#were making meaningful progress and theyre hearts are in the right place and genuinely some disabled church members might prefer that langua

[firefly-fez]

me at 8:00: yeah guys i can’t come out tonight. yeah got another insomnia flare-up, really need an early night. have fun tho!

me at 1am: how are we, as a society ever going to destigmatise disability if we won’t even let ourselves say the goddamned word. maybe the reason you think disability is an offensive term is because disability itself offends you. and of course it does, because it is offensive. The notion that a disabled person did nothing to deserve their disability and cannot achieve success the same way you can because of it offends the idea that you are successful because of your vitues, not your luck. It offends the pride you have in uour work, your success, your wealth and whether you truly earnt it. Disability is offensive only because the innate humanity of a disabled person offends the very propaganda our extractive capitalist society relies on to—

[casually-inlove]

aah i agree im vry disappointed in this chapter ! like its good like usual, but its kind of a let down after the last 5 chapters... ht rly exposed himself minutes before, and comedy aside, MGS answered him by ignoring him, and then saying "were not friends, were not as close as you think we are". it must have been hurtful for HT, its basically a rejection of recognizing HT vulnerabilities. and its totally In character for MGS to say this, so im not disappointed by it 1/?

i mean HT lay his heart down for Mo to see and theyve known each other for 15 DAYS, its too soon for anybody and especially for Mo who have mistrust problems to respond in the same way ? so running away and deflecting the declaration is cool, i wasnt excepting a "ill never abandon u!!" lol. but then HT being cool with this rejection and having a slapstick comedy just after doesnt feel right. mb show HT swallowing and being disheartened, and then put his usual facade and only then have comedy 2/?

would have been good, bc we would have known "oh ht is actually hurt by MGS reaction but doesnt know how to say it, so he plays it cool and change the subject bc hes still not at ease with being vulnerable". a realistic situation would have been "ht tried to be vulnerable but it was too soon, too much for mo who rejected him, so it confirmed ht biased thinking that showing vulnerabilities is bad and it will prevent ht to be vulnerable in front of someone in the near future". 3/?

i mean it could have been a nice although sad conclusion for this mini-arc, especially since ht have been grieving (?) his mother just this morning. a little step back, and then smth else happen and cause ht to crack completely but then mo is able to respond present and its a step forward. ok im daydreaming but that would have been climatic lol. instead this..ah i dont know i feel cheated, i know its ox' work but still haha ! like when they do an abrupt change of scene after an emotional page 4/

its a trick ox use often and after 300 chapters it feels old n cheap. when u engage in a emotional scene, u cant just do "oops i change my mind!!" and put slapstick comedy or ignore totally what just happened and dont have a progression. u have to stay on this road : u cant put traumatizing backgrounds and mafia affairs and mature problems (kidnapping, mother being threatening into prostitution,etc) n just.. not stick with it and making ur characters not traumatized by it and just 'lol comedy'.

sry im kind of monopolizing ur askbox lol, i guess im kind of frustrated ! it just the last chapters were so good and it was a while since ox use this cheap trick of not going through an emotional scene that i kind of forgot how terrible they were at handling transition between drama and comedy. theyre a good artist all in all (or i wouldnt be this disappointed!!), but they have this failing in their writing an it drives me nuts each time lmao. haa i hope next chapter will be better...5/5

Hell yeah, DEFINITELY, that sums up my thoughts. Also, you don't have to apologize, it was an interesting read and I can tell that you feel strongly about it. While I can’t say that I’m flat-out disappointed, as I wrote in my original post, I’m definitely feeling lukewarm and indifferent about the recent ch.

OX touched upon a few serious matters a couple of chapters before: namely She Li’s fucked up goading and the way it unsettled He Tian -- unsettled in no joking manner as follows from his reaction. Then we get He Tian swearing to beat up anyone who dares bully Mo, and the whole profound monologue from the previous chapter. Just as you say, He Tian truly laid himself bare there. One could argue that He Tian listed the reasons he was enamoured with Mo, or one could argue that he subtly commented on the milieu he grew up in, or one can even read it as He Tian admitting/reflecting on his flaws out loud. There are many ways to construe this scene, each of them is extremely meaningful. Not to mention it took HT visible effort to say these things out loud.

The problem which both you and I noticed is that OX left this mini-arc/mini-subplot unresolved. Instead, they abruptly switched to comedic relief. Much like you, I wasn’t expecting a big reaction from Mo -- no grand verbal declarations at very least. What I expected was a panel (maybe a close up of Mo’s face as I mentioned in my original post) that indicated he actually HEARD what HT told him, that it gave Mo some food for thought. 

As you mention, Mo getting disconcerted and doing the tsun-tsun escape is fairly in character for him. Still, a panel like this would have been very welcome to emphasize his confusion and to justify him not gracing the other boy with an answer, ignoring HT showing his underbelly (which is something that doesn't come easy for him, as we readers know). Okay, sure, OX handled it differently this chapter -- we get Mo silently running away and blurting out the first comeback he could think of. No problem. It works to show that HT’s words had an effect on him, albeit it’s much less pronounced, than, say, the Aquarium scene -- again one would have to wonder why: HT’s “don’t abandon me” is just as strong, if not stronger, than “I’m afraid you’ll forget me”, so it follows that Mo should have been just as affected.

The problem is the way an emotionally charged moment quickly fizzled out into comedy. As you said, Mo blurting out “we are not friends, we are not familiar enough, so I don’t care what you think (of me)!” SHOULD have hit HT harder. Just minutes before we had HT being genuinely disturbed by the idea of someone looking to intentionally hurt Mo, seeking physical comfort, being disquieted by the idea of getting abandoned and losing someone he likes, confessing that he admires the other boy -- yet when Mo utters yet another curt rejection of sorts, we are not shown HT’s reaction, which, logically, should have been there. 

And all of that emotional build-up is cheapened by an accidental dick slap comedy. 

Indeed, showing HT being hurt (disquieted? deflated?) and then putting on a cool guy mask, and ONLY then switching to a slapstick humour would have been more appropriate. It wouldn’t have taken a big or an overly dramatic scene either -- just, IDK, show HT’s eyes widening, or his throat clicking, or his posture slumping, anything to indicate that Mo’s words affected him -- that the whole thing mattered to him. Otherwise, it leaves a bad taste in one’s mouth: “so Imma confess to the person I like and swear to protect them and beg them to put up with me -- oh! forget anything serious that I said, Imma touch some dick now”. While I don't have an issue with comedy coming into focus again, I do wish it hadn't been this abrupt. Had there been a better transition between these scenes, there wouldn't be this "lol jk" vibe that I’m getting.

So yeah, I, too, feel a little cheated. OX certainly has an issue with drama-comedy transitions, which are sort of hit-and-miss for me. Sometimes they work well to alleviate the grave mood, other times they appear to be out of place. The recent chapter is the latter case. Dangling a possibility of climatic resolution for the subplot and then intentionally subverting it just doesn’t work in favour of the plot here. It cheapened the emotional part and made the comedy feel much less fun for me. Of course, no one says that writing is an easy task. Plenty of mangakas, for instance, work with writers to strengthen their script and plots, so it’s challenging when a single person is responsible for both drawing and planning the story. OX is undoubtedly doing a tremendous job. Still, I wish they wouldn’t stick to using the old trick this monastically because it's becoming a trite writing device and works against them on occasion. It’s totally fine to keep the comic light-hearted yet it’s not good to ignore the needed dramatic development.