Krobus Is Enjoying The New Waterfalls...

I love the post-apocalyptic genre as much as the next horror fan, but there is something to be unpacked in how they often reinforce very reactionary political ideas. Not just in the more bluntly conservative ways of thematically rewarding ideas like

“shoot first ask questions never”

“never offer mercy”

“torture works”

“Strong Government may be doing Bad Things but it is the only thing stopping people from becoming roaming bands of cannibal rapists unless Strong Men with police or military training maintain order once society collapses”

But also in the less easily recognizable reactionary beliefs like

“power vacuums are real and inevitable” (implying that unless you plan to exert a similar level of power and take the top of the hierarchy then you should not seek to dismantle power)

“the people who survive are the best— the strongest and smartest and most resourceful, the ones who deserve it most.” (implying that eugenics is an inevitable biological force rather than a political ideology)

“If someone who deserves to live dies, it is due to the actions of a villain, ‘good’ ‘important’ people do not just die from sickness or hunger or chance or mundane accidents” (more eugenics tbh, or at very least a just world ideology & confusing storytelling conventions with how the world works)

I think this becomes an issue when people—who have not studied, for example, the way that communities engage in mutual aid during natural disasters even if disconnected beforehand—will assume that collapse will inevitably lead to evil cannibal hoards as the biggest threat to survival and therefore the most important thing to prepare for, instead of understanding that collapse is much more likely to lead to an absolute need for community interdependence and cooperation to survive in the face of environmental disaster. I think it’s an issue if you can’t picture disabled people during collapse because you watched a hundred depictions of post apocalyptic shows where disabled people are eerily absent or die immediately, instead of internalizing the much more likely reality that if you survive disaster even if you were able-bodied previously, you and everyone you know will likely be surviving as disabled people.

like the media is fun as a form of storytelling, but if you are approaching your imagination of the future with increasing climate crisis with images you got from zombie shows, you do need to take a break from the fiction and learn from communities that have actually experienced natural disasters in real life.

Fondly remembering the time that a cat owner casually entered their calico Maine Coon in a cat fancier’s competition and the judges lost their minds because the cat was 1) male and 2) able to bear children

I STRUGGLED SO MUCH WITH THIS COMIC IT'S NOT EVEN FUNNY

thinking about Jonathan Sims and Samama Khalid.

Thinking about how, by all laws of Horror Story Trope, Jon should not be the protagonist. If I'd never heard of tma and you showed me a lineup of the archives crew and asked me to guess who died first I would have pointed to Jon. He's the paranoid professor archetype. The one who dies discovering some crucial bit of information at the beginning to push the plot forward. He's unfriendly, cowardly, insecure, and makes other people do his investigation for him for all of season 1. He doesn't do anything even remotely heroic until the second half of the show. He has no interest in romance for the first half of the show. The audience wasn't even aware Jon had a dark past until he starts telling us about A Guest for Mr. Spider. But he is *Chosen.* Despite the fact that he has no actual qualities of a hero, he's chosen as the eyes special boy. Over the course of the show he starts to become more and more like an actual protagonist. He starts trying to save the world, resist the eye, all that jazz. For one reason or another, being the Archivist turns Jonathan "definition of a side character" Sims into the main character.

Then we have Sam. Sam starts acting like a horror/mystery protagonist almost immediately. He is young, charming, has a mysterious past (that we are made aware of pretty much right away) and a curiosity that causes him to frequently put himself personally in the path of The Horrors. He pokes around where he doesn't belong and looks for clues. He's the center of an office love triangle for goodness sake. He has a strong sense of duty to others and will put himself in harms way to protect those he loves. He exudes main character energy. He has everything a horror protagonist needs to push the plot along. But Sam wasn't *Chosen.* Despite being exactly the person you'd expect the plot to follow. And I can't help but wonder if, in the same way that the narrative made Jon important, it's going to make Sam unimportant. Irrelevant. If, with his rejection from The Magnus Institute, Sam is going to disappear completely. Become a mystery.

Because at the end of the day, so much of your life, your impact on the world, your relevance, has absolutely nothing to do with you. So much of it has everything to do with those in power, and whether they decide you're important.

It all comes down to your own rotten luck.

King of a ruined world why not ruin me instead...🤤

Something more personal- drawing him takes some of the weight off

"What's your choice, Archivist?"👁