bell dreams

maomao is my favorite "not like other girls" style protagonist bc for one shes a girls girl through and through. to the bone. and two she's just a weird little freak. absolute lunatic. they have the whole "omg she's actually beautiful and everyone falls for her when she's all made up" trope but the punchline is that she does not fucking want to look like that. she actively puts dirt on her face every day bc she does not want to be perceived as attractive (mostly out of fear of being used for sex work though at the same time she has the utmost respect for women who do sex work like she grew up in a brothel those are her sisters). she's Sherlock level smart and solves every mystery so fast but goes "well thats none of my business. anyway back to testing poisons on myself" she has the 2nd most powerful guy in the nation head over heels in love with her and is like "man this guy is weird around me what's his deal. I guess he's fine though because he gives me rare medicines and has no dick" fucking ICON i love her. also she once slapped someone so hard they fell on the floor. 10/10

Analyzing the politics of a work that's meant to be apolitical is actually a really interesting exercise because it asks you to critically examine what the creator considers to be "political" in the first place. Which ideas are just How Things Are, and which ones are Political, and how is that influenced by the creator's beliefs?

Usually this just ends up with you looking like a moron btw

Angrily lashing out at the suggestion that it's possible to do basic media analysis was foundational to the ragebait ecosystem of the 2010s, from which we got basically the entire culture of modern far right politics, btw.

I genuinely believe myself and others are being so sincere and literal when we say TOUCH GRASS

I went outside and got an education, that's where I learned that you can obtain knowledge and insight through analytical methods, then noticed that some people who sit on the internet yelling at strangers get really mad about that constantly.