#twinstar?

[kieshartzishere]

ALL OF YOU. WHY ARE THERE SO MANY OF YOU. WHY DID I DRAW MOST OF YOU. WHY ARE ALL OF YOU WEARING COLLARED SHIRTS AND HAVE PARTED HAIR. (I know why but still). YOU ALL BETTER LIKE THIS ONE.

Nice to meet you all by the way.

[justtrashperson]

Part 2 of rtumblr characters drawing request

C!Kiesha ( @kieshartzishere ) and C!Maya ( @marythefruitysandwitch )

[neptunesailing]

happy april fools everyone :)

[kyaraben-time]

Source: msta___i on Instagram

[purichou]

T-DAY VOL.8/1997.9.15　　TWINSTAR Kagurazaka Tokyo

[yuriskies]

Fishing Yuri vs Reproductive Fascism

Issui Ogawa's Twinstar Cyclone Runaway novel series caught my attention the moment I learned about it. A gay marriage allegory in a weird sci-fi setting? Sign me right the fuck up. I've always found explicitly political sci-fi interesting, and well, Ogawa is not exactly a small name in Japanese sci-fi. However, a Japanese hard sci-fi novel is not going to have an easy time finding a good translation to English, much less a fanbase. So I was really excited to see that it was getting a manga adaptation, and from what it has adapted so far (~half of the first of three novels in an ongoing series), it's really living up to my feeling of hype.

There is a general setting summary after the break, and then a section where I talk a bit about the most recent chapter (8), and how it really makes a cogent argument extractive economic systems are reinforced by patriarchal norms.

The plot centers around Terra Intercontinental Endeavor, a woman who has inherited her family's fishing boat. The fishing boat requires two people to operate, a job which is performed by straight couples as a form of marriage contract. The use of married couples is understandable, given that the fishing boat transformable rocket plane that descends from orbit to operate in the skies of a gas giant, an operating environment which requires almost preternatural communication skills between the pilot and the person transforming the ship. The fish that swim around in the gas giant's skies are special: they're made of a kind of clay that can be molded by thought. The catch forms the backbone of the planetary economy; otherwise, the planetary system is so resource-starved that humanity cannot sustain itself without something to offer through galactic trade networks. Terra is highly gifted at producing complex transformations of the ship, but cannot communicate well with the male pilots she is interviewing for marriage. Part of this is because her way of describing things is a little kooky, but the majority is because the patriarchal culture she lives in has produced a lot of condescending, sexist guys who Obviously Know Better.

Fresh off a round of failed marriage interviews, Terra is desperate to find anyone who can pilot the boat. In steps a mysterious girl named Diode, who proves herself to be an exceptionally talented pilot whose skills mesh well with Terra's. So far, the story has alternated between Terra's experiences within the stifling cultural life of her home, and the moments of dizzying freedom and connection that Terra and Diode find when they're out fishing.

(Spoilers from here on out, so stop here if you would prefer to read more on your own. )

As far as the broader world of Twinstar Cyclone Runaway is concerned, the first seven manga chapters have largely focused on how badly Terra fits in with the surrounding culture. She has a reputation around the port, mostly as a person who creates absurdly complicated fishing gear and makes up weird stories. Her aunt and uncle both want to see her happily married so she can fulfill her dream of fishing, but tend to push their preferences onto her. She works as a video distributor in the clan's dilapidated cultural archives, and appears to be one of the few people interested in the world of her clan's space station. In part, this is due to the conservatism of the culture - most people are strictly utilitarian and seem happy to accept the world as it is. There's also sexism. Woo boy is there sexism.

The first few chapters alternate between life on the station, where Terra is exposed to a constant stream of sexism. The chapters dealing with station culture are almost an exercise in masochism, but provided the set dressing for a chapter which does a really decent job at describing the organizing thought processes behind anti-LGBTQ lawmaking. In it, Terra and Diode's activities have drawn the attention of the authorities, who are none too happy that they're fishing together (and effectively presenting themselves as common law wives in the process).

They're both summoned to the clan council, where the clan chief immediately begins lecturing Terra (and belittling her with backhanded complements) before ordering her to surrender her family's fishing boat to someone else. During his lecture, he highlights the 'freedom' enjoyed by their clan compared to the even more stifling culture of the clan Diode hails from. He attributes that freedom to the strong sense of "culture and tradition" of the clan, and the work of those with "superior bloodlines" who support and perpetuate it by passing that sense of identity on to the next generation while countering the clan's slowly shrinking population. Under this logic, allowing Terra to participate in a same-sex marriage is considered tantamount to enabling a cultural collapse.

It is, from just about any perspective, a fascist perspective on gender roles. Women are valued not for their ability to contribute to the culture but for their service as reproductive cogs in the economic machine. Culture and tradition are interpreted as something transmitted through blood, not community. Terra's work in maintaining the cultural archives are viewed as useless make-work, as to the leadership, a woman who does not reproduce is preventing the transmission of culture. The stability and economic productivity of the clan is the organizing principle of society, highlighted by the fact that the roles of clan chief (political leader) and head fisherman (economic leader) are held by the same person. In this framework, the backbone of society is understood to be its captains of industry, those working in economically-prestigious jobs, and their social role is to maintain the economic prestige and exclusivity of the fishing class.

The chapter ends with Diode (having initially been begrudgingly convinced to allow Terra to do the talking) exploding at how the clan chief has been talking down to the both of them. She points out the hollowness of the underlying rhetoric - although it portrays culture as something shaped by struggle and ability to assert one's will, it systematically denies most people from the attempt. While pointing this out, she also mocks the clan chief's skills, clearly relying on the offense to his masculinity to provide the opening for herself and Terra to prove themselves. While the gambit works, the clan chief is clearly setting the terms of a challenge to make them prove themselves exceptional, a task which carries a high likelihood of death.

By the way, the art does a lot of the heavy lifting here. Despite Ahiru Tanaka's slightly cartoony style, he is incredibly skilled at getting the point across through composition. Terra's workplace in the cultural archives is dingy, cramped, and literally disintegrating, and Tanaka's line work reflects this - dense, imprecise, and messy. It really sells the apparent lack of maintenance since the archives were constructed. By contrast, the clan council's chambers is airy, bright, and characterized by cleaner, more precise line work. The difference is night and day, and I think it really helps sell the Endeavor Clan's underlying thinking of exactly where "culture and tradition" are transmitted.

Anyway, I just had to gush a little bit about this chapter, in what is quickly becoming one of the manga releases I most anticipate reading every month.

[yuribuny]

damn they made gay fishing illegal

[miyanagateru]

making moves......

[fluffydancer618]

Holy shit is this Mafia AU content

"Aand we have a winner!"

[nufinka-the-bunny-angel]

I might draw him on paper more often :3

[kieshartzishere]

Did you know that I can draw better when I start with square heads?

This is what happens when you were/are obsessed with Minecraft since 2011

anyways

c!Fluffy (@fluffydancer618)

c!Copper (@copperexception)

c!Void (@dragonwolf3416)

c!Jay (@justtrashperson)

c!Froge(@formal-frog-shoes)

c!Pleafy(@pleafyistired)

c!Lucy (@jasperakalucy)

c!Hatcler (@my-name-is-daniel-yes)

c!Dweebo (@dweebodoodle)

just quick sketches of rtumblr on a tablet with my back aching since I was doing it from my bed.

[justtrashperson]

This was just an excuse to draw hugs

[neptunesailing]

a little thing i did for promoting the @escookbook zine on the twinstars troupe's enstars fandub! go check both of them out!

+ a little bonus :]

[kyaraben-time]

Source: michiyo0815 on Instagram

[pleafyistired]

the twinstar are hunting me for sports a compilation (continue please these are so funny to me)

[yuriskies]

Twinstar Cyclone Runaway

I'd like to put this yuri novel series/manga adaptation on people's radar because I think it might appeal to people who like to explore the tension between societal expectations for a relationship and what people actually find fulfilling. The novels, written by multiple Seiun Award winner Issui Ogawa, are currently at three volumes and counting. A manga adaptation by Ahiru Tanaka got underway in July and currently has two chapters out, both of which have been scanlated into English.

The story is set around a gas giant planet named Fat Beach Ball, a resource-starved gas giant planet. The economy revolves around Besshu (or gloomfish), fish-like creatures which inhabit the skies of the planet. These fish contain a versatile material used for everything from food to rocket fuel to building material, and are hauled in by enforced husband-wife fishing teams. Terra Intercontinental Endeavor is a 24 year old woman who has inherited her parents' fishing business, and who is struggling to find a husband in part due to her own indifference to who she fishes with, and in part due to the incompatibility of her workflow/imagination with the men she's set up on marriage interviews with.

She has a 'love at first sight' moment with a woman who introduces herself as "Diode" and who immediately requests a marriage interview in spite of the rules against woman-woman fishing pairs.

Diode (whose name is short for DIE-over-dose) turns out to be an excellent pilot, and her skills end up being an excellent match for Terra's unconventional approaches to fishing. It turns out that Diode is also an 18-year old runaway who is an out lesbian, and is trying to find a way to escape marriage herself.

Without going into too much detail about the novels (mostly because my knowledge of them is secondhand), the story follows Terra and Diode's attempts to remain independent within the omnipresent heteronormative and patriarchal culture at Fat Beach Ball and the ups and downs of their budding romance. If fishing is your thing, there's also a lot about the different techniques to be used as well. If you need an endorsement too, Iori Miyazawa (Otherside Picnic) has been pretty enthusiastic about it on Twitter, and after the most recent volume of his work, I figure he knows what's up in terms of sf-flavored yuri.

Give it a try, and if you like it, recommend it to your friends! It would be great to see this work hit the critical mass needed to make the novels more accessible to fandoms outside of Japan.