#im actually cherokee

[gay-baby-brig]

Haven't seen the series yet but I just want to say this place that they shot the sonic scene at in Reservation Dogs was never in operation when I was growing up (that I can remember) but was known as the place to meet to buy drugs. I only know that because my grandma would say it every time we passed and also I met people to buy drugs there when I got older

[bucephaly]

Theres moreeee, this is so so good.. it makes me emotional realizing that these kids are on the path to being fluent cherokee speakers and will be able to keep the language going.

This family is a part of the little cherokee seeds program, creating new first language Cherokee speakers by paying mothers to just bring their babies and craft and cook and speak cherokee with cherokee elders all day. There are only 1500 first language Cherokee speakers, most of them over 65. They also take donations if you want to help keep them going and doing the extremely important work they do!!

[kaleidoscopic-quiddity]

listen i know jack shit about the locked tomb but based off of a majority of the art ive seen of those two necromancing lesbians most of you couldnt actually bothered to do a quick google images search of what maori people actually look like and instead just draw them with white features over a Vaguely Brown skintone

[underwaterspiderbird]

AND don’t forget the lighter skin sibs or call them less black/brown or do ANY of that colonial genocide bullshit.

The amount of biracial and light skin ppl who get roles that are meant for dark black people is fucking insane. Hollywood is extremely obsessed with the lighter option because everyone favors it.

We don't want a Zendaya or a Amandla Sternberg. We want dark skin ppl. Give darker women and men the roles meant for them

[jasongracesluvr]

MY PJO/HOO HCS !!

Leo has those big ass Mexican blankets with the graphics YOU KNOW WHAT IM TALKING ABOUT. THE ONES WITH THE ANIMALS AND OCCASIONALLY FLOWERS AND THEYRE BIG AND HEAVY AND MADE OF FLEECE!!!!! (I’m saying this because I have those and literally everybody I know and everybody in my family has at least one.) AND HE CAN NEVER GO A NIGHT WITHOUT IT BECAUSE IT WAS HIS MOM’S AND HE HAD IT EVER SINCE HE WAS A BABY 😭😭😭

Piper threw a water bottle at Leo at the wilderness school after a fight and she got in trouble, but Leo defended her saying he deserved it anyway because he was a dick and that’s how they became friends AND SHE FR WOULD DO ANYTHING FOR HIM 🙏🏽🙏🏽🙏🏽

Jason is always cold and Leo got him one of the big thick blankets and it has wolves on it :) AND HE USES IT EVERY NIGHT AND HE CANT SLEEP WITHOUT IT AND AGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH I LOVE JASON 😭😭😭😭

PERCY CARRIES AROUND PADS AND TAMPONS BECAUSE SALLY TAUGHT HIM WELL AND HE ALWAYS PROVIDES IT FOR ANYONE WHO NEEDS IT. I LOVE THIS MAN.

Hazel is a CUDDLER. NO MATTER WHO IT IS SHE IS ALWAYS GOING TO BE PHYSICALLY AFFECTIONATE WITH SOMEBODY (as long as they’re comfortable with it ofc.) SHE LOVES HER FRIENDS AND ABSOLUTELY LOVES TO BE BY THEIR SIDE !!!!!!!!

Whenever somebody feels sad, Frank always turns into their favorite animal and gives them cuddles. PIPER WAS SAD ONCE AND HE TURNED INTO A PARAKEET AND SANG A LITTLE MELODY WITH HIS LITTLE PARAKEET TWEETS ☹️☹️☹️ HAZEL WAS SAD AND HE TURNED INTO A HORSE AND NUZZLED HER 😭😭😭 I COULD GO ON AND ON ABOUT THIS

Annabeth is definitely the friend who worries most about everybody’s well beings but refuses to take care of herself. “Piper, put a sweater on, you’re gonna catch a cold!” And she’s wearing shorts in December. “Leo, stop overworking yourself at the forge! You need rest!” And she’s been up for four days straight. “Percy, stop trying to skateboard off of the climbing wall! You’ll get hurt!” AND SHE LITERALLY SWORDFIGHTS WITH THREE PEOPLE AT THE SAME TIME IN THE ARENA WITH NO ARMOR ON. She’s so cool man

Reyna and Leo have full blown conversations in Spanish, and Nico joins in because he can somewhat understand some words (because Italian is somewhat similar to Spanish). Thalia, Jason, and Will find it so cool but they desperately want to know what they’re saying. (They talk about how cool and awesome their partners are)

Will picked up a bit of Italian for Nico :DDDD

Nico teaches him Italian (he taught him curse words first)

Jason and Leo are in love and actually they are living together (I’m a valgrace truther)

Leo constantly curses in Spanish

Hazel doesn’t curse much but the one time she did it sounded absolutely sweet because of her transatlantic accent

Did I mention she has a transatlantic accent that mixes perfectly with her Louisiana Accent

Nico curses in Italian

Reyna curses in Latin and Spanish

Jason curses in Latin

Frank curses in Mandarin and French

Percy makes dolphin noises

Annabeth curses in Ancient Greek (canon)

Piper’s grandfather taught her Cherokee, but she learned the curse words by herself

Piper knows taekwondo

Jason constantly cuddles with Leo when they sleep, and Leo loves the feeling of being in Jason’s arms :)))))

Reyna gives piggyback rides to Nico

Leo boops Jason’s nose whenever he sees that Jason is grumpy

Jason scowls at it but he’s lying if he says that he hates it

Jason loves to melt into Leo’s arms after a long day

Leo loves it when Jason plays with his hair

[theespeakerboxxx]

so Lily basically said the rizz was a stupid nonsense word and that kids always had dumb slang so adults shouldn’t git riled up about it and form my understanding someone politely told her that rizz and several other slang words were actually AAV and she just deleted their comments and blocked them.

ooh a lot to unpack

im sure most of us aren’t ignorantly pushing 50 so we do understand that rizz is short for charisma right?? gyatt short for got damn, etc…tiktok made it popular is all

ive seen people say she called shordy a stupid nonsense word and it’s like. lily do you know black people, like at all??? i know you pretend to but goddamn get better.

lily says her platform is used as a safe space for racial minorities, but can’t even handle the slang we use? buuuushiiit!!! she can’t handle being wrong too even if it’s her fault, which is why she blocked and deleted comments.

for a “colonized, out of touch with culture cherokee” woman, she sure does like to dictate the slang coming out of people’s mouths. if she did a quick google search she’d know these words have history in black culture…

[youremyheaven]

Do you think those influencers who dramatically switch from very left wing Marxist alternative etc to very trad Christians (specifically in homophobic/transphobic way) have ketu influence?

You were talking about ketuvians and their struggle to find a sense of self and it made me think of these types of people. I know someone with ketu 1H and magha moon who did this to an extent. She used to identify as non binary and was constantly shifting through different names and pronouns but then one day she just kind of stopped and started saying how she thinks pride is pointless and a waste of time or whatever😭 it wasn’t *that* extreme but I still thought it was a significant shift in belief in such a short time.

I think a lot of people have this dramatic shifts not only out of a need to identify with something due to a lack of sense of self, but also because they like going back to what their parents believe for comfort. I guess those two are interlinked but it’s interesting how my friend is a magha moon and magha is associated with ancestors and whatnot.

I guess mula is somewhat similar as “the root”? Idk about ashwini though

Sorry I haven’t actually had the chance to look into examples since it’s hard to find birth data for influencers and I don’t know that many examples irl 😶‍🌫️ so this is me just going on a tangent and hoping you get what I’m trying to say LMAO

I’m also not sure if anyone else is familiar with this phenomena or if I’m just too engrossed in niche internet drama.

In terms of influencers I guess a somewhat prominent example is Freckle Zelda on tiktok? I never followed her but she went from making cutesy safe space liberal type content in like 2021 and now she’s a Christian and is using it be to super controversial. But like I said I’ve never followed her so idk if this is dramatic enough of a switch to count as what I’m saying.

I also feel like this a rahu trait to switch between extremes🤔 idk lmk what you think

I feel like the capitalist commodification of identity has most adversely affected Nodal people.

If you think about it, spirituality's aim is to transcend the "self" entirely, you stop identifying with labels and attaching yourself to this or that thing. I'm not saying you cease to be a person but you stop trying to "accumulate" identities to hold on to.

9/10 times the reason we identify with something is to feel a sense of belonging but searching outwards for it will only lead to disappointment, when we search within and feel at home within ourselves, we lose the need to externally confined ourselves to rigid "identities"

Yk how people dye their hair, get piercings/tattoos etc to mark a new chapter or the end of an old one or whatever??? It is an attempt to claim something as "yourself" and "solidify yourself". Everything changes all the time, everybody changes yet there are many people who will never dye their hair or change their name or join a cult or whatever (not that all these things are the same) its just that if you're at peace with yourself and truly grounded, you will no longer be shopping for different identities or things to associate with.

Yk those people who have IG bios that read like "Mother, Pluviophile, ESFJ, Petrolhead, UJC'22, Missourian, Ancient Spirit, 1/4th Cherokee, Bitcoin Enthusiast, EDM Lover"

like what do any of those terms say about them?? how on earth is any of this central to your identity? all of these are external ??? is loving rain and being a petrolhead central to your sense of self?? im not trying to demean anybody's interests, im only trying to point out that what we choose to make the focal point of ourselves is up to us and its possible to not be defined by anything?? i think a truly ugly consequence of capitalism is how people try to define themselves by things outside them (their interests, hobbies, job, income level, marital status etc etc) because there is more to a person than all that.

when we retreat within, we base our sense of self on our qualities like kindness, compassion, creativity (this becomes the essence of who we are) so we don't feel the need to claim 87373 other things to describe ourselves

some people overly identify with others like their partners, friends or even strangers and kind of become them. this is also the root of stan culture, by being obsessed with someone to that extent and giving them all your time and energy, you are losing your own qi and harming your Sun (the same way criticizing the appearance of others ruins your Venus)

Rahu is prone to taking things to extremes and Ketu is prone to trying on different identities and losing interest in all of them one after the other. so your observations are right.

i dont really use social media so i dont know any influencers that i can quote as examples ;-; but im thinking of certain celebrities who have had drastic style changes in the past and all of them have nodal influence lol

in the 2000s, the Olsen twins were known for their boho chic hippie style and over the last decade or so they have become known for their "quiet luxury" style. They are Magha Moon

Julia Fox is Ardra Rising and she went from basic to avant garde

Jared Leto, Mula Sun, Ashwini Moon & Rising , he's also the leader of a cult allegedly so👀i guess it all adds up

Adele, Mula Moon & Ardra Rising

im not just talking about her weight loss, just her overall change in style. she got married young and had a baby and in a couple of years she got a divorce and revamped her look to that of an ig baddie

Kylie Jenner, Swati Moon she's changed her style/demeanour every other year since the early 2010s lol

Taylor Swift, Ardra Moon has also had many diff lewkzz throughout the years

before anybody says dont celebs change their styles often?? no they dont, not everybody for sure. look at Jennifer Lopez or Sarah Jessica Parker, theyve been dressing the same since the 90s. constantly evolving style/looks/personality is a Nodal thing. its also a big part of the reason why Nodal people succeed in the entertainment industry and in the material realm (a lot of rich people including Bezos have Nodal placements) because entertainment = illusion, pretending to be someone you're not and for Nodal people, this is pretty much second nature.

im sorry that my response is kind of all over the place. your question provoked some thoughts within me lol and i just had to shareee

i cant think of celebs who have drastically changed their life paths like the example u cited ;-; EXCEPT Bridget Mendler who is an actor, singer, and entrepreneur, has a PhD and went to Harvard Law and now runs a satellite company?? she also adopted a kid during all this? She has Mula Sun

anywayyys thats it for now

tysm for sending this ask!!! its a very thought provoking and interesting question<33hope u have a good day<33

[invasionimminentz]

Do you actually think "tribe" is exclusive to indigenous people? How out of touch are you? Maybe you should get out of the systempunk tag and leave it for people with braincells.

Instead of blocking this anon, I'm laughing.

Anon you're a dense cabbage, to be clear. You're gonna cry? Cry about it, because I never said that.

Even as a native american, I don't know enough, not educated enough on my history to know if it's only for indigenous people. I have other history ya know. im not just Cherokee, im asian and mexican. I didn't have the chance to learn much.

[tea-and-secrets]

i hate these white people (the "oh im White, but my grandparent was [% of] indigenous so I'm reconnecting😇" ass) who have no actual claim to indigenaity acting like theyre the end all be all of who gets to be what 🤦🏽 so what if im not 100% cherokee by blood??? my blood is cherokee. it is Filipino. it is comanche. it is of my ancestors that were diaspora cryptojews. i call myself Cherokee cuz i was raised on the rez, as well as off rez in tx. i heard the elders telling stories. i helped care for them and keep company and read and do chores and cook. it really sucks that some of them were too old to tell true stories, or told true stories that were greatly distorted. and it sucks extra that i was told these stories at such a young age that i just made it part of my beliefs!

.

[bucephaly]

It's kinda shocking to me how few people seem to know how prevalent the 'my great grandmother was cherokee' myth is and how it's almost never actually true, especially when it comes with things like 'never signed up' or 'fell off the trail' or 'courthouse burned down destorying the documentation' etc etc.

People just don't even seem to know the history like.. when the Trail happened. My great great great grandfather was 2 years old during Removal in 1838, so peoples 'my great grandmother hid in the mountains!' is so clearly wrong. And we have rolls. From before and after removal, rolls done by cherokee nation and others by the government, rolls that were not stored in one random flammable courthouse. It's not difficult to find the actual evidence of ancestry.

And just.. there are lots of ways those family stories get started. It was a practice during the confederacy to claim cherokee ancestry to show one's family had 'deep roots in the south' that they were there before the cherokee were removed. Many people pretended to be cherokee and applied for the Guion-Miller payout just to try to steal money meant for cherokees - 2/3rds of the applicants were denied for having 0 proof of actual cherokee ancestry. [We even see lawyers advertising signing up for the Miller roll just to try to get free money.] And the myth even started in some families in the cherokee land lotteries, where the land stolen from us was raffled off, including the house and everything that was left behind when the cherokees were removed. We have seen people whose families just take these things stolen from the cherokee family and adopt them into their own family story, saying that they were cherokee themselves.

If you had some family story about being cherokee and you wanna have proof one way or the other, check out this Facebook group run by expert cherokee genealogists that do research for free. Just please read the rules fully and respect the researchers. They run thousands of people's ancestries a year and their average is only around 0.7% of lines they run actually end up having true cherokee ancestry.

[gaystan]

can we get the top 10 songs from stan?

HIS TOP TEN TRACKS ON SPOTIFY:

“last summer’s children” his Magnum Opus which the ep was named after. i don’t need to say much about this one we’ve covered it plenty. absolute masterpiece

“october 19th” final track on “how you lost the war” and written on his 20th birthday. stan gets really depressed during his birthday every year but this song mainly pulls from his memories of you’re getting old and ass burgers. it’s real sad folks

“what makes you happy” off “idk you name it man im tired” also about ass burgers. about feeling like a black hole sucking the positivity out of yourself and everyone around you. the vocals are extremely emotional and it sounds like stan is on the verge of tears

“willingly” also off last summer’s children, romantic and a little obsessive. lots of themes of being so completely in love with someone you’re willing to give yourself up entirely for them

“can’t go back” off hyltw is about a period of time where stan and kyle weren’t speaking. YEARNING. PURE LONGING. arguably stan’s most emotional romantic song, the most beloved by his teenage girl fanbase

“hummingbird” off “Winter Break” is being in love with someone you think you’re losing AKA cherokee hair tampons. lots of desperation. the title comes from that it was the first animal stan could thing of with a short lifespan

“Servitude” off also Winter Break is about kyle and tsot. lots of knight imagery. some people online consider it actually toxic because the themes of devotion are quite extreme. stan is mystified by these comparisons because he can’t fathom not feeling like that about someone you’re in love with

“RUNS IN THE FAMILY” off Winter Break as well. this is about tegridy farms and a very angry song. people think the fire imagery is metaphorical but it is not

“a comprehensive list of every single thing you have ever done wrong (and how you can never make up for any of it)” off hyltw. mostly spoken word over bass guitar, deeply and achingly personal, hyper specific lyrics

“touch and go” maybe the one genuinely good song off “Crimson Dawn” and a very wistful look back at youth using lots of childish imagery

[moonshynecybin]

do you have any books recommendations? 🙏

okay usually i like to know a general vibe for recommendations bc this is INTIMATE!!! and im actually in a weird place in my reading journey where im trying to branch out and try a bunch of different books in a bunch of different genres bc i got lowkey sick of what i was reading all the time so this is all over the place. whatever fuck it. here are some recent ones in no particular order that ive enjoyed OR at the very least found interesting. most of these are pretty famous i'll be real im not breaking the wheel here. under the cut bc she is long

our wives under the sea by julia armfield. was this book good hmm i dont know. was it kind of fucked up and interesting. YES. some of the prose is legitimately sooo gorgeous and the portrait it paints of the central relationship is intimate and oftentimes heartrending i still think about it which is kind of what you want from a story tbh... a really slow plot (kind of nonexistent) thats frankly more about grief than anything. theres some spooky body horror here so beware

slaughterhouse five by kurt vonnegut. shes a classic for a REASON. do you ever pick up a book that is very beloved and famous. and then get genuinely and pleasantly surprised that it actually rules. happened to me. legit kind of life changing and also made me laugh out loud. if you havent read it get on it

the kingdoms by natasha pulley. read this over the summer and i vividly remember sitting in the basement at my job hiding so i could read one more page i was RIVETED!!! its historical fantasy its time travel its amnesia it is. on a boat. basically like what if fucked up gay love and also magic made france win the napoleonic wars would that be crazy or what!!! and it was!! also read some of her other stuff which is VERY similar and it was like. fine to good. but i LOVED this one

carrie by stephen king. read it around halloween and i enjoyed it more than i thought i would ! some category 5 stephen king sexism but its an interesting 200 page scifi novel with epistolary elements and some great characters i can see how it launched his career into the stratosphere... really good one to start off with reading stephen king if you wanna dip a toe in but are wary of the 1000 page doorstop novels. i say give it a try !

demon copperhead by barbara kingsolver. recent pulitzer prize winner. its a retelling of david copperfield with a distinctly southern appalachian lens which im always interested in because i am from southern appalachia and frankly the way we get treated in fiction is wild. like hillbilly cannibals who are illiterate coalminers wild. if i ever catch the guy that wrote hillbilly elegy we are throwing hands. but i liked this ! the region does have a long history of poverty and it was interesting to think about that in conversation to the social commentary with a victorian vibe from david copperfield. i mean this is decidedly unvictorian but that was floating in the back of my head at all times reading it so it made me THINK.

giovanni's room by james baldwin. another one where i was like do you see this shit?? this shit is crazy. and the shit in question is one of the most acclaimed and beloved novels of all time. anyways another life changer get on it.

even as we breathe by annette saunooke clapsaddle. another southern appalachia moment ! this one rings VERY true for me actually, despite being a historical novel... written with a lot of love for the area and made me cry a bit cause i was homesick at the time... great mystery and cool local history. also! one of the better representations of the cherokee people ive seen in fiction. which usually im hesitant to like. pin that as a THE major reason you should read it bc the story is ALSO very good but its a central theme of the novel so i thought i should mention it. plus the author is cherokee so she's coming at it with knowledge and care

in memoriam by alice winn. recommendation from a tumblr mutual so i thought id continue the tradition! read it in literally a day so im fuzzy on the details but its about rich eton style english schoolboys getting their spirits basically destroyed in the trenches of ww1... also a gay love story... lots of poetry very tragic but not overly so and certainly very readable... a competent historical gay romance if thats ur thing youll probably enjoy it

the poppy war by r f kuang. interesting bc it initially feels like a historical fantasy novel with a young protagonist going to a magic school and overcoming the odds slash beating the evil enemy story thats been done one billion times. but it is DEEPLY not that. takes the conventions of the genre and kind of refuses to make them reducible or easy to package. deals with war (read the warnings etc). deals with genocide. deals with race. wrestles with the ethics of all of its characters and comes down with some nuance. kind of a slay

and then here's some all time faves that are just GOOD and im reasonably sure anyone would have a good time with:

jane eyre. i have quoted this enough on this blog cmon. also if youre following me youre probably a fan of fucked up relationships so you should go. be with the OG. fly. like its foundational to the GENRE babyyyy

dracula. yayyyyy epistolary novelssss... another "fun" classic along with dorian gray... read em both they slap

the book thief. took me a year to read. made me cry lots.

daisy jones and the six. look at me look AWAYYY from the amazon series look at ME. this is a fun book. and if you are in a reading slump i frankly HIGHLY recommend it bc it is done in the style of like. a documentary autopsy on a fleetwood mac esque band implosion so its told in 100% dialogue as if they are being interviewed. you can read it in a DAY and its FUN and sometimes they CONTRADICT each other which i LOVE

the queens thief by meghan whalen turner. GOD!!!!! all time. all time. straight relationships in fiction that make you crazyyyyyyy and also genuinely delightful twists at the end of each book i LOVED them. i read them all in the pandemic they slayyyy

howl's moving castle. delightful. if you like a silly time in a fantasy world that makes you laugh a lot i would recommend. also the sequel its fun

any terry pratchet novel thank you goodnight

[hairscare]

Please don't take this as anon hate. I have nothing against you or your blog, but I feel I must correct you on a few things about Wendigoon. 1: He actually is Native American (half Cherokee to be precise) and 2: Christian Weston Chandler, the person he was talking about in that tweet, is a guy who was institutionalized for repeatedly raping his dementia-ridden mother. I don't think it's transphobic to suggest that a guy like that doesn't respect.

okay im not planning on being a youtube drama tumblr but i do feel like i should clear up some facts

1. he is cherokee. not algonquin. cherokee people are (from my understanding) from the southeast of the us, whereas algonquin people are from southeast canada/northeast us. while both of them are indigenous, they are different and have different cultures and folklore. the creature that he is using is algonquin, not cherokee, so its really weird that hes merchandising it when algonquin people have expressed discomfort at that. the conglomeration of indigenous cultures and tradition often comes from a place of misunderstanding (again im not indigenous so feel free to correct me!)

2. chris chan is a trans woman. i cant believe this is still discourse honestly. trans people can be gross bad people. to say that someone isnt trans bc theyre a bad person is actually really transphobic. the cherry picking of who gets to really be trans is very gross. and for him to do it is extremely offensive. to deny that chris chan is a trans woman isnt denying her respect the way you say it is, its literally just being transphobic. i really suggest you reconsider your standpoint as it comes from systematic transphobia

[therealslimshakespeare]

ALSO IM SO HAPPY U NOTICED BRENDA SCHAD?! I feel like she looks a little too old in that pic to be 18 year old Lu but I had to put it in there for her when she’s older and then I used that to try to find other pictures of girls that looked similar/ had similar features. And I think there was one in there that looked like a younger Brenda Schad like literally the eyes nose and lips. Cause I’ve STILL been using Jenna Ortega as my face claim for Lu but like I want someone who’s actually Indigenous (and Brenda is literally Cherokee!!)

Well I had to look her up and I was like omg finally an indigenous woman because I have been in such pain trying to find one of a similar age and with a style that doesn’t scream 2020’s, ya know?? It’s brutal out here but gosh she’s amazing and all your choices were, tbh, so thank you for introducing me!

[therobishow]

Saw your post and who am I to deny an opportunity to rant about terrible terrible twilight knock offs?

Okay so ever since twilight came out in 2005, there's been a load of knock offs inspired by the "vampire=hot and sexy/mysterious" and while some of them are, this author P.C cast and Kristen Cast saw the idea and cranked it up more than was necessary because what the hell.

The book is called House of Night and there are lots of books. And the idea of being a vampire was that you had to be marked/chosen in order to undergo it's transformation which. If you were chosen, you had to be with a fully fledged vampire until you were fully fledged yourself which is a long process (around four years) and what is a better place than being with a bunch of fully grown vampires than a academy with other chosen with the fledglings as the teachers?

I'm not gonna lie, it's a great concept but it's terrible what the authors done with it. Transformations don't always work and the chosen sometimes die, but in order to prevent this- you had to be pretty and not fat. Shockingly this isn't the worst thing on the list of how many messed up things this book had done

Then the authors worsen the book more by having the characters be problematic. (They sl#t shame a lot and this doesn't make sense since it's common knowledge that drinking human blood /blood in general is sexual in the story)

Examples include saying the r word, fetishizing queer characters, making a white character "twins" with a black character because they're just so alike like using aave as an example (and the black character she's twinning with is terribly written as well so it just ends up more terrible)

And absolutely terribly horrendous relationships!!

The main character is the "not like other girls tm" and so she gets the bad boy, some sort of thousand year old grandpa boyfriend, a TEACHER boyfriend, and a human boyfriend 😭 (for the amount of shaming this book has, the main character is getting busy with every boy she meets)

AND WHAT MAKES THIS BOOK MORE WORSE is that they thought it was cool to use Indigenous culture but strip everything about said culture so they can fit use what they thought was cool to use in the story. Im happy for any type of indigenous reputation as an indigenous person myself but WHY

They just made the main character (who was named Zoey redbird btw, cool last name tbh but absolutely shitty character) have op powers and call her a "Cherokee princess" with no respectful mention of Cherokee culture at all. They just made their own thing and slapped the word Cherokee on it and shipped it as representation.

For a character that's supposed to be non-white, she was acting the opposite despite being close with her grandma who was Indigenous (+ being stereotypical) and inheriting op powers that were meant to be from her "culture"

PISSES ME OFF SO MUCH

I don't even know how I saw past the red flags as a kid reading this book but now that I have, I'm just so angry just thinking about it 😭

I hope this rant of mine was entertaining

I was just on the right side of too old to hear about this series back when it came out. So let me tell you, it was an absolute trip to see what was in these books when my friends started raving about them a few years later.

Like, this? This is what they were so hyped about? I'd rather them tell me how much they love 50 Shades - well, okay, that's a little too far, but still.

I truly don't understand how any woman survived the absolute peak of fatphobia that we hit in the 2000s. And I'm including myself in that. No idea how I lived through it. These were the days when people were calling Britney Spears fat for being a size 4 instead of a 0. How did women not just collectively die off? Don't get me wrong, I'm glad that we made it through, but holy hell it was by the skin of our teeth.

So someone really needs to tell me what the actual hell was going on in the 2000s that made every piece of teen media present teacher/student relationships like a totally cool and not abusive and traumatizing thing. Remember how grossed out everyone was by the Archie/Grundy relationship in Riverdale? In the 2000s, no one would have batted an eye at that. It would have fit right in with every other teen show at the time. I can't watch hardly any of my favorite high school shows anymore because of that. Ugh, so gross.

And holy shit I forgot she was indigenous! Well, in heavy quotes at least. That Cherokee Princess nonsense is such a White People move and I just can't. I don't know what's worse regarding indigenous rep, House of Night or Twilight. My man Charles de Lint isn't perfect and he's fucked it up a few times, but at least he actually tries and shows respect (um, hey, if he's actually far worse than I think, please let me know).

But, hey, in maybe possibly good news, apparently the writers are trying to convince the publishers to let them rewrite the series so they can do something about all the problematic stuff. That at least has the potential of growth for them

[t4tails]

ok but its not the federal government saying that tribe is fake, its the actual.. cherokee nation.... who are known for their extensive research into claimants.

thats what i thought! though like i said im not going to pretend i know more than the average person about this. if its a messy situation its more responsible to just let actual indigenous people talk about it, not random white bloggers on the internet like myself lol