The more I think about it, the more I think that Persuasion has my favorite premise of all of Jane Austen's novels
Anne Elliot as a character speaks to my soul. She feels tremendous guilt for a decision she made eight years ago. Her life is lonely, as she doesn't really have anyone she can truly confide in despite being surrounded by people. So she swallows her pain, the yearning she feels deep in her soul, and vows that if nothing else at least she'll be helpful.
And of course she is reunited with Frederick Wentworth (the one that got away) who seems to hate her now, and she just keeps going. She keeps being kind and supporting her loved ones while slowly carving out a life for herself. There's something about her classic heroism that just feels so attainable. I don't have Elizabeth Bennett's wit, or Jane Bennett's unwavering belief in the goodness of everyone, or even Elinor's constant composure. But I can be like Anne and just keep moving forward attempting to be helpful
Of course it all works out in the end, and Anne is finally surrounded by people who truly appreciate her, even if she had to wait an extra eight years. Others have observed the fairy tale quality of the ending, and perhaps that's why it speaks to me. The idea that if you just keep doing your best and being kind, you'll eventually find happiness
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I was joking a while back that the actor they have playing KDJ for the orv movie was too handsome for him and a friend who's read orv was like "KDJ is actually secretly attractive!!" And I just felt my soul leave my body right then
SIGHS...
Okay. Buckle in. I'm gonna finally actually address and explain and theorize about this whole...thing.
I'm not gonna cite any exact chapters cause it's like 11:30 and I've got an 8 hour drive in the morning but I'll at least make an approximate reference to where certain things are mentioned. Also, this post is just my personal interpretation for a good bit of it, but it's an interpretation I feel very solid about, so do with that what you will. Moving on to the meat of things:
There is one (1) instance in the web novel that I know of which describes specific features of Kim Dokja (especially ones other people notice). This takes place when members of KimCom are trying to make Kim Dokja presentable to give his speech at the Industrial Complex (after it's been plopped down on Earth). This is when they start really paying attention and focusing on Kim Dokja's appearance since they're putting makeup on him; I still don't think they can interpret his whole face, but they can accurately pick out and retain more features than usual. If I remember correctly they reference him having long eyelashes, smooth skin, and soft hair. These features can be viewed as (stereotypically) attractive.
Certain parts of the fandom have taken this scene and run with it at a very surface level, without realizing (or without acknowledging at the very least) that this scene is not about how Kim Dokja looks. This is, in part, due to not realizing or acknowledging why Kim Dokja's face is "censored" in the first place, and what that censoring actually means. I think it's also possible that some people are assuming the censorship works like a physical phenomena rather than an altered perception.
I'll address that last point first. The censorship of Kim Dokja's features is not something as simple as a physical phenomena. It's not a bar or scribble or mosaic over his face. If that were true it'd be very obvious to anyone looking at him that his face is hidden. But his face is not hidden to people. They can look at him and see a face. If they concentrate on his eyes, they can see where he's looking. They know when he's frowning or grinning. They see a face loud and clear. But what face are they seeing? Because it's not really his, whatever they're seeing.
No one quite agrees on what he really looks like. And if they try and think about what he looks like, they can't recall. Or if they do, it's vague, or different each time. We notice these little details throughout the series. Basically, Kim Dokja's face is cognitively obscured. Something - likely the Fourth Wall, though I can't recall if this is ever stated outright - is interfering with everyone's ability to perceive him properly. This culminated in him feeling off to others; and since they don't even realize this is happening, they surmise that he is "ugly."
Moving on to the other point about what the censorship means: To be blunt, the censorship of his face is an allegory for his disconnect from the "story" (aka: real life, and the real people at his side). The lifting - however slight - of this censorship represents him becoming more and more a part of the "story" (aka: less disconnected from the life he is living and the people at his side). The censorship's existence and lifting can represent other things - like dissociation or depersonalization or, if you want to get really meta, the fact that he is all of our faces at once - but that's how I'd sum up the main premise of it. (The Fourth Wall is a larger part of the dissociation allegory, but that's for another post).
So you see, them noticing his individual features isn't about the features. It's not about the features! It doesn't matter at all which features got listed. Because they could describe any features whatsoever and it would not change the entire point of the scene. Because the point isn't what he looks like. The point is that they can truly and clearly see these features. For the first time. They are seeing parts of him for the first time. Re-read that sentence multiple times, literally and metaphorically. What does it mean to see someone as they are?
This is an extremely significant turning point dressed up as a dress-up scene.
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P.S. / Additionally, I'm of the opinion that Kim Dokja is not handsome, and he is not ugly. He is not pretty, and he is not ghastly. Not attractive, nor unattractive. Kim Dokja isn't any of these things. More importantly, Kim Dokja can't be any of these things. The entire point of Kim Dokja is that you cannot pick him out of a crowd; he is the crowd. He's a reader. He's the reader. Why does he need to be handsome? Why must he be pretty? Why is him being attractive necessary or relevant? He doesn't, he doesn't, it's not. He is someone deeply deeply loved and irreplaceable to those around him, and someone who cannot even begin to recognize or accept that unless it's through a love letter masquerading as a story he can read. He is the crowd, a reader, the reader. He's you, he's me. He's every single one of us.
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Based on any criteria: whoever was the most fun to fight, the coolest or most clever design, the hardest battle, general vibes, etc
It’s been a minute since I tried playing SS but personally I thought Koloktos was so cool with all the gold arms. Also getting to hit it with its own giant sword was a big plus
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Looking at the panels and certain specific moments of Minato's one shot it feels like a big middle finger from Kishimoto to part of the fandom that tells him that he doesn't know how to write romance. First of all, I respect that even though it's supposedly Minato's manga, Kushina is the real star, but I think this manga only seems to show something that was already in Naruto, Kishimoto knows how to write romance, he has done it with couples like Dan and Tsunade on a smaller scale and even with the crumbs he gave about Kushina and Minato in the original series, which means that NH and SS are bad not because of a lack of talent but because of a simple lack of interest.
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