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Kory has broken her drawing arm and can't draw for awhile! Please read the news post below for updates!

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Ooooh, we got some Hyde family lore! -Eats popcorn- But also some deeper Bugbear lore – They only get with OTHER Bugbears, it sounds like? At least in Europe, unless even American Bugbears think the same, but then Ogden and Keven can also spread away from other Bugbears easily enough given how big America is.

Awesome page! Poor Kevin.

Just a head’s up for the future book version, you’ve got two typos in the 5th panel :
– “monkier” instead of “moniker”;
– “youre” instead of you’re”.

I can’t *wait* to read the next page!
Thank you so much for this story <3!

Oh, this is great. This is even greater because I know people are going to hate Alec but hey, you guys?

How did you feel about the manticores?

How did you feel about learning that their language was lost to them and their traditions were fading because the species didn’t have a place in modern society?

You were upset about that. You were upset that they amputated their tails so they could fit in. You were upset that their culture was dying out.

Why is Alec’s perspective any different? (Other than being more, um… aggressive… about it.)

This actually explain a lot about why he likes to pretend every spooky human is actually a bugbear. It’s a running gag that annoys Ike, but he’s also desperate for his own cultural traditions to remain in the modern era. He admires these humans and their imaginations enough to call them bugbears, which means that his accusations about Kevin might not actually be rooted in half-human racism, he’s sneering that Kevin is letting their culture turn into cheap roadside entertainment. Which may have a few modern allegories.

Not that Kevin doesn’t have a point, either. He’s obviously been trying to consolidate a broken identity his whole life and settled on something that he thinks honors his culture while still making him presentable to outsiders– the people that didn’t reject him out of hand. And those same modern allegories about roadside entertainment are also an argument for retaining and spreading the spirit and memory of a culture that would have otherwise been destroyed by the natural passage of time.

We can dislike Alec on a visceral level but his frustrations when his own species is slowly dying out (“I’ve never seen any other bugbears except you and your dad”) are coming from a real place. I’m not even saying they’re right, but it’s certainly more than just ‘Alec is a purity culture racist’.

yeah, Cory is really nailing the complexity of this!

Yeah, as explained earlier, if I recall correctly, Bugbears is usually one set of parents, one kid, and the kid moves with the parent of their own gender.
The fact that their dads were twins was a rarity and I get the feeling now that Kevin’s dad moved away because he needed to be able to establish his own life and identity. Just being referred to as ‘Orville’s Evil Twin’ isn’t much of a position to be always forced into.
But I kindof feel that Orville, and by extention Alec, did feel ‘betrayed’ by his brother moving overseas.

I don’t think Alec is being a purist here. He’s proud of his heritage (maybe a little too proud). But I think there is a bit of traditionalism versus adaptivity going on. Where Alec might also be forgetting that he has the luxury to be traditional about this where Kevin is doing it to remain relevant.

I would compare it to say… a monk from a European beer brewing monastery goes overseas to found a new monastery for the order and he wants to continue the tradition of making their specific brand of beer. He brought all the plants and herbs along to have all the proper ingredients but unfortunately two or three of them just can not thrive overseas. He’s forced to change some ingredients to something as similar as possible or just stop.
So over time this beer, which is still made in the same traditional manner, has changed ever so slightly just to be able to remain alive and relevant. But it’s not identical to the one that’s still being made int he original location.
And all the monks in the original location are telling the other one how their brew isn’t good enough to be called the same name because it’s not as traditional as the one that still has the luxury of access to the old ingredients.

And yeah, the comparison of culture and the purity or loss thereof compared to the Manticores (And even the challenges a half-manticore faces by extention) is definitely not lost on me…

For a long time Native American cultural practices were reduced to “roadside entertainment.” Some people still see Native American artifacts as trinkets to play with or wear not understanding the significance of those things. Some Native American cultures and languages unfortunately have been lost completely.

Given the look on Alec’s face in the last panel, I think this is exactly what he wanted to happen. I’m not sure this is honestly about culture. I think he wants to anger Kevin into completely losing it so he can do his usual Halloween gig. He’s using culture as a way to get anger out of Kevin that isn’t normal for him.

As someone from a small culture that has been (and is being) attacked and ereased, Alec can get bent.

It’s one thing to denounce the loss of your culture and everything that is both actively and passively eroding it away. It’s a whole other to use that as an excuse to become an ethnonationalist. Especially when you flaunt your “purity” to put yourself above people you don’t deem “worthy” of your ethnicity while simultaneously painting yourself as the victim. You won’t save yourself and “yours” by becoming your monster.

Hundred percent agree with this comment. Small addition.
For a guy who feels like it’s his duty to uphold his culture, Alec is sure unsympathetic to the manticores who are only a few steps further along on the cultural genocide timeline.

Yes! Absolutely yes to both your and Ruby’s comments… Even when the manticores were chiding their interviewer for being only “half-manticore” they actually painted it more as a benefit to him for being able to fit in and blend well in society; as if Ike’s “half-blood nature” were more of a lucky privilege than being full-manticore, in his particular case,… as opposed to this bitter, vitriolic, and abusive ribbing that Alec is dishing out to Kevin…while simultaneously, back-handedly insulting his parentage…

Well, you’re right,…it’s certainly more than just ‘Alec is a purity culture racist’,…it’s also a fair amount of “Alec is being an awful, judgmental, exceedingly cruel and emotionally abusive person BECAUSE of his ‘purity culture’ mentality,…which is something you don’t see being exhibited by the manticores, despite them being in a MUCH worse situation, culturally, than Alec… Alec is being awful AND for super-shitty reasons that don’t necessarily reflect a reality indicated by the lore (at least to my memory) concerning mixed marriages… I honestly don’t recall other mythological beings in this storyline earnestly discussing problems with “mixed blood” somehow “weakening” them as members of their various races… Claiming Kevin is “barely a bugbear” because his mom is another “race” is one of the lowest, shittiest ‘types’ of things you can say to a fellow being, much less a supposed family member… It’s vile, and scummy, and largely unforgivable…especially because Alec is apparently getting a sick kick out of how miserably furious it’s making Kevin (judging by that ugly, ugly smile on Alec’s face in that last panel)… I can personally appreciate the desire to embrace traditions and fear their cultural loss, while simultaneously admonishing and vilifying the willingness to toss basic decency, empathy, and the essential behaviors of a functional social contract out of the window just to take pleasure in rubbing someone’s “racial/cultural impurity” in their face while smirking… That’s not really something I care to be “understanding” about… (at least from my own perspective)…

Alec’s grinning in that last panel. That reaction is exactly what he wanted to get.

Also how do you go about people being barely a bugbear when part of your schtick is claiming that everybody is secretly a bugbear, make up your mind Alec.

As a bicultural kid who struggled (and still struggles) with the issue of never feeling enough for either side, of not fitting in perfectly with either culture, that hurts. I understand Alec’s point as articulated by Chaos, but I also understand Kevin’s anger at “barely a bugbear”
Alec doesn’t get to decide for Kevin if he is or is not bugbear enough. That’s not his call to make.

Hoo boy!!

Okay there is quite a lot that I could go on here – as I do – were I not encumbered by having to finish a thing by a certain deadline. But one thing that I keep thinking about is: the concept of “bugbear culture” is…strange, right?

Like, the way they’re describing it, it’s a culture that keeps coming back to how they interact with *other*, non-bugbear people. It’s a culture *of* bugbears but…not *for* bugbears? Now, I don’t think the comic is going for any sort of 1:1 comparison with real-life cultures, but I think this particular sticking point is fascinating.

Someone brought up the manticores from a few pages ago as a point of comparison, but to me they feel like a point of *contrast*? Manticore culture has a writing system (granted, not a cultural universal), it has a language. In contrast, do most bugbears even hang around *each other*? Is that a modern, post-the-big-cryptid-wainscotting-of-Europe thing for them?

Can we take Alec at face value when he says that’s what this is about? I wonder…

Insulting Kevin like that makes me think Alec is losing the argument.

I think it’s on purpose to get Kevin to do things he normally wouldn’t.

Even more telling; if having a child with a non-bugbear results in a fully-fledged bugbear, and they enforce bugbear x bugbear breeding, that’s right thar into racial purism, it ar.

Look at his smug face on the last panel. You know what you’re doing, Alec. You know that being a racist prick out of deep seated prejudice and playing it up to put your opponent on tilt so you can get what you want are identical levels of assholery, right?

I’ll say it, never liked Alec, and don’t think I ever will…

Yeah that’s understandable. I always thought bugbears (at least the ones I have seen so far, with maybe Kevin as the current exception) have been too confident. Not that’s automatically a bad thing, but still, a little OP.

I can only really recall one Bugbear we’ve seen with some exposure and she does have a right to be somewhat confident and swagger since she’s doing it on her own property.

I share a similar distaste for Alec because he seems to be behaving like the kid of the CEO who’s given a job at the company because his mom convinced dad to and ‘knows’ he can’t be touched, not even by his dad.
He definitely needs to be taken down a peg and if Kevin is going to face repercussions for violence in the safe zone, Alec deserves the same for goading him.

Hey so just a clarification are we sure the “Barely a bugbear” comment is about their parentage? Because they’ve been saying that about Kevin’s occupation the whole time, so it sounds? like he’s still talking about that rather then who Kevin’s mom is with the “Barely a bugbear” part… although not defending him he’s a *insert insult of preference here*. Just trying to get some clarification because it’s weirding me out a bit that I seem? to be getting a completely different read then everyone else?

The irony of the situation is that Alec is Pure D. Wrong about the “culture” he’s so adamant about. As I’m sure Myra would explain to him, a bugbear’s raisin deetry is legendarily to /protect/ other people. Scaring them away from dangerous places, dangerous things, and dangerous people is simply their usual /method/ for accomplishing that purpose.

I’ve seen all those comments about Bugbear vs. Manticore culture, how people are sad that Manticore culture goes extinct but everybody is giving Alec flack for it-

You guys are missing one tiny crucial point:
Bugbears have medaillons. Manticores don’t.

In other words- Manticore culture goes extinct because the Manticores are actively hindered at living their culture- tails get amputated, they are forced to live as outcasts in society because of their ‘Monster’ status. As such, their numbers dwindle harsh and their culture vanishes.

Bugbears have medaillons. They could reproduce much easier than manticores do and teach their children about their culture- but the obvious reason why Bugbears are so rare is because they seemingly cling to their cultures and refuse to alter it to fit the modern times.

Because a culture can only survive if it fits into modern times. Trying to keep old habits alive through force (see Bullfighting) will only lead to its exitnction because modern thinking people will see it differently and treat it accordingly.

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