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andivmg · 2 months

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My experience with Luke (Punz)

CW: toxic relationship, racism, dubious consent

I know in the past i said that i would no longer speak about him publicly, and when talking about my experiences with abuse and emotional mistreatment i begged to keep it anonymous but after reflecting on this for a week and seeing so many incredibly smart and strong women tell their stories. they have given me the strength to say his name.

this is really scary to talk about because of the copious levels of harassment i have received from his fans in the past so if this spreads or gets out of hand i will simply log off.

If you read my last post, i nicknamed him 1.

So aside from everything i said there, there were a lot of things i didn’t include because they would’ve made it obvious that it was him and it could potentially backfire on me so, i’m very afraid to post this. but i’m going to do it scared anyway, because it’s not fair that he gets to just go and live his life worry-free as if he didn’t practically ruin mine.

Because I already made a very lengthy post about him, i won’t include everything i said last time to avoid being redundant but if i repeat myself, please bear with me.

In our year long relationship i had to endure emotional neglect, gaslighting, verbal abuse, one instance where there was dubious consent, and much more.

Starting off at the beginning of our relationship, that’s when i was getting copious amounts of hate and harassment from his fan base (warranted or not), he decided that our relationship must be kept private. he said it was to “protect” me from his fanbase when in reality it was to protect himself. it was so he wouldn’t get all the backlash i was getting. this is funny because one of the things i got called out for was saying the B slur (derogatory term used against mexicans/latinos). I won’t get into the nuances of if i could say it or not as a puertorican because that’s discourse that does not pertain to this specific situation. But you know who definitely can’t say it? A white boy from Massachusetts. When i was getting cancelled for this and getting thousands of tweets calling me names, he decided that was the perfect time to say “I mean you are a b***** aren’t you? my little b*****.” Now, he said this completely unprompted. I was in the process of writing my apology and he just said that. I tell you this because i immediately shut him down and told him that there was no universe in which it was okay for him to say that word and especially not one where he could just call me that. While i was reprimanding him, he was smiling and laughing. he apparently found it amusing to call me a slur. regardless, he gave me a half-assed apology and said he wouldn’t do it again. and he didn’t. but this wasn’t the only time he was weirdly racist to me. this was my first time being in an interracial relationship so i was led to believe that this was normal by all the white people around me at the time. But, sometimes my spanish accent would come out and he would make fun of me and the way i pronounced some words. He also refused to visit me in Puerto Rico when i lived there or come meet my family when i really wanted him to because he “didn’t like the heat” or “it’s dangerous there isn’t it?”. Once, while we were watching season 2 of Bridgerton, he implied that the Sharma sisters were “too dark” for him to be attracted to them. This hurt me because they are brown skinned girls. I am a brown skinned girl. Then this, combined with the fact that he told me once he wasn’t attracted to me made me feel like my skin color was unattractive. These are only a few examples i can think of at the moment, but i’m sure there were more. Our relationship ended in 2022 so some of my memory is a bit hazy. But, I do remember feeling inferior to him throughout the relationship because he was white and I was not. I chalk that up to all the micro aggressions i had to deal with because i had never felt that way around white people before.

Another thing i had to endure was him constantly making me feel like he was embarrassed to be with me. Because i was cancelled, he didn’t want to associate with me too much. He did defend me on multiple occasions, I’ll give him that. But, he only did it because his name was getting dragged in the mud along with mine. Excusing my actions made him look better for being around me. In reality he didn’t really care. Because he was such a big content creator and someone i looked up to professionally, I took his advice as law. He told me to tone down my personality, to keep a low profile, to change things about myself to be more palatable to his audience. The same audience that spoke about me like “The pussy can’t be that good punz please stop defending her”. So i changed a lot of things about myself and my content to better suit what his audience liked. He made me feel like if his audience liked me, he would be public about our relationship and stop hiding it. He told me the reason why he wanted to keep our relationship a secret was because he didn’t want to get hate for it. But this wasn’t true. On my 20th birthday he went to Las Vegas for a twitch rivals event. That night i asked to facetime him to say goodnight and he refused because he was at a hotel room with his friends and he didn’t want them to know that we were together. It was as if my mere presence or the utterance of my name was a source of embarrassment for him. And he didn’t let me forget it. It wasn’t just a public thing at that point. He didn’t want people to know we were together, period. This was devastating to me because I would talk to all my friends about him. I was so proud to be with him and I was just one more problem to him. He made me feel so small and insignificant just because his fans didn’t like me.

He would berate me a lot. Not just due to getting heat online, although he did do that a lot. But in general whenever we would get into an argument or a disagreement he would always call me names like annoying or weird or stupid. He would raise his voice at me if i did something he didn’t like and call me an idiot. And that really hurt, i felt like i couldn’t bring up anything or do anything without getting insulted. If I hadn’t seen him in a few days because he was too busy streaming and i asked to hang out he would call me needy, clingy, and annoying. Granted, he might not have been wrong, but that is not something you say to someone you claim to love. He also insulted me when i was in depressive episodes. I have BPD and at the time i was not being treated properly for it. So, I was all over the place emotionally and he was what i clung to for validation, reassurance, and love. I talked to him when we first started dating about my disorder and told him that if it seemed like something he couldn’t handle that he could opt out of the relationship. I guess he didn’t think it was that bad or something idk because whenever i had really bad depressive episodes, he would tell me I was too sad to hang out with. He said that my sadness was a burden to him. Which would be fair. But, once my mother had a conversation with him about me. She told him that i am someone who needs a lot of love and caring. She said that if he wasn’t willing to put in that kind of effort into a relationship to just leave me alone. He reassured her that he would be there for me no matter what. He told my mother that he would protect me and my heart. He did not. He took all the warnings I gave him and ignored them and then made me feel like I was the problem. And even worse, he would say that i was pretending to be sad to get his attention when he would neglect for days at a time.

There were also some smaller things like the fact that he made me feel really guilty whenever he would spend money on me. Also, he would be really mean about my eating habits. For context, i used to suffer from an eating disorder. I was anorexic and had a really unhealthy relationship with food during high school and my first year of uni. This relationship began when i was recovering from my ED. For me, eating was really hard. So i had certain comfort foods that, while sometimes unhealthy, at least it was something to eat when i didn’t feel like eating anything. He knew this. Yet, whenever i would crave some of these foods he would call me fat. Constantly told me I’d gain weight from eating all that junk food. Saying that to someone with an eating disorder is crazy. Other smaller things were that whenever I would post tiktoks where i was lip syncing or just looking good he would yell at me and say i was looking for attention. Same with Instagram or Twitter whenever i would post photos where I looked hot. He never planned out a single date for us. I would beg him to get me flowers and he did maybe once but i’ll get into that in a bit. He would make fun of me in front of his friends to make himself look better. He let his friends say really degrading things about me in his presence. For example, once when i was showering, i overheard him on a discord call with George and Sapnap and i heard George say “if you don’t go in the shower and have sex with Andi, i will”. Once, when i was really struggling with my legs (for those of you who don’t know, i have arthritis and it’s very painful. at the time i wasn’t diagnosed but i was in a lot of pain) I literally could not walk. I had to beg him to take me to the ER because i didn’t know what was wrong with me. He didn’t want to take me but eventually i convinced him, and while we were there all he did was complain about how long it was taking and that he would have rather been at home streaming. Whenever I would talk about my interests that i was excited about like shows or books he would be incredibly uninterested and say that those things were stupid and he didn’t want to hear about them. I know all of these seem very silly or superficial but cumulatively it was awful.

Now for arguably the most serious thing i’m going to talk about. I want to preface this by saying i am just telling my side of what happened. You can come to your own conclusions about this.

On April 25, 2022 it was our one year anniversary, and i had made a dinner reservation for us. I expected him to plan something throughout the day for us to do. He told me he was going to spend the whole day playing Valorant so I got upset and cancelled the reservation. After a very heated argument, we calmed down and i asked him to come over. He came over about an hour later with flowers and drinks (I was 20 at the time so I couldn’t buy the drinks myself). He brought Smirnoffs and Trulys. For context, I am a lightweight. I always have been. I literally get tipsy on half a cocktail. And that day, I hadn’t eaten anything because i was in distress over our argument. So we get to talking and drinking. I blacked out after my second Smirnoff. Apparently I drank 3 but I genuinely cannot remember anything after finishing the second one. The next morning i woke up naked in my bed. I woke him up and asked him “Luke, why am I naked?” and he said “Because you didn’t want to put your clothes back on.” When I clarified to him that that was not what I meant, he got defensive and said that he didn’t realize how drunk I was. He proceeded to tell me that I initiated sex with him and that i was very enthusiastic about it. He said he didn’t know i could black out on three smirnoffs. He made fun of me for being a lightweight and continued to make light of the situation. Then he mentioned that i fell off the bed at some point in the night and that it was funny how drunk I was. I then questioned him. Because if he thought that me tripping and falling off the bed because i was so drunk was funny, how did he not know that i was too drunk? He responded by saying that i fell off the bed only after we were done. That day I broke up with him. I’m still really confused about what happened that night. I don’t remember anything and all I have to go on is what he said to me. We were in a relationship at the time and he says he didn’t know how drunk I was so I’m not sure what to call what happened. A while after that day, his friend that hmu while we were broken up and I started talking again and i confided in him about that night. He told me to be careful saying things like that because they could get me into trouble. I spoke to some of our other friends about it and they told me it was no big deal and that it wasn’t his fault that he didn’t know how drunk I really was. Because I don’t remember, I have been led to believe that this is not a serious matter. You can think what you want, come to whatever conclusions you want. That is just my side of the story.

I want to add that I’m not proud of how I acted after the relationship ended. I felt really angry at all the shit he put me through and I guess a part of me wanted him to hurt even a quarter of how I did. So I started talking to his friend and got involved with him. This backfired on me because his friend ended up really hurting me too so ig i got my karma. But the thing that hurt the most is that because of what I did, some of our friends took his side in the break up. I was told that I did something terrible by getting involved with his friend that he was already insecure about and that he didn’t deserve that. These are the same friends who were witness to the dumpster fire of a relationship we had and all the things he did to me. They turned their backs on me because of this one thing I did. But stood by and watched as he treated me like garbage for over a year.

I will conclude this by saying that while this relationship has been “over and done with” for almost two years now, I carry a lot of trauma from it still. I still talk about him in therapy and have had to put in a lot of work to heal from what he did and i still cannot say that i am okay. I am very blessed to now have a patient and understanding partner who has helped me heal from that trauma and i just want to quickly thank him for that. Nobody deserves to go through what I did. While yes, it was a toxic relationship, and I had a part in that, it does not excuse all the awful things he said and did to me. This is my truth, thank you for taking the time to read it.

#sorry if the formatting is all over the place

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ellecdc · 2 months

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HIII, I wanted to know if I could request a poly marauders x festy slytherin reader.Something of how they started or whatever you have inspiration for.I would love another part of that, if you feel up to it. Hope you are taking care of yourself <3

feisty/slytherin reader x poly!marauders is actually my favourite thing to write (followed closely by any ship with whimsical reader) so I was more than happy to whip this up for you! Thanks for requesting! 🫶

poly!marauders x feisty, fem, Slytherin!reader

CW: werewolf prejudice, making fun of possible birth defects due to Pureblood's being terribly inbred, swearing

Remus felt that generally, he was a very understanding person. And not just in a compassionate way, but also in a sense that he just understands a lot of things.

He understands Sirius’ need to defy his family whilst simultaneously looking after his brother as if his life depended on it.

He understands James’ need to make sure everyone around him feels as loved as humanly possible, even if it’s at his own expense.

He understands that Gryffindor’s hate Slytherin’s, but he also understands that not all Slytherin’s are horrible, prejudiced racists.

He understands everyone makes fun of Hufflepuffs for being soft and emotional, but he also understands that Hufflepuffs can be some of the most heartless, ruthless friends you can have.

What Remus has had a hard time understanding, however, was his boyfriends’ sudden interest in you.

Remus could admit that you were quite attractive, but you were also sort of…terrifying?

“What have you boys done?” Lily murmured in quiet horror (quiet awe if you asked James).

“We pranked Slytherin!” Sirius said jovially, as if Lily had somehow missed that key piece of information.

“I can see that, Sirius.” She said like one might speak to a small child who was quite dumb. “But on portrait day?”

Sirius smiled smugly as he watched Slytherin’s enter the Great Hall for their school portraits. As they passed through the door, they were unknowingly walking under a charmed mistletoe (which was very difficult to find this time of year, thanks James very much) which turned their green and silver robes and ties to a beautiful red and gold.

The best part is some students still hadn’t noticed yet, and another amazing part was that those who had noticed couldn’t figure out how to turn it back.

“Mr. Black, Mr. Potter, Mr. Pettigrew, and Mr. Lupin. I suppose the four of you have no idea who may be behind this prank?” Professor McGonagall challenged as she looked down her nose at them sitting at the Gryffindor table.

Sirius smirked as he responded “Why, not a clue Minnie. But I’ll keep my eye out and let you know if I see any mischief makers.”

McGonagall let out a long suffering sigh as she took five points from Gryffindor for improper address of a professor.

“You rotten dugbogs.” Remus heard you screech before he saw you. He had the good sense to cringe as you stormed up to their table whilst Sirius and James grinned enthusiastically.

“Why hello Y/N, my beautiful angel.” James greeted as Sirius let out a sultry “Don’t you just look smashing in red.” Accompanied by a wink.

“I don’t know what you sods have done, and quite frankly, I don’t care about the rest of them; but you will fix this.” You spat angrily gesturing to your faux Gryffindor uniform.

“But that would be such a crime, dollface.” Sirius lamented.

“You can’t expect us to mess with perfection.” James added.

You shot your hand out and grabbed James’ collar, pulling his face to yours until your noses were nearly touching.

“I swear to Salazar himself, Potter, if you do not change my robes back, I will cut your dick off and charm it to your forehead so you walk around looking like a limp-dick unicorn. Change. It. Back.”

Your voice was low and threatening, and Peter actually gulped as he hid behind Remus. But looking at James’ face pressed up to yours, you would have thought you had just serenaded him with the greatest love song known to man.

“You have such beautiful eyes.” He murmured in awe. Remus was certain he could see steam forming behind said beautiful eyes, but before it could shoot out of your ears, Sirius came to your rescue.

“Very right, Prongs. She does have beautiful eyes. Unfortunately, I believe her usual green does compliment them better than the red.” Sirius said lasciviously as he cast the counter charm to return your robes to their rightful colour.

You looked down at your form before looking back at the boys skeptically. You seemed only then to realize you were still holding onto James’ collar like a vice and dropped it. Remus almost chuckled at the look of loss that crossed James’ face.

“Right.” You said and cleared your throat, backing away from them as if you weren't fully trusting what just happened. “Thank you.”

Sirius’ head actually reared back in surprise at your thanks and James beamed.

“Anytime angel, truly.”

James’ pet name seemed to snap you out of whatever trance you’d been in as you narrowed your eyes at him. “Don’t call me that.”

“Terribly sorry, my love.” He relented.

You groaned in exasperation and carried on towards the Slytherin table.

“Isn’t she lovely?” James whispered in awe, eyes still glued to your form as you bodily shoved Evan Rosier out of what Remus could only assume you had dubbed as your seat at the Slytherin table and sat down.

“Try bloody terrifying.” Peter shivered in horror as he finally extricated himself from behind Remus.

“Oi! Don’t talk about our future missus that way, Wormy.” Sirius squawked and swatted at the poor sod with his copy of the Daily Prophet.

“Is he wrong, though?” Remus asked as he let out his own breath of relief.

“Don ‘t worry moons,” James murmured into Remus’ cheek as he pressed his nose into the werewolf’s hair line. “She’ll win you over soon.”

Remus wasn’t so sure.

You were the only Slytherin photographed in proper uniform that day.

A few weeks later found Remus sitting horrifyingly uncomfortable in Defense Against the Dark Arts as they moved on to the unit featuring Werewolves.

James sat on his right, and though the shaking of his knee under the table gave away his nerves, he spent the entire class rubbing soothing circles along the back of Remus’ hand with his thumb.

Sirius, sitting on Remus’ left, was incredibly stiff and clearly poised to fight if given the chance which did nothing to ease Remus’ discomfort. It also didn’t help that they shared this period with the 6th and 7th year Slytherin’s.

He just wanted this day to be over.

“Why are we even talking about this?” Mulciber sneered, interrupting the professor as they discussed elements of the Wolfsbane potion.

“What is your question, Mr. Mulciber?” The professor drawled out in a bored tone.

“Why bother discussing werewolves? The lot of them should be culled anyway; euthanize them on site for all I care.” He spat, earning snickers from Avery, Goyle, and Snape.

Sirius sucked in a breath in preparation of a verbal (and possibly physical, should he be so lucky) spar when Remus dug his nails into Sirius’ thigh. “Please, Pads.” He begged quietly; voice taught with emotions.

Sirius let out a pained sigh and leaned back further into his chair.

“Funny, Mulciber.” A bored tone commented, “I was just thinking the same about you and your lot.”

Remus, James, and Sirius all turned to see the majority of the eyes in the room already on you, though you never bothered lifting your head from your textbook.

“Care to repeat that, L/N?” Mulciber sneered, sitting up in his chair as if ready to lunge at you if necessary.

You lifted your bored gaze from your book and stared at him head on. “Do I need to repeat myself, Mulciber? Mummy and daddy kept it too close in the family tree, huh?” You murmured in faux sympathy. “I was just thinking, most of the Sacred Twenty-Eight ought to be culled. That would save the wizarding world a whole lot of trouble.”

“How dare you compare me to some filthy half-breed. My family is royalty compared to those disgusting creatures.” Avery shouted.

“The only one acting like a disgusting creature here is the likes of you tossers.” You shouted back.

“Alright.” The professor tried (not very hard, albeit) to quell the quickly spiralling discussion.

“I could hardly look at myself in a mirror if I’d been tainted with a curse like lycanthropy.” Snape sneered, pointedly facing the Marauders across the room. Sirius burned with shame and protectiveness, being the reason Snape knew Remus’ secret and the overwhelming need to defend his lover. Remus took that moment to dig his nails into Sirius' thigh again, pinning him to his seat.

“Are you sure, Snape? Are you sure you wouldn’t rather live a life with lycanthropy than have to look at that mug of yours in the mirror every day.” You drawled.

“You insolent little bitch.”

“Hey!” James finally shouted from across the room, far more stern than Remus can ever remember seeing the boy. But you carried on, completely undeterred.

“I’d bet ten thousand galleons that not one werewolf ever asked to be a werewolf, yet you wake up each and every morning actively choosing to be the ugliest, most hateful, vile, disgusting beasts known to mankind. That is what is despicable. That is what should be euthanized on site.” Your voice grew louder and louder with each word until you were standing behind your desk and punctuating each word with a slam of your fist against the table in front of you.

“Alright, that’s enough.” The professor finally called; tone booming across the lecture hall intoning no nonsense.

“Mr. Mulciber, Mr. Snape, and Miss. L/N. Detention with me this evening.”

The Slytherin boys all scoffed and cursed under their breath whilst you offered a bored shrug of your shoulders, returning to your textbook as though this was just a run of the mill day for you.

The boys had been absolutely right; you just won over the affections of one Remus John Lupin.

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akayv · 2 years

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My mother is laughing in her fucking urn. She won

#talk to a therapist about how my dad always spoke about how I'm so much like him #and yet because he was never around and I was only raised with my native family we have very little to talk about at times #and that truly I am much more like my mother than ever and it's difficult to get along with my dad because of that #not that I'm complaining - he's not getting along with me for kind of racist reasons ngl

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am-i-the-asshole-official · 3 months

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AITA for asking my partner not to talk about how happy he is that Ghandi was assassinated?

I hope this doesn't get too long! 🍀

I (26, F) am Irish Australian, my partner (33, M) is Sikh. He's shared many beautiful things about his culture with me, and has a thoughtful way of describing the relationship between Sikh history and current culture.

However I get a bit uncomfortable when he talks about how Gandhi was assassinated by a Sikh person. I know enough about Gandhi to be aware that while he might've had some good impact, he had plenty of underreported bad too. But I don't pretend to understand the extent of it all.

I also understand what a complex thing that sort of cultural history is, my family joke about being proud of the assassination of Mountbatten by the IRA. But we keep that talk behind closed doors, it requires more understanding of the Troubles than the average person has. Also, joking about death is a bit nasty unless you know everyone is comfortable

My issue with my partner is that when he talks about Gandhi's death he's not speaking with a historical context. He gets very serious and sits up all tall and says proudly that Sikhs are a warrior race and they fucking delivered. He has done this in company and in private and it's always very intense and a mood killer, he is not joking at all. I think that level of confident pride in the death of another is kinda messed up

So, I asked him to not talk about it in such a full on way. He refused to apologise because he is proud of it and he said that he's glad they did it (I appreciate his honestly there). I asked if he would be pleased to see a similar event play out today, a Sikh assassinating a major political influencer. He said he would be happy and asked the same of me regarding Mountbatten (this had come up in the conversation, obviously I'm paraphrasing, the whole thing was pretty upsetting tbh) and I said no cos it's not an active war. Also, that I don't actually stand behind that I'm just comfortable with the complexity of it to joke with my family and still know people understand where I stand. Like, the IRA killed his kids too. The whole time was fucked.

He said he's not joking. He, gently, said I was being a bit of a hypocrite. He didn't promise to not talk about Gandhi, but hasn't brought it up since. I feel like he's pretty unhappy about it

I dunno, I asked him without really thinking about it all and I think he makes a good point about the Mountbatten parallel. I'm not sure if the difference in my feelings is my own ethics or just me being a bit racist. And it's not his job to make me not be racist if I've got some stuff to work through. But still, I think if it was any culture I'd be uncomfortable with that much aggressive pride in murder. Like, I've grown up in a country without a death penalty, death is not something people can dole out imo, and his approval of it is so absolute and genuine, there's no pulling the punch. Unlike my way of talking about Mountbatten.

So, AITA for asking my partner to stop talking about his pride in a Sikh person assassinating Gandhi?

What are these acronyms?

#aita #am i the asshole

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portraitofadyke · 4 months

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I think Our Flag Means Death is a very unique show in a way that they don't care to cater to mainstream media. And yes, by mainstream media I mean the general straight people.

I think it's very important that we have feel-good shows like Heartstopper. A few years back, a tv show about two queer boys in high school would be unthinkable. But its plot generally revolves around explaining queerness. Sure, it's nice. It's definitely the show I would watch with my family if I were a teenager and wanted to come out again (I had to watch glee with my mom to do that. not optimal). It's the show where teenagers find love and themselves, but sexuality is constantly discussed, explained, sanitized. It's the show straight people will watch. And that's good. We do need shows like that.

But Our Flag Means Death doesn't even bother trying. It's a show about mostly middle aged people, most of them not white, most of them queer in one way or the other. It's really a game of spot the hetero, like someone said. And the characters are not sublte about it. They have sex for fun, something most characters don't have in tv shows, definitely not queer characters. They make dick jokes. They are not all conventionally attractive and they know it, and the writing doesn't care. They are all people before they are queer representation.

Stede's storyline in s1 is in a part about discovering himself and his sexuality, but it's not obnoxiously repeated. Instead, it's played in a natural way. Stede's storyline is ALL about finding himself, yet it's not just about that. Just like Ed's storyline, it's about toxic masculinity and allowing himself to have fine things and self-hatred and finding his place in a world, something most of us can relate to. Hell, none of us were even sure the main characters were going to kiss and end up together, we were all so sure it's a queerbait. But this show doesn't bait its audience. It's not afraid of weirdness. It embraces it instead. There is a nonbinary character. No, they are not a mermaid. Call them jim. That's it. Yes, Lucius and Pete got engaged. Everyone there knows what mateolage is, congrats. Olu and Jim never break up and then Archie shows up, then Zheng, and we all know. We all know.

Two men nearing fifty have a deep, romantic moment where one of them appears as a mermaid, and it's treated as the profound scene it is without ridiculing it. This would never fly in a 'mainstream' media. It would have to be downplayed. Here, it saves Ed's life.

The show tells you racists suck, but it doesn't tell you in a condescending, finger-waving way catered to the white people. Instead, it sets your ship aflame and burns you alive, runs a knife through your hand, puts poison in your drink and kills you.

This is a show for adults, for queer people of all kinds, and it does not give a fuck if anyone else gets it. It's so rare to find a tv show that caters to us, yet alone a tv show that's genuinely good and caring and so well loved.

This is a show that basically straightbaited its audience in the first season, that's how much they don't care.

Idk, I just feel that it will take ages for another show like OFMD to exist in a world full of MCU and media that tries so hard to be liked by everyone it loses its personality and charm. Rant over

#ofmd #yes i am rewatching for the millionth time #just felt like talking about ofmd and how important it is for the milkiont time #it's not perfect but it is to me

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secretmellowblog · 1 year

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The thing is, Jean Valjean’s “nineteen year prison sentence for stealing a loaf of bread” from Les Mis isn’t actually unusual….not even today! I see people talking about it as if it’s strange or unimaginable when it happens every day.

In modern America — often as a result of pointlessly cruel (and racist) habitual offender and mandatory minimum laws— people are routinely sentenced to life in prison for minor crimes like shoplifting or possession of drugs.

The ACLU did a report in 2013 detailing the lives of various people who were sentenced to life in prison without parole for nonviolent property crimes like:

•attempting to cash a stolen check

•a junk-dealer’s possession of stolen junk

metal (10 valves and one elbow pipe)

•possession of stolen wrenches

•siphoning gasoline from a truck

•stealing tools from a tool shed and a welding machine from a yard

•shoplifting three belts from a department store

•shoplifting several digital cameras

•shoplifting two jerseys from an athletic store

• taking a television, circular saw, and a power converter from a vacant house

• breaking into a closed liquor store in the middle of the night

And of course, so so so many people sentenced to life without parole for the possession of a few grams of drugs.

And we could go on and on!

Gregory Taylor was a homeless man in Los Angeles who, in 1997, was sentenced to “25 years to life” for attempting to steal food from a food kitchen. He was released after 13 years. The lawyers helping to release him even cited Les Miserables in their appeal, comparing Taylor’s sentence to Jean Valjean’s.

And there’s another specific bit of social commentary Hugo was making about Valjean’s trial that’s still depressingly relevant. He writes that Valjean was sentenced for the theft of loaf of bread, but also that the court managed to make that sentence stick by bringing up some of his past misdemeanors. For example, Valjean owned a gun and was known to occasionally poach wildlife (presumably for his starving family to eat.) . So the court exaggerates how harmful the bread theft was—he had to smash a windowpane to get the bread, which is basically Violence— then insist the fact that he owns a gun and occasionally poaches is proof that he is habitually and innately violent. Then when Valjean obviously becomes distressed traumatized and furious as a result of his nakedly unjust sentence and begins making desperate (and very unsuccessful/impulsive/ poorly thought through) attempts to escape…. the government indifferently tacks more years onto his sentence, labels him a “dangerous” felon, and insists that its initial read of him as an innately violent person was correct.

And it’s sad how a lot of the real life stories linked earlier are similar to the commentary Hugo wrote in 1863? Someone will commit a nonviolent property crime, and then the court insists that a bunch of other miscellaneous things they’ve done in the past (whether it’s other minor thefts or being addicted to drugs or w/e) are Proof they’re inherently violent and incapable of being around other people.

A small very petty fandom side note: This is also why I dislike all those common jokes you see everywhere along the lines of “lol it’s so unrealistic for the police to want to arrest Valjean over a loaf of bread, there must have been some other reason the police were pursuing him. Because the state would never punish someone that harshly and irrationally for no reason. so maybe javert was just gay haha”. (Ex: this tiktok— please don’t harass the creator or poster though, I don’t think they were intending to mean anything like that and its just a silly common type of joke you see made about Les mis all the time so it’s not unique in any way.) because like.

As much as I don’t think Les Mis is a flawless book or that its political messaging is perfect….the only way that insanely long unjust sentences for minor crimes is “unrealistic” is if you’re operating on the assumption that prisons are here to Keep You Safe by always only punishing bad criminals who do serious crimes. And that’s just, not true at all. Like I get that these are just goofy silly shallow jokes, and I’m not angry or going to harass anyone who makes them. but it feels like there’s an assumption underlying all those goofy jokes that “this is just not how prison works!” “Prisons don’t routinely sentence people to absurd laughably unjust pointless sentences!” “Prisons give people fair sentences for logical reasons!” When like…no

Valjean being relentlessly hounded and tortured for a minor crime in a way that is utterly ridiculous and arbitrary in its cruelty is not actually a plot hole in Les mis. It’s a plot hole in …..society ajsjkdkdkf. And the only way to fix that is to fight for prison abolition or at least reform, and (in America) stand up against the vicious naked cruelty of habitual offender and mandatory minimum laws.

But yeah :(. I hate how Les Mis opens with a prologue saying the novel will be obsolete the moment the social issues it describes have been resolved— but two hundred years later, the book is still more relevant than ever because we’re dealing with so many of the exact same injustices.

#les mis #lm 1.2.6 #Jean Valjean #anyway sometimes lm 1.2.6 makes me sad and sometimes it makes me angry #today I feel both #: ‘(((((((((((((((#but yeah #also again I don’t hate people who make the goofy ‘lol valjeans prison sentence was so unrealistic javert must be gay’ jokes #i get that they’re jokes #and that they’re mostly made by people who like watched Les mis 2012 once #but also #but also but also #:’’’’(#I don’t know the tragedy of valjeans story and the continued relevance of that social commentary Gets to me #Les mis letters #Les mis daily

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strrwbrrryjam · 5 months

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rockstar: here is micah bell. he is racist, he is misogynistic, and he harasses his fellow gang members as well as sexually towards the women in camp. he assaults several gang members. he's antagonistic to the player and the protagonist. arthur doesn't like him. no one in the gang (aside from dutch) likes him, no one feels safe with him. he spoke about "taking" a young deceased girl in a very creepy way. he is not a man that you can put your trust in. we've planted evidence at his camp that he was obviously planning something. we've had the pinkertons confess on micah's behalf that he was working with them and ratting them out.

incredibly stupid rdr2 player: oh but what if he didn't work alone. what if it's this young woman who came into the gang and got pregnant in her second or third year in the gang, who was then abandoned by her partner for the first year of her son's life. who knows that being in the gang is dangerous, for her and her son. who wants her son to grow up without the threat of dying hanging over her young son's head. who doesn't want her or her son to see his partner die. who is obviously in distress as gang members keep dying around her. whose fucking scared.

man, she's such a bitch to her partner, who disrespects her at every turn and then again abandoned her for the first year of her son's life and likely never apologized for it and barely acknowledges the fact that he even has a son and often accuses her of infidelity.

i mean, it doesn't make sense, right, that she, a young, healthy young woman escaped from the cops in disguise, from cops who wouldn't know her association with the gang, as she hasn't been in the gang that long and obviously with a young child, wouldn't go on a lot of the big jobs, but this old man, with a chronic illness and is the second most important gang member, who cares for this young woman and her child and sees her as family and wants the best for them and wants them out of the gang, who obviously had sacrificed himself for her so that they can live a better life.

another incredibly stupid rdr2 player: oh, yeah, you're right! although, it could have been this young woman, who was abused throughout the story of the game and disrespected at every turn by the gang leader. who was isolated from everyone because of the gang leader. who no one in the gang really likes due to the manipulations of the gang leader. who is losing her sanity due to the mistreatment and isolation over the course of the story. who is often interrupted when she tries to interact with other gang members and is often disregarded as less important and no ones priority. who is scared and alone, that when she disappears no one in the gang really notices or even cares.

incredibly stupid rdr2 player: oh man, you might be on to something there, i mean, she confessed, right? when she was incredibly drunk and in so much distress and obviously suicidal because of everything she went through over the course of the game. who is hurting so much that when she is dragged back to the gang, she is so clearly desperate for death and is pulling everything out of her ass for someone, anyone to free her from her daily torment. the rat could absolutely be her, right?

another incredibly stupid rdr2 player: man we are sooo smart. we obviously aren't just being incredibly sexist and take every opportunity to hate women even though we have nothing really to back up this statement.

rockstar: i fucking hate you guys.

#rdr2 #red dead redemption 2 #rdr2 micah bell #micah bell #rdr2 abigail roberts #abigail roberts #rdr2 molly o'shea #molly o'shea #strawberry speaks

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writingwithcolor · 1 year

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Thanksgiving/Day of Mourning

Last year, I made a very quick, basic post about thanksgiving: Indigenous Day of Mourning aka Thanksgiving. if you want the sources for what I’m about to say, check there.

This post will be about why you cannot just go “fuck the pilgrims, we deserve a harvest festival no matter the origin” or anything else that tries to sanitize the holiday.

You Are Still On Stolen Land

As a result, you are still actively profiting off the genocide the pilgrims committed.

I don’t care how educated about racial issues you profess you are. I don’t care how you behave the other 364 days of the year. If you try to distance yourself from the origins of Thanksgiving simply because it makes you uncomfortable to see the blood under the tablecloth, you’re not practised in sitting with actually being anti-racist. You know what to say, but you don’t practice what you preach.

You Are Eating Our Food

Pumpkins/squash, beans, turkey, cranberries, potatoes, corn, sweet potatoes, pecans, maple syrup?

Those are all Native American foods that we taught you how to grow and harvest.

You wouldn’t have any of your traditional Thanksgiving foods without us. The ideal meal of Thanksgiving is ripped right from Indigenous practices and cannot be separated from it.

The fact that these foods have been taken out of Indigenous hands and appropriated by colonizers as the bounties they somehow deserve for landing here is a tragedy, and people need to remember where their food comes from and who had been growing it for thousands of years.

You Had So Much Because Of Massacre

Thanksgiving became an annual tradition after 700 Pequot men, women, children, and elders were killed, freeing up acres of land that colonizers promptly took over. The sheer amount of extra acreage that colonizers had because of their genocide contributed to the excess of food experienced during Thanksgiving. That land had been structured to support more people originally.

Colonizers had never, ever, deserved that much food. They were taking more than they needed, not leaving much behind for the animals that depended on a balance to be held with humans. They took far more than was needed, throwing the balance off in nature.

Maybe I’m reaching. But I think that if you suddenly had 700 less people in the area, after all of the growing and planting for the total population had been done, you’d have excess food? Or even before the growing, you’d have land set up to support 700, that I’d assume you’d still use, when you were a much smaller population?

Sit With Your Own Grief

If this makes you feel bad and that you shouldn’t celebrate Thanksgiving? Sit with that.

I’m not telling you that you have to give up Thanksgiving traditions. I’m telling you that you cannot divorce them from Indigenous people.

You are giving thanks for our massacre. You are giving thanks for stealing so much from us that you had this excess.

Yes, you can need a break; yes, you can need time with family and friends. None of this is inherently bad.

It’s not even bad to eat local food from Turtle Island! Part of having a sustainable diet is eating locally, in time with the seasons.

But remember, it is Indigenous people who first gave this to you—and then you stole far more than you ever needed from us, killing us to get what you felt you deserved.

Do not divorce Thanksgiving from Indigenous people for your own comfort.

We are still here. We must live with the aftermath of colonizers stealing from us every single day.

If you feel this way hearing about our history, imagine what we feel like living it.

Donate to a local org/Indigenous person this Thanksgiving

I (again) don’t have the spoons to compile a list of vetted charities, but look for local tribe language revival programs, COVID relief funds, and activism around the Indian Child Welfare Act currently in front of the Supreme Court.

Pay reparations for what you have taken, and remember. It is also Indigenous Day of Mourning.

Indigenous people, drop your links below.

~Lesya

#thanksgiving #native american #Holidays #ally #Indigenous day of mourning #genocide #cultural appropriation

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yourtongzhihazel · 23 days

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thoughts on anarchism?

The anarchists I've met IRL, especially while organizing, have been some of the most wonderful comrades and I wouldn't hesitate to work with them again. I'm sure there's many online too who're just like them. I do admire how quickly they are willing to use direct action, even if it's not the best tactic to be used or the only means to an end. Some anarchist ideas, while not necessarily achievable on a large scale, are certainly is very helpful for short term, small scale survival, like mutual aid for example.

Anarchism as an ideology though, I do have strong disagreements with. When I was first dipping my toes into studying political-economy, I had a very brief time where I was following both anarchist and marxist accounts and forums. And often, when I asked the marxists a question about how things would or potentially could work, they could point to real examples as much as they could theoretical ones, and they could point out the pros and cons of their own systems. But when I asked anarchists similar questions, there was generally a kind of hesitancy or wishy-washiness or vagueness which I really didn't get from the marxists. As a poc, I remember a black man had asked anarchists what the solution to a group of racist factory workers voting him out of their work force was and no one had any answers beyond, "well at that stage you really wouldn't expect racism on that level". But the marxists would say racism is a social ill that takes time to combat, even after the revolution thus the proletarian state exists to ensure cases like that are investigated and corrected. A more poignant example would be like the Chinese trans woman who sued her former place of work for firing her for being trans and the state sided with and supported her rights. In some ways, I think I was always inevitably going to go down the marxist route given my family background, but that's not to say I didn't give anarchism a fair shot in the beginning.

More theoretically, the roots of anarchism has always been deeply entwined with petite bourgeois ideology. Similar to liberalism, it supposes that the liberation of the collective comes from the liberation of the self. That's not to say anarchists are liberals (well, actual anarchists anyway), but rather, has been influenced by a deeply individualistic ideology like liberalism. The reason we marxists tend to call anarchists idealists can mainly stem from our biggest disagreement, which is the utilization of the state. It's unreasonable to destroy the greatest tool a class has in the class war once that class gets its hands on it, especially since the bourgeoisie have no qualms about using it as a bludgeon against the proletariat. The state has always been used as a mediator for class warfare and whichever class controls it controls the arbitration on class conflict. Like it or not, revolution, just like the construction of socialism, will come at different times with different arising conditions for every country. It's simply not enough to rely on hopes of either a total revolution or to defend your own revolution without the tools provided by a state. After the October Revolution, the nascent USSR was invaded by over 20 foreign countries and they threw them all out. During the second world war, more than 4 million fascists were killed on the eastern front and the Red Army marched into Berlin in the end. Both feats would be impossible without strong state apparatuses. There's more to it than just this, of course. If you want, you can read a (admittedly, pretty scathing) critique by J.V. Stalin, Anarchism or Socialism?, for some more detailed information.

My last point is that in many online spaces, there's no doubt a big overlap between radlibs and anarchism or at the very least, anarchist aesthetics. I can't tell you how many times I've been called some slur or 'tankie' or some variation of the two by someone presenting themselves to be anarchist who then turn around and say the most unbelievably liberal talking points. I've now come to realize that the reason for this overlap is two-fold. The first is that in liberal democracies, where individualism is extremely strong and thus anarchism, as a more individualistic ideology, appeals more to radlibs. The second is that anarchism is very easily marketable, even more so than marxism. These two kind of go hand-in-hand as well.

In the west and usamerica in particular, we don't have much of a choice in regards to who we side with and I would actually take an anarchist comrade over the "queering the MIC" libs in the DSA or whatever. I'll still jest about about anarchism tho.

#hazel's press releases

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skamenglishsubs · 23 days

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Subtext and Culture, Young Royals, Season 3, Episode 3

Episode 3 picks up the day after the camping trip, and Wilhelm calls his mom to check on her. She dumps a massive guilt trip on him, maybe unintentionally, and Wilhelm is feeling a little bit down.

Culture: These are Swedish studentmössor. They originated in the 1800's among Nordic university students and they wore them as a common marker. Later, they were adopted as graduation caps for high school students, signifying that they were now allowed to begin studying at a university.

Culture: Valborg, April 30th, is a traditional Swedish holiday where you celebrate the coming of spring with bonfires. It is also the start of graduation season for high school students, and graduates are allowed to start wearing their caps.

Cinematography: This season they started writing most on-screen social media commentary in English, despite those users being pretty obviously Swedish. I suspect it's because it saves them having to subtitle all of them, it makes it a bit easier for all the viewers to follow along.

Subtext: No, keeping up appearances is more important than mental health for the royal family, which is why this is new behaviour that Wilhelm has never seen before.

Subtext: As a reminder of the increased interest, here's a paparazzi intruding on school grounds. Also, where the hell is Malin? Isn't it her job to shoo away photographers?

Culture: Vintern Rasat is a classic Swedish song celebrating spring that's often performed by student singers at Valborg.

Subtext: Boris cleverly offers August individual therapy, something he sorely needs.

Subtext: It's of course a bit ironic that pretty much the entire fandom hates August and has decided that he can't be forgiven or redeemed. Yes, you, dear reader. But Boris lays out a way for August to start his redemption arc. Will it work? Tune in for next week's episode!

Culture: These usernames reek of white supremacy. Norse mythology references are very popular, and 88 means H*il H*tler, so that's the kind of people we're dealing with. The show is also foreshadowing what's gonna happen at the end of the episode.

Blink and you miss it: Linda made Pabellón, a Venezuelan dish. In season 1 we didn't know where Linda was from, but in season 2 she was canonically made as being from Venezuela, just like Omar is in real life.

Subtext: I think August actually cares, Kristina is family to him too, but Wilhelm refuses to treat him as family, so he lies about how she's doing. Not very convincingly, though.

Cinematography: This is an absolutely hilarious shot with a bunch of students anxiously peering out through the windows as the dreaded enemy arrives: Skolinspektionen! Dun-dun-dun!

Blink and you miss it: There's a rainbow flag on the board to the left.

Subtext: Vanessa totally knew she interrupted a makeout session between our boys. Oh, and there's a lot of purple in these two scenes, colour theory exploded with joy.

Subtext: Simon will be proven wrong, someone will be honest.

Subtext: It's also ironic that Simon joins the rest of the Forest Ridge boys pretending to have a great meal together that is totally not stiff and awkward at all, absolutely not.

Lost in translation: Simon Walter says that May 1st is a "röd dag" - a red day, which is how Sundays and public holidays are usually marked in a Swedish calendar. "Bank holiday" is the term used in the UK for public holidays. There are 13 public holidays in Sweden each year.

Culture: Första Maj is the name of the International Workers' Day in Sweden, because it always occurs on May 1st. In defence of Henry and Walter's shared braincell, most Swedes actually don't participate, but it's a bit weird to not even know what it is.

Subtext: This entire sequence shows how Felice's dad tried to stick up for himself, but quickly learned to keep his head down instead and conform and roll with it. And it wasn't just the other students who were racists, the staff was in on it too. This goes for all the shit the students are doing, the partying, the booze, the alcohol, the bullying: The staff is in on it. They know. They're complicit.

And despite all of this, Poppe's immediate answer when asked how his time at Hillerska was, is that it was the best time of his life. This is why schools like this stay the way they are, why they never change, because they're very good and very bad at the same time. Trauma-bonding works, the kids will all get friends for life, they'll forget the shit and remember the good times. They'll become like him.

But when Felice learns what the school did to her dad, she decides to help shut it down, to stop the cycle of abuse. The reason she goes in alone is because she now knows she can't trust her dad, he's gonna defend the school, and she also doesn't want him to know that she snitched.

Subtext: In official surveys, students from schools like this generally rate them very highly. Student satisfaction is very high. Maybe they're lying, maybe they're delusional, but they sure care more about their schools than public school students.

Blink and you miss it: REAL SUBTLE THERE, SHOW.

Subtext: Keeping with the school theme, this is how students defend the shit that goes on. Outsiders are kept in the dark, you don't tell them anything, because they "wouldn't understand", they're missing the "full context", etc. Oh, I don't know shit about fashion, but Fredrika's jacket smells very expensive.

Blink and you miss it: While Wilhelm pinned a polaroid of himself and Simon prominently on his wall, August keeps a similar polaroid of himself and Sara hidden.

Subtext: Micke's redemption arc is in full swing, so why not play a song that reinforces the idea that people can change?

Subtext: August's redemption arc is in full swing, so let's cut to him nervously waiting outside Micke's place for Sara to come home, while the same song is playing. Is he gonna be a villain forever?

Blink and you miss it: Micke introduces himself as Micke af Eriksson when August introduces himself as August Horn af Årnäs. The English subtitles for some weird reason went with "Micke Eriksson of Bjärstad", but that's actually not what he says.

Subtext: Sara is pretty realistic about her expectations of her dad because she's seen this before, but this also applies to her expectations of August, because she knows that he can also slide back into his normal shitty self. Also, she's wearing a purple sweater.

Subtext: In case you forgot, August's dad also struggled with addiction, and died from it, so he and Sara actually has that in common. Maybe there's hope for this redemption arc thing?

Cinematography: I don't fucking know why they included this baking scene. It serves no purpose, and I suspect quite a few people in the production have a serious hand fetish, because what is this? What is this? Also, why are Simon and Wilhelm joining what appears to be a Manor House thing with the rest of the girls? How? Why? This makes no sense! It's very cute, though!

Subtext: Oh ok, we got a social media pic that Sara could see and feel bad for her lost friendships. But man, those Hillerska aprons! On point!

Subtext: This is unfortunately a very common thing for people on any kind of psychoactive medication. How can you tell if you need medication if you feel good right now? Is it lasting or temporary? Can you trust your own brain? Either way, fantastic conversation between Micke and Sara, which starts her on her journey to reconcile with Felice at least.

🎵 I can change, I'm not the same, not forever. 🎵

Culture: The official hat-on-putting ceremony where all the third-year students put on their hats, set to another traditional Swedish spring celebration song: Vårvindar Friska.

Culture: It's Valborg, so Hillerska has their own little bonfire. We saw some students with torches pretending to light it, but it's actually floating in the middle of the fountain so, uh, how did they do that? Normally, your local bonfire or Majbrasa is just a huge heap of wood that you set on fire.

Cinematography: Man, this is a pretty show. Look at that shot. The fire, the sunset, the pool reflection. The end of April is over a month after the spring equinox, so the days are getting longer, and the sun now sets at about half past nine in the evenings.

Subtext: Ok, let's do one more on-the-nose lyrics thing for when August sees Sara back at school. Yes, yes, he needs her.

Culture: I had to post about it immediately after watching the episode, because setting a sex scene to Uti Vår Hage is hilarious. Everyone in Sweden knows it, most people have sung it at school, it's a cute little song about enjoying your garden, flowers, and giving your loved one a wreath of flowers. I can now never hear this song without thinking about this scene. Thanks a lot, show.

Blink and you miss it: Simon fucks Wilhelm. Yay! Versatile supremacy!

Subtext: Sara is still so suspicious of her dad's behaviour, she can't make herself trust that his current good period will last.

Subtext: Even though this dialogue is about how Simon and Sara are so different, it of course also applies to how Wilhelm and Erik were different, because Wilhelm struggles with not being able to handle his duty the same way Erik could.

Culture: Alright, it's time for the actual local Första Maj event in Bjärstad. The town is probably a bit small to have a proper demonstration parade, but there's people with banners and socialist slogans, and a bunch of local organisations have joined in, including Bjärstad BK, the football club Rosh plays in.

Culture: Meanwhile, the absolutely not socialist rich kids at Hillerska are nursing their hangovers and enjoying the day off, and they're doing some yoga and playing some padel instead. As you do.

Subtext: Drugs. He looks like he's selling drugs.

Culture: These apparently confused a bunch of viewers, but they're just raffle tickets. It's one hundred numbered, rolled up, paper tickets stuck on a metal ring. When you buy a ticket you just tear it off at the perforation, and when all tickets are sold you can just break the seal on the ring and pour all the stubs in a bag or whatever so you can draw winners.

Blink and you miss it: Cute kiddo has a pride pin on his jacket.

Lost in translation: The show waited a bit with showing what it says on the banner behind them in the photo, but if you can read Swedish you immediately saw that it says KROSSA ÖVERKLASSEN - CRUSH THE UPPER CLASSES. Oh no, Simon, what have you done?

Blink and you miss it: Like a pack of rabid wolves, the social-media starved Gen Z kids rush to their phones for an hour of glorious feeding on Instagram and TikTok.

Blink and you miss it: I love Vincent so much, he's terrible, but he's just so much fun! The little fist he makes as he says "kampen" just seals it.

Subtext: The show still hasn't revealed the banner text to the non-Swedish audience, but Wilhelm immediately sees it and knows how bad it is and why Farima tried calling him seven times. Also, Vincent is just on a roll here.

Cinematography: Man, this is a pretty show. Look at that shot. Look at how they perfectly aligned the hole in the window with Simon, the police car, and the entrance to their house, as he discovers that someone decided to vandalize it.

#young royals #young royals subtext #young royals analysis #young royals season 3

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txttletale · 1 month

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MANY PEOPLE, SOME OF WHOM HAPPEN TO BE RACIST: it is a very bad thing that in many parts of the world, people are hegemonically encouraged to do terrible things in the name of honor, like dueling over obscure conflicts, or enforcing blasphemy laws, or, perhaps worst of all, murdering members of their families for having sex or being raped. this state of affairs is ongoing and should stop as soon as possible

TUMBLR USER TXTTLETALE, HAVING FLIPPED A COIN AND DECIDED TO BE STUPID TODAY: um. did you just do a hecking Sinophobia? you realize we can all tell that you're trying to complain about China specifically, right? I bet you think Chinese people have something inherently wrong with their genes or their skull shape. literally all cultures have a concept of honor dumbass. you're just trying to say we should all be a shameless degenerate society. what you're complaining about is normal and good and everyone does it. [kisses glossy framed photograph of chairman mao and puts on comically oversized sleepy times cap] good night chairman mao good night china zzzzzzzzzzzzzz

if you think that 'honour killings' happen because of 'honour' and not misogyny then it's pretty much over for you. i do do that thing with chairman mao every time i go to bed though its creepy how you knew that

#ask #same for enforicng blasphemy laws lol those exist as tools of state and religious repression not because of some nebuluos concept of honour #common idealism L

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ftmtftm · 3 months

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I've been scrolling through your blog, and I saw your post about discussing the racialized nature of gender. As someone who has several transmasc POC friends, and someone who's a nonbinary POC themself, I wanted to give my 2 cents.

It's important to understand that "woman" in the "man vs woman" gender binary is a colonialist, white supremacist construct, especially in Western countries where you are the numerical minority. My trans friends aren't on T, they haven't gotten top surgery, we are all quite young. But they all have numerous stories about being addressed as "sir" which brings them euphoria but as one person said, while we were making fun of the amount of white people in our club, "Due to my race and skin color, I get masculinized."

And again I'd like to emphasize, that since we're young, none of us really have medically transitioned due to financial and familial barriers. Their hair is long, our binders we definitely have notable chests, and even if they dress masculine, it's notable that no one in our communities would ever gender us properly. It's often white people calling them "sir." Again, I think this reflects how gender performances in mainstream queer communities are deeply White. Like, trans boys talk about having haircuts, but only one of my friends has that wavier, more manageable hair that will help them pass. When you've got curly/kinky hair, the standards are different. For a white person, what's the difference between a "girl" Afro and a boy "Afro"? White cis people have a harder time identifying us, and literally talk to any black girl, and they'll tell you about being mocked, dehumanized, and called "manly".

I don't have much else to say. These are just my personal experiences. But if you want to be an ally to POC in the queer community, this is why it's so fucking important to bring in colonialism/imperialism/white supremacy into discussions of queer liberation. My biggest gripe with ignorant white queers is when they ignore their white privilege, and act like "cishets" (AKA the patriarchal system regulating sexuality and gender) is the only enemy. Because cishet POC deal with plenty of shit with being infantilized, masculinized, feminized, seen as brutish & dangerous, the list goes on. Doberbutts had a post saying, "Believe me, your family's going to care more about me being black than my queerness." towards his white partners. Acknowledging and creating a framework that centers these intersections of queerness and race into your beliefs is true allyship. This is why if you're not anti-imperialist, anti-capitalist, ACAB...I do not think you care for queer liberation. None of us are free until all of us are free.

Please don't view this post as an attack. But this is my perspective, and I thought you'd be receptive to me sharing my lived experiences.

Oh I absolutely don't view this ask as an attack, and I really appreciate you bringing these things up because you're right! Like, just very plainly: You are right and your and your friends lived experiences are extremely important to the conversation on the racialized aspects of gender.

It gets me thinking about where Misogynoir and the social White Fear of Black manhood intersect for Black trans men in particular. Because Black women and Women of Color in general are masculinized by White gender standards and the ways in which Black trans masculine people are gendered in alignment with their identity is absolutely not always done with gender affirming intent. In fact, it's often actually done with racist intent or is fueled by racist bias when it's coming from White people or even from non-Black POC.

That's kind of restating things you've said but differently, it's just such a topic worth highlighting explicitly since it's extremely relevant to the conversation that's been happening about Male Privilege here the last few days.

I do think I know exactly what @doberbutts post you're talking about and yeah. It's just truth. It's something Black queer people have been talking about for ages in both theory and in pop culture (my mind immediately goes to Kevin Abstract and "American Boyfriend") where Black queer/trans identity is both materially different from (neutral) and is treated differently from (negative) White queer/trans identity in multitudes of ways and those differences are worth sharing and exploring and talking about.

Genuinely, thank you for sharing! I try really hard not to lead these kinds of conversations outside of explicitly referencing back to non-White theorists because I don't particularly feel like it's my place to do so, but I will always provide a platform for them because they're extremely important conversations to be had.

#asks #anon #racialized gender #male privilege #transandrophobia

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buckttommy · 28 days

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umm. pause. guys. guys. gay tommy has been canon this entire time. what the fuck. like. oh my god. no. like. okay. okay. so. 2x9 (hen begins), sal [deluca] is talking about his girlfriend dragging him to see twilight. he makes a homophobic joke about tommy being team jacob and tommy's like "i don't even know what that means." chimney says "he's insinuating that you're gay" and tommy blows deluca a kiss. fine. whatever. but THEN you skip to 2x12 (chimney begins), and—i stg it's a blink and you miss it moment—tommy and gerrard (racist captain) are having this conversation in the background

tommy: what about that burger place? gerrard: tommy i hate that place. hey wasn't your girlfriend supposed to come and cook us dinner? tommy: uhh. next tuesday. gerrard: promise? tommy: uhh. uh. yes. yeah. i will promise.

and it's like. number one, this sounds like a conversation they've had before. something to the tune of "hey, how come you never bring your girlfriend around" which i can't help but think was intentional considering the members of the old 118 were entirely familiar with deluca's girlfriend gina. but number two, no straight man who has a girlfriend sounds that unsure that they have a fucking girlfriend. it was very much giving "ah yes. this human lady that i love that most definitely exists. absolutely. also i like breasts." and it's just like. ok. what the fuck. like. i don't know if this was the plan all along. i don't think it was. i still maintain buck/eddie were supposed to go canon after the shooting and the powers that be got in the way. but. but. the idea that this canon queer character has been hiding in plain sight (subtext) is just. wild to me. like. i've always headcanoned tommy as gay, mostly because every character he plays seems fruity as hell. but bro. i don't think it's a headcanon anymore. and i don't think it ever has been. what the fuck.

there's also the idea that. like. so i've been watching the begins episodes again trying to figure out what, exactly, tommy's crime against the members of the 118 has been. like. he worked in a -phobic/-cist environment. he was definitely complicit in making hen/chimney feel like outsiders in their workplace yes yes all these things are true. but as far as i can tell, tommy has rarely ever actively been anything except spineless. deluca makes a homophobic joke? tommy laughs. gerrard makes a bunch of sexist and racist comments? tommy looks, but doesn't say anything to encourage (or discourage him). hen gives her monologue? he looks chagrined.

and his complicity would be absolutely shitty and inexcusable if he was just a cishet white man. no questions asked. but if — if — you view his behavior through the lens of the fact that tommy is queer himself? that tommy is, and always has been, a member of a marginalized community who felt it was easier and safer to assimilate than it was to be openly queer and have a target on his back? his behavior becomes a whole hell of a lot more understandable. yes, it's still shitty, but. there's a purpose behind it. and this idea is supported by the fact that, when gerrard leaves (flashing forward to bobby begins again), even before bobby gets there (because we always credit bobby with making the 118 the family it is today), like. the atmosphere is completely different. tommy and hen? are friendly with each other. chimney and tommy? also friendly with each other. which we also know because in 2x14 broken, he calls him up for help. which lends credibility to the idea that the problems tommy had (or thought he had) with henchim were not about them as people but more about whatever manufactured conservative boys club bullshit gerrard fostered.

and it's just like. motherfucker. bitch. what the hell. like. first of all, leave it to 9-1-1 to tell a story like this in the most subtle way possible. like if that was indeed the intended implication, i'm throwing my tv off a bridge immediately. but also. second of all. what is wrong with this show. they're crazy. i want to eat it like a loaf of bread. just shovel it in my mouth because the idea that tommy has been queer all along, that he wasn't brought back just to be a stopgap on buck's queer journey to eddie, but that he's been haunting the edges of the narrative like a gay ghost is sooo like. ohhh. okay. [throws up]. like????? okay. anyway. i'm going to be thinking about this the rest of the day.

#tommy kinard #head in hands.....................HEAD IN HANDS #tv: 911 #jack.txt #There's also something to be said about the idea of FOX main characterizing Buck/Oliver #around the same time they put a stop to Buddie #Something about like. Conventionally attractive (dark hair / light eyes) white men are not allowed to be loudly quee #and like. I KNEW there was something there #I knew it. And I love Michael and David and Karen and Hen don't get me wrong #those are my emotional support gays #but I was just like ''hm. kind of funny how every queer character connected to the mains is a person of color right?''#and I never vocalized this thought to ANYONE but I always kept it in the back of my mind #even the men michael would be seen with *before* David — always black #and there's nothing wrong with it it's fine #but the idea becomes a LOT more insidious when I consider FOX's politics—when i consider that both racism and homophobia are inherent to #their brand. and then it's just like ''ohh. you guys made the black people dirty queers because white is right. okay got it''#anyways. let me stop talking. lol

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asimpwithfreetime · 1 year

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can you do ronal and tonowari where maybe reader is neytiri’s sister and when ronal comes up close to judge the family she falls in love and tells ronal that they have to have her ?

Of courseeee!

What a beautiful sight (Ronal x Fem!Neytiri’s sister! Reader x Tonowari)

General warnings: Ronal judging the Sully’s, tail shenanigans, Ronal being kinda racist towards omatikayas(?) idk, not much

I have this idea were Tonowari would call Tuk “little one” and I needed to put it here.

Content warnings: English Isn’t my first language, this hasn’t been proofread yet.

[ 3rd Person POV ]

Y/n felt nervous, Neytiri had asked you to go with the rest of the family to look for shelter away from the possibility of getting caught by the sky people.

She wasn’t very fond of the idea of leaving behind everything she had even known. But she loved her sister so much se went with her to help her.

Once they landed, they try to show the Metkayina that they were pacific and looking for shelter. Jake explained to Tonowari, the chief not paying attention to anyone else, since he was looking at the ex-Toruk Makto.

His wife, Ronal, was going around the family, judging and talking about their demon blood. Then her eyes settled in the other adult omatikaya that was close to Neytiri. “You don’t have demon blood” she muttered.

Her tail swished with interest. But she put her scowl back and went close to her husband. She would tell him later.

Once the Sullys were getting settled, Ronal and Tonowari went to their marui. He knew his wife had something on her mind and he needed to know what it was. “She was a beautiful Na’vi” Ronal said stunned. “I never thought someone from the forest could be such a beauty” she said, her husband dumbfounded by her words.

“Are you talking about Jakesully’s mate, Neytiri?” Tonowari’s brows furrowed. “No, the other omatikaya woman” Ronal said. She was surprised. Hadn’t Tonowari seen that other stunning woman?

He was tired and didn’t remember anyone else apart from Jake, Neytiri and their children. He admitted he hadn’t been paying much attention to them.

The next day, Tonowari went after Ronal in her search to find Y/n. He was fascinated the moment he saw her. She was on the sore with Tuk. Her baby niece playing with the water.

Tonowari and Ronal felt mermerized. Y/n’s blue skin glistened with the sea water, her smile bright and shiny eyes while laughing with Tuk.

“Hello!” Tuk greeted the Olo’eyktan and the Tsa’hìk of the Metkayina. Tonowari smiled at her, even if she had demon blood, she was just a child. Ronal, on the other hand, just ignored her. “Hello, little one!” Tonowari greeted back, earning a giggle from Tuk.

Y/n also smiled at them. “Good evening” she said, more formal than her niece. Tonowari smiled at her brightly, Ronal also cracked a small smile.

“Tuuuk!” Neytiri’s voice sounded, coming from behind them “where are you?”.

“Your mom is looking for you, little one. You should go”Tonowari prompted Tuk to start running towards her mom.

“Do you like it here so far?” Tonowari’s strong voice made Y/n look at him. Now he was talking to her directly. “It is beautiful, I wish I could have come in a better time and not only looking for shelter” Y/n said, a sad smile paining her features.

“Better times are yet to come” Ronal said. “If you want, we can teach you how to become one with our people”.

The offer sounded tempting, being taught how to be a Metkayina by Ronal and Tonowari didn’t sound that bad.

“Alright, I’m in” she beamed at the couple, both of them looking at her with tenderness. “Would you like to try with an ilu?” Tonowari asked, walking towards her. “Yeah”.

They got deeper in the sea, until water went up their hips. Tonowari made several sounds to call an ilu. When the creature came, Y/n felt nervous. “You ready?” Tonowari asked. She nodded.

He held her by the waist while getting her on top of the ilu. Y/n blushed at the way Tonowari’s strong hands were holding her. He also blushed.

Ronal helped her steady herself once she was on top of the ilu. “Now you gotta connect to it” she said, her fingers almost touching Y/n’s braid, making a satisfactory chill run down Y/n’s spine.

For the rest of the day, they had fun teaching Y/n how to ride an ilu. They were getting to know each other while making her one of the Metkayina.

#avatar james cameron #avatar x reader #avatar #avatar 2 #tonowari x reader #avatar tonowari #tonowari #avatar ronal #ronal x reader #ronal

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