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uselessheretic · 2 years

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The more I think about it the more I dislike interpretations that Izzy is forcing Ed to be violent and The Kraken coming out is Izzy fault entirely where he’s manipulating Ed to be this way because of masculine ideals. I think I said it before, but white men don’t want moc to be violent. When it comes to racial stereotypes, they’re utilized as a way to hold up specific structures of white supremacy. For Polynesia, and the Māori specifically, viewing them as “savages” who idolize violence and are a danger was used as a justification for their colonization. It was a tool leveraged against them to push for “civilizing” the native population, where the focus on their body came with two goals: 1. Justify colonialism by saying that the Māori were inherently violent and in need of English intervention and 2. Isolate their physical skill as a positive where they could then funnel Māori men into roles of manual labor.

When talking about roles of masculinity, Izzy isn’t an example of British masculinity to be revered. In Britain, class trumps masculinity where Izzy’s distinctively working class demeanor could never be held up as an ideal. This is different than in American (and New Zealand too actually!) where working class aesthetics are fetishized and appropriated. In England, however, the ideal was to be stoic. You had control over your emotions, you didn’t swear, you were refined. Izzy’s outbursts and tantrums would never be held up as ways to celebrate masculinity, they’d be looked down upon as uncultured.

It doesn’t make sense to interpret Izzy as weaponizing race to force Ed into a position of a violent moc. This stereotype isn’t one that serves white supremacy in that context. The Blackbeard we know, which is violent, wild, vicious and brilliant, is one that the British hate. It threatens their livelihood and pokes holes in their view of whiteness as absolute and impenetrable. You can’t view Izzy as aligning with colonialism while also saying that he is forcing Ed into this racial stereotype. Especially when historically, you’re looking at an incomplete and decontextualized caricature.

Like I said before, Māori men were stereotyped (and still are) of having their bodies and physical skills valued above all else. This came hand in hand with diminishing their intelligence and painting them as mentally deficient. There’s a specific history of European colonizers forcing Māori schools to remove academics from their program and to only teach agriculture and other manual skills like that. When the stereotype of the violent native exists, it’s one that has to be careful to not threaten the inherent supremacy of whiteness, which means it gets coupled with this idea of “purity” of the native as well. They’re violent and brutal, but that’s because they’re closer to “primitive” and are acting out on their basic instincts. Therefore, they need to be pushed into the proper career fields where their physical talents can be used productively. There’s a romanticization almost, of viewing this violence as child-like and in need of correction. Hence, the need to civilize them.

I just don’t think this context works with the way Izzy interacts with Edward. Izzy is never trying to control Edward or to position himself as above him. He values him for his intelligence and his brilliance. He never wants to captain Edward, and happily accepts a role of subordination to him. This is a position that doesn’t fit within white supremacy where whiteness can never be seen as second class to a poc. Even when valuing moc’s physical skill above white men’s, it’s done with a caveat that this proves white men’s superiority because that means they’re able to best moc based on intelligence alone.

So, we know that the masculinity Izzy presents isn’t the one that is idolize. That Edward having angry outbursts and violent tendencies isn’t working within the ideals of British masculinity. We know that Edward’s violence isn’t something white supremacy would encourage because that’s not how white supremacy functions. And we know that the way Izzy interacts with Ed is at complete odds to white supremacist viewpoints where whiteness can never be placed as subordinate to a poc.

But, if you want to see a place that this white supremacy does show up, you can look to the British navy as a much more cut and dry example of how Ed’s violence and physical ability is treated under colonization.

At no point in the show do we ever see the navy talk about Ed as someone who is intelligent. He’s the legendary Blackbeard, yes, but that isn’t said with admiration. When the navy jumps to accept Ed’s Act of Grace this is because it represents a symbol of English superiority where Blackbeard is able to be brought down and under control. In the same vein, we can see how this can also be used as a way where Edward can act as an example of the civilizing of an Indigenous man. When Edward shaves his beard, dresses in uniform, and conforms to the rules of the navy, he is for the first time exemplifying British masculinity. Ideals of stoicness, cleanliness, rule abiding, orderly. These are all things that make up British identity, not anger or out of control violence. Edward’s surrender is valuable because it signifies that the British goal of “civilizing” poc is working, and allows him to act as an example of that. This goes alongisde a history of Māori men being valued in white society exclusively for their ability in either war or sports, where there’s a precedence of Māori men in the army specifically as something to celebrate.

In a way, you can view Blackbeard the pirate and Edward, the king’s soldier, as playing out a fantasy of white supremacy where this dichotomy showcases the binary view of Māori men and their masculinity. Consider this film analysis of Crooked Earth as an exmple.

There’s a distinct polarization here, another reason why I’d strongly disagree with the assertion that Ed post-Act of Grace is living his truest, most happy self.

So, again, I just? Don’t vibe with the idea that Izzy is forcing Ed to act out a caricature of violence. I think there’s too much complexity Izzy affords to Ed for him to view Ed as a caricature, and that him valuing Ed’s intelligence is inherently at odds with the colonialist view of Māori men. More than that, I think taking away Ed’s agency and portraying him as someone who is being manipulated into violence against his will, plays into ideals of presenting Māori men as mentally deficient in comparison to white men. It continues a viewpoint that they’re simply misguided and acting out on their baser instincts. By presenting Ed as a puppet to Izzy, Ed loses his autonomy and becomes a weapon in the hands of white men. (and also opens up a LOT of questionable assumptions about what it means to then view Stede as a gateway for Ed to escape that life by presenting aristocracy as an alternative which imo would be a much more cut and dry example of how the British view moc as a project of civilizing) When in reality, Ed has purposefully crafted his image of Blackbeard as a way of utilizing his reputation in careful directed ways to elevate his pirating career.

Also, because I’m trying to encourage people to always check sources and look things up for themselves but am too lazy to do in text citations, if you want to read more about Māori masculinity, colonization, and violence here’s a few sources! [x] [x] [x] [x]

(just saying but even tho I am a poc, I am not Māori and I’m also in the process of learning more!)

#ofmd #ofmd meta #edward teach #izzy hands

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writercole · 10 months

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My dog woke me up and yes, it's not quite 2 AM as I start typing this, but I have several thoughts weighing down my mind and I need to get them out.

My oldest child had high school orientation this week. They opened with the pledge and a prayer. We did not stand.

No one confronted us. No one asked why. Which, frankly, surprised me as I'm in South Louisiana. But I'm still crafting an answer to the question that never came.

I didn't stand for the pledge of allegiance because the tenants of that decree are no longer being upheld. Liberty and justice for all have become words that are just recited.

The neighborhood that I live in, the Northside, is socioeconomically low. It's a neighborhood full of blacks and other POC. I love my neighborhood.

More than once, I've had to school my own mother on the way she talks about my neighbors and my community. Because it is a community. But this community is more policed and has less tax revenue because of its makeup. Is that liberty and justice for all?

The high schools in our district are installing weapon detectors. Our politicians are more worried about policing genitals. Is that liberty and justice for all?

Our most vulnerable citizens, our children, go to school every day and we never know if they're going to come home. They go home not knowing if they're going to eat or have lights on. Our government is trying to cut funding for school meals while letting gun lobbies do anything they want. Is that liberty and justice for all?

We spend more on healthcare than any other nation in the world but have some of the worst maternal mortality rates, infant mortality rates, and rates of preventable and treatable diseases. Because we cannot get doctors to accept state-funded medical insurance, the private insurances have priced themselves out of the middle class, and the amount that it costs for the uninsured to have treatment is unattainable for most people. Is that liberty and justice for all?

People go to church and praise and worship their gods, and that is their right. But on Monday mornings, these same people are decrying the 'woke left' for trying to teach things like...tolerance and history. They say that other religions are heathens and terrorists and do everything they can to stop them from holding positions of power. Is that liberty and justice for all?

Police corruption is higher than it was in the 1940s and the mob didn't have to lift a finger. It's filled with hatred and bigotry, racism and misogyny, power trips and harmful ideology. These departments are left unchecked, free to rape and pillage all they want under the guise of law enforcement. Is that liberty and justice for all?

Our lawmakers are collectively trying to enact laws that will hamstring our children and keep them from knowing what actually goes on in the world, will keep adults in this country from knowing what goes on in the world. While we have the highest standards perceived for our education, when ranked based on actual data and not an opinion survey, we don't even crack the top ten.

I wrote to our senator about this KOSA bill and he basically said 'fuck you I'm doing it.' Our congressman didn't even deign to give me an actual response, just an automated message to let me know that they received my email.

That is definitely not liberty and justice for all. Not to mention, porn is restricted by government ID here in Louisiana. Yet, my 14 year old still has access to it. It's all over twitter, discord, tumblr, and dozens of other sites that would have exemptions to the bills aimed at protecting kids from that kind of material.

Instead of sheltering, we need to educate. We need to teach kids bodily autonomy and not force them to hug their family. They need to know the proper terms for their body parts to be able to report sexual assault and molestation. They need to know that there are things that adults should not be doing.

We need to enforce the laws already on the books protecting children from rapists and child molesters and sex trafficking before we try to keep them off of the internet. Because the whole world has access to the internet. It's either all children, or just our children. The latter seems most likely.

In IT, when there's an issue for one user, the error is identified to being a single user error. Not an error with the entire network.

In order for me to want to participate in pledging my allegiance to a country - which, by the way, is something communist nations do, indoctrination at the kindergarten level - you have to make me believe in the words that I'm reciting.

"One Nation" if you're cishet and white.

"With Liberty and Justice for All." If you're not a minority group or female.

And don't get me started on the 'under god' portion.

#cole rants #political

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kaija-rayne-author · 9 months

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IMO I always considered the hair thing an intentional choice Solas made. When he first took on a body, it was one he’d been commanded to take, most likely by Mythal. When he broke away from her, he needed to make his body his own. He took off his Vallaslin, likely changed his style of dress, and then changed his hair.

It might seem like a minor detail to focus on, but many cultures throughout human history have used the dictation of certain approved hairstyles as a means of control. We still see vestiges of it in the modern day with misogynists getting up in arms over women with short hair, racially driven discrimination based on hairstyles, etc. I spent eight years in Catholic school and our headmistress would insist the AMAB student weren’t allowed to keep long hair. I doubt she had the authority to seriously penalize students, but she’d call the parents, pester them at school, etc.

And those are just some relatively mild examples. On the more extreme end we have the queue (head partially shaved with a long braid) which was a hairstyle imposed upon Chinese men under their subjugation by the Manchurian Qing Dynasty.

There have also been many religious orders that incorporate hairstyles into the physical expression of their faith. Hasidic men wear payos (those little side curls) in accordance with their dogma. Medieval European monks wore the tonsure as a sign of humility. And I’m sure most are familiar with the way devout Buddhists shave their heads as a symbolic means of relinquishing their ego.

Their pride, if you will.

So if Solas did have hair at one point, I think he made the deliberate choice to get rid of it. It was likely a move as symbolic as it was practical.

Oh absolutely. Most cultures have hair 'rules'. Hair/lack thereof has been used as a status symbol, a method of grieving, etc. in so many cultures. Cornrows were used to teach enslaved people the escape paths. There's still a lot of stigma for hairstyles traditionally worn by PoC. Not that long ago, a native man had to cut his hair to continue on in pilot school. It was worded as a safety issue, but a braid or a bun contains hair far better than a short cut. Many natives have strong feelings about our hair. Many don't cut it for spiritual reasons.

I've always assumed Solas keeping his head shaved is a humbling gesture for him. Many people regard their hair with pride, so it could easily be that he takes that from himself. He seems self-flagellant enough to do that to himself.

It could also be a gesture of freeing himself. The first thing I did after getting out of an abusive relationship was to chop all mine off.

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pinkjacket479 · 2 years

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Dude this country is fucking wild.

Like school shootings are normal, minorities are treated like shit, the health care system is fucked up, the education system is too, people are trying to make insulin more expensive when people need it to live, when we vote it’s usually voting for the better option between the two bad ones, inflation is increasing, there is a baby formula shortage, we ignore black history, POC history, LGBT history, any history of a minority. Literally teach things that didn’t happen so that white people look like the good guys.

And we say we are one of the greatest countries in the world.

#seriously #wtf?#america #usa

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qqueenofhades · 3 years

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Do you really hate this county? Or were you just ranting?

Sigh. I debated whether or not to answer this, since I usually keep the real-life/politics/depressing current events to a relative minimum on this blog, except when I really can't avoid ranting about it. But I have some things to get off my chest, it seems, and you did ask. So.

The thing is, any American with a single modicum of genuine historical consciousness knows that despite all the triumphalist mythology about Pulling Up By Our Bootstraps and the American Dream and etc, this country was founded and built on the massive and systematic exploitation and extermination of Black and Indigenous people. And now, when we are barely (400 years later!!!) getting to a point of acknowledging that in a widespread way, oh my god the screaming. I'm so sick of the American right wing I could spit for so many reasons, not least of which is the increasingly reductive and reactive attempts to put the genie back in the bottle and set up hysterical boogeymen about how Teaching Your Children Critical Race Theory is the end of all things. They have forfeited all pretense of being a real governing party; remember how their only platform at the 2020 RNC was "support whatever Trump says?" They have devolved to the point where the cruelty IS the point, to everyone who doesn't fit the nakedly white supremacist mold. They don't have anything to do aside from attempt to usher in actual, literal, dictionary-definition-of-fascism and sponsor armed revolts against the peaceful transfer of power.

That is fucking exhausting to be aware of all the time, especially with the knowledge that if we miss a single election cycle -- which is exceptionally easy to do with the way the Democratic electorate needs to be wooed and courted and herded like cats every single time, rather than just getting their asses to the polls and voting to keep Nazis out of office -- they will be right back in power again. If Manchin and Sinema don't get over their poseur pearl-clutching and either nuke the filibuster or carve out an exception for voting rights, the John Lewis Voting Rights Act is never going to get passed, no matter how many boilerplate appeals the Democratic leadership makes on Twitter. In which case, the 2022 midterms are going to give us Kevin McCarthy, Speaker of the House (I threw up in my mouth a little typing that) and right back to the Mitch McConnell Obstruction Power Hour in the Senate. The Online Left (TM) will then blame the Democrats for not doing more to stop them. These are, of course, the same people who refused to vote for Hillary Clinton out of precious moral purity reasons in 2016, handed the election to Trump, and now like to complain when the Trump-stacked Supreme Court reliably churns out terrible decisions. Gee, it's almost like elections have consequences!!

Aside from my exasperation with the death-cult right-wing fascists and the Online Left (TM), I am sick and tired of how forty years of "trickle-down" Reaganomics has created a world where billionaires can just fly to space for the fun of it, while the rest of America (and the world) is even more sick, poor, overheated, economically deprived, and unable to survive the biggest public health crisis in a century, even if half the elected leadership wasn't actively trying to sabotage it. Did you know that half of American workers can't even afford a one-bedroom apartment? Plus the obvious scandal that is race relations, health care, paid leave, the education system (or lack thereof), etc etc. I'm so tired of this America Is The Greatest Country in the World mindless jingoistic catchphrasing. We are an empire in the late stages of collapse and it's not going to be pretty for anyone. We have been poisoned on sociopathic-libertarian-selfishness-disguised-as-Freedom ideology for so long that that's all there is left. We have become a country of idiots who believe everything their idiot friends post on social media, but in a very real sense, it's not directly those individuals' fault. How could they, when they have been very deliberately cultivated into that mindset and stripped of critical thinking skills, to serve a noxious combination of money, power, and ideology?

I am tired of the fact that I have become so drained of empathy that when I see news about more people who refused to get the vaccine predictably dying of COVID, my reaction is "eh, whatever, they kind of deserved it." I KNOW that is not a good mindset to have, and I am doing my best to maintain my personal attempts to be kind to those I meet and to do my small part to make the world better. I know these are human beings who believed what they were told by people that they (for whatever reason) thought knew better than them, and that they are part of someone's family, they had loved ones, etc. But I just can't summon up the will to give a single damn about them (I'm keeping a bingo card of right-wing anti-vax radio hosts who die of COVID and every time it's like, "Alexa, play Another One Bites The Dust.") The course that the pandemic took in 21st-century America was not preordained or inevitable. It was (and continues to be) drastically mismanaged for cynical political reasons, and the legacy of the Former Guy continues to poison any attempts to bring it under control or convince people to get a goddamn vaccine. We now have over 100,000 patients hospitalized with COVID across the country -- more than last summer, when the vaccines weren't available.

I have been open about my fury about the devaluation of the humanities and other critical thinking skills, about the fact that as an academic in this field, my chances of getting a full-time job for which I have trained extensively and acquired a specialist PhD are... very low. I am tired of the fact that Americans have been encouraged to believe whatever bullshit they fucking please, regardless of whether it is remotely true, and told that any attempt to correct them is "anti-freedom." I am tired of how little the education system functions in a useful way at all -- not necessarily due to the fault of teachers, who have to work with what they're given, and who are basically heroes struggling stubbornly along in a profession that actively hates them, but because of relentless under-funding, political interference, and furious attempts, as discussed above, to keep white America safely in the dark about its actual history. I am tired of the fact that grade school education basically relies on passing the right standardized tests, the end. I am tired of the implication that the truth is too scary or "un-American" to handle. I am tired. Tired.

I know as well that "America" is not synonymous in all cases with "capitalist imperialist white-supremacist corporate death cult." This is still the most diverse country in the world. "America" is not just rich white middle-aged Republicans. "America" involves a ton of people of color, women, LGBTQ people, Muslims, Jews, Christians of good will (I have a whole other rant on how American Christianity as a whole has yielded all pretense of being any sort of a principled moral opposition), white allies, etc etc. all trying to make a better world. The blue, highly vaccinated, Biden-winning states and counties are leading the economic recovery and enacting all kinds of progressive-wishlist dream policies. We DID get rid of the Orange One via the electoral process and avert fascism at the ballot box, which is almost unheard-of, historically speaking. But because, as also discussed above, certain elements of the Democratic electorate need to fall in love with a candidate every single time or threaten to withhold their vote to punish the rest of the country for not being Progressive Enough, these gains are constantly fragile and at risk of being undone in the next electoral cycle. Yes, the existing system is a crock of shit. But it's what we've got right now, and the other alternative is open fascism, which we all got a terrifying taste of over the last four years. I don't know about you, but I really don't want to go back.

So... I don't know. I don't know if that stacks up to hate. I do hate almost everything about what this country currently is, structurally speaking, but I recognize that is not identical with the many people who still live here and are trying to do their best, including my friends, family, and myself. I am exhausted by the fact that as an older millennial, I am expected to survive multiple cataclysmic economic crashes, a planet that is literally boiling alive, a barely functional political system run on black cash, lies, and xenophobia, a total lack of critical thinking skills, renewed assaults on women/queer people/POC/etc, and somehow feel like I'm confident or prepared for the future. Not all these problems are only America's fault alone. The West as a whole bears huge responsibility for the current clusterfuck that the world is in, for many reasons, and so do some non-Western countries. But there is no denying that many of these problems have ultimate American roots. See how the ongoing fad for right-wing authoritarian strongmen around the world has them modeling themselves openly on Trump (like Brazil's lunatic president, Jair Bolsonaro, who talks all the time about how Trump is his political role model). See what's going on in Afghanistan right now. Etc. etc.

Anyway. I am very, very tired. There you have it.

#anonymous #ask #politics for ts #covid for ts #i had a lot to say evidently #rant

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piccolina-mina · 3 years

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Our girl is thriving this season, but what the fuck is this Wyatt plot? I need your thinks about this one. I just knew you'd be six posts in on this by now. HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

*sighs* For fk's sake, nonny. I don't even like talking about it because I get ranty.

What do you want me to say? Honestly, everything you can imagine I would feel about this, you're probably right. Because you know, I'm that b*tch always getting ranty about racism and stuff.

In short, I hate it. I think it's unnecessary, tone-deaf, random, pointless, lowkey offensive, and illogical. I legitimately find it triggering AF. And it doesn't make sense.

It's Unnecessary. There is a fraction of a chance that it will connect to something more significant, but even if that's the case, I'm confident that end result or connection could've taken place without this random reform racist Wyatt storyline. This series has struggled enough as it is properly utilizing all of its primary characters as well as providing them with decent screentime and arcs. It literally makes no sense to spend any of that time that could be used elsewhere on primary characters on a recurring guest star.

This isn't actually about Rosa, it's about Wyatt. Following up on the previous point, this specific arc caters to Wyatt. Revolves around Wyatt. Rosa is just a passive participant and vessel for this Wyatt storyline. So again, the arc itself is about a recurring character. At least when they did something similarly bringing back Cam to siphon time and arcs away from its main cast they found ways to implement it better and tied her to multiple main characters, so it wasn't a total waste.

The intended Wyatt/Rosa parallel is illogical. I know what they're intending to do with this storyline, drawing parallels between Rosa's experience coming back from the dead after ten years and trying to make sense of that and atone for things before and having this second chance to make things right and go down the right path and so forth and Wyatt losing his memory and his racist ways and having to reconcile with who he was to who he can be and all of that. I understand the concept they're trying to sell. It just doesn't work. Rosa's addiction is not equivalent to Wyatt's racism and violence. Her mental illness isn't either. It's dangerous to invite the comparasions with this storyline.

It's not successful redemption. True redemption is Wyatt knowing and remembering his actions and then trying to atone for them. It's not the convenience of amnesia wiping out his memory only giving him distance from his actions rather than really facing up to them. Because of the amnesia, to Wyatt, it's like he's hearing about another person. It's a cop out. He doesn't Actually have to do the work to redeem himself or atone or learn or grow. IF we're supposed to compare it to Rosa, she knew what she did and remembers and knows how she hurt her loved ones or whatever and she's actively trying to make amends for that as part of her program... a program that Wyatt isn't working or anything BTW.

They've contradicted themselves too much and are rewriting their own work and thus twisting everything up just to make this storyline work and it still doesn't. The timeline is all fkd up... what they established already all of it..The Longs were racist before Kate's death. Kate was racist. To suggest that a 10+ amnesiac blackout clean slates and erases all of Wyatt's racism is just wrong. As in it literally doesn't even make any sense. That is not how the amnesia works but they keep playing both sides of it trying to make it work. To sell us what they're claiming, he would have to have ALL of his memories wiped and have forgotten who he was completely.

Wyatt is behaving like he's shocked by racism in this town but they're also trying to argue that he was born into it. Wyatt was surrounded by racists and his friends come from racist families but he's acting like the very concept of him ever being ingratiated in it is some huge surprise. Wyatt looks affronted by things like Confederate flags. Wyatt being steeped in and surrounded by racism predates his amnesia period.

Kyle mentioned that line about Wyatt putting Whites Only on water fountains, and it sounded like a school prank. It also sounded like something Kyle was reminding Rosa of as if she was alive when that incident happened. Therefore, Wyatt was doing racist stuff before she died. Kyle would've been out of school by then so how else would he know that or why would he bother retaining it?

IF Wyatt and Rosa really were friends before (which holy retcon), then it makes no real sense that he would get psychopathically angry about his "friend" who does drugs getting into a car accident with his sister who does drugs. He would've mourned them both not jumped to severe racism and violence. But both he and Jasmine's family (who are MIA for all of this) did that... jumped to racism. So was Wyatt indoctrinated by his family or indoctrinated by message boards and shit? And if Wyatt and Rosa were friends than why was Kate such a racist bitch to Rosa?

They're backdrafting history JUST to make this storyline that we don't need with a character who isn't even a main one to work.

By not actually addressing that Wyatt has to unlearn racism and giving him an out through amnesia, there is the very realistic issue of that latent racism to come out at any given time. What happens when he's drunk? What happens when he's really angry at a POC?

Tying Wyatt's redemption with his clear affection for Rosa is again dangerous and irresponsible. I know we would all like to think that love is the way and through love it can heal racism, but that puts the responsibility on the disenfranchised person to be "lovable." Because if Wyatt WAS friends with Rosa once then that means the second Rosa did something unlovable she was just another *insert racist slur of choosing* right? It means that there's a possibility that if his feelings for Rosa dwindle or things go sideways in some way there's a chance that he could revert back to those racist ways. Loving Rosa(linda) and pinning all of his wanting to be better on her because of her makes his actively learning to be anti-racist conditional. Right now he's not doing this for him. He's doing it because of Rosa.

This entire storyline has placed the burden of forgiveness on Rosa, his victim. Without him ever having to actually make amends. It's this turn the other cheek BS that means there's nothing too big or harmful that can't result in forgiveness. It relies on Rosa and all that she represents to extend an inhumane level of mercy and grace to their tormentor and oppressor that was never once extended to them. It's such a consistent and problematic thing projected on disenfranchised parties that ONLY benefits the majority and makes them feel good. It's a narrative of meeting someone halfway when the playing field was uneven and the minorities are in actuality doing more work and making a longer trek. Halfway and meeting in the middle only works if both sides were even. They are not. It's the reaching across the aisle both sidesms when one side was clearly and actively more harmful than the other and than calling that peace and equity. It is not.

This storyline was meant to scintillate some viewers with this "what if" notion and teach others a meaningful lesson or be this poorly thought out gateway to exploring a complex storyline but it came at the expense of other demographics who actively have to deal with racist crap. And because of their problematic approach what is simply "just entertainment" to some who has the luxury of not having to think about it beyond that, is just gross and insanely triggering and uncomfortable to others. The others who deal with the reality of the subject at hand.

They wrote themselves into a corner with Wyatt so trying to dig him out of that no matter the cost or logic is absurd. This storyline could've worked better if Wyatt's racism didn't also include conscious, constant, extreme violence. But they spent all of this time making Wyatt the face of violent racism and now are trying to redeem him with no real effort. He wasn't just using slurs or making microaggressions. He wasn't some insensitive or aloof white person. He is a murderer. He has killed people. He technically murdered Liz in cold-blood. He knew she was in the crashdown when he shot up the place. The lights were still on. He beat up Arturo so badly he nearly killed him well after his friends even stopped. He attacked and intended to kill Rosa. And his handiwork was a constant thing, enough for Jenna to comment on it. And now we're supposed to ignore all of that because he has amnesia and has puppy dog eyes?

The fact that we can entertain (and for some succeed) Wyatt in all of his hot white dudeness' redemption after everything he has done slips into the inherent racism of society in the first place and is enraging. Because systemically and culturally and inherently society will bend over backwards to find a way to absolve a hot white guy no matter his actions. Flint and Noah couldn't get this type of redemption... So their intended storyline about evolving from racism STILL plays into the racist structures set up in society.

And because some people like it, there's this slippery territory of NO everyone who genuinely enjoys this aren't racist for enjoying it. But yes, this entire storyline and how it is playing out is at the very least racially insensitive.

In order for this storyline to work they would actually have to show Wyatt doing the work. They don't have enough time to dedicate to such a delicate storyline. It's been a C and D filler storyline with 45 second to a minute scenes. That's not enough time to explore this properly. We would've needed to see Wyatt returning home from the hospital. We would've needed to see Wyatt with his friends and it not feeling right and his discomfort. We would've needed to see Wyatt going through his yearbook and googling himself and the horror and disgust he felt. We would need to see this through his eyes. But we didn't have the time for that and we wouldn't have anyway because he's not a main character. We only get Wyatt through Rosa's eyes and they haven't even dedicated enough time to that for it to work. Rosa isn't conflicted at all. She didn't struggle to forgive him. She was reduced to a school girl with a crush and an insane level of grace and they just threw that at us with no buildup whatsoever. I don't know where Rosa's head is and how she got to this to place. Not really. And the only thing working about this is the chemistry between two actors who are allegedly dating so of course there's chemistry.

It literally feels like another instance of a favorite actor being shoehorned into a storyline just for the hell of it. Just because they didn't want to let Dylan go or something. Just to give him something else to do.

#anti wyatt long #rnm salt #roswell new mexico #rnm ask

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bats-and-brats · 4 years

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I know I JUST posted something but I wanted to take a quick moment to talk about how Chadwick Bosemans was much more than just “a well loved celebrity” ESPECIALLY for kids in the black community.

Living in the society we live in today. Specifically living in the US, black kids are not taught to love their skin. In schools the only black history we’re taught is slavery and then once every year in February were taught the same thing over and over, about MLK. It’s literally engrained into black children from the start, that they’re second class Americans because of their skin color. Eurocentric beauty standards and forced down these kids throats through TV and media making them feel left out and ugly because they aren’t white. This country has never been on the side of POC, especially not the black community.

For me personally seeing Chadwick Boseman on screen as Jackie Robinson, James Brown and Thurgood Marshall, made me realize how much our black history they WERENT teaching us in schools and it made me m a d. And I know for a fact that in 2018 when Black Panther came out, that was a game changer. For black kids to see a superhero so powerful, that looked like them? That means something. Representation matters. Chadwick Boseman represented us. Made black people, who have been beaten down since the start of this damn country, be proud to be black. We needed him. And he meant more to us than I think a lot of non black people realize.

The world was robbed

So may Chadwick Boseman rest in power. Let his legacy live on.

#rest in power chadwick #chadwick boseman #blm

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plutos-ambassador · 3 years

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No matter how you look or how you feel about yourself, or how "cool" your culture trends are seen, at the end, all you've got is you, so why not put yourself first and enjoy instead of bootlicking Anglos in hope you'll become white like them or get crumbs of validation from them?More sadistic whites honestly think this kind of WannabeWhite Asians™️ are pathetic and embarrassing.

“Glad Asia is finally realizing how colonising and exploitative racists could be! Always seemed like SEAsians would pretend not to care about the atrocities committed by white people colonizers and sex pests just for a chance with "blonde/brown hair, blue eyes" and their DNA, also to try and get some riches back to rebuild their plundered land of course. Please pick up your textbooks and reread the history of your past with white and Japanese people!”

so listen, i’m neurodivergent and can’t tell what your tone is with this and if you’re trying to be condescending and rude more than your words already are, but i am quite literally southeast asian.

i have never once tried to be anyone i’m not, I am proundly SE Asian, i love my culture and I will never dilute or mitigate it for someone else. I have been bullied most of my life for it. I couldn’t even speak English until I was 8 despite having been in American school since Kindergarten because my mother doesn’t speak it.

i need no validation from white people and no one else does either and it’s ridiculous and narrowminded to think that is what most PoC even aim for. that’s something you have internalized and perpetuate so perhaps you should evaluate that before preaching it to others who don’t even believe that.

i know just how much my people have been effected and just how horrible america and primarily white colonizers have made my life. before you come into my fucking inbox talking about how we try to fuck our way into having white in our dna, how about you learn something about who you’re talking to.

i hope you realize we do know how horrible colonization was, we literally live in it. do you think i have ever enjoyed the fact that white people still come to my country to try and find a young impressionable girl with a dream of a better life and exploit her for money, sex, and a young trophy import wife. or how about the fact that french colonizers destroyed my great grandfather’s village. or how my father was kicked out of his own village so it could be used as an america military landing pad during a war we never asked for.

i know my history much more than you ever will so do not come at me to tell me about history. and i quite literally teach history and cover in great detail american atrocities to marginalized groups every day to run the fact home. do not come at me and tell me to pickup my textbook and reread history as if it is not my primary job.

and moreover, if you knew anything about me and where i’m from, which i don’t suppose you do considering you came at me in such a way, despite japan also having bad roots in my country’s history as well, you would know our primary grief is from china and korea and those are our tenuous historical relationships.

i really don’t know what your purpose for these asks are, but i’m not amused

#you ask #i answer #i really don't know what the fuck you wanted #but if it's me being angry #it worked #stop asian violence #stop Asian hate #stop aapi hate #you're talking a lot of shit for being on anon #go ahead and jump off so i know who i'm talking to

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kara-is-a-cutie · 3 years

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It's really jarring when I hear people talk about how they don't know these things.

For me and many other black people, it's almost expected of us to know full american history through and through. I would go to school and sit through whatever the history classes were teaching, and then I would go home and sit through more hour long lectures on the entirety of black history (given by my parents/family).

One time they were quizzing me and I said Malcolm X when I meant MLK, not only did I get yelled at with continued scolding/judging that lasted years, but the history lessons increased ten fold after that. I was only like 4th grade.

It's the same for many of my friends to, their parents never missing an opportunity to go into history mode. You can imagine how fun black childhood is when you have to learn how to act and present yourself just to be allowed to exist. What it's like carrying all these atrocities in your little head. My friends and I have just had many conversations on how black kids are never granted childhoods, and how tiring it really is. Just the way we as a people are constantly passing on this generation trauma, and black suffering, it's painful to think about.

This isn't anything against anyone, it's just always crazy when people are like "oh I never knew this" "I just found this out" when I've been expected to know this my whole life. I mean its understandable, it is my history and I should know where I've come from and all, but still.

There are just so many white people (and other poc too) that just will never know some things, l understand school censors and omits a lot of stuff, but still.

I agree with you. The fucked up shit white people have done (to all poc) should be taught, but sadly it isn't. I wish I would've learned about this in school, but we don't. Especially not here in Sweden.

We're a very white country, obviously. I grew up essentially just being told that "oh hey, Sweden is great and we stayed neutral in both world wars" - we didn't, many joined the nazis and we were the last nation, from what I know, to stop researching race biology. We committed atrocious things to the natives of the north, the Sami, in the name of science. Uppsala University still have books full of naked pictures of Sami people, including children, with measurements and all, stored in their archives from this time. Some people want them destroyed, others think we need to keep them as proof that it happened.

Most of this I had to learn on my own through reading and listening to historical podcasts.

Sweden also played a pivotal part in the slave trade. We had been given St Bartholomeo in the Caribbean by the French as payment for something (or a dowry, can't remember) and since there was no fresh water on the island (meaning we couldn't farm) we instead established a station for slave trade. This allowed the French, British and Spanish to sell between each other without a conflict of interest cause we were the middlemen.

Once again, not a peep of it in school, but I spent an entire semester learning about Norse mythology.

I was also never taught about the civil rights movement or MLK or Malcolm X.

I know this doesn't mean much, but I'm sorry for the trauma of having to shoulder these burdens and that you have the burden of educating us on it, but I'm so thankful for the people who are willing to. You and your people doesn't deserve anything that's been done to you.

And I'm sorry for my ignorance, I'm trying to learn more and more every day to change it.

#ask #ask kara #I'm not asking for y'all to praiae me or whatever #I'm literally doing what should be the bare minimum to help makes this world better

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astrorising · 3 years

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⚠️ TW: police brutality, murder, racism. read with caution from here on out.

cloudy majority of the day, the shine broke through after the jury determined derek chauvin guilty on all charges.

this case out of what SHOULD HAVE BEEN MANY, a murderer, former police officer has been convinced on 3 counts of murder in result of killing george floyd. the murderer has been held accountable for his crime, and today will mark history and the start of accountability. we as citizens have been fighting against racial injustices and oppression for our fellow american brothers and sisters for a long time now. we have been more educated than what our schools have failed to teach us and keep hidden, to fulfill the ego of white supremacy for years. i am proud to be apart of the generation that breaks old rooted racist morals and beliefs and serve justice to those to apply those beliefs today. i am proud to be apart of the generation that applies pressure to stand up to deeply rooted systematic racism to push to for equality among all. society is becoming more aware and changing constantly, leaving no room for old beliefs to linger any longer. WE ARE THE CHANGE. WE WILL KEEP FIGHTING FOR THOSE WHO HAVE BEEN SILENCED FOR SO LONG. ACCOUNTABILITY DOESNT STOP HERE, IT HAS ONLY STARTED. JUSTICE IS BEEN SERVED TODAY, AS WE WILL FIGHT FOR IT HARDER HERE ON OUT. ALL LIVES DONT MATTER UNTIL BLACK LIVES DO. POC LIVES MATTER!!!

we all need to take care of each other during this time. use your white privilege to protect black and poc lives. we all have a beating heart. protect everyone’s like we needed to protect the ones we lost.

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trashy-bowtie · 4 years

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So it begins.

Last night, my oldest sister, an AVID tr*mp supporter, texted me about a post I had posted on my personal Facebook about how you can't support him and support POC/non-christians/LGBTQ+/etc. She basically texted me to inform me that I was wrong and that I needed to get informed before I post things.

My response? I told her I really didn't want to debate, I had done extensive research (it took me days to completely fill out my ballot. I already knew who I wanted for president, but not for any of my state specific stuff) and that I went with who I thought was best for my views personally (which would've been Bernie, but this election is hella important so naturally I voted for Biden) so I had to respectfully disagree and said sorry. Tried to be polite because I hate conflict and it sucks because she's my (half) sister.

Boy, that must've set her off. Her first message seemed a little condescending. She turned to full condescending mode and basically kept saying I was unintelligent for supporting "terrorist organisations" (which in my first message we had that discussion which I said that antifa was against fascists so it isn't terrorist unless tr*mp happened to be fascist. My passive aggressive nature came out.) And so she was telling me all about how I was being brainwashed and turning into a sheep by the media and all this shit. Being very belligerent and disrespectful and a bully. And even said her best friend is a POC Atheist so she still supported all that stuff from my post.

I should note that she's A. 29 years old (8 years my senior) and B. Back in her youth, she wrote a racist slur on a Mexican classmates car of hers and defaced it a bit

And she also told me that I'm young and haven't experienced any fascist stuff so I don't know the meaning of the word. I educated myself (and still continue to do so) and when I was a senior in high school I did an in depth entire history of the Holocaust so I feel like I'm qualified to talk about that kind of stuff (aka Tr*mp really is like Hitler, but we already know that. Or at least should've).

After I stopped responding after my first message back she kept sending a barrage of texts and then her last two 6 and 3 part messages were about her backtracking and saying she wasn't meaning to be rude and she's doing this not out of politics but because she cares about me and all this other bullshit.

So, should I cut her out of my life? She lives in Missouri (I live in Utah) and we don't normally talk anyway. However, just fucking great that this happened. Also she doesn't have fb cuz she deleted hers so now I'm wondering if my mom and other sister are all talking shit about me (likely cuz no one's addressing anything about last night and my mom is a staunch tr*mp supporter as well and posted a meme about how there's an influx of democrat votes (the ones obviously coming from the post/mail) and also support for a big tr*mp train that drove from my states capitol up several cities north or something like that. So I don't know what to do. This sucks, but I have too many mental issues to deal with and I can't stand being talked to like that, not anymore. I've had it.

Edit: my sister got diagnosed with bipolar disorder back right after she dropped out of high school and then the meds had some weight gain side effects so my mom basically convinced her she didn't have it and the doctor was wrong. Also I'm even more worried because she teaches elementary school so I hope she doesn't throw politics at all those poor kids.

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thurisazsalail · 4 years

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I’m tired of ‘leftist’ anti-intellectualism and America-centric xenophobia posing as liberalism.

Protip: If you are anti-academia on subjects of culture not being taught by someone genetically from that culture, even if they know nothing about the culture they are talking about and have never participated in it and were never raised with it... over someone who actually does have a background in knowledge from people of that culture who lived in it and were raised in it... you might actually be the imperialist you are talking about fighting against. You might actually be silencing the people you think you are elevating through deplatforming actual sources from the cultural background talked about, artificially holding up someone with the right genes but no heritage or ties. You might want appearance over substance to be a “good person.” Rethink your views on academia. Think critically. What sources is a person using? Does a person talk about Africa like it's a country and not a continent (ew), or does the person have a list of resources about specific cultures as spoken about by the people from those cultures? Do they make effort in finding anyone from that culture to present or speak in class, if possible? Do they show videos of those people, which are not denigrating to them? Did the person work hard to find resources for you in a language you understand, or did they work to translate for you? Or are their resources some old white dude from 200 years ago, like using the Budge translations for (ancient) Egyptian? Did they quote Fiona Graham or Liza Dalby on geisha? Because of those people is a damn liar who took a fucktonne of money and prestige from an ailing geisha house and ran, and one actually trained as an anthropologist who spent time in Pontocho, where they knew exactly what she was there for and they suggested she debuted as a geisha to better understand them. Does the person gloss over issues like war or genocide? Or do they say, "Yeah, we should probably talk about that. In fact, you can use some example from recent history to understand the attitudes a bit better. Here they are, and here are some differences. Here are some further reading (and if available, video) sources, including from the groups that got really fucked over." If you SAY you are into historybounding (taking historical elements in your wardrobe and making it ‘new’ fashion) and you want to make the frilly French dresses and the London fog coats, but don't ever want to talk about how people eventually used the Versailles floors as a latrine because of the decadence and wanton wealth they collapsed into... and how the common people suffered because of it... Or how England discriminated against it's own people heavily, relegating Jewish English people to certain neighbourhoods or refused jobs to them, or treated the Moorish-descent like shit, or actively would beat the Irish in public and stole their land... you might not be into history or culture. You might just like looking at the pretty things and copying them. You know. Probably culturally appropriating (if not borderline doing so). Not just "history bounding." People in a marginalised group often have to learn things about our own groups’ history, or else we might see "Stonewall" and believe that a white guy threw the first brick, or that "queer" is a slur. Our own people, gasp, might have to learn from... academia. And strangely, I know, it's so weird, but some of the people who teach... use primary sources (that’s sources from the time/place/people the source talks about, like Gay Manifesto written by gay man Carl Wittman)... or are closeted about being experts on the subjects... because they are talking about their own groups and STILL face discrimination and might lose those precious jobs if they are out... and they're just not identifiable by your *outsider* standards. And sorry, but if you don't know your own history, yes, you are an outsider in that sense. Yeah, I can trace some of my family lineage to Turtle Tribe Seneca. But I am an outsider because the only reservation I've ever been on is the one to Olive Garden. I might have to *gasp* turn to actual knowledgeable people to learn something about that. I can't just dress up in whatever or do whatever and say, "No, it's okay! My great-grandmother is Seneca!" and then claim not knowing better because my heritage was stolen by federal American laws. That's not how that works. There is some tentative evidence that some of my family was Jewish before hiding it and coming to America in the late 1930s. But I still have to go through an official conversion process. I still have to learn Jewish history and Jewish culture, and about Jewish diaspora issues. That’s how it works. If you are Japanese in Japan, same thing applies to certain things. Like if you are performing tea ceremony with your school, you can’t just wander in to most of them with whatever pretty kimono you want. There are rules for that. It is a language, not just a dress. You will be sent home. If you don’t want to adhere to those rules, you will not be accepted. That’s how it works. It sucks, totally. But welcome to real life. You might have to actually work at things... Including managing your feelings and not making other people responsible for them. You might have to take responsibility AND bury your ego long enough to learn from educated people. One tip is... Question sources! That was my biggest gripe ten years ago! Plenty of books about Japanese culture, and all of them with lots of white people (white according to American-centric ideas about whiteness) writing the narrative! I had to work to find books about Japanese social ideas written by Japanese authors. You might have to work, too, and not blame other people for not just *handing you shit.* But in the end, accept that other people might know more than you and that is isn't about being Uppity by nature. It's also about "I have all this, you want some?"

If you don't want to learn, then you have to leave the classroom. You can't be a child, throwing a temper tantrum. You're a grown-up. But don't just assume by someone's face that you magically already know how things will be. Ask for a list, a syllabus, a source, a curriculum vitae. That should give you some insight on what to expect. Ask for clarification. Oh, this class is teaching Arthur Conan Doyle? WHAT are they teaching about him, specifically? Erasure isn’t the answer, here. That legacy still exists.

Stick to a scope: you can't fit six books of info in one hour. You need to stay focused. That's part of learning. No "whaddabouts?" Yes, write them down and message them in! But they might not be for this specific post, lecture, or class. The class might need a thing right then, like when my Humanities prof decided that Britain just "had a skirmish" with Benin. No, they committed genocide because Benin refused to become a colony of England, and you need to know that RIGHT NOW while the class is happening, before the moment is gone or internalized. But if you have a side comment about what happened to diaspora in WW2 once they moved to Hawaii and Brazil, the focus of the class might be on experiences *in Japan* and not on diaspora. Email it. It might become another class. There isn't time for that right now. That doesn't mean the prof hates diaspora Japanese. It doesn't mean diaspora don't matter. It just means that the class is limited in focus and time, and right now, the focus isn't on diaspora. Don't make a big dramatic deal about it. Instead, idk, maybe write a well-sourced paper on diaspora experiences while fleeing hostile Showa-era takeover and release it publicly. You can just... do that. I've done that with transcripts for movies that don't have them, for essays on various topics. You can even get paid for that content! No one had to "approve" me. I put it on fucking Tumblr so everyone could have it. Open-source means something. jfc people. Stop whining. Start having open conversations instead of shutting anything new or different down. Stop the anti-intellectualism disguised as liberalism. Stop the xenophobia and nativism disguised as cultural protection. It's great when a culture decides for itself that most people (from that culture) don't want foreign interaction or interference! Leave them the fuck alone! It isn’t hard! Some cultures are closed. Some are semi-closed, like there’s certain things you can learn about or participate in but others are only for people from that background. But don't get mad when a totally different culture doesn't care or uses it for leverage. You don’t get to dismiss a different culture or denigrate them under the guise of “protecting” other POC by erasing them. And if your excuse is (Culture/group) is imperialistic/all people of ____ descent/race are _____ DUDE FIRST OF ALL WTF and second of all, let me tell you something about American history. French history. English history. There are some nuanced conversations we COULD have here, like adults. Or you could just be honest and say, “This isn’t a conversation I’d like to have right now.” That’s totally fine. Sometimes you just don��t have the spoons or time. I often don’t, being disabled. Or you could shut down like a child and say that this is fine but then mute all posts until you get your way, and anyone who posts an actual source is wrong or bad because intellectuals and experts are suspicious. Your choice. Real life is complicated. Figure it out instead of trying to reduce hard things to a box to fit in easily. Expand your world past your little tiny experiences in your own country and background. Stop assuming every fucking thing in the world works like it does in America. Stop approving/disapproving of any information that doesn’t match up with your American morality or experiences- there are *other people* that deal with things other ways than we do. Stop wholesale condemning anyone better informed than you just because of your ego. Start using some of those critical thinking skills you are supposed to have. If you don’t know how, type “critical thinking development” into youtube for tutorials. -------- Edit: hahaha I KNEW that Tumblr deleted something when it highlighted it. I just couldn’t figure out what at the time. The difference between Graham and Dalby: one worked in Pontocho as a geisha for research, and they knew that ahead of time; Graham lied her ass off to geisha and then tried to open her own house after taking only a few lessons to get famous and make a lot of money. She’s a fucking embarrassment and worse. --------------- Update 11/3 Turns out that dig I made about French costuming (a perennial fave in historybounding and historical sewing groups) and imperialism wasn’t all that far off... here’s a whole ass thread about how many fucking African presidents and leaders France has specifically killed, and how much France has done to just Africa relatively recently. That’s JUST to Africa. I bet some of my Mi’kMaq and Algonquin-descent friends would have some things to say about heritage erasure regarding the French. https://thurisazsalail.tumblr.com/post/633807847387512832

#america #american centricism #academia #anti-intellectualism #xenophobia #childish af #liberalism #intercultural #historybounding #intracommunity issues

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palmett-hoes · 4 years

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since the first step in achieving your goals is to state them aloud, here's a list of aftg fics/ au s that i'd like to write some day

- pre-canon fic from aaron's perspective spanning the twins' first meeting till they're drafted by the foxes and graduate high school. i'm increasingly enamored with aaron as a character as well as with an outside perspective of andrew's actions and i think it would be very interesting to look at the foundation on which their fraught relationship is built and first developed

- even more pre-canon fic. andrew's early life in foster care. yes, we all know about the most... gruesome things that were done to him, but i believe that there is plenty more that has affected and shaped him, especially in relation to my interpretation of andrew as an autistic poc. this would not be a happy fic.

- anastasia au. neil as anya, andrew as dimitri. possibly a plot amalgamation from both the animated movie and the stage show, with changes as i see fit. (no, neil is not the prince of russia). what i find most compelling about this au is the story of neil and andrew as childhood friends and then the angst of having andrew, as an adult, teaching an amnesiac neil how to act like a noble while being convinced that neil is an imposter. good shit

- art school/dance club au. the foxes attend the palmetto school of art at prestigious edgar allen university. they're considered the school's charity cases, and they are NOT friends. andrew is a studio arts major with a concentration in sculpture who works in the campus coffee shop in the mornings and frequents night clubs that employ pretty boys in the evenings. neil is attending college completely on his father's dime, PROVIDED he study what his father wants, despite his desire to study dance and music. going crazy without an outlet, neil takes a secret job as a go-go dancer. look. this may slightly possibly be a result of me having planned to party hardy this summer, then having my plans ruined by the virus :c

- 1950s High School au. the 1950s aesthetics fucking rock even though the 1950s fucking sucked. kinda wanna tackle both. plus, andrew already has that james dean bad boy fast car appeal

- an exploration of mary and nathan's relationship and history. i get that neil's parents are both super taboo and both really really awful people, but i have questions and i want to answer them

- neil never returns from baltimore. in order to keep his deals, permanently, andrew kills riko and tetsugi, and gets over 20 years in prison. when he gets out, he just wants to be alone, but it seems there's a ghost haunting him. this was conceived for MAXIMUM angst, no getting around it. i got the idea from a badacts fic and it has haunted me ever since

- post-canon sexuality exploration fic. i have a real passion for quality sex education and healthy experimentation, and neil very clearly didn't get the chance for either. yet at the end of the books he finds himself in a very intense sexual relationship. i just really want to give him the opportunity to find out how desire works for him and what he likes, on his own terms. i read a lot of fics where neil's desires seem to be completely dependent on andrew's initiaton, and while i do believe that andrew is the only person neil is attracted to and will ever be attracted to, i also want to explore how his sexuality manifests on its own. the vibe i'm going for is, uh, HornySweet (tm), but also with a lot of genuine eductional material. i want this is to be something that offers real information to its readers that may have been inaccessible for a lot of people, on topics like like sexual hygiene, maturbation, and sex toys in a non-fetishy way. this will be very very E rated, but like,, in a very earnest and goofy way because sex and sexuality is neat and cool but it's also not all serious perfect fucking. it's just,, a topic that deserves to be DISCUSSED

- mobster au. andrew, having never met aaron, takes a job for the moriyamas to track down a runaway asset. Neil. upon completion, they make andrew the butcher's apprentice, and pull neil back into the fold as a commodity rather than a person. lots of violence, lots of shady underground dealings, lots of plotting, lots of secrets.

i'm gonna put some more under the cut, ones that i don't feel as strong a drive towards right now or that i haven't thought as much about. if you (yes, YOU) like any of these, or are interested in any of these, or wanna hear more about any of these, or are even inspired to write something yourself by any of these please, PLEASE, say something in the notes, or send me a message, or an ask or anything. ANYTHING. i am stuck inside, all the time, and i am so, so lonely. i answer from hoob-gooblin

- princess bride au. come ON. princess bride is one of the most romantic AND most snarky movies of all time, and andreil literally invented love and devotion sooooooo it's a perfect match. "yes or no" vs "as you wish" kings of consent and communication and unconventional love declarations. also,, he may not be how I imagine andrew, but a young cary elwes in dramatic black pirate getup is DEFINITELY a valid andrew

- hozier au. sometimes,, i listen to an album, and imagine a fic that encompases the whole thing. nothing speaks louder to me than hozier's discography. (also, yes, i am gay). maybe a little bit inside llewyn davis. neil wanders through a small town and takes up some small jobs, but sings his heart out through twisted metaphors once a week in a hole in the wall bar staffed by a very short, dead eyed veteran

- prince and the pauper au. on a stealth recon mission in enemy territory, andrew encounters a local lord who happens to have his face. in a moment of desperation to save himself from arrest, andrew knocks the lord out and assumes his identity. he returns to the castle just in time for prince moriyama to arrive with a shifty-eyed, red-headed handservant in tow. lord aaron of columbia, meanwhile, wakes up on a ship manned by crown traitor and fugitive kevin day, calling him by a name he's never heard before, and then he's in the hands of the guerilla rebel forces that have been attacking the kingdom. i watched barbie princess and the pauper as a child and that movie fucking slaps

- little mermaid/beauty and the beast/bride of the rose beast/ladyhawke au. in a last ditch attempt to escape his father, neil trades his voice and his tail for legs and washes ashore on a small kingdom with horrible secrets. because he cannot speak, read or write, prince aaron employs neil to serve the monster in the catacombs, the prince's twin brother. the twins are under a curse that turns them into terrifying monsters, andrew by day and aaron by night. aaron's affliction is a secret, as is andrew's humanity. this is such a hodgepodge idea lol. did neil also have to be a mermaid for this to work? no. is he? hell yeah

- new york private school/twin swap au. aaron wins a scholarship to a prestigious school that will guarantee him a future, but then he relapses. convinced he just needs a little more time to get clean, he makes a deal with his volatile new brother, andrew, to stand in for him at the school just until he can his shit together. neil and ichirou moriyama have been raised together their entire lives, always under the knowledge that ichirou will inherit the family empire with nathaniel as his right hand. they hate the idea, but they have no way to escape, and now neil is being harassed by ichirou's bitchass estranged brother at their stupid, fancy private school. LISTEN, we as a fandom do NOT take enough advantage of the twin swap possibilities presented to us. pathetic

- post-canon fic where ichirou, realizing that the life of a mob boss is a lonely one, decides that he needs... a friend. however, because of the nature of his work, he can't just make friends with anyone, so he decides to make friends with neil. without consulting neil first. cue a lot of very weird, very awkward coffee dates where neil is convinced he's about to be disposed of, and ichirou just wants to know about his cats. the thing i like about ichirou is he’s a complete blank slate. i can make him a good guy, a bad guy, an ally, the Big Bad

- Kill Bill au. mary survives a bullet to the head and wakes up from a coma over a year later. with nothing left to lose, she sets out to single-handedly dismantle the wesninski circle. good thing she used to be its top assassin

- single dad andrew au. except look, look, stay with me here, okay, aaron is his son, and he's adopted nicky and kevin. LISTEN. STAY WITH ME. JUST THINK ABOUT IT. tbh the idea comes from my interpretation of the andrew/neil/kevin dynamic as distincly parental, then extending that interpretation to andrew's protection over the rest of his family.

- fashion au. andrew is a fashion designer and photographer who frequently works with allison reynolds. one day she brings around a short, twitchy assistant who looks like she just plucked him out of an alley. somehow, he becomes andrew's muse. i watch a lot of fashion competition shows

- ghibli. either howl's moving castle (andrew as sophie, neil as howl) or spirited away (?). maybe both idk

- legally blonde au. legally blonde is so good guys

#aftg #fic #fic ideas #aftg fic #the foxes #neil josten #andrew minyard #andreil

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maiaphaelsource · 4 years

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I was the anon who sent you the trans Raphael headcanons ask on your other blog, do you have any more? With some trans Maia thrown in too🥺 like Magnus being the best trans dad to his son and the love of his sons life and being supportive and loving. Raphael kissing Maia on the forehead and telling her how beautiful she is, you know? Cute shit like that

yes!!! hello!!! i hope you know i love you and you're my favorite person in the world!! thank you so much for this ask!

okay so i’ll begin with the specifics... magnus is absolutely THE trans dad to both of them. not only with practical stuff like offering to help them with glamours, magical transitioning, stuff like that, but just... being so supportive and understanding. he’s always there, and he has so many stories to share, so many people he’s met who had happy lives. he was there for stonewall, he’s met Marsha P. Johnson and Sylvia Rivera, and it’s just so heartwarming for the both of them to talk to him about that, you know? that feeling of not being alone in history, of knowing that there are and were other people like you, that you’ve always existed.... it’s just great

also in maia’s case since she also lives a partially mundane life he just solves all her documentation problems like deadname? gone forever. no registers. you’re welcome. the first time maia sees her document with her name she almost cries and she throws herself in magnus’ arms and magnus is so touched and moved and shocked you know? like the gratitude and the affection and she’s just thanking him and he’s so moved and raphael just watches with a little smile in his face because he knows that magnus is moved by the display, even if he won’t say it. and maybe he tells magnus that later? like, “your kindness means more to others than you imagine,” and of course magnus isn’t important just because he’s kind but he’s used to not being recognized for his services (ahem especially by CERTAIN people) and it’s nice to see that being appreciated, you know?

plus, maia makes it a point to pay him and magnus is all like “i couldn’t possibly take payment for something like that. it’s the least you deserve” so instead maia teaches him her secret sangria recipe. magnus is super pleased but he also jokes that now he has one less excuse for inviting them over. and raphael goes, super seriously, “you never need an excuse” and magnus just melts

raphael kissing her forehead! yes! tbh i think they both love forehead kisses (as well as hand kisses and shoulder kisses) and sometimes when she’s feeling dysphoric or upset for any reason she likes just... lying down on raphael’s chest and letting him pet her hair and kiss her forehead and tell her that it’s alright, bella, te quiero

and YES he just makes it a point to talk about how beautiful she is constantly and kiss down her whole body (not sexually of course, just sweetly?) and she giggles and it’s fun :’) sometimes things get to her, especially after jordan’s constant transphobic/racist rethoric, and it’s nice that raphael always makes it a point to tell her she’s beautiful and amazing and he loves her. and he always does it in such a matter of fact way, but also intense, you know? he has her close and he says shit like “you’re the most beautiful woman i’ve ever met” and she melts

as for general headcanons!

maia figured out she was trans relatively early in life, and it’s the reason she always knew she’d have to run away from her parents’ house. she was basically only planning until she had enough to be able to survive without them. but also, jordan and wanting to be able to “be with her already” rushed her out of home when she was finishing high school

raphael and maia are absolutely willing to throw down for each other if someone’s transphobic and that’s that on that. someone being transphobic to raphael? fine, he can handle his own, he’ll end them with his words and do it with a pleasant smile. someone being transphobic to maia? they’ll be met with the usual cutting sarcasm until they back down. but if the other catches you doing that? you’ll be thrown against the wall and threatened/punched in the face so fast you won’t even know what the fuck happened

a lot of baby trans downworlders start coming to them! they’re already an iconic couple for many reasons, what with being a werewolf/vampire couple, a black/latino couple (we need more black/latino couples okay! desperately! and black/native and native/latino too! i want more poc solidarity and romance!), and an iconique trans couple. people just feel comfortable going to them because they’ve brought so much change and are so accepting you know?

it still surprises raphael, even after years on end, that so many people come to him for help with that. he never thought that he would be seen as the kind of person people can go to, and yet here he is. after being told for most of his life that he was cold/unfeeling/threatening/weird... it’s nice to be valued like that, to be seen as someone who can be soft and provide comfort and love, too

same goes for maia, who’s also used to be seen as agressive/violent for just defending herself and her people, and just generally reduced to being a “threat”. it’s nice to know that many, many people see her as someone they can look up to, and who they feel safe it

that is not to say obviously that they just love doing emotional labor for other people but like... having other trans downworlders, especially trans downworlders of color, come to them, feels nice. especially people who are trying to figure themselves out and approach them with so much hope and admiration in their eyes you know? the way they always come with a “sorry to bother, but..” ready in their lips and look at them like they are heroes... it’s really something

taki’s slowly becomes a place for trans downworlders to hang out, especially those who don’t enjoy clubs and stuff like pandemonium (which is totally a queer club as well bite me. including for mundanes. with taki’s that’s trickier of course since they have like, blood on their menu lmao but a few trans minors have hung out there and it was cool) for whatever reason. it’s just a cool queer-inclusive space for people who want to hang out, you know? and they love that

the first time maia saw raphael lose his cool was when a shadowhunter made a gross comment about how it’s lucky he didn’t want sex, so she wouldn’t have to deal with that. he almost tore their throat off

raphael just.... loves maia’s shoulders. she was a little self conscious of them, she always made a point to have them covered, but raphael just loves peppering kisses on her shoulders and making her chuckle

magnus gives maia a bunch of fashion tips similar to the ones he gave raphael, just how to better protect herself and figure out how people are reading her gender and stuff like that, you know?

they do the thing where they show each other pre-transition pics (once they’re comfortable with that of course) just to hear each other be like “*outraged gasp* i don’t recognize you at all” and “oh, look how much happier you are now”, and my personal favorite, “i can’t see a boy/girl in there, i just can’t” (like personally whenever i see pictures of my partners/friends pre-transition i’m just like... i realize this is pre-transition and that you’ve changed a lot but also i’m unable to see an [assigned gender] in this photo). it’s all like “how did people not notice you were a girl? unbelievable” you know. just that sweet sweet trans couple validation ritual

together they have like. all the insufferable pun-happy sexualities (bi[romantic], pan, ace, trans) and you will be hit with those constantly in conversation if you’re a friend of them. raphael in particular greatly enjoys making those puns with the most blase, straight face as he looks straight into your eyes and watches as your soul slowly leaves your body. magnus is so proud and also afraid he created a monster

raphael is that bitch who’s like. “i heard that broccoli has a substance that’s similar to testosterone so i’m now eating 5 bowls of it” and maia wants to tear her hair out because it doesn’t work like that and he’s like “can’t hurt to try. also i’m finally able to eat let me have this”

maia never got to like... celebrate those small transition moments because she was all alone and felt like she was transitioning in such a rush, you know? and raphael makes it a point to point out the small changes that are still going on with her body, to take her shopping and encourage her to be as giddy about it as she wants to, you know? and it’s nice and fun and he also gets to relive those small gender reaffirming moments and it’s really nice

maia is a huge against me fan!!! like not to project but it’s just... their songs are so great and relatable even when they’re not about being trans at all and laura jane grace’s voice is so beautiful and maia for sure absolutely loves punk, so like. it’s one of her fave bands for sure

she liked them since before laura came out and when she did it was like. oh. oh. so that’s why i always related so hard to her songs. it just... makes sense

while punk is not as much raphael’s style he likes true trans rebel, especially the acoustic version, where her voice just sounds mwaaahhh imo and he can listen to the recording for hours because her voice in there is just... sensorial heaven and maia feels all giddy that raphael genuinely loves a trans woman’s voice so much

raphael always makes a point to say that he loves her voice just as much, too :)

they are just very trans and really love each other the end

#ask #anonymous #sorry this took relatively long to answer daidhaidha it's my first week of classes and i'm a little tired #as always i really loved this ask and just thank you so much for asking #sh #shadowhunters #maia roberts #raphael santiago #magnus bane #trans maia roberts #trans raphael santiago #trans magnus bane #maiaphael #maphael #magnus & maia brotp #magnus & raphael brotp #headcanon #text

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