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sideblog of @shoukasonjuku

[lillyrosaura]

There’s a website where you can learn ASL (American Sign Language) on your own, free and it’s a 31 Day program! The woman on there, her name is Rochelle Barlow, she runs the site and she actually is a homeschool teacher and teaches ASL. I am passing this on to some of you guys cause most of y’all on here is open-minded and curious and it is something important to learn.

I truly believe this site is helpful for some people who can not afford to going to ASL classes, or someone like me that just enjoys learning something new. This site will help with that. Once you sign up you will put in your email address and Rochelle sends you emails on tips on how to sign, gives you practice sheets, and gives you your weekly videos. And its all online. No need to paying for anything. (Unless if you want to she has something very different to this program) 

IMO and yes, this site is really amazing and is important because you never know if someone who is deaf or HOH needs help, if you end up losing your hearing ability this is something you will at least have on the back of your head, and it is just like any other language and should be taught. 

[whisperanzarose]

The link has been updated: https://aslrochelle.com/start-here

:D

[akayv-deactivated20241006]

Making a second post so it’ll show up in the tag hopefully.  Enrollment starts today, it is completely free and you only need to make an account on their website.

Link here.

Even if you are not interested in the class there is the See Say Write course that is also free and completely do at your own pace.

Sharing this is appreciated since keeping our language alive is important, ᏩᏙ!

[yellowfang89]

Asexual labels explained using cereal

You are in a kitchen, opening a pantry door. It contains every brand of cereal in existence.

Libido- How hungry you are

Sexual Attraction- How appealing each cereal is to you

Sex-Repulsed- The mere act of eating cereal disturbs you. You flee the kitchen to watch Netflix instead.

Sex-Indifferent- Someone brings you a bowl of cereal. Even though you don’t crave cereal, you decide to eat some anyway. Maybe because you want the person to feel happy you’re eating something they provided you. Maybe you’re just that hungry. Regardless, you’re fine with eating it since it’s already there. If it wasn’t, you wouldn’t care either.

Sex-favorable- Though you don’t particularly crave cereal, the act of eating cereal is enjoyable. So enjoyable, you go through the trouble of picking a brand to eat.

Asexual with low/no libido- You are rarely hungry, and none of the cereal appeals to you.

Asexual with average/high libido- You are often hungry, but none of the cereal appeals to you.

Aegosexual-  Eating cereal sounds fun in theory but not in practice. You certainly have no interest in eating cereal yourself. You’d rather fantasize about other people eating cereal, thankyouverymuch. 

Gray Asexual- You only like Lucky Charms and Apple Jacks. And maybe Fruity Pebbles but you’re not quite sure.

Demisexual- You see a box of Trix. You are familiar with the rabbit on the box, due to the commercials you’ve seen. You always sympathized with the rabbit for never getting any Trix. There are things in life you’ve wanted but have never gotten. You feel a bond with the rabbit. Suddenly that box of Trix looks tasty.

Fraysexual- You see a box of Cocoa Puffs. You have never heard of Cocoa Puffs in your life. But something about it is oh-so-appealing. You pour yourself a bowl. As you start to eat, you catch a commercial for Cocoa Puffs on TV. You now know what the mascot on the box is like. You lose interest in Cocoa Puffs for reasons you cannot explain.

Lithosexual- You notice a box of Fruit Loops. You feel an urge to eat it. Toucan Sam comes to life and asks you to eat them. This makes you uncomfortable, so you leave to watch Netflix with the sex-repulsed ace.

Reciprosexual- You have no interest in any of the cereal. Not even that box of Frosted Flakes. But Tony the Tiger shows up wanting you to eat the Frosted Flakes. Now that he wants you to eat Frosted Flakes, you want to eat Frosted Flakes. 

Cupiosexual- You want to eat cereal, but none of the cereal looks appealing. Maybe if you grab that box of Corn Flakes, it’ll become appealing to you later? It’s happened to other people. You consider grabbing that box of Corn Flakes, just in case.

Orchidsexual- Some of the cereal looks appealing, but you have no interest in eating cereal.

Aceflux- None of the cereal looks good, so you close the pantry. A few days later, you decide to open the pantry again. Now, some of those brands look appetizing. You check the pantry again the next day. None of the cereal looks good anymore.

Quoisexual- You have no idea if you like a cereal because you want to eat it, or if you just think the box art is pretty. Does liking the box art count as wanting to eat it? Do you just like the mascot? Does liking the mascot count as wanting to eat the cereal? After reading everything I’ve written, you are still confused. You bang your head against the pantry in frustration.

[acespec-ed]

I never expected this post to get so popular, so here’s some other identities I considered adding at the time, but didn’t bother.

Sex-Ambivalent- Sometimes the thought of eating cereal repulses you. Sometimes you don’t care. Sometimes you might even want cereal, even if none of the cereal looks good.

Inactsexual- The thought of eating cereal is upsetting and downright repulsive. But oddly enough, you want to eat cereal. Some of the cereal may even look appealing. And yet, eating cereal is icky. How is that possible? Not even you understand.

Bellussexual- You find the act of eating cereal interesting. You can certainly get behind the aesthetic. However, there are no brands you wish to eat. Come to think of it, you actually don’t even want to eat cereal. What the hell?

Cogitarisexual- When you think about it, Cheerios sound pretty good. You grab the box, take one look at it, and suddenly lose interest.

Iamvanosexual- You don’t want to eat cereal unless someone comes along and offers it to you on a spoon. Not because you are lazy or inconsiderate. You simply have no interest in giving anyone else cereal for unexplainable reasons.

Placiosexual- You don’t want anyone feeding you cereal. However, you can easily get behind feeding someone else cereal. That sounds like a fun time.

Requisexual- You have no interest in eating cereal. You find no cereal appealing. You are emotionally exhausted and out of spoons.

Myrsexual- You relate to a lot of these. You feel like you are aegosexual, and yet demisexual seems to apply too. Maybe you’re even lithosexual on top of that. Who knows. Certainly not you!

[rederiswrites]

Cannot express how disinterested I am in seeing traumatized characters "reconcile" with their canonically shitty parental figures.

[darkaviarymc]

I love, love, LOVE the subversion of this trope where like. The traumatized one says to their abuser something to the effect of, "I see that you are trying to be a better person. I recognize that you are sorry for the pain you put me through. I am happy for you and for the people you won't hurt anymore. BUT that doesn't change what you did to me. If you are truly repentant, you'll accept that even though you're different now, I still see you as the one who hurt me and I can't heal with you in my life. So bye." And then the abuser ACCEPTS THAT and LETS THEM BOTH MOVE ON.

[rederiswrites]

Cannot express how disinterested I am in seeing traumatized characters "reconcile" with their canonically shitty parental figures.

[wind-the-music-box]

Give me more "I forgive you, but that DOESN'T mean you're allowed in my life ever again because I'm never going to get any better if I keep letting you back in my head"

Refusal. Flat out refusal to forgive or try and make peace with it just they will ALWAYS get pissed when their parent is mentioned.

I am not stupid enough to give you a second chance to hurt me

And my personal favorite, which is how I feel about my shitty father

Total indifference, because hating you is too much work and I would rather simply not think about you at ALL. You don't care about me, why should I care about YOU?

[x-menunited]

[marxisforbros]

“There’s a cure?!” asked the girl that kills everything she touches.  “Hey shut up we’re perf” replied the girl that makes clouds. 

[theboylondon]

For real though. Storm has stopped an entire tsunami before. “Makes clouds my ass” she can conjure lightning and tornadoes and is revered as a god in her tribe. She literally changes atmospheric pressure and that’s how she flies. So fuck you. Storm is flawless.

[sun-spiral-deactivated20210109]

I think you missed the part where the GIRL WHO KILLS EVERYTHING SHE TOUCHES wants to NOT KILL EVERYTHING SHE TOUCHES and everyone dismisses her incredible misfortune just because the lady who is the AVATAR OF THE STORM won the fucking SUPERPOWER LOTTERY

[mangonetics]

“Finally, a cure for my chainsaw hands!” decreed Chainsaw-Hands Joe.

“There is no cure,” said Johnny Five-Dicks. “There’s nothing wrong with us.”

[holyromanhomo]

The last comment literally always cracks me up

[veronicaawakens]

The X-Men are an extremely good metaphor for oppressed minorities until they are suddenly an extremely terrible metaphor for oppressed minorities.

[davidmann95]

The scale on which the first reply misses the point literally never ceases to awe me.

[lyricwritesprose]

I gotta say, though, this is a place where the X-men are being a good metaphor for oppressed minorities.  Specifically, in this case, the disabled community.

“Yay, there’s a cure!” says the girl with depression.  “Cure for what, motherfucker, I’m not sick,” says the person with autism.

“Yay, there’s a cure!” I say, with my fibromyalgia and random bad pain days.  “Yes, because it’s easier to talk about eliminating us than talk about teaching sign language in school,” says the Deaf person.  “‘Cure’ is violent rhetoric.”

The problem is, of course, that a vast number of things have been aggregated under the label of “disability,” and many of them don’t even resemble each other.  Depression sucks in an objective fashion, whereas autism is just a way of being (which, like many ways of being, may suck at some times, and generally sucks worse when not accommodated).  Similar deal with chronic pain versus the Deaf community.  These things really should not be grouped together, but they are.  And since they are grouped so haphazardly, they will often be at cross-purposes.

It is ridiculous, in the X-men universe, to classify all “mutants” as one group.  You have ridiculously powerful people with little downside, you have powerful people with a major downside, you have people with very limited powers but few drawbacks, you have people with limited powers and massive drawbacks, and that’s not even getting into other divisions, like whether you look like a baseline human all the time, part of the time, or none of the time.  “Realistically,” if you can apply that word to a fantasy universe, Storm and Rogue belong to completely different minorities which should require completely different approaches.  But society has grouped them under one umbrella, or forced them to group themselves for self-protection, and thus you have conversations like the one above.

So it’s actually not a bad take.  Mind you, the X-men have had bad takes, and will do so again, and I’m skeptical about whether “powers” of any kind even work for a metaphor about minority representation—but this particular vignette has something useful to say.

[philosopherking1887]

Thank you, thank you, thank you. This is exactly what bothers me about purely social analyses of disability.

[prismatic-bell]

And even if you look at the mutants as being all one group, it’s still a useful metaphor.

Put another way:

“They can cure us?” asks the autistic person who struggles to think clearly, can’t form full sentences, is overstimulated at the drop of a hat and misses out on a lot of things they’d otherwise like to do because for them, autism is literally crippling.

“No, because there’s nothing wrong with us,” I say, as a person with autism who has a job, car, excellent communication and coping skills and a relatively normal life, because for me, autism is a thing I’ve adapted to and worked around.

(And yes, autistic people in the first category do exist. I’ve encountered a few right here on Tumblr and seen more than one say “don’t forget us in your autism activism because we aren’t ‘just a little different,’ this is a genuine problem for us.”)

Or perhaps:

“They can cure us?” asks the amputee who has never fully adapted to the loss of her arm below the shoulder, and gets by okay most days but very much misses being non-disabled.

“No, because there’s nothing wrong with us,” says the person who was born with only one arm and has never considered it any kind of deficit because it’s just how things are.

Different people will experience the same disability in different ways. It may have to do with how they were diagnosed, or how they came to be disabled; it may have to do with complications related to the disability (not to use the same metaphor twice, but someone whose arm was crushed and experiences terrible phantom pains daily probably feels a lot more negatively about their lack of an arm than someone who was born without it and has no phantom limb to feel sensation in). It may even be because of how other people around them treat the disability! A blind person treated with dignity and appropriate accommodation is probably going to feel very differently about their disability than someone with the same kind of blindness, but also a bunch of condescending pricks who want to make it into a terrible tragedy.

The metaphor still works even within any given subgroup of disabled people, and I think we need to remember that in our activism, too.

[heartcountry]

How do you deal with grief? I just can't stop the overwhelming feeling of it.

i'm muslim so the islamic perspective comforts me a lot. the idea that the person isn't gone forever, that my prayers are reaching them, that the love i have for them meets them where my hands can't. i was chosen to love them. i was chosen to lose them because God knew i would still make something of their love. but muslim or not, the point remains true. the love you had and still have for them is making the world a softer place. every smile you give a stranger. every bird you feed on your morning walk. every hug you give to someone who's still living. this is your greatest evidence. yes, someone loved me once. yes, they walked with me here once and i look for their footsteps still. yes, i dream them back all the time. yes, they made the world bearable, and i will too. ill do for others what they did for me with all the love they left behind.

[doomedvoyages]

the left will fail and keep failing as long as it doesn't offer joy or a vision of the future. Like chris smalls and the union organizers didn't win by writing scathing op-eds about Amazon and sending out long dry newsletters with donation links about Amazon's unfair labor practices to employees, they won by literally meeting people where they were at, at the bus stop where the workers gathered to go home, and hosting cookouts and bonfires. He ate with people and smoked with them and talked to them about their lives and the job, about their rights as workers and how life could be better. He brought joy to them!!! And food and community!! And that's how one of the biggest victories for labor in a century was won. If I can't dance I don't want to be in your revolution

[medusaceratops-deactivated20210]

do you have any Thots™ about interactions/dynamics between the clones and obi-wan and anakin?

also, re anakin and the fact that the clones are slaves: i know the doylist explanation is a mix of weird writing choices & marketed for kids, but do you think anakin’s lack of acknowledgment was 1. “I refuse to see this bc if I do I will lose my shit” 2. “Yes, they’re slaves, but I’ll solve that after the war” 3. genuinely not realizing or 4. something else entirely?

i think it's 1, and i'm really fucking lazy, but i was talking about this on discord and i typed a long as fuck thing out on my thoughts so you're just getting screenshots of that

also i don't have really specific thoughts outside from that, because for the premise to really work, i think obi-wan is more or less operating at the same level of Don't Think About It. except, of course, for him it's less fraught, because it's not the conflict that practically defines his life, lol. anakin has to do extra mental acrobatics to avoid the issue.

[porkue-deactivated20230306]

Y'all just be saying anyone is asexual

[porkue-deactivated20230306]

Like what is this. Some of these are children. One of these is a sex worker. Haru from beastars literally pulls the pants off legosi and tried to initiate sex multiple times. What is this

[fuckacephobes]

Children can be aroace

Sex workers can be aroace, after all sex work is just a job.

I haven't watched Beastars so I won't comment on that. Though to note, aroace people can have sex, considering the society we all live in, they have a complicated relationship with it.

And if aroace people can relate and ID with these characters there is no problem to it.

Considering all the Acephobia it's really easy for ace people to just not know and a lot of media for kids like Shonen manga don't feature romance much so its pretty easy to just relate to characters with no interest in romance or sex.

Also Yelena and Lilith are Aroace while Todd is Ace canonically.

And honestly why not? People on Tumblr of all places do this with making characters gay and trans and lesbians (which is great!) So why can't asexuals do it too?

[ukaiknowsbest]

Gintoki, Otae on Self-Sacrifice

gintoki letting himself be captured (life actually in danger).

when he offered his life in exchange for asaemon

farewell shinsengumi

notes

had his weapon but surrendered

someone helped him escape

resigned to his fate and personal decision, ready to die anyway

otae getting captured (life actually in danger)

Lesson 1, First Episode

cult

yagyuu (marriage that she didnt want)

ryugu

farewell shinsengumi

silver soul start - otose shop raid

silver soul cabaret girls escape

silver soul siege of kabukichou

notes

surrendered completely (L1, Yagyuu) -no point in fighting back coz she walked into situation with clear eyes

didn't bring weapon (cult, ryugu, farewell shinsengumi, silver soul start) -she's not allowed to bring her bladed weapon in public

weapon not suitable for situation (silver soul) -as discussed before, she was more focused in letting other girls escape, weapon also was not good to be used when too many people are near her.

wasn't focused on the captor but was more focused in protecting someone/something else (silver soul arc) -silver soul start: more concerned about yorozuya office being destroyed -siege of kabukichou: safety and escape of cabaret girls / gengai and otose giving themselves up

didn't use her brute strength to defend herself (L1, cult, ryugu, silver soul start) -maybe in L1, sorachi still wasn't sure how her character was supposed to be OR!! since it was her first job dealing with men, she still acted according to rules of propriety of the time. -in cult and ryugu, it was most likely her intention to talk to the captor and expose them first, being captured allows that. -in start of silver soul arc she was more concerned abt others's safety before thinking about herself.

talked down her captors (cult, ryugu, farewell shinsengumi, silver soul start) -choose to use words first when there's a chance

believed in her friends (cult, ryugu, farewell shinsengumi, silver soul)

someone else helped her or intervened in situation (all)

resigned to her fate and decision , ready to die anyway (all)

yes L1 and Yagyuu arc is still considered her "death" because she was willing to give up the life she knew and loved to be indentured servant / wife to someone else.

otae in summary:

-uses words against captors as much as possible.

-her own safety is usually not her priority especially in dire situations.

-her weapon is banned for public use.

-weapon needs to be used in optimum conditions

-she's not a trained militia, martial skills are only for self defense.

-believes in her friends with all her being.

-ready to die with bushido when she is captured anyway.

-she has different kind of strength.

(It's on sorachi why she doesnt have plot armor compared to the rest. He always wrote her more realistically imo.)

REASONS FOR MAKING THESE NOTES

tbh these some of my thoughts in reaction to youtube comments saying things like "why is she so weak when it counts!!!"

Yet people don't chastise Gintoki when he gives himself up for others. Everyone always reasons out: "it's his trauma response!" "Knowing what he's been through, giving up his own life is understandable!"

AND I GET IT. I GET IT.

Why then, is Otae less forgiven when both of Gintoki and her are doing the same thing?

Is Otae's life not traumatic in itself? Is being orphaned young, having to see her best friend get hurt because of her, losing their home and source of income and raising/providing for her own brother for her whole life not traumatic enough?

How much does Otae have to lose before her self-sacrificing tendencies are seen not as a sign of weakness but of strength born from trauma, experience and circumstance?

...

otae is cool y'know? if people just look into her writing closer, she's probably one of the most fascinating characters ever created.

[fuckacephobes]

The way a portion of the fandom treats Otae is unfortunately predictable. This is seen in a lot of fandoms, specifically in ship wars.

They like what she represents rather than who she is.

Characters that are closest to traditional values will be loved simply for that sake and either be woobified or demonized based on where they go.

Considering the type of female characters Sorachi wrote, it was really easy for them to latch onto Otae but as Sorachi refused to make Otae a flat character they started tearing her down too.

It's just misogyny and it's truly depressing.

[suchine-toki]

Utsuro was a poorly written villain

Quite surprising considering other villains Sorachi has written and even more surprising taking into consideration he’s the final boss. I tried to keep this as concise as possible focusing on both the character and the story.

How he affected the story

Gintama, through its comedy and serious arcs, showed how people struggle and overcome different situations in their lives. The main characters, Gintoki, Shinpachi and Kagura, have suffered losses that made an impact on them and on who they’re. This is especially true in Gintoki’s case, since he not only lost the war, he lost his friends and his master, by his own hands. Then, part of Gintoki’s story arc was to show how he deals with the consequences of his decision. However, when Utsuro was introduced a large part of the emotional weight said decision entailed dissipated. Gintoki was supposed to be one of the many orphans, one of the many who fought, one of the many who lost. And how with the same events he, Katsura and Takasugi took different paths. But Utsuro changed that, giving them a chance to atone themselves, something no one in the universe could have. At the beginning we’re told this character isn’t Shouyou, they just share the same body, although this would prove to be incorrect later. That Utsuro killed the Shouyou persona, but it still was Gintoki the one who killed his master. That Takasugi knew it all along. The story had to adjust itself to work around Utsuro, instead of Utsuro explaining the story. 

The altana

This power helped to explain the advanced technology present in the series and why the Earth was a target. Nevertheless, it was never really explained how it worked. People could regenerate with some blood, or ashes, it wears off after some months or years, can reincarnate, can possess bodies… it became the ace up his sleeve to justify the plot. Besides, it was properly introduced to the series pretty late, in chapter 554. Said chapter discloses Utsuro as a being born of altana, but how this happened and what makes him different from Kouka, who died when she moved away from her birth planet, isn’t explained either.

He doesn’t make sense

Utsuro founded the Tenshouin Naraku because the government decided it, then lead the organization for centuries. His backstory is tragic, he was persecuted, tortured and killed. However, most of the time he was very passive in the sense of letting things happen. If people found out somehow he’s immortal, why couldn’t he just go to another town once discovered? Or another country for that matter. He always stayed in Japan, letting himself be locked up and leading a group because others told him so for 500 years. He wanted to escape the suffering but didn’t make an effort until the last years of the story, when the Shouyou persona decided to leave and pursue happiness. Later he rejoins the organization in order to end himself by blowing up the entire planet since he can’t die for some reason, although he tried to survive when he fought against everyone. On top of that, dying, as seen in chapter 703, was actually easy.

Being the final villain

What does a final boss, or any antagonist for that matter, need? A video I watched (The Dark Knight — Creating the Ultimate Antagonist by Lessons from the Screenplay) explains it very well.

1. A powerful antagonist is exceptionally good at attacking the hero’s greatest weakness 2. Antagonists pressure protagonists into making difficult choices 3. Antagonists compete for the same goal as the protagonists 4. An antagonist causes the hero to grow

Something powerful about Utsuro was his physical strength and immortality, but there wasn’t any other struggle that actually posed a threat. Despite knowing vital information of Gintoki, he didn’t use it to target any vulnerability of him. Utsuro didn’t succeed into pushing Gintoki’s limits, test and reveal his character, either. Maybe he wasn’t the right antagonist to our hero, or maybe he could’ve been if handled differently, who knows. But he failed to have a profound and specific effect on the story and the protagonist. There wasn’t any battle of beliefs and principles, or a moment when Gintoki really questioned himself, or the chance to understand where Utsuro was coming from because of what Utsuro’s goal was. He just wanted to die. In order to to that, he must sacrifice the entire planet. The good guys can’t allow that to happen, right? The problem is, it’s way too impersonal.

The downfall

There’s more to be desired of the final boss than be a fully crafted character and complement the protagonist in things such as personality, values and objectives. They need to be the climax of the story, therefore, embody the story. Ultimately, Utsuro’s theme was about emptiness, he thinks everyone is hollow and is useless to struggle against fate. But in the end he realizes that, in fact, people are hollow, but because they know that, they can bring other people in to live on inside them. This is the reason why Takasugi couldn’t be the final boss, there’s just not philosophycal weight in him realizing that since it wasn’t his theme and he never detached himself from people. However, since there never was a clash of ideologies between Gintoki and Utsuro, that realization falls flat, also because the way the antagonist is overcomed is essential to the conclusion and Gintoki did it just by hitting him.

I understand that Sorachi didn’t have everything planned from the start and coming up with new ideas each week can be very difficult and stressful. But not being able to craft the final villain since his first appearance (ch. 541 in May 18, 2015) to the last (ch. 703 May 27 2019) it’s a shame since it affected the story in a negative way.

TL;DR: OP villain 😈 fails in his quest to be a good antagonist 😢

[whyaintanimereal]

Just to add on to this, I don’t really see people talk about it but utsuro’s existence really ruined shouyou as a character imo. Back then, shouyou said “if you dare lay a hand on my disciples, I will not hesitate to topple the country”. Back then, shouyou was willing to trade his life for his disciples, and gintoki knew that too, which was why he chose to kill shouyou.

But after utsuro was introduced, we were told that the reason why shouyou picked gintoki up was because he needed someone to defeat utsuro, that he was happy that gintoki killed him instead of takasugi/katsura because the disciples, who will eventually kill utsuro, were spared. He never bothered telling his disciples that he’s actually immortal and had an evil alter ego that needed to be defeated. Before the utsuro reveal, he was a nobel sensei who was willing to sacrifice himself for his disciples. After the reveal, he just seemed like an irresponsible asshole who dumps all of his issues on his disciples because he didn’t want to deal with them.

This issue was amplified in the second part of silver soul arc. He let himself get taken away by the cult and gave his heart to gintoki to decide what to do with it. He saw takasugi stabbing himself to save him from utsuro and his response was to walk away. At no point did he ever even tried to confronted utsuro. If utsuro could pull some bullshit altana magic to possess takasugi, then shouyou could have pulled the same magic to get utsuro out of takasugi and save him, but of course he didn’t, despite saying that he’s gonna eradicate utsuro’s existence. 

[fuckacephobes]

I think the big problem was that Sorachi tried packing too many things into 1 character. I think if he spread things out more (I believe he was told to end the series without much time, if true then he definitely had to scramble, this sort of thing just isn't like him) he wouldn't have written himself into a corner.

If given more time I really could have seen him flesh out the Naraku more and considering their connection to the Ninja and Gov't and just the overall theme of community, having this sort of organization would have been a perfect foil.

Shouyou could have still been Utsuro but he should have stayed human. More of his historical counterparts history could have been included and there could have been some really good commentary about the negative aspects of devoting oneself to their country. Rejecting the Naraku's extremist ideology, seeing the wonder the Amanto brought about (like Shouin did) would have been a really good way to explain where his philosophy came from. We could have seen Shouyou's own little character arc from different characters perspectives like the other wings and maybe even other govt officials. Really force the 3 Disciples to grapple with a past they would disagree with while understanding how it shaped him.

Most of these problems arise in the FS arc and I feel like if Sorachi had made one change it would have drastically changed the story.

Rather than Utsuro coming to stop them it should have been the Yagyuu family.

These guys were the retainers to the Shogun but now that he's dead (they weren't even part of the party to protect them) they are in a perilous position. Help Nobonobu's faction or their lives are at stake. It would have added so much political and philosophical drama, be a sequel arc of sorts to Kyuubei's intro arc, and even turn the comical rivalry with Katsura into something dangerous.

Duty vs Love, Retainer vs Friend, Heir vs Freedom, a lot of these questions would have been cool for Kyuubei to think about.

And it would be cool to see the grandpa and 4 aces fight real.

This one change could have triggered a fascinating domino affect. The Rakuyo arc would still work though maybe have Umibozou fight the First Captain of the Harusame or even the Tendoshuu at Shouyou's execution.

The Earth plot would focus on Amanto and corrupt govt interference and how the communities of Yoshiwara and Kabuki district would fight back. It would be a great way to bookend Kyuubei's arc with Otae, show the dark side of the country that must change, and trigger more development for characters like Soyo to lead that charge.

This series has never really been a typical Shonen with a big bad but seemed more interested in systemic evils.

It could have allowed for characters like Takasugi and Shinpachi to explore what they really wants, have all the Disciples have a broader understanding of Shouyou's growth before he died to allow them to truly grieve, and follow up on threads like the Kamui-Yoshiwara connection, and for the series to explore how they feel about the transition to a different future. (Just imagine if we got an FMA style ending where we just see pictures of the characters in a new status quo, nervous but content with the unknown)

If a big bad is needed, it could just be the Tendoshuu at Shouyou's execution since he appeared multiple times and could offer an interesting perspective to Shouyou that no one else knew.

I feel like if Sorachi was given an actual break or had a better editor he could have plotted some stuff out properly. He's really good with short Arcs so this was the worst case scenario.