Tzelofachad

As they shouted out with glee,

"Unholy Drink Cloaca

it would be so awesome

pentecost

pentecost

The word "political" has connotations, and one of those connotations is a degree of intention. A political cartoon is a cartoon that exists to convince you of something or blast someone the cartoonist doesn't like, not "a cartoon that happens to be about an election". A political essay is an essay that exists to convince you of something, not an abstract meditation on power, and so on.

So when someone says "all art is political", whether they mean to or not, they are dragging in that connotation. They are implying intent, because it's part of most of the common usages of that word. Unless you immediately clarify, and/or are writing for an audience of humanities scholars, people are going to see the connotation and take that as part of your meaning.

... And assholes, particularly in queer and/or radical communities, love to exploit this ambiguity. They can tell you "your art is regressive/bougie/-phobic trash" without ever directly saying so, in a way that looks plausibly nice and neutral to people who aren't familiar with these dynamics.

A pretty common example: "young transmasc artist, shouldn't you stop writing about your experiences and center women instead? Writing about men is a political choice, after all." (And its evil twin, "young transfem artist, shouldn't you stop writing about your experience and center cis butches/cis femmes instead? Writing stereotypical femme women/trans butches is a political choice, after all.")

... It sounds neutral enough, unless you are running in these circles regularly and hearing the things these people say about the "wrong" political choice on the regular. I'm not going to repeat it; suffice it to say it's not nice. If you're spending time with people like this, you eventually learn to read "all art is political" as a threat. And there's a depressing number of these clowns. I think most artists on Tumblr have been on the receiving end of this bullshit; the ones that aren't currently in a cult aren't going to take it kindly.

One day a scientist hands you a poptart and says "eat this". You say "is it full of some kind of fucked up interdimensional poison". The scientist says "eat it or that security guard will tase you and tie you down and make you eat it". You eat the poptart. It is not full of fucked up interdimensional poison, but it is kind of stale. You describe the taste to the scientist and he shrugs and writes something down and you go back to your shitty cell.

Experiment Log 426-1. Date: [censored] Subject: D-class personnel D/426/1 Procedure: D/426/1 was asked to describe what he believed was contained in my chamber. He was not informed about my identity or properties. Details: D/426/1 stated, "I'm probably some huge monster holed up in there. That's what you guys have all over the place, right?" D/426/1 remained oblivious to his use of the first-person pronoun.

One day a scientist hands you a poptart and says "eat this". You say "is it full of some kind of fucked up interdimensional poison". The scientist says "eat it or that security guard will tase you and tie you down and make you eat it". You eat the poptart. It is not full of fucked up interdimensional poison, but it is kind of stale. You describe the taste to the scientist and he shrugs and writes something down and you go back to your shitty cell.

Experiment Log 426-1. Date: [censored] Subject: D-class personnel D/426/1 Procedure: D/426/1 was asked to describe what he believed was contained in my chamber. He was not informed about my identity or properties. Details: D/426/1 stated, "I'm probably some huge monster holed up in there. That's what you guys have all over the place, right?" D/426/1 remained oblivious to his use of the first-person pronoun.

i love you, trans femmes,

i love you, trans men,

i love you, trans mascs,

i love you, trans neutral people,

i love you, intersex people,

i love you, lesbians,

i love you, gay men,

i love you, bisexuals,

i love you, pansexuals,

i love you, aromantics,

i love you, asexuals,

i love you neopronoun users,

i love you contradictory label users,

i love you women who go by he/him,

i love you men who go by she/her,

i love you people whose identities 'dont fit',

queer people i love you,

i will always stand with you,

there is nothing in this world that can pull me apart from you,

i promise it will get better, i promise we will win,

i promise we won't always have to be afraid,

i promise, if nothing else, that somebody in this world loves you.

Quiet humans are not defective. Loud humans are not defective. Unless there is a significant change, assume your human is operating at normal levels.

Human words do not mean the same thing all the time. Look up the study of human tone if you want to always know what your human means.

Human females will smell of blood each month. If this changes, ask your human in private if something happened.

Human males often do not know how loud they are. Asking them to lower their voice is not offensive.

Human cultures vary greatly and various cultures have conflicting beliefs. Most humans will not be offended if you cannot keep up with this.

Humans do not share a hive mind but do have several musical triggers that activate a human chorus. These triggers transcend most cultural and language barriers.

All Stabby units come with a human locator setting. Use liberally.

Ask for a detailed explanation before agreeing to join a human on any non work activity.

Be aware of human hobbies and skills. Humans enjoy company and will likely teach you whatever they know. It is also beneficial to know what your human may do should they get bored.

Do not be too concerned over what humans ingest, so long as they do so willingly and with the full knowledge of what they are ingesting.

Unless you hear a human say something along the lines of ‘I hope this works’ or ‘here goes nothing’, assume they have a working knowledge at the attempted task.

This is a form of backdoor bigotry from both normative facts (there are more straight than gay relationships) and well represented bigoted beliefs (men are superior to women).

First your fave dominates an event - duh, obviously, she's the best. Then during the part of the show where the announcer is like "anybody in the audience want to challenge her for a fat stack of cash", somebody actually does. (Obviously a tourist.) It's some kid wearing like a beginner outfit from a McDojo... and he actually wins?And gets the cash! And then the event just ends!?

You're buzzing. It's clear that this is like a storyline or something. You can't wait for next week's show. Except that there isn't one, because - as you find out through the gossip mill - your fave was actually the local billionaires' daughter who was competing in secret. And also kayfabe might not exist. And now she's gone and the billionaire is blaming a demigod (who's back from the dead? I guess?) for kidnapping her.

So, how come that means no show this week or possibly ever? Well, the billionaire hired the promoter (and a random McDojo sensei) to go after the demigod to get back his daughter (your fave wrestler!) and the guy just... packed up his entire promotion and left.

Some months later the war that's been going on since your great-grandfathers days ends. You go to a peace parade. And there she is: Toph Beifong, the Blind Bandit, giving the new Fire Lord a noogie.

From there it's not actually difficult to get the other soldiers onboard with covering up the fact that poor Ping took one for the team and got afflicted by the vagina curse, especially since it would have been all of them if they hadn't gotten the warning ahead of time. So they agree to help him cover it up, because obviously the army's not going to understand.

Mulan: Uh, what boobs? Huh? Where did these come from?

Mushu: *facepalms and thinks quickly* (speaks from the shadows) I AM THE SPIRIT OF THE LAKE! BEWARE MY CURSED WATERS FOR THEY WILL TURN MEN INTO WOMEN!

Mulan: Look-

Ling, Yao, and Chien Po: WE CAN EXPLAIN!!

[One convoluted, chaotic explanation later]

Shang: ...is this why you've all been insisting we don't camp anywhere that doesn't have a lake.

Shang: and then none of you actually swim in it.

Shang: and you all keep jumping at shadows.

Shang: wait a second Ping did this happen before or after you became insanely good at fighting?

Shang: did you get better at fighting after you became a woman.

Shang: are women better at fighting than us.

Mulan: ....uh. well. maybe? no one's ever tried to find out.

Yao: [thinking very fast] y'know Captain it's just so hard to find recruits these days.

Chien Po: Real shortage of men.

Ling: Lots of women, though.

Mulan: [catching on] Without marriage prospects.

Shang: You're right, men. The spirits must have done this in order to show us that we should be recruiting women as fighters.

Mushu [from the shadows, seeing an opportunity to do the funniest thing]: EXACTLY, LI SHANG. I HAVE TRANSFORMED PING INTO A WOMAN BECAUSE YOU HAVE TOO LONG OVERLOOKED THE TRUE WAY TO WIN THE WAR.

Mulan [seeing an opportunity to get all the stories straight]: O Great Spirit, is it reversible?

Mushu: WHY WOULD YOU WISH TO REJECT MY GIFT? I HAVE SEEN YOUR HEART, CHILD, AND HAVE ALREADY ALTERED THE MEMORIES OF EVERYONE WHO KNEW YOU BEFORE YOU LEFT FOR THE ARMY. YOU HAVE ALWAYS BEEN THEIR DAUGHTER.

Li Shang: Welp, the spirits have spoken. Ping - wait is your name still Ping if you're a woman now?

Mulan: Uh. Actually, I was thinking of renaming myself. How do you feel about Mulan?

BONUS:

Mulan [climbing out of the eleventh lake the men have arranged for her to swim in]: Yeah no, it didn't work. Still got boobs. [tries to appear dejected].

Chien Po: If it makes you feel better, they're very nice boobs.