gender Archives · Joi Massat

The Downward Spiral of Self-Deprecation

So I’m going through life, and something innocuous hits me wrong. I don’t feel like being specific, so…let’s pretend it’s an umbrella. Sure. Maybe umbrellas have never bothered me a single moment in my life, until now, this day, when my subconscious mind makes a connection between umbrellas and my deepest fears. A truly unhelpful one.

I spot an umbrella on the ground and for some reason, just seeing it sends a pang through my nerves. A Downward Spiral of Self-Deprecation begins:

Platinum the Trinity Looks So Cool (And I Hate It)

BlazBlue sucks, last time I checked, but in my teenagerdom BlazBlue and its characters were just iconic.

Pretty Strong: Ultimo, Manga Heroes, and Gender Roles in the Early 2010s

Recently I finished Ultimo, a manga which history will remember only as a footnote in Hiroyuki Takei’s career that weirdly has Stan Lee’s name on it. While I didn’t finish it back in the day (when, after many delays, it petered out into a ‘meh’ conclusion), I was always captivated by its high ambition, its sleek art style, and its sheer charm. Take Ultimo himself: his design strikes me as effortlessly cute, cool, and beautiful at the same time.

Cuteness and coolness. Beauty and strength. Today I notice that for Ultimo’s character, these are not contradictions. If anything, his beauty is implied to be the reason he embodies ultimate power and goodness.

Agender: Another ?Trans? Narrative

I had no thought of writing this until my friend Thedude3445 wrote a great coming-out post and made the point that personal stories all along the gender spectrum need to be shared. But I’m not writing this post hoping to twitch the needle in any big way. I just hope it can be one interesting action, perhaps valuable in its small way, in a sea of actions, in a general movement.