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lais-a-ramos · 4 years

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On Lovecraft Country and the way the narrative presents queerness

"No masters or kings when the ritual begins

There is no sweeter innocence than our gentle sin

In the madness and soil of that sad earthly scene

Only then I am human

Only then I am clean"

Hozier, Take Me to Church

oh, boy...

i knew some of these deaths could happen in the finale, but i definetely wasn't prepared for any of this, wow.

i guess that, with the events of the finale, including atticus' death, there really is no point in getting the show renewed for a season 2, as as i hoped and wished before, because all of the conflicts that were set up were resolved. i mean, there's always the possibility of using time-travel to do a retcon and bring all the dead characters back, or, at least, two of the protagonists and the villain, but, maybe it would take too many alterations in the narrative, because it seems like the whole thing was planned for a mini-series.

so, now, all we have left is to do a breakdown of what worked and what didn't in lovecraft country's limited series run.

i think that, overall, the message of black ppl taking back the power of ancestry that was stripped from them by white supremacy and structural racism was well-done, and the symbolism was very well-crafted in the final takedown of the season's main villain, which was a representation of how the racism based on indifference born out of white privilege is almost as bad as the racism based on pure hate and despise, which is a valid message, considering the former is a bystander to the abuses and rise to power of the latter.

although i still find the timing was poorly chosen because, well, as of now, all over the world, it's not white ppl who dub themselves "liberal" or "progressive" and claim themselves to not be racist but refuse to act anti-racist that present an actual threat to our human rights, but literal, actual fascists and neo nazis...there are bigger fish to fry now...

but i digress...

on the final score, i guess that when it comes to queer/LGBTQ+ representation, the show fell actually felt real short for a product that crafted so well the race issues, proving that there is still a lot to go before we get to see intersecting identities being portrayed in media the same compex way they exist in the real world.

no, lovecraft country is not guilty of queerbaiting, unlike some of the same ppl in fandom that are the firsts to either erase the half of a couple that is a BIPOC or to deny a canon cis het biracial ship to hype up a fanon white wlw ship and other problematic stuff plenty of times in LGBTQ+ fandom spaces might say.

but that doesn't mean that the treatment of LGBTQ+ issues was satisfying or can be considered good rep, and it actually repeats some of the same tired tropes about queerness and blackness.

while we can say that the show did a relatively good job with montrose as an individual, the same can't be said of the other characters and the final messages.

like, for example, introducing a trans/non-binary indigenous, the Arawak two-spirt Yahima, only to kill them on the next episode was insensitive, to say the least.

while it's true that misha green apologized for the mistake, and said she and the writers tried to make a point that even oppressed groups are capable of oppression, the final score was that a trans/non-binary character was introduced as a plot-device and brutally murdered before having even a chance to properly develop.

in other words, used as a prop.

in a world in which trans ppl are brutally murdered at alarming rates, and most of the victims are BIPOC trans ppl, that is something that we can't let it slide just because the general message of the show was good for cis het black ppl.

the same can be said on the treatment of sammy in the narrative.

while it's true that montrose being aggressive and acting the way he did, pushing ppl he cared about away and shunning every chance of vulnerability due to internalized homophobia, toxic masculinity and misogyny, as this very interesting critique by amani marie hamed of nerdist pointed out, his characterization nonetheless falls into the same old stereotype in american culture of accusing black ppl of falling behind when it comes to queer acceptance and associating black masculinity with homophobia.

also, the author of the article says it better, but, overall, sammy's existence ends up being just another plot device, serving to say to the audience that the producers and writers know that queer ppl existed in the 50's, but, at the same time, repeating some of the same tropes as usual, like associating being queer with being clandestine and deviant instead of showing it as a natural thing that was perceived as deviant at the time, as we can see by that scene of sammy having a sexual encounter in the alley behind his bar.

the author even mentions that queer ppl overall had houses, and most of the encounters actually happened there, and that scene reinforces the idea that queerness is inherently animalistic.

the article also points out how sammy is mostly there just to be shutted out, first by montrose and latter even atticus, and, ends up being another prop to lift montrose to deuteragonist status, being rejected and abused by montrose solely to highlight tic's father journey with his personal issues that apparently he simply wrapped up in a span of 2 episodes.

the fact that sammy was a also a more feminine gay man, even participating in ball culture as a drag queen, and yet most of his appearences involved him being degraded or shut out or overall mistreated by montrose, even tic, and that scene in which atticus forgives montrose after he revealed he never acted on his homosexuality and cheated on tic's mom, even though it's implied she did cheat on him with his brother george, just reinforces the idea it's ok for black and brown men to be gay, as long as they are not THAT GAY™️.

the introduction of thomas in episode 1x09 only to be murdered in the riots is another example of how queerness seem to come with a price in this show if you act on it.

once again, a gay character was introduced in the narrative to further montrose's pain and trauma.

and his introduction was absolutely not necessary, because being a survivor of a massacre like the tulsa riots and a survivor of parental physical abuse is already was already enough for making tic and the audience begin to emphatize with montrose's pain, there was no need to kill another queer character just for that.

not to say we should agree with everything the nerdist article says, of course.

at times, it felt like the author was saying that addressing these issues in the black community is a problem on itself, and that is definetely not the solution.

but, when we consider the setting of a limited series with a plot-driven approach to the scripts, the way the topic is addressed ends up being superficial and rushed, and what could have been a delicate approach to a complicated man discovering his sexuality if the show was an on-going series, ends up being just a narrative built to put montrose in the spotlight in an attempt of getting a few emmy nominations for outstanding performances, and that's about it.

now, what really serves to cement the LGBTQ+/queer representation in lovecrat country as a disservice is the treatment of ruby, christina and their relationship.

i did a few metas explaining christina's and ruby's characterizations, including one i posted before the finale started explaining why ruby was so important to queer black and feminine-aligned nbs being a dark-skinned fat black queer woman discovering her sexuality and figuring out there was more to life than the social roles that were pushed into her, and how the parallels between her and christina, two different women separated by race and class but with the common feeling of being interrupted by social restraints that binded them, were a way for a character like ruby to be treated by the narrative the same way white women get to be treated in fantasy stories, as someone worthy of being courted and romanced as a light-skinned and thin black woman like her sister leti.

but with that finale, and the way the whole thing played out, with not only christina and ruby dead, but also with christina killing ruby, felt, ironically, like the very same trope that's been the norm for queer characters for a long time.

if we consider the tropes of the genre the show and the source material draw inspiration from, pulp fiction magazines, a medium that was very popular until the rise of the cinema and TV in the 50's and 60's that also served as an inspiration for them, then we know that in this medium some of the harmful tropes about queerness that exist until this day were particularly prevalent, including that of the queercoded villains.

to talk about this, i'm going to refer to this amazing article by tricia ennis on the history of queercoding for syfy wire.

first, a definition:

"queer coding, much as the name suggests, refers to a process by which characters in a piece of fictional media seem — or code — queer. this is usually determined by a series of characteristics that are traditionally associated with queerness, such as more effeminate presentations by male characters or more masculine ones from female characters. these characters seem somehow less than straight, and so we associate those characters with queerness — even if their sexual orientation is never a part of their story."

between the hays code in cinema going from 1934 to 1968, the comics code authority in the comics industry from 1954 to the early 21st century (with dc comics and archie comics being the last to break with it in 2011, mind you), the code of practices for television broadcasting from 1952 to 1983 and its predecessor for radio NAB code of ethics, the authors all over mass media couldn't approach the topic of queerness and portray openly and proud queer characters under the risk of being persecuted by the censors, and so, begin to hide queer chracters under the disguise of subtext.

and given the content creators couldn't show any form of positive queer/LGBTQ+ representation under the risk of being punished by the censors, the alternative they found was to portray the queer characters as the villains or antagonists or degenerates, and punish them with death.

the syfy wire article says it better than i ever could:

"even dangerous LGBTQ tropes rose out of this time period, as the depictions of pulp noir femme fatales and other deadly women rose in popularity. these women were usually written as promiscuous and sexually devious, both with men and sometimes with women. they were also evil and usually met their end as a result of their sins. While depictions of LGBTQ characters were frowned upon, depictions of them in this specifically negative light were not. you were not endorsing an “alternative lifestyle” if your gay characters always met an untimely demise. Instead, they were merely paying for their poor choices. this trope would eventually give way to what we now refer to as 'Bury Your Gays.' "

and the thing is, all those censorship laws are over by now, but the tropes/clichés that arised on that era are still prevalent in pop culture 'till this day, consumed by the audiences and reproduced by content creators, in the industry or in fan spaces, whether they are aware of said trope/clichés or not.

now, that is where ruby, christina and their affair on the show enter.

to explain how problematic and harmful the way these characters have been portrayed is, and what kind of message it sends about black queerness, i first have to explain christina's function on the story.

christina, as a character, was basically the texbook pulp noir femme-fatale, checking most of the boxes of the tv tropes description of the trope, from the "red equals evil and sin" imagery to being a wild card, that character who changes sides according to their own desires and individualistic goals.

in her specific case, helping the white supremacists and the black heroes alike in her pursue for unlimited power to protect herself from the oppression that comes with being a white woman, particularly a wealthy one, in which the very same presumption of innocence that gives them privilege over BIPOC is used to infantilize them and strip them from their agency, putting their bodies and choices under the tutelage of cis het white men.

so, her function on the show was basically to manipulate the characters on the two sides alike.

and that is where the problems in queer representation come in, because, to manipulate them, she acts as a sensual seductress.

and what does the script uses to highlight that this is a character willing to go to the most immoral places to achieve her goals? it makes christina a sexually fluid and gender fluid character.

that is basically playing a move straight from the hays code era.

not only does the show plays christina's sexual and gender fluidity as her being "freaky" and a proof of her deviant nature, but it makes her seduction of ruby as a central part of the scheme that positions her as the main villain of the show.

this portrayal of christina as a textbook femme-fatale with a touch of white feminism is already very problematic on its own, especially when we consider her death and how brutal it was, because, yes, while it's true she is privileged because she is white and wealthy, she is still a woman and a queer one at that, and giving her the same traditional treatment for femme-fatales in pulp fiction ends up reinforcing harmful stereotypes about gender and sexuality.

but, when we consider what it means for ruby as a character, it gets WAY worse.

ruby is a character that's been shown to feel very frustrated about the ways in which societal structures of power interfere in her life, not only on a professional level, but even on a personal level as well, making her feel "interrupted".

dealing with the same issues that all black women and feminine-aligned nbs who don't fit into the eurocentric standards of femininity and of beauty do, and not matching the criteria for being hypersexualized by society as the black women considered conventionally pretty -- with thin bodies like the white women or hourglass body frames, being light-skinned and so on --, ruby has her humanity stripped from her because everyone expects her to be stronger than it's humanly possible.

everyone seems to expect something of her at home, her younger sister took advantage of her money for years, and not only all of her goals in the professional realm seem to be frustrated by social structures of oppression, but even her relationship goals as well, given that most of the men that she gets involved with, whether they are black or white, seem to believe they have the right to abandon her and treat her like trash because she doesn't feel a thing and is "strong" enough.

ruby feels frustrated and tired, and she has every single right to do so, because, as what happens to most black women and feminine-aligned nbs, she is disrespected and disregarded by everyone, white and black alike.

so, when christina comes in with an offer of improving ruby's life with magic, of course she takes the opportunity.

and it seemed like the show was willing to deal with the moral complexities of christina's shapeshifting potion and validating ruby's feelings, or at least, sort of validating.

but, by killing her at the end, it just played out as if ruby's feelings meant she was merely a traitor to the race, and not a woman who was tired of feeling frustrated with all of these impossible obstacles society sets for black women and feminine-aligned nbs, especially dark-skinned and fat ones like her, and justified in her anger and frustration.

she did everything right and accomplished nothing, and, when she finally decided to rebel and focus on herself for a change, she met her demise.

but that is just the tip of iceberg, really.

what makes this situation with ruby so frustrating is the fact that, when the show presented christina's queerness as another sign she was "on the wrong side of the tracks" and a villian that should be defeated by the black heroes, which consist in a family, the narrative is implying that a person has to choose between their queerness, on one side, and their blackness and community on the other.

of course, one might argue that the fact montrose was turned into a gay man himself in the adaptation prevents this from happening. but, when we consider montrose was forgiven by tic only after reinforcing he never did cheated on dora and acted on his queerness and lived his gayness, when he really had every single right to do so, especially because it's implied dora slept with his brother george and the three of them knew she was just montrose's beard, then we have the message that it's ok to be queer as long as you don't act on your queerness at all.

there is a part in the review for nerdist that i mentioned above, in which the author says that one of the book's best qualities was that "the source material also illustrates the importance of family and community ties between Black protagonists", and that the TV show ruins it when it "introduces abuse, alcoholism, and family dysfunction, and strips Black characters of their own magic."

that is a part of the article, published in october 14 2020, that now no longer makes sense after the finale, because that message is there.

but, the actual problem is that the ideas of family and community shouldn't be taken for granted bc they are always under political dispute, and are oftenly used to reinforce backward messages when it comes to gender and sexuality, serving as a tool for the control of the bodies and authonomy of ppl of various marginalized groups and intersecctions, including women, BIPOC and queer ppl alike.

while these things are not inherently good or bad, and they are also part of the culture and identity for plenty of BIPOC ethnical identities, the concepts of family and community are usually weaponized by conservatives and used to justify things like queerphobia and the restrictions over reproductive rights.

queer ppl in all walks of life and skin colors all over the world have to deal with plenty of conflicts about coming out because, by deciding to live their own truth, they can never know for sure whether coming out will put them at odds with their families and community until they dare to do so.

so, ruby's dillemma for not knowing what to choose, her family or a life with christina, plays out as the type of experience queer ppl have to deal on a daily basis, and when we consider the intersection with race/ethnicity, it gets even more cruel because our gender identities and sexual/romantic/aesthetic orientations, that are natural parts of us, make us being invisibilized and silenced in our own cultures and feel like we have to give up on our own communities in order to be able to live our queerness.

there are few things more gut-wrenching than that feeling of fear that you might be disowned by your family and relatives and your community -- whether is it a neighbourhood, a village, a small town etc -- because a part of yourself is considered at odds with your heritage.

and when we consider all the christian imagery in the show, the final result is a really troubling one.

while it's true that being christian and believing in god doesn't authomatically makes anyone a bigot (i actually still retain some of the beliefs i was raised into as a catholic latin-american), it's also true that now, more than ever, we can't ignore science, including history.

the entire way in which they referred to magic as a devil's work was very troubling and evocates the same discriminative rethoric that white european colonizers used to justify the destruction of the ancient old religions and beliefs of BIPOC in their own homeland, the ancient culture of our ancestors, and also the oppression of peasant women in europe.

while we can't generalize, given each culture had its own particularities, there's an agreement in the scientific community that, overall, the cultures of the first nations and indigenous folks from the american continent, the african continent, the asian continent and oceania/pacific islands were far more accepting of different manifestations of queerness.

that means that queerphobia was part of the colonial project, once the traditional family values of christianity were used as a tool for the white colonizers to regulate the bodies and sexuality of the colonized and keep them under control.

and that is why the association of these ideals of family and community as inherent to blackness ends up being problematic, because we can't discuss racism without discussing colonization, and we can't discuss colonization without considering the ways in which queerphobia and religion were used as tools of colonial oppression.

the worst part is that, when it comes to ruby, the producers and writers really didn't need to do kill her at all.

and while the show did right in not showing how christina killed ruby, sparing the audience from watching another black body being brutalized, it's also true they didn't have to kill the character to get her out of the way from the final confrontation between christina and tic's family.

they literally went and changed her background from her book counterpart and made the woman a musician, and a blueswoman at that.

all they needed was to have her share a goodbye scene with christina the same way she had with leti, saying that she wanted to be with christina but couldn't fight her family and friends like that, grab a copy from the safe travel negro guide and set off in a bus to travel all over the U.S., singing very sad blues songs about falling in love with a white devil once.

that's all the producers and writers needed, to use the "sent in a bus" trope.

but the choice was to portray ruby as a character facing the consequences of following her desires , which ends up feeling like a punishment for a dark-skinned and fat queer black woman for daring to question the position society has placed her because of who she is.

this is in no way an attempt to "cancel" the producers or the writers, because a) their work is still important as a team of mostly black creators and b) canceling doesn't seem to have significant consequences, and seems to lead only to more social media wars than anything else.

but now that it finally seems diversity is getting more space in media, this type of discussion gets more important.

there is a slow increase on more representation of queer/LGBTQ+ characters in media and more productions involving queer/LGBTQ+ creatives, but, most of the time, the characters and are white, or, when there are biracial couples, the characters of color are just token minorities, and the same happens with the creatives involved in the production.

there is a slow increase in BIPOC characters representation in media and more productions involving BIPOC as creatives, but, most of the time, the characters are cis heterosexual, and the same happens with the creatives involved in the production.

but, for pop culture and media to be truly diverse, there has to be more space for the narratives of ppl that exist and belong to the two groups to raise our voices and be heard, whether is it in the entertainment industry, society at large or even in fandom spaces.

because she shouldn't be forced to pick between one identity over the other.

our existences shouldn't be interrupted just because society doesn't know how to deal with them.

and if that make us sinners, then so be it.

#lovecraft country #ruby baptiste #christina braithwhite #ruby x christina #rubtina #rutina #montrose freeman #lgbtqiap+#lgbtq representation #queer representation #poc representation #woc representation #moc representation #black women representation #representation in media #representation in fiction #tv representation #it's ok for non-BIPOC queer folks to reblog #and it's ok for non-queer BIPOC folks to reblog

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grendelsmilf · 3 years

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re ur post about suffering = goodness. i see a lot of people who try to justify their virtue by listing all the ways they r oppressed,,, i mean like this one pro shipper who tried to justify themself saying they were queer and brown like. ok? that in itself doesn’t make you a good person or your cause a good cause lol. but also while ofc suffering = virtue is a bad equivalence, i do find myself trusting marginalised ppl more. like at face value without knowing anything else if i had to pick i’d probably take a brown woman over a white man simply because i’d hope her experience w oppression would make her less likely to be a bigot herself. so i recognise it’s flawed logic but in a way i do equate oppression w virtue and. im not sure how to word this exactly i feel like people who have suffered/been oppressed aren’t good people just by virtue of having suffered , but it does make them more /likely/ to be kinder . not sure where im going w this but yeah lol

no yeah exactly i get what u mean. like i do sort of implicitly trust brown women over white men, but idk if that’s because i think they’re more virtuous per se, just maybe more likely to empathize w me / my experiences, which is different than being virtuous. but yes, absolutely. that mentality of, how can i be a bad person if i am a minority??? how can i be racist if im gay??? how can a mouse be a kia sorento??? like, girl, where’s the correlation!!!!!

#ask #anon #o

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the-kiwi-is-not-a-pewee · 4 years

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Emmy.

This is a callout post about discord user emmy, known for now as @eurydices-flower on tumblr, and her nasty behavior regarding her joining and then leaving a specific Riordanverse fan discord server. I don’t usually make callout posts but this needs to be addressed since she has vagueposted about my friends and been rude to them over DMs. I don’t believe she should be allowed to run around and make accusations, especially with people not able to find part of the story due to it being over private messages. So, with the permission of the friend whom she sent DMs to, I will outline her brief stay in the server and the aftermath.

It’s time you heard our side of the story.

Emmy (which is how I will be referring to her for the duration of this post), joined the Trials of Apollo (ToA) server on July 6th, 2020.

For the sake of chronicling how we know that she is also @eurydices-flower on tumblr, she says as much in her self-introduction in the #introduction channel of the server.

Emmy was in the server for less than 24 hours, before leaving voluntarily with seemingly no explanation. Naturally, we were confused and one of our own reached out to emmy on her tumblr blog to ask why she left. I blacked out the profile picture and url of my friend’s blog for the sake of their own privacy.

Let us go over this, piece by piece.

“yeah i’m alright i just realized constant negativity wasn’t rlly my game at the moment and i don’t necessarily have the headspace to ever deal with that.”

That is fair, she is encouraged to look after herself and her own mental state first. If she felt like leaving was the best course of action to take for the sake of herself, then she should not be judged for that. And it’d be perfectly fine if she left it at that! But, of course, I wouldn’t be making this post if she did.

“everyone’s entitled to be everyones own opinion but to bash other people you don’t even know for having opinions was too much for me to handle. a lot of those blogs are good friends of mine and it truly is disrespectful to harp on anyone for having different opinions but go around and spread negativity when others don’t agree with with that opinion.”

Regarding the first part, “everyone’s entitled to be everyones own opinion but to bash other people you don’t even know for having opinions was too much for me to handle”, there’s nothing wrong with this statement as it is on the surface-level. She is expressing that she personally does not want to partake in that particular kind of discourse. That is fine, she is not obligated to in any way, shape, or form. Though I do have a comment or three about the statement before we move on.

She could have muted the specific channel where that kind of discourse was taking place, which as far as I’m aware she never did. The ToA server has 2 specific channels for pjo discourse because members were uncomfortable with it being spread sporadically throughout the server, thus those two channels were made to contain discourse. If she was truly made uncomfortable by what she stated, she could have rectified that problem herself instead of leaving. But, after all, it was her choice to make in the end.

“but to bash other people you don’t even know for having opinions was too much for me to handle”Uh, welcome to tumblr Emmy? I don’t know if Emmy meticulously vets her tumblr experience so that she literally never encounters people bashing other people they don’t even know for their opinions, but it makes it a rather ironic statement considering tumblr’s reputation and that she has a tumblr blog. Heck, it’s not even unique to tumblr, it’s more of a social media thing. I can only postulate that maybe it made her more uncomfortable in a more confined and private space like a discord server, but I cannot be sure. Given she joined at the height of the Ace! Reyna discourse and the “opinions” she’s referring to are likely the aphobic rhetoric spouted by people who were astonishingly upset that Reyna was not a lesbian, I personally am rather uncomfortable that she dumbed it down as if it were merely “having an opinion” and not an attempt to invalidate ace representation in a mainstream media book series just because they were upset that they hadn’t gotten exactly what they wanted.

She retrospectively made herself a hypocrite. I’ll put a pin in this for now and we’ll come back to it.

“A lot of those blogs are good friends of mine and it truly is disrespectful to harp on anyone for having different opinions but go around and spread negativity when others don’t agree with that opinion.”

There’s quite a bit to unpack here just in this one sentence. First of all, no one in the server knew she was acquainted with any of the blogs we were discoursing about. She never stated such at any point prior to this point. We didn’t know, and thus we could not even consider accommodating her before she left in this regard.

I’ve already expressed my own views on her dumbing down people spouting aphobic rhetoric to them merely having “different opinions”, but the server was not “spreading negativity” unless you define “negativity” as calling out people for their aphobic rhetoric and frankly disrespectful treatment of Reyna as a character as a whole. It’s not as beautiful and simple as “others don’t agree with that opinion” when said opinion promotes aphobia and tries to claim that lesbian Reyna somehow cannot peacefully coexist with asexual Reyna.

“I mean no disrespect to anyone in that server when saying that or this but i just truly hope you all emotionally grow as people one day and learn to be more respectful <3 <3”

This… whole line has the basic energy of “No offense but *proceeds to say something offensive*”. Emmy basically went, “I mean no disrespect but *proceeds to say something disrespectful*”. It’s especially rude that she told us that she hopes we “all emotionally grow as people one day and learn to be more respectful <3 <3” when she was the one that came into the server in the first place. Furthermore none of us owe our respect to the people that got so mad over a fictional character not being exactly what they wanted that they have to belittle and attempt to downplay ace representation. It’s not Emmy’s place to tell us to “emotionally grow” and “learn to be more respectful”, especially when in the aftermath she doesn’t put her money where her mouth is.

“Blacked out user: Ah I see. If I may ask, what differing opinion were you being bashed for?

Emmy: not me personally but to see the rr crit circus chat (Note: one of the discourse channels) filled with other people doing it to people not even IN the chat was what bugged me”

Has emmy never been in a discord server with a discourse channel? This is a legitimate question, because this is not behavior unique to the ToA server. All of the servers I’ve seen with channels specifically for discourse have done this. This isn’t some kind of uniquely shitty thing that the ToA server does that we should be morally ashamed of, especially when something similar goes on with people on tumblr posting screenshots of tweets.

“but also when i entered and said i didn’t have opinions on litpollo or medea and i was immediately kinda made fun of for it didn’t make me feel good, as well as saying i was ace and ppl going “oMG the LESBOPhObIa. again i hope y’all just grow emotionally and mentally <3”

Here’s what happened (different colored bars mean different users):

Now, despite the fact that the “r u human” in response to Emmy saying she doesn’t ship litpollo and the “i bet u r not ace u r just LESBWEEN CODED” are jokes, I do understand why those statements made Emmy uncomfortable. Emmy was a newcomer and not acclimated to the sense of humor of the server and to basically shove her the butt end of it was not fair to her. The latter joke especially would be difficult to swallow if Emmy didn’t know that an inside joke of the server at the time was mocking the people who insisted that making Reyna ace was a lesophobic act on Rick’s part despite Trials of Apollo as a series having three lesbian major characters (Emmie, Jo, and Lavinia).

In simple terms, I agree with my friend’s reply and the apology they gave on the server’s behalf. Emmy did deserve that apology. Doesn’t make the “i hope y’all just grow emotionally and mentally <3” any less rude or unwarranted though.

As far as any of us were aware, this was the end of it. Emmy was a bit rude but we had our closure and as far as any of us knew the ToA server and Emmy had parted ways. And then this happened.

This post has since been deleted by Emmy herself, but before it disappeared it was archived by myself and other friends reblogging to respond to it.

It doesn’t name myself or any of my friends directly, but since we were quite vocal about calling people out for their aphobia when Reyna was revealed to be ace, it is assumed we were the target of the post or are at least part of the group that is the target for the post. If it is indeed the former it seems Emmy is vagueposting about us. Even if it’s not specifically about us, it’s not a good look for Emmy. Let’s parse this apart.

“funny how the people yelling aphobia when it came to Reyna were dead silent today when Rick went on twitter and was blatantly racist and disrespectful”

There’s several reasons why people weren’t addressing Rick’s tweets that day. Some of us don’t use twitter/don’t follow Rick on twitter. Some of us don’t check the #rickriordan tag or other tags like it. Some of us have other main fandoms that are not pjo. Some of us don’t follow blogs that reblogged the tweets and the responses to the tweets, or hadn’t reblogged them yet. Some of us might want to first watch the responses to the tweets because we are not Cherokee, Muslim, or educated enough about those topics beforehand and not dig ourselves into a hole. Just saying, just because we didn’t give an immediate response doesn’t mean we didn’t care.

“funny how they only care about representation when it applies to them and them alone”

Does Emmy know that plenty of non-ace people were defending ace Reyna? If she wants an example, I’m a bisexual woman and I’ve been vocal in my defense of ace Reyna. So her logic that “they only cared when the rep applied to them and them alone” falls apart.

“funny how they only cared Reyna was ace because it gave them the opportunity to harrass the lesbians who were hurting”

I don’t condone harassment but calling them out for their aphobic behavior was not harassment. They couldn’t express their hurt without belittling asexual representation and lacking so much self-awareness that they couldn’t realize how aphobic they were being. I’m sorry that they don’t have my respect for that- actually, you know what, I’m not sorry for it. They literally chained themselves to the concept of Lesbian Reyna and would not accept anything else, that’s their own fault. Just because you’re hurt doesn’t give you the excuse to be an asshole to other LGBTQ+ people that did get representation.

"it’s almost,,, almost like you don’t actually care about these characters or color! that you just want the opportunity to clown and be bullies and abusive”

This is a very rich statement considering those “hurting lesbians” she referred to didn’t care about Reyna as a character. They only cared about Lesbian Reyna and nothing else. Some of them mixed up ace and aro showing stunning ignorance on the difference between asexuality and aromance. And now they’re playing victim because they got called out.

“if you want marginalized groups like asexuals to be represented, where’s your energy for pipers representation and characterization? samirah? where’d it go?”

Heroes of Olympus has been out for years. There have already been posts on tumblr before detailing the flaws in how Rick wrote Samirah and Piper, it’s not a new phenomenon. It just had a resurgence recently. Heroes of Olympus is old news so it’s not as fresh and hot as it was when it first came out so of course while discussions over the representation in it are still going on it has mostly calmed down until recently.

“i see you. i’m watching you. you said nothing. not a single word. not even a messy reblog of one (1) post about piper or sam. dead. Silence.”

Emmy gets a little creepy here and slightly stalkery. She doesn’t like us yet she’s watching our blogs? I guess the Blog Police is here. If you don’t reblog discourse posts about how Samirah and Piper were represented you’ll be arrested and pegged as a racist.

No one is obligated to reblog posts about Samirah and Piper. It’s not reflective of their feelings towards Piper and Sam. it’s THEIR blog and they are not obligated to reblog what others want them to. I hate to break it to Emmy but she can’t force people to reblog the stuff she wants to see.

“i don’t care if you think you ‘shouldn’t have a voice in this’ bc ur white or smth. there’s a difference between spreading posts about this terrible situation and trying to butt in with ‘i’m white but here’s my opinion’“

And here we finally circle back to the retroactive hypocrite point I put a pin in earlier. Here’s a refresher: “everyone’s entitled to be everyones own opinion but to bash other people you don’t even know for having opinions was too much for me to handle. a lot of those blogs are good friends of mine and it truly is disrespectful to harp on anyone for having different opinions but go around and spread negativity when others don’t agree with with that opinion.”

And yet she bashes people she doesn’t know and spreads negativity for… possibly having a different opinion than the ones going around right now or not interacting with it for their own personal reasons. Also not everyone who didn’t immediately jump on the Samirah/Piper rep analysis reblogs were white. Assuming people are white will eventually bite you on the ass.

After that post, she continued vagueposting on her own blog.

I seriously doubt she was sent an anonymous death threat because a friend of mine checked her account earlier that same morning she made that post and the Anon feature was turned off. Then, in the evening, she posted about having an Anonymous death threat sent to her without any proof. I’m not saying it’s not possible nor do I condone death threats, but I do have reason to disbelieve her.

IF she is still referring to her brief stay in the ToA server as that “scenario”, then she neglects to say that she did not tell anyone that she was uncomfortable until after she left. We are not mindreaders, we cannot tell when every single person we talk to is uncomfortable. So it can at least partially be held against you, Emmy, for a failure to communicate with us.

And finally, the straw that broke the camel’s back for me.

This DM was sent to a friend of mine, the same friend that reached out to Emmy following her departure from the ToA server. I can only assume that the post she is referring to is the one I covered earlier, prior to the “anon death threat” post. Let’s parse through this again.

“hi love! i noticed you unfollowed me around the time i made my post calling you and other’s silence on piper and samirahs blatant mistreatment today.”

Wow, you know what, scratch what I said earlier about assuming that the post was directed at me and my friends, Emmy basically confirmed it from her own mouth. Nice to get the ambiguity out of the way right off the bat. Also she’s seriously DMing my friend just because they unfollowed her? And assuming it was because of the post? She can’t definitively connect the two dots but if that was indeed the reason my friend unfollowed her I certainly can’t blame them. Especially given that this was Emmy’s response.

“i hope you realize you’re blatantly racist and just all around a terrible person for harping on the wlw community for being upset about their bad representationk because you had ace representation but don’t use the same energy for the people hurting that they don’t have native or muslim representation.”

It’s spelled “representation”, Emmy. Also the pjo wlw community was upset that REYNA was NOT a LESBIAN, not that they had bad representation. That was their whole salt. As a wlw myself, being upset about bad representation doesn’t give you an excuse to put down ace representation which a lot of them were doing. They have THREE lesbian characters in Rick’s books so far.

Also I thought the issue Emmy took with us was that we weren’t reblogging posts breaking down Rick’s tweets or pointing out the flaws in Samirah and Piper’s portrayal in the books. And now she’s talking about posting about people hurting because they don’t have Native American or Muslim representation? Which is it Emmy, you are sending mixed signals.

“i hope you educate yourself and realize you and the entire community that kept their silence are truly acting terrible right now. thank you.”

This is… extremely rich coming from the asexual who implied she has aphobic friends. I hope she educates her friends and realizes her and the entire community who bashed the choice to make Reyna asexual are truly acting terrible right now. Though given how she put the wlw on a pedestal and turned a blind eye to how aphobic they were acting I don’t have hope. The hypocrisy when she says that my friend is “truly acting terrible right now” when my friend dared to just unfollow her.

And that is how I will close this. She is still posting about the server on her own blog but that is everything major that has happened so far. On behalf of my friend, don’t harass emmy or send her death threats. I may not respect her, but I certainly don’t condone harassment or death threats.

She is only 15, according to her own blog, but it does not excuse her behavior towards my friends. Being a minor doesn’t exclude you from being a shitty person.

#pjo #percy jackson #rick riordan #rickriordan #discourse #emmy discourse #callout

37 notes · View notes

the-lightning-strikes-again · 4 years

Note

Hey Lightning, I was wondering if I could get your thoughts on something. One take that seems to keep returning every once in a while is the "Allura fell for Lotor only after he revealed his Altean heritage," but I know u and others have disproven this many times, which does reassure me. While I love Allura, I definitely think one of her weaknesses was her devotion to Altea and singing Alfor's praises, which sometimes became too much. At the same time, it bothers me when I see some ppl (1/?)

Continuing anon message: “ say that she thought Alteans were superior to all other races, and that when the colony plot twist happened, she became repulsed by Lotor's Galra side, which is why she rejected him. For them, that's why she forced violent memories onto an uncorrupted Zarkon, but somehow "saw the good/redeemed" Honerva, the Altean. I can kind of understand where they're coming from, but for me, it just didn't make sense that Allura suddenly had a change of heart considering for most of s8, she was angry and dead set on going after Honerva. Even with that, I think to a lot of her fans, s8 made Allura so ooc that she became unrecognizable, which hurt to watch. I guess for me it's hard seeing antis and people who don't like her claim that that's just how she is and has always been. Haha sorry for rambling, but I'd love to hear your thoughts on this, since your arguments ease my mind on a lot of things when it comes to Allura :)”

Hi, anon. Wow, thanks for your extended note! I don’t know anywhere in canon that Allura champions Alteans as a superior race. The definition of racial supremacy is a belief that inherent genetic differences between races determine cultural or individual achievement, with social/governmental policies championing intolerance of other races. To get Allura to fit into such a label:

1. A viewer has to ignore or undermine all the evidence available about who the main-universe Alteans really were before main-universe Zarkon’s massacre of them.

2. A viewer has to ignore or undermine how Allura actually responds to a variety of different races in the show, including her own.

So let’s start with issue one. To support an “Allura was a racial supremacist” opinion, a lot of antis (and even non-militant, average viewers) are favorable to the opinion that Alteans as a group, including Alfor, were actually evil and violent colonizer elitists before Galrans killed them off. In other words, they question Altean victimhood, and this allows the militant antis to poison and undermine scenes of a woman mourning her home and her beloved family. And it just gets to be a really unsettling conversation, to listen to someone actually try to justify genocide. They’ll also have suspicions that all of our foundational backstory in the s3 finale was just “cleansed” propaganda from Coran. So if antis can undermine Allura’s entire race and family as corrupt, then they can intentionally undermine any of her canonical statements about or efforts toward peace. Which is hilarious, because this racist tactic applied to Allura is actually what a lot of antis accuse Allura of doing with Lotor.

For the record, I don’t think the show production team actually intended the subliminal messaging/cognitive dissonance that I’m about to discuss. The people who designed and developed this show are fans of robot kitties and aren’t PhDs in social issues. But I think there is a very serious issue about the portrayal of genocide victims that feeds into some very real problems in our world, especially regarding the concept of racial supremacy and conspiracy theories about genocide victims.

VLD tried to play with both genocide politics for edge™ points while ALSO playing with shatterglass theory (shatterglass meaning an AU where the heroes are villains and villains are heroes). Combining these two concepts into the same universe creates some incredibly disturbing subliminal messaging about Alteans that very closely mimics ongoing neo-Nazi propaganda against Jews. Nazis and other anti-Semitists justify their hatred of Jews by equating them as terrible villains out for world domination via some underhanded shadow control of the mass populace. It’s an incredibly malicious form of propaganda, because it works so terribly well. And what do you know, VLD plays right into this kind of propaganda. In the season 3 episode, Hole in the Sky, we’re faced with team Voltron confronting an Altean Empire that was actually evil and out for multiverse domination. And oh by the way, they’re using malicious shadow tech to control a mass populace.

It’s like someone on the production team read the Protocols of the Elders of Zion and then just copied/pasted that incredibly damaging and widely accepted conspiracy theory right onto Alteans for s3 funsies because edge content.

This is incredibly punishing, for the narrative to wave the carrot stick in front of genocide survivors that maybe some others survived—and then to suggest that Alteans were the evil ones all along. A shatterglass twist worked very well in Captain Marvel (2019) for a lot of reasons, for example, but it just doesn’t work well in the VLD universe given that the show explicitly portrays the genocide victims as evil and validates this concept. And this episode unfortunately feeds ongoing cognitive dissonance in antis that if AU Alteans could be so evil…how certain are you that they aren’t in the main universe too? On the reverse side, the main-universe goes out of its way to portray that not all Galrans are evil, and even that Galrans were the primary resistance (BOM). But in this singular episode, we see a united Altean empire. And the only Altean who moves to stand against it once the shine wears off…is Allura. There is no AU Altean actually shown in the Guns of Gamara. So Allura stands alone as an Altean against her own people.

For this reason, this episode doesn’t function very well as a shatterglass AU either, because the moral “flip” isn’t a mirror balance to main universe. The Alteans of the AU world appear as fully united in their evil plans. And then, no doubt, anti-alluras point out other quirky things about main-universe Alteans throughout the show—the violent language-learning system that scares Pidge, and the ancient Altean terraforming technology that Haggar activates, and the fact that Oriande is a hidden place that keeps out the less magical with a violent guardian. These details, when removed from main-universe world building, create a cognitive dissonance about whether main-universe Allura and Alteans were actually genuine in how they depicted respectful “peace and diplomacy.” So anti alluras who believe Allura was a racial supremacist really rely on this s3 episode and these details to uphold their conspiracy theory.

So let’s focus on Allura in this episode, because it says a lot about who she ultimately is as a person, and people have forgotten how she actually responded in this episode. Allura is unquestionably hopeful at the thought that her and Coran might not be the last Alteans alive. Pretty understandable. If I were the last human, I’d be darn excited to find out there’s more of me left, lol. So her experience as a genocide victim initially blinds her to the evilness of these Alteans. You can even see the ache on her face, of how badly she wants to believe their narrative of peace.

So Allura is initially star-struck that she and Coran are not the last Alteans, yes, and that somehow they’ve achieved a “peace.” She is also not afraid to admit that they would be valuable allies in the war:

And she’s not wrong there, considering that they have what appears to be extensive military resources and a robot force of their own. But she makes a critical mistake in assuming that “these are my people” means that they share main-universe cultural sentiments. The instant Allura hears Slav (so not someone of her own race) call these Alteans out as actually evil colonizers turning people into slaves, she begins to question the narrative she’s received.

In this instance, she actually affords the Alteans the same courtesy she afforded Lotor—the opportunity to deny the accusations.

But in the AU Altean’s case, they try to turn blame back on other parties. Allura listens to Keith when he grows increasingly fearful of what the Alteans might do to the others, and she tries to plead for actual peace:

And actually, this is a pretty interesting moment for Allura. She tries to salvage an alliance…until she realizes that their differences are irreconcilable, and that their definition of peace is inherently different from her own. This probably sets the stage for why Allura was so triggered by Lotor talking about peace while also killing people—because she’s seen people misappropriate that term before. And also probably informs why she trusts the information of both Keith and Krolia (both of whom have Galran blood, btw).

Ultimately, Allura turns against her own people. Violently:

When they get angry about her wanting actual peace, Allura draws a weapon against them and rejects them from her people. This mimics how she spends several seasons fighting an Altean Haggar/Honerva for her crimes, and how she turns against Lotor too.

So case in point here, Allura loves her people, obviously—but she also is holding them to moral standards regarding their behavior, which is something that a genuine racist doesn’t do. As a matter of fact, Lotor is the only person of Altean blood that Allura genuinely bonds with ever again in the series. She’s distant with Romelle, she’s distant with the s8 Alteans… In s8, Allura even says this about Luca, which refers back to her own mistakes she made with initially being star-struck by the s3 AU Alteans who came in “peace”:

Allura herself had been manipulated in s3, wanting so desperately to not be the last Altean alive that it initially blinded her to how Commander Hira was manipulating her. The plight of the s8 Alteans who are deceived by Honerva is inherently frustrating to her, because she can see herself in them.

Absolutely none of this correlates with Allura seeing or perpetuating Alteans as a superior race. At every turn, her own people continue to disappoint her, and she increasingly and progressively separates herself from them in hopelessness, because they’re so brainwashed that they can’t see they’re just cannon fodder for someone else’s military agendas. Not exactly a ringing endorsement for a superior race, lol.

So let’s think about anti accusations here. Allura is a racial supremacist…but she’s arguing against her people who believe unquestionably in Honerva, another full Altean like herself? Nothing about that accusation makes sense with her actions.

The fact is, consistently from season 3 and onward, Allura is faced with her own people morally disappointing her.

The good news for the s8 Alteans like Tavo is that Allura is able to remove the dark entity Honerva is using to control him. Which allows other Alteans to “wake up” from being manipulated and try to make amends.

Regardless, Allura makes a very clear line that simply being Altean doesn’t make someone “right.” She sees herself fully at odds with her own people who are drawn in by Honerva’s lies. And she experienced well back in s2 (revealing Haggar as Honerva) and s3 (evil AU Alteans) that any given race, including her own, can house people who do bad things.

The fact is, she’s consistently and willingly drawn weapons against even her own people when they didn’t meet her moral expectations. So her response to Lotor isn’t particularly out of line there. She’s repulsed by a moral flaw.

And actually, Lotor himself wouldn’t have known this, but he very oddly echoed the AU Alteans by getting angry that Allura was angry over the means through which he was trying to get peace:

So Lotor actually reverts to the same logic of the AU Alteans—peace at any cost, just look at the results—

And keep in mind that the AU Alteans also manipulated Allura’s excitement about them, to get her to make the transreality comet usable so they could go into other realities. So Allura has felt betrayed and used before, by her own people.

So when she says this:

Yes, it’s a reference back to how Zarkon manipulated his friends in order to get access to the quintessence field, at the explicit cost of potentially killing his own people. But it’s not without understanding that yes, Alteans can be just as manipulative and betraying as Zarkon. Because she’s experienced it, again and again.

As a matter of fact, six out of the eight seasons of Voltron: Legendary Defender feature villainous Alteans/Alteans on the wrong side of the war, and we continuously see Allura punished again and again for wishing that Alteans still lived.

No wonder she wanted to die.

This is something that I find uncomfortable about the narrative of the show. Previous iterations of Voltron did in fact have a “blood on everyone’s hands” perspective, such as within the ages 16+ Dynamic Comics. However, Arusians/Alteans in those old Voltron narratives were not victims of genocide. VLD turns Alteans into victims of the worst racial crime possible and then also consistently portrays them as inherently antagonistic to genuine peace efforts in some way, instead of focusing on the evil of the oppressors.

And this is such a double whammy for Lotor’s characters as well, given that he was abused by his parents and threatened with slavery via his Galran culture, and that he was half-Altean too trying to connect to his lost culture.

As a matter of fact, the larger show’s narrative interest in “victims as antagonists” makes it such that when we see victims try to enact actual justice, it feels almost jarring. Let’s look at that s8 Zarkon moment you brought up as an example, where Allura destroys his innocent perspective by showing him his evil deeds.

The s8 Zarkon is a weird topic because 1) This Zarkon actually doesn’t exist outside of Honerva’s mind, so how he has any kind of actual free-will is beyond me, unless someone wants to argue that Honerva actually cursed his true soul just as she cursed the other paladins. It’s hilarious too, because Honerva-mind-Zarkon also calls Honerva a psychopath, so I guess now Honerva is psychoanalyzing herself using her dead husband as the vehicle, while also discreetly helping the paladins to stop herself—

ANYWAY, using this Zarkon as a “proof” of Allura’s “racism” is also cherry picking in the weirdest of ways. Is she angry about his horrific and incalculable crimes, including even how he betrayed the OG paladins and ruined his own planet? Absolutely. Does she want him to be aware of his crimes instead of having to pretend like nothing’s wrong? Yes.

But notice here, this Zarkon actually shows remorse. He is actually crying over those memories and recognizing that he had done something wrong. And Allura can work with that. In fact, out of everyone standing around and doing nothing, it’s Allura who gives him a second chance and offers an alliance with Zarkon in order to stop a crazy Altean:

Keep in mind too, Honerva didn’t have memory loss at the end of s8. She knew exactly what she’d done and had given up and had to actually be convinced to do anything halfway constructive. That’s a very different circumstance than mind-Zarkon had, who jumped at the chance to do something to fix what all had happened, and gets even morally righteous about it, calling his own wife a psychopath, lol.

So generally, antis who believe Allura was a racial supremacist haven’t watched the show holistically. We see her hold the same standards to her own people as she expects out of others. This show would look incredibly different if Allura were a true racial supremacist.

Ah, you ask. Okay, so we’ve refuted the big pieces of “evidence” used to incriminate Allura. But what about all of those weird details about ancient Altean history? The violent language-learning program that scared Pidge? The violent terraforming tech that almost kills Voltron? The concept that Alfor tried to play “police” over the Galra and actually blew up their planet? The Alteans’ ongoing discussions of “peace and diplomacy” and spreading it throughout the universe while they happen to sit on a massive load of ancient power?

The s3 finale and other facts throughout the series very heavily smash the claim that our canon, in-universe Alteans were evil colonizers like the AU Alteans. The biggest piece of evidence to the contrary is that the Altea we know was one (1) planet. You counted right. One planet. Not an empire, but a singular planet. The s3 finale corroborates this, showing Altea as being largely isolationist from a military perspective while Daibazaal and Nalquod warred "for generations," right in front of their salad.

So some viewers would have you believe that Alteans were these big bad, intergalactic police state colonizers. But for all of its great power and knowledge, the singular planet of Altea didn't even canonically interfere in the wars of its own galaxy for actual millennia? And looking at the screenshots upon the stabilization of the alliance, Alfor is revealed to not have had experience with a neighboring culture. His face while exploring Gyrgan’s homeworld is an indication that it’s all rather new for him too. So again, we have evidence showing that Alteans were not colonizing or even functioning as a police state.

Note here that in the s3 flashbacks, the show confirms that it actually wasn’t just Alfor who suggested an alliance. All five leaders had common interests in protecting their galaxy from even worse threats, so all five came together at the same time. This is actually the first piece of evidence we have of Altea entering into some kind of intergalactic military agreement to stave off said worse threats.

And all of this is on top of a history where in s6, the Galran Archivist confirms that the Galran Empire had existed before Zarkon for 3,000 years, with times of “expansion.” It’s very easy to see that Blaytz’s people were actively fighting off Galran occupation of their homeworld within this past.

And that’s actually what I think makes Alfor and the OG paladins some pretty interesting characters. Here, we had colonizing Galran empire setting down its sword and accepting the value and space of its neighbors. Here, we had master alchemist Alfor giving up military power within their group by acknowledging Zarkon as the superior strategist. Here, we had Blaytz who had previously been battling Galran occupation…fully accepting the Galra?

So the OG Paladin backstory represents a pretty incredible alliance that removed a lot of intergalactic toxicity and helped heal broken bonds. But it required all five leaders to agree to that. Alfor did not throw his weight or power around within this. There were several checks and balances here.

But this backstory also helps to explain some of the quirky details about Alteans. Their planet existed within an active war zone, and it’s very likely that they’d had to fight off Galran occupation just as Blaytz’s people did. So the violent robot trainers and fear-based language learning systems start to make sense. Alteans weren’t just simpering people playing harps all day and eating grapes. They were actively prepared to defend their planet and their culture.

So when Allura says in season 1 that Alteans were “spreading diplomacy” across the universe, the only pieces of evidence we have of that is the OG paladins themselves, in which Alfor was a big part in creating that alliance—and then possibly the Alteans with the Balmerans, given their deep collective rituals with that planet while the Galra literally just came in and ripped the planet nearly to death. Allura tries to mimic what it means to accept and interact with a culture without changing it well in season 1, when she stumbles through trying to respect Arusian culture and its demands on its people. Also, there is a big fact that antis like to overlook:

The fact is, despite the untold numbers of civilizations we interact with across 76 episodes, no outside race remembers Alteans as evil colonizers. If they were really so big and bad, we would have heard it, like, “Man, yeah the Galrans are bad. Just as bad as those Alteans, back in the day.” Or something. But nope, nothing.

So I heavily question the history of Altea as an ancient colonizing race. If they were, then Altea wouldn't have just been a single planet with limited resources to fight wars in even its own galaxy. All of this supports the idea of Altean children being raised to fight--because they were preparing to defend themselves when/if diplomacy fails.... But the fact that the Balmerans see Alteans fondly and that literally every other race we run into is explicitly suspicious of Galrans and not at all of Alteans says something.

I think the only piece of evidence there might be for a genuinely colonizing ancient Altea is the use of terraforming technology, as mentioned in s4. Haggar discovers it and activates it to try and kill Voltron--and she nearly succeeds, because said tech destroys the entire crust of the planet to reform it. But you have to step back for a second and wonder--if ancient Alteans were so powerful, why was Alfor struggling so hard to even hold his own planet together in the midst of all these other cultures warring and larger threats? If they had this technology--and they did know about it because Allura recognized it right away as ancient technology--why the heck wouldn't they use it? Or were they using it, and it was to reform uninhabited planets to help sustain displaced peoples? Why is it, if Alteans were so terribly bad, we have no record across ANY of the many alien races being cautious of them? Even Galran Lieutenant Lahn snapped at Allura only because he was jealous of the general security she had back on, you guessed it, explicitly Altea. There's a lot of potential explanations for a positive use of terraforming technology, and the evidence against colonization and Altea committing omnicide against other races is incredibly more aligned with the other details in the canon.

And even Alfor’s creation of Voltron and the blowing up of Daibazaal—that’s something that antis like to position as evidence of his police-state ways to underhandedly control other cultures.

So let’s tackle those too while we’re at it.

Honestly, I know people like to hate on Alfor, and I do think his character picks up some misogynism just from the writers....But I don't think he was as much of a controller as people think he was. He was already in an alliance with four other leaders to try and stop bad things from happening in their galaxy. That meant they were expending incredible amounts of time and resources to accomplish that end—resources that were not renewable and may have been straining various planets. We know that he started building Voltron with Zarkon and everyone else's blessing because he called them "clean ships," but it's only after the rift creatures attack that suddenly Alfor's perception of Voltron moves from "clean energy" to "omg we need a more powerful weapon against this unknown enemy.”

So these are his intentions BEFORE he discovers rift creatures are a threat to the universe. While Zarkon states that these new ships are to be endlessly powerful for the Galra Empire, Alfor shames him by offering what his desire is for them:

After the rift creatures nearly destroy Daibazaal, intentions change.

So here, we see the game change in a BIG way. Voltron is not just about offering a more renewable way of sustaining peace-keeping efforts. Alfor is now adjusting and finishing these ships with the explicit knowledge that if they are not powerful enough, then Daibazaal and the Galran people will die. Alfor’s got a LOT of pressure on him now to deliver a mighty and powerful weapon to stop this new threat. So even his creation of Voltron as a superweapon involved using it to protect people from imminent death—not to police them.

And about Alfor blowing up Daibazaal—once again, it’s Alfor trying to clean up Honerva and Zarkon’s mess. Honerva had convinced Zarkon that the rift needed to be wider, and so Zarkon deceived the paladins into widening it.

So keep in mind here, at this point in time—the rift was destabilizing and eating an entire planet. The entire universe was now at stake. Alfor had to choose between a bad fix and an even worse option of allowing everyone to die, but he very clearly evacuated people before destroying Daibazaal, as part of his promise to keep Galrans safe. So that no one would have to die.

And as a matter of fact—about that terraforming technology. How sure are you that Alfor didn’t intend to use it to build Galrans a new home? It’s entirely within the realm of acceptable conjecture that he allowed for the existence of that technology because it could restore what had been lost.

And here’s where the story gets really screwy and feeds into some anti hate. Because when Zarkon wakes up as a zombie, he desires more quintessence as zombies do.

So he’s pissed that Alfor just cut off his gateway, and he manipulates his people:

And it’s here where we get the idea that Alfor was an evil controller. The idea came from Zarkon, who—we can look around pretty easily and see that he was not a man of honor, ultimately. Even if you chose to not believe the s3 finale flashbacks as being objective, there’s something wrong with Zarkon. (It’s clear that the show thought using Coran was a smart way to shell off massive amounts of info, because clearly if this were truly in Coran’s perspective, we would NOT have had intimate looks into Zarkon and Honerva’s bedroom as Zarkon is tending to her, like omg.) Numerous sources, histories, and cultures outside of Coran confirm that Zarkon hit a point of no return on the evil scale, and that he projected his own blame for Daibazaal’s destabilization onto Alfor in order to raise up his new regime in the name of Quintessence��.

So at the end of the day, even Alfor was a victim. But yet somehow, various antis choose to believe Zarkon’s victim-punishing narrative because said antis can’t or else refuse to connect one scene to another since it undermines their justifications for why they can hate on Allura. And that’s not so much an issue with the story itself as it is just poor critical analysis or malicious weaponization of content against other fans.

Now, at this point, we’ve talked about Allura and we’ve talked about Altean history. I have numerous other posts about Allura’s interactions with other races and Galrans and overcoming trauma to give the entire universe a second chance. So if there is anything in this show that suggests Alteans were in any way a superior race, then it’s probably within the show’s own worldbuilding. The show contradicts its own definitions of what quintessence even is by suggesting Alteans have “bluer/purer quintessence” in order to justify why Lotor would even be trying to sacrifice them for anything. The show-championed concept that Alteans have a bluer, purer life force above all other people, and that only Altean energy could interface with the fabric of space-time. Now, this is a problem in the later seasons’ world building itself. And you know who wrote that in? The production team. So once again, we do have racial issues in this show, in ways that shows like Star Wars desperately try avoid by showing racial diversity in who has Midi-chlorians.

That said, I’m not a perfectly woke storyteller either. I think every story and show is going to have something problematic™, but with VLD it’s very clear that its disrespectful handling of genocide politics and shatterglass conspiracy theories, on top of its weird master race angle created the perfect storm. These mishandled and quirky details have created a cognitive dissonance with the provided narrative, resulting in some people in the anti fandoms to champion what aligns very closely to actual neo-Nazi propaganda against Jews, who according to them are not victims but instead the true perpetrators of all bad things. For the sake of the antis, I’m pretty sure they’re not intentionally looking at VLD this way and are probably just looking for any easily graspable reason to hate on Allura for interfering with their ship or something.

But this kind of subliminal propaganda that undermines victims, and the effect it has had on fandom morality politics, is deeply concerning to me. I really wish that we’d had an opportunity to respectfully and critically discuss this with the production team of the show, because a Y7-FV show about “strength in unity” should NOT result in us needing to have a conversation about people walking away with neo-Nazi-ish propaganda sentiments against genocide survivors. Like. Clearly, VLD is fictional, but it’s feeding into a real-life beast that it does NOT need to feed. And it’s keeping alive ongoing conspiracy narratives against some of our most vulnerable populations on the planet.

So, we need better stories. We need a production team that, if they’re going to get paid to do something involving portrayals of genocide and politics, that they need to do their research on those topics. Nobody is going to be perfect with a creation, but VLD validated some very damaging things—and it ALL is something that could have been fixable. I think it would have been incredibly validating to hear the production talk about and accept that these were issues that cropped up unintentionally, and to hear them confirm that these issues are not the sorts of things that VLD was supposed to champion.

The greatest tragedy of all of this is the potential that this show had to really champion some great and validating messages, and the potential that we as a fandom had to come together and do something that fandom was meant to do—which was celebrate the things we love. Because that’s why we’re all here. That’s why this crazy tumblr of mine even exists. It was supposed to celebrate things.

For that reason, I’m going to end this here. I’ve written several responses now as to my thoughts on the inappropriate narrative lens of the show, its contradictory and damaging worldbuilding about the purest race, and how it champions demonizing or punishing genocide survivors again and again. Within all of that, I’ve talked at length about Allura’s character and behavior over 8 seasons and how she built even empathetic connections with militant Galrans like Commander Lahn. In fact even her own homesickness is how she emotionally connects with Lahn, because she understands that desire to call something one’s own. To have a home. A family.

I now really would like to get back to writing stories that I find meaningful to me using these characters and these worlds—and trying to find the hope in all of this darkness, haha. And maybe with any luck, I can hope to do VLD some justice, knowing that I am still on a learning journey as well.

But I appreciate your note, and I hope this very extensive response helps to settle your questions and concerns once and for all regarding VLD Allura. If you should have any remaining questions, please feel free to reach out via a private message to discuss. Thank you!

#Volron #VLD #Allura #VLD Critical #Alfor #Zarkon #Honerva #Lotor #I hope this helps explain my perspective #I think this might have to be my last refutation to the Allura as racist/racist supremacist conspiracy theory #at a certain point #people either watch the show holistically or they don't #you can't convince an anti #so this meta will probably not help an anti #but if you're sitting on the fence and felt drawn in by anti propaganda #then I hope that maybe this post provides an alternate perspective #and one that tries to be more holistically fair to all 8 seasons of the show #and to the intentions and general oversights that can occur during production #Ultimately it doesn't matter if someone likes or dislikes Allura as a fictional character #we need better entertainment that can handle these hard topics and handle them well #And we also need a fandom who's willing to look at all of the information and not weaponize it to specifically demonize and silence others #Maybe a family TV show shouldn't be appropriating conspiracy theories from the Protocols of the Elders of Zion #real-world fans are incredibly vulnerable to such conspiracy theories #and it creates a lot of real-world strife as a result

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thatbrontide · 3 years

Text

1: Kitchen Counter, Couch, or on top of the dryer? Couch. I am bony.

2: Your last sexual encounter: Good or Bad and why: Both bc he came too fast, which he said was by accident, and maybe it was, but it felt fucked up. Good bc I deeply needed intimacy and it was otherwise decent. He kisses well. Also I blocked him about a week afterward bc I realized he’s an asshole.

3: A fictional person that you think would be good in bed: Kristen Wiig in Hateship Loveship.

4: Something that never fails to make you horny: A hot guy being nice af.

5: Where is one place you would never have sex: I’m pretty adventurous, so idk. I’d prefer to not fuck in a family member’s bed, but you could pay me to do it.

6: The most awkward moment during a sexual experience was when: I don’t really feel awkward during sex. Maybe a burning dildo. It had deteriorated an I didn’t know they did that. Sorry about that burning asshole I caused.

7: Weirdest thing that ever made you horny: sock garters?

8: What is the best way to sexually bind someone: shibari/kinbaku

9: Handcuffs, Rope, or Other: rope

10: What is the fastest way to make you horny: OTK spanking

11: Top or bottom? both

12: Fill in the blanks: We were about to cum but then people showed up to church

13: Would you ever take a sexual enhancement drug? Poppers or X, I guess? Nope. I prefer sober sex.

14: Is one orgasm enough? Are multiple orgasms necessary? Depends.

15: Something that you have hidden in your room that you don’t want anyone to find: books about codependence

16: Weirdest nickname a significant other has ever called you: Nothing weird.

17: Two things you like [or dislike] about oral sex: I like having a big dick in my mouth and that I’m good at it. I used to adore being face-fucked. I have sucked a dick of someone who could not stay hard, which is the worst possible thing. Don’t act like it makes sense for someone to suck your dick if you don’t maintain an erection. Fuck you.

18: Weirdest sexual act some has performed on/with you: This fucking guy and I were hanging out naked after sex and he came over to me and basically started humping me like a dog. It was awful. Other than that, probably knife play, which was extremely fun. (not blood play)

19: Have you ever tasted yourself? I can’t believe anyone doesn’t.

20: Is it ever okay to not use a condom: Of course, if he’s good at pulling out on time and it’s monogamous and we’ve both been tested.

21: Who was the sexiest teacher you ever had? Sexiest was probably this history teacher in high school, but he turned out to be racist. Most attractive was an acting instructor I had. I had a problem being around him, it was rough.

22: A food that you would like to use during a sexual experience: Noooope.

23: How big is too big (peniswise): I have yet to encounter one that was too big.

24: One sexual thing you would never do: A race fantasy. Like if a guy who’s black wanted me to call him the N word or do racial master-slave shit.

25: Biggest turn on: communication, but not too sincere and not too buzzwordy. Ugh.

26: Three spots that drive you insane: On me? nipples, kiss on forehead, being held at the upper rear thigh, or where the crotch meets the thigh when I’m being eaten out

27: Worst possible time to get horny: during a pandemic, when depressed, at work

28: Do you like it when your sexual partner moans: absolutely.

29: Worst sexual idea you ever had: Being too open with my kinkiness with someone much less experienced. I should have taken it slowly.

30: How much fapping is too much fapping: maybe 5 times a day is too much. I don’t know if I could do more than twice a day.

31: Best sexual compliment you ever got: He cried it was so good. I’ve been told that I’m the best head they’ve gotten, best kisser they’ve kissed, best sex they’ve had...

32: Bald, landing strip, Jumanji: depends on my mood and whom I’m dating

33: Is it good sex if you don’t nut: Not usually. It can be sweet or intimate, but that’s just good intimacy, not good sex. Like if someone started crying and we stopped, for example. The sex is no longer important.

34: Fill in the blanks: “If they come first, we are over.” lol

35: What your favorite part of your body: I have nice boobs, but idk.

36: Favorite foreplay activities: um... making out? being eaten out?

37: Love (>,<, or =) Sex I reject the premise.

38: What do you wear to bed? leggings and a t-whirt and socks. Sometimes just boy shorts

39: When was the first time you masturbated: 13 or 14, but I didn’t know how to do it, so I didn’t cum until my bf ate me out when I was 17. He taught me how to masturbate, basically, and I needed to think about him to do so successfully.

40: Do you have any nude/masturbating pictures/video of yourself? Eh.

41: Have you ever/when was the last time you had sex outside? It was probably 2009. The guy was a permaculturist 7 years older than I was and had somehow never fucked outside. He was so excited. I miss outdoor sex. I liked fucking him.

43: Have/would you ever had a threesome? I did once. Hated it. Would realy love to never do it again.

44: What is one random object you’ve used to masturbate? A jumbo carrot.

45: Have/would you ever masturbate at work? No. I don’t think that’s okay, and would judge anyone who did it, unless they had PGAD or something.

46: Have/would you ever have sex on a plane? No. I don’t get the mass appeal. I would, but who cares.

47: What is one song you’d like to have sex to? FLOTUS

48: What is something nonsexual that makes you horny? I’m not sure. Someone I like being genuinely nice to ppl is one.

49: Most attractive celebrity? Bill Hader? That drag photo shoot of him kills me.

50: Do you watch gay/lesbian porn? why/why not? Not usually. I used to, but mostly for educational purposes.

51: If a child was born on the occasion of the last time you had sex, how old would that child be right now? About two months old. It’s rough out here.

52: Has anyone ever posted nude pictures of you online? I hope not.

53: What is one thing that NEVER makes you horny? “Cum for me,” and I’m sure myriad others things guys think are hot to say.

54: Do you have stretch marks? just a few on my butt

55: How do you feel about your stretch marks? don’t care.

56: Has anyone ever had a problem with your stretch marks? That would be ludicrous. They could leave.

57: Do you like giving head? (why/why not) I fucking love i if I love the person or in the rare situation that they have a big dick and we have great chemistry.

58: How do you feel about tattoos on someone you are interested in? They are fine. It depends on the tattoos. Some ppl have awful tattoos that I’d have to actively ignore the whole time.

59: How would you feel about taking someone’s virginity? I’m not sure. I’m mostly attracted to ppl like 10 years older than I am, so I’d be okay doing it w someone who’s fully not even a young adult. The circumstances under which I’d want to would be unlikely, though.

60: Is there any food you would NOT recommend using during a sexual encounter? Any and all food. No thank you.

62: Do you own any sex toys? Which ones? nipple clamps, vibrator, dildo, flogger.

64: Would you be offended if your significant other suggested you get plastic surgery? Yes.

65: Would you rather be a pornstar or discreet sex worker? Depends on what kind of sex worker. idk.

66: Do you watch porn? Every once in a while, and only when I’m too unimaginative

67: How small is too small? Haven’t had it happen, so idk.

68: Have you ever been called a freak? Why? Sure. I’m kinkier than most ppl.

69: Who gave you your last kiss? Did it mean anything? The last guy I fucked, who I blocked on my phone. It meant that we were both horny/lonely during a pandemic

71: Do you feel comfortable going “commando”? Not at all. I don’t know how vagina-owners don’t mind a vaginal fluid straight onto their pants.

72: Would you have a problem with going down on someone if they hadn’t shaved their pubic hair? Nope

73: If you could give yourself head, would you? It kind of saddens me to think about that. I’d probably try once, and maybe until I felt like I’d be good at doind it to someone else.

74: Booty or Boobs? I’m not gay enough for this question. Probably boobs.

75: If you had a penis, what would you name it? I hate when ppl name body parts and cars. It’s dumb.

76: Have you ever been on an official date? Of course.

77: Have you ever cheated on someone? (Why?) Kind of. I made out with a member of my favorite band when I was 19 bc I thought I couldn’t miss the opportunity. He invited me on his tour bus but I couldn’t “fully” cheat.

78: If you were a stripper, what would your name be? It’s a secret

79: Have you ever had sex in your parents bed? (Would you?) I haven’t. You could pay me to, but I don’t rly want to. Part of me also kind of doesn’t care. Like in sitcoms when ppl are like “Ew! You had sex on the chair I’m sitting in?” Who cares, it’s not like you’re sitting in a puddle of jiz.

80: How would you react if you found out your parents had sex in your bed? I would be v surprised bc they hate each other and prob haven’t had sex in at least 30 years.

81: What was your reaction the first time you saw a penis/vagina? I remember seeing my brothers, and thinking it was funny. I just remember being in a locker room when I was maybe 8 and seeing women’s crotches and noticing they were all different. I don’t think I looked at my own until I was like 14, so I wasn’t worried about it.

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that-treeaboo · 5 years

Text

Match Up Request #3

“can i have a matchup? Im heavy, specially in the tiddies and thighs lol its just where it all goes. Pale, dirty blonde hair, blue eyes. Love to make ppl laugh and surprise them with gifts, Im always being sarcastic or finding humor in things. But Im also really introverted? Like I get my moods where I just need to decompress away from ppl, or just not talk. Lleads me to just reading, writing or drawing. i dont trust quickly, but when i do, its for life. Also I can shoot with a gun n bow. :3c”

Requested by Anon

Also, general FYI to people requesting match ups: I’m considering everyone when I figure out match ups, even Uncle, and I consider every detail you include when I write these. Considering antagonists in the game, i.e. Micah, Bill, Colm, etc., I try and write these as if you change their outlook and certain things since these are implied that they care about you and are willing to change their ways.

If you aren’t happy with your match up, then I apologize and recommend requesting again when they’re open if you like. <3 Hope you all understand where I’m coming from.

Also! Since these match ups keep coming out super long, I’m gonna be putting a “Read More” link for these so people don’t have to navigate these all the time. :’) Plus it makes them more of a surprise!

Thanks for requesting!

I decided to pair you with...

Micah!

I honestly thought I wouldn’t be able to find someone I would consider having him paired with when I started doing match ups, but hear me out! These are gonna be good, and you are also getting more writing since Micah is a difficult lad to write.

Micah never really seemed to be the type who would be in a relationship. Hell, most don’t think he could even become *actual* friends with anyone honestly.

Of course at first he wasn’t kind to you, as per usual, but he *did* find you attractive.

Some may say he targeted you because he had some feelings for you, and he subconsciously tried to drive you away by antagonizing you.

You wouldn’t react the same way the other girls would at camp would when he would say unkind things though. You would just go and find a quiet place to relax and think instead of getting all huffy and puffy when he said something suggestive or all out rude.

This is actually good for him at least. You’re different to him.

He still is kind of an asshole to other people in camp, but more often than not he’ll make you laugh at some of the things he says. (Not including blatantly racist or sexist comments, of course)

People comment that he sometimes gets caught staring at you while you’re doing chores or sitting there drawing, and boy does he get flustered about it.

He’ll tell them off and tell them to mind their own before storming off.

You’re both similar in that way; when you need to go and be alone with your thoughts, you go away from the group to the outskirts of camp.

He would often see you on some of his little patrols around the camp, and he’d normally avoid being seen by you.

Eventually, he swallowed his pride and came over to speak with you while you were nestled against a tree.

You were drawing a bird a good distance away, and Micah’s heavy footsteps managed to not scare it away but his voice sure did when he asked what you were doing.

Thankfully most of the bird was already drawn, and you personally were iffy on how it was turning out, so you weren’t upset.

You ended up showing him the bird drawing and he actually complimented it. Was this the Micah you knew?

He ended up looking through your sketches after asking to see what else you have drawn, and he only nodded his head at a few pages and was silent for most of the others.

He ended up flipping to a page that had a few sketches of him and some other camp members, and it would be an understatement to say he was just impressed. Someone took the time to draw him? And draw him well? He was practically floored.

“Did you draw this??” He would ask, and he would continue to ask every time he’d see your drawings after that. Sometimes he’d even suggest you’d draw him again, and make it seem like it wasn’t a big deal but it really was a big deal for him.

He did gain a bit of a crush after that, but it took forever for him to act genuinely upon it.

It started with him simply taking you out to town for a drink or to look for leads.

After you’re more than friends but not quite a couple, he’d actually be thoughtful with his little “dates,” and the rest of the camp was baffled he could care about someone other than his guns and Baylock. He’d find some pretty scenery and bring you out to draw it and then kill a rabbit for you two, it isn’t super fancy but he tries.

Now, once you and the gang get in a tussle and you show off your shooting skill? I mean it’s Micah, but it would be easy to say he had a lot of feelings for you.

He’d be like a little schoolboy, asking you to be with him while holding some half-trampled, wilted meadow flowers, but hey, he’s trying his best to not seem like an asshole, but it’s still hard for him.

Once you were an official item, he’d be overprotective as hell and wouldn’t leave your side.

One jobs he would joke that you two were a perfect team, even stating you two matched (considering you both have blonde hair and blue eyes).

He still struggles with you needing your alone time since he truly enjoys spending time with you, but he does give you your space most of the time. He tends to just go and sit in silence with you, and he’ll maybe stroke your hair or clean his guns during these times.

He brags like there’s no tomorrow about your artistic ability. And he brags to everyone.

At first he also was iffy about you reading. He’d antagonize you a bit at first, poke fun a bit, but you’d give him a stern look and tell him you “actually enjoyed reading.” He’d catch the hint and be somewhat like Gaston from Beauty and the Beast with you reading.

Once you read him something you enjoy, he’ll finally get it and get really upset when authors leave a cliffhanger. He sometimes even says he’s never gonna read a book again, but he always comes back. :)

He also admires your sense of humor and how you aren’t sensitive to his jokes, he especially likes that you laugh at his jokes from time to time. He isn’t always used to your returned sarcasm, but it’s really endearing to him.

He also is really, really unused to getting gifts. It literally takes him off guard almost every single time.

Give him some gun oil you bought while you were in town? He looks like a deer in headlights. Go so far as to do little favors for him, like mend his clothes, bring him coffee, anything of the sort? He feels on top of the world, and is amazed that someone would care enough to do those sort of things.

Your favorite past time together is going out to shoot bottles or hunting. It gives you two time to vent out your frustrations and it helps you two bond.

Eventually the rest of the camp is super appreciative that you’ve helped Micah begin to turn over a bit of a new leaf. Yeah, he still can be a massive asshole, but it becomes gradually less apparent now that you’re around him.

Hopefully you like this! I did go OOC with Micah, but I would like to think he’d chill out once he cared about someone. Plus I wrote half of this a week ago and finished the rest today, so apologies for some inconsistencies in my writing. ^^;

And yeah, like I said, these are a little longer compared to the other match ups I’ve done simply because I felt the need to write more for this particular one.

Thanks again for requesting!

-Mun Bay

#user:anon #micah bell #micah rdr2 #rdr2 #rdr2 matchups #red dead redemption 2 #red dead redemption 2 match ups #horse rabble #mun speaks #match ups

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a-nonbinary-mess · 6 years

Note

I want you to do all the botanical asks because im a plant gay and i love you and i love plants

im crying op please tell me who you are please i love you too idk who you are but im love u too (also this is 31 questions anon omggg)

baby’s breath: 5 things you associate yourself with

1. art (anything aesthetically pleasing)

2. food–mainly desserts

3. stress (that i put on myself)

4. lavender bc i really love lavenders

5. uhh dogs? i really love dogs

bleeding heart: what makes your heart go mushy?

-thoughts of how much I adore my friends tbh

-any cliche romcom trope in a fanfic or seeing ppl suddenly realize how much they love another person, whether platonically or romantically

-seeing kind people in the world and amazing animals, mainly dogs and cats

bell flower: what’s the title of the song that makes you want to jump around out of joy?

-uhh idk i like disney channel original songs a lot tho and ive been listening to a lot of potential song by aly and aj lol

-love on the brain by rihanna, uhh anything that sounds cheesy and cute and romantic like la vie en rose by edith piaf (the cover by laura and anton is super good)

evening primrose: what is your sleeping playlist (five songs):

-anything by lofi hip hop beats w/ anime girls studying hard

-any studio ghibli song tbh

-any classical music song idk i dont listen to a lot of music before i sleep

-tango music ???

-a whole musical (hamilton, chicago, etc)

-songs that dont require me to sing bc i will sing to legit any song at 3 am instead of sleeping

forget-me-not: who is your favorite blog that’s not following you?

-hmm idk? i mainly follow a lot of art blogs, so i would say any of them? maybe hinamie? or insomniac-arrest is a super cool person, thatsthat24 bc thomas sanders is an amazing human being and i would love to be friends with him

daffodil: what is one plant that you want to have but can never get?

-lavenders or sunflowers? where i live is kind of really difficult to plant anything tbh (unpredictable weather, things die in the winter, etc) and also idk how to take care of plants r i p

calla lily: are you more of a sunny day or a rainy evening?

-rainy evening for sure. i love to leave the window opening, listen to soothing music, drink tea surrounded by candles, and read something ive been putting off while my dog is curled up next to me

foxglove: what is your favorite color and in what shade?

-i like the whole rainbow of colors but i prefer the darkest black and darker red for clothing and a light purple in general

lavender: what is something that you’ve always wanted to be/have/get but can never have?

-happiness. jk but i really do wish that i wasn’t mentally ill though :// also a cat. bc im allergic : (

love in a mist: what is the latest dream that you remember?

-idk i dont sleep well or deep enough anymore to even dream but i remember having a dream 2 years ago that i was dating oikawa from haikyuu and he was so disconcerting in my dream that i remember it to this day bc essentially he wasnt a real person like i could recognize him bc he was a damn hologram like miku and we had sex the end it was wild

daisy: what is your favorite flavor of cotton candy, ice cream, and juice?

-favorite cotton candy flavor (???): there are multiple flavors???? i just like the original pink i guess idk anything about cotton candy

-ice cream: cookies n cream, cookie dough, vanilla, mint depending on where im getting it, and strawberry : )

-juice: does fruit punch count

painter’s palette: are you more of a singer, dancer, painter, or instrumentalist?

-i love singing and i can legit never stop

tulip: what is your most favorite make-up product? do you like it more natural, dark, or etc?

-i love love love red eyeshadow. the brighter the red, the better. i also love red eyeliner and just anything red in general, but i usually mainly use red eyeshadow bc i love the look; anything red = good

waxflower: are you a bee or a butterfly person? a dog or a cat person?

-i love bees !!! butterflies are cool too but bees are cute fluffy babies that essentially control whether we live or die

-uhh probably dog person but only bc i have one :0 i love cats too but im less sneezy and generally stressed when im with dogs lol

sugarbush: do you have sweet tooth? if yes, what’s your favorite sweets? if no, why?

-i really do like sweets but i used to eat so much as a kid that im kind of sick of them now but i still like to eat the occasional cookie or cake or something

-i really like donuts !!! also any asian dessert (eastern, southern, western, EVERYWHERE) is amazing to me and i love eating them

sunflower: would you like to be a fairy or a mermaid?

-merperson !!! i love the ocean and maybe we can finally figure out whats at the bottom of it ; ) sweet pea: what would you like to call your significant other?

-babe mainly, hon

-hey, you fucker

-u dumb egg

sea lavender: can you swim? which strokes can you do?

-i can barely swim now uggghhh but i swam for five years and i knew all the strokes and was super good at freestyle (haru who) !! now i can barely do the freestyle and that’s it lolwindflower: list 5 of your favorite blogs and explain why i like them

-thebootydiaries: she’s funny !! anyone who i find funny i automatically like

-thatsthat24: thomas sanders is amazing. i love him and his friends so much and i think about being his friend a lot to the point where ill have dreams about suddenly being good friends with his whole posse aldjfal;fjl

-tatir0ckz: we used to talk a lot like back when we were both into hetalia but we never talk anymore ? which is fine ! but i remember a lot of our old convos and we skyped like once and idk 2012 was a simpler time

-adorable-as-fuck: i know her irl !! we went to the arcade like once and it was a ton of fun so we exchanged tumblrs and thats it and on the rare occasion that we’re both free, we might go to the arcade again !! idk its cool she’s super cool

-mhaikkun: her art style is so good and she doesnt upload as much on tumblr anymore but shes so cute and her clothing style and aesthetics is sooo good !! she’s a p cool person and her stories on twitter are always super wholesome aah

-this is more than five but ngl aphtextsfromnordics, incorrectknb and any other incorrect quotes blogs or text message blogs changed me as a person aldfj

golden rod: are you more of a baker or a cook?

-baker for sure ! baking just calms me down i think

bloom: what is something that you would like to tell your children?

-if i do have children, i want to tell them that i will never judge them for who they want to be. i hope they will be as open as possible and that i would never want to make them uncomfortable. i would encourage talking about problems and just communicating needs in general. idk, basically everything my biological parents didnt do

peony: what is something that you wish your parents could’ve told you?

-tbh my parents are awful, awful parents (and one of them is just a purely disgustingly, horrid person) and i would never wish for them to tell me anything bc on the off chance that they did try to parent, it was to tell me how much of a burden i was, or something racist/homophobic, etc.

-if they were better people, i wish they would have told me it was okay to be struggling and its okay to be lost rn. i wish they would have encouraged open communication and kindness but well, i learned that all myself : )

prairie gentian: do you have a significant other?

-nope! i sometimes really wish i did, but relationships honestly stress me out and idk how to talk to irl people : ( i love platonic relationships a little more honestly, makes me feel more comfortable

september flower: are you more of a sunshine or sunset person?

-sunset for sure lol i think sunsets are so pretty bc of all the colors that are involved and during that time period is when im doing something i like and im typically at home : ))

bird of paradise: do you wake up early? do you sleep early?

-i wake up early now bc of school but i usually sleep late and wake up late haha

marigold: what’s your favorite tea?

-roasted green tea and lavender! anything flowery is nice too : )

peruvian lily: what are the names of your pets?

-i only have one dog (a pomeranian) and her name is marzia! which is short for marzipan bc my dad didnt want to remember such a long name lol

hyacinth: do you name your plants?

-ye! most of the time theyre just silly names like spiky (for when we had a cactus a long time ago) or red/pink (the colors of the roses), etc. idk about now bc i dont have any plants currently

lilac: would you rather sleep and be cozy or hang out with your friends?

-hmm depends on the friend tbh

-but most of the time id rather sleep and be cozy !!!

poppy: do you like to dip your fries or do you like it as is?

-dipping !! i like ketchup or ketchup and mayo !! cheese fries are sooo good too

dandelion: any special talent that you have?

-i can bullshit a writing piece really bad and still get a good grade on it (seeing as most of the time i procrastinate until the night before and write the whole damn thing)

thanks for all of these questions anon !! if u can and ur comfortable, pls get off of anon sometime so we can talk !! im on tumblr a lot more now bc im procrastinating lol (and if my responses are late its bc im on mobile with no notifs on lol)

#ask meme #answers #plant asks #get to know me more i guess??#i havent dont these in such a long time and i didnt realize how fun it is !!!

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aitian · 3 years

Text

12:56am

1/21/21

this is abt who im from. this question was posed recently by prof aj in the zora class. previously i had been asked this in the laundromat project workshop. i guess it is a popular activist activity. idk i think it is just ok. fucking sucks. or, the answers that feel acceptable suck. it's abt who do u love, who do u feel accountable to.. not who has been around or who has created hurt.

rly anxious this week with school. prof tadiar was rly an asshole academic in that first discussion & made me feel so upset. i hate that i have to weather these storms alone. that's a problem. why cant i have support in the ways i feel & think, & my frustrations & struggles with continuing to live? feel a lot of resentment toward friends at arms length, my choices that lead me to dead ends, the toxic ecologies i have always been navigating & trying to find a shred of hope in. mom is still my best friend, & i want her to be. just wish my pod were not so upsettingly small. days feel like nothing again & again, maybe incarcerated folks know the feeling of wasting away, like time doesn't matter at all bc my seconds r impossible & trapped from shifting my futures.

on the subject-

i hate who im from. its shitty. idk much abt my family, need to read hartmans lose ur mother. realized im only comforted by the presence of black girls in my classes & also a little anxious abt their politics too. like they r the only other ppl who might try to keep me safe but we also all go to this shit school & there r a set of beliefs tied to our paths to get here. also always fighting taking advantage, just both being here, realizing i need & other ppl need things that just align & that doesn't have to mean any more than a piece of my gratitude. but yea just scared of white folks, more recently just wanna fight, idk im ready to win battles & get punished for failing to do shitty stupid things. stop feeling embarrassed or shameful. no don't stop. but know that those feelings just mean getting punished, not doing wrong. & stab those motherfuckers back. the complex part of who im from is this little family, nuclear immigrant family, a house & some walls, toxic toys & racist books & video games & so many soft things, fabrics, textures, smells.. the world for so long that is not bigger than this is smth i felt love for. love not in the way that is full of intended meaning & adopted rituals. but possibly rituals & rehearsals that r really mine. things we felt ashamed of & were shamed for when we left. i always felt that outside the home was just a world of troubles. things that corrupt us, make us feel hurt & feral, things that eat away mercilessly & make us less possible in our precious moments.

that home is still here! its here. im in it. why do i still feel so impossible? is it messed up to think that we have all been outside too much? i don't think any of our faults r our faults. i don't wanna go to school. mom & dad r getting old. that one is so so scary. fuck. i don't want to grow up. i don't. im so sorry that i feel this way. sorry to the kid i should have loved more, & the kid im struggling to love today. im so sorry. still. i don't have regrets bc they r stupid, but i do wish things were different. hope they can become different. not in the ways that ppl r so good at finding solutions to their problems. the problems feel bad, & they should feel bad. they should definitely not feel easy or pleasurable. i want to feel more possible. i want to be less alone. those two things r intensely related, & im not sure how to move toward those futures. isn't that messed up? who r my mothers? who am i from?

fuckign sucks.

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henrysun · 6 years

Text

Some real trans thoughts from a real train boy

I love being in this body, going through this puberty, experiencing life a new man, becoming a new man every time I wake up. I love being nonconforming and fucking with your expectations. I love my little dick, even though he's not what I need him to be. I love being a man who loves men and a nonconforming boi who loves nb and nonconforming ppl. I love being this beautiful brown boy with eyes so dark they appear black and hair on my nose that I used to get insecure about.

Some days, I wake up from a dysphoria dream and I try to pull my breast tissue off like silly putty. Some days, I reach down to adjust my dick and discover I do not have the one I thought I did. And some days, that's more of a confusion than it is a striking pain. Some days, dysphoria comes in other shapes than dissociation.

Being gay is no longer a primary identity. It can no longer be when the world is subjecting me to so much for being brown and trans: what they can more obviously see on my skin, in my voice, in the way that I walk. I miss being gay. I feel as if I am not GAY anymore, as if yes I love men and yes I love nb and nonconforming ppl, but that that does not make me truly GAY because I am more truly TRANS bc that is where I am oppressed the most.

I walk into most interactions, especially with authority figures, with fear and yet nonchalance. I KNOW they will discriminate against me. I EXPECT not to get that job, to be disrespected, to be told trans rights do not belong Here.

Being brown and trans in this nation is difficult. But it could never had prepared me for being brown, trans, and on hrt. Before I was on hrt, before I was given this beautiful body that I love so much with all of these wonderful changes, before I had to shakingly stab myself in the thigh once a week to (what I now understand) save my life, you could categorise me in your head as a lesbian and move on. Because LESBIAN is less offensive to the cis brain than TRANS BOI and especially less than BROWN TRANS BOI. Because cis people can't even fathom that you can be nonconforming and on hrt, because cis people have no conception of the infinite flavours of manhood. I watch my other trans friends move through life without the kind of exhaustion I have, I watch them try to be allies to brown gay and brown trans ppl (gay as an umbrella term here). But they cannot know the unique experience of the brown trans person, because they're white, so many of them are white. There are trans support groups and racial trauma support groups, but where is my trans and racial trauma support group? There simply aren't enough of us to justify one.

My friends and I joke that I am an 80 year old man. But sometimes that jokes feels more like reality. Sometimes I get told by authority in my college that I am too trans to live with women and female dorming anymore. That it was okay for this year, but next year they are creating a new policy where all trans masc ppl are categorised the same way cis men are and they now have to accomodate religions that don't want to live with trans ppl. And they throw me around like a ragdoll and try to put me in inferior housing or housing that violates my ada accomodations. And I get exhausted and I say "do what you must to me, I will pick and choose my battles." I feel 80 then. I feel so tired, I feel as though I have so much weight on my shoulders, that I have to be 80.

It's not normal for a college student to have seen what I have in this life. It's not normal for a boy my age to know what I must know.

And as the testosterone continues to run its course, as I continue to masculinise and love myself, the discrimination gets worse. But one day I will wake up and I will just be a man to them, maybe--one day I will receive male privilege just like my cis male counterparts, maybe. And when that day comes, how will I grapple with all of this struggle? How will I reason it through? How will I live one life, inevitably, stealth and one life out and juggle in my mind the differences of my existence? I am scared. I am so scared.

I am scared to be a brown man in this country, too. Because while being read as a man means gaining so much privilege, being a brown man means I no longer fear cops raping me but I now fear cops shooting me dead. Being a brown woman meant, to me, sexual assault and being a brown man means, to me, death. And being a brown trans man means, to me, both.

But I am not a rapist, I am not a gang member, I am not any longer a drug dealer. I do not beat my girlfriends (or partners for that matter, but a gay brown man? They don't exist) and I do not commit crimes. I am not what you have built a brown man up to be, I am not what you think a Mexican man must be.

I've been abandoned and abused by my family, assaulted for this body, disrespected for the labels I have taken that do not begin to define me. I have been rejected from this country like a bad organ transplant.

But I love love love being Chicanx. I love love love being trans. I love love love being gay. I take all these things and I never wish I were white or cis or straight. Because what a sad existence I would live not knowing what I know. (No shame to any of my cis, straight, white pals out there. You would think your existence would be sad, also, if I took your key identifiers or experiences away from you. What if you were never abused as a child? What if you had never been broken up with in high school? I think you'll find your life is only your life because you have seen what you have seen.)

I don't have many friends because I cannot be friends with anyone who misgenders me or anyone who makes racist comments or anyone who calls me a fag (I recently lost a friend bc after months of friendship, he decided to finally let out his homophobia and transphobia--oh but only when I started to persue a man because that's when I became a real gay man, before I was just theoretically gay). And you begin to realise what a world we live in, when your options become so limited. Am I okay with this world? No. Am I okay with myself? I'm certainly fighting to be.

These are just my thoughts. Obviously, there are infinite unique experiences of trans folk. This is mine. I hope someone can relate. If you don't relate, that's okay, too. If you want to leave a negative comment, go away I don't need you in my life. I think you'll find your negative comments are going to be racist and transphobic, if you look close enough into your heart.

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