mikkeneko

[mikkeneko]

from “For the Love of Spock” (George Takei talking about the time when they wanted to cut him and Nichols/Uhura out of Star Trek and Nimoy was having none of it)

[mikkeneko]

The new Martha Wells book-- Witch King-- is fucking delightful if you like slightly complex fantasy that doesn't hold your hand. This is a book that never ever commits the sin of explaining stuff to a character that should already know about it for the sake of the audience. Exposition only happens in ways that are natural and logical, which sometimes means stuff just isn't explained.

It's not as obviously accessible as The Murderbot Dairies is-- it's plot is a little more opaque, there's more moving pieces, it's less directly comedic-- but man I like it and Kai is in someways a similar protagonist to Murderbot. Powerful but vulnerable and often just a little out of his element. Lonely in the face of a lot of people who are afraid of him.

Its very much a found family story. Like, literally. The book goes back and forth between the past and the present. The parts of the narrative that are set in the past are about Kai meeting the people who become his family, and the parts of the narrative set in the present are about him going to find members of that family that have gone missing. Family is a theme that's always there.

In spite of the swap in narratives there was never a moment where I was listening to one half of these stories wishing I could get back to the other one-- they were woven together very well and I found them equally compelling.

Anyway I am very certain there are people who saw there was a new Martha Wells book, then saw it wasn't Murderbot and decided to peace out. Some people probably won't but I think it's worth trying. Tor released enough excerpts that you can get a feel for what it's like and decide if you'll like it or not. The mystery is fascinating and, like Murderbot, it's casually queer in a really good way. Martha Wells clearly loves her a lesbian power couple.

[mikkeneko]

#flowers

[mikkeneko]

me and the devil

#the untamed #right on queue

[mikkeneko]

[video by soupygarbagejuice. original caption: stuie]

#right on queue

[mikkeneko]

okay okay Vaxleth is taking shape 👀

#right on queue

[mikkeneko]

Recently watched RRR for the first time and have been unable to think about anything else so I had to make this.

If you haven’t seen RRR you very much should it is on Netflix and this little FMV doesn’t even cover the half of everything this movie has going on.

#what the heck happens in this movie

[mikkeneko]

Lilac

#flowers #right on queue

[mikkeneko]

I made a new animatic! (Big spoilers for the Black Water Arc of Heaven Official's Blessing!) ✨️

(Song: I Know Those Eyes/This Man Is Dead from The Count Of Monte Cristo)

#thank god cit's friday

[mikkeneko]

Just once, I want the hero to go “your wife/sister/mother/whatever would not have wanted this!”, and the villain to go, “actually, we talked about this a lot. She was really into vigilante justice and eye for an eye stuff. She always said, if something like this happens, avenge me.”

#right on queue #i don't even go here

[mikkeneko]

THE VALLEY OF FEAR part one tbh there are so many iconic lines in this one (“you are scintillating this morning, Watson”) (“One more coruscation, my dear Watson - yet another brain-wave!”) it’s obnoxious

(This is part of the Watsons sketchbook series!)

[mikkeneko]

I share an orbit with a lot of homestucks or former homestucks, so I must perform elaborate epicycles to avoid learning more

New discourse: it's actually predatory to date someone with a different star sign than you, because the differences in your personalities means you'll never be able to have exactly the same life experiences, thus leaving a knowledge and power gap between the two of you which will inevitably lead to an abusive relationship!

also if you're a Sag and you're dating a Taurus, that means you're secretly seeking a May-December relationship, which is age gap coded!

[mikkeneko]

Apparently in some parts of the greater chengxian fandom, I am known as "the author of that jiaoren fic" and this how I know I have already peaked. 😂

#chengxian #it's good to have an epithet

[mikkeneko]

i don't have a lot of skin in this problem, and i defer to all the above meta, but my two cents on "where did this even come from":

I first saw this notion brought up about a year ago during a discussion about the Nie, and since we never meet any named female members of the Nie, people were speculating about what they might be like in appearance and personality. most popular notion was to imagine a genderflipped Nie Mingjue. there was a lot of "ooh, strong sexy buff women swinging huge swords! love a big hulking muscular lady who can break me with one hand!" and someone pointed out in the notes that this is treading dangerously close to a kind of depiction of 'barbarian women' which is not baggage-free in chinese media

this was the first time I ever saw that connection made, so I'm wondering if the "Speculation about women of the Nie ought to be handled with the consideration of barbarian-coding" from there transmuted into "Nie are barbarian coded" in the usual fandom game of telephone.

anyway having seen the TGCF donghua, i'm inclined to say that when MXTX has decided to barbarian-code a group of people, it's not gonna be subtle. you'll KNOW

I would also like to say for the record that all of the sects in MDZS are not implied to be any ethnicity but Han Chinese and to be quite frank it is alarming when people try to say the text says otherwise.

Like, this is mildly related to the ask I just answered, and I know we've all seen the meta discussing how barbarianism and racism is (le gasp!) present in Chinese works. (Which, well, yeah. yeah it is.) BUT critically I think in trying to scrutinize and apply shit to MDZS/CQL where all the characters are very much Han, we're just turning up new ways of being racist towards minority ethnicities here.

Case in point: "the Nie are Mongolian"

I've seen this oft repeated everywhere in both meta and fic and...do we understand this??? is racist??? Like the most common justifications I see point to the fact that the Nie (in the live action)....ride horses...have braids in their hair...come from a butcher heritage...are "brutish" <- there's no canonical evidence of this last point btw.

Do we think this is the entirety of what being Mongolian means? Do we think these points add up to "they're subtextually Mongolian?" Why do we think that?

They're not depicted either 1) with Mongolian names 2) with Mongolian religious traditions 3) with Mongolian clothing or hairstyle trends 4) as being reacted to in text as anything other than Han Chinese by other Han Chinese characters. 5) They are depicted on screen by Han Chinese actors.

Like maybe if someone is subscribing to "The Nie are canonically Mongolian and written in a racist way by MXTX in text/depicted in a racist way by the CQL showwriters" they should. Examine what they think being Mongolian is irl.

Maybe the issue is not how sects are presented in CQL or MDZS but how exhausting it is to wade through this fandom where people will misconstrue shit into things that are somehow, more racist in an attempt to deconstruct racism in a system they do not fully understand.

#untamed meta

[mikkeneko]

Different types of kimono. 

[mikkeneko]

Blossom

#flowers

[mikkeneko]

liuber 🪭🗡️

my take on rynanovel's dtiys ♡

original: