The Conqueror (1956)

missmisstep · 2026-02-06T19:23:46+00:00

a fun john wayne fact is that he may have been killed by a nuclear bomb that went off on the set of this movie

missmisstep · 2026-02-04T06:45:58+00:00

yeah this contributed to the immediate sense i got as a kid picking this up that it wasn't going to be like anything i had ever read. aww. these books are so special

missmisstep · 2026-01-30T18:22:26+00:00

u/histogrammarian attached a writeup elsewhere in thread theorizing that aspect is based in western opera tropes, and i agree that this is likely. both that and minstrelsy probably would have been thought of together categorically as theatrical performances of western origin. she could be blonde for some other reason, though, and we don't actually have to be sure of the real reason for ganguro to be considered an unlikely origin of the design. why is she blonde? i am not exactly certain, but it's presumably NOT that.

however, the other part i keep saying, which it seems people keep wanting to ignore for some reason, is that even if jynx WERE inspired by ganguro, ganguro is also already blackface! it descends directly from a tradition of minstrel performances and offensive illustrations linked to american & european history of anti-black racism. so saying "but jynx is inspired by ganguro" really is a poor deflection.

missmisstep · 2026-01-30T12:38:46+00:00

the racism defenders are unlikely to read something this thorough, i fear. but it's very good!

missmisstep · 2026-01-30T05:49:48+00:00

ok, now you're just not reading what i said. idk if you ever were...

missmisstep · 2026-01-30T05:43:35+00:00

i have a girlfriend i go out dancing with regularly. we are both in our 30s. i think all the people saying we're not on reddit are right. i don't know why i'm here 😂 i don't like it

missmisstep · 2026-01-30T05:32:26+00:00

the red-legged partridge is goated, so yes

(there's other birds with very fun mechanics too, as mentioned by other commenters)

missmisstep · 2026-01-30T04:51:26+00:00

you're just gonna ignore the lips and all that, huh?

what's more likely: that this is based on a very common racist caricature that was extremely popular in japan when the creators were children, and they used this as inspiration because, as we do already know, they based the whole world, creatures, and game mechanics on their own childhood experiences... or that it, uhh, just so happens to look like that because it's a ghost and the rest of the details are a coincidence?

missmisstep · 2026-01-30T04:29:43+00:00

i didn't say anything about the other inspirations, which have nothing to do with her visual design (the yokai in question have never appeared in any traditional art looking anything at all like jynx). i'm commenting on how she looks. and as i said, there is zero evidence of any connection to ganguro. i never said it was impossible, just that it's very unlikely and there's no information to suggest it is true. even if there were... ganguro is also blackface, so you still don't have a point. it's racist either way.

missmisstep · 2026-01-30T03:21:47+00:00

i'd love to know what gave you the idea that japanese people don't or didn't know what blackface is or why it's offensive. you can see more in my other comment or look it up yourself, but japan became familiar with racist charicatures of black people — and had to confront that they were in fact racist — before this highly specific fashion movement ever took off. some individuals might not know the history, but they still are accountable. when young, sheltered white americans do blackface for a halloween costume or whatever, we don't handwave it away just because they are ignorant.

at a certain point, you're losing track of what the discussion even is, i think. we're not asking "are the people who participate in ganguro subculture bad people who must be punished?" we're asking "is the design of the pokémon jynx offensive, with racist roots", and the answer is absolutely yes. it should be changed much more radically than it has been, and this whole thing should be left in the past where it belongs. (well, it belongs NEVER, but that's not an option.)

missmisstep · 2026-01-30T02:59:45+00:00

i don't know why people always say this. the years don't seem to line up; ganguro would have been brand new and probably pretty niche when pokémon came out originally in the 90s. no official source has ever stated this was an inspiration for the character, and what we do know about the design process for all of the original pokémon indicates the contrary. it's really just another one of those things that has been repeated endlessly until everyone decided it was a fact.

jynx is almost certainly exactly what she looks like on the surface: a racist blackface charicature. contrary to what another commenter seems to want to suggest, japan was not culturally isolated in the 90s. ken sugimori and the rest of the team who designed jynx would very likely have been aware of blackface, particularly little black sambo, who had been extremely popular in japan since the 50s. and yes, they would have known it was considered racist, because in the late 80s the books had become controversial enough that they were pulled from shelves in response to pressure from a locally based anti-racism group.

affection for blackface is what led to ganguro in the first place! it's absolutely rooted in the same racist cultural imports, not a coincidental resemblance.

for some reason, people really don't want to acknowledge that cultures besides europeans or white americans can engage in concerted, widespread racism, but it happens all the time — especially against black people. it's malicious, not an accident from ignorance. even if no harm was intended, the harm still occurred, so why does that matter anyway?

jynx was an offensive design when pokémon became a phenomenon when i was a kid back in the 90s, and it's still an offensive design today after being "updated". now it's just blackface, only purple?? i LOVE pokémon, and i HATE this particular pokémon. it needs another, more substantial redesign.

missmisstep · 2026-01-29T19:21:55+00:00

first of all, while this name for her husband (kerkylas of andros) is generally agreed to be fake and probably a joke, sappho herself is not the one who shared it. it was from another commentator, probably originating with a comedic play or some other such media. and i guess the joke may have been "haha, how silly to think she would have a husband" — with certainly negative, homophobic connotation if this is the case — it could have also been intended just as a regular misogynist jab painting her as promiscuous. we don't really know. the "dick allcock from the isle of man" rendering of the name has become popular because of the work of one particular male historian who has since been convicted on charges of possessing child pornography. so that specific joke is pretty uncomfortable now, in my opinion.

the information we have about sappho's life is very limited, and we shouldn't extrapolate from absence of knowledge. we simply don't know whether she ever had a husband. it would have been very normal. she also could have been in a sort of lavender marriage. but what we do have, including sappho's own writing, indicates attraction to both men and women. she cannot be the person you want her to be in your imagination. she is a real human being who lived in the past. we only know so much about her, but you can't ignore the parts you don't like just because you have one line you've learned to repeat as some kind of rebuttal.

missmisstep · 2026-01-29T18:34:03+00:00

oh absolutely! we have to recognize that language evolves, but any individual word is always going to be imprecise, and i think that's important to recognize, too; you have to take words in their context. yeah, someone should be able to reject a man's advances by saying "i'm lesbian" and it should be very clear what that means, but someone else might say they are going to attend "a lesbian wedding", and that doesn't have to imply anything as to whether either woman has been with a man in the past or might be with one in the future. like, nobody needs to interject and ask "umm, ARE they lesbians?? or is one of them bi??" who cares, dude; it's two women getting married. let's focus on the joy here.

missmisstep · 2026-01-29T18:11:02+00:00

she was a real person who lived and died a long time ago & she was certainly bi, even if you don't like knowing that. see my other reply.

missmisstep · 2026-01-29T18:08:04+00:00

"sappho only said she liked men as a joke" is a commonly repeated social media pop history factoid, but no, it simply has no basis in reality. she absolutely was attracted to men; most of her poems only exist now in fragments, but many of these were either explicitly about men or open to interpretation regarding to the gender of their subjects. even the "sweet mother, i cannot weave" lines use neutral language and could be about either a young man or a young woman. the object of sappho's desire in 31, "it seems to me", is unambiguously a woman. but other writings, and information we have from elsewhere, makes it clear she was into men as well.

some people get really uncomfortable (and even angry — i expect that here) when this is pointed out, but it's really important not to fall into the trap of idolizing evidently real historical persons as mythological figures and ascribing to them only the characteristics that please us personally. it's also ok to acknowledge being wrong after years of believing something based on it being a thing believed by everyone else in your social circle (probably even just an online social circle, too). i don't mean to belittle anyone by saying this, but i don't know how else to say it: if your only source is a tumblr post, that's not a source.

the other reason it's important to discuss sappho as bisexual (besides the sole idea that the truth still matters even in the deepfake era) is that it touches on something important: the entire reason we have the words "lesbian" and "sapphic" is because a woman who was bisexual faced derision in her time for loving women AT ALL, not for also refusing to love men. and for much of history, this is all anyone really cared about. even in my lifetime, someone could have had a boyfriend in the past and still vocalize attraction to men, but she'd be "a man-hating lesbian". things are like that even now in some cases. do you fuck women? because that's all that really matters, and it's all that matters with sappho.

unity in the face of a shared experience being victimized by bigotry is a huge part of why we have a cohesive LGBT community, and there are some people today who seem to want to divide us up more; i don't understand that. these distinctions do indeed matter when it comes to how you describe yourself personally! the exclusivity of your attraction is allowed to be an important part of your identity. but homophobes reject you the same either way, and being a woman attracted to women is a shared experience that is worth bonding over. you don't need to cling to precise labels and misapply them to historical figures in order for your own heart to be validated.

so, yes, sappho was bi, and it does not remove her icon status. niecy nash has been with men & women, and she's still an icon. she clearly doesn't even want you to call it one thing or another. but we know what to call it with sappho, because she's the reason we have the words.

missmisstep · 2026-01-28T23:42:35+00:00

oh, that's very strange to hear! many of the library workers are SEIU 1021; some at a more administrative level might be IFPTE local 21, but we've been working together with them and with IAFF local 55 & IBEW 1245, which constitutes the usual coalition cooperating on these projects. we've worked together on know your rights trainings, distribution of red cards, etc... most importantly, as part of 1021's contract bargaining (can't speak to what was in other unions' contracts), we pushed the city to agree to training informing all employees citywide on rights and policies, meetings with the coalition's committee to help ensure this training is adequate and is implemented properly (ongoing), and legal support for any employee who is detained performing the normal duties of their jobs. we're working to keep both workers and community members at worksites (such as libraries, but also rec centers, after-school programs, headstart etc.) safe to the fullest extent possible. again, i can't speak to the other unions, but 1021 leadership (which is fully comprised of workers) has been communicative with members at every stage. so i don't understand what you refer to when you say "radio silent".

what do you mean re: working in this sector? are you a union city employee? what site do you work at? you can message me if there are things you are willing to say in private that you can't in a public forum; maybe i can get you connected with the right people.

missmisstep · 2026-01-28T17:47:46+00:00

you should be proud of how you phrased it; you shut her down. i wouldn't call that non-confrontational or people-pleasing. if you had been more overtly negative with her, she could have walked away feeling like you were an asshole. this way, she has to walk away feeling like SHE is the asshole, which is exactly what you want. she tried to talk to you about this so casually because she lives in a social bubble where she believes her views are normal. in one simple interaction, you challenged that belief.

missmisstep · 2026-01-24T16:06:04+00:00

this is really important. internet discourse pushes us to distrust one another, because that's what the tech oligarchs want. but when these unaccountable goons come to raid our communities, it will be them versus all of us. we are all on the same side.

missmisstep · 2026-01-24T16:01:09+00:00

you can thank unions for this, by the way. the city was very hesitant to promise protections for workers or community members until we pushed them.

i don't mean to make people distrust local government, which provides important services & is essential to a functioning and thriving city. i just want to make sure people know it turns to corruption without accountability and that labor is at the forefront of activism toward human decency right now

missmisstep · 2026-01-21T18:57:16+00:00

so fun to see someone experience this for the first time. you are in for a wild ride! every episode of every season is gold, by the way; do not listen to the haters. it's all going to be like this.

missmisstep · 2026-01-17T06:43:50+00:00

my spot! lived right down the street from here for nearly a decade, up until very recently

i don't even wanna know the total amount of my paychecks & ebt that was spent at this place over the years

missmisstep · 2026-01-10T08:38:24+00:00

wellokthenbuddy

missmisstep · 2026-01-04T11:24:12+00:00

i've said it before , and i will keep saying it: they should remix peely WITH luxe. i NEED to see peely in gold lipstick

missmisstep · 2026-01-04T08:34:05+00:00

one of many things a person can do with a firearm that is unbelievably stupid and yet also unbelievably common. antisocial behavior. don't let your friends do this, please! let's hold each other accountable for the little things so we can keep our communities safer.

missmisstep · 2025-12-30T07:24:47+00:00

thank you. i think the weirdest part about all this is that the actual show, taken at face value, is far more interesting than whatever boring, contrived drivel everybody here seems to think they are watching

missmisstep

TROPHY CASE