#love it when a guy definitely isn't going through a corruption arc

[thewanderingmask]

don't worry guys he says he's fine

[koalatysleep]

Was Togashi trying to force Shonen Jump to let him end YYH when he wrote the 3 Kings Arc?

UPDATE: I now have a different read on 3 kings arc and Togashi's authorial intent, so the content in this post is outdated! Just leaving it here anyway for posterity's sake, so we have a record of how my read has changed with a deeper understanding of YYH!

I was gushing about Kuwameshi with @bisaster-energy aka @extra-somethin-somethin and the topic turned to how the 3 Kings Arc was dissonant and unsatisfactory for both of us, coz our beloved Kuwabara wasn't even in that arc, and we both found it hard to believe Kuwabara would just go back to regular life after all that he'd been through with Yusuke.

I mean! After Kuwabara's eyes have been opened to the Makai and Spirit Realm, after the Deeply Meaningful Good he and Yusuke had done to help both people and demons, such as freeing the enslaved mind-controlled humans from the despicable Ichigai, and stopping the world-ending scheme of corrupt humans like Sakyo from destroying the human realm, the Kuwabara we all know and love definitely would NOT have chosen to stay on the sidelines for the sake of studying, especially since the Good he and Yusuke had done would have resonated so fundamentally with who Kuwabara is and his purpose in life!

I mean, C'mon! Studying would have felt pretty empty in comparison! Sure, Kuwabara can apply himself to studying if it's to help Okubo keep his job to feed his family, but Kuwabara isn't in love with studying in and of itself, he was doing it to help someone he cares about. Kuwabara is very similar to Yusuke in that they both fight for people, not abstract ideals like academic achievement.

Plus! Genkai had literally just showed Kuwabara with the Territory arc (when Kato and gang kidnapped Yusuke so easily), that no matter how strong Yusuke got, he will always need Kuwabara to watch his back, even if Kuwabara feels he's nowhere near as strong as Yusuke! I find it extremely hard to believe Kuwabara would then just let Yusuke go off all by himself to the unknown Makai without anyone to watch his back, where Raizen, an unknown powerful demon, had literally just hijacked Yusuke's mind!

So what was going on in the 3 Kings Arc? Why did Togashi make Kuwabara and Yusuke act so OOC in ways that doesn't even make narrative sense?

I personally think the 3 Kings Arc was actually Togashi forcing Shonen Jump to let him end the manga! He hinted at this in his letter to fans, where he explained he desperately wanted to end the manga due to health reasons so he basically forced Shonen Jump into it, and he had exhausted all character directions he could explore within Shonen Jump publication bounds, so the only thing left for him to do was to deconstruct (aka destroy) the characters.

Though Togashi didn't explicitly say how he forced Shonen Jump into letting him end the manga, what better way to destroy / deconstruct Yusuke and Kuwabara in the 3 kings arc than to make Kuwabara act OOC by choosing paper achievements over the concrete deeply meaningful Good he and Yusuke have been doing throughout the series, separate Yusuke from Kuwabara by totally writing Kuwabara out of the narrative entirely so Kuwabara couldn't be the guiding force and moral compass for Yusuke he's always been, make Yusuke act OOC with the cavalier attitude towards demons eating humans, when in 4 Saints Beast arc Yusuke was outright enraged by Byakko saying all humans are his food, and in the Sensui arc just before 3 kings arc, Yusuke was still in moral knots when he thought he'd killed Sensui's doctor, until Genkai eased Yusuke's mind by bringing that guy back to life! Considering that Sensui's doctor was a villain, this shows Yusuke still values life, and tries to spare it wherever he can! There was literally no character developments that could have explained Yusuke's sudden cavalier attitude towards humans being eaten as food at the start of the 3 kings arc that followed, which makes it glaringly OOC.

Destroying the characters with these OOC things would have alienated the audience so much that even if Shonen Jump had forced Togashi to continue the manga, they would have lost the audience anyway, so it's as good as the manga ending! In other words, I think Togashi wrote the 3 kings arc the way he did to force Shonen Jump's hand to let him end the manga.

That's how I interpreted his letter to fans anyway! Togashi and Japanese pple in general are very subtle in the way they communicate and they seldom directly say what they mean, so this is one way to read between the lines of his letter to fans!

Hiei is also a mirror for Yusuke in some ways throughout the series, so the fact that Togashi outright kills Hiei in the 3 kings arc further supports this interpretation that Togashi was destroying / deconstructing Yusuke and Kuwabara, the very heart of YYH, as a way to force Shonen Jump's hand.

I mean, the entire series is built on Yusuke's and Kuwabara's beloved innate goodness, their strong sense of right and wrong, their heart of gold which they had built up and strengthened into a diamond in each other, and the deep and abiding love between Yusuke and Kuwabara! These are all things that the audience loves, so by threatening Shonen Jump with a totally OOC characterisation for Kuwabara and Yusuke that is the opposite of what the audience knows to be their True Selves, and by seperating Yusuke from his beloved Kuwabara, Togashi gave Shonen Jump no choice but to let him end the series, coz the audience wouldn't have continued reading the manga anyway even if Shonen Jump had forced Togashi to continue!

I feel like Togashi's physical health, mental wellbeing, and frustration at not being allowed to tell the story he wanted to was so bad at that point that I honestly think he was just fed up. After he ended the manga, when fans requested more YYH content, he even drew a short manga in response to kill almost all the YYH characters, as his way to say he's done. I honestly don't wanna see this short manga coz my heart would bleed! 😭 but if u wanna, it's in the letter to fans link above.

That's how I interpret it all anyway! Which is why I'm not gonna treat 3 kings arc as canon, I'm gonna imagine my own! Afterall, canon is not some dictate!

So don't be too sad if you too were dissatisfied by it! I was as sad and as hurt as you were by the unsatisfactory 3 kings arc and the palpable loneliness of both Yusuke and Kuwabara in the anime, but I think the anime ending was actually hopeful and dropped some clear hints that Kuwabara and Yusuke will finally get together even after Togashi's 3 kings arc! As for what these hopeful hints are, it'd require another meta to do it justice though! ROFL.

For more great points why 3 Kings Arc didn't make narrative sense and had no character development that could lead to the OOC-ness, check out this post's Notes > Replies > sort by oldest first to read Replies chronologically!

Ahhh i miss my boys so much!! I must say that despite the OOC-ness of 3 kings arc, Togashi gave us such delicious Kuwameshi content all throughout the series that I just can't fault him for it, the poor guy messed up his health coz he overworked himself. I can very happily curate canon that makes the most narrative sense to me! 😄 ❤️🫶🫰❤️🐦🌈

[belovedgamers]

asks for you on your birthday! any combination of [ 🍄, ❄️, 🦋, 🪲] :D?

Hiii I answered this and it didn't save and I was devastatedddd and needed time to recover lmao. Anyway, take two :D

🍄 ⇢ share a head canon for one of your favourite ships or pairings

While running her experiments, Lizzie definitely forgot an appointment or two with Joel, but it all evens out because sometimes he forgets about the day it is because of his sculpting or building or--

This continues to today. There are things they definitely hold very dear and try to schedule around, but most of the time if Lizzie is like "we booked an ocean tour around evening and it's FULL of rich people sorry", Joel's reply is something like "ooooh, more time to work out the floor's tiling". They lead very chaotic and busy lives <3

❄️ ⇢ what's your dream theme/plot for a fic, and who would write it best?

I really want to read a fic exploring what Mythland's citizens were going through during the corruption arc, and how many likely left their homes behind. Could be a single family or even just a person, or many, really. I'd be especially interested in seeing these runaways flee to the Cod Empire (Mythland is vast, for some Helianthia would be too far, and Pearl has her own relationship with the demon that may not be super comforting to run towards). How do you choose to run to your enemy? Why should they take you? Where do you go? Is there already an established Mythic diaspora there? There probably should be! And how do these cultures connect or clash? What prejudices do they all have to unlearn?

As to for who'd write it, peradi or prolix, who each wrote one of my favorite Star Wars fics (have you heard and things we know by heart, both about storm troopers rebelling). Neither of them writes for mcyt though, which means I'll have to roll up my sleeves and figure out some more geography. Heh.

🦋 ⇢ share something that has been on your heart and mind lately

I had a completely different thing here, but it got sent into the aether, so a new topic it is.

A while ago I saw a post with someone very disappointed/frustrated with George R. R. Martin's response to "what's the solar system that causes superseasons?" The response was "it's magic". The poster said you need to have an idea of why your planet works the way it works in mechanical terms, not something that handwaves and dismisses it.

I've been thinking about that lately, with Empires. Do I agree with the poster? I'm not sure. This isn't a defense of Martin, I dislike the guy, but I do think if you're reading a fantasy series with prophecies and dragons and curses and sorcerers... you do have to, at some point, accept "it's magic" for an answer?

The way I see it in Empires, where there are dragons and prophecies and curses and wizards, monsters and gods and immortals, I think of magic as a force that affects the environment, sometimes in unquantifiable ways. If you're one of the people who loves playing around with the idea presented in the end poem that the universe loves you, and I am, then that's another alive force to consider. I would even say that relying on magic is useful when translating game mechanics into a world, and then you can figure out who has access to what kind of magic or how these spell castings differ.

But maybe I am alone in this? I don't know. I'm a "politics, language, textiles and food" kinda guy. If I'm asked to figure out a solar system or complex biological underground networks, I will start weeping.

🪲 ⇢ add 50 words to your current wip and share the paragraph here

This will only make sense to you, or I hope it does. 53 words! Look at me go.

Umbra’s hands were warm. The memory is a punishment, these days. She used to reach out to him, his rough cheek held by her rougher palm, and smile. No, not smile, relax. She didn’t smile much, towards the end. A lot of details have faded, but not that one. He remembers that one.

It's no longer my birthday! Writer's truth or dare!

[piduai]

I saw that you tagged sugi with "character assassination of the decade" and i couldn't agree more, crazy how shogun ass arc felt like the absolute peak of gntm and especially sugi's character and then everything afterward fell completely flat thanks to that nonsensical uts*ro twist. it's not even that i hate the idea of shoyo being evil before becoming a schoolteacher (in fact i think most ppl predicted he was connected to the naraku back in 2k13 lol), but why say "akshually he's alive all along" the literal arc after you reveal his dramatic death?? so much wasted potential because of that failure of a final boss and so many characters suffered as a result bc they weren't allowed further character development - i'm particularly pissed as a fan of zura, nobume, kagura (why is she still stuck to ginsan's side by the end instead of following her dream of being a space hunter) and the kiheitai

honestly i still remember reading the end of shogun ass arc when it came out, and i think bansai says "shinsuke's eyes were firmly focused on something" and how much hope it gave me... like the potential of zura + sugi working together to put the final nail in the coffin for the bakufu (zura by aiming for a legitimate place in a new govt and sugi with more underhanded methods lmao.. i still think kiheitai should've become high-grade bounty hunters at the end of the series), or the reveal of a bond btwn nobume and sugi since sasaki was working so closely with him. but instead that godawful "everyone vs aliens + dead guy who's actually alive" shonen cliche final battle happened. in fact i think it actively undermines the themes of the series bc until then i thought the true enemy isn't necessarily the amanto but the corruption and greed that existed in the so-called samurai country long before the amanto even arrived, and the goal was to figure out how to adapt to this new world and change yourself along the way.... but i guess the actual message was just "foreigners bad" which is way more reactionary than i expected lol. the gintaman in my head ended around ch 525, maybe ch 540 at the latest, after that it's all my delusions

yeah it definitely peaked there, chapter 519 to be specific. after that it started steadily going downhill until it decided to sprint just to land in shounen hell. excruciatingly long-winded spiritual successor to beelzebub. utsuro as a whole was very messy and nonsensical, and yeah as you said that reveal being IMMEDIATELY after it was established that hacking his sorry head off ruined the trio's lives and relationships with each other was just... umm... okay... it's also funny that shoyo was like a separate identity from utsuro altogether he was able to summon and suppress so when the guys met the evil guy with the same face as their angstily and unwillingly murdered teacher they were like Well there's aliens at play. not our guy not buying it. bye. dude??? that thang has put you to sleep once, man up and be sad about it. but god forbid there's any kind of actually complex conflict or anyone is ever guilty of anything. tbh i don't remember shit after shogun assassination i just remember this whole thing being structurally underwhelming and feeling cheap.

yeah takasugi's eye was focused on something. it was focused on gintoki 😋 everything needs to be focused on gintoki all the time. takasugi's long-winded angst and anger need to shift focus from his love towards sensei to his bond with gintoki. zura's entire deal whatever it was needed to center gintoki and his interests. shinpachi and kagura needed to forfeit all of their initial plans and embrace arrested development forever because yorozuya means family means they need to blow the power of friendship up gintoki's ass 24/7. every single female of any species needs to have a cute little crush on gintoki and he needs to be the main character for every rando he meets, changing their lives forever through his imposing presence. other characters can not have any conflict or development or agenda that doesn't center or at least heavily involve gintoki. and also nobody is allowed to have any rapport with each other independently of gintoki. never forget about the specialest little boy in the universe, if he doesn't get to give at least 5 boring pompous speeches per chapter or have a few epic one-liners everyone working on this franchise will need to immediately kill themselves (specified in their employment contracts in bold). also if you have anything less than enthusiastic to say about this you're a cretin who is too dumb to understand that any story that doesn't revolve around its main character always with no breaks is worthless and that doing exactly that is the epitome of genius writing btw.

takasugi's character assassination felt particularly asinine because for 80% of the story he's being menacing without much screen time and his personal drama is mostly hinted at, then he gets lots of focus in shogun assassination and it culminates in the plot twist flashback, after which he dedicates all his efforts to being overtly sad for gintoki and suffering more than jesus, and then he's killed off without any resolution. AND THEN HE'S REBORN AS SOME UGLY ASS BABY. like he can't get any dignity or integrity even in death lmao but it's ok i still love him bc as mentioned above gintama ended on chapter 519...

yeah i still think it might be not that deep but like it starts off as foreigners are the enemy and they came here to destroy our beautiful country so we have to stay resilient against their harassment. then it transcends to this country has always had its own rot and we the righteous and lovable riff-raffs will bring justice to it in the name of the moon, the country itself doesn't matter, we just want to protect our loved ones against anything that threatens them. and then it goes back to foreigners are evil and we'll actually go and kick their asses on their own territory even. to protect this country. alright!

[corpocyborg]

Questions for Writers

Tagged by @merge-conflict! (Thank you!)

Last book I read: Nonfiction - "The Unfolding of Language" by Guy Deutscher, Fiction - "Children of the Mind" by Orson Scott Card

Greatest literary inspirations: Valerie Locke (my V, from "Secure Your Soul" and "Beyond the Event Horizon") is largely inspired by two characters - Peter Wiggin from the Ender's Game Series by Orson Scott Card and Coriolanus Snow from The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes by Suzanne Collins. In fact, her last name comes from Peter Wiggin's propaganda-spreading alter ego, Locke. One thing I really loved in TBOSAS is the disconnect because Coryo's internal dialogue and his external behavior. He is charismatic on the outside, but judgemental and selfish on the inside. So I definitely draw inspiration from the way Collins wrote that contrast when I write my V. Peter Wiggin is similar, although it isn't written in the same way because he doesn't narrate and the main narrators (Ender and Valentine) can see through his facade. But still he manages to take over the world with just the power of controlling the narrative.

Things in my current fandoms I want to read but I don't want to write: I don't think I have this problem because I always want to write all my ideas. If anything, I need to work on less projects all at the same time 'cause I don't make enough progress on any one individual project.

Things in my current fandoms I want to write but I think nobody would be interested in them but me: To be honest, I think all of my premises would have an audience. Hopefully that doesn't sound arrogant, but mostly I just mean that all the fandoms I want to write for (Cyberpunk 2077, Mass Effect, Star Wars: The Old Republic) have active fanbases in terms of fanfic readers and I think my premises are all ones that at least some people would find interesting.

You can recognize my writing by: Villain and/or ruthless hero protagonists, lots of em-dashes, characters whose internal state doesn't match their external behavior, outgoing protagonists who are talkative and excitable, characters having lengthy internal monologues in the middle of a conversation, beginning dialogue with words like "Hmm...", "Well...", "I mean...", etc. and then interrupting with a dialogue tag and moving on to the rest of the line (i.e., "Well," she said, "I don't see how that will help us.")

My most controversial take (current fandom): I like to write for Corpo V and Renegade Shepard. I think Corpo V is fairly popular, but even so, I think a lot of people don't consider Devil Ending their canon because it's so depressing. My version of Devil Ending is even more depressing than canon. I'm almost certain Paragon Shepard and Paragade Shepard are significantly more popular than Renegade Shepard, especially my version, who makes pretty much every worst possible decision (doesn't cure the genophage and kills Wrex and Mordin and doesn't let the geth live, etc.).

Top three favorite tropes: Both corruption arcs and redemption arcs. The Mastermind as a character archetype. AUs in general.

What’s your current writing mood (10 – super motivated and churning out words like crazy, 0 – in a complete rut): Honestly, it's hard to say because it changes a lot in a fairly short time-frame. I do most of my writing in huge bursts where I am highly productive for hours at a time, and then I don't write again for weeks.

Share a random frustration: Like I said earlier, it's hard for me to avoid taking on too many projects at once. I think I also have a tendency to start sharing a little too early and then wanting to go back and edit after the fact. I get overly excited, I guess.

And, finally, I tag @ghostoffuturespast, @fereldanwench, and @another-corpo-rat.

[dalasteller]

shadow and bone spoilers! malina/mal fans this is not for you but it’s not pro-darklina either. i’m an alina x alina supremacist

so, somehow, the show made me like book!malina more than show!malina after weeks of thinking the opposite would be true. i don’t even like book!mal/malina, but my neutrality towards them is nothing compared to how much i detested show!malina.

I WANTED THE TV SHOW TO MAKE ME LOVE THEM. the trailers made me think i would!!! i'd heard screeners and reviewers talk about this epic love story that transcends everything—these two people who would do anything for each other—and i don't disagree, they definitely would. i just wish they would shut the fuck up about it.

sorry.

looking back, i'd rather the show gave us mal with flaws, who wasn't perfect to alina, who would die for her, but still said the wrong thing and flirted with other girls and was afraid of her power at first. archie did a great job. he just couldn't make me love mal, and neither could the writers opting to make him main character no. 2 and alina’s prince in shining armour who supports her endlessly and has never done anything wrong in his life ever. writers, please, why did you think that was a good idea? when i said i wanted a more likeable mal, i meant i wanted his flaws accompanied by positive traits, by compelling backstory, by personality outside of being alina's hot best friend who never noticed her. i didn't mean i wanted a guy who could be wrapped in a gift box and sold as a robo-boyfriend designed for romance.

no, i mean, they really did write him that way.

what i definitely didn't mean i wanted was over an hour of the show dedicated to watching mal’s perspective of hunting the stag and making besties with his military bros and writing letters to alina and getting shot at a bunch of times instead of letting the book characters who were already beloved by fans get the screentime they deserved. what i wouldn't do to have gotten more genyalina and well-written zoya instead of mal dissecting deer shit...

you would think with how much talk about malina basically being soulmates, childhood flashbacks, fighting and nearly dying for each other at least four times (and did i mention more narration about being soulmates?) that i would take the bait and just let malina set sail. but this show held me at gunpoint for eight hours straight and told me that these two are going to have the same cultural influence as new romeo and juliet and that if i disagree i am going to be killed on the spot. because of this, i have now died.

don't tell me what to do, narrative, because i'm not going to do it!

i am also annoyed that they took the time to redesign mal in perfect childhood-friends-to-lovers dreamboat fashion but refused to retcon zoya's stupid misogyny-fueled bitchy YA girl arc and instead made it even worse by having her be racist to alina? what was the thought process there? they seriously fucked her over. i tried to pretend it didn't happen moving forward but why do they want to use racism as a tool for developing a "bully" character anyway, especially a woc? am i meant to forget about it? they lost me there. i feel like the female characters, with the exception of inej, generally weren't given the same care the male characters were. there was a lot of sidelining in favour of mal's redemptive rewrite and the darkling's 15 minutes of half-assed backstory and crying in every scene for some reason. “make me your villain” .... okay, simpboy, i’ll try my best.

i've already talked about why i hated mal's role (i clarify his role, not his character, because there was literally nothing wrong with him and that’s why i hated him so much) but i'm going to address it from the perspective of my love for alina and why i think this decision was so disrespectful to her. alina in the books was already in need of more characterization, time for herself and her internal development as opposed to her relationship with the three male love interests she acquires through the series. somehow this show took a main character already underused in her own story (though at least the books are told from her pov) and neglected her even further. alina is tied almost entirely to her male counterparts, mal especially, but i'd say the darkling is used as a narrative rebound. i think they both have chemistry and can serve a purpose in the story but the emphasis on codependency is impossible to ignore.

in the first four episodes, every scene that could have been alina struggling to settle into a new life and dealing with the emotional weight of her pressure as a saint was instead about mal. she writes him letters, and cries over him, and slips him into conversations that have nothing to do with him, and gets sad after slipping him into conversations that have nothing to do with him, and can't use her power because she's thinking of him, and then only decides to fully accept her power because of his absence.

alina's feelings are lended to nothing but her missing mal. he isn't just her best friend and love, he's this colossal piece of her identity that she doesn't get to exist without, even when he's gone. the show's exhaustive attempt to make mal loveable and make malina an epic love story turns our female protagonist into a sulking, miserable shell of a character everytime he's mentioned, which, by the way, is like, every two minutes. and apparently it's necessary to draw parallels to the same three flashbacks in all of them. i knoowwwwwwww, they held hands and now they can't anymore, i knowwww. they ran through a meadow, i knowwwwwwwwwwwwww.

watching her scenes almost drove me to printing out a bechdel test and ticking off as many boxes as possible.

i hated it. it made me sad.

i wanted more alina. i want her power to be her own. i wanted that tension between her and mal in the books because his flaws gave her a chance to stand up for herself and say that she liked being powerful. that summoning is a part of her and she would never give it up. that there was a tinge of corruption, of greed, of wanting to be the sun summoner, and it was intriguing! mal's issue of not accepting alina's power allowed her to express how much it meant to her. i wanted the alina who said "the night was velvety black and strewn with jewels. the hunger struck me suddenly. i want them, i thought." i wanted a hint of the sun summoner who decided when it got dark and relished in it (yes i know this can be expanded upon in s2). alina has a cocky side, her insecurities are explored and she finds strength in her new gift and eventually has to find strength outside of it, but in the show the catalyst to her powers is mal. always. is it romantic? sure. but it's hard to enjoy the romance when all we see of alina is her romantic connection to mal. can't she be more than that?