Tag: Queer

Pokemon Go Queermunity Day, Washington, DC, National Zoo

September’s Geeks OUT’s Pokemon Go Queermunity Day is going to be another zoo, at the National Zoo! Come get some fresh air, play your fave mobile game with other queer nerds and allies, and participate in a scavenger hunt at the Zoo!

Chikorita is the featured Pokemon this month. Keep an eye out for Chikorita in the tall grass, walkways, and animal pens!

INSTRUCTIONS:
The scavenger hunt sheet will have a list of clues for animal statues in the park. You’re tasked with using the AR camera to photograph Chikorita with each of the statues! We will draw the completed clue sheets at the entrance at 5pm for prizes! Including “Serving Pride: The Queer History Dinner Party Handbook” https://www.geeksout.org/serving-pride/
AND a two tickets to Ropeburn 2: Guardians of Equality, presented by Gay Men’s Chorus of Washington DC and Geeks OUT!
You can find more information on Rope Burn 2 here: https://www.facebook.com/events/2051965538149735/

Find Ben and/or Molly just inside the Smithsonian National Zoo Main entrance on Connecticut Ave, and collect your Scavenger Hunt sheet. You can group up to complete the hunt together, small groups, or solo! It’s up to you!

We will stay at the entrance until 2:15pm before going hunting ourselves, so Message us if you arrive late or get separated. We will also post the clue sheet on the Facebook event page at 2:15pm so you can still play, and find us at 5pm when the drawing begins!

The Zoo has lots of places to cool and refuel over 3 hours. Be sure to save your Raid Pass, as we’ll likely do a group raid.

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The Last of Us Part II Trailer Is a Big F*cking Deal

Everyone was excited to see what new information we’d get about the Last of Us Part II at E3, and I was certainly not disappointed. Yes, we didn’t get a release date, but what we got will hopefully sustain us until the game actually comes out.

 

 

In the game play shown at the conference we got to see that indeed we’ll get to play as Ellie, who’s looking as queer as ever. And that’s not all! We don’t have to worry about the game shirking away from her sexuality, because we got a kissing scene in the first few minutes of the trailer! The way they transitioned from the kiss to game play and then back was absolutely fabulous and stunning, but there was a queer kiss! In a trailer for one of the most anticipated games! In front of a large in-person and online audience. During Pride Month! It doesn’t get much better than that, folks.

 

https://giphy.com/gifs/sony-e3-2018-the-last-of-us-2-1hMjJkdat9kGwopBBf

 

Seriously, I could stare at that GIF forever and it would never be enough. The kiss was so tender and adorable and sexy and it’s beautiful. The motion capture work that Naughty Dog uses for this game is truly astonishing and most definitely pays off in super queer ways.

 

The Last of Us Part II changes the game. If you want to play one of the probably hottest games (of hopefully 2019—please, Naughty Dog?) you have to play as a queer woman. Dude bros who are mad at the very idea of female inclusion in the video game are made to play as a Ellie. And more importantly, queer female gamers get to play as a character who reflects a part of their identity. Getting to smash zombies or weird cultists or Fireflies as a queer woman is going to be so much more satisfying.

 

It’s going to be very interesting to see where Ellie and her story leads. Will we get to see more of her and her dance partner throughout the game? And where does Joel fit into all of this? We definitely have time to speculate, but for now I think it’s important to reveal in the fact that a major video game developer showcased their game with a big gay kiss at one of the biggest conferences in the industry.

 

In a world where we’re often silenced, it’s nice to have a little reprieve in which we’re the main character in an epic story. We’re here, we’re queer, we’re in your video games. Get used to it.

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Interview: Mariko Tamaki

Mariko Tamaki is an artist and writer of mixed Japanese Canadian and Jewish Canadian descent, known for her graphic novels Skim and This One Summer (co-created with her cousin Jillian Tamaki). Recurring themes in her work include becoming, identity, and queerness. Since 2016, she’s been writing for both DC and Marvel  on comics like She-Hulk and Supergirl: Being Super, and her English language translation of the queer coming-of-age story Luisa: Now and Then (by French writer and illustrator Carole Maurel) was released today by Humanoids. This August, she’ll be joining Geeks OUT as a special guest at Flame Con, so we wanted to get to know her a bit better before then!

 

For several years, you’ve collaborated with your cousin, artist Jillian Tamaki, on books like Skim and This One Summer. What is the creative process like for you working with family? Are there any challenges that are unique to working with a familial relation?

 

I imagine pretty much all collaborations have unique elements. There is a part of our connection that is familial, in that we have very similar senses of humor, I think, and some very Tamaki sensibilities.  Mostly I, certainly, have always trusted Jillian to do her thing (which she does exceptionally well) and mostly our publisher has let us do things the way we need to do them, so that’s awesome.

 

Throughout much of your career, queerness has been a prominent (or at least recurring) theme of your work. As a queer woman yourself, how much of your own experiences do you incorporate into your fiction writing?

 

I’m not sure sometimes if I default to a queer experience because I am queer or if it is because I specifically want to see more queer content out there.  I think it’s always a little bit of both.  I try not to overthink it.  I try to write the story I want to write and see how that pans out.  Definitely if I am writing something that feels completely straight, I’ll sew some queerness in there, because queerness is always there. It’s like when you’re writing a cityscape, you need to write in the characters that would be there.  To me, not doing that is more of a choice.

 

My first introduction to your work was Skim, the graphic novel about a young girl named Kimberly Keiko Cameron, set against themes of first love, mental illness, and suicide. What was the creative inspiration behind this work?

 

I just pictured this character one day who had a broken arm because she had tripped over a candleholder that was part of her Wiccan altar.  I was sitting on the bus and I just had that image so clearly I was like, “I bet that’s a book.” Once I started writing it everything sort of just fell into place. I’d always wanted to use my experience in a private all girls school for something, so this seemed like that place to do it.

 

There’s a recurring theme in your stories of characters coming-of-age stories. Why do you gravitated toward this particular narrative?

 

I don’t necessarily mean to write “coming-of-age” stories. I am interested in the mechanics, the experiences, that go into the things we take for granted, like identity, like being a girl or boy or neither, like being smart or funny.  All that stuff.  We are all always becoming the things we are.  That doesn’t stop when you turn 20, but it’s incredibly potent when you’re a teenager.  And potency makes for good stories.  So there you are.

 

What is the most significant way your more personal work differs from your work on comics like She-Hulk?

 

Generally, until I wrote She-Hulk, very few of my characters were green or grey. Also, writing for superhero comics, you’re writing into a world, you’’re writing against the backdrop of a genre, which is sort of always there no matter what you’re writing.  So it affects what you write in a myriad of little ways.  It’s a challenge, but it’s a good challenge.  I want my mainstream comics work to feel like it’s coming from me, but I also want it to be a part of the larger whole of mainstream comics.

 

Do you have any favorite queer authors or books you can recommend?

 

Right now I’m recommending Emil Ferris’s My Favorite Thing is Monsters.  I know Maurice Vellekoop is working on a graphic memoir to that will be published by Pantheon Books.  I have seen bits of it and it is amazing.  I loved Molly Ostertag’s Witch Boy and I’m thoroughly enjoying Moonstuck series by Grace Ellis and Shae Beagle.  I could go on.

 

Do you have any new ideas or projects for us to look forward to?

 

I have a book coming out in 2019 with Rosemary Valero-O’Connell called Laura Dean Keeps Breaking Up with Me.  I’m working with Juan Cabal on X-23 for Marvel.  I have a Harley Quinn graphic novel with DC Ink with Steve Pugh called Harley Quinn: Breaking Glass.  My third book with Abrams for our Lumberjanes series with Brooklyn Allen is called The Good Egg and I am so excited for people to read it.  And I’m currently writing a YA murder mystery, but I’m not sure what the title will be yet, so look out for that.

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Review: The Black Tides of Heaven

 

The Black Tides of Heaven by nonbinary queer Singaporean writer JY Yang is an impressive feat of both subtly and depth. While fantasy isn’t usually known for its brevity, Yang manages to deliver a richly textured world packed with fascinating characters in a single 236-page novella. Thankfully, this is the first of three  in the Tensorate series.

 

The story focuses on the twins Akeha and Mokoya, and spans 35 years from beginning to end. Akeha and Mokoya are the children of the Protector, a ruthless matriarch who rules her Protectorate through intimidation and bloodshed. The plot begins to take shape when Mokoya has a series of prophetic visions, which prompts their mother to try to use her child’s gift to her own advantage. While both twins are featured heavily in the early chapters, the narrative is driven primarily by Akeha’s journey. With all the attention on Mokoya, Akeha eventually flees their mother’s protectorate to forge his own path.

 

One of the most fascinating details of this world that Yang has created is that children are not assigned genders at birth. We see this play out in a number of unique ways throughout the story. Some children choose very young, others wait until much later, and others still choose to remain somewhere in between. Both Akeha and Mokoya, for instance, each use gender neutral pronouns for the first two parts of the book.  The cultural norm is to recognize gender as something that comes from within, and that in and of itself is a beautiful thing.

 

Beyond its fluid beliefs on gender, the society within the Protectorate suffers from massive wealth inequality. The greatest source of power in this world is the Slack, which draws its energy from different parts of nature. The way people wield this power is reminiscent of the Force in Star Wars, but as the story goes on, Yang gives a sense that it’s much more complex than an energy that binds the universe together. While most secrets of the Slack are kept secret by the Tensors, they are facing an uprising from the resistant Mechanists. The seeds of this war are sewn in the early chapters and gradually take route throughout the story.

 

Although the book is short, the story itself is large and expansive. The details are intricate yet never overwhelming.  Yang has managed to bring to life a vivid world by only showing us exactly what we need to see. Lucky for us, there are two more novellas after this one: The Red Threads of Fortune and The Descent of Monsters, coming in July from Tor.

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The Dynamic Queer Characters of Bone Street Rumba

“I first discovered Daniel José Older when he appeared on the excellent When Toxic Masculinity is a Villain panel at Readercon in 2015. I was inspired enough to immediately to pick up my own copy of Half-Resurrection Blues and started reading it on my way home. One of the most satisfying elements of the series is its consistent inclusion and thoughtful execution of some truly badass queer characters. With the final installment released in January–and news that the series has been optioned by Anika Noni Rose–it seemed like the right time to take a closer look at his Bone Street Rumba series and highlight some of the excellent queerness within.

The narrative of all three novels and one shorty story collection features a rotating cast of characters. Some of them are living, some of them are dead, and some of them are in-between. Almost all of them are people of color, and numerous characters fall all over the LGBT spectrum. The setting is Brooklyn, but not the part of Brooklyn most living folk can see. The sprawling narrative initially centers on the half-dead protagonist Carlos Delacruz and his missions for the Council of the Dead, then the second book changes things up by adding the points of view for both Kia Summers and Reza Villalobos. Throughout all of it, Older has his finger on the pulse of each of his characters. He knows what makes each of them tick, and translates their uniqueness and vibrancy beautifully on the page. And it’s his talent for doing this that makes the series so compelling.

Half-Resurrection Blues is the first book of the series chronologically, though it was written after most of the stories in Salsa Nocturna. The story moves at a lightning-quick pace. The only point-of-view character is the half-dead Carlos Delacruz, who has no memory of his life before his death. The book sets up a nice vibe reminiscent of classic X-Files; with with our protagonists working as investigators for the nefarious and untrustworthy Council of the Dead. The most prominent queer character is Baba Eddie Machado, the owner of Baba Eddie’s Botanica who is described as a “consummate santero extraordinaire.” As one of the living characters in the book, he is able to see and interact with the dead. He is also an expert on spiritual matters and plays a pivotal role in keeping Carlos half-alive. His sexuality is indicated by the presence of his husband, Russell, and is but one aspect of his radiant and powerful presence throughout the series. When you’re dealing with an ancient, half-dead sorcerer who literally wants to open the gates of hell, Baba Eddie is a good ally to have on your side.

Midnight Taxi Tango is my favorite of the series. Call it Bone Street’s Empire Strikes Back. Carlos is still a protagonist, but we also get the addition of Kia Summers (who appears on the cover) and Reza Villalobos as POV characters. While Kia herself is not initially presented as a queer character, her missing (and initially presumed dead) cousin Gio is. As Gio’s story is told, at first through Kia’s memories and then his own words, he becomes an integral part of the story. Kia remembers her older cousin as an passionate, anime-loving ballet dancer. After witnessing his high school crush get abducted by demons with pink cockroaches for skin, he disappeared. Seven years later, Gio returns with disturbing news: the roach demons are back and they want him and Kia dead.

Then there’s Reza. Reza works as a muscle protecting sex workers for the illegal side business of a legitimate of a car service in Brooklyn. When the book opens, she is dealing with fresh grief over the mysterious disappearance of her partner Angie. After Angie’s death is confirmed and linked to the same pink roach demons, Reza’s story quickly becomes intertwined with that of Kia, Gio, and Carlos. One factor distinguishing her from her co-protagonists, Reza’s story is one of revenge. She’s been through some shit, and has survived by following a simple philosophy: never be out-gunned. I absolutely loved every Reza chapter, and would strongly advocate for her to get her own spin-off series.

Originally published before Half-Resurrection Blues, Salsa Nocturna has since been reprinted with two new stories. All of these are set between books two and three of the trilogy. The majority of the stories center around Carlos and Gordo, but there are plenty of exceptions (including Reza’s “Date Night”). In the book’s preface, Older recalls a phone call with his editor Kay Holt where she called the book out for being a damn sausage party, after which he got his shit together. This thankfully gave us Krys, a mohawk-sporting phantom who works for the Council of the Dead and caries a rocket-launcher named Greta. She is the central character in the queer themed stories “Magdalena” and “Victory Music,” and goes on to become a POV character in Battle Hill Bolero. While the stories in this collection don’t seem to fit together with the larger narrative at first, they are enjoyable on their own and gradually begin setting the stage for the looming showdown in the final novel.

Battle Hill Bolero features a sprawling narrative as things finally come to a head between the corrupt Council of the Dead and the Resistance. Carlos continues to be the main POV character, but is joined this time by Sasha Brass (a mainstay from book one), Caitlin Fern (introduced in book two, and our first villain perspective), and Krys. Like all of the other books, the action starts right on page one and never slows down. As tensions heat up, Krys is introduced to Redd, a former slave whose soul was released from captivity in the Salsa Nocturna story “Red Feather and Bone.” Through context and an awkward conversation, it is revealed that Redd was not born a man. This was done tastefully and, through the failings of one character, provides a great lesson on what questions not to ask and the overall complexities of gender. As the war rages on, Krys and Redd grow closer, and it’s beautiful to see two ghosts who died young finding one another after death.

Even though the book series has concluded, it still has a lot of promise for an adaptation. We need more queer characters in our shows and movies; specifically characters that aren’t desexualized and don’t devolve into tokenism. There also needs to be better representation of people of color within queer themes and stories. Bone Street Rumba is present and unapologetic on both of these fronts. The noir, urban fantasy world lends itself to some terrifying and beautiful imagery. Some smart casting could give these already vibrant characters a whole new life (no pun intended). The genre of fantasy is more popular now than ever, and it is past time to bring some much needed diversityinto the fray.”