Im Not A Clown, Im The Entire Circus

On its face, it's a crude comedy anime about, well, an anime cat girl with a crippling nicotine addiction. However, under the slapstick, it's got undercurrents which point towards other matters of social commentary.

It not-so subtly shows how drug addiction is a coping mechanism but also fucking ruins your life and makes you a seemingly inconsiderate asshole towards those around you.

But also: it much more subtly points to how these coping mechanisms are more likely to be used within communities that are already under higher degrees of societal pressure with very few avenues for social advancement.

Because it would appear that cat girls are in fact a great allegorical representation of the experience of societal marginalization, while not directly representing any individual real world group.

The anime cat girls are not specifically trans women, or immigrants, or a racial minority, or anything else- they're cat girls.

But they ARE shown on screen to all have low income apartments. They are shown to be offered worse jobs and menial labor positions. They are called specific terms that sound a lot like slurs. The police treat them differently. The neighborhoods they dominate appear to have negative stigma attached to them. The girls that are socially respected by non-cat girls are the ones who seem to play the most to respectability politics, and even then they just get patronizingly regarded as "one of the *good ones*."

But on top of how they are broadly disadvantaged and disparaged, they are also simultaneously fetishized.

reading the og The Mask comic on a lark, liking it so far, art is better then i thought it would be

knew going in that it was gonna be super gorey and that the Mask isn't a "good guy" (using that with a fat asterisk) like the movie version

so far in what i've read, no matter who wears it, they basically become a more cartoony version of Johnny the homicidal maniac and murder anyone for the smallest of slights (or straight up for the lols)

Like heres Stanley Ipkiss wearing it and getting revenge on a teacher who embarrassed him when he was a kid:

like damn man, maybe the author intended her to come off as a horrible person, but they way he drew her and the way he wrote her dialog didn't really convey that?

anyways it doesn't even matter if you were shitty or not. cos like i said, he also just kills for the lolz

but seriously though this comic so far is good fun and it really does have that same "yay violence for the sake of violence yay!" zaniness that Johnny the homicidal maniac has but more Loony Toons flavored

oh yeah

*spoilers for first chapter/part/whatever*

🎭

don't get attached to Stanley Ipkiss (this version of him sucks so don't worry about that) cos he fucking dies early on

the Mask just gets passed from person to person and pretty much stays the same each time? its not like the movie version where it changes based on the person wearing it (at least so far, only three people have worn it up to where i just left off)

And I must know? CAN they bind someone to Consortship who does not recognize their authority? Like... no really, The King Of The Dead(tm) lawfully would have NO claim upon the Living, unless they consented to his Rule. Not until they... you know... Die.

And in DP's case? Not even THEN is it guaranteed? They could just Peace Out and move on. Skip the Zone completely. So like? IS that a loophole?

A King from Nation A can not legally command citizen of Nation B. They aren't his. Only King B can. Citizen B's may CHOSE to obey King A, to be polite, but the have the RIGHT to say "fuck off, buddy". But if King A was legal cornered and told "pick a Consort Or Else(tm)"? CAN HE?

Like? Can he point to the biggest, toughest, warrior in Nation B (probably standing next to his equally terrifying wife), knowing FULL DAMN WELL this is not going to happen and planning on that, and say "Him. Fetch, you bloodsuckers."

Just FULL-ON pass the buck. And let his political opponents have time to reconsider their stances as they are dying under said warrior's Rightfully Furious Blade?

What I am saying is? Constantine. Superman. Fuck it! Batman too! You want Danny, A TEENAGER, to pick a CONSORT for ETERNITY or you'll FORCE one on him? In what feels like a VERY coercive Bad Touch sorta move?

Fine.

FINE!

He's gonna pull out his phone and look up that list Tucker made of the Magical Weirdos on the Justice League! In FACT! He heard that the Greek gods helped made Wonder Woman! Her too! He's "Consorting" the whole FOUNDING MEMBERS! And the magical ones! It's gonna be a HAREM up in this castle!

Now be good eyeballs and FETCH. He has Kingly Watching Paint Dry to get too. You can't expect HIM to do this? This is YOUR big concern, not his.

(It goes badly for the Observants, I would imagine. Those are grown Adult Heros being told to divorce their loving spouses and marry A CHILD. Or Else.)

Think I want an apprentice. He's already dead. And if he's already this much of a bastard as to set me on his enemies? Well, good choice for him to pass his skills to.

Clockwork? Knew how this was going to go. And he could have warned the observants. But.... This was far more entertaining.

Danny: Did Pariah have a consort?

Headache fit to kill GODS.

You know, real glamor shot. Lookin his best. Fit for guests and ready to entertain them. Definitely NOT haunted by the nightmares of those he's failed and the screams of Hell, a realm he JUST pulled himself out of and then promptly decided to drink to forget.

And finally, FINALLY just as he's slipping into that badly needed Deep Dreamless Sleep? *obnoxious herald trumpets!* *Death Energy and pretentious assholes!*

No.

No, he refuses to do this. Go away.

But not ONLY do they not? They get in a SNIT. Oh how DARE! They're so OFFENDED! Blah blah blah! Like THEY didn't break into his motel room. Yeah, yeah, he's going back to slee-

WHAT.

Says The Laughing Magican, from the floor, suddenly not only awake but paying an ALARMING amount of interest in these current events. Ah. So he DID hear you correctly. Hold that thought.

He sits up. Gets off the floor. Sits down on the shitty couch. And takes out a cigarette, which lights itself. No, no, please. Continue digging yourself deeper. He's paying ATTENTION now. What's all this about? Threatening kids? Binding unwilling souls to contracts? No, no, see, marriage IS a contract at its most basic. Don't try dressing that up all pretty. But, continue.

And he calmly, Politely even, listens. Nods when appropriate. And when they're done?

Well... a FEW manage to make it back to the Realm. Crafty little buggers. What can he say? Splitting headache, his aim was off. Anyway, who wants a now heavily cursed motel mirror?

And! Because I am both petty and want them to just? Have the WORST time? Since Danny couldn't possibly know Superman is weak to magic, therefor ghosts? He legit thinks he's sending them to fight a mortal God. #GetRekt etc. But you know who ELSE constantly harrases Clark? And infact has a STANDING APPOINTMENT to try and ruin his life?

A 5th dimensional Imp. Mister Mxyzptlk. His race is basically a step ABOVE Gods. But are bound by each other and their Rules. Like Clockwork if he could also bend reality and didn't give even the solitary fucks he currently gives. AND was not bound by Zone Law.

Mxy also has quite the temper. And Clark is both a tactician AND little shit. So CLEARLY, these floating eyeballs are SUCH a threat! Much bigger then Mister Mxyzptlk! Oh noooooo! Clark is MUCH more concerned about THEM then YOU Mxyzptlk, they have clearly shown how much STRONGER they are! He'll get to you later.

Those Observants do NOT return. They are confetti now. Clark then butchered Mister Mxyzptlks name so bad, pretending to not remember it, that he once again tricked him back into the 5th dimension. See ya next year!

(As for Diana? Visiting her Mother. Poor bastards showed up to the ACTUAL AMAZON ISLAND and announced, in front of everyone, that the PRINCESS would be taken as an unwilling bride, to be married to a CHILD, that they THEMSELVES heavily suggested did not wish to even marry, but that THEY were forcing too anyway.)

(It goes EXACTLY as you think it does.)

With Batman? Gotham eats half of them before they can get to him. Cursed City HUNGRY. Then they fuckin BOUNCE off Wayne Manor. Because it turns out? Being historically the literal ONLY good rich folk in the area? For centuries? Doing charity and helping the needy etc? People Bless your house and family.

Sometimes those people are Actual Witches.

Bruce gets to stand in his dining room and sip his morning coffee obnoxiously. Watching them try and FAIL to breach his walls. Tim joins him. It's nice. Good bonding moment. Steph wonders if Jason's "cool magic swords" can hurt them.

For Jason? It's a BEAUTIFUL firey blade filled morning.

Then they all realize, hey where’s Wonder Woman? Only for her to march in wearing a galaxy patterned bedsheet and carrying a mortified royal teenager. Apparently she was the only one the observants didn’t underestimate and decided to kidnap her as she was getting ready for bed instead of fighting her.

And the poor dead child king starts stuttering his explanations and apologies looking near tears that the eyeballs managed to sneak Wonder Woman into his bed- HES NOT A PERVERT HE SWEARS! He’s sorry! Please don’t hate him and his people, his kingdom. He didn’t realize it would get this big, he just didn’t know what else to do please-!

He didn't do it.

The cops very clearly planted evidence on him because they had to make an arrest because all eyes were on them and whoever actually did the deed was making them look stupid.

Why would the real killer hero have kept the weapon on his person and traveled two states over while carrying it and a manifesto in his bag, conveniently turning the crime into a federal matter? The same guy whose bag they found in a park, filled with monopoly money? Why did the police turn off their bodycams, take Luigi's stuff, drive a block away, turn their bodycams back on, go back into the restaurant, and then arrest him?