ITP: Chinatits is a spoiled rich kid. Some thoughts on BAWWWji. Why everyone is so preoccupied with how to watch 00. Is it SRSBSNS? Is it full of bad writing? And why the fuck everyone cares so much about whether they should be enjoying the show rather than if they actually are enjoying it or not. Other things that I find annoying and haven’t had a chance to bitch about yet.

It’s probably a good idea to ignore everything past the bit on Saji, it’s all just incoherent bitching after that. Also SRS TL;DR.

Chinatits: Motivations and Why Shit’s Gonna Blow Up In Her Face

As usual for me,  this is coming from a conversation on /m/. Some Anons were arguing about Wang’s motivations, in that she’s so young and doesn’t really know anything about the world and yet has this bizarre desire to change it by any means necessary. Her motivation is so painfully simple it’s easy to miss: she’s a spoiled rich kid. 

The first point is that Wang is very young, even in S2 she’s only, what, 20? Young people are most prone to being idealistic dumbasses (Saji’s a contrasting example of the EXTREME MORALFAG, but more on that later). When you’re young you can put all your faith into stupid ideals that have little to no relation to the ‘real world’ because you know nothing about it (lol, I feel silly writing like this when I’m only 20 myself, but whatever) and consequently those ideals are paramount and much more possible theoretically (the only thing you have experience with) than in practice. The world doesn’t conform to Wang’s ideal of what it should be so she decides that it must be changed. Again, this sort of thinking is generally reserved to youth, you’re notably less likely to see someone in their 40s or even 30s holding such unrealistic beliefs, so rather than her age making the situation less believable, it’s more or less key to it.

Second point is that Wang is a wealthy brat. She probably has never had to work a day in her life and has likely never had to endure any real ‘hardship’ to get where she is (watch them drop some sappy backstory in an episode or two now). This not only exacerbates the idealistic youth problem (in a lot of ways, these type of people are never forced to grow up and/or confront the ‘real world’ so they don’t ever have to leave that mentality), but also gives her BORED RICH KID SYNDROME. What’s ‘bored rich kid syndrome’? Well, basically it’s a problem/pain-seeking drive that seems to plague children of well-to-do families. They don’t have to suffer in their life because their families are wealthy/etc and so they seek out suffering for some reason that I don’t entirely understand (but I am quite familiar with it, having spent 7 years of my middle-high school days in an expensive prep school–I like to think I never succumbed to bored-rich-kid-syndrome, but I’m biased, regardless I saw it happen a lot). Anyhow, Wang is bored and wealthy so rather than turning to the standard drugs/alcohol/ICUTMYSELF/etc bullshit that your standard rich latchkey kid does, she decides that LETS TRASH THE WHOLE GODDAMN WORLD, or whatever her goals are really (we know she wants to change the world, but to what end? I know she’s bullshitted that she doesn’t care how it changes as long as it changes but that’s bull and you know it).

Anyhow as for why she’s probably going to fuck up? Well, mostly it’s because of what she said about the Innovators this week. I think she’s sorely underestimating Ribbons and I get the impression that she doesn’t know who made Nena (namely, FUCKING RIBBONS). I seriously doubt he isn’t already aware of any threat Nena might pose to him and his fabulous posse of couch ornaments and how to combat it. Also, presently her goals and motives seem to be flimsy at best (unless she has a real aim in changing the world, but even then underestimating FUCKING RIBBONS is stupid). 

Well… that was more tl;dr than I’d expected. This is going to be a loooonnng post, isn’t it?

 

BAWWWWji

First off, I really liked the speech Tieria gave him in 6 and I don’t know about everyone else, but, his crumpling to the floor and wailing was really quite satisfying to watch (CRY LIKE THE BITCH YOU ARE CRYYYYY). Anyhow, I don’t think he’s been unnecessary these last few episodes (and look on the bright side, they’re getting him out of the way early on). In a way I think he’s a nice counterpoint to Wang (both are selfish, idealistic youths). Unlike Wang, Saji is forced to confront the ‘real world’ head on (even though he still hasn’t really gotten there yet–I think it’s pretty realistic how he’s reacting, he just wants to go home and have everything return to normal and not be involved).

One thing that I’ve been seeing a lot is the idea that Saji, for all his bitching and everything, is selfish because he could have done something to help earlier. I think it’s rather unreasonable to say that he’s selfish for not having joined the resistance effort on his own earlier. I’m not saying he’s not selfish though–it’s his moralfaggotry that makes him selfish. He refuses to recognize his involvement in things (like what Tieria said to him this week: whether you like it or not you’re involved now, shitsux but you can’t go home) and insists on lecturing everyone else not because he’s genuinely opposed to what they’re doing, but because it’s their fault he can’t live his normal life anymore. Again, I think that’s a fairly natural line of thought to be perfectly honest (er.. the lecturing moralfag bit is a bit much I think, but he’s dealing with a lot of conflicting ideas and information–war/fighting is bad, but so is people being oppressed by the government, CB is bad because the media says so (rather, that’s the perspective he’s been presented with so it’s natural for him to have a very negative view of them), but they’re theoretically doing something good, the government might be doing bad things but they didn’t do anything to me… etc).

As for whether he’s going to pull the trigger. My first inclination was that he would, but when I think about it more, I have to go with that he won’t. Mostly because I’m hoping that Saji does manage to reconcile those ideas in that moment and realize that there are ways he can help without having to fight (I desperately don’t want to see him in combat because it’d be stupid, I’d love for him to become a reporter though, that’d be such a waste of backstory if they don’t do something with it). Also shooting down Louise would be kinda cliche and 00’s been pretty good at dodging explicit cliche’s without at least some sort of twist so I dunno. I’ve got faith in the team to deliver something good since so far whenever something’s sounded stupid they’ve pulled it off somehow. 

 

“I can’t enjoy 00 because I’m too preoccupied with whether it’s good or not BAWWWWWWWWW”

Now, I’m not about to say 00’s above criticism, but seriously guys, why are you so stuck on whether you should be enjoying this or not or what other people are saying about the show? (I say this as I am explicitly addressing what other people are saying about the show, EXCELLENT!). I don’t know how much sense that sentence actually made, but I keep seeing people bitch about basically whether or not 00 is worth their time (is it ‘Gundam’ enough? is it special? is the writing bad? etc etc). Is it really that hard to figure out? If you’re enjoying it it’s worth your time, if you’re not it probably isn’t–SIMPLE.

But no, everyone’s too preoccupied with what everyone else is saying about it and whether they should feel like ‘wasting’ their time on the series or not based purely one either taking it far too seriously (Oooh I’m not gonna write about it on my blog anymore because discussions on animesuki aren’t constructive BAWWWWWWW–no one cares.) or whether the series conforms to their preconceived ideas about what a Gundam series should be (it’s not Gundam enough so it’s bad) and consequently bashing it to hell and back for really stupid things.

Er… I’m still not sure I’m actually making sense–bullet point time!

• No one cares if you watch it/blog about it or not, shut the fuck up already.
• Why does it matter if it’s not exactly like every other Gundam series before it? Isn’t that a good thing?
• Isn’t it more important whether you’re enjoying the series than if it’s accepted as good or not? (To clarify, I don’t think discussion of the series’ merits and shortcomings is problematic in the least, there’s just something about the attitude of the community at present that’s just so fucking uptight that they can’t enjoy something unless everyone agrees that it’s good or some other bullshit.)

Bah, I’m pretty sure that didn’t make any sense. 

Dear /m/,

Bad writing =! The episode focused on characters I don’t like. (Not saying 00’s writing is spectacular or anything, but I haven’t read any even remotely convincing arguments that it’s especially bad which didn’t focus primarily on GOD SAJI IS STUPID STOP WASTING TIME ON THAT FUCK HES NOT IMPORTANT BAADD WRITING).

Stop saying Tieria’s the worst pilot of the Meisters unless you can actually give a reason for it (and no ‘he just sits there and beamspams’ is not a reason since that’s what his machine is designed to do you stupid fucks). I see it thrown around like fact a lot and it pisses me off (oh noes they’re insulting my favorite character!).

You’re not allowed to bitch about the dialect of netslang native to 4chan and subsequently /m/ (seriously, if you weren’t there when the whole ‘Vowels’ nickname started, you have two choices: 1) use it, 2) don’t–no bitching about how Tieria isn’t that hard to spell, it WAS hard to spell back then). If you can’t use it properly, use standard English instead. Trying to import foreign dialects is just gonna get you bitched at, especially if you’re DOING IT WRONG (I’m looking at you Anon pushing “HoYay” in /m/).

[EDIT]

Oh yeah, if I see one more person seriously say that Sumeragi deserves to be brutally murdered for what she “did” to Billy, I’m gonna RAGE like a motherfucker. The fuck is wrong with you people?

Alright, I’m done whining today.