my-name-is-luka

[my-name-is-luka]

A ghost

21 x 29,7cm, ink on paper, Kevin Lucbert, 2020.

[my-name-is-luka]

Hitomi Murakami: 'land of root' (2018)

[my-name-is-luka]

[my-name-is-luka]

Content Warning Tips

Instead of writing “age regression” or “infantilization” in your warnings, be honest and use “pedophilia.”

AND

Instead of writing “dubious consent” (dubcon) or “non-consensual,” be direct and use “rape.”

Let’s clear some things up.

1. Children are not mature enough to give meaningful consent, and individuals who age regress enter the mindset of a child. Therefore, these sexual interactions are considered rape. I don’t know how to further explain why you shouldn’t sexualize children and child-like individuals. If you can’t understand the problem with this, I’d recommend critical thinking.

2. There is a huge difference between consensual non-consent (CNC) and dubious consent (dubcon). In dubious consensual encounters, it is unclear whether the individual(s) involved gave consent. Most often, there is no consent given; however, the individual(s) end up enjoying the encounter. Regardless of pleasure, non-consensual sexual interactions (dubcon/noncon) are categorized as either sexual assault, sexual harassment, or rape.

This is not kink shaming. Pedophilia and rape are illegal—rightfully so. Unless you took the story of the Toy Box Killer as erotica, we can agree that these are not romantic subjects.

Every conclusion needs a call to action. I ask that writers out there start romanticizing consensual sex. Most of the community is fairly young, and I think it is important that out writing reflects good practices.

And uh, this is not an April Fools joke.

[my-name-is-luka]

(inspired by another post I saw)

Writing Native Characters/OCs

Don't write your Native characters as dumb, being goofy is ok, but downright stupid isn't.

Avoid the "noble savage" trope; eg. having them be overly serious, aggressive, etc.

On aggression, portraying them as straight up bloodthirsty is very bad, esp for Nahua, Maya, & Mesoamericans in general.

Depicting or calling them "dogs" is very bad, it's a literal slur.

Drawing Native characters with red skin. Warm undertones are fine as long as you don't make them literally red.

Don't draw us with random feathers in our hair, we don't do that.

"Native" isn't a standalone identity, our tribes are far more important than the umbrella "Native".

Natives all look very different, some of us are light, some are dark. There's lot of Black Natives too.

Our living conditions are also diverse. Not all of us live on reservations, most of us are urban.

Don't portray our men as inherently predatory and misogynistic, it feeds into racist propaganda.

Don't portray our women as submissive, sexual, exotic creatures. Very gross.

Don't write us as thieves and criminals, more racist propaganda.

Writing or showing the death of a Native character can be very traumatic for us to see or read, esp if the death is needlessly graphic.

Related, torturing a Native character for shock value is very gross and messed up.

"Savage accent" is gross and racist. Don't write it.

The "Spiritual One" is so tired and unoriginal. (hence the "Native character is introduced with a flute playing in the background)

Our regalia is not casual attire, it's specifically ceremonial. We wear ordinary clothes, if not with some cultural influence, most of the time.

Please don't use us for poverty poor.

Writing us as drug, sex, gambling, addicts is really bad.

Esp avoid them using alcohol and inhalants, it's very stereotypical and are real systemic problems we face.

Using MMIW as a plot point is horrible, I'll hunt you down if you do this.

Having us fall in love with colonizers, don't emulate Pocahontas, that movie was a mistake and so is this trope.

The "special colored eyes/hair" see the Yue and the Water Tribe problem.

Regional/Cultural specific tropes to avoid:

Arctic NA Natives:

Don't us the word "esk*mo". It's a slur.

We aren't all Inuit. Lots of us are Inupiat, Yup'ik, Alutiiq, Athabascan, Tlingit, etc.

Although lots of us do eat meat, but for the love of god don't make that our personality.

Please do research on our names if traditional, no "Tuk Tuk" names or I'll kill you.

Although lots of us are born in Alaska, Canada, and Greenland, not all of us are. I was born in California.

If you are not Arctic NA Native, don't draw our traditional tattoos. They are unique to each tribe and hold significant meaning to them.

We do have parkas but we don't just wear it, esp not when it's warmer like summertime, then it's qaspeq/kuspek. Please do research on our attire.

Drawing us with the "closed eyes" caricature.

Plains Tribes:

Carelessly having plains Natives in headdresses is a caricature.

There's lots of different plains tribes, they aren't a monolith.

Not all plain Natives still live in tipis, good god.

This is esp where you need to avoid "savage accent" and red skin.

Stop adding fringe everywhere.

They also aren't running around naked in buckskin loinclths.

(A lot of this also applies to eastern woodlands too. Also eastern woodlands tribes do not live in tipis)

Southwest:

Navajo isn't the only tribe in the southwest.

The "pueblos" are only built by Puebloan tribes, such as Hopi and Zuni. Navajos aren't Puebloan, they don't live in these.

We don't just spend our days just making silver turquoise jewelry.

Don't write about Sk*nwalkers, please don't.

Kokopelli is a Hopi Kachina. He isn't pan-indian.

Central/Mesoamericans:

"Aztec" and "Maya" are not all there is. And they are not the same.

"Aztec" isn't what the people are called, they are Nahua.

They aren't bloodthirsty and in love with violence, stop writing this.

"Evil Priest", "Holy Emperor", "Human Sacrifice", yeah stop all that shit.

There's more Central/South Americans tribes outside of just Mexico.

[my-name-is-luka]

https://ko-fi.com/tuladash1996

My friend Tula is from Slidell Louisiana they evacuated with their friend Saph to another friend’s house. They’re unsure what they’ll go back to when trees, power lines, flood water is cleared. They were effected by hurricane Ida if anyone can donate or spread this post please help out. Slidell is mega close to New Orleans to give people a picture of what they might come back to. They’re worried everything might have been destroyed by flood water etc Tula needs to find housing again please share $1-$5 helps out <3

[my-name-is-luka]

In the wake of Hurricane Ida I have created a document highlighting some resources, both local and national, that are providing relief efforts for those effected. These efforts range form rescue and cleanup to providing food, water, and shelter. If you are able, consider donating. Thanks!

[my-name-is-luka]

There are so many levels to racism you guys. There’s denial, ignorance, remaining silent about the issues, internalized racism, sterotyping,  fetishization, white savior complex, culture appropriation, victim blaming (respectability policitics) white washing, anti-blackness, misogynoir (the discrimination and hate against black women specifically) denying one’s privilege and power,  abusing one’s privelege, wanting to be an ally but still dominating the conversation, seperating yourself from the problem because you think racism in your area or country does not exist or as not as bad as another. etc. etc. etc. All of these can be done consiously or unconsiously. So don’t think you have to be a old white conservative male from the backwoods of Mississippi with a klan hood to perpetuate any of these. You can mean so well and still be a racist. The path to hell is paved with good intentions. Pls ask yourself some questions and self-reflect. 

[my-name-is-luka]

On “Dead” Cultures and Closed Spiritual Practices: Why Colonialism Is Still A Problem.

Let me start this by saying that, as far as my knowledge of Paganism and Polytheism as a whole goes, I’m what the internet witch community calls a “Baby Witch”. I’m stating this out of the gate because I know there will be lots of people, including witches who have more experience on the craft than me, who might decide to ignore what I have to say based on that fact alone, stating that I’m not knowledgeable enough to give my opinion about this.

Here’s the kicker: I’m a ‘baby witch’, yes, but I’m also a twenty-six year old Venezuelan woman. I’m an adult. I’m Latina. I’m a Christian-raised Pagan,but I’m also a Latinoamerican woman over all other things including that. I grew up on this culture, these are my roots. It is because of this background than I’m writing this post today.

Looking through the “Paganism” and “Witchcraft” tags of this website, I’ve seen a few posts throwing indigenous deities and spirits’ names around on lists alongside deties of open cultures. Yes, you can know better by doing your own research and not going by what just a random Tumblr user wrote on one post (as I hope its the case with everyone on this website), but the fact that pagan beginners are still getting fed misinformation is still worrisome to me.

There’s nothing like reading a so-called expert putting Ixchen (Maya), Xolotl (Nahuatl) and Papa Legba (Vodou) on the same damn list as Norse, Hellenic and Kemetic deities and tagging it on the tags aimed at beginners who might not know better to truly ruin your morning. I’m not mentioning user names here: If you know then you know.

To quote @the-illuminated-witch on her very good post about Cultural Appropriation: 

“Cultural appropriation is a huge issue in modern witchcraft. When you have witches using white sage to “smudge” their altars, doing meditations to balance their chakras, and calling on Santa Muerte in spells, all without making any effort to understand the cultural roots of those practices, you have a serious problem.

When trying to understand cultural appropriation in witchcraft, it’s important to understand the difference between open and closed magic systems. An open system is one that is open to exchange with outsiders — both sharing ideas/practices and taking in new ones. In terms of religion, spirituality, and witchcraft, a completely open system has no restrictions on who can practice its teachings. A closed system is one that is isolated from outside influences — usually, there is some kind of restriction on who can practice within these systems.”

A counter-argument I’ve seen towards this when someone wants to appropiate indigenous deities and spirits is to use the “dead culture” argument: Extinct cultures are more eligible for use by modern people of all stirpes. It is a dead culture and dead religion. It would be one thing if some part of the culture or religion was still alive, being used by modern descendants, but the culture died out in its entirety and was replaced, right? They were all killed by colonization, they are ancient history now, right?

Example: “If white people are worshipping Egyptian deities now, then why can’t I worship [Insert Aborigen Deity Here]?”

To which I have two things to say:

Ancient Egypt’s culture was open and imperialistic, meaning they wanted their religion to be spread. This is why Kemetism is not Cultural Appropriation, despite what some misinformed people might tell you. Similar arguments can also be made for the Hellenic and the Norse branches of Paganism, both practiced by people who aren’t Greek/Norse.

Who are you to say which cultures are “dead” and which are not?

Religious practices such as Vodou and Santería certainly aren’t dead, not that it keeps some Tumblr users from adding Erzuli as a “goddess” on their Baby Witch post, something that actual Vodou practitioners have warned against.

Indigenous cultures such as the Maya and the Mapuche aren’t dead, despite what the goverment of their countries might tell you. The Mapuche in particular have a rich culture and not one, but two witchcraft branches (The Machi and the Kalku/Calcu). Both are closed pagan practices that the local Catholic Church has continuously failed to assimilate and erase, though sadly not for lack of trying:

“The missionaries who followed the Spanish conquistadors to America incorrectly interpreted the Mapuche beliefs regarding both wekufes and gualichos. They used the word wekufe as a synonym for ideas of the devil, demons, and other evil or diabolical forces. This has caused misunderstanding of the original symbolism and has changed the idea of wekufe right up to the present day, even amongst the Mapuche people.”

For context, the Wefuke are the Calcu’s equivalent of the Familiar, as well as reportedly having more in common with the Fae than with demons anyway.

This and other indigenous religions are Closed because it is wrong for foreigners to just come and take elements from marginalized groups whom are still fighting to survive and that they weren’t born into. To just approppiate those things would be like spitting in their faces, treating them and their culture like a commodity, a shiny thing, a unique thing to be used like paint to spruce up your life or be special.

I know some of you are allergic to the word “Privilege”, but on this situation there really ain’t a better word to explain it. You weren’t born here, you don’t know what it is like, you are only able to see the struggle from an outsider’s point of view.

If a belief or practice is part of a closed system, outsiders should not take part in it. And with how many practices there are out there which are open for people of all races, there is really no excuse for you to do it.

Why Colonization Is Not “Ancient History”

If you have kept reading all this so far, you are probably wondering “Ok, but what does Colonization has to do with any of this?”

The answer? Everything.

With the general context of culture appropriation out of the way, let me tell you about why the whole “dead culture” argument rubs me the wrong way: Here in Venezuela, we have a goddess called Santa Maria de la Onza, or Maria Lionza for short, whom’s idol statue I have been using to illustrate this little rant. If you happen to know any Spanish, you might recognize the name as a derivative of Santa Maria, aka the Virgin Mary, and you are mostly correct: Her true indigenous name is theorized to have been Yara.

And I say “theorized” because it is a subject of hot debate whether she was really ever called that or not: Her original name, the name by which she was adored and worshipped by our ancestors, might have been forever lost to history.

That’s the legacy of colonization for you: Our cultures were stolen from us, and what they couldn’t erase they instead tried to assimilate. Our ancestors were enslaved, their lands and homes stolen, their artwork and literary works destroyed: The Maya and the Aztec Empire were rich in written works of all kinds, ranging from poetry to history records to medicine, and the Spaniards burned 99% of it, on what is probably one of the most tragic examples of book burning in history and one that people rarely ever talk about. 

People couldn’t even worship their own gods or pass their knowledge of them to their children. That’s why Maria Lionza has such a Spanish Catholic-sounding name, and that’s why we can’t even be sure if Yara was her name or not: The Conquistadors couldn’t steal our goddess from us, so they stole her name instead. Catholics really have a thing with trying to assimilate indigenous goddesses with the Virgin Mary, as they tried to do the same with the Pachamama.

On witchy terms, I’d define Maria Lionza as both a deity and a land spirit: Most internet pages explaining her mention the Sorte mountain as her holy place, but it is more along the lines that she is the mountain. 

You’d think that, with Venezuela and other Latinoamerican countries no longer being colonies, we’d be able to worship our own deities including her, right?

As far as a lot of Catholics seem to think and act, apparently we are not.

The Catholics here like to go out of their way to shame us, to call us “cultists”, to ostracize us, with a general call to “refrain from those pagan beliefs” because they go against the Catholic principles. Yes, the goddess with the Catholic-sounding name, a name she happens to share with a Catholic deity, apparently goes “against Catholic principles”. You really can’t make this shit up. (Linked article is in Spanish)

This is just an act of colonization out of many, of not wanting to stop until the culture they want to destroy is gone. Don’t believe for a second that this is really their God’s will or anything like that, they are just trying to finish what years of enslavement and murder couldn’t. They might not be actively killing us anymore, but they still want us dead.

So no, colonization is not some thing that has long passed and now only exist on history textbooks: It is still happening to this day. It is by treating it as old history that they can keep doing it, and it is by pushing the narrative that our indigenous cultures are “dead cultures” that they try to erase our heritage.

Because we are not dead. We are still here, we are alive, we have survived and we’ll keep on surviving, and our gods and goddesses are not yours to take.

¡Chao! 🐈

[my-name-is-luka]

It you are looking to help, I recommend the Cajun Navy.

Post-Katrina when rescue efforts were in earnest, volunteers with boats became a critical part of the recovery efforts. Today they continue to organize local efforts and support people in the path of storms.

Stay safe, friends.

[my-name-is-luka]

Would anyone be interested in a pairing game according to your kinnies?

Send an ask stating your 3 top kinnies and we will match you with someone with compatible kinnies! Or state your kin and what are you looking for!

Examples:

"I (male, 18) am a Oikawa kinnie looking for a Iwazumi kinnie to balance me out. Male 18+"

"I (female, 17) am a Bakugo kinnie looking for a Kirishima kinnie! Any gender 16+"

" My (female, 16) top kinnies are, Bakugo, Tsukishima, Oikawa"

" I (enby 21) am an Aizawa kinnie looking for a Present Mic kinnie. Female 20+"

Etc! This are examples at the top of my head, if you need me to explain something better, feel free to ask! Reblog so more people will see!

[my-name-is-luka]

psa that unreality is a trigger just as much as anything else, and a hugely common trigger for those with dissociative disorders and psychotic-spectrum disorders in particular. it is a necessary tag that is often left off posts and it needs to become more normalised to include the “unreality tw” tag on these posts to prevent derealisation and delusion spirals, so that the internet is a bit safer and kinder for ppl with mental illness.

[my-name-is-luka]

I am literally begging people to learn how to participate in fandom through a lens other than shipping

[my-name-is-luka]

reblog if you:

are nonbinary

have dyed/cut your own hair over quarantine

love netflix cartoons

support nonbinary people

[my-name-is-luka]

what do I have to do to go to events where people are dressed nicely and there are plates of free cheese cubes

[my-name-is-luka]

PLEASE DO NOT THINK FOR EVEN A SECOND THAT YOUR VOICE WILL NOT HAVE AN IMPACT THIS IS LITERALLY THE BARE MINIMUM

I'm sorry for putting this in the BLM and stop Asian hate tag but in the last few days posts tagged with "Palestine" have not been showing up.

[my-name-is-luka]

Please sign and share this petition, please.