Staring At People's Cool Art Heals My Soul

Followin up on my request for some fire action centric wlw fantasy or sci fi literature/comics/manga to fill the void left by the Kyoshi series, I did try getting into Locked Tomb w/ Gideon The Ninth and loved the world and setting but I was not feeling the uhh "contemporary" writing style at all. I imagine that's a huge part of the appeal for a lot of people so I cant bash it or call it a flaw but I wasnt rocking with it personally. Will continue on my journey and try any recommendations I come across.

Some of yall are more like Beat than u think

“Perhaps you have forgotten. That’s one of the great problems of our modern world, you know. Forgetting. The victim never forgets. Ask an Irishman what the English did to him in 1920 and he’ll tell you the day of the month and the time and the name of every man they killed. Ask an Iranian what the English did to him in 1953 and he’ll tell you. His child will tell you. His grandchild will tell you. And when he has one, his great-grandchild will tell you too. But ask an Englishman—” He flung up his hands in mock ignorance. “If he ever knew, he has forgotten. ‘Move on!’ you tell us. ‘Move on! Forget what we’ve done to you. Tomorrow’s another day!’ But it isn’t, Mr. Brue.” He still had Brue’s hand. “Tomorrow was created yesterday, you see. That is the point I was making to you. And by the day before yesterday, too. To ignore history is to ignore the wolf at the door.” - A Most Wanted Man by John le Carré

An incomplete list of things that employers commonly threaten that are 100% illegal in the United States

"We'll fire you if you tell others how much you're making" The National Labor Relations Act of 1935 specifically protects employees who discuss their own wages with each other (you can't reveal someone else's wages if you were given that information in the course of work, but you can always discuss your own or any that were revealed to you outside of work duties)

"If we can't fire you for [discussing wages/seeking reasonable accommodation/filing a discrimination complaint/etc], we'll just fire you for something else the next day." This is called pretextual termination, and it offers your employer almost no protection; if you are terminated shortly after taking a protected action such as wage discussion, complaints to regulatory agencies, or seeking a reasonable accommodation, you can force the burden onto your employer to prove that the termination wasn't retaliatory.

"Disparaging the company on social media is grounds for termination" Your right to discuss workplace conditions, compensation, and collective action carries over to online spaces, even public ones. If your employer says you aren't allowed to disparage the company online or discuss it at all, their social media policy is illegal. However, they can forbid releasing information that they're obligated to keep confidential such as personnel records, business plans, and customer information, so exercise care.

"If you unionize, we'll just shut this branch down and lay everyone off" Threatening to take action against a group that unionizes is illegal, full stop. If a company were to actually shut down a branch for unionizing, they would be fined very heavily by the NLRB and be opening themselves up to a class-action lawsuit by the former employees.

"We can have any rule we want, it's only illegal if we actually enforce it" Any workplace policy or rule that has a "chilling effect" on employees' willingness to exercise their rights is illegal, even if the employer never follows through on any of their threats.

"If you [protected action], we'll make sure you never work in this industry/city/etc again." Blacklisting of any kind is illegal in half the states in the US, and deliberately sabotaging someone's job search in retaliation for a protected action is illegal everywhere in the US.

"Step out of line and you can kiss your retirement fund/last paycheck goodbye." Your employer can never refuse to give you your paycheck, even if you've been fired. Nor can they keep money that you invested in a retirement savings account, and they can only claw back the money they invested in the retirement account under very specific circumstances.

"We'll deny that you ever worked here" not actually possible unless they haven't been paying their share of employment taxes or forwarding your withheld tax to the government (in which case they're guilty of far more serious crimes, and you might stand to gain something by turning them in to the IRS.) The records of your employment exist in state and federal tax data, and short of a heist that would put Oceans 11 to shame, there's nothing they can do about that.

Baylan Skoll is one of the best Star Wars characters in a long time, I'm very much one of those people that has only really been able to get enjoyment out of Andor and TLJ as far as live action sW goes these days, but there are some things I've really been enjoying about Ahsoka. First of all, the choreography is actually GOOD. It feels like there's a different rhythm to each battle due to various fighting styles being shown, we see guard switches in tense standoffs like with Ahsoka vs Baylan and its dope and reminds me of this series' kurosawa roots. Baylan is super interesting and I love how the mercenaries bounce off our main two chars. And I am Shin Hati's strongest soldier just on account of her being really cool I love and support evil women

Evil women are so cool I love women who are just bad people

One of my favorite manga ended 3 hours ago and I must talk about it

I actually wrote this two days ago and of course, the finale comes out RIGHT when I was about to post lol

On Twitter, I used to maintain a yuri manga recommendation thread to keep track of what I read and recommend my fav works to others. Now that I'm back on Tumblr, a platform that actually allows you to write why you like something, I want to start doing more in-depth recommendations. Starting with this one!

Koroshiya Yametai (I Wanna Quit Being a Hitman!) by Tonoki Sun

Rose is a hitman who dislikes her job, but she has one thing to look forward to: dates with her girlfriend, Benika. However, not wanting to go on dates with a guilty conscious, she always confesses her sins (murder) to a priest in a confessional booth that hides both their faces. The priest, Father Shirafune, happens to be Benika’s actual biological father.

Rose doesn’t know the priest she’s told about all her jobs to is Benika’s father. Benika doesn’t know Rose is a hitman, and is also keeping her queer relationship secret from her religious father. Shirafune is curious about his daughter’s new “boyfriend”, and has no idea the “boyfriend” is the person who keeps confessing murders to him.

The initial chapters of Hitman remind me of Spy x Family, where the comedy and appeal comes from the dramatic irony and near misses of each character trying to keep their own secrets, but the tone is different. There’s definitely lightness and comedy there, but underlying is a story of Rose, a refugee fleeing her war-torn home and being forced to work as a hitman in a rich country who doesn’t care about her people. She’s a pawn for greater political powers, and the story is how she tries to break out of that.

A quick, non-spoiler list of why I like this manga - if any of these appeal to you, I beeeeg you to read this comic:

Really cute loving relationship between the main couple! But also: well-fleshed characters outside the main couple! Father Shirafune is GREAT

Plot is more political than I expected, in what feels like a very grounded, real way. The main plot of the story is about refugees that are discriminated against and mistreated and what happens in a country when that mistreatment reaches a boiling point.

I need to think more about the story to be confident in talking about this outside of surface-level observations, so I desperately want smarter people to read it so I can also see their takes haha

The writing is just GOOD and appeals to me specifically. The plot is fast-paced with no filler. There’s a good balance of comedy, lovely moments between the couple, action where you can see Rose get out of tough situations (more on this in the spoilers), and scheming and double-crossing between various political powers.

I read this comic on Dynasty Scans, translated by Gouma-Den. The site’s tags are usually good for content warnings - the main ones are violence/killing/etc. There isn’t a ton of gore though. I believe the raws are here. I don’t think it’s licensed as of me writing this, but you bet I’m buying it all if/when it is.

I want to ramble more about what I like about it below, but it will contain **spoilers**! All images are from the Dynasty Scans translation.

The precise way action scenes are written

The action scenes are super fun to read. Most of them are about Rose escaping pursuers in clever ways that don’t give out her identity, and focus on the steps she took to prepare for these situations and how she outsmarts her enemies. There is a similar appeal here to detective or heist stories where Rose is put in a tough spot, and you see how her knowledge and wild amount of foresight let her escape.

In general, I like the scenes where characters are thinking to themselves and trying to problem-solve in any manga, and this happens a lot in this manga. One of my favorite scenes is when Rose tries to figure out if Benika’s new friend is another hitman, without tipping off either of them.

I just think this is soooo cool. The story is full of Rose’s cleverness in these kinds of situations that is so fun to read.

The romance

The romance is so sweet. The girls have an adorable meet-cute and throughout the story, you really see why Rose likes Benika- she’s kind and energetic but doesn’t hesitate to give Rose a piece of her mind when needed. Rose clearly loves Benika a lot and is always thinking of her. The characters’ interactions feel cute but realistic, and they’re fleshed out outside of the romance, which makes me like them more as people and root for them more.

But also (huge spoilers ahead, please skip this paragraph if you plan on reading this at all) it’s soooo yuri to have one girl try to make a huge high-stakes emotional sacrifice for the other one while confessing that it’s all for love. And it happens in the latest chapter and I went wild.

The themes the story tackles outside of the romance

This to me is both the most striking part of the story!

The first, smaller thing that stands out is Benika and her hesitance to tell her father about her relationship because she assumes her father is homophobic since he’s clergy. Father Shirafune is not homophobic actually and the two have a good relationship otherwise, but it stands out that this is a consideration Benika has. I feel like a lot of yuri is characterized by being only about romance, not identity or society. Characters will like girls, but not be gay. I don’t think this is a bad thing- it’s a characteristic of the genre and TBH in my head, it’s the difference between yuri and LGBTQ manga. However, that’s why this aspect of the story stood out to me- it serves to show queerness plays a bigger part of Benika’s character and the world, is an important motivator in the story, and is good worldbuilding. It also is important because it adds to the grounded tone of the story- it’d be weird to have a story that is full of politics and religion otherwise but say nothing about the two main characters’ queerness.

Speaking of the politics of the story, the main non-romance plot is about how the unspecified first-world country the story takes place in (probably Japan, even though they never say?) treats refugees. There are multiple chapters about how poorly the refugees are treated, and what will happen to the country if it goes too far unaddressed (and if the country deserves what it gets).

This sequence of panels in one of the latest chapters was really good!

That’s it! The Dynasty translation is nearing the end of the comic (EDIT: It got posted right before posting this LOL that's what I get for being slow) so it’s a great time to catch up! Please read this comic and talk to me about it!!!

Carla, if you can hear me blame this on the misfortune of your birth!

Hey dont cry. Testament crouch block