I wonder how extreme and ridiculous I could make the claims in a post about American public education and still have people on this website believe them.
We could make it a game. Two truths and a lie: public education edition.
first point: i checked the original japanese tweets. (the screenshots above are machine translation.) nowhere does ikuhara explicitly mention being trans, but the whole thing is worded a lot like a coming out post (this is likely part of a joke)
second point: it’s only march 31 in japan. these tweets were made late last night (march 30)
third point: ikuhara is a smart person and there’s no way they legally changed their name to bonsoir, if that’s what anyone was thinking.
unless i’m missing something here, i see two possibilities:
Ikuhara has changed their professional alias to Bonsoir Ikuhara and is being funny about it.
Ikuhara is making a random joke (as everyone has noted it is too early for april fools, but people are allowed to do funny things just because)
can’t imagine anyone would choose to actually come out as trans in such a bizarre and unclear way. i guess in the case of possibility 1 it’s possible the name change was inspired by Gender Things but who knows. (kunihiko being an undoubtably masculine name)
for what it’s worth, there doesn’t seem to be a consensus as to what’s going on among japanese commenters, either
actually, the more i think about it, the leas confident i am in my third point. ikuhara might just be that avant-garde. if there’s anyone who would willingly and unironically become Baltimore Maryland in real life, it’s ikuhara
first point: i checked the original japanese tweets. (the screenshots above are machine translation.) nowhere does ikuhara explicitly mention being trans, but the whole thing is worded a lot like a coming out post (this is likely part of a joke)
second point: it’s only march 31 in japan. these tweets were made late last night (march 30)
third point: ikuhara is a smart person and there’s no way they legally changed their name to bonsoir, if that’s what anyone was thinking.
unless i’m missing something here, i see two possibilities:
Ikuhara has changed their professional alias to Bonsoir Ikuhara and is being funny about it.
Ikuhara is making a random joke (as everyone has noted it is too early for april fools, but people are allowed to do funny things just because)
can’t imagine anyone would choose to actually come out as trans in such a bizarre and unclear way. i guess in the case of possibility 1 it’s possible the name change was inspired by Gender Things but who knows. (kunihiko being an undoubtably masculine name)
for what it’s worth, there doesn’t seem to be a consensus as to what’s going on among japanese commenters, either
Y’know, it comes to me that the Lesbian Space Atrocities subgenre that’s presently all the rage is in a lot of ways what the Sad (and Rabid) Puppies claimed to be looking for in SFF. Its novels tell big, momentous, operatic stories with highly competent protagonists, in contrast to the smaller and more personal stories the puppies were complaining about. While the genre’s premises about the way the world work are generally left-leaning, all the war, murder, byzantine court politics, and doomed love mean it’s not the sort of thing one can write off as “boring message fic.” (We’ll bracket the question of whether that was even a fair characterization of the things the puppies were criticizing, but one can certainly see how people would be more inclined to think that of If You Were a Dinosaur, My Love than Gideon the Ninth or The Traitor Baru Cormorant.) There are occasional formal innovations, but these novels emphasize plot and setting over literary devices, and they’re certainly not that bete noir of red-blooded puppies everywhere, experimental fiction.
For all that, I somehow can’t envision Vox Day or John C. Wright enjoying these sorts of novels, so probably there’s a certain smirking “be careful what you wish for” going on in my thought process here. Who knows, though, maybe the more open-minded of the authors involved in that whole thing are actually pleased to see them.
What are some examples of the Lesbian Space Atrocities subgenre? I tried searching but I turned up nothing.
Baru Cormorant is not in Space but it’s i think generally considered part of the genre (‘lesbians in dying empires’ is i think what people call it?). Machineries of Empire (ninefox gambit and sequels) is an example, The Locked Tomb might be
It’s a difficult subgenre to come up with a pithy name for, honestly. Lesbian Space Atrocities at least doubles as a good name for a punk band.
But the more helpful definition is something like
1. Genre fic deeply concerned with themes of imperialism, colonialism, the nature of political power and social oppression, etc. Does not hold back in depicting those things, either. 2. The protagonist generally has a conflicted relationship with the imperial power of the story, often empowered as its agent while oppressed or limited by sexuality, ethnicity, family, etc. 3. The protagonist is generally very competent at whatever they’re good at, and a complete travesty at wide swathes of the rest of their lives. 4. The protagonist is also almost always what you might call a ‘problematic fave’. In that some war crimes or cold-blooded betrayals or genocides usually get committed. 6. The settings of the books are generally very queer, either in terms of individual character or via societies with different family structures and/or views of sexuality. Sexism is also either just not a thing, or attenuated/different enough to not really pose significant obstacles to the protagonist. 7. Speaking of - for reasons I truly do not understand, if a book ticks all the other boxes, the protagonist will necessarily be a lesbian. I don’t make the rules, that’s just what happens.
Central examples
-Ninefox Gambit/Machinaries of Empire, by Yoon Ha Lee -The Traitor Baru Cormorant/Masquerade, by Seth Dickenson -The Unbroken, by C. L. Clarke
-A Memory Called Empire, by Arkady Martine
-The Stars Are Legion, by Kameron Hurley
Peripheral/arguable
-The Poppy War, R. F. Kuang -Gideon the Ninth/The Locked Tomb, by Tamsyn Muir -Monstress (comic), by
Marjorie Liu
and
Sana Takeda
-Ancillary Justice/Imperial Raadch, by Anne Leckie
I’m sure I’m missing plenty, though. @sendme-2hell I think I remember you posting a book that would probably fit a bit back, though I’m blanking on what it was?
(Also, I’m going to assume ‘sad/rabid puppies’ assumes to some group of angry fans?)
That is very interesting!
I would say that other than the ones you mentioned the following might fit as well:
-The Jasmine Throne
-She Who Became The Sun
-Foundryside (except I wouldn’t say the main character is a problematic fav bc she’s not that problematic)
-The Space Between Worlds
Also maybe the Murderbot books, though MB isn’t a lesbian
I think Seth Dickinson’s “Morrigan” series of novellas is another example of this (although iirc the protagonist is bi, not a lesbian). It’s available for free at Clarkesworld here (part 1) and here (part 2)
She made her first kill during the fall of Jupiter, covering Third Fleet’s retreat. Sometimes rookies fall apart after their first, eaten up by guilt. Laporte’s seen this. But the cry-scream-puke cycle never hits her, even though she’s been afraid of her own compassion, even though her callsign was almost Flower Girl.
Instead she feels high.
There’s an Ubuntu counselor waiting on the Solaris, prepared to debrief and support pilots with post-kill trauma. She waves him away. Twenty years of Ubuntu education, cherish all life hammered into the metal of her. All meaningless, all wasted.
That high says: born killer.
I…did not know Seth had written anything but Baru, short stories, and Destiny Lore.
- The Worldbreaker Saga by Kameron Hurley also ticks basically all these boxes as well
This is How You Lose the Time War also fits all of those criteria iirc
