#specifically around the concept of the narrator's human form

[chellustrates]

looks at the thought of drawing fluffy stanarrator like the meme of lois looking at the pill bottle

[numberonesnarkfan]

This is the story of a being named The Narrator.

Many religions and spiritualities have invented concepts and nomenclature that closely describes the type of being The Narrator is. For a western listener to understand best, the closest definition would be that it is a type of ‘spirit’.

The Narrator, as you know it, is a spirit not bound by laws of physics as you are, but bound by laws that govern a realm invisible to humans. One of these laws that applies to The Narrator specifically, is that it cannot refer to itself with a name or pronoun that is not given to it by man. The Narrator never referred to itself at all for much of its life. Even ‘it’ is a new pronoun to it. It knew the pronouns ‘ham’ and ‘den’ from the ancient Vikings, ‘to’ and ‘afton’ from the even more ancient Greeks. ‘The Narrator’, too, is a new name, given to it only in the 1600s. 

The last cult who discovered and committed themselves to it called it him, and named him Mikonaxas. The last cult of Mikonaxas was only formed ten years after the turn of the millennium. They operated for three years, dutifully serving the spirit. Mikonaxas told his cult that he embodied story. In ancient times, he would speak to bards and philosophers and tell them things that would change the course of history, if only they would appease him. In this age, Mikonaxas grew bored of his role as a spirit existing only to aid man and instead desired to join them in their feasting and revelry, and in their glory and toil. He wanted to feel firsthand the emotions and desires that he had studied closely, that could only be felt by one in a corporeal body.

“What type of body do you desire, Mikonaxas, my lord?” a member asked, bowing his head to the spirit, its form only visible as a dark cloud. Jim held his breath. He hoped truly that the being would not want for a body that matched his own. He dreaded what the spirit might do to him.

“I’m thinking…” Mikonaxas mused, “tall and fat, a symbol of my power and prestige. I want to appear old and wise, yet a youthful spark in my eyes, yes… Do you know of the appearance of the ancient daemon, Pan? Something like that. But I don’t want my body to be only human, heavens no. I must embody divinity, I must exist beyond the limitations of man. Perhaps endowed somehow with your new ‘recording’ technology, so that my stories can live forever. Can you do that for me? I’d love that.”

Jim released his breath. While he was getting old, his previous lifestyle had rendered him quite particularly gangly. He didn’t fit the bill. He glanced nervously around the near-empty ‘church’, which was in fact built in the basement of an abandoned house. There was one man who he knew fit Mikonaxas’ request.

This is the story of a man named Angelo.

Jim had known Angelo for a number of years. In fact, he had once had a relationship with him, before he had become Angelo when he transitioned to identifying as a man. He had cut ties with his family, who did not accept him anymore, and named himself after his great-great grandfather, who had also faced persecution for his identity. Angelo lived in a small suburban home, with no company other than his two cats. Angelo remained friends with Jim after their amicable break-up, when Jim admitted that, in respect of Angelo’s transition, he was no longer attracted to him. Angelo, rather than being angry, felt grateful to Jim for treating him truly as a man. Now, Angelo was a friend of the cult through Jim.

Jim felt a pit in his stomach. Among gods, or beings who were worshipped as gods, Mikonaxas could sometimes be cruel. He had an explosive temper. If Jim failed to deliver him his desires, Jim didn’t know what he might do to him, or to the cult at large. Jim bowed to Mikonaxas and turned to return to his quarters.

In the days following, Jim found himself faced with a ‘trolley problem’, of sorts. One potential loss of life, or the potential loss of the lives of the entire cult? In truth, Jim didn’t know what would happen to Angelo’s body if he were given to Mikonaxas. But if he had to augment it somehow to make it ‘exist beyond the limitations of man’, that couldn’t be good for Angelo’s general health.

That night, Jim made up his mind. He called the cult to a meeting and described to them Mikonaxas’ request. Stefan, a nurse, piped up that he may be able to help, as did Lucy, who was part of a team who built robots for work and fun. Over months, they devised a plan and built a prototype. They presented it to Mikonaxas, who liked it, but proposed a few changes. After more months, they had a final version.

They would harvest parts from a computer and a professional microphone to implant into Angelo’s body. Some of his organs would need to be removed or replaced. The replacements and the parts were ready, now only one part of the plan remained: Angelo himself.

Jim was dispatched to Angelo’s home a few nights later. They had agreed to have dinner there, simply as friends. Angelo had prepared a beautiful meal and Jim had supplied the wine, along with a certain secret ingredient.

Angelo greeted Jim and allowed him in, motioning for him to sit down at the table. Angelo was on the older and heavier side, with long silvery hair that was often tied in a bun, as it was tonight. He had thick black eyebrows, the only visible hair on him that hadn’t been turned grey by the test of time. He had a square jaw and pale skin, his fingers now rapping on the edge of the table. Jim sat across from him and smiled.

For an hour, they talked. Angelo asked about the cult and Mikonaxas and Jim assured him that everything was going fine. He felt a pang of guilt in his chest. Partway through their meeting, Angelo excused himself to the bathroom and Jim dropped his ‘secret ingredient’ into Angelo’s wine: a powerful sedative.

Angelo returned from the bathroom and took a sip of his wine, none the wiser. It didn’t take long for the drug to take effect. Angelo didn’t want to be rude to his guest, so he fought to keep his eyes open. Around half an hour later, though, he told Jim that he was awfully sorry, but something must be wrong. Jim responded that he could take Angelo to the hospital if he wanted, but Angelo insisted he would just sleep it off. When he could barely get up from his chair, however, Jim insisted and took him out to his car. Angelo didn’t fight as Jim strapped him into the passenger seat and got in the driver’s seat. Jim started the car and watched as Angelo started to fall asleep.

Angelo didn’t wake up even when he was dragged out of the car and into the basement of the cult’s house, or when he was hoisted onto the table, or when he was tied down, stripped and duct tape gagged. Only when Stefan started to cut, did he wake up. He surely would have fought to escape, had he not been thoroughly tied down. Jim felt his heart sink as Angelo’s wide and teary eyes landed on him.

Stefan, though he was a nurse, was not at all qualified for a surgery of this type. Mikonaxas lended some aid through some kind of mysterious magic, allowing wires and parts to be laid in Angelo’s body, along with a vessel for himself, a small jar in Angelo’s midsection. Even still, when his eyes stopped moving, Jim knew that Angelo was dead. Mikonaxas instructed them to continue, though, and so they did. The final touch was the large microphone stand that protruded from his back, arching up over his head to dangle a recording mic in front of his face.

Finally, Angelo was reclothed and laid down, rigor mortis beginning to set in. Jim held his breath as Mikonaxas lowered himself into Angelo’s now vacant body. He watched as the last slivers of his dark, smoky form disappeared through the skin. All was silent for a moment, before Jim heard a sound like a computer whirring to life. Angelo’s eyes shot open, his irises now bright yellow, split by a slit pupil. 

With Mikonaxas’ deep, bassy voice, he spoke;

“N-no. This isn’t right.”

Blood began to dribble from his mouth as he got up from the table on shaky legs. He stumbled, then turned to face the cult.

“This isn’t–” Angelo - or rather, both of them, doubled over in pain as Mikonaxas rammed at the walls of his vessel, trying to get out. Wounds began to reopen, blood quickly seeping through his bandages and reddening his clothes. 

Wind started to whip and howl at the house, threatening its structure. Jim heard wood creaking before the sudden smash of a window upstairs. The cult members began to panic, but Jim’s eyes stayed on Angelo. 

Jim watched in horror as a black cloud exploded out of Angelo. It filled the room quickly. It felt like burning and freezing at the same time. It felt like falling and rising, like being turned to dust.

This is the story of two beings, known together as The Narrator.

The Narrator felt the dark explosion trickle back inside of him. He slowly stood up straight and looked around the room. The walls and floor were blackened and everything that had been in the room - the table, the altar, and the humans, had been reduced to dust, or perhaps soot. He felt the life draining from him again. Something inside him roused; a deep-set human instinct. For the first time in his life, he feared death. He refused to die.

The Narrator forced himself to move, stumbling through the room and up the stairs. The wind still whipped at the house, the support beams creaking. He limped out of the door, now ripped off of its hinges by the storm. He stepped out into the wind and rain and headed slowly for the closest building. It was a large office complex. The moon was nearly full, the office was the only building with its lights on in an immediate radius.

It felt like hours he was forcing himself to walk. His strength was waning as he pulled himself through the door. The receptionist didn’t appear to be present, so he stumbled through the building, tracking blood all over the carpet. He stopped occasionally to lean on a wall and throw up blood as he searched for signs of human life. The implants in his skin were starting to threaten to fall back out. His vision was blurring.

Finally, he came across an office with the sound of typing coming from inside. He pushed the door open. A man turned to face him as he entered, his face whitening in fear and shock. He was tall and lanky, with brown hair and arched eyebrows, with matching brown eyes. He appeared frozen to his chair in shock as The Narrator approached him.

The Narrator grabbed Stanley by the shoulders. He didn’t say anything, there was too much blood in his mouth for that, which at this moment was dripping onto Stanley’s legs. A horrible crack and a spark came from him before all of the lights in the complex went out. 

Stanley opened his mouth to yell.

The Narrator screamed over him as a black cloud exploded out of him. 

Then, the cloud began to whirl and implode. The wind picked up hard enough for trees to be pulled over outside. It was like a black hole. It was a black hole. Stanley was sucked in first, before it grew, taking more and more of the offices with it, then the entire building, before, in a flash of light, it suddenly vanished. 

…

.

..

.

The Narrator cleared his throat,

“This is the story of a man named Stanley.”

[vase]

Writing Tip #1: Getting Started, Part One - The Three Pillars

Getting started with a writing project can be intimidating, especially when one is self-taught or has no formal writing training. Not to fear, I've created this writing tip series to help out! Without further ado... let's get started!

In this entry, I'm going to cover what I believe to be the absolute basics of tackling a story. These pillars are commonly accepted to be: character, plot, setting.

Characters are, simply, the "characters" of a story (like defining the word "the", there's no better way to put it other than that it's... "the"). Characters are any living or personified being that move the plot and inhabit the setting. In essence, a character can be anything. For examples of non-human characters leading narratives, see the Warrior Cats series or Watership Down. There are also examples of non-living beings like towns being characters in a story (the names of these stories escape me).

A protagonist of a story is the character that the story is about. Usually, the protagonist of the story will also double as the narrator or something adjacent to it, but there are exceptions to this. For example, in The Great Gatsby, Nick is the narrator but Gatsby is the protagonist. Although we follow Nick through the story as he recounts the events of the story, the events focus around Gatsby, his life, and his choices. As presented here, a narrator is a character of whom the reader sees the events of the story through. A story can have multiple narrators (called colloquially "multiple POVs") or none at all (within the Third Person Omniscient point of view, which will be discussed next issue).

An antagonist is a character that opposes the goals or views of the protagonist. Base level media criticism harps on this fact (because base level media critics know nothing else about writing), but hero is not synonymous with protagonist, and villain is not synonymous with antagonist. While this is often the case, it isn't always. If a villain were the main character of a story, then the villain would be the protagonist and the hero would be the antagonist. Deuteragonists are the characters who are the second most important, second to the protagonist. Secondary and tertiary characters are characters that play varying degrees of supporting roles other than that of protagonist or antagonist, which generally becomes semantic to dictate beyond the secondary zone.

A dynamic character describes a character who changes throughout the course of the story (usually as a result of a character arc, but not always) and a static character is a character that doesn't change throughout the course of the story. Just because a character is static does not make them worse, both characters have a place in their respective stories or single story. Static characters often perform a certain niche or invoke change in other characters in them or their environment. Dynamic characters make for interesting and engaging stories that make it easier for a reader to like them over watching them struggle over long periods of time (unlike static characters, who are sometimes likable right off the bat).

When getting started writing characters, especially with no idea in mind, I heavily suggest using character forms. Forms like these, while sometimes heavily specialized to certains genres or fandoms, help exercise both general and specific details of a character. When creating characters for a story, it is important to consider how certain character archetypes and individuals will play into the message or type of story you're aiming for. For example, a protagonist in their mid-20s may not be best for a story about the firsthand horrors of old age. On the flipside, an elderly character may not be best for a high stakes action adventure. These could both be subverted ideas, but in general, throughout these tips, I'm going to preach the concept of learning the rules before they are subverted.

For fleshing out characters, writing character exercises is a good way to get to know the character that you will--most likely--end up writing a lot for a full fledged story. Putting your character in different situations and writing how specifically those situations are handled can help a character be uniquely understood beyond the confines of a form.

Plot is the events of the story in the order they are laid out to the viewer. "Plot" and "story" are stressed differently here, as plot refers specifically to how the story is relayed to the audience. Where the story is the complete list of all relevant events, the plot is what we as the reader are shown (for example, bathroom breaks are part of the story, because we're aware that they happen, but they aren't actually verbalized to the reader, so they're not plot). Plot also dictates the order in which events appear. Some stories have events appear in non-chronological order. In this case, the story would be all of the events in their chronological order, and plot would be the order in which they appear to the reader.

The most important element of plot taught in elementary school classrooms is Freytag's pyramid, attached below.

Exposition is the introduction to the foreign world that the reader is being introduced to--in terms of this post, exposition is when the reader is introduced to the characters and the setting. The inciting incident is a single event in which something of this world is tipped askew, leading to the events and conflict of the rest of the story. In the rising action, we are building up and up in conflict until the climax, in which all of the built up tension is released. In a fantasy story, this will be your final battle. In a romance story, this will be your first kiss. In a thriller, your killer is finally revealed. The falling action deals with the fallout of the climax and settles the story for the resolution. In Freytag's pyramid, the rising and falling dictates the level of conflict or tension arising from a story. It is important to note that it is absolutely possible to throw Freytag's pyramid to the wind. In smaller examples, a series of stories may skip the resolution in the end of its first book and will skip the exposition of the following books, because the story is not yet resolved and later books need no introduction to a world we were just in (however, series sometimes go to the exposition phase just in case, whether we were just with them or not, like in event of a time jump). In larger examples, stories may end with the climax or hack off different parts of Freytag's pyramid freely. Your story is yours to amalgamate, but again, learn the rules before you break them.

For more in depth ways of starting a plot, the 27 chapter method is a bit of a more fleshed out Freytag's pyramid that's easier to follow. The 27 chapter method, however, is meant to be used more as a "general guide" rather than a gospel.

Lastly, and frankly, often toted as least, is setting. Setting is simply the time and place that a story is taking place in. For now, I'm going to store away the topics of actually building a world (ie, Worldbuilding) for another day, and focus here specifically on the active role the setting plays in a story.

A story can be set anywhere, but just like the conversation of what characters best fit a story, choosing a good setting could better enhance a story. Any story written anywhere other than a believable place that humans could be is often referred to as a fantasy book, as creating this in-depth world often means that the protagonists will be exploring it, hence, "fantasy"-- ie. not real. It is theoretically possible to create a story in a fantasy world that does not harp on its existence in a fantasy world at all, but this would be... questionable, and probably not a good use of setting. Fantasy stories taking place in fantasy worlds are often called high fantasy, whereas fantasy stories taking place in our modern world is called low fantasy. On the topic of time, stories set before the piece was written are called historical fiction.

Setting builds the characters in our story, as our characters are all defined by their relationship to their setting. If a character grew up in the setting created, the setting itself will have an impact on who they are. If your character is an outsider to this world, then a lot of this character's personal conflicts may deal with being at odds with the strange world they've been put into. The setting also informs not only the genre and characters, but the status quo. In exposition, we are often being introduced to the ins and outs of the way this world works, as it will either inform the plot and characters throughout the story, or will be broken by the end of the story.

When starting a story, setting is not often what authors start with. Instead of giving places to start, like with plot and characters, I will instead advise the author to start with their characters or plot and work backwards. Looking at this character I've created, what kind of world would they come from? Looking at this plot I've created, what world would it take place in? I'm going to go more into worldbuilding in another issue, but for now, I will leave it at that.

Thank you for reading this far! I really hope this was helpful and enjoyable. I don't consider myself an expert but I do really like writing, and I want to share that love with everyone here. I'm going to keep this section brief because I've been typing up a storm, but thank you for all of your support. Hopefully, I'll be able to keep this up as a longer series.

[bassuwun]

Aww Thank you so much <3

Kanamori was actually made to be a perfect foil to my other character Emmanuel, but he still takes inspiration from an eclectic bunch of things so I’ll try to list the ones that really stand out below

Love and Lust as Concepts:

These are his main motifs, along with affection, intimacy, obsession, basically any form of attraction. I did way too much research on what love is as like a strict definition and this is the result. (The answer was that there isn’t one specific answer)

Adam from NeiR:

Albinistic, very very pretty, and the way Adam loved Eve and learning about humans. Curiosity and Education can be a love language too.

Aphrodite from Hades game:

Hair make fun shapes, also they have the exact same motifs and color scheme I just moved things around basically.

Grenacia Mars Elijah Guo Eckener (Guren) from Cowboy Bebop:

Complicated gender situation, neither I nor the narrator know what to call Kanamori other than their name. Also because I love Guren, and Guren loved Vicious, I will die on this hill.

Miquella the Unalloyed from Elden Ring:

(spoilers for DLC) If Miquella hadn’t abandoned his love honestly his plot probably would have worked, but the minuet he did that he set down the path that created all the pain and suffering he was presently trying to alleviate. Basically the root cause of a lot of problems can be a lack of love or support so instead of trying to fix the problem you should address the cause of said problem.

Xiao Xingchen from Modao Zushi:

Love is blind but not painless, this one will make more sense when I get around to laying out the rest of the word and the other characters. Specifically the character that is Xue Yang in this comparison.

Adding on even more to his love themes, I specifically chose to spell his name Kanamori like this:

Which very very roughly translates to Loved and Protected.

But yeah, thank you so much for the ask and letting me rant about my lil guy <3

[madeitlate37]

The Tangi Virus by Paul Cantalanotto (also known as Vintage Eight)

It’s time for our first analog horror movie, and as luck has it, the first in a trilogy.

To make things more interesting, our first virus as well. Because I’m trying to have as much variety as possible in these seven analog horrors—if I even stop at seven because I keep finding new ones that capture my fancy. Prehistoric Emergence, looking at you. And I couldn’t have that variety without including at least one horror with a viral contagion as the main threat.

Vintage Eight’s Analog Horrors, with Sink Hole being the longest from my observance at one hour and eight minutes, generally presents his stories in the form of short films. The Tangi Virus, and its sequels, are no exception to this.

(NOTE: If it wasn’t obvious, I’m still experimenting with how I should do this as well as what I should say or omit, so I’m going to go closer to spoilers, or actually saying the general concept, because concept itself is arguably the most important part of any story. I fear I’ve been too vague in my prior reviews, so we’ll see how well this approach does in comparison.)

All three of the movies—as well as every other analog horror of Vintage Eight’s—are able to be watched in a vacuum from each other much like his other movies. Every analog horror by Vintage Eight generally takes place within the same area, and every story is independent from one another aside from the occasional cameo where it makes sense. With this trilogy, however, there is a cohesive narrative tying each one together. It goes: The Tangi Virus, The Oracle Project, and The Human Trials, if you are interested in watching the entire series.

First, the spoiler-free qualities:

• Viral threat, unlike Midwest Angelica, it is a virus that operates like the vast majority of viruses on earth, except for…

• Hive-mind threat, this occurs later, however, and is not the largest issue the virus presents.

• Biological study, one particular portion of the movie revolves around the attempted study of the virus.

• Untrustworthy sources, one infomercial says something isn’t safe, very next one essentially tells you to sprint towards that thing like your life depends on it.

• B-Plot threat, basically, there is another “threat” that is included, but it exists in the background so much in The Tangi Virus that it can be confused as the main threat if you don’t see The Oracle Project.

Okay, so slightly smaller list—there’s less content in the movie than the series because I don’t want to dip into the sequels for this. So let’s move on.

Higher spoiler-risk content:

This analog horror—and many of Vintage Eight’s other movies—present their information in a slightly different method that we’ll also see in next week’s series. This also takes up the bulk of the film, which is: Personal logs narrated by automated voices. The automated voices are not included in every instance of this, but the main go-to for Analog Horror is for some visual imagery. Even with Vita Carnis’ documentaries and interviews, there is always a relevant image as either the real focus or the backdrop while the text is still displayed.

In The Tangi Virus, the audience is mostly reduced to a black computer monitor with text appearing as the log is narrated, with the occasional infomercials or government warnings in between as the only relief. Yes this can be considered cheap, but it did also make me as an audience member feel much more isolated. Much like the people of this small town were when they were held still in this dangerous location. You’re stuck with only one primary source of information and, regardless of the fact that a scientist is at the helm of this monitor, it feels too easy for details to be omitted or lost in the gap between the event and the translation into text.

For that reason, that method of storytelling completely works for the short film and for its sequels.

Now, because The Tangi Virus is only a half hour long, it’s harder to find specific points worth mentioning without directly spoiling what happens, but Vintage Eight is very good at presenting facts and events in a way that puts their audience through an emotional rollercoaster. Again, I strongly suspect that this is because that isolation makes audience members emotionally grip onto whatever information they receive tighter than they would with surveillance footage and the like. Because, especially if something scary happens, the audience likely witnessed at least a part of it and are overwhelmed by the events to some degree, often needing a moment or even a rewatch to fully look at that event again through an analytical lens. In Vintage Eight’s series’, that lens is all you have because your only senses are hearing and seeing, but the lack of images throughout most of the story negate your sight. All while the voice you are hearing isn’t even a human one, and instead an automated voiceover.

I’m trying to go into more storytelling pros/cons because I’m also realizing that Analog Horror is a good example of creators and storytellers finding ways to make theirs happen. And, for someone like me who is still too insecure about my own stories to start actually posting anything, any example of creative and effective ways to handle stories are very helpful.

So, on top of me simply recommending a good Horror series/short film, maybe this could also be called pseudo-advice on how to express one’s own stories, specifically for people who want to make content for this or other genres, and who want to know how others did it.

We’ll see how decent I am at balancing that. For now, however, I think that’s all the non-spoiler-laden content I can write for the Tangi Virus, but I may revisit Vintage Eight in the future, especially because there is another movie of his that is my favorite of his Analog Horrors. But, not for this immediate list.

Please go check out Vintage Eight’s YouTube Channel if any of this is interesting to you.

As for next week…

[theindiandanceclass]

The Spiritual Aspect of Indian Classical Dance

Indian classical dance is much more than a performing art; it is a profound spiritual practice that connects the dancer to the divine. Rooted in ancient traditions and scriptures, these dance forms are a blend of intricate movements, expressive gestures, and symbolic storytelling, all imbued with deep spiritual significance. Bharatanatyam classes near me This blog delves into the spiritual aspect of Indian classical dance, exploring its origins, philosophical foundations, and the transformative experiences it offers to practitioners.

Origins and Philosophical Foundations

Ancient Roots: Indian classical dance has its origins in the temples of ancient India, where it was performed as a form of worship. The Natya Shastra, a foundational treatise on performing arts written by the sage Bharata Muni around 200 BCE to 200 CE, outlines the principles of dance, drama, and music. According to the Natya indian classical dance classes near me Shastra, dance was created by the gods to educate and entertain humans, blending spiritual and artistic elements to achieve a higher purpose.

Bhakti (Devotion): At the heart of Indian classical dance is the concept of bhakti, or devotion. Dancers dedicate their performances to deities, embodying stories from Hindu mythology and scriptures. Through dance, they express their reverence, love, and surrender to the divine. bharatnatyam classes This devotional aspect transforms the dance into a sacred ritual, elevating it beyond mere entertainment.

Symbolism and Spiritual Expression

Mudras (Hand Gestures): Mudras are symbolic hand gestures that convey specific meanings and emotions. Each mudra is a prayer in itself, used to narrate stories and invoke spiritual energies. For instance, the Anjali mudra (hands folded in prayer) signifies reverence and humility, classical indian dance classes near me while the Abhaya mudra (hand raised in blessing) represents protection and reassurance.

Rasa (Emotional Essence): Rasa refers to the emotional essence or flavor that a dance evokes in the audience. According to Indian aesthetics, there are nine primary rasas: Shringara (love), Hasya (joy), Karuna (compassion), Raudra (anger), Veera (courage), Bhayanaka (fear), Bibhatsa (disgust), Adbhuta (wonder), and Shanta (peace). Through the depiction of these rasas, dancers connect with the audience on a deep, emotional level, creating a shared spiritual experience.

Chakras and Energy Flow: Many Indian classical dance forms align movements with the body's energy centers, or chakras. indian dance class The dance acts as a form of moving meditation, balancing and activating these energy centers. This alignment fosters a sense of harmony and well-being, facilitating a deeper connection with the self and the divine.

Transformative Experiences for Dancers

Mind-Body-Spirit Connection: The practice of Indian classical dance fosters a harmonious connection between the mind, body, and spirit. The rigorous physical training strengthens the body, while the focus on rhythm and coordination sharpens the mind. online bharatanatyam classes The spiritual intent behind the dance nurtures the soul, leading to a holistic sense of well-being.

Meditative Practice: Repetitive practice of movements and rhythms in Indian classical dance has a meditative quality. The dancer becomes fully immersed in the present moment, experiencing a state of flow where the distinction between the dancer and the dance dissolves. This meditative state brings about inner peace and a sense of transcendence.

Emotional Catharsis: Through the portrayal of various emotions and stories, dancers experience and release their own emotions. This emotional catharsis has a purifying effect, helping them process and transcend personal struggles and experiences.

Spiritual Experience for the Audience

Collective Participation: In a traditional Indian classical dance performance, the audience is not merely a passive observer but an active participant. The shared experience of the performance creates a collective sense of unity and spirituality, where both the dancer and the audience are transported to a higher plane of consciousness.

Invocation of the Divine: Dance performances often begin with invocations and prayers, setting a sacred tone for the event. The presence of the divine is invoked through the music, movements, and expressions, creating an atmosphere of reverence and sanctity.

Conclusion

The spiritual aspect of Indian classical dance is a testament to its depth and richness. It is a practice that transcends the physical realm, offering profound spiritual experiences for both the dancer and the audience. bharatanatyam dance classes near me By blending devotion, symbolism, and expressive storytelling, Indian classical dance serves as a powerful medium for connecting with the divine, fostering inner peace, and experiencing the sacred in everyday life. Whether as a practitioner or a spectator, engaging with Indian classical dance opens the door to a world of spiritual beauty and profound transformation.

[bestworstcase]

…salem did not do anything wrong.

she was a grieving young woman who prayed to the gods to spare her lover from death. because she was religious. she had faith in her creators and felt hope that they might help her. when the god of light denied her, she got upset in the moment, but she accepted that he had refused and—this part is important—she left him the flowers she'd brought him.

the way rwby handles divinity is very polytheistic and specifically influenced by ancient greek and roman practice (also hellenistic philosophy). a fundamental concept in roman polytheism is "do ut des," which we might translate loosely as "i give so that you may give." polytheistic worship involves reciprocation, a give and take between human and divine, and roman polytheism was particularly contractual in nature. you perform a ritual, make an offering, and pray to inform the god of why: either you're asking for a favor, or returning a favor already given, or you're simply trying to stay on good terms.

of course, asking (even in the right way) does not guarantee that the god will do what you want. but there is an expectation of reciprocity; that the god will participate in this arrangement with you. you must ask—ritual without prayer is futile—and you must accept that sometimes the answer will be "no."

salem brings flowers to the god of light, which appear to be an appropriate offering based on the assortment of other items placed around the shrine. then she asks him for a favor he is unwilling to give, and he refuses and sends her away from his domain. her "no" (in response to "let him rest") is generally interpreted as a refusal to take no for an answer—but it isn't. she does not try to force her way back into light's domain to demand that he bring ozma back, nor does take back her offering.

this woman felt no qualms about going before the god of darkness—a god nobody else dared to worship, one known solely as the progenitor of monsters—to pray for ozma's life. if she truly felt entitled to a miracle, her respect for this reciprocal form of worship would have ended when the god of light told her no; she would not have felt bound to uphold her end of the arrangement. she would not have left the flowers there.

but she did.

her decision to then petition the god of darkness is similarly often taken as an act of disobedience, of going behind the god of light's back to get what she wanted after he told her no, but:

the god of light told her that she had asked something he "cannot make so"—not will not, cannot. if salem took him at his word, it would not have been unreasonable to assume that he said no because bringing ozma back was beyond his power, but that perhaps the god of darkness could do it.

the brothers shared in the creation of the world and made humans together, as equals. there was not a hierarchy with the god of light above his brother—the god of light did not have standing to forbid worship of darkness. (which darkness points out during their confrontation.)

because we do not get to hear what salem told the god of darkness, we only have jinn's word that salem "made no mention of his elder" with intent to deceive and manipulate him. jinn is not a reliable narrator—there are details in her telling that are verifiably factually untrue, like the god of light being "the elder"—so this information is suspect. it is equally plausible that salem did not mention light because he wasn't relevant, having no involvement in whatever pact she struck with darkness, or that she made an implicit promise to revere darkness above his brother if he granted her wish. both would be within her rights.

from the very beginning, salem intended to petition both brothers. when ozma dies, she asks "how could the gods let this happen?" and jinn clarifies that she meant both light and darkness. she could not go to both of them at once—they were not in the same place—so she chose to approach the "safer" brother first. but she always meant to ask them both.

all of that is to say, returning to the point i made in the op: when salem offered ozma's staff to the god of darkness, she chose to risk that he, too, would take it from her and then turn her away empty-handed. that staff was her most prized possession, the only thing she had left of ozma, and offering it as a votive gave the god of darkness the means to hurt her very badly. she knew that, he knew that, and i think that is something salem did very deliberately because she thought about what he might want from her in return for this favor she asked of him. the grimm are drawn to pain and suffering, the god of darkness made the grimm, she offers him an object that represents her loss, one which she would be devastated to lose. you see the line of reasoning? there was no established praxis for her to follow with darkness (as she did with light), so she did her best to give him something he would appreciate.

and that is exactly why he gives her what she wants: salem believed in him, proved that her faith in him was true, so he gives back. reciprocity. insofar as there was any wrongdoing here, it was darkness neglecting to get his brother's consent per their agreement not to act unilaterally—but… light did that too, and he's been doing it ever since their fight over jabber, so that agreement was never made in good faith.

salem did nothing wrong. she was literally just a religious woman who prayed to the gods she had been worshipping all her life. what she does in the lost fable—making offerings to them both and asking a favor in return—is literally just practicing her religion. that is How Polytheistic Religion Works. the gods punish her brutally for worshipping them.

and she does learn from this experience. she learns that her faith in the brothers was misplaced, that the god of light does not want to be worshipped but rather obeyed, that the god of darkness was fickle and cruel, that the permanence of death is not the inherent natural way of the world but an artificial order imposed by the brothers—she hears light say that explicitly while he's arguing with darkness and they punish her by excluding her from their "delicate balance of life and death"—and that the brothers are neither all-powerful nor all-knowing. that they're fallible. that humankind does not need them, and would in fact be better off without them.

salem, er, "doubles down" every time she's given a choice to recant and submit to the god of light because she's right. she refuses to "learn her lesson" because the intended lesson is that the god of light is entitled to demand absolute, unquestioning obedience and give nothing in return because humans are worthless. she rejects ozma and his divine mandate because she does not believe that the brothers have the right to kill everyone if they don't get their way.

ruby learns from her experience too: she learns that the brothers are not absolute cosmic authorities, that they are not all-powerful or all-knowing, that the god of light was wrong. the blacksmith tells them all in no uncertain terms that light's understanding of balance is wrong. salem knows this. she has known this for hundreds of millions of years. she doesn't need to learn it because she already knows—and there's also, uh, a serious possibility that she knows the blacksmith too:

"aura is a manifestation of the soul." world of remnant is narrated in character and all of them carry implications about what the narrating character believes or perceives about their subject—for example, see qrow's blatant editorializing in all of his spots. salem narrates the aura episode; when she describes aura as a manifestation of the soul, a life-force running through every living thing on remnant, the associated imagery is a blacksmith. what does this imply about what—or who—she might know?

rolls over

yeah yeah, the ruby-salem grief weapon parallel, we've all seen it

salem offers up the staff as a votive to the god of darkness after telling him of her story and what she hopes to receive in return. he deems this a fair bargain and grants her wish; salem drops the staff at his feet and rushes to ozma's side. do ut des. this is an act of prayer, of worship. salem knows what she's doing—she's pious—and does everything correctly.

(including making an offering of something she must have put some serious thought into: she gives the god of grimm her most precious possession and a token of her suffering.)

and what she asks for in return is ozma's life. the staff was precious to her only in ozma's absence, because it represented her lost love. had the god of darkness answered no, salem would still be obliged to leave the staff in his domain—just as she left light his flowers, you don't take back an offering if the god's answer is not to your liking—and to part with it and walk away empty-handed would have been devastating. but the moment she sees ozma again, the staff means nothing; she lets it fall from her grasp without a thought.

she chose to make herself vulnerable to that pain, offering darkness her own heart as a fair sacrifice for the mere possibility of ozma getting to live. and he tells her to rise and see her faith rewarded.

<- faith.

ruby is in pain. ruby is grieving and boiling in guilt because penny died again and ruby could do nothing to save her again. the sword is all she has left of one of her best friends. and then she offers it up to the toy soldiers—who have come to take them to the red castle—in exchange for, er… being taken to the prince's birthday celebration so that she can present the sword as a gift.

why?

"look, we may not know exactly what's going on, but for whatever reason, this place is putting us on a similar path as a book we all read as kids. i say we follow it—and stop pretending we know what we're doing."

the consequence of this choice of course is that any emotional or spiritual significance this offering might have had is elided by the toy soldiers' grift and the red prince is a child who throws the sword away in a fit of pique: "how could you!?" ruby whispers, before swallowing that pain and stunting around in a scramble to keep the story on the "right" path.

<- fate.

rolls over again.

salem had faith. ozpin believes in fate.

faith is—asking. trying. communion with something greater than oneself. but to believe in fate is to believe in a single narrow path which must be followed no matter the cost because…because.

this is what "look how you've diminished" is about. how you've lessened yourself—and for what? ruby tears out her own heart in a futile effort to appease a spoiled child who kicks it away out of utter indifference—and for what? because the story said so. because she's afraid. because she doesn't know what else to do. she's lost her faith.

[butts-bouncing-on-the-beltway]

As a therapist, an Autistic TM, and the trans child of a trans drag king, I spend a lot of time thinking about the concept of performativity, and frankly I think it gets a bad reputation despite its capacity as a subversive technique and tactic.

When we hear the word performativity, most of us think of the concept of being superficially engaged, of skin-deep participation, of wearing the aesthetic without being able to back it up by walking the walk. It has a quality of being inherently lesser and incomplete. "Performative allyship" is one of the more damning things one can be accused of in radical circles because it means you're all talk, no substance.

The thing is, performance has been such an integral part of so many subversive communities since their inception. Performance has been a crucial form of self-expression for those same communities for just as long. It has historically held layer upon layer of meaning, to the point that calling it superficial would be akin to calling yourself unobservant. At a certain point, using performance and performativity to define superficiality is deeply irresponsible and erasive of our own cultural contexts when the word superficial is *right there*.

Everything about me is performed. From my personality, to my social graces, to my gender presentation, to my political praxis, to my professional therapeutic presence, to my embodiedness, to my version of learned empathy, to my sexual practices and desires, to my morality. Without that performance, those things don't materially exist, and I intentionally and precisely craft each performance for very specific outcomes and effects. A good deal of that is probably the autism, but I have significant doubts that every single one of these elements of selfness are completely beyond the intentional creation of everyone, autistic or allistic.

Performance is intentional, chosen action. It is a meaningful act of self-creation. Any performance, embodied long enough, becomes selfhood. The belittlement of performativity, as far as I can tell, is a belittlement of one of the most transcendental and radical acts of self-narration, change-creation, and meaning-making we as human beings have access to.

And I imagine that the immediate response will be "but there are people who are only *pretending* to embody the spirit of the performance and that's who we're calling out when we call out performativity!"

To which I say: Let's say I believe you have a 100% success rate in identifying who's a true believer in the awkward midst of change-making and who's a wolf in sheep's clothing never intending to make good. Why does the performance, the tool of change making, the cultural heritage that serves us, have to become the origin point of confrontation? Why can't we do the work of trying to call people in without degrading the tools of disidentification and meaning-making? We do a disservice to everyone, including ourselves, when we suggest that intentional performance is somehow lesser than spontaneous action. It removes our own ability to conscientiously do the right thing while still learning what that specifically means in a given context, and as human beings there will always be something we are still learning about. It compels us to question our own authenticity and ability when imposter syndrome rears its head because imposter syndrome relies on the idea of intentional performance of role as distinct from innate knowledge of the same role. It contributes to sanism/ableism around low/no empathy comrades who intentionally choose to perform to high standards of morality and equitable praxis because somehow their choice to do so means less since they aren't also emotionally self-flagellating when they make a mis-step. It contributes to transphobia by forcing us to argue over whether or not gender is a performance and whether or not that means trans people's existence is valid when we could just accept that gender includes performativity for some, both cis and trans.

There are so many upsides to embracing notions of performance. I find myself wondering why doing so has remained so contentious up to this point. Especially when so much of the scholarship around marginality DOES embrace performativity. The contention seems to remain in the public sphere, and I'm curious where that comes from. Most importantly, I'm curious why anyone would want to cut themselves off from the primary form of self-creation. It feels very much like the sort of thing that got snuck in early on as a self-sabotaging element against the possibility of revolutionary meaning-making.

[artbyblastweave]

Gideon The Ninth Liveread, Chapter 3

In which I post about Ortus a lot! Other things too. But I’m very interested in Ortus!

First off; I like the concept of bioluminescent dust as an omnipresent source of dim light. Feels like a form of adaptive technology for a society with limited resources and a need to light a whole bunch of cavernous spaces regardless; feels like a grounded technology, something that near-future humanity could throw together in a lab given a few months.

Here we get the image of a sea of bone in the pews, “pockmarked by people.” Hammering home the image of the remaining humans as corrupt, messy hanger-ons impeding the aesthetic purity and order of death; the vibe is similarly reinforced a little later with how the Skeletons leave in an orderly formation with no regard to the ability for the humans to get around them. (How sentient are necromantic constructs like this? Do they fill the niche of artificial intelligence within the setting?) 

Ah, Ortus. I’ve many thoughts on Ortus.

So, first off, raw deal. Gideon and Harrow have their incipient Enemies-to-Lovers runaround keeping them occupied; Ortus is isolated even beyond that, and has been for his entire adult life; he doesn’t even get the dignity of being important in his status as cavalier, of being personally close with the heir to the ninth in any way, because the role of bone-porter is obviated by the fact that Harrow’s specific prodigy manifests through being able to do a lot with minimal materials.

Point two. Gideon, who has reasonable grounds to be pissed off at everyone and everything associated with the Ninth, paints Ortus as uniquely pathetic, and it’s a picture we’re collectively primed to accept unquestioningly; he’s burdened with one of the body types most acceptable to poke fun at AND easiest to end up with just through the passage of time. But crucially, Gideon is telling us the ways in which Ortus is a pathetic sad sack rather than having any of them play out in front of us. Ortus as described just sounds like.... a relatively sedentary thirty-five-year-old, reasonable given his total lack of opportunities to socialize; the main reason that Gideon and Harrow are in good shape is that they’re a pair of maniacs playing Tom-and-Jerry, but nobody on this rock is in good health besides them. That said, I don’t precisely blame Gideon for not extending the charity that I can (as I’m rather famously not an indentured servant.) 

More thoughts on Ortus (and why I’m liking this what the story is doing with this Ortus guy!) after a brief digression about....

Harrow’s parents. I will not lie, this is absolutely a situation where the sheer volume of alluded-to atrocities gleefully lobbed about the tumblrsphere primed me to assume that the big secret was something significantly more atrocious. Dollars to Donuts there's a late-game reveal that what Harrow did with her parents is so negligible in the grand scheme of things that Gideon never had any meaningful leverage at all.

That said, this is absolutely a scene that, on further examination, drips with Homestuckery; my mind went immediately to the Baby-Jade-taxidermizing-her-grandfather gag, not just in the material circumstances, but also in the syntax of how the punchline is delivered- “In Fairness, she’d been 10 at the time.” Same style of comically backloading details like that in a deadpan fashion. Actually, the entire quasi-parentless set-up of the book thus far sort of reminds me of Homestuck’s overall vibe. Fantastic. I love it. 

And Jesus. Poor Harrow. Gideon is completely incapable of extending a sympathetic thought here, quite reasonably, but good god. Poor Harrow.

Back to Ortusposting. A recurring pattern is that Muir does something funny and then immediately undercuts it in a way that makes it not actually funny if you read between the lines even a little bit. Gideon’s royally-pissed-off narration primes you to parse Ortus and his Mom as a Buster/Lucille situation, a tried-and-true one-note comedic trope, but then 500 words later that pat, clean-cut view of the dynamic collapses. You immediately realize from her reaction that Ortus’s mother knows something. She knows the things that befall Cavaliers. The histrionics that Gideon finds so entertaining are not the reaction of a woman who’s only afraid of post-partem separation. To the extent that Gideon is even right in her assessment that she “swaddles” Ortus (and Gideon’s is an outside perspective in many ways; she hasn’t been to one of these services in years, she doesn’t necessarily have the level of insight she thinks she does) she does so because she knows full well he's in line for something terrible as the only Cavalier around, probably something that got his dad killed too, and while the swaddling might not be helpful it's all she can do in the face of a shitty shitty situation.  More and more it looks like any undue closeness that Ortus and his mother have is actually just a reasonable defensive measure for two people caught in a den of religiously zealous vipers. And this culminates in...

Poor, guileless Ortus and his doting mother getting the fuck-out-of-dodge on Gideon’s meticulously-stolen shuttle. Immediately after hearing the summons, with limited deliberation. They aren’t useless, aren’t indecisive, aren’t unagentic; they aren’t patsies- and these are all things Gideon’s narration primed me to believe that they would be, so the twist hit like a truck.

Ending line- “Because I completely fucking hate you, No Offense-” is a perfect closer. Vastly ups the comedic tension of the earlier sequence, too, because thus far I perceive no reason for Harrow to hate Gideon the way Gideon hates Harrow, but she’s putting exactly as much juice into her fuckery as Gideon does. Deranged! Completely Deranged.

Anyway, tune in for future chapters, where I continuously wonder to myself when the rest of the cast are going to begin assigning any weight to the fact that being a cavalier is apparently such a fraught prospect that Ortus and his mother immediately upended their status-quo of 35 years to escape him having to do it.

[stillness-in-green]

No, Re-Destro Is Not Destro’s Literal Son

and

Yes, I Will Die On This Hill

I have a number of small, persistent quibbles with some of the widespread misapprehensions I see included in BNHA fanfic, quoted as fact in meta posts, even cited on the wiki. Quirk cancellation restraints, what the 20% quirklessness data point means in practice, when Kurogiri comes into existence relative to the time of the Shimura Family Massacre, things like that. My biggest one, though, is as the title suggests: the idea that Yotsubashi Rikiya is Yotsubashi Chikara’s son.

I don’t entirely know where this confusion comes from. As far as I can tell, the early scanlations didn’t get it wrong—one rendered the line in Chapter 218 about Destro having a child he didn’t know about as being children, plural, but otherwise, they were all accurate enough. It seems people just assumed that the child mentioned in 218 must be Re-Destro, who was, after all, right there on the panel. Even though the scanlations never said it, even though the official translation never said it, even though ample evidence in the manga disproves it, the idea still got around that Rikiya is Chikara’s son.

I have and will maintain that this is obviously wrong if you stop to think about it for even a moment, but unfortunately, most people don’t. The error can be found on less well-tended parts of the fandom wiki[1]; it’s in tumblr meta posts about the villains; it’s in fanfic.

And now, god help me, it is on the official anime website, too.

“Stillness-in-green, maybe you should consider that you might just be wro—”

I will face BONES and walk backwards into hell.

But if you want, you can come with me, and I’ll explain on the way. Hit the jump.

Dialogue + Narration

There are two places where the relationship between Chikara and Rikiya is explicitly addressed—the lead-in to the dinner scene in Chapter 218 and the fight between Clone!Shigaraki and RD in Chapter 232. If you include the Ultra Analysis databook, the number goes up to four: once each in Re-Destro and Destro Classic’s character blurbs.

Let’s take a look at each of those places, shall we?

The relevant Japanese text here is in the first narration box: 子ども, kodomo.

Kodomo is not gendered. It literally just means child. The key kanji is 子, ko. Like most kanji, it has a lot of potential readings, and you can add other kanji to it to modify it. Add 息 and you get musuko, son. Pronounce 子 as shi instead of ko, and you get a term that is frequently, though not exclusively, used to refer to boys. Add 女 to that reading and you get joshi, woman/girl. 子 is in a lot of words, many of them gendered! Used for kodomo as Hori does here, though, it does nothing to indicate a gender one way or the other.

Also too, it does nothing to indicate that Rikiya is the child in question; it simply states that there was such a child, somewhere in the world. Now, the natural assumption for anyone who knows how the graphic novel medium works and who understands basic literary analysis would be that the significant character we just met is, in fact, the child in question—except that everything else we learn about Destro and the original Meta Liberation Army here makes it entirely impossible.

I’ll do a full breakdown on why that is in the next section. In the meantime, here’s the next reference:

Here, we’re looking at the phrase the Viz translation renders as, “His blood runs through these veins.” The literal Japanese there is, Desutoro no matsuei chi o tsugu mono! In a literal translation, chi o tsugu mono means, “one who inherits the blood,” or, more loosely, “blood successor.” It’s matsuei—末裔—that’s the key word here.

Japanese has several words to express the concept of “descendant.” Matsuei is one word; the data book uses shison. So what’s the difference? Well, I’ll talk about shison in a moment, but I had an inkling of it just from looking at the kanji in matsuei—“end” and “descendant” respectively, leaving me with an impression of something like a final descendant or the terminus of the bloodline. Further research confirmed it: shison can refer to any lineal blood tie, but matsuei refers to a bloodline’s final inheritor, the person at the end of a long line of many, or even countless, generations. It’s the difference between being able to point to a grandparent and the kind of painstaking genealogical research that lets you[2] point to a famous royal from eight hundred years ago—matsuei is a word that very much assumes the existence of those countless generations.

So not only does Rikiya’s line there not imply that he’s Chikara’s son, but his specific word choice also tells us that he cannot be Chikara’s son. That’s, uh. Pretty conclusive, I would say.

Lastly, though, there’s also the data book. This is, perhaps, the actual closest you’re going to get to a manga equivalent of those character blurbs on the anime website, at least until such time as Hori deigns to give the MLA types character profile pages. (I live ever in hope.)

There are two relevant bits of text, one in Re-Destro’s entry, and the other in Destro Classic’s. The first describes how Re-Destro organizes the MLA as Desutoro no chi o tsugu mono: the same phrase he uses for himself in the manga, minus the matsuei. @codenamesazanka (the one who told me about the databook references among other citations, bless) rendered it as “Destro’s blood successor”; I have also seen it given as “the successor of Destro’s bloodline.” Note again, the lack of reference to a father/son bond.

Chikara’s entry uses that other descendant word I mentioned before, 子孫, shison. Notice that the term uses that ko kanji from kodomo before? As it does in joshi, 子 here reads shi. The other kanji, 孫, means grandchild. Thus, literally, grandchild-child—or, in the vernacular, simply descendant.

And then we have the anime website.

So, for comparison’s sake, the anime website uses 息子—the same combination of kanji that I said earlier gives you musuko, son. Heck, it even uses 父, chichi, for Destro—father. It’s as explicit as it’s possible to be, and I just don’t know why or how the anime website could fuck that up so bad when absolutely nothing in the manga describes the two Yotsubashis that way, and, indeed, one specific word choice actually rules out the possibility.

So, that’s all the manga says directly. It’s not the only evidence there is, though. In fact, the next piece makes it even more clear how colossally and impossibly wrong a father/son connection for Destro and his modern successor is.

Timeline

The long and short of this section is, “Since Harima Oji was Sako Atsuhiro’s great-great-grandfather, there is no possible way that Destro—who pre-dated Harima—can be Re-Destro’s father.” If you read that sentence and nodded your complete understanding and agreement, feel free to skip ahead to the last section. If you’d like the full explanation it takes to reach that sentence’s conclusion, though, read on.

So, aside from the word matsuei, the timeline is the most telling piece of evidence to my eye. I address it secondly rather than firstly because it’s less direct than the explicit narration; it relies on drawing conclusions based on things we’ve been told elsewhere rather than on the immediately relevant text. Oh, Mr. Compress’s relationship to Harima is explicit enough, but on what am I basing my claim that Destro predates him?

Regarding that, there’s no explicit year relative to My Hero Academia’s current events given for when Destro and the original Meta Liberation Army were active; the same is true for Harima Oji’s escapades. However, we are given some broad-strokes information, relative not to current events, but rather to the history of heroism as a legal institution in Japan.

We know that there was a widespread, lengthy period of chaos following the rise of quirks—called meta-abilities in those early years. At some point, however, people began to search for a way for meta-humans to live in peace with non-metas. The compromise that was reached was the foundation of professional heroism in Japan—while the use of meta-abilities would be legal in private settings, it was only by becoming licensed by the state as “heroes” that people could use their quirks in public.[3]

The legislation curtailing the use of meta-abilities—and the appropriation of a dead woman’s language to popularize a law establishing exactly the opposite of what she used that language to call for—is what catalyzed the rise of the original MLA. Thus, we can position Destro as being alive and active around the same time that heroism as a legal institution was being formed. Since we further know that he committed suicide in prison, we can assume that his child was conceived at some point prior to his capture. Ergo, Destro’s child, were they alive today, would be as old as Japanese professional heroism itself.

Next, consider Harima Oji, the Peerless Thief, a criminal who targeted the riches of “sham heroes.” We’re specifically told that he was active in the days in which the current system was settling into place—e.g. he only became active once the Hero System was established enough to have produced corrupt heroes. We’re told he preached reformation—he wasn’t just some pre-existing criminal who saw a shiny new target in heroes; he had specific grievances which he wanted addressed by the system, and which the system was not addressing.

The earliest Harima could possibly be active, then, is concurrent with Destro—Harima fighting against the corrupt people who had found their way into the new heroic institution, and Destro fighting against using the institution of heroism to oppress non-heroes. What I think is more likely, though, is that Harima came after Destro—Harima needed to have had time to realize what kinds of fakes had been drawn to this shiny new career path, maybe even to spend some time trying to change things the legal way.

I don’t suspect they were separated by very long—I would imagine Destro was easily within Harima’s living memory, and might well have influenced why he chose the path of protest that he did—but I do think they were separate.

Moving forward, then, Mr. Compress is four generations distant from his famous ancestor. Thus, even if you assume that Harima is of the same generation as Chikara, that’s what you’re looking at for Chikara’s child: someone who, were they alive today, would be old enough to be the great-grandparent of a thirty-two-year-old man.

Re-Destro’s probably a few years older than Mr. C, sure,[4] but that man doesn’t have Ujiko’s slow-aging quirk. Unless you want to start pulling theories about cryogenic stasis the story for some reason never saw fit to mention out of thin air, Re-Destro is in no way old enough to fit the bill.

This is backed up by one other piece of the timeline as well, and one more place we can look at language:

The small child at the center of the image is Rikiya, so young that he’s in schoolboy shorts for a meeting otherwise so formal that he’s been made to wear a tie. He’s, what, six to nine here, tops? And the adults speaking to him say that they’ve been in hiding for generations—代々, daidai, the kanji for generation followed by a kanji that just means, “See that kanji written right before me? Yeah, just read that one again.”

The original MLA was active for only a handful of years, and, per Chapter 218, they didn’t dissolve until Destro was captured. Thus, we can assume they have been in hiding since then, but not before then. With that in mind, this is another line that renders a father/son relationship impossible.

Remember, Chikara already had a child in the world circa his capture. If Rikiya were Chikara’s son, then Destro’s capture and his army’s subsequent dissolution could not have happened any farther back than nine months plus however old Rikiya was in this exact moment of his youth. Rikiya, who we see here as a child of less than ten.

Ten years in hiding doesn’t make one generation; it damn sure doesn’t make multiple ones.

Now, you could make theories about cryogenic statis that would explain this ludicrous discrepancy, sure. You could also theorize about e.g. artificial insemination,[5] or time stop quirks, or any number of other possibilities in the vast panoply the HeroAca world offers. The point is, though, that you don’t need to. There was, in the manga, no discrepancy that needed to be explained. It is only fanon misinterpretation and a glaring disinterest in the series’ villains from official sources that have presented this issue.

I’m praying that it’s all just a misunderstanding on the part of whoever maintains the website, and that the anime itself will render the relevant bits of dialogue correctly. Given the extreme cuts and alterations that My Villain Academia has been subjected to thus far, though, I’m sure you can appreciate my being concerned.

…So that’s the meat of it. The idea that Rikiya is Chikara’s son is wrong simply on the basis of what’s said in the text, and it’s doubly wrong on the basis of the timeline. There is, though, one other thing I think points towards Re-Destro being exactly the descendant he says he is, not a son playing down the connection out of humility or something. This one is a lot more headcanon-y, though, so I saved it for last.

MLA Social Dynamics

It’s quite simple. We have, in the MLA, a group of people that venerates Destro’s bloodline to an obviously unhealthy degree, putting up portraits of him wherever they can get away with it, tagging his successor with a “Re-” as if to invoke reincarnation or miraculous return, entirely willing to throw their lives away for what they think was his cause, and others’ lives if those others say anything too scathing about the words Destro wrote, quite as if they treat Destro’s memoir as some sort of holy writ.

They venerate Destro that much, and you’re trying to tell me that they wouldn’t just call a spade a spade and acknowledge RD as the son of their great leader? Come on.

Since long before I turned up the matsuei factoid in researching this piece, since long before Mr. Compress gave us such a helpful generational comparison, I’ve held the opinion that, given a group that holds their leaders in such high esteem, with such particular regard for bloodline, the only reason Rikiya does just call himself a descendant, rather than citing the specific term for what he is, is that the specific term is distant enough that it actually does sound more impressive to just say “descendant,” rather than something like, “great-great-great-grandson.” That kind of thing just begs the question, “What took you guys so long?” or, “You and how many other people, buddy?”

Mr. Compress may have the panache to carry off a line like that, but Rikiya’s a different story. If he had something so amazing up his sleeve as, “I am the son of the great Destro,” I have to think he’d just say it proudly, not fall back on the impressionistic vaguery of something like chi o tsugu mono. Even if I had no other evidence to work with, I’d think the same—all the evidence you need is right there in the character writing of who Rikiya and the MLA are and how they talk about the man whose dreams Re-Destro was raised to carry.

A closing note: I will allow that Rikiya is being overdramatic when he uses matsuei and its connotation of countless generations. There are a few other things we can use to trace the history of heroism—Ujiko’s age, and the 18-years-or-less periods that One For All was held by its pre-All Might bearers—and running those numbers leads me to believe that it is, in fact, entirely possible to count the number of generations between Rikiya and Chikara, and the number, while higher than one, is probably not all that high. Certainly matsuei is being more dramatic about it than is entirely warranted, hence the poetic flourish of the official translation’s, “His blood runs through these veins!” The theatricality only makes me fonder of him, however.

------------------------

FOOTNOTES

[1] It was changed and reverted on Re-Destro’s page at least twice before it finally stuck in January of this year. Chikara’s page took until July to be corrected, and it’s still wrong on various other subpages.

[2] Or your kids, if you have those. Only the last generation in the bloodline is the matsuei, but that’s a moving goalpost as long as the bloodline is still propagating.

[3] This summary of events combines what we know from both My Hero Academia proper and the Vigilantes spin-off, which I recommend to anyone who’s at all interested in finer-grained worldbuilding on Hero Society Japan than the main series makes time for.

[4] I personally headcanon him as 42.

[5] To which point I would refer back to the word kodomo, and note that that word choice indicates that Destro had a child in the world. Not a sperm sample kept in a freezer somewhere, waiting for the right would-be mother: an actual child. Some quick research on my part says that the farthest that term stretches is in using it to refer to yet-unborn children, fetuses still in the womb. Seeing as Japan doesn’t even allow inmates conjugal visits in real life, much less in a setting where villains are so dehumanized that Tartarus is an acceptable punishment for them, the line about Destro “having a child out in the world” takes us right back to a date of conception no later than Destro’s final night of freedom.

[seewetter]

"i was referring to when people quote the idea of the buffalo bill stereotype for trans women instead of crossdressing men. the book really, really drives it home that he is a femme gay crossdresser specifically and not a transsexual of any kind. he's a combo the actual serial killers ed gein, ted bundy, and gary heidnik."

It's fair to point that out and it's something I was aware of prior to this conversation.

However we are talking past each other: your point is that Bufallo Bill was made to be a stand-in for dangerous femme gay crossdressers and that the author may have been (unintentionally or otherwise) vilifying that group rather than transfems. But you are not sharing random movie trivia, you are making a wider point about something. Perhaps it would be helpful to explicitly state what your wider point is. My point is that Bufallo Bill contributes to ideas about transfems, even if the character isn't transfem. I too am not just saying that for no reason, I'm also making a wider point: I think transmisogyny is a reasonable concept through which to view people and that terms like tma and tme (which don't apply to every human on the planet and don't describe all power differentials in queer spaces but nonetheless a very valuable concepts) are valid.

"also sleepaway camp is a weird case."

Velvet and I had a whole DM conversation about Sleepaway Camp and I'll reiterate that the main character absolutely is a "woman with penis" character, where the horror reveal at the end of the first movie is that the woman has the penis. As I mentioned to Velvet, yes, the dysphoria can also be read as transmasc and both readings can coexist no problem.

But the main character of Sleepaway Camp being an unreliable narrator only matters to this discussion if the audience is somehow not meant to be shocked by the penis reveal at the end of the movie. But they are...definitely meant to be shocked (or amused or whatever) by that scene. It's definitely the "we have our killer" moment of the movie.

Also, to reiterate what I said to Velvet: no, I don't think Sleepaway Camp is transphobic, I just think it can't be divorced from a wider transphobic and transmisogynistic cultural context that spawned some of it's creative choices.

"the hate crime statistics are on the fbi website... black gay crossdressers are targeted more often, just like black trans women. "

So I'm looking at the (USA-specific, 2022 and earlier) FBI hate crime statistics (here's a mirror) and I'm not seeing what you are seeing. Anti-transgender hate crimes are double anti-gender non-conforming hate crimes. Hate crimes against "Crossdressing" do not appear on the webpage I found -- maybe you could help me out here?

I'm not seeing any specific data collected on Black trans people or Black gay crossdressers.

"it's been that way for ages. around the stonewall riots, before there was more of a difference between them they were pretty much the same community and suffered violence at the same level then too..."

I don't doubt that prior to Stonewall, the USA had a lot of hate crimes against crossdressers. I agree it was pretty much the same community. Gay and trans people both were viewed as mentally ill and subject to lobotomies and institutionalization.

But why argue about what happened before Stonewall? Forms of discrimination can arise out of "nowhere", grow into powerful social forces and become an oppressive norm. Prior to Juan Gines de Sepulveda, the Spanish crown has not decided which course of action to take with "the New World". This does not mean that indigenous people in the Spanish territories are a safe group.

Prior to 1972, American trans people were (usually) not more disadvantaged than other queer people. Transmisogyny might have been a silly concept then. Maybe even transphobia would have been an experimental concept with imperfect applicability. But if so, it has little bearing on dynamics within the queer community of today.

"i think there is also some conflating of ""tranny"" porn with sissy porn in the general public? like not everyone is obviously going to know a difference or tag things completely accurately. a lot of people don't lack the knowledge of trans anything to separate the categories."

Ah, so the porn industry mass produces sissy porn at the same rate as transgender porn then? Gay male crossdressers are exploited in comparable numbers by the porn industry? That seems doubtful to me & neither the official statistics, nor a look at the mainstream websites (even when using anti-track software to get non-biased results) bears that out.

"pat robertson was an evangelical leader sure but several of his opinions were controversial to right wingers as a whole. he believed in evolution instead of young earth creationism too but these are things that others tried to silently ignore or they broke ties with him over?? there are whole christian denominations that fully support trans people but evangelicals call them all heretical or satanic so..."

My point is that Pat Robertson and other right-wing figures also wield power. And they also inspire hate crimes. Their views also inform harassment. Their ideas also influence how people get treated by those around them. If Pat Robertson, influential figure that he was and continues to be in the grave, thought that trans women are in fact women, then his thoughts on the matter influence how trans women get treated.

You can try to argue that Pat Robertson is not sufficiently influential to really affect the lives of trans people, but even his Wiki page outright states "While he became a recognized and influential public voice for conservative Christianity in the U.S. and around the world". Like this guy is a household name. His opinions had weight and influence and they shape the assumptions of his followers.

"also idk i'm not arguing that it's helpful or unhelpful i'm just saying that historically and now that cis queer men who are femme/gnc or crossdress are very often treated the same way... like i can't tell you how to feel about it, just that it happens"

and I'm not disagreeing with you. Heck, Julia Serano, who coined the words tma/tme quite literally intended cis queer men to be included as tma. Personally I don't think it makes much sense to argue about it, though I do think most cis queer men I know are in a very different situation than transfems that I know. But I don't really feel like arguing about it -- I think we have more important things to think about.

"do you have statistics on how many blogs were nuked?? by this statement then the ceo is probably also anti semetic and a major racist cause black bloggers and pro palestine bloggers are getting nuked constantly too."

Which institution would collect or create statistics on how many blogs where nuked? How would anybody even count how many blogs where nuked?

Perhaps the New York Commission on Human Rights can help you answer the question -- after all, they are suing Tumblr over this!

Anecdotally, I can tell you that Tumblr blocked the "transmisogyny" tag for a while. Not the "tw transmisogyny" tag, that would still return results. But specifically the transmisogyny tag. And it was right around the time when the nukings where at their apparent peak, based on the number of complaints I saw on my dashboard. Fortunately (but unfortunately for proving wrongdoing) the tag has been restored and I have no idea how I could prove that it wasn't available earlier this year. I suppose I could swear on the grave of Bufallo Bill or something?

To answer you question about antisemitism and racism, I don't exactly know what is going on with nukings of pro-Palestine or Black bloggers. But assuming that Palestinian and transfem bloggers are being deleted for biased reasons, yes that reflects negatively on whoever is deleting them (not necessarily the CEO). What makes the CEO suspect in this particular case is that he (A) hounded a transfem individual (predstrogen) on other social media platforms (highly unprofessional and inappropriate), (B) that his accusations against this individual reflect a double standard that is not applied to users of the website that are not transfem, (C) that when confronted with the protests, he chose to highlight that he had gay, lesbian and bisexual friends, rather than highlight anything that might exonerate him from bias against transfem people in particular.

"yeah... like you said... there's no big gay male event that tries to keep trans men out at all costs because there is no big gay male event at all,"

Plenty of gay male events exist, I guess you mean gay male exclusive?

I see your point if that's the case.

"but i can attest to the fact that my trans guy friends have been mocked out of gay clubs and gay men won't date them like 90% of the time because they ""don't like pussy".... like if there was a big gathering of cis gay men then i don't doubt that they would probably not want trans men there?? but unlike the radical lesbian separatists, their communities started off intertwined with the transvestite/drag queen/transsexual movements and it wasn't a huge thing for them."

I'm not sure "like 90%" is a very fair number, but I again understand your point: statistically, men are often more closed-minded about trans issues than women, so despite huge amounts of dating material for trans guys (just look at all these attracted and/or interested people!) there's probably a lot of discrimination out there and it might be more common among gay guys than among lesbians.

But we can only speculate what gay cis guys would do if there was a big men-only gathering. I can't say, it probably depends on the cis guys and their group's general open-mindedness, right?

The thing with lesbian separatism (and TERFism) is simply that it has had a sizeable influence on the wider culture. Like that BBC article about lesbians afraid to date trans women that uncritically uses a TERF (who stated she wants to genocide all trans women) as one of its two sources. That article, even after months of organized protest (with involvement from YouTuber Shaun who has a follower count in the 100,000s), is still up. It's not like the BBC is some unknown tiny media organization, they are one of the most respected, large and influential media outlets worldwide. They just casually give a platform to genocidal transmisogynists and then they defend that platform even after months of vocal criticism.

"sylvia rivera was not a trans woman and repeatedly stated she was just sylvia and that her gender was fluid..."

Wikipedia seems to disagree with that. Yes, they include the quote you mention below from Queens of Exile. They also state:

Rivera's gender identity was complex and varied throughout her life.[6][1] In 1971, she spoke of herself as a "half sister".[39] In her essay "Transvestites: Your Half Sisters and Half Brothers of the Revolution", she specifically claims her use of transvestite as applying to only the gay community: "Transvestites are homosexual men and women who dress in clothes of the opposite sex. Male transvestites dress and live as women. Half sisters like myself are women with the minds of women trapped in male bodies."[39]

So I don't find it especially fair of you to say that Sylvia Rivera "was not a trans woman". Is she just a trans woman? Of course not. But neither are most trans women I know. How many trans people do you know whose biographies don't include periods of doubt or complicated feelings about gender? That's human, tarrying with gender. Sylvia can be a gender fluid person, a non-binary person and a trans woman. Sylvia can be a half sister and a drag queen. These things are not in contradiction.

"her speech was about the rights of the drag queens/transvestites and lee brewster was on stage with her who was also a drag queen... this is because the radical lesbian feminist jean o'leary said there was no place for them in gay liberation."

Yes. At the time, this was all one community. But I'm not sure I've ever seen anyone outright describe the situation of (cis) Drag Queens during the AIDS crisis. Did Jean O'Leary's attitude take? Did Drag Queens following Rivera's speech (in the 70s, 80s and early 90s) get marginalized to the extent trans women did? If so, that's something new to me & I'll gladly learn about it.

My impression was that because drag performances could be treated as "entertainment" as dress-up, as a event that you go to for fun and as a performance that people pay money to see, drag did about as well / badly as queerness itself did in that time period. It was a difficult time, people were dying from AIDS everywhere.

But I at least am still moved by the (fairly infamous, at least in transfem circles) case of Filisa Vistima, who committed suicide in 1993. She wrote in her diary (during her last days)

I am encountering many old desires of mine, e.g. swimming. By the comments [name withheld] has mentioned to me (“Your hands are large,” “You’re shaped like a boy” and so forth), I have been self-conscious of myself. I wish I was anatomically “normal” so I could go swimming. If i was “normal” I would no longer have any reason to hide behind my clothes other than to hide my modesty. I could go swimming without clothes… I would love to do that so much!! But no, I’m a mutant, Frankenstein’s monster. Now I am feeling the same feeling I had some days ago but forgot about them, the feeling that I hate myself, the physical self. I remember having these feelings when I was a child, hitting thighs with my hands so I would cry. I’m, crying now… […] I feel inferior to “real women” and I may never be able to resolve the conflict. (From Filisa Vistima’s Diary, January 5, 1993)

In The Transgender Studies Reader, trans historian Susan Stryker adds further context to Filisa’s suicide:

What drove her to such despair was the exclusion she experienced in Seattle’s queer community, some members of which opposed Filisa’s participation because of her transsexuality–even though she identified as and lived as a bisexual woman. The Lesbian Resource Center where she served as a volunteer conducted a survey of its constituency to determine whether it should stop offering services to male-to-female transsexuals. Filisa did the data entry for tabulating the survey results; she didn’t have to imagine how people felt about her kind. […] Even in death she found no support from the community in which she claimed membership. “Why didn’t Filisa commit herself for psychiatric care?” asked a columnist in the Seattle Gay News. “Why didn’t Filisa demand her civil rights?” In this case, not only did the angry villagers hound their monster to the edge of town, they reproached her for being vulnerable to the torches. Did Filisa Vistima commit suicide, or did the queer community of Seattle kill her?

(Source: https://eminism.org/blog/entry/462, accessed today July 16, 2024)

Cis drag performers didn't have to think such things. Cristan Williams, who also recorded the first quote above, further writes

"From what I can ascertain, prior to her Filisa’s death, she was made responsible for entering data from a Lesbian Resource Center (LRC) survey asking their service population if they felt that the LRC should continue to provide services to MTF transsexuals. RadFems had taken a hard line against providing services to transsexuals and Filisa was the one who had to record each venomous RadFem objection just prior to her death." (same source as previous)

To be clear, the source I'm quoting from literally shows some of the inaccuracies committed by both Williams and Stryker in portraying the LRC as an exclusionist organization and the suicide motivated by the LRC's position. Also there seems to have been only one venomous radfem, so the poetic idea behind Vistima's suicide as a death by a thousand cuts might be either false or less easy to prove given the available historical record.

But my point is this: Cis drag performers didn't really have to think about radfems cutting off their medical care. Gender non-conformity does not bring with it the same involvement with doctors and clinics as transitioning does. Drag culture does not make people dependant on medical professionals and their judgements. Radfem groups can cut funding for breast cancer treatments (because the breast cancer happened on a breast that grew from hormone treatment) but this will not affect anyone who isn't undergoing hormone treatment.

To me, the history of the 70s, 80s, even 90s is the story of how the gay community took trans people for granted and how parts of the gay community became TERFy. And as I mentioned, there's plenty of evidence to indicate that this influence never really left and still lingers today.

"and you're also major wrong about there being nowhere for trans women and nb people in the 90s and 00s cause even back in the 80s bisexual feminists were doing the work to include them in their organizations and communities where radical feminists failed. this is a huge part of the erasure of bi history. the bi-trans allyship. bisexual women were declared enemies of radical feminists/lesbian separatists because of their proximity to men and so they welcomed trans women in. here's a bunch of sources."

Your sources for the 1970s show that some individuals were open to trans people. And that an organization called the Bisexual Centre in 1977 made an official statement “The Bisexual Center is united in struggling for the rights of all women and men to develop as whole, androgynous beings.” There's no indication that the Bisexual Center viewed people other than women and men as its members or target audience. There's no indication that David Bowie being willing to fuck a drag artist has any real bearing on how safe trans women would have been in the 1970s.

In 1980, there's the San Francisco Bisexual Center workshop that is explicitly trans-inclusive and seems like a great indication that being trans in 1980 San Francisco might have been less lonely than being trans in 1980 anywhere else* (*notwithstanding Samoa, Thailand, etc.). Aside from that, all the 1980s quotes are individual bisexuals saying they love people regardless of gender. That's not a good source for proving that trans people weren't marginalized in the community. WHAT ELSE WOULD BISEXUALS BE ATTRACTED TO?! Apologies for the all caps. It's nothing personal.

In 1990, we find that Thomas Geller, writing a sourcebook for bisexuality (presumably something that has influence in the community) talks about attraction to gender minorities. I have no idea if that's intersex people, trans people, people with non-binary genders, or some other thing. I will accept that this could indicate a growing acceptance of trans people with a little more evidence, but this is 1990 and the AIDS crisis is coming to an end and trans people are slowly, throughout the 90s and 00s finding more acceptance.

I went all the way down this page. It's a really cool resource, but just not for this purpose.

"but what i said about the bathrooms was to cover both scenarios, those who get clocked in the bathrooms as trans women and men in general would equally as likely to not be allowed to use them. it's just like...?? people are hostile to the idea either way."

I just don't think that's actually true. I don't mean to say transphobia doesn't affect trans guys, but I'm confident that the fearmongering about "men in women's bathrooms" just is way more effective at generating a moral panic (and affects trans men when they get forced back into women's rooms by right-wing legislation!) than the general "I don't want you here" transphobia towards all transgender bathroom goers.

"i guess idk how...... when the rhetoric starts off as crossdressing men and drag queens are evil perverts and there's legislature that can get them targeted/killed and people with guns outside drag queen storytime... and you present consequences that are a few trans women getting their blogs deleted bc their friend pissed off the ceo"

Ok, I guess the purpose of these examples wasn't clear from the rhetoric (I thought I was being clear with my choice of words, but misunderstandings happen, so let me be explicit): When I mention what is happening on Tumblr, I only mention it because it *even happens on this website right now* but I think my argument did not have the weight I hoped it would have because we follow different communities online and in my online community, countless people just fucking disappeared and there's a sense of panic and anger, while in your community things are silent enough that you can ask me for statistics in a kind of "pics or it didn't happen" way. On my blog you can find me getting upset about the transmisogyny tag just suddenly being evaporated. You can find that from months ago. You can find it on other user's blogs too. If you were not there for that, obviously it would not be as obvious to you as it is to me that the website is targetting transfem users for fun(?).

That is obviously on a much lesser scale than a genocide. But when Chris Rufo, the architect of the panic about Critical Race Theory and the panic about monkeypox in the gay community (who writes for the New Yorker, has close working relationsips with the Heritage Foundation and is allround influential on the right) argues on Twitter that reframing drag queens as "trans strippers" will make the hate go down better, then I have to say there's probably a difference between how Drag Queens are perceived and how "trans strippers" are perceived & the second category must be more hated in the mind of a well-connected, influential right-winger who has his finger on the pulse of right-wing communities enough to cause multiple moral panics.

When I listed both Tumblr's BS and an actual genocide "in the same breath" I was deliberately pointing at both apples and oranges: I want you to be thinking large-scale (like genocide) and small-scale (like people having their artistic outlet -- and sometimes livelihood -- terminated) so you see that the problem applies everywhere.

"which yes is petty but doesn't indicate that the act is against trans women so much as this dude's ego got bruised from being made fun of for having a pissy pants tantrum on his own website."

But the tantrum isn't really the crucial fact in this conversation.

The tantrum makes the CEO look bad, sure, but the tantrum was in reaction to large public support for predstrogen. Why was there large public support for her? Why did this spill over into reddit communities and blog articles? Because predstrogen is enough of an online celebrity to be known in those places AND because the news story is juicy: trans woman tries to prove that Tumblr will block or ban trans women for content that only transfem people get blocked or banned for AND has her blog nuked exactly as she predicted.

Predstrogen's story is not about "mockery" or about her making comments about hammers exploding cars or whatever, it's about what content people get banned for on this website.

And apparently, if you are transfem, you'll get banned for whatever TERFs feel like reporting. While if you are anything other than transfem, you need to (maybe) follow the Tumblr terms of service. You won't get banned for artistic nudity or showing transition pictures or 18+ content. I know that the higher a transfem user's profile is, the likelier the chance of account termination in the case of minor infringements.

"also the trans man pick up artist in that article does not seem like a pick up artist. he seems like an awkward idiot."

I think he's an awkward and misguided person too and if that's what a PUA looks like, I'm not scared. But that wasn't my point. My point was he makes those assumptions about trans women's vulnerabilities and he must have got these ideas from somewhere. His ideas about trans women...seem terfy. They seem like TERF ideas that got filtered through queer spaces. So how did that article even get published? Maybe just as clickbait, but I think there's a possibility the editors thought this was a normal thing to publish? And if so, it would be an example of this type of mindset in queer spaces.

"also idk why the presumption that trans men are safe men has to lead to trans women are unsafe women."

It doesn't? But you know, it can? Like why would trans men be safe men? They're just men, what would make them "Men, the safe version"? Like I don't know this guy (or the people he got his opinions from), but if trans guys are the "safer type of guy" then why? What's so safe about them? It's because they're trans, isn't it? So of course maybe trans women are just regular women and trans men are special extra-safe men, but maybe this is internalized transphobia. That voice in his head telling him he's never going to be like most men because he's trans. And if that's what he thinks, then maybe he thinks that being trans kind of makes you different from members of your gender. That's not just a maybe, it's not just idle speculation or a thought experiment, it's a likely scenario. It's probably true. I shouldn't have to say this. If a binary trans person is willing to stereotype their entire binary trans male or trans female identity, then they are already in the business of making sweeping statements about other trans people's identities. And if that's what they're doing, nothing stops them from making those sweeping assumptions about all trans people. What would stop him?

"but i do know the more we keep repeating the idea that gender makes you safe or unsafe the more the terfs smile upon us. also the idea that anyone can be categorized as safe or unsafe too. we need to get rid of that. someone will always find a way to take advantage of it."

Yes, which is why it's concerning that the guy is writing for a queer audience. Somewhere in the queer community are pockets of people whom the TERFs smile upon. And one of my main points was that the TERFs has this influence on our community when trans people had barely anywhere to go in the 1970s, 1980s and early 1990s. A time period that Sylvia Rivera spent mostly homeless by the way. Not housed by some kindly bisexual collective or something. I think there were few trans people during that time that didn't face serious exclusion from queer spaces in a way that today's generation can barely even grasp could have been real.

"terfs... categorically do not see trans women as anything but cis men who are crossdressers is the problem with that. like that's kind of a key component of their belief system is that you can't change your gender no matter what. everything is based in you are always your sex and the ""male sex"" is inherently prone to being violent and perverted. they dedicate so much time to trying to prove this so..."

Which is why TERFs are furious when people say otherwise.

"but crossdressing is actually listed as one of the major things that right wingers say will end society alongside gender "confusion" and gender "ideology"."

Yes, in large part because one of the books of the Bible (Deuteronomy) has a prohibition against crossdressing.

"but no, the main purpose covers all of them. trans women, trans femmes, crossdressing/gnc queer men and sometimes even het men, drag queens, or anyone who disturbs the idea of ""man"" basically. that's just kind of the thing."

We don't disagree on this. Anti-emasculation is a cultural force that clearly and obviously targets all these groups.

But this cultural force is not a singular thing, it morphs into different targets at different times. When Florida tries to kill Drag artists and trans people, that bill does not target queer people as such, for example.

Knowing that there is a fear of emasculation driving so much violence against queer, trans, gnc folks who are gendered as male by right-wingers is important, especially because it leads us to grasp some of the material reasons why the violence is happening. There are reasons why men invest in masculinity and feel the need to violently defend it from supposed "threats".

But because the idea morphs into different bogey"men" (sorry, I could not resist) it also matters to examine specifics. And that's why people like Chris Rufo, who try place a bullseye on "trans strippers" instead of drag queens, matter. That's why a porn industry targetting trans women / femme transfem non-binary people and drawing attention to them matters.

Anti-emasculation is older than Ancient Rome, it's evergreen and dangerous, but transmisogyny is a unique phenomenon, draws together the worst of anti-emasculation & transphobia & misogyny and it has a right to be named and to be used in an analysis of violence and discrimination.

"for men who are bigots, the idea of man has to be an untainted archetype. you must be a son, the born male with typical male genitalia. you can't be gay or feminine. you can't wear pink let alone a dress. you must be macho, you can't be emotional. if you move from this idea of man, you are destroying the fundamentals of the patriarchy, and there are consequences. trans men cannot ever be the "patriarchal man" because they were not born with the truest indicator of a man: the penis."

I'm not sure if I agree or disagree with this paragraph, because it is so general, but it feels like you are implying something.

If what you are saying is that anti-emasculation affects the lives of all men and that this includes trans men, I agree.

If what you are saying is that all patriarchies are transphobic or transmisogynistic or transandrophobic by nature (throughout all of history), I would be unsure. If what you are saying is that trans men "cannot ever be the patriarchal man" in a transhistorical, eternal, essential sense true across all times and cultures, I would need to know what the patriarchal man is. If the patriarchal man is The Man, in that 1960s sense, the guy who truly has access to every form of power, the man who oppresses you no matter who you are, then trans men aren't ever The Man, and neither are most (any?) cis men. If the patriarchal man is a man with power over women...I'm not so sure. I think patriarchies have at times made exemptions for trans people (think Babylonians) and this has at times made trans men into full citizens of a state, able to wield the power other men wield over women. And that can happen again, maybe it even happens in some queer spaces today.

"for terfs, men are violent from birth because they are the above archetype. they have no emotions, they prey on the weak (females), and there is no way to turn them it. you can't trust a man because they may rape or kill you in the blink of an eye. if they do something unusual, like dress in women's clothes or display emotions, it's certainly because they're trying to fool you into thinking they're harmless in order to do the raping or killing. a female can never escape into being a man, because man is the devil, and women are full of divine feminine nurturing spirit. therefore, trans women can't exist because it's impossible for them to be anything other than a lying man."

Good description of many TERFs, I would say. Maybe a bit poetically distorted, but I get what you mean. :)

"like i do agree with you that all these things (tme, tma, w/e) do exist but i think the overlap is there more than people want to admit and applies to more categories of people than they think too??"

Absolutely. That's kind of the whole point of my original post and of most of this discussion. The overlap is there (and important to point out!), it just doesn't invalidate the use of these terms.

"and i also think sometimes people speculate that something is a directed microaggression or act of hatred when in reality it's probably a person-to-person petty conflict that has nothing to do with gender identity or sexual orientation or whatever at all."

Absolutely. A lot of "discrimination" that gets discussed is based on jumping to conclusions and wildly speculating. There's that common format where someone tries to prove hypocrisy by stating two supposedly conflicting beliefs that reveal the hidden hypocrisy (and alleged bigotry) of an entire group of people: but then what's common to that format is they never provide sources that the conflicting statements are coming from the same person? Like they just sort of assume you'll take their word for it.

And because this is so common, I struggle finding relateable, easy-to-prove examples. Like you were not there when transmisogyny was an unsearchable term on Tumblr. You can find transfem bloggers react to this happening by going back through our Tumblr blogs (assuming we didn't get nuked), but it's not quite as convincing as literally being there, seeing it happen. And hey, it's possible there's some reason it happened that paints Tumblr as heroes for blocking that tag temporarily. Maybe it was a weird glitch? You know, a glitch happening right as people where discussing the CEOs behaviour...it could happen. Weird coincidences do happen...

But I can't be like "here's some street bigotry and here's how this proves transmisogyny makes sense" if you aren't there to witness the street bigotry. I have to rely on documented cases...but I have to assume that many sources are biased, trying to prove that their "side" is right. And so finding something that is clearly unbiased, that clearly documents what is happening is hard.

I hope this was somewhat helpful?

Thanks for reading this far. It's appreciated.

"cis men are tme" - I think I have some problems with this idea but I'm not sure they make sense. I don't think cis men as a whole are 100% tme bc. I went to an extremely conservative religious high school. In places like that, being anything close to feminine as a man, even if you were 100% cishet, was absolutely unacceptable. Like you would be bullied by your peers and staff for just. DARING to use a pink pen in class. If that isn't a form of transmisogyny that affects cis men, idk what is.

No one is TME.

[tenaflyviper]

Just something I thought. The c-grade movie Ghost Watcher did the black eyes of possessed people around 2-3 years before Supernatural. Do you think that the writers could have stolen the idea from the movie?

I don't remember when the whole black-eyed children/people came about in horror fiction. Online and not. But I thought Ghost Watcher might be the earliest depicted form of that? Maybe it was what started the whole thing. Just thought to ask if you know of an even earlier form of "black eyed people" out there.

As far as we can trace it back, the first known written instance of black-eyed children came from reporter Brian Bethel in Abilene, Texas in 1996.

Ghost Watcher came out in 2002, so there's a chance the people behind Supernatural (2005) could have gained inspiration from it. As far as I can find, Ghost Watcher does appear to be the first film featuring black eyes on children (but I could be wrong). "Black eyes of evil" in general, however, has actually been a trope for a pretty long time.

One of the earliest examples is The Mummy's Hand (1940)--there, the eyes were done by painting onto each frame of film.

The first example that personally sprang to my mind was Invasion of the Bee Girls (1973). All of the titular women even wear sunglasses in public to hide their eyes.

X: The Man with X-ray Eyes (1963) has the protagonist's eyes eventually go all black because he can see into infinity.

Instances in television are numerous--from Sapphire and Steel (1979) to Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1997) and Charmed (1998), plus many more.

The general concept is that black eyes are a display of someone being taken over or possessed, or just not being the human they seemed on the surface. I'm fairly certain I've heard of black eyes in doppelganger folklore.

Black eyes also show up in our archetypal portrayals of aliens ("grays"). There is just something cold, empty, and unsettling about pure black eyes. They lack humanity.

Strangely, the BEK phenomenon didn't really start to take off until the mid 2010's, where you can see an explosion of horror films utilizing black eyes as a scare factor. This could possibly stem from Bethel retelling his story on the series Monsters and Mysteries in America in 2012, as well as the first film made specifically about BEK (which was funded by a kickstarter) beginning to advertise around the same time.

I want to say that horror narrations also helped spread the idea of BEK, as that's how I first heard of them.

Overall, I think their popularity stems from our perception of children as innocent, and incapable of fooling or betraying us "much wiser" adults. People also tend to not like or accept when something we perceive as smaller and weaker than us is a genuine threat. The fact that we don't even know HOW they are a threat, yet instinctually feel it--that's terrifying. It's as if there's something primal inside of us that knows what they are, and knows to be afraid.

In any case, I think they're a fascinating bit of modern folklore, and I wish there was more horror media based on them.

[rataltouille]

GEOMETRY OF THE HOLY MOON (1 AM): A SHORT STORY

GENRE: surrealism, literary fiction.

POV & TENSE: this little space is not enough for how wild the form is so i talk about this later!!

SETTING: a small desi village, 1924-25.

TONE: dreamy, unsettling, melancholic.

THEMES: faith vs reality, how people perceive others and how they perceive themselves, grief dealt the wrong way.

AESTHETICS: the splash of water on a quiet night, thick clouds obscuring the sky, rippling the moon’s reflection on the water. the intensity of a garden in spring, the emptiness of a dying town, the suffocation from being singled out. hands grazing lightly but never fully held. a lingering sadness behind your laugh. believing in things you shouldn't believe in. putting faith on a starless sky.

STAGE: completed first draft, 4085 words.

LOGLINE: a young boy, surrounded by loss, claims to talk to god. the story follows him and his conversations with this god, all while his village spies on him as he weaves his way around the two most crucial and lonely years of his life.

LITERAL LOGLINE: on today’s news let’s talk about a small backward town that hates sad little boys who worship god, even though the place is lowkey a cult!!

CHARACTERS:

THE SUMMER BOY: he’s around thirteen, and he’s very emotionally attached to his past. he lost his family at a young age to an unstable force, so he spends his time talking to himself. he’s a quiet, demure and sweet person, always willing to help others. he’s outwardly oblivious and sees only the good in people to a point where he doesn't understand when they’re trying to do him wrong. but! considering how the story [like a lot of my others] has themes of perception vs reality, it needs to be said that he isn't all that innocent. he’s rather impulsive and rash, never afraid of hurting himself [and thus accidentally harming others].

A GOD: is he real? do we even know if he’s an actual god? a very elusive figure despite having a lot of screentime. he’s a surprisingly humanised character and arguably the one with the most empathy. he has a soft spot for the boy and the two have a deep bond which is not common for a human and a god to have. you don’t get insight to what the other gods are like, but they’re implied to exist. this story has a very messy and hazy view towards religion and godhood and their nature towards humanity, and this vague figure, a dreamlike character, is proof enough of that.

THE VILLAGE: okay so in general these people suck. the village consists of, well, the village, but they’re very fluid in the way they appear in the story? as in for the most part they appear as a collective, a unit. one character, the summer boy’s “friend”, is somewhat separate considering he’s a pretty important character. it’s very hard describing this unit of a character but essentially they’re the main antagonistic force and they hate the protagonist for seemingly no reason.

WHAT GOES DOWN:

sometime around this time, the boy chances upon meeting his “god”, this being who lives up in the clouds and whom he talks with often, except you don't know if this god is real or not. that’s one of the recurring themes of this story: what’s real and what isn’t. it’s :) a fun time :) for sure :)

essentially Things Happen And It Only Gets Weirder. i cannot even try describing what happens because it’s all very spoilery but let’s just say that this is a very sad story but not even in a “this makes me cry” manner, but rather in a “this is so fucked up wtf why”. the prose of this is very, very hazy and thick, in a manner that’s both smooth and suffocating. there’s also a lot of moon and water imagery which we love. i love the atmosphere + the setting—colonial india— as it’s a subtle but key element to the plot.

FORM:

OKAY YES be prepared for the true colours of how unhinged i am. i apologize for the form brainrot.

POV: so in this story i really said “what if it had all three of the main povs... jk jk... unless 😳😳” and then proceeded to use all three povs. you’re probably wondering, how did i do that? WHY did i do that? and my answer to that is: 🙂

the first-person pov: the summer boy narrates in first person. his pov takes up about 40% of the story, and this is where we unlock family backstory + how he feels about the various forces playing into his life. he’s an extremely unreliable narrator and he knows it; his narration oscillates between very naive and very self-aware, and this effect is pretty disconcerting. the summer boy is kind of a walking contradiction and we love that conflict.

the second-person pov: a god narrates in second person. his pov takes around 20% of the story, and his scenes all involve his conversations with the boy. his pov is extremely detached, and suspends belief because he seems awfully made up. there’s an edge to the prose in his narration, where you know that something's off, but you can’t exactly pinpoint what.

the third-person pov: the villagers narrate, either as a collective, or as an individual figure, in third person. they take up the other 40% of the story, and there are so many different people and differing opinions with this, and every time we read a third person excerpt it’s a different person, and this is mostly used to add onto the different ways in which the boy is perceived. this is also where the structural part of the form gets really wacky.

STRUCTURE: if my story isn't told in vignettes is it my story though /j. gothm is told in vignettes, each one between 50 to 500 words. the first and second person bits are normal-ish vignettes, with straightforward narration. the third person vignettes, on the other hand, are super assorted. we have a lot of epistolaric sections— there’s a letter, a folk song [which was found around the summer boy], and most of the conversation is told as just plain dialogue without tags. there’s also a phone call transcript, and finally some normal chunks of prose. what am i doing wtf.

also to add onto this the story is told non-linearly. 😀 the only thing that keeps me from going insane is the fact that there are chronological tags before most vignettes [also the manner in which they're tagged differs from pov to pov. for example a few of the third person conversations are marked just as “sunday” or “thursday”, while the summer boy’s narration is marked with the full date and year]

in all this clownery i completely forgot to mention what the tense was [the way everything else was so complicated that i forgot tense was a thing lmao] and good news!! it’s the only sane thing about this story!! it’s told fully in present tense. thank everything.

AN EXCERPT:

okay i’m once again not sharing much because this will be submitted to litmags 🧞

[The boy is scrawny as always. He carries an air of diswant— even death had rejected him when the plague killed only his grandmother— but walks like he doesn’t notice. He smiles at them, jitters, and wipes his hand across his knees. Blood comes away in thin, translucent lines. He saves it on the kerchief he keeps tucked in his shirt, careful to dirty the cloth even more. The villagers scrunch their noses in disgust; who knew how old and rotten the kerchief was, or how long it had carried blood like the unwashed sword of a warrior?]

also by the way this excerpt is in square brackets because it is a third-person interjection in a vignette that is otherwise first-person [at this point...]

SPARE THOUGHTS:

this was inspired by a conversation i had with my grandfather, where he was telling me about how people used to sing songs to the skies, as a way of devotion to a specific god. he used the [loose translation of] the english word “yearning” to refer to the emotion the singers would invoke, and that sparked the concept of a disillusioned young boy who talks to the moon as a way to please the god he’s in love with. it’s a very softly disconcerting story and once again deals with the theme of “perception vs reality” which if you know me and my work, is the theme i’m forever obsessed with.

i really like how this turned out? the atmosphere is exactly how i wanted it to be, and there’s so much i have to add on as i edit and i’m really looking forward to that. this is also the only short story i’ve written where i knew which litmag i’d love for it to be published in? like i never write things with publishing in mind, but for some reason while writing this story it occurred to me that it would be a perfect fit for this specific magazine and i love that. anyway if you’ve made it through the post till here,,,, bless you and your braincells. and that’s all for today!!

[definitelynotshouting]

“Symphony” for the writer asks!! 💙

HELLO CLOUD THE BELOVED its good to see you in my inbox :] i dont see a specific fandom attached to this so im just gonna ramble about my dsmp fic all wayfaring hearts which is one of my favorite things ive ever written.

Despite still being a wip, ive had everything about this fic completely mapped out since day one, and some of the biggest themes i've wanted to explore with it were the concepts of impermanence and what i consider the most important aspects of humanity. all wayfaring hearts is, at its core, about a vast and inhuman universe learning about itself and the people who call it home, and being fundamentally changed by that experience. It's about learning what kindness is. Trust. Mercy. Compassion. Changing others with your presence and love and being changed in turn. Tommy is the universe compressed into a tiny shell, and his time with Wilbur, Phil, and Techno literally shifts how said universe functions in this story.

And at the same time, its about how everything is fleeting. From the beginning of the very first section, the narration reveals that Tommy's time is limited in this form-- the universe can't stay compressed for too long before returning to its original state. This is echoed by something Wilbur says later in the first chapter, disguised as some teasing dialogue: "All good things come to an end." And, although its not fully written yet, i plan to continue that theme throughout the rest of the story until its natural conclusion (which i won't actually spoil just yet, since the fic is still in progress).

I have a lot of love for this fic and its entire concept. Its very much inspired by The Little Prince and also my love for the cosmos, and the people living within it. And i think at the very end of the day, having a story centered around so much love and hope and the bittersweet knowledge of eventual parting is just. Its so important to me. And i hope i can get it finished sometime soon, so everyone else can experience the same shrimp emotions i feel whenever i think about it.

I'll leave you with a little snippet from chapter 2 under the cut, just to round it all out:

∘₊✧──────✧₊∘

They’re looking up at the stars when Wilbur turns to him and says, “Did you know that the universe is kind, Tommy?”

Tommy frowns at him, shifting away from the stars to stare at Wilbur’s eyes instead. They’re dyed black in the moonlight, pupils lost to the darkness. Like a black hole, sucking in everything within its orbit. He’s forced to look away after a moment, something like embarrassment bubbling underneath his skin. “Don’t mess around, Wil.”

“I’m not,” Wilbur says, “I’m serious, Tommy. Look up there at the stars and tell me the universe doesn’t love us– you can’t. It’s made something beautiful, and it lets us look at it every single night. If that’s not an act of love, I don’t know what is.”

Tommy shifts uncomfortably. His voice comes out slightly harsh when he speaks, harsher than he intends: “The universe doesn’t– it’s not kind, Wilbur. It just is. Kindness, compassion– that’s all human stuff. I don’t– the universe doesn’t understand it. It can’t.”

Wilbur hums, an absent little tune with no real melody. “See, I don’t think that’s true. I think it loves us enough to give us a moon, and stars, and a sun when it’s daytime. I think it loves everything it makes– including us. And I think it’s– y’know, it’s got a, a purpose. Everything has a purpose. I really believe that, Tommy, I really do.”

A beat. Tommy shifts, no longer admiring the stars, unable to return to the peace of the previous moment.

“Why are you telling me this, Wilbur?”

“I’m just thinking about it,” Wilbur says honestly. He turns his head again, until only his profile is visible in the lamplight. “And I don’t– I think you haven’t seen a lot of kindness before. So it’s only fair I tell you, right?”

Tommy reluctantly tears his gaze away from Wilbur’s profile, turning back to the stars. Thinks about the spider Wilbur had crushed in the chicken coop, and how Tommy had watched, impassive at a life snuffed out so quickly. “You’re wrong,” he says bluntly, “but that’s okay. It’s a… nice sentiment, I guess.”

Wilbur hums again, this time a low, almost-tune that vibrates in the back of his throat. “Think about it,” he says, and they lapse back into silence.

Neither of them speak until their candle burns out, and then they go back inside. Tommy crawls into his attic bed, fingers clenched in the covers, and thinks of spiders until the sun comes up in the morning.

∘₊✧──────✧₊∘

[the-lightning-strikes-again]

A Review of Voltron DDP Comic: A Legend Forged (2008)

I knew the old Devil’s Due Publishing (DDP) comics for Voltron were lit…but the sequel, A Legend Forged, really resonated with me! This 5-issue comic series is DDP’s interpretation of the history behind the Voltron robot itself, and it wraps this lore within an adventure plot featuring our main pilots (Allura, Keith, Hunk, Lance, Pidge) in an alliance with Lotor.

I’ve meant to write a review about A Legend Forged for a while because I know that older Voltron comics aren’t always accessible. I think this one deserves some attention because it does things that I find just really refreshing after watching the 2016 Legendary Defender show. It also has some fun details that could have been source material for the world building and events in the 2016 VLD show. 

-

The basic summary of this comic is that Team Voltron and Lotor are accidentally transported 1,200 years in the past after some classified time travel tech destabilizes in the middle of a fight. Powerless from the blast, they crash-land on a nearby planet, and they’re soon captured by people on the planet who have exceptionally advanced technology. Lotor agrees to a truce with Team Voltron to help find a way out of their prison, and back to their own time.

In arriving through the wormhole, however, they catch the attention of a very powerful group who are missing an important piece to complete their special defense project (the Voltron robot). The robot is being built in part by King Altarus, Allura’s ancestor, to fight off the villain in that ancient past—Empress Jain IX, Lotor’s evil great great (10X) grandmother, who is a sorceress hellbent on intergalactic domination.

Ultimately, Team Voltron and Lotor get caught up in the efforts to stop Empress Jain and assist King Altarus’s Council…and they discover some interesting things about themselves and about Voltron along the way!

-

I found A Legend Forged to be one entertaining, snarky shenanigan after another. Although it does source the 1984 character designs and backgrounds along with some references to Vehicle Voltron (which may be alienating to fans familiar only with VLD), I love that this comic deeply and openly explores what makes the Voltron franchise so identifiable and unique—its Arthurian legends/magic in the midst of an expansive space opera.

The comic is meant for slightly older audiences compared to VLD—it includes several instances of adult cursing, frightening images, some brief images of romance/non-graphic sensuality, and occasional graphic violence showing blood. I couldn’t find a publisher-recommended age for this comic on the book covers, but I think it might be T for ages 12 and older.

If you’re interested, a deeper overview of A Legend Forged is included under the cut!

___

At a high level, there’s certain things that just really attracted me to this comic, even though I’m usually not much of a comic reader:

THE WORLD BUILDING

The whole timeline distortion that takes them back 1,200 years is a direct consequence of humans attempting to back-engineer the mysterious Voltron robot. Within that back-engineering, they’d stumbled into creating a time machine:

(Photo Description: The city of Toronto in the future. Someone asks, “Time travel?” Coran replies, “Devised using reverse engineered technology from Lion Voltron, no doubt.” An alliance official responds, “Come on now, how would that be possible?” A second official responses, “Coran’s right. The way that Lion Voltron summons energy and weaponry is a mystery. We learned how to mimic the ability with the vehicle units, without really understanding it.”)

So there’s a lot of undertow here about just what exactly all these different parties (Earth/Galaxy Alliance, space pirates, Lotor) were planning to do with a time machine to begin with before it gets blown up in a battle over it. But there’s also something interesting happening here involving Fate/Destiny and plasticity of time itself.

At the very heart of this comic is the concept that the Voltron robot could not have been completed 1,200 years ago if Team Voltron and Lotor were not accidentally tossed back in time to help complete the project. And idk, I think that’s just pretty cool. It ties these lives of these characters together in a way that I don’t think I’ve seen in any other Voltron iteration—that they were meant to pilot Voltron, because their presence helped to unlock the final missing piece to bring it to life.  

---

In addition, we get a really interesting look into the ancient past of the Voltron universe, back to the beginning of the first space empire. The comic’s big bad, Empress Jain IX, is an incredibly powerful and heartless sorceress of Drule heritage, from the planet Doon:

(Photo description: Empress Jain standing before the leader of a world she’s conquered, declaring, “And thus, the mighty fall! The powerful kneel at my feet! Behold the grandeur of your empress, and witness what happens to those who stand in her way!”)

But there’s always been this larger question in the Voltron franchise around King Zarkon’s unique, fish-like features compared to other Drule characters like Jain, and this comic answers that.

This is what the OG Zarkon looked like:

Compared to the ancient people of Korrinoth, who have similar ears and coloring as he does:

(Description: Keith says to the team, “I think we may be witnessing the beginning of King Zarkon’s people’s assimilation into the Drule Empire.”)

The planet that our protagonists crash-land on 1,200 years in the past is called Korrinoth. The people here had been recently conquered by Jain and share many similarities with the visual features of Zarkon. So this comic establishes that Zarkon has both Drule and Korrinite heritage. Unfortunately for Lotor, the Korrinites of the planet don’t acknowledge his Korrinite blood because he looks too Drule in comparison. So this comic reaches back on the hints that Lotor struggles to fit in with his own people…and it helps to explain why he’s captured along with Team Voltron:

(Photo description: Team Voltron and Lotor stand together, having been captured in a purple energy field functioning like jail bars.)

---

There’s also the concept that Voltron—just like the surrounding environment in Voltron franchise—is an amalgamation of science and magic. The comic’s big bad, Empress Jain, had discovered that her own dark sorcery arts could be challenged by the “lion gods,” who were demanding an increasing price be paid for her horrific conquering. In order to negate the lion gods’ power, Jain explicitly banned religious worship around them and any lion god iconography from her empire.

(Photo description: The dark entity Sarga says, “It is coming, and soon, that which may be your downfall. A twisted abomination of science and technology. The might of the Lion-Gods with the heart and mind of Man.” Jain says, “But I have banned worship of the Lions through the empire.”)

So the Voltron builders were reaching back to a very ancient, lost power that they were risking their lives to resurrect. The connection to a pantheon of lion gods helps to provide some logic around why the Voltron robot itself splits into lions—because it’s literally the symbol of these lost gods.

The visual design of Voltron is also reflected in the armor worn specifically by warriors fighting in the name of these banned gods:

(Photo description: A humanoid warrior wearing Voltron-based armor, coming to Team Voltron’s rescue at the command of the Council.)

So Voltron as a machine metaphorically stands as the Ultimate Warrior in humanoid form, supported by the individual lion gods.

---

Within the comic, it hints at some pretty intense religious discrimination—that Empress Jain was willing to arrest and torment even her own daughter, Azakhi for becoming a Lion Priestess:

(Photo description: Jain’s daughter, Azahki, is revealed to be a dirtied prisoner captured by Jain’s forces. She tells Team Voltron, “Do not fear my Drule appearance. I am a devout follower of your ways.”)

This background battle supports why Team Voltron and Lotor are instantly targeted by Jain’s forces when they crash-land on Korrinoth, bearing the banner of the lion gods in the form of Voltron.

Later on in the comic, we also see that the colors themselves represented the various domains of these lion gods:

(Photo description: An image of Voltron as it’s being built, with King Altarus narrating in the background, ““Yellow for win, red for fire, green for earth, blue for water, and at the center…the might blackness of space which houses all of reality.”)

So we really see Voltron pick up a lot more backstory to explain the robot itself. 

--

We do get a deeper look as well into King Altarus and his Council.

King Altarus, Princess Allura’s ancestor, is the leader of the group. But the work involved in building Voltron doesn’t just rest with him like it did with Alfor in VLD. His council is just as equally if not more powerful than him in other ways.

In this panel, King Altarus introduces his four other team members as the most powerful scientists or sorcerers of their respective planet:

(Photo description: An introduction of the five council members of Altarus: “Cybrus hails from a world of sentient machines…More than a computer, he is also sorcerer to rival any other. The striking beauty to my right is Heket. Born of a nomadic race who travels the galaxy bestowing gifts of knowledge to primitive worlds. She is also the most brilliant scientist of her people. Phelos is a brilliant sci-mage from the neighboring solar system. If you are truly who you say, you may already know legends of our final ally. From a primitive world, but master of the most advance wizardry in the galazy: Merlin.”)

The combination of Altarus, Cybrus, Heket, Phelos, and Merlin all echo the 2016 Legendary Defender’s backstory—in which leaders of various people united together for the greater good of their galaxy. Once again, we have five unique planets represented in the Voltron effort—but in this case, it even includes Earth. This helps to explain part of why Voltron’s original design had very medieval attributes.

Maybe some would think it’s a bit hokey that the OG builders included the actual Arthurian figure of Merlin, the wizard? Idk, I think it’s kind of a fun way to connect Voltron’s ancient, magical past to Earth as well, and it suggests that Merlin was preparing or called by the others to help prepare for a future of advanced warfare. I’ve always wondered why the OG Voltron looked so medieval with the crests and the swords and such—and actually, it being built in part by a medieval human wizard would help to explain that!

--

We also see in the DDP comics a very heavy evolution to Allura’s character and to the world building within the Voltron franchise itself. She’s no longer just a princess who knows how to fight—she’s actively a Clairvoyant, with untapped power. King Altarus acknowledges, and the other Council members sense it, that Princess Allura has way more internal magic than she even knows about herself:

(Photo description: Council member Heket says to King Altarus, “I have a feeling about the girl [Allura]. Her aura is oddly similar to your own.”)

We also see that the dark entity Sarga recognizes this in her as well:

(Photo description: The dark entity Sarga says to Empress Jain, “The visitors…they each have a link to this monstrosity. However, the blood of only one of them pulses with the  magic of Arus. The one called Allura! She is the one! She must be—” Jain cuts in, “The host!” And Sarga confirms, “Yes, with Princess Allura, Sarga will live in this realm once more. With her, we can control Voltron.”)

I feel like this magic probably helped to set the tone for the Princess Allura we meet in the 2016 Legendary Defender reboot, who ultimately got the opportunity to grow into the powers that are hinted at here in this previous iteration.

---

I do also like this comic because the protagonists (with the exception of Pidge who is 16) are adults, and they’re a little more mature in their decisions and interests.

Like, for example, the Lance in this comic has a much more extensive sensitivity to and interest in culture. Instead of it being Hunk bonding with aliens through food, we see Lance as the diplomat, bonding with Jain’s daughter Azahki, just by asking her questions:

(Photo description: Lance and Jain’s daughter, Azahki, sitting at a table and eating. Lance says, “That hit the sport. I was frickin’ starving.” Azahki says, “After being held prisoner for so long, I had forgotten what real food tastes like. So much time was wasted…so much life. Just sitting in a cell because of my beliefs. I…I’m sorry, Lance. This should be a nice evening, and I’m bringing the mood down.”)

(Photo description: Lance replies, “Actually, I’m fascinated to learn more about the followers of the Lions, and about you. Like, where you come from. You feel free to talk about whatever comes to mind.” Azahki responds then, “You’re too kind.”)

I think along with this, we see a more nuanced view into the Drule themselves. Azahki, as both a Drule and as Empress Jain’s daughter, has turned away from the evil deeds of the empire and has suffered dearly for trying to do the right thing. This falls in line with DDP’s dedication in the worldbuilding to show that not all Drule are bad.

--

We also see some very interesting, Honervian backstory relating to Empress Jain’s dark powers. Like VLD Honerva, Jain is in part backed by an ancient spirit/power she likes to “talk” to. She calls on it as the “Mother of Power.” This creepy creature is named Sarga in the comics:

(Photo description: Jain summons Sarga: “Mother of Power, Great Spirit, I summon thee.” The dark entity Sarga manifests and says, “Yesss, sweet Jain! You know my name! Feel free to speak it. Have you found the Host?” Jain replies, “Not yet, great Sarga. But the search continues. To date, my body is the only one that could sustain you in our realm.” Sarga says, “Jain. Do not be so simple-minded. It’s only your mortal shell.” Jain retorts, “One that I rather like, thank you.”)

Sarga is pushing for Jain to give up her mortal body entirely so that Sarga can walk the mortal plane, but they don’t see eye to eye on this. Jain likes having her own body. Even so, Sarga knows that she has to protect her investment in Jain, and so she’s the one who plants a devious idea in Jain’s head—that she could potentially use the Voltron from the future to destroy the Voltron of the past, and therefore reestablish her supremacy over the lion gods and their legacy.

Tbh, I visually get a LOT of vibes from Jain relating to VLD’s Honerva character? Down to the long stringy hair and gold eyes…and she really does look like a female version of Lotor, tbh, lol.

(Photo description: Jain leaning in a circle of candles, exhausted from summoning Sarga, who has referred to Voltron. Jain murmurs to herself, “Pow..power. There is power in that name.”)

I think what I like about Jain as a big bad, though, is that she’s legit just an evil person. She doesn’t have an abuse backstory, like what so many content creators like to reference as the reason for someone going insane/evil. She’s clearly very talented and very powerful and very in control, and she’s using those abilities in all the wrong ways just because she can.

Given DDP’s contributions to the Voltron franchise with its female villains (Merla, Jain), I almost can’t believe that the 2016 VLD show didn’t carry these characters forward but instead raised up the all-new Honerva as “needed female villain rep.” But I can definitely see the echoes of Jain in the Honerva that we see throughout VLD.

I also really, really see similarities in how Jain is willing to use her own daughter, Azahki, as a pawn for her own aims. And by the end of the comic, Jain eventually accomplishes bringing Sarga into the mortal plane by sacrificing her own daughter’s body. This pretty hauntingly echoes the lack of maternal instinct seen in Honerva in VLD and Honerva’s malicious interest in and use of Lotor, even post-death in s8.

I feel like I relived Honerva’s interactions with Lotor in s8 when I saw how Jain acts with her own daughter, Azahki:

(Photo description: Azahki has been shot in the battle. Jain kneels down to her and cries, “Daughter. My only daughter.” Azahki says, “Mother...you…you’re crying? I…I’m sorry…you didn’t give me… a choice.” Jain pleads, “You can’t do this, Azahki, not now. After being gone for so long and now…” But then Jain has a complete switch of demeanor. She stands up and declares, “Now you’ve ruined everything! Everything!” Azahki, bewildered, says, “What?” And Jain yells, “I should have killed you in your crib!”)

Another association with Honerva is that Honerva/Haggar killed the original paladins. Likewise, it is Jain who takes down the Council one by one:

(Photo description: Jain breaks into the Council, hand glowing with power and fallen warriors around her, saying, “How could someone with such feeble defenses have eluded me for so long, Altarus? I give you credit for that, at least.”)

(Photo description: Jane is surrounded by the dead bodies of Merlin and Heket. She says, “Now, to finish this.”)

So I guess I’m just fascinated by Jain as a villain and find her similarities with Honerva interesting. In Jain’s case, however, there’s absolutely nothing to be sympathetic with her on, lol.

--

In terms of Lotor’s part:

I think this comic represents probably the most actively hopeful iteration of him that I’ve seen in the Voltron franchise? Like, Dynamite Comics had Lotor moving to ally with Team Voltron to bring down the rift creatures in a massive alliance, but those comics were canceled before we could see the whole story that Brandon Thomas intended. Here, we have a whole, complete story in which Lotor actively does good deeds and lives, wow.

(I didn’t think that was, like, allowed in this franchise, lol?)  

I do think it’s really interesting that here, Lotor comes face-to-face with just pure, unadulterated evil—and it scares him. Just like in VLD, this Lotor is forced to watch Jain decimate an entire planet and enslave its people. Despite being canonically “evil,” Lotor does not take this level of destruction very well:

(Photo description: Empress Jain speaking to an underling, saying, “For now, rid this planet of its luscious environment and warp home.”)

(Photo description: The planet is set ablaze by Jain’s forces. Lotor is looking on from a different ship. He is unsettled by Jain’s power and says, “My god.” His prisoner that he’s watching on Team Voltron’s request (the space pirate Captain Stride), teases, “Nothing like a little global decimation to build character, eh, Lotor?” And Lotor warns, “Stride,” with an upset look on this face.)

His motivations for helping out and connecting with both Team Voltron and King Altarus’s council do start with just wanting to save his own neck. But as the comic progresses, we see him taking larger and larger risks to help protect the team, and he responds more emotionally to the stakes being faced by other allies.  

Jain’s level of evil, and her later attempts to target Princess Allura as a host body for the dark entity Sarga, are what really push Lotor out of the antagonist/villain role into the position of antihero. And I like this exploration of him because Lotor is a really fascinating character in the franchise and usually always a wild card. Like, he has the capacity to play both sides and be unpredictable.

And it’s interesting too that this comic even opens up by acknowledging that. In the beginning, King Altarus and his council are watching Team Voltron and Lotor recalibrate from their crash-landing on Korrinoth. King Altarus notes that Lotor is evil, but that he’s capable of doing good…because of his love for Allura:

(Photo description: King Altarus judging the team: “The girl has a clairvoyance about her, but doesn’t even realize it. I sense something noble about all of them…save for the Drule who should not be trusted. Although his apparent fondness for the woman may cause him to fight his true evil nature at least for a while.”)

Later in the comic, it’s King Altarus himself who leans on Lotor when he thinks all hope is lost. And it’s Lotor who holds him up and tries to take down Jain:

(Photo description: King Altarus leans upon Lotor and mourns, “She’s��she’s done it, Lotor. She’s ruined our chances. Five generations…for nothing.” Lotor has raised a blaster and replies, “Not without going through me first.”)

So we really see this comic actively allow Lotor’s character to do things outside of the typical bounds of a villain. The very person who called him inherently evil is the one wailing to him and counting on him to save the day, lol.

We also see echoes of VLD Lotor’s pride in this comic. The DDP Lotor is also a man of mixed heritage and is very proud of who and what he is.

(Photo description: Lotor is on the battlefield, having slain an enemy who’d called them pathetic. Lotor responds, “Pathetic? My noble blood begs to differ.”)

So I liked that once again, Lotor is actually proud of who he is even though the world around him actively tries to devalue him. I think that’s been something meaningful about the Lotor character that a lot of people have connected to.

In his efforts to assist Team Voltron in reclaiming their own recharged Voltron lions (so that Jain can’t get them), Lotor is actually a very helpful ally as well, and a skilled warrior. So it was fun to see panels of Team Voltron and Lotor fighting together, side by side.

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THE CLIMAX AND RESOLUTION

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Ultimately, the evil Empress Jain tries to take over the Voltron from the future, in realizing that Allura has deep, spiritual connections to the machine. She agrees that this makes Allura the perfect host body for the dark entity Sarga, and as their way to control the robot. And so she enacts the rituals to possess Allura:

(Photo description: Allura’s features are mutating unnaturally as Sarga begins to posses her. In the background, Jain calls, “Don’t fight it, child. Don’t fight the honor of becoming a god.” Someone in the background, revealed later to be Lotor, calls out, “No! You can’t do this!”)

With Jain threatening Allura’s life, Lotor steps up to defend her, still holding up the battered King Altarus:  

(Photo description: Lotor yells, “No! Not Allura!” And he shoots Jain through the shoulder.)

(Photo description: Jain snaps, “Lotor! How dare you attack your own kind! I’ll smite my own daughter, let alone a pissant distant grandson!”)

Ultimately, Lotor’s decision to shoot his grandma (what is it with this franchise and matricide/patricide lol) results in Jain being distracted long enough for the combined spiritual/soul energies of Allura, the previous Council members, and Altarus to bring “life” to Voltron.

This completes Voltron as a spiritual being as well—that it’s sentient and not just a robot, but imbued with the hopes and impulses for a defender against the evil attacking them.

(Photo description: Voltron awakens as a sentient robot and stands to move against Jain.)

Realizing that she has lost, Jain flees in a poof of magic—with her daughter, Azahki, oddly disappearing too. The comic ends for them on an unsettling note that Sarga has in fact slipped through to the mortal realm…by choosing Azahki instead of Allura as her host body:

(Photo description: Jain kneels and cries, “Oh mighty Sarga, I humbly beseech thee. Forgive my failures. Forgive my ability to bring you into our world. I beg you to be given a second chance! I vow to you we will see this through.” From behind, someone says, “Don’t be so harsh, mother.” Jain turns around and asks, “Who dares?” A woman in a cloak appears and says, “You may have failed to give me Voltron’s power, my child. But do not fear.” The woman is revealed to be the possessed body of Azahki, Jain’s daughter. Through her body, Sarga says, “I found a body that will do just fine for now.”)

However, we don’t see this thread explored any further. Shortly after the battle, the Galaxy Alliance manages to rebuild a temporal manipulation device to lock in on the missing Team Voltron and Lotor, and pull them back through time.

(Photo description: A strange flying machine appears. Someone asks, “What…what is it?” Allura echoes, “What’s it doing?” Lotor peers at it curiously and says, “I believe it’s scanning us.” The comic panels show the device scanning and identifying people to send back to modern times.)

And so, eventually, this wayward team makes it back home, with the final panels suggesting the  Garrison had to complete a couple of temporal jumps to do it.

FUN LITTLE PIECES ALONG THE WAY

The comic itself had some interesting and funny scenes in it, including the following:

Please enjoy this image of a boi having tamed a dinosaur in the middle of an active battle:  

(Photo description: Prince Lotor sitting atop a large, dinosaur-like creature that he’s tamed, calling joyfully to the paladins, “You can put your toy away, Pidge. I know where to find the lions.”)

Pidge jokes about Hunk and Lance:

(Photo description: Hunk had saved Lance from a shot. In running past them, Pidge calls, “Keep moving, guys! There’ll be time for spooning later.”)

Some time-traveling paradox humor:

  (Photo description: Lotor shooting an ancient Drule, “Hope you’re not one of my forefathers.”)

Some Keith and Lance badgering:

(Photo description: Lance complains, “Keith Kogane seriously isn’t going to lecture me about battlefield romance, is he?”)

Did VLD get the name Kaltor from this comic??? Because Kalthor sounds pretty darn similar to Kaltor from VLD:

(Photo description: Jain calling out for an underling, “Kalthor! Sigh. Kalthor, this effort is beneath me. Extract the information I seek.”)

ALSO BLESS, THIS COMIC LETS ALLURA CUSS:

(Photo description: Princess Allura raises a blaster to use, but it doesn’t work. She says, “What the--? Damn! Now is not the time for you to malfunction! And I do not know how to fix a 1,200-year-old—”)

This comic probably is also the singular place in the DDP comics that offers any evidence whatsoever that Lotor and Allura actually did have positive childhood experiences together prior to his father decimating Arus, helping to explain Lotor’s curious loyalty to Allura throughout:

(Photo description: Lotor standing before Allura and saying, “I knew you’d pull through, Allura. Speaking of treehouses, do you remember climbing the Arusion orchids in the royal gardens when we were children?” Allura responds, “Yes…of course I do. I…”)

And finally, this comic has no issues whatsoever with making fun of itself or the concept of robotic lions:

(Photo description: A space pirate complains to Lotor, “Think about it! How you think this place ends up looking like it does in our time? Looking like Planet Doom?! Meanwhile, the Kitty Cat Club up there gets out without a scratch!”)

VOLTRON IS THE KITTY CAT CLUB, 2008 CONFIRMED

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CONCLUSION

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The 5-part comic A Legend Forged (2008) adds an incredible amount of history and lore to the Voltron franchise. It gave me some things that I personally was really craving out of this franchise—including some logic behind the lion imagery, a legit alliance between previously warring groups that doesn’t just end in catastrophe, some adult snark and some good-old fashioned silliness, some deeper exploration into dark entities/spirits, and also just a really powerful villainess that you can love to hate.  

I think the comic ultimately took on the theme of Strength in Unity and fulfilled the concept that people really can work together. Even if the Team Voltron and Lotor and Council alliance was all just temporary, it was still nice to see that alliance come through for the greater good of the universe, instead of leading to more mass insanity like it did in VLD….

I liked that in this iteration, Voltron stood as a collective effort on the part of various worlds who were oppressed by Empress Jain. That helps to tone down the savior complex inherent in the franchise, that at least here, Voltron wasn’t one nation’s attempt to play police for all other people.

From a critical perspective, if you read carefully, there are some instances where you can tell that various alien races are prejudiced against each other and discriminate on the basis of appearance and religion, and even Team Voltron feeds into this at times in their initial assumption that Korrinites are a barbarian race when in fact they’re very intelligent and advanced. These aspects are just not fully reflected on within this comic, but they definitely feed into the conflict as we experience it 1,200 years in the past. Interestingly enough, the comic also makes fun of Team Voltron members who are from Earth as being “primitive” too. So I guess the DDP world does function in a “problematic” state where all of these alien races are struggling with how to interact well with one another. I’m not sure if that baseline would be a potential trigger for someone just entering this series, so I wanted to call it out here.

I do also occasionally find comics hard to read because of the all-caps print and because comics will switch back and forth between past and present, with only small visual markers to warn you. So I don’t think these comics are designed in the most accessible way. But that could just be me.

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Overall, I think A Legend Forged ranks as one of my more favorite comic iterations of Voltron. It definitely has some differences from both the 1984 and 2016 shows, but it pulls on enough shared content to remain accessible. And while it was a quick read, it felt pretty tightly constructed. I would have liked to see more aftermath and epilogue, but I feel thankful that the story got an ending and that both Team Voltron and Lotor are shown being transported back home. The comic’s similarities and differences compared to VLD made it fun to read and analyze as well.

So yeah, if you get the chance to try reading it yourself, I recommend it! And if you’ve made it to the end of this very long post, thank you for reading!

[thetypedwriter]

Gideon the Ninth Book Review

Gideon the Ninth Book Review by Tamsyn Muir 

It would be only a slight hyperbole to say that a million people have either recommended this book to me or have told me to read it. I’ve heard for years now that this book is incredible and extremely well written and beloved by many. So, if that’s the case why did I wait so long to read it?

I don’t have a good answer. Sometimes a book is on your radar, but either the time isn’t right, other books take priority, or in my case, it’s adult fiction and I held slight trepidation that I wouldn’t love it as much as everyone else in the world seemed to. 

Thank goodness, that didn’t end up being the case and I’ll get into why in a moment. 

First, Gideon the Ninth has the most amazing descriptive sentence belonging on any front cover of any book ever. 

I shall put it here for prosperity and awe: “Lesbian necromancers explore a haunted gothic palace in space!” -Charles Stross. 

Now, I don’t know who you are Mr. Stross, but that has to be the best sentence written in the English language since its conception. If that isn’t enough intrigue for you to crack open the novel then I truly don’t know what is or what it would take. 

That being said, Mr. Stross wasn’t entirely accurate, but that’ll be clear soon enough. 

The novel surrounds our main protagonist, Gideon Nav, or, known as Gideon the Ninth, the primary cavalier to the Ninth House necromancer. Essentially, this world takes place in a different solar system with its own sun star known as Dominicus as well as nine planets also known as the Nine Houses. 

Each House has a specific specialty for what is known for, and as summarized helpfully, but also overwhelmingly, at the beginning of the novel, the Ninth House is also known as the keepers of the Locked Tomb, House of the Sewn Tongue, and home to the Black Vestals. 

This meant nothing to me at the beginning and quite truthfully, I still struggled to remember throughout the novel who belonged to the Third House, or the Fifth and what that quite meant, as once again, each House has a reputation and expected skill set that precedes them. 

Not to say that it was poorly written because it wasn’t. Muir just has a lot of characters with specific titles and while she actually does quite a good job of categorizing them and helpfully reminding you who is who, I still struggled with just the sheer amount of information and people. 

Normally, this would be a massive criticism, like it was with the cast of characters in Lore but in this case it’s not Muir’s fault. She’s giving me all the information necessary to understand. It was just my brain that struggled trying to recognize and categorize everyone. If anything, I’m excited to re-read Gideon the Ninth and have it sink in like a second skin eventually. 

Having this large cast of characters, the book revolves around each of the Nine Houses (except for the First House) sending their best necromancer, a wielder of both thanergy (death energy) and thalergy (life energy) in the form of a House Adept, someone who is able to wield this kind of energy either in bone magic, flesh magic, or spirit magic. 

In accompaniment, each Necromancer Adept has a primary Cavalier, a trained fighter that is both protector, companion, and often, necessary energy suppliers to their Adept in both horrendous and acceptable ways. 

The goal of these pairs, having been sent to the First planet, is to become a Lyctor, an immortal servant to the Undying Emperor. The catch is that once the Necromancers and their Cavaliers arrive on the First, the shuttle departs and they are trapped in an abandoned, dilapidated, once-regal and great mansion that boasts hundreds of floors, secret doors, and mystery upon mystery. 

Each pair expects a streamlined process to Lyctorhood once they arrive, a methodical procedure, perhaps some training, and ultimately a test. What they don’t expect is a mellow man by the name of Teacher that claims to know nothing about the process himself, but is the overseer of the First. 

What follows is a mind-boggling search to become a Lyctor and unravel the mysteries of the haunted palace. What the pairs don’t expect is the death of their own, gruesome murders at the hand of someone in their very own positions and an evil danger beyond any of their imagination lurking in the mansion. 

This novel was a great concoction of mystery, action, interpersonal relationships, character growth, dazzling descriptions, and world building. 

The world of Dominicus and the Nine Houses is expansive and rich, something that I haven’t been able to sink my teeth into, and not for lack of trying, but because it is so deep and so layered that I simply need to take several bites to get it all down.

The mystery is fulfilling and strangely, to me at least, reminiscent of a game called Danganronpa. If you know what that is, and even if you don’t, it centers around the idea of a murder mystery, but where the killer is one of your own and the mystery is trying to figure out not ony the who, but the why of what they are doing, amongst a slew of other deadly riddles.

Gideon the Ninth is the same. As people continue to get picked off and brutally murdered, as a reader you find yourself trying to puzzle out not only who, but why someone would commit such atrocities and the motivation behind it. 

The plot itself of Gideon the Ninth was extremely satisfying and alluring. There were times where I personally found that novel bogged down with excessive description, but it was usually broken up with Gideon’s personal brand of crass humor, a very much needed breather with the expansive exposition, that, while extremely well done, well researched, and well written, did get a tad boring from time to time for me personally, even if it allowed for clear imagery as well as adding to already well formed world building. 

In addition to the plot, all of the characters were well done and as fleshed out as they could be considering the amount of characters involved. First, even though this is set in a fantasy sci-fi setting, each of the characters seemed realistic and like they could potentially be real people. 

A large criticism of books I often have, especially in YA, is that the characters often come across like caricatures, and not real flesh and blood humans with both positive and negative qualities. 

Each character, some developed more than others, have both flaws and strengths, even the main characters, which I highly appreciated. Not only does it make the story more real and palatable, but it also is just more interesting to read about as it’s actually based in humanity and the nature of human beings rather than some perfect carbon copy of one. 

Gideon as a narrator was hilarious. She was often crass, blunt, horny, humorous and ignorant. But on the other hand, she was also an extremely talented fighter, actually very sweet deep down, forgiving, and loving. 

This mix in a main character was a welcome one in addition to making Gideon feel like a real person, despite all the bone magic and necromancy, and often her thought process and dialogue made me laugh out loud. 

Another main character, Harrowhark Nonagesimus (What a name!) is Gideon’s Necromancer and main companion. She’s bitter, rude, spiteful, and ruthless. She’s also hardworking, intelligent, and stubborn. 

If you’re catching the pattern here, Muir isn’t just writing archetypes and passing them off as characters. She’s writing complex and nuanced personalities that are intriguing and interesting and well developed. 

I could get into the other plethora of characters like Camila, Dulcinea, Palamedes, Magnus, Judith and so on, but this review would be a thousand pages long so I’ll just settle for saying that every character was well done and lovingly crafted and not one of them, even the annoying ones, were characters that I hated. 

One important thing to note was Muir’s writing itself. It was incredible. Such descriptions! Such characterization! Such detail! Such vocabulary! I was supremely impressed with her writing as a whole and often found myself having to look up words that I had never heard of in my life (always a welcome change of pace). I was blown away by her sheet talent and creativity. 

The last two things I have to note might get me in trouble. 

One, the ending for me was...bittersweet. For fear of spoiling someone, I won’t get into details, but I found it both lacking and simultaneously making absolute sense. I wanted both more and yet, found that everything was just enough. It’s hard to put into words, but if you know, you know. 

I do have a slightly sinking feeling though that the ending twist will somehow be undone in the sequel. I don’t know if this is true (although I will eventually find out), and I can’t decide if I’m going to be happy or dismayed by it. 

Such conflicting feelings are in of itself homage to Muir’s skill as a writer and the complexities of her tale. 

Lastly, the one aspect that might get me into the stickiest of predicaments: Harrowhark’s and Gideon’s relationship. I don’t know if I like it or not. On the one hand, I absolutely love it. It's a hate-to-love slow burn, which really is the only way an OTP makes its way into my heart. I love that they’re so different and yet so compatible, one flesh and one blood and all that other nonsense. 

They see each other as equals, as adversaries, and I adore that dynamic in any pairing. I also love the F/F representation of some badass women and that they’re not traditionally attractive and beautiful. 

One of my favorite lines came from the end of the book where Gideon describes Harrowhark’s face as, “bitter” and “hateful”. I just love when characters aren’t conventionally gorgeous and yet beautiful in the eyes of the beholder and all that jazz. 

Now. Onto the problems. 

Harrowhark’s and Gideon’s relationship is kinda...toxic? It grows into something less so, but it definitely starts off that way. I really hate imbalances of power of any kind and Harrowhark definitely has power over Gideon, power that she creully abuses. I asked myself: if Harrowhark was a man and treated Gideon so abysmally for years, and then Gideon eventually forgave him and loved him despite everything, would I think differently?

And the answer is yes, yes I would. 

Is that fair? Probably not. But I can’t help but think how the dynamics change with the two of them being women, and how in my opinion, I think more is forgiven of Harrowhark because of it, even when it’s not deserved. 

Now, Harrowhark is a complex character and has traumas of her own, but I just can’t help but think of all the things she did to Gideon and the things she took away from her and forced her to do and then think of them together and it’s...not great. 

Overall, my feelings on their relationship are complicated (which is a repeated pattern when it comes to Muir’s writing) and I don’t mind that it’s complicated, it makes it interesting, but I also would be bereft to mention it here. I look forward to seeing how it develops and if my feelings change and grow on the matter as well. 

In total, Gideon the Ninth is a fantastic read. It has everything you want inlaid with characters who not only push the plot along, but incentivize you to read more. It has complicated issues and complicated characters, but that means it’s nuanced and complex and juicy enough to bite into. 

Don’t do what I did and wait years for this novel. If you need a good read, you don’t need to look any further and then let yourself be swept along for the necromantic ride. 

Recommendation: “Lesbian necromancers explore a haunted gothic palace in space!” -Charles Stross. I mean. Come on people, what more can you ask for?

Score: 8/10