Annotated 49-12
FB: Meanwhile, Sepia T Campbell is wondering why all the crossword squares in the paper are black, because it’s just that kind of day.
GG = “Good game.”
I’m tagging the fourth-panel cameo as “Flo” here, although in this as in all her Guilded Age appearances, Flo had not yet taken the name. I do wonder about that issue sometimes—when it’s correct to label the past in terms of the present—though two factors guide me throughout these annotations: Flo’s a friend and I know her preferences, and we have enough trouble getting people to recognize trans identities in the present. Still, if anyone knows any resources to study on these matters of usage, I’d be obliged.
ICYMI, some of Taro’s core personality seems to live on in the Purplezerker he has become, which is now consuming everything, including its brethren, to become a truly unstoppable menace. That’s that can-do Iwatani spirit!
I clicked on “Tarozerker” to see if he’d been tagged in any previous strips, and discovered something weird. Somehow the annotated version of page 26 of this chapter got published early, and backdated to Jan. 1st, 2022.
Panel 3 is every gamer everywhere
Never registered to me that was Taro.
same here. Kinda thought it was just HR … but HR is now a giant eye, so that can’t be him, either. The Ultimate-Engine power source seems to not have impeded him in the slightest, I’d say. And it would seem that some personality traits *do* survive the transformation. In this case probably because some of Taro’s personality already had a huge amount of the “attitude” that differentiates an ordinary purplezerker from the person they used to be. Makes sense — although “kill thy brother” seems to have been the motto of more than one of those cultists in life, too, so it’s still weird that pretty much nobody else sticks out of the purplezerker mass at all, but Taro does, by a lot.
Not only this, there’s no hint that it should be and it doesn’t make sense that it is since HR is basically going Borg on everything.
I parsed it as an amalgam of all the guys hit by the blast. I see Taro’s eyes in there now, though.
As someone with a circle of transgender friends, I can offer this bit of advice: typically they prefer being referred to as their present selves, avoiding any possibility of deadnaming. Ideally, though, you should consult the relevant individual and ask what they prefer.
I had no idea that the all-consuming purple energy creature was supposed to be Taro. While fouir panels ago there was a sort-of-hint that Taro had been bitten and turned, at the time I saw that as energy beings dying under the light of the big bright whatever-it-is (looks further back) “the core?”.
Two panels back we see what I assumed to be HR-as-purple-god rising out of a … well … sea of purple, and I assumed that was him doing all the consuming, calling back to Saturn/Kronos.
They seemed to be enjoying that core-power very much.
Similar to how they really enjoyed seeing the nuke-shots earlier.
Don’t really have any resources on this, but as someone who discovered her own trans-ness fairly recently I’ve been somewhat active in a bunch of trans communities. As far as I’m aware most trans people consider it incredibly rude and, at times, even hurtful to bring up their old name, because it can trigger massive amounts of dysphoria, since it basically brings back memories of their time before their transition.. which often wasn’t the happiest time of their lives. So I’d say the way you did it was pretty much the right way to go about things.
There isn’t really a hard and fast rule, though, different people may have different thoughts on the matter (personally, for instance, I don’t have too many issues with my old name being used, although that may change in the future, as I get further along in my transition, I suspect). But if you’re not sure about what a person thinks and are unable to ask them about it, using their current name and gender identity is probably the most polite way to handle the situation.
Would Phil/Flo work in this specific context, or is any reference to the pre-trans name taboo?
Generally deadnaming someone (that is the term for someone’s name prior to coming out) is just something avoid full stop, unless the individual has specifically expressed that they want that name used for a specific context. Linneroy and Exeres’ comments clarify the why as well.
Cis person here, so take it for what it’s worth. The strong preference generally seems to be that deadnaming in public is to be avoided at all costs. Although personal preference is a thing and I can think of a couple of people who use their old name as a pen name, since they built their professional identities under that name and prefer momentary confusion over being unrecognizable in a professional setting.
From the start of this re-read, I’ve been most impressed with how continually — and apparently casually/naturally — you referred to Flo as Flo, when clearly that was not the case at the time of the writing. Obviously it required effort on your part, but it gave us Flo throughout, and I think that’s what any person would want: to be known by/as their preferred self. As a cis het white male I can say with confidence that it has NO bearing on my life how one wishes to be or who one wishes to love (as long as there’s consent in both directions, natch), so I strongly support your ongoing Floification of this story, even if the timeline gets confusing as a result. People can deal.