Fair Warning : Get your rabies shot before you contact me. Do not republish or share my personal media. Blog contains mild NSFW, sex & kink positivity & uncensored heavy political rants INCL. media criticism, academic racism, race- & gender-based C/SA, massacres & state violence. Centering Asian and Austronesian sapphics. NO FLIRTING.
Always learning. Please DM me if something I share goes against the safe space I wish to curate for marginalised persons. Anons are not preferred for such matters as they do not allow for a neutral and open conversation.
🀄️𓏶། ྀིྀ⠀ ⠀@this-is-sinophobia-orientalism — Asian Activism. 🩸
🏮𓏶། ྀིྀ⠀⠀ @this-is-sinosexism — Asian Activism. 🩸
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art by the lovely and talented @angelinwineredandburgundy
𝔟𝔦𝔱𝔱𝔢𝔫, 𝔯𝔬𝔱𝔱𝔢𝔫 🏮 𝔦 𝔞𝔪 𝔞𝔩𝔩 𝔪𝔬𝔲𝔱𝔥
‘00 SEAsian Diasporic Malacca Straits Chinese-Austronesian 1st-gen immigrant on unceded First Nations Aboriginal lands. s/He. aplatoaroacespec sapphic & achillean. XIÁ 侠 Knight-Errant. HIGH FEMME. tomboy femme. Masculine-of-Center (MoC) and Feminine-of-Center (FoC). transneutral. gender & sexually fluid. gender anarchist. LesBI. AuDHD. psych major. professional ragebaiter. sweetbitter. mindfucker. demonfucker. knifethrower. intermediate rigger. sadomaschochist. Dom-lean Switch, Bottom-lean Verse. Yang Spirit, Yin Body. Yang Will, Yin Heart. Year of the Metal Dragon 金龙. ♐︎ Hunter Sun, ♉︎ Stubborn Sensualist Moon, ♈︎ Riot Rising, Vigilante Mars Chart Ruler Ω︭ ♂, Dominants ; Jupiter ♐︎ + Saturn ♒︎. Pragmatic Lover ♑︎♀, Sexual & Sociopolitical Freakologist ♒︎⚸. ENTP VLEF ILE 3w4 371 so/sp. Political theorist. philomath. avid consumer, novella RPer & writer of angst hurt/no comfort, theology, mythology, fantasy, sci-fi, psych, horror & crime thrillers. volatile. vile villainess. scathingly hypo/critical. leather, silk & lace. hellion, horror. cannibalistic symbolism. venomous diatribes. religiously destructive. eternally damned & more ➣
Anger awakens. Anger is real. Anger is something they made forbidden for all of us to reach in different ways, even the “angry” ones. Too angry and fearsome to honor your own anger. Too delicate to honor your own anger. Too much of the adult to honor your own anger. Too much like a child to honor your own anger. But It’s Yours. It’s yours, it’s yours.
𝔰𝔴𝔢𝔢𝔱 𝔭𝔬𝔦𝔰𝔬𝔫 🏮 𝔱𝔢𝔫𝔡𝔢𝔯 𝔭𝔯𝔬𝔰𝔢
MUSIC. TASTE
( reworking section )
流行 LiuXing, Ballad-Pop, Mandopop, C-Pop: 周興哲 Zhou XingZhe/Eric Chou • 隔壁老樊 Ge Bi Lao Fan • 李荣浩 Li RongHao • 周杰倫 Chou JieLun/Jay Chou • JJ Lin • 蔡蔡子 Tasia • 高旭 • 田馥甄 Tian FuZhen/Hebe Tien • 苡慧 yihuik • 王靖雯 Wang JiWen • 董唧唧 • 王力宏 Wang Leehom • 陶喆 David Tao • 吴克群 Kenji Wu • S.H.E • 王翊恩 “en” Wang YiEn • Tay Kewei • 杨胖雨 • Kaho Hung • Evangeline Wong 王艷薇 • 胡66 • 陈粒 Chen Li • 卓文萱 • LBI 利比 • DIOR大穎 • 薛之謙 • 派偉俊 Patrick Brasca • Tr33 • BK/Bill Kang • 雪二 Xue Er • 蓝心羽 • 不是花火呀 • Zkaaai • Joysaaaa • 我是土豆 • 颜人中 • 杜宣达 • 鄭潤澤 • 张紫豪 Zhang Zihao • 周星星 • Bomb比爾 • 吳卓源 Julia Wu • 呆呆破 • step.jad • aMEI
Sino Hip-Hop & Melodic Rap: PPlin 林芃逸 • 齊翔 XIANG • YANGCh!ll • 刘柏辛 Lexie Liu • 马也 Crabbit • Lil RAD • COY6OI • JaS52 • Ensie • Seluu • 林達浪 Lin DaLang • 王子明 Wang Zi Ming • Lizi 栗子 • 寒冰 Ice • JERRYZ • 永彬 Ryan.B • Lambert凌 • Tyson Yoshi • WYAN 王毓千 • 高爾宣OSN • 制造热搜 • XMASwu 吴骜
Goth, Dark Pop & Darkwave: She Wants Revenge • Lebanon Hanover • Mr. Kitty • Mareaux • Social Order • Nyxjvh • Astrophysics • Jah PHNX • Witchz • Depeche Mode • Twin Tribes • Joy Division • London After Midnight • Johnny Goth • Kwasi Kai • Artemas • Isabel LaRosa • yeule • Korine • She Past Away • Baby Storme • Vestron Vulture • MGMT • REDCHINAWAVE • The Bravery • Interpol • Ashley Sienna • Witchz • Goldfrapp • UNKLE • The Masqs • The Cure • Violent Femmes • MOTHICA • Pale Waves • Sinnerella • The Violent Youth • Asal • Ari Abdul • Dionnysuss • Royal & The Serpent • Elita • Night Club • ULTRA SUNN • Blind Seagull • French Police • cutouts • phyllzx • Cult of Venus • Vlad Holiday
Pop & Rock: Glass Animals • Peach PRC • ADÉLA • FEYI • NIKI • COBRAH • Ashnikko • bludnymph • Doja Cat • PVRIS • DPR IAN • Ayesha Erotica • Kim Petras • Nessa Barrett • Dutch Melrose • Olivia Rodrigo • Dove Cameron • BENEE • XTINA GG • Honey Revenge • CHAII • The 1975 • SNOW WIFE • Cassyette • Chandler Leighton • tiffi • MAY-A • arya x • FINNEAS • Imagine Dragons • Fall Out Boys • Nasty Cherry • MNEK • A.i.Jones (Adrian McKinnon)
Alt Rock, Indie Rock: Sons of Silver • Nine Inch Nails • New Order • U2 • AC/DC • Beth McCarthy • Saint Motel • Woodkid • Crystal Castles • Arctic Monkeys • Gorillaz • Empire of the Sun • Charlotte Sands • emlyn • Lauren Sanderson • The Aces • ZELA • KiNG MALA • NO CIGAR • The Warning • The Wombats • The Cab • The Bleachers • The Killers • RIELL
Baroque Pop: Hozier • Florence + The Machine • The Last Dinner Party • Son Lux • Missio • Woodkid • Cosmo Sheldrake • Erin Lecount
Southern Rock: Alabama Shakes • ZZ Ward • Stela Cole • Fleetwood Mac • Noah Cyrus
Alt-Indie, R&B, Soul: Blackstreet • Leon Bridges • Sade • Gigi Perez • Chance Peña • Leonard Cohen • sombr • Japanese Breakfast • Ogi • The Cab • RINI • JADE • Millie Turner • Griff • Spacey Jane • Coldplay • thuy • Stan Walker • SZA • H.E.R • Khalid • Daniel Caesar • Frank Ocean • Rachel Chinouriri • Lyn Lapid • The Beaches • The Velvet Underground • Blondshell • King Princess • SEB • RAYE • The Regrettes • Teddy Swims • Ella Mai • Chloe × Halle • Miguel • JYYN • Pink $weats • BaggE
Hip-Hop & Boom Bap Rap: Wutang Clan • Jeru The Damaja • Metro Boomin • Blackway
Afrohouse & Afrobeats: 0.griot • Tems • Dave
Psychedelic, Surf, Hazy, Downtempo, Ethereal: Nusantara Beat • Jungle By Night • Cocteau Twins • Sabrina Claudio • Alina Baraz • Frank Ocean • Esha Tewari • ARK IDENTITY • Alan Chang • Saint Avengeline
And so the worst AAPI month kickstarted with a Wasian meet-up and ended with a Chinese American man found not guilty for killing a Black teenager in 2023 😮💨
Donate to Cyrus Carmack-Belton's funeral costs here:
We have started this GoFundMe to help support the family of Cyrus Carmack-Belton and … Todd Rutherford needs your support for Justice for Cy
Support Cyrus Carmack-Belton's family in pursuing justice: Mutual Aid.
CW: The murder of a Black child, Cyrus Carmack-Belton, by a HongKong-Chinese-ethnic South Carolina man Rick Chow.
https://www.gofundme.com/f/justice4cyrus please share this ongoing gofundme for Cyrus’ family. There is STILL an upcoming civil case which requires funds for legal aid. Stand with the Black community in this time when they have to fight this system that rarely if ever delivers justice for Black peoples. This message goes out especially to Asian Americans.
Donate to the ongoing gofundme for Cyrus’ family, they’re gonna need funds for the upcoming civil lawsuit. It is our duty, our test of basic human decency, to ensure that they get the best legal team possible when the odds are already stacked against them with the injustice of the system. Put your money where your mouth is and stand for allyship with the Black communities.
You're against ICE taking babies, so also be against a trigger-happy 60+ year old child killer. Make sure murderers do not get away with killing babies from ALL Black, Indigenous and POC communities.
We have started this GoFundMe to help support the family of Cyrus Carmack-Belton and … Todd Rutherford needs your support for Justice for Cy
My heart is with the Black community, filled with rage and disappointment at the injustice here.
Rick Chow is a murderous anti-Black child-killer with a history of being trigger-happy. He’s been involved in two shootings prior to this, and this time he killed a Black child. We know that this is nothing a Black person would get away with under the oppressive penal systems of America. But Chow walks, Scot-free.
Cyrus was just a baby, a 14 year old boy who probably has only just started learning graphs in class. Who has not even had his 15th birthday nor graduated the 9th grade. He was still in junior high.
There’s more details to the case for those who want to go investigating. But none of which at all exonerates this man of his cruelty and the blood on him, and his family’s hands (both his son and wife involved).
But the injustice remains and this is grief for the Black community which I can only hope the Asian community takes the time to decenter ourselves and stand in support of Cyrus and his family, in empathising with the Black community’s terror in the face of this innocent life taken by a anti-Black NB man, and the justice system which has failed them again.
This is Latasha Harlins all over again. It’s heartbreaking. And yes the AsAm community has to fucking ostracise the Chows, start a protest, raise some funds. Apologising is one thing but it’s empty without material reparations, especially when we KNOW the system won’t deliver.
Cyrus’ family has stated they will continue fighting. The Black community is grieving. The Asian community should not contribute to that boot on their necks nor benefit from the horrors of this system. We should not be centering our own shame or fear, but centering the Black community’s expressed grievances with the dehumanisation and terror they must be facing as a consequence of this murder. We must show loud and meaningful support for the Black community.
We can’t let this slide, this is literally a core moment that requires Asians to step the fuck up, and ensure what happened in the 90s does not come to fruition again.
If Asian Americans are against the death of children, including all Black children, please boycott the Chows. Do everything in your power to ensure that all melanated peoples band together to bring justice for the Carmack-Beltons where the system is designed to fail them, and to ensure that Black people aren't alone in this.
AsAms need to be LOUD about this injustice and in support of Black communities, LOUDER than the skinfolk traitors amongst us who are cruel, inhumane, and anti-Black. LOUDER than those those whose behaviours fuel the ideas that AsAms are just performative Boba Liberals and anti-Black racists. LOUDER than shame or fear because we do not get to center ourselves when the Black community's grief and terror for their babies are overflowing.
You may think they're responsible for their own kids, but in this situation; our own slaughtered theirs. We aren't all like the Chows, but in bystanding, in remaining silent and allowing justice to fail the Black community; we are.
Sometimes I watch these things and I’m like, wow very good, I would prefer to see a POC in that portrayal of pure compassion. [For context: this character in the movie, his wife died but she asked him to take care of the cat. So he’s doing that].
Will Smith did it in I Am Legend in 2007, with his character’s family’s dog.
But also there’s a lot of other POC going through monstrous conditions that parallel irl and will do everything to save an animal even if it’s against their self-preservation. I met ppl unhoused on the streets who still would spend their money caring for their family pet who, due to the same condition, are on the streets with them.
But they don’t see us as compassionate like this. In fact if we struggle and still want to keep our beloved pets, they’d probably call us stupid and irresponsible for “putting an animal through this” instead of giving them up.
And this is how it translates into the family services system and the adoption rings, and parents and children, and why I say the West philanthropy system is exploitative and pushes for kids to be transracial; completely disrupting community as our strongest immunity.
They think it’s better for us to be without our beloved, they doubt our capacity to care. They don’t call it “sacrifice”, they call it “selfishness”. And then they punish us, they strip us of their support, they forcibly displace and separate us.
They have to do all this monster stuff to “replicate” such levels of compassion. And they only see it as sacrificial when it’s done by white people. Ie Shameless the TV show VS how lower income POC families “welfare queens” are treated irl. And sure if you want to talk “sensationalism”, then why aren’t reality tv shows that portray POC families in lower-class neighborhoods and countries given their flowers?
They can see the natives protecting their land from these alien monsters and call them savages and brutes and fearsome, but they don’t call the unwanted visitors who ravage the land instead of peacefully settling and community-building, as such. Then down the line, they cosplay as victims “protecting” their lands against POC migrants who live alongside and build w other POC, often more viciously and discriminatory than the original natives initially did.
It is not bad that white people have these shows to show a glimpse of the life, but there’s criticism for the way this empathy and outpouring of emotion, the visibility of the good of humankind rarely cross-applies to POC.
⚠️TW: some of these screenshots contain the t-slur and the f-slur used against gnc fems.
It is widely believed that High Femme = “stone femme or a pillow prince/ss” but this is a misunderstanding of how ‘High Femme’ as an identity came to be. This was unfortunately popularised when people made counter-responses to the equally misinformed “Futch scale” diagram which infamously decontextualised butch and femme into aesthetics.
I went through my trove of butchfem(me) books to pull quotes regarding what a high femme is, and it deviates greatly from the solely sex-position identity or the stone-butch-dependent identity it has become today. I am unclear how this reductiveness came about, but I’ll add a calculated guess at the very end.
BEFORE YOU DISMISS THIS— Read below the cut for a compilation of butch femme quotes, resources and my analysis thereof, that support my claim.
TLDR;
My definition: A High Femme refers to a person of any gender, sex and sexuality, who constructs their feminine-centered (but not exclusive) gender in the glamour of their unique sociocultural experiences. A High Femme emphasises their gender non-conformity and/or sexual signature, in a confrontational transgression to “normative” femininity. High femmeness is a tightrope of invincibility and vulnerability, in holding onto the integrity and significance of one’s own erotic voice, independent of partnership.
🌸 Are you a High Femme, or know any High Femmes? Wanna meet and discuss with Femme friends?✨
📌 Check out The Leather&Gold Bar Discord for more pertinent discussions !
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📘Stone Butch Blues (1993)
Most who study ButchFem(me) culture, have proposed a split between the pre-70s ButchFem versus the post-70s ButchFemme.
The 40s ButchFem culture was a pre-political underground development via cultural exchange amongst the African American and European American working class, SW, drag queens & kings, trans women and transfems, and most importantly, BIPOC communities. Some of the butches AND fems were married to men and had boyfriends, but came to the bars and house parties to form Lesbian community and embraced the erotic dyad. Lesbianism was non-exclusive to monosexuality and its culture involved people of different genders, sexual orientations and backgrounds. [ Scroll down to “📗 Femme : Feminists, Lesbians and Bad Girls” analysis for more.]
SBB was set in the mid-20th century, supposedly in the pre-70s ButchFem culture, during which time many spaces incl. LGBTQ ones, just getting over segregation. Feinberg uses Femme, likely because SBB was written and published in the 90s (and again in the 00s), which means the butchfemme Feinberg knew of, already had influence from the eras before.
‘High Femme’ in SBB was used by trans femmes and femmes, and as Jess says—regardless man or woman. High Femmeness were associated with activities concerning gender affirmation and romance as a femme.
Peaches, a trans femme character, codifies her high femmeness in the moon and in sensual lingerie.
Controversially, Edna’s high femmeness conflicts with the stone of her butch partners, Jan and Jess. She is described by Jan to be able to “seduce any stone butch love”. Her sensuality begins comfortingly and complementary with Jess, yet is indivisible from her desire to melt a butch’s stone. This renders her relationships with her beloved stone butches, fraught. Regardless of Edna’s relationship status, she is still identified as a high femme.
Safe to say in SBB, High Femmeness ≠ Stone Femme or pillow prince/ss reliant on the stone butch identity, but refers to the construction of femininity and a person’s sensuality.
📕Butch Queens Up in Pumps (2013)
The ButchFem(me) community in America and internationally, must recognise how entwined it is with African American and Latine American ballroom culture.
The American Ballroom scene we know of today, arose in the 19th century, but was popularised into mainstream culture in the 90s. Ballroom was comprised of three dimensions.
1st—Gender System; sex, sexuality & genderdiversity which formed the basis of kinship, as well as competitive elements and categories. These helped to create visible “archetypes” to move towards or away from.
2nd—Houses; kinship structures of social/chosen family, who bonded and cared for each other across locations. These families were formed around mottos, symbols and haute culture references. Its members varied in age, sex & genderdiversity, race & ethnicity (mostly African American & Latine American), and backgrounds.
3rd—Ballroom Events; Ballroom activated families to prepare for competitions, including supporting and training protégés for realness, voguing, body presentation and fashion. It brought together the families to gather community, and accelerated the development of Ballroom across America and even, globally. This provided sanctuary to youths of colour who were marginalised by society for their identities.
The terms Butch and Femme already had identities to them. These identities had purposes tied to American Ballroom culture.
To serve “Femme Queen & Butch Queen Up in Drag realness”, participants had to present boldly and fearlessly as convincing women, with minimal deviation from the gender & sexual norms of cisheteronormative society. To be seen as a real woman is “Realness”. Whether the competitor was for transfems or trans women (Femme Queens) or a gay men performing as a women (Butch Queen Up in Drag). Butches, different from Butch Queens, were recognised as trans men, transmascs, or masculine lesbians or female persons.
Often, the Butch Queen was an exaggerated and flamboyant presentation, and is known as drag, while the Femme Queen is not necessarily drag as their gender identity matched their competitive realness. Both groups of participants, their families and communities shared in the visible performance of gender and the self-fashioning which transformed normative categories of sex, gender and sexual identity.
Fem(me), as an identity, began percolating in ButchFem culture especially catalysed by 2nd wave feminism and LGBTQ rights movements which encouraged sexual autonomy in every queer arena. It is likely that Fem(me) was inspired by the mid-20th century Ballroom’s spirit of gender reconstruction, gender affirmation, drag, and sexual autonomy, as well as the defiant protectiveness of traditional Fems. It likely also promoted the focus of community-building, irrespective of the dyad.
[ And if I may add from a social studies lens, BIPOC have typically been the reason that community building is a strategy of unity, solidarity and resistance, as well as the catalysis of (sub)culture independent of the wider society.
This is why governments know that if they must strike, it would be to isolate persons from each other and reinforce the nuclear family model (the dyad). It is no surprise that BIPOC influence has shaped the Femme & High Femme identity. ]
📗Femme : Feminists, Lesbians and Bad Girls (1997)
In the 90s, some fems began to stir up change and novelty in the traditional ButchFem dyad.
Traditional ButchFem have historically already understood how gender style decides existence, and is always a matter of bodies and lives at stake. However, the traditional focus was typically on those who socially presented differently to their assigned sex such as trans femmes and butches. Butches were also seen as the signifier of “obvious” lesbianism and the ButchFem dyad. Cis Fems were sidelined as only tending to experience the “rawness” and risk by extension of the ButchFem dyad, and as such were often seen as “straight-er”. They were often kept from therefore claiming oppression under the white cisheteronormative patriarchy.
Fems who began to incorporate Fem(me), challenged this notion of “privileged passing”, addressed invisibility as oppressive, and argued against the invalidation of their struggles. A femme came to be someone who embodied their own unique signature, empowering themselves in the power and comfort of their own body.
Of these, there were Femmes who wanted to be visible for their inherent gender non-conformity as separable from the erotic relationship with a butch. These Femmes coined the identity of the High Femme as a category of a transgendered femme experience which fucked with the ideas of normative Fem-ness and femininity. Many from diverse race and ethnic groups, and other subcultures, reached into their own sociocultural experiences to inform their gender performances. Many likened this to a form of drag especially where it became a hyperreal self-emphasis. Like the Femme Queens of the Ballroom, they designed and publicly flaunted their own “girl-ness”.
The High Femme and the Femme were crucial to the creation of an independent Fem(me) entity, as an equal to the butch in all matters of visibility, gender non-conformity and lesbianism.
Fem(mes) emphasised the importance of creating community and solidarity with other fem(mes), which not only improved their partnerships with butches, but also challenged the discourse of a Femme’s independent relevance. They motivated Fems to claim their sexual and erotic autonomy beyond the ButchFem dyad, and voiced new perspectives in the transgender and genderdiverse consciousness of the ButchFem subculture.
Closing Words
Today’s Fem(me) identity has fluctuated between recognising this legitimate divergence from the traditional ButchFem, versus lumping it together with the dyad’s emphasis.
I suspect that those who spread that High Femme = Pillow Princess or Stone Femme, were likely repeating what they heard from those within the community, who themselves either did not recognise this, or refused to witness this history.
The reductiveness of the High Femme identity as dependent upon the Stone Butch, takes away from this history.
It decontextualised it from the BIPOC ballroom influences, especially when BIPOC butches and femmes were frequently marginalised and shamed for their greater reliance on Butch Femme dynamics and community.
It erases the feminist movements within ButchFem subculture that had little to do with the erotic aspect, and minimised the credit of fem(mes) who took the strides for autonomy in their gender and sexuality non-conformity.
Personally, I encourage people to defer to adopting the identity of the High Femme, in all of its historical glory, and separate it from the Stone Femme or the Pillow Prince/ss.
Doing so not only empowers Femmes, credits our Femme predecessors and challenges the white-washing of ButchFem history, but it potentially presents a strong counter against the criticisms of many lesbians who are not a part of ButchFem(me).
As many outsiders assume the “cisheteronormative” nature of it, the High Femme and Femme identity provides evidence contrary to the dismissal of Femme’s autonomous constructions of their own femininity and masculinity. Furthermore, it challenges the generalisations of “passing = privilege” for femmes, and diversifies the recognition of transgendered experiences.
this is the post i was referring to when talking about high femme not being the same as stone femme from my understanding of the historical context of the identity!
thank you @knightfaetality for such a well written and well researched post!
Tyvm! I’ve updated it sometime late-April with more information as well which may be more relevant (you may check out the original blogpost for the updated version ^^)
The constant hypermasculinisation, anti-Asian -misogynistic and -transmisogynistic jokes that SEA fems (specifically Chinese, Thai, Viet) are horrifyingly secretly trans women. (or cross-dressing men).
Just wanted to poke my head and say hi, Im sure you have your comments off to avoid (most of) the Constant Onslaught of Ignorance tm, it just felt odd to me personally to reblog some of your personal experiences and say absolutely nothing to you 😅🥲
Hey! Nice to meet you, and no worries, thanks for introducing yourself 👋😊
i often feel like im not really indigenous and im just trying to talk over 'real' indigenous people because of the way people have reacted to it in the past :( the few times i was open about it in the past i was told it didnt actually count and brushed off. thank you for posting about indigenous asians. im burmese mon 🌸
Hi anon, sorry for the late reply, but thank you so much for this message!
I absolutely understand what you mean, and I think it is crucial for Asians to be included in conversations about indigeneity, settler-colonial histories, imperialism against the global south, and its ongoing impacts.
The “real indigenous people” is anyone whose ancestral group and its relations to land, sky and/or sea has been massively disrupted and suffered material harms from colonial and imperialist empires.
If anyone claims that Asians who still suffer the impacts of settler-colonialism to this day aren’t “real indigenous” well, they are in the same breath denying all other indigenous peoples.
The indigenous identity is one that supposedly receives legal and social protections through membership, but it can also be one that is constantly redrawn and redefined to fit the agendas of those in power. People who exclude Asians from speaking on their own indigeneity, are those who already have the privilege to BE speaking about it and centering the conversation around themselves at the expense of others.
I’m maybe not the most qualified to speak on Indigeneity in Asia since my connection to this heritage is extremely distant and has been erased by time and those who came before me. Until I gain a more solid footing on my own heritage enough to know how to embrace it in alignment with lived experience, my history and nativity to my ancestral lands has to suffice as…a sense of familiarity, a tether to shared pain and spirit, and appreciation for the earth and waters my people come from.
I used to think that Asians had to stay “less present” in indigenous discussions, but I no longer believe that. If anything I think all indigenous peoples have been consistently less present, and Asians are only recently becoming more vocal in occupying our seats at this newly reforged table.
A lot of places in Asia are still occupied, used as extraction for imperialism and more, and are easily subject to destruction because the scene of the crime is distant from the those who commit it. We also do have tensions amongst our own which are exploited by those in power and their geopolitical theatres.
I had to do a quick search on Burmese Mon peoples and it’s amazing how Theravada Buddhism was spread due to your peoples’ influences and how much that has shaped Southeast Asia. SEAblings really are all connected by land and sea, through Austronesian ancestors, the Pacific and East Ocean and the Malay archipelago.
I know a little about the Mon peoples, and it is a story of pain, displacement, rebirths and resilience. It is important we hear the story of your peoples, and I invite you to speak on it with whom you’re comfortable. Indigenous Asian voices deserves platforms, most especially but not limited to AAPI heritage month.
i dont think usamericans rly understand how prevalent their culture is. english is taught in schools. we hear about usa news, watch usa shows and movies, know usa actors, read usa books, listen to usa music, have usa brands. i have a shirt somewhere with some usa flag motive from like 15 years ago. cant remember why i even have it. why were they even selling that in croatia. your books and culture are everywhere, you dominate social media, and then come on here whenever someone gives even a middle criticism and act like spoiled children because someone wants you to open an atlas
Partially related but a lot of usamericans also love to pull the whole "You just don't know how bad things are here. We have food deserts and a shitty education ststem and no opportunities for disadvantaged people and fascism and etc. etc." whenever you criticise them or say that they benefit from imperialism or anything like that.
1. We all know about the problems the US has. You guys dominate political discourse too. You can't take two steps in any political space on the internet without hearing about the socio-economic problems of the US.
2. Many countries have the same problems. Many countries have the same problems but worse. Many countries have the same problems plus a bunch of extra problems on top. In many cases due to something the US has done and continues to do to this day. You are not exceptional.
3. Having socio-economic problems does not stop you from benefiting from imperialism. It does not stop your country from being the imperial core. It does not stop your country from holding a cultural and economic hegemony over most of the planet. It also does not excuse you from thinking Egypt is in Eastern Europe. It does not excuse you from joining the US military or working for Raytheon or Lockheed Martin just because you're queer or whatever else.
I also will add that they (regardless of race and class) apply and reify their reclaimed colonial systems onto the rest of the world and it often harms more than helps, but they have this paternalistic dynamic that means they believe their positionality at the epicenter of imperialism automatically equates to all knowledge and all suffering. So they feel entitled to speak on everybody’s business even where they’re supporting colonial and imperial actions. They say “yes you suffered, but we have it the worst”. And it sounds extremely tone deaf. Yes I’m sure the millions of corpses of my people and my blood, agree with you.
There’s a reason very few folks in my home country like the US, why they don’t care to listen to your news or your politics because it’s propaganda after propaganda, shovelling horseshit in everyone else’s mouths, and it constantly CONSTANTLY orientalises Asia, speaks so dissonantly of us, our views and beliefs, and weaponises us in their own wars on their own people and beyond.
The US prefers its consumption of Asia through the majority of native-born Asian Americans who communicate “passed down knowledge” about Asia they typically have no first hand experience beyond summer vacations, and it is already biased.
But they hate migrants (refugees and immigrants) for a reason. They dislike the dissonance migrants bring to the table on the perception that the rest of the world has of the US. The reminder of the US’ blood debt to everyone else. The confrontation with the same people your government bombed to death hundreds of miles away.
They hate that they have to share close physical quarters with those they never had to conceive existed, who have feelings and cognisance, who watch and know of the global extent of American privilege and soft power and how its citizens and netizens contribute to that daily. Who embody the suffering of American Imperialism physically and through their existence. And who won’t be as easily convinced as a temporary tourist or an online friend.
It was supposed to stay irrelevant to you, and you hate that it isn’t anymore. It isn’t sanitised from your conscience.
Hi ya'll, i recently made a shading guide for some friends of mine who then recommended that i post it here too! This is a guide that will go over the building blocks of shading, and should help you get a good grasp of the foundational concepts so that when you begin to try other techniques and intermediate shading, you have a good base to go back to. This guide is meant for beginners, and is pulled from all the knowledge i've gained in my over 12 years of experiance as a professional and hobbyist artist. Please keep in mind that i am not a teacher, and feel free to ask any questions in the comments, or through asks!
Happy Shading!
ROWE'S BASIC ASS SHADING GUIDE: PART ONE
Shadow Follows Form
to begin with this concept, we will need three things
Any shape. a ball is the most basic shape to begin with, because it does not have any defined planes which can quickly become complex and confusing. (a plane is any flat surface that makes up an object)
A light source, this is the key to any type of shading, the direction of the light will show us where to place our shadows, because shadows are created through the absence of light
A value chart. The value refers to how dark or light a shade is. If it has a darker value it sits closer to pure black, and if it has a lighter value it sits closer to pure white. Grey, where black and white meet, is the middle value.
When we place these colors into a shape we use the labels of Highlight, Midtone, and Deep tone to help us figure out where our shadow is going to lie. Let’s define these terms.
Highlight:
The highlight is the lightest value on the canvas overall. On a 3D object, the highlight will be placed closest to the light source, and will usually be a pale white color but this depends on a variety of variables, like the color of the light, how close the light is, what material our object is made out of and more, that are a bit too advanced for this guide.
Midtone:
This is the middle tone between our shadow and light. This tone will typically be the base color of our object, or the color that it would be if it was shown in a completely neutral light with no shadow or highlight present. For example, If you have a red apple, the red color is the base, or the midtone, and the lights and shadows are built off of said red color / midtone.
Deep tone:
This is the darkest tone on the object and is positioned opposite of the highlight and light source. This is the shade we use for the actual shadow that is being cast, both on the object itself and the surface of whatever it is sitting on.
Drop, or Cast Shadow:
This is the dark shadow that lays underneath of our object on the surface that it is sitting on. This shadow moves in tandem with the light source, and light will always move in a straight line, never curved, so you cannot move the light source without also moving the drop shadow.
To place these values down correctly we need to remember that the highlight and the deep tone will always be opposite of each other on any object you can think of. The Highlight is showing where direct light is hitting the object. The highlight will move across the object depending on the angle of the light. The midtones are showing where the light is still illuminating the object, however it is no longer direct light and would mores be considered indirect light. The deep tone can vary in darkness depending on the type of light being cast onto the object. If the light is more direct, or closer to the object, the deep tone will be dark with hard edges, clearly defining the shape of the object that the shadow belongs to. In the example below, both the sphere and the cube are being lit with direct, harsh lighting, which means that the shadows on the object itself and the shadow underneath are clean and dark, with no feathering or blurring (softness) of the shadows beneath. If the lighting were to be softer, less direct and more ambient, the shadows would not be as harsh, would be less dark, and may have more variation in the dark color, leading to gradients or softer transitions between values.
ROWE'S BASIC ASS SHADING GUIDE: PART TWO
The Colors
Whilst the physical location of the light source and shadow remain in opposition to each other, the colors we use to represent light and shadow, (though a more complicated aspect of shading), act in similar ways! Categorically, the color of light and shadow typically reside within a Complimentary color palette. To explain this further, let’s define some terms!
The Color Wheel:
The color wheel is a tool that artists use to help us describe the relationships between different colors and how they move from one hue to the next. The color wheel consists of the Primary Colors: Red, Yellow, and Blue, and the colors between these main three are born out a combination of two different primary colors.
For example, Orange is a combination of Red and Yellow, Green a combination of Yellow and Blue, and Purple, a combination of Red and Blue.
Complimentary Colors:
A Complimentary Color Palette consists of two hues, which sit on opposite sides of the color wheel. This color palette is especially suited for use within light and shadow, because complimentary colors work together to enhance each others contrast whilst simultaneously creating a harmony between two vastly contrasting values (Deep Tone and Highlight).
The color of our shadow will be the opposite color of our light, so for example, A green light will cast purple shadows, a red light will cast blue shadows, and so on.
Now before we go painting a bunch of complimentary colors everywhere we also have to talk about saturation and vibrancy. When looking at light and shadow in the real world, they often look much more dull than a lot of artists represent them in their art, and this is because in reality, unless you have a strongly colored light the difference in color between light and shadow is pretty difficult to see, unless you are well trained in the art of spotting the undertones of these shades.As a basic rule of thumb its important to remember that the light will often be more vibrant then the shadows themselves, as light brings out all the colors present in an object whilst shadow dilutes them.
Vibrancy:
Vibrancy refers to the brightness and liveliness of color in visual work. When colors are described as vibrant, they are perceived as bright, rich, and full of energy. Vibrancy helps create dynamic and engaging visual scenes.
Saturation:
Saturation is the level of intensity a color has. high saturation refers to bright colors. In traditional painting terms, the highest saturated colors are the colors that are holding the most pure pigment. For example, a highly saturated color would be a red paint straight out of the tube before you add in other colors, or mix it with water or a painting oil / binder. Low saturation refers muted colors, or colors that have less pigment to them. These are colors that have been mixed with others to lower the amount of pure pigment to them. Muted colors and bright colors have to work together, and this is what helps us build realistic light and shadow. High saturated light helps us define the colors of the object and the less saturated colors are necessary to support and enhance the bright colors.
ROWE'S BASIC ASS SHADING GUIDE: PART THREE
Let’s Put it Together!
To review! We’ve learned about value, how the highlight, midtone, and deep tone combine to build a 3D object in 2D space. We’ve also talked about color, how bright, vibrant, and high saturated colors work with dull, muted, and low saturated colors to build up harmony and contrast. We’ve also gone over the color wheel and how complimentary color palettes work within light and shadow. So how do all of these concepts come together? Im going to use a painting of some tomatoes as a reference for these concepts because this is a fairly simple painting with little complexity to the values.
The first step we have in creating the light and shadow is to understand our form, the basic shapes we are working with here. The tomatoes are a simple sphere/circle, and due to the direct light have a very small deep tone and highlight. A majority of the color used within them is the midtone (the bright red). The midtone itself has slight variations in its red color, as the red develops into an orange tone the closer it gets to the highlight, due to the fact that the light is a yellow color. As the red midtone gets closer to the deep tone shadow, it gains a darker purply color because the color we used to shade the red is a dark blue. We don’t use a drop shadow in this painting because the tomatoes are hanging and are not resting on a surface. In the reference photo the drop / cast shadow lies behind the tomatoes on the floor, about a meter away.
I hope this guide can help some of you out, and you contunie learning and improving your art! Art keeps all of us alive, your work is more important than you know <3
The dream is dead. Some say it was never real in the first place. Not for those like us. You think you’re finally flying, you think you’re finally free, you think happiness is within your reach. Instead, you’re walking into a battlefield and forced to pick up a weapon when you are not ready to fight. I feel sad for my fellow migrants who were lied to.
Who believed moving out of their countries destroyed and subtly in chains by the white man, to cohabitate in the white man’s citadel built on the skeletons of other POCs would benefit them and it would be good.
Except it cannot be both beneficial and good. And if it was the former because your income will certainly be better IF you can secure a job (and that’s the catch)—at whose and what cost?
i often feel like im not really indigenous and im just trying to talk over 'real' indigenous people because of the way people have reacted to it in the past :( the few times i was open about it in the past i was told it didnt actually count and brushed off. thank you for posting about indigenous asians. im burmese mon 🌸
Hi anon, sorry for the late reply, but thank you so much for this message!
I absolutely understand what you mean, and I think it is crucial for Asians to be included in conversations about indigeneity, settler-colonial histories, imperialism against the global south, and its ongoing impacts.
The “real indigenous people” is anyone whose ancestral group and its relations to land, sky and/or sea has been massively disrupted and suffered material harms from colonial and imperialist empires.
If anyone claims that Asians who still suffer the impacts of settler-colonialism to this day aren’t “real indigenous” well, they are in the same breath denying all other indigenous peoples.
The indigenous identity is one that supposedly receives legal and social protections through membership, but it can also be one that is constantly redrawn and redefined to fit the agendas of those in power. People who exclude Asians from speaking on their own indigeneity, are those who already have the privilege to BE speaking about it and centering the conversation around themselves at the expense of others.
I’m maybe not the most qualified to speak on Indigeneity in Asia since my connection to this heritage is extremely distant and has been erased by time and those who came before me. Until I gain a more solid footing on my own heritage enough to know how to embrace it in alignment with lived experience, my history and nativity to my ancestral lands has to suffice as…a sense of familiarity, a tether to shared pain and spirit, and appreciation for the earth and waters my people come from.
I used to think that Asians had to stay “less present” in indigenous discussions, but I no longer believe that. If anything I think all indigenous peoples have been consistently less present, and Asians are only recently becoming more vocal in occupying our seats at this newly reforged table.
A lot of places in Asia are still occupied, used as extraction for imperialism and more, and are easily subject to destruction because the scene of the crime is distant from the those who commit it. We also do have tensions amongst our own which are exploited by those in power and their geopolitical theatres.
I had to do a quick search on Burmese Mon peoples and it’s amazing how Theravada Buddhism was spread due to your peoples’ influences and how much that has shaped Southeast Asia. SEAblings really are all connected by land and sea, through Austronesian ancestors, the Pacific and East Ocean and the Malay archipelago.
I know a little about the Mon peoples, and it is a story of pain, displacement, rebirths and resilience. It is important we hear the story of your peoples, and I invite you to speak on it with whom you’re comfortable. Indigenous Asian voices deserves platforms, most especially but not limited to AAPI heritage month.
