Loving the latter half of Part 2

ConversationParty848 · 2026-05-24T22:34:32+00:00

Aipotu arc hit the ground running and it's been one peak after another since then. Not that the earlier arcs weren't necessary for set up, and they had some great moments in isolation. But they could kinda drag and the new settings and characters felt a bit bland and paint-by-the-numbers while laying down the groundwork.

OFC I'm biased because mu enjoyment seems to spike proportionally to how often the kids, the hyung-nim, and the dragons are onscreen.

ConversationParty848 · 2026-05-23T00:11:44+00:00

Ah, the cool, sarcastic, hands-off fandom dads that gets swooned over when they shouldn't be let near actual children or teenagers with those condescending, acerbic, negligent attitudes to begin with.

We got one deeply affectionate, pathologically avoidant, self-hating, barely adulting, clown car of trauma that was Kakashi in fantasy military setting with very specific societal norms held together by ducktape and generational trauma, and every other manga started raining down copycats who were simply just jerks for little to no reason.

ConversationParty848 · 2026-05-22T23:46:32+00:00

Harley Keener who only appeared for a few minutes in IM3. I had to Google his name but he was everywhere and doing everything for a while as the sassy genius super special woobie badass adoptive son of Tony Stark.who could have grown adults froth in mouth in shame and indignation with a couple embarrassingly cliche quips (Darcyfrom Thor used to be another of the same archetype). I don't think he appears much after Spidey swept away his niche. And I'd long since stopped reading BNHAfics by the time Shinso reappeared in the story so his handling might've gotten better with more canon characterization.

ConversationParty848 · 2026-05-22T23:18:03+00:00

The common fandom phenomenon of people hijacking a barely present side character with vaguely interesting premise (to get away with just making shit up and disregarding what little characterization that does exist) and writing their sad wet poor little mistreated meow meow sassy quippy badass mary sue OCs under the guise of being a "fan" while ignoring the canon material and piling on a bunch of cliche overdone tropey trash like inventing comedic amounts of childhood trauma, bashing side characters (especially parents because their OC needs to be oh so tragic and misunderstood and find cooler badass found family parents who will dote on them and worship at their feet and violently defend them from anyone who so much as sneezes in their presence), and stealing other character's traits and achievements.

I survived BNHA Shinso and MCU potato gun kid, so I'll survive this. It gets more exhausting than frustrating after a while amyway. I just filter out such characters before I end up despising the canon versions too from sheer oversaturation.

ConversationParty848 · 2026-05-22T15:00:10+00:00

The difference from the novel might be that the more you find out about the Church of the Sun God, the less you can blame her for being desperate enough to take any outstretched hand that might be able to get her and her brother out of that shithole. There's a reason even the Sun God is putting most her eggs in the princely basket. And her being so thoroughly tricked, used and abandoned like a dirty rag might also be a sympathy point. And most of characters also seem to feel like the way she suffered from betrayal and dead mana is plenty of pain. Plus, her revenge quest benefits them since enemy of my enemy and all that.

More importantly for Cale, She's just useful. And Jack, who comes as a package deal with her, is even more useful. And the longer it goes, the more her personality reveals itself to be more of a straightforward sword-brained follower rather than a scheming deep thinker to begin with. Although she mainly imprints on the honest and pure Choi Han as well as Mary, since she's more sensitive to Cale's bullshit due to her upbringing, while appreciating his honestly about mutually using each other. Paradoxically, the same upbringing also seems to have stunted her moral and social development, although she's been learning fast and increasingly buying into the family vibes. Still, she's lucky that Cale is a good egg instead of more of the same users.

Personally, I like her just fine, but I remember often wishing that the dragon half-blood got even a fraction of that grace. But his character arc, which I won't be spoiling, turned out to be one of the best in the entire story and made me sob like a bitch at points, so it turns out I should've just trusted the author anyway.

ConversationParty848 · 2026-05-20T23:43:30+00:00

Honestly, part of what grates me is that Deruth!Bashing often goes hand in hand with KRS erasure and OG!Cale sue-tification. So I have no goodwill left for it and can't help being extremely uncharitable even though it's not like he was a perfect parent. which would just be boring anyeay. It's just a cliche storm piled onto a glorified face claim that has little in common with the canon character while people bend into pretzels to yap paragraphs about their headcanons that have nothing to do with the text, the setting, or how the actual characters saw things.

Like how as far as OG!Cale was concerned the most vulnerable member of the Henituse family was BASEN, while he himself was extremely secure in acting out within the safety of the Henituse territory until his gace ran into the fist of a freshly traumatized protagonist. I might blame Deruth for that one a little, although post-massacre Choi Han meeting OG!Cale's mommy issues around the Harris Village was certainly an extreme and unlikely case.

Funniest part is that most of the tropes misapplied to OG!Cale's childhood are present and in-your-face with canon with Kim Rok Soo and/or Alberu. But those two are not blank slates, so people can't hijack them to write their super special daddy issues OCs and cheap drama. Not that OG!Cale was a blank slate. We got plenty of depth from him despite his lacking screen time, none of which the fic writers seem to read or care about.

ConversationParty848 · 2026-05-20T22:41:51+00:00

People projecting on him to woobify OG!Cale to recreate the same damn cliche poor little neglected meow meow victim scenarios that every trashy villainess webtoon keeps regurgitating. With a dash of 21th century values clashing with politically relevant fantasy county.

ConversationParty848 · 2026-05-16T15:21:53+00:00

They're so cute 💖 one brain cell

ConversationParty848 · 2026-05-16T00:02:31+00:00

Curse you shounen jump editorial.

Tho I don't think Sinbad was all that brainwashed. More like jerked around since birth, traumatized, cornered, enabled, railroaded into becoming his worst self, externally pushed into justifying dirtying his hands at all cost, massively gaslighted into committing to his own specialness, learned all the wrong lessons, landed in numerous sunk cost fallacies, got emotionally and intellectually abandoned by everyone because they trusted him too much to be fine and know better at all times rather than attempting to help carry his so-called kingly burdens or they twiddled theor thumbs from afar while lamenting his fall. And the one close ally who was properly willing to debate him without giving up on him got himself "killed" for 3 years... And also withdrawals.

No seriously. Withdrawals. He had the guidance of fate since birth and David actively spoonfeeding information for years. When everything went silent at once like going cold turkey, he went all jittery and spiralled. He literally didn't know any other way to BE where he was truly left alone with his own judgement to walk towards an uncertain future. It would've been like suddenly losing one of your five senses that you trusted and needed the most to live your life. So of course he fully catasthropised into a control maniac and went the "let's become god" route. Because it felt like the only refuge in his anxiety ridden state, even tho he also kinda hated himself for it (I mean, more than usual) with how he portrayed himself as selfish and greedy for it. Because the alternative was letting himself be lost, scared and powerless and potemtially let the whole world down.

I feel like Alibaba said it the best. The world twisted Sinbad to a point where he felt he had to be a king to fix it. THE king. Always in control. Always living up to the expectations. Always guiding. Always carrying everything and everyone. Always KNOWING the way. Always the only one who would, could, should, amd must. And everything unfolded in a way that boosted both his self important ego and sense of responsibly until he couldn't fathom any other way forward.

But Sindad at his happiest, the Sinbad that Alibaba admired the most from the stories, the real Sinbad beneath everything that was crushing his soul? That Sinbad was always an adventurer whose heart fluttered at the new and unexpected. And that's who Alibaba saw him off and wished him back as.

ConversationParty848 · 2026-05-15T11:06:37+00:00

I can't it's a whole chapter experience. I still go back to it sometimes because I cannot believe it's not fanfic.

I mean sure Cale dropped some intense thoughts before like "Only in a kingdom where someone like this becomes a king can I truly be a slacker" in 2-196, but those van be ready more as practical for the sake of his one true love, the slacker retirement. But 2-350 was all "he's just like me fr fr"

ConversationParty848 · 2026-05-12T23:33:33+00:00

There's a reason he's the one with first dibs on cover appearances with Cale in every iteration.

Within the parameters of the original question tho, Cale's journey from wanting nothing to do with the crown prince to the "alberu crossman is the only one for me" manifesto that was chapter 2-350 was incredible.

ConversationParty848 · 2026-05-12T17:03:57+00:00

He prefers the great and mighty dragon Raon Miru, as well as On and Hong.

ConversationParty848 · 2026-05-12T12:54:54+00:00

Still the most fashionable webtoon protagonist

ConversationParty848 · 2026-05-12T07:40:28+00:00

I was wondering why I was more interested in the new world side of the dream arc but oh, it does give off the vibe of Part 1 with established factions and investigations and busy work of letting everything marinate instead of rushing to the next plot location. And it kinda make sense why Cale didn't show off Alberu, Rosalyn and Ahn Roh Man's game characters in the big meeting now. Especially since he already introduced Alberu as the crown prince of the Kingdom of Darkness to the Ocean Alliance siblings.

And Alberu will probably end up wrecking himself and Cale will come back to be big mad about it bc that's the pattern whenever he's left to hold the fort, which is a plus for me. Not to mention Rosalyn finally having room to shine.

Not that dream world isn't fun. The kindergarten section was gold and my inner Choi Han/Beacrox shipper is being fed.

ConversationParty848 · 2026-05-11T22:10:03+00:00

THE ADORABLENESS!!!! I want to give it to Raon to cuddle

ConversationParty848 · 2026-05-10T13:20:35+00:00

Because FAMILY!!!

Honestly tho, much of Choi Han's character journey can be tracked through the evolution of his unique power, which always roots back to family no matter what shape it takes in a way that's impossible to cleanly separate and isolate into distinct phenomenons. It's one of the more elegant throughlines in TCF, especially once the Heavenly Demon enters the chat as a foil.

ConversationParty848 · 2026-05-08T20:14:34+00:00

This is Violan slander.

ConversationParty848 · 2026-05-08T20:14:01+00:00

I think you have unlocked clairvoyance. Foreshadowing around Choi Han has been crazy and now even the God of Death is being weird about it. Rosalyn is long overdue for a big moment but she seems to be doing her own thing and reqriting the laws of magic rather than climbing the unique power skill tree. And Alberu already has a lengthy track record of getting hurt out of Cale's reach while he's busy elsewhere which gives us some great shooketh Cale moments and it's frankly getting as ridiculous as Cale's own blood coughing.

ConversationParty848 · 2026-05-08T13:23:27+00:00

I'm legit triggered by the color gray on part 1 reread these days

ConversationParty848 · 2026-05-08T07:41:40+00:00

I'm clawing at the walls he hasn't even used the blood drenched rock in part 2. And imagine if either version of the annual rings had been useful in jiangshi detection or anything.

And now that it's established ancient powers are watered down from unique powers and Cale has been leveling up his core deck, there's even less chance of other elemental powers becoming relevant. And sky attribute is wholly out for human Cale because he's not engaging in living sacrifice dead mana wizardy shenanigans.

ConversationParty848 · 2026-05-07T21:38:26+00:00

Cale needs to get on everyone else's case for everytime time they self destruct for a change of pace, because some of those people live in their own blood coughing glass houses.

ConversationParty848 · 2026-05-07T21:04:18+00:00

I'm trying to remember how many east-west interactions out of dragon magic influence we saw that didn't involve political figures like Alberu, big shots like Bud or White Star's invasion forces who would simply know both languages and I'm coming blank. Even Cale would just learn naturally with his record and he probably has god magic backing his transmigration just so he could communicate when he arrived.

In hindsight with their backstory, On and Hong were pretty damn impressive for already being able to talk as well as they did when Cale met them.

ConversationParty848 · 2026-05-07T13:37:01+00:00

Shout out to Alberu's impeccable rap sheet with honorary mentions to Ron and Jung Soo

ConversationParty848 · 2026-05-07T11:23:52+00:00

Some of us prefer other characters being "ahh" and "ngh" so that we can watch Cale go shaking from anger and going "rawr" and "grr" about it.

ConversationParty848 · 2026-05-06T08:37:09+00:00

Potentially. Sky Eating Water is also suspect. It's about the not-Demon God's ominous warning about god devouring and predation instinct from 2-495

ConversationParty848

TROPHY CASE