A quick note: a premise I suggested made it onto the podcast Monstrous Agonies podcast! Listen to episode 37 on your podcast app of choice, or read the transcript. Podcast Patreon.

---

Books

C.M Nascosta’s Morning Glory Milking Farm (Cambric Creek #1)

…listen friends, IDK what to tell you, this somehow manages to be “a high heat slow burn with a lot of heart” romance despite the big monsterfucking vibes. It was a ton of fun, and I will be checking out her future works. Nascosta’s Patreon.

Aveda Vice’s work

Monster erotica shorts that are fun. Will be keeping an eye out for her future work. Vice’s Patreon.

Alyssa Cole’s A Prince on Paper (Reluctant Royals #3)

Re-read. Still amazing.

K.B. Wagers’ Hold Fast Through the Fire (Neo-G #2)

There’s something just really comforting about Wagers’ work to me. Wagers’ Patreon.

---

Dance

RAWdance’s Portal

While this was a live performance, they are going to stream their 2020 performance The Healer 10/29-11/28. Don’t miss it. Support them here.

Doja Cat’s Been Like This / You Right (Live VMAs 2021)

You know I love a good dance routine.

Normani’s Wild Side (Live VMAs 2021)

More smooth dance moves. Also, that ending. 🥵

---

Misc.

Song: Suboi’s Sickerrr

This song slaps.

Film: Shang Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings dir. Destin Daniel Cretton

Hilarious.

Film: Thor Ragnarok dir. Taika Waititi

Re-watch.

---

Articles

Michelle Yeoh: ‘Jackie Chan thought women belonged in the kitchen – until I kicked his butt’ by Ryan Gilbey

How Michelle Yeoh went from ballet dancer to martial arts star – and the three 1980s Hong Kong action movies that made her name by Richard James

Trans Girls With Bulges Belong at the Beach by Alex Jenny

America needs to decide how much Covid-19 risk it will tolerate by German Lopez

“Will Americans accept the deaths of tens of thousands of people, as they do with the flu, if it means life returning to normal? Can the public tolerate an even higher death toll — akin to the drug overdose crisis, which killed an estimated 94,000 people in 2020 — if that’s what it takes to truly end social distancing and other precautions?

Does it make a difference if the vast majority of deaths are among those who are willingly unvaccinated, who, in effect, accepted a greater risk from the coronavirus? Are further reductions in deaths worth postponing a return to “normal” — or changing what “normal” means — if continued precautions are mild, like prolonged masking or widespread testing?”

“Depending on how that choice is made, the US could be looking at very different futures. Americans could decide some milder precautions, like masking, are fine. Or they could conclude that even masking is too much to ask, even if that means a greater death toll. It hinges on how much weight on the restrictions side remains acceptable for the bulk of the population — how high the threshold is for embracing continued deviations from what day-to-day life was like before.”

Luna Matatas Wore ‘Peg The Patriarchy’ Long Before Cara Delevingne, Luna Matatas interview by Tracy Clark-Flory

If you saw Delevingne’s attire at the Met, it was Matatas’ uncredited and uncompensated work. You can buy official Peg the Patriarchy merch from Matatas directly here.

A Not-So-Brief Personal History of the Healing Justice Movement, 2010–2016 by Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha

“At the 2010 USSF Healing Justice People’s Movement Assembly, I heard Page say something that transformed my ideas of what movement work could look like and has stuck with me ever since: “Our movements themselves need to be healing or there is no point to them.” The idea that movements themselves could and should be spaces of healing—that care didn’t have to be a sideline to “the real work” but that care could be the work—was like a deep drink of clear water.”

“It doesn’t have to be either healing or organizing: It’s both. A few weeks ago, someone asked me at a talk I was giving at Portland State’s Take Back the Night how we choose between healing and activism. I tried to tell them that healing justice is not a spa vacation where we recover from organizing and throw ourselves back to the grind. To me, it means a fundamental—and anti-ableist—shift in how we think of movement work—to think of it as a place where many pauses, where building in healing as well as space for grief and trauma to be held, makes the movements more flexible and longer lasting.”

Laziness Does Not Exist by Devon Price

“So when I see a student failing to complete assignments, missing deadlines, or not delivering results in other aspects of their life, I’m moved to ask: what are the situational factors holding this student back? What needs are currently not being met?And, when it comes to behavioral “laziness,” I’m especially moved to ask: what are the barriers to action that I can’t see?”

“If a person can’t get out of bed, something is making them exhausted. If a student isn’t writing papers, there’s some aspect of the assignment that they can’t do without help. If an employee misses deadlines constantly, something is making organization and deadline-meeting difficult. Even if a person is actively choosing to self-sabotage, there’s a reason for it — some fear they’re working through, some need not being met, a lack of self-esteem being expressed.

People do not choose to fail or disappoint. No one wants to feel incapable, apathetic, or ineffective. If you look at a person’s action (or inaction) and see only laziness, you are missing key details. There is always an explanation. There are always barriers. Just because you can’t see them, or don’t view them as legitimate, doesn’t mean they’re not there. Look harder.”

Transformative Justice Can Only Exist If It’s Black by Hunter Shackelford

“The vision of Transformative Justice has expanded beyond the original focus on child sexual abuse, but the framework (in original form and the expanded form) never reasserts that the foundation to these systems of oppression and this culture of abuse is rooted specifically in anti-Blackness. The history of organizing that has led us to ‘Transformative Justice’ as a language is based in the work of Black abolitionist organizers — yet, Blackness isn’t centralized or named explicitly. Abolition is literally developed from slavery. Yet, the foundation of why the state cannot be trusted to heal our communities isn’t cited explicitly within Blackness.”

“Additionally, there isn’t a function of using morality to limit these responses, rather the focus should be intention and purpose of the violence. What utility does this violence have? Is it to subjugate? Is it to kill for no reason? Is it project insecurity and shrink the people around you? Is it for survival and a means to ensure safety? Is it a response to a world that is designed to kill you?”

When People Who Harm Don’t Consent to Transformative Justice by Hunter Shackelford

“When the people who harm us do not consent to transformation — it leaves us open for more questions that may not have answers. Do we just let it go? Is it inherently carceral to want them to suffer if they’re not committed to addressing the suffering they created? Does it make us less aligned with liberation to want our harm-doers to feel the impacts of the harm they cause? What are the “right” consequences for someone who doesn’t consent to transformation? Is there room for us to make decisions that may lean towards punishment? Is there grace given to those who want to punish those who have harmed because their opportunity for accountability was denied?”

“We have to make room for the reality that everyone will not come to the table. And survivors will survive how they have to. How survivors survive these circumstances should be less about being “right” or “perfect” in our trauma, and more about the lack of options that exist for surviving harm. Every response will not translate the same to everyone, and it shouldn’t. We are all in different communities, with different cultures and identities that shape how we see accountability, transformation, consequence, punishment, and beyond.

The truth is that we cannot control or predict how our trauma will show up. We also cannot predict how those who harm us will show up through our trauma. What we find valid as survivors is complicated, and sometimes does not align with our values beyond that trauma. What we determine as a response as survivors is deeply contingent upon the impact of trauma, our circumstances, our communities, and those who harm us. But retribution and punishment will not be eradicated from our decision making if there aren’t more options to support survivors who’s harm-doer’s do not consent to transformation or when transformative justice just doesn’t apply.”

UN Peacekeepers Fathered Dozens Of Children In Haiti. The Women They Exploited Are Trying To Get Child Support. by Karla Zabluvdosky

“UN peacekeepers fathered dozens of children while they were stationed in Haiti between 2004 and 2017, often with women they were providing money and food to — behavior UN policy “strongly discouraged” because of the “inherently unequal power dynamics.” Initially deployed in response to a coup attempt and the ousting of former president Jean-Bertrand Aristide, their force grew following the catastrophic 2010 earthquake. But none stayed long, and when their rotations ended, they abandoned their babies, leaving behind a generation of children born into a nation struggling to rebuild, with limited access to food, schooling, and healthcare.”