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K, so.

I keep seeing a lot of assumptions that Xeno is some combination of:

Cold and emotionless

Attempting to be cold and emotionless

Unaware of his own emotions

And none of this has never quite made sense to me. He is also cast as selfish and greedy, at least at first, and you cannot...be those traits without emotions and knowing you want things, and what those things are. He is given five stars in "ambition" on his character profile (although the word use also has some sinister undertones, but that's not the point). You cannot be ambitious without desire! Desire is an emotion!

It would also be a wild contrast to not only the other scientists in the series, but how science, generally, is treated in the series. Sure, okay, he's supposed to be Senku's foil; that's blatant and obvious, but the point of the series is that also science is awesome and fun and emotionally charged. Like. This series almost brought me to tears when they made a light bulb for thirty seconds because it basked in the idea of “conquering the 24 hour day.” We’re treated to a kid waxing poetic about using organic chemistry to create things that shouldn’t exist. We’re treated to the concept of even food being science. Everything is science.

So why on Earth would Xeno be immune of the emotional power of science because he's A Professional Scientist? If anything, it would make him more vulnerable, no? Science is captivating, and he is captivated.

I'll get to more talk about Xeno and how he handles emotions in a sec, but first it's time for the Fun With Linguistics Portion of this post! Because I think some of it comes down to this bit in Viz's translation, because...well.

He is saying here that being both emotional and rational is a contradiction. He's saying you can't be both and he doesn't understand how you even could be. And he's rational, because that's how you Science, and he is Sciencing!

The problem is, that's. Not. What he says in Japanese. Which is how I'm keeping Bookwalker in business to figure out what they actually said.

I get why Viz got there. But...well. Viz. I went and got this volume in Japanese so I could see what he was saying and if it really was...that, and I had to accept the series was being kind of weird again.

But no.

RIP to me because Dr. STONE manga really does not like letting me zoom in far enough, but here we are: 情緒と合理性という矛盾した概念を笑いながら両取りするような男だった

情緒: Emotion

と: and (used for nouns, not phrases, but that does not matter here because we're talking nouns)

合理性: Rationality

Okay, so we have "Emotion/sentiment and rationality". Fair play, Viz.

But here's where it starts going off the rails.

という: Yes, earlier I said と meant "and" but when it's in combo with いう it does something different: basically, it shoves the stuff before it all into a...chunk. It's now all one entity, and it's about to be described or named. So now we're speaking of both "emotion and rationality" as a Singular Thing moving together grammatically

矛盾した: Contradiction/inconsistency. So. "emotion and rationality" is inconsistent and a contradiction

概念: Concept

So: The inconsistent/contradictory concept(s) of emotion and rationality.

The concept is the contradiction.

Not. Byakuya. Byakuya. Is not a "paradox." Byakuya's not even in this sentence yet.

を: Particle that marks the stuff that comes before it as the object of the sentence. Or at least. Is being acted on by a verb. Usually this come right before a verb, but the sentence structure of this sentence is whack, so. Anyway, basically, "The contradictory concept of emotion and rationality" is being Verbed On here

���い: Laughter, smiling, generally good humor. Can also be in a dismissive, ridiculing way

ながら: While, during, throughout

"While smiling" Okay, that's not a verb yet. What is this verb that’s being done while smiling?

両取り: Kind of forked attack in which two pieces are both being attacked at the same time. It's a shogi or chess term, which we already know Xeno is not immune to. Kind of a pincer move but with two pieces instead of one.

する: To do. This gets tagged onto nouns a lot to Verb them. It's Verbing the attack.

Hey, we've got a verb to apply to that concept now! So, "The contradictory concept of emotion and rationality, while smiling attack/handle/tackle/manage.

ような: Type, kind, -ish, like

男: Man. Just. Man. We're done here

だった: Past tense of the plain copula "da." Kind of a more casual form of でした. It means..."is" I guess. Kind of doesn't, but it's complicated, and it can be translated as "is" okay?

So "Was the type of man who attacks the contradictory concepts of emotion and rationality with a smile."

Or rather: not the kind of person Xeno is, who clearly finds this whole deal stressful.

So I see how Viz...did this. They massaged the language to be a little more. Human-sounding, and to fill out all the speech bubbles. But. They kind of. Made some stuff up that sounded right and ended up doing something weird to Xeno's entire personality.

"That man was somehow able…to balance the contradiction of…rationality and sentiment with a smile" would have been almost as long, sound probably as human, and probably have been better.

It's not that Byakuya is unique in balancing his feelings with his science. He's unique in that he's unbothered by it and does not struggle to reconcile them. Xeno and Byakuya's disconnect was not in that Byakuya (and Senku, in his footsteps) was both emotional and a brilliant scientist, but in that he found this all so easy. And Byakuya probably didn't understand why Xeno...didn't. They didn't dislike each other. Xeno didn't find his emotions annoying. He was confused.

Xeno is not and never was even early in his arc in denial of the fact that he could and does have feelings. He just didn't know how to handle them while also acting rationally, as befits a man of science. Science, after all, requires rational thought.

Now let’s dig in a little with our three main "science-users" and their handling of emotions. Because they don’t all do it like Byakuya, but they’re certainly not all doing what Xeno is.

Senku's catchphrase is literally a call to emotion. He thinks of science as exhilarating, and he is actively seeking out the emotional stimulation. Early in the series, he even comments that the "least logical part of him" is telling him to do something, in defiance of what logic would suggest—and he goes for it instead of the logic. And it's the right move, in the end. He loves his friends. He loves his dad. He loves life and he loves people and he's constantly having emotional reactions. And yes, he hides the more tender ones, but he has them and never denies them in a serious attempt to convince people he doesn't have feelings. At one point, he even disavows that concept, saying he does get angry, it's just not useful so he doesn't generally lean into it (my therapist would love him). He hides his tenderer bits because they're soft and he knows how it would feel to have them pressed on, so he gently redirects people. And he gives himself time to feel things before the bluster. He knows how he feels about things, likes feeling things, and is aware enough of his emotional reactions to handle them well. Handle other people’s? Nah, that’s what he’s got Gen for. But his own? He’s got this.

Chrome also has lots of feelings. About science, but also about Senku, about Ruri, his friends, etc. He's always, always determined to save everyone and keep everyone alive and happy and together in ways even Senku, the guy who chose even pre-petrification that he'd find a way to save everyone and keep everyone safe in defiance of logic, is not. He gets openly anxious. Is he always aware of his emotions? The situation with Ruri would indicate no, but he has them and he doesn't ever try to hide them. Chrome is definitely on the more emotional end of our scientist spectrum with things like the conversation with Xeno of "Do I get it? No. Is it logical to me? Also no. But I'm respecting people's feelings about it, so whatever. I don't need to logic it out. The why and how does not actually matter.”

Xeno pulls the science in the series more toward "sacrifice feelings for logic" the way Chrome is "sacrifice logic for feelings" but as Chrome is not immune to logic, Xeno is not immune to feelings. They both have both. Xeno wouldn't be able to turn his face away and hide his feelings if he was not deeply aware of them. He hides his more tender feelings, just as Senku does, because he doesn't want other people pressing on them (he seems okay with Stan nudging up against them, but his thing with Stan is…Weird), but we do see him openly enthusiastic about science, vehement and heated about people who ruined his plans pre-petrification, smug as hell when he thinks he’s won, goofy and teasing with people he’s close to (Stan and Senku, mostly), proud af of himself and people he cares about, morose about people dying (he really genuinely does not seem to like killing people/having people killed, y’all). He emotes! He’s willing to emote! He was acting like a loon in the North America arc because he was having lots of feelings.

He was openly heartbroken to know he had opposing principles to Senku from the outset. He spent time considering that and decided to sideline that pain in order to do what he felt was "logical" and remove Senku. I have never seen a man so happy his plan failed. His plan was going to hurt, and he knew it was going to hurt, or we wouldn't have had like an entire page of him thinking about it with his head in his hand.

But he was doing what he thought was best for science. He would lose a brilliant scientist, but one that was hampered, and he would be free to pursue it properly and keep it flourishing. He can be smug and goofy and teasing and proud because he doesn’t have to stop being those things for the sake of science. He is most often morose when he has to do something that will make him unhappy because…science. Sacrificing is not being unaware of or dismissive of and in the case of feelings, not even trying to be rid of. It's prioritizing them lower than other things: in his case, the pursuit of science. He lets himself get hurt over and over, but only for science.

He loves science.

And he doesn’t know how to love science and also protect his feelings.

Senku wins because he can square his science and his feelings (with some help from Chrome, at times), thanks to Byakuya. He makes them work as one, just like his dad did (although with a very different personality).

Xeno gets pulled into that same mindset eventually—building a two-way rocket is in no way the logical path, younger Xeno would think, and he would have to just be Sad. To live out his life without his people. Oh well, time to sacrifice all my feelings for the Cause.

But there's a way to finish the moon mission that needs to be done, and get his people back. As long as this time he's learning from his little mentee instead of his mentee learning from him.

Sir, the IRB called again and told you to stop heedlessly hurting people in pursuit of science yes that includes yourself, you dumbass.

So, no, Xeno is not:

Cold and emotionless

Attempting to be cold and emotionless

Unaware of his own emotions

He is:

A self-aware emotional man who hurt himself trying to commit himself to what he loved (science) the only way he knew how and couldn't claw his way out of the hole without a bunch of kids who hadn't hurt themselves yet.

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Did you ever manage to wrap your head around Stan's position in the military? Because I'm getting a lot of mixed signals aha. Also, just love all of your dr stone posts, they fuel me :)

Yeah, my head is settled on: The author has absolutely no fuckin' clue how the US military works and aggressively did not care. Which is fine, really, because it's a fairly minor point in the series and there's lots of other stuff to care about (although I would also like to lodge a complaint about how Senku is apparently the president of the science club as a freshie, but again, the timelines of stuff happening here wildly makes no sense and they really should not have even tried).

But as an American, oh my God.

If we cared about realism, he would be in the Marines based on his dress uniform and frankly also based on the weird variety of skills he has because the Marine do and always have occupied a very weird place in the US military in which they are expected to be kind of a jack of all trades and they tend to have much higher standards and much smaller forces than the other branches.

And if he's a special ops Marine, then he would be a Marine Raider in MARSOC, and if he's a commander of a MARSOC squad, he would have to be a Captain, which is a commissioned officer rank which pretty much universally requires a 4-year college degree. He could theoretically be a higher rank but at his age that's already pushing into nonsense and also unlikely for him to be boots on the ground anymore, and he clearly is.

According to the fanbook, he enlisted in the Air Force (???????????????? THEN WHY IS HE WEARING---DRESS UNIFORMS ARE NOT INTERCHANGEABLE????) at 18, was selected for the "special forces" at 19 (that is not how anything works holy shit, getting any of the special forces in any of the US branches is really rigorous and difficult and requires a lot of training) and promoted as the youngest commander in history (yeah for fucking sure) of a special ops team at 21.

This is just not how anything works. If he's a commissioned officer, he would still be in college. Also I think the author might think the US has just one generic special forces squad from all the branches, when in fact each has their own. The Navy SEALs are not the Marine Raiders are not the Army Green Berets are not the Air Commandos.

*yells into a void about this*

So anyway, if we want to align this to realism, he's a Captain of a Marine Raider team.

If we want to not do that, he's...a commander of special forces after being promoted out of the Air Force because...he was...good with a gun, I guess, and now he gets to wear the Marine uniform???

*rubs temples*

I like the first. Because at some point I am just going to have to ignore the fact that canon doesn't make any sense after acknowledging that's what it is.

It is possible that the author/artist just associated "Marines" with "US Special Forces" because until the last couple decades they were sort of treated that way, because of, again, the weird place they hold in the US Military generally, to the point where my grandfather insisted all Marines were special forces (he was a Marine, go figure).

But that hasn't been true for a while and the Marine Raiders were formed well before Stan could have ever joined the military.

Okay, I think that...probably answers your question? I can talk about this for a while because I spent a long time looking this stuff up. Like probably 20-40 hours. Because Stan is a pretty gay anime boy with an 8 pack whom I latched onto and thus this happened.

Also I want him to be a Marine Raider because the Marine motto is "Semper Fidelis" or "Always Faithful" and the Marine Special Ops motto specifically is "Spiritus Invictus" or "Unconquerable Spirit" and I suspect that wasn't on purpose for the reasons listed above, but goddamn does that fit him perfectly.

Also the Raider creed fits him super perfectly if you sub country in there for Xeno.

Anyway, feel free to ask more questions about Stuff.

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This episode man, this episode

(spoilers for the last episode)

I can't get over this scene where Kohaku carries and throws Xeno around and he just accepts it

Then he was so confused when Chrome declined his ruling the world offer help

He's looking at him like ❓❓❓ huh??????

AND THEN HSJSHHSHDBJDJDJKDJDKKWJDHVDBFBBF HDJDJD JDJDJF SKSKD *slamming keyboard sound effect here*

And Stan was SO mad his husband was kidnapped (I would too tbh this is a valid reaction)

Yeah omw to go to a coma until the next episodes air

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Skin on skin contact while the other guy is naked🤨🤨 kinda gay

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｢毒ガス｣毒瓦斯 ｢甘い毒｣甜蜜的毒 It's been a while. I'm back. お久しぶりです。

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Somehow I had completely missed the memo that season 4 of Dr. Stone has started airing. Now I’m just curious to see how they’re going to adapt these particular frames from the later parts of the manga. Hope they keep the tenderness in their looks as is.

Also, I’m never gonna let anyone forget about this cover art for chapter 158.

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Los esposos 💖💖💖💖💖💖💛🩶

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babe wake up new official art just dropped and they're having a cunt off

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not enough Gambit!!

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A bit late, but happy Friday the 13th :)

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You know what the most frustrating thing about the vegans throwing a fit over my “Humans aren’t Parasites” post is?  I really wasn’t trying to make a point about animal agriculture. Honestly, the example about subsistence hunting isn’t the main point. That post was actually inspired by thoughts I’ve been having about the National Park system and environmentalist groups.

See, I LOVE the National Parks. I always have a pass. I got to multiple parks a year. I LOVE them, and always viewed them as this unambiguously GOOD thing. Like, the best thing America has done. 

BUT, I just finished reading this book called “I am the Grand Canyon” all about the native Havasupai people and their fight to gain back their rights to the lands above the canyon rim. Historically, they spent the summer months farming in the canyon, and then the winter months hunter-gathering up above the rim. When their reservation was made though, they lost basically all rights to the rim land (They had limited grazing rights to some of it, but it was renewed year to year and always threatened, and it was a whole thing), leading to a century long fight to get it back. 

And in that book there are a couple of really poignant anecdotes- one man talks about how park rangers would come harass them if they tried to collect pinon nuts too close to park land- worried that they would take too many pinon nuts that the squirrels wanted. Despite the fact that the Havasupai had harvested pinon nuts for thousands and thousands of years without ever…like…starving the squirrels. 

There’s another anecdote of them seeing the park rangers hauling away the bodies of dozens of deer- killed in the park because of overpopulation- while the Havasupai had been banned from hunting. (Making them more and more reliant on government aid just to survive the winter months.) 

They talk about how they would traditionally carve out these natural cisterns above the rim to catch rainwater, and how all the animals benefitted from this, but it was difficult to maintain those cisterns when their “ownership” of the land was so disputed. 

So here you have examples of when people are forcibly separated from their ecosystem and how it hurts both those people and the ecosystem. 

And then when the Havasupai finally got legislation before Congress to give them ownership of the rim land back- their biggest opponent was the Parks system and the Sierra Club. The Sierra Club (a big conservation group here in the US) ran a huge smear campaign against these people on the belief that any humans owning this land other than the park system (which aims at conservation, even while developing for recreation) was unacceptable. 

And it all got me thinking about how, as much as I love the National Parks, there are times when its insistence that nature be left “untouched” (except, ya know, for recreation) can actually harm both the native people who have traditionally been part of those ecosystems AND potentially the ecosystems themselves. And I just think there’s a lot of nuance there about recognizing that there are ways for us to be in balance with nature, and that our environmentalism should respect that and push for sustainability over preserving “pristine” human-less landscapes. Removing ourselves from nature isn’t the answer. 

But apparently the idea that subsistence hunting might actually not be a moral catastrophe really set the vegans off.  Woopie. 

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i will never be over the fact that during first contact a human offered their hand to a vulcan and the vulcan was just like “wow humans are fucking wild” and took it

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Transformers has a lot of quotable lines, especially from the animated movie, but “I’ve heard it said that we only gain wisdom through suffering, and tonight I intend to make you very wise” is so fucking raw and needs more appreciation

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ideo woulda won against that little twink if he rolled up in this little number instead fr fr

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Whenever I’m sad I think about the fact that Michael Myers does have a sense of humor because this fucker absolutely put on a sheet and some glasses and was like ‘this will be the greatest prank on planet earth just u fuckin wait’

AND IT WORKED SHE HAD NO FUCKIN CLUE