monkey brain: a great height; stay back

human brain: Nice Spot For A Jomp

I'm so glad that y'all are so into Monkey Man and the badass hijra priestess army, but friendly reminder that hijra are NOT trans women. Hijra are their own distinct gender; trans women are women. India has both :)

This is really...weird to post if you yourself are not a trans woman or hijra, op. Many (I would even say most) hijra are women. So many of us use the term hijra women instead of just hijra to emphasise this point. A lot of the hijra identity (and other trans identities in India like Jogta/Jogtini, Aravani etc.) is tied to the arts and religion in a way that the modern term "trans" does not fully encompass or represent, but that doesn't mean that these non-secular (i can't find a better word rn) trans people are not. Well. Trans. Hijra, Aravani and other transfeminine people and women have been active in LGBT and esp. trans activism at the grassroots within India for the longest time. I'm Indian and trans myself and I'm really so tired of this constant third-gendering (and thus misgendering) of trans Indians. (Not to say that many trans people don't view themselves within the third gender framework, but that that term has done more harm than good in the practical sense.)

Here's an excellent thread by an Indian trans women tearing apart the seminal anthropological text that has cemented the idea of Hijra "third gender"ness for its racism, orientalism, and transmisogyny.

https://twitter.com/talia_bhatt/status/1779895088266592638?t=HKXcxNoIXgo0pgWcMR-mzQ&s=19

Hijras are primarily considered "third gender" (which is similar to many other culturally embedded trans women in the global south being seen as a third gender) because western anthropologists and later Indian anthropologists uncritically accepted the degendering and marginalization trans women experience as ontological evidence of a third gender which was later taken up by state policies.

This has been done by ignoring hijras for decades who have self identified as women and using transmisogynistic talking points such as a lack of their wombs making it impossible for them to be women, their forced prostitution and begging because of their exclusion from the formal economy as "cultural practices", and their experiences detailing how despite their wishes and efforts society refuses to see them as women as evidence that they are not women. The vast majority of hijras are women; they exist as women, they take HRT, they get their legal names changed, etc. Calling them a third gender is structural transmisogyny.

Vampire Crime!

You know Marius had little names picked out for them. This one’s Sextus and this one’s Marcus Graccus

Alternate title for Queen of the Damned was Marius and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day

I mean??

I don't mean to laugh, but it's just The Worst time for him. Like, the woman he's been engaging in Highly Intellectualized goddess worship with, rises up, says fuck this I'm Out. Then she destroys his house and leaves him under the ice for ten days. And in that time she further fucks with him by lighting anyone that goes to his aid on fire. And when he does finally get out its Pandora and fucking SANTINO of all people who are there seeing him at his most vulnerable and to top it all of his fiSH ARE DEAD?!???

New zine that's free for anyone to print and distribute! Read the whole thing at newlevant.com/COVIDzine or in the rest of this post.

the vampire almond

Some studies I made for a course I was taking on Renaissance art, particularly referencing Leonardo Da Vinci:)

This was a good practice for me to remind myself that I'm originally a traditional artist and have always been for most of my life haha

some sketches that never made into drawings

"Old Daniel comforting Armand hits different" -my partner

got so high I got scared and had to get out of the car to calm down and a coyote immediately sprinted out of the underbrush and stalked towards me

i was like ok im a little too high and immediately there were beasts.