u/tesseracts

They said they might not take credits from hybrid classes either. Just thought everyone should know because I never heard of this. Fortunately most of my classes are in person but I just took an honors class online that was 4 credits so I'm kinda annoyed.

I followed the Attack on Titan manga weekly. During the last arc there was a notable shift in tone. Something the mangaka even acknowledged when he said in an interview he originally wanted the ending to be like Stephen King's The Mist but decided to make it more like Guardians of the Galaxy. A statement that made no sense but whatever.

During the lead up to what we knew was the final chapter, it should have been clear there wasn't enough time to resolve the issues in the story, yet fans expected the last chapter to compensate for an entire manga that had barely shown us the inner thoughts of the protagonist at all. They insisted we had to have faith and blew off any criticism. When that didn't happen, they freaked out and screamed and cried that it was the worst ending of all time.

I saw the same thing play out in Chainsaw Man part 2. Except I feel it was even worse this time because part 2 was so clearly bad for such a long period of time and everyone kept so strongly insisting no, it's not bad, you just have to wait and it will all make sense at the end. Only when that didn't happen did many fans realize it was bad all along.

So my question is, has any story actually managed to save itself last minute to justify this reaction? Fire Punch is often pointed to as an example, but I feel like the story beats in Fire Punch came to a resolution even if they didn't really logically flow into the next story beat. It wasn't like Chainsaw Man where things just kept being unresolved over and over again.

Someone in this sub used the term "narrative debt" to describe Chainsaw Man and I think it's a good term. Once a story has built up too much debt, it can't be saved. It's going to go narratively bankrupt.

I live in MA and have been looking at schools like Smith, but I don't like the culture of working constantly. Recently I have gotten interested in Tufts because they seem genuinely friendly and have a reputation for a good student life balance. People in my family actually work with Tufts students and I have NEVER gotten a bad vibe from them, like I've gotten from people from some places like Harvard.

So I'm trying to come up with a list of schools that are high quality but do not have a reputation for elitism, performative prestige or heavy workloads. This is what I got so far, I'm not certain about all of them. Tell me if there's any other schools I should consider where people can be actually happy.

• Tufts
• Brown
• Vassar
• Wesleyan
• Emory
• Claremont consortium
• Bowdoin
• Skidmore
• Bates
• Hamilton
• Bard
• Mount Holyoke

I went to RISD in the past, ended up leaving, considering going back to school for a BFA but I don't want to be in this type of environment.

I'm also looking into non-art schools that have well regarded art programs, such as Bard, UVA, Yale (I would never get into Yale but it should be on the list), Carnegie Mellon, UCLA.

Schools I am considering:

• Art Center College of Design

• Parsons/The New School

• Tufts/SFMA (I don't really have a good impression of SMFA but if I manage to get into Tufts it might be ok to take classes there, or MassArt)

• Cooper Union

• If I could get into Brown (I won't) I could take classes at RISD without having to deal with being a RISD student.

I’m not looking for an “easy” school but I want to go somewhere that has a decent, friendly vibe but also has real serious artists and where I will actually learn something.

I have already been to an atelier and that’s the type of work I do but don’t really have a clear direction as an artist so maybe school could help me with that.

If you're an older student does prestige matter less? Does it matter at all? Some schools have programs specifically for older students, like Smith Ada Comstock or Tufts REAL. Some people tell me there's no point trying for prestigious programs versus state schools because I won't be able to network with a lot of people under 25. But networking with professors and alumni matters also right? I don't see a lot of online discussion on this subject so let me know what you think.

I'm not the type of person who can do a top school like Harvard that instantly opens doors but I could try for something more prestigious than my local state school (UMass). Haven't really settled on a major but it will be something like anthropology/art/humanities.

Due to a rushed final season Steven Universe has a bad reputation, but other TV shows could learn a lot from the redemption arcs Steven Universe does correctly.

Peridot's redemption arc was probably the most convincing, because it was very gradual. She had a whole episode dedicated to her bonding with an individual member of the protagonist team. This couldn't even happen in today's 8 episode per season media landscape. Peridot began as a fanatical believer in the Gems, and she is the last character we would even expect a redemption arc for when she's initially introduced. She's an angry Invader Zim type character. Yet we believe her character arc because we see her learn to appreciate Earth and empathize with others for the first time.

Rose Quartz's transition form space Nazi to Earth hippie was also interesting. Her romance with Greg could come off as a lame "power of love" cliche, which I hate, but it really doesn't. Although Rose chooses to settle with Greg and produce a child (Steven), she never becomes a totally good person and retains a certain childishness and selfishness, which makes it feel more realistic.

The final season with the redemption of the Diamonds could have been done well also if it had been less rushed, but at this point all the constant redemptions were getting tiresome and I think this story needed an actual villain. That doesn't change the fact that earlier in the series Steven Universe was a case study in how to do redemption correctly, and it rarely gets credit for that. At the risk of acquiring many more downvotes, this has been on my mind because I am not satisfied with the way this is done in Invincible, and I would enjoy it more if this series explored the process of aliens learning about human culture rather than them just falling in love with humans and that fixes things somehow. That's right, you thought this was a non-Invincible rant, but the whole time it was really me, Dio Invincible rant.

Years ago I had a really bad professor who threw things at students, punched objects, made me unfairly re-do homework assignments when there was nothing wrong the first time, yelled at people, etc. I look up reviews on rate my professor and find positive reviews like "she yells a lot, but it's so cute when she's mad!" If she was not a short old woman there is no way she would get away with any of this shit. I was terrified of her and none of this was cute to me. She was tenured and never got in trouble for anything even slightly, she just kept her job until she died.

I really, really, really, really hate Nayuta's death in Chainsaw Man part 2. I wrote a post a year ago about it. and at the time I wrote the post the death had occurred a year earlier. Nayuta was murdered by a mob incited by Barem and then turned into sushi. Makima turned into sushi also so I guess this is a thing.

It's not inherently bad for Nayuta to die, but what makes this death horrible is the complete absence of emotional weight and the lack of impact it had on the story. Character deaths in part 1 had a lot of emotional weight, so killing off Nayuta and it changing nothing is very strange.

This death sucked so badly a lot of fans insisted she absolutely has to come back to life and it wasn't a real death. It was not until the end of the manga that a lot of fans accepted the manga was not going to somehow all come together at the last second, after years of failing to resolve any plot points.

A lot of fans refer to this death as the "woman in refrigerator" trope, but it really does not fit that trope. A woman in refrigerator is a character that serves no purpose except to die. Nayuta had a purpose, she signified Denji overcoming his trauma with Makima. They had a close and interesting sibling like relationship. Nayuta was a devil who claimed to want chaos but really wanted a family life, while Denji was moving in the opposite direction. It was a good story that was very abruptly cut short and went nowhere.

If the manga had ended immediately after Nayuta's death that actually would have made sense. This would be a good time for Pochita to say "fuck you Denji, you can't be Chainsaw Man any more, this bullshit got Nayuta killed." But instead the manga just jerked us around for hundreds of chapters in between Nayuta's death and Pochita's "suicide."

I suppose the last chapter you could argue proves the fans who thought she would come back to life correct, but it happened in the weirdest way possible. It's so weird I literally believe this chapter is a dream, which is a theory most fans do not like. A few days before this chapter was released I actually wrote a post saying "who wants to bet the last chapter will be a shoehorned happy ending with Nayuta alive" so I officially predicted the future.