i'm just saying gohan was the blueprint. yes i loved future trunks as a kid but gohan... gohan who never wanted to fight anyone and wanted to read his little books to make his mom happy and didn't care about fighting strong enemies but only to keep his loved ones safe? gohan whose dad was the epitome of strength and had to coax him into being even greater than him? gohan with the bigger heart than everyone???

like

i was primed to turn out this way

🫴🏻🫴🏻 YOU WILL LOOK AT MY FRIEND'S ART

his insta: x_joyboy.art

Kumo and THE BEST BOY JORAKU

Cringetober 2023 Day 2

credit to @sleeprann for the concept and awestin martinez for this year's prompt list

Day 2's prompt is "Self Insert"

I chose to insert myself into Homestuck, because I'm still trash all these years later. Tbh self inserting myself into homestuck, or homestuck-adjacent scenarios, has been a long time escape daydream for me. I'm always thinking about how cool it'd be to become god tier and about all the trauma playing SBURB would cause lol. I like to imagine how I'd get along with the characters too. As a Homestuck character, I'd be good friends with John/June Egbert (windy buddies hell yeah), and I think somehow we'd both end up getting retcon powers and saving the day together (maybe I got recon powers first and I ended up in Homestuck proper thru shenanigans involving them? idk). I'd also be besties with Karkat. We'd develop some unspoken feelings for each other that don't come out until post-canon/Homestuck 2, and in the meantime I'd be with Jane til she decides to go for Jake/Gamzee and have Tavvi (who'd I'd eventually steal adopt as my son so he wouldn't have to have a fascist as a mother)

if you'd like to participate in the challenge, here's the prompt list

My brain is a weird mess and I assert dominance over it by making my coping mechanisms even fucking weirder. Like yeah I've been hurt in a way that will stay with me forever but that ain't shit compared to the highly detailed dbz fanfic world I have intense and vivid daydreams about constantly.

DBZ Thoughts: Z Fighters Don't Care About Earthlings As Much as I Thought

So I have been daydreaming about some DBZ scenes and I had a sudden realization: the Z fighters don't really care about the Earthlings much. It's hard to explain my feelings but I will try.

Ignorance is Bliss

I find it a bit distressing how many secrets the fighters keep from the Earth's people. I understand that they are on no one's payroll so they have no obligation to keep Earthlings posted and they deserve their privacy but it's really not fair. They knew the Saiyans were coming and never thought to inform at least King Fury about it. They knew the androids were coming and did not think to inform the government of the island about the possibility of attack. You can make the argument that the Earthlings would not react well or not believe them. But come on. People at the tournaments saw Goku grow a tail, saw him transform into Ozarou, and saw Piccolo and Goku fight. Before they allowed Mr Satan to spread lies, Earthlings were accepting of these so-called light shows. And King Fury knew of Goku's feats. The Earthlings had a right to know about the dangers they faced.

Collateral Damage

Vegeta vs 18. Majin Vegeta. What else is there to say? Vegeta and 18 killed several people in their fight. Vegeta was an arrogant prick at the time so I don't blame him too much. But no one ever criticizes Vegeta for putting civilians in danger. Vegeta is not forced to atone to Bulma for almost killing her when he launched that blast to the stands. Bulma was literally a few feet away from the point of impact! I like to think she and Vegeta had a deep conversation about that when they went home and Vegeta had to make it up to her. But nope, they were wished back to life so Vegeta's actions don't matter! Also Gohan's fight with Cell. Gohan brought the fight so that fat guy was right in front of him. Of course, Gohan saved the Satan screw so he was fine and it showed off his badass moves...but was endangering that guy necessary?? And how could I forget Piccolo literally watching Imperfect Cell drink that poor man right in front of him without the slightest care on his face. Talk about cold. And they had an opportunity to stop Gero before he could hurt anyone but they put the Earth in danger for cheap thrills and testosterone stupidity. Poor Bulma, it must be hard to be surrounded by idiots.

Edit: Piccolo was actually horrified by Cell draining that fat guy. What I meant here was that Piccolo did nothing to help him.

Goku Letting Villains Go

So Goku let Piccolo, Vegeta and Frieza live. Although he did blast Frieza after he unsurprisingly tried to kill him with the energy Goku gave that bastard. Piccolo and Vegeta turned out to be good guys...but what if they did not?? I don't get the impression Goku was keeping tabs on Piccolo. How would Goku know if Piccolo did not enjoy a random killing spree every now and then? Pretty sure Majunior killed a few people as a kid without Kami giving a crap. And what if Vegeta returned to Earth and killed a ton of people before the Z fighters could intercept him?? What if he brought backup?? Well, no matter! Because we can just wish the Earthlings back! Unless...they were always revived so those suckers are out of luck :). Same argument for Frieza which Frieza actually carried out. What if Frieza arrived a few months earlier? And not just Earth! What about the other innocent people in the universe? What if Frieza decided to ignore Earth and continue his reign of terror in the universe? I guess Goku does not give a rat's ass about non-Earthlings. You best believe that once Goku left Namek, he would not care about Frieza anymore as long as he left Earth alone, leaving Frieza to do all the so-called 'mischief' Goku told him to stop doing. The Z fighters aren't exactly helping out other planets after all which is perfectly valid. But Goku sparing Frieza was such a dumb move and such a disgraceful insult to all of Frieza's past genocide victims.

Ignorance is Bliss Part 2

I find it kind of disgusting how the Z fighters allow Mr. Satan to propagate lies about Ki. Don't they realize how damaging this is? It means that any Earthling with potential like Videl won't live up to the likes of Krillin and co. because they think Ki is fake. They have the good people of Earth believing a buffoon like Mr. Satan actually defeated the likes of Cell who destroyed an army with a wave of his arm. Imagine if Future Trunks defeated the androids and let a clown like Satan take credit for saving the world? Just the thought makes me feel like vomiting right now! It's not a coincidence that DBZ hardly shows impressive fighters like Nam from Dragonball anymore. It's a shame that they are not training a future generation to protect themselves. Because the DBZ next-gen crew absolutely sucks!!! Imagine depending on Goten, Trunks, Marron and Bra to save the day! Might as well just kill yourself on the spot. The Z fighters should be helping Earthlings to give themselves a fighting chance. Also, their wiping of people's memory of Buu is highly questionable. I understand that Buu would cause panic and the events of the Buu saga were traumatizing. It goes into ethics about hiding the truth to protect someone. Still, modifying people's memories so Buu can walk free and avoid the consequences of his actions is appalling. Imagine you are a rando Earthling and the Z fighters have the ability to mess with your memories? And when you factor in that the Buu saga reached such disastrous levels because of the Z fighters' incompetence makes this even worse :(

TLDR: The Z fighters at times show little regard for Earthlings when it comes to the truth and treat their lives as collateral damage.

mha and dbz fans i want to know your thoughts

Could a Senzu Bean help Toshi? I was daydreaming about Toshinori and Goku meeting (it would be so cool) and I thought about how Goku would definitely be eager to help him with his injuries so they could fight. (IK even Prime All Might would be no match for Goku at most points in the DBZ timeline, especially post-Namek, but you know how Goku is, he'd be excited anyway and might even want to teach Toshinori some things too.) He'd probably first try a Senzu but if that doesn't work then he'd go for the Dragon Balls and just wish him healed. Or if this is Androids or later, he'd maybe have Dende do it?

your dbz sketchies are such a highlight of this hellsite. are they still open? if they are can i get caulifla daydreaming about goku? (im just sayin they had some kind of energy during ToP)

women only want one thing and its disgusting!!

I legit think it's so cool that Android 17 has a yacht now

Love that at the end of the day even with all their crazy and cool powers, DBZ characters are not immune to silly daydreams about winning the lottery and buying a yacht 🥺

BOOM new DBZ s/i. Their name is Pricot and I love them dearly and now I have a face to put onto my 👑⛄️ daydreams

Thoughts during and about DBZ: World’s Strongest because if I didn’t write them down my brain would explode

I always had it in my head that Dead Zone & World’s Strongest were some of the most “original” DBZ movies (since most of them are obvious retellings of specific arcs with slightly different villains) but like, watching them now it’s like, oh,

Dead Zone is the Piccolo Sagas (the son of Kami’s old rival comes back for revenge and is ultimately sealed away in a vessel at the bottom of the sea) with aspects of Pilaf (Garlic Jr’s design and English voice) and Raditz (villain kidnaps Gohan and Piccolo just happens to come to the rescue for his own reasons)

& World’s Strongest does have a lot of original elements, but it’s also clearly based on the Muscle Tower part of the Red Ribbon arc (building full of traps and mechanical and bioengineered villains in the middle of the snow, that one guy was just an uglier version of The Jiggler) plus some not-even-disguised Saibamen and a Pilaf arc callback to Oolong trying to steal someone’s wish…though I do wonder if this movie was an inspiration for the much-later Android/Cell Saga

Also, too lazy to take screencaps but both Sleeping Princess In Devil’s Castle & Dead Zone had sequences that STRONGLY reminded me of the Ralph Bakshi movie Wizards, and apparently both were directed by the same guy (Daisuke Nishio). I’d be curious to know if he was a Wizards fan or if both Wizards and the DB/Z movies were influenced by a different third thing

Since all the movies overtly contradict the canon timeline in different ways, making it unclear which canon events happened or not during the movie AUs, I love the vibe here that Goku and Chi-chi have just been raising Gohan quietly at home while Piccolo’s just some scary dude out in the woods that Gohan is obsessed with XD Like, Gohan daydreaming about ditching his studies to go see Piccolo, the way Chi-chi scolds him for spending time with Piccolo, and Goku clearly being a present father figure (VS canon Piccolo being Gohan’s substitute dad for 1-2 years), has big “that kid is a bad influence >:/ you shouldn’t play with him” energy. Love that Gohan’s first reaction on seeing him too is to run up for a hug :’) and to throw a tantrum when he sees Piccolo and his dad fighting each other

(Sidenote, as a kid watching DBZ there were basically just a couple throwaway lines about Piccolo being an enemy before he starts fighting with them against the main series bad guys, and I’d never read his DB story arcs, so I was always confused by these movies having side characters being scared of Piccolo or Piccolo trying to attack Goku. Like “What??? I thought you guys were friends?????”)

Also love that Oolong saw on the radar that someone was collecting the Dragon Balls and his first instinct wasn’t “oh crap, a bad guy must be doing bad things, I’d better tell my superhero friends,” it was “I’m gonna take a literal child with me to try and steal these things because he’s the only person I know who can punch good but can also be bullied into letting me have the wish” X’D Why is he so scared of “throw the baby at the mountain” Piccolo, they have so much in common, they’re both terrible babysitters. Also WHY is he again thinking about wishing for 1 single pair of ladies’ underwear, dude, there’s a magical place called a department store where you can just BUY one. I mean, thank god on every female character’s behalf that he’s too stupid to think of something more sinister, but dude, seriously XD (Listen, I love him and he’s generally OK around women after the Pilaf Saga, but he def doesn’t view women as people except sometimes when they’re women he knows, and he would def be tempted to make a gross or at least non-feminist wish if he ever thought of one)

Also it’s not like it’s a particularly original outfit—it’s just his Saiyan Saga outfit with sleeves, and THAT is just his end-of-the-Pilaf-Saga outfit with recolored pants—but amusing that the flashback to Oolong stealing the radar shows him in his Buu Saga outfit years before the Buu Saga

Also I LOVE the location designs in these movies maybe specifically cus they’re so not-Toriyama-like. Watching the original and reboot Broly movies back-to-back was so jarring, Toriyama’s Vegeta palace designs felt more “right” but the spooky vibes of the dimly lit twisty palace with big stained glass windows really got me

I dont know much about Yamucha but i got the impression when watching dbz that he was sort of a floozy and didnt know how to keep a girl LOCKED DOWN and he wouldnt be locked down himself. And i feel like maybe who he is is someone who causes romantic trysts and affairs everywehre he goes, but he doesnt know how to committ .. like hes hawt and ppl think hes cute and he plays sports and girls love him and he knows how to have hot boy summers but he doesnt know ... how to be anything other than an intermittent bachelor TBH. And thats fine. But since he has that effect on people, do u think that he could even have prince vegeta daydreaming abt his legs ... LMK in the comments down below 

1, 3, 16, 17

What was the first thing you ever wrote creatively?

The first creative writing project I remember REALLY sinking my teeth into was a novel series called "Jewels" (I mean, it was meant to be a series. Never got that far.) It was basically DBZ plus Digimon but without the cute animal companions. A lot of talk about fate and social responsibility, a lot of interpersonal conflict, a lot of very silly anime tropes and characters... I showed my ex-boyfriend the sixty-page manuscript I had whacked out on a keyboard in 5th grade, and he laughed in my face. (Don't shit on him please-- the concept was okay but the prose was garbage.)

2. What got you into writing?

I've been writing for as long as I can remember. I'm not sure there was any one thing that got me into it. I was a very imaginative and sensitive child, who frequently had my parents called because I was daydreaming in class. I always had a rich inner world and lots of stories to tell, but I've never been very confident with speaking. So, when the pressure of everything in my head got too intense, I wrote it down, and that just became a habit. Writing has always been a little bit like vomiting for me. If I don't purge it, it'll make me sick and clumsy.

16. What doubts do you have in your writing?

Oh, god, lots of things... One example is that I don't focus enough on plot. I have characters, and I know what their conflicts are, but I've never been great and getting them from point A to point B in an interesting way.

Plus I'm long-winded and have flowery, overly verbose prose at times. In my college creative writing workshops, I was definitely handed manuscripts back with whole paragraphs underlined like "??? Wtf is this supposed to mean?"

17. What strengths do you have in your writing?

I think I create pretty compelling characters. I've always been fascinated by people and what makes them tick (was originally planning to go into psychology), so that comes out in my writing. Plus, I've been writing for a very long time, so I'm pretty good at that "rhythm" that comes with sentence, paragraph, and scene structure-- making it both meaningful and pleasant to read.

Thank you for the questions @wingedcatgirl! :)

No. never.

Do you know why my hair is yellow now?

It's cuz I had a daydream about DBZ, that's why!

So now, Imma kick your ass in style!

GET TO KNOW ME ♥

tagged: @agapantoblu (thanks a lot!) tagging (but no pressure!): @ryouverua @furaill !

animal: I got a cat sleeping on my lap right now what do you expect me to say

film: Stardust (2007), I don't even think it comes close to my top 10 favourite movies, but it's a comfort movie and a good view of what kind of daydreams go through my head at all times

season: Spring! I'm a houseplant, so the sunlight coming back and warmth starting again without being too hot means happiness to me! Only issue is the pollen but I'll take it over the depression I get in autumn and winter or the overwhelming heat of summer anytime!

character: Oh dear. Depends on the hyperfixation... My current one (DBZ) probably won't last, and I now have very mixed feelings over the previous one despite still having him as an avatar... So we'll either go with the revelation that was Judai Yuki, or an OC I've drawn a thousand times because of reasons.

colour: Orange. It's softer than red, but every bit as warm.

hobby: Writing, drawing, making videos, playing video games... Nothing very original but more than enough to always stay occupied!

book: I never manage to pick my favourite anything, so I guess I'll go with Six of Crows if only because it's the one I recommend by default when I'm not sure what the person asking for a rec likes.

song: Oh no, how do I pick one... I mostly listen to video game ost tbh (Octopath Traveler II's ost is a masterpiece if some are interested!) but if I need a song... Maybe Winter Bird by Aurora? When I was searching for a 'theme song' for some of my OCs, a friend suggested it and I fell in love, it's now, in my head, the official theme of that whole writing project!

drink: Yerba mate!

(template under the cut)

Rant/Vent Post:

My twin sister and exception attempted suicide the other day. The last few days have been incredibly stressful, and for the first few nights, no one was sure if she'd pull through. Currently, she's getting more stable and verbally coherent, but she's lost the use of her legs. Clinicians aren't sure yet if that'll ever return.

I have some thoughts on all of this that I can't really share socially or with family right now, so I'm just going to put them here.

First off, the way she attempted was... dramatic. Like, movie main-character dramatic. It wasn't a cry for help, that's already come and gone. This was a genuine attempt and I'm not looking to invalidate that. But she texted everyone highly emotional goodbyes, posted on all of her social media, and the method used just pointed to wanting to go out with a bang for a finale.

On that note, I've made observations my entire life about the people around me that Main Character Syndrome™️ is out of control, not only with this generation, but with generations prior. I also deal with it.

My sister is maybe the biggest weeb I've ever known; she watches anime like it's crack or heroin. It's gotten to the point that she's expressed to me that it's difficult to think of scenarios that aren't in anime format. In other words, her schema and worldview have been almost totally shaped by anime. She's been an anime fan since we were 4ish years old. It's consumed her world.

I think that maybe this was a chunk of why this happened. Not all of the reason, maybe not even a good chunk, but a contributing factor at the very least.

Think of it this way: someone who reads a lot of romance novels and watches a lot of romance movies is shocked by the hard truths of intimate relationships, they're poorly adapted to the reality of relationships, and they've created unrealistic expectations that cannot and never will be met. They'll be left with a void that some author's daydream put there of a world that doesn't exist. Someone who grows up watching DBZ, action movies, badass protagonists, playing video games where the player character is next to immortal, might have their worldview shattered when they can't John Wick their way out of a situation that they started and wind up in the hospital or worse.

In saying this, I'm not saying that anime is the devil. What I'm curious about is to what extent the media we consume affects our worldview, and how much of it is healthy. Media in the form of fiction has been a part of our collective history since we originated. I'm not saying it's inherently negative -- hero stories go as far back as Odysseus and Gilgamesh. It's ingrained in us. But I can't help but shake the feeling that something, culture maybe, shifted at some point (idek how many generations ago) that has led us to this point that I see at least some narcissism in everyone, but especially in the younger generations. It's difficult to find people my own age who aren't competitive; where it feels like this room isn't big enough for the both of us. This is become endemic to our species. We're evidently killing ourselves when reality doesn't and can't meet the expectations set on us by TV shows, movies, video games, animes, etc.

Idk it's just a thought I had.

Side note: recently, while trying to improve my condition, I've become a major fan of media in which the protagonist is just... a dude. Shows where there are multiple protaganists and any might die or fail at any moment. I've especially gotten into playing the Soulsbourne series because it checks me. I've become a major fan of ego-checks, and think we could all use a good ass kick in whatever department we're too proud of ourselves in. This world needs a major dose of humility.

Do you think Gohan has impacted you in your everyday life?

OoOoOoOOOo juicy question! 👀👀👀

The short answer is yes, but for kind of a weird reason. This is totally a word vomit/stream of consciousness type overshare so I'm putting it under the cut:

So I've loved Gohan ever since I was a kid. I never had a crush on him as a character or anything, but man I really, REALLY liked his character. Like I remember being 4 or 5 and kneeling on the ground in front of the TV, half-eaten cereal in front of me, staring at the TV in a trance as Goku teleported Cell away and Gohan started yelling. The Cell Saga was the first time I was introduced to DBZ, and in that moment Gohan became my favourite character ever and a huge comfort character.

He kind of fell on the backburner for a bit while I was indulging in other media like Inuyasha and Yu-Gi-Oh, where characters like Inuyasha and Bakura and became my comfort characters (oh god I even wrote tons of Yu-Gi-Oh fanfiction, all in a little private physical notebook), but in late middle school/early high school I was reintroduced to DBZ via the abridged series, then I rewatched the actual series a few times. And Gohan came back as a prominent comfort character for me.

Whenever I'm daydreaming, drifting, need to totally dissociate from the world (my childhood wasn't a good one and I dissociated often), I'd just make up DBZ fanfics in my head where Gohan was the main focus. I'd also write TONS of fanfics in little notebooks. I filled 3 whole notebooks with Gohan fanfiction!!! Exploring his character and his relationships to all the other characters in the series (which, as fanfics go, meant I also had to get good at writing each individual character and their relationships with each other, sans Gohan) was my way to destress after a really bad day. Like a little slice of normalcy (as normal as DBZ characters can be, anyways!). "Role-playing" those little healthy interactions between characters taught me a lot about how to have those interactions in my own life because it's a safe place to explore them. Aside from destressing though, it's also just incredibly fun. A way to make any day, good or bad, better!

Currently, I use Gohan (and other characters) to practice different artstyles and stuff, but also I've legitimately used these characters as a proxy for sorting through tough emotions for me to the point where my therapist even recommends I explore certain themes by drawing Gohan in different ways, and I even constantly show her my art and we pick apart the emotions that went into it XD Because I have a LOT of trouble drawing self-portraits of myself, but drawing Gohan comes really easily to me, and I constantly project a lot of my own experiences onto Gohan. So I can explore those feelings without having to draw pictures of myself. I think some people might consider this "kinning" but I don't associate with that term and don't consider myself a "Gohan kin" (since Gohan is simply lines on a piece of paper).

It's also just really fun to have something to obsess over. I really look forward to coming home and making a cup of chai so I can relax and draw. It's a prominent part of my day-to-day. If I DON'T draw DBZ characters doing stupid shit for a while then I definitely feel the difference.

So yeah, you can say that he's definitely impacted me in my every day life this way!