Well… I mean… wouldn’t MOST of us betray God and country for kittens? I probably could sleep okay at night after staging a coup and putting a staff of cute, fluffy kittens in the White House. Our foreign policy meetings would improve *drastically,* at the very least.
“What’s that, President Fluffybritches? You say that the House of Representatives should convene for one hour each day to drag strings across the White House lawn? I’d say that’s both just and timely; I’ll have one of your aids draw up a first draft.”
google translate tells me that Maragda means emerald
in Catalonian. Catalonia set a record this week for being
the second shortest independent nation in history,
having been conquored by Spain in eight hours.
(Russian Democratic Federative Republic lasted six hours
in 1918, if i recall correctly and at my age i often don’t.)
ANY how, i suspect this building will be a crater by the
end of the day.
Don’t bet on that crater. This building has been around a while. If you recall, the Maragda Building is also where they had the mediation meeting with the machine union where we first met Violet Bee.
I really hope Tip isn’t permanently in a suit now. I’ve long seen Tip as nonbinary, especially since the part of the filename story that says, “He wasn’t sure about being a woman. He wasn’t sure about being a man, either, which was the whole problem.” It’s very hard to find people like me in the media, especially portrayed (more or less) positively and as a main character. I sometimes feel like I can either be myself, or I can be accepted, but I can’t have both, especially considering how many people see my very existence as a joke. I’ve always loved Tip for his bold determination to be himself, no matter what anyone else thought, and how well he succeeded despite everyone’s expectations. Now it seems like the story is saying that he’s better off pretending to be “normal”. This doesn’t seem like the kind of message Skin Horse would mean to send, so I’m waiting to see where this goes, but in the meantime, every time I read Skin Horse these days, I just feel sad.
Wait… what? Do you think being nonbinary hinges on the clothes you wear?
Not being able to wear the clothes you prefer because you no longer own said clothes is not a crisis of identity. It’s just an inconvenience of circumstance.
You missed my point pretty hard there. No, a person’s gender identity in no way hinges on the clothes they wear. It’s a matter of expressing himself. Many transgender people of all sorts have had to hide who they are and act “normal”, sometimes just to survive (literally, as in to avoid being murdered). There are many people who would prefer they stay that way. Tip has always been supremely confident about being himself, and I always felt it might be that confidence and genuineness that gave him his “superpower” of preternatural attractiveness. That’s why I find it so deeply troubling that hiding his true feelings and acting “normal” made his superpower *stronger*. It’s the implication that gender nonconforming people (like me and half my friends) are better off hiding who they are. It’s a reminder of how many people would prefer to pretend we don’t exist at all.
Tip wore a suit because he was playing to his audience. That’s it. End of story.
His powers weren’t stronger because he was cis-conformative. They were exactly as powerful as they always are. He normally just puts a lid on them and doesn’t run around at full power. This was a special case where he let them loose.
You could perhaps argue that he would have had less of an effect if he had gone in wearing a dress rather than a suit – but only because of the particular audience he was addressing.
When you go to court, you dress for court. If you dress incorrectly, people respond to that. If you want to make the strongest case possible, you dress in a way that isn’t going to startle or confuse people.
And it’s not just about gender norms – if a lawyer went to court in a gorilla costume, or if a defendent showed up in a clown suit, people would object to that, because it is seen as disruptive. Conformity isn’t always about patriarchal injustice, ya know.
You don’t get up on stage at a Heavy Metal concert dressed in a business suit. There’s a certain expectation of what someone in a metal band is supposed to look like, and if you don’t conform to that expectation to some degree, then you run the risk that you might not get taken very seriously.
Never worked for the postal service, but worked for several years in a lumberyard. Got bored one day, so we sat down and figured out that the guys out in the yard walked over 20 miles a day just loading customers’ vehicles and our own trucks, and putting stock away.
On the plus side, I always slept well at night, and I was in great shape without ever having to visit a gym. Now that I’m no longer working, well…..
She is paradoxically innocent. Sort of like the mad genius Imogene, who seems to be stuck in the early 1900s and gets flushed at seeing a man in an undershirt.
I wondered about that too, so I went back through Grillo Parlante- she drops an f-bomb and refers to herself as an attention slut, so I don’t think innocence is the issue.
Other possibilities: reference I don’t get, minced oath for comedic effect, Whimsy mind control.
Well, that would be the paradox. She’s seen and done enough to be able to say she’s “been around”, but she’s still clinging to her maidenhood. Recall she yelled at Jonah for trying to take pictures of her butt for their blog.
(and since most of Grillo Parlante was written by guest artists, I wouldn’t count her f-bomb as canon)
Oh, no! Not the luxury pedicure demo!
Are we sure this wasn’t a trap set for Tip?
Madam, what percentage of that kitten’s DNA is pit-viper, pray tell?
100%
The most evil hearts hide behind the most innocent faces. The Devil was once an archangel, remember.
Would that be “rescuing kittens from boiling in oil in hell”? See if they can save Sir Pounce.
Well… I mean… wouldn’t MOST of us betray God and country for kittens? I probably could sleep okay at night after staging a coup and putting a staff of cute, fluffy kittens in the White House. Our foreign policy meetings would improve *drastically,* at the very least.
God and country… kittens… yea, I think you have a point there. Kittens it is.
“What’s that, President Fluffybritches? You say that the House of Representatives should convene for one hour each day to drag strings across the White House lawn? I’d say that’s both just and timely; I’ll have one of your aids draw up a first draft.”
“Mew!”
Maragda…
Smaragdine…
Emerald?! Okay this is IT. Pay no attention to Mr. Green behind the curtain!
So far all I can find out is it’s slang for some kind of ganja cake. That’d be green, wouldn’t it?
Maragda is the Catalan word for Emerald.
google translate tells me that Maragda means emerald
in Catalonian. Catalonia set a record this week for being
the second shortest independent nation in history,
having been conquored by Spain in eight hours.
(Russian Democratic Federative Republic lasted six hours
in 1918, if i recall correctly and at my age i often don’t.)
ANY how, i suspect this building will be a crater by the
end of the day.
Don’t bet on that crater. This building has been around a while. If you recall, the Maragda Building is also where they had the mediation meeting with the machine union where we first met Violet Bee.
whoa! Nice callback, I’d forgotten all about that.
I mean the name, not the actual happenings, of course.
I thought the name sounded familiar.
That has to be the best coverup for a sinister company, noone’d get past the reception!
I really hope Tip isn’t permanently in a suit now. I’ve long seen Tip as nonbinary, especially since the part of the filename story that says, “He wasn’t sure about being a woman. He wasn’t sure about being a man, either, which was the whole problem.” It’s very hard to find people like me in the media, especially portrayed (more or less) positively and as a main character. I sometimes feel like I can either be myself, or I can be accepted, but I can’t have both, especially considering how many people see my very existence as a joke. I’ve always loved Tip for his bold determination to be himself, no matter what anyone else thought, and how well he succeeded despite everyone’s expectations. Now it seems like the story is saying that he’s better off pretending to be “normal”. This doesn’t seem like the kind of message Skin Horse would mean to send, so I’m waiting to see where this goes, but in the meantime, every time I read Skin Horse these days, I just feel sad.
Wait… what? Do you think being nonbinary hinges on the clothes you wear?
Not being able to wear the clothes you prefer because you no longer own said clothes is not a crisis of identity. It’s just an inconvenience of circumstance.
You missed my point pretty hard there. No, a person’s gender identity in no way hinges on the clothes they wear. It’s a matter of expressing himself. Many transgender people of all sorts have had to hide who they are and act “normal”, sometimes just to survive (literally, as in to avoid being murdered). There are many people who would prefer they stay that way. Tip has always been supremely confident about being himself, and I always felt it might be that confidence and genuineness that gave him his “superpower” of preternatural attractiveness. That’s why I find it so deeply troubling that hiding his true feelings and acting “normal” made his superpower *stronger*. It’s the implication that gender nonconforming people (like me and half my friends) are better off hiding who they are. It’s a reminder of how many people would prefer to pretend we don’t exist at all.
Tip wore a suit because he was playing to his audience. That’s it. End of story.
His powers weren’t stronger because he was cis-conformative. They were exactly as powerful as they always are. He normally just puts a lid on them and doesn’t run around at full power. This was a special case where he let them loose.
You could perhaps argue that he would have had less of an effect if he had gone in wearing a dress rather than a suit – but only because of the particular audience he was addressing.
When you go to court, you dress for court. If you dress incorrectly, people respond to that. If you want to make the strongest case possible, you dress in a way that isn’t going to startle or confuse people.
And it’s not just about gender norms – if a lawyer went to court in a gorilla costume, or if a defendent showed up in a clown suit, people would object to that, because it is seen as disruptive. Conformity isn’t always about patriarchal injustice, ya know.
You don’t get up on stage at a Heavy Metal concert dressed in a business suit. There’s a certain expectation of what someone in a metal band is supposed to look like, and if you don’t conform to that expectation to some degree, then you run the risk that you might not get taken very seriously.
Do all these gov’t agencies have a shoe/foot fetish? Excuse me while I put on my postal approved NB non-skid oxfords for work.
Speaking from twenty-nine and a fraction years as a postal clerk, I can tell you there aren’t any comfortable work shoes.
Preaching to the choir, brother.
Never worked for the postal service, but worked for several years in a lumberyard. Got bored one day, so we sat down and figured out that the guys out in the yard walked over 20 miles a day just loading customers’ vehicles and our own trucks, and putting stock away.
On the plus side, I always slept well at night, and I was in great shape without ever having to visit a gym. Now that I’m no longer working, well…..
You’d expect most government agencies to have a butt fetish, since they spend so much time sitting on them.
Of course, SH and A-Sig do spend quite a bit of time on their feet, so….
“Heckhole?”
She is paradoxically innocent. Sort of like the mad genius Imogene, who seems to be stuck in the early 1900s and gets flushed at seeing a man in an undershirt.
I wondered about that too, so I went back through Grillo Parlante- she drops an f-bomb and refers to herself as an attention slut, so I don’t think innocence is the issue.
Other possibilities: reference I don’t get, minced oath for comedic effect, Whimsy mind control.
Well, that would be the paradox. She’s seen and done enough to be able to say she’s “been around”, but she’s still clinging to her maidenhood. Recall she yelled at Jonah for trying to take pictures of her butt for their blog.
(and since most of Grillo Parlante was written by guest artists, I wouldn’t count her f-bomb as canon)
As far as I know, most of Grillo Parlante was drawn by guest artists, but written by Our Jeff. ICBW.
Well, then, we’ll have to ask Jeff to ring in and tell us whether her f-word was in his script, or if it was “artistic license”.
Maybe she’s putting on an impression for the benefit of the receptionist?
In that case I doubt she would be mentioning her tactical plan. >_>
I wonder if the Skin Horse staff have been struck with reality blindness, and if so what do they think they do for a living?