Hello! I saw your recent art of sabo, and in the tags you mentioned the big 3 of Shounen. I know it’s One piece and Naruto, but what’s the third? How come you like the character? Lovely artwork, it’s candy for the soul!! Thank you •u•
Ah thank you!!! The big three of shonen (for I guess the previous generation?) are Naruto, One Piece, and Bleach. Naruto and Bleach have already ended but it seems like One Piece is still going quite strong, despite the new generation of shonen anime (including Hero Aca, Demon Slayer, and the third spot is still debated! Probably JJK is my guess though that falls into its own sub genre of shonen dark fantasy I suppose)
Here are my favs! I’ll put the reasons why I like them in the read more because it’s quite long :)
Despite watching Naruto first I could never actually finish it because it was so long so I kind of just osmosed the later parts of shippuden through fanfics and other such media ^^; I think it’s pretty difficult to pick a definitive fav for Naruto because I feel like it tends to fumble a bit of its character writing? I think if I had to pick one maybe young Kakashi but still kind of eh. Maybe I just didn’t watch far enough to get attached
As for Bleach, I picked it up years ago around middle school and then dropped it after the first hundred episodes or so because filler got boring for younger me but then I picked it up again in high school and managed to at least get past aizen! And then I dropped it there because I wasn’t interested in any continuation after what seemed like an already pretty strong ending.
Toshiro is my favorite because he falls into all niches of character tropes that I enjoy including but not limited to: child genius who acts responsible but is still somewhat immature, cold personality along with ice powers but fierce loyalty to close relationships. I especially enjoy child genius characters for the contradictory dichotomy of what is expected of them in terms of maturity and knowledge and the amount of pressure these kinds of characters face and how they handle it! That said, I enjoy him more for the tropes that he falls into and my personal interpretation of him rather than canon writing for him. I think that though canon is an alright base, he doesn’t get much time to shine (character-wise instead of combat-wise).
And Sabo. Oh my goodness I am brainrotting so hard over Sabo right now. The ASL siblings in general have a vice grip on my heart and really are not letting go. There is so much tragedy in the way that they are written, that works because there are three of them. Ace and Luffy spend so much effort trying to save the only brother they have left in the world not realizing that if they go they’ll be the first to go actually because Sabo is still alive, and Sabo could have done so much and changed so much if only he had regained his memories sooner. Why didn’t he remember sooner? I can only assume it’s because he didn’t want to remember, because he grew out his hair to cover a scar he wasn’t proud of, because he was running away from his origins when he lost his memories and maybe that stuck with him. I don’t even remember when Sabo was introduced as a character because I don’t think he was mentioned during Marineford? But he’s such a compelling character because he does so much to save the world and yet is unable to save his own brother! And he’s written to fit with Ace and Luffy incredibly well, being the voice of reason where they can’t be.
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I just got through the Earthlings arc during my SU rewatch and im absolutely facinated by Jaspers character
She’s such an effective antagonist for so long because she clashes with every other character so fundamentally. She’s got this completely foreign to the show worldview that is shown to be contrary to what the rest of the show is trying to say but she still feels like a real person and when you think about her she’s just as much a product of her circumstances as anyone else. She doesn’t want to talk it out with Steven because why would she? She was literally born to fight as has been doing so since the second she was born, it’s all she’s ever known and has been drilled into her head that that’s what’s expected of her, she’s rewarded for fighting well and watches as others are punished for doing badly, either by losing or by facing consequences for failing.
And then there’s the whole “perfect solider” part of her character. She was literally born more capable and with a higher status than everyone else. But because of the way home world is structured to reward her and punish people like the off-colours, she’s been indoctrinated into thinking that the reason she came out on top had nothing to do with how she was made and everything to do with her behaviour and attitude. Peak “pull yourself up by your bootstraps” type person but because it’s a fictional story you can see what happened to make her this way. Her and amethyst are fundamentally different, they’re different quartzes, they were born in different places, they were just created differently, from the start jasper was always going to be better at some things than amethyst and amethyst would be better at others than jasper. But because of the way jasper has been “raised” for lack of a better word she doesn’t see that, she doesn’t understand that her and amethyst are simply different gems who were made different, she’s better at fighting and is picture image of what a quartz “should” be so that means it’s possible and anyone who can’t live up to that standard simply isn’t trying hard enough. And she even manages to get that into amethysts head, if jasper is capable of this then that means that amethyst must be too, even tho that’s simply not true. Through no fault of her own amethyst would have to try infinitely harder to achieve even close to where jasper is, jasper started out with a huge head start and trying to play catch up does nothing but hurt amethyst. It’s such a good analogy for so many things I think
Her main role in the story is serving as a character who simply refuses to talk it out with Steven, but again, why would she? From her perspective the entire reason her life is like this, she reason shes spent her life fighting endlessly, all the suffering shes lives through, its his fault. Rose Quartz started the war she was quite literally born to fight in. Rose Quartz also ended that same war by killing the only person jasper ever had to look up to, forced her out of the only reason she had for existing (both as in to fight the war and to serve Pink Diamond). And then heres Rose Quartz once again, saying she wants to help her? Where was she offering help when jasper when she was living to fight as much as she was fighting to live? Where was this „help“ when she shattered Pink Diamond and Jaspers entire world with her? „Help“? Help my ass shes the reason everything thats gone wrong in jaspers life went wrong in the first place
And then she gets poofed at her lowest point, gets removed from the story entirely until Future, and Future does nothing to make anything better for her! Last jasper knew the person shes been seeking revenge on her entire existence cant even be bothered to remember what she did, and then she loses herself to the Earth and corruption, the very things she prided herself on being better than.
And then suddenly shes brought back and „hey guess what! That war we created you to fight in? The one you created your entire person around? The one you lost Everything in? Yeah so it was pointless. Actually the person you idolised for the past 6000 years is the same person who you thought killed her and have been seeking vengeance on for the same amount of time. Crazy how that happens. Anyways so do you wanna come hang out with us now that we sorted that out and were chill about it?“
Can you even IMAGINE what that feels like? No wonder she runs off into the woods and becomes a hermit what else is she supposed to do! Shes got nowhere to go! Her entire life has been turned on its head and she’s expected to just move on! That’s ridiculous!
And thats just the backdrop for her appearance in Future. When she finally does appear they kill her and thats the first and only time we ever see her happy. Someone Finally speaks to her in a way she can understand and she actually dies, and uses that to find herself a purpose. If steven is powerful enough to shatter her, a feat never before seen by a gem, then sure she can serve him, anything to give her life purpose again. and then they just forget about her! Steven literally ditched her in his house! They pull the rug out from under her Once Again. but now she can be „normal“ now she can do what other people want her to do so they all assume shes „better“ now.
I think future did her so dirty the original show handles her character So Well and im not really sure how else they could have gone further with her character because people like Jasper in real life dont really change. And if she were to change and agree with steven it would feel like the show saying steven was right and jasper was wrong and she should have listened to him from the start. Shes such an interesting character to delve into because shes the antagonist yes but shes a very specific type or antagonist that doesnt appear very often and when it does its not with as much backstory, even if just implied, or delving into the thoughts behind the actions. Its so interesting to me
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so basically “the gifted kid” is a smokescreen for increasing and/or affirming white privilege/white supremacy?
i’m not the right person to explain this at great length, so i won’t, but—intelligence testing has a long and complicated relationship with classism and racism. gifted (and other sped) programs rely on that testing.
that’s as far as i’m willing to explain as a non-expert, lmao. if you want to know more, there’s about 573857 pages of research/opinions/documented personal experiences available for you to sift through, both within and outside of ‘academic’ circles. here’s an excerpt from the abstract of a case study on the topic:
“We show how gifted and talented status meets the criteria of white property interests and is defended by recourse to law and policy. Efforts to improve identification of students for gifted services reveal that the implicit operation of these Interests is an important reason why identification practices favoring white and middle-class children have been resistant to change. Dismantling underlying white property interests in gifted and talented identification is a necessary, though not sufficient step, toward a more just educational system.” [DOI]
i haven’t read this case study in full—i’m just using it to point out that this is a prominent, ongoing discussion. in my opinion, this should be a much larger part of the “former gifted kid” conversation, but alas
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watching ofmd and thinking about the potential parallels between ed and izzy’s relationship and astrid and eadwulf’s. the leader and the dog that follows them around. the one all the good guys reach out to, who they make a connection with, and the one who represents everything they want to leave behind, who’s only really allowed to stick around because you can’t just ask a person to give up their shadow. the way eadwulf always looks to astrid, always follows her lead in the end even if he disagrees. “i have love for you.” the way astrid doesn’t notice wulf dying on the ground. “i loved you best i could.” two people who have watched each other being molded into what they are now, who have been through hell together, who love each other as much as they hate each other as much as they don’t know how to be anything else to each other, who can’t stop hurting each other can’t stop betraying each other can’t stop running back to each other, who are fused to each other like a cauterized wound.
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Sorry for being so rambly today (and last night) I have thoughts so onto the blog they go
I feel like part of the joy of art is in community, like you create something and you get to talk about it and share it with the world. This year I lost touch with the friends who I would always talk about art with and I think that loss is heavily impacting my ability to create (and the enjoyment I get from it.) I miss having a new idea and getting to ramble about it excitedly. I miss texting people the sketches and the mock ups and the color palettes.
I got into art for me. I wouldn’t show anything I made to anyone for years. So I’m no stranger for creating for the target audience of myself. Still, I miss that sense of community. I love this blog and I absolutely adore the lovely comments you all leave on my art but sometimes it feels so one-sided on here. I post a piece, I receive a lovely tag back and that’s it. End of story. I spend hours and hours working on something and it kind of disappears into the void in a day or so.
Trying to put it into words, but I think I wish I could create art that starts a conversation. That inspires people to create their own things in response, or even just talk with me about process. I think the perfectionism has gotten out of hand lately because I feel like I’m missing something—which I attribute to the quality of the piece—but really what I’m missing is buddies to chat about art with. There is no level of being “good enough” that will serve as a substitute for a real community.
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