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sigynpenniman · 3 years ago

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Julian Bashir Playlist Time!!

Apple Music playlist (if you're a heathen and subscribe to apple music like me) here

I know that there's plenty of people making playlists, but I really feel like this is an under-utilized brand of fan content. Instead of attempting to create a list of songs that Julian would listen to, or a playlist of songs which were all lyrically directly applicable (though there certainly some of those in here) regardless of genre, I tried to create something which captured, above all, his vibes instead, by choosing songs that balance at least somewhat relevant lyrical content with the energy or feel that I associate with the character. What it means matters, but not as much as how it makes you feel. That said, I signed up for apple music and read a TON of those overwrought iTunes store album review descriptions while I was making this, so I have a whole lot to say about all my choices here. In depth explanation of my symbolism and methodology behind each song under the keep reading. (I love tumblr. I want to write 1,000 words of analysis about why I picked songs to represent Julian Bashir and some of you are gonna read it. This is where I get to pretend to be one of those iTunes music writers. I feel joy.)

Good Morning - Two Door Cinema Club TDCC's Gameshow is high on my favorite albums of all time list for nebulous reasons I myself don't really understand. It was this album, though not this song (but one that will pop up later) that actually inspired me to make this playlist to begin with, as for some reason, from the color scheme of the album cover, to the overall vibe, to the ever-present references to illness, injury, surgery and healers in the lyrics, the whole thing feels inescapably Julian to me. And with an opening like I'm a sinner/I'm the victim/I'm an alien when I'm myself/I'm a healer/I'm a fixer/I'm a present danger to my health/I'm so strong/Doing what I'm supposed to do/ There's something wrong/With somebody like me, it's hard NOT to think about Julian when you hear this song, and I can't think of a better way to start this off.

Sweater Weather - The Neighbourhood I think there's a joke somewhere about bisexual people all liking Sweater Weather, and yeah, I resemble that remark. Sweater Weather is just good. You'll notice there's a sort of chill-indie-alt-electronic thing going here, and that is very much the vibe I'm sticking with. Sweater Weather slots in beautifully, both sonically and thematically. As the singer looks to warm and protect the person he's with from the cold, you can't help but feel a loving coziness coming off of this one. It always makes me feel cozy, at least, so it's here.

Gooey - Glass Animals I have nothing to analyze here because the artists themselves have said that the lyrics of this song have no meaning, they're just meant to capture a vibe, and capture it they do. Close your eyes and ride the vibes of this one. The energy is right, I love it, it belongs here.

Blue - Mika I could probably write a couple hundred words on Blue alone, in any context. This might be my beloved Mika's magnum Opus. Opening the song with the inherently counterintuitive lyric Blue is a feminine color, Mika manages to pack it ALL into this 3 minute song: questions about gender; concepts of sadness, joy, and their intersections; of the perception of melancholy as a flaw and loving people despite, or maybe because of, those "flaws" and anything else about them; a powerful first person reassurance that made me start weeping in my car the first time I heard it; just the phrase "why are humans cruel to you." And oh boy, ARE there questions of gender. Why is blue NOT considered a feminine color? Is that a good thing, a bad thing? In 3 minutes of artful poetry, Mika manages to wrap up sadness, love, joy, pain, the feminine that exists within the masculine and the masculine that exists within the feminine, in the simple color of blue and then, in one lyric, validates it all. And on a much simpler and more obvious note, this is in fact all a philosophic musing on the symbolic meaning of the color we see Julian wearing almost all the time (when he's not in uniform, almost all his civvies are also shades of blue.) I feel like this is one of those songs that's hard to analyze because it does what music and poetry does best - communicate something that cannot be communicated any other way. With these broad themes of loving others around the things they can't love about themselves, you can decide for yourself if this one is coming FROM Julian or directed AT him, either works. I find myself struggling for exactly the words to explain this one, but listen to it; you'll understand.

Little Dark Age - MGMT Another choice with no obvious lyrical relevance, but the tonal fit was just too good to pass up. The vibes pass.

The City - The 1975 This song is one of several present because it leans on medical symbolism to get its point across, though I would be lying if I said I fully understood what that point was. But the entire second verse, apparently about the song's subject suffering from some kind of illness and reassuring him that the next one's the M.D./You'll be feeling just fine, seems somehow to transmit the discomfort of illness directly to the listener. I don't know how or why, but the effectiveness of the empathy the second half of this song elicits, in me at least, puts it squarely in the "odd medical vibes" category.

Surgery - Two Door Cinema Club THIS is the song that inspired this whole playlist, mostly because of its title and general vibe. Another example (of many) of medical/anatomical references in this album (another of the songs is called Fever, etc), this song just feels like Julian to me.

The Other Side Of Paradise - Glass Animals I really like Glass Animals. That is probably becoming obvious. Aside from its delightfully cohesive vibes, this song opens with what's simultaneously the slyest and most brazen gay lyric I have heard on the radio recently, as the male singer says When I was young and stupid my love left to be a rock and roll star/HE told me... The song seems to be about a man whose male lover left him in pursuit of fame and fortune, and eventually ends up with a woman, leaving the singer behind. It's got simultaneously subtle and obvious gay themes, it's got confused love affairs, it's got so much bisexual energy. I cannot think of anything that could be more Julian.

Sit Next To Me - Foster The People Kind of like Sweater Weather, this whole song is built around a rather cute and sweet "sit next to me," and you can't help but feel a bit warm and cozy when you listen to it. I think it pairs with sweater weather well, and slides in with the rest of the picks very nicely.

Nothing Better - The Postal Service (the original band of the lead singer of Death Cab For Cutie) Another example of heavy surgical symbolism, the very first lyric of this song is Will someone please call a surgeon. This is actually a duet, and the singers speak of their real hearts to represent their emotional ones. Something about Your heart won't heal right if you keep tearing out the sutures always gets me and always will. And it vibes good. It vibes so, so good.

&Run - Sir Sly Sir Sly's &Run is my favorite song for driving too fast. It does an amazing job of musical onomatopoeia, talking about running while making you want to run. It's a song about running out of plans and running as far as you can instead, which is all very "I'm illegal by definition so I went to the farthest possible reaches of space." And like everything else here, it just feels good. It's also one of the only highlights here that I can actually see Julian listening to.

Cosmic Love - Florence and the Machine It's no coincidence that it seems like most of us who are invested in Julian Bashir are some flavor of genderqueer, be it trans, nonbinary, questioning, or something else entirely - the man's got a Gender with a capital G, and there's a whole lot going on in there. Between the words that were written for him on the page, and the words that were actually spoken, and the way he carries himself, Julian always seems caught between the white, western, and frequently toxic masculinity that the writers often seemed to want to imbue him with, and the very different, racially and culturally distinct masculinity Sid actually brought. But there's an undeniable element of the feminine in Julian too, at least by a traditional definition. The presence of this part of him at all, much less the fact that, in-universe, it's the more traditionally "feminine" parts of himself - the caregiving and nurturing aspects - that Julian seems proudest of or to like most about himself, is a large part of what makes his character so interesting, at least to me. So there was no way I was getting out of this without acknowledging that somehow, and I can't think of a better way to acknowledge a complicated relationship with the feminine side of one's own gender than with this world's own Celtic divine feminine, Florence Welch. I can't think of any better artist, at least that I know of, to represent femininity as a nonspecific ethereal goddess-concept. I basically spun the wheel of Florence here, as anything would have worked, but Cosmic Love felt very appropriate for a character who does in fact live in space. There could even be some Garashir in here, I think.

Dream Sweet In Sea Major - ミラクルミュージカル, or Miracle Musical, a sister act made up of members of Tally Hall I also couldn't leave off without acknowledging Julian's affection for classic lounge music, especially since it's the only thing about his taste in music that we actually know. But instead of tacking on some rat pack, instead I'm polishing this off with the incredibly chaotic and somehow also perfectly cohesive and calm Dream Sweet in Sea Major. It's got all of the vibes of a lounge singer but gone completely off the rails, which just seems perfect somehow. And it's also a very nice feeling to be left with, so it seems only right to put it at the end.

and if you've read all of this, I love you. Y'all didn't know I was this into music did you. but I am. oh boy. I AM.

#julian bashir #playlists #Spotify

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projectshadovv · 4 years ago

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Names are Zenka(for friends/mutuals only) or Sad (short for sad machine), and I’ve been on this website since 2011. ive seen a lot of shit

born 1996

Hispanic

he/she pronouns

genderqueer lesbian

autism/ADHD

main interests are: warrior cats, ginga dog series, sonic the hedgehog, video games and animation

my opinions are my own, i dont care if it doesnt please you (in regards to fandom spaces). i dont bother anyone whose opinions contradict mine, so dont fucking bother me. dont send me anon hate asks i will straight up not interact with them and delete those messages. if you wanna tak about something, ask off anon or dm me. im too old for fandom drama- just grow up and block me if you want

my irl job is being a vet technician on the weekends at a mobile clinic. i do art commissions for extra money and are usually always open <-----

my art tag is #zcribblez

other places you can find me

twitter @sadmachlne666 (most active) youtube @sad machine

dont follow or interact if youre

racist (including anti / neutral towards black lives matter, or pro all / blue lives matter); islamophobic; lgbtphobic (including terfs, truscum and transmeds); antisemites; anti he/him lesbians or anti she/her gay men; support ships that involve pedophilia, zoophilia, incest, or abuse (proshipping or wtv)

#squeaks #pinned #about me #about

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dykehaus · 4 years ago

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Chromatica first listen reactions

Chromatica 1 - Orchestral opening, very cinematic like she threw a Hans Zimmer wig in the ring here for apparently no reason other than to maybe suggest a video game/scifi movie opening? I’m getting opening credits to a Square Enix game circa 2005 so. I’m good with it.

Alice - MY NAME. ISN’T ALICE. Straight into the dance beats… yes god. Verses may be forgettable and the lyrics/conceit of the song isn’t that interesting but I’m really loving the chorus sound and the modulated voice in the bridge - Judas teas!! Other than the bridge, kinda filler? Remains to be seen on second listen.

Stupid Love - I didn’t love this when it leaked or was officially released. I almost let the dumb video sour the potential of it. Is it the greatest song here? No it’s just as dumb as its video. But it’s actually more enjoyable when you just accept that it’s dumb and don’t try to fight against it. It’s got some crisp BTW B-side sounding production and corniness to it and we can get behind that! After school special pop. Not sorry, I’ll listen to Stupid Love.

Rain on Me - Has gay sex in public while this plays. Someone meanwhile smokes a cigarette in a Brooklyn warehouse and sips a matcha cocktail. Next.

Free Woman - KNOCK OUT in my opinion. Like an upbeat So Happy I Could Die I would argue… Also might be one of the lezzier items on offer here. Which is among my priorities in listening to any Lady Gaga output. You really get the texture of her vocals here and Gaga’s voice is one of her real selling points. There are no girls who make this kind of music that have her intonation. Periodt. I’m a Free Wuhman!

Fun Tonight - Is this the ballad? It’s not a ballad. It’s a dance song. But it has Gypsy from ARTPOP vibes. The Gaga equivalent of a torch song. This is the song you put on when you’re having a little early 00s white girl in a romcom sad montage moment and there’s certainly a time and place for that! This is definitely about Christian and for that reason I wish it were angrier lmao. (Fuck him)

Chromatica II - More moody strings! I definitely get more of a video game feel from this than cinematic necessarily. Feels like an album version of a cut scene.

911 - Heavy bass! Chanting robot voice! Would’ve given myself a wettie through the car speakers with this if I were still driving on the regular. This vocal is of kin with Madonna’s on Madame X. The lyrics here are GARBAGE but it might get the Heavy Metal Lover treatment where I’ll eventually love every bit of it.

Plastic Doll - This is Barbie Girl but played straight. Right now I don’t love that but given enough to drink I will think it’s transcendent art. She rhymed ‘saga’ and ‘gaga’! Someone will inevitably perform a genderqueer drag act to this.

Sour Candy - I don’t pretend to know actually anything about Kpop. Their presence here gives me unrelenting early 00s vibes. Is that a big reference point for Kpop groups? I have no idea. I think this one might have real commercial value considering the crossover event of it all. The production here is really just. fine. Capable. But I LOVE the Gaga vocal!! My favorite other than Free Woman thus far.

Enigma - She put some effort into the lyrics here! Thanks G! Killer, signature soaring Gaga chorus. The enigma thing is technically self promotion for her never-ending Vegas residency (which costs about a billion to attend). This has 70s disco sparkle to it and it’s really enjoyable.

Replay - (Shawty’s like a replay?). When the electro-hook kicks in here, I just want to get up and dance. This whole section of the album actually after Chromatica II (should we call it Act 2?) feels like it’s trying to ramp the energy back up after a dip. “Your monsters torture me!” Me looking up at my Fame Monster merchandise.

Chromatica III - OK like the cut scene before the final boss! My favorite of the three orchestral songs. Makes sense considering what’s to come in Sine From Above.

Sine From Above - FUCK. For me, the best song on the album on first listen. This has the most “narrative” and “build” as I would say in a reader’s report at work. Elton John actually brings even more gravitas to this. Let’s spell it out kids: W-I-G! Before there was love there was silence!!!

1000 Doves - It’s depressing me a bit how plaintive she is on this album. But somehow this song is still uptempo? Reminds me of the original version of Dope. But like, listenable. Much as we valorize ARTPOP was oddly prescient for its release year, there were legit duds on that album. Dope was one of them.

Babylon - You can serve it to me ancient city style! She said lemme ham it up real quick to finish this ditty off. The Lady Gaga equivalent of Liza Minnelli turns off a lamp. Gossip! Babble on! This is what I’ll put on to get dressed and, nostalgically, it gives me a little of Disco Heaven closing The Fame. This might start up shit with Madonna again like the good old days :)

OVERALL THOUGHTS: This is the most homogenous album she’s released since The Fame. It’s also one of the snappiest, smoothest listens as an album. Sometimes Gaga albums are better taken in bites... One of the upsides: that homogeneity makes it automatically more cohesive than say, Born This Way or even Joanne (cowboy crap aside). Do the complaints that she’s playing it safe hold water? Absolutely and that’s just as I expected. But this is the album she frankly needed to make at this stage. Just as Madonna needed to make Ray of Light when she did. After such massive and unexpected success basically under the guise of ANOTHER character (this one a basic girl in the Ally/SiB character), she needed to ease back into the Gaga machine.

BEST SONGS: Sine From Above, Free Woman, Enigma, Babylon

Anyway, I’m putting Sine From Above on repeat now!!

EDIT AFTER 24 HOURS: best songs are enigma, 911, babylon, and rain on me. and i stick by really enjoying sine from above in all its 2012 edm hangover in ibiza-ness. alice is really a grower on several listens. fun tonight, 1000 doves, and stupid love round out the bottom for sure.

#lady gaga #gaga #chromatica

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accidentalspaceexplorer · 5 years ago

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End of the Decade Favorite Books

I was tagged by @howlsmovinglibrary and @lizziethereader to do this tag! Credit also goes to @bookcub for creating it in the first place - here’s the link to her original post, so that you can see what the original categories were! I ended up shuffling mine a bit because I have slightly different taste in books.

1. High fantasy books that are obsession worthy

Recently, every N.K. Jemisin book I’ve read so far. I also used to be really into Brandon Sanderson’s Cosmere universe and the Codex Alera series by Jim Butcher.

2. Retelling I keep coming back to

I never really had a favorite fairy tale until I read Tam Lin by Pamela Dean. Janet is strong, independent, and capable, both in the book and in the original ballad, and I really love how complicated it is.

3. Portal fantasy I fall in love with over and over

In Other Lands, which is so hilarious and wonderful. Elliot is so snarky, and the elves are such an interesting satire.

4. Delightful road trip books

The Martian by Andy Weir and the Long Road to a Small Angry Planet by Becky Chambers both involve road trips (technically :D) that are hilarious and poignant and I highly recommend them!

5. Slightly niche genre I couldn’t resist

I was really into steampunk for a good portion of this decade, and one of my favorite series is the Parasol Protectorate by Gail Carriger. Funny and adorable with just the right amount of heat.

6. Action-packed space adventures that dragged me all over the galaxy

The Vorkosigan Saga by Lois McMaster Bujold is full of Miles going on some new crazy adventure and dragging his friends and family along, and the Imperial Radch books by Ann Leckie are also full of political machinations and ship-based adventures. I only read them this year, but I also have to rec the Machineries of Empire series by Yoon Ha Lee here!

7. Happy, happy, happy and sad, sad, sad

The Anne of Green Gables series by L.M. Montgomery, which never fails to make me laugh, cry, and cheer up.

8. Surprise that expanded my reading life the most

What Makes This Book So Great by Jo Walton, which I picked up on a whim, pushed me to discover so many new fantastic books, like Tooth and Claw and a lot of Ursula K. LeGuin’s classics. It really pushed me to widen my reading scope beyond what my high school library had to offer.

9. Engrossing historical romances I couldn’t put down

Despite all three of them having very different feels, Outlander by Diana Gabaldon, The Rogue Not Taken by Sarah MacLean, and A Company of Swans by Eva Ibbotsen all captured my heart, and I have many many feels about them.

10. Just one more story...

The Starry Rift: Tales of New Tomorrows is a science-fiction anthology from all sorts of names in the genre, covering a wide variety of futures and stories. I love basically every story in it.

11. Like I’m scared, but I’m happy about it

The only semi-scary thing I read and enjoy is the Dublin Murder Squad series by Tana French. They’re very character-driven murder mysteries, and they’re very twisty, very atmospheric, and a little surreal.

12. Classically favorite

Much Ado About Nothing by Shakespeare! It’s just my favorite, I’ve seen like every adaptation, I want to be Beatrice when I grow up

13. Party in my ears

I’m not a huge fan of audiobooks, but I loved the Going Postal audiobook! The narrator is fantastic and Pratchett is so funny and insightful.

Also, like @howlsmovinglibrary, I wanna rec some of my favorite audiodramas: the ongoing Penumbra Podcast, with my favorite genderqueer noir detective Juno Steel; the completed Wolf 359, about found family and aliens in space; and the Adventure Zone, of which I’ve only finished the Balance arc so far.

14. Fascinating alternate history...with dragons!

His Majesty’s Dragon by Naomi Novik is about a Napoleonic England where the war with Napoleon is also being fought with in the air - with dragons! I love the dragons, and the world is really rich and well-developed.

15. Oh wow, that’s me!!

The Wanderers by Meg Howry, Fire by Kristin Cashore, and To Be Taught, If Fortunate by Becky Chambers all dug deep into my soul and took root.

16. I can’t stop thinking about this book

Too Like the Lightning by Ada Palmer is a weird book, but the world it portrays is an incredibly thought-provoking one, and I still can’t stop thinking about it.

17. A book I got from Tumblr that made it to my fave

The Traitor Baru Cormorant by Seth Dickinson - I had so many feelings when I was done with this book! Be ready for the pain.

18. A book I had high expectations for and then the author OVER delivered

I’d already read a lot by Robin McKinley and loved all of it, and then I read Sunshine, which became my favorite book for a while there. I just really wasn’t expecting such a good take on vampires, although with McKinley writing it, I really shouldn’t have been surprised!

I tag: everyone who hasn’t gotten a chance to do this yet!

#end of the decade #book recs #personal

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aprilgrayrobin · 5 years ago

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Judgment XX

Part 1

When I was sixteen, I came home from school one day and my mother gathered my little sister and I in the living room with an enormous sense of urgency. Her face was full of fear and sorrow as she presented us each with a backpack, and told us that everything we would need to hopefully survive could be found inside. A change of clothes, running shoes, thermal blanket, protein bars, tablets to disinfect drinking water, basic first aid supplies, iodine tablets to prevent the body from absorbing radiation, and a bundle of cash in small bills.

She informed us that the very next day, according to the prediction of an evangelical pastor, the rapture would take place. In Christian theology, this is the second coming of Christ to Earth and the event that signals what is commonly conceptualized as “the end of the world.” As a Christian, my mother believed that she would ascend to heaven. As “non-believers,” my sister and I would be left in the rubble… which is to say some vague, resource-scarce dystopian landscape of smoky skies and fights to the death in abandoned grocery stores aisles.

My mom was ready to go. She was ready to leave this world, and move on prematurely to the afterlife. But this was not a new thing. She had been ready, with barely one foot on the ground, for as long as I can remember.

As a young child, I recall tornado warnings that would send us running to the basement with sleeping bags, ready for the worst. The world ending wasn’t always about Christ’s return, see. More broadly, for my mom, I think it was about retreating from reality. It was any excuse to hole up and defend her nuclear family from threats semi-real to fully imagined. She hoarded (and still, I believe, hoards) supplies as a regular practice--cleaning products, canned goods, bulk grains, batteries--and invariably most of it would expire before it was ever put to use. But it soothes her, my mother, and abates the anxieties stoked by Fox News, InfoWars and fire-and-brimstone preachers delivering end times prophecies to the day.

It is hard to share this. Despite the harm she caused me, and the fact that we do not speak, I have love for my mother. I see her paranoia and her attempts to feel safe in a world that is fundamentally not safe. I feel sad that she can only conceptualize safety as being more prepared than her neighbors, and keeping it all to herself. I want to share this, though, because in being raised by someone perpetually readying herself for the apocalypse, I developed a readiness of my own.

I am thinking about the Dean Spade lecture on mutual aid, “Solidarity Not Charity,” that I attended this past fall. There was a moment when he was speaking about the idea of safe spaces as being not only an impossibility, but a concept that actually detracts from effective organizing. I want to quote him as saying, “If I get my safety from making you wrong, that’s authoritarian.” He described being at a meeting where people were planning for a common goal, and someone saying something hurtful and offensive. Rather than immediately kicking the person out, he said, what could come of recognizing that you had a common enemy (capitalism, the police, etc) and educating them. The “safety” that would allow him to respond to that situation in the latter way was generated by “having enough, and being held in community so that we can tolerate discomfort.” it is this definition of safety that I have been orienting towards.

Part 2

Recently someone asked me what kind of witch I am, and I told them “a political one.” I say this because the witch hunts of early modern Europe are one of the main origin points for our current conception of what a witch is. Although the Wicca of second wave feminism claimed those executed as “witches” to be ancestors of a Pagan religious tradition, in reality many if not most of them understood themselves as Christian. According to Silvia Federici’s extensively researched thesis, the people executed as witches were killed for the threat they posed to the newly enforced order of economic and social relations— early capitalism. In medieval Europe, most people practiced some form of what we would call magic. Charms for love, money and protection were run of the mill. It was only the magic of those who existed in opposition to the patriarchal capitalist order--the unmarried, disabled, unhoused, and destitute--that was labeled diabolical. Those Christians became heretics, and heretics became witches. The practice of magic alone did not, and perhaps does not, make someone a witch.

I am a witch in part because I was baptized in the Presbyterian church. I am a witch because I am a dyke who loves God (in a polytheistic kinda way). I am a witch because I survived an upbringing that nearly killed me, and I have committed my life to fight to destroy the societal structures which give rise to the interpersonal violence that I endured. I am a witch because of the non-hierarchical way I strive to relate to life in all its forms— plant, animal, human and non-human, living and dead. I am a witch because I believe that what we can imagine, we can bring into being.

In March of 2017 I was preparing for a spring equinox ritual with a group of witches as part of a Wheel of the Year class offered by my teacher, Miel Rose. On the seasonal theme, we wanted to cast a spell for moving back into embodiment after a time of being numb... For embracing the movement of spring after the dormancy of winter. In the week between our planning meeting and the day of our ritual, I found out the man my sister was dating, Rafael, an undocumented man from Guatemala, was detained by ICE in Pennsylvania. I remember feeling utterly powerless to free him from the jaws of the evil machine that is our immigration system. I went into ritual thinking about our intention for greater embodiment and movement. It wasn’t complete, I realized, as a spell to support our own transformation. We needed to cast a spell for freedom of movement for all people, all beings. And so we did.

On the bike path in Northampton, under the South Street overpass, we chalked in huge letters

A WORLD WITHOUT CAGES IS POSSIBLE.

And we chanted and hummed and visioned and sent the truth of that world we could feel in our bodies out to be picked up and passed on by others.

After ritual, I wrote these words in my journal:

"I WILL FEED MYSELF BECAUSE I LOVE THIS WORLD AND I AM OF THIS WORLD AND I DESERVE TO BE FED

Let it all come up into the (sun)light

Learning to be vulnerable, slowly Learning I won’t be punished for it Learning it’s ok to make mistakes, to be wrong, to fuck up That I can and will be held

Real change is slow and sometimes it hurts but sometimes it’s a steady drip till the water flows in full."

We were unsuccessful in our legal efforts to free Rafael from detention and prevent him from being deported. Witnessing his journey struggling against the system--attending his asylum trial inside the prison where he was being held--further radicalized me and moved me to political engagement in a new way. Fast forward a couple of years and I’ve been blessed to organize as part of the Trans Asylum Seeker Support Network to get transgender and genderqueer asylum seekers across the U.S./Mexico border, out of ICE detention, and set up with sponsors and support in western Massachusetts. This work has drawn me into a web of community I had previously only dreamed of (and cast spells for). We believe it is possible and necessary to abolish the police, abolish prisons, abolish capitalism. As a collective, we treat each other with kindness and encourage honesty in everything we do. We recognize that we need each other, and we act like it. What an immense gift to be surrounded by people who believe that a world without cages is possible, and to be fighting for it together. The more I connect and build with radical left activists, the more I realize we could have an entirely different world.

Part 3

And that is what I am sitting with in this moment. Everyone is calling it the apocalypse, and I don’t think that’s heavy handed. The word apocalypse comes from the Greek apokalupsis, from apokaluptein meaning ‘uncover, reveal.’ The whole world is seeing what was behind the curtain that is the mythology of capitalism. There are extreme losses occurring in this process. Death abounds. This is heavy. And. In the shadow of death there is preciousness. On this, I think, my mother and I agree. Everything is cast in a softer light. The finiteness of life becomes more real. There is possibility for deep change, because the ultimate change looms so large. We feel the urgency of how totally unsustainable the current order of economic and social relations is. The working class is fed up, and recognizing that they have power.

I re-read the Revelation to John (aka the Book of Revelation) recently for the first time in years. I believe that the end of the world described there cannot be separated from the description of the downfall of the Roman empire. I choose to read it slant. I choose to queer it. I choose to cultivate a relationship with this apocalypse moment that centers weaving webs of care alongside on the ground organizing to bring about the downfall of our current empire. For me, it is the only way through.

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lastsonlost · 6 years ago

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Aziz? redemption ?

AZIZ DIDN’T FUCKING DO ANY GOD DAMN THING WRONG!!!!!!

God, I love being white,” said Louis C.K.

“Here’s how great it is to be white,” the comedian went on: “I could get in a time machine, and go to any time, and it would be fucking awesome when I get there. That is exclusively a white privilege.”

The bit, part of his 2008 special Chewed Up, was emblematic of C.K.’s approach: poking fun at the inequalities of American society, while simultaneously acknowledging the ways they benefited him.

Contrast that with a set he performed in December 2018, a little over a year after he admitted to masturbating in front of women without their consent. During the December appearance, apparently at a comedy club on Long Island, C.K. joked that Asian men are “all women” and poked fun at school shooting survivors and gender-nonconforming teenagers, according to BuzzFeed News.

“They tell you what to call them,” he complained of teens who use the pronouns they/them. “Oh, OK. You should address me as ‘there’ because I identify as a location. And the location is your mother’s cunt.”

Imagine thinking the best way to resurrect your career after admitting to sexual misconduct is to mock trans people and Parkland gun violence survivors.

2018, during which his standup special and the wide release of his film I Love You, Daddy were canceled, seems to have wrought a change in C.K. Where once his comedy offered a fresh look at established power structures, he now seems set on ranting about kids today and their pronoun choices.

Fellow comedian Aziz Ansari has followed a similar trajectory. He once decried sexual harassment in his act — and addressed the issue in a nuanced way on his show Master of None. But in 2017, a woman told the website Babe.net that he had pressured her for sex — Ansari said he had believed everything that happened between them was “completely consensual,” and that he was “surprised and concerned” by her account.

After the incident, his comedy took on a different tone: In a fall 2018 appearance, he made fun of online debates about cultural appropriation and complained that nowadays, “everyone weighs in on everything,” according to the New Yorker.

The bigotry in C.K.’s set is disturbing, especially coming from someone who seemed at one time to have a relatively clear understanding of how power works in America. But what is also striking about C.K. and Ansari’s post-#MeToo material is its banality. Before they were publicly accused, these men wrestled with thorny questions of identity and power in ways that, while not always satisfying, were usually thought-provoking. After the allegations, they began parroting tired complaints about political correctness.

Of the many people accused of sexual misconduct as part of the #MeToo movement, C.K. and Ansari seemed like they might be uniquely equipped to reckon with the allegations against them, perhaps even adding something to the public conversation around #MeToo. Instead, they have retreated into boring and offensive stereotypes, perhaps playing to those who never thought they did anything wrong.

We’re all worse off for their decision, missing out on the art C.K. and Ansari might have created if they’d been willing to really face their accusations, and robbed of the opportunity to see two intelligent and thoughtful men really wrestle with the implications of #MeToo. In a time when more and more of the accused mull their comebacks, it’s natural to wonder what real redemption — complete with an acknowledgment of harm and a commitment to atonement — might look like. Apparently, Louis C.K. and Aziz Ansari will not be the ones to show us.

Louis C.K. used to talk about violence against women. Now he makes fun of genderqueer teens.

Before #MeToo, Louis C.K. was beloved by many for his often self-lacerating comedy. In his standup and on the autobiographical FX show Louie, he portrayed himself as a sad-sack weirdo disturbed by his own sexual urges — he once called himself a “prisoner” of “sexual perversion.”

C.K.’s work could be offensive, as when he complained that he missed being able to use a homophobic slur (and claimed, unconvincingly, that the way he used it had nothing to do with homophobia). But some hailed his comedy as feminist, and he showed a remarkable ability to mine humor from the dangers and biases women face — a difficult feat for a male comic.

“How do women still go out with guys when you consider that there is no greater threat to women than men?” he asked in a 2013 special. “We’re the number one threat to women! Globally and historically, we’re the number one cause of injury and mayhem to women.”

But C.K. was also the subject of long-simmering sexual misconduct rumors — and in November 2017, four women told the New York Times that he had masturbated in front of them or asked them to watch him masturbate (a fifth said that he masturbated while on a phone call with her).

In a move that remains unusual among men accused as part of #MeToo, C.K. admitted to the allegations against him. “These stories are true,” he said in a statement to the New York Times.

“I have spent my long and lucky career talking and saying anything I want,” he added. “I will now step back and take a long time to listen.”

But as many have pointed out, the listening didn’t last very long. C.K. was back onstage in September 2018, less than a year after his pledge to step back. In an October appearance at the West Side Comedy Club in New York, he addressed the fallout from his sexual misconduct revelations, saying he’d been to “hell and back” and that he’d “lost $35 million in an hour.”

While many were critical of C.K.’s comeback attempt, West Side Comedy Club host AMarie Castillo told the comedy website LaughSpin that the comic “was so genuine and reflected on how weird his year was” in his October appearance. “Sounds to me he is owning up, acknowledging, and trying to figure it out,” she said.

But in a December set, he didn’t sound much like someone trying to figure anything out. In audio posted on YouTube, apparently from an appearance at the Governor’s Comedy Club on Long Island on December 16, C.K. poked fun at gender-nonconforming youth, Parkland school shooting survivors, and Asian men, among other groups. (The club was unable to confirm to BuzzFeed that C.K. was there that night, though multiple people posted on Instagram that they had seen him perform there.)

“You know why Asian guys have small dicks,” he said at one point, according to Patrick Smith and Amber Jamieson of BuzzFeed. “’Cause they’re women. They’re not dudes. They’re all women. All Asians are women.”

C.K. also said he thought it was ridiculous that the term “retarded” was now viewed as inappropriate, Smith and Jamieson reported. When some listeners appeared shocked, he responded, “Fuck it, what are you going to take away, my birthday? My life is over, I don’t give a shit.”

C.K. has not responded to a request for comment from Vox.

Aziz Ansari once included a sexual harassment storyline on his show. Now he’s complaining about Twitter outrage.

Ansari’s comedy has always been more lighthearted than C.K.’s, but he hasn’t shied away from difficult topics. In a 2015 Netflix special filmed at New York’s Madison Square Garden, he asked women in the audience to raise their hands if they’d ever been followed by a “creepy dude,” according to Eren Orbey at the New Yorker.

“Yeah, that’s way too many people,” he said when hands went up. “That should not be happening.”

The second season of his Netflix show, Master of None, also included a storyline about sexual misconduct. Ansari’s character, Dev, teams up with celebrity chef Jeff Pastore (Bobby Cannavale) for a show called Best Food Friends. But Dev is forced to make a choice when a female crew member reveals that Chef Jeff repeatedly harassed her. The episode, which aired before #MeToo gained steam in fall 2017, felt true to life, as Isha Aran pointed out at Splinter, “from the fears victims face in going public to the misogynist skepticism they’re met with when they share their stories.”

But in January 2018, a woman going by the name Grace told the website Babe.net that Ansari had repeatedly pressured her for sex while the two were on a date. She called it “by far the worst experience with a man I’ve ever had.”

“We went out to dinner, and afterwards we ended up engaging in sexual activity, which by all indications was completely consensual,” Ansari said in a statement on the allegations last January. “The next day, I got a text from her saying that although ‘it may have seemed okay,’ upon further reflection, she felt uncomfortable. It was true that everything did seem okay to me, so when I heard that it was not the case for her, I was surprised and concerned.”

“I continue to support the movement that is happening in our culture,” Ansari concluded, presumably referring to #MeToo. “It is necessary and long overdue.”

By fall 2018, however, his tone sounded different. In a Connecticut stop on his “Working Out New Material” comeback tour, he complained about Twitter users debating whether a teenager’s prom dress constituted cultural appropriation, according to Orbey.

“Everyone weighs in on everything,” he said. “They don’t know anything. People don’t wanna just say, ‘I don’t know.’”

He also decried “the destructive performativity of Internet activism and the fickle, ever-changing standards of political correctness,” according to Orbey. He compared left-wing Twitter users to Trump supporters (“at least with the Trump people,” he said, “I kinda know where they stand”) and accused them of competing with one another in a game of “Progressive Candy Crush.”

“One might have hoped that, nearly a year later, [Ansari] could find a way to reckon with one of the movement’s messiest lessons: that even men who wish to serve as allies of women can, intentionally or not, hurt them in private,” Orbey wrote. “Instead, like other men who have reëmerged in recent months, he seems to have channelled his experience into a diffuse bitterness.”

Ansari has not responded to Vox’s request for comment.

If C.K. and Ansari can’t reckon with the allegations against them, can anyone?

Allegations of sexual misconduct against C.K. and Ansari hit fans hard in part because of the thoughtful nature of their comedy — these were supposed to be the good guys.

The accusations prompted fans and critics to reevaluate both men’s work. At Splinter, Aran notes that despite its sexual harassment storyline, Master of None’s second season displays some underlying misogyny. Dev’s relationship with love interest Francesca, in particular, sends the message “that a woman’s initial reluctance can be chipped away at, that indifference is a wall to be torn down.”

C.K., meanwhile, had been telling masturbation jokes for years. As Melena Ryzik, Cara Buckley, and Jodi Kantor reported at the New York Times, “he rose to fame in part by appearing to be candid about his flaws and sexual hang-ups, discussing and miming masturbation extensively in his act — an exaggerated riff that some of the women feel may have served as a cover for real misconduct.” His film I Love You, Daddy, which was initially scheduled for release in November 2017, dealt with a relationship between a famous filmmaker and a 17-year-old girl.

And C.K.’s December set does recall some of his earlier work — the man who complained about teens today and their pronouns is clearly the same one, for instance, who expressed nostalgia for a time when he could use homophobic slurs without being criticized.

Still, C.K. and Ansari were somewhat unusual as male entertainers willing to delve into issues of power and privilege and talk about the ways men hurt women.

That’s what makes their current material so surprising. Ansari and C.K. aren’t just avoiding the subject of #MeToo — they’re going in the opposite direction, complaining about political correctness and outrage culture when their comedy once sent the message that women were absolutely right to be outraged.

Their new work is reactionary — crude jokes about Asian men wouldn’t be out of place at a Trump rally — and it’s dated. C.K.’s complaints about they/them pronouns aren’t just offensive; they’re also tired, well-worn platitudes parroted by everyone from psychologist Jordan Peterson to TV host Piers Morgan. C.K. may think his new material is edgy, but his rant about young people today sounds like it could come from Grandpa Simpson.

Some have speculated that C.K. is consciously courting a more right-leaning audience with his new material after losing the trust of his previous fans, and it’s certainly possible that he and Ansari are pivoting to please the people who were eager to explain away the allegations against them — those who think sexual misconduct only matters if it rises to the level of the allegations against Harvey Weinstein, or who believe that men who are accused deserve swift and unconditional forgiveness.

Whatever the case, the trajectories of C.K. and Ansari are doubly disappointing — first, because men whose work had a feminist bent were accused of hurting women, and second, because they let those accusations destroy the nuanced social awareness their earlier work displayed. Apparently, C.K. and Ansari were only interested in challenging the status quo when they remained unchallenged — once women spoke out against them, they performed the comedic equivalent of packing up their toys and going home.

That’s sad for all of us. We don’t get to see the comedy these men could have created if they’d wanted to face, rather than flee from, our current moment in history. And we don’t get to see two thoughtful entertainers bring their talents to bear on a project that matters to all of us — figuring out what it should look like for men accused as part of #MeToo to apologize, atone, and move forward.

Ever since the #MeToo movement gained mainstream attention in 2017, there’s been a lot of talk about what accused men can do to redeem themselves. Now, more than a year in, it’s certainly possible to imagine some of the accused truly reckoning with their pasts — Dan Harmon’s apology for sexually harassing a writer on his show offers a view of what that might look like. But it’s hard to hold out much hope for such a reckoning on a large scale when two men who seemed like they, of all people, might be able to look deeply at their own behavior have instead chosen to pander to those who would excuse them.

______________________

AZIZ DIDN’T FUCKING DO ANY GOD DAMN THING WRONG!!!!!!

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tamsythepansy · 6 years ago

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VOY: “Workforce”, the transest Star Trek episode ever

So. There’s a two-part episode of Star Trek: Voyager (“Workforce”) in which the crew all find themselves living out new lives as vaguely Fordist industrial workers on a planet called Quarra, all memory of their real lives having been artificially suppressed.

Imagine my surprise when, rewatching it years later, the bogus diagnosis they’re given as their memories start to resurface is...

...which also happens to be exactly what my partners have been reminding me for the last two months (bless them). I giggled.

Lo and behold, it happens to Tuvok as well:

Now, I get that it was the turn of the millennium and this hadn’t really entered the lexicon yet, but... this is just the tip of the iceberg. Watch along with me and see how it all plays out:

Tuvok, of course, is the first to experience memories of his real life breaking through the facade, has a panic attack, and is hospitalized:

Well, if this isn’t relatable to multitudes of trans and non-binary Star Trek fans, I don’t know what is. 🤷🏻‍♀️

Of course, the ‘treatment’ for Dysphoria Syndrome involves suppressing the offending memory engrams, so the patient can peacefully return to being a cog in the cisheteronormative machine Quarran power distribution facility (read what you will into that). As the expert on Dysphoria Syndrome himself later puts it:

Sounds like an allegory for LGBTQ conversion therapy to me, I mean, what?

Anyway, Seven realizes that Tuvok might be on to something, and heads to the mental health clinic to get a gender assessment investigate:

Stepping into the realm of the purely serious for a moment, I *have* sort of read Seven’s character arc as a plausible trans allegory, and it’s pretty compelling: having her true identity suppressed at an early age, and finally being forced to confront it in adulthood; processing layers upon layers of trauma just to function as an individual; being rehabilitated by a circle of strong, compassionate women, each with their own identity issues (plus the medical wizardry, overeager cisheteronormative life coaching, and starry-eyed / vaguely inappropriate crushing of The Doctor, I guess, so yeah); struggling to reclaim her human (/feminine) sense of self even while the effects of her Borg (/patriarchal) upbringing have thoroughly warped her thoughts (even as they continue to give her superhuman resilience and insight). I’m sure there’s even a comparison to be drawn to transfeminine desirability politics — Seven is continually presented both as an extremely conventionally attractive human *and* as a mysterious cyborg whose embodiment and manner communicates an often-threatening sense of Otherness — but I’ll leave that for a future discourse. I’m honestly spitballing a bit with all of this, but to see it so explicitly referenced, intentionally or not, is quite something.

So, Seven asks the obvious question, and it turns out that, while being trans is undoubtedly a Real Thing, the specifics are... inconclusive:

Let’s take a moment to celebrate the fact that we’re finally starting to see gender doctors who actually understand us in all our nuance, because...

...we already know this is bad news. (Paging Dr. Harry Benjamin.)

Anyway, the compassionate gender doctor goes to the conversion therapy doctor to see what’s up, because clearly something over at the power plant is turning people trans:

One important takeaway from this story is “never walk away and leave your work computer unlocked”:

I get it, though! On a planet ostensibly without Tumblr or OKCupid, trans community is just really, really hard to find. 🤷🏻‍♀️

The compassionate gender doctor soon notices a pattern:

...mm hmm, it all started when a genderqueer person sneezed in the employee locker room, and somehow the conversion therapy doctor wound up with his hands full as everybody in the office came down with a bad case of The Trans.

Finally, the compassionate gender doctor is determined to be just a little bit too sympathetic to these gender deviants, and the now-canonically trans but still awesome at passing Seven of Nine comes to the rescue:

As if this weren’t trans enough...

...check out the subplot featuring Jaffen, a co-worker with whom Captain Janeway has an adorable but bittersweet whirlwind relationship. Though Jaffen presents as male and uses he/him pronouns, THIS TOTALLY HAPPENS, and its implications are never made clear:

Though this is set up as the punchline of a “your father” joke, Jaffen isn’t just fucking around here. Tuvok knows what’s up, and proceeds to Vulcan-splain the joke right back to him:

Which begs the question, how do Norvalians procreate, anyway? Are they clones, like the Vorta? Do they deposit their genetic material into pods, like the J’naii? Do they pick up ready-made offspring, like the Kobali? Whatever the intent is, it has serious implications for whatever kind of relationship he and Janeway would have (like, it’s not on the cisheteronormative trajectory of sex and babies, at the very least). So, bear with me for a moment, because this is my honest-to-goodness fan theory:

(okay, I admit I just had that image lying around, and this seemed like as good a moment as any to use it.)

What if Norvalians reproduce parthenogenetically, leaving the entire need for a biological “father” out of the equation?

This could mean one of two things: as with terrestrial Komodo dragons (I think), parthenogenesis happens but binary sexual reproduction is still an option (which honestly doesn’t seem like the most likely explanation, given the way Jaffen and Tuvok both frame it), *or*, as with terrestrial whiptail lizards, parthenogenesis is the default, and male (i.e., sperm-producing) offspring are extremely rare and/or usually infertile.

So yeah, okay, they reproduce parthenogenetically, Jaffen is a rare male and is probably infertile, and therefore the Jaffen/Janeway relationship is more about companionship and cooperation than sex and babies. I’m fine with that, and I actually find it quite heartwarming.

But, with that in mind, do we need to assume that Jaffen is male, whatever that means for his species? After all, whiptail lizards engage in female/female courtship behaviour, which somehow makes them more fecund — and remember, it’s the Delta Quadrant; we’ve seen enough weird sex shit by Season 7 (cf. “Elogium”, “Favorite Son”, “The Disease”, “Ashes to Ashes”, off the top of my head) that we can reasonably conclude that all bets are off.

My interpretation? Jaffen is an honest, gallant, leather-waistcoat-rocking, he/him pronoun-using, parthenogenetic Space Butch. Maybe I’ve spent too much time on Sapphic Star Trek Tumblr, or have finally disappeared up my own genderqueer ass, but I’m convinced it’s the simplest explanation that’s congruent with the facts.

[I just spent a bunch of time trying to find the “Captain Janeway is a closet lesbian, change my mind” meme, but no dice.]

Anyway, if you’ve made it this far, it’s time for me to deliver on the non-binary trans lesbian Star Trek shitposting that I’m usually all about. Having been closeted for a long time, I know a thing or two about relationships that seem straight on the surface but are actually hella queer under the hood, so to speak. Just look at these two u-hauling it on the third date (it’s adorable!):

This also seems really gay for some reason:

And, at the end of the day, he’s a good ally:

Watch the whole episode for the obligatory Sad Lesbian Ending.

The icing on this three-tiered Tholian gay wedding cake

...yup.

[Thanks to Em for subtly egging me on (ha) and Bry for putting up with me procrastinating all night. Love you both.]

#star trek shitposting #genderqueer shitposting #original content #original commentary #very long post #cw conversion therapy #cw dysphoria #non-binary lesbian #trans stuff #ember #discourse long and prosper #this got really unintentionally serious #cw transphobia #cw transmisogyny #cw sex mention #cw reproduction #tamsytalk

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rheaitis · 6 years ago

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Writing has been #difficult this week. I was gonna write about my own mental state as part of Mental Health Awareness Month, but apparently I'm not well enough to be able to write that stuff out for strangers yet. Moving on, then.

Today marks the first day of US Pride Month, so the five media posts this month are all gonna be queer as hell. And, like, happy; no dead queers here, so buckle in that rainbow seatbelt, cause this is gonna be one gay-ass ride.

Today's media is some 38 episodes long, and both diverse and diversely queer. It's got transformative work, it's got early eighteenth-century politics, it's got pirates, it's got treasure, it's got lesbians and bi women and genderqueer historical figures, it's got long-term committed poly folk, it's got blood, it's got gore, it's got amaaaazing black women ruling their own communities with care and compassion, it's got disabled folk being given focus and allowed agency, it's got conspiracies and alliances and mentoring between people of all genders and generations, it's got really lovely cinematography and music, it's got Toby Stephens' fabulous micro-expressions.

That's right, gentlefolk, today's media consumption is Black Sails. This is more of a weekend binge project, or a month-long thing if you're inclined to be sensible about things. It is also aimed at creasedknees, because I want her to watch it so we can squee.

Black Sails is a prequel of sorts to Treasure Island, dealing with the adventure that leads to the discovery and burial of that treasure. It takes up Captain Flint (Toby Stephens), Billy Bones (Tom Hopper) and of course John Silver (Luke Arnold) from the novel, and peoples itself with various fictional and fictionalised historical figures of the time, most significantly Jack Racham, Anne Bonny, and Charles Vane, who function as foils to our heroes throughout the show. I'm going to talk about them in just a bit but first Our Hero Captain James Flint, whom I adore entirely. (I want to like John Silver, but as in the novel Silver is a marvelously done character, without ever being someone it's safe to trust wholeheartedly or really at all.)

Captain Flint kills someone in the very first episode, and he doesn't actually get any nicer. (Even that killing is preceded by the pirate crew taking a ship with due savagery, so if you dislike gore I sadly cannot recommend watching this series.) In fact he escalates considerably, up from individual acts of piracy to cannonades directed at cities, and the show doesn't particularly gloss over this violence or the human cost entailed. Flint is the most consistently Slytherin character I have ever seen (and the fact that he resembles his mother to the last and most infinitesimal degree is often jarring): a man of vaulting ambition and enormous rage, with a capacity to hold onto grudges undiminished over a decade and longer. I love him. I love him absolutely, and not just because he is so wonderfully tender with all the women around him without ever doubting or trivialising their personhoods or capacity for doing what they set hands and minds to, though that is admittedly a very large part of why. Flint is always furious, always hurting, always ruthless with himself and his crew and associates, groaning away from a primal wound.

Primal wounds are maybe a good way to talk about this show without showering people with spoilers, as so many of the main characters have such wounds, inflicted by living in systems characterised by ills ranging from slave trafficking, bonded labour, debt prisons, early marriage, sexual violence, weaponised misogyny and institutionalised homophobia, and too often and deeply realistically by the rutted interstices of such injustice. Again realistically, the show's leads do not emerge from these experiences as noble crusaders, but rather as a den of Slytherins desperate to get ahead in whatsoever manner they can, and find whatever they think of as safe harbour: from Max (one of the characters original to the show and superbly played by Jessica Parker Kennedy) who wants to leave behind her miserable childhood and exploited adulthood by gaining entry into the Big House where life is soft and easy, to Madi who wants to lead her enslaved people into liberty, to Rackham who wants to make his mark on the world through narrative instead of having his story told as one of crushing poverty and debt. Our villains have stories as well, but even the few delineated in any detail are effectively subsumed in the institutional machines of which they are privileged cogs.

But important as all these stories are in motivating and substantiating the show, Flint's is the wound at the core of Black Sails. There are problems with this centering of white queer trauma in a show that, set in West Indies, could and almost certainly ought to have instead centered PoC and enslavement. It does deal with these issues, and inarguably allows Max and Madi Scott together as much space as Flint. Still, one has to accept at the start that this is a show about queer resistance that includes other aspects of marginalisation, rather than being a show of marginalised resistance against the institutions perpetrating and perpetuation said marginalisations. Significantly, Max and Mr. Scott are not initially characterised as being interested in working towards liberation, but the viewer complaints about the slow reveal of Mr. Scott's plans in this regard seem as facile as the screaming about Flint being queer.

I can go on about this show endlessly, as T, poor child, can easily testify, because I love everything about it, from the cinematography, to the gore, to the wlw relationships and just Anne Bonny queen of my heart and every violent impulse. And I do think that if I was a better person I would dwell longer on the gorgeous and deeply complex relationships between Charles Vane, Jack Rackham Anne Bonny and Max, and how I want them all to be alive and married but for Charles and Max to never ever ever touch, OR for Charles to scrub himself raw and bleeding before he's ever allowed to be near Max, and also Max's brilliance and subtlety and compassion and ruthlessness, how she's clung on to kindness in a deeply unkind existence and how that in no way signifies a lack of Nature, red in tooth and claw, and the way her change of clothing reflects and reiterates her change of status and and just. Her faaace, her golden glowing beauty and that heart-stopping smile. But the thing is my interests were set early and I imprinted on exactly one sort of character as a child and I continue to love them more than anything, and much as I adore Max, and much as I worship Madi Scott's regal compassion and strategic mind and her trust in and friendship with Flint and her renewed affection for Eleanor (whom I love also! and who is so sharp and such a merchant-prince and so tramelled by her gender), well. Look. I love Flint. I love his anger, and his sorrow, and his everything. I think it's remarkable how Flint’s story goes from Achillean (my lover is dead I will go to war, my lover is dead I will burn down this town, fight this empire, challenge fate/gods) to Odyssean (I am home from the wars and here is my lover who has longed for me as I for him). But what I love the most is how in a story that is almost entirely about stories and how and when and by whom they are told, Flint gets to say, angry and wounded and betrayed again,

This is how they survive. You must know this. You're too smart not to know this. They paint the world full of shadows... and then tell their children to stay close to the light. Their light. Their reasons, their judgments. Because in the darkness, there be dragons. But it isn't true. We can prove that it isn't true. In the dark, there is discovery, there is possibility, there is freedom in the dark once someone has illuminated it.

I love it so much, so intensely, so much more than Rackham's playing around with narratival style and truth, I love my sad bi ginger pirate uncle, and so would you if you gave the show a chance. It's all on directseries.net, at fairly good quality, with subtitles and everything. Please pretty please?

#Black Sails

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milkshakeflags · 6 years ago

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if its not Too specific to ask for flags based on Songs, could I ask for a genderqueer/nonbinary set of flags based on Sad Machine by Porter Robinson? If not, I'd love an nb black opal flag :) Hope yall have a nice day

posted, sorry for the long wait!!

#i love that song sm .. afdbbghgb...#xayvierposts #Anonymous

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workshop-at-mahoutokoro · 7 years ago

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Devilman Crybaby Liveblog Thoughts...episode 1

for @essayofthoughts!

This got...long. Overall, I’ll keep watching! It was a wild, wild ride and got pretty damn epic by the end.

The opening theme was interesting, plus I always love a good lyric-less opening. There seems to be quite a bit to unpack with the imagery, so for now I’ll just say it’s catchy and the visuals definitely suit the music.

I appreciated the mysterious~ opening scene for managing to catch my attention. It’s so annoying when really good series have really, really boring opening scenes. I particularly like the sequence of those lights or whatever falling upon the earth and turning it into a molten fireball, not sure what that’s about.

Huh. This contrast is quite interesting. I mean, I guess Akira somehow demonstrates to Ryo that “love does not exist and therefore sadness does not either” somewhere along the way. The interesting part is that you’d immediately peg child!Ryo as the cold, utilitarian type, but his more grown up voiceover sounds nothing like his child self. He is vaguely emotional here, “At the time...I didn’t know what you meant.”

His older self uses the formal pronoun 私 watashi, too, even though he sounds so harsh as a kid...No clue what he’s going to be like later, but Ayumu Murase is an interesting choice for VA...I heard him in the Shoukoku no Altair anime, where I didn’t think he fit the main character very well. He has a soft voice and seems great at pulling off a slight feeling of vulnerability in his tone. Let’s see how he is in this role.

Ok, that was a pretty standard high school sports practice scene, AND THEN THE SUPERVISING TEACHER’S TONGUE JUST DARTS OUT AND EATS THE BUTTERFLY WTF.

Creepy guy looking at love hotels, ok, star athlete, ok. Stabbing coach/father/whoever that guys is, ok... I can see where the social commentary comes in, with this murder case and the drugs. Very interesting. Various anime, manga, movies, and TV shows have been touching on similar themes in the past few years. I’ll hold my thoughts for now.

I am eager to see how the rappers become plot relevant lol.

SO RANDOM. hey, just chilling by the pier, then some guys come along rapping, then one of MCs pops up on a boat, then car comes zooming down the road and childhood friend just suddenly says “hey let’s go”. and now he has a GUN. overreaction much, Ryo-chan?

LOL BEAR HUG. So is this normal behavior? Swinging guns around in the middle of town?

Ok but I love friendships like these, like they’re just genuinely so happy to see each other gah. I hope it all doesn’t go south due to some stupid thing like a misunderstanding/just not talking to each other to clear things up.

I’m thinking this gun thing is just normal in this world, or something. You’d think everyone would be a bit more shocked.

Ryo and Akira are lowkey adorable though. Doesn’t even mind that his friend (who’s miraculously a professor in the USA) shows up out of nowhere with a machine gun and shoots up the dock and just takes off with him. All he has on his face is a huge grin.

This is Miki, right? She’s only sane one here. xD “what in the world are you doing going with that guy?? AKIRA!”

AKIRA. Your priorities. No, no you don’t care about the machine gun. You care about him driving without a license...? He’s a good friend though. Even though I don’t believe he agrees with Ryo’s stance on running (and life in general), he doesn’t break off on an unrelated tangent and listens and waits for him to talk.

Hey. ENGLISH. Real English. That is understandable!! Hey, this anime earns serious brownie points for that.

interestingly, Ryo says “Fikira” with a proper “r” sound in Japanese, but when his VA has to switch to “English” with “Professor Fikira”, the “r” gains more of an “l” sound. well, it’s difficult for them to discern the difference between the two. I’m still surprised at how the English is actually English though haha.

Oh, so that’s how the demon/devil stuff connects to the murders.

Well, for all his crazy, at least Ryo explains the whole situation BEFORE they walk through the doors to their possible demise. And for the seemingly calm, cool, and logical one to admit “I’m scared”, and he brought Akira along because he didn’t want to do it alone.

BUT THIS IS ALL STILL REALLY CRAZY. Akira, w h y are you agreeing so quickly? He doesn’t even hesitate.

HUG. Aw, these two are adorable.

And it’s a club. xD Like, if I didn’t already know this was a show filled with chaos and nudity, I would have been kinda shocked. It’s certainly interesting, and different for anime. Also, I can see how being aired on Netflix really helped. I’m not sure of how that all works entirely, but that they can add in, like you said, queercoding and other themes along those lines. mainstream Japanese is, like, ok with adding genderqueer stuff (though not always a great representation to downright offensive, it’s still there), but anything other than heteronormative stuff is still much more iffy.

I can definitely see how the overt sexualization would make you uncomfortable, I’m definitely not enjoying it much over here. xD Especially because this anime seems to have good animation haha.

See, Ayumu Murase sounds good here, playing at a rougher tone as Ryo. This role is fine for him, it was just the character he played in Shoukoku no Altair that didn’t fit at all.

RYO. This is what you were talking about, huh. xD He’s so extreme, like you just get up and start stabbing people?? To draw out the devil??

finally, a reasonable response. Ryo, your crazy is showing just a little.

Well, that took a turn for the worst real fast.

You are a great friend, Ryo. Great friend. I feel like you glossed over something in your explanation before you two went into that place. “Hey, demon thing, go possess my friend now.”

Great pairing of music with the scene though. The animation is really something else, the fluidity is great and the monster designs really are out there.

I would also like to talk about how Akira is framed at the one who brings light to Ryo, who is wrapped in darkness. It happened in the beginning with Akira reaching his hand out to Ryo as kids, and again at the end with the light of the fire making Ryo’s whole face glow golden as he’s trapped underneath the black wings of the demon thing on top of him.

but, uh, supposing Akira doesn’t go and eat you next (which he won’t because plot but) and he keeps his human mind, how the heck is he going to feel about his friend turning him into a freaking devil?

Ryo, you definitely have issues. Even though he’s sort of...terrible xD I rather like his character so far. Poor Akira though.

Last note: That is Ryo talking in the opening, right...? Because as his teenage self, he also speaks roughly and uses the heavily masculine pronoun 俺 ore, so when in life does he get to the point that he uses 私? Interesting...

#off-topic thing

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madly-handsome · 6 years ago

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I think it's interesting, because this is one of those posts where people can say "I was so-and-so side when I came out!" And that's awesome that they can relate to it! However, I find it very intriguing that one person could also be all sides. When I came out to my friends, I was either Patton or Logan, being very open and not stressing about things too much. Even at work, I joked and eased my sexuality into lighthearted conversation, or chose to simply inform certain people I didn't joke around with often.

But family? That shit was ROUGH (and I'm still closeted to a small percentage of individuals, but I'm very grateful the majority are aware and supportive!). When I came out to my aunt (who is pansexual and extremely supportive of the LGBTQA+ community) I was Roman.

I was drawing early in the morning, since I had trouble getting accustomed to sleeping in a house that wasn't mine surrounded by people who genuinely wanted to get to know me and who already unconditionally loved me for it. My aunt was working on her laptop, coffe mug beside her like it was every morning. My uncle was at work, and my cousin was still sleeping. So, I'd sit there and draw quietly with her. We would talk sometimes, but we didn't want to disturb each other, and the silence was peaceful. It was like...we conversed without actually speaking.

That particular morning, she brought up how to work the espresso machine, and my confidence had built to the point where I could say it out loud.

I did.

I said it.

And she just smiled at me, told me she was proud, and we divulged into an informative conversation. She was even aware of my gender neutrality before I even wanted to admit it!

"You seem very genderqueer."

At that time I didn't want to label my love for lack of gender, so I didn't press into it very much...but my heart warmed over that moment.

Then I contemplated telling my dad.

A few weeks later, I hopped in my car and drove out to see him an hour and a half away. We were in the car, going out to get pizza like we always did whenever we hung out, and I was very Virgil.

I tried to hide it when I was discovering my sexuality. I love my Dad and we're the bestest buds ever! But...I was so afraid that would be ruined by my interests. I loved Dad so much, there was no way I could ruin his pride in me by telling him I liked girls like he did.

But the silence ate away at my chest. I knew I'd regret it if I didn't say anything! So like Virgil, I blurted it out. I didn't tell him what my sexuality was, I just said "I'm into girls too!"

He chuckled. "I know."

He...what!?

He knew!?!?

"I knew for five years. I saw messages you sent to other girls. I saw some pictures you looked up. I knew."

It was embarrassing yeah...but also relieving?

The funny thing was he thought my exes were all set ups. He thought the boys I dated were all fake, to hide that I was a lesbian.

He still probably thinks that but it isn't true.

Gender doesn't matter to me.

Maybe one day when he wants to know more about things, I can explain in as much detail as he's ready for. I don't expect him to understand entirely, and I don't expect him to want to...but the fact that he accepts me and loves me despite not knowing? That's huge to me!

He told me if anything, he was really sad that I waited so long. He didn't understand why I did. He hated that I was scared.

And I told him why.

Now I loved my mother. I still do, even though she's not alive. But when she was, she was very afraid of differences. She wantes me to blend in, wanted me to match my clothes and keep my hair tamed. Be like other normal children. I was stubborn and artistic, and I liked my style, and by the time I became a preteen she...was actually really happy about that. She was proud of my individuality.

But God forbid I was any hint of queer.

Oh no, but she wasn't against it.

She was just afraid for me.

She was raised in a family of hardcore redneck literal christians, where they took the Bible word for word and judged others harshly (and still do but my grandparents are much better than they were when she was a child).

But no, her and dad both knew when I was showing signs of liking women, and she hated it.

She was so scared my grandparents would find out. While I was in the bicurious phase, I asked her what she would think if I hypothetically was into girls.

She was so upset. "You would live a very hard life. I wouldn't be able to stop you as an adult, but I would be very dissapointed."

When I dated my first boyfriend she cried and yelled "Thank goodness you're not a lesbian! I was so scared!"

When he came over to visit, she told him she was so afraid he'd be a girl.

So I hid it from adults. I still do. My foot is still in the closet.

But it's just my foot now and man does it feel good knowing that the family I love most with my heart supports me and loves me too! I'm lucky to have that, and I know there are people who aren't as lucky. When you get older, having a home and job, a means to take care of yourself...I promise it gets easier. I may be living with my grandparents right now, preparing for college and not being as independent as I want to be, but the time will come and it gets easier.

Stamp your foot into this Earth and take your stand! Coming out is difficult and sometimes impossible, but if your time hasn't come it will.

Whether you're Logan, Virgil, Patton, Roman, or all of them combined, your coming out story will be epic because it is yours.

And maybe you'll be able to share it, so others can read it and be inspired like you were by the many coming out stories of old.

❤❤

Am I the only one that feels like the Sides’ name reveals reflect how they’d come out?

Like, Logan was very matter-of-fact about it, acting as though it should be common knowledge by that point.

Roman waited until it was relevant and appropriate, revealing his name on his own terms during a serious talk with Thomas.

Patton revealed his name via a dad joke, which seems like a very Patton thing to do.

Virgil struggled revealing his name, but was relieved when he did, and then immediately sought reassurance after.

Just thinking about how similar the name reveals feel to coming outs

#maddy rambles #sorry #coming out #sanders sides text post #ts text post #my coming out story #sorry it's so long

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jagaimogoshujinsama · 8 years ago

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rambling about shin men and hyu/kan. its long and self indulgent but if ur curious where my brains been at recently here it is

ive been in an out of a couple fandom interests recently, im still following new shin chan episodes closely (and i’ll get back to subbing some eps probably, at some point)...

anyway the past couple weeks i got, weirdly, super into hyu and kan as a ship. even though theres not a TON of content to work off, and also theyre ostensibly a het ship which can turn me off (and did at first, when i first realized kan is a ~secret girl~, in fact i have my reaction in writing

but then i gave shin men more of a chance and rly grew to appreciate all of the characters and.. the thing as a concept, and BOY!! i love kan a lot, like a heck of a lot. and since shes a girl who deliberately takes on a lot of masculine attributes its very easy to read her as genderqueer or transmasculine or even a trans dude straight up - though as a demi...gender?? person myself i like reading her as Soft Transmasc, because projecting onto cute little cartoon ppl is my favorite thing to do

so one of my main questions when i encountered this series was: who came up with this and why? what IS shin-men? this post will be me trying to explain it to myself:

shin-men was a concurrently-running anime AND manga series created in 2010 to celebrate the 20th year anniversary of shin-chan. the anime is obviously more well known, but the manga chapters tell the stories quite a bit differently and provide some more backstory - i own the first two volumes with the third on the way. the anime is awesome because it was seemingly spearheaded by Masaaki Yuasa (the kaiba dude), and as soon as I saw the first episode i assumed Shin-Men was his brainchild from start to finish. i’m not sure EXACTLY how much was his creation, conceptually speaking, but it is true that he finalized designs and a lot of basic concepts for the characters. (parabon is straight up hyo hyo!)

(from masaaki yuasa’s super huge sketchbook, which runs in the 40-50 dollar range. let me know if you find it cheaper anywhere ill accept a used copy with heavy spaghetti stains)

yuasa boarded the first five episodes of shin-men, and a subsequent 8 episodes were released with different boarders (primarily yuji mutou, who’s been a heavy hitter on shin-chan since 1998). yuasa’s 5 episodes are beautiful - i mean look at this

yuasa always brings an otherworldly, dreamlike quality to whatever story he’s telling. on shin chan he generally seemed to prefer fun AUs and outlandish stories about buriburi zaemon that would allow him to invent colorful new settings and costumes.

that’s what’s so refreshing about shin-men - it’s the first time the show completely abandons its core cast of characters and focuses on NEW ones, in a universe with different rules. except, just kidding, because shinnosuke is still the main character, he’s just red now and called gou. so even while shin-men is TECHNICALLY breaking the fundamental rule of shin-chan - that shin is the main character who is in every single episode no matter what - it’s still abiding by it, and it still feels like shin-chan. that’s not criticism, though - i like the various alt-universe appearances of shin-chan characters in the shin-men universe. my favorite is matsuzaka, who is called “matsuzakaroni”, is STILL a kindergarten teacher even in this very alien universe (and despite the fact that she, i think, hates it?), and most uncannily of all, gets hit on by gou?? also gou is an adult i think, in this universe’s rules, he’s just really short like all of the other shin-men who are also adults?? i mean, i THINK? why does nobody in universe ever seem to mention how tiny these apparent grown-ups ar

anyway i’m not an expert on shin-men. despite my efforts i don’t really understand exactly where it came from or where gou’s ears are

i hope some day someone will create really good english subs of it, though i realize that’ll be a serious effort since yuasa’s episodes ABOUND with onscreen text - fuck, just imagine editing the moving gossip clouds on botswanawana to have english text. how would you even do that.

but i do wanna talk about kan a little and why shes cool thats the topic of this post

kan akaluislar (thats her last name..) is one of the 5 shin-men, superheroes with elemental powers who all look like a 5 year old named shinnosuke nohara from another universe, but don’t think too much about that. kan’s the only one who doesn’t actually have a superpower - she’s the Iron Man of the group, like, literally she’s tony stark, she’s the super wealthy and successful president of a major automobile company and rules the school in her home country, Detahoit. (which is maybe a pun on detroit? i’m not sure what’s up with that name)

anyway in addition to being iron man she’s also Transformers and Fullmetal Alchemist, she’s all three of those guys. she turns into a car a lot and transports her teammates everywhere. she also OWNS a car and drives it around when she’s not being a secret car superhero. is that bitterly tragic, or does kan secretly PREFER to be the car? is that her darkest fantasy? to be a full time car instead of a car-driving ceo? that is my headcanon

kan guards the fact that she’s female from the group, convinced they’d treat her differently. specifically, she’s convinced gou and nyoki would hit on her (confirmed), sui would bitch her out for not having a proper skin care regimen (that’s sui’s big thing, by the way, is that he’s a bitchy youtube beauty vlogger), and - worst of all - hyu would kick her out, since girls can’t fight.

...which seems like a pessimistic view of hyu. hyu is the wind elemental in the group - he’s buff and a little dopey but kind hearted and sweet, the noble hero type. also a bit of a spoiled prince.

each member of shin-men gets a yuasa episode dedicated to them, and hyu’s episode - his main arc, really - centers on his love for kan, which he keeps secret, despite the powerful curiosity of his country’s gossipy citizens.

what interests me is the disparate ways the anime and manga handle this plot thread. the anime treats hyu’s crush very earnestly, maintaining an undercurrent of quiet affection from him that appears in the majority of its episodes. the manga, however, emphasizes kan’s disinterest in romantic advances from both gou AND hyu, then practically drops the topic of hyu’s crush. it doesn’t exactly defy or contradict the relationship they have in the anime, however -- but it makes me sad, because hyu’s crush on kan is extremely cute and endearing. (as a sidenote, gou’s thing for kan is also pretty cute, but it only exists in the manga, and, well - it’s not really a /romantic/ crush.

the shin-men manga makes a lot of different choices to the anime, and since the two were released concurrently i have no idea which “version” of any one story was the “original” - and in some cases i’m sure there isn’t an “original” version of a story, just two different ones. sometimes i really prefer the anime’s decisions (not drawing eyelashes on kan) and other times i’m... not sure what to think (the manga chapter with pimawari does NOT focus on kan, so did the anime decide to highlight kan’s relationship with pimawari because... kan’s a girl?? did they really do that? am i over thinking this?)

the manga does a GREAT job of fleshing out kan, though, even though it does so by torturing her, endlessly. she gets trapped inside of a washing machine. then has to use up all her fuel exploding out of the washing machine. the good news is, kan can repair washing machines, we learn this in episode 5 of the anime.

but be it manga OR anime, kan and hyu frequently wind up as partners who work well together, and its understandable. kan and hyu have private lives that mirror each other, both of them being high-profile and wealthy, pressured (kan by her conniving older sisters, hyu by his palace’s grand chamberlain) to settle down when neither of them is particularly interested, both preferring the life of a superhero. their private lives seem lonely and neither of them has any friends outside of shin-men. but within shin-men they team up frequently, and (being natural leaders) the two of them tend to take charge and stand out as The Responsible Ones.

(pointing = leadership)

this is what sells me on them as a couple - that they have this core of collaboration and mutual care in their superhero lives, which could build into a supportive friendship in their personal lives.

i very much love that hyu has a crush on kan despite thinking kan is a guy. that angle never comes up in the anime, though its lightly touched in the manga - and yuasa explicitly addresses it in his earliest notes. to quote,

“kan (iron shinnosuke) is the only girl within shin-men. since only men can be shin-men, she wears an iron suit to conceal the fact that she's female from everyone. and since she doesn't have a superpower, she relies on the power of her suit. hyu (wind shinnosuke) secretly likes kan but keeps thinking things like "could it be that i actually swing that way.." (lol). eventually, he's the only one who knows about her true self, but hides it from everyone so it won't be known.”

so, kan’s expectation of how hyu would react, having a sexist freakout and banning her from battle? apparently not representative of reality. which is good news because, even if kan doesnt want a love connection, she DESPERATELY needs a friend whom she doesnt feel the need to hide her private life from.

and at th end of the day thats what makes me happy: the idea that hyu can be this friend to kan, and they just chill out together, smoke a bong, get their truant son gou to cook them some curry, consolidate oil and wind technology to make both of their countries more sustainable and energy efficient, kiss etc.

im so curious if vol3 of the manga will give me any further insight.. i doubt it but im excited anyway

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