...seriously the only meanings I've ever seen "spook" used are A) spies and suchlike (eg. "CIA spooks") B) something frightening or unnerving, eg. "something spooked the horses".

@shadesofgreymoon already explained what the racial slur is about and where it's used. I think it's pretty uncommon these days, because 99% of people don't know it, me included until yesterday.

last edited at Apr 12, 2020 7:21AM

@BV
All you've been saying is "It worked for a very short period due to extenuating circumstances and outside support". So did hundreds of bad systems. But there is not a single example of long term success, unlike with capitalism. There are no real anarchist factions today that are in power or work anywhere on the globe. You are clinging to fringe ideas that are barely even anarchist and sell it as a success for the movement as a whole.

Sounds to me like you merely blindly follow whatever someone told you and didn't actually bother looking at the details.

last edited at Apr 12, 2020 7:02AM

Well, at least there are some non-Anarchists on this site that actually know what Anarchists mean when they say Anarchism. Had I not been about to go to sleep and had I known BugDevil, even after almost a year of me coming out as an anarchist, believes in deeply rooted misconceptions, I would've just posted a link to Thought Slime's video "Top 10 misconceptions about anarchism" (his only top 10 video, before you ask).

They are not misconceptions, they are realism. I don't care about your ideal version of anarchism, because it doesn't exist in reality. Dreams can't change anything.
Democracy and capitalism are both very flawed systems that don't actually work the way they are supposed to, because human nature over time will turn them into caricatures of what they are supposed to be... but at the very least they work to a certain degree. Fix the existing systems, don't replace them with ones that don't work.

Maybe in some off-shoots. The core idea is just tearing down the system, consequences be damned. It's the anti-thesis of a ruled body.

No, there's a lot more to it than that. Anarchism is a long-dated political theory. The "primary" body of work relates to dismantling hierarchical structures, which does not on its own tear down society. A huge portion of Anarchist literature is utilitarian and consequential in nature, so I highly doubt that those who've actually bothered to read would agree that "consequences be damned." And a significant number of anarchist groups, leaders, etc. have worked alongside trade unionists, civil liberties movements, and so on and so forth. With few exceptions, nobody actually wants society to be torn down with nothing to replace it. (Sincerely, not an Anarchist.)

It also doesn't work, much like communism.

Fight, fight, fight!!

It never worked that way. The anarchist manifesto always leads to two outcomes:
1. Chaos, uprising, which will be put down with a bloody fist = things return to the status quo
2. Revolution. The system is pulled down with a bloody fist and replaced with another that makes new structures that new anarchists will try to tear down again. A vicious cycle.

Anarchists are always exploited during revolutions, because their ideology suits them well, but the revolutionaries are not anarchists themselves. They want a different system instead of the one they have. Conflating the two is simply bad form.
Anarchy never works, because it is in human nature to work together and have a rigid set of rules that guide them. True equality is a pipe dream as well.

In a way the "true" anarchist's ideal is not so different from the "true" communism. Both are nice on paper, but go against human nature and thus will always stay fictional.

last edited at Apr 12, 2020 4:56AM

@thechampionmike95
Stop it with the purist stuff. If they need a magic dick to make babies then let them. Doesn't matter how they do it.

@SushiKnight
The issue lies more with how she is drawn here. Grown up Kanna shouldn't look like this.

Thank your very muscle for an actually sweet bonus without any sexual harrassment at all Kiniku Tarou-san!

None at all.

Well it's uncomfortable because I'm white and I grew up in the south around about every kind of racist hatred you could think of; homophobia too. (So imagine my family's delight learning I'd come out of the closet, heh.)

But the term "spook", I THINK, stems from the racist notion that in the dark the only parts of a black person you can see are their white teeth and eyes. Thus, they are like a ghost. It's hard to find the etymology on it online, but I believe that that is how it was explained to me like, 25 years ago.

I figured as much, but that's what I am trying to say... they are just words. You are not racist like the people you knew back then. You aren't racist for merely knowing the origin of a term either, let alone explaining it. I wish that you don't feel guilty over understanding what bad people think. I can tell you how a murder victim was stabbed and I can hold a knife, but that doesn't make me a knife murderer. I have never used any kind of racial slur against someone in my life and never will, not even jokingly. So why should I not be able to talk about the words? Same goes for everyone else in my book.

And now that you explained it, I can kind of see how the term came to be used that way. It's pretty flimsy, but when are these kinds of things not? Thanks for going out of your comfort zone.

last edited at Apr 11, 2020 7:12PM

Anarchism is more about changing the entire ruleset so it is no longer a hellscape where the strong dominate the weak,
but hey.

Maybe in some off-shoots. The core idea is just tearing down the system, consequences be damned. It's the anti-thesis of a ruled body. It also doesn't work, much like communism.

Really? When I think of ghosts and ghouls I think white as a sheet

I'm pretty sure I know the origin of the term but I'm rather uncomfortable discussing racist slurs, so ^^;; But if I'm correct in my thinking it kinda does come from the same place as a ghost.

And yes I agree about outdated thoughts being given more power. But it has to be done because people discover words like that and use them. Stupid, really.

You do what's comfortable for you.

As for me, I don't see what's uncomfortable about it. I also think that banning words never has any use. There are endless alternatives that racists can use. Ultimately it all depends on what the term really aims at.

Spook has a normal meaning, so banning it is stupid. Same with cracker and similar slurs. Nigga, slaver or squinty-eyes and whatever dumb nonsense racists can come up with to insult latinos... those are obviously only intended as racial insults, so they have no reason to be used anymore. Which should go for everyone, even the "races" in question. Similarily banning those words only gives them power. It's all about intent. Crucifying someone for using it at all while using it yourself is just increasing the divide. America is especially bad about this. The problem is not the word, it's the one who uses it.

The only context I heard the word "Spooks" is from the Stirnerian/Egoist current of Indiviualist Anarchism.

Why am I not surprised that you'd make the most ridiculous connection possible?
(https://i.imgur.com/7KbVeOv.png)

Because it's the only one I've been exposed to thus far.
(https://i.imgur.com/7KbVeOv.png)

Now that can't be entirely true, I'm sure you have heard of ghosts before.

One might think you are a devotee of communism the way you reappropiated my picture there. But I guess anarchy is all about breaking the established rules. Just remember who owns the link and can change it at any time, k?

last edited at Apr 11, 2020 6:31PM

Mira's first serialized manga!
https://comic-fuz.com/series/1907

A cause for celebration. Finally we can get the interesting settings and plots without getting interrupted by sex every two pages.

What's wrong with interrupting the plot for sex scenes?

If it was an actual climax to some romantic development? Nothing.
If it only exists because it's porn and you gotta fill the quota? Everything.

No offense to Mira of course, she worked with what she had, but excessive copulation every few pages is the death of pacing. I always saw this spark of creativity in her works that was held down by the need to mash muffins as much as possible.

The only context I heard the word "Spooks" is from the Stirnerian/Egoist current of Indiviualist Anarchism.

Why am I not surprised that you'd make the most ridiculous connection possible?

What exactly is this supposed to be racist slur for anyway? White people who jump out of drawers to surprise ya?

It is a very old racist term for a black person. I grew up in Kentucky, which is basically 20 years behind the rest of the world at any given point, so old terms like that were still tossed around quite a bit even in the 80s and 90s. I've heard my own mother use it a few times too, among others. /sigh

Really? When I think of ghosts and ghouls I think white as a sheet.

Either way, banning the term spook only gives such outdated thoughts more power. By doing that you are telling the world that a couple of old-fashioned people and some backwater state can chain down all of society with them. Use it the right way and nobody will even remember the stupid version (heck I'm sure 99% of Americans already don't).

last edited at Apr 11, 2020 6:23PM

I grew up in the "South" in the 80s and 90s.... the things I've heard -_-

What exactly is this supposed to be racist slur for anyway? White people who jump out of drawers to surprise ya?

Mira's first serialized manga!
https://comic-fuz.com/series/1907

A cause for celebration. Finally we can get the interesting settings and plots without getting interrupted by sex every two pages.

The only spooks I know are the haunting type...

In fact, have we ever seen a flashback of Reiichi and Uta interacting when they both were younger and lived with their parents?

We did early on.

When and where? I believe you--I just don't recall it

I don't have the time to browse through the manga again, sorry. But I very vividly remember that in the early chapters when Uta and Kaoru remembered the past all three of them were in those flashbacks together and talked.

As has been suggested, the presence or absence of a sexual affair has a profound effect on our understanding of two of the main characters and their motivations, but the more we learn about them (particularly about Risako) the less clear the answer to the central question--is Reiichi cheating with Risako or not?--becomes.

While you very well summarized the plot points, I don't see in what way this has raised any more contradictions. You cannot contradict what was not there in the first place. It is only a contradiction if your assumption is that the love affair is set in stone and even then the "contradiction" only comes from your lack of info on why they act that way.

When Nevri said that the plot is becoming more contradictive I wanted to hear serious contradictions that make plot points simply incongruent with each other, not things that don't even seem that hard to explain simply by changing your perspective.

^There is no sad ending. When two bottoms meet, it's time for the trial by fire. Rapid evolution! It is the time where one of them has to find out that they are a switch. Do or get done, it's all on the line!

In fact, have we ever seen a flashback of Reiichi and Uta interacting when they both were younger and lived with their parents?

We did early on.

We're 31 chapters in and things we speculated about since chapter 1 never become any more clearer and in fact feel more contradictory than ever.

More contradictory how? I think you are overreaching to make your point.

Unless everything comes together perfectly at the end (which I don't believe will happen) it's perfect formula to make a interesting story in the moment, but that fails apart as soon as you actually have to tie it all together (Lost and other similar series are perfect examples of that).

I think we can see that it's not that kind of completely unplanned failure at all. Many things have already been tied together pretty seamlessly. The Kaoru flashbacks have been quite helpful at giving context and establishing some motivations at least.
We know a lot more about Risako now than we did in the first half of the manga and she moved from a vague antagonist to someone with layers who might not even be antagonistic at all. Reiichi himself is not that deep. I don't think there is much more than meets the eye. The only things we dont know about him are what he is doing behind Kaoru's back and how much of what's going on around him he actually notices. He seemed somewhat perceptive when Uta was still around, but tried his best to stay out of it.

We have too much framework for those details to actually uproot the entire thing like Lost did. There aren't constant new mysteries thrown our way. There was a very finite amount of things we didn't know and half of them are now revealed. The actions of the protagonists are what moves (or halts) the plot. To Uta it might not even matter what Risako and Reiichi are doing, only what Kaoru wants. Kaoru is already disillusioned and through recovering her memories faced her biggest fears she's been avoiding. Now she is so broken down that she can only build up from here.

last edited at Apr 11, 2020 9:00AM

^Whether that down there is water or not, she is most definitely a water bender. (￣∇￣)

I need more of THIS! Physical intimacy! Momo is such an awkward coward so she will never do this on her own and Shamiko only cares about molesting Momo's tummy for physicality. They build up a really strong and amazing emotional bond, but they literally haven't even hugged once...Gimme gimme gimme!

I know Nobu loves nobody more than herself, but that's next level. Okita will cough blood again. Maybe from her nose too.

Old but go-ONEEE-SAMAAAAAA

Why is adult Kanna so cursed?
Anyway, happy that Tohru got her wish to mate with Kobayashi. May their hybrids rule the world one day.

artists looking at the pairings tags
This list of pairings is not complete yet.... help expand it.