[Zavie]

But once money becomes an issue and she starts to feel the pinch... I wonder if you could still say the same thing...?

As I stated before, for Mashiro to be what she is now, she is extremely lucky.

She's gotten serialized in a magazine at age 16,that's quite an achievement so I really don't doubt she can make it as a mangaka.

While I don't have doubt Mashiro's talent, the anime made me believe that the major cause for her serialization is that she met Sorata and lived in Sakurasou, which is totally a lucky thing.

No, the issue is that the empty argument of "she has a responsibility to her fans to continue painting" was brought up. No she does not, and there exists no such responsibility.

While I agree that a person should always make their own decision, but a person's responsibilies come as many kind.

I don't think Mashiro's responsibility is that for her to produce better artworks everydays, but to excel and be successful in Fine Art, given her talent, it's more ambigous than just producing amazing artworks for humanity.

You know there're lots of stories about young student nowadays don't go to higher education, instead they choose to work right after high school or even middle school, even if they are smart and definitely have the potential to do very well in college and uni. The bottom line is that they earn money that way and the money they earn provide them a sense of hapiness, If you say it's not wrong for them to do that because it's their life, fine, you are not wrong. But on the parent's pov, if they had the ability to support their child for higher education and is happy to do that, if their children just scratch it away and doing what they want, of course there's going to be some reactions for that, If the parent just smiles and says "go ahead and do whatever you want" then I would suspect that they don't really care much for their child.

And we might have different cultural value regarding this matter as well, in the West, yes it would more liberate for the individuals. But in the East, we do get bound by the responsibility to answer our parent, teachers or friends expectation for what we do in the future. Yes, you may say it is nonsense and yes, we sometimes try to break free from that. But it's there for a reason, and there's a majority of people who still think it is the right thing to do. I think one of the reason Japan can get to what it is today has a lot to do with their way of respect for responsibilty and discipline for society.

"3 idiots", an Indian movie is actually a very good example for this, and I myself had the same issue when choosing my major to study. In the end, the guys in the movie and I are still doing things we wanted, not paricularly things that our parent had initially wished, but we have the mutual understandings for this matter and for me that's true happiness.

So for Mashiro I think it's the same, it's not only about getting Mashiro to understand her expectation of others for her (not necessary oblige to follow that), but also Mashiro making people understanding her passion and feelings on the subject. It has to go both ways, Rita is Mashiro's ex-caretaker, and arguably her best friend (not some jackass control freak), she cannot just outright reject Rita without listening or telling her feelings about the subject matter, that's not something a friend should do to each other, at least in my definition of a good friendship.