#its 'are you proposing?' vs 'we're something else'

[hellspawnmotel]

which route will YOU choose??

[zhe-awesome-me-blog]

Itoshi Rin and Sae: a story in three parts

alternatively: how having a brother complex can ruin your life (but it's mostly that you both just have terrible personalities)

So in the midst of the world cup finals last week, I remembered—in a frenzy or some state like it—of the existence of the edgy soccer manga Blue Lock. And so I read it. And it sure was edgy.

One of the things that stood out to me were the Itoshi brothers, Rin and Sae, and how most of their relationship, its highs and its lows, were predicated on Rin simply having the world's biggest brother complex.

By the way: general spoiler warning for the manga up until about the VS Japan U-20 match (around ch 147).

Prologue

Before we get any sense of backstory for them, we're introduced to the Itoshi brothers on different occasions.

In ch 4, we first meet Itoshi Sae, a genius soccer player who considered to be the best in Japan. The first impression we get of him is that he has a terrible personality. and a foul mouth. He has no interest in entertaining the media or giving any serious to interviews, and he does not hold back on his arrogant demeanor, though in his case, it's actually justified by his ridiculous skill.

Rin is introduced much later than his brother, during the second selection arc, and is someone who is also incredibly skilled. While most of his motivations seem shrouded in mystery, we know that Rin is self sufficient and dislikes to rely on others.

Oh and I guess there's also his deal with his brother.

oh yeah rin-chan seems weirdly more on edge at the mention of his brother? haha i'm sure this means nothing

Rising Action

In ch 123, the curtain is pulled back.

Itoshi Rin loves his brother very much, loved his brother very much; he admired him above all else, and strove to become just like him in the future.

Even as a little kid, Sae has had his terrible personality: he already tells his interviewers to eat shit and doesn't hold back his arrogant attitude. Most importantly, however, is how, above everything else, he hates to lose.

A young Sae takes it personally when Rin is the one to get the lucky ice cream. i'm with him on this one i would also try to justify myself too much when my brother would get the lucky items. curse him.

But those things don't mean much at this stage, where Rin and Sae stick with each other, as close as two coats of paint. Sae obviously dotes on his younger brother and treats him nicely, which contrasts with his demeanor with others. So when they both notice that Rin also has the skills in soccer, instead of being mad at Rin for intervening during his game, Sae proposes that he plays with him.

how heartwarming. im sure these siblings will keep their close relationship in the future haha

And so they do.

For the few years to come, the Itoshi brothers are an unbeatable striker duo. They share a dream: to become the best strikers in the world, with Sae as the number 1 and Rin as the number 2.

They're quite close, and have trust in each other's skill. When Sae comments negatively on Rin's play, it feels more like constructive criticism (and even playful banter), rather than insult.

Sidenote, it's interesting to compare the brothers' different approaches to playing soccer.

For Rin, he mostly relies on his instincts. It's something I may have not mentionned earlier, but one of the defining aspects of Rin is that he's a character defined by his incredible luck. It's present in the lucky ice cream he kept getting, in the fact that he was born as the younger brother to the talented Itoshi Sae, and of course, in his way of playing soccer.

a frustrated Isagi asks Rin what he's missing (ch86)

Sae, on the other hand, doesn't have as much luck. He keeps getting the wrong ice cream and he plays in a much more methodical manner: Sae actively works hard to reach his goal, while Rin allows himself to be caught along his brother's current.

dependency

Regardless, Sae eventually gets scouted for his skill and goes away to Madrid.

In the meantime, Rin keeps holding onto the dream, the promise, he had with Sae. Though, even when he works hard for his dream, he does so by playing as Sae's replacement, in order to catch up to his brother. All the while, he keeps holding onto the idealized version of his brother that he has in his head.

Turning Point

After four long years, Sae suddenly comes back and,

He's exhausted. Rin points out how he lost some weight, but Sae also has prominent eye bags, and his face is sunken. Most importantly, he lacks the vigor he had when he left Japan.

It's also important to point out that Sae had come back earlier than expected, yet his first thought was to go see his little brother and inform him of the change in his dream. Because to him, it's important that Rin knows this; because that mutual dream of theirs is what matters the most to them.

And so he tells Rin of his newfound realization and decision. The world out there is huge, and there are plenty of more talented players out there, even better than the unbeatable Itoshi Sae, as strikers.

So, Sae decides that he's now striving to become the number 1 midfielder in the world, instead of the best striker.

And Rin...

He takes the news very badly.

Because, to Rin, all he's hearing is that his unbeatable brother, the one who hates to lose above everything else, has resigned himself from his dream of becoming no 1 striker, simply because there are others that are better than him.

To Rin, his brother had basically admitted that he's not actually the best.

Understandibly, it shatters Rin, as well as his idealized and out-of-date image of his beloved, talented, cool, older brother. He can't bring himself to accept what Sae is saying, so instead, he aggressively rejects this "new" Sae in front of him, and he refuses to ackowledge him anymore.

The thing is, though, not much has actually changed.

His older brother is the same victory-loving, defeat-hating Sae as he was before he played in Madrid; he's still the same Sae who dotes on his younger brother and wants to see him grow; he's still the same Sae who wants to become the best soccer player in the world.

All that has changed is that he saw that he plays better as midfield, so he changed positions.

To Rin, it doesn't make sense that his unbeatable older brother would change this part of his dream. To him, the very fact that Sae altered his plan is the same as giving up. He's still childish and has an all-or-nothing mindset.

But Sae, who is a bit older and who has now experienced the world, doesn't understand why Rin is so upset. After all, he still wants to be number one, and he still wants his brother by his side.

Rin retaliates.

as a way to deal with their argument, sae challenges rin

Admitedly, the stakes of their 1v1 are ridiculous, but a part of Sae wants to keep on believing in this childish dream of them becoming the best strikers. After all, it's his talented younger brother. Maybe there is a chance.

But there is none.

And it's when Rin becomes so desperate that Sae finally loses his patience and tries to knock some sense back to him. Because Sae is exhausted at this point, and his younger brother is spouting childish things. Sae wanted him to realize that, sometimes, what you're best at may not be what you initially believed it to be: something which Rin seemed incapable of accepting.

admitedly, he's being very mean about it. I guess he finally got over giving rin nice treatment just for being his little brother

He gets angry at Rin. He tells Rin to quit, because to Sae, this dream he has is something that he's been actively working for and advancing in. Meanwhile, Rin tells him that he was his sole reason for playing all this time. And it's not enough, because it's such a fickle reason.

The world is large and there are so many better players out there, that such a lukewarm reason meant that Rin was never serious to begin with.

So now, it's Sae's turn to reject his brother.

Outcome

All that their interaction in the snow had showed Sae was that his brother was not actually serious about football, after all. And because he's not serious, because he's so lukewarm, Rin will never reach Sae's level.

The thing is, Rin does outsmart his brother in one critical instant, though neither one of them meaningfully acknowledge it

The main problem with Rin is, well, his huge brother complex.

Okay, well, more seriously, Rin's biggest problem is that he bases his self-worth on his brother. Even when they officially separate, Rin's motivation for playing football is still centered on Sae. Actually, I don't think you can say that his initial reason changed that much.

As easily as Rin could pretend it, he can't think that his beloved brother being nice when they were younger was all just a lie. Because it wasn't. So now he's mad at Sae for turning his life upside down and leading down this path.

He claims he wants revenge against his brother.

ch 125

Rin says that he wants to break Sae "into pieces" and that he wants to destroy his dream, but what is the dream that he's talking about? is it the one about being the number one player, regardless of position? Or is it just that Rin wants to go back to those days they were playing together?

I don't think even Rin himself knows entirely.

His reason for playing has always been Sae. It hasn't changed: it's always been his brother. And truth be told, all Rin really wants is to gain back the affection of his brother.

To come back to the Japan U-20 match, Rin says that he wants to be his own person, that he doesn't want to be defined by his relationship to others. But he also holds onto any bit of affection he may get from Sae.

So much for a guy who claims that he hates his brother.

He allows his hostile exterior to break a bit after the match against the Japan U-20 team. For God's sake, he's so hopeful and wide eyed that Sae finally, finally sees how far he's come. That he'd compliment him for the first time in a lifetime,

but no.

rip rin-chan I hope one day he actually compliments you

Epilogue?

Besides the fact that Rin's resentment towards Isagi has grown tenfold now that the latter managed to snatch a compliment from his brother, there isn't more that has been added to their relationship after their match.

Honestly, despite all this meta that I wrote,

I'm still not over the fact that Rin's mysterious and tragic deal was that he simply has the world's biggest brocon and heavily depends on his brother's approval and love.

[script-a-world]

Submitted via Google Form:

I'm trying to design an alien species that is categorised as both plant and animal. Is that possible? Or only if defined to how we define plant and animal? In that case how could aliens define them differently?

I'm suppose you may already be thinking of stuff people create that do seem to be both plant and animal. Like those carnivorous plants with whip like vines that can seize prey - but they're considered plants and not an animal. Then there are ents in Tolkien's work. But those are still animals that resemble trees, not considered plants. Not what I'm looking for.

Miri: Scientifically, we differentiate plant vs animal at a cellular level: plant cells do not have a cell wall, animal cells do. That’s just the start of the differences, which are mostly contradictory enough that they could not exist in the same being. A table of differences can be found at https://www.toppr.com/guides/biology/difference-between/plants-and-animals/ (and more information is available at many sites with a quick “plant vs animal” google search as this is a topic that was covered in many high school biology classes in North America when I was in school - I have fond memories of doing stains of plant cells to look at under the microscope.).

Aliens may not even have the same concepts of “plant” and “animal”. We haven’t met any (so far as we’ve been publicly told) so it’s all up to imagination. This may be a case of Aunt Scripty’s Rule of Reality - you break it, you bought it. Consider if it’s something you really need to define that accurately. If they think it’s a plant or think it’s an animal, does it matter to your plot if it really is? Is anyone pulling out the microscopes to check? If they are, then it’s worth making those distinctions in your story and building what it means in your world. If it doesn’t matter to the plot, and it’s never going to come up, this may be a bit of world building you can keep behind the curtain.

Feral: Plants and animals are not even the only defined categories of life in our world. You seem to be drawing your categorization of life from Linnaean taxonomy, which is not a particularly helpful classification system as it was developed in 1735, aka before Darwin proposed the theory of evolution. If you look at other taxonomic ranking systems, like Whittaker’s 1969 Five Kingdoms or Woese’s 1977 Six Kingdoms, you might find more inspiration for how the domains of life may be divided and categorized. And increasingly, it’s being accepted that it’s not just humans or even non-human animals, but plants can have a form of intelligence, and possibly anything or everything else could experience consciousness.

Utuabzu: sounds like you're describing fungi, archea and bacteria, none of which are plants or animals but are most certainly alive. Fungi have been observed to transmit electrical signals across their mycelia and to react to stimulus, which may indicate some level of awareness (if they think or feel, it's in a way that's pretty alien to us). Lichens are even weirder, being composite organisms made of various combos of fungus, bacteria and plants, and also being some of the oldest land organisms and the sturdiest (lichens are the only plant-like-things growing on Antarctica, and the ISS has had problems with lichens on its outer hull).

Plenty of plants react to each other and their environment and plant cognition is a legitimate field of study within botany, so plants that move and act more like animals are perfectly possible. But honestly, if you're working with aliens, there's no need to fit things neatly into the taxonomic categories we're used to. They're alien organisms, they'll have (presumably) had an entirely separate evolutionary history and fall into their own categories. You can have human characters refer to things as plants and animals, and then have another character correct them if you want.

For worldbuilding purposes your most important concern is going to be the difference between autotrophes (organisms that create their own food through photosynthesis or chemosynthesis) and heterotrophes (organisms that must acquire energy from other organisms, generally by eating them). Autotrophes tend to be more sessile (unable to move) because motility (the ability to move) requires energy and specialised structures that don't necessarily make sense for something that just needs a source of light energy or chemical energy and nutrients. Heterotrophes do tend to be motile because they have to find food, but there are plenty of sessile heterotrophes. Most corals, sponges, and fungi either rely on water currents to bring them food, or grow outwards to find more food and are able to reproduce and spread out in sufficient volume that it doesn't really matter that their food will run out. Remember, evolution doesn't prefer the “best” lifeforms, just the ones that continue to successfully reproduce.

[rainofaugustsith]

SWTOR: What is it about Iokath?

I think that if we did a poll on Most Hated Areas in SWTOR, Iokath would be a close front runner. Even I - who has tried to get the legendary status for every faction - have ignored Iokath's dailies. I go through once for the story, take whatever rep is given for the story quests, and then get out of there. It's only because I have a lot of toons that I've earned rep there.

Because Galactic Seasons includes Iokath dailies in its list of daily priority objectives, the planet's daily area is seeing more traffic. It's also getting some complaints. The big question: why?

On paper Iokath looks really cool. A killer techno planet that seems to have influence from the Rakata and Gree, with a legacy of unleashing superweapons on hapless worlds. A killer techno planet with technology that was at least in part co-opted by a murderous world-devouring supervillain who survives for a very long time and wreaks havoc across the galaxy. Dudes, that's intriguing.

And for those who have an interest in their toons switching factions, Iokath actually lets you do that. You can be a Republic character supporting the Empire and walking through the Imperial base, or vice versa. There's no sneaky saboteur stuff!

So why is Iokath maligned so much? It's one of those places like Makeb where it seems like it should be amazing, but it's not.

1. The story.

When I say story, I'm not referring to the Iokath chapters in KOTET, but to the traitor arc that follows.. In my opinion, the first time we visit Iokath in KOTET, it's not so bad. We get to stomp around as a giant Colossus droid, and it's one of the few "play as something else" moments in KOTET that seems to work well. It's really fun. We get to unravel some of the mysteries of the Eternal Fleet. It's a good couple of chapters, IMHO.

But then we go back for the beginning of the traitor arc. Both factions are trying to wipe the other out with a superweapon. Everyone's been led to Iokath by a traitor. The Commander gets fried on a throne again, as though that didn't just happen. The Commander is forced to side with one faction or another, instead of just saying "you are both being awful. GET OFF MY PLANET. WE'RE NOT DOING THIS AGAIN."

Instead we get a new galactic IMPS VS PUBS!!!! war (sigh), at least one major NPC death and a beloved character set up as a traitor.

2. The fact that the story cannot even be finished because they pulled an Oricon.

IMHO the one intriguing thing about the Iokath traitor arc is Tyth. We discover that Zakuul's pantheon of old gods are actually supernatural superweapon droids on Iokath. We meet one named Tyth. But then we never get to really battle it out with him - or five of the others - because that's all in an Op. The Op is the end of the story arc. Luckily, you can go on to Umbara and such without doing the Op. All the same, the question of the machine gods never really gets settled. You never really hear about them again, with the exception of Zildrog. Did you defeat them? Did they just go back to sleep? Did they rust in the Iokath toxic rain? The world may never know.

Leaving a storyline dangling this way - because the devs want to twist players' arms into doing Ops - is a nasty trick in a story-based, solo-based game. The devs tried the same stunt with Oricon's storyline. The result was that a lot of players left Oricon unfinished - and then didn't play that storyline at all on subsequent characters. No point if you can't finish it.

Iokath is unfortunately part of the main story. While you actually CAN skip it, you would miss out on a part of the main storyline - including the proposals for two companions that can be romanced - and have some decisions autocompleted for you. If you're trying to play the entire story, Iokath is a thing. You have to go through, you end up with an incomplete story and that Op sits in your log until you abandon it. FWIW, the Op couldn't even be abandoned for years, despite players requesting that again and again. I guess the devs thought that if it sat there, players would grit their teeth and jump in to clear their log?

3. The maps.

You thought Taris, Balmorra, Corellia or Belsavis were confusing? Iokath has entered the chat. The Iokath map is a nightmare. There are paths around the area that aren't marked. Daily quest objectives aren't marked. Just better go through the winding corridors and see what you find, I guess.

4. The bugs.

Years after being released Iokath still has numerous bugs, like your companions vanishing and your abilities bar unlocking.

5. You have to pay to play for some quests.

There are daily quests to play in a walker, play as a mouse droid, etc. You have to pay credits for them. Like, no joke. It costs credits to do the quests. Needless to say that does not seem to appeal to most players, and the devs have not tried this again.

6. The walker segment in the story.

Because everyone LOVED the walker quests in KOTET so much (yes that is sarcasm), here they are again! And you have to fight three giant robots in close quarters! The fight against the three sentinel droids is horrendous and a lot of players have complained about it.

With the exception of the faction switching, IMHO Iokath should be held up as an example of What Not To Do. The result is a really great concept that fell really flat in execution and pissed off a lot of players.