They're Also Censoring People Who Use These Tags On X. Sudanese Creators And Activists Who Are Talking

Help a black queer artist escape their abusive home environment !!

$1,934/$7,000 raised

link is below! If you want more information I have a thread on my twitter (same handle with no dash) and more in my gofundme itself !! Anything helps and thank you so much !! 🫶🏾💕

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Donate to Help Me Leave my Abusive Household, organized by Dawāyna Banks

Hello, my name is Wayna (some of you know me as Jam online) and I'm currently in a ab… Dawāyna Banks needs your support for Help Me Leave my

One year gone

One year of killing civilians

One year of bombing hospitals

One year of bombing schools

One year of destroying a whole city

One year of starving people to death

One year of making people leave their homes to live in tents

One year and still the world just watching us dying

One year thousands are missing under the rubble thousands arrested with unknown future

One year of thousands of children lost either one of their parents or both

Thousands lost parts of their bodies

I can’t imagine this will continue for a year

Fuck this world fuck everyone

hear me out

Pro tip: If you say you support bigender and genderfluid people, you probably shouldn't say shit like this.

"A god should know, where all her dragons are."

I've seen plenty of discussion about how it's shitty of Erzsebet and Drolta to refer to Olrox as a dragon, because Quetzalcoatl isn't really a dragon, but it's like... Extra shitty on other levels?

I mean, this quote is already somethin' because dragon or not, she's referring to him as hers and just making it clear that she does not intend to afford him any agency in this """partnership""".

But I keep Having Thoughts ™ about the role and symbolism of dragons in European folklore.

In the most general sense, they represent power. In a lot of these stories, the dragon is an obstacle between the heroic protagonist and some kind of secret treasure or knowledge (Wealth! Land!). Or the dragon is terrorizing a nearby village (Never mind if the 'dragon' was there first!!). Or the dragon is unfairly hoarding riches it has no use for (don't worry, the colonizers will show the 'primitive savages' how to make the most of their land!! Isn't that nice of them??)

In these stories, it's up to the hero to eliminate this obstacle that's separating them from some resource they feel entitled to, or to 'tame' it and exploit its power for their own purposes. As such, they're pretty on-the-nose colonialist propaganda when viewed under the right lens.

So I wanna talk about The Golden Legend of Saint George and The Dragon, which is one of the most famous of these stories.

Story goes: There's a dragon who's been terrorizing a nearby village. The people start offering the dragon livestock to appease it, and when they run out of livestock, they start holding a regular lotteries to sacrifice one unlucky person to the dragon.

St George shows up before the next person (king's daughter) is about to be eaten, and he doesn't kill the dragon, no. He dominates it:

S. George was upon his horse, and drew out his sword and garnished him with the sign of the cross, and rode hardily against the dragon which came towards him, and smote him with his spear and hurt him sore and threw him to the ground. And after said to the maid: Deliver to me your girdle, and bind it about the neck of the dragon and be not afeard. When she had done so the dragon followed her as it had been a meek beast and debonair.

*(debonair in the archaic sense = gentle)

Erzsebet makes it clear that if she can't be worshipped, being feared is the next best thing. She can't get Olrox to ally with her willingly, so she resorts to force. In the end, she's getting what she really wants: obedience and subservience. For him to follow her like a meek beast.

The Golden Legend doesn't stop there though:

Then she led [the dragon] into the city, and the people fled by mountains and valleys, and said: Alas! alas! we shall be all dead. Then S. George said to them: Ne doubt ye no thing, without more, believe ye in God, Jesu Christ, and do ye to be baptized and I shall slay the dragon. Then the king was baptized and all his people, and S. George slew the dragon and smote off his head, and commanded that he should be thrown in the fields, and they took four carts with oxen that drew him out of the city.

A couple things here that slot right into the themes of colonialism in the show:

The dragon is used used as a way to coerce people into converting to Christianity. Just as Olrox would have watched the Spanish settlers do to his people: under threat of force.

The dragon is feared by the villagers despite no longer being an actual threat, but St George does nothing to dispel those fears—he exploits them. Just as prejudices of all kinds are used to justify settler colonialism as necessary or inevitable.

The dragon is slain and discarded once St George is done with it. Just as Olrox would have watched the Americans betray and displace the Mohican people who allied with them during the revolution.

Erzsebet and Drolta calling Olrox a "Dragon" isn't just ignorant or disrespectful because he's not a dragon. It's downright degrading. They're not just refusing to address him properly—they're telling a man who has survived settler colonization twice over that they intend to use him as a tool with which to do it again.

Olrox spends the season carefully stepping around every appeal Drolta makes for him to pledge loyalty to Erzsebet. And he's damned good at it: never giving up his true intentions by saying no outright, but wiggling out of ever having to say yes by instead asking pointed questions and making cutting observations that always land the ball back in their side of the court.

But then this scene happens, and he can't wiggle out of it this time. They've got their dragon where they want him. He's pinned and 'meek'—and I can think of nothing more infuriating and degrading for a character like Olrox than to be paraded about in his own land to help Erzsebet build her empire across it.

Olrox isn't a dragon, but she's going to make him one.

seirously pissed off that to get better at drawing i have to draw

this post actually broke my heart.

Help a black queer artist escape their abusive home environment !!

$1,934/$7,000 raised

link is below! If you want more information I have a thread on my twitter (same handle with no dash) and more in my gofundme itself !! Anything helps and thank you so much !! 🫶🏾💕

gofundme.com

Donate to Help Me Leave my Abusive Household, organized by Dawāyna Banks

Hello, my name is Wayna (some of you know me as Jam online) and I'm currently in a ab… Dawāyna Banks needs your support for Help Me Leave my

Urgent Humanitarian Appeal: A Displaced Family in Gaza📢🚨

My name is Ahmed Muneer Al-Anqar, I am 33 years old, and I am a father of four children: Qusai (12 years), Jouri (7 years), Mohammed (4 years), and Adam (9 months). In the recent war that ravaged the Gaza Strip, we lost everything. Our home, which was once our safe haven, was completely destroyed in the bombing, leaving us with nothing but rubble.💔💔💝

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Donate to Ahmed in the Heart of War:A Father's Struggle to Save family, organized by Ahmed moner alanqar

Urgent Humanitarian Appeal: A Displaced Family in Gaza … Ahmed moner alanqar needs your support for Ahmed in the Heart of War:A Father

My wife Heba, who is 27 years old, and I are doing everything we can to protect our children from the chaos that has overtaken our lives. After being forced to flee to the southern part of Gaza, we are living in a dire situation. We’ve lost all hope of returning to a normal life, as we are now without proper shelter and struggling with the most basic necessities of life.

In addition to losing our home, we are suffering from a severe shortage of food and clean drinking water. Our children sometimes go to bed without enough to eat, and we face the constant threat of hunger and thirst. Moreover, we are unable to access the medical care we desperately need. Both my wife and I require physical and mental health treatment, and our children are in urgent need of medical care, but in our current situation, getting treatment feels impossible.😭🚨💔

My house before it was destroyed

My house after it was completely destroyed

On top of all that, I was one of the survivors of the Baptist Hospital massacre, where we were seeking refuge. We were hit by devastating airstrikes, and I saw death with my own eyes. I survived by a miracle, but I now suffer from severe psychological trauma. It has become difficult for me to continue my life normally, and I am struggling to cope with this emotional burden while trying to stay strong for my family.

Our children are suffering too. Qusai, Jouri, and Mohammed don’t understand why their lives are filled with fear and destruction. Little Adam has never even known what safety feels like. We do our best to meet their needs, but life has become overwhelming.

This is why we are reaching out to you today. We are in desperate need of your help. Every donation, no matter how small, will make a huge difference in our lives. Help us rebuild our lives, provide food, water, and medical care for our children. We are relying on your generosity and support during this difficult time.

gofundme.com

Donate to Ahmed in the Heart of War:A Father's Struggle to Save family, organized by Ahmed moner alanqar

Urgent Humanitarian Appeal: A Displaced Family in Gaza … Ahmed moner alanqar needs your support for Ahmed in the Heart of War:A Father

Thank you for any contribution, and for keeping us in your prayers.🙏❤️🙏

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