would anyone like to explain to me why I just ran into myself on linkedin

I have a lot of annoying Dungeon Meshi theories, but the one that I genuinely think has decent textual support is that the supplementary material's remarks about Marcille and Falin being "friends" are actually accurate for the timeframe it's discussing: prior to the bathing scene, Marcille honestly didn't realise her feelings toward Falin had a romantic component. Up until that point she'd managed to convince herself that what she and Falin had going on was a perfectly normal friendship dynamic – notice that she aggressively reasserts that dynamic immediately afterwards in order to avoid having to rethink some shit! – and you can see the exact moment the "oh no" hits her.

A Hamas stan said the quiet part out loud last night at a fundraising event for Biden, and I’ve included some responses:

Anyway, the people like the one in the first tweet are functionally no different from Republicans. One of Trump’s main appeals has always been having him hurt groups who are considered the enemy. Cruelty is the point.

No they're right actually and they should say it.

The lefts descent into obsession with identity politics means all these boys get from these spaces is essentially being told they're inherently monstrous or will grow up to be so.

12 year old boys are not evil. They're children. And they're susceptible to manipulation from these fucks on the right who have sadly correctly identified that large swathes of the left will ignore and shun them. People turn to extremist factions when they feel ignored and dehumanised.

A 12 year old boy online isn't going to be able to read the nuances in your uber ironic but not really actually ironic "all white men are inherently trash" hot takes. They're going to take that at face value because they're 12 and that's what 12 year olds do. And they're going to feel angry, rejected and judged by your words. And then fucks like Andrew Tate get to swoop in and tell them that you're wrong and start the ball rolling on that indoctrination.

If you're an adult leftist and you honestly think teenage boys possess the wherewithal to purposefully follow dangerous Misogynists like Andrew Tate in order to "preserve their own privilege long term" then I'm sorry to say you're too far gone and I'd suggest logging off and actually trying to have a conversation with a kid who is vulnerable to the grooming of these uber misogynists and treat them as a human being instead of a reflection of an identity you've boxed them into.

You may tick more diversity boxes but you are still the adult. Start acting like it.

There are absolutely circumstances where he would do that.

Namely, as part of some manipulative sociopathic bit where he's trying to get something he wants by pretending to be a gender minority or a victim or something. He has committed to less believable lies for less.

I mean iirc "pretending to be trans so he can get the bathroom all to himself" is something he actually does in the show, because he's the exact kind of narcissistic jackass who would do that.

“he would not fucking say that!” then put him in a situation that makes him say it, we wanna see him squirm

I have complicated feelings about blaming these two specifically.

On one hand - are they, and their respective stories, the origin point for all the shittiest isekai stories? Yes, absolutely. Mushoku Tensei's adaptation is recent, but it should be stressed that the source material dates back to around the same time as SAO, and the amount of stories that draw from it is staggering. Of course, most of those stories suck ass.

The thing is...Mushoku Tensei doesn't suck. Wait, wait hang on, let me explain! I'm not going to say the story isn't deeply, deeply problematic - because it is. It absolutely is. However, that doesn't preclude it from being well written. Mushoku Tensei, for all it's many fucked up elements, also does a lot of things really really right as a story. That's why it's so controversial - if it just sucked people could ignore it.

Mushoku Tensei is a story with strong and detailed worldbuilding, and is absolutely fantastic at making that world feel real, and lived in, and like it exists outside of it's main protagonist. It's cast is absolutely packed with varied, compelling, compellingly flawed, and fully fleshed-out characters who have equally compelling character arcs where they struggle with those flaws and grow as people in belivable ways. Even Rudeus, for all his scumbag personality traits, is written as a complicated, multifaceted person who (and this is not me excusing his actions or the way the story tries to excuse them) legitimately grows as a person throughout the story. It's a story that's willing to take the time to show every step of the journey, to commit to telling the full story of it's protagonists life without rushing to the cool and epic parts because it believes that the things he learns in the slow parts are just as important. It actually commits to the entire premise of Isekai - the idea of the second chance, and builds it's entire narrative around that theme of second chances. It's a story with things to say, an actual artistic point to make, and everything in the story works in concert in service of those themes.

What I'm trying to get at here, is that everything that Frieren does right (and Frieren does fucking everything right, that series is a masterpiece of masterpieces), Mushoku ALSO does right, and in some cases better. And I do mean Frieren specifically - there is a LOT of overlap in the overall tone of the two stories and their approach to storytelling. It's just that Mushoku also does a lot of things wrong on top of that, particularly as it relates to it's protagonist being a perverted piece of human refuse.

The issue is that becuase of aforementioned Legitimately Good Writing, Mushoku got popular. Because it got popular, it got imitators. Those imitators aped the surface aesthetic of Mushoku, copied all it's problematic elements uncritically, and stripped out everything good because those shitty problematic elements pander to the lowest common denominator of shut-in pervert losers who just want trashy wish-fulfilment power fantasies, wheras letting your protagonist be more than a blank-slate self insert and having female characters have realistic flaws and actual personalities doesn't.

As for SAO, well SAO was never a masterpiece, but it's really worth noting that it's only bad by the standards of it's time. SAO may not be amazingly well written, but it wasn't the same story over and over again with a slight riff. It attempts to be original, it attempts to play with unique ideas, it attempts to go legitimately creative places with the story. Even Kirito, bland ass motherfucker that he is, looks a lot better when you consider that no, he wasn't created as a lazy riff on Every Generic Anime Protag Ever, since most of those in modern times are riffing on him.

Is SAO good? Fuck no. But it's also not unoriginal, or lazy. It's writing lacks competence, not creativity. It does not have good character writing, or a good main plot, or worldbuilding that makes sense, or any understanding of what an actually good vrmmo would look like. But it had a lot of plot beats that were legitimately unique for it's time, and a lot of plot beats that still ring as unique now, and the fact that it dares to be incompetently creative, as opposed to incompetently derivative, makes it still stand head and shoulders above it's knockoffs.

So while both series are the origin points for basically all the worst modern trends in anime...it's unfair to not point out that they are also nearly universally better than all the series that copy them, barring occasional exceptions.

If you want to see the fantasy of SAO played straight, written by someone who actually understands what makes a video game fun and is confident enough in their writing to not even need a death game gimmick to keep the story compelling, watch Shangri-La Frontier.

If you want to see Mushoku Tensei minus all the shit parts of Mushoku Tensei, while keeping all the great parts of Mushoku Tensei, watch Frieren. If you want to see a brutal deconstruction of shitty power fantasy isekai in general, and an extremely pointed callout post towards all the losers who are like pre-isekai Rudy, project themselves onto Kirito and all his knockoffs to feel better about their terrible lives, and feel entitled to all the respect (and women) that both characters get without being willing to accept that they need to fundamentally change their terrible personality and mindset to make that even a remote possibility, watch Re:Zero.

all your issues with modern anime are this cunt's fault btw

their dynamic is unbelievable, "she only wants me for my magic... and yet"

the Onion

When absolutely 0 of Biden’s accomplishments have made any kind of news, and we’ve been fed a steady diet of fear and panic for 3 years, no one gets to be shocked when he loses the next election to Donald 2.0.

Posting anything positive about the president here will get you called a capitalist bootlicker.

What do we expect to happen?

Anger sells better. Anger feels better, it feels righteous.

It’s easier to protest against a president you don’t like then to actually remain in charge and keep pushing ahead, even if small, consistent accomplishments are all you receive.

It's so weird to see someone who understands fighting games write fiction about people playing them.

i hate when people call marcille a girlfailure btw like SHE ISNT. and shes not a ”girlboss” either. this is a neurotic and Permanently On The Edge of a Breakdown overachiever late 20s virgin just out of her phd program with permanently shaky hands from an addiction to overly sugary coffee and a deep desire to be crushed to death under falins giant jugs no matter the cost. the only thing shes ever ”failed” at is going to theraphy

"Blah blah why can't the dems give us something to vote for instead of against"

STFU, go watch the state of the union, and apologize, you absolute ungrateful imbeciles. Fucking go work for Fox News if you wanna do the facists' work for them!

If that speech wasn't an hour's worth of things to fight like hell for I don't know what is.

"Israel must also do its part. Israel must allow more aid into Gaza and ensure that humanitarian workers aren’t caught in the cross fire.

To the leadership of Israel I say this: Humanitarian assistance cannot be a secondary consideration or a bargaining chip.

Protecting and saving innocent lives has to be a priority.

As we look to the future, the only real solution to the situation is a two-state solution.

And I say this as a lifelong supporter of Israel - over my entire career, no one has a stronger record and I challenge any of you here - and the only American president to visit Israel in wartime.

There is no other path that guarantees Israel’s security and democracy. 

There is no other path that guarantees Palestinians can live with peace and dignity. 

There is no other path that guarantees peace between Israel and all of its Arab neighbors, including Saudi Arabia."

people are smoking crack if they think a Republican president (especially Trump) would draw attention to the innocent Palestinian civilians being bombed and displaced while also calling out Israel's responsibility to let aid into Gaza

I think there are two reasons why the usual bad faith crowd is ignoring that Biden has actually did call for a ceasefire. The first reason is obvious, because the moment any Democrat does anything they want, they instantly pretend it didn't happen or move the goalposts to justify their endless anti-voting tirade. The second reason is that they don't want to acknowledge that the American president calling for a ceasefire didn't magically erase Netanyahu's and Hamas' agency and instantly stop the death and destruction, as they claimed it would for months on end.