Feminism, like all religions, is a minefield. It means so many different things to so many different people that I have a hard time figuring out of it means anything. Other than everyone getting mad all the time.
My sister is a teacher, or a guidance counselor or something, I forget exactly what boring job she does something with kids, and she’s asked me to come speak to her little girls about being a high-powered business lady. I’ve never done it because I don’t like kids and also what am I going to say to them? If you eat enough shit and tolerate enough casual misogyny eventually they’ll run out of less qualified men to promote over you and you’ll be kicked up a level to be ignored and condescended to by a different group of even older more regressive fat gasbags? That’s not very inspiring.
That barely has anything to do with anything but it came to mind because I was thinking about how every few years some maybe feminists, maybe Russian trolls, really go after Barbie. It’s always the same article about how if Barbie was a real person she’d be nine feet tall and her feet would be so little she couldn’t stand up and her waist would be the size of a dime and her boobs would have their own gravity well. Take that patriarchy!
The woman filling up the doorway in front of me had no trouble standing so fas as I could see and she was more than a little Barbie-esque. I knew going into the Avara pitch that was going to be a battle. Live action you’re limited by the constraints of human women, enhanced by CGI, but still there are limits. With animation there’s nothing to keep these guys from going full nineteen ninety-six Lola Bunny. I did the best that I could to make the Avara design more Linda Carter-Gal Gadot, you know an impossibly gorgeous real woman, than an impossible comic book woman, but there were compromises.
The woman standing before more than anything convinced me that since it wasn’t a dream or a joke, that I had simply lost my mind. No one has skin that flawless. You can’t be six foot four inches tall and be petite and be curvaceous and be athletic and be demure and be slutty. You can’t. That’s not reality.
I swung my legs out of bed, finally catching up to the fact that I was wearing a fucking nightgown. A nightgown, who wears a nightgown?
“So it’s a psychotic break then? Can’t say I didn’t come by it deservedly.”
She giggled girlishly, still nuzzling the revolting watermelon cucumber monster in her arms “What are you talking about sweet Ela? What does psychotic mean?”
“It means I probably shouldn’t be talking to you since you’re not real” I looked around “Is there some kind of shit bucket around here or how does it work? Why do I have to piss so badly in my own delusion?”
A serious look came onto her perfectly symmetrical face and she put down the gross green potato creature where it rubbed against her legs like a cat until I tried to kick it away and it scampered back to hide behind her.
“Do not worry sweet Ela, I promise you that I am the real Avara. I am not one of the Shadow Weaver’s illusions or one of Duke Eaglevane’s simulacra.” She took my hand in hers and her skin was so soft and smooth that I wanted to punch her in the face. She was also looming over me in a way I wasn’t accustomed to. Maybe she’s even taller than six four.
I pulled my hand out of hers, sort of slapping hers away in the process “That’s very comforting. I read a thing online about what you’re supposed to do if you’re having a mental breakdown. All I remember is that you’re supposed to call a doctor though. How do I do that when I’m this delusional?” I touched my bloody scalp “And why does it hurt so much? Does that mean I banged my head in the real world? I wonder where I am.”
“Oh” her hand flew to her perfect mouth “you’re injured sweet Ela! What has transpired in the night?!”
I opened the shutters of the window to look out at the funky vaguely solarpunk-esque fake medieval village below “A night goblin attacked me, nasty little fucker too, but I managed to slay him with the Scared Dagger of Zmei Gorenichi. What happened in the Fisher King? How did Robin Williams get out of his hallucinatory state with the Red Knight? Some kids stabbed him? Is that what happened?”
She dashed out the door as swiftly as a sexy cheetah, the revolting little puffball monster right at her heels “I’ll fetch Daeva to see to your wounds sweet Ela! Have no fear!”
I was considering hanging ass out the window to do my business, it’s not real anyway so who cares “Oh right, the healer character, I wanted to call her Caduceua but they made me call her Daeva. I hate that name. Sure, let’s get her in here.”
