#Māori men

[icybloggs]

He’s so hot like HELLO

[kavehater]

Most funniest thing ever btw is a person who likes alhaitham and kaveh and has alhaitham as his pfp and kaveh in his banner yet is a raging Zionist

[star-spangled-man]

not to get political on the main. but if you make a comment that about someone or a certain social group which you obviously have not walked in their shoes or experience it on a daily basis and then say “chill out. It’s just a joke!”

I hate you. You’re a dick and there is a special place for you in hell.

[onefleshonepod]

On Barbie

I'd like to share my thoughts on John’s choice to house Alecto in a body that looks like Hollywood Hair Barbie.

To the best of my recollection over the past year, I've seen several people claim that Barbie being a famously unattainable beauty standard for women and arguably a sex symbol was irrelevant to John's decision to make Alecto a Barbie lookalike, and that rather the main impetus for this decision of John’s was his trauma, gender non-conformity, internalized homophobia, and desire to return to the comfort of childhood. This argument posits that John's decision had little or nothing to do with patriarchy, misogyny, objectification of women, or impossible beauty standards placed on women by men.

I empathize with the above position to a certain extent — it's absolutely crucial to remember and consider in our analyses that John is a queer working-class Indigenous man.

But………....................

John is not a real person. He is a character written to advance plot, themes, and political commentary within a carefully crafted story.

If I'm Tamsyn Muir writing John 1:20 in Nona the Ninth, and the point I want to make about my character is specifically and only that he is struggling with self-doubt, trauma, gender non-conformity, internalized homophobia, and yearning for the comfort of home and childhood — and I want to say nothing about patriarchy and misogyny?

I'm not having him make the soul of the earth into a Barbie!

I'd be having him model Alecto after a completely different popular 1990s toy for girls, like a Polly Pocket, or Betty Spaghetti, or a Raggedy Ann doll, or another doll that doesn't carry the same connotations as Barbie. Or, hell, I’d be having John make Alecto look exactly like his mum, or his nan, or female Māori mythological figures from stories he must have heard from his nan in childhood, like Papatūānuku, or the first woman, Hineahuone, who was made from earth.

I'm not smarter or more creative than Tamsyn, and the above ideas are just the alternatives I thought of in five minutes that would have specifically symbolized John's personal trauma and nothing else.

But Tamsyn didn't do that. Tamsyn picked Barbie specifically. I think that's worth taking into consideration.

Let’s examine exactly what John says in John 1:20.

Hollywood Hair Barbie's physical appearance comes first in the list of reasons why she was his favourite, and her other characteristics come last. He lists two physical traits and one non-physical trait of hers. “My favourite was her old Hollywood Hair Barbie,” he murmured. “I loved her little gold outfit and her long yellow hair. She was the best. She got to have all the adventures.”

He discards as an option a model of a woman who doesn't conform to patriarchal, Eurocentric beauty standards specifically because of her appearance: “There was also a Bride’s Dream Midge, but Mum had cut Midge’s hair into this weird mullet.”

He chooses a blonde Barbie body that he can mould into and mentally map onto glamourized versions of women created by men through the ages. “I made you look like a Christmas-tree fairy … I made you look like a Renaissance angel … I made you Adam and Eve … Galatea. Barbie. Frankenstein’s monster with long yellow hair.”

Our famous cultural images of Renaissance angels are all idealized depictions of women made by men — Raphael, Titian, Albrecht Dürer, etc. Frankenstein's monster, a man loathed and discarded by his creator, is a more nuanced comparison... but the only thing John notes is that his version has long yellow hair.

I'm not even getting into the whiteness (or the plastic-ness) of it all, but three of John's comparisons here are specifically coded as white women considered beautiful by Eurocentric standards in the Western cultural imagination (Christmas tree toppers, Renaissance angels, and Barbie), and the others are often depicted as white.

Galatea specifically is such a telling comparison. This myth is the story of a man caging and controlling his idealized, beautiful female creation, which exactly parallels John’s goals with Alecto: “From my blood and bone and vomit I conjured up a beautiful labyrinth to house you in. I was terrified you’d find some way to escape before I was done.”

Given all of this, I genuinely think that John's choice of Barbie as a model for Alecto was intended to position John as a symbol of patriarchy, misogyny, and objectification of women, through both a political and religious lens. Tamsyn is way, way too smart to have not made a careful, considered, intentional choice here.

John didn’t make Alecto into a Māori goddess from his nan’s stories. He didn't make her into a cheerful Raggedy Ann. He made her into a beautiful, blonde Hollywood hair Barbie.

[biracy]

The John Post

The thing about John Gaius is like… a lot of people refuse to recognize him as like a Bad Guy, and a lot of people criticize tlt for having him as a Bad Guy, for similar reasons. I think a lot of people have these ideas that colonialism and empire and the vague concept of "war crimes" are bad due to some kind of ontological evil within the souls of white men or something, and that misogyny and the objectification of women exist due to some kind of ontological evil within the souls of straight men. Relating to the former, I think a lot of people hold a sort of "but it's okay when we do it" approach to systems of oppressive power + imperialism, where their vision of a perfect world is not one without these things, but ones where currently marginalized people get to participate in colonial and imperialist power forces just as much as the white men ("I hear the next one will be sent by a woman!"). John Gaius is both a representation of this and a good litmus test for people's opinions on this - he was a bisexual, Māori man living in colonized Aotearoa, and when he got to remake the universe, he made one where he is the emperor. Instead of making a world where these systems no longer exist, John went "but it's okay when I do it." A lot of people in real life are like this, honestly - a lot of marginalized people choose to only understand liberation and empowerment through the lens of the power wielded by their oppressors. It's an attractive concept, at first, but it doesn't really work in the long run and it cannot provide liberation for everyone. John becoming the most powerful man in the universe, literally becoming God, gives HIM that power, but does not give EVERYONE that power. The Nine Houses are subjugated under him, the non-House planets are regularly destroyed by him, and even his Lyctors are decidedly "under" him, even after ten thousand years. In choosing to wield the weapons of his oppressors for himself, John becomes not a liberator but an oppressor in his own right.

The same thing can be said about John and gender; people tend to reduce the misogyny John expresses because he's bisexual and played with girls' toys, but bisexual men are just as capable of wielding patriarchy against women as straight men. People also find it difficult to grapple with how John, a Māori man, constructed a blonde Barbie to house the soul of the Earth in, and are hesitant to analyze him as misogynistic because of this. But John making Alecto a Barbie, the icon of white femininity, is the same as him becoming an emperor and surrounding himself with Lyctors in the ancient Roman fashion. Alecto is the idealized white woman, and she is John's. John created her, possesses her, embodies her, in what is both a patriarchal power trip and a marginalized person taking power into his own hands. Alecto being a blonde white woman, being Barbie, carries very clear colonialist AND misogynistic connotations. White supremacy and colonialism has taught John that a blonde-haired white woman is the feminine ideal, which is backed up by the white, blonde-haired and blue-eyed Barbies of his childhood. At the same time, Barbie has an extensive history of being criticized for misogyny, with the doll's design embodying a very clear feminine sexual ideal. The desire to control and contain a beautiful woman is an inherently patriarchal one, and John takes it to the extreme when he chains his Barbie in a coffin at the center of a labyrinth. Alecto is the patriarchal fantasy to wholly possess a beautiful woman, powered by hundreds of years of colonialism teaching John what a beautiful woman even is, filtered through a thin veneer of exerting power over an image of whiteness (although John's treatment of Alecto is primarily misogynistic - it's a very clear part of the text and you need to get comfortable confronting that).

John Gaius is an example of a marginalized person who wishes for the power he has been denied, yet hasn't fully deconstructed colonialism and patriarchy. The only things separating him from anyone else fitting this description is that a) he is a fictional character being written deliberately and b) he had the opportunity to become God. And when John Gaius became God, he didn't change the world; he just made a world where he was in charge. This is an extremely important part of the books! The books are very clearly making commentary on both imperialism and misogyny, and to have people so passionately ignore these themes because they can be uncomfortable to talk about is disheartening. John is a character that invites so much analysis and conversation, there are so many layers to why he is the way he is and what that contributes to the books. People are so unwilling to discuss misogyny and assault or so uncomfortable with the idea of calling a nonwhite guy an imperialist that they steamroll right over these themes, which loses a lot of what makes the books so interesting to begin with in the process.

[velvetvexations]

Oh yeah some Pacific cultures have fa'afafine ("AMAB acting in the manner of a woman") and fa'fatama ("AFAB acting in the manner of a man") as gender roles as well. In Aotearoa there's a place named Whakatāne (cognate to fa'fatama) because of a woman who saw a canoe drifting and went out to paddle it to shore (a men's job) after declaring "Me whakatāne au i ahau!" ("I will act the part of a man!"). White people normally interpret it as a girlboss thing but Māori trans people have told me that it's more in line with an on-the-spot gender switch to being a man for the duration (she switched back when the job was done, hence the she/her). I'm a white trans person so like, if Māori and Pacific people want to give you more info then that's chill, but like I said this is stuff that Māori trans people have said to me lol

https://teara.govt.nz/en/photograph/2332/statue-of-wairaka-whakatane

That is so cool anon! Thank you, I really like that as well.

[codywanweek]

PROMPTS 2024 (aug 4-11)

Thank you all so much for voting!! I hope you like this year's selection of prompts 🧡💙

Two notes: Firstly: ✨✨This year Codywan week will be 8 DAYS! On day 8 we celebrate our fifth year of codywan week.✨✨

Secondly: Like last year the overall top 7 of all prompts have been marked orange*. If you prefer having just one set of prompts, you can use these seven!

~~~~~~~

Writing

Alternate Universe: Day 1. No/Different Order 66* Day 2. Aro/Ace Codywan (how to write aro/ace codywan) Day 3. Soulmate AU* Day 4. Video Game AU Day 5. Original Kenobi Series Script* (see: here) Day 6. Crèchemaster Obi-Wan Day 7. Modern AU: Teacher/University/Academia AU*

Broad: Day 1. Lightsaber/ Lightsaber training Day 2. “There are three things all wise men fear: the sea in storm, a night with no moon, and the anger of a gentle man.” — Patrick Rothfuss - The Wise Man's Fear Day 3. After the war Day 4. “Subtle” witty banter during the war* Day 5. Hurt/Comfort Day 6. Quiet Love Day 7. Courting

Specific: Day 1. Truth Spell/Serum Day 2. Beating rival suitors off with a stick* Day 3. Take me instead/saving each other Day 4. Raising kids/padawans/kidfic Day 5. Only one bed Day 6. Touch starved* Day 7. Dimension travel (by one character)

DAY 8: 5TH anniversary

[ID in alt text]

~~~~~~~

Art

Alternate Universe: Day 1. Rebel Husbands AU* Day 2. Crèchemaster Obi-Wan Day 3. WLW Codywan Day 4. Meet as kids/young Obi-Wan and Cody/Padawan Obi-Wan and Captain Cody Day 5. Celestial Beings AU/(Celtic/Scottish & Māori) Mythology AU* Day 6. Soulmate AU Day 7. Modern AU: Rural type jobs (farmer/cowboy/homesteader)*

Broad: Day 1. "I love you like the sun" Day 2. Growing Old Together Day 3. Kyber Crystals* Day 4. Red string of fate Day 5. Pets and animals (tookas, Boga) Day 6. Touch starved Day 7. Battle couple

Specific: Day 1. Beating rival suitors off with a stick Day 2. Cody with a lightsaber* Day 3. Scars Day 4. One of Cody's antennae is linked to a tracker in Obi's lightsaber* Day 5. Comfy clothes vs. slut attire (a ho never gets cold!) Day 6. Force Sensitive Cody* Day 7. Long hair, hair cutting/trimming

DAY 8: 5TH anniversary

[ID in alt text]

~~~~~~~

NSFW (below the cut)

Writing: Day 1. Bottom Cody Day 2. "Good boy" Day 3. Sex Pollen Day 4. Praise kink Day 5. That's not how the Force works Day 6. Gasping/Begging/Moaning Day 7. Service top Cody

Art: Day 1. Kneeling Day 2. One naked/one clothed Day 3. Gasping/Begging/Moaning Day 4. Piercings Day 5. Wedding night Day 6. Shower sex Day 7. Lingerie

DAY 8: 5th anniversary

[ID in alt text]

@swfandomevents

[kuwdora]

Saturday Morning Vid Recs - Women!

Back in January I told @poetikat that I wanted to share just a fraction of vids I’ve seen since I started vidding in 2007 that I love. Taken me forever to format the links into a post to share. I have several more posts half-finished and may show up on your dashboard in following weeks or months.

I'm reccing vids that are at least 1 year old, but most of these vids are 4 and 8 and 12 years old and sometimes older. These vids feature a variety of sources, characters, genres of music, genres of shows. Each of these vidders have their own style and the way they approach a song or a source. I love these vids, they're fun to watch, they're hot, mesmerizing, engaging, thoughtful, full of love and horniness and BAMFs and joy and struggle. I love. I love.

I give to you 23 vids for this weekend's theme:

Women!!

Learning to Fly by rhoboat. Beautiful Boxer (2004). A movie vid based on trans Thai boxer Nong Toom’s life. This song is so good showing her journey to learning to find herself and fly! Ako Te Reo by bironic. Rūrangi (2020). Ana learning Te Reo Māori. This vid is so wonderful! It's never too late to learn. Come on Feet by JinkyO. Pumzi (2009). The song choice and pacing is incredible for this Kenyan sci-fi film. Something has to keep us moving forward. Black Nails by fightingarrival. A League of their Own (2022). A Max vid that is a great look at her journey on the show. This vid makes me want to rewatch all her scenes all over again. Here, take this L. Damned if She Do by chaila. Borgen. This source is the Danish political drama Borgen. Birgette is so kick-ass and this song is perfect for her. She come alive when she dying. "Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man's character, give him power." Strict Machine by such_heights. Doctor Who. River Song. I’m in love with River Song so of course I have to rec this. I get high on a buzz then a rush when I'm plugged in you. Counting Stars by beccatoria. DC Animated Wonder Woman. Beccatoria has always done such a great job of vidding animated source and WOMEN!!!! Superstar by @heresluck. Buffy the Vampire Slayer. A Faith vid. This (one of many) epic Faith vids to come out of vidding fandom over the years. This vid lives rent free in my head. But I would pay this vid to live in my head because I love it so much. Never gonna be the same again.

Down & Dirty by @sweeter-than. Killjoys. A Dutch fanvid! A++ song choice for a character study showing her relationship with the Jacobi brothers and her general awesomeness. Make way. Cut Like a Buffalo by kiki_miserychic. Empire. Cookie Lyon fanvid! Cookie has all the skin in the game and she is so good at music, but damn there’s so much bullshit she has to deal with along the way. Yeah, you know I look like a woman but I / Cut like a buffalo / Stand up like a tower, tall / Then I fall just like a domino. Control: A Monstress Fanvid by garrideb. Based on the comic Monstress. You know this Halsey song + any woman who has been Going Through It is going to be a fucking ride. Great editing, amazing art. Fortunate One by @moocowmoocow The Expanse. CAMINA!!! DRUMMER!!!! A Sleater-Kinney cover of Fortunate Son is 10 million kinds of brilliance here for Camina and this source. I ain't no fortunate one. Celebrity Skin by @some-stars. Black Sails. This is an Eleanor and Max character vid. I repeat: Elenor and Max vid to Courtney Love’s music. Heed the warnings. This vid is so goddamn good. It better be worth it. Double Woman by starlady. Detective Dee and the Mystery of the Phantom Flame. So much awesomeness packed into this vid. Through the camera lens re-editing history gives imagination to the people. Wu Zetian and Shangguang Jing'er are awesome. Hooray for awesome ladies of the Tang Dynasty! Titanium by giandujakiss. Wonder Woman (the original tv show). She is titanium! Suffering Sappho.

Mirrors by @kuwdora. Snow White and the Huntsman. Queen/Snow. Lots of fantasy imagery and bdsm like themes since the Queen wants to suck the youth from Snow. Sex. Love. Control. Vanity. Lightning Field by bradcpu, a Legend of the Seeker fanvid of Cara/Kahlan. The imagery in this vid is outstanding, the tone the atmosphere. I have rewatched this more times than I can count. Strike me down, Give it everything you've got. Hands Away by chaila and beccatoria. Sarah Connor Chronicles/Fringe. Sarah/Olivia constructed reality fanvid that is constructed really really fucking well that you might forget that these are two different shows. I can't reach you. (Or, two messiahs walk into an alternate reality) Hurricane by @laurashapiro. Farscape and Battlestar Galactica, Starbuck/Aeryn.This vid is so epic and hot and incredible...Hot and sexy and can’t take your eyes off them. Two pilots walk into a bar. I Wanna Go by millylicious, a multi-source action vid Angelia Jolie tribute. This is fun and delightful. Space Girl by charmax. Multi-source space women and girls! My momma told me I should never watch Sci-fi but I did, I did, I did. Celebration by sweetestrain. Pop divas. Madonna, Rihanna, Lady Gaga, Beyonce, etc. Another one of my favorites of favorites. The connected imagery between all of these music videos still blows my mind, but goes to show you how pop music continues to build and evolve from each other. Plus sexy dancing. If it makes you feel good. Your Song by anoel. Multi-fandom. One of the most epic sapphic/wlw vids out there. I don’t wanna hear sad songs anymore, I only wanna hear love songs.

Hope you like these recs! Follow the tags to keep up #saturday morning vid recs and/or #kuwdora recs

EDITING TO ADD: How to Leave Feedback on Fanvids

[outivv]

I’m so disappointed with the natlan teaser because like. Girl. All of those characters would straight up look better if they had even the tiniest bit of melanin don’t even lie hyv.

I’m gonna go on a fat rant here so below the cut, fair warning because it’s messy as fuck I’m just pissed off

No because how are you going to straight up take the inspirations, and clear liberties from Aztec, Māori, Qichwa, Nigerian, Hawaiian, Native American, And Mayan (according to this image from @ HYVboycott on Twitter highly recommend btw they have good info imo)

And then you’re not gonna represent them in terms of their skin color??? Yes there are pale people in all these countries and pale people apart of these cultures, HOWEVER the vast majority of people, or the native people are not typically fucking white. I am white and I literally am darker than the majority of the genshin characters, even in winter when I don’t fucking tan. Like the genshin characters don’t even look ALIVE for Christ’s sake. Hyv are a bunch of cowards who take inspiration from poc, and don’t properly represent them, even in their other games like honkai Star rail. Boothill is Native American. Blatantly. “Oh, no he’s not!!” Yes the fuck he is, his entire backstory is based off of native people, he’s also part Hispanic because the original cowboys were Hispanic people called vaqueros, his home planet in the original CN version of honkai Star rail is literally two native tribes put together I believe. He is Native American, and Hispanic, and hyv TOOK that inspiration and that culture and then was too much of a coward to AT LEAST make him tan. Don’t even get me started on aventurine. So it’s not just with genshin that they do this shit, it’s a hyv problem as a whole, but with genshin it’s so like… common, and genshin has so many issues that make it feel like a cash-grab kinda game, and like the devs are just spitting in our face CONSTANTLY, especially when it comes to characters, and representation. It’s so depressing to see a game that at first had so much fucking promise, now just be such a fucking letdown after like what? 5? 4? Years? Like you’ve built up so much hype, and lore, and excitement just for Sumeru and Natlan not having any representation like fuck off. Hyv CAN fix these issues, they just don’t want to and they have expressed that time and time again by making dark skinned enemies, and enemies with dreadlocks. They know that they can, they just don’t want to because they’re too pussy. And it’s not because they’re a Chinese company, I mean obviously I understand that there is a complicated relationship with tan skin and China, HOWEVER that is no excuse because genshin, honkai Star rail, zenless zone zero, and honkai impact 3rd are all worldwide games and they need to appeal to their WORLDWIDE customers, and I’ve seen plenty of CN players fucking just as pissed off that there isn’t any actual diversity for like any of their games. Plus other Chinese companies have made diverse games, like Dislyte which I’m honestly a huge fucking fan of because of their diversity. Having diversity would BENEFIT hoyoverse a hell of a lot, but they are just trying to appeal to greasy old white men who are the same men who have a tantrum while making a reaction video to a game trailer and go “OH MY GOD SHE ISNT GOT ENOUGH!! LOOK AT HER!! SHE ISNT SEXY!!”, “OH MY GODDD THEY HAVE PRONOUNS NOW!! THE WOKE SNOWFLAKES GOT TO THEM”, and “OH MY GOD ASSASSINS CREED IS MAKING A BLACK SAMURAI THE MAIN CHARACTER!! NOOOO THATS NOT HISTORICALLY ACCURATE!!” Because they’re all pathetic, and that’s who hoyoverse is trying to cater to.

Okay I’m done, this went all over the place but I’m so pissed off so fuck hyv, give them the feedback they deserve, have a great day.

[icybloggs]

Save a horse ride a cowboy 🤠

[piratecaptainscaptainpirates]

If there was one thing I could tell every white fan who writes meta and fic about OFMD, it's that there's no way to do a "race-blind" reading of a story.

The simple fact of the matter is that our biases about race impact how we interact with every single piece of media we'll ever consume, and that's true for every person on the planet. We're all of us informed by the racism of the societies we grow up in, and we always all need to do the (often uncomfortable) work of examining why we think the way we do about characters of color. This isn't just important for making fandom feel like a safe space for fans of color, these are important life skills to build to help you become a better ally.

An important thing to remember is that you don't have to explicitly mention Ed's race to unintentionally reinforce racist readings of the text. Racist takes very often don't look like "Ed is obviously super violent and angry because he's brown," they more often look like "Ed is inherently violent" while ignoring how white characters like Stede engage in violence with much more enthusiasm. Trying to avoid thinking or talking about Ed's race doesn't mean you're less likely to accidentally reinforce racist takes - it in fact means you're more likely to do that because you're not taking the time to examine your biases!

Ed's race became an important part of the story the moment a Jewish-Māori man was cast in the role. While for a character like Stede the idea of being seen as threatening might even feel empowering (he's a gnc white gay man who has often be made to feel weak and useless), for Ed you will miss part of why the Blackbeard caricature feels so dehumanizing to him if you ignore the racial component. The way Ed is depicted in Blackbeard posters, the way he's exoticized at the party boat, his interactions with other characters - it's impossible to understand Ed's character without considering how the color of his skin impacts how he moves through the world. Moments like Izzy essentially buying Ed from the crown become much more troubling when you take the time to examine the text with Ed's race in mind, and you might even end up with reductive ideas about Ed's gender expression and relationship to masculinity if you fail to consider that things such as longer hair are ways that some Māori men like Ed express their masculinity. You can ignore that Ed's a man of color, sure, but then you're missing a lot.

At the end of the day, it's just important to take the time to sit with yourself and think about how you understand characters of color in the media you enage with. It's good and healthy, I think, to ask ourselves uncomfortable questions. Do you find yourself assigning Ed's violent actions more weight than those of characters like Stede or Izzy? Is it easier to ignore Ed's tears to focus on what he's done wrong? A common example is the moment when Ed orders Fang to skin the racist French captain with a snail fork - do you find yourself thinking that Ed overreacted?

[maximumwobblerbanditdonut]

NEW ZEALAND RETAIN OLYMPIC WOMEN’S RUGBY SEVEN TITLE IN PARIS 🇫🇷🏉

Aotearoa 🇳🇿 that’s Gold 🥇

Black Ferns Sevens are Olympic Champions !

Les Black Ferns Sevens sont Championnes Olympiques !

It is the Black Ferns' third rugby sevens Olympic medal after also securing silver at Rio 2016.

The Black Ferns Sevens are the first women's rugby team to secure back to back Olympic golds. Fiji's men's team is the only nation to achieve that feat before today.

The Black Ferns (Māori: Rarauhe Pango) treated the Stade de France crowd in Paris to a powerful haka after winning back-to-back Olympic gold medals in the rugby sevens. Pushed in the final by a resilient Canadian side. The Black Ferns won 19-12.

Following the medal ceremony the players went to the side of the field with their gold medals on and performed the haka.

Take a bow ladies and keep doing what you do best. Congrats and cheers for the gold medal! 🤩

Portia Woodman-Wickliffe fends off a Canada defender on her way to a try for the Black Ferns sevens in Paris. (Source: Getty)

New Zealand held off a spirited Canada to defend their Olympic gold in Paris CARL DE SOUZA/AFP via Getty Images

New Zealand players celebrate following victory in the women's rugby sevens gold medal match. Photo / Getty Images

New Zealand Sevens were officially launched in 2000. They have played in 80 tournaments, winning 50 and finishing runners-up 14 times.

Attendance records for women’s rugby are being smashed quicker than a Blyde runaway these days. At these Olympics, more than 60,000 fans packed into Stade de France for all three days. In September the Black Ferns and England play a WXV 1 Test at Twickenham. With a capacity of 75,000, there is a high chance the game will sell out and break the record once again.

#Paris2024 #olympics #TheFernIsAllOfUs🥇 #RugbySevensWomen #Aotearoa #goldmedal #rugby #theHaka #NZTeam

Posted 31st July 2024

[nonasemporium]

John and Colorism

John is Māori. He is a man of color, and he is coming from a society where he was racialized. Specifically, at least as a general consensus, his "faceclaim" in a sense is Taika Waititi.

Anyway, without getting into every facet of how I think the series and fandom engages with and addresses men of color, because that scope starts getting out of this specific topic and into a different one, I want to state that I think the relationship John has to both Alecto and to G1deon actually further represents themes of colorism.

John makes himself God. He makes himself god and to him that becomes some strange performance of western civilization roman empire 2.0 space imperialism planet consumption speedrun mixed w New Catholocism or whatever, but where there's a PERFORMANCE of equality where there actually isn't. Just like I argue John not ONLY makes new classes with necromancers and cavaliers (I'm not even getting into everything else with this), but ALSO he did not in fact shatter gender oppression, he just shifted it and patted himself on the ass for it.

YES it is queernormative and as a queer man himself, it makes sense this would be important to him, just like it makes sense for it to be important to him that race manifest very differently (go pretty unacknowledged really*) across his New Roman Empire in Space. But he has his own limits and biases and I would argue both colorism and misogyny are present for him.

He chose to make Alecto the way he did. And he had all of his own reasons for it, but surely it can also be noted how linked those reasons can be to both colorism and misogyny as well. I know he made her a specific barbie that had specific history to him, but does this barbie and his choice in her also highlight his priorities, just as blatantly as his choice of empire?

I need Alecto to come out so I can finalize some of these concepts, but it is still colorism for a man of color, especially one wounded by rejection (as we see in Nona) to see power in dominating a white woman. To see a SUBVERSION in the act of it. I think John sees a lot of things as subversion without seriously considering the levels he's actually engaging in. I think John is shallow.

Which brings me also to G1deon and Pyrrha. I think John had some concepts around their dynamics, their relationship, in their interactions that was in these same lines. I think John saw G1deon a specific way, I think he passively compared himself (including how he discusses it in Nona, again), I think the way he engaged with G1deon did not show solidarity or equality (G1deon was also an engineer!) but showed presumed superiority on John's end. Also he made G1deon how he did before he crafted his 10,000 year old weird empire. If I could put it into words more eloquently, I would, but I feel like John saw triumph in G1deon being Pyrrha's necromancer and I also think he then delegated him to "attack dog" for himself (as we see in Harrow the Ninth especially!!!)

I genuinely think 100% that regardless of if G1deon is racialized as black (I think he is personally), he is meant to be darker and racialized more than John was. And I think John subconsciously compares that! I think it is instead further evidence towards a narrative on colorism, including the way he's separate from Mercymorn and Augustine through HtN.

This is without getting into Pyrrha as a cop.

*I actually don't know if I should say "unacknowledged" here, because the cavs being almost always darker than their necromancers seems really notable.

[privately-andre]

╰┈➤ TEEN GAYS

- Boys (Jongens)

Two teen runner athletes discover their sexualities while forming a beautiful friendship. IMDb: 7.4 My rating: 7/10

- North Sea Texas

Young Pim experiences his firsts with his best friend / next door Gino. IMDb: 7.1 My own Rating: 9/10

Ps: The end scene is incredible ;)

- The Way He Looks

Leonardo is a blind teen. Everything changes when a new boy arrives at school. They form an amazing bond really fast. IMDb: 7.9 My own Rating: 7/10

Ps: the sweatshirt scene !

- Centre Of My World

Phil is a classic twink. He falls in love with the newbie cool boy. IMDb: 7.2 My own Rating: 5/10

Ps: fuck this newbie to be honest.

- Seashore (Beira-Mar)

Two teens travel to countryside just two of them and question their friendship (or their love?) IMDb: 6 My own Rating: 7/10

- Just Friends

Two young men from different cultural backgrounds try to be together without their mothers approval. IMDb : 7.2 My own Rating: 6/10

- Love, Simon

Simon has a secret. He is gay! And he is also in love with an anonymous guy he met online. IMDb: 7.5 My own Rating: 6/10

- Handsome Devil

Ned is gay and he has to share a bedroom with hot rugby player Conor. (They do not become lovers) IMDb: 7 My own Rating: 7/10

- Summer Storm

Tobi realises he is in love with his best friend. This tests their relationship. IMDb: 7.3 My own Rating: 5/10

- Heartstone

A boy falls in love with his best mate in a very homophobic town in Iceland while his best mate falls in love with a girl. IMDb: 7.4 My own Rating: 6/10

Ps: not enough gayness…

- Sublime

Manuel and his friends have an indie band. Then he starts to fall for his band mate Felipe. They are also best friends… IMDb: 6.6 My own Rating: 7/10

Ps: the song used in this movie is so cool also the movie has an open ending.

- Summer of 85 (Été 85)

Alexis’ boats turns upside down when a storm breaks. He is saved by David. Then they start dating. IMDb: 6.9 My own Rating: 6/10

Ps: this movie was hilariously funny to me as a francophone even though it has major character death!

- I Killed My Mother (J’ai tué ma mère)

Hubert is a teen gay and has MASSIVE problems with his mom.. IMDb: 7.4 My own Rating: 7/10

- Prora

Two young boys decide to visit an abandoned Nazi holiday camp called Prora after a great party night. They test their relationship there. IMDb: 7.2 My own Rating: 9/10

Ps: the only bad thing about this movie is that it’s a short film.

- Departure

Elliot and his horny milf mother goes to their holiday house in france after his parent’s divorce. He meets a young french boy there and fucks a carrot. (I know I don’t sound serious :D) IMDb: 6.6 My own Rating: 2/10

Ps: I have no idea why they filmed this it’s so shit. Alex Lawther’s acting is horrible although I love Phénix Brossard here.

- Punch

Jim is a boxer forced by his father. He meets Whetu a gay Māori boy. He discovers his sexuality in the most beautiful way. IMDb: 6.4 My own Rating: 8/10

Ps: Trigger warning ❗️ Rape. (I wish I knew this before watching so I’m warning you)

- As You Are

Set in 1990’s. Young boy Jack falls in love with his new step brother Mark who is a crack head . They become friends with Sarah. These three kids go through rough times. IMDb: 6.5 My own Rating: 5/10

Ps: Acting is good but the plot is not well build.

[ftblmaz]

I get that people are interested in my opinion and feelings of the Spain Haka video because I live in Aotearoa and am Māori. There’s a lot of thoughts and feeling and I am happy to discuss Māori culture but I don’t really want to comment much further on the video after this so I’ll try be as articulate as possible.

That video was one of the first things I saw this morning when I woke up and I’m not going to lie I was very upset and angry when I saw it. However, as I have had time to digest this morning the more common feeling is disappointment.

Disappointment in that FIFA has done quite a bit to include both Māori, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander culture in the marketing and branding of the tournament but this still happens.

Disappointment that people whether is the players themselves or the Spanish FA have not done their due diligence and researched our culture before coming over. Not sure how good or accurate Spanish language resources would be on Māori culture though, which is maybe why this disconnect has occurred.

Perhaps even disappointment in New Zealand Football and New Zealand ourselves that they have not helped to provide the resources to these teams coming and visiting Aotearoa.

I am acutely aware that most foreigners only view of Haka is Ka Mate which is one of the Haka the All Blacks perform before a test match which people often reference as a war dance. Haka can be a war dance but it is actually a dance for celebrating life. People perform them at weddings, funerals, welcoming ceremonies, and other occasions. I was actually surprised that all the teams arriving in Aotearoa weren’t welcomed with a Haka.

There are also many different Haka and the roles of men and women in them are different. For example, you will never see a wahine stick her tongue out or crouching. She will always be standing and will pukana without sticking her tongue out.

If there is anything positive from the video is that I hope this is a learning experience for people. As I have had time to reflect I am not offended because I cannot be offended by people who are not educated or informed. I will only be offended if they do not learn from this and it happens again.

Please do not be offended on my behalf. It is no one’s place to tell us how we should react or feel about this.

Also please don’t hate on the players or the team for this. If you are commenting on this all I ask is you do so from an education perspective or solution based approach. Yelling into the void that this is wrong doesn’t help prevent this from happening in the future.

Thanks for taking the time to read this if you have made it this far.