mistress-chan

[mistress-chan]

I wanted to finish it before Christmas, but I finally finished it and this will be my gift for this year

[mistress-chan]

Aight, so a suspect has been caught. In the next couple of days we’re going to be bombarded with a cavalcade of information about Luigi Mangione. As we start this period I want everyone to remember:

The killer--whether he is Mangione or another man--is a living, breathing, human being. He has followed people you don’t like, held beliefs you disagree with, and possibly voting for politicians you think suck.

He still shot a man with the blood of millions on his hands. He still caused an outpouring of rage that caused BCBS to roll back its ghoulish anesthesia policy.

Carve that into your fucking minds. Mass media is about to do its damnedest to remind us to hate each other, not the top .001%. Do not let them do this. Y’all understand what I’m saying? Here, lemme spell it out more clearly:

DO NOT FUCKING PURITY TEST THIS GUY, ASSHOLES!!

And if you see people fixating on his purity over the message he sent, call them out on it.

We have lost again and again and again on healthcare because we keep letting the rich divide us. Remember: the people united will never be defeated.

Edit: A couple of people have asked me to not convict Mangione in my post, and they're right. Mangione has been arrested on gun charges, not for the murder, and regardless of the charge he obviously hasn't been convicted yet. It's too soon to lay Brian Thompson on his head. I've modified the post to reflect that.

That said, what I've said here applies to whoever the killer is. As the media circus plays out, a lot of talking heads will be pulling out all stops to remind us to hate each other, not the insurance CEOs. Do not fall for their tricks!

[mistress-chan]

Remembering Our Dead

[TRIGGER WARNING: VIOLENCE. MURDER]

For years I have posted about this day, but today is different because I have never felt more afraid for the future or for my own safety.

[mistress-chan]

Hope is hard. It hurts. It disappoints. It backfires.

But eventually, it reaches back.

[mistress-chan]

Wanted to share the link: Nightmares from Nightfire

Just a note as well these are DRM free so the change of gathering data depends on the device you use and not the file themselves.

PS. Yes I am still alive, just a whole lot of life kicking me in the teeth.

Good day, Abigail,

I wanted to pass this along so that you might share it with others. You have had high praise for Gretchen Felker-Martin’s Manhunt and right now Humble Bundle has the ebook included in their Nightmares from Nightfire: 18 Essential Reads From North Premier Publisher book bundle with it supporting the National Coalition Against Censorship (I do not know if links are allowed so did not put a direct link in). All the best.

That's fun! I usually prefer regular old paper and ink books though because they don't gather data on me while I read them

[mistress-chan]

Sometimes I actually get things done

So as I have said in past posts that I am part of Anime Festival Orlando and well we decided to start a podcast for some reason. If you want to hear me talk about con going with other people who run anime cons why not check it out. I will put the show notes under the cut if you want to know more.

I am rather proud of what we did and cannot wait to finish the next episode.

https://podcast.animefestivalorlando.com/e/episode-1-the-new-threat/

Join us for the first episode of the Happy Happy Anime Festival Orlando Podcast Go Go Go! Where different members of the AFO staff come on to talk about what it is like to be on staff at an anime convention. In this episode, the AFO Crew talks about what got them involved with AFO and anime conventions in general. We set up the declaration of anything we talk about being an anime (because we are an anime convention). One of the hosts gets isekai’ed in, Misha’s Glossary begin, and we go over the pros and cons of going to either Subway or Domino’s Pizza.

Hosted by: Brian – Marketing Manager David Francis Diana Michelle "Misha" Underwood Morgan LeFay – The Countess

Check out more about Anime Festival Orlando at https://animefestivalorlando.com/ or afo.moe/links 

Misha’s Glossary:

Isekai (異世界) - a subgenre of fantasy in which a character is suddenly transported from their world into a new or unfamiliar one. [How we get people to join the podcast] Moé (萌え) - Moé is related the feeling of "cuteness" a character can evoke. [Welcome to…] Tsundere (ツンデレ) - character with an initially harsh personality who gradually reveals a warmer side. [As seen on this this podcast] Yiff - Not defined on a PG-13 Podcast [It’s pronounced like it’s spelled]

[mistress-chan]

As something that can only really happen every four years Anthy Himemiya's birthday falling on Feb 29th just adds to the character. When you think of it she is always just out revolution with the world, because she has already done it and so her only have a true birthday every four years give her that mystery just by a simple bio line. But there are far better people who could drill down into the deep meaning that Ms. Himemiya has being The Rose Bride. Just for those out there that need this remember.

Someday, Together, We'll Shine.

Happy Birthday, Anthy!

February 29, 2024

Reblog this with your favorite Anthy thing! Repeats allowed, multiple things allowed, fanart allowed, official art allowed, essays/meta allowed, fanfic allowed-- just lovingly place some Anthy in here and reblog it so that someone else does the same!

I'll kick it off with a couple things:

Yuka Yamauchi had an AMAZING take on Anthy in the new musicals and I honestly wish I could just get a cd of her alone singing the tracks-- her voice is gorgeous! Well, either that or a ten hour remix of her Anthy laugh, which is terrifying and yet somehow inspiring.

(picture source)

Hoo boy. I remember when this video came out. You would NOT believe just how much Evanescence was the soundtrack to the early fandom. Pretty much as soon as Evanescence's debut, Fallen, dropped, aaaaaaaalllllllll the Utena fans ran to their writing programs to write songfics. Still, I've always loved the choices the creator made in this particular video, and despite being potato quality, I think it still holds up.

Your turn! Put some Anthy in here to celebrate her birthday! Uh, you don't have to write them up like I did though, I'm just yappy.

[mistress-chan]

This is my life regarding any gay magical girl.

I just found this meme format and you better believe I'm gonna start milking it dry bc of the amount of obscure trivia I know lmao

[mistress-chan]

For this WeebWednesday switching away from gay magical girls to well I saw this and had to share that yes they are real and I have pictures.

These were taken at the Museum of Pop Culture in Seattle Washington on May 2016.

I found myself having, not exactly an argument recently, but a highly opinionated conversation with someone who did not believe my assertion that once upon a time there were official Hello Kitty vibrators. With the aid of the Wayback Machine, I found this article, and thought the world at large might enjoy it too...

Here's the text of the article:

The history of the Hello Kitty vibrator

By Peter Payne October 4, 2004

Sanrio is one of the top character licensors in the world, having more or less created the business model of doing business by creating something that doesn't really exist and licensing its use to other companies. Sanrio produces nothing -- all their characters, like the Little Twin Star, Minna no Ta-bo, Bad Batz-Maru, exist as legal entities and nothing more. Their most successful character, Hello Kitty, or Kitty-chan as she's known in Japan, is now now thirty years old.

One of the many companies that license Sanrio's characters for their products was a Japanese company called Genyo Co. Ltd. Genyo made a wide variety of products, from bento boxes to children's toys to chopsticks, many with the Hello Kitty character on them. They scored big in the late 1990's with an off-the-wall hit, a series of Hello Kitty toys which featured a different Kitty figure from each of Japan's 47 prefectures, each representing something the prefecture was famous for. (The figure from Gunma Prefecture, where we live, represented a wooden kokeshi doll.)

In 1997, Genyo designed a product that would live in infamy: the Hello Kitty vibrating shoulder massager, which really is a shoulder massager (trust us -- it says so on the package). Sanrio approved this design without batting an eye, and the product enjoyed modest sales in toy shops and in family restaurants like Denny's and Coco's. It wasn't until 1999 or so that people began to catch on to the fact that the Hello Kitty massager had other potential uses, and with amazing speed, they started popping up in adult videos in Japan. The next thing anyone knew, they had changed into a cult adult item, sold in vending machines in love hotels -- after all, what self-respecting man wouldn't buy his girl a Hello Kitty vibrator when she asked him for one?

The emergence of the Hello Kitty vibrator as a cult adult item caused friction between Sanrio and Genyo, and Sanrio ordered the company to stop making the units. Genyo refused, since it had paid a lot of money to license Kitty for their products. There seemed nothing Sanrio could do, since they had approved the item for sale (see the official Sanrio sticker on the boxes). The answer came when the Japanese tax authorities raided Genyo on suspicion of tax evasion. It seems that some creative accounting was going on between the president of the company, a Mr. Nakamura, his vice president, and the owner of the factory in China where the units were made. All three were arrested, and Sanrio had the excuse needed to yank Genyo's license. They seized the molds used to make the vibrators and destroyed them.

And so, the sad, weird chapter of the Hello Kitty vibrator is at an end. The last of the Kitty vibes are gone, so now what will the world do for wacky comic -- and sexual -- relief?

[mistress-chan]

coming out as trans on other platforms: carefully worded statement, thoughtful reflection on my responsibilities as a public figure

coming out as trans on tumblr: SKIDDLE SKIDADDIDALE MY NAME IS ABIGAIL

[mistress-chan]

1095 Days Into My Life

Unfortunately I have not written as many actual blog posts as I would like, mainly keeping up with my #WeebWednedsay and other random fandom things. But today is a little different, today is three years into my life, my true life, a life I never thought I would live. Before I continue I will say this might get a bit deep, a bit personal, has trigger warning for mental health issues, and a lot of gay. If you have issues with anything lgbtqia+ or are a TERF please kindly fuck off. Good, now that that is out of the way, welcome to my life.

Let’s wind the clock back three years, I hated my life and myself. My father used to say before anything you had to love yourself and at the time I loathed myself. I could put on a mask to go to work, I would don a black duster to be who I thought was my true self, but I still hated who I was. I just thought it was part of having bi-polar disorder and depression, the feeling of always being on the razor’s edge of suicide just trying never to actually take an actual razor in hand. I will say I never committed any acts of self-harm which mainly one reason I never tried was out of spite for others. But now, I truly can say I love myself. How did that happen?

We need to go back a bit longer to see the start of this, that wonderful time of SARS-CoV-2 aka COVID-19. I at the time was working full time at home so the world shutting down around me did not cause me to have to drastically change what I already was not doing (being social), but during this time I did some reflection and saw that yeah I really did not like myself and needed to change it. And here is where my love of Utena just predicts things. I present to you THE EGG SPEECH:

If the egg's shell does not break, the chick will die without being born. We are the chick; the egg is the world. If the world's shell does not break, we will die without being born. Break the world's shell! For the sake of revolutionizing the world!

Now in the anime the egg is a whole different thing but in the lgbtqia+ community being an egg means you are trans but do not know it yet. You have your egg cracked when you figure out that yeah you might be trans. Which I kept saying for me never happened because for the longest time I said I was gender fluid and for a while used Ze/Zir pronouns but that has changed. See for a while I would do what in the convention world is known as CrossPlay, which is to cosplay a character that is a different gender than yours and well looking back I am surprised that it took this look to figure out that yeah I am girl.

Anyway, going back to why today matters, I decided to go talk to someone about what options I have for transing my gender and found a wonderful doctor who went over everything and prescribed the first dose of estrogen that I took on Jan 30th and damn did my body like what it got. I dropped the Ze/Zir to She/Her and started to go out full time as the woman I am now. 

Another thing that happened that day that I also see as a major sign that this was the right choice (besides my health being better, that I take after my mother and grandmother, and well not hating my life), was a person on YouTube that I liked so much I give them money on Patreon and here is the video:

Identity: A Trans Coming Out Story | Philosophy Tube ★

So thank you Abigail Thorn for being there for me in a very weird way. And I just found out she has a Tumblr account so yeah check here out here: theabigailthorn.tumblr.com

I am not going to say everything has been easy, I got fired from my job at the time for being trans, I have had the governor of the state I live in want me dead, I lost a favorite books series that I connected with because the author also seems to want me dead, and I am now the scariest thing to a conservative white male, transgender.

But honestly things have gone better than I expected. My family has taken it rather well, even those who I thought would not be as open to it have started to be more comfortable about it. The con I help with well they already had me wearing a lolita outfit all weekend so that was no big deal. My friends are still my friends and really that is all I can ask. I can say that I finally no longer feel weird saying that I am a lesbian and now I can be gay and do crimes. 

So for all those that think being trans is bad or harming others, or any of the other bullshit, please again go fuck yourselves, with a rusty spike. I am living my best life and I am finally able to look into a mirror and say I love the person I see and am glad that there are others that love that person as well.

Now back to your regularly scheduled whatever else I seem to do here.

-M

[mistress-chan]

Decided to reblog this for #WeebWednesday because of spoilers for both shows. If you know you know, if not, WATCH MOAR UTENA then Madoka Magica.

People who think Homura is evil would never be able to handle Anthy Himemiya.

[mistress-chan]

What happens when you are the booth babe for a local convention (Holiday Matsuri) and you say, "I will give the first Utena cosplayer I see one of everything we have to give away." Well, one lucky cosplayer got more Anime Festival Orlando swag than they were ready for. They also thought no one would know who she was cosplaying as. Thus again I say it loud and proud "WATCH MORE UTENA!" I do wish I got some better dueling pictures together. Until next #weebwednesday.

[mistress-chan]

Wanted to share this wonderful work that Empty Movement has created. This is an amazing labor of love and hopefully will help revolutionize 2024!

Empty Movement's ZERO PROFIT 2024 Chiho Saito Illustration Collection Wall Calendar

BUY THINGS FROM ME THAT I WON'T PROFIT OFF OF AT ALL CHALLENGE: POSSIBLE

Hey friends! Vanna here! So! After spending over a year painstakingly digitizing the most beautiful Utena artbook in all existence, I decided I wanted to treat myself and make a calendar to remind me of all the cool work I did! So I made one! Naturally this became a larger project than I meant for it to, then I struggled with test prints trying to align text and realizing it wouldn't happen, etc, etc, war, misery, angst. The result may not arrive in time for New Years, but will absolutely be chock-full of uninterrupted delicious artwork! Even though these images are almost all *significantly* altered from their originals, it's still selling just Chiho Saito artwork. That's kinda skeevy, and not our style. As such, the mark-up on these is ONLY ENOUGH FOR US TO BREAK EVEN ON EACH SALE. If you want to give Empty Movement money, consider instead joining the Patreon!

Merry Holidays, and Revolutionize 2024!

PS. Also, join our forum! Yes, a forum, a website forum. Something Eternal this way!!

[mistress-chan]

I finally decided to share this for WeebWednesday, it has been a crazy few, looks at wall calendar, months... so sorry for the lack of Gay Magical Girls (tm). I was tempted to make I think the kids call them image macros regarding the fact that drama online saved Utena from having a bad video released. But that might be in bad taste at this point. Instead you get a message I got on the Tumblr, which I would put on my headstone if I ever die:

When You See Gay Magical Girls Think of Me

From this message:

[mistress-chan]

Lol some excellent jerk made Utena the featured article on wikipedia

It wasn't us, we promise, we don't have that kind of pull

[mistress-chan]

Chiho Saito’s 1999 Revolutionary Girl Utena Original Illustration Collection

IT’S HERE. IT’S DONE. IT’S FINISHED. NOW…IT’S YOURS. Happy Holidays, my friends.

Vanna here! I have posted some already about this project, and the responses I got, public and otherwise, have been absolutely incredible. Y’all have been reblogging and hyping this before it even finished…I haven’t felt so encouraged about an Utena project since the musicals! (Yes, streams soon, I promise.) You can read the other post to get more details, and catch my post here with more details about the process if you’re interested. The long and short of it?

This is the first artbook I ever scanned. I did it in 2001. In Photoshop, using multiple scans per page that took hours to process. But it was 2001. A half megabyte file that was 1250px wide was considered extremely hardcore and impressive. That’s just always been the business I’m in when it comes to Utena art, you know? 

It’s now the latest artbook I’ve scanned, and so much of the process, and effort involved, is unchanged. What has changed, is the result. Welcome to your new desktop background. Your new phone background. Your new poster print. 

What I’ve done here is attempt to create definitive digitized images of Chiho Saito’s work as offered by this book--I have removed the print moiré of the original scans, and used my literal decades of experience to try and tease out as much information from them as possible. Without being physically in front of the original artwork (which is a thing I’ve had the great fortune to get to do) this is The Most Chiho Saito you are ever going to get. I’ve tried my best to make sure there is a way to get it that works for everyone:

Do you just wanna scope 'em out? Look at some disaster gays? Grab your favorite one or two? This is the path for you! Check out the ‘compressed’ (not very) 10k ‘web friendly’ (not really) copy at the Bibliothèque, the media archiving wing of the Something Eternal forums at Empty Movement*. All the following links are also available from here. Do you want these copies? All of them? Don't just grab them individually, friend. This batch is 375MB and can be downloaded as a zip of the individual files here on our Google Drive.

Do you like digital archiving? Are you looking for a copy that preserves the archival quality of the effort but sits nice and comfy in a single file? This is for you. A minimally compressed 10k, 513MB version worked into a PDF is now up, shiny and chrome, on the Internet Archive. Do you like the idea of the minimal compression, but want the individual files in a zip? Yep I did that too, here's the drive link.

Are you looking to print these in a larger size? This is probably the only reason on Earth you’d ever want them, and yet a bunch of you are going to go straight for these. Here are the zero-compression JPG full size copies, most of them are 15k across, like simply a ridiculous size. Pick your fave and download it from our Google Drive! 

I am genuinely really proud of this work.** I was able to tease out so much new detail from these…her incredible layering techniques, the faintest brush of her highlights, and the full range of her delicate hand at whites and blacks… details commonly lost in digitization. I sincerely hope you find something here that you’re looking for, as an artist looking for inspiration, as a weeb looking for a desktop, as an archiver excited to see incredible 90s manga artwork saved forever in the digital realm. I feel like I have already said so much about them, and could keep going, but you know what? This work speaks for itself. Enjoy, use, explore, and definitely tell us what you think!

We love y’all. ~ Vanna & Yasha

* AHEM ASTERISK AHEM

You might be wondering what any of that is. Something Eternal? Biblewhatawhat??? EmptyMovement.com? You might even have done a double take at the word ‘forum.’ And you should!!!

I have a confession. This artbook was my ‘side project’ as I worked on this, *the main project.* For a couple years I’ve been banging around with a new domain, and originally I had other plans for it, but Elon Musk ruined my Twitter and Discord is well along on its way to enshittification, and well….we joke on the Discord a lot about ‘reject modernity, embrace forums’ and you know what? We’re right. So Yasha and I are putting our money where our mouths are once again, and doing something insane. We are launching, in 2023, a website forum. Obviously, this is not the official ‘launch’ per se, but I cannot announce the artbook without directing you to the forum, since it sits on the attached very cool gallery system. Oops! Told on myself. Another post more focused on the forum will be forthcoming, but if you are just that motivated to get in right away, you absolutely can! (This will help stagger new arrivals anyway, which is good for us!) If you would rather wait for the ‘official’ launch, by all means that’s coming, including a lengthy screed about how and why we’re doing this. In either case, remember: this is a couple weebs trying to make internet magic happen, we are not website developers by trade. Give us grace as we iron things out and grow into this cool new website thingie…hopefully along with some of you! :D

If you do join up, naturally, there is a thread about this project!

** If you like this kind of content, consider helping us pay for it! We do have a Patreon! If you’re wanting to use these in some public-facing distributive way, all we ask is for credit back to Empty Movement (ohtori.nu or emptymovement.com, either will work.) 

I would like to say ‘don’t just slap these files on RedBubble to get easy money’ but I know that saying this won’t effectively prevent it. Y’all that do that suck, but you’re not worth letting it rain on the rest of this parade. :)