iffy wrote: ↑Tue Nov 21, 2017 3:59 pm
It's probably entirely possible Ririka was referring to some archetype, or some other type of character class not MG. Or simply the opposite of small cute nice. That she wasn't talking about herself or Erika or even anyone in particular.
Okay no offense but "good thing I wasn't portrayed as a FATTY" is really not many degrees better than "that Erika sure is a FATTY". This is RIRIKA we are talking about here, she would
never use a phrase as crude and nasty as "chunky big butt" on any
other person on the planet. If she ever
honestly and
sincerely considered someone overweight, and honestly and sincerely considered this fact
at all worth mentioning in the context of the conversation (fucking
why? Do any of you people have an actual
model in your head for what Ririka is trying to tell Yuki here, why she would suddenly gratuitously start calling other folks "chunky big butts" (WTF???) for no reason whatsoever?), then she would say something like "oh, she's gotten a teeny bit chubby in the tummy-wummy, so cute and cuddly, hee hee". Like the guy said on Rick & Morty, "not this trailer park shit."
This shouldn't be a hard conversation to follow, and while Ririka's "cutesie-wutsie" speech can be a bit cloying in large doses, it's still way easier to translate (for my money) than that ear-stabbing "leet speek" of Largo's.
Basically it goes:
1) Being a magical girl is hard. [1498, panels 3, 4, 6]
2) You will get hurt, and people you love are likely to get hurt too. [1498, panels 8, 9, to some extent 6]
3) Adding insult to injury, once you get fictionalized, you will have even less control over your life; and you certainly won't he happy with the representation. [1499, panels 3, 4]
4a) Erika is fat. Like, hippo fat. [Invisigoth]
4b) At least they didn't make me
fat. Now that would totally have sucked. [iffy]
Okay, anyone remember Sesame Street? If not, anyone care to google "one of these things is not like the other"?
I've already stated my own version of 4); but in more detail, Ririka walks into her Stability handler's office one day, asking in all innocent confusion why she's been morphed into the picture paarfi posted earlier in the thread, and is told that "the cute version will play better", "100% buy in from the focus groups on this", "thin and pretty is perceived as much less threatening by the fan base", "let's face it, you're not exactly... slender", "it's not meant to be realistic, it's meant to be an image people can relate to positively". Eventually building up to a gentle reminder of the contract she signed allowing all this to happen in the first place, and a not-so-thinly veiled threat regarding the consequences if she makes trouble over issues like these. And since it's established in-comic how readily Stability will issue termination orders for the ones with catastrophic grade powers who
don't toe the line, it's really not a stretch to imagine she'd Stockholm-syndrome herself into believing she was making the right choice for the right reasons, that "of course I'm not the right look for something like that, they'd certainly know better, wouldn't they?" Calcifying over the years into the little pill of self-directed (however unjustly) bitterness in panel 5.
When I first read her "super-duper cute" remark in 1498, it struck me as a bit braggy, not something I'd expect her to say. I mean yeah, she is, but someone wouldn't ordinarily say that about themselves, comes off a bit conceited. But when I hit panel 5 of this one, it finally clicked, she's not bragging, it's a lifeline; she is desperate to remind herself and keep believing that she was doing the right thing, that an innocent but powerful young girl putting herself in danger to save others is
being cute, no matter what attitude the Stability and fanboy dipshits might have toward her appearance.
TarsTarkas nailed it, it's a heartwarming moment, the experienced practitioner relating the good and bad of their own career to the jittery novice, encouraging without being patronizing. It's really not hard to follow the structure of what Ririka is saying (assuming one isn't running off into the weeds
).