[Let's Read] Maintaining: Chapter 3 and Chapter 4
Index
Brill's Intro
Quest
1 - Family || 2 - Weakness || 3 - Regret || 4 - Preparations ||
Okay, remember when I said we’d be getting to the meat of this? Well, I was mistaken. But it’s okay, because I do like this chapter! I like that it addresses how Goku is the BEST DAD EVER, personally.
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Chapter 3: Regret
Right off the bat, we get Goku and Gohan sparring, with Piccolo joining in:
Goku was joyous. This felt so great! He and Gohan had been sparring for hours, testing their limits, forcing their ki to skyrocket to new levels. Piccolo had shown up and the battle had turned into a free-for-all.
We’re going to re-visit a rule from last chapter--Show, Don’t Tell. There is so much that you can expand on from these three sentences. This show is all about the fighting--what it reveals about the characters, their personalities, and the utmost patience they had when they were stuck on Namek for two years.
The point is, show us punches being thrown. Show them all phasing out and in of vision while knocking out a few trees. Show us something.
Expanding on this section would also lead into a nice segue for this part:
He had thought his decision to stay in Otherworld was the right one, given the circumstances at the time.
[....]
However, since he'd returned he'd begun to question his choice. He saw now what it had done to his family. But now - well, now he was back for good. He'd repair the damage he had done. After all, he had learned some useful things while he was dead. He had also made some good friends who convinced him it was better that he stay with the living.
Okay, first off--this is going against my every instinct, but headcanon tells me that the Tsubasa: Reservoir Chronicle gang got dropped in the Otherworld sometime between Tokyo and Infinity, and Goku became brofriends with Kurogane. I’ll get to why later, but we’ll just say that the reason I want it to be a thing that happens is because (1) Kurogane can bitchslap sense into people better than Chuck Norris can, and (2) I’m a dirty, hypocritical pervert.
With that said, I do like that this fic is holding Goku accountable for essentially just going “KTHXBAI” at the end of the Cell Saga. I would like to point out, though, that Goku had his reasons for staying behind--and they were damn good ones. The Saiyans, Frieza, the Androids, and Cell were incredibly dangerous enemies, all of whom were beaten by a stroke of luck, and very few of them directly by Goku in the series proper. Let’s see here...
Radditz, Vegeta, and Nappa--Sacrificed self to help off Radditz. Killed Nappa because it showed how powerful he’d gotten, but got his ass handed to him by Vegeta, who got defeated because Gohan went poo-flinging crazy, by which I mean he became ALL THE OOZARU.
Frieza--Did not die even when Namek blew up, and before that it was a bitch of a fight--it took killing his best friend to piss Goku off and ascend. Even then, Goku barely managed to make it off the planet and had to spend some time recovering on a nearby planet. And it took Trunks slicing Frieza and King Cold in half to do away with them.
#17 and 18--Goku was done away in the alternate timeline by an incurable heart virus, and in the canon timeline we have no idea how he would have stood against them because Cell absorbed them.
Cell--admitted he couldn’t win and then ducked out and asked Gohan to fight because he is the best dad EVER, and then teleported a self-destructing Cell away to save the Earth.
Buu--Won because of a last-minute energy power-up from the Namekian dragon.
Dragonball had a nasty habit of one-upping the villains to higher levels, all of which targeted Earth or Goku’s friends for one reason or another. It made sense that Goku would remove himself from a situation that he seemed to be causing.
...Of course, I do like Goku’s doubt and guilt that he basically left his family behind to fend for themselves--again--and were it in my hands, I’d handle it...differently. But I stand by what I said--he had reasons, and at the time they were good ones.
...And that is an epically long post. Here, let’s skip ahead a little bit in the chapter.
Piccolo made a deep sigh. "What do you want me to tell you, Goku? Yeah, you messed the poor kid up. You should have come back when you first had the chance. You didn't and Gohan blamed himself."
"That first year was hell. He's still got issues. He wants to help people - partly because that is the kind of person he is, and partly because he thinks that's what you want him to do. But he is also terrified he'll fail again. Somehow Saiyaman solves that problem for him. I don't think he will ever be comfortable fighting any other way."
To the underlined, I have only this to say:
Click to viewRelevant dialogue starts at 4:25. Gohan does not choose to be garbed as Saiyaman, and that is all I will say.
The other parts, I...have no complaint about. “Gohan’s Adventures in Daddy Issues Land” would make a fantastically dark fic premise, and in fact has been explored in at least one other fic.
"Look Son," Piccolo reached his hand to his friend's shoulder. "He does forgive you. But that doesn't mean it hurts any less. You have to remember that he looks up to you and will do anything for you. Just be careful you don't abuse that trust."
"I won't," he whispered.
"Good." Piccolo suddenly punched Goku in the face, then grabbed him by the collar and pulled him so they were practically nose-to-nose. "Because if you hurt Gohan like that again, I will kill you myself - again," he snarled. "Do I make myself clear?"
And then we end on a good note--characters addressing sensitive and difficult issues by punching them in the face. <3 Ah, canon. Good times, good times.
Though I admit that I would have liked more of a--point, maybe--to Gohan’s fishing. It doesn’t really lead into the next chapter all that well. Maybe mention they were fishing so ChiChi would have something to cook for the event mentioned next chapter--the fish in Dragonball are pretty fuckin’ big.
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Chapter 4 - Preparations
So the event I mentioned last chapter ended up being a picnic they were preparing for. There’s a little bit of slapstick in the beginning that’s pretty entertaining and made me smirk, and I can kind of see it happening in the anime, as situations like it happen in filler episodes.
Instead, I’m going to use this chapter to introduce an original character that I can actually tolerate--Rezu.
Chichi and Rezu were driven to distraction, trying to keep the lunch protected from two hungry Saiyans. Rezu finally lost her temper, nearly chopping off Goku's fingers when she slammed the cover back on a dish.
"Go away! Go spar! Do something! Anything! You two are not going to eat until the others get here!"
Goku rubbed the back of his head, and grinned in embarrassment. "Sorry, Rezu, it just all smells so good." He looked down to see her glaring up at him. "Okay, okay," he said, holding his hands out in front of him. "We're going. We'll be down by the creek. Come on, Goten."
...Okay, maybe I didn’t choose the best note to introduce her on. Let me elaborate:
Rezu is ChiChi’s girlfriend, introduced in Chapter 1. We don’t find out their backstory until Chapter 4 of Quest, so, um...hooray for pacing? :D
But seriously, while there are better ways to bring up a backstory like this other than “wait until Chapter 4 of the sequel”, I’m glad it wasn’t awkwardly introduced in the first chapter with bumbling exposition. It helps that Rezu doesn’t make me want to kill something small, cute, and furry every time she makes an appearance, probably because she does everything an OC is supposed to do:
- She stays in the background for most of the time and the story doesn’t revolve around her,
- She is a firefighter instead of a sparkly ninja vampire princess of Planet Aurora destined to marry Goku and make freaky alien sexings with him,
- She has a personality,
- She is paired with ChiChi and not one of the fic’s protagonists,
- Their relationship feels pretty darn believable, and
- She passes The Merida Litmus Test.
So Rezu’s a pretty cool character who fights fires and doesn’t afraid of anything. She’s okay as far as OCs go in my book, though not as good as some I’ve read before. (Here’s looking at you, Sacrifices AU). We’ll go into more depth with her as the story goes on, and I’m saying that a lot, aren’t I? Let’s pretend I’m not. :P
Anyway.
So they go down to the crik (bonus points for anyone who knows what that means and where it comes from), and at some point Vegeta joins Goku and the kids. Here’s a snippet from the following conversation:
"Vegeta," he said, not taking his eyes off the boys.
"Kakarotto," the prince quietly answered, sitting down several feet away.
They sat in silence for a few minutes. Vegeta was uncomfortable, and his tail twitched. Goku, on the other hand, was dying to talk to him, but it had been so difficult lately. Every time he tried, it was like the prince withdrew into a shell.
"You haven't been by lately..." he began.
"Training," Vegeta answered shortly.
"How has it been going?"
"Fine."
One minor nitpick: Choose between "Kakarott" and "Kakarotto", preferably the latter since it's the correct romanization of his Saiyan name, and stick with it. Unless Vegeta had an accent--which he really doesn't, his voice is just a bit rough--I can't think of any justification for using the Japanese pronunciation of the name, let alone switching between the two.
Aside from that, this bit works for me to an extent. It’s implied that Vegeta’s been withdrawn, and that this has been a thing for quite some time. Given that Vegeta’s canonical behavior around Goku is to tell him how he’s going to fuck vigorously beat the meat of screw aggressively top knot ravish why are you cutting me off it’s practically canon defeat Goku in a long, detailed rant, usually describing what techniques he’s learned and how he’s mastered them.
Goku even tries to help him out! What a nice guy:
"Have you developed any new attacks since your tail came back?"
Vegeta turned to stare at him. Goku calmly returned the look, but gasped inwardly at the hollow expression in his eyes.
"No," he finally answered, turning away to look at the ground before him.
...Okay, so that middle paragraph could be less awkward. But still. Way to cockblock, Vegeta.
Also, unresolved sexual tension. Hah. Just try to stop me.
So the chapter ends with nothing between Vegeta and Goku being resolved and the world being good, because conflict means story, and it also means no convenient "falling in love" moment, which I hate.
Next chapter...hoo boy. That’s when this trope comes into play. There will be fun times had by all, by which I mean cake and grief counseling. ‘Til then!
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I think I'll do Chapter 5 tomorrow.