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This page, The KidVegeta Anthology/Be a Man, is property of KidVegeta.


Be a Man was one of the three unusual stories I began on March 1, 2014 (the other two being From Magic to Monsters and The Perfect Lifeform). This story was not very similar to the other two, which were both told through character studies or histories. Be a Man is an epistolary novel about General Blue. I don't know exactly what prompted me to think up this idea or decide on making it into a story. I like General Blue as a character and found his relationship with Samuel (admittedly, a dub thing) to be quite interesting. I guess that's what made me make it into a story, though I don't remember what influenced me to do it it in epistolary form. The name is a rather obvious reference to I'll Make a Man Out of You, one of the greatest Disney songs of all time. It's a somewhat dark reference to General Blue being gay and not being seen as a "man" by his parents because of that.

At first, I wrote only a few postcards of one year of the story. But after I completed From Magic to Monsters, I focused on writing each year at one time. I then completed the first year (737), and when I did the next year, I did all postcards at once. For the following eight years, I did the same thing - all postcards for the year were done at the same time. I wrote the chapters directly on the wiki. I never had them on a document or anything like that. In terms of how many postcards I wrote per year, I knew that the early years would feature more postcards and the later years would feature less. I used the dates of the postcards as a way to gauge how many postcards there would be for each year.

I didn't have many plots figured out for this story before writing it. I knew that I wanted to use as many canon characters as possible, so that's why Dark, Gero, Capsule Corp., and Boss Rabbit were all in this. I worked very hard to find characters like Boss Rabbit who could be fit into the story seamlessly. Additionally, I tried to tie this story in with The Perfect Lifeform since Gero's son is in both. Gero's son was revealed in a Toriyama interview (much like how the thing about the Majins not being created by Bibidi, but being summoned instead was (which influenced From Magic to Monsters)) and I definitely wanted to use him in both stories. He's more important here than in TPL, though. I used him as a means to get Blue his psychic abilities. I think that was a rather clever way to include Gero's son and to explain Blue's unexplained psychic powers.

One last thing I want to mention is the postcard template itself. I put a lot of work into making it look like it does, especially with the sizing and the use of a different font within the postcards. It was a very important part of this story. If the postcard template didn't work, then the story wouldn't. Be a Man wouldn't be right as just paragraphs of text under headers. I used postcards my own dad had sent me when I was much younger as a reference for how I styled the template. I think it came out rather lovely, though it doesn't work with multiple headers. Because of that, the below chapters are split up by tabs. Just click on the below tabs to see my commentaries on each years' postcards.


Story[]




Final thoughts[]

I had more pleasure re-reading Be a Man for this commentary than I did writing it. Be a Man was very hard for me to write. The emotional scenes were a great drain on me; creating the postcard template was a long, arduous process; coming up with the plot wasn't so easy either. But looking at it from the perspective of a reader, I can appreciate what I managed to do. Thematically, there's a lot of complex and often contrasting things going on. Blue gets fascinating character development in this story. The way he talks to the Red Ribbon Army soldiers, contrasting with how he talks to Samuel, and with how he talks to his mother illustrates how complex a person General Blue is. All of the neat little references, be they in-universe (Monster Carrot, King Chappa, Gero, etc) or in relation to my other fanons (Kindler's birth, Spindlerun, etc) were really cool. This is one of the most unique stories on the wiki, but I think it's also one of the best. The themes are strong, even though this is told in the form of postcards - don't let the epistolary form fool you, this story has a lot of depth to it. One area I wish I could have done differently was with Blue's notes to himself. They were built up to well enough (with the psychic implants giving him memory loss), but it still would have been more ideal if he had never needed to write any of those. Maybe if I had another character introduced early on that he could talk to (maybe the boy his mother found him sleeping with?) via postcards, I could have got through this story without the self-notes. Still, I think this story is pretty rad, overall. I dig it. I would give Be a Man an S-.


<---- Part 34

Part 36 ---->


The KidVegeta Anthology
1: Were It So Easy2: Ground Up3: So Lonely At The Top4: Dragon Ball Z: In Requiem5: Sixth6: Slaved7: Womanhood8: A Mother's Love9: Derelict10: Dragonball KC11: The Redacted Scenes12: Dragon Ball Z: Cold Vengeance (Original draftFinal draft)13: Spindlerun: The Tale of Yajirobe14: The Anonymous Series15: Speedball16: Second-best17: Strength18: Separator19: Skulk20: Soup21: Scelerat22: Serial23: Slick24: Sovereign25: Dragonball lies in the old hat26: Ode to Dodoria27: Bitterly Bothered Brother28: KidVegeta's Theogony: From Silence to the Greater Kais‎‎29: Dragon Ball Z: The Forgotten (29.1 Prince Vegeta Saga29.2 Outbreak: Paved In Blood29.3 Lauto Saga29.4 Stomping Grounds Saga29.5 Planet Earth Saga29.6 Reunion Saga29.7 Forever Alone29.8 Fulfillment Saga29.9 Characters29.10 Who Are The Forgotten?29.11 Miscellaneous Information)30: Sink to the Bottom31: Bluestreaker32: Lionheart33: From Magic to Monsters34: Tyrant35: Be a Man36: Brave37: Yellow38: Sleep39: Prideful Demons Black40: The Watcher41: The Perfect Lifeform42: Ain't No Hero43: Dragon Ball: The Great War44: Glory45: Monster46: Burning Man47: Bonetown Blues48: Ergo Sum49: Suicide Missionary50: We'll Never Feel Bad Anymore51: Before Creation Comes Destruction52: Midnight City53: A Soundless Dark54: Scourge55: The Ballad of Dango56: Zarbon and Dodoria: A Love Story57: Thank the Eastern Supreme Kai for Girls58: A Shadow on the Wind59: I'm a Candy Man60: Down the Well-Worn Road61: Cool Cat62: Starfall63: Crushing Blue64: Black Dawn65: The Great Sushi-Eating Contest66: The Adventures of Beerus and Whis...IN SPACE!‎‎67: The Guacamole Boys Hit the Town‎‎68: Fin69: Nowhere to Go70: Not So Far71: Ice Age Coming72: Small73: Shame74: Untouchable75: A Demon Tale: Running Gags and Memes: The Movie76: Superior77: He's a Baaad Man78: Sandboys79: This is a contest story 80: A Space Christmas Story81: The One Where Bulma Goes Looking For Goku's Dragon Balls82: The Ginyu Force Chronicles83: Country Matters84: Chasing Oblivion85: Bardock's Some Hot Space Garbage and You're a Cuck86: The Story Without Any Cursing Except For This One Fuck And It's In The Title or (Sex Drugs and Rock and Roll Except Without Any Of The Sex)87: A Flap of the Wings88: Broccoli Tail89: Black as Blood90: Bi Arm or the One Where Baby is Actually A Rich Man or the Last One Of All the BYARMS91: One Chop Man92: Girl93: Twelve Majestic Lies94: Spaceball95: The Monster and the Maiden96: Mountain Bird97: A Quest for Booty98: Yaki the Yardrat's lecherous crime cartel, can Jaco and Strabbary stop it?99: Across the Universe100: His Majesty's Pet101: Destroyer of Universes102: The One with Several No Good Rotten Space Vermin103: The Scouring of Paradise104: To Kill a God-Emperor105: Extragalactic Containment Protocol106: Appetent Justice107: The Naptime Championships108: Really Big Scary Monsters109: Old Nishi110: He Needs Some Space Milk111: Filthy Monkeys112: The Mortal Flaw113: Leap114: Dyspo Sucks115: The Royal Exception116: Mushin117: Doctor Piggyboy118: The Space Taco Bandit119: The Big Book of Very Important Things (119.1: Why the supreme kai thinks there are only 28 planets in the universe by kidvegeta, esquire119.2: The raisin why supreme kai thinks theres only 28 planets119.3: Supreme kai why do you think there are only 28 planets pls respond119.4: Vegeta: The Tale of Chiaotzu119:5. Sweet Nothings About Cuber by KidVegeta and Destructivedisk119.6: ☉‿⊙119.7: The Part Where He Actually Blows Himself119.8: The truefacts tht hhyperzerling ssahhy119.9: Dragon Ball Supper119.10: A list of people yamcha's been intimate with)120: Memories of a Bloodless Thrall121: Lights of Zalama122: The Deathless Scraps123: Time-Eater124: Dragon Ball: The Mrovian Series: Hidden Memories of Chaiva125: Nineteen Assassins126: Welcome to Rapture127: Bean Daddy128: Zeta Male129: One Word From The Crane130: The Big Ugly131: The Legend of Upa132: Trickster is Meaningless133: Three Foolish Monkeys134: Killing General Copper135: One of Them136: The Swindler137: Softpetal138: How To Act Like a Professional Mercenary139: Insatiable140: Every Turtle Has His Day141: No Second Chances142: Blue Wolf143: The Shunko Onsen144: Nam's Big Dive145: Hard as Diamonds146: In Search of Pork Buns147: Feeding Time148: Chi-Chi's Got Talent149: Patient 240150: Divine in Maturity151: Tail Don't Lie152: Pontas Pilot153: Soft Matter154: PFR155: The History of the Decline and Fall of the Planet Trade Organization156: Dragon Ball: Heart of the Dragon157: Community Roleplays (157.1 Dragon Ball: Future Imperfect (2nd Saga)157.2 No Way Out157.3 Vacation157.4 Cool Runnings157.5 What Role Will You Play?)158: Deleted Stories (158.1 Dragon Ball: Short Story Project158.2 The Last Saiyan)159: Final Thoughts
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