Mars Musings

A major theme that isn’t explicitly stated (yet very prevalent) in Slam Dunk is reputation and pressure, which is explored through the Shohoku team as a whole, but also through two of Shohoku’s starting five. I had already touched upon how the topic of image and reputation was explored through Sakuragi’s character and development, but I believe that it's a very important theme for Mitsui’s character as well.

Unlike Sakuragi (who had very little expectations or pressure from others), Mitsui is a boy whose reputation precedes him. He was nicknamed as ‘MVP’ by practically everyone (something that bugged him) after he had led his team to winning nationals in his third year of middle school. This nickname follows him around, even in his third year of highschool. I believe this shows how Mitsui was expected to always excel and do well in basketball, by practically everyone around him. He was a kid that had lots of potential even from a young age, but his talent in basketball also became something that screwed him over.

In Slam Dunk, it’s shown Mitsui isn’t very academically gifted, initially failing many of the subjects in his exam. After Akagi and Kogure left the team to focus on school, Mitsui still sticks with the team despite having college entrance exams. I think that suggests that Mitsui only really excelled at basketball, and this might have led to more pressure (from himself, and also the people around him). After all, if he didn’t have basketball, then what would be left? This extra pressure to excel likely added to how strenuous his knee injury was for him mentally, and also part of why he was so impatient about waiting to recover. And when he couldn’t make it in time for the preliminaries and the basketball team couldn’t make it far, I think he was really disappointed (and also felt excluded).

At this point, Mitsui’s reputation shifted. A change in appearance was used to depict this shift aesthetically, as he looked more intimidating and rough compared to his middle school years. He changed his mentality too, and his view of basketball became more of a hate towards it. He had also become more known as a thug than a basketball player. I think part of this was denial, but also because he was scared of going back; after all, he had an injury and I feel like he didn’t want to disappoint again. He had put a lot of pressure on himself to excel and carry Shohoku to victory, and I think he gave up on that goal.

When Mitsui came back to the team and played in the preliminaries, he was recognized by others as the former MVP. Again, unlike Sakuragi, he was expected to excel and do well, and he wasn’t underestimated. But at the same time, some players had also written him off as a guy who had already hit his peak. And to an extent this is true; Mitsui’s accolades and accomplishments were at their best in his middle school years. Mitsui understood this too, and it led to him losing confidence in himself, especially as a player. As he played in more and more games and was matched up against players that were practically the opposite type of player as him (something I will touch upon in another essay LMAO), he was being referred to by both coaches and players as streaky, and against Ryonan, he had ran out of stamina and collapsed. He showed his regret for his time off, and he blames himself for wasting so much time.

Mitsui’s current abilities were practically in the shadow of how dominant he had been before, but towards the end of the series he overcame his reputation.

Against Sannoh, Mitsui wasn’t underestimated at all, as they had known his former accolades and abilities. But he was guarded tightly, and it led to Mitsui quickly losing stamina. In this match he acknowledged that he had already reached his limit, and he even said that all he had were threes. But instead of giving up, he persisted and sank his threes.

I also want to mention how Mitsui referred to himself by saying “I’m Mitsui, someone who doesn’t know when to give up”. The point of Akagi being asked “What are you?” by Uozumi was so he’d stop comparing himself to someone else, but I think this question for Mitsui was needed to make him stop comparing himself to his past self. At this point, I believe Mitsui realized that he was a different person and player from around that time, and that he shouldn’t chase after his former accomplishments/abilities. In Mitsui’s statement, he doesn’t refer to how good he is or was or call himself an MVP, but simply Mitsui — a guy with a lot of persistence and determination for a sport that he loves. I think this moment signified how Mitsui rose above the shadow that was his past image and reputation and finally became “Mitsui” instead of “MVP Mitsui”.

ahhhhhh, thank you so much!!! i’m not sure if you wanted a tutorial, but  you’re getting one. i’m sorry for any mistakes in advanced! hope it’s understandable.

i’m gonna show you my preferred method to remove the background from an image:

you’ll need:

photoshop(i use photoshop cs6, but any version will work) 

ascreencap or image

patience

me: 

We toss out over 80 pounds of textiles each year. These textiles are often made of plastic materials (polyester, nylon), made in unethical conditions, dyed with harsh dyes that often get put into the rivers, etc. Even a single cotton shirt releases carbon emissions and uses tons of water. 

So the best thing to prevent the unsustainable growth of the fashion industry is to make sure that your clothing lasts as long as possible. To do so, mending clothing is a must. So here are some resources to help you learn how to do various things, such as sewing a button, to tailoring clothes, or even upcycling old clothing into new styles. 

* How to sew on three different types of button

* How to hand sew on a patch on a torn pair of jeans

* How to sew up a hole in an old shirt

* How to sew a simple T-shirt

* How to upcycle old clothing into new clothing

* More upcycle and sewing techniques

* How to repair a damaged sock

* How to do an invisible stitch

* 3 different stitches to work with for different results

* How to make a T-shirt smaller so it fits you better

* How to make repairs to your shoes

These are just a few of the things that you can do in order to make sure that your clothing lasts for a long time. Nobody wants to keep buying new clothing, as it is expensive and wasteful. 

O M G hello I hope you are having a very excellent day and also it is an honour to be asked for a recipe for the person whose food always gives me Exquisite Envy!!!!!!!

Preheat the oven to 200 degrees celsius, or 180 if it’s a fan oven. Americans can convert that into Fahrenheit; I want no part of that nonsense.

Peel some nice big boy potatoes, very starchy boys. Maris Piper are the absolute best, recommend very thoroughly. Cut them until quite smol - I recommend about the size of a PLUM. Fruitstuffs are my metric, for some reason. Make sure there are sharp edges - cutting them into quarters is best.

Put them in a pan and pour cold water on them until they’re just covered. Add a pinch of salt, and bring it to a ROILING BOIL, like the surface of a stormy sea. Turn the heat down and simmer for about 2-5 mins, until the edges of our good lord potates are slightly soft; you can test it by stabbing them gently with a fork (please be aware that gentle stabbing is still stabbing, and won’t stand up as a defense in a court of law.)

AT THE SAME TIME, heat 100ml/g of your fat of choice; I use goose fat, but olive oil is an excellent veggie alternative. Heat it for around 10 mins, until it’s being all sizzly and quite scary actually.

Drain the potates in a colander and then SHAKE. Rough ‘em up real good, like you’re a mob boss and they’re behind on payments. Then coat them lightly in flour and rough ‘em up again, because they didn’t learn the first time. They should look slightly fluffy, like so:

(I actually slightly over boiled these because I got distracted taking photos of a cat; yours should look less fluffy!)

Put them into the fat / oil, making sure they’re not on top of one another. That is v important; potates need their space. Roast them for 15 minutes, then turn, roast for another 10, turn, and then another 10 until they’re as golden as Achilles’ hair (very golden, famously.)

Sprinkle with coarse salt (pref Maldon) and the seasoning of your choice - I like coarse pepper and rosemary, because it’s nice.

Then you eat the heck out of them and you praise the potate gods, and devote your life to roast potates.

Bless her!

She talks a lot about CQL

She gets asked if everyone laughed during the shoot when XZ did his acting cute scenes but she explains that she feels it's quite a warm scene, after he comes back from the burial mound it's so clear WWX has changed and is no longer carefree, so that moment when he clings to Shijie and says he's three years old it's a way of trying to get back to that innocence but also impossible so it also makes it a sad scene so it was a scene that did not make her laugh

She looked after everyone like Shijie

She kept trying to get Xiao Zhan to eat (more than biscuits) because he was too skinny for his height and because he had so much action and filming to do she was worried about his health

Everyone was a bit scared/awkward (?) with WYB at first because he is slow to warm up to people so the convo would cool when he appeared. It takes someone like 'xianxian' to pull him into the crowd

All the guys started going on diets because of how slim WYB and XZ were and because for the show it does look better for the characters they are playing

She watched the animated version with some of the cast (not specified who)

There was a one take scene that WZC had to do after the golden core scene where JC sees memories of his past, because the director had very high standards they filmed this for hours JC was soaked with sweat and near the end of his tether. XZ and her watched the filming and seeing how hard it was in WZC they came out and she told him not to worry and that he could do it and that they would stay with him on set for as long as it took (omg these YunMeng three siblings 😭)

Once at a boat scene XZ and WZC started goading each other and it got a bit too much and she had to calm them down.

She got sick straight after filming CQL

She found it really hard to let go of CQL and every time she uses Xianxian ChengCheng she starts wishing she could go back to CQL so trying to change the way she calls everyone.

2017 Xiao Zhan: Wow, a baby