read the ones I’m about to list, because there is a lot of it and there are situations that made me really sick while reading them. on the upside there is a lot of whole heartedness from the love scenes between the two main characters, although it’s like pages of sex scenes, you know from reading that it is between two people that love and trust each other.

so you have been warned, i'm not going to spoil it in terms of story but there is something these ones i chose out have in common and that is a SICK A-HOLE THAT EVERY PERSON WANTS TO KILL.You should have seen all those comments about calling sangwoo (killing stalking) to kill theses mofos and I could agree more, these disgusting human beings made me sick.

so let's begin...btw these are in no particular order, I was going to list these from the least worthy of dieing to most worthy of dieing but you know in the end they should just all die...lol.

1) My Suha -"A skillful secretary by day and choosy cruiser by night, Suha is a young professional who’s in search of some no-strings-attached action. He hasn’t had much luck lately, though, since a handsome face doesn’t always match what’s in a guy’s pants. This might be why he finds himself wondering about his dreamboat boss, Director Park Jiwoon. But there’s no way he can mix business with pleasure… That is, until Jiwoon and Suha run into each other in the gay bar bathroom."

so where to begin, um this pretty much includes all those listed above but it mainly focuses on the relationship between jiwoon and Suha, and it is not abusive and very loving in fact,I'm glad that they show the contrast between how suha's previous realtionships don't work out because of his trauma

and how jiwoon despite being an unwanted heir in his grandmother's eyes was able to give love and protection to the person that matters to him the most. So there's this scum bag...I even forgot his name but the red haired dude in this story he`s the legitimate heir to the family, who is the absolute worse and not only sexually abused Suha when they were younger and also emotionally scar both jiwoon and suha

making them feel incapable of being loved. I didn’t get a good feeling form him when he was first introduced and I was right...lol. But at least the comments section was in agreement; let me sum up my feelings in the form of this gif alone...

you get the point...

I heard it was going to finish soon so hopefully these emotional scars can be resolved and that suha and jiwoon stick together to get through it all. That would be a good ending for them after everything they have been through.You really need to read it in order to under stand why these events happen the way they do but please remember that suha`s inability to feel love stems from the all of his previous relationships not lasting long yes...but started with this red haired mofo. I am never going to let this dude live, let`s just say that.

2) Crash into me- " Seung-chan is stressed. He has enough on his plate with the long hours at work, and now he can’t even get any rest at home! Every night, the lustful moaning and violent banging from the apartment upstairs keeps him awake. Just as he’s at his wits’ end, he chances upon the gorgeous, enigmatic Hyesung outside his building. Surely all those filthy sounds couldn’t be coming from such a pretty mouth? But as Seung-chan soon finds out, there’s a lot more to Hyesung"

from that little description you’ve probably figured out what’s going on with the neighbour next door keeping seung chan awake right? well no surprise sexual abuse, after hyesung was forced to suffer from a ordeal that wasn't his fault the brother of the person that died made it seem like it was his fault and sexually assaulted him

and so this ongoing sexual abuse progressed for several years which lead hyesung feel like life is meaningless and he should just die, until he locked eyes with seung chan walking back to the apartment and thought of jumping out the window, because he had a strange feeling that seungchan who he has not met before would catch him if he did.

I just almost cried from what I just wrote...to think there’s is some a-hole out there that would drive a person to suicide like that just to satisfy his own needs or whatever...i don't even know cause it’s still ongoing...i don’t think any amount of back story will justify any kind of sympathy for this person..

from what I have read so far it seems so be going ending soon so i hope seungchan and hyesung will be able to get through all this and live in peace because of suengchan, hyesung was able to love again and find his worth and is able to fight for himself and I’m sincerely glad that he had met and trust him whole heartedly.

3) Dine with vampire- "Caught in the clutches of an abusive relationship, Sooin longs to escape. A vampire who finds human blood repulsive, Chi-hwan only drinks the blood of other vampires. When chance brings the two together, Chi-hwan makes Sooin an enticing proposal. Chi-hwan will help Sooin get out of his living hell, and in exchange… Sooin has to let Chihwan drink his blood. Will this proposal change both their lives for the better?”

y'all don't even get me started on the mofo in this story....I’ve never felt so much rage from staring at a 2D character on my screen, the amount of times I hissed at him...you don't even know

like I have mentioned before ever since my twilight phase I didn’t consume anything vampire related in a while, I don't really care much for the vampire aspect but I guess it's still important over all

once you start the first chapter you will immediately know why I hate the harry potter a-hole in this story..he is despicable and that’s putting it lightly...but you know he doesn’t last long cause vampire tsukiyama (lol, not his name but they look alike) shows up and kills the mofo

and saves sooin who is the person who harry potter had been sexually abusing...to the point where you guessed it, he wanted to die.

chi hwan agrees to grant any wish sooin wanted in exchange for his blood because being vampire by nature he had not been drawn to anyone’s blood for some reason and had only consumed the blood of other vampires.

of course it was a small price to pay for sooin considering all the misery he had gone through. slowly sooin discovered that love was not abusive through the many times chi hwan...lmao i almost called him tsukiyama again...and he had sex, he discovered that it was safe and gentle and enjoyable

nothing that he had ever felt before, and so they became drawn to each other more than they thought they would to the point where they genuinely care for one another, though of course chi hwan knows that one day sooin will die and he will have to live on forever alone, thus the fate of his vampire blood.

but here’s the catch..it's not a spoiler really cause you knew it was too easy when main villain dies in chapter 4...and he’s on the front cover...which means yes harry potter mofo is back...ugh...he should have burned his body...WTF and as a vampire no less..

i'm like great now look what happened, you should have chopped him up and threw him into the incinerator!

you know that saying " mistakes were made..."

anyways, now he's back meaning shits about to do down and i'm not ready to see it happen, right now they are going through his back story and i’m like sorry author...whatever you try to feed me there’s no way i can have any sympathy for this dick...

so that's all i'm going to rant about for these yaoi titles...i had to go back and read some it again to know what i'm going to write about and i revisited a lot of things i’d rather not.I think the rage I felt was ignited again all of a sudden and I felt utter frustration to finish reading it again, what I am trying to say is, ya`ll need to read this once and that`s it...these aren`t stories you`d want to revisit.lol

so if you like this hell segment let me know and i'll continue it cause there’s an endless supply of content for this genre, I have a few more but i'll save those for next month.

and i'll probably come across more in the mean time to discuss, but I guess this is where fiction and reality divides, cause you know in real life if this crap exists absolutely no one will take this bull crap!

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MUSIC

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I have been listening to the Start up soundtrack and found a lot of songs i like from it, I don't like the drama and have not finished it, but the soundtrack is bomb

I have also been liking some old pop songs and went down the rabbit hole of 90`s pop songs...Britney spears especially

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so that is all I have for this month, I'm sorry its manhwa and manga focused, i'll have time to watch anime that I need to catch up on and start some drams now so i'll have more

to discuss in the next month hopefully, so please take care of your selves in the new year as well!

take care,

sheena

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SOCIAL MEDIA

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INSTAGRAM: shinb_art

TUMBLR: shinahbee

DEVIANTART: she-be.deviantart.com

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#monthly favorites #shounen ai #yaoi #manga review #manhwa review #manhwa #manga #my suha #dine with a vampire #crash into me #karasugaoka don`t be shy #tied up in twins #unintentional love story #korean manhwa #anime and manga #semantic error #manga recommendation

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toxicpineapple · 5 years ago

Note

Please give me your amami essay, I'd like to know the TEA! I was also gonna ask for the mastermind essay, but honestly I REALLY wanna hear your thoughts on his characterization (and your thoughts on his shitty fanon characterization)

HOOO BOY OKAY. this is good, it gives me an excuse to procrastinate on reading that new amasai fic on the latest feed. (note that i REALLY WANT TO READ IT, i’m just anticipating commenting and tbh the spoons,,, i lack them. it’s okay though i’ll get over it.)

so!!! let’s start with general attitude, because i think that amami’s is really unique. he’s a subversive character. in general i feel like that was the biggest goal with his character design and personality combination-- he looks like a total playboy, kaede even comments as much moooore than once. but he’s the absolute opposite. i’ll rant about that in a bit. i’ve already gone off on a tangent and i said i was gonna talk about attitude.

amami is laid back, but not to the point of complacency. y’know what i mean? like, he’s relaxed, but he’s on his guard, too. his speaking style is pretty casual (typically he’ll greet people with a “hey,” whenever he’s slightly uncomfortable he’ll probably say “haha”... this isn’t necessarily a canon thing but i like it when people have him talking in sentence fragments. ex. “forgot to grab my jacket” or “wanted to get a snack” sort of thing) and that’s just,,, the type of person he is. he’s casual. it’s remarkable considering how wealthy amami is-- though bear in mind, he still IS wealthy, so there are bound to be things he doesn’t understand about people-- that he can be so normal and like, down to earth, in a way. when people mess around with him he’ll probably just laugh it off.

to cite a fic i read once that had REALLY phenomenal characterisation, imo, ouma ends up dumping a bucket of water on amami’s head (on accident; there are some semantics and i won’t get into it but again the fic is really good and funny and you should totally read it) and amami just squeezes out his shirt and makes a couple cracks before walking away. (sorry this isn’t meant to be a “dumping love on fics” post but GOD that fic is hysterical.) he’s an enabler too, at least i think so-- remember that anthology chapter where kaede, shuichi, and kaito are trying to catch ouma and kaito sets an “amami trap” to stop him? all ouma has to do is flutter his eyelashes and go “pleeeaaase let me go amam~niichan!” and then he just. he does. what a fucking doormat i can’t believe him.

he’s like that though. i feel like big brother stuff is kind of his weakness. (and not in a kinky way alright i will destroy you. he might make a joke about having a sister complex in one of his ftes but he DOESNT that joke was just tasteless COME ON RANTARO WHFKLDSJFK) which brings me to his whole older brother thing, because like,,, YEAH. guy grew up with twelve younger sisters!!! and he remarked in his ftes with shuichi that they’re mostly step sisters, which means he just.... has a nurturing personality. i mean amami is somewhat conservative (if you try to come on to him during salmon mode you will be brutally rebuffed; amami tells u to keep your horny thoughts to yourself, though you shouldn’t be ashamed of having them) so i imagine he’s not the biggest fan of his father’s tendencies-- not that i don’t NECESSARILY interpret his father’s behaviour as him sleeping around.... it’s possible he just likes children and deliberately marries women who already have kids so he can take them... i mean it’s exceedingly decent to keep considering ur step children to be your children after a divorce so i have a hard time reconciling this common image of rantaro’s dad as some kind of player figure with the impression i got of him in my head but that’s just my daddy issues coming into play again so ignore me-- and yet he still considers all his sisters to be his sisters.

not to mention he feels a great deal of like, responsibility, when it comes to taking care of them. i find it impossible to believe that all the losses were his fault. you could ARGUE that the one he tells you about with his younger sister was to be blamed on him? but i mean, amami is a child. he didn’t even know his sister was following him out. sure he blames himself for it but there’s no real good way to blame him just considering that,,, he’s a kid. and he was so young-- he was obviously so young-- when it happened. so like, not to be all Good and Bad on you, but i do feel that amami is fundamentally a good reason. and you SEE that too, in the killing game. i’m certain he was on the fence about trusting that note he woke up with. would you trust it? he had no memory whatsoever of writing it, all he had were the words “ultimate hunt” and a map of the school to guide his way. i imagine he wasn’t even sure if he should do what the note said. but then ryoma started talking about sacrificing himself for everyone else, and rantaro probably thought, “well... if i have a way to get us out of here, even if it doesn’t work, i can’t just let ryoma sacrifice himself without having tried.”

rantaro is self-reliant too, i think. in the talent development plan mukuro remarks that she noticed he was injured a good number of times, but never said anything about it because she felt like he was trying to keep it under wraps. (note: good idea for an amami and mukuro friendship fic. must write. someone remind me.) i think amami kind of feels isolated from his classmates? either because he has these perceived notions of like, independence and whatever, not burdening anybody else with his problems (honestly not to go chabashira on main but wtf men ask for help c’mon i promise if you find a person who’s worth being in ur life they won’t treat you like shit for feeling ur feelings) or just because he’s not around a lot. i think amami is the type of person to invalidate his own problems a lot, or at least downplay them to others. he blames himself for all his sisters going missing, took the responsibility to find them all. you know the blow that’s going to be to his education? traveling around the world looking for twelve different people? and he plans to keep doing that!!! forever!!! ugh ;-; poor babey. but anyway i feel like he doesn’t want to tell anybody about his problems because he feels like it’s his thing to deal with.

i also believe that rantaro is a bit prideful. i mean, anyone can be prideful under the correct circumstances, and in fact there is a great deal of pride that simply isn’t addressed by the fandom in analysing characters and that makes me really sad because pride is such a SEXY character flaw but i’ll leave that alone for now. he hates being told to give up on what he’s doing. i mean everyone in his life has been telling him to stop looking for his sisters. that’s got to suck, but also, DAMN look at what his reaction was. this utter refusal to open up to anybody. shuichi’s ftes with him are spent pretty much just trying to get amami to stop squirreling around and actually TALK to him. amami asks shuichi at one point if he has any siblings and when the response is negative, amami immediately assumes that shuichi wouldn’t understand, would tell him to quit. just like everyone else.

(i mean, even with kiyo and mukuro, whose circumstances mirror his almost painfully at least in willingness to sacrifice stuff for their siblings, he doesn’t tell them what he’s doing, just that he’s doing it for his sister-- singular-- and that he would do anything for her. kiyo and mukuro!! out of ANYBODY, they would understand. in tdp they DO talk about it-- kiyo encourages him to keep searching-- as his friend...... fuck amaguji is such a good ship even if the implications of kiyo saying he wants to meet rantaro’s sister after he finds her bc she must be suuuuch a good person if he’s doing all this for her are uhhh not great-- and mukuro immediately understands when he says it’s to do with his younger sister. like, full stop. she just goes “okay” and goes serious. all at once. damn rantaro, mukuro, and kiyo really do be a power trio huh. i need to write more fic about them i miss them.)

this is more into baseless conjecture so take this as you will, but i also think rantaro is kind of,,, easily distracted lmao. he mentions helping out a village with a disease-- been a while since i’ve seen his ftes, sorry for any inconsistencies-- among other shit and like... bro what are you DOING. you have sisters to find. and he can’t be getting injured all the time, getting wrapped up with gang violence and all that, looking for people who were lost traveling. i mean sure, you could say they went all over the world and got wrapped up in all sorts of mess, but more likely they stayed in roughly the same area, waiting for him to come back. and also? i have a hard time believing his sisters were lost in these remote forest places people always put them. COME ON, who the fuck goes to some village for a vacation? a RICH person no less. i’m on another tangent. sorry. but yeah, i love the people who write rantaro as an absolute airhead. i headcanon that he has no way of judging the passing of time and thus is the absolute worst in the bathroom bc he sits there for twenty minutes thinking about the universe and then walks out like “:) ok ready to go” like wtf are you even doing there stupid akljdf anyway.

i think rantaro is softhearted and thoughtful. in his ftes with kaede he demonstrates an ability to look past what people show at surface level-- you can ask him about miu, kiibo, or kiyo and he’ll give u Good Fucking Insight(tm)-- and analyse their intentions more closely. and i mean this is just from a couple day’s interaction. he’s down to earth for sure, understanding when people are intimidated but also caring and observant. (his “talk about a first impression” line is so fuckaindgf.... good for his characterisation. i love romantic amamatsu but he so clearly takes an older brother role in those ftes, he’s really such a sweetheart,,,, hnadhfkj ;w;) rantaro is just. he’s patient with people. and selfless and kind. idk it’s all the good stuff. warm smiles and indulgence. all the way. probably lets kokichi steal his lunch.

THAT BEING SAID: i think rantaro also has a very serious streak. he doesn’t show it a lot but there are moments. he’s self-sacrificing-- i mean, obviously. he was the ultimate survivor, after all. some people hc that he got there by killing, or maybe everyone else in his game died but one person, but bro that doesn’t make any sense???? no. what happened was there were probably like three people left, and monokuma was like “one has to be sacrificed” and rantaro thought, welp. it’ll be me then. and i wouldn’t say the choice would be immediate because rantaro DOES has self preservation instincts-- he’s only human-- but i don’t think he’d have let anybody else make that decision. i think ultimately he would try to protect other people.

he can be scarily confrontational too. i do believe he’d usually only do it in the defense of others-- like, his base instinct is to protect. i read a fic once (oumami, unfortunately) where ouma was committing crimes and went to hide behind rantaro and rantaro instinctively moved to protect him, and that’s.... that’s good characterisation. point one to the oumami stans, point zero to me. motherfucker. (love u oumami stans, it’s just not my thing.) i really like it in fics when he’s stern, lecturing people for hurting other people, but i also think rantaro is too understanding to be truly unforgiving. like if two people got into an argument and one came out of it more hurt than the other, i don’t believe that amami would be unsympathetic to the less hurt one. i think he’s mature enough to take a look at the situation and go, well, okay.

i think he’d be TERRIFYING when angry. he’s patient, y’know? so it takes a lot to get him to that point. he’s really, ah, accommodating of people. puts up with a lot of bs kind of thing. but i imagine the best way to get him to snap is by hurting someone he cares about. and at that point: ur fucked. i’ve never written it before because i’m terrified of what i’d do with that kind of power but.... imagine the shuichi whump. holy god.

i’m NOT here to talk about shuichi whump (though i’m down to do that any time of day believe me) so i’m gonna like. shhhhiiiiiiffft.

i project on characters a lot so at this point it’s difficult to distinguish if some of my characterisation things are like, actually characterisation things? or just me venting, so like, take nothing i say as canon, but also,,, akdsjf we love a man who bottles up his emotions.

because rantaro just doesn’t have the TIME to be crying all over the place. he was probably a total wreck when he lost his first sister. and his second. and maybe even his third. but then he started to gather his composure, more and more. because if there’s anything that rantaro has in excess, it’s composure. the more losses he suffers the more of a shield he builds up. and the self hatred and the guilt and the blame and the responsibility are piling up and up and up, but god he hates it when other people see him sad, because he needs to be the strong one, he can’t just pile that up on other people. that’s not their weight to carry, and besides, he’s the older brother, he should be able to deal with his own problems. he’d just be burdening the people he cares about by letting them see his demons.

and then he doesn’t have any coping mechanisms because he never lets himself feel enough to cope, and when people get close enough to actually CARE about him, when people notice he’s upset or struggling and offer him help, he doesn’t know how to deal with it-- and god he hates lashing out at people but it’s so much easier to deal with the consequences of being mean than the consequences of breaking down. only conflict is scary when he’s one of the causes so he needs time to recover, and well, what better way to do that than to get on a plane or a boat and go look for his sisters? after all he’s wasting time whenever he’s just sitting around, they’re still out there and he needs to find them, so might as well just keep pushing himself to the limits, because it’s his fault they’re lost anyway...

something mukuro said to rantaro in the talent development plan stuck in my brain. like, initially it’s just a funny and cute interaction (rantaro even blushes and a blushing rantaro is a GOOD FUCKING RANTARO) but when i thought about it more i was like.... huh. hm. angst ideas. mukuro makes a joke about rantaro going over to her stand at the festival to flirt with her-- i think that’s the context, i know it’s play-boy related-- and rantaro assures her (as he always does) that he’s not that kind of guy, and mukuro agrees, saying she was just pulling his leg and that he seems like the kind of person who gets dumped because he doesn’t show his emotions enough. rantaro laughs, blushes, and says “haha, not touching that one,” and akdjfnnnnnn god mukuro you’re so blunt i love you fkdjf but wow. i usually have rantaro as not having dated anyone, just because i feel like he kind of hyperfocuses on finding his sisters? and given that he’s like sixteen (seventeen at the MOST) there’s not much of a timeline for when his sisters got lost. in my fic search i had to cram all the losses into a four-year period and damn that was rough. anyway i just don’t think he’d really prioritise romance. but that reaction implies that that’s EXACTLY his experience with romance, which makes a bit of sense because mukuro is ridiculously sharp, and also it’s,, it’s just sad idk poor rantaro. getting dumped because he’s like the emotional equivalent of a doorknob when it comes to his own feelings.

i do think rantaro is a bit cowardly. not in the sense that he’d shy away from danger-- i think he’d RUSH INTO IT HEAD FIRST because he’s a man or whatever, i know he respects women but he does seem to hold some of those very stereotypically masculine ideals of constantly protecting those around him, which is like.... ok toxic masculinity mcgee can u and kaito stop throwing hands every time u see each other ty-- but more in the sense that he avoids,,, confrontation. emotional confrontation just ain’t his thing. and i think he’d rather run away from it or otherwise find some way of ignoring it than try to address his problems.

he would, with that in mind, probably try to associate with people who don’t push the matter. kiyo and mukuro, for example. they both have a fair amount of baggage themselves so they’d probably be respectful. ryoma is lowkey enough that he just, he wouldn’t bring that shit up, that’s uncool. i also think rantaro would get along REALLY WELL with kaito, and i actually don’t think kaito would pull his sidekick stuff with him? just because in a way they’re kind of kindred spirits, and i think kaito would see an ally in rantaro before seeing someone to try to nurture, so they’d probably have some kind of a truce like, if you don’t force me to be vulnerable, i won’t force you. one of the reasons why i love amamota so much is because it involves the two of them growing to care about each other beyond that sort of unhealthy camaraderie and breaking down each other’s barriers and i just..... hhnnfhhdkfj they could be so good for each other but nobody wants to talk about thatjslfkj

you weren’t asking for my amamota mess lmao sorry anon i get sidetracked SO easily. but yeah, amami gravitates towards people who wouldn’t try to get him to be more honest with himself. and i honestly think the v3 cast would be pretty good about that overall, except for shuichi who is a detective and has a habit of sticking his nose in places it shouldn’t be, but i see no reason to write that out because amami’s ftes already display that beautifully. (well, that’s a lie, i’m absolutely plotting out a slowburn in my head already that involves shuichi stripping down his walls one by one, but forget about all of that rn we don’t need to talk about why amasaimota is my ot3.) also he is softer on childish people like ouma and himiko. ain’t nobody wants to TALK TO ME about how brilliant it would be if rantaro and hiyoko were friends because hiyoko has such problems in that department and he would take one look at her and go hm. i’m adopting her. and he’s so fucking patient and nice and she’d lose the will to make fun of him and i have to do ALL THE GODDAMN WORK AROUND HERE but it’s fine. at least i get to write it.

i’ve described the fundamentals of his characterisation pretty well by now i think. i have some throwaway headcanons, like uhh,,

he’s claustrophobic

plays the guitar and the ukulele

he prefers warm weather and perishes in the cold

high pain tolerance

he’s a Good Cook

doesn’t like sex jokes (they make him uncomfortable)

asexual (i do like a good demisexual hc at all times of day tho)

master of piggyback rides

does his own piercings

impulsive as hell

gets lost easily but can always find his way back

has a lot of scars from travels

hands are rough and calloused (again from travels)

morning person

smells like evergreen (you know i had to, you know i did)

Radiates Heat Like A Fucking Toaster Oven

good hugs

hates tying his shoelaces

likes being the big spoon :)

has a tongue piercing

i said “some throwaway headcanons” but i ended up listing way more than i mean to. i’ll make a separate list of my rantaro headcanons someday and talk about them all in detail but for now, uh, there’s that.

SO AS FOR THE RANTARO CHARACTERISATIONS I ABSOLUTELY DESPISE:

god where to fucking begin. actually i know exactly where to begin. it’s my least favourite one just because, like i said at the very beginning, rantaro is a subversive character. i mean i think he’s kind of a low hanging fruit when it comes to that. there are plenty of other subversive characters in the dr series but rantaro is like that. you expect a flirt and u get,,, a sweetheart. but then some people (usually the ones who ship him with female characters exclusively though i will see it on occasion in an amasai or oumami fic) decide to throw that out the window and make him a total playboy!! and listen, i have no problem with people who are a little flirty. we’re kids!! flirt ur heart out!!! and hey, that’s not what this is about but y’know what? so long as everything is safe, sane, and consensual, then yeah!! exercise your sexual freedom and sleep with whoever you want to!!! i don’t think there’s anything wrong with messing around a little, dating who u wanna and experimenting with ur tastes and preferences. if rantaro WAS a playboy, then there would be nothing wrong with that. i would love him just the same because he’s such a fundamentally GOOD character.

except that.... he’s.......... NOT. you slaughter one of the biggest aspects of his character by throwing away what matters to him and making him some hunky-deep-voice-dreamboat dude meant to sweep kaede/tsumugi/whomsteverthefuck off her feet. rantaro is one of those characters where he’s so blatantly not that kind of person, and it’s like. it’s an affront, almost, to portray him that way? and i do believe you should have the freedom to write what you want, since we’re in that age (aside from romanticised pedophilia and incest; that shit ain’t cute, i say this often but pro-ship DNI) where u should be able to take some liberties, but it’s just. hnnn. it’s so frustrating. rantaro does not know how to smolder! if he DID smolder, he wouldn’t even realise he was doing it. he doesn’t have people lying at his feet, okay? he’s too flaky for that. i wouldn’t say he’s unreliable but he definitely ain’t at school as much as he should be.

another one that i hate: st-stalker? what the fuck? that is not sexy that is creepy and weird?

another another one that i hate: yandere? what the FUCK??? that is not sexy that is glorified ABUSE???? the yandere trope is AWFUL bc you’re taking a controlling relationship and turning it into a fetish. NO. if he limits ur contact with other people, if he follows u everywhere, if he threatens ur loved ones, if he tries to control you, ladies and gents and nonbinaries, he’s not a yandere, he’s an abuser and you need a fucking restraining order. actually, people of ANY gender or sex can perpetuate this behaviour and IT IS NOT CUTE. I DO NOT GIVE A FUCK WHAT BOUNDARIES U SET IN PLACE, IF YOUR FREEDOM IS BEING RESTRICTED THAT IS ABUSE.

hate it when people make rantaro violent. hate it when people make rantaro a murderer. hate it when people make rantaro controlling. hate it when people make rantaro overtly sexual. some kind of sultry deep voice dominant kind of figure. dude, what the fuck? i don’t,, want to make any public comments about sex positions because i think that’s kind of Strange to just talk about on a post, but i do think that the way people portray him for their smuts is,,, idk it’s weird. i’m not gonna kinkshame u but like. :eyes:

i will however accept rantaro as a thrillseeker, or a highstrung rich boy, or a total space cadet, or a himbo, or a cryptid. these are all very good interpretations of the Mans. just, like. be wary of making him two dimensional. a good character is multifaceted. if you can take a trait that clashes with all of these and SELL ME ON IT, i will buy it. if u give me good justifications, or even just good writing?? then i will accept it.

the long and the short of it is, anon, he’s my favourite so i think about him a lot. i love writing rantaro. he’s just, he’s a Guy. y’know? He’s A Good Dude, If You’ll Give Him A Shot. :) we don’t get to see very much of him but i think that there’s plenty of material if you overanalyse everything, which, as you probably all know by now,,,, i absolutely do.

thank you for the ask, this was a delight to spend an hour talking about. <3

#amami rantaro #rantaro amami #abuse mention #long post

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arlakos · 5 years ago

Text

Miraculous Rank List: My list of Secondary Superheroes

Considering most of my usual posts contain a fair amount of salt, lets go for something a bit lighter today!

This list basically covers my listing of all my favorite secondary heroes and ranking them from best to worst. I’ll be working my way up from the heroes I like the least to the ones I love the most.

With that statement out of the way, lets get started.

Number 8: Bunnyx

Yeah, this may be a shock to some, but I don’t like Bunnyx. I think her power is cool, and I think the outfit is ok, but everything else about her is just so not cool. And that really has to do with her debut episode: Timetagger

Aside from her episode being the one where its revealed the miraculous powers become unlimited when you become an adult (which is just dumb!) her attitude towards Chat is extremely shitty, along with the fact the show this episode LOVES to point out how Bunnyx being stuck was ALL CHATS FAULT, with the show pretty much rubbing it in all episode! There's also the fact she does pretty much nothing in the long run, with the day pretty much being saved (yet again) by Ladybug! Sure, this is a running theme with most battles, but it would be cool for the other heroes to be able to win a fight without Ladybug's help.

Number 7: Pegasus

There’s nothing really much to say about him other than I find him boring.

The new heroes' idea was a nice thing in season 2 when it first came out, and the fact they limited themselves to only 3 heroes was pretty good so far. Unfortunately, season 3 has made the idea of new heroes kind of boring with just how many they introduce in the season alone. However, with the rest of the heroes, most of them had a pretty good introduction to warrant their place on the team and the fan hype. With pegasus, however, there wasn’t really much of a good intro for him, at least in my opinion, and when he finally appeared, I was underwhelmed.

His outfit, despite having an ok design, radically changed his appearance in comparison to other characters, and the colors really failed to suit him at all. His superpower is an ok superpower. A portal is not a bad power but again, pretty bland as well.

Number 6: Queen Bee

Yeah, Ironic since I'm a huge fan of the Chloe redemption idea, but canon did my girl rough.

From having her reveal herself publicly to essentially having her put lives at risk just to show off, Astruc really tried to hammer home that Chloe would not become a hero. Even the bit at the end of Queen Wasp wasn’t enough for me to get rid of my hatred for the episode.

Despite that, Malediktator and Miraculer (the second half at least) were enough to improve her in my books, but it's still a far step away from the other heroes rather simplistic intros. I would’ve been fine with Chloe’s intro to being a hero if the other heroes weren't treated marginally better in comparison. Everyone else was chosen by the ‘amazing’ Ladybug and all of them listened to Ladybug and did everything right and everyone else is perfect - While Chloe found the box by mistake and became a villain by the end of season 3. Really Astruc? Really?!

Despite all that and the season 3 finale, I still like Queen Bee, but there is no mistake that her introduction left a pretty bad mark on her (temporary) hero career.

Number 5: Viperion

Luka’s debut as a hero was also something I felt was off. Not only was Luka not chosen initially (due to Ladybug choosing Adrien for the sake of her crush, which was actually one of the good parts of the episode as Adrien basically chose Luka for her, and was some good character growth for Ladybug) but Luka’s abilities are kinda .... weird.

Not so much the superpower, the idea is based off the ouroboros, which has been misinterpreted before to represent ‘infinite’, which makes sense considering his power is a time loop but the tool itself.

Chat Noir and King Monkey have staffs, Ladybug has a yoyo which can tie up baddies, Rena has a flute which also functions as a mini staff, and Carapace has a freaking shield! Even Pegasus has a boomerang Horseshoe.

And Viperion ... has a freaking Lyre. A freaking musical instrument that doesn't even function as a weapon.

Sadly, Viperion’s tool was pretty much designed only for the Desperada episode, due to it allowing him to distract the main villain of said episode. Aside from that, it doesn’t really do much for him combat wise.

Hell, if you’re going to have Viperion have a freaking Lyre for a weapon, at least have a funny scene where they have him using it to serenade every boy and girl in Paris! Just have him play music and everyone just becomes swooned by him, as well as make straight guys confused on their sexuality.

0/10, not enough Luka serenading Paris for me.

Number 4: Carapace

The Anansi episode actually did a few things right for my boy. He fought Anansi by himself without a miraculous, which was a good thing, he kicked even more ass as a hero for a bit, which was also a good thing. Unfortunately, he, like every other hero, was not given a chance to shine as he was completely overtaken by Ladybug. Again, it's a running issue with every secondary hero, but after he becomes a hero, he is pretty much playing second fiddle to the ‘actual hero’.

Aside from that episode, he has some pretty rough luck with being a hero. Like all the other temp heroes, he was overtaken by the akuma in heroes day, with his only part being stopping Hawkmoth from attacking Ladybug and Cat Noir, which is still a good thing, but after that, he doesn't have really anything much going for him. Still though, like Roy, he is my boy, and I love our hero with a shell shield, even if he doesn't have actual Turtle Power.

Number 3: Ryuko

Cool Outfit? Check. Cool Power? Check. Badass Kagami? Double Check.

Kagami had a lot of good things going for her in her debut. Her power was one of the coolest I had seen in a while and she had a badass outfit to go with her. I also like Kagami a lot, so it helps with the favoritism a lot as well. Unfortunately, her identity was revealed to Hawkmoth, and she didn’t make that many appearances, even compared to other heroes. Still, she is pretty cool.

Number 2: King Monkey

Whoever decided to give Le Chien Kim a miraculous was absolutely bananas, but I suppose that is for the best. :)

Like Ryuko, he has one of the greatest costume designs, and his power is awesome as well, and Kim as a miraculous wielder is absolutely amazing, being sporadic, crazy and funny as well. However, he suffers from the same issue as Ryuko, with that being that he doesn’t have much screentime as a hero, even less than her.

The difference is that I love Kim a bit more due to his personality, and when you combine it with the monkey miraculous out of all miraculouses in the box, and I could just watch an entire series of Kim monkeying about Paris. He’s that cool and funny to me.

That just leaves number 1...

Number 1: Rena Rouge

Rena Rouge’s first appearance was one of the best introductions in the series (aside from King Monkey), and the episode itself was certainly one of the better ones compared to the rest of season 2.

When I first saw Rena Rouge back in season 2, I was amazed by the episode. It didn't have any bad or cringe moments, no character bashing, no implied salt, just Ladybug, Chat Noir, and the new hero bantering and joking with each other while fighting another akuma, and it was amazing. The fact that they showed being a hero through Alya’s perspective really helped to show her excitement at not only helping Ladybug and Chat Noir, but also being a hero flying through the air. Rena joking with Chat was certainly one of the highlights

But undoubtedly, the best part was probably at the end with her giving back the miraculous, and showing that no matter her feelings, she was one of the best choices as a hero, and proving to herself and others that she is hero material as much as Ladybug and Chat Noir. Again, this was before season 3 gave miraculous out like Oprah gives cars, but semantics. Going back, the episode still hasn't been sullied by time and remains one of the best episodes and hero introductions in the entire series. Which is why Rena Rogue deserves the top spot.

And there you have it! Feel free to create your own list of favorite secondary heroes in your reposts and tell us why they are at the spot on your own list.

For the sake of people I respect and watch on Tumblr, I ask @twin-books, @ratheroddranger, and @rucky-chan to make their own lists of favorite secondary heroes and tell us why they arranged their list that way! They don’t have to do it, but it would be cool if they did!

#Miraculous Ladybug #Miraculous Ladybug Secondary Hero List #Season 2 #Season 3 #Ranking Temp heroes from worst to best!

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klaineanummel · 7 years ago

Text

to all the couples we’ve been before

This has to be the most pointless disagreement Kurt and Blaine have ever had.

Or the one where Kurt and Blaine fight over who would be Lara Jean and who would be Peter K.

okay, so. this is a silly little drabble born of a conversation with @sunshineoptimismandangels about a klaine au of to all the boys i've loved before. i prompted on my main tumblr that someone write me that au with blaine as lara jean and kurt as peter k. i sent her the post because i wanted her to write it, and she replied "i feel like kurt would insist on being lara jean". i have made very little progress on my actual to all the boys i've loved before au, but i couldn't get the idea of kurt insisting he'd be lara jean out of my head. so, here that is :P

hope you all enjoy!!

warning for spoilers for “to all the boys i’ve loved before” on netflix

Read on AO3

“Why would they end it like that?!” Blaine is pointing at the screen dramatically, both hands extended violently toward it. “It was so perfect, and then they’re throwing a wrench into everything right at the end? What the heck?!”

Kurt pats Blaine’s shoulder as the credits continue to roll on their screen. “It’s just to set up for a potential sequel. I’m sure they’ll be fine.”

Blaine frowns, though he does lower his arms. “They better. It’s been a long time since a movie has managed to make me care about a straight couple, so they better not screw it up.”

“They won’t,” Kurt assures, smiling up at his husband. “I mean, come on! It’s so obvious that Peter K. and Lara Jean are soulmates. There’s no way they’d screw that up for some random model UN kid.”

Blaine is still shaking his head. “I just can’t believe it. One of the best movie couples in modern history, and they go and do that to them right at the end.”

“It’s okay, Blaine. I’m sure they end up together in the end. You know that all the good couples do.”

That makes Blaine perk up a little bit. “You mean like us?”

Kurt chuckles, but nods. “Yes, of course like us. In fact, why don’t we add Peter K. and Lara Jean to the list of amazing fiction and non-fictional couples that we are like.”

“Yes, definitely!” Blaine says.

And then, as if they’d planned it, both say at the same time, “But I’m Lara Jean.”

Kurt freezes, staring at a bewildered Blaine.

“Um, no you’re not,” Blaine says, then points a finger to himself. “I’m obviously Lara Jean.”

“Says you,” Kurt says. “I think it’s pretty clear to me that you’re the Peter K. in this situation.”

“No way,” Blaine replies, shaking his head. “That’s you, one-hundred percent.”

“Incorrect,” Kurt says. “I have way more in common with Lara Jean than you do.”

“Oh yeah?” Blaine asks, raising a challenging eyebrow. “Come on, then. Let me hear it.”

“Well,” Kurt ticks off one finger and says, “Obviously both of our mothers passed away. And Peter K’s parents are divorced, so that’s one for you and Peter K.”

“Okay, but Peter’s dad walked out on them and went off to have a new family. My parents mutually decided it would be better if—”

“Semantics!” Kurt says, waving him off. “Secondly, I had many unrequited crushes growing up, some of which were inappropriate in hindsight.”

Blaine groans. “Oh, as if I haven’t?”

“I had a crush on my step-brother, Blaine. You have to give me this one.”

Blaine rolls his eyes. “Okay, fine, whatever. I still think that counts for both of us, though.”

Kurt then says, “Also, I’m incredibly dramatic, and would react exactly the way that Lara Jean did if something like that happened to me.”

“Beg pardon? You want to claim that you can out-drama me? You’re not being very wise, my friend.”

“Okay, whatever mister wise-guy! How are you like Lara Jean, then?”

“Well, obviously I have an older sibling I felt I could never live up to.” He ticks off his first finger, then ticks off the second one. “In high school I was obsessed with the idea of having a boyfriend, but terrified of what the realities of that would look like, just like Lara Jean.”

“Okay, but that’s in high school, mister. We should be talking about ourselves how we are now.”

“Uh, no, because obviously at the beginning of the movie Lara Jean was afraid to actually date someone, but at the end she is happily dating Peter. So, there.”

“Whatever. What’s your third reason?”

“I’m half-Asian.”

“Oh, whatever,” Kurt says, shaking his head. “That’s not a good enough reason.”

“Why not! Not only am I half-Asian, but I was raised primarily by my white parent, because my Asian parent moved far away after the divorce, so I rarely got to see him. So that’s technically two reasons, which means I’m at four.”

“Blaine—”

“Nope, this is the hill I will die on, Kurt Hummel. I am Lara Jean, you are Peter K.”

“But I have nothing in common with Peter K!”

“Incorrect,” Blaine says. “You were both jocks in high school—”

“Being on the football team for two weeks does not count as being a jock in high school.”

“—you were both raised by single parents. You’re both white.”

“Oh, my god,” Kurt says. “This is such a ridiculous conversation. Obviously, I’m Lara Jean, come on Blaine. Anyone could see that.”

“I disagree.” Blaine says, tilting his chin up into the air. “Plus, you always get to be the awesome girl, and I end up being the kind-of-lame guy. I want to be the awesome girl for once. And Peter K. isn’t even a lame guy, so really I’m giving you a good deal here.”

“Well, what about with Love, Simon? I was the guy for that one!”

Kurt knows his argument on that front is weak, and Blaine instantly points it out saying, “They’re both guys for that one, Kurt. And you insisted that you were Simon and I was Bram, and even though Bram is not at all lame, he’s also the love interest instead of the protagonist. I want to be the protagonist for once!”

“You can be the protagonist next time. I’m Lara Jean, and you will pry that from my cold, dead hands.”

“No way,” Blaine replies. “I already told you, this is the hill I will die on.”

“Well then we’re going to die there together, because I’m Lara Jean and you’re Peter K.”

“Nope. I’m Lara Jean, and you’re Peter K.”

“Absolutely not,” Kurt says, crossing his arms. Blaine crosses his arms, too, and they stare at each other intently for at least a minute. Kurt barely even blinks, wanting Blaine to know he’s not fooling around. He’s Lara Jean, goddammit. He is Lara Jean.

It’s Blaine who finally breaks the eye contact, letting his arms fall to his side and slumping into the couch, chuckling as he looks off toward the TV. “This has got to be the stupidest disagreement we’ve ever had.”

Kurt feels himself smiling a little, which he hates because dammit, he just said this is the hill he’s going to die on. And yet, Blaine’s smile is so contagious. There should be a rule about that, honestly.

He sighs and leans back as well, reaching out to take his husband’s hand. “I guess we’ll have to agree to disagree about this one?”

Blaine chuckles. “I guess so. Besides,” he squeezes Kurt’s hand tightly. “No couple, fictional or otherwise, will ever be as incredible as Kurt and Blaine.”

Kurt grins up at Blaine, then leans forward and kisses his husband lightly on the lips. “Now that we can agree on.”

END NOTE: in case anyone cares, if i ever actually write the tatbilb au it would definitely be blaine as lara jean and kurt as peter k, but who knows if that fic will ever get written. right now it's mainly just an idea swirling around in my head -- so if you're an author and you're reading this and feel inspired, please feel free to write this fic. i'm dying to read it ;)

#klaine fic #klaine au #klaine #klaineanummel fic #sunshineoptimismandangels #new fic #pov: kurt #under 2k #future fic #married klaine

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tigerlover16-uk · 7 years ago

Note

Do you think that Dragon Ball Super is going to hold up better than Dragon Ball GT did long term? Or do you think it'll eventually fade into the background for most of the fandom as well and become a niche thing?

Part of that I think is going to depend on how the movie and the inevitable follow up series(s) are received… but most likely, yes.

Here’s where Super has the advantage over GT in that regard… it’s canon.

Or at least, it’s being treated as canon and is being used as the foundation from which modern Dragon Ball stories and products are going to be built off of for the foreseeable future. We can get into debates about semantics and this fandom’s rather annoying “There is no canon except maybe the manga!” mantra that I’ve never been in favour of, but Toei is treating it as the current canon for the moment and so does Toriyama, it seems.

The upcoming movie is going to be a follow up on Super. FighterZ, the recent fighting game that blew up and became a huge success recently to the point of bringing in a lot of new fans, has it’s story take place sometime during the events of Super, has beerus and Whis show up in the story, and includes characters like Hit and Goku Black on the base roster while Merged Zamasu and Vegito Blue are DLC, while no GT character has been added yet.

Even the Xenoverse games treated the events of Battle of Gods and Resurrection F as canon events, while GT was an afterthought in both, having DLC packs for the first game and it’s characters only appearing in side quests in the sequel, and it’s timeline treated as an alternate future on par with the old movies.

Even the upcoming PR anime for Dragon Ball Heroes is adapting an arc that’s more or less a follow up to the Future Trunks saga in Super. And when a ongoing “Canon” Dragon Ball show does get made (And it will. Toei aren’t going to keep it off the air for too long, Dragon Ball’s gotten too big and profitable again since Super started for them to want to let the franchise go dormant again for too long), it will inevitably be a sequel to Super.

Unless Toriyama changes his mind and decides to scrap everything from the last few years and start over with another new continuation of the manga (Which is unlikely considering how involved he’s been in Super’s production as well as the upcoming movie, and he’s shown no signs of wanting to stop putting out new stories), then it’s likely that for the foreseeable future, all future Dragon Ball series, movies and spin-offs are going to be made with the idea that Super and it’s follow ups are “Canon” events.

And that’s going to inevitably influence how hardcore fans, casuals, and the portion of general audiences who consume Dragon Ball content view things.

Whatever people’s perception of the Prequel Trilogy was initially, I don’t think it’s a stretch to say that more people have watched those, and new fans getting into Star Wars for the first time are ENCOURAGED to watch them, than have watched, say, the Star Wars Holiday Special or the Ewoks cartoons and specials.

Why?

Because love or hate them, the Prequel Trilogy is, now and forever, a crucial part of the Star Wars saga and the foundation for a large, important era of the franchise that has spawned a large number of spin off works, from comics to at least two cartoons, one of which is basically the predecessor to the most current Star Wars animated series, Rebels, and a number of it’s events and characters are followed up on in that show.

The Prequel Trilogy is an essential cornerstone of the Star Wars franchise, and even casual fans who aren’t interested in all the expanded universe stuff are going to watch them, because they’re episodes of the main film series that are the backbone of the entire franchise and whom millions and millions of people watched in theatres when they came out. For all the controversy and handwringing about “MY CHILDHOOD IS DEEEEEAAAAAAD!”, there’s no getting around the fact that the Prequel Trilogy will continue to have an overarching presence over the rest of the Star Wars franchise going forward. And over time, the movies have also been increasingly vindicated with more and more supporters feeling safe to express their support of it publicly.

As for the Holiday Special and Ewoks cartoon and movies? They’re not canon, never had as big a presence and impact in the first place, and the former is especially reviled among the fandom and is treated as a laughingstock that people only watch ironically, and considering it’s reputation for being terrible, not a HUGE amount of people are going to be inclined to watch it these days or in the next few decades because of that. I’ve never watched it, for example, and I never intend to.

No one is going to tell you that you have to, or even should, watch those products if you’re getting into the franchise. The general public who only care about the most mainstream installments of the Star Wars franchise, I.E the films, doesn’t even realize the Ewoks HAD their own cartoon and made for TV films. I’ll bet there are going to be people reading this post shocked about it.

This goes for the rest of the Star Wars expanded universe too, the old one and the new. If you ask people on the street or people who are generally casual Star Wars fans for the most part, they’ll probably be able to tell you who Darth Maul and Captain Phasma are… but significantly less people will know what you’re talking about if you bring up Thrawn, Asajj Ventress or Savage Opress.

Not because they aren’t good characters who are memorable and interesting in their own right, heck they’re more developed and interesting than Phasma ever was. But because they’re not mainstream, and in Thrawn’s case he wasn’t even canon to the current EU anymore until Rebels introduced their own take on him (I haven’t seen the 4th season, so I can’t discuss how that worked out).

I think GT has, and is going to have a similar issue to a lot of those expanded universe and non-canon Star Wars works going forward.

Let’s not kid ourselves, while it might have had some support when it was first airing, GT came out at a bad time both in Japan and in the West, and here in the West especially didn’t leave a good lasting impression.

In Japan, franchise fatigue for Dragon Ball as a whole was starting to set in around the time of the Buu Saga. While the saga was well received there and is looked back on fondly, Z’s ratings were continuously declining after the Cell Saga, and they declined more sharply during GT’s early run because the majority of people found the Black Star Dragon Balls saga boring.

While GT did pick up momentum again with the Baby saga which restored some interest, it didn’t actually do a thing to help the gradually increasing sense of fatigue. Ratings still steadily declined later on in the shows run (Admittedly not much more than they were during the Buu Saga, to be fair), but merchandise and revenue for Dragon Ball was going down really fast, which caused Toei to hastily pull the plug on the series, recognizing the fatigue and that Dragon Ball needed a bit of a break. (This is likely why the ending felt so rushed and sudden, BTW).

So while it wasn’t viewed as a disaster or anything and a lot of elements from the series are still well regarded and promoted in merchandise and video games like Heroes (Super Saiyan 4, some of the villains, etc), it’s never been as well regarded as the rest of the series and certainly wasn’t as successful in terms of profit and renewed interest in the franchise as Super has brought forth.

In the West, it’s case is even worse. The Buu Saga was much more controversial when it aired in America to the point that for years a significant segment of the franchise ragged on it as being the worst thing to come out of Z. Buu was supposedly the worst villain, Babidi stinks, “THEY RUINED GOHAN!”, etc. (I personally always thought that was nonsense and I love the Buu Saga, and in recent years the general consensus has improved, but these reactions were common and a lot of people still resent the saga to this day or at least hold it in less regard than the previous ones).

Dragon Ball Z’s popularity and the initial hype the show had gained after finally catching on in America (And here in the UK) had started to wane by this point, and a large portion of viewers who had been watching jumped ship by that point. While GT enjoyed some acceptance by the fanbase at first, by the time it finished and in the years that followed, it became regarded as the black sheep of the entire franchise (Until Evolution came along, anyway), with loud and vocal hate thrown at it for years.

People were quick and eager to declare it non-canon and shoot down the possibility of it being so, to the point that even before the franchise itself started gradually downplaying it’s significance in favour of the newer works, pretty much the majority of people were in agreement over it’s non-canon status.

And the fact that it came out at a time where Dragon Ball Z was starting to slowly lose it’s hype among casual fans and the general public (And then became an internet laughing stock until roughly the start of the current decade when Kai’s dub came out and starting a gradual renaissance where the series regained a lot of respect in the West), means that GT, while a lot of people do know about it, has never had as much of a mainstream presence in the West (Kind of like the Original Dragon Ball, sadly), being mostly something the hardcore fandom was invested in enough to watch and discuss… and again, for years the consensus was that most people hated it.

It’s true that GT hate has calmed down in more recent times among the fandom, and while it’s still not well regarded it’s defenders are more vocal and comfortable about supporting the show than before. And there is a common consensus that the show had a lot of good ideas, even if most of them weren’t executed as well as they could have been.

There are definitely people who have revisited the series and appreciated it more nowadays… and people like me who used to defend it but immediately started hating it after re-watching it :P.

But here’s the thing a lot of those defenders might be surprised or try to smugly lecture me about how wrong I am over… GT these days is, like you suggested anon… a NICHE.

GT’s fans may be vocal in a lot of places online, but in the grand scheme of things… people generally don’t care much about it either way. And the fact that it’s non-canon and has officially been replaced as the “Official” Dragon Ball follow up means that in the years to come, it’s only going to become less and less relevant.

Regardless of how much of a broken base there might be over the series in the fandom, you can’t argue that Super isn’t a big success for Toei and the Dragon Ball brand in terms of promotion and profits.

Here’s one of several graphs I can find online demonstrating the revenue the Dragon Ball franchise as a whole has been bringing in for Toei over the last decade.

Notice how when Kai first aired, it barely made a blip in merchandise sales and overall income for the franchise, and by the time it ended it’s initial run in Japan revenue kept falling until the year after Battle of Gods came out, and then in 2015 after Super was announced suddenly everything started to explode and it’s become super profitable, peaking this year even with Super’s conclusion?

Heck, it’s Toei’s most profitable franchise again nowadays, bringing in slightly more than twice as much as One piece even in Japan, which is a longtime juggernaut franchise. And general enthusiasm from both the public and fandom is at a high not seen in years.

It’s certainly not to the level of when it first aired. Super is also significantly less of a mainstream hit in Western Countries that aren’t Latin America than Z was aswell, certainly (Probably doesn’t help that the Toonami Block it now airs in is a late night slot that only fanboys stay up to watch).

But it’s still popular and watched by a lot of people, and the fandom is especially deep into it.

Heck, bringing up Latin American countries again where Dragon Ball has historically been extremely popular and a staple of pop culture, Super and the movies it spawned from are huge hits, to the point that across various countries including Mexico, huge public events were held in many cities and community centres where large crowds of people, many numbering in the THOUSANDS, gathered to watch the streams for the last two episodes of DBS. Which were huge hits, of course.

All things considered, Battle of Gods, Resurrection F and Super left more of a positive impact for the franchise starting out since, regardless of Super’s… very bumpy start and production, these works have been big hits that caused a franchise renaissance that generally brought Dragon ball back to a level of prominence and success it hasn’t seen in a long time.

A far cry from GT which pretty much signalled Dragon Ball’s leave of absence from the mainstream, during which time interest in the series waned for years even with Kai helping to restore it’s rep a fair bit (At least in America, said series was met with more of a meh reaction in Japan).

The results of this can’t be understated. Worldwide, Super has brought in a number of new fans. For many children and teenage fans, it’s going to be their introduction to Dragon Ball, or at least a cornerstone of their formative experiences with the franchise.

Many casual fans who had long drifted off from Dragon Ball were drawn back into the fold when Super came out, many people becoming bigger fans of Dragon Ball than ever as a result of that. I’ve talked with a number of people on this site who have admitted that Super actually helped them to appreciate Dragon ball in general a lot more whereas they only had a casual interest in the franchise before.

And a lot of those people are probably going to stick around rather than drift off again in favour of other series, considering we have the movie coming up, potential new shows in the near future, and other high profile Dragon Ball products like FighterZ to keep them occupied.

For every fan who complains about Super or is put off by it, I’ve seen as many, actually more, express a lot of thanks to it. Right before my recent break I remember reading a post from someone who admitted to never liking the Dragon ball franchise, being a Naruto fan before that started to disappoint them later on to the point they felt nothing when it ended (A feeling I find tragically relatable).

Said person said they started watching Super at some point as a joke… and by the time of watching the last episode, they had become a big converted fanboy, loved the majority of characters, had watched the previous series (I think, I might be remembering that part wrong), and even cried at the last episode due to being so emotionally invested.

For as many fans as there are who like to pick apart Super (And to be fair it is a flawed series and I do think it’s fair to criticise it’s missteps, I have issues like anyone else despite overall loving it), it IS generally a well liked series.

It’s true that a lot of that could fade with time. Heck, I’m sure a lot of people will like it somewhat less with hindsight and the hype wearing down.

On that note, I think some people might also like it more after a while.

Did you know that earlier on in Super’s run, people actually complained A LOT about the Slice of Life episodes, finding them a waste of time and no different to DBZ filler? Even by the end of the Champa saga that opinion started to soften and everyone started realizing how fun the slice of life episodes were, to the point that everything between the Future Trunks and Universe Survival Sagas is some of the most beloved content from the show now.

Even the potaufeu arc, widely despised when it first aired, has a bit of a better reception now. it’s not considered particularly GOOD, mind you, but people generally regard it as okay and at worst harmless now, compared to the hate it got earlier on. Helps that Brian Drummond was cast as Copy Vegeta for the dub, I guess.

A lot of other elements of the show have been viewed more fondly over time too, in addition to the stuff that gets more flak.

So it’s highly possible that, if the upcoming movie and any Dragon Ball series that follow up on Super in the near future are generally well received, opinions on Super from people who are critical of it now might gradually soften over time, at least to the point that a lot of people complaining about how the franchise is supposedly being “Ruined” might stop and realize they might have overreacted a little.

The opposite could also be true, we could have another series that’s a complete trainwreck and that could sour the fandoms opinions over modern Dragon ball as a whole, lead to a great decline in public interest and probably put us back on a franchise hiatus.

Which would stink a lot, let me tell you, and Super probably wouldn’t be remembered THAT fondly in that case… but to be honest, I have faith things will turn out at least reasonably well. Everything I’ve heard about the recent movie and it’s production suggests that Toei have put a ton of care and effort into making it right, and giving us the best product possible for a milestone movie like this.

And that suggests to me that they’ve learned from their missteps.

The big issue with Super, both in terms of it’s production values and writing, was ALWAYS down to it’s rushed production. The show was rushed to be aired, and that had a catastrophic effect that the show never completely recovered from, even when it did mostly stabilise later on.

But between the big increase in it’s production quality later on, the care that seems to be going into the movie, and the fact that behind the scenes Toei and Shueisha seem to be restructuring a lot of stuff to better focus on producing Dragon ball content and planning out new directions for the franchise… it feels like Toei are making all the right moves to keep Dragon ball relevant, and more importantly, GOOD into the foreseeable future.

They seem to have learned from their mistakes. And considering Super DID have a number of talented animators and writers working on it who did do a lot of good even though they were in far from suitable conditions… I for one feel confident that Toei could produce a much better follow up to Super down the line.

And if that’s the case, and Super does continue to be the launching pad for future stories in the Dragon Ball franchise for years to come… that’ll help it’s image to an extent.

Because even if the series itself is continuously acknowledged as having problems, if Dragon Ball is still relevant two or three decades from now and still producing moderately well received series… fans are going to encourage newcomers and casuals to watch Super to “Get the full story”. Just like Star Wars fans these days unanimously agree that, whatever the quality, you should watch the Prequels and yes, they do count (Even if begrudgingly to a lot of people).

GT… will never have that.

See, as much as it’s fanboy’s like to pretend the support for GT these days is bigger than it is… most people who watch Dragon Ball either haven’t watched it, haven’t watched it in years, and probably aren’t going to watch it anytime soon.

Heck, half the people watching Super these last few years haven’t watched Dragon Ball Z since it was initially airing. I have a mutual who’s a BIG Dragon Ball fangirl, who writes fanfiction (Usually Vegebul related) and is one of the most passionate and positive people you’ll see on this site when it comes to Dragon Ball… she also regularly admits that while she needs to get around to it, she hasn’t actually watched Dragon Ball of Z since she was a kid, just clips of it and I think Kai. (On that note she didn’t watch GT because she couldn’t get into it, she did watch the first two episodes recently but seemingly hasn’t found the time to get further into it).

This is actually surprisingly common among the fandom. I remember when the first episodes of the Super dub were airing someone who had clearly only watched the dub of Kai before was confused while watching Super and Kai: The Final Chapters back to back, wondering if Elder Kai as seen in Super was the same character as Shin The Supreme Kai. There’s a ton of people out there who’s only experience with Dragon Ball was watching Kai’s dub years ago and getting back into it now because the franchise is putting out new major installments.

FYI, this is also one of the big reason that memes, particularly TFS related, have taken over the fandom and warped the perception of the series and the characters so much over the years. A majority of people who call themselves Dragon ball fans are actually casuals who don’t re-watch the series often and look to the fandom side of things to refresh their memories and base their opinions off of since they probably never thought too hard about the series other than “This show is fun, and these characters are my favourite!” before.

And no, that doesn’t make those people less of a fan than people who re-watch/read the series yearly and are obsessive about it, because screw that elitist noise. I’m just pointing out that… well… many people’s interest in Dragon Ball, as with many mainstream franchises, is very much in the “Here and now” variety. Especially in the age of Crunchyroll, Netflix and online streaming, where anime fans are constantly binging and hopping around from one series to the next.

Hardcore fanboys and people who have nostalgia for it are the only people who actually care about GT more than enough to casually acknowledge it’s existence from time to time. And while you might get the impression by browsing the internet, fansites, forums, comments sections, etc that the hardcore fandom is most of the people that watch and talk about Dragon Ball… they’re really not, in the grand scheme of things.

Going by Star Wars comparisons again, this video by Moviebob should explain what I’m talking about better than I can.

youtube

To sum everything up nicely though… GT is non-canon and hasn’t actually been relevant for two decades. It has long had a reputation as one of the worst things in the franchise, and while there are certainly things the fandom likes about it and plenty of people willing to go back and watch and then defend it (And people like me who re-watch it and end up hating it where we used to defend it, too), it’s status as non-canon and the fact that it has officially been replaced by a new ongoing continuity means that it’s only going to become more and more niche over time as the fandom grows and changes.

And about two or three decades from now, new fans aren’t likely to be encouraged to watch it when there are various other sequels to Z starting with Super to get through, even before you take supplementary material like the movies and video games into consideration than only people looking to go hardcore will want to look up.

However Super is viewed in the future, it seems highly likely to me that it’s going to be held in at least higher regard by a significant portion of the people who are really into Dragon Ball over the next few decades if only because it was the necessary flint that sparked the era of new content more ambitious than the occasional OVA we’d been getting every few years before Battle of Gods came out.

Heck, even in terms of content, I think people in the fandom are going to look back on Super more fondly than GT because it gives people more stuff that appeals to them.

Think about it, Super has given us a plethora of popular characters. Beerus and Whis and Jaco are holdovers from the movies sure, but the former two are easily more popular than literally any character to come out of GT.

And in Super itself? We have huge fan favourites like Hit, Caulifla, Vados, and various characters from the universe Survival Saga. Super arguably has introduced a lot more popular characters than GT did, which included… uh… Baby, Nuova Shenron and maybe Omega Shenron to those who don’t find him unremarkable.

And be honest… unless you intentionally go looking for it, when was the last time you really saw fanart or anything about Baby or Nuova Shenron floating around here? Now when was the last time you saw stuff for Frieza, Cell, Beerus or Broly?

There’s probably a big gap there. Sure is for me.

And Super did a lot more for the supporting cast too. Krillin and Gohan got their own character arcs, Android 18 was a highlight in the Tournament of Power and saw the most action she’s seen in any series (Plus a ton of extra insight into her and Krillin’s relationship and great shipping moments, plus new interactions with her brother and other characters). Frieza may have hit a rough spot with the RF saga, but the Universe Survival Saga showed him at his very best and made the fandom fall in love with his character all over again.

And Android 17? He went from being the least appreciated of the trio of him, 18 and Android 16 to being a huge fandom darling and is regularly agreed to be the MVP of the universe survival saga, if not Super PERIOD.

I could go on too, because for all it’s missteps, Super actually did go out of it’s way to do things with the characters and expand the universe in various ways, leaving tons of potential for new stories for years to come in it’s wake…

GT though? Let’s be honest, the most popular thing to come out of that was super Saiyan 4. And while I love that form… in the grand scheme of things, transformations are actually one of the least important things about the Dragon ball series, so that right there is a sign that somethings off there.

GT really is designed to be a series that appeals to certain subgroups of fans, and feels alienating to many others. It starts off with an arc that jettisons the majority of the cast in favour of a trio featuring Goku reduced to a kid again, a grown up Trunks, and Pan… who’s portrayed as an annoying brat who’s more of a detriment to the group than anything. Plus a cute robot sidekick to boot, and they all go on boring space adventures for a while.

It has all of one arc that’s all around good (…mostly…), followed up by what’s almost unanimously considered a trainwreck of a mini-arc that, as I’ve said before, looks worse than ever in light of Super due to it’s mishandling of Android 17′s character and the past villains, in comparison to how 17 and Frieza were handled in Super’s last arc. And then we get a final arc that had an awesome premise that devolved into a huge mess due to poor writing and most of the villains being annoying, underwhelming monsters of the week and the final boss being very unsatisfying, capped off by an ending that’s always been wildly divisive.

I’m not going to say that GT, as a what-if spin-off like it currently is, was a complete flop. But it’s definitely a series that I think takes a certain kind of fan to appreciate, whereas I think that Super, for all it’s own faults, in general is a show that captures a lot more of what gave the previous series their wider appeal and generally gives more people what they want.

Not everyone of course… but unlike GT, which really isn’t going to have any continuations anytime soon to do any course corrections or make up for any lost potential, a lot of Super’s missed opportunities can easily be made up by whatever series and movies come after it.

In general I just think that Super has more stuff that a wider group of people are going to be inclined to want to come back to.

Heck, on that note, a lot of people only like GT because it’s pretty much their only resource for Next Gen, post EoZ official Dragon Ball content. People starved for content about Uub, Pan, Bulla, Marron etc especially still use their GT designs as a basis for aged up fan art, and a lot of people who are fans of said character look to GT because outside of a few video games, they don’t have a lot of content for them.

I guarantee you though the minute a new series is made someday set past EoZ again which does more with those characters or otherwise portrays them better than GT did, those holdovers will gladly jump ship, because who in their right mind is going to buy bread crumbs from a shady street vendor when that new bakery across the street is giving away whole loafs?

I could really go on and on talking about this subject, because I actually find this interesting to discuss and speculate on, but it’s getting late and this is getting ridiculously long, so I’m just going to leave it here for now and give you my conclusion.

Yes. I think for most people, Super will be remembered more fondly than GT in the long run. Whether Super will be viewed particularly well in of itself years from now is another matter entirely, it’s probably always going to be a big base breaker at the very least. But on the whole… regardless of how you feel about the two series, I think it’s safe to say it has the advantage.

#dragon ball super #dbs #dragon ball gt #dragon ball #dragon ball z #dbz #dbgt

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cosmosogler · 7 years ago

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hello everyone.

today i did actually make my lunch and get to campus around 11:40 or so. i worked for a while until rebika showed up, which is when i took a small lunch break, and then we worked together for about two hours. i finished two practice problems- one full problem, most of another, and 1/4 of a third. ammar came to help, and adamya made a guest appearance, and mainak also helped a bit. so we had a whole adventure. we didn’t solve the problem we were having, which is why one problem got left at “mostly finished.”

i came home around 3:30 and got to work drawing. i talked with oz for a while, which was nice and kept me focused on my project, since i can’t read and talk on the phone at the same time.

i had an alright dinner, and i did my dishes and some chores, and i started listening to welcome to night vale. i really liked it so i listened through four episodes while i worked. hearing “the bus is late” as a “weather report” probably made me the most delighted i’ve felt in days. i was so surprised by this wonderful song.

comic wise i finished over an entire page of drawing. i’ve got four panels left in scene 3, and then scene 4 is also three pages. i look at the endless expanse of panels to finish before i can post these tiny story tidbits and i weep.

i ended up changing a lot of things from my boards but i think the final drafts of these next two scenes work a lot better as, like... showing the reader that we and nas don’t really know the main character anymore. her friend’s been replaced by a terrifying volatile asshole.

it’s good.

anyway doing practice problems made me feel a little better again, even though i noticed i was STILL having too much trouble getting started on problems without a set of directions in front of me. when i almost fell asleep while i was actively in the process of writing equations in my ipad i called it a day. too stressed i guess. or something. maybe i need more sleep. i probably need more sleep in addition to my many other problems. snoopy isn’t helping.

i feel like whenever i bring up my feelings all i can think or talk about is how lonely i feel. makes me feel pathetic. this should be an easy problem to solve. i hate going through the process of making friends though, deciding when and when not to be “vulnerable,” getting furious with myself every time i feel like i overshared, beating myself up when i let a conversation die because i didn’t share... i’m 25! i’m almost 26!! i should be better at this by now!!!

i hate making friends and then getting ditched, or worse. it could be so much worse than getting ditched... it makes it hard to invest. it makes it hard to be interested in other people when i spend the whole conversation sweating over whether or not to tell this or that story, or share how bad i’m feeling.

but the longer i go without talking to people the less interested i feel in it (even though the desire to be heard never goes away at all), and the less... “able” i feel to do it. reality gets all tangled up and things kinda happen around me and it feels like a dream. but i know i gotta get up and react to the world, because i know in my head it’s probably not a dream. and even if it is, when i get hurt in my dreams, it hurts! so either way i gotta pay attention, and i have no energy to pay attention.

i feel so powerless. when i would hang out with my classmates i felt so unseen. people would talk over me even after i had started a sentence. i look at these other people and i don’t know what to do. i don’t know how to make myself likable to them and turn myself into a friend. i look at the physics problems and i don’t know how to make myself remember how to do physics. like if i don’t have the answer in front of me, the instructions, i just kind of look at it helplessly. even though when i look at the answer my brain immediately puts together how everything works and i am able to explain it to my classmates (their own math, by the way, i was following- they needed me to explain their answer to them). i feel so dopey. i have all these different things and ideas and i can’t put any of them together to make an answer. socially, academically, financially...

at least with making phone calls and stuff i can write down a general set of directions and then follow them. you know, “introduce yourself, give some context, say what the problem is, wait for their questions.” i have clear small steps i can follow.

but i have so much trouble breaking other things down. even doing the dishes i kind of gawk down at the sink for a few minutes. even if there’s, like, only a plate and a fork in there it feels like Doing Dishes, Which Takes Ten Minutes.

i noticed last semester in therapy, with that counselor who made me feel bad, i couldn’t break myself down either. that’s what she was trying to do. break me into different pieces to see how they each worked in a more manageable way. but i couldn’t really get behind that idea. the part of me that feels sad all the time is the same part of me that likes doing physics. it’s One Unit, Which Has A Lot Of Feelings. untangling those feelings turns into a huge ordeal because i can’t break myself down into clear small bits that are easy to figure out individually.

i do that with words and ideas too. i have trouble distinguishing between things sometimes, or seeing what the point of separating them is. i could not articulate that concept (or lack of a concept, i guess) to harrison a few weeks ago and we argued about it for hours because i couldn’t make him understand how i saw it. i feel like no one understands how i see it because even i can’t understand how i see it. i can’t even figure out how to describe an example here. we were arguing about platonic ideals and perfection and i said the idea of perfection was complete nonsense to me. things aren’t “perfect” or “imperfect.” they just “are” how they “are.”

i can see why the idea of a platonic ideal, the “perfect chair” or whatever, is useful for common language, but at the same time... that way of looking at the world lends itself well to seeing imperfections everywhere and judging those imperfections as inferior to that imaginary ideal.

like christianity and sin. “nobody’s perfect.” you just are what you are. you change, and grow, and shrink in other ways, and you’re always changing in little ways even as you remain yourself, but that’s not imperfect or perfect. it’s just existing.

and yet... i argue semantics endlessly and i never get bored of making stupid distinctions between words, choosing every one carefully, even when i’m just rambling for hours like this. picking apart other people’s words. why do i even care? do i know what they meant? do they know what they meant? why is the distinction there so important to me when i don’t even like the tools we use to make language into coherent communication?

see i got all turned around. i wanted to talk about why i’m having so much trouble solving physics problems and it turned into an overwhelming philosophical question. navel gazing. i can’t tell if it’s a bad habit or not. probably a mixed bag. it’s not helping me right now.

i feel like... there’s something wrong in my life. something wrong in the way i am able to interact with my life. that disconnect is making all these different aspects of my life break and become much harder than they need to be. much harder than they are for “normal” people.

i could blame my upbringing. i could blame my parents. i’d probably be right, too. but at some point i gotta get up and move on and take care of myself and start having all those skills that normal people my age have. like basic problem solving. “learning how to think critically.” and i feel like i’m not doing that. but i have no idea how to even start.

worse yet, i get the feeling i probably do have those skills and there’s something else i’m not getting, but i can’t see the ACTUAL problem because my confidence is all shot to hell.

i can’t tell what’s really happening. i can’t tell what’s real. i wish someone else could tell me or teach me how to tell for myself. i have no idea how i look to other people, and i have no idea how to describe my personality or my being most of the time. i have no idea how to describe my life other than “i am very unhappy now, and i have been unhappy for a very long time,” and i know that comes off as pathetic and most people will just call me a pessimist.

but i am, truly, very unhappy. and i have been for a very long time.

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tricksterxangel · 8 years ago

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News...Of Sorts...

So...I feel I should explain some of my moodiness of late...it's gunna be a bit lengthy & maybe a bit on the TMI (monthly lady stuff) side... So, back in March I had my period two weeks after I just had it. And it was super painful, like hurt to walk painful. This is highly unusual for moi, so my Dr got me in for an ultrasound that day. Long story short, we found out I had a 5cm cyst on my right ovary. Pain went away, period went back to normal. Had follow up appointment with my Dr & found out I could get an IUD for birth control which would (hopefully) stop my period all together & thus avoid any further issue from annoying, painful periods. So I got an appointment with the GYN at my Hospital for the end of April. So I'm a Happy Camper™, joking to my close friends: 'I feel like I should have a party to celebrate my last period.' Haha, it's all fun & games & the morning of my appointment comes. I take 800mg of Ibuprofen as a preventative & go in. Cue the AWESOME GYN Dr being super concerned about my cyst. It's of a size that is well, concerning. So weather I want it or not, I'm getting a Pap (which I wasn't due for until Dec.). No big deal. Then he informs me (well, before the Pap, but whatever, semantics); he'd like to do a biopsy. Which can be on the 'painful' side. He told me I could schedule that for another day if I'd like, but I said I was already planning on a bit of discomfort so, we might as well go ahead. It gets super intense here because you literally have to sign a waiver saying you've given them permission to do the biopsy. And you have to explain to the Nurse who is in the room with you what is going to happen. Clearly so they know YOU understand. So anyways, up on the table, feet in the ole stirrups & I'm staring up at the ceiling trying to think of anything to make this less awkward...Soooooo I think of Gabriel in his Dr. Sexy getup...& I fucking start smirking. Now we were still on the Pap at this point, & I was nearly giggling so I quickly had to drop any & all thoughts of Gabe. Because OMG no. 😂 On to the biopsy. That. Fucking. Hurt. You're warned it can cause cramps. I don't know how it is for anyone else, but when I get cramps on my period they start gradual, so you have some warning. This literally went from: Zero pain to MOTHERFUCKING OFF THE PAIN SCALE in 2.5 seconds. The Nurse was telling me to breath. I have never given birth. This is what I imagine it to be like. I never want to go through that again. So I'm sent on my way, told it would be tested at my hospital & also with another ultrasound scheduled & blood work. I get the blood drawn the next day, ultrasound scheduled for two weeks later. Get letter in the mail (condensed here): Biopsy benign, but being sent out for 2nd opinion (which is 100% normal). This was 05/06. On 05/09 I get a phone call from my GYN. I am told: I will be going to the VA in Boston to have a total hysterectomy. The reason I have to go to Boston is because that VA has an oncologist there. They will literally test it once it's out & if need be go back in & take out lymph nodes. CUE ME FREAKING OUT Now to be fair, my Dr was AMAZING, & so apologetic to be giving this info over the phone. Now I couldn't even tell my Parents about this because they were flying back to Maine from California this day. I didn't feel like they needed this info when they were stuck in an airport. So I unloaded on my Sister (while she was at work-sorry Kiddo!) & waited. The good news was/is my cyst has shrunk nearly in half. So that's super good. Also all my blood work came back great, so looking pretty positive that it's NOT ovarian cancer. So got to tell my Parents (face to face) the next evening. They were (obviously) shocked & are concerned (let's be honest, I'm their fave daughter 😁). I have a consult down at the VA in Boston on 06/05. I'm trying to remain positive about the whole thing. I make jokes about 'Well, if they're going to be rooting around down there, how about a lil tummy tuck while they're at it?' But I doubt that'll happen. I'm nerved up because (& this sounds so superficial of me BUT) I have a cruise planned for the end of July with my Family for my Nephew's birthday. I am not going to miss this. So this surgery needs to happen after. I'm not worried about missing work, I have over 700 hours of Sick Leave, so my co-workers can fucking SUCK IT. I haven't missed a day of work (sick day) since I started in Sept. 2014. I took a half day in March. That was it. So, needless to say: I'm a little stressed. And depressed. And my emotions are every which way. My GYN asked if I had children (this last visit was the 1st time I'd met the poor guy, my reg Dr always did my Pap), & I could tell he was nervous about asking it. I said no & I could just hear the gears ticking in his head over the phone. I quickly reassured him I had never really been interested in having them, & at 40 (almost 41) had accepted that I wouldn't. I joked with my friends at work: 'I guess this means I can't get knocked up by a famous guy when I go to my Con in October.' To which they replied: 'That could make it more fun.' But here's the thing: It's one thing to say I choose to not have kids. It's another thing to have that choice taken completely away from you. Now yes, I know I could adopt if I really wanted kids (& honestly I'm 99.9% sure I don't'). But I have always wondered what being pregnant felt like. And now I'll never know. And yes, I am aware that is NOT a reason to have a child. But still, there it is. Anyway. That is why I'm moody & depressed lately. Why you'll likely see see a lot more posts about me being moody & depressed. I simply have a shit ton of STUFF on my mind. I have an appointment this Thursday with my GYN here, so I'll get a lot more clarification & in person which will help. I'll keep everyone posted. I'm super sorry about how TMI this is, but well, it is what it is, I figured it was the easiest way to explain. If you have any questions, feel free to Ask Box me, if you want me to reply privately, just let me know, otherwise I'll likely reply so everyone can see. And yes, I was really fucking smirking thinking of Gabe. 😂

#out of grace #personal

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mesaaana · 8 years ago

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All right, so The Well of Ascension. I finished it. In like four days. Even though i’m back at school. But anyway.

Also, I’m actually writing this from a computer rather than a phone app so...warning for excessive italics. Yes, I’m one of those people

It’s one of those books where, after finishing it, I had to take a break rather than immediately start the next in the series like I usually might. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, the ending - and the pace in about the last 200 pages or so - was exhausting. It was like the Battle of Hogwarts or something in there, is what I’m saying.

so, that downer ending though. is it just me, or do second installments in trilogies almost always have a downer ending? Empire Strikes Back, Catching Fire (and yes, I DID read The Hunger Games), the second season of Avatar: The Last Airbender (actually i think the writers of this were specifically going for the Empire Strikes Back vibe so ha). I’m sure there are other examples, i just can’t think of any at the moment.

there were character deaths! sure, in the first book, one of the main protagonists (Kelsier) died right before the climax, but (1) i believe tvtropes.org calls it “Mentor Occupational Hazard” and (2) he engineered a situation where he would be made a martyr so that hardly counts. admittedly, Clubs and Dockson were not SUPER important, but they did tie us to the first book and Clubs got an actual personality in this one (rather than just “Uncle Grumpy”, as Spook called him), so it was still tragic. even more tragic was Tindwyl’s death....

obviously the downeriest downer of them all was Sazed, who arguably suffered the most out of Our Heroes. but i think I’ll talk about him (and Tindwyl) last.

Um so when I finished The Final Empire, i remember being....unsatisfied with the fact that Elend became king. I think my concerns were more or less addressed, and i did get on board with it. his character development seemed natural, rather than forced because “the plot demanded it”, so i have no reason to complain. but now, yet again, i have reservations about him becoming Mistborn. sure, he was slowly turning into a more...physical character (walking right into an army of titans blue giants comes to mind in particular), but now i wonder how this development will change him. i can’t see the author making “more powerful” than Vin, since to me it seems like she’s something of an exception; that being said, if Elend does end up stronger than Vin in the Allomancy department, i will be supremely (or should I say imperially?) pissed because (1) they’re married and that would throw a wrench into their dynamic, (2) it would seem AWFULLY suspicious if the most physically capable CHARACTER who happens to be a WOMAN suddenly had her MALE LOVE INTEREST stronger than her, and of course (3) it’s just lame, especially when you consider how much Vin pushes the envelope both with her sheer natural talent as well as her ingenuity when it comes with her powers. so don’t let Elend hijack that k thnx

(speaking of Vin’s “sheer natural talent” will we ever get an explanation why? or is she just that cool? hey i wouldn’t mind too much if it was the latter but i do prefer to have an actual reason)

okay now I talk about Vin, who is arguably THE protagonist of the series (so far, I suppose; i mean, she is on all three book covers). i think i’m satisfied with the direction her character took. she had a rough childhood (which is an understatement), and despite her....adaptation to Kelsier’s crew, it would not have been possible for everything to simply be all hunky dory from then on. so Kelsier’s death and her killing the Lord Ruler took their toll on her, in that she became estranged (and it was definitely at least somewhat self-imposed) from basically everyone on account of her “weirdness” and exceptionalism. hey, the life of a prodigious Mistborn, I guess? being a loner among friends is tough, you guys. but this left room for another definitely sinister Mistborn to swoop in and befriend her and....well, be entirely selfish with his interactions with Vin. so i might have cheered a little when she chose to not leave with Zane. also it must be incredibly stressful to be looked up to as a hero. i guess she’s the Superman to Luthadel’s Metropolis? albeit much darker and, uh, willing to kill and whatnot? also i enjoyed her reluctant allies-to-friends thing with “OreSeur”/TenSoon, and that TenSoon felt guilty about spying on her? *swoon* anyway, maybe it’s because i don’t really know how these things work, but i’m rather inclined to think that Vin’s relationship with Elend straddles a very fine line between “healthy” and “unhealthy”, as in she might just be a little too codependent on him. but again, it’s probably also an outcome of her upbringing

so i could probably talk about Breeze, or Zane, or Allrianne, or Straff, or Jastes, or anyone really, but i don’t particularly want to except to say:

(1) for Breeze I find myself almost disappointed that the reason he never showed interest in women wasn’t simply that he was gay. i think his reasons though are...noble, I will say, and in a Crapsack World like this...yay

(2) Straff should’ve found Zane a therapist. or, ya know, been a better father. Straff was just a terrible human being and i’m actually sad that it wasn’t Amaranta who succeeded in killing him, because that would’ve been Poetic, or something.

(3) Allrianne i did not really get. i feel like she was a plot device almost intended for us to see how “good” Breeze was. i understand she was by no means as stupid as she seemed (perhaps because people are predisposed to think that vanity = stupidity) but otherwise she served little enough purpose beyond convincing (more like bullying, but semantics) her father to side with Luthadel’s defenders

(4) Jastes, however, was an idiot, completely, absolutely, an idiot.

and now, Marsh. i have no idea what his deal with, and why he disappeared for most of the book, but i SINCERELY hope we find out. did becoming an Inquisitor do something to him? is the thing that Vin accidentally released controlling him somehow?

(is the ghost in the mist really as...not benevolent, exactly, but less sinister than it seemed there at the end? stabbing Elend aside, of course)

okay, Tindwyl. Purpose #1: king Elend. Purpose #2: annoy Vin, and perhaps make her think. Purpose #3: voice of reason. Purpose #4: be someone for Sazed to love then lose. Yeah, i’m not too crazy about Purpose #4, not after getting another named female character....that was fridged before the end of the book. Sigh, you can’t have everything in life.

this doesn’t mean Sazed does not have my sympathy, because he does. his crisis of faith is heartbreaking, honestly (i consider myself a person of faith), but i kind of think it was a long time coming, if for no other reason than that i am with Clubs and entirely baffled that you can believe in ALL the religions. that just doesn’t seem....logical? what about contradictions? like, you can’t be a Muslim and a Hindu at the same time because Muslims believe in the Oneness of God whereas Hindus have a whole pantheon so it’s like.....contradictions. but i suppose that was kind of the point, that you can’t really believe in all the religions. then of course there’s his sort of scholarly crisis, which, as a scientist-in-training, i can also sympathize with. because imagine that you have this hypothesis that you’re SO convinced is true, and then one day, after years and maybe decades of study you find out it isn’t, like not even a little; you or someone else disproves it so fully. and then you don’t know what to do with your life because you literally spent it working on proving that one hypothesis. and that would suck. i guess this means Sazed is a nihilist now?

so the thing that happened at the Eye of the World the Well of Ascension was.....weird. in a good way. creepy. what a twist. THIS is the source of the downer ending, as well as Sazed’s angst (and undoubtedly Vin will also have her own angst in the last book because guilt). and THIS is the sort of twist i like, especially with the whole ~the prophecies were wrong because someone/thing screwed with them~.

basically, “we tried to save the world but screwed up ROYALLY because we were misled by a sentient evil thing that we cannot even begin to understand because a despotic ruler that fancied himself a god destroyed ALL the records of anything that might help us so dear God are WE fucked”. (how’s THAT for a book summary?)

themes: freedom or safety? this book in particular definitely begged the question, as well as “can you be both a good person AND a good ruler?” my answer to the first question is: i dunno, dump me into a bizarre post-/pre-apocalyptic fantasy world and THEN we’ll talk. to the second, i’m inclined to say yes because of my religion, which is, ironically, another theme of this series, but one i will not get into because it is a theme with which i am increasingly frustrated. perhaps i’ll discuss it after i finish the last book...which i will probably start tomorrow.

but until then, if you read this entire thing, wow, what ARE you doing with your life? just kidding, but seriously, thank you for reading and i love talking about books with people

#little rant feel free to ignore #reem reads mistborn #mistborn #on to 'hero of ages' i suppose

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reomanet · 6 years ago

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Adults with disabilities are the best resource for parents of children with disabilities.

Today, Miscarriage Is Seen as a Grievous Loss. But in the 19th Century, It Could Be a Happy Relief. When he was 4, I took my middle son, Edmund, to a feeding clinic for an evaluation. Edmund, now 9, was born with a rare genetic disorder called cri du chat syndrome. He has multiple intensive disabilities including nonverbal autism, and he uses a wheelchair. He had been fed via gastrostomy tube since birth and retched at the slightest taste of food. I worried about this. A lot. To be sure, the feeding tube had enabled him to thrive in spite of his health challenges. He had been barely responsive in the neonatal intensive care unit; by 4, he was a friendly preschooler who mashed his fists on toy pianos, delighting in his terrible music. But sharing a meal I’d prepared with friends and family was one of the great joys of my life. How could my child never experience that pleasure? The feeding clinic informed me that Edmund would require an inpatient stay of at least six weeks. Each day, they’d make hundreds of attempts to feed him until he could accept food without gagging. Six weeks? I worked and had two other kids—even a one-hour daily visit would be rough. He was so affectionate; he never met a lap he didn’t like. I pictured him alone with no one to snuggle under a buzzing fluorescent light, wondering why he’d been abandoned. I pictured myself in his place, spending weeks alone, forced to repeatedly gag. I thanked them, left, and never returned. I wanted him to learn to eat, but I could not let him go through that. At the time, I felt such guilt for failing to help him. Now, however, I’m so relieved we made that choice. What I’ve learned in the five years since then is that parenting Edmund boils down to one major issue: Do I want to change my son so he can fit into the world, or do I want to change the world so it accepts my son as he is? I have learned I should strive for the latter. When Edmund was born, I was thrust into the unknown. The main advice my husband and I received was to seek out other parents of children with similar medical issues. This is, indeed, useful advice. We did, and it was absolutely helpful. Our new community provided a crucial sense of belonging and offered tips on everything from navigating education systems to choosing the best wheelchair. One of my closest friends is mother to a kid with cri du chat syndrome. I don’t know what I’d do without her. Do I want to change my son so he can fit into the world, or do I want to change the world so it accepts my son as he is? But caring for an infant with disabilities was entirely different from caring for Edmund’s brothers. With them, I benefited from parenting knowledge handed down through generations, and I could draw from my own childhood experiences. I regularly observed parent/child dynamics in other families, and I absorbed endless parenting advice in conversation, magazines, and newspapers, not to mention fictional books, movies, and TV shows. I had no such knowledge of how to parent a disabled child. I knew no disabled peers growing up; they didn’t attend my elementary school. We were at sea, as we were told Edmund would always be “profoundly disabled.” I was already overwhelmed, imagining a future centered entirely on caregiving, when a doctor in the NICU took us aside and suggested we institutionalize him. Clueless as I was, I felt this advice was outdated. But experts seemed to validate the worst voices in my head, the ones I was ashamed of: Let me go back in time. I didn’t sign up for this. I slowly realized that being a parent is signing up for this. Eventually, my husband and I sought advice from therapists and teachers, but even they didn’t have access to long-term data, just a few decades of small scientific studies. When I finally turned to social media, I found that the recommendations I’d been given for how to care for Edmund were incomplete and ignored the crucial perspective of disabled adults. On Twitter, I connected with disabled people for the first time. I devoured their tweetstorms, blog posts, and articles. I started to learn about the experience of disability. Stella Young’s TED Talk on disability , with all her wry humor, made me rethink how disabled people are both sentimentalized and denied basic accommodations. By reading their perspectives, I saw Edmund in a whole new light. I heard disabled adults argue that disabled kids need to learn agency and independence rather than compliance. They want to ensure that disabled people are accommodated and receive what they need to live their lives. Many disabled people don’t want to be cured ; disability is frequently essential to their identities. This is even reflected in how most disabled people define themselves: They often prefer to be called “disabled people” because their disability is vital to their sense of self, whereas parents often say “people with disabilities” because they want to stress that their child’s disability doesn’t define them. This may seem like semantics, but it reflects the tension between these two groups. Some disabled people resent that parents, not disabled people, are often the spokespeople for disability issues, because their priorities can be so different. Upon facing a diagnosis for a child that entails disability, parents often want a cure. Failing that, they frequently want their child’s disability to at least be less apparent to the outside world. I certainly empathized with this impulse. As parents, we want the world to readily accept our kids. But when I read an autistic person describe firsthand how painful loud noises are, I began to understand how urgent it is that I protect Edmund from similar pain. I shouldn’t try to “manage” this behavior by coaching him to tolerate the pain, as some other parents and health care professionals recommended; I should instead remove him from a place with noises that hurt him. When I read some disabled people say that they did not want to be cured, that their disability was a part of who they were, I thought that perhaps Edmund felt that way too and was unable to communicate it. Julia Bascom, executive director of the Autistic Self Advocacy Network, writes movingly of the fear and pain of being forced as a child to stop flapping her hands: “Not being able to talk is not the same as not having anything to say.” These insights were invaluable to me as I navigated these new waters. Disability rights advocate Kim Sauder makes this important point : Less than 50 years ago, we were regularly institutionalizing disabled children. The idea that disabled children should be welcomed into their families, embraced for who they are, and cared for at home is still so nascent. While we have come a long way since the days of institutionalization, we nondisabled parents should not treat our children as if they are broken people that need fixing. From listening to disabled people, I no longer see Edmund as fundamentally imperfect. He is simply Edmund, a loving, giggly, inquisitive, stubborn, extroverted kid who needs lots of support to find ways to eat, play, move, and communicate. I am far from the perfect parent, but I now see it’s my job to ensure that he gets a good education, feels loved, and has as much agency as possible, and that the world treats disabled people with dignity and respect. My children, nondisabled and disabled, are not mine to mold. I wouldn’t subject my bookish nondisabled son to unwanted daily sports training; nor should I force Edmund to stop repeatedly tapping his head for comfort. Accepting Edmund, and supporting him to be himself, means I stop acting so much like a coach, and more like his mom. Five years later, Edmund still doesn’t eat orally. Sometimes he’ll grab a piece of food, take a bite, and make a horrible face. Sometimes he fakes eating to be sociable, picking up food and passing it near his mouth, then dropping it on the floor. (This is both adorable and messy.) And though I would love to make him big, delicious meals, he’s not into that, and that’s OK. He doesn’t have to love what I love. He’s thriving in his own way.