At last, the second and final part of Are We the Baddies? + a few other thoughts!

are we the baddies? (yes)

In the first part of this writing, I introduced a collection of tropes that I’m referring to as the title of this newsletter edition. It’s been a particularly resonant trope for me this year, in part due to excellent examples I’ve encountered of it this year, but also in conjunction with how it weaves in with the political landscape as well as my personal life.

the political angle

The following meme gets at some of what I’m about to say:

As an American (especially a white one) in 2025, the question of “Are we the baddies?” is one I wish way more of my relatives would ask themselves. Sound bites like the “Department of War” and making the country “more lethal” are the more innocuous examples that sound like they could fit into the famous skit (sharing it again because I can). Couples taking wedding photos with machine guns, schools normalizing shooting drills, people getting snatched off the street just because their skin is brown and they were caught speaking Spanish…c’mon. This isn’t that hard of a self-reflection exercise.

But there are other baddies, too, though they are better hidden. People who say “this isn’t who we are as a country” come to mind. This is precisely who we are as a country, though: from the founding genocide of Indigenous peoples to chattel slavery to Jim Crow to the prison industrial complex, we are the bad guys. Those skull-loving guys in the Mitchell and Webb skit learned from the good ol’ U S of Eh?! and made it continental. Moreover, we’ve been in the era of speaking loudly and carrying several big sticks for many decades at this point, if you know what I mean.

(Connecting back to part one: if you would like a fantastical way of interacting with an analogous world, Blood over Bright Haven by ML Wang involves a society founded upon the destruction of Indigenous peoples, and the protagonist basically unlearns a lot of white feminism while grappling with the truth underlying the magic that she excels at.)

The word of the year for me has been “empire”. A lot of the artwork cited in part one wrestles with the concept of empire. Online you’ve probably heard discussion around how it took hundreds of years for the Roman Empire to fall, alongside speculation around this current starred and spangled empire. Those echo in my mind regularly, alongside ones regarding Project 1933.

the personal angle

I’ve already briefly alluded to the personal angle. A big struggle in my life involves communicating with people in my family of origin who are solidly celebratory of being baddies, so to speak. But that’s between my therapist and me (well, I guess I mentioned it last time, too; tis the season!)

What’s more interesting to discuss here, and what I hope to incorporate into artwork as I untangle it more in my mind, is how religion and cisheteronormativity fit into this particular flavor of baddie-ness. It’s well-established how conformity of gender and sexuality are arms of the culture wars fascists wage; there are many examples of that, like 1933 Germany (linked above, but also: think of the fate of Magnus Hirschfeld’s Institut für Sexualwissenschaft), the current American moment of trans panic and trad wives, etc.

I was raised in a very Catholic household with lots of rigidly defined rules and roles, and after a decade of actively un-learning a lot of the ways I was indoctrinated and purposefully kept from the wider world, I still catch myself thinking some deeply ingrained thought patterns based in shame, guilt, and punishment. Only by meeting people who grew up in cultures very different than mine, and then living abroad, did I begin to see how much bigger and more beautiful the world was than what I was taught. Only by encountering a wider variety of people was I able to see that I was not “intrinsically disordered”. The epiphany arc protagonists undergo in stories like The Good Place mirrors a lot of what I have been doing for years, and how painful those realizations can be.

ICYMI: Senses @ NoNo Collective

The opening night for Senses at NoNo Tattoo Collective was sensational! There was a nice crowd, and a few friends joined the fun. The lighting was terrible but here I am with one of my pieces:

There were several sensory experiences to enjoy: block printing, sticking your hand in a jar of beans, flash and temporary tattoos, perfumes and plants to smell, and snacks. I loved how much ceramic art was on display, too (some of that you can see in the photo below). If you haven’t seen the show yet, book an appointment before the end of January 2026!

Latest inspo

• I recently bought a ton of zines from Brown Recluse Zine Distro, which is a Bay Area-based, volunteer-run zine distributor for zines made by Black, Indigenous, and People of Color. The future of their collective is at risk due to lack of funding, so donate or buy some zines!

• I’ve been enjoying the human-made lo-fi tunes by Yellow Cherry Jam. If you watch them on YouTube, their videos feature an adorable golden retriever! There are videos of the dog growing up from a puppy to an adult dog over the course of the history of the channel 🥹