#docexe-mx

[gabzilla-z]

So, you are fully prepared for an horrifying "Eva-01" style reveal there in the Witch from Mercury? I'm currently on episode 9 after recently binge-watching it now that the first season ended (it's really good by the way) and it's definitely something that I have been musing about/bracing myself for. I have tried to avoid spoilers but I know something really disturbing happened in the final chapter of the season. As an aside, which Gundam series would you recommend to someone whose only contact with the franchise besides this show have been G-Gundam, Gundam Wing and Gundam Build Fighters.

I'm ready to suffer, yes.

OG Gundam is a must see imo and holds up pretty well.

Turn A Gundam is gorgeously animated, has a beautiful soundtrack and has one of my favourite Gundam protagonists

Stardust Memory, even if the main romance is terrible. Still, worth watching for HER

my wife

also my wife

[thankskenpenders]

Not related to Sonic but rather to Archie itself now that you mentioned the Comic Code: I find it really ironic how as soon as they stopped following the Code, they started releasing things like Afterlife with Archie and Chilling Adventures of Sabrina, not to mention Riverdale.

[prokopetz]

Are you playing darts or something?

(With reference to this post here – and also this, this, this, this, this, this and this.)

If I have, it’s been a very long game!

[remedialaction]

Obviously I’m not going to participate in that theological debate you just had. The only thing I will say (regarding one specific person you replied to) is: I’m an atheist myself and even I find internet atheists insufferable! Not only the understanding most of them have regarding religion is extremely immature, a lot of them seem to never had heard of these little concepts we call “freedom of belief” and “religious tolerance”.

So, baring like, close friends, I simply do not discuss religion with atheists. I’ll discuss it with other Christians, and Jews, and Muslims, and Buddhist, and Hindus, and Zoroastrians, and Pagans, and basically anyone who accepts the spiritual and the supernatural as a thing, because in that realm we can have a discussion.

But those that do not, and particularly those who aggressively reject it means that no real discussion can be had. It’d be like discussing space travel with someone that denies that other planet’s exist.

[vashito]

Happy belated birthday!

thanks v much!! there too much cake leftover

[inferentialdistance]

Since @docexe-mx​ is arguing on tumblr instead of lobbying their government to impose sanctions on anti-LGBT countries, it’s clear that they’re not sincere and principled about their Pro-LGBT stance.

I mean, corporations certainly can't change anti-LGBT laws in other countries, but they could refuse to carry out business in countries that have homophobic laws or, say, lobby for the US goverment to impose economic sanctions on said countries. There are a multitude of reasons why they won't do that (some of them actually sensible), but the point is that if they were sincere and principled about their Pro-LGBT stance, they would be doing more than what they are currently doing.

so you can't be pro-lgbt unless it is your number one priority to the exclusion of all else?

what are supposedly the most powerful entities in existence are all saying how much they like gay people and somehow this is evil and wrong and should be reviled

[godzillanon]

I just watched episode 14 of Darling in the Franxx and... well, I actually expected that they were going to be torn apart at some point, given how the fairy tale in the credits of episode 13 ended (it essentially foreshadows such scenario). However, I didn't expect everything to go to hell so quickly and so thoroughly.

Yeah, I’m not really shocked by how things fell apart either, but damn, they really dropped the floor out from under us, didn’t they? Though, if I had to guess, there’s more to the picture they’ve shown us, but we likely won’t see it until after Hiro and Zero Two reconcile. This is a story of reunion after all.

Meanwhile, I have a lot of mixed feelings about the episode as a whole, and both Zero Two and Ichigo did some really shitty things.

On one hand, it established the beginnings of what could be some incredible character development for Zero Two. For as much as I love her, I am completely aware of how little she has changed since the beginning of the show. Zero Two really fucked up this week with how she acted and how she reacted to everything.

On the other hand, Ichigo was just...kind of a mess. Her concerns and reaction to Zero Two are understandable, but it becomes increasingly obvious that a lot of it is motivated by selfishness, and by the end that’s exactly what it is. She forces her feelings and a kiss on an emotionally distraught Hiro.

The difference between the two is that Zero Two is immediately aware of the fact that she fucked up, while Ichigo doesn’t seem to think she’s done anything wrong (though to be fair, Ichigo hasn’t been called on her shit yet, so we don’t know yet how she’ll react to that).

[commanderkurama]

Eh… The Gaiden had a point: Sarada’s character development. She went from being bitter about her family situation and father’s absence to reconciling with her parents, and from being apathetic about becoming a ninja to making her goal becoming Hokage. Granted, the execution left a lot to be desired (could have been done without the whole “who is the mother?” drama after all)

Its thanks 1000% to Naruto though, not her parents.

[blackpearlescence]

Docexe, my sexualization post will still be posted, despite its lateness. I was very, very busy this past week with work and grad prep work. 

Though I have to forewarn that it is quite long, LOL.  

[gabzilla-z]

Out of curiosity, can you elaborate on your issues with Bakugo's character arc? Because, frankly, I think he has one of the better "bully turned rival turned friend" arcs I have seen in a shonen manga in a while. His character being so nuanced is part of the reason why I haven't lost hope on Horikoshi, even if some cracks in his writing are definitely showing.

I… have a lot of thoughts and they are all over the place. Keep in mind this is just my opinion and is heavily influenced by my frustration with other series (especially shonen). What doesn’t work for me may work for others and that’s fine.

One of the reasons I found Bakugou (and Midoriya) interesting at first was because it seemed that their relationship was going to avoid the imo overdone cliches of rivalries in shonen. Especially because it depicted relentless, cruel bullying seriously, or at least more seriously that, say, what Naruto and Sasuke had (at first at least). 

Midoriya had clear mental scars (that exist to this day, though Bakugou’s responsibilty for them seems to be sorta handwaved, more on that on a second*) and while he admired Bakugou for his powers and guts, he also resented him (for good reason!) and had no interest in either converting him to the light nor being his friend, he just wanted to be left alone. On the other hand Bakugou’s issues with Midoriya were less “I’m a lonely, traumatized shithead with a heart of gold that hides that he rly wants friends deep down” and more of a “everybody in my life has gassed me up as the best thing ever created and anybody even thinking I need help feels like a personal insult”. 

There is too much baggage there for me to ever buy them as close friends. Forgiveness? Respect? Yeah I can see that, but there’s a point of no return for friendships and bullying somebody for more than ten years and telling them to kill themselves is, for me, a point of no return. Just like Endeavor abusing his family is a point of no return. You get that atonement dude, doesn’t mean your family owes you shit.

This also ties to a lesson that shonen series in general refuse to confront, that... not everybody is going to like you, even if you are the most perfect cinnamon roll to ever exist. Even if you go through character development.

Bakugou owes Midoriya an apology, he doesn’t owe him a friendship. And Midoriya doesn’t owe Bakugou forgiveness OR a friendship. They both found good friendships without the baggage in other places and forcing BFF on them cause SHONEN OPPOSITES is... incredibly boring to me. 

I don’t mind Bakugou changing, but I feel there should be consequences for how he acted. I find that waaaaay more interesting than “bully eventually realizes main character is awesome now that he’s powerful and can beat his ass, they hug it out and they become buddies”. It also imo robs Midoriya of one of his most interesting “flaws”, resentment. Why should he want to forgive and forget? Even if Bakugou finally apologizes to him, why does he owe him a friendship? *Ok back to the scars thing, which ties with my issues with All Might’s relationship with both kids.

Bakugou shouldn’t have been the first to learn about AFO/OFA and that he did before he properly repented and apologized to Midoriya places a huge cloud on his redemption, because to me it looks like he had to learn All Might’s legacy lives on Deku and that’s what makes his live worthy of... living. 

Any nice gesture Bakugou now makes towards him will now have me wondering “would he do this if he didn’t know Midoriya was all that’s left of AM’s legacy? If he didn’t have a quirk?”

There are two main sources of Midoriya’s need to prove himself to the point of disregarding his own life. One of them is the huge weight All Might has placed on his shoulders. He’s the living legacy of a man he idolizes and never questions, a man that doesn’t seem to be taking this as seriously as he should. The other is that he was called a quirkless, useless loser for most of his life. 

To Midoriya, his worth lies on using his borrowed quirk to save people, not on his heart, not on his guts, not on his brains. And the only people he can talk about it are the folks that caused those issues in the first place. That’s heartbreaking. 

One last point, it’s all about the tone. Hori wants to have his cake and eat it too

We are supposed to find Bakugou’s bullying horrifying… but also amusing? Bakugou throwing his pointy costume at Midoriya would be slapstick hilarious… if they didn’t have the history they have. So what is it Hori? Was it so bad it left mental scars on your protagonist or ok enough that we can joke about it and everything is leading up to them being BFF in the near future? 

You can’t have both. 

[thankskenpenders]

So, with the recent unveiling of the Mario + Rabbids sequel: which unlikely franchise do you think could work in a crossover with Sonic?

This is an idea many other people have suggested but I definitely wouldn't turn down a Sonic Musou game

Sonic's already done so many crossovers and dipped his toe into so many genres, though, so it's hard to think of something that would be out of left field at this point. I still want a good Sonic RPG, but Sega probably got burned too hard by both the critical reception to Chronicles and the lawsuits to wanna do another Sonic collab with an RPG studio. Maybe a retro beat-'em-up crossover with TMNT? I'd play that. But that's not exactly an unexpected combination of franchises, those two would fit together really easily

I mean the other obvious answer is that Rouge and Bayonetta should be best friends, clearly

[remedialaction]

No offense, but is there any particular reason why you have decided to make price gougers and scalpers the hill you will die on (so to speak)? I agree with your point that it’s impossible to argue against their existence because price rising (which is what both things boil down in the end) is necessary for markets to function correctly. But you are never going to stop people from grumbling or complaining about them, because (for obvious reasons) nobody likes to pay more for anything.

Mostly a whim, to be honest. I don’t know if it’ll ever work or matter but, I every little bit can get into someone's head and stick with them. 

[gabzilla-z]

No offense but: Is the problem really the lack of teamwork and Izuku being overpowered, or more that you simply don't care about his "chosen one" plot and would prefer seeing the other students of class 1-A fighting. To clarify: You are not wrong to feel that way, to each their own. I just honestly don't think the manga has gotten bad at all due to the power creep (even if it remains a potential risk). It definitely hasn't descended to the levels of nonsense of late Naruto and Bleach.

None taken, I never made it a secret that I'm here for the class. Yes, it is part of the problem, but it's not the only problem. Overpowering a main character makes them very boring to me, especially when you handwave consequences for dumb behaviour.

The "chosen oneness" of Izuku leads to the rest of the class being irrelevant save for three characters at most: Bakugou, whose character seems to have been reduced to OFA/AFO/All Might/Deku, I can't remember the last time he had a moment of his own which would be fine if he wasn't the deuteragonist; Uraraka, who is allegedly getting an arc soon and whose "heroes that save heroes" would be perfect to help with Izuku's self destructive mentality and Todoroki, who is connected to three important plot characters. Out of 20 students, that's a poor showing.

I said the swiss army of quirks would be a problem down the line, and so far I have not been mistaken. Is it as bad as Bleach and Naruto? Not yet.

Would be happy to be proven wrong though!

[gabzilla-z]

To be fair to BNHA and its myriad hanging plot threads: The final stretches of most popular shonen manga tend to span hundreds of chapters/dozens of volumes. For instance, the 4th Shinobi World War in Naruto took around 185 chapters. Also, if we take everything from the Hawks and Endeavor arc to the Paranormal Liberation War as one “saga”, that spanned around 120 chapters. This “Final Act” might take the same amount or more, which hopefully will give the author enough time to tie up loose ends.

The Shinobi War Arc was a mess from start to finish, I wouldn’t use that to defend poor writing tbh

It doesn’t matter if these 100 plot points get resolved later and it’s not about the length, my point is that introducing and dropping important shit like this is messy and ruins momentum. Inko should not disappear for dozens of chapters while her son is dealing with tons of shit when Hori MADE A POINT of showing she was so worried she almost took him out of the school. 

Shirakumo being Kurogiri should have had the same impact as Tobito but there is so much shit going on it’s barely a blip in the radar. Fuck, his BACKSTORY was in a SPINOFF. By the time we get back to him, most readers will be “...who?”

[gabzilla-z]

I recently saw the trailer for Akira on SFV and I had to ask: Did you played Rival Schools?

Hell yeah, what a blast from the past

queen

[gabzilla-z]

Tenya and Ochako are STILL Izuku’s friends. There’s a problem with Horikoshi not having them interact much anymore, but the prior arc did show they STILL care about each other. I get that, for practical purposes, “the characters don’t interact anymore” is not very different from “the characters aren’t friends anymore”, but what can I say? Years of shipping wars in shonen manga that are more focused on action than on characters’ relationships made me ultrapedantic regarding that difference.(1/2)

(2/2) In any case, given that they weren’t among their other classmates that were visiting Bakugo and Todoroki, hopefully next chapter will show them waiting outside Izuku’s room. In manga like this, those little details end mattering a lot. 

On paper, sure, on execution? Not so much

Iida was specifically set up as the person that called out Midoriya for risking his life and not considering the feelings of the people worrying about him, the fact that 1) he’s STILL in the dark about OFA and 2) he doesn’t worry about him getting powers that are endangering his life (in fact, this is given to somebody else, as if Iida has already served his purpose on this front) out of nowhere has no excuse. Iida and Uraraka are his close friends, they should have put two and two together by now that something is seriously wrong.

I’d love to be proven wrong on this, but at this point I have no faith in Hori’s ability to do so.