magicalchaosnut

[magicalchaosnut]

My English class TED Talk script

TED Talk Title: Why We Shouldn’t Become Soup

Neon Genesis Evangelion is an anime that covers the relationships between several people with volatile personalities in a post apocalyptic world, uniquely fighting otherworldly beings while returning to the womb and experiencing intense pain, and suffering through their view of themselves and their idea of others’ perspectives.

The buildup of the series comes to a climax during the movie, leaving some philosophical questions to ponder over. For example, the Human Instrumentality Project and a look at whether individuality is a gift or a curse by showing the alternative: eternal togetherness or unity. Once this project is put into motion, all of humanity is subject to be a sea of ‘LCL’; soul fluid that melds into one eternal ocean of consciousness. The reason for this is the universal fear of loneliness, which was touched on earlier in the show with a discussion about the hedgehog's dilemma: the fear of hurting other people the closer you get to them, similar to a hedgehog trying to find warmth amongst others in its species during the winter.

Shinji shows this fear by continually running away from his caregiver, Misato, and his responsibilities as a pilot because he doesn’t want to get closer to the other pilot, Rei Ayanami, who he has started to care for. This is similar to his father, Gendo Ikari, and his fear of being a poor father. Instead of getting closer to his son after his wife’s death, he leaves his son behind which damages him more than his father’s presence would have.

Misato, the most recurring adult main character in the show, is afraid of getting close to Ryuuji Kaji because she is confident that she cannot open herself to him. Her personality is so cheerful on the outside, when in reality she has been stuck as a little girl who was sent away by her father who died in a nuclear explosion. She is afraid that Kaji will be like her father and leave her to fend for herself, and that she will be unable to reciprocate his feelings in the way that it matters. Ultimately, he dies and leaves Misato alone. Her fears are confirmed, but she is able to brave them through the closeness of Shinji as her pseudo-son in her final moments.

Asuka has a fear of others as well, taking it out more violently than Shinji by forming relationships where she thrives off of her superiority complex (which is really an inferiority complex) and can be considered the best. As she was a child prodigy who graduated college at age 14, she has all of the knowledge of an adult but little of the maturity that is expected of her, making her the extreme example of being a teenager: having all of the burden with none of the respect of experience that others want you to have already. She gets close enough to Shinji to be in sync as a fellow pilot, but never talks about her true drive to be considered good enough: her mother committing suicide while holding a doll of her, symbolizing that she wasn’t enough for her mother to stay alive for and would be more beneficial if she had been exactly as her mother wanted.

The will of God was sent to turn everyone into LCL to rid all people of the inescapable loneliness that they feel because they cannot understand each other. Like the angels before humanity, that are single entities of a species and nothing more, becoming one in the ocean of consciousness would eliminate loneliness and the social suffering that so many people in the post apocalyptic world fear. To retake the importance of being the central descendants of god, humanity feels they must ascend individuality. But in doing so, there is an infinite amount of unwavering suffering and no amount of time to alleviate the pain of one's sense of self when there are no other selves. Similar to how we can fight with our family members, but if we were to be only one self, we would be alone. You can’t be a family if you are just one person. In an effort to curb the societal loneliness felt by an entire population, the will of the few has caused an incurable loneliness that rids all of humanity of the chance to love another and try to understand by turning everyone into one thing. In summary, it is better to suffer for the sake of possible happiness and hope that you will understand people and make friends, than it is to give up and wallow in your own solitude.

The movie ends with Shinji understanding the sacrifice to live as an individual, which is the loneliness of consciousness. He lets the rest of the sea of consciousness decide whether they live for opportunity rather than be essentially comatose in an emotional stasis. The message of the series is that it's better to be lonely and try to be happy than it is to give up and be nothing at all. Even if everyone is unified in that nothingness.

[magicalchaosnut]

I was gonna write a whole post about “Innocent Sin”, a manwha I’m reading.

I am currently morally conflicted. The plot is solidly meh but I’m really living for the main relationship.

I think I had to draw the line at the sexual abuse. It’s very romanticized which I cannot stand. Because the ML is being abused by women and not the other way around, it doesn’t really seem to be showing how bad it really is.

It is essentially porn that’s trying to have plot. I might continue reading because of the two main relationships but I CANNOT stand another Noah abuse scene :(

[magicalchaosnut]

Roses and Champagne

Jesus fucking Christ. I got to the main plot ending and I do not have the stomach for some shitty "fluff bonus stories".

This is not the author's first power complex abuse story. (Kiss me, Liar)

The first time the assault, rape, and abuse has been so disgustingly prominent and romanticized in a long, long, long time. I think it was the switch flip that made it all the more worse; Caesar went from a loving and generically possessive 'seme' character that the MC trusted and out of the blue he gets pissed and RAPES MC FOR 8 DAYS STRAIGHT AFTER SHOOTING HIM 3 TIMES. It wasn't plot. Leewon immediately forgives him too (Caesar literally just said "I'm sorry". Disgusting.) so there wasn't even fantasy BL 'seme change' merit.

Somehow I am also pissed at Leewon's writing. He find out who his dad is and his thought process is "well I was always his son". ??? Excuse me??? You didn't know until a week ago?? You could've just been like "HEY I DIDN'T KNOW BEFORE WE MET" and then explained? He's a FUCKING LAWYER. HE COULD'VE ARGUED HIS OBVIOUS CASE. Stupid writing for stupid characters.

Dmitri too. He wasn't even exactly compelling. He was a fiend for prostitution, kills anyone for money, and guess what? He apparently gets his own side story. Even without the eye-bleach worthy main plot, who the fuck cares about Dmitri. He's an annoying bitch with shallow writing.

Now, before you come at me being like "OMG you read Painter of the Night and didn't say anything >:(((", that's because everyone acknowledged it. Yeah it's grossly fetishized but at least there's some awareness. From the beginning you know: this will be unhealthy and there will be a lot of sexual assault. Roses and Champagne? First ~40 chapters were top tier, working towards a wholesome/healthy relationship. The romance was killed by Ch 45. He only stopped his week of rape because Leewon was losing too much blood.

I cannot stand these fetish BLs and I know that the fans think that it is okay. I had to drop this one.

[magicalchaosnut]

BJ Alex

BJ Alex is an extremely popular manwha created by author Mingwa and distributed through Lezhin Comics. It is about the relationship between a college student and his favorite Broadcast Jockey having a sexual relationship.

You've heard it all before, I know. BJ Alex was an extremely inaccurate representation of organic and healthy relationships. One could argue that most of the story was just a set up for the latter half of the story; the healthy, committed part. Regardless of if this is true or not, I'm calling out the shoddy writing right now. After Jiwon has his weird and slightly desperate love confession for Dong-Gyun after lying on a couch, Jiwon finally starts trying to really mend his relationship with DG in a healthy way. Sounds great, right? Wrong. Suddenly the whole comic takes a full 180 where Jiwon is a great boyfriend and Dong-Gyun has no slightly creepy sex practices. Of course, every other chapter we still get a very explicit run of mostly plotless sex (at one point it revolved around the author's piss kink, and I'm all for tasteful smut, but this was not it). After DG was psychologically abused and hurt by Jiwon we're launching straight into "OMG I've loved you for so long sorry I just didn't want to be gaEE!!" bullshit that might be dismissable for a highschooler but is so quickly accepted and poorly done that it makes me want to throw my phone across the room. Believe me, I almost did. Jiwon has almost no depth to him besides that he has a questionable past and that he is sex obsessed and always crazy horny. Dong-Gyun at least has a bit more character, which is mainly the result of his close friendship with his coworker. He was the guy who blew all of his savings on supporting a broadcast jockey after jerking himself off crazy yet of course, he has NO STAMINA DURING SEX. Apparently the self-proclaimed fujoshis really love seeing their "uke" be coaxed into having exhausting sex. Seems healthy. At least they got a happy ending I guess.

Now for the secondary couple. They had some great consensual smut moments and a nice relationship...until they didn't. Chanwoo is out here just trying to find a real and romantic relationship, something that he turned down Myung-Dae for. They're still having sex all of the time, which is by both of their preferences. That isn't what I'm calling out, however. I'm calling out the sheer manipulation and abuse of a safeword by Myung-Dae. Chanwoo meets someone who he is building a romantic relationship with, only to find out that it was all because his love interest wanted to go back to being Myung-Dae's bottom. Shit's already crazy toxic, but Myung-Dae decides to make Chanwoo participate in a threesome with the guy who just like, destroyed Chanwoo. All because Myung-Dae wanted him to have to use a safeword. Shit was horrible and I'm still pissed. Sure, they got into a romantic relationship after but holy heck. That is just...messed up.

In conclusion, BJ Alex is basically a toxic relationship fetish manwha that decided at the last moment that it wanted a crumb of substance. And Myung-Dae is batshit, despite having been deemed the most respectful Dom.

[magicalchaosnut]

My favorite thing is when a webcomic references my favorite anime from 1995 (Neon Genesis Evangelion).

[Love So Pure]

[magicalchaosnut]

Why the boss is my favorite character:

(Love so Pure)

[magicalchaosnut]

Full Volume Manwha

Full Volume is a manwha released on Lezhin Comics and is written by author Albert and illustrated by Eun-ji Yang. This comic is centered around a camboy named Beom who goes by Snow Tiger and a famous author named Coral Snake, or Dowon.

Going into this, I was afraid that it would just be another MLM fetish series that had little to no plot. Sadly, I was not entirely wrong.

We often see in these manwha centered around gay men the use of sexual encounters causing romantic relationships. Rarely is this done right, and most of these R18 focused comics have abusive elements or parts of the story written purely for shock factor or fanservice. Something I noticed about Full Volume (besides the common trope of camboy drama) was that even in the beginnning chapters we see our protagonist - Dowon - painted as someone who is constantly in a horny mindset. This isn't necessarily bad, but a major part of Beom's later attraction to Dowon is because of his passion for nature and analyzing certain parts of travel. This is never fleshed out and we only see the fruits of Dowon's labor in his connections with certain powerful people.

The beginning of Beom & Dowon's relationship is born out of a partially mutual distaste for each other. Beom is incapable of understanding his expressions, as well as others because of his traumatic past and lack of proper social interactions. Dowon is upset about a few incidents involving mail, which leads to many heated encounters. Of course, like any Lezhin comic, they end up having uncomfortably (imo) graphic sex and later start to realize their attraction for each other through certain circumstances (Dowon helps Beom out with some legal issues, Beom's streaming producer is shown to be abusive, etc.). Though Dowon's whole spiel is that he loves Beom no matter what, especially after a somewhat excessive amount of flirting, he often acts as though Beom is with him for purely sexual pleasure. This is fitting for Beom's profession, yes, but I think even an unseasoned manwha reader could tell that Beom is too inexperienced and emotionally constipated to accept such "affections" from Dowon - at least in a healthy way.

This manwha is also one of MANY that has a prominent age gap, and I can't help but feel majorly uncomfortable with how Beom is so clueless about how the world works, and yet Dowon has coaxed him into a sexual relationship. Beom is even shown to have a few concerns about his comfort in his own streaming profession, which Dowon often disregards for the sake of his own pleasure. I understand the demand for smutty manwhas but...come on.

Now, there were some pros to this whole comic. When the rare romantic interaction between Dowon and Beom is written, it is often admirable and enjoyable to read. It's also wonderful to see Beom's passion for certain topics. Beom's past issues and resulting mindset are fairly realistic and show how he was affected by the abuse he endured. I also see that the relationship between Mr. Kwon and Beom is shown as plausible. Yes, it is uncomfortable, but we can see how this manipulation could happen to anyone. My favorite aspect of this whole manwha, though, was the humor that is pleasantly sprinkled into the story. Props to our illustrator for making me chuckle.

My last gripe is that each remotely erotic scene seems to take up so much space per chapter (sometimes even multiple chapters) that the plot becomes difficult to consume. Yes, their sexual encounters are often a major part of their relationship, but their constant intercourse become tiring and starts to dilute one's interest in the slow moving plot. Yes. We get it. You have sex.

Overall, this manwha was pretty enjoyable and isn't nearly as painful to read as Painter of the Night (though, that's not a high bar). I am waiting for new chapters each week and hope that Beom gets the help he needs. I just really wish that it went deeper into the actual relationship between the protagonists rather than each sexual encounter.