#not using that in a derogatory way she describes herself as that

[vampacidic]

i have this irl who keeps offering to eat me and i don't think she's joking (this is not a bad thing)

[neechees]

Historical Indigenous Women & Figures [6]:

Queen Nanny: the leader of the 18th century Maroon community in Jamaica, she led multiple battles in guerrilla war against the British, which included freeing slaves, and raiding plantations, and then later founding the community Nanny Town. There are multiple accounts of Queen Nanny's origins, one claiming that she was of the Akan people from Ghana and escaped slavery before starting rebellions, and others that she was a free person and moved to the Blue Mountains with a community of Taino. Regardless, Queen Nanny solidified her influence among the Indigenous People of Jamaica, and is featured on a Jamaican bank note. Karimeh Abboud: Born in Bethlehem, Palestine, Karimeh Abboud became interested in photography in 1913 after recieving a camera for her 17th birthday from her Father. Her prestige in professional photography rapidly grew and became high demand, being described as one of the "first female photographers of the Arab World", and in 1924 she described herself as "the only National Photographer". Georgia Harris: Born to a family of traditional Catawba potters, Harris took up pottery herself, and is credited with preserving traditional Catawba pottery methods due to refusing to use more tourist friendly forms in her work, despite the traditional method being much more labour intensive. Harris spent the rest of her life preserving and passing on the traditional ways of pottery, and was a recipient of a 1997 National Heritage Fellowship awarded by the National Endowment for the Arts, which is the highest honor in the folk and traditional arts in the United States. Nozugum: known as a folk hero of the Uyghur people, Nozugum was a historical figure in 19th century Kashgar, who joined an uprising and killed her captor before running away. While she was eventually killed after escaping, her story remains a treasured one amongst the Uyghur. Pampenum: a Sachem of the Wangunk people in what is now called Pennsylvania, Pampenum gained ownership of her mother's land, who had previously intended to sell it to settlers. Not sharing the same plans as her mother, Pampenum attempted to keep these lands in Native control by using the colonial court system to her advantage, including forbidding her descendants from selling the land, and naming the wife of the Mohegan sachem Mahomet I as her heir. Despite that these lands were later sold, Pampenum's efforts did not go unnoticed. Christine Quintasket: also known as "Humishima", "Mourning Dove", Quintasket was a Sylix author who is credited as being one of the first female Native American authors to write a novel featuring a female protagonist. She used her Sylix name, Humishima, as a pen name, and was inspired to become an author after reading a racist portrayal of Native Americans, & wished to refute this derogatory portrayal. Later in life, she also became active in politics, and helped her tribe to gain money that was owed them. Rita Pitka Blumenstein: an Alaskan Yup'ik woman who's healing career started at four years old, as she was trained in traditional healing by her grandmother, and then later she became the first certified traditional doctor in Alaska and worked for the Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium. She later passed on her knowledge to her own daughters. February 17th is known as Rita Pitka Blumenstein day in Alaska, and in 2009 she was one of 50 women inducted into the inaugural class of the Alaska Women's Hall of Fame Olivia Ward Bush-Banks: a mixed race woman of African American and Montaukett heritage, Banks was a well known author who was a regular contributor to the the first magazine that covered Black American culture, and wrote a column for a New York publication. She wrote of both Native American, and Black American topics and issues, and helped sculptor Richmond Barthé and writer Langston Hughes get their starts during the Harlem Renaissance. She is also credited with preserving Montaukett language and folklore due to her writing in her early career.

part [1], [2], [3], [4], [5] Transphobes & any other bigots need not reblog and are not welcome on my posts.

[remidepointedulac]

remaking this post because I originally wrote it as a reply on someone’s post about how tme/tma are intersexist and I want to link to it without drawing attention to their blog.

The theory of trans-misogyny is actually already inclusive of intersex people. Julia Serano, the coiner of the term trans-misogyny, said this when going in depth about the term

As the term has caught on, transmisogyny has increasingly been used as shorthand for any prejudice expressed toward trans women, regardless of content. However, while trans women are certainly targets of transmisogyny, any person who is perceived as, or presumed to be, a feminine or feminized "male" may be subjected to these same derogatory, pathologizing, and sexualizing attitudes (albeit to varying extents). - (Source)

she also said

In the years since Whipping Girl was published, the term "trans-misogyny" has taken on a life of its own, and people now use it in ways that I never intended. Specifically, I used the term to describe how the existence of societal misogyny/traditional sexism greatly informs how people perceive, interpret, or treat gender-variant people who seemingly "want to be female" or "want to be feminine" (regardless of their actual identity). However, many people nowadays use the word "trans-misogyny" in an identity-based manner to refer to any and all forms of discrimination targeting trans women. According to this latter usage, some would argue that people who identify as men, or male crossdressers, or drag queens, cannot possibly experience trans-misogyny—a close reading of Whipping Girl will reveal that I very much disagree with this premise. (See Chapter 48 of this book for a detailed explanation regarding why identity-based views of marginalization tend to be inaccurate and exclusive.) - (Source)

Basically, the popular definition of the terms TMA and TME would be fully inclusive of intersex people if the definition of trans-misogyny TMA/TME went off of was the same as the original definition, instead of adding on the criteria that to experience transmisogyny you have to be AMAB and a trans woman/transfeminine person (although i’ve seen people say transfems who don’t ID as women are tme as well). I believe this is why Julia Serano herself doesn’t use the terms TME/TMA, the way most people use the terms are too different from her theory of trans-misogyny.

[loving-n0t-heyting]

Finished the megan phelps roper autobio a few days ago. Left me with some thoughts.

The first thing to say is that it was very well written and interesting, especially earlier on pre-exodus, in its portrayal of the wbc. There was smth especially captivating about how she described what was essentially a soft coup within the church transforming it from a consensus-run collective to a formalised patriarchal gerontocracy—its worth reading if for no other reason than to get an insiders visceral feeling of what its like to live in that kind of an activist/religious community from birth

There is this tone the book adopts, tho, especially towards the end, which is obviously absolutely integral to its appeal but nevertheless offputting to me. Its a sort of contrite attitude, portraying her decision to leave and denounce the church as an act of penance for the vile crime against humanity of living a life of Hate. Again, clearly the book wouldnt sell without that line, its the essence of her entire personal brand as an author and speaker (the high market value of which—tho she ofc does not say this in print—must have featured at least somewhat in her decision to leave, if by no other means than relieving certain anxieties about her ability to sustain herself afterward). So its not surprising she would put it so front and centre.

But approaching this penitence objectively it just seems... kind of misplaced? Not that i have anything against public acts of apology and grovelling! But, frankly, its hard to read the account and not conclude she is much more of a victim than anyone she protested or besmirched into hurt feelings. Partly by her family in the form of the inevitable abuse attendant upon being raised in that kind of insular fortress community—tho she does a good job not lazily smearing them as some kind of sadistic cult, part of why i thought her description was so interesting and insightful. But also by counterprotesters and others riled up by her churchs activism: she describes their having faced sexual harassment, physical intimidation and violence, even arson in the face of what were clearly and pointedly constitutionally protected exercises of free speech. All of the former manifestly worse than the latter. Often with cops looking the other way! In a just world these targets of her "hate" would have a lot more apologising to do to her than the other way around

The book even caused me to reconsider the degree of my disgust with their most notorious practice: funeral picketing. Not having followed the pickets at the time super closely, i had interpreted them reflexively as incursions (perhaps constitutionally protected, but still unwarranted) on private family grief, turning what would be a personal act of mourning into a spectacle of vitriol and political grandstanding both ways. So i was surprised to hear the familys official statement on the matter:

So long as the families, military, media, veterans groups, and community-at-large, use funerals or memorial services of dead soldiers as platforms for political patriotic pep rallies, we will continue to picket those pep rallies. If they put the flags down and go home, we’ll go home. Not before then.

This seems basically entirely levelheaded, aside from my disagreement with the object level views they were voicing at these events. Privacy is a two-way street: if you are going to turn yr sons funeral into a patriotic circus, you cant fairly complain about ppl returning fire with a concurrent anti-patriotic circus. No heat, no kitchen. I suspect the actual operative principle in many ppls minds is that it doesnt alter the sacrosanct private character of the funeral to engage in socially normative politicising, but socially abnormal politicising crosses the line. Which is just clearly a grotesque and inherently conservative (derogatory) unprincipled distinction to draw

Speaking of which: its sort of tricky to place the church as conservative/rightwing or liberal/leftwing at all. Even setting aside fred phelps earlier and very laudable struggle against institutional racism. In some sense they were part of the rightwing backlash to gains in gay rights, but not in a way that dovetailed with any serious rightwing political projects on that front. They were the paradigmatic doomers: there was no point engaging in legal efforts to stem the marriage tide, say, bc the american experiment as a whole had incurred gods wrath and was living on borrowed time. To the extent they did have any significant legal impact, it was overwhelmingly positive: they were the ones that brought us snyder v phelps, a heroic win for freedom of speech. They remind me as much as anything of a certain kind of maoist sect, like revcom, not just in style but in content (fervent anti-americanism, racial equality, confidence that The End Is Nigh and the only serious question is how to respond to this imminent demise of the existing order, free speech fundsmentalism clearly for instrumental reasons joined with strict internal censorship, even a version of "no investigation, no right to speak!" inculcated from early childhood)

I think one of my first ever posts on my old blog was on this topic with a nascent, less informed version of the views im expressing here. Some forms of freezepeach contrarianism are just part of my unchanging core ig

[triviareads]

Shonda has clearly never read more than one Historical Romance book in her life and it's so apparent here:

It's so obvious the woman literally knows nothing about the historical romance genre here. Like I'm sorry, but who the hell sees a woman riding astride in a period piece and thinks "she's a WANTON WOMAN"?

At BEST, Kate would be seen as an NLOG because a surefire way to paint a female characters as Not Like Other Girls in HR is to have her ride astride. Shonda's "joke" about her being scandalized comes across as ignorant at best and quite frankly sexist and racially insensitive at worst. If Shonda had ACTUALLY bothered to read other HR then she'd know that LITERALLY NO ONE is going to think Kate is a wanton. Also, the fact that they double down on language like "hooker" and "wanton" makes me so uncomfortable. It is one thing if they sought to present Kate as sexually liberated (which HR sometimes does with women), but they did a shit job of that with Kate if that's what they were going for. Kate, while mildly assertive, absolutely reads like a virgin who was literally overwhelmed by Anthony going down on her to the degree that there were disastrous consequences the day after. But Shonda and Co. keep saying bullshit like "hooker" and "wanton" in this derogatory fashion which comes across as super racist towards a woman of South Asian descent, and more than a little sexist if they've deluded themselves into thinking a woman riding astride would cause a MODERN audience to make aspersions on her virginity.

It's also very telling based on the language they use when describing Kate's, a brown woman, sexuality compared to how they described the sexuality of Daphne, a white woman. Daphne is lauded for her wanting to explore herself and her sexuality, to the degree that the creators of the show COMPLETELY disregarded the fact that she sexually assaulted her husband, a Black man, and played it off as DAPHNE being the victim (this was especially apparent when they had the audacity to show her crying over getting her period again, meaning she didn't get pregnant as a result of her assaulting her husband). On the other hand, the creators clearly tried to cast Kate as someone who knew what she was doing when it came to her sexuality which, in and of itself, there is nothing wrong with, but then you bring race in as a factor, as well as Shonda and Betsey's derogatory language like "hooker" and "wanton", and you're left feeling less than comfortable with how this show handled race and sex in YET another way.

[teawan]

Nimona and its portrayal of the queer experience: a stream of consciousness "essay"

This is not a reach by any means, and I know countless people have picked up on this and/or discussed it at length many times, but Nimona is undeniably a story of queerness and queer people in a hetero- and cis-normative world. Through the use of the “monster” concept, the movie effectively demonstrates the way that the LGBTQ+ community is ostracized and villainized.

Throughout the movie, Nimona’s experiences as a shapeshifter, Ballister’s reactions and assumptions toward her, and other citizens’ perception of her parallel how queer people are treated in the real world. When Ballister first meets Nimona, she chooses not to reveal her ability to shift to him until it is absolutely necessary—quite literally a situation of life or death. Even then, she is reluctant to do so, because she has learned that this ability of hers, although not inherently dangerous or evil, is viewed as such and enforced by the only society that is explicitly stated to exist in the movie’s universe. The reveal of her abilities can be equated to a queer individual’s coming out, and it lines up nicely in the sense that often, people are afraid to come out, even to close friends and family members they have known since birth because of the political and societal stigma around the LGBTQ+ community that’s almost universal. They also often feel pressured to do so.

Ballister’s reaction to the aforementioned reveal also serves as a parallel between the two experiences. After she demonstrates shifting, Ballister asks Nimona “what” she is, repeatedly requests that she appear “normal” while talking to him, and uses terminology that Nimona clearly finds derogatory and hurtful. Part of this is the way he was raised—people who live in the Nimona universe are implied to live in a society where knowledge of those who can shapeshift—widely referred to as monsters—is commonplace. Not only is the knowledge of their existence commonplace, however—it is also widely accepted that those with shapeshifting abilities are evil and intrinsically against the concepts of peace and stable civilization. There is no real evidence for this idea besides a loosely framed “historical event” that has been passed down for one thousand years (as referenced at the beginning of the movie) and has likely been warped and distorted to fit certain people’s biases along the way. The same goes for queer people. The existence of the LGBTQ+ community is widespread knowledge; however, many people associate the community with concepts of perversion or sacrilege and don’t know much about the individuals who it’s made up of past these prejudices. Children are taught to refer to gay and transgender people by slurs, just like Ballister was taught to refer to Nimona as a monster. 

Nimona is treated callously by Ballister, especially at first, as if her differences make her less than worthy of respect and decency, and she owes anyone around her an explanation because of those differences. This parallels the way that queer people often feel pressured to come out and that they owe those around them explanations of their identities—think strangers overtly asking transgender people about their genitals on the internet, or even in person, or gay/bisexual/queer-oriented people being questioned extensively in order to “prove” their queerness.

Now, in terms of Nimona’s character and how she herself is a reference to queerness: as a genderfluid person, I identify heavily with this character. For one, the obvious—I feel that my gender identity is fluid, and, if it were possible, would choose to be able to shift between physically male/female/androgynous to match how I feel. Nimona also describes her need to shift between forms. At one point, she explains that not shifting is like holding in a sneeze—resisting a natural biological process. Yes, she can stay in one form, but that is uncomfortable and undesirable for her. She even tells Ballister that staying in the form he at first coins her “normal” one (the human presenting form) would be like dying, or rather, not really living. This really resonated with me and how I experience my gender identity—in spaces where I cannot express myself as the gender I feel makes me feel like I’m living half a life. It’s living with the saturation turned down to the lowest setting.

Another phrase that stuck with me after watching was when Nimona offered Ballister the deal of being his sidekick “forever” if she were to help him clear his name. At first, she offers her hand in her human form but then shifts to the body of a shark. Ballister asks her, exasperatedly, if she can just “be herself—a girl.” Nimona replies, “But I’m not a girl. I’m a shark.” This phrase is important because it communicates that transgender people are not masquerading as something other than themselves—they are being themselves. It is other people who cannot accept the fact that the way they have always seen a person is not necessarily who they really are. In my case, I often worry that people will not see me as myself when I identify as masculine—they might see it as an outfit I put on, or a role I act in. But it is truly me. My masculine identity is just as much of myself as I am when I’m femme presenting, just as shark-Nimona is just as much Nimona as human-Nimona.

This is definitely not all of the examples in the movie, not even all the ones that jumped out at me, but I think this is enough to communicate my thoughts. It was a fantastic movie. WATCH NIMONA.

[bat-besties]

Who is Lili? (1)

Rose Wilson’s mother’s backstory is primary revealed in Deathstroke #15 by Marv Wolfman. I’m going to do a close reading of the first half of the comic, with the addition of some panels from Deathstroke #48, also by Marv Wolfman, recapping the events. I’ll follow up with her actions in the current comic timeline in my next post. 

Inherently, Marv Wolfman has crafted a story which relies on Lotus Blossom/Miss Saigon tropes around Asian women, and sexualises a survivor of political and military sexual violence. However, I think that even within the comics canon, it is possible to read the character of Lili differently by engaging directly with the text and putting aside authorial intent. To do this, I am treating Slade as the unreliable narrator he is. I am contrasting his narration with Lili’s on-panel art, dialogue, and actions, as well as a light touch of Cambodian history, to imagine a more rounded and human character. It’s creative criticism, rather than strict analysis. 

Right from the cover, Lili is literally described as “exotic”, and sexualised with a torn dress and unrealistic proportions. She’s also helpless, clinging to a white man in fear and unable to help herself. As if to add salt to the wound, there’s a large, purple flower in the background, illustrating the tropical setting and connoting beauty and fertility. It’s not a lotus blossom - but it’s close enough. 

But the answer to who Lili actually is gets more complex as the comic progresses. 

CW: discussion of sexual assault and sexual imprisonment, discussion of the Khmer Rouge atrocities, discussion of sexist and racist tropes around Asian women

The drawings of Lili continue to be sexualised and orientalist, with her next appearance set in an imagining of an exoticised Cambodian brothel, a world away from the brutal realities of women’s experiences under the Khmer Rouge. 

She introduces herself as “Sweet-Lili”. I’m not sure where this came from - it could be a ‘working’ name of some sort during her imprisonment, or a direct translation of part of her name, or a nickname. Whichever way, “Sweet” evokes the Lotus Blossom tropes of demureness and innocence set against sexual knowledge and experience. It also evokes her being consumable, even edible, for white men. 

She is fluent in English, showing a high level of education and also that her word choices are very deliberate. 

The next thing she says is “these are my girls” - this is where we immediately get introduced to the character’s priorities which will unfold over the next decade. In #48 it is revealed these women were once her servants, and have now been subjected to the same fate as her. Still, she never uses the word servants for them, throughout they are “my girls”. She equalises herself with them, emphasises their youth and innocence when Slade uses the derogatory “whores”. Most of all, despite being captives of the Khmer Rouge, they are hers. While she used to be their employer, in this dire situation where her nobility makes her a target rather than a social superior, she continues to lead them with a sense of responsibility. Now that a rescue party has arrived for only her, she isn’t going to leave her women behind. She steps down the stairs in front of them, opening her arms and making herself the centre of attention - she is relatively confident that Slade and his men are here to rescue them, but as these are women who have lost everything in a brutal civil war, I do think putting herself first is a precaution. 

When she greets Slade, it is by putting her hand on his chest in a flirtatious manner, something which the other women mirror with his soldiers.

This is to show her sexualised nature, and suggest gratitude towards Slade which will develop into romance. However, as someone who has survived the (implied) killing of her family through her captivity in a brothel, this could be read as a deliberate action she takes to both flatter Slade, and encourage her women (who are not meant to be saved at this point!) to use the attractions of the American soldiers to help rescue them.

She interacts with Slade as a fellow leader, and he asks if she is the princess.

 Slade calling Lili a princess is not his fault at first, it has been common historically for English translators to simplify the complex Cambodian royal titles into Prince/Princess even for very distant relations to the king, like Lili. (Without knowing her grandmother and mother’s titles I can’t work out what her exact title would be, or if she is entitled to one at all. Please tell me if you can work it out!)

She corrects him very politely, affirming she is royal and his target (“my father’s father was third brother to the king”), but not actually a princess. Despite this, both Slade’s narration at the very beginning of the flashback and throughout his recollections of her in #48, he uses the term “princess”. Once was a mistake, but his continual use, and later adaption of the term into an endearment for Rose, seems to replace the realities of Khmer Rouge’s political purges of the royal family with Slade’s Orientalist fantasy. 

However she corrects Slade with the brilliant line “But I am princess only to my girls” [sic], which elides her position from one of blood to one of responsibility. He has been sent to save her because she’s a royal, but she is extending her own protection over these common women. While missing out “a” could be a translation error, given how good Lili’s English has been so far I doubt it. Instead, I think she is transforming princess from a noun into a more active term; she is a princess “to” them, and being a princess to women is an active choice and responsibility. 

She quickly follows this with “You will save me now, yes?” which is just such a bold line in which she takes control of her own rescue. 

And surely - without even thinking about it, the Americans save her fellow captives as well. She’s achieved her goal without Slade even realising what she was doing.

He does observe her leadership as they escape, “Sweet-Lili kept them in line”, and the women are able to cook “incredible meals” from the surrounding nature, showing how efficient and well-organised the women are, in large part due to Lili. Slade says he doesn’t think he “ever had better”. 

And then we have the key key line, something which would be so easy to miss. “Could say the same for the nights”. 

The American heroes, the oh so noble saviours, are sleeping with the women they were sent to rescue from sexual slavery. Not only that, but it’s viewed as idyllic and part of their reward. I think that Slade does deep-down know this was wrong, as when he recaps the story in #48 after Lili’s death he claims they “trekked through the night and slept during the day”. This doesn’t align with this quote, or the fact that the women cook during the day, and all of the panels of the party walking and fighting in #15 are in daylight. This could be a continuity error, but I want to be consistent and not assume authorial intent.  

The women are so far from being safe from male sexual violence. Without guns, they can’t run into the jungle alone, so they have to stay with the “rescue” party and do what they want. What is an exoticised memory for Slade is any woman’s nightmare - including for Lili. 

The party comes across the Khmer Rouge enslaving and murdering villagers, and sadly Lili is unsurprised by these conditions, telling Slade the exact diet of such prisoners. As Lili hasn’t experienced these conditions herself, I think this shows how she’s tried to stay updated on the suffering of her people, despite the brutal repression of information and killings of journalists. She feels deeply for every person suffering during the civil war. While she’s empathetic but unfortunately has to be practical - she doesn’t ask Slade to try to save these villagers. 

However, when an American soldier cries out at the murder, their cover is blown and all the Americans other than Slade and the women other than Lili are murdered. Slade fights the most brutally of anyone, killing all the Khmer Rouge and trying to protect the women before succumbing to his wounds. 

After years living alongside these women and protecting each and every one through their imprisonment, Lili watches them all be killed in front of her, by the very group which tortured and terrorised them. It’s horrific. These are the only people she has left from her old life, and they’re gone. 

She protects Slade, who comes down with a fever, including from the Khmer Rouge - we are never shown her fights, because Slade was not conscious for that. This is a much-needed reminder that Lili is only shown from his perspective. 

Over time, the two talk and share personal information, growing closer. I do think that she was honest with Slade about herself, more so than she could be with other people after the experience was over. She doesn’t have anything left to lose, is an ambush away from being killed, and Slade is a mercenary who cannot be shocked by anything she tells him. They’re going through a huge trauma together, and it forges a bond. He describes their relationship as “formal”, a strangely nice adjective from Slade which shows his respect for her (as much as Slade respects any women), and the fact that he did not make any advances before Lili did.

So Lili definitely still has some walls up.

One thing that never comes up is that Lili has her grandmother’s necklace on her the whole time. In Deathstroke #46 Rose runs to get it after Lili is murdered in the US, wanting her mother to be buried with it as it’s the only thing she has left of her family, so it’s clearly very important to her and was taken with her from Cambodia personally.

Now, it’s entirely possible that Slade does know about it but it isn’t important enough to include in the story. But it never appears on panel, nor does he ever mention her grandmother. I think it’s likely she kept it hidden, even as she dressed and undressed in front of him. It isn’t monetarily valuable, so she can’t have been scared of Slade stealing it. 

If it is an amulet, her grandmother would have personally had a Buddhist priest bless it for Lili, and this 1970 article shows how important this traditional item became during the war. It’s the most sentimental item she has - and she never shares that part of herself.

The two share a moonlight kiss, after an in-depth discussion “about the war, about her, even about me [Slade]”. She is shown to be the one leaning in, and I do think that she genuinely wanted to kiss Slade and share that moment with him. Interestingly, this kiss is only revealed in #48, when Slade feels more sentimental as she has just been killed. It does not factor into his initial recollection, showing how his focus is on sexual, not romantic, memories of Lili, distorting his view of her. We will never know what she said “about her[self]” to this American mercenary who saves her women and sleeps with them, kills for money and for protection, and could be the last person she ever knows. 

This is where we get to the most complex part of the recollection - the two sleeping together. 

Unsurprisingly, I’m going to reject Slade’s reading of this as a natural development of their closeness which was romantic and spontaneous. However, I do think that Lili does consent, and would not have maintained a future sexual relationship and friendship with him if she had not. 

One reading, building on what I’ve said above, is that Lili has been through these terrible traumas, is at risk of death or recapture, and has found a surprisingly sympathetic companion in Slade. As an unmarried Cambodian royal woman in the 70s, she would have been expected to be a virgin, and likely did not have much sexual experience before being subjected to repeated rape as a captive. The most positive reading of her relationship with Slade would be a reclamation of her own body and sexuality in a pursuit of fleeting joy in the most dire circumstances. 

Alternatively, and in my view more likely, you can read Lili as engaging in self-protection. She is unlikely to be able to get to Thailand as a lone woman, even with Slade’s gun. Slade has already almost died, he could easily decide the reward isn’t worth the risk and abandon her, or sell her back to the Khmer Rouge. She can’t know what he’ll do, and therefore she maximises her chances of being rescued by having this sexual relationship, the same way she survived in the brothel. Either she initiates proactively, or he does, and she is in no position to safely reject him. 

I don’t think this is antithetical to her conversations with Slade and continued relationship with him post-war. People are complicated, and ultimately Slade does save her, and would have saved her women, as well as being the only person who has shared her specific war trauma and heard her feelings at the time. 

[It’s really important to note here that, textually, none of these arguments hold true. In the text of the comic, Lili’s body becomes a reward for the white American rescuing her, and why she would desire him is not a question that occurs to Marv Wolfman.]

“It took us another two weeks to make it into Thailand. Wish it’d took two years” is up there with the most heinous things that Slade has ever said. 

It also shows that she didn’t keep a relationship with him the moment she got to Thailand and safety. Whether she was escaping him to freedom, or wanted to leave the unhealthy coping mechanism of him in the jungle, she did leave in the immediate aftermath of her rescue. Slade lets her, something which must have been a concern in the back of her mind after her previous imprisonment. 

I’m going to go into Lili’s life post-Cambodia in my next post, covering themes including tropes around Asian women as sex workers, her success and wealth, and her loving relationship with Rose. 

Here are some sources on representation and trope history I drew on to write this:

Before that, here's a post about her life between Cambodia and America and the Dragon Lady trope

https://www.washingtonpost.com/arts-entertainment/2021/03/26/asian-women-hollywood-portrayals/ 

http://unveilingthesilverscreen.digital.brynmawr.edu/tropes/lotus-blossom/

https://www.hercampus.com/school/american/the-dragon-lady-the-lotus-blossom-and-the-robot-archetypes-of-asian-women-in-western-media/ 

https://www.nytimes.com/1970/09/09/archives/amulets-are-a-vital-part-of-a-cambodian-soldiers-equipment.html

https://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/women-speak-out-over-khmer-rouge-sexual-violence/j5wwh30x1 

https://www.unwomen.org/en/news/stories/2019/11/feature-survivors-of-sexual-violence-in-cambodia-speak-out  

[fostersffff]

The Big Gundam Watch, Part 14: Mobile Suit Victory Gundam

What a mistake it would have been for me to skip this series.

I observed in my last post that opinions on Victory Gundam seem more volatile than ZZ, and now I understand why. Like F91 before it, Victory Gundam is an attempt at soft rebooting the Universal Century, but obviously unlike F91, it had the chance to be a full, ~50 episode TV series. I can say with confidence now that this is the format in which Yoshiyuki Tomino is at his most powerful.

For better and for worse, Victory Gundam takes the essence of nearly everything that came before and refines it into a more pure, undiluted version of itself. I'm of the opinion that this works brilliantly for the most part, although when it does fall flat, it really hits with an echoing thud. Even so, Victory Gundam has usurped ZZ when it comes to my opinion on "the true successor" to 0079. A lot of that is down to executing on a most of ZZ's plot beats and character archetypes better, but it also adds some new elements that improve upon it as well. With that said, I can think of no better element to start with than with the belle of the ball herself, Katejina Loos.

CATEGORY 5 WHITE WOMAN

I have been thoroughly enchanted by the story of Katejina Loos. I knew, via osmosis, that she was a Bad Woman who does Bad Things, but I wasn't exactly sure what that really meant. That descriptor applies to characters like Haman Karn- who I love- Reccoa Londe- who I hate (affectionate)- and Michele Luio- who I hate (derogatory). She has a little bit in common with all three, because she's all the most stereotypical "evil woman" traits wrapped into a single character, but what makes that so engaging is watching how those traits get worse and worse and fucking worse over time, in a way that is kind of disturbingly mundane.

Katejina starts out as what I can most succinctly describe as a Privileged White Liberal; she's from money, but because she hates most of the wealthy people around her- including her own dad- she considers herself wholly different from them. Because of how they shuffled the first few episodes, her introduction is literally "I'm glad all those rich assholes died", glazing over both the grotesque cruelty of the situation because she thought they were bad people who deserved to die anyway and also that she is, in fact, one of those rich assholes.

At first she goes along with the League Militaire, mainly because there's nowhere else to go anyway, but she often bristles against most of the other members. This is because they pretty willing to point out that she's a rich asshole, but also more importantly because she disagrees with them using Uso as a pilot for the Victory. It's entirely possible this may have been amicably resolved- especially considering her initial attitude towards the Zanscare Empire is "they're obviously bad guys"- if not for her abduction by Cronicle Asher (who, by the way, may have The Most Tomino Name).

At this point I need to take a detour to talk about him, and how one of the other smartest things Tomino did was make Victory's Char completely unlike Char. While he is scheming against the Zanscare Empire's military dictatorship, he's a genuine believer in Mariaism- a matriarchal doctrine advocating for peace in space- and wants to elevate his sister (the titular Maria from Mariaism and Queen of the Zanscare Empire) from merely being a figurehead to the actual ruler of the empire. However, instead of subterfuge and betrayals, he's trying to change the system from within, doing his duty as a soldier with the utmost diligence so he can rise through the ranks, which will allow him to achieve his goals while not inadvertently destabilizing the empire (and thus Maria's access to power). He's maybe the most Straight-Edge Good Boy I've seen in a Gundam series, but unfortunately, all of that Good Boy Energy is being used in service of the genocidal military dictatorship. He regularly expresses distaste for the methods Zanscare's military regularly employs, but he carries out those cruel tasks anyway, because ultimately, the end will justify the means.

With all that in mind, Cronicle being the one to abduct Katejina is legitimately the point of no return for her. That genuine Straight-Edge Good Boyness of his endears her to him immediately, which leads her to reconsider what she thought of the Zanscare Empire; after all, Cronicle treats her with such a great deal of kindness and respect, so surely they can't all be bad. That one commanding officer even shot the subordinate who tried to feel her up, even! Combine that with the fact that the members of the League Militaire were mean to her, and that they have to use an innocent little baby boy like Uso to fight for them... maybe she was wrong about who the bad guys were.

I'll speed it along here, but what is essentially a corruption arc is on full display from this point forward. Slowly, she starts to integrate herself more and more within the Zanscare Empire's military, halfheartedly trying to justify what she's doing as "spying" to Uso and company until she doesn't even care to bother with that anymore, more and more convinced that Cronicle is just, and his plan to elevate Maria as the true ruler is for the greater good. The last act of kindness she musters for Uso is letting him know Shahkti and the others are safe, but the next time we see her after that is in a Zanscare dress uniform, and then later in the same episode, in a Zanscare mobile suit.

And once that threshold has been crossed, she continues to sink lower, going from "maybe we can just... capture Uso, and bring him over to our side" to "he's gotta go". And then she starts employing increasingly depraved methods of "he's gotta go", sliding from simply killing him in combat, to ordering the all-female imperial guard to fight him on foot and naked (or as naked as early 90's Japanese TV would allow) to try to fuck with his head, to finally faking a surrender after she's already lost everything so she can stab him, because fuck him.

If the League Militaire (and Uso as its spearhead) had just fucked off and let Zanscare achieve their goals, Cronicle would have eventually usurped the military dictatorship, given Maria the freedom to enact her will, and everything would have been perfect. It would've been like a fairy tale: she's swept off her feet by a handsome prince who enlists her aid to rescue to queen, and in saving her, they save the whole kingdom, and then they live happily ever after. The only minor caveat was the mountains of innocent corpses it was all built upon.

Uso- the innocent little baby boy no more- took all that away from her- the prince was dead, the queen was dead, and the kingdom had fallen apart- and rather than actually admit defeat or commit suicide, she instead continues to try to kill him, until her brain basically poisons itself as a self-preservation tactic- it's not the V2's Wings of Light that blind her, it's literally her own rage.

And, shockingly, that's where she ends up. Still alive, but unable to see the world around her anymore and with no memory of anything but where she lived. Karlmann's name evokes a memory she can't access anymore, which makes her cry for reasons she can't understand. Shahkti gives her a replacement compass so she can make her way back to Uwig and continue to live, and presumably just live... assuming Uwig has even been rebuilt, considering this series seems to take place within the span of a year (if Marbet's pregnancy is anything to go by). It's honestly a much crueler fate than I was expecting, but it's hard to argue it's not one she earned.

All of this is to say: it's possible I may change my opinion once recency bias wears off, but I think Katejina Loos is maybe my favorite single character in a Gundam show to date. A perfectly executed villainess, top to bottom.

And, you know, nice thick eyebrows, which is terrific.

Now that I've finished gushing, let's get to the normal segments:

THE STUFF I LIKED

This series is just ripe with Tomino names. Cronicle Asher, Maria Pure Armonia, Karlmann Dukatus, Junko Jenka, Duker Iq... and I would be remiss not to mention that while not explicitly said in the series, Marbet's last name is Fingerhat.

I adore the technology level of UC 0153. We've advanced forward from F91 and now goddamn near everything is beam-based; even things that aren't mobile suits use beams because the technology is so normalized. I'm also of the opinion that it's enhanced further by Tomino's obvious appreciation of the aesthetic of Pastoral European Landscapes and 20th Century European Cities; the visual clash of super futuristic robots and old-timey environments worked in F91, it worked better here, and I imagine it'll continue to be just as strong- if not stronger- in Turn A and Reconguista in G

I know on a meta level that Victory Gundam was pushed even harder than previous Gundams in the direction of MAKE TOY, which sounds like a nightmare creatively, but fuck if they didn't make it work. The in-universe justification for most of the wheel-based weapons is goofy, but damned if they don't make the Einerad (The Tire) one of the most devastatingly effective support units in the franchise. And, to be honest, if I had access to a toy as a kid that was just a cool robot inside of a wheel, it would've been, like, my favorite toy.

Plus, despite my noted dislike of the Zakrello from 0079 for being a Goofy Snake Ship, having most of the Zanscare's mobile suits have the dogu statue eyes that open into vertical slits is a great unifying aspect that is also super different from Zeon's monoeyes.

One of the coolest things about this series is how it flips the formula from 0079, Zeta, and ZZ with regards to setting. It starts on Earth, which frames space and the colonies as different and scary. Like, it was fascinating in 0079 to see the White Base crew react the way they did to a thunderstorm and other Earth phenomena we obviously take for granted, but here's it's like: hey man, space is fucking scary! I was genuinely anxious watching Shahkti and Suzy trying to get Karl and Flanders into normal suits.

This also extends to the finale taking place on Earth, which is a genuine first for the franchise. You'd think this would make things slightly less deadly overall, but man Cronicle goes out in a bad fuckin' way.

Following up on that: I love Angel Halo as the ultimate threat (with one caveat I'll mention that in the next section). "Total Human Regression as performed by Warhammer 40k's Golden Throne" is much more horrifying than what I was expecting (which was A Super Duper Space Laser), especially considering they showed what happens if everyone in an arbitrary area suddenly falls asleep, and that every time someone blew up a section of Angel Halo, civilian bodies would just FLOOD out.

I also really liked how the memories Angel Ring was evoking when Maria was trying to pacify Uso were just ever so slightly wrong, in terms of what the characters are saying. That's a very tiny detail to address in such a long series, where most people wouldn't even remember what was actually said as it was airing, but it's appreciated.

At this point I consider Tomino to be pretty masterful at a lot of things, but I think one of his strongest abilities is writing mascot characters who are good. Victory Gundam has a baby, a dog, and the most talkative Haro yet, and all three of them are great. Karl and Flanders are just a normal baby and dog who primarily either enhance hijinks or raise stakes, and Haro earns the extra lines it has by constantly being in MVP in bad situations.

THE STUFF I LIKED LESS:

It was dumb that they arbitrarily had Episode 4 as the first episode so they could show the completed Victory Gundam right away, and then spend the next three episodes framed with Shahkti going "well Karl, as you know...". I know this ties back to toys, but surely it could've just been written differently in the first place.

While I did like Zanscare's refusal to acknowledge the Victory, Hexa, and V2 as Gundams, I'm so mad they were mainly referred to as "the white ones" instead of "white devils". "The White Devil" is my favorite name for the RX-78-2 and I hate that it doesn't get used more referencing Gundams, especially in contexts like this.

So obviously from a series composition point of view it was never going to be the case, but I was bummed out that in-universe, Marbet was intended to be the League Militaire's ace and got sidelined due to her injury. This isn't such a big deal, because she contributes regularly and actually lives through to the end in what I would consider to be the best possible circumstances (Oliver is dead and instead she has Uso, Shahkti, Karl, and Flanders as a family), but it's was just like "aw no you're so much cooler than this dumb kid with a bowl cut!"

I straight-up don't like Oliver. He just shows up randomly but everyone knows who he is, he's revealed to be the commander of the Shrike Team (who actually are foreshadowed in an earlier episode!) but arrives without them for some reason, he has a strained romantic history with Marbet, and he gets a completely unearned Bright Slap shortly after showing up, which is already something I hate outside of its original context in 0079. Then despite denying it, it really seems like he shacks up with Marbet because Junko died and she wins by default, and then after nutting inside he just killed himself in spectacular fashion, achieving nothing. Fuckin'... bad vibes, all around.

Lupe Cineau, huh? My complaint here isn't that she's a weird pedophile, bur rather that she really shouldn't have been? Her introduction is that she's a Stone Cold Bitch, murdering the guys in the bar she just got information from when she first shows up. And her tactic to try to seduce Uso into joining up with Zanscare seemed less like "oh my, a cute little boy, I know exactly what to do..." and more of a dismissive "he's like 12, all I need to do is show hole and he'll be in our pockets forever". Like, 'she fails at seducing a 12 year old because she's too much of a Stone Cold Bitch' is the point of that entire scene! Statistically, not every antagonist could be a quality one, but it felt like they just scrambled to figure out how to reintroduce and get rid of her, and the bath scene was the most memorable thing about her, so: pedophile.

There sure is a lot of biology in this series! Most of it has to do with Karlmann, naturally, but I was taken aback at the scene of Shahkti washing the diapers in the river and you see his poop get washed away. Odelo pissing himself and it filling up the bottom of his normal suit was gross but like... kind of informative on how that works? But then the scene where Cronicle redirects Suzy to the bathroom when she sleepwalks to pee in the hallways was just... eugh.

I don't know why they felt compelled to allude to the threat of Angel Halo's psycommu physically degenerating people as well. "Everyone on Earth will mentally become an infant, and if they don't die in the initial collapse of infrastructure that causes, they'll eventually starve to death because they lack the capacity for self-preservation" is scary enough!

I can't really begrudge Tomino for reusing it, because it's a powerful scene, and Karl was much more important to this story, but the fact that Karl has the same origin story as the F91 baby was just like "you can't just do that again, man". It's not even as good a moment because the pilot intentionally shoots down Karl's mother, versus F91 baby's mom just accidentally getting brained by a spent shell. They're even wearing similar outfits!

OTHER OBSERVATIONS

I've read that this is, or was at the time, Hideaki Anno's favorite Gundam series, and lines up with when he would've been making Evangelion- and I definitely think he cribbed some things. As soon as I saw the episode title "Beneath the Ultra-High Altitude Attack" my eyes narrowed, and I can't be convinced that Arael wasn't inspired by the Zanneck and Fuala's mental instability. Also: Angel Ring and Human Instrumentality and the associated Christian imagery.

Speaking of Fuala Griffon, she is Victory Gundam's winner of the "fucking insane fit" award, wearing an oversized suit and porkpie hat while riding a dirtbike with the biggest case of resting bitchface I've seen since Monsly in Future Boy Conan.

I kind of regret learning about trigger discipline (keeping your trigger finger extended along the side of the barrel of a gun until you're actually going to fire) because now it's one of those things I look for everywhere, but in this case I do think it's the second most telling detail about Cronicle's character. The other being the fact that Flanders is cool with him.

Speaking of Cronicle and guns, for however out of character it may have been I was hootin' and hollerin' when Shahkti stole his gun and shot him.

Final note on Cronicle: My favorite thing about his mask that I only realized in writing this post is that it's the inverse of Char's, covering everything but his eyes and hair.

I really like the Eyecatch Flipbook they must have made to include as an extra for the laserdisc release of the series, but it does kinda... disrupt some things. Most notably in the last episode where you get the very violently abrupt shot Cronicle slamming into a piece of Angel Halo before cutting to HARO WORLDWIDE with the cute little jingle.

I legitimately thought Maria's demonstration where she healed the sick was staged. Like, it would be revealed that Maria was a low-level Newtype with some genuine power, but all the people who claimed to have been healed during that demonstration were crisis actors designed to make the public fall in line. In hindsight, I don't even know if "crisis actors" was a concept anyone had ever thought of before the turn of the century.

I alluded to it in another post, but due to the scant few memes that have circulated about this series, I was shocked to learn the Shrike Team were protagonist-aligned. I thought that they were the ones who did the Bikini Bazooka Attack, because a second faction made up entirely of beautiful women just seemed unlikely, and I kept trying to figure out at one point they were going to turn on Uso, especially considering most of them are dead before the halfway point.

I'm really proud of the image I used for the header, and was initially planning on doing a full video of the clip, but video editing is hard. Then I was going to photoshop in more characters' faces but I didn't want to hunt for images of the right angle for that many characters. But that was a really good Shahkti face, so I left it in.

IN CONCLUSION

Victory Gundam is without a doubt my favorite of the Tomino-directed TV shows thus far, and in the upper eschelon of favorite Gundam shows. For however much he hated doing the series and may still hate it in hindsight, it's not like he just phoned it in. It's got a good cast, good conflict, good mobile suit designs, and despite a massive kill count and some really fucked up parts, it doesn't strike me as being particularly edgy or even mean-spirited. It's absolutely not going to hit the same for everyone, but I think if Tomino's other Gundams clicked with you, it's more than worth a shot.

Next up: considering I've already watched the next two entries in chronological order, I'll be moving ahead to the third Gundam OVA series, The 08th MS Team, notable for being the first new entry in the Universal Century timeline following G Gundam and Gundam Wing and for often being recommended in the same breath as War in the Pocket. Considering how that turned out, I'm optimistic that this will also be good, and if nothing else, it's sure to have that 90's Anime OVA budget going for it, much like Stardust Memory.

[many-but-one]

hey just to let you guys know the term 'femboy' is an extremely derog term (i think some consider it a slur as well) for transfeminine folk. not upset, just informing you guys!

I mean. I have sometimes heard femboy used in the context of transfemme who don’t pass well, but mainly said by cis/cishet folk who ain’t part of the LGBTQ community. Femboy has been used by gay men or men who dress feminine who are not transgender for a very long time. Considering Dori was not referring to another trans woman or another person who did not consent to the term (she was using it towards herself because she used to consider herself a man who dressed feminine—a femboy—before she fused with a bunch of girls) I fail to see how that would be considered a terrible thing to say.

It’s like me calling myself a bulldyke/dyke, a faggot, or a tranny. I am all those things and I am well within my rights to call myself terms that used to be slurs used against us as much as I want. Reclaiming shitty things said against us has kinda been a big part of queer culture and lesbian/transgender history. No offense anon, as I know you were trying to give a heads up in good faith, this is hella chronically online behavior. Go hang out with some queer people at a bar and you’ll hear all kinds of words like that. Queer culture is by nature not “politically correct” and especially since this was aimed at ourselves and not calling anyone else the term without their consent, I’m gonna let Dori use whatever terms make her feel most comfortable in her skin.

For the record, femboy started as a slur around the 80s-90s and seemed to be used in conjunction with the term sissyboy, though the term femboy itself has existed for much longer. Femboys or men who use feminine expression have been around for a very long time—centuries, even, and in the mid-19th century the term femboy was coined to describe men who dressed femininely. Obviously derived from the word “feminine” and “boy.” The term gained traction as a reclaimed term (as the term was used to describe men as “incomplete men” who were not masculine enough to be “real men”) in the 70s and 80s with the rise of punk culture, and queer activists started reclaiming it to empower GNC individuals. I’ve personally rarely ever seen it as a derogatory term toward transfemme folks and our transfemme partner agrees that she’s hardly ever seen anything like that. And if it is a derogatory term toward transfemme folks, it was clearly not used in that way when Dori referred to herself as a femboy.

Don’t police the way we talk unless it truly brings actual harm to another person. We ain’t calling anyone else a femboy, Dori was calling herself that.

-Elektra🦂 (she/her) + K (she/he) + K (he/him)

[praxeus-13]

Hi, what Do you think of genderfluid/genderqueer!Thirteen? Do you have headcanons?

I HAVE SO MANY GENDER HEADCANONS ANON!!!

Firstly, a lot of my thoughts about 13’s gender have been influenced by @picnokinesis and their AUs!! They have lots of posts about 13 and gender so I would deffo recommend checking their posts out!!

Okay so I don’t see 13 as genderfluid, like as a genderfluid person myself, I definitely relate a lot more to Dh!Master and his expression of gender. Because see, 13 just doesn’t care about gender! I know a lot of people get the genderfluid 13 headcanon from that line in War of The Sontarans where she says “it’s fluid”, but I saw that line as her telling Mary Seacole that the term “Doctor” can be used for everyone and in many different ways (ie, not just for medical professionals). And possibly also as a nod to her being able to regenerate?

However, as I said, 13 just doesn’t seem to care about gender. I just don’t think it’s something she thinks about in her day to day life. And as far as I can remember (I rly need to do a rewatch) she doesn’t refer to herself as a woman unless someone else does it first. Then her response always seems to be along the lines of “ah yes, these people see me as a woman and I must reaffirm their belief in order to not arose suspicion” (which, relatable). The only times when she really does care about people referring to her as a woman is when they do it in a derogatory way (Spyfall part 1 & The Witchfinders come to mind). And then, we get a few moments where she refers to herself as a man, but I think that’s more out of habit rather than actually seeing herself as a man?

Therefore I tend to see her as agender because, as above, she just doesn’t seem to care about her gender or her gender presentation until someone wants to use it against her. She just doesn’t seem to have an attachment to gender tbh. Especially when you look at how she went to buy ‘women’s clothes’ but just found a very androgynous outfit instead. Also, while she is only referred to with she/her pronouns in the show, I think she’d be perfectly fine with people using whatever pronouns they want for her! I’m not even sure she’d notice if someone was using varied pronouns for her (especially if they used he/him, because she’s had centuries of being referred to with them).

HOWEVER! I think 13, if genuinely asked by someone, would describe herself as genderqueer. Mainly because genderqueer is used as an umbrella term by some people, as it’s not very specific and leaves room for just not knowing every aspect of your gender identity. As well, while we as a fandom do often separate The Doctor’s different regenerations, 13 does still have her previous versions’ memories (well, back to 1 at least) and would probably be at least a little bit influenced by her past feelings on gender.

So uhh TLDR: I headcanon 13 specifically as agender, but believe she would refer to herself as genderqueer! Thank you so much for this ask anon it was very fun to answer!!!!

[rosemaidenvixen]

Algea

Chapter 3

<Previous Next>

Ao3

With the sun sitting low on the horizon the already wane light that trickled through the canyon into the narrow castle windows gave way to near complete darkness. The only thing holding the gloom at bay was the flickering torches lining the walls. New recruits often described the mood set by this lighting as ‘creepy’.

But Kikimora, who’d spent nearly her entire adult life in these halls, was utterly unbothered by it. Striding down the wide corridor with practiced grace, comfortable in her element. But not relaxed, in the castle walls relaxing more often than not led to finding a dagger in your back.

Through the years Kikimora had seen others rise and fall through the ranks of the Emperor’s coven, not all but more than a few of them she’d even had a hand in pushing part of the way down. Still she remained and they did not, and that fact was owed mostly due to her own ambition and cunning.

As well as a few carefully brokered alliances.

A pair of scouts nodded in greeting as Kikimora strode through the wide door leading to the office of the Minister of Communications, but she didn’t so much as turn her head.

In the Emperor’s coven it wasn’t enough to be the best and brightest, Lilith Clawthorne’s fate was a testament to that. More than smart you had to be ruthless, ferreting out your competitors’ hidden weaknesses and using them against them. Setting up their downfall before you ever faced them in combat.

Approaching a wide desk in the center of the room she didn’t even bother announcing her presence.

“Anything interesting today?”

To his credit Vernworth didn’t so much as flinch, not even glancing up from the various screens at his desk as he gave a derisive snort “Hardly, just more pictures of baby ratworms,”

While she betrayed no outward reaction Kikimora felt a pang of disappointment. She didn’t trust Vernworth, no doubt nor did he her. But their arrangement of exchanging secrets and blackmail material on other high ranking coven officials was one where if he told her there was nothing she believed him. Still, Kikimora hadn’t gotten to where she was by not being thorough. 

And as the Emperor’s humble left hand, Kikimora had no greater competition than his golden right.

“What about our esteemed Golden Guard?”

Adrian rolled his eyes “Hardly, just typical spoiled brat stuff,”

“Oh?” Kikimora leaned forward, peeking up at his screens “What kind of stuff?”

“Titan I don’t know why you’re so fixed on him,” Vernworth mumbled, but nevertheless tapped a scroll a few times before pushing it across the desk towards her “Here, it’s all over Penstagram, I’m honestly surprised you haven’t seen it yet,”

Kikimora eagerly grabbed the scroll only to freeze when she saw the picture pulled up. 

As quickly as she could Kikimora sent the post to herself, replaced the scroll on the desk, and hurried towards the door.

“Umm you’re welcome!” Vernworth called after her sarcastically but she hardly noticed. Practically vibrating with excitement as she stared down at the picture in her hands.

The post was of a picture of two young witches swimming in a lake up to their shoulders in water, looking at each other and smiling. She had no idea who the dark haired witch was, but the other one, unmasked but clearly recognizable, was Hunter himself.

The caption was something derogatory towards the other witch but Kikimra couldn’t care less. Here was proof that the Emperor’s so-called right hand man didn’t value duty nearly as much as he claimed he did if he would abandon his post to–

Kikimora staggered to a stop in the middle of the hall, not even bothering to step to the side as she hurriedly started searching through Penstagram.

If Hunter had had a ‘dalliance’ with the brat in the photo once, who’s to say he hadn’t done it before? And just maybe…

Through backtracking she found the profile of the other witch in the photo, from there it was a bit trickier, as most of her photos had been set private. But few things were beyond the reach of the Emperor’s official assistant, and after a thorough search Kikimora struck gold.

A series of photos showing the dark haired witch and others, Hunter alongside them, dressed in sports gear and practicing their game, all stamped with the specific dates and times the photos were taken, which could be corroborated with times that Hunter was supposed to be on missions. All of them linked to a profile whose grainy photo and poor quality pseudonym did nothing to conceal the fact it belonged to Hunter himself.

A glee so potent it bordered on drunkenness shot through her, quivering with delight from head to toe. It took everything she had to not burst into triumphant laughter right then and there.

Oh this was good. Proof that the Golden Guard wasn’t the perfect little obedient soldier he pretended to be. Setting up an unauthorized Penstagram account, fraternizing with civilians when he was on duty, perhaps going a bit further than fraternization with one of them. In any case as soon as the Emperor saw these the Golden Guard was finished.

Forcing back her mirth and swallowing back her giggles, Kikimora carefully recomposed herself into the calm, professional Emperor’s assistant. Pulling in a deep breath and demurely folding her hands in front of her as she continued down the hall towards her destination.

Few were ever allowed into the Emperor’s private workshop, much less without an appointment or explicit summons, but Kikimora was among the elite few who could arrive here without notice and be heard out instead of reprimanded. It was further than she would have liked, situated in the very bowels of the castle. But what was a little walk when her ultimate triumph was within reach?

Eventually she reached the Emperor’s workshop, a tall metal door at the end of a hall that was gloomy even by the castle’s standards, flanked on either side by a pair of scouts. The scouts knew better than to impede her progress, merely opening the door and announcing her presence before stepping back. Allowing Kikimora to stride between them into the room ahead, the door swinging shut behind her, cutting off the already dim light of the hall and leaving her in the deeper gloom of the workshop. Despite the sudden darkness, Kikimora didn’t allow her perfect posture to so much as slip as she stepped through the dark room and approached the workbench, where the Emperor himself sat tinkering with his staff.

“What is it Kikimora?” Belos’s voice echoed out from behind his mask, startlingly loud in the quiet room “I presume you would only interrupt my limited leisure time for a matter of the most dire importance,”

Kikimora was far too experienced to flinch at that, but she allowed herself to discreetly pull in a deep breath. Had to step carefully now, her information might be good but it had to be applied correctly or else all her careful planning would be for naught. 

“I’m afraid I come with unfortunate news regarding your nephew,” she made sure her voice came out sincere, betraying none of the vindication she felt.

“Oh?” the infection in Belos’ voice was subtle but it was there, setting aside his staff and tools and turning to face her fully.

She kneeled down and held out her scroll, damning photos already pulled up. Submissively lowering her gaze as Belos reached out and accepted it.

 “I have discovered that young Hunter neglects his duties to spend time with commoners,” she kept her gaze cast down while gesturing up to her scroll in Belos’ hand “The proof is in your hands, I suspect he might even be engaged in an affair with one of them,”

She fell silent and took half a step back, still not raising her eyes, as Belos examined her scroll. With his mask in place she couldn’t see Belos’ expression, but she kept a careful watch of his every motion. One arm raising the scroll to his face, the other shifting as he swiped through the photos–

Abruptly all movement stopped, Belos sitting completely motionless in his chair as he stared down at her scroll. 

The frozen silence went on for so long that Kikimora had to fight the urge to squirm. Dread starting to seep into the back of her mind that she may have just made a horrible mistake– 

A loud snap echoed through the room, breaking the silence and making Kikimora flinch back in surprise.

Her scroll clattered to the floor in jagged pieces, some still trapped in the Emperor’s claw like grip, black sludge dripping out from between the cracks in his gauntlets as his hand shook–

A breath caught in her throat.

But not with the pain from his curse, she realized, with rage.

The chair was shoved away from the bench with a shriek, clattering to the floor as Emperor Belos snatched up his staff and swept out of the room. A rustle of his cloak and a slamming door and just like that Kikimora was alone, still kneeling there on the cold floor with only the shattered scroll and upturned stool for company.

For a moment she remained where she was. When it became clear Emperor Belos wasn’t returning she slowly rose to her feet. Hesitating only slightly, Kikimora approached the workbench and righted the stool before leaning down and gathering up the pieces of her scroll. She disposed of the pieces in the nearest waste bin, along with the rag she’d used to wipe up stray drops of sludge. Only when she was certain that all traces of the Emperor’s outburst were erased did she turn and depart the room. Willing her breathing to be deep and steady as she made her way down the hall, going over the events that had just transpired in her head. 

Belos was furious, that much was clear, but not with her. If it had been Kikimora he was enraged with it wouldn’t be the scroll lying on the floor in pieces. Which meant that the target of his fury could only be Hunter.

She had to hold back a snicker as she turned and headed back to her own quarters. Elated in her success at reducing the Golden Guard’s favor in the Emperor’s eyes.

Oh Belos must be absolutely furious with his nephew. No doubt he’d demote Hunter for sure. Maybe even have him flogged–

Her steps faltered, composure cracking for the first time tonight.

There was a chance that Belos would have Hunter flogged, but retain his rank. And while she certainly wouldn’t mind seeing that golden brat get knocked down a peg, what good was it if it didn’t put her further ahead?

There was no telling what kind of punishment Belos would dole out, but if she had to pick between flogging and demotion Kikimora would much prefer the demotion. That would give her the opportunity she needed to rise up in the hierarchy. 

“Everything ok ma’am?” one of the scouts spoke up.

Kikimora shook her head “Y– yes I’m fine,” picking herself up and continuing on her way. Shrugging off the momentary bout of nerves and leaning back into her triumph.

There was no way this would fail, her information had been too good and Belos had been far too angry. Her scheme would succeed and she would soon surpass Hunter in the Emperor’s eyes, Belos may even make her the Golden Guard…

This time she let a tiny laugh escape her, walking through the hall buzzing with the thrill of victory.

[beardedmrbean]

Hollywood stars and well-known pundits have taken sides in the lawsuit against singer Lizzo.

The Grammy award winner, whose given name is Melissa Viviane Jefferson, and is known as a champion of the body positive movement, is facing legal action from three of her former dancers who accused her of sexually harassing them and creating a hostile work environment.

Filed on Tuesday, the sexual harassment lawsuit, accuses Lizzo of religious and racial harassment, discrimination, false imprisonment, and body shaming.

Lizzo broke her silence on Thursday, telling fans she was "not the villain," in a lengthy Instagram statement.

Los Angeles attorney Ron Zambrano, who is representing plaintiffs Arianna Davis, Crystal Williams and Noelle Rodriguez, said "behind closed doors, this is the way Lizzo is."

He made the comments on Chris Cuomo's Newsnation show, Cuomo, and added one dancer, "was put it in the situation where she had to pee on herself, where her phone was taken, where she had to admit that she had to be, that she ... had mental disability, eating disorder, she was called out for fat shaming."

The star responded to the lawsuit by writing: "These last few days have been gut wrenchingly difficult and overwhelmingly disappointing. My work ethic, morals and respectfulness have been questioned. My character has been criticized. Usually I choose not to respond to false allegations but these are as unbelievable as they sound and too outrageous to not be addressed.

"These sensationalized stories are coming from former employees who have already publicly admitted that they were told their behavior on tour was inappropriate and unprofessional."

Celebrities weighed in on the legal action with a number throwing their support behind Lizzo.

Jersey Shore star JWoww (Jenni Farley) and actress Jennifer Garner liked Lizzo's Instagram statement.

While Pushing Daisies actress Kristin Chenoweth wrote in the comments: "This will be a blip soon enough. Keep your head held high girl. You know who you are. Others like to take the opportunity to get what they can. Ignore. Delete. It will be over soon."

And The Good Place star Jameela Jamil added a series of love heart emojis in support of the star.

Perhaps surprisingly, conservative commentator Candace Owens described the lawsuit as "frivolous."

"I know everyone's going to think that my take is that Lizzo is guilty as charged. Actually far be it. My take is I do not believe that Lizzo is guilty as charged," she began on a recent episode of her podcast.

Owens read through the details of the lawsuit including accusations that some of the dancers were forced to eat a banana protruding from a sex worker's vagina while visiting Amsterdam and that white management had reprimanded them for other behavior while on tour.

"I should make it clear ... that they are claiming that white management demoralized them, because they had these white managers [and] they were racist toward them because they told them how they should behave on tour," she said.

"It sounds like the women probably were just told that they couldn't be ratchet and maybe the manager was white who said this to them but now they're launching essentially a lawsuit saying that's racist and sexual harassment."

"Ratchet" is a derogatory term often used towards Black women who are deemed uncouth, according to Dictionary.com.

"Now here's my take obviously according to me, this is a frivolous lawsuit," Owens added and accused the dancers of being "grown adult women" who "knew exactly what it meant when Lizzo took them out on the town to the red light district in Amsterdam."

But one of Lizzo's biggest celebrities fans, Beyoncé, seemed to snub the singer at a recent concert following the news of the lawsuit.

Beyoncé is currently on the U.S. leg of her Renaissance world tour and seemed to skip Lizzo's name during her performance of her "Break My Soul (Queens Remix)," where she name-checks a number of iconic performers in her track such as, Aretha Franklin, Nina Simone and Lauryn Hill.

Social media footage from her show in Foxborough, Massachusetts seemed to show Beyoncé seemingly not saying Lizzo's name during the popular re-working of Madonna's song "Vogue".

In her public statement, Lizzo said she was very passionate about her work and took her role as an entertainer very seriously.

"With passion comes hard work and high standards. Sometimes I have to make hard decisions but it's never my intention to make anyone feel uncomfortable or like they aren't valued as an important part of the team," she wrote.

"I am not here to be looked at as the victim," she went on, "but I also know that I am not the villain that people and the media have portrayed me to be these last few days. I am very open with my sexuality and expressing myself but I cannot accept or allow people to use that openness to make me out to be something I am not.

"There is nothing I take more seriously than the respect we deserve as women in the world. I know what it feels like to be body shamed on a daily basis and would absolutely never criticize or terminate an employee because of their weight. I'm hurt but I will not let the good work I've done in the world be overshadowed by this."

Lizzo finished her statement by thanking "everyone who has reached out in support to lift me up during this difficult time."

But the plaintiffs' attorney, Zambrano, hit back at her statement and told Newsweek it showed "a lack of empathy."

"Lizzo has failed her own brand and has let down her fans," Zambrano said on Thursday. "Her denial of this reprehensible behavior only adds to our clients' emotional distress.

"The dismissive comments and utter lack of empathy are quite telling about her character and only serve to minimize the trauma she has caused the plaintiffs and other employees who have now come forward sharing their own negative experiences."

[strangeswift]

really random question that's not even ST related but what's your opinion on someone (queer, but not a lesbian, if that makes a difference) using the d-slur in a fic about a character who is a canonically referred to that way (and the character is ok with it). Like is it ok because it's "in character" for the characters in the fic to use it, or is it still not ok if the author isn't a lesbain?

I know you're not like the Word of God on things like this, but I'm just curious what you think because I'm working on something, but I don't want to be offensive tyia

Hi anon!

In my opinion, it is okay for the author to write other characters using it or the lesbian character referring to herself that way either in internal or external dialogue. (I'd be careful with internal dialogue though.) It would not be okay for the author themselves to describe the character that way within the story. So you can't say, "[Insert character] likes girls because she is a dyke." when you're describing your character. I'm assuming you know this, I just felt the need to be clear.

Let's use Stranger Things as an example. Lonnie refers to Will as a "fag." The Duffer Brothers aren't openly gay men, but they wrote their character saying that. It's acceptable, because it's a character saying it, not them. (I realize this is different than your senario because Lonnie is villainized and you're speaking more in the realm of reclaiming slurs, but I think the point still stands.) If the Duffers released a script just straight up calling Will the f slur as a descriptor, obviously that would be entirely different.

So in my personal opinion, I think it's fine. As you said, I'm not an Authority really, I'm just one lesbian. But that's how I see it. I mean I personally have used the f slur in writing, and I am not a gay man. So I think it's the same.

I do think it's important to be tasteful. Use it if it adds to the characterization of your characters or is actually valuable to the story. Don't just include it because you can. If you do that, it will come across that way to the reader. Slurs and derogatory language should be used sparingly and purposefully in writing, in my opinion. So ask yourself if it really does add to the story. If it does, I personally think it's fine.

[moonfurthetemmie]

once again I am learning more history from my fucking college music program that’s meant to be about music and sound shit than my actual history classes in elementary-high school

Tonight I actually got to hear what exactly the Stonewall riot was, beyond it being police vs queer people.

And I am fairly confident in its accuracy because my professor this month has said MANY times over the course that he could actively cut things out of the videos he showed us if they were factually incorrect.

Stonewall, the place itself, was a club. It was a club were mostly gay people gathered, at a time where there couldn’t be gay clubs. And when the police showed up to ‘put a stop to it’, the club goers decided they were sick of all this and fought back.

And ever since queer people have been getting louder and louder.

And it…reminded me of another documentary I watched earlier this month. Just last week, I think. There was a producer or engineer, I can’t remember anymore with my goldfish memory, but she was very very good at what she did and she was mentioned briefly, as they talked about how electronic music was getting started.

She was introduced as “Wendy - then Walt(er) [last name] -“ and then they continued with what she was doing. I wish I could remember her whole name, or what exactly her job was, but after a bit of narration it switched to someone being interviewed and the guy said “Wendy, or Walt, at the time; I never quite worked out what that was about-“

And that was it. And we continued on. I bet I could tell you what that was about, but mayhaps Wendy never told anyone explicitly. Maybe Wendy never labeled herself. Maybe she didn’t know the words to describe it! But there was no judgment or snide remarks or anything. Just acknowledgment and then moving on.

Later on in that same documentary, a band member was talking about how adding a couple of girls to their group would help them reach a larger audience. Saying that up until that point, they were only listened to by guys. And then he goes “…and transvestites.”

Again, with…no judgement. It was just like saying ‘Hispanic and Jewish people tended to listen to Latin music most’ earlier in the course. It was just There. Just a note. No undertone of distaste or hatred, just ‘oh, and also this.’ And then we moved on!

Is transvestite a slur? Was it a slur at the time? Fuck man I don’t know, but they were all slurs at one point. All the words we use for queer people.

But he didn’t say it with any derogatory, and he may not have had any other word for trans people.

And I am! So glad. That those were there. Just a little nod to them. The fact that they didn’t leave Wendy out for being trans (almost definitely). The fact that the band guy was so chill about having trans people make up a notable portion of their fans. The fact that they didn’t leave out Stonewall.

Wendy in particular touches me. Because these were both British documentaries, and while these were filmed years ago, the fucking miasma of transphobia and shit from over yonder, that drains me emotionally every time I think about it, makes this touch in a different way. The documentary didn’t leave her out for what she was. They didn’t make any shitty remarks to comments about her, or the band guy’s fans being trans. They just moved on.

Even with as loud as the transphobia is I know not everyone in the UK is like that, but documentaries aren’t usually made by small groups of people working independently, are they? But whatever network they worked for let them leave it in.

Maybe we can at least get back to that. And god I hope we can get even better.

And my instructor? He’s an older white man. And being terminally online I do not expect much or any tolerance or acceptance of these things from older white men. I know they’re not all bigoted assholes, but I’m sort of conditioned to prepare myself for it, for lack of better words

But he didn’t cut them out either.

These documentaries were uploaded to a site specifically for the school, for students to watch. He absolutely could’ve cut them out. And he didn’t. He left them. He’s been teaching here for twenty years and has altered the course several times he had so many opportunities to edit them out and he didn’t.

idk something something finding a little hope and light in a time when I only ever hear bad news

[sleepyowlwrites]

Can you tell me anything (and by that i meant ALL THE THINGS) about your guild story?

I will tell you all of the things I know so far.

this world takes much more inspiration from cdramas than it does from western fantasy, but I've read so much western fantasy that it probably has plenty of those hallmarks too, like, say, GUILDS.

noble families are split into houses, but no house is large enough to fill a whole area. it's just a family, maybe an extended one, but there are a few dozen members of one house at the most.

the family are houses with a small h. "house" is just a common descriptor. the name of the house is the important bit. in this world, "house" stands for collective just as much as for "building where people live."

there are other kinds of guilds for smiths or painters or bakers or what have you. those are small g guilds.

the Three Guild Houses are the main focus of the story. they operate mostly independently of house loyalties, economy, and government. they're commonly referred to as "the rat houses" or the "elthrun houses" which are references to how they are not beholden to any allegiance and they're full of magic-users.

the House of Favors is run by the immortal sorceress. every other person in the house in an apprentice, able to use magic by means of a conduit created and gifted by the immortal sorceress. the apprentices are sent out to make contracts with various noble houses in exchange for favors, or to fulfill a favor, or to collect. all apprentices are taught to use magic, a practice which takes a lifetime to master and some consider to be not worth the trouble.

the House of Breath/Blood (I can't decide which) is a place of healing, magical healing but also the regular kind. magical healing is even more difficult to learn than magic in general, so all apprentices choose a specialty and then learns it over decades. the two divisions are bonesmiths - magic used on a wider scale - and skinstitches - magic used on a smaller, more precise scale. a bonesmith will not do a skinstitch's job because they're not equipped for it. both learn and practice non-magic physicianship as well.

the House of Swords in a mercenary guild, kind of. the soldiers who belong to the guild often have outside loyalties, and until they officially renounce their birth house (the process involves blood and paperwork) their allegiance is always to their family, not the guild. it is neither encouraged nor scorned for the members to do so, unless they're stupid enough to accept contracts that will negatively affect their old house. (for instance, Idrian still hasn't appointed his younger brother as the head of the family after his parents died so he's split between managing his family house and working at the guild.)

the immortal sorceress has many names, and she gives out different ones to different people. apprentices might be having a conversation about her and use three different names but they're talking about the same person. most people don't have any name for her at all. they just call her "mor diahd" which is an older language term for "madwoman" but also "powerful woman" aka magic-using woman, and it's simultaneously derogatory and deferential. the immortal sorceress has never discouraged the use of this term, to describe herself, at least.

the closest thing to someone like the immortal sorceress in the realm is Arkenji, a trader, fortune teller, dealer and long-lived person rumored to be the lover of the immortal sorceress. literally no one ever sees them cross paths but Arkenji's been alive for way too long, so if they're both immortal they must be lovers! Arkenji is both an absolute darling and hauntingly terrifying, depending on how you treat him.

the characters I've come up with so far are: Idrian, from house Sarendor and the House of Swords, a young man who is far too serious for his own good, Marz and Mareye from house Abisos, brother and sister that I can't decide if they're twins or not. Marz becomes an apprentice at the House of Favors and Mareye is an apprentice at the House of Breath. Yashel is an officer and a training master at the House of Swords, is very fond of Idrian and is so, so good with a sword. Ondo, Nari, and Pellor, from the House of Favors. Pellor is the one who picks up Marz after he's saved by the immortal sorceress.

typically, the immortal sorceress takes in orphans as her apprentices, but not always. every single apprentice nearly died, though. she saved them and gave them a conduit and then they joined the House.

that's everything, I think. that's all I know. some of this information might change as I write more actual scenes, but this is what I've got so far.

oh, and the immortal sorceress has purple hair.

thanks for asking, I think.

[rolanslide]

The principal saying that Luz is acting out for attention as a result of her grieving her dad's death is... interesting. Because I never interpreted her character that way? I'm not saying that can't be true, and her grief does inform her character in other ways... but I don't think her 'oddities' have anything to do with that.

It never seemed like she was looking for attention in that way, she was just expressing herself authentically. Especially seeing that Luz has always been a bit of an oddball, long before her dad died.

Idk, as someone who is neurodivergent and has been through the american school system, the language used to describe her in that scene felt... familiar (derogatory)