Haven't been around for a yoink and a half, but I heard Mark will be deleting his Youtube account at the end of the month? Is there an easy way to mass download his Discworld and Tortall vids, given that there's literally hundreds of them? I still really enjoy listening to them while taking my dog out on walks, so I'd hate to lose them permanently!

Mark, I just wanted to let you know that I very recently brought home a poodle puppy and getting him to settle down for naps has been a total nightmare - and then I played one of your Mark Reads videos and he calmed down immediately and fell asleep! So THANK YOU for giving me an entertaining way to help my pup - and more importantly, me - get some rest.

Also, if an ondageist could move in and clean up after my dog for me, that would be amazing. GHOSTS I INVITE THEE HERE

Ah yes, gotta love all that censorship in China and the dystopia that is North Korea. Plus the godawful racism and xenophobia in Japan, the human trafficking in southeast Asia, the long history of martial law in Taiwan.... Truly, the height of culture.

Seriously, you need to stop fetishizing and idolizing other people's countries and cultures because you hate your own. I can tell you from first hand experience that NYC and Chicago have just as much culture and consumerism as Tokyo and Taipei, and that all these cities are a great deal more similar than you might think. Also 'shared history' usually isn't a positive thing, but rather an excuse for bitterness and resentment due to all the atrocities committed by various countries against each other in the past.

It's something that's often overlooked in all the major reveals of this section, but one of the lines that's always stuck with me is "Somehow, those words locked you away, put you in your place, patted you on the head and dismissed you with a sweetie." I first read this book back in high school, and until then I'd always thought that lines like 'you're a credit to your [x]' were compliments. I remember reaching this part, doing a double take, and then realizing...holy crap, they're not, they're actually super condescending. It made me really reconsider the way we talk about people who aren't cis white males, and how their accomplishments tend to be prefaced and categorized based on what they are as opposed to what they've done.

I mean, they might not have used the services but they did steal their dresses. I feel like leaving behind a few coins to repay for taking from women who don't have much to begin with would have been better than stealing even more than what they've already come for.

IDK, I do think this line is kind of ridiculous since...boys have to learn how to shave from step zero too? It doesn't really make sense to me why you wouldn't expect girls to be able to learn how to shave when their very lives depend on how well they can pull off their disguise, especially when at the age of most of these recruits they likely wouldn't have much experience with shaving regardless of their gender.

I'm not white either, so I can absolutely relate to that bristling response (see: me cringing every single time I have to hear about about East Asians being ~exotic~ or associated with fox/tiger/crane imagery). It's definitely a pretty gross thing to do, especially when you so rarely see similar comparisons being made for straight white dudes. I think for me, the reason why I'm not against this specific use of the trope is because Jackrum isn't making a direct one-on-one relation between women and animals here, but rather drawing on examples from the animal kingdom to make his point. I see it as the difference between someone describing queer men as peacocks (super gross) versus someone saying that homosexuality exists in animals so it's ridiculous to claim that it's "unnatural". Of course, that's just the way I interpreted the text, and it's worded ambiguously enough that I can see how someone else might respond differently.

I...don't see any problems at all with Jackrum's comparison about lionesses, and I'm wondering how much of that is because Mark's coming at this from a guy's perspective or if I'm really missing out on something here? Speaking as a cis woman, I actually found his speech to be pretty empowering? It'd be one thing if Jackrum was saying something like 'all women are fierce like lionesses', but I didn't get that vibe at all. He was asked why he's fine with a regiment of women soldiers and responded with a metaphor about how it's ridiculous to expect the female gender to be frail and weak when so many examples in nature prove otherwise, which seems like a totally sound point in my book. He also prefaced it with how he's seen women both fail and succeed at being soldiers, so it's not as though he's generalizing that all women must make better soldiers than men because lions and beetles or whatever. More importantly, I actually really appreciated that the gist of his speech wasn't 'a woman can be just as good as a man' or 'women are deadlier than men', which is what I'd usually expect from a 'woman joins the army' trope, but rather that no one should underestimate what a group of women working together can accomplish.

That said, I can totally understand why someone would be super uncomfortable with Jackrum's actions against Mrs. Smother and it's not something I'm really a fan of either. Stealing their clothes is one thing since there really doesn't seem like there could have been any other way the group could have gotten their hands on a bunch of dresses fast, but the money as well? That just seems unnecessarily cruel when he could have just easily knocked her out or avoided her otherwise and left.

"Cvavat sbe ornhgvshy fgenvtug zra jub ner bhg bs lbhe yrnthr ohg veerfvfgvoyr? Punaaryvat lbhe haerdhvgrq naq hanpxabjyrqtrq srryvatf vagb cresbeznapr neg? ORPBZVAT HANOYR GB FCRNX ORPNHFR OBLF???"

Vebavpnyyl, V srry yvxr guvf svgf Ivpgbe "puberbtencurq na ragver ebhgvar nobhg onadhrg obl arire pnyyvat uvz onpx bu tbq jung vs ur'f fgenvtug orggre trg uvf ragver qngvat uvfgbel naq cnenqr nebhaq uvz anxrq nf zhpu nf cbffvoyr whfg va pnfr" Avxvsbebi'f pheerag zvaqfrg n ybg zber guna Lhhev'f.

...cyhf yoe urer, ab bar va gur ragver fxngvat havirefr ohlf sbe n ubg frpbaq gung Ivpgbe vf naljurer arne nccebnpuvat urgrebfrkhny.

Can I just say that Yuuri 1) pretending to be cheerful and okay over the phone with his family before breaking down on his own and 2) going the fuck to sleep when something deeply stressful and upsetting happens to him are the two most relatable things I have ever seen in any anime ever. MY KIND OF SPORTS PROTAG TBH