Rubrum's Rubric

Tingyun Simp, Artist, Writer, Master of None, They/Them, I mainly care about Mushoku Tensei, Isekai Ojisan, and my F/Os

[rubrums-rubric]

[deadbydaughter]

That fictional man is actually your father and he loves you and WILL fuck you btw

[galaxycepheus]

Funny how the beast ppl are generally darker skinned and theyre the only group of people that way and all of them have thin straight hair and animal ears while all of the human characters have light skin 🫪

[rubrums-rubric]

It's regioning, darker skinned human characters will show up later on. Unfortunately a lot of them are removed from the anime and one character is changed from black to purple which I think was supposed to be to avoid accusations of racism but idk kind of sad to me as the person is a really loved character by others and by me. Rifujin does have some racist tendencies in his writing and Rudeus himself is at least hinted at being racist against Native Americans.

[galaxycepheus]

I don't think it's really regioning! The first season alone takes place in several different continents with people from different species, even. We get people with horse heads. We get people with demon horns and cat tails. The Demon Continent is a desert biome, for god's sake. The most natural thing would be to include other ethnicities and the author didn't. If we really really want an in-universe explanation then sure, fine. Light-skinned people are more common in this setting somehow, magic, swords, reincarnation, your playground. But the universe doesn't just come to be without explanation, someone deliberately wrote it and all its geography. If when exploring so far into this varied setting (and obviously taking a lot of visual inspiration from non-white cultures for the aesthetic) the white, travelling main characters don't meet a single group of actual poc that aren't a couple white-haired people of medium skin scattered in the beast folk village then it clearly betrays an underlying bias and that bias is racism

[rubrums-rubric]

There is racist bias but in this case it is also regioning, there aren't a lot of humans on the demon continent because humans are racist against demons. Most of the humans there are either looking to fight strong monsters or take advantage of demons' desperation(the humans graciously allow the demons to have the continent with the scarcest resources). Some do take inspiration from real pocs (the racism Rudeus displays against Native Americans is from him comparing Ruijerd to one and then saying actually he'd be more scared of a real Native American in the light novel) however the humans do actually have their own separate desert continent called Begaritt where poc people live.

[rubrums-rubric]

And honestly feel free to rant, I much more prefer good faith interpretations and criticisms of Mushoku Tensei than the usually diddy blud comments or whatever from people who didn't even watch any of it. It is a crime that there isn't much poc representation even in the demon continent, there should be demons of color just like people. A lot of the anime's choices for background characters and excluding of pocs later on all feel like an over-correction to try and avoid discussions of racism which makes it come off as more racist.

[rubrums-rubric]

[tetrix-anime]

Mushoku Tensei III: Isekai Ittara Honki Dasu (Mushoku Tensei: Jobless Reincarnation Season 3) - Main PV. Premiere: 5 July 2026

[rubrums-rubric]

I know it means absolutely nothing to the people that don't know but it's crazy they snuck the dinner scene in the new PV.

[vicholas]

Why are people now saying "LARP" when they mean "poser". It's confusing.

[vicholas]

Everyone is always parroting The Buzzword Of The Month without actually knowing what it means or where it comes from, make it stop

[gunsandfireandshit]

Kinda like how "POV" went from "(implied first person) Point Of View" to "there is a video"

[rubrums-rubric]

If you are checking out my blog because of the uma video I just posted I do not recommend going further. Preparing this just in case.

[rubrums-rubric]

[rubrums-rubric]

They suspended me on twitter because they know I'm too funny and analytical.

[fforsythiaaa]

Once when I was in undergrad, someone described something as “problematic” in class and our professor was like, “That’s cool, but ‘problematic’ doesn’t really mean anything. It means that the thing you’re describing has a problem, and in and of itself that’s not bad. Art, especially, should always have problems, or else it’s not interesting and not art, either. It sounds like you’re trying to say that this is bad, but you don’t want to say ‘bad.’ Is that right?”

So from then on whenever one of us called something problematic, he would make us talk it out until we could name the “bad” thing we were hinting at. In this particular class, 7/10 it was some type of oppression, and the remainder was like, “I’m uncomfortable because this is very new/confusing/pushing boundaries that made me feel safe.”

Once we stopped calling things “problematic” and stopping at that, class got way more interesting and... we all had to say, like, “that’s racist” or “that’s misogynistic” or “ew capitalism gross” out loud, which a lot of us had never done in a classroom before. Or we had to be like, “Uhhh... I’m not sure what’s so bad?” and confront our own beliefs and that was maybe even more useful.

Anyway. Whenever I see the word problematic, I can’t help but think of this professor being like, “Good starting point, now let’s get specific.” I think when we have to commit to saying “that’s ___” it requires a lot more careful thought about the truth and impact and complexities of whatever we’re claiming. Sometimes there really is some bullshit afoot, and also sometimes it’s art, and it should be full of problems, because that’s what art is.

[s-lycopersicum]

Untitled by SD99 (@SDD13LR)

[max1461]

Disgust has absolutely no ethical weight. If you are basing your ethical positions on the emotion of disgust you should stop, it is entirely unjustified and leads to a huge amount of harm.

[word-for-today]

Word for today: wisdom of repugnance

The logical fallacy that because something disgusts you it must be bad

[obscenicon-deactivated20231123]

this is probably the funniest example of a tumblr user simply not reading the post theyre reblogging at all

[steelblue8]

Reblog if you are a freak who is justifying their gross actions

[rubrums-rubric]

It's so nice to see someone grasp the complexity of mushoku tensei actually omg

Hi you seem super cool

Thanks, it is kind of hard these days. There's a lot more to gain by doing clickbait hate(often with stuff that's just... made up?) then actual in depth analysis. It's sad how actually engaging with complicated subjects has been so villainized. Especially since Mushoku has many discussions that would flourish much more on a site like tumblr than twitter or tiktok for example.

[rubrums-rubric]

I think Mushoku Tensei would be a lot more palatable if it was a romance story told from Sylphy's perspective. Suddenly it's the story of a girl who falls in love with a boy who teaches her magic. Loses everyone she loves and ends up in a castle guarding a princess, only to reunite with him when he says he's trying to find out what happened to his childhood friend but she's undercover. Then she finds out he's like some kind of thousand year old reincarnated vampire phoenix possibly and then he says he'd love her even if she was a dude. (she doesn't hear that part but bisexual fujoshi romance novel perspective Sylphy would)

[rubrums-rubric]

Rudeus: "I fought Luke."

Fujoshi Sylphy: "And how was it?"

[rubrums-rubric]

I think Mushoku Tensei would be a lot more palatable if it was a romance story told from Sylphy's perspective. Suddenly it's the story of a girl who falls in love with a boy who teaches her magic. Loses everyone she loves and ends up in a castle guarding a princess, only to reunite with him when he says he's trying to find out what happened to his childhood friend but she's undercover. Then she finds out he's like some kind of thousand year old reincarnated vampire phoenix possibly and then he says he'd love her even if she was a dude. (she doesn't hear that part but bisexual fujoshi romance novel perspective Sylphy would)

[rubrums-rubric]

I haven't fully read the web novel or manga of Mushoku Tensei but my general work around to each story being so different in my head is that they are narratives told by different people.

The web novel's harshness compared to the others leads me to believe it is either an objective narrator or possibly someone who dislikes Rudeus at the end of the series.

The light novel kinda implies that it is collected recounts from Rudeus and other sources, like a scholar's biography somewhat stretched for story telling purposes on Rudeus after his death.

The anime's favorability towards Rudeus and how it leans heavier on his perspective leads me to believe Rudeus is the narrator.

The manga's distance and toning down of heavier topics lead me to believe it is the story told by someone with a favorable view of Rudeus but probably not someone actually in the story. Possibly someone told the story by Rudeus and then repeated by them.

Of course this is all just post justification for really what is a bunch of marketing and hindsight revising but I thought other people might like this interpretation.