#and you show others (especially young others + aro or not) that you don't need romance to be completed or happy!!!!!! | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

therealvinelle · 3 years

Note

I've always wondered this, but what do you think the Cullen's political viewpoints would be, given their individual backgrounds? if vampires don't change after they turn, then surely they would all be extremely racist (especially Jasper). would this not come up at some point? they aren't like the Volturi because the Volturi are too old to care, but the Cullens are young enough that they have been brought up with opinions on stuff like sexism, racism, homophobia and the like.

Oh fuck.

You get an early answer because otherwise I'll just chicken out and delete this one, pretend I never saw it.

UMMM.

Since I'm guessing you meant American political viewpoints, we need a disclaimer. I am not American, and not too knowledgeable about your politics. Not just in the sense that I don't follow the day-to-day drama, but as I am not an American citizen there are several things I don't know, can't know because I've never lived in your country and therefore can't know what the effects of living in a country ruled by American policies is like. What I do know is based off of the news in the foreign section, social media (by which I mean tumblr posts), and Trevor Noah's Daily Show.

I am an outsider looking in.

Which is really rather appropriate, since the Cullens are too.

The Cullens go to high school and college, Carlisle works, they pay taxes, they own real estate, and submerge themselves in American culture. Esme, Edward, Rosalie, Emmett, and Bella are young enough that this is in many ways their world, and apart from timeouts they've more or less spent their entire lives, human and vampire, integrated into American society.

Not fully integrated, mind you, they do what they need to to fit in and get to school or, in Carlisle’s case, to work. They go no further. No extra-curriculars for the kids, no book clubs for Esme, no game nights for Carlisle. They walk parallel to humans, not among us.

In addition to this they're obscenely rich, which puts them another thousand miles from the experiences of your average American. They won't deal with the health system, which means healthcare is a non-issue, they're not going to need welfare or other social programs, unemployment is another non-issue. Name your issue, and the Cullens don't have personal stake in it. Even the climate crisis won't be a problem for them the way it will for us.

What I'm trying to say is, American political issues are a concept to them, not a lived reality. Just like they are for me. So hey, you made a great choice of blog to ask.

I'll also add here that you say the Volturi are too old to care, and I agree- from an ancient's point of view, racism is a matter of "which ethnicity are we hating today?", and it all looks rather arbitrary after a while. Same with every other issue - after a while it all just blends together into "what are the humans fighting over today? Which Christian denomination is the correct one? Huh. Good for them, I guess."

I can't put it any better than this post did, really. The Volturi are real people, humans are nerds and tumblr having Loki discourse. Aro thinks it's delightful and knows entirely too much about Watergate (and let's be real, Loki discourse as well), but the point I wanted to get at is that politics really don't matter to vampires.

And I don't think they matter to the Cullens either.

So, moving on to the next point while regretting I didn't put headlines in this post, I'll just state that I don't think vampires' minds are frozen. Their brains are unable to develop further, and they can never forget anything, but... well, this isn't the post for that, but in order for this to be true of vampires they would barely be sentient. They would not be able to process new impressions, to learn new things, nor to have an independent thought process. Yes, we see vampires in-universe (namely, Edward, who romanticizes himself and vampires) believe they're frozen and can never change, but there is no indication that this is a widespread belief, or even true. Quite the contrary - Carlisle went from a preacher's son who wanted to burn all the demons to living in Demon Capital for decades and then becoming a doctor and making a whole family of demons. Clearly, the guy has had a change in attitude over the years. Jasper, in his years as a newborn army general, slowly grew disenchanted with his life and developed depression. James initially meant to kill Victoria and hunted her across the earth, then became fascinated and changed his mind about it.

Had these people been incapable of change, Carlisle would still be hating demons, Jasper would be in Maria's army, and James would still be hunting Victoria.

It goes to follow, then, that they are able to adapt to new things.

The question is, would they?

Here I finally answer your question.

So, we have these people who don't really have any kind of stake in politics, who keep up to date all the same (or are forcibly kept up to date because high school) and are generally opinionated people.

Where do they then fall, politically?

(And this is where you might want to stop reading, anon, because I'm about to eviscerate these people.)

Alice votes for whoever's gonna win. She also makes a fortune off of betting each election. Trump's 1 to 10 victory in 2016 was a great day to be Alice. MAGA!

The actual policies involved are completely irrelevant, she does this because it's fun. Election means she gets to throw parties. Color coded parties for the Republican and Democratic primaries, and US-themed parties for Election Night! (Foreigner moment right here: I at first wrote "Election wake" before realizing that's not what y'all murricans call it.)

Alice loves politics. Doesn't know the issues, but she sure loves politics.

Bella votes Democrat. She actually knows about the issues, and cares about them. This girl is a Democrat through and through.

Carlisle doesn't vote. I can't imagine it feels right. Outside of faked papers he's not a US citizen, this is meddling in human affairs that he knows don't concern him.

More, this guy has never lived in a democracy.

In life, Carlisle lived under an absolute monarchy that, upon civil war, became an absolute theocracy. From there he learned that vampires live under a total dictatorship.

For the first 150 years of his life, democracy was that funky thing the Athenians did in history books thousands of years ago, no more relevant to him than the Ancient Egyptian monarchy is to me. Then the Americans, and later other European countries started doing this.

Good for them.

There's this mistake often made by those who view history from a... for lack of a better term, a solipsistic standpoint. A belief that the present day is the culmination of all of history. “My society is the best society, the most reasonable society; all the others had it backwards. Thank god we’re living in this enlightened age!”

The faith in our current system of government is one such belief. We (pardon me if this doesn’t apply to everybody reading this post) have grown up in democracies, being told this is the ultimate form of rule, and perhaps that is true - but remember the kings who have told their subjects they had were divine and the best possible ruler based on that. Remember also that most modern democracies haven’t actually been democracies for very long at all, America is the longest standing at some 230 years (not long at all in the grand scope of things) and they have a fracturing two-party system to show for it.

Every society, ever, has been told they’re the greatest, and their system of government the most just. Democracy is only the latest hit.

This is relevant to Carlisle because he’s immortal and decidedly not modern. Democracy has not been installed in him the way it was the rest of the Cullens, Jasper included. To him- well, it’s just not his world. He has no stakes in our human politics, and as he is older than every current democracy and has seen quite a few of them fall, he’s not going to internalize the democratic form of rule the way a modern human has.

I think the concept of voting is foreign to him.

It requires a level of participation in human society that he’s simply not at. He does the bare minimum to appear human so he do the work he loves, but nothing more, and I find that telling.

As it is I think he'd be iffy about his family doing it. He won’t stop them, but in voting they’re... well it’s kind of cheating. They’re not really citizens, none of this will affect them, and by voting they’re drowning out the votes of real human voters. He does not approve.

Edward votes Democrat. He's... well he’s the kind of guy who will oil a girl’s bedroom window so he can more easily watch her sleep without being discovered, justifying it to himself as being okay because if she were to tell him to get lost he’d stop immediately. Same guy is so sure that he’d leave and never return again if she wanted him to, except this is the man who returned to Forks to hang around his singer, knowing there was a significant chance he might kill her. To say nothing of his Madonna/Whore complex, or of the fact that he tried to pimp out his wife twice, and was willing to forcibly abort her child.

This guy is very much in love with chivalry, with being an enlightened and feminist man who supports and respects women, while not understanding the entire point of feminism, which is female liberation.

He votes Democrat because he’s such an enlightened feminist who cares about women’s rights.

Emmett doesn’t care to vote, but if he has to he votes Republican. The guy is from the 1930′s, and has major would-be-the-uncle-who-cracks-racist-jokes-if-he-was-older vibes.

Esme doesn’t vote, that would require getting out of the house.

More, I just... can’t see it. I can’t see her being one to read up on politics and The Issues, period, but if she has to then I doubt she’d be able to decide.

Jasper doesn’t vote. Alice can have her fun, he does not care.

There’s also the whole can of worms regarding the last time he went to bat for American politics.

I imagine he stays out of this.

Renesmée doesn't vote. She has no stock in the human affairs. Who would she vote for, on what grounds? When Bella tries to pull her to the urns, she points out that she's three years old.

Rosalie, guys, I’m sorry, but that girl is definitely gonna vote Republican. Perhaps not right now as it’s become the Trump party of insanity, but the Mitt Romney type of Republicans? Oh yes.

And for the record, yes I imagine she does vote. To step back from politics would be another way she was relinquishing her humanity, and that’s not allowed to happen. So, yes, she goes to the urns, less for the sake of the politics involved and more because like this, she’s still a part of society in some way.

Now, onto why I think she’s Republican, I think it’s both fiscal and social.

This girl was the daughter of a banker who somehow profited off of the Depression, and who then became part of a family with no material needs that would soon become billionaires thanks to Alice. Poverty to Rosalie is a non-issue, as it is I imagine she views it as a much lesser issue than what she’s had to deal with. The humans can pull themselves up by their bootstraps, Rosalie’s infertility is forever.

Rosalie’s empathy is strongest when she’s able to project onto others, and she won’t be able to project onto the less fortunate at all.

Then there’s the fact that the Republican party is all about traditional family values, and pro-life.

Rosalie, a woman from the 1930′s who idolizes her human life and who‘d love nothing more than to get to live out this fantasy, is down for that. And as of Breaking Dawn she’s vocally pro-life, so there’s that.

This all being said I don’t think Rosalie cares to sit down and fully understand these politics she’s voting for, the possible impact they’ll have- that’s not important. What’s important is what voting does for her.

TL;DR: I bet anon regrets asking.

#long post #twilight #twilight vampires #twilight meta #twilight renaissance #politics #history #twilight history #carlisle cullen #alice cullen #bella swan #renesmée cullen #jasper hale #rosalie hale #emmett cullen

316 notes · View notes

noahstayed · 3 years

Note

Sorry if you've already answered these questions but I still want to ask them so...

1) Are you going to make another book after Earthshine?

(If the answer is yes; (and you don't have to answer this one,) Are you going to do a time skip or will you go the 'the condom broke'?)

2) Will Edward have a mate (If yes; will you create an OC or simply pluck a character from the twilight saga archives are revamp them?)

3) If you do make a version of Breaking Dawn, will it have the same premise (Ie. Wedding, Honeymoon, (I typed hUMANmoon and then corrected it, don't know why my fingers went there.) surprise pregnancy (or not? Because Carlisle is a DOCTOR) turning, then the Volturi going all "We must kill the child!"?)

4) With regards to question three, in the (honestly, and sadly, unlikely) ( completely forgot what word I was going to type, and It as too much trouble to type that so I'm just going to use another word that won't flow as well) situation (I'm so unhappy with this word, my stomach is turning something fierce, man.) that you DO go the standard "with the other book as a very, very, loose guideline) Would you go the route of OYH or would make an entirely new plot?

Also, if you do go with the same general outline, (which is unlikely since Irina isn't with Laurant in newmoon but with Charlie, so there's no bitter feelings and she won't immediately go to the kings before she's heard Carlisle's explanation.) How would you make that work?

5) I know you said that if you do make a fourth book you would just use the dhampire from OYH, Elisha, does that still reign true? Or are you planning to make a new character entirely?

6) If you do make a fourth, and go the OYH route, would you still make Elisha Emse's mate, like in OYH? Or will you go with Garette?

7) Also, since you have previously made an ff about Garette and Bella having a brother-sister type friendship would we see that and get to see Garette claim her as his sister and charlie as his father, and everyone goes along with it? (Honestly, I REALLY want this to happen, especially since I've spent the last hour scrolling through your tumbler and stumbled upon the 'I'm older than my father' post.)

8) Really, all these questions border on the main one of "is there going to be a breaking dawn/part 4-5 (depending) in your rewrite?" but if you do, would Carlisle buy Isle Bella as a honeymoon present of would that be in the oneshots book (that you'll hopefully be writing after this is over) as like a "Have fifteenth anniversary" thing?

9) Are you going to write a book full of random one-shots you couldn't fit into your story? I REALLY HOPE SO.

enthusiastically hope so. :) (that's really a tense smile with eyes SHINING with hope. Just informing you that you'll be crushing my heart. Brutally. With a stake. No pressure :) )

10) If you don't write the fourth book will we get an epilogue with the wedding five years later? Like, with Bella being SUPER nervous?

And finally, 11) (I really want a war to showcase Bella's awesome vampire powers (because you've stated (in a previous Tumblr post) that you'd give Bella her BAMF!Bella OYH powers)) So if there's a part four, even though the Volturi is "lawful" and like, has a brain, in your series, can they like have a brain fart where they go. "He's making an army," Or just straight up CANNON!Aro with his need for power be like "It's an immortal child, and it needs to be destroyed." But really be thinking, "They're growing too large, already their numbers rival our own, they must be put down! This is the perfect time!" Like the (cowardly) power-hungry and villainess we all know and love. Kinda.

I have other questions but those can really wait lol.

I basically want breaking dawn and the third (Do you count Charlie's book as part of Bella's story or as a stand-alone since you weren't really progressing the plot very much (also a very good way to have a time skip in your main)?) isn't even done yet.

I don't know if you can tell, but I've been reading this series for three days straight (new fan!) and just started your OYH series and I'm just filled with a desire right now. Like, I typically hate sex scenes in a twilight book (but that's because I was a child when these movies came out (saw them all in theatre!) and still was when I read the books, so Bella is SACRED lol, and It just makes me uncomfortable to imagine her in those positions (it's like a trauma okay?) but I really enjoyed your stories (even if I basically glossed over your sex scenes and read through them quickly) and could actually sit through your sex scenes (mostly, because it wasn't INTENSE! Like, a lot of rewrites turn breaking dawn into literal Porn and sully the books for me because they basically remove a lot of plot to make room for Bella's sudden appetite, and while, yes, you gave her an appetite and... I am just really enjoying your stories and how you write so Thank You.

Okay, I've let you know your appreciated and put out my question into the tumblr universe so now I just have to wait for you to see this and maybe respond.

I hate waiting.

I haven't gotten an ask in a while and AJKHFJKHD Listen!! THE FACE I MADE AT HOW LONG THIS IS??? Superb!! I'm honored you've taken the time to write this all out so I'm gonna try to answer you as best as I can!!

Right now I'm 100% sure that there will be a couple of Novellas/Novelettes directly after Earthshine. The Renee Story, the Charlie Story, and the Roommate Story which all will get maybe 40k and mini plots that are far more focused than Charlie's first story. Charlie's new story will be focused on his relationship with Carlisle too, so that should be fun!

Edward having a Mate is still up in the air at the moment. Since he is still very young, I don't see the need to really give him someone so quick when other characters have waited WAAAY longer. As for who it might be, that's also still up in the air in case I want to do a short story with him that's a part of a series of Novellas after the main books

If I do make a BD rewrite IT WILL have wedding/honeymoon/surprise pregnancy then it will PRETTY MUCH go off the rails from there because the Pregnancy will be VASTLY different. Carlisle is a Doctor and Bella isn't an idiot. They won't be in Washington either.

Again. The first half will be loosely based on the book and then just go completely off the rails because, Like you said, the Volturi have brains and I LOATHE an 'idiot' plot where people are required to suddenly become stupid for the story to work. As for the OYH route, I will be borrowing a couple elements from OYH but the conflict will be very different.

Elisha is baby and there's no way I could make another Dhampir at this point. Not with how much I love him.

The aging process will work differently in this fic for Dhampirs, so this question is irrelevant since Elisha will be a child for the entire fourth book. As for when he's older, Its still up in the air for this series. He deserves to be baby and I very much dislike the trope of age faster = mentally develop faster because that's BS.

We'll see, I love Bella and Garrett, but there's A LOT I'll have to cram into the last book so we'll just see.

As much as I'd love to answer this, I'm covering the honeymoon in the fourth book so you'll see what happens in there ; )

I HAVE PLANS for random one shots. I REALLY DO. I just has so little time to work on the main story so I might write some when Earthshine is done! I have a name for the one-shot collection already too and some Ideas!

I very much plan to write the fourth book you'll be fine. Bella will not be nervous, she'll be WAY more anxious about it going right. Mostly her nerves will be from anticipation and excitement because she'll be 23 and be very secure in her forever with Carlisle.

There will be a fight in book four that will not have the Volturi turning stupid. Don't worry about how.

Charlies little story is a Novella so I don't count it as a book.... GOD hearing you plowed through the series in so short a time is MIND boggling. I get people telling me this occasionally and I NEVER stop being amazed by it!

As for the sex scenes, yeah, I didn't want this to be erotic literature. I frequently scream that 'THIS ISN'T A SMUT BOOK' because them having sex is just a normal healthy thing that happens in relationships and wanted to show that. The sex scenes I write tend to be glossed over anyways so I'm glad it was readable for you. I get feeling frustrated and wanting more plot, but there are plenty of people who prefer the very explicit smut.

If sex scenes aren't your cup of tea, that's fine. I don't view Bella as pure and innocent though. It teeters dangerously on the Madonna/Whore dichotomy to act like she is. I get wanting to preserve the innocence of your childhood through her. That's not me though. Bella/Carlisle's relationship is highly sexual in nature within SoG and that's ALRIGHT too!

Thanks for the super long ask!!! it was great to read and fun to respond to!

#asked and answered #acadiatclements #long post #Sound of Grey Series #SoG #NoahStayed Writes #Bella x Carlisle #Carlisle x Bella #Bellisle

10 notes · View notes

famous-aces · 5 years

Text

Alfredo Guttero

Who: Alfredo Guttero

What: Artist and Art Promoter

Where: Argentinian (active in Argentina and throughout Western Europe)

When: May 26, 1882 - December 1, 1932

(Image Description: Retrato del pintor, Victorica, 1929 [a self portrait]. It shows Guttero in his apartment. Outside is a very geometric skyline of smokestacks, steep roofs, and a brown sky. His room is slate colored and he sits in a chair in the foreground. He has a jacket thrown over the back of his chair. His pose is casual and he looks as if we [the viewer] have just distracted him from painting. He sits with his legs to one side, turned almost unnaturally toward the viewer. One leg is lifted slightly and one hand is on the chair's seat as if he is in the middle of turning completely to the viewer. He is a man with a receding hairline and a high forehead. He has a dark mustache and dark hair and low eyebrows. He is wearing a white shirt and bowtie and has his sleeves rolled up to the elbow and his collar is ruffled and loosened. The whole thing hangs very loose but you can still see some of his body's lines of musculature. His tie undone and hanging around his neck. His pants are ordinary and green/brown. His expression is calm but confident and he looks directly at the viewer. The colors are bold but not really bright. The style blends geometry and flatness and realism in a way I am explaining very poorly. End ID)

Guttero is not terribly well remembered today, which is too bad. Looking through his oeuvre I quite like his work. Maybe it is because he lacked the bombastic personality of many modernist artists, maybe it is due to his diversity of styles without one that seems to define his work, or maybe it is because he was one of so many talented artists of his generation. He was well renown in his era, however, and used his popularity and skill to foster the next generation of Argentinian artists.

Guttero's life began mundanely enough. He always loved art, appreciating it and creating it, but pursued a legal career instead. But he was unhappy with his life as a lawyer, so Guttero left it to become a painter. He pursued his dream and passion, inspired and pushed by other Argentine artists. In 1904 his reputation was good enough that the Argentinian government sponsored his move to Paris, then the epicenter of the truly exciting and revolutionary art world, its influence expanding outward. He studied there for a few years under Maurice Denis before appearing in the Salon.

He remained in Paris until 1916 when he began to travel extensively across Western Europe for more than a decade, first to Spain, then Germany, Austria, and beyond. He traveled to nearly every country in the area between the years of 1916 and 1927. His work was shown in various exhibitions around the continent from being featured in the Salon in Paris to a major solo exhibition in Genoa.

After that he returned to Argentina for the first time since his initial departure in 1904. Guttero remained active in his native country including creating free art classes called, aptly enough, Cursos Libres de Arte Plástico, with other Argentine artists. During this time he focused on his work as an art promotor, perhaps even more than his own art. During this time he introduced and showed new Argentinian artists to a wider audience. Indeed he created an organization for this purpose: the Hall of Modern Painters. He was dedicated to promoting and preserving modern art in the face of a world growing increasingly dark and reactionary. He died young and without much warning.

His art is undeniably modernist but trickier to pin to a specific movement. He has many different styles he utilizes with different degrees of naturalism and curves vs geometry. His scenes are by and large mundane and human, he uses bright colors, often huge central subjects, kinetic poses and positions, modern settings, and by and large human or urban subjects. He often painted on plaster using a "cooked plaster" technique of his own devising.

(Image Description: Martigues for Charles Jacques [1909], a brightly colored painting showing a scene in a Martigues canal. It is not completely realistic nor completely geometric and abstract. He favors color over outlines. In the background is a bright blue sky interrupted by yellow buildings with tile roofs, maybe houses, lit by the unseen sun. One of the building's lower doors is open. There is a small tree to the far right. In the foreground in the sparkling water of the canal are several small work boats, probably fishing boats judging by the silvery nets lying over the hulls. On the right a boat is coming in, there is a pale skinned, dark haired man working on one of the nets. His sail is red and white. On the left is a pale man in an orange hat and yellow shirt. He is stooped and just by his pose appears older, both of the men are too far away for many identifying details. End ID)

Possible Orientation: Mspec ace, gay ace, or aroace with an aesthetic attraction to multiple genders. (I am so unsure I have changed "probable" to "possible.")

I admit this one is a stretch on my part.

I am classifying Guttero based largely on absence, i.e. the absence of a remembered/recorded spouse, sexual/romantic partner, or liasian. I have no quotes or historical documents to prove my point. I have none of his personal philosophy or writings to draw from. Just the fact that he dedicated his life to art more than human relationshipa. That this is something I have seen before: Cause and its role in the life of many aros/aces/aroaces (outlined in Weil's entry the other day) and the fact that he had no recorded romantic/sexual partners that I can find in hours of research.

This illustrates why it is so, so difficult to find aspecs in history. We are not, as aphobes believe, impossible to locate, there is externally visible evidence, but it is less obvious than most other orientations. And cishets would rather we didn't exist so we are often buried under excuses. The easiest ways to find them are 1) if they were notably "married to their job" in their lifetimes (e.g. Jeanette Rankin and Carter Woodson), they talked/wrote about it in some capacity (e.g. T.E. Lawrence or Frédéric Chopin), they were distrusted because of it (John Ruskin and James Barrie), they made it part of their persona (Nikola Tesla and Florence Nightingale), aside from that I really need to search deep into their personal lives. Information not always available.

And often even when people essentially say "I am aromantic and/or asexual" the general population will not accept that. After all Newton is often remembered as allo and gay, despite never expressing interest in men. Chopin is often listed as allo and bi. Rankin is often considered cishet but too deeply concerned with her work. Barrie gets called a pedophile despite showing no interest in children. For eccentric aspecs like Weil/Tesla/etc. their being aspec becomes part of their oddness. If they weren't Like That they would be allo. Their being aspec becomes a symptom of their weirdness and would be unacceptable in a "normal" person.

History with a capital H does not want to acknowledge aspecs and, as with other queer identities, will go to insane measures to erase them. But even other queer historians will do this to aspecs. I am shocked how many people do exactly to Newton/Lewis/and the like what cishet historians do to Alexander the Great. In the case of Alexander the cishets ignore the obvious accounts that he loved Hephestian in nearly every way possible and queer historians and history buffs call them out, then often the non-aspec ones look at Newton and Lewis who had no interest in men and say they must have been gay. And it isn't really just history, Tim Gunn is by his own admission both gay and ace and the second part of that statement is either erased or, even crazier, I have seen aphobes say that he is mistaken about his own identity.

Anyway the root cause of this lack of nuance in the discussion of sexual orientation is a long sidebar that this is not the place to explore. I have left Guttero behind paragraphs ago. I have written a lot about how aces and aros end up getting erased from history and this isn't about that.

This is about Guttero and the difficulty of finding aros and aces. The presence of something is so much easier to find than the alternative, obviously, like if Historical Figure X exclusively slept with/courted men and was a man we can say he was (most likely) gay. But if Historical Figure Y didn't sleep with anyone/court anyone it is harder to prove. This is obviously severely simplifying identity but for the purposes of this example I beg your apology.

Long Story Short: the absence of evidence of something is not proof of the absence of something. A lot of aphobes will point this out and utterly ignore the fact that sometimes it is.

So, Guttero. The only thing I can say conclusively is that he never married and he was romantically or sexually tied to anyone as far as I can find. He was, in his time, very active in the art world. If he had been involved someone would probably have taken note. Especially considering his art is often very appreciative of the human form, especially the male one, it would not be hard to believe he was allo and gay or mspec.

I am going to take his art another way putting some dusty analysis/critique/art history skills to good use. Here's the thing, those who follow me on my personal blog or even here know I find the Death of the Author extremely important but it is also extremely complicated (it was actually the topic of my senior thesis). I don't want to use an artist's work to talk about their personal lives because art is often not reflective of life, but there is always some cross contamination in one way or another. I am going to explain what I mean on a superficial level, using myself as an example so I can say this is 100% accurate. I love the found family trope, and I think those relationships are the best in the world. So whenever I write something you can be damned sure if I can get some found family goodness in there I will. What I am saying is, I don't love or even approve of everything I write about, but I do write about some things because I love them and want to explore them and experience them on some level. The same may be true for Guttero and the subjects he painted.

Guttero often pays a lot of attention to human form. Look at his work The Market (I couldn't find a large enough image to put it in this post) and you will see his appreciation for amab musculature and on the other side of the male spectrum...

(image description: Retrato de Lucien Cavarry [1911] It shows a thin, lanky, and well dressed young man reclining on a green floral patterned couch and a black pillow. He is pale with neat, dark hair. He has a shadow of 5 o'clock shadow on his super hero jaw. His suit is white, his slightly rumpled tie is black, as are his socks and polished shoes. One arm is across the back of the couch and a red and gold pillow the other is dangling. This style is very different from the other portraits I showed/referenced. Still a modern but more realistic style, more flowing, less geometric. The man is drop dead gorgeous by Western beauty standards. End ID)

As for women...he seems to find them colder, more distant, but there is still a physical appreciation there. (Linking Mujeres Indolentes so I don't get flagged for "female presenting nipples" or whatever Tumblr's BS is. [The name alone tells you a lot]). Or the somewhat judgemental gaze of the woman below:

(Image Description: Georgelina. It shows a portrait of a pretty young woman sitting in front of a field. She is pale and long and beautiful. She has red hair, sharp eyes, a long flowing white dress with a gold sash around her waist, and a white hat with a black bow that is blowing in the wind. She takes up most of the frame and her expression is challenging and she holds eye contact with the viewer. The colors are bright and she is almost porciline in color. The background is mostly flat planes of color. In style it is somewhere between the self portrait and the portrait of Cavarry. End ID.)

Not all of his portraits of women have them so sour/distant but they all have a sort of challenging look. Beauty tinged with something dangerous, while the men always seem more innocent.

So here is why I say aspec rather than allo using his work alone, none of his work is particularly sexually inviting even with the sexiness/physical European attractiveness. The men are bashful or unaware of the viewer, the women are certainly not interested.

And back to the self portrait at the top: Guttero is in a fairly sexy pose, but it is sexy without being sexual. He is rumpled but the thing he was doing was painting, there is a sexless explanation. He is looking at the viewer, but you are distracting him from working. At first glance I thought his legs were spread, but they are simply in motion so he can face his guest more comfortably. This all could mean nothing, but I found it striking that this is how he chose to depict himself, at first he appears to be inviting the viewer in for a more physical interaction, but then it seems he is doing exactly the opposite, his passionate energy has been instead put into painting.

And in reality toward the end of his life that was what he did. He dedicated himself to his own art and the art of others.

So again, this could mean nothing. But...it could mean he is aspec.

And that is how the person I am least sure about got the longest entry.

(image description: Elevadores [1928]. A painting showing a factory complex. There is a raised platform running around it and several buildings in bright colors. There is a tree to the right side and a green hill. The building in the near-center [lightly left] is red. The sky is yellow and blue, perhaps the unseen sun is rising up behind the right-hand buildings. In style it is mostly geometric and flat color. End ID.)

#queer #lgbtq #asexual #ace #history #aromantic #aro #gay #mspec #20th century #artists #south america #Argentina #Argentinian #Alfredo Guttero

15 notes · View notes

ittybittytatertot · 5 years

Note

Besides Kaldur, what other characters -- don't even have to be members of the Team or Dick's outsiders or the JL, just anyone on the show -- do you think are LGBT+? Do you genuinely think Rita Farr and Marie Logan were together? (Crossing my fingers!) What about the villains, like Count Vertigo, Vandal Savage -- being over 50,000 years old is bound to introduce you to some new things -- and Queen Bee? Sorry if this is too broad of an ask, but I'd love your two cents on the subject.

Besides Kaldur, what other characters do you think are LGBT+?

To start, obviously Batwoman.

Anissa, though she’s like 8 and we probably won’t see her again this season so it won’t get confirmed.

Probably Traci 13 (but I could also see them pushing the Jaime/Traci relationship).

Halo (I mean the rainbows, c’mon) is a lesbian.

Brion is possibly gay.

If asked under a truth serum or something, I think Greg would say Artemis and Conner are bi.

Bart is gay. I don’t ship Bluepulse and IMHO I can’t see it ever being canon, but Bart’s still gay.

M’gann is a pansexual trans woman. Greg’s pretty much confirmed she’s attracted to people regardless of gender, and I’ve talked a lot before on her trans coding.

Raquel is wlw. Maybe I’m projecting, but she’s the only girl on the main team who didn’t kiss a boy on the lips on New Year’s, the boy she kissed just so happened to be definitely-mlm Kaldur, and she got married but the gender of her betrothed is never stated. And that’s gay culture.

IF they were going to make a (human) trans character canon, I think it would be Cissie, but that might be me projecting again.

Greg probably doesn’t know what an agender person is, but if he did, Conner would definitely be one.

Dick, Roy, Wally, Donna, Dinah, Zatanna, Barbara, Garfield, etc. would never be allowed to be queer (though we have slightly more of a chance with WillRoy since technically he isn’t the “real” Roy) even though all of them definitely are.

Do you genuinely think Rita Farr and Marie Logan were together?

I wasn’t the one who came up with that headcanon but I really like it, and the real-real answer is: If Rita Farr never shows up again we can assume she and Marie dated. If Rita Farr becomes important in the show she will be shown as straight.

What about the villains, like Count Vertigo, Vandal Savage – being over 50,000 years old is bound to introduce you to some new things – and Queen Bee?

Verty and Vandy are so super ridiculously het, but Vandal’s daughter, Scandal, is a lesbian, and I think she’ll appear this season since she’s dated (in the comics) a former fury from Apokolips. I still love my Raquel/Scandal theory tho, and I will never stop gloating if it comes true.

Queen Bee is a homophobe who most of the time forgets she can even use her powers on women, and then when she does, she kills them. But I also do not think she’s asexual and/or aromantic as I’ve seen others headcanon. There’s no need to villainize aro/ace ppl like that.

If any villain is ace it’s Klarion TBH

It’s comics canon that The Brain is gay and Monsieur Mallah is his lover so do with that what you will.

As much as I think he’s a creep, Lex is definitely mlm with a shit ton of internalized homophobia. No piece of official DC media will ever discuss this outright but it’s true.

There are some gay Milestone villains (one specifically coming to mind is a speedster named Blitzen), so keep that in mind if we see any of them.

Killer Frost and Tuppence Terror are probably lesbians and probably have dated.

I don’t want to see a trans villain. It would feel like such a slap in the face. I think maybe they could do an LGB villain okay, but I have 0 faith in a cis person writing a trans villain and not being offensive about it.

Sorry if this is too broad of an ask, but I’d love your two cents on the subject.

No apologies necessary! I love getting to talk about Young Justice especially queer!Young Justice. Of course, this is by no means a comprehensive list of all my headcanons, it’s just what I think is/could become actual show canon.

#young justice #young justice outsiders #lgbt headcanons #queer headcanons #anonymous

79 notes · View notes

aroworlds · 6 years

Note

Could you talk a bit about amatonormativity and how it related to you? I know the 101 (aka the definition), but I have trouble identifying it in real life, discussing how it permeates in fiction, etc. and this is kinda weird but I think an informed discussion about it would help? IDK feel free to ignore it if you don't have the spoons for it, but if you want to it would be a huge help!

Anon, I told you this was going to be long, but … well, it’s long!

The problem is that amatonormativity is a wall I keep hurling myself against, as an aro and as an aro creative, and there isn’t much conversational space where I am permitted to go all out in talking about it. I fear discussing this with too much vehemence, to go beyond the hand-holding 101 conversations about being aro, in case I alienate the alloromantic folks who do support me. Alloromantic people aren’t interested in conversations that undermine their sense of the world, and aro-spec spaces are small; both things together result in silence.

Because of this, I think it’s reasonable that this is something hard to grasp, for aro-spec and alloromantic folks alike: the educative conversations are hard to find or don’t exist. When you add to the fact that for the last two years a-spec people have been fighting targeted hate, that our conversations have fallen back to claws-out defence or the shield of validation, how the hell are we supposed to understand our own experiences, especially something as-yet-unquestioned as the practical impact of amatonormativity?

I hope you don’t mind, but because this is so long, I’m going to concentrate on amatonormativity in media and its impact on me as a creative.

In terms of fictional media, I think amatonormativity shows itself most obviously in the concept of a happy ending–that two people in a romantic relationship is by far the most common variant. No, not all stories end witha romantic happy ending, but so many do, even if it’s only a romantically-happy-for-now ending. Think Disney films; think action films shoving in an unnecessary romantic side-plot because the hero gets the girl once the explosions are over; think every story where the guy got the girl for reasons we the audience are expected to accept without question.

Likewise, a film with a tragic or unhappy ending is often shown by a protagonist not falling in romantic love or the dissolution of a romantic relationship. While there are other forms of indicating tragedy, the lack of a romantic paring for a character expected to be in one is common. There’s a reason Romeo and Juliet has long been framed as a tragic romance even though the tragedy, I’d argue, lies more in the impact of feuding families on the next generation, not the death of two young people in a “star-crossed” romance.

Even genres that aren’t romantic in the sense that romance isn’t the focus of the plot will still include sexual and romantic tension between characters: many of the crime and thriller novels I’ve read, supposedly less romantic because they target a cishet male audience, devote a great many pages to depicting romantic relationships nonetheless. The majority of YA novels depict the development of romantic relationships (which is why I kept reading middle-grade books even when I was too old for them) and even low-romance adult fiction still has the protagonists having had or desiring a romantic relationship at some point. So many literary works deal with the breakdown of romantic relationships, affairs, being single, unrequited love, or the way dangerous or alien environments, or the tyranny of distance, places stresses on romantic partnerships. These often won’t have purely happy endings–often tragic or complicated–because they’re Literary, but they’re just as obsessed with romantic love as any romance novel. In constantly going on about romance’s failure without ever making the point that someone can be happy and self-fulfilled without it, literary works are as amatonormative as anything else.

Romantic love and relationships don’t have to be successful: we just have to show a character desiring these or struggling with these, just so the audience knows that the protagonist is human. Characters who are shown as disdaining romance, or being uninterested in it, are usually antagonistic characters who are beyond redemption, are aliens or robots, or are coded as robotic–characters who are literally inhuman or portrayed as such. There’s a reason that The Big Bang Theory’s Sheldon Cooper becomes a kinder, more “normal”, less-autistic-coded man the more he falls in romantic love with Amy, despite being introduced as extremely aroace-coded, and it’s called amatonormativity.

This is the point in the post where we aro-specs are giving the world that long, pained stare, and for good reason.

Romantic love as a marker of human worth is the most succinct way I can describe the impact of amatonormativity. It’s not a flawless summary, but so often romance is treated as a universal concept, relevant to all, because Western society uses the possession of or desire for romantic love as an indicator of a person’s humanity. Romantic love makes us human, and so romantic love is everywhere, unquestioned and unassailable.

Elements of a more expanded sense of amatonormativity include:

- The idea that romantic attraction, love and relationships are universal to the human experience (predominantly a relationship encompassing, exclusively, one perisex heterosexual-and-heteromantic cis man and one perisex heterosexual-and-heteromanticcis woman).

- The idea that romantic love is the primary form of love and all other forms, once one gains a certain level of socially-acceptable maturity or adulthood, are naturally secondary.

- The idea that romantic love and relationships are relatable to and attainable by all, and any failure to relate to it or attain it is a personal or moral failing.

- The idea that people who do not experience, attain or desire a romantic partnership are, after a certain age, childish or childlike, immature, robotic, alien, inhuman.

- The idea that sex (especially non-heterosexual or non-vanilla sex) is only acceptable, for a person of high moral character, when it comes paired with romantic love. (Characters who have sex without romantic love are often coded as grasping, hateful, calculating, predatory.)

- The idea that the attainment of romantic love and relationships is a marker of character development, growth, adulthood or redemption.

- The idea that because romantic love and relationships are universal, to not depict them in media is to render one’s work childish or uninteresting. (Every aro-spec creator of narrative media knows the impact of this one.)

- The idea that the lack of romantic love or relationships, or the desire for these, is an indicator of a person of low moral character.

- The unquestioned idea that romance sells, accompanied with the assumption that the inclusion of romance in a work (or the story-arc of a protagonist) is a necessary part of making that work (or character) appealing to all audiences.

- No comprehension that romantic attraction can be felt and experienced in a diversity of ways and strengths, particularly with regards to fluctuation, intensity and circumstance.

- Very little comprehension of the difference between romantic attraction and romantic behaviours.

- An assumption that there is a certain set of behaviours that are only or best experienced with romantic attraction. (Engaging in these behaviours without romantic attraction is also often coded as predatory.)

Please note that all these discussions of romance are based on an alloromantic model: romance in and of itself is not inherently amatonormative. Aro-spec people’s experiences of romantic love and relationships do not fit the above because they do not and cannot assume that everyone fits this assumption of romantic attraction being a universal, unquestioned human. If your depiction of romance doesn’t assume that romance makes us a worthy human and everyone experiences it, it’s probably not amatonormative.

There’s heavy overlap with ableism, misogyny, heterosexism, whoremisia, etc, and this must be acknowledged. Amatonormativity hits hard on its own, but it seldom hits alone. More often it’s paired up with another form of oppression, which means people who better fit its norms can deny its existence by claiming the problem is due only to amatonormativity’s current partner.

Additionally, most mainstream amatonormative works are going to be about cishet romances (the romantic relationship between a cis heterosexual man and a cis heterosexual woman, presumed to be perisex and both alloromantic and allosexual). Women are far more subject to the need to be shown in romantic relationships than men; men are more often allowed to travel through the narrative without being subject to a romance, although most are shown as at least desiring it. Each experience of marginalisation is going to shape in different ways how amatonormativity impacts us, and this needs to be discussed (especially because if we don’t, antagonists deny the existence of amatonormativity altogether).

(I will say that amatonormativity and misogyny have a strange relationship in that excessive romance is treated as feminine and emotional, and denigrated because of it. We all know how literature is valued and respected over fanworks and genre romance. Cishet men, meanwhile, have a long history of treating the having of a romantic partner as a trap–phrases like “ball and chain” with regards to a wife, for example. Despite this, there’s still an unquestioned social expectation that men experience romance attraction and have, will have or want a romantic partner.)

I’ll use my experience as a trans aro to give an example of this kind of overlap.

Amatonormativity in LGBTQIA+ media is coloured by the fact that LGBTQIA+ folks have been denied romantically-happy-endings until recently; the rise of fandom and LGBTQIA+ genre media has done much to change this. Yet both are, predominantly, romance narratives, to the extent that there is little space for anything else. This history leaves me in an awkward position. The need for love stories featuring trans characters and trans bodies as worthy of romantic interest and desire is profound. In a world where romantic love is seen as the only kind of love worth talking about, powerful and primary, it’s natural many trans/NB stories are about just that.

I feel like I’m walking on thin ice if I talk about how depicting romance as the only acceptable trans happy ending defines my experience of gender by romantic experiences--and yet that is exactly what I feel. Furthermore, this is a narrative many alloromantic trans people need and deserve. In trying to tell stories about me, an aro trans person, who isn’t a target of romantic love, my stories are seen by alloromantic trans folks as mirroring the narratives that have long harmed trans people, treating us as unlovable. My work cannot provide the validation–that they are desired and loved romantically–alloromantic trans folks are looking for.

The amatonormativity isn’t in the existence of trans romance stories, but the fact there are fewer publishing options, and smaller audiences, for non-romantic/aromantic/gen stories about trans love and identity. The amatonormativity lies in the fact that romantic love for trans characters is the love on which trans genre media centres.

As a reader, I need stories that talk about different kinds of love, love for myself and my own body, a radical self-acceptance that isn’t tied to someone else’s romantic interest in me. Instead, I get stories telling me that I am accepted, as a trans person, if my identity is tied up in experiences I don’t have and don’t desire.

The intersection of amatonormativity and cissexism results in its own peculiar oppression for me as a trans aro, one that I find impossible to navigate in a world where it isn’t understood that romance doesn’t have to be the primary form of expressing love and acceptance for trans characters and even trans bodies. I’ve seen so many posts on my dash about people proclaiming a want for trans storytelling while getting no benefit from this movement because I’m writing about aro trans characters. That’s more than a little disheartening.

This kind of intersection does a lot of damage to aro-spec creators who are otherwise marginalised (so many marginalised experiences come with a heavy dose of we are lovable, our love is important, we deserve the right for our love to be accepted and protected and acknowledged, much of this conversation centred on romantic love) but just being an aro-spec creator who creates aro-spec narrative media comes with an inherent disadvantage that is difficult to surmount.

I’ve got some numbers for this disadvantage, actually. My latest work, The Wind and the Stars, has had fifty downloads in its first month, and I’m actually excited by that, because everything else I’ve posted with the tag “aromantic” has gotten approximately twenty downloads in their first months. A couple of works didn’t break the fifty mark until three or four months in! By contrast, with the same amount of promotion but published under a brand new name with no back catalogue to help (unlike my other works), my explicitly queer paranormal romance story got three hundred downloads in its first month. How am I supposed to provide representation for my community when I don’t have enough interest in my work to justify the work of its production?

The tag aromantic helps guide aro-spec readers, but it actively discourages most alloromantic readers (who exist in far greater number) from reading, and most of them won’t have any comprehension of why. They just see romance as normal and interesting, and anything that subverts this, be it specifically aromantic or just gen, undermines this worldview. It happens so subconsciously it’s near impossible to challenge.

In a way, one of the most damaging aspects of amatonormativity is its lack of recognition. Most people have some understanding, now, on what misogyny is and what harm it might cause, even if one disagrees with it or has a 101 understanding at best. There’s a social model for beginning to understand this. Amatonormativity, on the other hand, has no such basis. It’s so unquestioned that few people who aren’t aro-spec recognise it or need to, and it’s often seen as a lesser problem. As someone who is struggling as a creator because of amatonormativity, to the extent that I don’t know how I can possibly survive as a writer, it angers me to see this treated as less important than other forms of normativity. No, nobody will beat me up on the street as an aro, but if I can’t keep a roof over my head because only a small number of people are reading my free books and I have no belief they’ll buy my next book, how does this distinction matter?

Amatonormativity silences, erases and oppresses aro-spec people. It substantially disadvantages us in how we are seen by others and how we interact with the world around us. And almost nobody outside aro-spec spaces wants to acknowledge it.

Sorry for the rant at the end there, anon. Does this give you some idea on how amatonormativity is demonstrated through media and how it impacts aro-spec creatives?

#anon #ask #text #amatonormativity #amatonormativity in creativity #I will essay at you #long post #very long post #extremely long post #mod k.a.#romance mention #discussion post #romance discussion #creativity discussion posts #aromanticism and intersectionality #not media #support our aro spec creatives if you can

112 notes · View notes

lil-kitten666 · 2 years

Text

Well now 2 of my friends have crushes on me....technically 3 xD. 3rd one is more mutual but I don't like their current SO otherwise we'd probably try to be poly with each other.

Anywayyyyy...as a aromantic this is always fun. One of them I kind of like but he's young and not mature enough for me...but my feelings for him have gotten stronger over the years we've known each other and damn he's really hot. The other one...I found about this awhile ago from a mutual friend of ours. I kept it to myself tho cause, I shouldn't have found out in the first place it wasn't that friends right to tell me, and two I didn't want to confront it. But I have no choice now cause this friend has openly confessed his attraction to me....I don't know if we'd make a decent couple or anything other than friends. A lot of people like me, say they're fine with me being aro even after I explain it, and then they actually experience it and it's a different story. Or I get upset and my emotions are big due to me being autistic and it's too much for them to handle. Plus the deep fear I have with being trans that I won't be seen as a man especially after sex.....the last one is from some personal trauma and with this friend I'm less concerned about that. It's more the romance stuff, well lack there of, that would have me worried.

There's more complicated stuff, like he lives in a really fucked up situation and I don't want him to confuse feelings for me and getting attached to me just cause I'm trying to help him get the courage to get out and try and make his life better. And just because I'm showing him basic kindness and getting him outside more and that's why he's falling for me.

I also don't think I have feelings like that for him. But who knows cause I'm fucking aromantic so romance doesn't exist for me. If I'm comfy with you, think you're funny, and hot, and wanna fuck, that's about all I need. And I'm 2.5/4 with him.

I'm trying not to over think it either cause if I do I could end up making myself believe I have feelings or that I should just give it a chance. I wish I had other Aromantic friends to talk to...I also just think straight up I'm in a very anti-romance head space right now. I got too attached in my last relationship and due to timing of other stuff going on and when it was ended my emotions were really big and exploded when they did it.

*sigh* (throws self into bed)

0 notes

machinamuros · 6 years

Note

Can I be biromantic ace and still be LGBT (I'm agender) I legitimately had no idea so many people thought aces were stupid and I feel really bad now and I'm not sure who else to ask? I just don't want to do anything stupid I'm really sorry

My answer is below the cut :)

To be honest I’m pretty weary answering this because I have no idea who you are, I’m pretty sure you don’t follow me, so I’m not sure why you’ve come to me specifically tbh. I mean….. I’m happy to try and give you a frame of reference. But I literally have less than 50 followers and use this blog pretty much only to reblog content. I’m not sure why you’ve come to me specifically I guess? But here we go, feel free to ask for any clarification:

To be LGBT, you have to be same gender attracted (L, G, B) and/or you have to be gender diverse (T: transgender or non-binary).

Asexuality describes the presence or lack of sexual attraction. That’s it. It doesn’t describe who you are attracted to. Because this has nothing to do with your gender identity, nor how your attraction is….. directed I guess. It has nothing to do with being LGBT. This is the same with aromanticism (it describes the presence or lack of romantic attraction).

To further elaborate on this using the split attraction model:

A person can be cisgender heteroromantic asexual (a cishet ace)

A person can be cisgender heterosexual aromantic (a cishet aro)

A person can be cisgender hom*romantic asexual (a cis gay ace)

A person can be cisgender hom*sexual aromantic (a cis gay aro)

A person can be transgender heteroromantic asexual (a trans straight ace)

et cetera.

Please bear in mind that the split attraction model is ONLY relevant when discussing asexuality/aromantic preference like above.

You have to understand that being LGBT and being ace are totally separate things. The LGBT community is one that specifically exists to combat homophobia and transphobia in society (something that all same gender attracted people and trans people face to some extent). You can be LGBT and ace at the same time! But being ace does not make you LGBT unless you are L, G, B, and/or T.

Being ace is fine – the reason it’s so commonly mocked is because a lot of people who are cisgender and heterosexual (i.e. not same gender attracted and not gender diverse i.e. not lgbt) have spent Years spreading misinformation and fearmongering and appropriating LGBT spaces and resouces and using is as a thinly veiled disguise to their homophobia.

This is a wide-spread phenomenon both online and in irl LGBT spaces. I’ve been to two universities in my life, and both LGBT spaces have had aro/ace people who are cishet come in and derail a lot of personal conversations among gay people to openly talk abt how nasty it all is. Once, a girl threw a literal fit because two boyfriends were holding hands and snuggled on the couch – IN THE LGBT SPACE – between classes. This is not OK.

A lot of LGBT people I know (especially lesbians) get swept up into this discourse at a young age and it is hugely detrimental to us. I’d recommend checking out @hate2breakittoya because there is a lot of active conversation happening there and resources that you may find helpful as to why people are talking about this. One tag of hers in particular that is really telling is her “mogai hell denial” tag which shows the magnitude of people impacted by this awful dicsourse. I’m happy to direct you to other sources to the best of my ability if you need it.

#machinamuros #elsinore snores

0 notes