Clancy was a staunch conservative. Dedicated several of his books to notable conservative politicans such as Ronald Reagan. He supported the NRA (yes I understand the NRA has changed form over the years but I don’t really care) and he opposed abortion.

He praised Bush for being a ‘good guy’, granted he did challenge the justifications for the Iraq War (I also don’t really care about a broken clock managing to be right).

I haven’t read any of his novels for a very long time, but what I remember is that amongst the tech and spy stuff there is stuff that sounds like very clear RW propaganda (to me).

Granted, this is the first time I’ve thought about Clancy in years outside of conversations with my (you might have guessed it) conservative coworker. I don’t really know much about the man other than he was definitely conservative. I think you could probably make the argument that he was center right, and that the center right from the 60’s is very different than the center right of today. Draw your own conclusions.

Why would Clancy write anything that isn’t in full support of conservative idealogy?

Capitalizing every word in a sentence is also stupid, yet here we have people discussing the pseudo-grammar of it.

You must have tree trunks for legs, but my very literal perception of this joke has always been ‘uphill, no downhill — just uphill’. As if they were on some kind of treadmill of hell.

I’ve gardened all my life and my favorite flowers are morning glories, please shove a cactus up your ass. Thank you.

But that’s not a hill? What were you, rich?

Even if you can’t play the game, watching a 100% playthrough with no commentary is worth it. The story is easily the best part of the game.

At least, in my opinion.

Makes me think God was a woman, and this is her pulling up the ladder.

I’m not being serious, of course, but it’s a fun concept — to me.

Building stuff comes after the final stand against all odds.

Action movie trope, first that comes to mind is Bladerunner 2049.

Hey, you can’t just smash my trash with a hammer!

Absolutely, I’m not arguing that — do you understand that what you’re saying is logically unsound?

Edit: If your argument continues to betray a lack of understanding of how the average American MAGA has been brainwashed, I’m not going to bother trying to argue this.

How does that pass as a response to you?

Let’s lay out a few things.

Firstly, Nazis in the U.S. are predominantly Christian. One of the big ones that kids are taught in Christianity is that you do not commit suicide.

Secondly, Nazis do murder. Their entire goal is to extract every last ounce of value from literally anything they can justify to their base, by any means necessary. Case in point: concentration camps.

So does it make sense to you that under your assumption that the Air Force are U.S. Nazis, that the Nazis in the Air Force are killing themselves over what is literally their entire goal? Like, are you aware of the gravity of that action, as a Christian?

Whelp, I’ve done what I can as a good Christian Nationalist to wipe out the browns. Time to kill myself so that I… can’t get into heaven.

Idk, that logic doesn’t track to me. Horrific atrocities committed by the Air Force notwithstanding.

This makes me wonder, is the Big O notation connected to the square cube law in any way? Cuz Big O being named for one of the things that makes its existence impossible would amuse me.

Something tells me philosophers are typically not too concerned with attracting sexual partners.

So Cowboy Bebop is not a shonen. It’s a seinen Apparently it isn’t a seinen, but it would be if it started as manga. Trigun is a little odd because it shifted from shonen to seinen somewhere along its publication history.

I point that out because seinen/josei compared to shonen/shojo is more or less the equivalent of young adult fiction to children’s fiction.

Children’s fiction is supposed to be easy to understand. It should be filled with trope’s, kids can’t really empathize with things that are more complicated. Or maybe they’re at an age where they can but maybe shouldn’t, i.e. show with themes of suicide for an already teetering on depressed teenager.

All that to say that I think your family members perspective is… severely limited. Not watching Trigun because you’d rather rewatch Naruto is 100% their choice but… it’s a pretty stupid way to live your life.

“Pff, why would I watch these ninjas do magic? I can just watch space wizards do magic and fight with lightsabers. Naruto is trash, Star Wars is peak.” Or something.

Edit: I’m completely wrong about Bebop, it is not a seinen because it never started as a manga. Apparently that is an important distinction. I think if it had started as a manga, it would be a seinen.

It isn’t necessarily that tropes are bad, it’s more like once you’ve seen a trope you can recognize the pattern and once you recognize the pattern you can more or less determine what’s going to happen.

Is the Hero’s Journey a bad trope? Not at all, as you’ve said — some of my most beloved stories are structured around the Hero’s Journey. I don’t know if you’ve ever heard of Redwall, but all of the books in that ‘world’ by Brian Jacques are very close to my heart. It’s also part of why I understand that once you’ve experienced at least one or two good Hero’s Journey’s — you’ve more or less experienced them all.

Is it wrong to be entertained by them anyway? No, I hope you don’t think I’m saying that.

Honeybee alarm pheromone smells exactly like bananas.

If you’re a beekeeper you either already know about it or can test it. Just make sure you’re in a bee suit, they will attack you.

Is it? Shonen is a revolving door of tropes, you’d be hard pressed to find a shonen anime that actually shakes the formula up.