#polynesian sexuality

[sohannabarberaesque]

Meanwhile, near a remote waterfall of almost mystical reverence in Polynesia Uncharted:

PETER POTAMUS, on another of his sojourns of fascination for such a fascinating and unspoiled people and culture (and, know, naked in deference to the local custom and folkways): Aaaaahhhh ... and what, my gal, could prove more interesting between you and me as the evening approaches? A NATIVE POLYNESIAN GAL, with some charm in her voice: For a native like myself as was actually born underwater, with a dolphin serving as a midwife of sorts to my mother--not to mention picking up quite a fascination for the water since birth--plenty. [Short pause] Have you ever tried lovemaking underwater, after the native manner? PETER POTAMUS, acting like a rather fascinated boy barely on the eve of his flowering and looking for an opportunity to sow his wild oats, more or less: Plenty of times, my gal; plenty of times!! And what a fascinating feeling that can get to be, especially when you're a) naked as Nature intended, and b) having some especially curious dolphins watching! A NATIVE POLYNESIAN GAL: Might it surprise you to know where we natives of these islands actually enjoy the sight of dolphins in sexual pleasure, as if teaching us a lesson that "sex should feel good"? PETER POTAMUS: For some reason, I've noticed many of times in my travels in these parts that such peoples like yourself still respect sex as a wondrous and most natural experience, undeserving of such being distorted the wrong way! A NATIVE POLYNESIAN GAL, going all "come hither" wearing of herself: Why not just--follow me? [Whereupon we find the two in the pond below the waterfall, waist-high to each other essentially, in a scene most magical and almost Blue Lagoon in its sacristy of closeness and friendship in a native manner]

[roseschuu]

the urge to use a name from your own culture but 1. no one will be able to pronounce it and 2. there's going to be at least one or two fuckers who think I'm pretending and 3. it's also a nickname for my deadname.

[criphd]

At the outset of H. G. Wells’s The War of the Worlds (1898), Wells asks his English readers to compare the Martian invasion of Earth with the Europeans’ genocidal invasion of the Tasmanians, thus demanding that the colonizers imagine themselves as the colonized, or the about-to-be-colonized. But in Wells this reversal of perspective entails something more, because the analogy rests on the logic prevalent in contemporary anthropology that the indigenous, primitive other’s present is the colonizer’s own past. Wells’s Martians invading England are like Europeans in Tasmania not just because they are arrogant colonialists invading a technologically inferior civilization, but also because, with their hypertrophied brains and prosthetic machines, they are a version of the human race’s own future.

The confrontation of humans and Martians is thus a kind of anachronism, an incongruous co-habitation of the same moment by people and artifacts from different times. But this anachronism is the mark of anthropological difference, that is, the way late-nineteenth-century anthropology conceptualized the play of identity and difference between the scientific observer and the anthropological subject-both human, but inhabiting different moments in the history of civilization. As George Stocking puts it in his intellectual history of Victorian anthropology, Victorian anthropologists, while expressing shock at the devastating effects of European contact on the Tasmanians, were able to adopt an apologetic tone about it because they understood the Tasmanians as “living representatives of the early Stone Age,” and thus their “extinction was simply a matter of … placing the Tasmanians back into the dead prehistoric world where they belonged” (282-83). The trope of the savage as a remnant of the past unites such authoritative and influential works as Lewis Henry Morgan’s Ancient Society (1877), where the kinship structures of contemporaneous American Indians and Polynesian islanders are read as evidence of “our” past, with Sigmund Freud’s Totem and Taboo (1913), where the sexual practices of “primitive” societies are interpreted as developmental stages leading to the mature sexuality of the West. Johannes Fabian has argued that the repression or denial of the real contemporaneity of so-called savage cultures with that of Western explorers, colonizers, and settlers is one of the pervasive, foundational assumptions of modern anthropology in general. The way colonialism made space into time gave the globe a geography not just of climates and cultures but of stages of human development that could confront and evaluate one another.

The anachronistic structure of anthropological difference is one of the key features that links emergent science fiction to colonialism. The crucial point is the way it sets into motion a vacillation between fantastic desires and critical estrangement that corresponds to the double-edged effects of the exotic. Robert Stafford, in an excellent essay on “Scientific Exploration and Empire” in the Oxford History of the British Empire, writes that, by the last decades of the century, “absorption in overseas wilderness represented a form of time travel” for the British explorer and, more to the point, for the reading public who seized upon the primitive, abundant, unzoned spaces described in the narratives of exploration as a veritable “fiefdom, calling new worlds into being to redress the balance of the old” (313, 315). Thus when Verne, Wells, and others wrote of voyages underground, under the sea, and into the heavens for the readers of the age of imperialism, the otherworldliness of the colonies provided a new kind of legibility and significance to an ancient plot. Colonial commerce and imperial politics often turned the marvelous voyage into a fantasy of appropriation alluding to real objects and real effects that pervaded and transformed life in the homelands. At the same time, the strange destinations of such voyages now also referred to a centuries-old project of cognitive appropriation, a reading of the exotic other that made possible, and perhaps even necessary, a rereading of oneself.

John Rieder, Colonialism and the Emergence of Science Fiction

[wizardpink]

I'm watching s1e1 and just got to the part where Louis says he's come to embrace his sexuality, and asks, "but you knew that Daniel, we met at a gay bar." And Daniel brushes it off as just something he did for drugs, so Louis presses, "you've been married?" And Daniel says "twice. But we're not here for me, are we?" So Louis pivots to asking about the best drug he ever had, and they go from there...

I always thought it seemed kind of oddly provocative and forward and even unnecessary for Louis to basically say, "of course I'm out now, but you knew that, since you're gay, right?" Like what is the point of breaking the flow of the story to talk about Daniel here?

Of course it could just be a directorial decision to break up the flashback sequences and remind the audience that this is taking place within the frame of the Dubai interview. But plot wise, I just...

I can't help thinking about Louis continuing, as the interview goes on, to try to open a dialogue with Daniel about his sexuality, his past lovers (specifically Alice, never the second wife), and becoming a vampire. I can't recall Louis ever asking personal questions about Daniel's daughters, and in fact when Louis is talking about Claudia, Daniel is the one who says, "I've got two," without Louis asking.

This could all be writing and directing choices made to underscore that this is a Love Story between Louis and Lestat, but it's also a story about Family, and to my recollection it's almost always Daniel who brings up his daughters, and Louis who brings up Alice and Polynesian Mary's.

So yes it's a wild stretch but... if you're someone who like me has entertained the theory that Louis is doing this interview not just because he regrets how badly it went the first time, not just because Daniel doesn't have much time left for them to wrap it up, not just because Louis wants to warn humanity of the impending Great Conversion, but that he is doing it for Armand...

Well, I'm just saying, the breadcrumbs are there.

[sohannabarberaesque]

Postcards from Snagglepuss

Peter Potamus, quite the adventurer indeed!

AT THE BASE CAMP OF PETER POTAMUS' MAGIC DIVERS NEAR LA JOLLA, CA: As if that Magic Balloon wasn't already quite the vehicle of Peter Potamus in his adventures of Polynesia Uncharted, that charmer can certainly regale you with many tales from such fascinating regions he's ever sworn to secrecy about, and For Reasons Obvious.

The which was evident the other evening sitting at the dock of the lagoon as leads into the near-shore dive practice area, and over a modest little fire with hot Dr Pepper laced with clove-studded lemons, he shared an experience he had with a native gal who had just given birth underwater to twins, and with the help of a dolphin assisting in the labour as well--"which, Snagglepuss, is quite an interesting phenom among such peoples who the dolphins actually see as close and yet mystical friends!"

"And I take it, Peter," said I between sips of hot Dr Pepper, "that such childbirth underwater is something of a habit among them."

"Habit--and tradition, Snag," Peter remarked. "Such fascinating specimens of natural Polynesian wonder, naked as Nature intended as well, see underwater births as an offering unto their gods to affirm such wonderful connexions they have unto the sea, and to pass such on to the new generation just born as well! And before long, those babies literally start swimming and diving towards their mothers, who more than likely will breast feed such underwater in the process!"

"I take it they enjoy such stimulation at the mother's breast."

"Snagglepuss ... how else would such newborns actually experience breastfeeding while getting some fascination for the water out of their system? Nothing, believe you me, fascinates such wonderfully natural natives more than to dive in the shallows just off their village and have their fill of mother's milk! And they CERTAINLY enjoy every last drop when they dive carefree and naked on the edges of the reef!"

"So I take it they also get some early diving experience as well...."

"Basically," Peter explained, "it's a sort of game these mothers and the wet nurses will enjoy playing, the better to get them to develop some swimming and diving skills early ... but what's even more amazing, and I've witnessed this several times, is that the mothers will gently prod their infants to explore the sheer fascination that is diving by gradually moving out a little further from shore week by week, in time incorporating into the breast feeding session some discovery of diving!"

"Heavens to Jacques Cousteau!"

"What's especially fascinating is where these youngsters will have some of their earliest dives to about three feet down, naked--and holding their breath as well, just gliding over some primal coral reefs and developing some early pelvic sensations for some reason or another! What could be more naturally Polynesian than to be diving literally from birth?!"

"So how exactly would the birth mother feel giving birth underwater with the help of a dolphin?"

"Rather comforting, Snagglepuss ... and the birthing pains are not as obvious, which can be put down to the warmth of the ocean waters, her obvious nakedness and the vibes, you might say, coming from the dolphin as it pokes its way close to her vagina ahead of delivery! How else could childbirth feel more delightful?"

"For such people who see sex as a natural source of fun ... when it winds up in pregnancy, how else could it feel?"

The two of us chuckled at the notion as the moon rose overhead.

*************

@warnerbrosentertainment @indigo-corvus @jellystone-enjoyer @joey-gatorman @funtasticworld @xdiver71 @archive-archives @thylordshipofbutts @screamingtoosoftly @thebigdingle @themineralyoucrave @warnerbros-blog1 @iheartgod175 @groovybribri @railguner34 @theweekenddigest @ultrakeencollectionbreadfan @warnerbrosent-blog

[vaperarmand]

daniel clocking armand at polynesian mary's as louis obvious partner, asking "so you just climb in it, close the lid, and bang?" and then immediately after asking, "so am i the first guy you've brought back here?" means two things to me:

he was desperately trying to figure out louis' and armand's sexual habits and behaviors for cough cough no reason. not so he could try to picture it in extreme detail later or anything like that

he thought it was baby's first night swinging and he was like. that's okay man i'll show you the way ❤️ i don't even mind your freaky coffin thing and in fact i like it. you can love me forever ❤️

[sohannabarberaesque]

According to Peter Potamus, he certainly can't help but feel as fascinated as the natives of Polynesia Uncharted at the sight of such naturally wondrous love ... the sort serving as a reminder to such fascinated and yet fascinating peoples that sexuality is naturally enjoyable and can be very relaxing.

dolphins mating

[esamastation]

Well

Metagaming started with a plan and then veered WAY off course. Also, a little bit of spite was maybe involved.

Might end up lol. But yeah, the Cast Iron thing was plan from the very start. There was also some video I watched on YouTube, can't remember by who, but it had a mention of concept of mana in Polynesian cultures and how it can be gained through sexual acts, etc, not really important. Still, there was some spite and previous random research influencing the planning process.

*going out his way.

Yeah, so the original plan was for Shen Qingqiu to figure out the sex thing out and also have a lot of it probably, and eventually turning it into mastery, etc etc. It was a fun enough plan. There was going to be a lot of smut. Experienced and confident sqq, hell yeah.

.... And then I actually wrote a bit further and the story turned into something else. Arguably what it ended up becoming as it progressed is probably better - but I still have this other story in my head about Sqq with more confident and comfortable attitude towards his own, healthy, sex life. Alas, no plan survives encounter with the enemy and Sqq's various issues won, and then various issues of Qing Jing Peak started cropping up. That's the risk you take when you go in depth - you find the depths.

Still, the rough shape of the harem survived, if not all the educational and casual sex I was planning for sqq to be having. His character just didn't work with it.

Yeaaah this sort of thing happens to me a lot. I start writing one thing and end up writing another. But that's fine, it was fun exploring mental health care and stuff in xianxia setting and it went interesting directions later on in Character Optimisation. I ended up hanging onto the idea of "Sqq as eventual Master of Dual Cultivation" probably to the story's overall detriment, really should've killed my darling there, but I just couldn't. Hindsight is whatever, that's just what happens sometimes when plans go awry.

I haven't abandoned the fic yet. The last part is going to be called Power Levelling and I have like 10% of the start and 20% of the end roughly planned out but I have no idea what happens in the middle and that's why I haven't yet written a word of it. Still, I hold onto hope. I'll write it one day.

In conclusion, plans change, stories go off the rails and overall it's all going to be okay 👍

[familyabolisher]

At the outset of H. G. Wells's The War of the Worlds (1898), Wells asks his English readers to compare the Martian invasion of Earth with the Europeans' genocidal invasion of the Tasmanians, thus demanding that the colonizers imagine themselves as the colonized, or the about-to-be-colonized. But in Wells this reversal of perspective entails something more, because the analogy rests on the logic prevalent in contemporary anthropology that the indigenous, primitive other's present is the colonizer's own past. Wells's Martians invading England are like Europeans in Tasmania not just because they are arrogant colonialists invading a technologically inferior civilization, but also because, with their hypertrophied brains and prosthetic machines, they are a version of the human race's own future.

The confrontation of humans and Martians is thus a kind of anachronism, an incongruous co-habitation of the same moment by people and artifacts from different times. But this anachronism is the mark of anthropological difference, that is, the way late-nineteenth-century anthropology conceptualized the play of identity and difference between the scientific observer and the anthropological subject-both human, but inhabiting different moments in the history of civilization. As George Stocking puts it in his intellectual history of Victorian anthropology, Victorian anthropologists, while expressing shock at the devastating effects of European contact on the Tasmanians, were able to adopt an apologetic tone about it because they understood the Tasmanians as "living representatives of the early Stone Age," and thus their "extinction was simply a matter of … placing the Tasmanians back into the dead prehistoric world where they belonged" (282-83). The trope of the savage as a remnant of the past unites such authoritative and influential works as Lewis Henry Morgan's Ancient Society (1877), where the kinship structures of contemporaneous American Indians and Polynesian islanders are read as evidence of "our" past, with Sigmund Freud's Totem and Taboo (1913), where the sexual practices of "primitive" societies are interpreted as developmental stages leading to the mature sexuality of the West. Johannes Fabian has argued that the repression or denial of the real contemporaneity of so-called savage cultures with that of Western explorers, colonizers, and settlers is one of the pervasive, foundational assumptions of modern anthropology in general. The way colonialism made space into time gave the globe a geography not just of climates and cultures but of stages of human development that could confront and evaluate one another.

The anachronistic structure of anthropological difference is one of the key features that links emergent science fiction to colonialism. The crucial point is the way it sets into motion a vacillation between fantastic desires and critical estrangement that corresponds to the double-edged effects of the exotic. Robert Stafford, in an excellent essay on "Scientific Exploration and Empire" in the Oxford History of the British Empire, writes that, by the last decades of the century, "absorption in overseas wilderness represented a form of time travel" for the British explorer and, more to the point, for the reading public who seized upon the primitive, abundant, unzoned spaces described in the narratives of exploration as a veritable "fiefdom, calling new worlds into being to redress the balance of the old" (313, 315). Thus when Verne, Wells, and others wrote of voyages underground, under the sea, and into the heavens for the readers of the age of imperialism, the otherworldliness of the colonies provided a new kind of legibility and significance to an ancient plot. Colonial commerce and imperial politics often turned the marvelous voyage into a fantasy of appropriation alluding to real objects and real effects that pervaded and transformed life in the homelands. At the same time, the strange destinations of such voyages now also referred to a centuries-old project of cognitive appropriation, a reading of the exotic other that made possible, and perhaps even necessary, a rereading of oneself.

John Rieder, Colonialism and the Emergence of Science Fiction

[frasier-crane-style]

Unironically, the fad a few years back where people were talking about "going goblin mode" and "being goblin-coded" was a lot closer to Tolkien and early D&D's conception of 'fantasy races' than the idea that JRR was using Orcs to slur the blacks (who, statistically speaking, he probably never even met)

Fantasy races were never meant to represent real world races, but to take a universal trait of humanity and exaggerate it for dramatic/humorous effect. We can all be goblin coded at one time or another--it's nothing racial or sexual or gendered, it's just a certain behavior we can all understand. It's not meant to be positive or negative. It's both.

Dwarves are industrious and ambitious. Those can be good things. But their drive can also cause them to be greedy and foolhardy.

Elves are proud and dignified. But that pride can also make them arrogant, smug, and dismissive.

Hobbits are humble and content and uninterested in the 'Game of Thrones' (as it were). But this simpleness can also make them set in their ways, xenophobic, and ineffectual. (Middle-Earth would certainly be worse off if Bilbo and Frodo have never gone on their quests).

People being silly and pretending to be goblins just for fun and to amuse their friends have way more understanding of how role-playing is supposed to work than those who insist that goblins have to be an ancient and noble race because they're 'really' Polynesians.

[vigilantempathy]

Headcanon on Daniel Molloy's Sexual Orientation

TLDR: Bisexual (/pansexual/omnisexual/...) people exist. Spoilers for IWTV Season 2!

HC: Daniel Molloy is a bi guy who was comfortable being openly queer and very active in the queer community in the "Free Love" scene of the 1970s. However, the HIV/AIDS epidemic of the early 1980s led to him effectively re-closeting himself. And his failed marriages and inability to maintain intimate relationships made him choose to be alone, which let him avoid reassessing his sexual orientation/identity.

In the 1970s, Daniel met Louis and Armand for the first time in a gay bar. During the first 1973 scene, in S1E6, the bartender at Polynesian Mary's asks Daniel "Do you have money tonight, Danny?" indicating he's there often enough to have a reputation and be known on a first-name basis, so he's not just there because "it was a good place to score" like he lies to Louis during their present-day interview. (Contrast with the nondescript and anonymous recountings of the blacked-out fragments of memory punctuating the rest of Daniel's drug-fueled escapades.) In S2E5, young!Daniel makes obvious passes at both Louis and Armand, telling Louis "I can cheer you up" and taking his shirt off; offering to Armand, "I could be on my knees in a second".

It's not like Daniel was trying to pass for heterosexual in 1973.

In the ad for Daniel's pay-to-order journalism class at the start of S1E1, the first few news clippings selected to show his journalism cred are about the HIV/AIDS crisis and are oriented towards representing LGBT+ activism in response to it, indicating that this was a focus of Daniel's early journalism. In S2E5, one of 1973!Daniel's interview tapes that Armand grills him on focuses on Kevin, a Vietnam vet and his double-amputee Vietnamese refugee boyfriend who live in the Castro together. (The Castro is the historically gay neighborhood in San Francisco where queer activist Harvey Milk became the first openly gay elected official in California.)

Daniel, even as early as the 1970s and throughout the increased stigmatization of homosexuality in the 1980s, wanted to tell the stories of the queer community.

But telling the stories of the queer community in the 1980s meant telling the stories of lives and loved ones lost to the AIDS crisis, before research had yielded medical management regimens or any understanding about how to prevent the spread of HIV. AIDS was still seen as "the gay plague". AIDS was still a death sentence.

And Daniel likes women, too. And had the readily available excuse of any of his queer relationships/encounters/community in the 1970s being about the drugs, or a result of them. He could claim he was an addict willing to do anything for drugs rather than a queer man who had an easier time acting on his non-heterosexual attractions while high. And he's the reporter who catches the stories that slip through the cracks, he made a name for himself getting the angle none of the mainstream outlets can see, so he could still engage with the queer community as an "interviewer" and "journalist" and straight-passing "ally". He could likely publish more articles and books at that time as an ally journalist telling the queer perspective than he would have as a stigmatized/blacklisted openly queer journalist. Being an "ally" would give him access to platforms and audiences that would never hear a queer perspective otherwise.

Even though Daniel re-closeted himself and "passed" for decades as a straight ally, he never turned his back on the queer community or stopped trying to tell queer stories or represent queer lives.

But that let him continue to justify his re-closeting to himself as "I can do more good for the queer community as an ally." And even as the AIDS crisis shifted into AZT, then single-pill ART, then PrEP, even as HIV became a manageable chronic illness, even as decades passed and times changed and LGBTQ+ representation changed, Daniel stayed closeted.

And in that time he fell genuinely in love with Alice, who initially refused to marry him even though she wanted to because he'd given her no reason to trust him, eventually agreed to marry him, and later divorced him. Decades later, he still gets emotional talking about Alice. And then he got married, again, and divorced, again. He says he "ruined two marriages" and "fucked up two daughters." All that mattered was his work. It was his lifeline. It was his legacy. Interpersonal relationships were not.

He ruined all his romantic relationships. He ruined his families. And it was easier to be alone after that, and it was an easy excuse for why he continued to choose to be alone. But it was also a continuation of the logic behind his initial intentional re-closeting during the AIDS crisis in the 1980s: "I can do more good this way."

1980s Daniel: "I can do more good telling the queer perspective as an ally than as a member of the queer community. If I'm just an ally, people will actually read these stories."

2020s Daniel: "I can do more good alone. If I try dating again, I'll just wind up ruining someone else. And there are still stories that need to be told; work can keep me busy."

He was openly bisexual/queer in the 1970s, then bisexual/queer but intentionally "straight-passing" and in exclusively heterosexual relationships from the 1980s until the show's present-day, and still bisexual/queer throughout his interviews with Louis and Armand.

Bisexual orientation, attraction to multiple genders, and queer identity don't go away when a bisexual person is in heterosexual relationships/homosexual relationships/single. Daniel in a gay bar in the 1970s was bisexual; Daniel in love with Alice in Paris was still bisexual; Daniel married to women and ultimately divorced from them was still bisexual; Daniel in S2E5 being obviously disappointed to learn that he and Louis didn't get it on in the 1970s and making big vulnerable eyes at him in present-day when he jokes, "do you want to [have sex] now?" is still bisexual.

But now it's 2022 and Daniel's ruined two marriages and estranged from his kids and opted to be alone for a long time and may as well have been married to his work, and he's just been diagnosed with Parkinson's and he's anticipating dying alone.

And instead he flies to Dubai, has a bunch of really long therapy sessions with two absurdly gorgeous openly gay vampires (both of whom he has made passes at, back when he was still openly queer), many of which focus on the vampires' respective sexual orientation journeys of self-discovery and coming out, even more of which focus on stupid-hot queer gothic romances between various configurations of stupid-hot gothic romantic queers , and one of which involves him meeting Louis and Armand in a gay bar in the 1970s back when he was still openly queer. Mortal-ass, Parkinson's-impaired, forever-alone, septuagenarian Daniel Molloy brings his factchecking skills and token snark to a duel with an angelically beautiful 500-year-old master gaslighter with superpowers and Daniel fucking WINS, and if that isn't Viagra for the soul, I don't know what is. And instead of dying alone, Daniel Molloy gets to live forever.

Louis comes to see vampirism as a gift because it allows him time to work through his issues and become someone he can learn to live with.

Daniel might come to see vampirism as a gift because it gives him time (and a community, and motivation in the form of an assortment of really hot vampires who are suddenly all single thanks to Daniel's mad homewrecking/therapy skills) to figure out how to live an openly bisexual/queer life.

So it's 2024, Daniel Molloy is newly immortal and invincible and has the virility of a fledgling and wants to explore his queer identity. The rest of the world better hydrate well and buckle the fuck up.

[danggirlronpa]

I have a question in regard to the whitewashing tw tag: do you think Aoi and the rest are...African-Asian? Because I always just thought they (apart from Angie of course) just had tans

Having tans is the canonical explanation from Aoi, Akane, and Sakura; Yasuhiro (doesn't have a talent that would reasonably require lots of exercise) and Angie (canon Polynesian) are the only characters who are technically canonically dark-skinned.

However. Danganronpa has a terrible colorism problem. And because dark-skinned characters rely on racist and colorist tropes, it seems obvious that they relied on the implication that the characters were blasian in order to communicate them. (We could also get into Gonta here, but since he isn't usually considered by fandom to be a dark-skinned character despite having a darker skintone, we'll set it aside for now. Just know the "dumb gentle giant" look isn't good.)

Firstly: Akane comes from a low-income area with gang violence and prostitution, with a lot of siblings, and is poor enough to not be able to afford a gymnastics uniform. She is portrayed as being unintelligent and caring only about food and fighting. In her crossover art, such as with Sanrio, she is alongside a monkey character (as is Yasuhiro). She has her boobs on constant display to indicate she is Sexy TM. This is a series of very blatant stereotypes about black people.

Sakura is constantly mistaken for a man and called "ogre." She is physically enormous, has bulging muscles, and is one of the only female characters to have a face that isn't condensable to "anime girl face" (primarily, she has a defined nose). Her talent involves beating the shit out of people. And one of her beta designs has her as a straight-up black woman with an afro. She suffers from the (once famous, though I don't know if tumblr still talks about this one) trope of a dark-skinned character with light-colored white person hair for seemingly no reason. This is another series of stereotypes.

Aoi is sexualized. She's constantly sexualized. Her big solo art is her in her underwear with her boobs smushed together. Toko/Syo bring up her boobs constantly. The only character on her level is Miu, who is a very different kind of sexualization; Miu is a character who expresses her sexuality herself, whereas Aoi is viewed as a sexual object by other characters and the audience. This is a very basic aspect of misogynoir - the black woman as a sexual object.

Whether or not these characters were intended to be blasian, these tropes applied to dark-skinned women conveys some very clear and disturbing implications. To make the characters not even canonically dark skinned is such a huge kick in the face - to convey all of these stereotypes and not even give the representation that goes along with them. It is an extra layer of cruelty.

So, yes: this blog agrees with the fandom-wide adoption of "they're dark-skinned." Really, the tag should be "colorism cw," but it has way too many posts for me to go back and change it now. You don't necessarily have to believe they're black; the characters could be Indian, or Polynesian, or any other number of nationalities. But they are dark-skinned, at least as far as I'm concerned.

[yoinkschief]

What’s your general HCs for the fellas ? (Identity, race, sexuality etc)

Whooaagh, that's gonna be a long list, I have a ton of like small headcanons for them that mean like absolutely nothing, but I'll try to keep it to a simple list

Just quickly though:

I HC them all to be generally around 27/28 and in their late 30's/early 40's during WTFuture/in the future,, there was no real way to put that in a good list with them lol

And they're all best friends - just cause they're a group of people doesn't mean they only get to have one bestie yk, they're all super close

Also Ellsworld is canon alongside Eddsworld, they co-exist with each other

Tom - Mixed Race (Black/Irish from his mom, White/American-Hawaiian from his father - Trans Masc-Nonbinary (AMAB) He/They/(sometimes)It (It/Its depends on who it is) - Bisexual (massive masculine lean) (worst taste in men EVER) - Styles his hair to look like his fathers (otherwise his hair is usually textured around the 3's,,, like 3A/3B) - Very pear shaped like his father, and hairy too lol, the alcohol certainly doesn't help with that - Wears reading glasses (later this turns into him genuinely needing a prescription,, another thing he gets from his father - he looks very similar to his mother in terms of facial features and skin tone, but has a lot of his father's aspects) - Fear of eye contact (has gotten a lot better about it now that he's an adult, but still struggles with it with people he does not like/does not know) - Autistic - 5'5" (the shortest of the ensemble) - Works at a diner while part-timing music independently - "Monster" form is man made and extremely painful to turn into (there is no way he could control it,,, in some iterations of my headcanons like in different stories there are ways that he can have like a pact with it,,, like in my Mattsworld AU (WHICH I NEED TO POST ABOUT AUGH) he's "controlled" it a bit by making a deal with it,,, of what I haven't quite figured out yet oof) - Has quite a few tattoos on him,,, (Polynesian shark teeth on his left upper arm, cyan colored harpoon tattoos on his left side, a pinup mermaid girl on his right side, and the Nordic rune for "Wolf" on his right outer thigh) - Also he inherited his anger issues from his father as well, forgot to add that earlier with the list of things he's inherited from his old man lol - Momma's boy (/affectionately, not like he can't do anything without his mom, moreso like he really loves her a lot and obviously they're very close since they both lost Tom's father that day so for a while they were all the other had to remember him by) - Tamara is his cousin from his mother's side of the family - His first friend was Edd - His mother died when he was in highschool - father when he was in elementary, it really hit him hard (it was just before his senior year and had he not done so well the years prior he would've failed HS because of it) - Diesss ???? It's like the whole "OMG they killed Kenny" bit more than anything - like if I had to describe it, he has the Loony Toons death curse, where he dies on screen but in the next panel he's fine cause no one can actually die on a kid's show, yk ? - Tons of piercings,, mostly on his face but also in other places on his body too, though it's more like two other places other than his face area - Loves Ska music obviously, but also punk and rock, thinks artists like Destroy Boys, GRLWood,

Edd - British,,, and probably has some Italian in him somewhere, y'know like family rumors/talk of like "well I'm 1/4 Italian" or "your some odd greats grandma was Italian" that kinda thing,,, not quite sure, not curious enough to care to get some DNA test kit - Homophobic (/j) Gay, man kisser, masculine hug enjoyer, he holds hands with other boysss - On the AroAce spectrum, not really a hard no on either, just more of something he doesn't think about on a day to day basis nor really care about unless the thought is put in his head - Moles scattered across his body (not many, just one or two here and there - and none that are particularly bad or harmful) - Wears reading glasses (more specifically blue light glasses cause he's looking at a screen all day every day) - The only one of the gang that doesn't have any genuine mental disorder,,, he's got his problems sure but he's neurotypical through and through - His problems being main character and plot armor - More seriously though he has a raging hero/savior complex that gets him into a lot of trouble at times - 6' even, second tallest of the group - Very apple shaped,,, when I draw him I think very round thoughts if that makes sense - Had a major emo phase in highschool,,, he kinda snapped out of it during Senior year, or rather the summer leading up to it, but man it was wretched LOL - A child of divorce (they still made it work for him - it wasn't like they fought or it was a domestic abuse thing, they just fell out of love with each other and couldn't stand being in the same house anymore, but they love Edd so they made it work for him the best they could) - Works as an animator - professionally and freelancing ! Hard fucking order but he LOVES they process of creating art, seeing the end result is so gratifying to him and being able to see all the love and attention he put into it - Has a Youtube channel where sometimes he reviews animated movies/shows/shorts - he doesn't update it a lot, it's like a "if I feel like it" cause he only does Youtube as a hobby and as a place to hold his animation portfolio - His first friend was Matt, they've been friends since like diapers - REALLY really good friends with Tord - doesn't really know why but they are like bound by the hip - He's only got ear gauges - he doesn't try and stretch them a ton like Tom does, he's fine with just normal sized gauges that don't stretch his lobes all that much - Has a VERY BROAD music taste, anything from Lemon Demon to Oingo Boingo, to PinkPantheress, to Joey Valence & Brae, to Weird Al,,, anything under the rainbow of music genres he's probably heard one song from each - PowerEdd is canon still !! Not the superhero, but the powers he and Eduardo now suffer with lol,, but they're not really potent, his body chemistry is just kinda fucky now cause of it,,, bro glows in blacklight and sometimes just in general

Matt - British/French,,, basically he's incredibly white - Pansexual (he used to also be GenderFluid in my headcanons,,, but in the past year or so I've decided against it - he's more of just a guy who likes makeup and to wear dresses more than anything else) - Ginger with freckles, they cover his body in splotches mostly, but he's got a few individual ones here and there on his body as well (they've clustered around his face, hands, elbows, shoulders, hips, knees and like two separate patches on his back) - His hairstyle has changed so much with me over the years and it's my own damn fault lol, I don't draw him enough but that most comes with the "I don't wanna draw him wrong" thing but if I don't ever draw him how will I draw him right ?? It's a cycle is what it is - The only one with prescription glasses since middle school - he just wears contacts instead, he HATES how he looks in glasses - his parents had him get LASIK surgery to correct his vision,,, since then - His personal account where no one (except like the gang) knows it's him is very unhinged, he says some devious shit on there (it's a public Twitter account) - Also Autistic, but in a DRASTICALLY different way than Tom is, they're like opposite sides of the spectrum (Tom doesn't mask often, Matt masks like all day every day, Tom can't make eye contact, Matt makes intense eye contact, that kinda thing yk,,, even despite the fact they both have texture issues they have very different issues with textures - also Tom was very early diagnosed and Matt only got diagnosed after Tom kept pestering him to do so) - He's some kind of narcissist, just haven't been able to really pin point it down yet,, I need to do some more research on it - this could change in the future because of that so this is like a maybe canon - His father left him when he was very young like maybe 5-8 range, and his mother married his step father WAY too soon after, him and Matilda is his step sister (He HATED her at first, she tried to be very kind to him cause they're the same age and everything, and this is the first time she's had a sibling, but every time Matt looked at her all he could see was his father leaving him,,, it took until after college for them to actually grow closer as siblings and friends) -6'1" just an inch above Edd - Edd was his first friend - they've been through thick and thin together, they comforted each other when both their parents divorced, so obviously they've got a bit of a trauma bond through that, and are really the only ones who understand that kind of issue - at least in their eyes - Twink. Through and through. Despite being partially French he's got very back luck with growing hair on his body, and when he does it's thin and very lightly colored - Works as a model and "social media influencer",,, basically he's a walking propaganda poster - Has earrings, mostly wears a lot of gold - Doesn't like listening to music often,,, this hurts me to write as someone who can't NOT listen to music, but he just doesn't have a music taste,, I've mentioned before how he listens to some female rappers and other song artists like Mitski and Girl in Red, but that's only because he's listened to them on like the radio or had someone else recommend them to him, he doesn't actively listen/search for music - Still a vampire,,, er, really just half vampire ?? I'd like to think they lads did a séance of some sort on him and for the most part it worked but like Edd his chemistry is still a little fucked cause of it, y'know ? Like he's still got pointed ears and teeth, can't really do much about that, and a BIG craving for red meat and the like, but he can survive without a constant need for blood, and his skin was already sensitive to the sun anyway so there's nothing really new there

Tord - Just a Norwegian fool - Trans Masculine (AFAB) He/Him - Bisexual (with a MASSIVE fem lean,,, he IS the bad taste in men) - His hair ? Yeah that's natural - he's got some WICKED cowlicks,,, when he was younger his mom would try to brush them back to make him look more normal, but even when his hair was longer it didn't really do much for him - ADHD haver, VERY late diagnosis and still doesn't really believe it, but that's a whole lot to do with misinformation of negative dumb jargon shoved down his throat - Narcissistic Personality TRAITS, not the disorder, but TRAITS of the disorder (as in he doesn't actively have the mind set and intentions of people with NPD, but he does have the mannerisms and habits of one,, but that's because of how he was raised by two Narcissists - it's a damn miracle he doesn't have the disorder, but either way he's gotta go to therapy about it,,, and he will,,,,,, eventually,,,,,,,,, after you drag him there by his hair but I mean he'll be there) - Tattoos on him as well (Left shoulder to a half sleeve of a snake, tramp stamp of Ouroboros, and between his shoulder blades beneath the back of his neck is Jason Voorhees' mask) - Can not regulate or understand his emotions,,, the only way he really knows how to deal with intense emotions of any kind is through very physical and aggressive means,, it's why him and Tom get into so many spats, but mostly cause Tom doesn't put up with his bullshit as someone who is very good at reading and understanding his own and others' emotions - Bro's got a very broad chest,, he's like incredibly male passing, even before having gone on Testosterone - Redditor. Sorry I don't make the rules except I do and he's a Redditor. - Also has an Instagram account and it's all thirst traps,,, and I'm torn between how much interaction he'd get on them,,, like I wanna say he gets none because he's a damn loser weebcell dorklord, but I've also seen how EW fandom craves him and that makes me think that this would be no different, ykwim ?,, sigh,, realistically speaking he would get a lot of interaction with his posts and I hate that for him I hope something bad happens to him - Technically Tom was his first friend (??) in the sense that Tom was the first person he met in highschool and was the one he talked to the most during then,, at least when Tom's life was stable, it gets kinda iffy after Tom's mom died and that's where the first part of their rift really started - But him and Edd and SUPER close, despite Tom being his first friend, Edd and him just click REALLY well - Has a similar death thing like Tom, except his is more of like the anime death curse - if he dies off screen, no the fuck he did not, he is coming back as the villain - LOVES Twenty One Pilots, favorite band of all time, usually he's not a die hard for a lot of things, but TOP is one of them, he also likes poprock/poppunk, things like that, think like Imagine Dragons and Mindless Self Indulgence (YES THEY'RE TERRIBLE I KNOW, LOOK AT WHO'S LISTENING TO THEM AND GET BACK TO ME ABOUT IT) but he also listens to hyperpop like S3RL and Machine Girl, but that's just cause of all the base it usually has - that's like background music for him to work to

That's pretty much all I can think of off the top of my head of just general thoughts for them,,, I'm sure I could think of more specific ones but then we'd be here all day

[murfpersonalblog]

IWTV S2 Ep2 Musings

I absolutely adore the title cards; the "fangs" reflecting main locations of the episodes/seasons. GOD this show's attention to detail.

We open with Lou & Claud in Paris bickering about French & money; already shown in the Pix11 preview (I gave my opinions on the full scene, and another post about Claudia specifically.

Then we get Dubai. O_O Omfg. I made a separate post all about Louis & Loumand, cuz those queens were DIABOLICAL this episode.

Skipping ahead a bit! To the coven/theatre! ^0^

Ohhhh....that's a Children of Satan/Darkness nod! 👀 Only thing's that the old guard from the CoS/D actually weren't part of the Coven/Theatre anymore by the time Louis & Claudia arrived (Alessandra, Eleni, and the rest of Rhoshamandes' fledglings Santino indoctrinated & had train Armand).

So Armand is REALLY showing off, tryna impress Louis; cuz none of the members of THAT Theatre troupe are older than Armand, and not even he's as old as Charlemagne. Armand, your yaoi is showing. XD

It's wild how on one hand we have the coven simping over how pretty Louis is (except Santiago, cuz ofc 🙄); while just HATING on Claudia.

Naw, let her stay! Estelle is THIRSTY and I love her for it, bless! XD

Santiago, you shady wench, you're already on my hit list, BUFFOON; but THIS striped heifer, Celeste--

Wench, are all Parisian vampiresses frumpy busted haters like YOU?

Anyways. 🙄 I hate this effing coven already. 😒

Foreshadowing AF, Mr. I Could Not Prevent It.

Sure, Jan. 🙄 But not all violence/abuse/trauma is physical/sexual. By allowing the Theatre to put their hands on Claudia, Armand harmed Louis more than anyone ever could. Claudia was the glue keeping Louis together when he was already falling apart, and he hasn't been right ever since. BOTH of these dudes are living in a fantasy, frikkin la-la-land, as they think they're HELPING e/o, going thru all these theatrical acts & performances. But are they REALLY happy? Esp. cuz we know who's endgame for them in the books. It's bittersweet, cuz their affection's REAL. But this weird codependency just isn't healthy or right. U_U

Eff you, Daniel Hart. tryna make me cry!

Eff you, Daniel Hart, tryna make me laugh!

This scene with the naked lady (Annika) was SO GOOD! I'm glad they tastefully didn't fully show her whole body like they did in the film--if we can't see full frontal nudity for the dudes, then I don't wanna see it on the gals either. 😤 Fair's fair!

But WOAH, the sexckshuhality~!

👻💀⚰️

I don't even have words for this! 😅 Claudia! Let the man win ONCE!?

But I LOVE how candid this show is about everything from sexuality to race--and ofc discrimination.

Oh they're cooking. O_O

THEY ACTUALLY SPOKE ON THE FACT THAT ARMAND'S A BROWN ASIAN DARKER SKINNED THAN REDBONE LDPDL, I'M SHOOK--COLOR CONSCIOUS AWARD GOES TO~~~!

Armand gets to lead the coven through meritocracy, not racial privilege. HOWEVER, we've got bleach-blonde Santiago still waiting in the wings, so.... I can't wait to see more of their dynamics.

We been knew, Louis, it's ok. U_U

Armand clearly been knew, too! Like: Yeah, I'm not surprised he's cruising all the gay parks--I could tell by the way that American walked! ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

I KNOW this bish ain't talking, not Mr. Polynesian Marys! Not Mr. I Did What I Had To Do To SCORE. Not Mr. We Met In A GAY Bar. Not Mr. Black Tar And Heroin! Not Mr. Is Alicia Even REAL!? I KNOW he's not tryna shade Louis for cruising, when his closeted arse can't even handle being in a room with Armand making come-hither eyes!

I love Daniel, how he's written & acted, but ISTG I hate his character.

As opposed to Santiago, who is just--BRUH. WERK.

And this is exactly what Lestat was getting at, too. And why Akasha was wrong when she said men are the problem. Like, don't get me wrong, THEY ARE, but chile, ALL HUMANS are the problem; eff gender. Homegirl sold that old dude down the frikkin river, just to save her own skin, and her family's. COMPLICIT. OFFAL.

Santiago's disgusted by humanity, and Annika proved his point.

As for Lestat, his cold willful detachment stems from his attitude that humans are just The Meat. This version of Lestat is SO dang jaded, that humans are reduced to mere food--just like he called Miss Lily.

He doesn't need the Evil Doer creed, if he thinks ALL humans are evil/irredeemable; only worth living if they can sing & make music or something artistic. Otherwise who cares? (Which makes it VERY interesting to see what AMC!Les would say to Memnoch the Devil....)

Speaking of....

I frikkin knew it. ISTG Lestat must be asleep in 2022--if y'all have him do a Merrick and wake up in the finale, I will pass out and DIE.

The question is: WHAT put him to sleep? Is he just sad & grieving post-trial? WTF is Raglan James doing in 2022? Are we post-Memnoch? Where are TWMBK? I NEED ANSWERS, AMC! 😭

[sohannabarberaesque]

Picture, if you will, Polynesia Uncharted in such a setting as here, with Peter Potamus and his love-interest of the moment in the surf under the full moon:

[nezz-cringe-crib]

i am so sick of never seeing polynesian representation in any form of media. why don't we get the same advocacy for representation as every other culture?

i'm glad that other cultures are finally getting more of the representation they deserve, but representation for polynesians has gone practically nowhere and i'm so sick of it.

why is all of our representation only ever stuff like moana or lilo and stitch? how come you guys sexualize and romanticize hawaiians so much and then dumb down and kill off every other type of polynesian? how come we always have to be fucking connected to the sea? how come we share a month with asian ethnicities when our traditions and cultures are vastly different from each other? how come one of my longtime friends straight up had to ask me what samoa is? why did they have to ask me? how come hawaii's annexation seems to only be taught in hawaii? how come i don't even know the history of my other polynesian cultures?

i never see people talking about this and honestly i can't even be entirely mad because most of it is that people just don't know we even exist.

i'm not moana. i'm not fucking aqua man. i'm not exotic. i'm not stupid. i'm not a savage. i'm not only from hawaii.

please for love of god just learn about polynesian people. we're just fucking people.