#exist to spite the fascists

[necronomeconomicism]

Ok gotta talk about it.

As a Jewish historian, I fucking hate Israel in ways most probably will never be able to comprehend. I'm going to try and explain it anyways. The central creation myth of Israel is that it is Jewish, and then consequently, that Israel is a part of Jewishness. Its easy to simply state this is false, but fully comprehending this and putting it into practice in thought and deed seems rare to me.

The evil at the heart of this violence predates the recent acceleration of genocide. Israel is a colony, and more than that, an antisemitic fraud itself. After WW2, when Israel was being founded, the Jews of Europe generally did not wave goodbye to their neighbors and head to the promised land. Many were expelled from their homes. Zionism itself, as an action, was a false choice at the time. A mere excuse to place an ally in the middle east, and an excuse to complete the expulsion and destruction of the European Jew. The Zionist Jew is more than complicit in this, they actively seek the destruction and assimilation of all other Jews.

Many fail to realize, and largely because of Israel, that Jews are not inherently white, Ashkenazi, European-descended people. Our faith and culture has an immense variety that is spread all across the globe. Jewishness, in population and volume of culture, exists more so outside of Israel than within it. Israel is for a very specific kind of Jew. The kind that lets Yiddish die, that attaches themselves to European things, that makes themselves and their practices as white as possible.

And they have the nerve, the fucking belligerent GALL, to frame themselves as the necessary saviors of our people. To the Zionist, questioning Israel is to question Jewishness itself. They bake adoration for the colonial machine into their very prayers, and push them on us even as children. To *not* oppress, to *not* kill, to *not* genocide, is to invite death. This is the core of fascistic thought, of course. "Kill them before they kill us." And they KNOW this too, they really do. The truth of that irony does not matter, because as is true for all fascists, the truth itself does not matter to them. They wanted this, they wanted this even before the British saw it in their best interest to give them the land. Any excuse to RETVRN, as the neo-nazis say of Rome, or the German Empire, or whatever the fuck stupid country they want to poorly animate the corpse of. Some select Zionists even *sided with the fucking Nazis* in agreement they should abandon Europe to colonize Palestine. (Haavara Agreement)

My people have proved time and time and time again you don't need a nation state to have an enduring culture. We have protected ourselves for thousands of years without the help of these spiteful, doom-saying maniacs. I was going to post something like this on Passover, but that would be hypocritical. The state of Israel doesn't actually have shit to do with Jewishness. Hear Israel (the state and supporters, Israel the icon) I should outlive it long enough to bury it. (old yiddish curse)

Free Palestine. Donate what you can, they need it right now.

[qqueenofhades]

https://www.tumblr.com/qqueenofhades/743255237060689920/the-thing-that-confuses-me-about-the-dont-vote

The “don’t vote” left’s point is basically that, if Biden gets a second term, it’ll basically signal that “They’ll vote for us as long as we’re not Republicans, why don’t we do some REAL fucked up shit, if we can get away with it?” It takes the power out of the people’s hands and places it firmly in the party’s.

I can’t completely disagree with that, my caveat is that there’s no real alternative system or party in place, because top-down change is ineffective; a third party president has to contend with a two party congress.

Except no. This whole "Biden just wants to do as much fucked up shit as possible while not being a Republican, and if you give him a second term he'll do more fucked up shit deliberately to spite you" mindset is only possible as an interpretation if you a) deliberately and comprehensively ignore everything he has done to date, and b) you approach the situation with the maximum bad faith possible. Not to mention, the ultimate outcome of this Big Important Teaching Biden A Lesson is that Trump gets back into power and makes everything orders of magnitude worse, because he does in fact want to deliberately do evil shit to everyone and says so at every opportunity. There is not some magical happy alternative that springs into existence by not voting. If you choose this as a year to Teach Biden A Lesson, you are enabling Trump. Trump will be much, much worse. If you don't care about that, I still do not care what your Great Ideology is. You are not helping anyone and you are directly and irreversibly hurting everyone.

I made a post a few days ago wherein I mentioned that I want to assess Biden fairly, taking into account both strengths and weaknesses, but the rampant bad-faith, lying, misreading, misrepresentation, and open sabotage of him (especially by the online left; the GOP sometimes only wishes they were as good at turning Biden's voter pool against him) makes it really difficult to do that. My frustration with those people makes me just want to go "BIDEN IS GREAT THE END." I know he is a flawed old man (though by literally every account of a career spent in public service, he really does care about making the world a better place and any remotely good faith reading of his accomplishments thus far can see that). It is also very likely that he goes MORE left in a second term because he won't have to face the electorate again, he has always gone more left when pushed before, and he's not actually the scheming genocidal mastermind that leftist social media paints him as. Shocking, I know.

I know there are things in the world we don't like and don't want and want to stop, and therefore we blame our own president for not making it stop. But I have zero, no, none, absolutely none whatsoever sympathy for this pseudo-populist "WE NEED TO TEACH BIDEN A LESSON BY ELECTING TRUMP AGAIN, I AM VERY MORAL MUCH ACTIVIST" mindset. There's this funny thing about America wherein it is still (for now) a democracy. If Biden wins a second term, he can't run again. I would take literally anything these people said more seriously if they focused on developing their dream progressive successor for 2028 (and also figured out how to get that person elected and in a place to make real change) rather than cynically sabotaging Biden in the most consequential election year, again, of our lifetimes. If you don't like him now, find a way to make his successor a better option. Throwing a toddler tantrum and handing the country back to a senile, deranged, fascist, revenge-riddled, theocratic Trump HELPS. NOBODY. I still don't know how many times I'm going to have to say that, but yeah.

[spacerockfloater]

I am Caitlyn’s biggest hater. This is a safe space for Caitlyn antis. Thank fuck her in-game persona looks and is nothing like Caitler from Arcane. I would have to ban her in every game out of spite.

Caitlyn Kiramman is, to me, the most disgusting and vile character in Arcane.

Actively supporting a fascist regime and enforcing martial law the moment her city suffered a terrorist attack, even if it wasn’t the people of Zaun who caused this, but one specific person?

Inflicting police brutality on the oppressed people of Zaun?

Waging chemical warfare on civilians who are already fighting for their lives and whose health is attacked on the daily?

Going after Jinx’s life when they had her cornered either way, even if it meant she might kill a child?

Hitting Vi in the gut with her rifle, police-brutality-style?

That psychotic, privileged, audacious criminal. She should have been behind those bars along with Jinx. It amazes me how people find it within themselves to defend her after she experienced a personal loss and decided to punish a whole city for it, even if the suffering its citizens were already experiencing was the very reason which led to her mother’s murder. Her defence towards the Zaunites ceased to exist the moment they stopped being perfect little victims. She switched to being a fascist and an oppressor the moment her own circle was endangered.

I screamed with excitement when Maddie fired that gun. Wish she had lost more than eye, but that will do I guess… even if she doesn’t deserve the cool eyepatch.

[runawaymarbles]

I don't know about you, but I know I ain't staying when the us fully becomes the fascist country the voters want it to be come 2028

If it comes to that they are going to have to scrape my cremains off the side of a mountain. I was born here, I fully intend to die here, and anyone with a problem with that including but not limited to whoever runs the US government can go fuck themselves.

But look. To be less glib-- I'm gay, but I'm also white and cis, so I'm on the shitlist but not in the top 5. The only thing that happens if I run is someone who is more urgently under threat might lose a spot, since many countries have a limit. (And that's also assuming that there's somewhere to run to. The US doesn't exist in a vacuum.) I also have friends and family who would be at higher risk with a lot more roadblocks should they try to immigrate, and I don't think I could leave while they were still here. But those aren't everyone's circumstances! So like you gotta do you. But unless you're at serious risk of "deportation", I don't think the abandon-ship rhetoric is particularly helpful.

More importantly, I don't know if you've noticed, but Democrats have been wildly over-performing in special elections so far this year. We'll see what's happening come 2028, but Putin Trump is not. Americans do not, as a general rule, like being told what to do. We're great at cutting off our noses to spite our faces, but we're not nearly so good at cutting off our balls.

I don't think 2028 is the election to worry about, I think it's 2032. But we'll find out.

[cowbot-lumberjane]

ill never forgive gamer culture for boiling down genuinely well made/told stories to "oo-ra I like to kill fuck yeah man guns and explosions" gamerbro shit, just for being action games. I do admit that I think action games are STILL over permeating in the gaming landscape, but that doesn't mean that action games, yes even shooters, cant have well made and/or fun stories. This post is about HALO and GEARS OF WAR. Both of these games have genuinely well considered and well crafted worlds for different reasons and good stories to tell, but are only ever remembered for their multiplayer "fuck yeah shooting" impact. Gears of war is remembered for being gory and having good multiplayer, Halo is remembered SOMETIMES for its story, but more often than not for its revolutionary multiplayer. MULTIPLAYER is not the enemy, its not a bad thing, but fuck do these games have some potent writing in their CAMPAIGNS, which were the main focus of the game being made in the first place.

Gears of war has a potently written critique of fascism, living under it, those who are used by it, and its cyclical self destructive mode of existence. Gears of war is *sometimes* about big dudes with big guns screaming and shooting big monsters, but every other time its about how fascism eats everything it creates alive including the people it so proudly proclaims it will protect as the chosen ones. Halo is a space opera featuring a religious alien superpower that experiences a schism so great it almost destroys the galaxy. It has philosophical zombies that cause the FIRST galaxy destroying event. It has a united earth military that acts in spite of its secret fascist government that kidnapped 6 year olds to make supersoldiers and killed upwards of 60% of them in the process, you play as one who survived. Its a rich world full of stories and well written characters, interesting world building, dont even get me started on ODST and its side logs you can find from the fall of New Mombasa.

These games are more than just, shooters. Every game strives to be more than its genre. Sometimes they are, and they get to end being that. Sometimes they end up like Halo and Call of Duty, trapped forever in the cycle of annual franchises and upholding a legacy that was created by people who aren't allowed to work on the game anymore.

[mrstellmeafuckingsecret]

Saw some jegulus fans try to argue against Kittywater, saying that "it humanized Dolores" and "was made to spite jegulus fans"

Dolores may look sweet in Kittywater fanart, but Kittywater fans know she is a b*tch, it funny that jegulus fans say that when they do the same for Barty and Rosier.

Jegulus fans being upset is icing on the cake, kittywater has the potential to be a funny,tragic, and toxic ship. It makes more sense than Jegulus,

Canonically, Regulus never talked to Dolores or James, Regulus is just in a position to be aware of their existence.

Dolores has a reason to want to be with Regulus ( shallow reason ), unlike James Potter.

Also, kittywater fanart is good. The colors of pink, green, and black remind me of Wicked the musical.

oh no how could we possibly "humanize" dolores !!! that only works for evil men i forgot !!! + if you ask them why they don't like dolores they won't say "she's fascist" they'll say "she's annoying" which... says it all, really.

i don't think i've seen any kittywater shippers say dolores was a misunderstood nice girl, which is what a lot of jegulus shippers do with regulus, so i think they're just projecting. + the babygirlification of barty crouch jr is sooo ew like he's not ?? idk some kinky lazy slut ??? he's very intelligent &obsessed w voldemort &very very hard worker &a crybaby like ?? pmo.

i love kittywater fanart ur so right ack <33

[cultkinkcoven]

Okay here’s the hard part.

I think a lot about that guy, so called Jesus, and his philosophy of radical forgiveness and empathy. For a long time I thought that was just a line abusers use to force their victims to forgive them (AND IT IS)

But! I also think about Lucifer and the things he taught me regarding the concept of hell. If I was the ruler of hell and I had to manage all these terrible people, what would I do? Torture them? Give them endless suffering so they feel guilty? Do to them what they did to others so they can understand how bad it feels?

Latinos who voted for Trump, oh you disappoint me, but no, I don’t want you to be deported. Women who voted for Trump, *sigh*, no, I don’t want to see you get an ectopic pregnancy or carry your dead baby. No I do not want all those conservative gays to lose their right to marriage. And no, I don’t even want all of those fucked up fascist nazi racists to die.

It would be SO satisfying to see them get what they deserve, right?

God, I’m so sick of being apart of a species that loves to conquer. We bleed, they win, they bleed, we win. I’m sick of patching wounds. All I see is hellfire.

My friend Taylor Mcnallie is facing fraudulent charges because of an altercation that happened while she was protesting in Calgary. The bitch of a cop who assaulted her not only received no punishment, she got a fucking promotion. I remember during one of Taylor’s speeches someone said something like “I hope she gets arrested and goes to jail,” and Taylor said, “I don’t hope she goes to jail. Jail shouldn’t exist. I just want her to get fired and apologize. That’s all I want.”

Pacifism, true pacifism, like the kind that guy preached about, doesn’t mean laying down and accepting every terrible thing assholes do to you with a smile. It means taking away their ability to harm without harming them yourself. Eliminating the evil without becoming evil. Punching nazis does not make you a nazi, but praying for the death and destruction of people, human beings, because you hate them as much as they hate you? *sigh*

The hardest part about this whole radical empathy thing, is the fact that I cannot even wish harm upon those who want me dead. Isn’t that funny? That literal neo nazi, yeah, I hope he has shelter. Fuck I hope that rapist still eats tonight. I hope he feels shame until the day he dies, but I don’t hope he gets raped in prison. I don’t even want him in prison to be honest, I want him to be cared for, and I want his ability to do harm stripped away.

“Even if he hurts a child?”

God damn it, yes. I can’t add more suffering into the world, even if it is inflicted upon the people I’d love to hate most. I want to take away his power to do evil, I want everyone to know what kind of person he is and the terrible things he does so they can keep themselves safe… and then I want him to be safe.

I want all those terfs to have clean drinking water. I know they hate my guts, ugh, it is what it is. But praying that they experience the pain they’ve caused me, hoping that they die or suffer only makes me more like them.

WHICH SUCKS. This way of thinking is NOT satisfying AT ALL!!! Being vindictive and petty is FUN and it FEELS GOOD!!! That’s why it’s so fucking easy, and that’s why we keep eating each other over and over again.

Having said all of this, we should definitely bring back the guillotine lmao. I’m not saying that we should be super nice to people who are trying to kill us, do fight back. If the people need to kill their oppressors to be free then, hey, I’m not going to tell them they’re wrong for that. This isn’t a “we should all hug and sing kumbaya together! Kindness is always the way!!!” take. If the only way to bring death to the empire is to bring death to its owners, then so be it. Do so in the way that produces the least amount of degradation to your soul.

But wishing natural disasters on Texas, hoping that that racist woman’s parents get deported, out of spite and hatred… what are they doing to you? What are you doing to yourself?

Humanity is disgusting, truly truly abhorrent. I want to be able to look at us and embrace us with acceptance of that. Every single fucking terrible person on this earth deserves liberty, life, and freedom. Even when you spit in my face and hurt the people I love, damn it, I won’t hurt you. I see you as a rabid animal that needs to be sedated and slowly acclimated to compassion. And I will keep trying, even if you never learn. I can’t give up on humanity.

This is the most important and the hardest part. I’m not telling you to forgive, forgiveness is for you. If it doesn’t serve you, don’t forgive. But don’t let people without humanity kill the humanity that exists within you. Don’t let hatred fester in your soul. You’re allowed to be mad, hell, you should be furious. Let that fury keep you warm, but do not become a monster too.

To all you stupid fucking fascist pieces of shit, I hope you get exactly what you deserve. And what you deserve is not death, pain or suffering. It’s self reflection and growth, guilt and humility. As much as I would enjoy seeing you hurt, I refuse to become like you. And damn it I love you, I love every human being on this planet. I love you so much that I cannot become you. I love you so fucking much that I will continue to fight for your rights even when you’re trying to take mine away. and I hate that I love you like this, but I can’t stop.

So I will stop you.

- James Baldwin

[phaslo]

Canonically Snoke is a clone but theoretically he could be a messed up renegade clone. Say the Empire tried to make clones of its higher ups so their genetic makeup would live on even if they didn’t reproduce. They’re fascists, they’re vain enough to do that: take certain members’ DNA and splice it together to make some experimental clones. Bit of Tarkin, bit of Sly Moore, bit of Count Dooku. That could explain why Snoke is force sensitive. But the Empire didn’t have a code of ethics, so they got too artsy with it. They tried to make clones that wouldn’t feel pain by messing with their nervous systems. Uber smart clones made by performing operations on the brain. Semi-immortal clones developed by keeping subjects in sensory deprivation to prevent cell damage. And knowing the Empire, all of this was likely tested on prisoners of war, so it comes preloaded with suffering and dehumanization. As a result, the experimental clones turn out highly damaged and only semi-functional. Snoke is one of those, in spite of his incidental strength with the force. So when the Empire fell, they sloppily attempted to bury all these war crimes. Liquidate the facilities, kill the leftovers, etc. That could be how Snoke got his face messed up.

But Snoke didn’t die. Who knows, maybe Snoke can’t die. Instead, he rides out the rise of the First Order, creeping around with butchered anatomy and zero socialization undefined by shell-shock and pain. He watches events from afar, able to observe the natural world but not participate himself. (No wonder his first impulse upon rejoining the outside world is to start a garden.) When The First Order make contact with him, they laud him as an artifact of the old Empire, but that privilege doesn’t repair the utter psychological ruin he’s existed in since his creation.

And that damage is what ends up drawing Snoke to Ben. It’s not just that Ben’s a good force user, though that certainly helps Snoke relate to him. It’s that Ben is able to have friends, hobbies, parents, and control of his mind and body - things that Snoke and his genetic siblings were deprived of for no reason but opportunism, arrogance and stupidity. Ben becomes Snoke’s go-to vessel for living a regular man’s life, or at least being able to look at one. Snoke is at once grateful to have Ben around to disrupt his eternal loneliness, but also threatened by Ben’s independence, and unspeakably resentful of his perceived privileges. (Body, family, community, etc.) Every bit of character Ben exhibits outside of Snoke’s preferences and scope of control must be stamped out. He can’t keep any relationships from his pre-FO days. No one can call him by his birth name. No one can look at his body or face. So Snoke’s hold on Kylo was doomed to get tighter and tighter until either he killed Kylo or Kylo killed him, a direct mimicry of the old Sith and the Rule of Two. Because Snoke wasn’t just using Kylo as a student, or a son, or a pet. He was using him as an avatar.

[weaselandfriends]

I am going to have to defend Kill La Kill a bit. I think the way it frames “nudity” as fundamentally lacking is very deliberate. Ryuko is, ultimately, dependent on Senketsu to achieve her goals, and despite their displayed industrial might nothing Nudist Beach creates can hold a candle to the power of people with clothes. It is the symbiosis that is necessary; that culture should not be forced upon humans, but humans have a need for culture that cannot be denied.

Kill La Kill’s school uniforms don’t just point to fascist aesthetics, but to the imagery of the fascist domme. There’s that one interview quote that often gets brought up whenever people discuss sexuality in Kill La Kill, that the creators intended to desexualize nudity. The implicit other half of this is often ignored: that sexualization comes from clothes, from aesthetic, from culture.

To me, the most important moment in the show is actually in the ED. The image of a version of Ryuko, in a world without all the high concept nonsense, pausing in front of a storefront to stare at a wedding dress. A queer teenager looking longingly at the icon of normative sexuality.

Ryuko is inherently hurt by living within a culture hostile to her; in the superposition of clothing/culture this transforms into the life fibers being powered by human blood. (Notable that our cultural image of the vampire is also deeply tied to queerness.) However, that culture is also deeply a part of her. It’s only by acknowledging and embracing it that she’s able to find strength.

It’s a view that’s tied to the history of queer and kink communities, particularly times and places where “fascist” and “queer” were equivalent insults. It’s tied to the notion of reclamation, the ways people in the latter group often embraced the aesthetics of the former as an act of rebellion. Kill La Kill is a work that exists in the shadow of Yukio Mishima, a man who is widely regarded as one of the greatest authors of his generation, got off to homoerotic self disembowelment, and died attempting a fascist coup.

It’s often joked that anyone with an anime PFP is either a neo-nazi or a trans girl. Kill La Kill’s take on counterculture certainly tracks with this. Perhaps unsurprisingly for something produced by artists, it makes the argument that culture and aesthetic don’t just reflect but fundamentally shape our history. This is very unsubtly displayed when Satsuki’s fascist school uses the power of aesthetic to conquer rival schools dependent on the respective powers of globalism, tradition, and capitalism respectively. Perhaps this is where Kill La Kill failed to “save anime” as audience members expected it to. In spite of its success, economics simply don’t support its vision, as evidenced by Gainax/Trigger continually running into budget issues with these grand projects.

I think, though, that when people declare Kill La Kill “saved anime” they mean something else. It didn’t change the industry, it changed them. Kill La Kill tells them it’s okay to like anime. That it’s okay to be attached to the things you grew up with, because they’re a part of you even if they’re deeply flawed or outright evil. That we do not have to discard our past in order to strive for a better future. It “saved anime” for so many people by letting them like it in spite of its flaws. It saved the dude who grew up in a Christian household and feels guilty for liking anime titties. It saved the queer person who just realized that they identify with the villains so often because most of the art they like is homophobic. It saved the autistic kid who hides their niche interests because their peers because they’d get bullied over it.

Of course, there’s a reason everyone agrees the second half of Kill La Kill is weaker than the first. The “it’s okay to like bad things” part of the message comes through loud and clear, but the “and we should strive to make better things” part doesn’t make it through. And as you suggested that leads us to Sword Art Online’s inbred progeny.

I’m curious if you’ve seen Diebuster - it’s the Gainax project that most directly leads into Trigger’s stylistic approach.

Insightful response. Honestly, this could probably stand as an essay in its own right. I withheld talking about sexualization in my Kill la Kill essay because I felt it would drastically expand the scope of my argument, but you found a lot of intelligent ways to tie that element into my core thesis.

I agree with much of what you say here, though I still find the ending thematically confusing even in this context. Ryuko does, in fact, give a big ending speech about how she and Senketsu are "neither human nor clothes!" before she defeats Ragyo, but at the same time the show still ends with the destruction of all clothes and every character in a big nude huddle. The latter contradicts the former's assertion of necessary symbiosis between people and clothes, or metaphorically style and substance. Perhaps the reduction to nudity is meant to depict a fresh start, with the unspoken assumption that whatever is created next will be the symbiosis that Ryuko professes; the credits sequence and the epilogue OVA suggest a world that is much more "normal," after all. But by returning Kill la Kill to a familiar modern world "without all the high concept nonsense," as you mention, isn't it undermining the metaphorical power of that high concept nonsense to begin with? How can Kill la Kill work as a metaphor for our real world if our real world is depicted as the successful resolution to the show? Perhaps Ryuko's status as the last true human/clothing hybrid reframes Kill la Kill's thematic scope as more personal (this is a story of her growth as an individual, for instance) rather than societal, though that too contradicts much of the earlier part of the story, such as the Three Cities Raid, and also Satsuki-as-fascist. Ultimately, even if you can read this ending as about Ryuko and her sexuality, it's to the exclusion of most other potential readings, which just sort of fall out of the narrative focus in the last few episodes.

I love that you brought up Yukio Mishima; Gamagoori in particular seems to be designed around his model of hyper-masculine homosexual sadomasochism, and Gamagoori even attempts to ritually disembowel himself upon losing to Ryuko during the Naturals Election arc. (Satsuki prevents his attempt by blocking his blade with a strip of cloth, which is perhaps another indication of the value clothing brings compared to stripped-down nudity? A protection against the raw barrenness of human emotion in its negative form?) Gamagoori is kind of a strange figure in the back half of the show, though, as despite how closely he is associated with homosexual imagery (his hot pink car, his ball-gagged Scourge Regalia), he becomes increasingly infatuated with Mako, culminating in him apparently waiting to give her flowers during the credits.

Actually, these credits muddle the queer theming of even Ryuko and Mako's date, which is explicitly called a date by the show, but which the show seems to pull back from as romantic when it is actually depicted, not only in how Gamagoori apparently sees this as the best time to make his own romantic move, but in how Ryuko and Mako immediately meet up with Satsuki and hang out as a trio rather than a pair. (Or maybe it's REALLY queer and we can take this as an incestuous threesome.)

In general, Mako is kind of the apotheosis of the "desexualized nudity" you mentioned from that interview. Her superhuman obliviousness renders her sort of perpetually innocent, despite her frequent state of undress and the generally sexualized (though also, paradoxically but somehow coherently, childish and cartoonish) nature of her curvy character design and midriff-bearing fit.

Returning to the original point, I'm not sure how much Kill la Kill hearkens to the fascist domme outside of Gamagoori. Satsuki is strikingly nonsexual in her fascism, defined by her great physical distance not only from those she rules but from essentially everyone (Jakuzure's entire shtick is being able to fly so she can reach Satsuki). Only via proxy through Gamagoori does she inflict physical domination over her subjects, and even when in the hypersexualized Kamui she is defined by her clearminded inability to see herself as sexualized; her Kamui's name, Junketsu (Purity), reflects this. (Junketsu could itself be the subject of an essay, given how it is the outfit forced onto Ryuko to mind control her into compliance.) The other three Elite Four members are also not particularly sexual, or even fascist, in their aesthetics. Sanageyama wears his jacket open, like a delinquent, and Jakuzure's outfit evokes a marching band rather than a military uniform. Maybe Inumuta's distinctive collar...?

As for "saving anime," I suppose it's ultimately going to be inconclusive to try and explain the true intention behind a meme, how ironic or sincere or self-reflective it is; I feel like saying an anime "saved anime" for the person watching is something that could be applied to any popular anime that people like. In the context of sexuality, you might be able to see Kill la Kill's influence in something like, say, Gushing Over Magical Girls, another unabashedly and self-affirmingly kinky show. Though I wonder what truly distinguishes that approach to kink from, say, the hordes of harem and imouto trash that have emerged over the years. I suppose you could claim that Kill la Kill is approving of non-normative sexuality, but couldn't the same be said for harem's polygamy and imouto's incest? (Thinking back to the Ryuko-Mako-Satsuki threesome from the credits...)

Maybe it comes down to that goal of desexualizing nudity, which enables the viewer to watch sexual content without shame, whereas even the shamelessness of most harem/imouto content forces a viewer who does have shame to feel that shame clearly. Kill la Kill is not shameless in its approach to sexuality, it is without shame (the show actually makes this distinction explicitly early on). Like Mako, it is both sexualized and innocently childish at the same time (both human and clothing?!), an expression of sexuality as natural rather than a perverse aberration.

Anyway, excellent essay. I have not seen Diebuster, though.

[useless-catalanfacts]

(The laughs in the back are not part of the original transmission in esRadio, it's because I took the clip from a Catalan humour podcast where they were highlighting that he said "country").

Federico Jiménez Losantos has slipped 🙊 did you noticed what he said, among his usual insults?

He is one of the most famous Spanish journalists, with a long career in many popular Spanish radios, TV channels and newspapers like El País, ABC, El Mundo, Cadena SER, COPE, Antena3, etc. He is very right-wing (to the point of defending the fascist coup that led to the Spanish Civil War and the 40-ish years of fascist dictatorship in Spain) and has made his career out of hating, insulting and making up lies about Catalan and Basque people. He is always insulting us and spreading weird Catalanophobic conspiracy theories... but this time, among his usual stuff, he slipped and said something he would never allow himself to say: he called us a country!

By definition, it's obvious that Catalonia is a country. Both according to the definition in English and the definition in Spanish, a country isn't only an independent country or state.

But for people like Jiménez Losantos, calling Catalonia a country is unthinkable, because they defend that we should only ever be considered a region of Spain, our language an "infected dialect" or "the degenerated dialect of archaic Provençal" (his words), and our culture not a culture on its own but merely a local Spanish folklore. All of which should be killed off and substituted by Spanish language, culture, and identity. (That's why he always says that Catalans —all of us, because of course we aren't a culture with individual people each one with their own thoughts and personality, but we are all one hivemind, all clones, created just to spite him— are racist and ethnicist, because he defends that we speak our language just to exclude Spanish people, if we wanted to be welcoming we would abandon our language and just adopt the normal and international language, which is of course Spanish. Because obviously we only speak our mother tongue to spite Spanish people and our whole existence revolves around them! /s). He must have gotten carried away insulting us and the word slipped!

So, sorry for posting this hateful man, but after all these years of hearing his bigoted opinions and denying Catalonia is a country, it's satisfying to hear him saying it is! 😆

[dcdreamblog]

Hello. I … have a tall ask, and I am sorry to put it on you. I’m just reaching out where I can.

I don’t believe the Legion of Superheroes are real.

Well, that’s not true. I believe they are real heroes, they have teamed up with Superman enough to be legitimate, and they certainly could be from a future timeline. But I can’t believe they are our future. Seeing fascism on the rise, environmental progress and civil rights being set back decades, I can’t imagine humanity surviving another thousand years. I struggle to believe we could make it another century.

I want to believe the gloom passes, but it seems insurmountable. I have to believe humans aren’t inherently doomed, I know other universes exist (eyes that recent Doom Patrol asks, but as Kermit says it’s none of my business (sips tea)) and they might survive where we don’t, but I just could use more reasons to keep fighting here. Right now I am focused on living to spite fascists and bigots, and to try to make the end as peaceful as possible for people in my life.

I just could use some hope that the storm passes.

I know your expertise is more the golden age than the far future, but I’m still reaching out in case you have a source that the Legion could indeed be from specifically our future. Because otherwise, I can’t imagine humanity lasting long enough to reach the 31st century, let alone still have access to a power grid or interstellar travel.

You're right. The Legion aren't from our future. They are from ALL of our FutureS, plural. And that itself proves the point.

(The appearance of the so called "Lost Legion" who became stranded in the 21st century for a short time)

See, time is not a straight line. Not from our perspective. The present is constantly in flux, people make choices and those choices lead to ripple effects. Those ripple effects lead to further ripples that change the choices made by others, repeating the cycle on and on and on off into the infinite expanse of time. The only reason that I sit here typing this for you now is because the right successive pairs of people had the right numbers of children at the right place and time to result in me, and all the choice I have made to become the person I am.

Think about that in context of our world. How often the entire world turns on an instant's decision, on a single hero arriving at the right place, at the right time, to hold back the darkness. How often we go skittering toward the unguarded edge of total annihilation again and again to be pushed back away from the rim at the last moment. How often the future must change in EVERYTHING we do.

And yet, again, and again, and again, the Legion appear.

They alter, heroes change shape and size, relationships, accents, even races and species. But still they appear, glad in the same colors and flashing the same golden symbol. Telling us similar tales of the United Planets, a future in which humanity has long since buried it hatred of itself, its hatred of others and reaches out into the galaxy for all time with an open hand of peace, justice and brotherhood.

The Legion, their future, is not a single threat that we must follow like walking a tightrope. Every step we take sends ripples down that thread that changes our future, inexorably. And in every future they remain.

As far as we can tell, the Legion, their world, is not our utopian reward. It is our likeliest inevitability. Because nothing we have done, nothing that has occurred to us now has done ANYTHING to shake that future from us. And the Legion itself says so with open hearts.

They tell us how they learn of the challenges of the 21st century, how they marvel and balk at the odds we overcame, the trials we survived. The same way any of us would speak about the Black Death, or WWI, or the AIDs epidemic. From their perspective looking back, just as in ours, we are facing the tide of history and standing against its heavy push and they cheer for us, hold us up because they KNOW will we be found standing when this age passes.

They've seen it. All of them.

And they thank us for our perseverance.

[maxwell-grant]

What are your in-depth thoughts on THE CHIMERA BRIGADE? Would love to know what you make of it, given its handling and assembly of so much pulp material.

@thedeathalchemist asked: With your first initial thoughts on League posted, I have to ask did you ever get around to reading all of the Chimera Brigade and its sequel/spin-offs?

Anonymous asked: Any advice for how to a fictional character mashup story ala chimera brigade, league, etc?

(So first and foremost huge thanks to Ritesh Babu for being the whole reason for me finally picking this up again and finishing it, our conversations with him and @davidmann95 were crucial for putting this together)

(Also SPOILERS for The Chimera Brigade - this comic is impossible to discuss meaningfully without spoiling it down to the last issue, so go read it first)

The French tradition of booklets and serials certainly didn't have the punch or the sociological freedom of the pulps, but certain of its great figures did survive the Second World War: Fantomas, Arsene Lupin, Rouletabille and even, in a way, Maigret. Why those and not the others.

Why doesn't anyone remember the Nyctalope, or Hareton Ironcastle, or Felifax or Michel Ardent? Which cultural black hole of pre-war French science-fiction were they swallowed up by? And why have our bandes dessinées authors neglected these virtual superheroes that a little touch-up here and there could have modernised? - Serge Lehman

I can very confidently say two things - 1: I've read countless works like The Chimera Brigade that set out to do something similar to what The Chimera Brigade does, and 2: I have never seen a work like The Chimera Brigade, and one that achieves what it does the way it does. This being a superb pulp fiction crossover, who makes most of the others seem like they're not even trying, is maybe the smallest of it's achievements.

It's the kind of project that so very often tends to get lost in the weeds of it's source material, of having it's context overtaking the plot, of devolving into simple sentimental reverence or spiteful potshots at the expense of the story it set up, of being able to construct a story and world convincingly but fumbling at the finish line, and it's so very rare to find one of these projects that is ENTIRELY about the finish line of what the narrative has set-up, especially when they have significant messy real-life history and context to bolt in, which The Chimera Brigade has a ton of.

Pulp nerd crossovers tend to be largely about the novelty of it's characters meeting up, or the unresolved tension between it's characters and the historical context they coincidentally inhabit, or setting up a shared verse to be played in, and thus a lot of them are predictably aimless when it's time to wrap up the story and thus define what the story in question was about. This is even an issue that series creator and co-author Serge Lehman even brings up during the annotations, regarding why he asked his friend Fabrice Colin to co-write the script with him, specifically in part to try and prevent this. I want to make note of what he says here, "confusing fanatic nostalgia for creativity". A thing this set out to avoid, and a thing that helps set this apart from so, so, so many pulp hero crossovers / pulp-in-wartime stories / dissertations about publication-meta-fictional history presented as stories, miles and miles of Wold Newton adjacent stuff I've scoured for days and weeks on end and tried very, very, VERY hard to like so much more than I actually do.

This project does demand a lot of data archival, it demands the laborious Jess Nevins annotations and footnotes to keep track of who's whom or who's meant to be what. It's a story about European superheroes that is focused why European superheroes don't actually exist / completely vanished stillborn around the time the American superheroes first appeared and became a dominant force, specifically drawing on reasons like publishing failures and the fascist incorporation of superhumanity that really did cause these things to vanish. But The Chimera Brigade is a very, very focused project: it's about one thing first and foremost, and it's about one moment first and foremost, and thus the thing that it is about, and the historical moment that informs it, completely defines the purpose of it. Crucially, this is one of the many things this has that makes it so good, that makes it so different from so many other modern takes on pulp fiction or crossovers: the clarity of purpose this has, the point it's making and the unflinching vision it achieves to serve it.

It's a historical pulp nerd project initially entirely centered around a real phenomenon only historical pulp nerds are likely to know anything about, and then it gradually reveals itself to be, in fact, about something everyone has always known about all along, and you were only ever deluding yourself for thinking this was heading anywhere else. You want to talk about European superheroes? You want to talk about European pulp history? You want to know about the absence of the European Superman and why the Americans got to really create that instead? Okay, let's talk about that. Let's talk about European fictional history and see where it goes.

Even before the central question of European Superhero History comes into play, the baseline concept of The Chimera Brigade's worldbuilding is already taking such a smart, clear-eyed, versatile approach to the crossover aspect, starting from really strong pitches and compelling hooks regardless of what context you have for it, that enables it to tie it's pulp characters to the superhero history and political turmoil it will dwelve into, by tapping into The Great Unifier of Marvel Origin Stories: radiation. What if the first superheroes were also created by radiation? If superheroes are so inherently tied to World War 2 and the Atomic Bomb, and pulp heroes are so inherently tied to World War 1, what if we went back further to Marie Curie and the discovery of Radium as the connective tissue between them? What if we set about unpacking the radioactive monster elements inherent to the genre, as they creep into the world before the actual superheroes do? What if the existence of superhumans, in itself, inevitably placed humanity into a cold war / arms race, just as the existence of atomic bombs in our reality did (a.k.a what if The Power Fantasy was actually about what it says it's about, or really was about anything at all)? What does it mean for these constructs to exist at the time they do, to come from the nations they come from, in the way they are made to be?

Everyone here may not have a singular common origin at first, but they really are all tied together, and that in itself allows all these wildly different fictions to exist together in a way that feels cohesive and justified, on top of lending itself to fun sequences and reimaginings of classic characters and visuals and ideas to engage with. And that's an important thing to also highlight first, that this is a very well-crafted and fun comic to read. Don't let all the pulp nerd context scare you, this thing is a hoot.

It does a superb job at being a fun, engaging pulp comic, playing with a Mike Mignola/John Paul Leon-esque artstyle that makes a lot of this feel familiar and dynamic, with a lot of collages that play more experimentally and add a lot to the real-world history aspect of it. Gess and Bessonneau's art lives up to the tremendous task of taking all these characters from very different sources or creators, or at least very convincingly made to feel as if they would have if they existed before this, and paying tribute to replicated history both real and imagined as well as making them all feel like they belong in the same world and even share similar rooms and spaces, to the point that you can't tell which characters were made up for this and which existed beforehand without consulting the collected edition notes.

A lot of stories do great work by honing in and highlighting the novelty of clashing wildly different tones and structures and designs against each other, that is actually one of my favorite things to see done well in any kind of fiction, I'm certainly not arguing that visual consistency is a definitive must for any kind of crossover. But I will argue that here, consistency is a must, because this is not a story about the crossover, the crossover is necessary for the sake of what this story is about. You must believe that you are reading about a world that exists, in part because the finale of this is about making you realize that you were, indeed, reading about the world you live in all along.

With the exception of a not-so-disguised figure who makes two small but very crucial appearences (with other characters scattered across a handful of cameos and mentionings), this completely refrains from using any majorly known characters, and it's important that it does so. This has a very tight control over which characters show up in what way, which characters are relevant and which characters are not, in part because this is about real-world history as much as it's about any of the existing characters it's pulling from elsewhere, and so those are chosen more so as representatives of their nations than anything else, picked first and foremost to represent the real historical circumstances driving this war. The cadaverous and inhumanly wealthy Gog to represent fascist Italy, the weaselly and controlling and useless Nyctalope as a condemnation of France's inaction and whose greatest failure was his unwillingness to stop the fascist takeover of Spain, the mechanical men of the Soviet Union, Dr. Mabuse as a living rampant metaphor for Nazi doctrine and dehumanization, and so on.

All these fantasies/metaphors turned literal and on the warpath, constructs that stand for more than just their respective characters or publishers but the imaginations that created them. You have to talk about those to talk meaningfully about these characters, about the history, and about the reasons why there are no European superheroes from that era, about the profound failure of imagination that occurred in Europe at that time. You have to talk about not just the ways Europe's imagination not only failed, but turned for the worst in the worst ways imaginable, for the worst ends possible. This comic is frequently compared to, or pitched as a companion to, League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, which I've covered here, and that's not a parallel I feel is particularly worth getting into (not in the least because this is, obviously, tremendously better written and more thoughtful and purposeful with a fraction of the page count), but I'll say this: if LOEG touches a lot on the idea of fiction as a dangerous, noxious force, largely in terms of stunted moral development and unhealthy attachments to problematic ideas (a thing it can never fully commit to because Moore and O'Neil themselves do have a lot of attachments to it and because it's trying to extend commentary to ALL of fiction), if it's always dancing around the idea of our fictions being unhealthy and problematic and potentially dangerous, The Chimera Brigade picks a subject it very much cannot dance around. Instead of trying to be about all of fiction, it takes a laser-focused approach on the way fiction informs it's central topic. The Chimera Brigade fires a bullet into your heart by just showing the example of how, when and why fiction was used to enable and justify and even perpetrate the slaughter of millions.

There is so much about this comic's final stretch that feels like it shouldn't work, particularly the literalized cockroach metaphor purposefully evoking anti-semitic fiction, but there is no other way this could possibly end other than showing how fiction very much did get weaponized in the name of slaughter. There is no triumph to be had in the European imagination of 1939. There is no way the European superhero can possibly end in anything other than colossal shame and failure, if it allows this to happen. Even if Superman shows up to help, you can't Hope your way out of the Holocaust, not when you're in this historical playground, not when you're talking about the history of the genre. The finale in particular is something I'd like to see being dissected and discussed from a Jewish creator perspective, because so much of it is specifically about that aspect of the superhero myth, but this finale is the big reason why this comic can't be discussed without spoiling it. It would be like trying to discuss Watchmen or Miracleman without spoiling their endings, and believe me, those comparisons are extremely warranted. This ends on even more of a downer ending than those two, and there is no other way this could possibly end.

This comic doesn't just come from a place of great curiosity and historical interest and research, it doesn't just come from a place of love for the medium and it's possibilities, it doesn't just come from a desire to rectify or correct or live up to an ideal within the genre, but it comes from a place of genuine insight and honesty and focus on what it's about, and what it has to say to truly be about that thing. It's a comic that is willing to turn to you and say, "let's take this all the way to the top, let's take this concept where it was actually always going in a way that can never be walked back, no beating around the bush or happy ending, this is what the European superheroes were, this is why they stopped existing after a point. Maybe we could have had them, maybe we could have had superheroes the way the Americans did, but we drove their creators elsewhere by bulldozing their people into mass graves, we deserve this shame and we must confront it, there is no happy ending here, only a reminder of what has been and what must never be again"

It can't pretend this failure, the failure of the European pulp heroes and superhumans, the failures of European society, were redeemed by a different kind of super imagination, and it becomes apparent how much of this is built on the understanding that you do know how this is going to end for everyone and how much all of these characters must dissappear basically forever, The End of the European Superhumans as it displays on the back of the collections, ending the only way it possibly can and with just as horrible of a gut punch for them as it needs to for everyone.

Everyone except the mysterious smiling American strongman with a spitcurl and a suit whose real name can't be legally said, and who is here to bring his family of fellow constructs home so they can take and create The Superhero Genre elsewhere. "Mr.Steele"? Why, he is gonna do just fine from now on.

I was wildly underprepared for how much this would give me to dissect and think about, on it's own and especially in comparison to the kinds of stories that usually attempt what this one is doing. I do know there are sequels and prequels, the sequel doesn't seem like it's any good (you can feel Colin's absence from the first issue) but I do want to check the Nyctalope prequels, and apparently there's a big fancy animated project coming out and I have NO idea how the fuck is that gonna work. But overall this is just a tremendously impressive achievement in genre archaeology and storytelling by every metric, it's astonishing how much this can do with the space it has.

This has genuinely reinvigorated my entire interest in pulp fiction like nothing has in a really long time and I think from this point onwards, any question I get regarding how to tackle a pulp fiction crossover or genre mashup is gonna be answered or prefaced with "read The Chimera Brigade and try to get on that level".

[juh-wasnt-deactivated19691231]

tumblr note: this is a living document. Tap the original post header to see the most updated version.

a weary traveler’s guide to the poison bogs of tumblr

welcome to the land that cannot be killed in a way that matters. we have plenty of in-jokes, but this post isn’t about sightseeing: it’s about survival. there are many things to be wary of.

bots, nefarious

most of our evildoers appear to be automated. they spread lies and hate, but mostly they spread inflammatory language, with the goal of wasting your time and making you mad. often you’ll see that these blogs have no pfp, or they are Single Issue Bloggers, or they leave an inflammatory comment on everything they share. block and move on.

bots, annoying

i would classify the gazabots, pornbots, and thirst traps here. gaza is a real tragedy, but the bots sending spam aren’t helping. porn is wonderful, but the bots are scams. the thirst traps have little substance to them, but they must exist for some greater purpose—i think they metamorphose into full-fledged scams or maybe evildoers later in their lifecycle? block and move on.

terfs and other fascists, human

similar to the nefarious bots, but seemingly more human. this does not change their goals or my recommendations, though. they are not here with an open mind, and you cannot reason with fascism, because it has no root in reason. block and move on. do not engage.

morality

mos eisley cantina is our spiritual ancestor. this is the “lying, cheating, and stealing for fun are good and morally correct and you should do them always” website, at its extreme. there are folks who think you shouldn’t hold a food sharing program unless all of the food is stolen. BUT there are also folks who just think sharing is good. we really run the gamut here. trust your gut, you can ask questions once in a while, but don’t be surprised if a stranger bites your head off. understand that if something seems fishy, there’s a good chance it is, and you need to factor that into how much thought you give their statements and how much you care about the discussion.

on that note

yeah so tumblr is a very queer place (in spite of its management, as with everything else we do). there’s a lot of pro-queer stuff, there’s occasionally someone who thinks they’re pro-queer but would get mad at me for using the term “queer” for some reason (? block and move on, or point and laugh, dealer’s choice). if you are not some form of Not The Default, or if you just feel Too Normal, it’s okay. i am personally granting you permission to be here and to have fun. if someone has a problem with that, block and move on, or even just ignore it. a lot of people here are not good at conveying their points, a lot of people are angry, and we are famous for our piss-poor reading comprehension. don’t take it personally. they’re just Like That.

seriousness

most of tumblr ranges from neutral to deeply unserious. if someone’s discussing a heavy topic or making sense, they might be serious, we do have some of that, and sometimes there’s really good things to see here. but don’t expect a whole lot of Genuine Discourse and Thoughtful Discussion on average, unless you find your way into those circles. i tagged a post #christianity once and my notes were clogged with people having philosophical discussion about forgiving satan and it was weird.

argument

I once saw advice here that said, some people like arguing, and others don’t. If you like arguing, it’s super important to find other people who enjoy arguing, so that you can have your stimulating discussions with them, without totally burning out your friends who just want to get along. this really cleared up a lot of things for me, and i saw the light. (it turns out i don’t like arguing)

the bottom line

you’re here to have fun! so do that. our motto is “do whatever you want forever.” if you’re not having fun, take a step back to wonder why. you don’t have to post, or comment, or add tags, or even like the posts. you can just scroll if you want. if you like interaction, you can curate a blog (original posts and reblogs) that you like or that you think other people will like. my blog is mostly shitposting, cats, and advice, and sometimes computer things, but i moved most of that to my datacenter blog. you can send asks, you can receive asks (but don’t be disappointed if you never get any—most of us don’t. be the change you wish to see in the world!). understand that there is no Algorithm, and the only way to find something is to tag it and remember that tag later. godspeed mooncat.

further reading

[sunllghtt]

Rocket and his complex relationship with power and authority

(I'm not really familiar with the comics so this whole thing is solely based on evidence from the trilogy and Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy game ok thank you)

It's repeatedly shown to the audience that Rocket has absolutely no respect for authority and whoever's supposed to be above him. Though it definitely has some deep roots and goes way back to his experience with control and the High Evolutionary (once he's out, there's certainly the wound and the wrath of a victim who's been abused and dehumanized for years in the name of someone else’s twisted will – someone who should've protected him and promised a reward at the end of the torture), I don't think that's where the resentment stops.

Rocket will go out of his way to spite authorities. He'll go out of his way to prove to them their hierarchy means dogshit to him. In the first movie, when they get caught, he calls the Nova “fascists” and talks about how they're “corrupt and cruel” (which doesn't fall far from Rocket's game iteration, who would rather do literally anything but pay the goddamn fine. His resistance is beyond their lack of money and comes from something bigger he can't step over, as if giving them any ounce of their money would be a betrayal to himself and his beliefs). In the second movie, Rocket impulsively steals a shit ton of batteries at the very clear risk of getting his whole team killed, and despite the self-destructive, self-sabotage aspects of the whole thing, it was also his “fuck you” letter to the people who, besides being directly connected to the High Evo and most likely bringing back not so awesome memories, made sure to talk down to him and his friends and literally just exist to serve as this perfect, unflawed images of unquestionable power.

Before we understand what it is, we need to understand what it can't be. When we go back to Vol. 1 and look at the other characters, especially Quill, we learn that Rocket knew about the political state the galaxy was in. He knew about Gamora, about Ronan, about most of their plans and had a clear idea of what was going on in general. Meanwhile, one of the only reasons Quill just stood still and let it happen for so long was his own ignorance and lack of information, and he takes a side as soon as he realizes what's about to happen – while Rocket's still reluctant until the last second (“What’s the galaxy ever done for you? Why would you wanna save it?). Rocket actively chooses to keep himself as far as he can from any of that, and not out of ignorance or neglect, but a conscious and resistant decision.

Rocket's hate toward the system might be related to some sort of trauma response and a lot of hard-learned experience. He knows what injustice is. He knows the Nova Corps will always help everyone and everything out of the kindness of their heart and their flourishing goodwill, as long as it fits their own interests. They'll watch over whoever benefits them the most. He knows the system has a funny tendency to side with the rich, the great, the powerful, and he knows he's none of those things. The High Evolutionary had done whatever he wanted, took as much as he pleased, hurt whoever he wanted for hundreds of years and still got praised for his hard work and had his face openly circulating around the whole galaxy like he hadn't torn him and his friends apart. People like him got to stay safe while Rocket would get arrested for stealing a protein bar. Everybody knows and nobody does anything.

I guess what I'm trying to say with all this rambling is the reason Rocket is, or at least used to be, so thrilled about defying authority figures is because he's seen enough to be hopeless, he's seen enough to know most of them have no problem being selfish, sadist, oblique, fascist, corrupt and cruel when given the opportunity.

[yunamedkostobot]

The reason i do not trust a lot of so-called «complexity lovers»

Akito Sohma stans: I love Akito because of her complexity! She is so sympathetic character!

Also Akito stans: but it would have been way better, if Takaya cut out her beating Kisa and Momiji, pushing Rin out of the window and droving Kana to clinical depression

Jiang Cheng stans: I adore Chengcheng, he is so complex!

Also Jiang Cheng stans: Of course, he was justified to demand of his adoptive brother to give up the innocent boy, elders and the persons to whom, you know, is obliged to help! Of course, he did not tarnished Wei Wuxian's reputation more by saying that he declared himself the enemy of the world! Of course, he was right to disrespect his sister's sacrifice the worst way possible! And he was right in killing innocent people during the timeskip and letting the literal maniac go!

Reva Sevander stans: Reva, my baby! 😍😍 You would be a true Jedi of Old Order!🤧🤧 And you did not forgive Anakin(who literally nearly ceased to exist as person, as RoTS novel clearly indicates)! Such a complexity!

Also Reva stans: *ignoring her joining group of fascist enforcers, for which is pretty normal to kill teenagers, who are suspected to be Jedi(as Ezra and Cal situations show), and abduct children from their parents(may be killing said parents), hunting down underground railroad-like organisations, kidnapping 10 years old Leia and attempting to kill Luke*

Severus Snape stans: Of course, he was wonderful man, and so complex! He would definitely be a good father figure to Harry!

Also Snape stans: Of course, he was not an awful teacher to his students and never bullied Neville out of pure spite and said awful things about Hermione when her teeth end up growing fast and causing her a lot of pain! And also, he was forced to join Neo-nazi group at school, pull a hurtful pranks over Muggleborn and call the love of his life a racial slur!

Edelgard von Hresvelg stans: Such a complex character! A true embodiment of Progress! Go, Empress! Edeleth canon!

Also Edelstans: So, we are gonna project Dimitri's good traits on her, make Claude a villain(with the huge OOC) to make her look good, tell ten thousands of lies about Rhea and Nabateans(including genocide apologia) and of course, ingore all of her war crimes and imperialism(with her erasing the culture of far more progressive Leicester and Faerghus)!

Me: So... Are you truly here for complexity?

[ceciliatan]

Here’s what’s keeping me super-busy this month… I'm running a Kickstarter.

Can you believe it’s been 15 years since Magic University hit the (digital) shelves?

It feels like a different era of history. In 2010, Obama was president, the Kindle was still a newfangled thing, and Twitter still felt niche (at 40 million users). And the final Harry Potter book had come out only 3 years earlier, and the final movie was still to come…!

At the time I didn’t know that writing a trans-inclusive magic school book was going to become such a political statement. I mostly wanted to write a magic school series where we knew up front lots of the characters were queer and that would actually pay off a rivals-to-lovers trope/plot line. I wanted to write original fic that my fanfic-loving friends would love to read.

I didn’t include a trans mentor for my hero to spite J.K. Rowling. At the time she hadn’t yet voiced her anti-trans views. I included trans characters because trans people exist.

I also include some characters who change gender magically. While I wouldn’t call that “spite,” it did always feel like a missed opportunity to me (and many fanfic writers) that none of the many ways a wizard could change gender in the Harry Potter books (Polyjuice, animorphmagus, etc) are ever explored.

But here we are, in 2025, with JKR leading a brigade of anti-trans voices in the UK, and the USA devolving fast into a book-banning fascist nation trying to legislate trans people out of existence.

It’s why now seems the right time for me to produce a hardcover omnibus edition of Magic University. So I’m running a Kickstarter to do just that.

I launched last week and it took off like a rocket! The more people who back it, the fancier I can make the hardcover edition, too, so if I can nerd out about books for a minute: it’s already slated to have a really nifty fore-edge design on the pages, a Wibalin buckram binding, and a foil-stamped or debossed title on the cover. If the campaign continues to do well, well reach the custom designed endpapers goal next, and at $10,000 we can add a ribbon bookmark! (I really really want to get to the ribbon bookmark…!)

The link, if you want to read more about it or become a backer: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/ceciliatan/magic-university-collectors-edition-hardcover-omnibus?ref=depv7q