stupid little boy collectors anonymous @basedjamil - Tumblr Blog

fanfic writing going great this week

i've been looking at the designs for sparklink stars -- i was going to be like "if you guys will indulge me a moment to post about something that isn't twst on my twst blog" but i mean where else would i post about this -- which if you haven't been in the loop on this sparklink stars is disney's upcoming joseimuke mobage where the boys in it are disney characters, but like different disney characters from the ones in twst, and also instead of wizard school they are in boy bands or something i think.

anyway these are the designs they've revealed so far and today i realised what's bothering me about these and it's that none of them have any eyeshadow on

isn't that sad ?? don't they look kind of bare.

obviously this is a whole different game with a whole different artistic direction but man there's really not a whiff of the potent drag vibes that make twst so special. this really highlights for me the fact that twst only ended up being compelling because for some reason yana toboso was afflicted with Inspiration like some kind of evil status effect by the experience of watching disney's mid 2014 film maleficent. there's absolutely no way they'll get that lucky twice, especially if they don't put any of these guys in high heels

Honestly if Jamils parents got fired or something itd just be extremely embarrassing socially. Its a well paying gig and its got its shit but the danger is mostly like rich ppl are insane with insane problems versus anything abt the scalding sands itself

there's the social embarrassment wrt working for these guys being your family's whole traditional Thing & also uhh their house. is on the asim property. they would lose their longtime family home as well as having their family identity disrupted and their financial security threatened (altho they do seem to be pretty well-off). it WOULD suck big time for them

like that's the issue: that if kalim got upset about something jamil did he could make it jamil's and his family's problem in a huge way, because his family is very rich and jamil's family work for them. if you have enough money your tantrums become life ruining for other people. that's nightmarish, and insisting that there has to be slavery and torture and violence involved for jamil to deserve sympathy would be shockingly shortsighted even if people's eagerness to imagine those things must be happening in an arab inspired setting wasn't also fundamentally racist

rich people being fucked IS more than adequate to explain everything that's going on here lol. there is simply no need for this nonsense

#jamil viper #i've said as much before but i feel similarly about kalim being depicted as experiencing terrible violence during kidnappings #like the kidnapping itself is already horrible. that's really horrifying for a child to go through.#needing to have him get tortured for the experience to be Adequately Traumatic feels . mm. like i said shortsighted #kalim al asim

one of my biggest regrets is that this is a side blog, so when people block this account it doesn't stop their posts from showing up in the tags for me until i block them back from my main account. if i make a bunch of posts about this fandom's relentless orientalist bullshit and people get mad about it, the trash should be taking itself out for me. but no .

imagine if i went back to working on my fanfiction instead of Posting ,

basedjamil

why is it that in fanfic about jamil and kalim the possibility of people getting executed for minor things comes up so much? we've seen silk city in the game and it's pretty normal. it can't be just because of the films the characters are based on because execution and the threat of execution come up plenty in e.g. the hunchback of notre dame, alice in wonderland, etc. and i've never seen anyone write about the queendom of roses or the shaftlands this way. what's goin on here why is everyone imagining folks in the scalding sands, by all accounts a regular place to live, are getting thrown in dungeons and beheaded all the time

bubbleddisasters

Hi! Huge lore nerd here, I might be able to help explain! (I do not mean that in an asshole way I genuinely want to help explain why this might be)

What I think (and I could be wrong, I don’t know what fics you read) the reason this is often mentioned has to do Jamils position and how genuinely horrific his situation is, and some context clues we can take from both his OB flashback, lines in the Japanese, and other dialogue.

On that note, its also a result of associating how fucked up the Asims (not Kalim) are with the entirety of the Scalding Sands, which doesn’t make alot of sense until you realize that in theory, whatever legal system they have either allows or permits this, or there is an extreme case of corruption going on.

Back to Jamil, In the English Dub, for some unknown reason, Jamil is referred to as an indentured servant, which makes things more confusing, considering how indentured servants actually work. (Forced to work for free until either a debt is considered paid or for a contracted certain time period, although historically excuses and situations would be manipulated often to extend this), but in the Japanese original, he is referred to as a slave.

In either form, if we draw from his parents reaction to even the concept of Jamil surpassing Kalim in anyway, his stated inability to leave the Asims, and the fact he is practically treated like a meat shield for Kalim, and cross compare that to the historical treatment of both indentured servants and slaves, it becomes clear that its not too different.

From there, the conclusion can easily be drawn that if Jamil is to “overstep” in the eyes of the Head of the Asims (not Kalim, his father), it would likely end violently, not just for Jamil, but possibly his whole family too.

Although this doesn’t necessarily mean execution or dungeons, beating or torture is unfortunately another possibility.

It’s very, very clear that the Asims, outside of Kalim, are not good people, and Kalim, as we already know, can be quite the unreliable narrator when it comes to directly addressing the horrors and atrocities committed by his family, even those done to him directly (Kidnapping, attempted murder, assassinations, etc) both as a way to cope, and because he literally grew up knowing nothing else than that life. That was his norm.

Jamil has also been used as both a poison tester and bodyguard since youth. They directly used a child, hell, someone elses child, as a shield and caretaker for him.

In their eyes, he is more of a tool than a human being. He is dehumanized to the point of them seeing his life as practically having only worth if he’s serving and protecting Kalims.

When he was poisoned as a child from testing Kalims curry, if not for Kalims intervention and desperation to save him, they would have most likely allowed him to simply die then and there, and shrugged off his death as the loss of an asset, and nothing more than.

So, if one thinks about it, the Asim riches are theoretically made of the blood and suffering of those in their grasp.

Now, in a normal situation, I’d imagine the Asims would be on every news station if just the concept of them even having slaves got out, not to mention the horrific treatment. But heres the thing : We know that the Asims hold high government power, and are quite literally direct relatives to the royal family.

So we can theorize that, to get away with such disgusting blatant abuse and dehumanization, the Scalding Sands either legally permits this treatment, or the corruption within its government runs deep and rampant enough for them to get away with it in the first place.

Personally, I believe the latter. It would clear up the reason as to why they are permitted to go to schools / have an education, aswell as friends and some basic communication outside, (although we do know it is monitored/ they are restricted from saying certain things) This may be possibly usrd as a way to make the situation and treatment seem less fucked than it is, and to make the general public more complicit in allowing this to continue.

But anyway, thats really just my deductions from what I’ve gathered, although the Scalding Sands doesn’t seem to be the only country with suspicious and/or neglectful or possibly corrupt behaviors, as I could go on another long discussion of the Sunset Savannas obvious case of the lower class neglection and my own theories of illegal citizen displacement for profit because the sheer existence of the “hot springs” MAKES NO SENSE UNLESS THATS THE CASE-

*ahem* Sorry. Anyway. We also know that Briar Valley suffers double extreme cases of racism (or specism?) with both humans, and as shown in (SPOILERS) Lilias dream, some fae aswell, as they are considered lower or literally “dirty” and “contaminated”, which we can gather is also extreme from the way they treated Lilia after even after he loyally served and protected the country for hundreds of years not to mention SACRIFICED HIS LIFE FORCE to hatch their dying prince. Ontop of that, we see a significant overstepping and damn near usurption of power with the Senate.

So it really isn’t just the Scalding Sands that has these issues, I think it’s just more prominently brought up since Jamils and Kalims story is pretty directly centered around it.

Sorry if that was a huge yappathon. I really hope this helps clear up any confusion you may have and if you have any questions let me know!!

Have an awesome day/night!

(Once again I genuinely mean this to be helpful I am not trying to be rude in any way ;—;)

basedjamil

hey i'm a bit confused about some of the stuff you're saying here--

Back to Jamil, In the English Dub, for some unknown reason, Jamil is referred to as an indentured servant, which makes things more confusing, considering how indentured servants actually work. (Forced to work for free until either a debt is considered paid or for a contracted certain time period, although historically excuses and situations would be manipulated often to extend this), but in the Japanese original, he is referred to as a slave.

the english localisation rarely uses the word "servant" at all, they avoid it to an almost comical degree -- they definitely never call him an indentured servant? in the japanese version he is referred to as a servant, not a slave.

you can see the originals and the changes made in the english version on this subject here: https://twstnote.com/book-4/ https://twstnote.com/book-5/ https://twstnote.com/book-7-5/ https://twstnote.com/en-server-changes-jamil-viper/

a lot of the things you're extrapolating here rely on the idea that jamil is a slave, which is categorically not true. like --

From there, the conclusion can easily be drawn that if Jamil is to “overstep” in the eyes of the Head of the Asims (not Kalim, his father), it would likely end violently, not just for Jamil, but possibly his whole family too.

there is no evidence for this at all. when jamil talks about consequences in book 4, he says this:

he's talking about his family losing their jobs. this would mean having to find a new place to live because, as we learn in book 7, their home is on the asim property. in context it seems unlikely that his whole family would actually be fired, considering these are obviously trusted employees who have been working for the asim family for generations, but it sounds like the kind of thing his stressed parents might say while they're lecturing him about staying in line for fear he might jeopardise his own future career. even if you take his parents losing their jobs as a genuine potential consequence of him challenging kalim for the position of housewarden, that's a long, long way from them all being executed.

i'm not sure where you got the idea that jamil is textually referred to as a slave or indentured servant in either the english or japanese versions of the game, but it isn't true at all.

bubbleddisasters

I see what you’re saying, but you’re actively ignoring all the other evidence provided not, not to mention completely skipping over the blatant implications.

I do wish to apologize for my mistake on the JP translation. It does appear I was misinformed on that and thats on me. I should have also provided more sources.

But I do wish mention It feels a bit to me that you cherrypicked that point specifically without reviewing the rest.

So if its alright, allow me to reiterate, with sources this time.

Oh my god I sound like fucking Miles Edgeworth I am so sorry if that came off rude

Its directly told to us that he has no say in the matter of working for the Asims, and that he has to do so for life.

Jamil quite literally cannot be, or have been, a servant by birth or trapped into working for the Asims if indentured servitude or slavery isn’t the very case, because he not only could he not legally consent to it. So it cannot be regular servants, like one a normal rich person would have.

And it can’t be indentured servitude, we know that from this line

Because as I previously mentioned, indentured servitude has a statue of limitations, as also provided here in the Wikipedia page on the exact topic:

So that quite literally leaves us with one singular possibility, and as I previously pointed out:

Historically, this is exactly the way slaves were treated. As tools. As assets. Their deaths meaningless if not in service.

To cross compare one of of your examples:

This is not the behavior of a “servant” working by free will, and one of your examples verifies the possibility of one of my statements made here:

Unfortunately I have run out of image space, but the next scene in this flashback is Jamils father actively hitting him for simply suggesting he was bored with the game Kalim wanted to play, as Jamil was continually winning.

If you have the time, please listen to the vocal work of the parents in this scene. They seem terrified. But why?

The answer is quite simple: On all logical terms, the words of a child shouldn’t risk anything. Children often do not know any better.

Unless you are in a position of extreme oppression, where it is an active risk to speak out. To even suggest having your own autonomy puts you at risk of harm.

Furthermore, we aren’t given any elaboration what this “suffering” refers to.

To my main point, The term servant itself is misused, hence why I pointed out it is far more implied and closer to slavery.

I think this was probably done because it is a heavier topic, and although TWST isn’t above delving into more complex issues, they often leave it in the context and in other cases, between the lines.

(Examples: Idias + Cater + Leonas Depression never being outright stated, Idias su*cide attempt not being directly stated, but still occurring on screen, Heavy racism/specism within Briar Valley not being directly labeled as such)

So yea.

Again, i’m sorry if anything came off as snippy or rude.

And Once again, Have a great day/night!

basedjamil

i admit i kind of skimmed the rest of your post after you opened with a confident incorrect statement, but in my defense...you did lead by confidently stating something incorrect (and racist) as if it was true, which didn't give me much confidence in the rest of your post.

i appreciate you taking the time to lay this out and i am reading the whole thing this time, but i'm not convinced by these points.

Jamil quite literally cannot be, or have been, a servant by birth or trapped into working for the Asims if indentured servitude or slavery isn’t the very case, because he not only could he not legally consent to it.

it is very common for people to be expected to do the job their parents do, especially if their parents consider the job a good one and/or one that's part of their family identity. like, epel has helped out on his family's farm since he was very young -- in his case he enjoys it but legally he cannot consent to that. you could argue it's exploitative, but it isn't slavery. it's also very common for people whose parents expect them to do the same job as them to feel trapped by those expectations. after book 4, and even more so after book 7, jamil expresses determination to make the future he wants happen himself -- the way he talks about things like networking suggests that he has every intention of not continuing to work in the asim household once he graduates.

Furthermore, we aren’t given any elaboration what this “suffering” refers to.

we literally are! jamil's next line elaborates that he doesn't want his family "out on the streets". like I said, he's talking about them losing their jobs & thus their home. nothing he says here implies violent punishment.

This is not the behavior of a “servant” working by free will,

this is subjective. the scene in jamil's flashback that you're talking about here makes total sense if you assume that the reason jamil's parents are freaked out is because the arrogant attitude he's taking with kalim could put his future employment in jeopardy -- kalim is a spoiled rich heir, and if he decides he doesn't like jamil's attitude, then jamil's future job as his aide is at risk. a kid like jamil SHOULDN'T have to worry about this kind of thing, but his employment prospects do depend on kalim's whims, so it's logical for his parents to be extremely worried about how he behaves and to encourage him to pander to kalim as much as possible, especially if they consider a position as kalim's personal servant a desirable one, which they seem to.

you COULD also read this scene the way you describe in your reblog, nothing in the scene itself precludes that -- except i'm not sure why you'd want to, given that the idea that jamil is a slave makes his character arc as written in the game completely incoherent. the development he goes through is about resolving to change things for himself and not let other people's expectations dictate his future -- his confrontation with his phantom in book 7, where he expressly says he'll grant his own wish, makes no sense if his only way out of working for kalim for the rest of his life is if he's granted freedom by someone else.

like, if you would prefer to interpret this game as being much more badly written and much more racist, i can't stop you, but personally i prefer not to do that

#yk not to say the game is amazingly written or not racist at all #but why make it worse yk