#clspiel

thinking about it, what does SHE have to eat? its fairly accepted that dirk had his orange soda, ramen, and fish (although i dont believe thats ever really stated in the webcomic, orange soda aside). i dont see much discussion around roxy's food sources; we just know she drank a lot and helped feed the carapacians by appearifying pumpkins.

its safe to assume then that she would've used her appearifier gun to get herself food then, right? how appearification works is interesting though. its not as simple as beaming something over, it has to be an Unimportant thing. unimportant as in, it cant have any relevance in anyone or anything's existence. so, she's limited in what she can get, lest she wants slime for dinner.

the only food i can think of that isn't predestined to end up in any past human's stomach is food that's thought to be spoiled. food that's about to be thrown out.

and... isn't that kind of depressing? it's a little depressing. i can speak from experience, there's something a little sad about eating a lot of food that's on the precipice of expiration, whether it's perfectly good or not. maybe that's just me, but i think most can agree it's much sadder than eating a meal freshly made, let alone something homecooked.

which, speaking of homecooking, i had another, even more depressing thought: imagine roxy surreptitiously nabbing jane's family's leftovers before they get thrown out.

the major flaws in it are unavoidable; its definitely got problematic stuff in it, and a lot of heavy, triggering content. its not for the faint of heart

but it struck me how it had conflicting art/events and messages. like

the story as a whole is filled with gore, violence, threats of assault, and perversion. at the same time, the overall message calls for hope for a better future

the art definitely sexualizes all female appearing bodies. it leers a lot on tetsuo, the trans man character. thats obviously not Great, and id totally understand why thatd turn a lot of people away from it. at the same time, the writing itself handles tetsuo’s identity with a shocking amount of sincerity. no matter what anyone thinks throughout the story, even when tetsuo himself gives up, the narrative never wavers on the fact that he is a Man

when amano first learns of tetsuo being trans, hes very weird about it. he gets confused and has some kind of ignorant, transphobic ideas—but then he grows. the fact that amano changes over the course of the story and grows to hold that same, unwavering belief in tetsuo’s identity proves that the story has its heart in the right place, i think

it takes time to give tetsuo’s identity weight too. the story doesnt just focus on him struggling with transphobia and dysphoria, but it shows his first burst of euphoria from getting a haircut too. as someone whos transmasc myself, it reads very sincerely to me, despite the fetishistic art

the manga… Does have some transmisogyny in it as well with the main villain. im not going to pretend to be an expert on it, theres not much of an excuse for it—just as theres no excuse for the fetishization of tetsuo’s body

i found it interesting however, that even with that villain theres still some positive transfem rep with amano. im still using he/him bc its never Confirmed, and i personally think of him as some form of genderfluid or genderqueer.

either way, its clear he finds joy and euphoria in being a girl sometimes—it shows him feeling some longing to look like other girls as well. like tetsuo, it shows dysphoria and euphoria.

and the ending… is so queer! im not going to spoil it but its extremely wonderful.

and it makes me realize even more how shitty beauty standards are. sure, theres the commodification of people and the commercially, systemically reinforced self-hatred. but also like…

why would you ever want to limit the scope of whats beautiful? like, if you were able to choose to see more things as beautiful, why wouldnt you do that? pay attention to how fat folds into itself, how different skin colors reflect light, how nose bridges cut space into different angles, the sharp angles from bones and the blunt contours of muscle

like... can you imagine how many times theyd die to like, the flu or small pox on earth c. (actually on that note, wouldnt there be fresh diseases for everyone considering itd be an entirely new planet? hm)

im curious to know if im right on point with this or hilariously off, im not a big dirkjaker