#why she doesnt exploit her colony

[lyss-butterscotch]

The Solstice Priests talk about karma

[rhfffas]

"go listen to actual queer actists music" this "why are you so desperate need your stan to be gay" that, or even "gaylor is such a white gay thing", but how abt repressed (and depressed) queers of color relate to taylor swifts music?

i cant speak for all but i can speak for myself. im a gaylor who grew up in asian. ofc i listen to openly queer and unapologetically queer artists like fletcher, janelle monáe, lil nas x, miley cyrus, hayley kiyoko, lady gaga, etc etc, but i (and some of my close asian gaylor friends) also live in an extremely homophobic society where queerness is even banned in public, let alone openly talking abt or showing queerness in real life. sometimes those openly queer artists' work just arent necessarily our queer experience. enter taylor swift. her music is SO relatable to closeted/semi-closeted queer ppl. maybe im not white, but those self-doubting, those secret loves and heartbreaks, those depressions, those disprovals from parents and society in taylor swifts music, they are so queer. they are so relatable so familiar, they are so me, they are so us. takes one to know one, right? so ofc we became gaylors. she def sings abt us. she def knows abt our type of queer struggles and also our type of queer joy. and we get to learn all those queer history no one could teach us abt! what a nice thing to have an online fandom like that!

the question should never be "why dont you(gaylors) go listen to actual queer actists music?" but it should be "why cant you(hetlors) just acknowledge the undoubted queerness in taylor swift music?" (also, the RIGHT question for queer hetlors, "who do you think queer-code those taylor swifts songs?????")

the question should never be "why are you so desperate need your stan to be gay", but "why cant you see her?????"

the question should never be "gaylor is such a white gay thing" but "you DO know there are queers of color gaylors out there right??!!?!"

i will always be thinking and criticizing taylors colonialism problem in wildest dream mv, or the exploitation of women of color in shake it off mv, or her CO2 emissions, shes a rich white billionaire after all. but criticizing those problems doesnt mean queers of color cannot or will not relate to her work. bit racist dont you think???? cuz us queers of color gaylors are literally here.

[sylwanin-was-right]

One of the many frustrating and bizzare writing choices of Avatar 2009, to me, is how Jake's prescence among the Omatikaya was initially decided to be for intel purpose, which makes sense, but then that justification was arbitrarily shifted to focus on assimilating him as if a member and "curing [his kind] of [their] insanity" despite everyone knowing he was a dreamwalker and a major liability.

Like Mo'at's bizzare and random blood pricking aside, it made no sense for Jake to be treated as anything but a spy and likely an infiltrator. Neytiri never had the omen she witnessed interpreted by Mo'at in any depth and Mo'at's supposed to be tsahìk! Omens are huge signs to take very seriously and discussion about taking in a trespassing threat ahould have been a wayyy bigger deal. But Neytiri just mentions that there was a sign from atokirina and Jake makes his own case and.... thats enough to trust that he would not only be more willing to be submissive and pliable to be exploited than others, but apparently trustworthy enough to be accepted as an a whole immigrant to be completely assimilated into every aspect of their society????

I really wish Avatar was written so the Omatikaya kept the energy that Jake was a liability and only good for intel and thus kept on the outskirts of the clan and its activities because it was already decided after fatal bloodshed (Sylwanin and her friends' deaths) that Unìltirantokx ke kame (dont See), so Jake had no good enough reason for them to "trust" that he would be different. Also they KNEW he was an Unìltirantokx and said so explicitly, so his novel background as a "warrior" would have made them aware that he was likely had RDA connections and spy training and his prescence among them was very sensitive. Jake should not have been allowed to eat around the children and elders, sleep among everyone, and even go unrestrained upon meeting the olo'eyktan and tsahìk the first time because he should have been never been meant to be accepted among them, only tolerated as a tool to possibly defect and aid in sabotaging the enemy. Afterall, thats what Jake said in his narration, somethig along the lines if "they learned what they neded to learn about humans".

Tbh Jake could have earned a place among the Omatikaya at the end of the movie, but it should have been from a 2+ hr long sequence of rlly building up that trust that humans lost because of their senseless violence and greed. It doesnt feel like Jake ever really earned a place that closely inside their lives or their homes; he was just conveniently invited into their lives because the writer needed to make his "spiritual awakening" as colorful as possible and palatable for the you-know what-audience, while downplaying his horrendous role as an infiltrator for genocidal, colonial forces 💀.

I def would have written Jake to be treated more harshly and kept on the outskirts of the clan for a long while. He shouldnt have had his presence represent the entirely to humanity's (avatar's) redemption in that moment because there was never a reason teach him anything 💀💀💀. Like seriously.... what "insanity"?? Why does that matter when yall just said Jake was simply useful for learning about sabotaging the newly militarized enemy!! Such frustrating writing that really rubs so wrong.

[nyangibun]

Okay I'm a Jonsa shipper all the way but I still love Daenerys a lot. She's not going to go dark at all lol. It makes me sad when my fellow shippers insist she will. The real enemy is the white walkers.... and they need Daenerys in order to defeat them. It makes me sad to admit that J0nerys has been planned the entire time and is probably endgame but that doesnt mean our ship is any less valid or wonderful ❤️ we shouldnt bash so much on all these wonderful, strong female characters

Dearest fellow Jonsa shipper,

I don’t bash on Dany because I want Jonsa to be endgame. Canon does not make a ship. At the end of the day, if they don’t end up together, it won’t make me ship them any less. Like you said, it doesn’t invalidate the fun and joy I’ve had being in this fandom and speculating all of what will happen in the following seasons. My opinion on Dany and her narrative trajectory and how I feel about Jonsa are mutually exclusive. Neither informs the other. 

I do agree that Dany will play a large part in the war with the White Walkers and that they are truly a very big threat. Season 8 will absolutely be more about the supernatural than about Westerosi politics and they’ll all have to look towards that fight soon. 

However, what makes me sad is people’s inability to see Dany for what she is. She is canonically known as a conqueror. The Targaryens were conquerors. Aegon’s post-nominal title is literally The Conqueror. And I don’t think it’s any coincidence that the Targaryens come from a race of people who are considered super-humanly beautiful with silver blonde hair and blue/violet eyes. I mean if you really want to go further back, Westeros was never the Targaryen’s home. They conquered it and forced the country under one rule because they believed their rule was best. For a lot of people, this resembles too closely of white colonialism. I’m not even reaching here to “bash” Dany. It’s literally there for you to see as plain as day. 

In fact, take a look at this scene and tell me it doesn’t make you uncomfortable: 

A white woman being heralded as their saviour and carried on the shoulders of brown people. That’s so squicky I don’t know how anyone can watch it and think otherwise. The fact that they call her their mhysa is just so gross. It perpetuates the same ideology that white colonists used over the natives – that it was their burden to educate and nurture these savages like a parent would a child, and isn’t their benevolence so wonderful? When in actuality, this justification is just a way for them to exploit the people and their land. Yes, Dany does feel very strongly about freeing the slaves. Yes, she has a good heart at the very core, but hell is paved with good intentions. And the imagery and the connotations are just too obvious to ignore. If this isn’t addressed in the show, if there are not any repercussions to how wrong this is a la showing Dany’s ultimate fall from grace because she is a conqueror with a very high sense of self importance and entitlement, then I’m sorry I have to say this is so unbelievably fucking racist. 

I want Dany to have this arc. I want the show/story to prove to me it is self-aware enough of these scenes and they were filmed for the specific purpose of hinting at Dany’s downfall. Otherwise, they’re so ignorant and racist and unbelievably dumb they didn’t realise how wrong that scene looks. 

If you want a more recent example, take a look at Dany’s scene with Olenna Tyrell in 7x02:

The reason Tyrion’s suggestion made sense was to demonstrate to the people that Dany isn’t as destructive as Cersei is making her out to be. Having a Westerosi army conquer King’s Landing was important in showing Dany’s alliance with those here and that she is one of them. Having the Unsullied, the Dothraki and her dragons take King’s Landing in contrast would make her look like a foreigner come to invade their country, and although Cersei is evil and they don’t like her anyways, maybe she is the lesser of two evils. 

But here, Olenna is telling her to ignore Tyrion and to be a Dragon (yes, with a capital D), and do you know what Dragons do? They conquer. Olenna couldn’t give less shits whether the people love Dany or not. She wants blood, fire and destruction. She wants Cersei to suffer as much as she has. And that’s what Dragons do. 

Now that we know that the Greyjoy/Dorne invasion can’t happen, it becomes all too clear that Dany will be a Dragon and take King’s Landing the way she always wanted to by blood and fire. Tell me, how is this supposed to garner the people’s love? All of whom have suffered so much already and who will only suffer more when their world is burnt to a crisp. 

Yes, while I agree that Dany is an incredibly strong female character, it doesn’t mean she is the hero. They don’t have to be one and the same. Strong women don’t necessarily mean good women. I think that’s an incredibly important message too, which is why I’d like to reiterate that I don’t hate Dany. I just recognise her for what she is and appreciate the complexity of her character and her story. That’s all. 

And I am sorry, Anonny, you don’t happen to see that and if it sounds like we’re just hating on Dany for the sake of being mean. It’s really not. You’re absolutely free to believe what you believe, but then so am I.