Villian lance doing that thing where the villian shows up in the heros house but like hes dressed in one of shiros t shirts and maybe only a pair of panties; shiro: "why are you here lance" trying hard to stop his blush Lance: "my lair gets so cold at night! And your always so warm.... Wont the hero save me from the cold?😈😈😈" Shiro:" maybe if you wore more clothes...."
Shiro: *currently experiencing yet another sexuality crisis* I should definitely kick him out of my lair, like, right NOW.
Lance: *making himself at home by claiming Shiro’s couch AND his own damn clothes*
How to Sit, a memoir when viewed in its entirety, plays with the line between fiction and nonfiction as it explores adolescence, identity, grief, and the transition between girlhood and womanhood for a young black woman seeking to ground herself when all she wants is to pretend her world is fantasy. “A vibrant collection merging story and essay, fact and fiction, Coleman reveals a self more clearly seen when it’s written as a character and a writer who knows how to live her own fiction.”-Jill Talbot “A bold, unflinching look at guilt, regret, and longing, How to Sit reminds us that sometimes it’s not the wounds inflicted by other people that hurt the most. The worst scars and stitches can come from what we do to ourselves.” - Tara Laskowski
by Tyrese L. Coleman
Get it now here
Tyrese L. Coleman is a writer, wife, mother, and attorney. Her debut collection of stories and essays, How to Sit, was published by Mason Jar Press in 2018 and nominated for a 2019 PEN Open Book Award. Her work has appeared as a notable in Best American Essays 2018 and nominated for a Pushcart Prize.
Hey so Hawaiian!Hunk is becoming a really popular headcanon and I decided to give you some cool Hawaii facts from a real life Hawaiian™ so that way you don’t have to perpetuate stereotypes. I haven’t seen it too much yet, but I understand that it’s hard to find accurate stuff online if you don’t already know where to look. (Other Hawaiians feel free to add stuff)
It’s very rare to find a pure Hawaiian, there’s ~200 left. So when you’re making your Hunk keep that in mind. Here’s the formula for making a Hawaiian. Asian + Polynesian + Caucasian. For example, I am Hawaiian, Chinese, Filipino, Portuguese, and Swiss. And i had the smallest number of ethnicities out of my friend, I knew one dude with 15. That’s kinda a lot, but not uncommon.
Also, it’s totally not weird to ask someone what they are. (something i needed to learn not to do in my college because apparently it’s rude??)
I personally would HC Hunk as being a mix of Hawaiian, Samoan, Tongan, Filipino, Portuguese, Chinese, and maybe some British.
Fun fact: the reason we are so mixed was because plantation workers were imported from around the pacific and they usually stayed for so long that they would end up marrying a Hawaiian. Tbh this is probably why we didn’t completely die out in the 1800s.
No one really speaks full Hawaiian anymore, our language is sadly dying out, but there have been efforts made (like charter schools where they only speak Hawaiian to the students) and everyone here knows at least 30 words in Hawaiian. However, we do speak pidgin very frequently, it’s basically a dialect of the islands evolved from the Hawaiians first learning the languages of the traders who came to Hawaii. Because of pidgin we call a lot things by a different name (and most of the time don’t even know it has a different word).
Examples: Mainland for the continent of America, chicken skin for goosebumps, rubber band for hair tie (i’m actually not sure what the real word is…), etc
Also this means that you’re constantly having to translate when you’re on the mainland. I never realized how much pidgin I used until my friends just kept giving me blank stares. It’s very frustrating, especially when you realize you have never known the translation and have to just hope the others will understand.
Hawaii is a very unique place. The culture, the people, the weather, the aloha spirit, etc. Any time you leave the islands for an extended periods you get very homesick because it’s difficult to find things that are authentically Hawaiian outside of Hawaii.
Some stereotypes:
Yes all of us do at least one of these things, surfing, hula, playing ukulele, singing, or swimming.
We do wear “Hawaiian shirts” and “muumuus”, however they are nothing like what you are probably thinking of. We call them aloha shirts and Mu'umu'us, and they are our formal wear. The designs are a lot more subtle and there really aren’t any crazy bright colors. The designs are usually quilt patterns of native flora and fauna
yeah we’re pretty chill with walking barefoot and in a bathing suit. The weather is very temperate and you don’t really need to wear clothes so it’s not really a big deal to see people in various stages of undress. We really don’t care about nudity that much…
Hawaiian Quirks:
we call everyone older than us Aunty or Uncle and pretty much everyone over 20 responds to that. It’s a sign of respect. It also confuses mainlanders a lot because they think we have super huge families, which we totally do, but still I’m not actually related to everyone on the island.
being on the verge of destroying the earth every time someone calls slippers “flip flops”. THEY SLIP ON AND THEY DO NOT MAKE A GODDAMN FLIP OR FLOP NOISE. it’s such a dumb name pls stop. I legitimately thought it was a dumb tv joke for 18 years of my life because tv has never been accurate with anything about Hawaii so there’s no way it was actually accurate with such a dumb name.
automatically judging someone based on their reaction to you saying you’re from Hawaii ex: “OH! You’re from Hawaii??!!!1!!!11 That’s so cool!!!11z!! Do you guys live in grass shacks?? is this the first time you’re wearing real clothes???? do you know what the internet is??!!??? How did you get here??” (yes these are real questions my friends and I have been asked) If you ask any of these we will probably avoid you forever
Using Hawaiian words to describe moral values because they hold so much more meaning than the English translations
Having a list of local foods you’re gonna have when you get back
layering up once it gets into the 60s (15ish) because hello the coldest it ever gets in Hawaii is 60 and that’s only in the dead of winter.
Freaking out about seasons. We have no seasons here. It took me 18 years to see Fall and Spring and I can count on my hand how many times I’ve seen snow. So yeah, we lose it every time we see snow. Also we wish people a bright Christmas because we’ve really only experienced maybe one white Christmas
Although body image issues are still a thing in Hawaii they aren’t as bad as everywhere else. Hawaiian ads usually features locals without photoshop so we aren’t really bombarded with this “perfect” white body image
Feel free to come talk with me if you want to know more! I tried to keep this simple.
It’s an incredibly diverse state as well. I assumed it was normal till I lived in the mainland for a few years and realized the major difference in diversity. Lets just say I don’t have a single full white friend in my friend group, a majority are multiracial.
I too was asked if i lived in a grass shack or drank out of coconuts
Pidgin is confusing if you didnt grow up with it and researching isn’t the best way to go around it. You kind of pick it up without really thinking about it. If you live here long enough its just second nature
The local food is probably super strange to outsiders but heres a list of some popular ones
Poi - Made from taro and a staple dish
Lau Lau - meat, usually pork wrapped in taro or luau leaf and cooked while wrapped in ti leaf. Don’t eat the ti leaf. Theres other variations of cooking it as well but this is what i grew up with.
Poke - My personal favorite. Its basically raw fish cut into cubes and mixed with various other ingredients. It’s super varied and can be made with shellfish as well. (I like salmon poke the best)
Macaroni salad - very common side dish, with macaroni and mayo and various other ingredients. This is usually served along with rice as two side dishes.
Musubi - Another favorite of mine. Made with spam, rice, and nori (seaweed). It’s a super common food here. It can also be made with other meat as well, chicken katsu is another popular way, but the staple musubi is made with spam.
Malsadas - from Portugal but these are honestly the best doughnuts I will ever have in my life and I didnt know how uncommon it was outside of Hawaii in the U.S.
Honestly there’s way to many to list that it would be Way To Long™
Don’t forget manapua an amazing ball of bread with different meats in the middle and lomi salmon diced salmon, tomato and onion all mixed together. I can’t wait to go back just so I can have real Hawaiian food again!
dutp I kills my battery and my phone, but the art is so gorgeous that I'm going to keep playing so I can collect all the art pieces and study how to recreate them
Lotor: I poisoned one of the drinks but I forgot which one. Shiro: You did WHAT?!? Allura: With the way the party is going, I hope it's mine. Lance: *chugs his entire drink*
Coran: Curious thing about Earthling physiology. Your peoples have spent so many eons actively digesting poisons that you are immune to most toxins known to other races.
Lance: We what?
Hunk: I mean, technically, pepper is a poison.
Pidge: So we don’t have to worry about our spiked drink?
Lotor: I’d still feel much better if we could identify which cup I--
Lance doing pull up, pulling himself up Kronos shoulders to kiss her ;)
Krolia: A little more.
Lance: I can’t!
Krolia: Just a little higher! You can do it!
Lance keeps missing.
Thanks for the Ask! Happy Kroliancing!
-
(id: Krolia, tall and buff, has one arm flexed and the other on her hip. From her flexed arm hangs Lance, shirtless and swinging, grinning as he aims to kiss her lips. end id.)
Asexual stories need to be told, so when BBC3 got in touch and told me that they wanted to cover the UK Asexuality Conference 2018 as part of a documentary on asexuality, I was excited
Asexual stories need to be told, so when BBC3 got in touch and told me that they wanted to cover the UK Asexuality Conference 2018 as part of a documentary on asexuality, I was excited to say the least. I would be speaking on two panels at the conference, providing some representation for Black aromantic asexual women. After coming out publicly as asexual last year, I have tried to use the platform I gained through fashion modelling to raise awareness for asexuality, so this opportunity was a perfect fit.
BBC3 were there from start to finish, filming the diverse display of asexual people I’ve ever seen. There were people from all walks of life – there were married asexuals, asexuals with children, transgender asexuals, Muslim asexuals, asexual people with disabilities, polyamorous asexuals, homoromantic asexuals, aromantic asexuals, teenage asexuals, and older asexuals. You name it, they were welcome and included.
We were filmed as we told our stories, such a powerful array of stories – some rocky, some smooth, but all equally empowering. BBC3 took a group of us aside for an in-depth group interview. The group was predominantly young and white, but it represented different types of asexuality and asexual experiences. But I soon realised that BBC weren’t interested in diverse experiences… They wanted the ‘lonely asexual’ trope.
When we sounded too positive, they were quick to put us in our place. They turned away from those of us who were happily aromantic, or happily in relationships, and drilled the singles for details about how it felt to be an unloved asexual who couldn’t find a partner. It seemed to displease them that some of us had even – god forbid – had sex and not hated every second of it. Quickly, they turned away from a guy who fit that category, rotated the camera to me, and asked, “If you had to have sex, how would that feel?”
“I wouldn’t have sex,” I answered.
“But if you had to, how would it feel?”
How would it feel if I was forced to have sex? Would a hypothetical rape make an aromantic asexual more interesting?
From then on, I sensed that BBC3 had an angle that they were sticking to, but I couldn’t have anticipated the patronising, whitewashed, exclusionary mess that they aired. They intelligently called the documentary, ‘I Don’t Want Sex,’ but what we actually got was, ‘The Undateables: Asexual Edition,’ and I was horrified.
I cringed as the cameras zoomed in on the presence of stuffed toys and action figures in one of the participant’s bedrooms, as if attempting to make her seem child-like. However, that was nothing in comparison to how I felt as an asexual guy was guided into a sex shop to test his levels of discomfort (which was obvious), or as they quizzed a girl on masturbation and vibrators in a room conveniently decorated with sexual images. I rolled my eyes as one of the participants eased an asexual guy through the art of texting a potential romantic interest, like teaching a child to read, and how an asexual girl not speaking to guys in a bar was treated as a cause for concern.
Asexuality is not synonymous with innocence and a lack of social skills, but it seemed like BBC3 didn’t want the public to know that. They also missed the detail that asking asexual people about what they do with their genitals is as inappropriate and invasive as asking as transgender woman whether she still has a penis. It’s an obvious, needless attempt to try and gauge how seriously someone should take another’s asexuality.
I was running out of hope by the time the conference was included in the last five minutes of the show, but I was curious to see what BBC3 had deemed important enough to show. Out of the hours and hours of footage they had of me, they decided to show me wiping my eyes, as if crying at the brief and uninspiring conversation about asexual clothing choices that they decided to air. Only, they knew that I had eyeliner in my eye. We had laughed about it on the day, they had supposedly paused the filming while I had been given a tissue to solve the problem. If I needed any more reason to suspect that the portrayal of asexual happiness was too much to ask for, that was it.
The closing statements of the documentary added insult to injury. “Cute asexuals do exist.” That’s the message that was taken from the conference? When we sat together for over an hour and opened up to BBC3’s cameras like it was some kind of group therapy meeting, I didn’t realise that we were being observed to see which was us were ‘cute’ enough to date. Well, the boys were, at least. It was time to add the old ‘asexual people aren’t good looking’ stereotype to the growing list featured in this documentary.
I am not just upset because BBC3 took an empowering, celebratory experience like the UK Asexuality Conference and tried to turn it into dating show. What bothers me the most about this documentary is the narrow, stereotypical portrayal of asexual people and asexuality – and just in time for Asexual Awareness Week. I know that BBC3 had the opportunity to do better, but they decided not to, even though this documentary could be the first and only time that people see real asexual people on a mainstream platform.
Asexual people aren’t just shy, white, young people who are sad because they can’t get dates. Despite BBC3’s desperate attempts to exclude us, aromantic asexual people exist, asexual people in happy relationships exist, asexual families exist, asexual minorities exist. Asexuality isn’t a new thing that only young people are doing. And asexual people are perfectly capable of living fulfilling, happy, complete lives, whether they date and have sex or not.
