okay because people have shown up in my dms talking smack I'm going to make one blanket statement on the 1000 year loli chilchuck thing.
yes, there has been a problem with young girls being put in suggestive positions in anime with the "uhmmm she's actually a bajillion years old" excuse. yes, other characters don't treat chilchuck like an adult. yes, he is short with big eyes.
However, chilchuck consistently acts like a grown man. he- in both the manga and the anime- straight up just is an adult. He looks like an adult when he is any other race during the swaps in the manga. When the other characters get turned into half-foots they look similar to chilchuck. He is explicitly stated to have more dungeon and general life experience than laios, and he acts like it.
The 1000 year loli trope explicitly functions as an excuse to prey on people who are inexperienced and unable to advocate for themselves. Chilchuck is a parent, is a union organizer, has explicit boundaries that he enforces rigidly, and he is treated as an adult man by everyone who doesn't have a fantasy racism-focused character arc/issue.
I can see how if you haven't read the manga and seen that he has an established life that he later reveals (and haven't paid attention to him in the anime lol) you could get a mistaken impression about him. Marcielle does too in the source material! It's part of her character at the start of her arc that she has issues with longevity!
The thing that irks me a little about this interpretation is that it leans into the child-coded discourse that was prominent a while ago (she's short!!!!! but has boob???? ILLEGAL!!1!) and it does a disservice to the themes of infantilization as a policy maneuver hurting the working class.
I saw chilchuck and his labor advocacy for half-foots both as a metaphor for racism (obvious take ik) and for ageism.
The working gen z as a cohort are being infantilized and pushed out of job markets due to infantilization, similar to half-foots in the show. gen z is being maliciously portrayed as too young to vote, enter office, know themselves, know their rights, and take advantage of their resources. Simultaneously, child labor protections and protections against workplace abuse are being rolled back in the US. In Japan, young people are being worked to the bone for nothing and are becoming disenfranchised as a generation while simultaneously expected to be the labor faction that supports the postwar generations in their old age.
Chilchuck's being treated poorly I saw as a clever commentary on the ways infantilization allows for protections to be stripped away under the guise that "oh it's just a job for teenagers- they don't need more than minimum wage" or "let the kids rescue the economy! they're always complaining about that job market!" while simultaneously stripping away rights under the guise of protection- "We can't have that on the internet! think of the children!" "to protect these young people we must raise the age of medical consent for hormones/reproductive health decisions!"
Kui's work with this series spoke to me on many levels, and specifically, the infantilization issue touched me in a way that few other pieces of media have. The struggle to be taken seriously in a stem field as someone young, as someone female, and as someone who had a high-pitched voice to the point I did years of voice training to be taken seriously, chilchuck's character resonated. I (kinda) understand your instinct to think "SHORT! CHILD! RALLY THE MASSES AND KILL THE PEDOS!!1!" but in this case, it's misdirected- mostly because the author was trying to use this misdirection to prove something to you, the reader.
Kui consistently makes cutting commentary on modern issues, the show's take on food neutrality as its headliner, but also the author's takes on cultural issues and the environment (with a focus on our place in the food web as animals). I feel that reducing chilchuck's very conscious position as a tradesman and an activist discounted due to his apparent age down to "1000 year loli ewwww let's send this random tumblr user suicide bait" just displays a lack of critical analysis of the show and a level of disrespect towards Kui and the work as a whole.
TL:DR- stop sending me kys messages I'm fucking that old man
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whenever i see posts talking abt the issues w an lgbt person being rly cruel abt things like polyamory or asexuality ppl often phrase it like it’s bad bcuz it’s ‘anti queer’ but personally i am more interested in pointing out that being vocally against ppl with unconventional and harmless sexual lives and aggressively making fun of them is more a sign that you’re an asshole. i don’t think ‘queer’ is rly useful terminology most of the time for a lot of reasons anyway
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my favourite.. well i guess it could be called "happening" in media, i think is when I'm reading about some edgy/dark, horror-adjacent "everyone's constantly having a bad time" setting or story, in a book or a game, and one if not several of the guys in there are just gay offhand. it's a very specific thing i enjoy when its in these horrible (in-universe, emotionally) environments but they're still there
no homophobia no titilation. romantic relationships (even het ones) have zero presence or importance really. but Just Letting You Know: this character is probably a closeted lesbian
diversity win: this mercenary is bisexual! he mentions he has sex with men. diversity ????: a coin flip rng roll can sever both of his arms and crush his sanity for the rest of the game. diversity i-don't-know: this can happen to anyone so its not because hes into men, you just have shit rolls
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seeing posts dismissing the fertility/body awareness method for not getting pregnant and its like........its actually something you need to learn and plan for not something you can just pick up. The reason birth control and condoms are so effective are bc they cut down on human mistakes/error. With FAM you need to track 2-3 different things almost daily to know when you absolutely need to use a condom to prevent conception and days where it is fine to not use a condom bc youre nowhere near ovulation.
yes use condoms and birth control if you WANT TO, but if you dont want to use condoms or birth control INVEST in to the fertility awareness method, and i really mean mentally and physically invest into the system.
Fertility/body awareness is a TOOL! for you to not get pregnant or for you to increase your chances of getting pregnant, for you to track your cycles, or pcos, or transition into menopause, or to see if youve/about to miscarry
Being in the birth work field has opened my whole brain to things most ppl dont know of, and most people dont know the hows or whys behind fertility/body awareness. Its ok if you personally dont trust something you dont understand, or feel like it wouldn't work for your health. But truly FAM is a huge topic and you should be educated on what it is before discounting the science behind a certain contraceptive method.
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