#until later in the chorus trilogy (again i don't like admitting that either)

[mokuknight]

Tags by @joltning

musing about some stuff about tucker. very loose and train of thought. mentions of sa and racism

there’s a kind of analysis i’ve always found it difficult to talk to wrt tucker is the way his story is, like… sexual assault coded? it’s an aspect of his character that’s important to me and the way i write him but you understand that it requires much more attention and care than the off the cuff meta i usually put up here. i kind of brush upon it with the whole “tucker loves to be betrayed” thing but that’s obviously much more of a lighthearted approach.

there’s the obvious connection of junior. the parallels to sexual assault there i don’t feel like i have to explain? imo i don’t think the show implies that the mechanism was literally rape but there are some jokes that brush up against it, and i know some people do interpret it as such and i don’t think they’re wrong to. especially in the case of trans tucker… we really REALLY didn’t like trans tucker as a teen for this reason lol. people would just so flippantly talk about (and make jokes about?) what was like. quite possibly the most horrifying experience we could imagine. we have less of an emotional response to it these days but we’re still not a huge fan and still hate when ppl make jokes about it. tho that’s true for cis tucker too. we just don’t like “mpreg” jokes in general lol. it’s tolerable when other trans men make them but it’s still not smth we enjoy. especially in the case of tucker being involuntary. it’s just like. i know the show makes them but at least in my opinion the main crux of the comedy there comes not from mocking tucker for being a victim or laughing at the notion of a pregnant man but by treating the fact that tucker had a horror movie plot happen to him as a completely mundane sitcom pregnancy. doc is teaching junior colors tucker is looking at minivans meanwhile he’s eating caboose in the background. i feel like that’s where the humor shines in that situation. i’m getting off topic

these thoughts really started hitting with restoration though. his treatment there is just. i wouldn’t say it’s as strongly sa-coded as the junior stuff but he’s still very much being physically violated and having his agency completely removed. it’s. guh. i’m glad we were having a watch party with our discord but that scene was fucking rough to watch. i genuinely question its inclusion with such a short run time. did we really need to see tucker being tortured there. out of all of the places you could’ve took that plot it just feels like being shocking for the sake of it. kind of off topic again but

tucker is used like. a lot. physically, the entire premise of the show is about the sim troopers being used as glorified target practice. then with crunchbite, then with sigma. the way tucker is repeatedly reduced down to just being his body. completely dehumanized. it’s not about who he is it’s about the way he can be physically used. and there are also moments where he is used for who he is, like, chorus, the blues and reds, even with the sim trooper stuff he’s specifically chosen for blood gulch bc of his personality.

and there is a conversation here about tucker being a black man and the sexualization of black men and the high amount of sexual assault done to black men. and the way that the expectations of sexuality and masculinity affect black men. and the way that tuckers body is physically used very obviously has some clear connotations when you consider his race. but that’s not really my place and even in the spaces of it i do feel qualified to comment on, it would require much MUCH more attention and care to the point where i would basically be writing like. an academic essay. like that’s the kind of thing where i’d genuinely want to be pulling up papers and writings from people more experienced than me. maybe if i ever end up making actual video essays about my rvb thoughts lol.

there’s also the way tucker has an element of hypersexuality to him. he says the temple of procreation didn’t affect him at all, which like haha funny joke but also like. not to get too tmi but we’ve struggled with hypersexuality and pgad and it isn’t. fun. and there’s his premature ejaculation. the fear of someone creeping on him during his time with kai, hell, everything about his behavior in 16. “women are like voltron church the more you hook up the better it gets” just the way he talks to women in general? it is very much sexual harassment and i am NOT excusing that even slightly but it’s also very. safe? no one’s ever going to want to sleep with him if he’s saying “bow chicka bow wow” at them. he’s able to “shoot his shot” and get a guaranteed rejection 99% of the time. so much of tuckers character reads to me as someone who is obsessed with sex but also terrified of it. and like. you could go ohh incel gooner pornbrained man afraid of real women and like. maybe that what the authorial intent with a lot of these jokes but not only do i not feel like that fits with the rest of tuckers character, i also think if you look at the rest of his arc it paints a pretty different picture.

so. i don’t know if i’m going to have tucker being a csa victim be a part of our official headcanoned backstory for him but i definitely think he has some sexual trauma he’s never unpacked. and you could have that just starting with junior but to me it feels like it starts before we even meet him.

…

also ftr i’m not validating the stuff from the origins episode lol. that was written by someone who thinks having child hitler be a camper in his show is funny i literally do not care what he has to say about tucker’s backstory. it makes NO FUCKING SENSE for tuckers early characterization anyway he’s literally. the entire joke of tuckers character in the early seasons is that he’s an inexperienced loser who can’t score because he has no game whos looking for validation by talking like he has lots of experience.