#which-false but i digress

[baekuras]

just thought about how annoying the combo of

"if you work hard you can even buy your own house" to "lmao in THIS economy?" in combo with "oh yeah tech is the future and here are all the ways on why" to "the internet is eating itself+what jobs???" is

you'd think those false promises would stop but nope

[themyscirah]

Philippus? Wym philippus this is a wholeass other woman?????? She's white?????? Guys come on now

ALSO cursed white Euboea in this same sequence.... homeboy she's Asian please stop

Joe Phillips I'm sorry but this is some shitty ass guest pencilling how can you not know anything abt what these people look like thats literally your job... you also just needed to read the issue before this to know?

Editors should have caught this one these are major Amazon characters

[aroceu]

caping for and encouraging a cis person to not only partake but actively stoke the flames of discourse surrounding transphobia against other trans people regardless of whether you agree with them is neither the allyship or the anti-transphobia that you think it is. btw

[whitesuited]

𝙻𝙴𝚃 𝙼𝙴 𝙰𝚂𝚂𝙸𝙶𝙽 𝚈𝙾𝚄 𝙰 𝙻𝙾𝚅𝙴 𝙻𝙰𝙽𝙶𝚄𝙰𝙶𝙴.

an undoing influence

can someone tell you what to do? you have been carrying so much love within you for so long it is starting to turn into anger (why does it matter, all you see is red anyways) and you have been dragging this body through each day and every night you are split open on your bed and it is so so so lonely. if someone were to walk in while you were on your bed that way and they stitched you back in a new way, lining the seams with their love and kisses, you’d probably find this dreary world a little more bearable. you want someone to turn you over and over until you look in the mirror and see yourself looking back at yourself with a gentleness which has been lacking in you since forever.

tagged by : @redapt tagging : anyone who wants to take this and suffer too feel free to @ me

[sneezypeasy]

Why I Deliberately Avoided the "Colonizer" Argument in my Zutara Thesis - and Why I'll Continue to Avoid it Forever

This is a question that occasionally comes up under my Zutara video essay, because somehow in 2 hours worth of content I still didn't manage to address everything (lol.) But this argument specifically is one I made a point of avoiding entirely, and there are some slightly complicated reasons behind that. I figure I'll write them all out here.

From a surface-level perspective, Zuko's whole arc, his raison d'etre, is to be a de-colonizer. Zuko's redemption arc is kinda all about being a de-colonizer, and his redemption arc is probably like the most talked about plot point of ATLA, so from a basic media literacy standpoint, the whole argument is unsound in the first place, and on that basis alone I find it childish to even entertain as an argument worth engaging with, to be honest.

(At least one person in my comments pointed out that if any ship's "political implications" are problematic in some way, it really ought to be Maiko, as Mai herself is never shown or suggested to be a strong candidate for being a de-colonizing co-ruler alongside Zuko. If anything her attitudes towards lording over servants/underlings would make her… a less than suitable choice for this role, but I digress.)

But the reason I avoided rebutting this particular argument in my video goes deeper than that. From what I've observed of fandom discourse, I find that the colonizer argument is usually an attempt to smear the ship as "problematic" - i.e., this ship is an immoral dynamic, which would make it problematic to depict as canon (and by extension, if you ship it regardless, you're probably problematic yourself.)

And here is where I end up taking a stand that differentiates me from the more authoritarian sectors of fandom.

I'm not here to be the fandom morality police. When it comes to lit crit, I'm really just here to talk about good vs. bad writing. (And when I say "good", I mean structurally sound, thematically cohesive, etc; works that are well-written - I don't mean works that are morally virtuous. More on this in a minute.) So the whole colonizer angle isn't something I'm interested in discussing, for the same reason that I actually avoided discussing Katara "mothering" Aang or the "problematic" aspects of the Kataang ship (such as how he kissed her twice without her consent). My whole entire sections on "Kataang bad" or "Maiko bad" in my 2 hour video was specifically, "how are they written in a way that did a disservice to the story", and "how making them false leads would have created valuable meaning". I deliberately avoided making an argument that consisted purely of, "here's how Kataang/Maiko toxic and Zutara wholesome, hence Zutara superiority, the end".

Why am I not willing to be the fandom morality police? Two reasons:

I don't really have a refined take on these subjects anyway. Unless a piece of literature or art happens to touch on a particular issue that resonates with me personally, the moral value of art is something that doesn't usually spark my interest, so I rarely have much to say on it to begin with. On the whole "colonizer ship" subject specifically, other people who have more passion and knowledge than me on the topic can (and have) put their arguments into words far better than I ever could. I'm more than happy to defer to their take(s), because honestly, they can do these subjects justice in a way I can't. Passing the mic over to someone else is the most responsible thing I can do here, lol. But more importantly:

I reject the conflation of literary merit with moral virtue. It is my opinion that a good story well-told is not always, and does not have to be, a story free from moral vices/questionable themes. In my opinion, there are good problematic stories and bad "pure" stories and literally everything in between. To go one step further, I believe that there are ways that a romance can come off "icky", and then there are ways that it might actually be bad for the story, and meming/shitposting aside, the fact that these two things don't always neatly align is not only a truth I recognise about art but also one of those truths that makes art incredibly interesting to me! So on the one hand, I don't think it is either fair or accurate to conflate literary "goodness" with moral "goodness". On a more serious note, I not only find this type of conflation unfair/inaccurate, I also find it potentially dangerous - and this is why I am really critical of this mindset beyond just disagreeing with it factually. What I see is that people who espouse this rhetoric tend to encourage (or even personally engage in) wilful blindness one way or the other, because ultimately, viewing art through these lens ends up boxing all art into either "morally permissible" or "morally impermissible" categories, and shames anyone enjoying art in the "morally impermissible" box. Unfortunately, I see a lot of people responding to this by A) making excuses for art that they guiltily love despite its problematic elements and/or B) denying the value of any art that they are unable to defend as free from moral wickedness.

Now, I'm not saying that media shouldn't be critiqued on its moral virtue. I actually think morally critiquing art has its place, and assuming it's being done in good faith, it absolutely should be done, and probably even more often than it is now.

Because here's the truth: Sometimes, a story can be really good. Sometimes, you can have a genuinely amazing story with well developed characters and powerful themes that resonate deeply with anyone who reads it. Sometimes, a story can be all of these things - and still be problematic.*

(Or, sometimes a story can be all of those things, and still be written by a problematic author.)

That's why I say, when people conflate moral art with good art, they become blind to the possibility that the art they like being potentially immoral (or vice versa). If only "bad art" is immoral, how can the art that tells the story hitting all the right beats and with perfect rhythm and emotional depth, be ever problematic?

(And how can the art I love, be ever problematic?)

This is why I reject the idea that literary merit = moral virtue (or vice versa) - because I do care about holding art accountable. Even the art that is "good art". Actually, especially the art that is "good art". Especially the art that is well loved and respected and appreciated. The failure to distinguish literary critique from moral critique bothers me on a personal level because I think that conflating the two results in the detriment of both - the latter being the most concerning to me, actually.

So while I respect the inherent value of moral criticism, I'm really not a fan of any argument that presents moral criticism as equivalent to literary criticism, and I will call that out when I see it. And from what I've observed, a lot of the "but Zutara is a colonizer ship" tries to do exactly that, which is why I find it a dishonest and frankly harmful media analysis framework to begin with.

But even when it is done in good faith, moral criticism of art is also just something I personally am neither interested nor good at talking about, and I prefer to talk about the things that I am interested and good at talking about.

(And some people are genuinely good at tackling the moral side of things! I mean, I for one really enjoyed Lindsay Ellis's take on Rent contextualising it within the broader political landscape at the time to show how it's not the progressive queer story it might otherwise appear to be. Moral critique has value, and has its place, and there are definitely circumstances where it can lead to societal progress. Just because I'm not personally interested in addressing it doesn't mean nobody else can do it let alone that nobody else should do it, but also, just because it can and should be done, doesn't mean that it's the only "one true way" to approach lit crit by anyone ever. You know, sometimes... two things… can be true… at once?)

Anyway, if anyone reading this far has recognised that this is basically a variant of the proship vs. antiship debate, you're right, it is. And on that note, I'm just going to leave some links here. I've said about as much as I'm willing/able to say on this subject, but in case anyone is interested in delving deeper into the philosophy behind my convictions, including why I believe leftist authoritarian rhetoric is harmful, and why the whole "but it would be problematic in real life" is an anti-ship argument that doesn't always hold up to scrutiny, I highly recommend these posts/threads:

In general this blog is pretty solid; I agree with almost all of their takes - though they focus more specifically on fanfic/fanart than mainstream media, and I think quite a lot of their arguments are at least somewhat appropriate to extrapolate to mainstream media as well.

I also strongly recommend Bob Altemeyer's book "The Authoritarians" which the author, a verified giga chad, actually made free to download as a pdf, here. His work focuses primarily on right-wing authoritarians, but a lot of his research and conclusions are, you guessed it, applicable to left-wing authoritarians also.

And if you're an anti yourself, welp, you won't find support from me here. This is not an anti-ship safe space, sorrynotsorry 👆

In conclusion, honestly any "but Zutara is problematic" argument is one I'm likely to consider unsound to begin with, let alone the "Zutara is a colonizer ship" argument - but even if it wasn't, it's not something I'm interested in discussing, even if I recognise there are contexts where these discussions have value. I resent the idea that just because I have refined opinions on one aspect of a discussion means I must have (and be willing to preach) refined opinions on all aspects of said discussion. (I don't mean to sound reproachful here - actually the vast majority of the comments I get on my video/tumblr are really sweet and respectful, but I do get a handful of silly comments here and there and I'm at the point where I do feel like this is something worth saying.) Anyway, I'm quite happy to defer to other analysts who have the passion and knowledge to give complicated topics the justice they deserve. All I request is that care is taken not to conflate literary criticism with moral criticism to the detriment of both - and I think it's important to acknowledge when that is indeed happening. And respectfully, don't expect me to give my own take on the matter when other people are already willing and able to put their thoughts into words so much better than me. Peace ✌

*P.S. This works for real life too, by the way. There are people out there who are genuinely not only charming and likeable, but also generous, charitable and warm to the vast majority of the people they know. They may also be amazing at their work, and if they have a job that involves saving lives like firefighting or surgery or w.e, they may even be the reason dozens of people are still alive today. They may honestly do a lot of things you'd have to concede are "good" deeds.

They may be all of these things, and still be someone's abuser. 🙃

Two things can be true at once. It's important never to forget that.

[thenightshadowqueen]

Let’s talk about the finale.

A lot of people say killing off Arthur was a bad decision. I disagree. There were a lot of things I thought the writers could have done a hell of a lot better (ships, timing/pacing, character development), but I don’t think killing Arthur was one of them.

I’m not saying it wasn’t sad. It was heartbreaking. But. From the beginning of the show, Arthur’s death had been foretold. It was both hinted at and explicitly stated from the very first season. And ending with anything other than it would have felt cheap, like a plot armour cop-out. I think people less familiar with Arthurian stories were surprised—god knows I was—because we’re so used to main characters surviving despite all odds (which is actually a huge issue I have with media, but I digress). The build-up to it could absolutely have been more satisfying; we should have gotten to see the changes Arthur was making to the kingdom, for a start. But the decision to kill Arthur was a good one.

Despite how fucking deviating it was, I am genuinely so glad they did it that way. I think I would be disappointed if, after all the build-up they had, they’d let him live. It would feel forced, false.

I’ve heard people say that the reason they killed him off was to stay true to the legends, and that that’s why it was “forced in”. And I’m not saying that that’s not why the writers made the decision—but it wasn’t forced in. It was carefully thought-out and evaluated, and it was quite well-executed, and it was a good decision.

Basically, in summary, my thoughts on the finale: it was deviating, but it was good, and it was a good narrative decision.

[caliblorn]

I promised to make this post months ago and completely forgot about it until the last few days (a classic!), so here I am now. Making it. And with silly art included. Yay!

As many of you know, Mannimarco and Vanus Galerion in Elder Scrolls Online are portrayed as 2E contemporaries who mirror each other journeys to leaders, out of the Psijic Order and into their own groups. ESO makes it clear that they're meant to be similar in age as well, and it does so both by de-aging Mannimarco's model for the "Half-Forming Understandings" quest, and by making it say by Vanus himself in Artaeum Lost.

BUT! If you have played Morrowind or Oblivion, you might already be familiar with Where were you when the Dragon Broke?, an account of different people's experiences during the Middle Dawn, the 1E Dragon Break. And oh! Look who it is.

(notice also he says God, not King) The Middle Dawn happened between 1E 1200 and 1E 2208. Time fuckeries as much as you want, but nonetheless, 1E ends in 2920, and we know FOR SURE that Vanus was born the first years of 2E and that he joined the Psijics as a 11 yo. So, even if we took into consideration ONLY the latest period of the Middle Dawn, Mannimarco would have been a... 700+ years old novice when he met Vanus. Very funny to think about, but an old mer having an intellectual rivalry with a teenager doesn't really scream "brilliant" to me.

I'd say the retconning of his age is also supported by Worm Saga, were he doesn't mention at all his period in the Maruhkati and makes it sound like he was either born or taken to Artaeum at a very young age.

Plus, both in Worm Saga and in the Vault's flashbacks and in every other source ever (WRITTEN FOR ESO. AHEM.) we see that his "discovery" of necromancy happened on Artaeum. Like, it's screamed into our ears a couple of times or more in the game itself.

The problem with all of this? The book that implies he lived through the Middle Dawn is still present in ESO.

Which is to me one little example of a bigger issue with ESO writers rewriting/retconning things without taking away/trying to somewhat link the original sources. But I digress, there are different ways to make this work but since some are too complicated to be discussed now, I'll just share with you what I usually go with;

Mannimarco is a great liar. Not only a liar, a politician. A sales man. A guru. He knows how to give himself prestige. What "Where were you when the dragon broke?" is to me is either fake accounts fabricated by the Cult themselves, or stolen accounts (probably from Artaeum's archives!) where his false experience was added and then sent around Tamriel.

If I had to make a TIMELINE for all the pieces cited, I would say the publication order would be "Where were you when the dragon broke" (used as propaganda by the Cult to make Mannimarco's figure important)-> "Artaeum Lost" (disproves what was fabricated about Mannimarco)-> "Worm Saga" (new attempt to give himself prestige with that "aldmer, scion of et'Ada").

[art-is-the-life]

just for one night, please?

paring: joel miller x reader

words: 2.6k

i wanted to write a little thing because honestly joel has my whole heart. i don't usually post on this blog, and especially not writing but you know. there are no physical descriptions of the reader but there are a few uses of the nickname "honey" throughout. also i wrote this with the "sharing one bed" trope. technically there are two beds, but joel and reader only use one, anyway i digress. no smut only fluff! the only editing was grammarly so please forgive me. anyway, enjoy!

--------------------------------------------------------

“Shit..” Joel half-whispered in front of you, raising his hand to rub across his jaw. 

Looking into the dimly lit room the two of you just broke into, you notice the source of Joel’s expletive.

“One—” you begin to say, but you’re suddenly interrupted.

“Bed!” Ellie shouts, bringing up the rest of your trio, and Joel glares at her. She cringes with a falsely guilty smile and pushes you and Joel past to head into the shabby hotel room.   

“This place ain’t good, honey,” Joel begins in a low tone while Ellie tosses off her pack and flops on the bed. A dust cloud poofs around her when she hits the moth-bitten sheets, and you smile sheepishly and Joel. The name makes your heart flutter, but you push it away with a mental shake. You can’t be doing that.

“At least it has a bed?” You offer the same sheepish smile with your shoulders up to your chin in a defensive manner. 

“C’mon, old man, lighten up!” Ellie calls from the bed, looking up at the two of you huddled nervously around the door. 

“It’s just one night, Joel,” you sigh and look around the highly dusty room, “You don’t even have to sleep in the bed; you can keep watch all night.”

Joel follows your eyeline around the room until he meets your face again. He takes a moment to glance over your face, and you try to smile more convincingly. Behind you, Ellie is starting to snore, which you take as a sign. Gesturing to her on the bed, you tilt your head towards Joel, and he rubs his hand again across his jaw. 

“Please, Joel? This is one of the only places where we have been covered from the elements since we left Bill and Frank’s.” You put on your best doe eyes. “Please?”

“Fine, just tonight,” Joel grumbles, and you smile bigger, “But I don’t want you on second watch.”

You shrug, “Works for me.” You pull Joel further into the room and shut the door behind you. It’s a little beat up from the force you used to get in, but it still latches, so you consider it a win. You walk over to the bed in the corner and glance at Ellie, who is now sleeping soundly on her side and snoring quietly.

You sigh and grab her pack from where she abandoned it on the floor. You sling yours off and prop them up against the small kitchen island with a slight frown. Unzipping yours and digging through it for a moment, you find a slightly crushed granola bar you snagged from Bill’s apocalypse bunker. Ironic. You hear Joel rustling behind you, so you pause for a moment to listen to his heavy boots tread around the probably rotting floor of this old hotel. 

When you stand up, you notice another door slightly ajar, and it looks like it has something interesting in it. Slipping your gun from your hip, you slowly walk towards the door and nudge it open with your foot. Looking around carefully, you can see no Infected in this room either. You breathe out heavily in relief, poking further into the room. It looks identical to the room you, Joel, and Ellie broke into. One bed with a tiny kitchen and a large water stain leading out of a closed door. You think for a moment you should go in, but then Joel calls your name. 

“Another room?” Joel asks when you turn to see him leaning against the doorway you just went through.

“Looks like it, probably one of those old package deals where you can buy both rooms and have your kids in one and you in the other,” you reply, gesturing around the room with your gun while being careful not to point it near Joel. 

“‘S got another bed and everything, huh, honey,” Joel says, keeping his voice low to not wake Ellie. 

“Yeah, seems like it.” You respond and trail off slowly, putting your gun back where it’s stored on your hip and pointing to the closed door with your elbow. “What do you think is in there? It’s got a stain, and I want to assume it’s water.”

“Maybe it’s best not to check,” Joel says, but you huff nervously.

“What if there is something in there?” You mumble with a nervous flit at the end of your sentence.

You watch Joel’s jaw tick momentarily as he considers the options. On the one hand, you don't want to go in there and have to suddenly flee because you woke up something, or you just leave it and everything is fine. Or, again, in the worst-case scenario, you’re all bitten in the middle of the night, Ellie is left all alone, and this whole mission would be for nothing. 

“Joel?” You ask nervously again, and he shrugs. He’s more nonchalant than you want him to be about this, but you suppose at least one adult needs to be calm right now.

“I guess we gotta look,” he responds with his jaw still clenched. Slowly pulling out one of his many guns, Joel strides purposefully past you towards the door. You follow him, once again slowly pulling your gun back out along with a flashlight, and routinely cross your wrists over one another. Just like Tess taught you to. The thought makes your heart ache, so you push the idea from your mind and focus on the task at hand. 

Joel reaches the door, you right behind him. He turns the handle slowly, pushing the door open, and you both point your flashlights into the room, frantically searching for something that doesn’t seem to be there. You sigh in relief, and Joel seems to do the same because you can see his shoulders deflate slightly.

“Nothing,” you say, “Nothing is good, right?”

“Nothin’ is good,” Joel says, “Must’ve just been a leak that happened before the water was all turned off.”

“Right, right..” you take the arm of Joel’s jacket and pull him from the dark bathroom. Turning off your flashlight and tucking it and your gun into your right hand, you glance at the other bed.

“Y’know, this place is pretty secluded, and we haven’t seen anyone in this hotel. Maybe you don’t have to keep watch, just for tonight?” You try to keep your tone even and casual and not too suggestive of you and Joel sleeping in the same bed.

Immediately, this seems like a terrible suggestion because Joel tenses back up again and shakes his head, “No, I gotta keep watch. It‘s not safe no matter what.”

You straighten back up in response and nod quickly, “Yeah, yeah, you’re right.. Sorry. I’ll just take this bed and leave you to keep watch.”

Joel notices your stiffness and quickly shifts his demeanor, “Honey, don’t be like that.”

“Nah, I understand; please, go; I gotta fluff these sheets out,” you reply with a half-shrug, using just one of your shoulders.  

You begin to pull back the sheets, but Joel grabs your hand. You look up at him with wide eyes, and he looks back at you with an unreadable expression. He sighs and runs his free hand through his hair. 

“I didn’t mean it like that, honey,” he says in a low and gruff voice. “I just… I can’t sleep in a bed. Not with you.”

Your heart skips a beat. You’re not sure what to say. You want to ask him why, but you’re afraid of the answer. Joel seems to sense your hesitation. 

He takes a deep breath and continues, “It’s not that I don’t want to, it’s just… I don’t trust myself.”

You tilt your head in confusion. “What do you mean?”

Joel looks away, his jaw clenching and dropping your hand. It’s still warm from his and it sends tingles up your arm. “I’m not a good man. I’ve done terrible things. I don’t deserve to be with someone like you.”

You reach out and touch his arm with the same hand he was just holding. “Joel, everyone has done things they regret. It doesn’t make you a bad person.” Joel just shakes his head in reply. 

“You don’t understand. I’m a monster.”

“No, you’re not,” you say firmly. “You’re a good man, Joel. You’re kind and caring, and you’ve protected Ellie and me from so much.”

Joel looks at you, his eyes filled with pain. “I don’t want to hurt you, honey.”

“You won’t,” you say softly. “I trust you.”

Joel nods slowly. He takes your hand again and squeezes it gently. “Thank you,” he whispers and you squeeze his hand back supportively.

You smile. “Come to bed, Joel. We’ll both keep watch.” 

Joel hesitates for a moment, his movements jittery, and then nods. He moves around to the other side of the bed, and you grab the corner of the sheets you are closest to. He holds his side and, in tandem, flips up the sheets and shakes them out vigorously to get the dust out. It works almost too effectively because your eyes start to water, and you inhale too much of the musty, dusty, almost moldy, sheet smell. Trying to suppress your coughs not to wake Ellie, you turn away from the bed while Joel finishes the job with his shirt over his nose.

You slip yourself underneath the sheets when he seems satisfied with a job well done. You move over to make room for him, and he lies beside you. You turn on your side to face him, and he does the same. You just lie there, looking at each other for a long time. You can feel the tension between you, but it’s not bad. It’s a tension that’s filled with unspoken words and desires. Eventually, Joel breaks the silence.

“Goodnight,” he says softly with your name, and you feel your heart clench.

“Goodnight, Joel,” you reply. You close your eyes, but you don’t sleep. You can’t. You’re too aware of Joel’s presence beside you: his warmth, scent, and breath on your skin. You know you’re playing with fire but can’t help yourself. You’re going to do something you regret if you’re not careful. Especially with Eillie in the next room, it’s too risky. As you and Joel lie side by side, the silence is filled with unspoken words and the soft sounds of the night outside the hotel. There aren’t many ambient sounds these days. The hum of electricity or cars rolling down the roads doesn’t happen like before. You feel Joel's hand brush against yours, which shakes you from your thoughts, whether intentionally or not, and your heart skips a beat.

"Are you okay?" Joel's voice is barely above a whisper, rough yet tender.

"Yeah," you reply, turning to face him in the dim light. "Just... a lot on my mind."

Joel nods, understanding. "I get it. It's hard to find peace these days."

You both fall silent again, the air thick with tension. After a few moments, you decide to take a risk. "Joel, about what you said earlier... You're not a monster. You've done what you had to do to survive."

Joel's eyes flicker with pain. "You don't know the half of it, honey."

"Then tell me," you urge gently. "Let me in, Joel. We don't have to carry these burdens alone."

He hesitates, but a look in his eyes tells you he's considering it. Just as he's about to speak, a sudden noise from the other room startles both of you. It's Ellie, mumbling in her sleep. You both relax when you realize she's just dreaming.

"She's been through so much," you say softly, your heart aching for the young girl. "But she's strong, just like you."

Joel's expression softens as he looks at you. "I don't know what I'd do without you and Ellie."

"You don't have to find out," you whisper, squeezing his hand. "We're in this together."

Joel sighs, a sound that's almost a release of the tension he's been holding. "Maybe... maybe you're right."

The moment is interrupted by a scratching outside the door. Both of you instantly go on high alert. Joel sits up, grabbing his gun, and you follow suit, flashlight in hand. The noise gets louder, and you realize someone, or something is outside.

"I'll check it out," Joel says in a low voice, and you nod, staying close behind him.

As Joel slowly opens the door, you shine your flashlight into the hallway. It's empty, but the sound continues. Following the noise, you both move stealthily down the corridor, alert for any signs of danger. You turn a corner and come face to face with a stray dog rooting through some old trash. The relief is palpable as you both lower your weapons. But the idea that a dog got in fills you with dread. What if there is an owner, and this is a human sniffing dog, and soon you’re about to be found.

"Just a dog," you whisper, laughing softly in relief but anxiety clawing at your chest.

Joel seems to be thinking the same thing you are, especially since you’re only on the first floor of the building. It would be possible for other people to find their way into this—people like raiders, who are just as dangerous as those who are infected. Joel stays alert momentarily, watching the dog root around by the other doors. Most of them are boarded up or entirely doorless. The two of you remain silent and still for several minutes; the only sound is your combined breathing, which is slow and steady. But you can feel your heart beating out of your chest, and you're shocked it isn't making an audible sound against your ribcage.

After a while, Joel finally chuckles, too, a rare sound that warms your heart. "Let's get back before Ellie wakes up, freaks out, and wonders where we are."

Back in the room, Joel tightly shuts the door again. You glance around momentarily and pull over one of the only non-broken chairs that used to make up a small dining set in the room. Joel shimmies the chair under the door and looks up to see if most hotels' old locking mechanism remains intact. Finding it hanging off its hinges, you suck in a breath of air. Joel seems satisfied with the chair, so you can trust his judgment. Heading back through the door that connects the room, Ellie is into the room you found; Joel drags over another chair to place under the main door in this room. Even though it was boarded up like most doors in this place, he still fits the chair under in added protection. 

“Good?” You ask quietly, feeling yourself slip slowly out of adrenaline. 

“Think so,” Joel replies gruffly, so you nod in agreement. 

You settle down again, and Joel slips in beside you. Despite locking the doors more securely, Joel still pulls out his handgun and rifle to sit on the molding bedside table. You figure you should do the same so the harsh metal doesn't dig into your skin the whole night. You stay silent while Joel rummages around in his pack for a while and smile when he comes up with a small lantern he took from Bill and Frank’s. A certain sort of calm replaces the earlier tension, and when you turn back to Joel, he’s already looking at you. 

“What?” you ask with a smile, and he responds by wrapping an arm around you and pulling you close.

"Just for tonight," he murmurs, his breath warm against your ear. You can feel your heart skip a beat but appreciate what he does nonetheless. It’s a step in the right direction and at least a little confirmation that you’re not alone in your feelings. So you nod, feeling a sense of safety and belonging in his embrace. 

"Just for tonight," you agree, but deep down, you both know that something has changed between you. As you drift off to sleep, you realize that the walls Joel has built around his heart are starting to crumble, and for the first time in a long time, you feel hope for the future.

--------------------------------------------------------

[fadelbison]

i don't really follow gmm couples closely but i thought firstkhao was one of gmm's biggest, what do you mean they're not that popular in thailand 😭😭

asdfghjkjhgf okay??? soo all this started because I was at my LAST straw when I saw a fan complaining that gmm prejudiced against first and he needs more work on twt (he already works *SO* much) and after having to see a series of gmm crits that were basically [insert false causalities/ metaphysically impossible demands] I lost my mind a little. [but actually its because im already pretty cuckoo bananas but I digress]

Then @fromthedepthsandbeyond brought to my attention this estimate (are you the op?) of events and brand sponsorships from last year where it shows that FirstKhao as a CP are in fact extremely popular but not at all popular as solo artists. And unfortunately I think this is just reality - they work really well together but I was actually both their 'solo' fans before they paired up. More khaotung than First and they are unfortunately just a little too kooky for mainstream popularity. I genuinely think Joong is trying to help Khaotung with roping him into TikTok dances and constantly promoting him on his own channel and IG broadcast because boy do First and Khaotung do nothing mainstream on IG. its only happy birthdays, promo work, promo cp, promo each other and khaotung's blurry artsy fuckboi photos. What can I say, that's what I like, that's what the people who like them like. I hope they don't change (but I know they're trying to). I would say, that actually they are quite popular given how far they veer from traditional masculinity...like they're pretty queer? Gun's numbers are exactly the same as them. Like I don't think GMM can do anything about that. I genuinely don't think GMM can do anything about the next bit either (at least in regards to FK they are very much fucking up other things)

What I was a little surprised by perhaps was this report by another fan who went to their building this summer (2024) and FK just had a mural on the second floor basement. I know that at some point they had some type of pillar on the ground level. Now, the events numbers are outdated and I follow them on socmed fairly close - they might not be getting sponsorships but they're not jobless. even at the times they're quiet or disappear when they resurface it turns out that they were series prepping or in workshops.

I don't know what to say, they're very queer coded, they take challenging jobs and are involved in projects and with creators that are invested in making some unique art which is rare at gmmtv something that everyone here loves to incessantly yell about (for good reason at times).

I don't know how to say this so that it doesn't sound totally insane but to be more popular they have to act straighter???? They actually have to look like they want to fuck a woman, like at least that they think about it instead of just each other. Like they tried so hard to make First's character straight in blacklist -A VALIANT attempt one would say and he still ended up having more chemistry with Drake and the 4 seconds he spent with khaotung on screen 😭 JoongDunk and PondPhuwin are just not like that??? I follow Joong and Pond on IG too and they are in fact able to breathe without their respective pair present. They are so so so so in love when together, bring each other up quite a bit when they're solo but they're not living inside the other's pocket if that makes sense? Sorry I ranted so long??? and for what?? but I guess what I'm trying to say is that I want Firstkhao to be popular but I also don't want them to change at the cost of mainstream popularity (though I understand why they're trying) - they are so worryingly codependent and wonderfully weird 🤧🤧🤧🤧

[littledead-ridinghood]

sorry if this is a weird question to drop on you you were just the first person I thought of who might know but do you know if it's canon/canonically-based evidence that jason is physically stronger than other bats because I always see people say jason is the one with "brute strength" and I can't remember if that's based on anything besides people saying that as a nicer way to call him a brute(maybe it was on lobdells stuff? but I wiped most of those out of my memory)

You thought of me first? <333333 I'm blushing. And it's not weird at all! Even if it was, I love answering weird shit.

Anyway:

So part of Jason being considered "the muscle" of the bats comes from the fact that Jason's currently the biggest of the robins. (Adult!Damian is usually drawn as the tallest of the kids when all is said n' done (that's vague for "age")).

Well, how big then?

I always go with this chart which was released while UtRH was being released:

(I Love this! I wish DC still did little info things like this within their comics. Or maybe they do and I'm just blind. But Look! Canonical Information!)

So canonically speaking, at least when running around pre-crisis, Jason is 6 feet tall and 180 pounds. (Also note criminal mastermind and put a pin in it)

But you've probably heard 200 & 220 thrown around a lot. Those numbers are specifically pulled from two different DC character encyclopedia books which I don't trust at all because there notoriously filled with false information and are dubbed as not canon all the time.

Personally, I use the 6', 180-195 pound range which estimates for fluctuating weight, the passage of time, muscle mass, and minimum bulk & cutting (which I assume is part of most superheroes' training to stay in fighting form, but please recognize that vigilantes are more athlete than bodybuilder) because it's from a canon source (Canon is "king" and all that). No shame to people who use the other numbers or even headcanon something completely different, but again, vigilantes are predominantly running all over cities day after day, not stagnant weight lifters. Cardio vs weights body compositions are quite different even if both are healthy. (And it's not all "swimmer's body illusion" either (they have that body because they swim? No, they swim because they have that body.)

How much muscle mass a person can maximally obtain is up to your genetics. But that max only comes with constant maintainment. It's not feasible for Jason to be doing all that cardio and also have that much muscle mass and fat. Cardio burns "fat" (calories), weights build muscle. We constantly see the former and former-adjacent workouts more than the latter with him. Jason is running across rooftops, flipping off them before falling into a shoulder roll onto the next roof over chasing after bad guys every night. The number of calories he'd have to eat and time put into lifting weights (too many reps a week lead to damage, not growth) to maintain his max (max being what a lot of weights category athletes try to achieve which Jason just hasn't been shown to be (except in his jailbird phase where he could literally only lift weights, read, and avoid being killed to pass the time)) isn't possible.

Using comic art to "prove" how much he weighs doesn't work either. Firstly, because everyone wears weight differently. Two people can be the same height, weight, and sex and look completely different. This is due to different body types, composition, genetics, diet, (what kind of) exercise, and many other factors. Assuming someone thinner is automatically "super light" doesn't factor in different body compositions (fat, muscle, bone percentages). (yes, I know it's stupid to apply science to comics. There's my digression. let me live). Secondly, Jason (just like everything else about him) isn't drawn consistently at all. Sometimes he's pretty damn massive, but we also have Twink and Twunk Jason (DC can't even decide on hair color? Do you think they're gonna decide on his body?).

So, comic book art isn't super reliable as evidence unless we want to theorize if, how, and why he seems to fluctuate between weights all the time (<- Which I have a whole headcanon about if anyone's curious), especially in comparison to the others because, seriously, it's totally a Jason thing. Most characters are pretty consistent in body type. Anyway, someone could argue "See! he is 210!" but it's also not for a long enough period to stick around :/ Again, hard to consistently maintain that much weight as a 6-foot-tall, cardio-based athlete.

Also note: DC is horrible when it comes to weight-to-height lineups. A woman hero can be ~5'7'' and then we're told she's 110 lbs which Fact 1. is considered underweight for this kind of height-to-sex ratio, Fact 2. probably isn't factoring in the fact that muscle is heavier than fat, she just "looks thin", and 3. Usually, totally, absolutely is just blatant sexism.

Really, the numbers don't seriously mean anything of actual substance because their comics, are unreliable, and also usually just...scientifically wrong. But Jason's perception on page, as well as the information we've been told, is one reason he's considered "brute strength first and foremost."

Furthermore, Jason has been shown repeatedly to be on par with Bruce (even when Jason, most of the time, plays defense in their physical fights) but many people chalk this up to him and Bruce having similar physiques making it "easier". Again, counter-productive argument because Bruce and Jason have been drawn very similarly before in stories as well as completely different from each other in others. Also, this purposefully, blatantly ignores Jason's actual skills. No one chalks Dick Grayson or Cassandra Cain beating Bruce up to their body types. Moreover, when Bruce and Jason are drawn similarly in body, no one refers to Bruce as "Brute Strength" either. Bruce gets to be tactical, strategic, clever. (Also Also: In Pre-Crisis, Bruce, Dick, and Jason are deliberately drawn to look similar (height, mass, looks, etc.) to get that Brothers in Blood effect. Still, No one chalks the formers up to all strength. Just Jason)

And that brings us to your question, Anon: Is there canonical evidence for Jason being stronger than the other Bats?

Remember how I told you to put a pin in that "Occupation: Criminal Mastermind" note? Well, first off, Jason creating jobs for his community. Go off, king. Second off, and more importantly so, "Mastermind": a person who supplies the directing or creative intelligence for a project (Merriam-Webster).

When Jason was first re-introduced, what made Jason dangerous was that he was highly skilled and smart. He was playing with both Black Mask and Batman like a cat batting a toy mouse. He orchestrated an entire "slow-growing" takeover of Gotham's underworld (he was actually very quick about it). Jason controlled the situation and planned so well that he had the villains and heroes who were both after him fighting each other so he could slip away and do what he actually needed to do.

Throughout Jason's history, he's always had tools with him when he fights. To the point that Bruce says to Jaybin "You won't always have this" cutting his utility belt, insinuating he relies too much on it, which Jason returns the favor to on his return and fights B hand to hand <3 Love a cocky callback. Furthering this, he knows many, many different fighting styles and techniques both from life experience and from extensive training. Jason's a quick learner by nature and is incredibly adaptive. Guns; knives; swords; pens; sets bombs to specifically implode, not explode; makeshift gadgets; a baseball bat just laying around; a tire jack that one time; brains. I could go on. Jason doesn't just hit things. He uses what he has as a means to an end. He's canonically known as one of the best strategists in-universe and is incredibly creative with his surroundings. Jason isn't just great at extensive, long-term planning either. Bruce himself has remarked on the fact that Jason thinks incredibly quickly on his feet, he's really good at improvisation. Concisely, he has plans A-G and if all those fail, he can pull something out of nothing. Contrast this with Bruce who needs to have a plan for everything. Even if it doesn't look like he's following a plan, Bruce is. Opposed to Jason who can go with the flow and figure it out along the way.

Jason even said this in present-era in TFZ:

And that's the whole point, isn't it? Jason is strong. Incredibly so. He's big and tall and has gorgeous thighs. Not to mention, has a mean right hook. But just because Jason's strong doesn't mean he isn't a bat first and foremost who relies on his brain before anything else. He died 4'6 (on his death certificate, his height varies depending on what source you pull) and famously had to defend himself his entire life ever before being Robin. Being young and small and forced to survive shaped Jason into a quick thinker who could either get away or take enemies 10x his size down. Nowadays, he just has a longer reach.

In Event Levithan when Damian says: "Jason Todd is one of the Great Master fighters of all time" He doesn't say strongest because Damian doesn't mean strongest. Damian means adaptable, smart, capable, and well-rounded in skill.

While I don't doubt that Jason is most definitely one of the strongest Bats due to his size, what makes Jason dangerous is not his body, but the fact that he knows how to use it. It's not "Brute Strength" as many people like to say, it's Strategic Strength. He knows just because he's stronger than someone doesn't mean he'll always win. A la see panels above. Jason knows throwing his body around won't do anything of real, long-term substance. That it's just blindsided and stupid.

I'm sure if I looked I could pull panels where other bats and/or vigilantes refer to Jason as the muscle, brute (strength), all brawn (no brain), other such implications, etc, but whenever people do, it's always to undermine Jason's skill. Because it's not actually about his strength. Jason, with his taller, more built form, makes walking quiet seem easy. And it looks easy because he's good. Jason himself knows his skill set, it's everyone else that undermines him time and time and time again. (Again, Event Levithan, Bruce doesn't agree with Damian's statement even though Jason just outsmarted the six or so people who all just tried to take him down (for something Jason didn't even do, mind you))

But, again from Damian, Jason's not known as "the muscle," he's "the emotional one" also usually used to...degrade Ja--We can't have anything nice apparently is what I'm saying. But yes, when people refer to Jason as "Brute Strength" it's usually them trying to find a nicer way of saying Brute or "thinks with his fists" or "Jason hits first, asks questions later." It's in the same vein as when people say "Jason likes books" as short-hand for "see, he's smart at something" rather than acknowledging that Jason achieved a degree's worth of knowledge in comp-sci by age 13.

Anyway Smart and Strong Jason, my beloved. I wish DC & others loved you as much as Rosenburg and the teams of artists he's been working with do.

[puckpocketed]

ok the stick story is this

according to The Hockey Media, who as we know do not actually follow any teams closely so know NOTHING, ovechkin was finally hit by father time. he's finally slowing down. he's a shell of his old self. he has old man syndrome. blah blah blah

as a caps fan, i know that this is false, because our russian machine never break. he's a freak. who btw had like 13 goals disallowed or something crazy like that in the first half of last season but i digress

gee i wonder why ovechkin's goals went down? is it because his longtime center and future hall of famer nicklas backstrom retired in all but name? is it because our other top 6 center in evgeny kuznetsov had by far the worst season of his career (from point a game to not even half a point a game) and then went into the player's assistance program before being traded to the canes and then bolting for the KHL?

actually, as it turns out: no.

i mean probably those were factors, but there was another factor. a factor that many caps fans are very aware of but almost no one reported on for some reason (probably because they were too busy writing about how SiDneY CrOsBy was having SuCh an AmaZiNg season for a 36 year old despite ovechkin literally having just as a good a season the year prior at the *checks notes* age of 36. also this is a reminder that one of those two actually led their team to a playoff berth and it wasn't crosby)

ovechkin is, among other things, an elite shooter. like many elite shooters, he is EXTREMELY picky about his sticks. he has been using the same CCM model for the last 7 seasons...and prior to this season they discontinued it.

the first half of the season (roughly), ovi was constantly trying out new sticks from CCM, from Bauer, whoever. he tried quite a few different sticks. results: 8 goals in 43 games.

then, ovechkin found an independent supplier. apparently (i can't remember where this info came out, maybe 32 thoughts?), these guys have an "ovi pro curve" model based on his old stick with CCM and he bought it and tried it out. curve was identical, and it felt right to him. started using those. results: 23 goals in 36 games.

am i saying that he is going to continue on that pace this coming season? probably not. do i think that the rumors of his demise as a goal scorer are greatly exaggerated and almost surely mistaken? yes. am i optimistic that with some stability in our center depth and stability in stick choice, ovechkin will have a 40 goal season again and possibly break wayne gretzky's all time goals record? YES.

what this means for PLD our beloved failhorse wife: he's not getting some washed up old man former great on his wing. he's getting the greatest fucking goal scorer in the history of the sport. and i, for one, am excited to see what they can do together.

link i thought about this all morning during baking and while i was out!! thank you for the stick explanation and all the sources i LOVE citations i am eating them up like theyre cakes at teatime....! more under the cut but heres what i was thinking about when i read this:

thinking about how,, particular some players get about their equipment, how superstitious, it's crazy to me that a manufacturer can just do all that. if it were me and MYE special stick got discontinued id be suing for damages

i was super interested in what actually changed in the second half of the season because i saw ovechkin was back to scoring basically at-will again, so really thank you for explaining.. the bond between a hockey and their stick is so beaugtiful <3

cr-sby is my babygirl-in-law and i fear i will always be fond of him because of this, so i shall tread carefully here (pens friends look away) it DOES suck that they're not recognising your old man for his achievements while that old man gets hyped. is it like, weird anti-russian sentiment? or a more general anti-caps bias? every team fan space i dip into feels unfairly maligned one way or another - which, yeah! clenching my fist of rage.......

you spin such a tale and im VERY excited to see how next szn shakes out in light of all this and also . grabbing dubois by the scruff of his neck like i will stan either way but PLEASE dont embarrass me in front of my cool new friends kjlasdklasdkl....

thank you so much for stopping by and for the warmest welcome ever <3

[yingandzhan]

Hello yingandzhan 😊👋! Hope you're having a good day! I wanted to confirm something with you. I have seen people saying that Lan Wangji wore mourning robes before, but is this true according to the novel? I kind of thought it was just his clan uniform. I'm not really sure, but the only thing I could find in the book concerning this was that Wei Wuxian "thought" the Lan clan uniform looked like funeral clothes. I'm not really sure about it, so I thought about asking you 🤔.

Hello dephoraowo 😊

Looks like Tumblr has decided to start alerting me whenever I receive an ask now!

I am having a wonderful day, thank you. I hope you are as well.

Well, white is of course a traditional colour associated with funerals and mourning in China, so anyone wearing this colour would naturally conjure up such images. But the whole Lan Clan wear these robes, not just LWJ.

And as you said, WWX admittedly associates this with the clan's robes as well. Which is funny because we also see him thinking more poetically about LWJ in those very same robes as well...

In fact, WWX himself picks white robes to wear to JLs Man Yue (满月 - full moon) celebrations! This is most likely because the colour white is also associated with purity and innocence. He wanted to give off a good impression when seeing his beloved shijie and her new baby son! Hoping to show everyone he's not the evil overlord the rumours falsely accuse him of being! Which is heartbreaking, considering what happens while he's merrily making his way there in these very robes.

Anyway, I digress!

I think this has probably derived from the CQL and theories concerning the way they had LWJ dressed in some episodes. I couldn't really comment on that though as it has been quite a few years since I watched the live action and the costumes, as beautiful as they are, aren't particularly historically, or indeed canonically, accurate either way to be honest.

So no, LWJ didn't change his attire because WWX died. Unlike what many in the fandom claim, he mourned his loss; got drunk, branded himself with the same Wen emblem and then picked himself back up to live on. Yes, he was obviously heartbroken, but he threw himself into raising the boy WWX had died to save and continued to honour his memory by telling LSZ silly stories about the real WWX and instilling the next generation with their shared morals.

What a man!

[sunset-bobby]

“i feel like season 3 had too many side plots and wasn’t focused on Colin and Penelope enough” blah blah blah

bruh it’s an ensemble show…in season 2 there were also plenty of side plots

all of the side plots in season 3 were somewhat important

Francesca, Benedict, and Violet’s romantic escapades are all perfectly good side plots considering the show is called Bridgerton and is about all of them whether it’s their “season” or not and say what u want abt Benedict being a whore but is that not gonna make it more of a build up when he does settle down?

Cressida’s side plot is literally supposed to forward the Whistledown storyline while also making us like empathize with her (to an extent) i think it’s trying to give us like a false sense of like oh maybe she’s changing oop no she’s not but Cressida has always played a role in Penelope’s story as her antagonist

Lady Danbury and her brother I mean this ties into Violet’s story and also Lady Danbury is a main character and u should all watch Queen Charlotte end of discussion speaking of the plot for her like war against Whistledown has literally been continuous since season 1

The Featherington side plots have also been consistent since season 1 and also they’re all so silly and also it Penelope’s family ofc they’re gonna have side plot

so what that leaves the Mondrichs…at this point just say u hate black people idk. I feel like they weren’t even that big in part 2 so the complaints are unnecessary like they’re big thing was the ball being their ball which concluded their season 3 arc of joining society, Will trying to keep one foot out of it, and the ball is them officially cementing themselves as members of the Ton and also the ball does further the plot of the Whistledown story as Cressida shows up with her version of the column

i think that yea we could have gotten more Collin and Penelope..part 1 we weren’t angry enough and part 2 we were angry for too long…there wasn’t enough physical connection to juxtapose the restraint on their emotional relationship like..i saw someone say angry sex on their wedding night woulda made the like stewing anger more angsty and i agree, but i digress

their story arc was still good and i was still invested and the side plots were important to the overall story and also leading into next season so idk complain to the wall 🤷🏽‍♀️

[incorrectmahabharatquotes]

Recently I saw this post by @god-has-adhd (I'm not reblogging it because I saw the people they tagged and realised very quickly that it's quite likely that us reblogging the post will be unwelcome, to put it mildly. I'm tagging the OP here anyway since it's a direct response to the post and it seemed only fair to engage in the conversation. I hope they don't mind.) OP urged everyone to watch the video regardless of the political leaning so in the spirit of giving everything a fair shot, we watched it. 'We' here refers to both me and Mod G. There are things we agree on with the guy speaking in the video and there are things we disagree with/think he didn't properly research. However, there is one thing that's most relevant to this blog and to me, personally so I'll be talking primarily about it. This is your long post warning, I'm afraid.

------------

"The Real Story of Eklavya"

The context for people who haven't watched the video is that the guy brings up two stories, one of Satyakama Jabali from the Upanishads and that of Eklavya from the Mahabharata. He brings up both these stories in the context of caste, he helpfully titles it and everything.

What I found interesting is that he frames himself talking about the story with the words "The real story of Eklavya". If you know even the basics of storytelling or filmmaking, you know that this is quite important. This implies that you, the viewer, do not know the real story and the one you know is either incomplete or false.

He begins, in a memorable instance, by asking ChatGPT for a summary to grasp the popular interpretation of the story of Eklavya and Drona. I have THOUGHTS about using a machine learning tool that is trained on data that is infamously biased and lacking when it comes to anything that isn't American, but that would be digressing from the point. ChatGPT provides him a summary that mentions that Eklavya was denied Drona's tutelage because he was of a lower caste. After this, the guy proceeds to recite the lines where Eklavya is mentioned in the Adi parva of the Sanskrit Mahabharat that we refer to as Vyasa's Mahabharat. He expresses surprise at how Eklavya is introduced as being the son of the "king" of the nishads (I think leader is a better word that should've been used but the Sanskrit text has a notorious habit of having just really questionable ways of referring to people, if you've read it you know.) Which is found HILARIOUS. Bro, what do you mean you're surprised? This is COMMON knowledge, I fear.

He mentions how being the son of the nishaad's leader/king effectively puts him on the same level as Arjun and that they're both princes. He says that this means Eklavya isn't shudra or dalit (there is a word that's curiously absent here that I'll mention in a bit.) Now, this one of those parts where the choice information he presents the viewer with is bizarre. Since I promised I'll give it a fair shot, I'm giving him the benefit of the doubt and assume this is a fault of him not researching enough and not willful omission. Maybe he just doesn't know. The information he's given here is correct, mostly. What he DOESN'T explain is who the nishads, as a group are. I'll fill in the blanks for him.

The nishad are said to be a group of tribal people who reside in the hills. The text he reads out even has the word "tribal" in it but the guy sort of glosses over it? The nishads are sort of like an aggregate grouping of different tribal populations and not the name of a specific tribe. Kind of. But the mention is still significant. See, the Mahabharata, especially the Sanskrit text, has this Thing™ that it does where it's incredibly rare to find a mention of tribal populations who are said to be human, many of the other mentioned tribal groups are demi-humans or non-humans or just straight up rakshahsas.

Eklavya is said to be the adopted son of Hiranyadhanus, the aforementioned king/leader of the nishads. The Harivamsa Purana part of the Sanskrit text (which is a giant-ass genealogy section where it traces the family line from the start of existence to the birth of Krishna) mentions that biologically he's the son of Devashrava, Vasudev's brother, which makes him Krishna's cousin by blood. Eklavya was abandoned by Devashrava in the forest and Hiranyadhanus found him and raised him as his own.

This makes Eklavya a tribal boy, I would use the word adivasi but people might disagree so I'll just say he has a tribal heritage, not by blood but by his upbringing. The man in the video says that Eklavya isn't a shudra, or dalit or untouchable, which is technically true. There's a missing word here that's doing a lot of heavy lifting for him, though. He says that Eklavya is a Kshatriya, which is DEBATEABLE because in the epic we've seen time and time again that blood doesn't matter and it's the society that does. With this, hopefully not to y'all, new information we might understand how the guy's assertion that Arjuna and Eklavya are on equal footing is shaky at best.

He continues to explain that in the text the reasoning why Drona refuses Eklavya is because he'd already promised he'd make Arjun The Best Archer. Since, he's bound by obligation to the Kurus, he can't afford to let Eklavya outshine his kuru students. The man proceeds to assert that in the text there is no caste-based discrimination happening here. Ergo, he concludes, the story of Eklavya doesn't have a caste aspect to it. If you believe otherwise, you're uneducated and need to learn the Truth and not fall into Propoganda. (I'm trying to be charitable to the guy but his tone when he says the word "propoganda" is dripping with disdain and it's making it very hard for me to remain charitable.) He ends this section this way.

This guy says he's given you all the facts. He's cited his source and he's said the complete truth. He hasn't. In this man's viewpoint, the complete and true Mahabharat is the Sanskrit text. Which, as you know, ISN'T what the entirety of the Mahabharat is and claiming that it is is a narrow perspective to see it. (Which is FUNNY considering this guy has a whole section towards the end of the video about Nuance and it's ironic that he's unwilling to provide the same nuance about the epic to his trusting audience.) Maybe he just isn't insane enough like me to know that it isn't the entire Mahabharat. It's possible.

There is a viewpoint that declares that the Sanskrit Text is the primary source and everything else isn't "canon". There's a SPECIFIC word for it but I will not say it because it's like a boogeyman word on hindublr, at least, so I'll omit the word in this post. This man, from what I've seen, shares this viewpoint.

I disagree.

The Mahabharat, is first and foremost a collection of oral traditions of storytelling that were written down much later. This means that the entire corpus of work that is this mammoth of an epic consists of the thousands of written texts, poetry, plays, songs, folk tales, recently it also includes cinematic adaptations, bedtime stories that your elders might have told you, and lastly, popular culture for better or for worse. This is my viewpoint and I feel it provides for a much better lens to engage with the story. Otherwise, you're denying the story of the rich tradition and heritage it was forged in.

The guy in the video wonders why the story of Eklavya is more popular than Satyakama Jabali and there are a lot of reasons for it. First is that the epic is simply more popular and, in many ways, more fun than the upanishad stories. Second is that the story of Eklavya captured people's minds because it's a story that has strife and the ending is unsatisfactory. Tragedies inspire emotions and connection in a way that comedies do not. There are many more reasons but I'll stop listing them.

It's not a coincidence or happenstance that there are caste dynamics added in the popular interpretation of the story. There are even seeds of this in the Sanskrit text, if this guy is truly only looking at that alone, Eklavya being a tribal kid, the way his physical appearance is described in the text, the way he's stopped from sharing a space with the kuru princes etc. If a variety of people who have historically faced similar things especially when it comes to education and find themselves mirrored in Eklavya? That's not Propaganda, as the guy puts it. It's just how stories naturally evolve and grow. It's people reading between the lines. There's no conspiracy at play. Just people finding something to relate to when they cannot relate to any other character.

I can write essays on how caste and varna show up in the Mahabharat (and I might, if even ONE person asks me for it) but to sum it down, it's a task of examining exactly who and what KIND of people are absent from the story. The Invisible People, if you will. You can count on your fingers how many shudra, dalit and adivasi figures are in the Mahabharat.

Drona is a teacher who fails at being a teacher in this instance. (The Mahabharat in many ways is a story of people failing to do their Duty. There's a certain peacock feather wearing guy who does a whole song and dance about it. It can cover a whole book. It's quite popular. Maybe you've heard of it?) Even if you ignore the caste dynamics reading of it, you cannot deny that the man just sucked at being a teacher in that moment when he denied education to a student, whatever his reasoning may be. He brutally asks for the kid to maim himself and again, even the Sanskrit text describes this action of Drona as cruel. He creates a barrier for Eklavya to stop him from continuing to practice his archery.

It's not surprising that Drona is read as a stand in for an education system that sucks at being an education system that does its job. Again, it's not a conspiracy or propaganda. It's people trying to connect to a story through the prism of their life experiences.

It is not my place to tell people what to believe and what not to believe. It's not the guy in the video's either, despite what he says. People's interpretations are personal to them. What is my place is to remind people that it's wrong to deny people their interpretations. There are versions and interpretations of the story that I hate or dislike but I'm not standing here and telling you they're not the Truth. This is the nuance that Mahabharat requires that the guy lacks. This is also why I believe his sources and research is lacking in this department.

------------

Beyond Eklavya

There's a lot of other thoughts and things I want to share about the rest of the video. I'll try to summarise the highlights.

There's a part where he doesn't understand what systemic patriarchy means, exactly, even though he himself gave an EXCELLENT example of it towards the start of the video with Satyakama Jabali's mother's heritage not being considered when it comes to his gotra. It was frustrating because he SAID it. He said the perfect example himself. I almost thought he set it up as a complete circle moment but he hadn't.

I appreciate him bringing a Shaivite perspective because I'm honestly tired of so much Vaishnavism at all times. I love to see different schools of Hinduism actually being practiced and not just one dominating and subsuming the others.

Towards the start of the video, Mod G predicted that the man would go on a "Periyar sucks" rant and I was so delighted that G was so right.

The guy in the video neglects to look at any contemporary research and scholarship about the linguistics and the Aryan migration theory(which he calls the invasion theory, obviously) including the genetic studies.

There's a funny bit where whenever the guy mentions Ambedkar he has to assert that he thinks Ambedkar is anti-hindu. Even when he's praising him. It happened multiple times.

-------------

TL;DR The man in the video fails to provide his viewers with the full picture about the story of Eklavya even when he claims he is.

- Mod S

ALSO

The structure of his arguments are poor especially in the section where he talks about why the North-South divide came about. Does he not know about the field of linguistics and how root languages are established? Telugu as a language has a 'Dravidian' (he seems to hate that word, even though Dravida is not just the anglo word for the southern parts of India) root because of certain features it has. Notice how North Indian languages use Gender. And then, notice how Southern/central or even Adivasi languages use gender. One main reason why Dravidian languages have been speculated to have another root language different to Sankskrit is the counting systems. Its not wrong to say Telugu has sanskrit INFLUENCE, but again, look at WHICH people within the language group use that type of Telugu (spoiler alert, its the 'proper' upper castes). He dismisses that entirely and makes it a whole issue about how the North South divide happened.

Its very clear to me that he has no intention of representing any of the counter arguments to his premise in an honest manner and is instead single mindedly trying to create more propaganda.

-Mod G

[renardtrickster]

Drama Queen and a Dissection of Fascist Thinking, Framing, and Language

If you're at all plugged into the anime sphere, you know what's going on. If you don't, Drama Queen is a manga made by Kuraku Ichikawa, and made its debut in Weekly Shonen Jump on December 1st of this year. Kuraku Ichikawa's past works have been drama-action oneshots, none of which I believe are particularly relevant to the discussion of today. What is relevant is that with one chapter released and eight days of time to ferment, Drama Queen has been embroiled in drama, with the common talk being that it's a blatantly xenophobic, anti-immigration screed that at times seems to almost perfectly trace common alt-right arguments and talking points.

Sickened, but curious, I decided to read the one chapter released thus far. The following is not only a window into what's going on, for those who are equally sickened but curious, as well as my analysis and thoughts on the same.

The backstory for Drama Queen is that, nine years ago, a meteorite was hurtling towards Earth, spelling destruction for the planet and all of its inhabitants. They were saved by the intervention of a species of unnamed aliens, who kind of look like humanoid puffballs with goofy face trunks. The two coexist, but there's an underlying tension from the very beginning. A male alien/female human couple walk the street, as we see advertisements for high-rise apartments available only to aliens, hourly parking where aliens don't have to pay, an alien baseball MVP on a big screen in the public square. As the alien points up, our first main character, Nomamoto, stands behind, bleeding from the nose.

Out of the gate, we obviously see that the aliens are given a preferential treatment, but I want to focus on the nosebleed. The implication is obviously that Nomamoto was just elbowed in the face, and she's going to begin yelling about it, but the panel looks like this.

It's not impossible that she was elbowed in the face, but I wanted to draw attention to a few things. No impact sound is drawn implying that contact was made. The angle between where Nomamoto is standing and where the alien's arm is positions feels off. And in the panel after showing Nomamoto's bloodied nose, she's shown standing quite a distance away from the couple, that implies only a moment or two passed between "contact" and confrontation.

This isn't immediately relevant, and in the grand scheme of things, whether or not the alien actually did elbow her is irrelevant. But this is our first suggestion that Nomamoto might not be the most reliable narrator. It's not out of the pale that she was either bleeding from the nose already and decided to pick a fight, or deliberately walked into him so she could start one. In discussions on this manga, I've seen multiple people say this is their first impression of what happened. But I digress.

Nomamoto points out that the alien just elbowed her, only for the alien to ask "who are you" and then accuse Nomamoto of making false accusations. As Nomamoto demands an apology, the human woman apologizes on behalf of her "partner", only for Nomamoto to storm off angrily, wishing death upon aliens for being rude, and cursing out the woman for calling her boyfriend her "partner". A bizarre, almost out of place gripe. #wokeness, am I right?

Nomamoto notes that she's grateful the aliens destroyed the meteor, but also notes that the aliens "clearly" look down upon humans. "But I'd probably be in trouble if I said that", she says to herself. She passes by posters for "New Universe Week", a celebration held to "remember our love and gratitude for that day". On the television, a newscaster proudly reports that the alien population in Japan has exceeded 17 million, with 60,000 in Senno city alone. They interview people who are grateful for the aliens, glad that they're alive today, or that space travel is now easily affordable, as Nomamoto wonders when she last ate meat. Her paychecks are abysmal, but she can't fall into self-pity. Can't be miserable, stay positive.

Nomamoto's job sucks. A factory job with the aforementioned miserable paychecks. The AC isn't on, with her boss using some sort of "cooling spray" on himself. Despite being her boss, he barely speaks Japanese, with his text bubbles rendered as random scribbles that vaguely resemble kanji, but are in fact more gibberish than anything else. Nomamoto's boss is screaming at her, and her nose has recently been bloodied, implying he struck her. Nomamoto even asks why he always hits her, but we once again do not see the impact (and if it's hot, which the lack of AC corroborates, it could just be a heat nosebleed). As is to throw Nomamoto's reliability further into question, her coworkers note that Nomamoto is frequently in trouble with the boss, she's always scowling, and even they don't like her.

The first time we see an alien actually hit someone on-screen is when the boss accidentally elbows a man behind him. Said man turns around, demands an apology, and when faced with the unintelligible speech, ask how he can be the boss when he can't even speak the country's planet's language. The man also notes that the working conditions are garbage, he won't turn the AC on, and nobody else complains as the boss makes money off of everyone else's backs. This man is Kitami, and he will become very important soon. He and Nomamoto get acquainted, and Kitami, before leaving, notes that it would have been a big deal if Kitami hit his boss back, because the higher-ups are all aliens, and "society is on their side".

At home, Nomamoto summarizes her shitty living situation, which I'd like to make another aside for. She's 17 years old, cut ties with her parents for reasons unknown, and doesn't want to come crawling back to them. Her full time job returns a payslip of roughly $1,000, and she feels like she can't find another job because she has no skills to speak of. Nomamoto lives a financially insecure life with nobody else to fall back upon. She's isolated, but not just by her poor economic status. But by the fact that something isn't right about all of this. Nomamoto wonders, how could anyone else work for chump change for a smile on her face? Are they happy, working themselves to the bone for an alien boss? Sure, the aliens saved humanity, but something doesn't feel right. And she hates it. It's not like she's supposed to feel this way. "But I'd probably be in trouble if I said that", she says to herself. "I wish they'd all just disappear".

In this moment, Nomamoto translates her economic anxieties into racial scorn. She doesn't explicitly say it, but does suggest that, if the aliens didn't come down to Earth, her lot in life would be better. That it's their fault that she's poor, and miserable, and alone. She even projects that fear and hatred onto other people. She's a madwoman, because she's the only one who can see the truth that's in front of her face. That everyone else either can't see, or will punish her for naming it. And by framing herself preemptively as a victim, a martyr who would be hung on the cross for saying what she truly feels, she pushes herself further into isolation.

And to wrap this aside up in a bow, Nomamoto brings her own introspective journey to a close. Acknowledging that she's not supposed to feel this way, she declares "misery is for the weak" and decides to watch dog videos to take her mind off of things. This close to "the truth", and she shies away with a thought-terminating cliche, and some mindless entertainment. The blue pill that prevents you from waking up, the goyslop meant to distract you and keep you complacent.

At a nearby beach, Nomamoto and Kitami meet up to do some fishing. It's not very eventful. What's important is the conversation after they accidentally lose the tiny morsel they managed to catch. Spaceships dot the sky, trailing by constantly. They're constantly visible in any shot of the skyline, and Kitami notes that they're reflected even in the ocean. The world's changed in a few short years, and the ocean he used to know and love, where he'd play with his family, is no more. Modernity may bring wonders (as mentioned before, trips to the moon are routine and very accessible now), but they've taken the past away from this man.

Bringing up his family directs the conversation towards that, and Kitami drops his first bombshell of the night. His tragic past is that HIS WHOLE FAMILY WAS KILLED BY ALIENS. As he relates the story, they were celebrating his sister's high school graduation when an alien car came flying in reverse. "I'm sure he was a drunk driver" Kitami says, as though he doesn't know all the details. But according to him, the police didn't try looking for the culprit, probably too afraid it'd turn into an interplanetary incident. In one fell swoop, we not only see why Kitami hates aliens, but we also, rather blatantly, reference reports of "migrant crime waves". When I read this, the first thing I thought of were the "rapefugees" craze, or constant news cycles about Muslim migrants killing children and the police not arresting them due to "cultural differences", because as we know, police love NOT arresting brown people. For a more contemporary example, you might have thought of "they're eating the cats and dogs".

But that isn't the only bombshell Kitami drops in this conversation. He asks Nomamoto if she thinks any of this is weird either. How it seems convenient for the aliens. He then openly speculates, what if there was no meteor in the first place? The aliens have access to technology well above that of humanity, so isn't it possible the whole thing was staged? Kitami has no evidence that this is the case. He just asks questions and posits an idea. But in this moment, we see the birth of a conspiracy theory. With no proof that the aliens are intentionally malicious, Kitami invents the proof, and the free-floating, directionless hatred that Nomamoto feels can now be given justification.

Kitami calls what the aliens are doing a "soft invasion". A nonviolent effective takeover of the planet Earth. And I'd like to digress her for a second to point out some disparate elements and weave them into a more coherent thought.

The first thing we see is an alien with a human girlfriend, walking around town with her hanging off of his arm. I don't personally read the earring as any sort of explicit racial coding, because I don't think the aliens represent anything other than a vague concept of a "foreign other", but you do you.

News reporters happily announcing that the Japanese population is increasingly becoming composed of aliens.

The cover featuring Nomamoto surrounding by the phallic trunks, even appearing to jerk one of them off, suggestive of an interracial gangbang of sorts.

The meteorite with an alien trunk, expelling spermlike spaceships...

...Which trail along the sky and the ocean, as though the aliens were figuratively raping the very planet and filling it with their seed? It hasn't been said outright, but the implications and the visual storytelling all evoke the idea of the Great Replacement. A "soft invasion" where through immigration and miscegenation, the native population of the country (or planet) will be supplanted by another race. A racist conspiracy theory that tends to go hand-in-hand with another racist conspiracy, that said Great Replacement is being orchestrated by some nefarious group (usually the Jews, most conspiracy theories go back to antisemitism if you give it enough time). In this case, the aliens fake a meteorite, so they can become heroes to humanity, so they can cow them through love and gratitude into not objecting to the destruction of the planet and the replacement of their demographics, so says Kitami.

Kitami follows up his thoughts by saying that it's all rotten, the world can go to filth for all he cares, and he wishes the aliens would all just disappear. Nomamoto says the same, and that she'd always felt that way. The two spend the rest of the day talking trash, building alien heads out of sand and kicking them into dust, punctuating each kick with a personal grievance and a "drop dead".

"This is so much fun. Who knew it was so much fun," Nomamoto says to herself, "being miserable?". This entire time, Nomamoto has held back her hatred towards the alien with a kick to herself. Stay positive, don't pity yourself, misery is for the weak, etc. Her attempts at not giving into hatred and staying positive were her taking the blue pill. Once she had a serious talk with Kitami, someone more in touch with his own hatred, he talked her into taking not just the red pill, but the black pill as well. Feel miserable. Feel hopeless. It's not just that your life is bad, the whole world is going to shit as well. It's unfixable. And you know who to blame and who to hate now.

The next day (another bloody nose implied to be caused by physical abuse, another suspicious omission of us actually seeing it), Nomamoto is fired. Her boss accidentally set himself on fire, while according to her coworkers, she just sat there and watched him burn to death. She feels bad that she got fired, but felt no guilt whatsoever upon seeing her boss die. Kitami calls her phone, having looked up her address online, and brings the dead body of a different alien inside. Kitami claims that the alien turned around and accidentally hit him in the face, giving him a bloody nose. Kitami beat him to death in rage. "Killing people is fundamentally wrong. Only I don't see this thing as a person", dehumanizing the man he murdered in cold blood.

After discussing how to hide the body, Nomamoto suggests eating the alien, citing how her boss' burnt body smelled like grilled squid. They eat the entire body, bones and all. Nomamoto loves the taste, but Kitami hates it. He does decide, however, that they have a perfect system set up.

(Also the aliens are strong enough to fake a meteor catastrophe and take over the country, but are dumb enough to set themselves on fire by sheer accident, and weak enough that two random people, with enough determination and cunning, could weed them all out by killing and eating enough of them.)

Before I continue on to the conclusion, I do want to address a pervasive reading of this manga I've seen thus far. From what we've seen, the aliens are the dominant power in society. They get preferential treatment, are effectively worshiped, protected, and live in luxury. Meanwhile, our antiheroes are decidedly working class, and suffering in poverty. And Kitami's plan of using Nomamoto as a human garbage disposal would entail her, in a sense, literally eating the rich. However, I don't buy the idea that this is *actually* about capitalism, or at least, not exclusively. Even if I were to adopt that reading, and it isn't entirely incompatible, it wouldn't shake off the racial overtones and tropes previously invoked. Attention is drawn to the cultural differences between humans and aliens repeatedly. They're drawn in an incongruous art style, obviously out of place in this world. "If you live in my country, speak my language" is not a proletarian criticism towards the bourgeois. The class power the aliens wield is not what is bad about them. It's simply a tool they wield, and they are bad, and they do not belong here.

Another read I've seen is that this isn't an anti-immigration screed, it's anti-colonization. The aliens are a technologically advanced culture who take over a less advanced one, framing themselves as saviors while making the native population second-class citizens and living in luxury off of the fruits of their labor. Taken at face value, this is an accurate description of the events of the backstory (at least according to Kitami's read of things). However, I hesitate to say this one is a good read either. As above, even if it's an anti-colonial screed, it's one that still heavily indulged in malicious, baseless conspiracy theory and an explicitly racial animosity. And as above, it's not uncommon for the language of colonization and decolonialism to be appropriated by the alt-right or equivalent figures. But more to the point, colonization is about dominance and subjugation, not integration. Aliens may be privileged, but Nomamoto's boss isn't where the rot stops and ends. The aliens are baseball stars, and they're dating Japanese women (colonial regimes have famously been kind towards interracial couples, of course of course). As it stands, this is currently the "white genocide" version of colonization, where nobody dies but there's DEI, more people of a different race than you, and you have this vague feeling that life would be better for you if they weren't here anymore.

It should also be noted that, if we're going to draw parallels to real life, Japan doesn't have a colonization problem, and has in fact been a colonial power itself in the past, in addition to having pervasive issues regarding xenophobia, anti-immigration sentiment, and all around just being a conservative hell country.

So I think I've demonstrated the idea that Drama Queen is absolutely dripping with a certain alt-right language and framing (inb4 someone tells me Japan doesn't have an alt-right and my American mind cannot comprehend their mystical nuanced, superior Nippon politics folded 1,000 times or something). Boiling it down to barest essence, this is a story about a teenager with no money, no power, and no place in the world who hates her shitty life and is harboring a free-floating grievance towards a group of foreigners who, at best, are frequently rude and catered to, at worst are directly responsible for her misery. After various attempts to ignore this feeling about what feels right to her, and to ignore how bad her life is, she meets a man who feels the same way, but he knows he hates them. He endears her with a sob story about how he was wronged by the foreigners, and then weaves a conspiracy theory about how they tricked the entire native population and have now effectively enslaved them. This "peaceful coexistence" is actually an invasion, and with all of this freshly implanted, the teenager goes from passive annoyance that she tries to suppress, to open hatred she embraces, consciously wallowing in her misery because she knows that she's a victim now. And then uses that hatred and sense of victimization to indulge in dehumanization, vigilante justice, and open, genocidal hatred. This *is* Racist Dungeon Meshi.

So I don't think that's part is arguable. The story of Drama Queen is anti-immigration, it uses alt-right arguments and framing, and by my count, looking over Umberto Eco's 14 points of Ur-Fascism, we hit 7 of them (rejection of modernism, action for action's sake, fear of difference, appeal to a frustrated middle class, obsession with a plot, enemy is too strong and too weak, and maybe pacifism is trafficking with the enemy). However, there is another question present. Drama Queen's narrative is a fascist one, but is it so because the author is pro-all of that shit, or are we going to get a rug pulled out from underneath us when we reveal that the protagonists are in fact villains, and they're meant to be seen as irrational and bigoted?

I dunno lol

As I pointed out, both Nomamoto and Kitami seem like unreliable narrators. They're obviously biased, and we only have one chapter worth of manga to see what the world is like, so I can imagine that they're skewing things to be in line with their worldview, or else are so trapped in their ideologie *schniff* that they can't see outside of it. Adding onto that is the fact that while Nomamoto is young and dumb, Kitami seems older, more hateful, and more violent. He's the one who proposed the conspiracy theories, he's the one who murdered an alien because he got bumped into, he tracked down where Nomamoto lives online and then forced her into hiding the body. And he's the one who proposed the kill-and-eat plan. Nomamoto is no saint, but Kitami is actually deranged in his hatred, and he's pushing her further into radicalization. Not to mention, "Drama Queen" can refer to nobody else but the main characters, taking their slights and everyday frustrations and blowing them up into a war of extermination. It's not impossible that Drama Queen might be Mouthwashing-esque in the sense that our viewpoint characters are unreliable, warp the story to suit their needs, and not only do you need to read between the lines to see what's really going on, but it will all crescendo in a moment of undeniable denunciation of the thought processes displayed. If this possibility turns out to be the case, then Drama Queen might actually be genius satire, intentionally evoking anti-immigration rhetoric for the purpose of spotlighting and deconstructing it, leaving an open question to the audience of if they fell for it as well. If they cheered on monsters and believed their lies.

On the other hand, it's entirely possible that this is not "satire and criticism of the thing" and is in fact just "the thing". I've "read between the lines" to showcase how Nomamoto and Kitami are self-deluded and invent narratives to make themselves the heroes of their own story. But is there anything actually written between those lines, or am I being overly charitable, or stuck in a sense of denial, refusing to believe that such an obviously bigoted work like this would get published. It's not the first time this has happened. If you've never heard of Tokyo Shinobi Squad, don't worry because nobody else was reading it either. I could tell you the plot is about cyberpunk mercenary ninjas fighting each other, but I don't care about that and you don't either. The only thing people talk about when they bring up Tokyo Shinobi Squad is the opening textcrawl and first line of the main character, where they bemoan globalization turning Japan into a crime, slum, and terrorism ridden wasteland (businesses totally aren't in bed with organized crime in modern day Japan, don't worry about it the yakuza doesn't exist). And this was published in Weekly Shonen Jump in 2019!

Everything is very uncertain right now. In the first few pages, Nomamoto complains about women who call their boyfriends "partner", a gripe about progressive trends completely unrelated to the main thesis surrounding aliens. Is that another dogwhistle meant to appeal to reactionaries who view progressive and queer things as being part of the same rot as the immigration bringing aliens into the world, or is that a heads-up to let us know that we're going to be picking apart, making fun of, and talking *about* reactionaries? The aliens are drawn to look out of place in the world, but they also look cute, being goofy, fluffy creatures with floppy ears and elephant trunks. Is it meant to make them look cute, so we understand how monstrous the protagonists are for killing them? Or does the fact that we're brutalizing such patently ridiculous-looking creatures add to the black comedy angle, and it also serves to desensitize us towards the violence committed against them, a reassurance not to take it so seriously (also they kinda deserve it and they look cute and pitiable so you fail to realize just how much they deserve it)?

I don't know. We'll have to wait and see where this is all going. Only one chapter has been released so far [EDIT: I started writing this last night and since then, another chapter has been released. Still inconclusive]. We're basically flipping coins as to whether or not this is peak subversive fiction, or just /pol/. If you want to take away anything from this post, it's two things.

1. Regardless of the answer you know that racist weebs with K-on! icons are going to scream "based based based" and co-opt this manga, we're just asking whether or not it's "meant" for them. Also please note the irony of white Americans cheering on anti-immigration sentiment in a country that would ban them for being filthy rude foreigners all the same. Especially because, if we had to ask "who are the aliens meant to represent", I've seen some people say "Koreans" but the overwhelming consensus has been "Americans and Europeans".

2. Despite everything, I found this a very valuable read. I talked about this manga with my brother, and he doesn't think as a work of art it's very interesting, putting aside the politics. But what I find interesting *is* the politics, how all of the arguments and talking points I've mentioned are laid out so openly, almost masterfully in a way. This is a certified Media Literacy Moment, and I think it's very interesting as a filter or litmus test for said media literacy. Whether or not you personally think Drama Queen is going to be an unironic anti-immigrant manifesto or a subversion thereof is less interesting to me than if you are capable of *identifying* why and how we are having the conversation that we are having.

[dolphin1812]

While it is very funny to have this line:

"Although this detail has no connection whatever with the real substance of what we are about to relate, it will not be superfluous, if merely for the sake of exactness in all points, to mention here the various rumors and remarks which had been in circulation about him from the very moment when he arrived in the diocese."

Pop up right at the beginning of a book famous for digressions and details, what follows is just as interesting and relevant to the rest of the novel:

"True or false, that which is said of men often occupies as important a place in their lives, and above all in their destinies, as that which they do."

Much of this, of course, directly applies to Myriel. Whether because of a lack of documentation (or, what is more likely in the aftermath of the French Revolution, the flight and/or death of the aristocrats who knew him and could speak to the rumors about his youth), his factual past is a mystery, and the emotions and experiences that led him to change so drastically are known only to himself.

Spoilers below:

Yet Myriel is not the one most vulnerable to rumor throughout the novel. Fantine loses her job (and thus is plunged into poverty) because of rumors. True, the rumors are confirmed, but the suspicion around her condemns her just as much as the truth itself. Valjean is an even more telling example. Although he condemns himself at the end of the novel with his isolation, what Marius believes about him is based on rumors and misunderstandings that create an outside enforcer of his self-inflicted punishments. While, again, there is some truth to what Marius believes - Valjean is an ex-convict - the rumors about his dangerousness and Marius' belief that he killed Javert are false. And in spite of that, neither one of these characters escapes these rumors before being condemned to death by them.

The image of these characters also determines their "destinies" in that class and gender stereotypes fix their position in society unless they manage to create new rumors and images (like Valjean did with Fauchelevent).

And, just as we see with Myriel's transformation, so much of his life is internal and unknowable to others beyond what he wishes to share. Of course, since this is a novel, we are permitted glimpses into the minds of many characters and therefore can't consider them unknowable in the way they are to each other (or that real people are to us), but it's another point against stereotyping.

On a different note, beginning with what the people around the bishop say about him automatically centers community in the novel. Although this community is not always positive (gossip and rumors are generally harmful in the context of Les Misérables), it is important. Even starting with a character who is not the main one demands of us to consider Valjean's world and his relations to others before we consider Valjean himself. Again, the judgment that comes with this is destructive, but there's also an element of care in it. The bishop deeply cares for those gossiping about him in his community, and his kindness was transformative for Jean Valjean. I don't know that I have fully coherent thoughts on this, but it's fascinating that we begin with all that is good about connecting with others in a meaningful way and the challenges in existing in a community in a book that largely revolves around a very isolated man who is that way because of these issues and who is also defined by his connections to others (Myriel inspiring him with his kindness, Cosette being his main source of joy and his purpose, etc).