#seen in Eugene

[natureisthegreatestartist]

Guess who just showed up at my bird feeder. A black-throated gray warbler much like the one in this photo. Quite a stylish little animal, right?

[christadeguchi]

"You can tell that there was a wealth of love that went into making this film so I hope people can take just a little bit of that love out with them." - Eugene Lee Yang | Go Behind The Animation for Nimona

[bisexualseraphim]

The fact that neurotypical and able-bodied people can’t comprehend that disabled people usually don’t like consistently being told “BEING DISABLED IS BAD!!! THE WAY YOU ARE IS FUNDAMENTALLY WRONG!!! YOU NEED TO BE CURED!!!” even in a ‘nice’ or ‘woke’ way shows how little they actually value our agency or even our worth as humans.

No, Stacy, I don’t want people fiddling with eugenics because they’re uncomfortable with me existing, I want you to. You know. Treat me like a person. Have help be there when I need it without treating me like I’m an invalid. Why is that apparently so much more difficult for you than telling me my existence is wrong and spending millions fiddling in a lab for unwanted “cures?” Whatever happened to listening to others and accepting them for who they are? Or do you only see disabled people as the poor, helpless invalids you can “help” cross the street without asking so you can get another Scouts badge?

[haveyouseenthismovie-poll]

[haveyouseenthisseries-poll]

[t4tails]

i know its an older post but irt that incest post sometimes i feel like ppl just dont and cannot get it until it happens to them. i couldnt even comprehend it as a possibility until i was 14 staying at my uncles house for a while and i still cant comprehend it as a thing that happened to me sometimes. i think its bc ppl feel security with their families in that sense— even if theyre abused in other ways, its like, “well, i know them and they’d still never do THAT.”

perhaps its bc we are still not educated about the dangers of incest as children. ever. we are taught stranger danger. we’re taught what inappropriate touch is. and when we’re a little older we’re taught to recognize grooming behaviors, but we’re never taught about what its like when it comes from family members— and what’s more we’re taught to assume the best from family members, to think of them as the exception to inappropriate touch or behaviors, when they DO make us uncomfortable instead of recognizing those behaviors as red flags. then one day it becomes too late, like it did with me. and maybe that contributes to the idea that its a non-possibility in some people, that it only happens in fiction.

the most i’ve ever seen presented to children as a red flag irt incest is the idea of a mother’s boyfriend or a stepparent acting inappropriately, but that still comes from the angle of “you havent known them for as long so this means they could also be a predator.”

we still don’t fully address what the commonly cited statistic “most sexual abuse comes from someone the survivor knows” MEANS. its not just friends. not just partners. its your family, too. its people you’ve known all your life.

but ultimately— i’m finally making my point i promise— the reason we dont address those things is because the idea that children should be able to turn to their community when their family fails them is too controversial, and not just among families that support incestuous abuse. “if my child knows they can confide in a teacher/neighbor about anything, they might become rebellious. god forbid somebody other than me contributes to my child’s development!”

people prefer the heightened possibility of their child being subjected to incestuous abuse over their child having any semblance of autonomy.

sorry for the long ask i’d usually post this to my blog but this is not something i’d be okay publicly speaking about.

hi sorry this took a bit to answer that post IS from a while ago and i wasnt sure how to respond, because i have fortunately never experienced that type of abuse myself and dont have much to add beyond agreement. i didnt want to just leave this in my inbox though since its clear you put a lot of thought into it.

i think a lot of the opportunities for incestuous abuse stem from the traditional family structure not actually prioritizing protection or comfort, but control that feels threatened every time somebody tries to bring it up. nobody wants to actually prevent it because that would mean acknowledging family as a potential threat, as well as breaking down the ways the controlling of sex and ownership by said family is already normalized in culture (ex. fathers vigorously defending their daughters virginity, etc). this is all why imo discussions on this should go hand in hand with childrens rights and body autonomy, but even in these discussions its rare to see it actually brought up

its really something that needs to be talked about more, but people struggle to see past "alabama" jokes and fauxcest porn

[arceviste]

i'd say that moondae got quite a bit of... imagination

like, it's not the first time he potrayed these two big puppies (atleast to him, lol) to the typical antagonistic nor over the top character that had the untouchable image

but in reality, both are FAR from 'intimidating' or 'unapproachable'

but i guess he's being like that because of yk, effect of status window and regression.

[vensfcamelot]

ah, what a shot..

[beaulesbian]

Q: Why is the "Nimona" movie so important?

Well, I really think that we are living in a time where the conversation about real people's lives and their safety and a community's entire longevity, particularly within the queer umbrella, there's a lot at stake.

And I mean that in a way where people are refusing to have the next step in understanding someone who might disagree with them.

My whole life has been taking the extra steps to outreach to bring someone, to build the foundation to have a common understanding. Or at the very least, so that that group doesn't want my group to be eliminated or erased.

And having films especially like "Nimona," where it can speak to this idea of effortlessly portraying characters who inhabit those communities. But are also fully realized. (...)

It's just an honest story. And it's full of like wonderful character, heart and insight and dynamics that feel like they could be both a part of anyone's experience, but specifically really a part of my experience as a queer person.

~ Eugene Lee Yang (x)

[some-pers0n]

The thing about the whole "Clearsight is a colonizer" thing that gets me the most is that she clearly never wanted or intended to be treated like that. She wanted a fresh start. She couldn't go on with her life on Pyrrhia due to Darkstalker's absence. She knew she would do little more than feel an ache in her heart and mourn the loss of the dragon she loved. The dragon she thought she would spend the rest of her life with. She wanted to run. She had to start anew.

Then, receiving the vision about the hurricane that was about to hit Pantala. She saw her chance and she took it. She flew for days until finally reaching the continent, being the first dragon to do so. She warned them all and saved countless lives because of it. She was seen as mystical and gifted, but that's a given when you have literal magic powers that lets you see into the future.

Clearsight spent her life peacefully. I don't think she wanted to be hailed as a god-like figure at all. She wanted to be seen as a member of the community, one no more special or note-worthy than anybody else. Her status as a prophet and deity I think was brought on in the following centuries. Wasp, the actual genocidal maniac, used Clearsight mostly as a means of which to get her way, manipulating the population into thinking that Clearsight herself foretold this would happen.

Clearsight wasn't a colonizer. I think it's a gross misuse of the word that really misunderstands both her character and the text in favour of going: "SEEE????? TUI IS BIGOTED!!!" That being said it is very iffy and uncomfortable to have Tui say: "Ohhh the reason why Clearsight basically bred out BeetleWings was because of her strong genetic material" like what are you talking about

[mushyruuu-art]

the fact that tangled story works perfectly for dnf in both ways makes me happy

that being said, the lack of rapunzel gnf is unfair, so guess what i’m drawing next 🙌

[my-vanishing-777]

Global misogyny frequently seen on Twitter: "It's only natural for a man to choose his wife carefully. But for a woman to pick her husband carefully is eugenics." Refusing to have sex has been around since the days of the apes, before eugenics, and is something all animals do.

Even if women do not have sex with men, the men are not imprisoned in camps or forcibly sterilized. Men always steal words from the underprivileged in society to criticize women who refuse sex.

Female birds also like pretty male birds. Is this eugenics? No. Real eugenics is the elimination of more than 1 million women through sex-selective abortion. Please don't come and accuse me of eugenics when I tweet about 4B. I just don't want to have sex with a misogynist.

[thorough-witness-enjoyer]

anon because im on the wrong blog rn but i wanted to say i really enjoyed your witness analysis post. i havent really seen many comparisons about the colonisation aspect of what the witness does (though to be fair, im not really in touch with fandom). so it was nice to these themes touched on especially so eloquently !

Greetings anon!!!

Thank you so much for the kind message!! I deeply appreciate your words as the Witness is a character that is extremely close to me, quite literally being one of my favorite characters in media ever and someone who revolves in my head like a rotisserie chicken 24/7!!!

I truly believe that if you don’t see the content you desire in the world, you should go out and make it, so when I didn’t see mountains of the most bitter vitriol towards the Witness, I knew I had a job to do!

I’ve been left to pick up the pieces of the Witness’ long legacy of reducing my people and culture to what is “palatable and profitable”, my family has a prophecy (a destiny if you will) that I will form my own Witness in this life to enact an ideology and force that idea on me, I was once a precursor who raged against a silent god by abandoning my self, I’ve met many disciples of the Witness in my life and many more victims of it. This character has been so firmly tied to my life that I just had to share my perspective with the world in an attempt to make people understand just how important the lessons we can learn from it are!! I could talk about the Witness for eons!!!

There has been a lot of Witness works ( fanfiction, memes, art work, etc.) produced and a lot of it has been absolutely phenomenal work!! They are all clearly created by people who have a deep affection for the character that clearly shows in their fantastic pieces and I truly love that, but a lot of what I saw left me feeling restless because none of it (from what I’ve seen) truly tapped into the absolute nightmarish nature of what this entity has brought down on civilizations. I really wanted to bring in another voice on this character because I couldn’t be moved so deeply by its defeat and sit still on it!!

Again, if no one is making the content you would like to see, make it! That’s actually the biggest reason why I started making posts for this blog, I wanted to help others see that there is much more to talk about when it comes to the Witness than its philosophical views on reality and it’s big eyes (as well as not keeping my trillions of thoughts in my head).

To me, characters as awful as it should always have their victims struggles voiced first and foremost and the Witness is much bigger than itself for it has forced its necrotizing fingers into the lives of everyone in the Destiny universe.

The story and focus will never be on the Witness for me, it will always be on its victims and their recovery.

I think about how I struggle to find traditional names for my heritage because everyone has a name from the beliefs of our imperialists instead of the victims they forced to be remembered as necessary casualties on a path to “civilization and salvation” and I am putting the Witness through a million glass tables.

I think about how all I know of my relatives who were born not that long ago was that they were only allowed to be “field workers and strong believers “ and here comes a massive anvil over its head.

Speaking on this matter, I am still working on a small thought dump on how Rhulk is a prime example of someone who sheds their cultural and personal ties to go from victim to perpetrator and it’s been hard!!

In all honesty, it has really taken an emotional and mental toll on me for how deep it cuts and how much of it reminds me of all that could of have been in the lives of so many if they weren’t groomed into believing that the only way to get justice for their lives (lives affected by the conditions the ideological groomers use to be opportunistic) is to take on a position where they are a subjugator, not the subjugated.

It’s very painful to write about and Rhulk as a character makes the very core of my being ache as every time I read Shattered Suns, I have to sit back and clench my fists at the invasive, predatory behavior the Witness displays towards Lubraens. Those same words it coerces Rhulk with are the same ones that resulted in hollow people in my life who were prideful in turning their backs on their cultural ways and community if it meant gaining the security and sense of righteousness the oppressors offered. The Witness preyed on Rhulk and turned him into something truly awful, something I see so often that I cannot stand by and not say anything on it.

I wish to see Rhulk content that does not focus on him just being a devoted disciple of the Witness or some super strong villain who’s cool, I really want to see more content touching on what happened to make him fall so far into the Witness’ clutches and views him as the victim he is! I want to make content that shows how REPUGNANT their relationship is and how Rhulk is an example of the need to provide preventative community and understanding to those vulnerable to ideological grooming, especially in our modern era where harmful beliefs are ever present and looking to find people to sustain them!

This is getting very long, but in essence, thank you! Thank you so much anon for your words!!

I truly believe in the importance of POC voices, especially black voices, in fandom spaces as we have been left out of a lot of discussions that have heavy implicit (and explicit) ties to race and culture when it comes to sci-fi and fantasy settings! We get strength from community and understanding, it is how we can better make fandom spaces comfortable for all!! By giving my views on the Witness and its ills, I wish to help the Destiny fandom understand some of the ties it has to real life issues and hope that it helps people be more conscious of the teachings in media they invest in!

It was so nice to see people contribute to my Witness post with their own connections or point out connections other people have made like with evangelicalism and Polish fascism. I’m very glad many people can unite on the fact that the Witness is abominable and that we can face irl Witnesses by defeating ignorance hand in hand!! My understanding and beliefs are always evolving with new information and I’m always happy to grow alongside others!

Just remember guys, make the content you want to see in life and if you are a POC, voicing your discomfort or offering your perspective on matters discussed in sci-fi and fantasy settings is essential to getting proper representation in media that is done with nuance and respect as well as help both audiences and writers craft better narratives!!!

And trust me, the Witness (especially the behaviors it displays towards Rhulk and it’s other victims) makes me deeply, deeply,

deeply

deeply

Uncomfortable.

I will never forgive the Witness for all it has done and I never want to see it pleased with its work EVER. The only redeeming I want to hear about the Witness is how it can redeem this coupon for my fist in its face, free of charge, guaranteed by me, filled with the force of all my relatives who did not live long enough to see that they could have always mattered in this world.

[haveyouseenthismovie-poll]

[haveyouseenthisseries-poll]

[rendellstreet]

Frederic and Arianna's little blurbs in the TBEA/TTS Season 1 pitch bible