It really dawned on me watching episode 17, just how important this sequence of events is to Kabru and Laios' relationship, and how. Well. That's for a different post. I want to keep this one free of spoilers. (Certified Safe For Anime Only™)(There are spoilers for episode 17, tho. Obviously.)
Kabru's main concern has been, at least in part, revealed. He wants to figure out if Laios is capable of defeating the dungeon, and, if so, if Laios can be trusted with the power that might confer. The answer to his first question is simple. Yes. If anyone can defeat the dungeon, it's Laios.
The second question is where things get interesting. Can Laios be trusted with power?
In the aftermath of Laios' first fight with Toshiro, Kabru learns that while Laios has no particular respect for the law or conventional wisdom, he does have the humility to consider that his judgment might be flawed if he encounters conflict with someone he respects.
That is the face of a man taking notes, and I think he's making a cautious mark in Laios' favor. Laios doesn't really understand Toshiro's opinion, but he's listening.
Then, in the fight with the Falin-Dragon chimera, Kabru voices dissent—disgust, even—with Laios and Marcille's priorities.
You can practically see the Dragon Age style approval rating drop. Kabru disapproves. Minus fifteen hearts. If it had ended like this, I think Kabru would have lost all interest in Laios. Someone who would sacrifice a dozen lives out of sentiment can't be trusted.
Laios' response, and the way it builds on Kabru's earlier observation, is crucial.
He listened. And even better, he didn't listen blindly. He applied critical thought to Kabru's argument. What Kabru hears from him isn't just "I'm sorry, you were right," but also, "I understand and respect your position and priorities, and here's a very good argument for why killing what I still consider to be my sister is not in our best interest."
He processed Kabru's criticism and came to his own conclusions, and he did it fast. Not only that, but he's right. Kabru hadn't considered the potential consequences of killing the chimera.
Laios proved in this one exchange that he 1) isn't blinded by either his pride or his prejudice, 2) has the strength of character to not just fall back and surrender to someone else's judgment when he's uncertain, and 3) is smart enough to tactically outhink Kabru.
This is why Kabru is so invested in Laios liking him that he forces himself to eat the harpy omlette. This is why Kabru takes Laios' hand and makes sure he knows he wants to see him again. He doesn't understand Laios, and he still has strong reservations about him. Laios' interest in monsters scares him. But Laios has proved to Kabru that he might be capable of being the person Kabru needs him to be.
Top Ten Pictures Of The Moment He Won You Over (Taken Just Before Disaster).
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one of the things that i think we should pay attention to, socially, about the disney v. desantis thing is that it is really highlighting the importance of remembering nuance.
in a purely neutral sense, if you engage in something problematic, that does not mean you are necessarily agreeing with what makes it problematic. and i am worried that we have become... so afraid of any form of nuance.
disney isn't my friend, they're a corporate monopoly that bastardized copyright laws for their own benefit, ruin the environment, and abuse their workers (... and many other things). this isn't a hypothetical for me - i grew up in florida. i also worked for the actual Walt Disney World; like, in the parks. i am keenly aware of the ways they hurt people, because they hurt me. i fully believe that part of the reason florida is so conservative is because it's been an "open secret" for years now that disney lobbies the government to keep minimum wage down, and i know they worked hard to keep the parks unmasked and open during the worst parts of Covid. they purposefully keep their employees in poverty. they are in part responsible for the way the floridian government works.
desantis is still, by a margin that is frankly daunting, way worse. the alternative here isn't just "republicans win", it's actual fascism.
in a case like this, where the alternative is to allow actual fascism into united states legislation - where, if desantis wins, there are huge and legal ramifications - it's tempting to minimize the harm disney is also doing, because... well, it's not fascism. but disney isn't the good guy, either, which means republicans are having a field day asking activists oh, so you think their treatment of their employees is okay?
we have been trained there is a right answer. you're right! you're in the good group, and you're winning at having an opinion.
except i have the Internet Prophecy that in 2-3 months, even left-wing people will be ripping apart activists for having "taken disney's side". aren't i an anti-capitalist? aren't i pro-union? aren't i one of the good ones? removed from context and nuance (that in this particular situation i am forced to side with disney, until an other option reveals itself), my act of being like "i hope they have goofy rip his throat out onstage, shaking his lifeless body like a dog toy" - how quickly does that seem like i actually do support disney?
and what about you! at home, reading this. are you experiencing the Thought Crime of... actually liking some of the things disney has made? your memories of days at the parks, or of good movies, or of your favorite show growing up. maybe you are also evil, if you ever enjoyed anything, ever, at all.
to some degree, the binary idealization/vilification of individual motive and meaning already exists in the desantis case. i have seen people saying not to go to the disney pride events because they're cash grabs (they are). i've seen people saying you have to go because they're a way to protest. there isn't a lot of internet understanding of nuance. instead it's just "good show of support" or "evil bootlicking."
this binary understanding is how you can become radicalized. when we fear nuance and disorder, we're allowing ourselves the safety of assuming that the world must exist in binary - good or bad, problematic or "not" problematic. and unfortunately, bigots want you to see the world in this binary ideal. they want you to get mad at me because "disney is taking a risk for our community but you won't sing their praises" and they want me to get mad at you for not respecting the legit personal trauma that disney forced me through.
in a grander scheme outside of disney: what happens is a horrific splintering within activist groups. we bicker with each other about minimal-harm minimal-impact ideologies, like which depiction of bisexuality is the most-true. we gratuitously analyze the personal lives of activists for any sign they might be "problematic". we get spooked because someone was in a dog collar at pride. we wring our hands about setting an empty shopping mall on fire. we tell each other what words we may identify ourselves by. we get fuckin steven universe disk horse when in reality it is a waste of our collective time.
the bigots want you to spend all your time focusing on how pristine and pretty you and your interests are. they want us at each other's throats instead of hand in hand. they want to say see? nothing is ever fucking good enough for these people.
and they want their followers to think in binary as well - a binary that's much easier to follow. see, in our spaces, we attack each other over "proper" behavior. but in bigoted groups? they attack outwards. they have someone they hate, and it is us. they hate you, specifically, and you are why they have problems - not the other people in their group. and that's a part of how they fucking keep winning.
some of the things that are beloved to you have a backbone in something terrible. the music industry is a wasteland. the publishing industry is a bastion of white supremacy. video games run off of unpaid labor and abuse.
the point of activism was always to bring to light that abuse and try to stop it from happening, not to condemn those who engage in the content that comes from those industries. "there is no ethical consumption under late capitalism" also applies to media. your childhood (and maybe current!) love of the little mermaid isn't something you should now flinch from, worried you'll be a "disney adult". wanting the music industry to change for the better does not require that you reject all popular music until that change occurs. you can acknowledge the harm something might cause - and celebrate the love that it has brought into your life.
we must detach an acknowledgment of nuance from a sense of shame and disgust. we must. punishing individual people for their harmless passions is not doing good work. encouraging more thoughtful, empathetic consumption does not mean people should feel ashamed of their basic human capacities and desires. it should never have even been about the individual when the corporation is so obviously the actual evil. this sense that we must live in shame and dread of our personal nuances - it just makes people bitter and hopeless. do you have any idea how scared i am to post this? to just acknowledge the idea of nuance? that i might like something nuanced, and engage in it joyfully? and, at the same time, that i'm brutally aware of the harm that they're doing?
"so what do i do?" ... well, often there isn't a right answer. i mean in this case, i hope mickey chops off ron's head and then does a little giggle. but truth be told, often our opinions on nuanced subjects will differ. you might be able to engage in things that i can't because the nuance doesn't sit right with me. i might think taylor swift is a great performer and a lot of fun, and you might be like "raquel, the jet fuel emissions". we are both correct; neither of us have any actual sway in this. and i think it's important to remember that - the actual scope of individual responsibility. like, i also love going to the parks. Thunder Mountain is so fun. you (just a person) are not responsible for the harm that Disney (the billion dollar corporation) caused me. i don't know. i think it's possible to both enjoy your memories and interrogate the current state of their employment policies.
there is no right way to interrogate or engage with nuance - i just hope you embrace it readily.
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look i understand if people just don't like the idea of billford, i think we have a different internal concept of what shipping means (they're not good for each other at all but i need to dissect their dynamic like a bug. you understand. it's fun) but it's fine to avoid things you don't like, good for you genuinely
however people saying they like. don't see it. like. i'm not saying there's no platonic way to read it, i'm aroace spec myself i'm all for reading things in different ways. but i do think saying they weren't partners in any queer sense at all is trying too hard to go against what the narrative is trying to say, or missing it. somehow
anyway media literacy time if a character makes a joke like this
and the previous context of that joke within the show is that it's about an ex wife. what connection do you think the text is trying to get you to make.
and that's just from a writing point of view. not even noting that from an in universe perspective ford likely knows the joke from the same source as stan. and is therefore. placing himself in that role of the joke are you seeing where i'm coming from
(not to mention bill's side of this text which is. extremely manipulative but also does not read very platonic. again, it can technically be read as platonic! bill literally can manipulate ford's feelings. but the specific wording used is very much meant to look like possessive ex partner wording whether the character means it that way or not. it's coding. look again i'm not saying it was good for them i'm just saying there was something there.)
and then there's also the divorce/break up/rock bottom input on the website. like. how else is that supposed to be read. and the corresponding page in the book itself.
the language being used here. like yes he's saying it in a joking way but then there's the other side that isn't joking which is him crying at the bar. it's the both sides (the very coded language on top of the very genuine emotions and dynamic beneath)
i know most of us are on the same page with this i've just seen a couple people saying they don't see it when this is some of the most clear cut coding i've ever seen. and these are just the things that explicitly reference a relationship off the top of my head i'm not even including the general vibes of Everything
tl;dr it's barely even subtext anymore it's all but straight up text. what's not clicking have we forgotten what coding is (lighthearted i just enjoy the phrase what's not clicking. what's not clicking)
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yall are about to piss me off by not having any PASSING basic knowledge of the way the u.s. military manipulates its recruits into joining by typing up one of your uninformed, unresearched, unempathetic, individualistic, unbelievably annoying posts about how 100% of the people in the military ended up there because they just Love America So Damn Much! they're extremely mature and informed at time of recruitment, they can totally leave anytime they want, they totally had tons of other avenues in life they could've taken, there was no rush at all to get income as fast as possible, and everyone in the military also totally is part of the combat divisions and personally enjoys being IN the military very much, big believers of violence. everyone in the military is shooting guns all day, that's how that works. they LOVE BLOODSHED.
also I love the "amewicans haha" twang to this type of shit because you're actually TOTALLY stealing our Thing, which is turning systemic issues into Individual Issues. Instead of talking about the powers that be, it's so Personal Choice up in here. It's, "well you shouldn't have done it then. I totally wouldn't because I know better." you don't wanna talk about the military industrial complex as a whole, and you don't want to talk about recruiters, you just want to pin the blame on Specific Individual People one-by-one, as if they're responsible for the system that they're being ground up in. someone was in the military? bad person, no matter what. it's easier to believe that, I guess, than to acknowledge that Normal People (with high school educations) are manipulated and incentivized into joining a system that is Bad. at like age 18. but yeah no that 18 year old should have just been smarter lol haha
anyway here are some screenshots for no particular reason
side note this reply of someone going "umm just get loans and go into a high paying field it's easy XD" as a direct response to someone trying to explain how most americans joining the military are being funneled in that direction out of a need for money.
and another person who Decided that americans join the military just CLENCHING their teeth thinking of other people, and not thinking completely selfishly about their own selves and their own income/housing/healthcare.
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