Latest Posts by ilytreasurelily - Page 2

call her ai the way she makes me generate slop

One of the machines broke down at the hyperbole factory. The situation is frustrating, but ultimately manageable.

there's a fine line between being wary of manipulation and becoming completely paranoid because you get very close to the realisation that pretty much all human interaction involves doing things we hope will lead to a result we like

In 2015, the UK was ranked 1st place, rated 86% for LGBT+ human rights in Europe. Today the UK is in 22nd place, with 46% just ten years later.

When you make jokes about TERF Island and it being some sort of karma for lost empires well maybe take a second to remember people live here. Your friends live here. We cannot escape. There is no where some of us can legally go. We are scared . A 40% drop. 40. How quickly this country has unravelled is deeply horrifying to many.

To my queer brothers and sisters and siblings, hold on. We can make it.

♥️❤️💙💚💛💜🧡

love telling people I'm not on social media as if it's not 98% of my waking hours. well I'm not on social media in a way that you'd recognize

i apologise if this is too venty or oversharing. i've been reading your and talia's essays while in the middle of my own gender-crisis and while i recognise them as the most comprehensive and sensible framework i've seen to understand how the patriarchy works - and i regret how this might come off as a whiny "what about me" - when patriarchy forces us into these strict biodestinies, what's the point of transitioning or trying to express your gender outside the box? again i do not mean this as a gotcha or declaring that people shouldn't transition ever, but the closest thing i've got to describing myself is "dykegender" and i know declaring myself as one would be met with raised eyebrows and "humouring the crazy" at best and being violently regendered into broodmare at worst. it's already so hard to explain and declare myself and just be seen as a lesbian, and i'm struggling to see if there's any benefits to openly being a deviant woman-dyke-thing vs swallowing my (relatively minor) dysphoria

thank you for reading this. thank you for your writing. i hope i come off as sincere and with respect.

I'm glad you find our writing thought-provoking. And yeah, first of all, I want to say that I empathise with your feelings--I think a lot of queer people struggle with existing legibly, because queerness is made illegible by the patriarchy. So your "what's even the point??" question makes sense.

Because I don't know you, I'm going to have to make some assumptions and answer from multiple angles, sometimes over explaining myself, because I don't know what baseline you're coming from. I hope that's okay.

Firstly, transition can actually change the way people gender you, even in places where trans-ness is very invisible. But based on what you wrote, I'm going to assume you're dissatisfied with simply shifting your perceived sex from woman to man or vice versa. Secondly, if you have physical dysphoria, addressing that will help you even if no one else on the planet recognises that as anything of importance. It's still your body to live in 24/7, and you'll be happier if you like living in it.

When it comes to the function of patriarchy, you probably understand that Talia and I talk about the overarching emergent system. Its details differ by location and culture and subculture--the core large-scale tendencies stay largely the same, but their expression and severity changes. More to the point, not all people follow patriarchal prescripts all the time or at all. So, an environment that does not denigrate you because you call yourself dykegender, and that does not treat you or women like would-be broodmares, is possible--I can attest to that from personal experience. Even if people in such an environment don't understand what your specific gender means, trust me they are capable of not treating you like shit. You are not submitting yourself to the judgement of the entire world at all times, and you do not need to measure the worthiness of your actions by the worst treatment you get or might get.

In other words, finding friends and community with people that do see you is possible--they exist, you're reading essays by some of them. I will not deny that there will still be people that meet you with confusion and hostility, but to say that their existence makes the entirety of your being a lost cause is a bit fatalistic. I feel like the good times we have in our queer communities, big and small, are not less worthwhile or fulfilling because of the suppression we face outside.

Lastly, I'm going to give you advice that you might scoff at, but hear me out. The thing with writings about social constructs of patriarchy and disability and so on is that they're not good at inspiring contentment and affirmative happy fun times. That isn't their purpose. But human beings need some amount of affirmative happy fun times, especially in crisis. That leads to some human beings sticking their heads in the sand and never emerging to face reality again, but you seem to have the exact opposite tendency.

So I will recommend that you seek out lesbian genderfucky fiction in whatever way you prefer to consume fiction. Talia and I both write that occasionally, but this isn't a plug and I don't know what you like. Regardless, the psyche is a muscle that needs rest, and escapist and cathartic fiction is a form of rest in which your mind gets to try on different realities and experience them in a safe environment. And, in seeking out people that create fiction resembling the kind of worlds you'd like to live in, you can also connect with people that also enjoy that fiction--meaning, they're probably like you, and will understand you. This isn't per se about fandom, but rather shared dreams and aspirations and communities. Even when you're isolated in a terrible situation IRL, that can give you solace for the moment and eventually strength to try and change your circumstance--and friends who can help you do that, including materially.

TRANS MEN ARE NOT CIS WOMEN TRANS MEN ARE NOT CIS WOMEN TRANS MEN ARE NOT CIS WOMEN TRANS MEN ARE NOT CIS WOMEN TRANS MEN ARE NOT CIS WOMEN TRANS MEN ARE NOT CIS WOMEN TRANS MEN ARE NOT CIS WOMEN TRANS MEN ARE NOT CIS WOMEN TRANS MEN ARE NOT CIS WOMEN TRANS MEN ARE NOT CIS WOMEN TRANS MEN ARE NOT CIS WOMEN

SOME TRANS MEN MIGHT ALSO IDENTIFY AS CIS WOMEN BUT THAT IS NOT THE MAJORITY OF TRANS MEN

AND MOST OF US ARE NOT TREATED AS CIS WOMEN JUST BECAUSE WE DONT PASS

A LOT OF US ARE INTERSEX AND HAVE HIRSUTISM OR ARE VERY VISIBLY TRANS OR GENDER NONCONFORMING AND WE GET TREATED LIKE SHIT FOR IT BY SOCIETY BECAUSE WE ARE QUEER AND OPPRESSED

STOP PRETENDING LIKE YOU KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT THE EXPERIENCE OF TRANS MEN WHEN YOURE A TRANS WOMAN THAT DOESNT KNOW A GODDAMN THING ABOUT US OR OUR OPPRESSION

CALLING TRANS MEN "CIS WOMEN" IS SO DEEPLY TRANSPHOBIC ON ITS OWN JESUS FUCKING CHRIST

The year is 2025. The public bathroom AI genital scanner has called the police on you while you’re pissing because the AI was trained off of Reddit furry porn and doesn’t recognise human genitalia

At the end of my rope and it keeps getting longer like some sort of clown handkerchief bit?

"It was the last time I saw my brother... The last time I saw the Sun"

This line from Stack, at the end of Sinners, made me thing about the possibility that Stack cannot see himself in the mirror because he's vampire.

It must hurt to know that him cannot even see Smoke in a reflection.

Okay... So I'm in a way right now with the red tide and hormones..... But I did want to say some things about SINNERS while I have a little bit of mental energy.

Stack and Smoke are two sides of the same coin, yin and yang, red and blue, Italian and Irish gang clothing style... etc.

Some people are getting carried away with analysis and it's giving more projection of what you want it to be vs. what is.... Coogler himself has cited great fun tropey horror films and pop culture touchstones like Salem's Lot (the book not the movie) and Puss in Boots: The Last Wish (which I love that that's a reference) he has said his most important takeaway is "ownership of art."

The act structure that gave us that classic "caper" set-up of all kinds of characters listening to the plan and then going "you sonavabitch, I'm in." for the juke joint was my favorite part of this TBH.

It is NOT a Christian "Come to Jesus" movie and I LOVE that about it. In fact, it's the opposite.

It's a "be true to self and your gifts in the face of any god or devil", movie.

BOTH women love interests (white presenting and full-figured and unambiguously Black ,--back to that yin and yang of the twins) were beloved by a twin, both fit the elemental nature of said twin, and both had to traverse death to be with their love.

As an aside.... loved hearing a southern accent from our Asian cousins, seeing the "not my problem" energy from the Choctaw hunters, and the reminder that there was actual ancestral cultural community before "whiteness" for white people too, and why many no longer have it...

LOVED LOVED LOVED the cultural details in the character work, setting, energy, etc.... ESPECIALLY Delroy Lindo's vocal cadence.

I loved what Coogler chose to NOT show to make the energy more impactful and palpable in both sensuality and scares.

I'll be the weirdo who prefers the pure blues vs. the remix but I LOVED seeing all the ancestors and descendents come and vibe with the music...I used to have recurring dreams of a multicultural ancestral world jam session, so "that scene" hit me hard.

Remmick just follows in the tradition of Coogler villains being compelling af, but ultimately WRONG because of an essential flaw in their logic (i.e. Killmonger's misogynoir and colonizing techniques and funnily enough Remmick's colonizing techniques, klan and black using vampire telepathy for a faux community peace)

I have seen no one else mention this, but I chuckled at Saul "List of Demands" Williams playing the preacher, aka Sammie's dad

the vampire nerd part of me absolutely rejoiced at all the "traditional" vampire warding aspects, ESPECIALLY the silver, something that is often wrongly asserted as being just for werewolves

loved how filthy and raunchy the language was when it came to desire... because that's real (and I hate purity culture which is very much now tied to the alt-right white Christo-fascist pipeline right now) AND centering women's pleasure and, in many cases audacious initiative. (ahem, I see you Ryan and I see how Zinzi's in the current state she's in, congrats!! *cough* this is the healthiest type of straight man sexual energy BTW)

BE WARY of the takes out there that are overly-projecting. It's neither religious nor hotepy. It's a Southern Gothic fable/folktale about a musician with a gift surviving a magical night....

YES it's full of ancestral energy, but ultimately the central message is about being true to self when it comes to ancestral gifts and community

When the music business was first commodified in this country, y'know genre itself was a tool of racism. Like, if a black person sang a song and then if a white person sang the same song they would put those two songs into two different genres. The black song would be called a race record and then if a white person sang the song that might be called bluegrass. The music industry came before the film industry. It's an older industry so a lot of the film business follows the whims of music cause it's an older industry. That tradition causes certain genres to be ghettoized. Like this genre is beneath this genre. The horror movie is beneath the costume drama.

-Ryan Coogler on genre in Sinners: An Interview with Ryan Coogler

Can we discuss how likely it was Stack was still inside the juke joint and it was the reason why the place had been locked up? So yeah Smoke killed the kkk for revenge but also it was his final act of protecting his brother who would have died had sun light been let in???

Also the fact that Stack could have watched everything and been the one to give Smoke a proper burial in the end? I just hate how they were separated in life and death. So unfair!

li jun li and yao behind the scenes as grace and bo chow in SINNERS (2025)

you ever think about the intricacies of smoke & stack's dynamic and go fucking crazy?

their abusive father zeroing in on stack as the outlet for his beatings, smoke killing their daddy, half way done burying him by the time stack came to - smoke being the BIG BROTHER from the start, keeping stack safe - stack becoming who he is - bit reckless, full of charisma and whimsy because of smoke, in a way, shielding him from the world ("doesn't know how to watch his own back").

thinking of smoke saying how stack is the best thing about him, how stack talks a big game but how it's smoke who kills the snake, smoke who shoots two men for stealing out of his truck, smoke who pulls a gun on sammie and pearline. does he ever think he got more of their daddy in him than stack? where stack can connect with people in a way smoke can't quite follow. stack laying out clothes for him, doing his hair, rolling his cigarettes- giving smoke back some of what the war took.

but I also can't help but think that there is this slight ....almost paternalistic element at times - the way stack looks around for smoke when he's with mary, worried he'll be caught, worried he'll displease him and yet that thing he says when he's turned "don't let that witch come between us again" - there's no doubt that stack loves annie and is clearly DISTRAUGHT when smoke kills her but ...was there ever resentment? did he ever feel betrayed? was it ever only meant to be the two of them against the world?

"he was the best thing about me" "i ain't doing it without you there ain't no me without you" "sorry for not keeping you safe - you always did" the way stack is just that one person smoke can't kill, the way the only time he wavers in his resolve is when his vampire brother talks with him.

(this is borderline incoherent but I have a lot of thoughts)

The immediacy with which you know which twin is on the screen is CRAZY!! Michael’s acting is so nuanced that you can tell the difference between Smoke and Stack simply by the way their eyes glint…

sinners: how real stories of irish and choctaw oppression inform the film

I found an interview with Ryan Coogler and Ludwig Goransson talking about the music of Sinners, and there's a very touching part about how the mid-credits scene came to be. So, spoilers below:

The final scene in the film, technically a post-credits scene, was actually the first one shot chronologically. Coogler wanted to show a more recent link to the story’s century-old events, and he really wanted his uncle’s favorite blues musician, Buddy Guy, to be involved. But he quickly learned that Guy, now in his late 80s, hadn’t been to a theater since the “fish movie,” a.k.a. “Jaws,” and he despaired of his chances. Still, he arranged to go see Guy play in Chicago. “I get to the show,” says Coogler, “and his whole family is in the backstage room — his grandkids. And they’re like, ‘Oh, cool, we’re going to bring you to see our grandpa.’ And me and Zinzi go in there and sit down, and he’s like, ‘Yo, man.’” “I’m not a movie guy,” the bluesman said, in Coogler’s retelling of this momentous meeting, “but my kids love your movies and they tell me that I gotta meet with you. So I’m here — whatever you need. You want me to sing? I’ll sing. You want me to act? I’m on for the work. But I got you.” “I pitched him what the movie was,” Coogler continues, “and he told me his life story about being a sharecropper as a kid and going up to Chicago and trying to learn how to play. I broke down crying, because everything I had just written in the script, this dude lived.” “Outside of the supernatural stuff,” Coogler clarifies.

(x)

Remmick, Ryan Coogler's vampire in Sinners, is written so well. You have a white, Irish vampire from the time of the colonization of Ireland by the english who is trying to deal with his own loss and 'hunger'. He wants to use Sammie. He wants to take away Sammie's music, his tradition and to use it for his own gain.

We have one more white oppressor who presents himself as a saviour. He inflitrates a black community, coming with the promise of... equality, community and freedom from death. But those promises come to fruition in a very specific manner. Remmick is the leader, for all the equality he promises. HE is the one who sets the tune the rest are singing. HE is the one whose pain is felt by every member of this 'community'. Every person that is turned connects to him in a hive-mind of collective memory and experience that HE controls and is able to use to his own convenience. Moreover, this is a collective that does not exclude the KKK-alligned family that was part of the plan to slaughter an entire black community.

Remmick represents a seemingly politically correct, predominantly white globalization. He presents himself as well-intended. He may even BELIEVE that he is. But what he offers is the death of individuality, of culture and tradition.

There is something to be said about how Sinners isn't saying to lock the door on black culture and never let anyone else in. A big part of the scene of Sammie singng at the juke joint is the fact that there are other cultures involved. The chinese characters are accepted gladly and their culture is also shown in the process of looking back and forward.

In my opinion Sinners does point to the issue that white supremacy and a lot of white people who don't think they are racist like to iron over the culture they take in. Seperate it from the context and the people who created the culture until the heart of it is basically gone.

Remmick is a racist, but he also would have likely had a chance to interact with the culture in a normal way and connect with his own if he had just accepted that he wasn't the center of Sammie's music. The need to rip away Sammie's memories, talent, and culture and assimilate it into the hoard for his own gain without caring about what that culture means for the people it came from is the issue with Remmick. It is also the issue with a lot of people who want to view and interact with black culture, but get icked out when they actually have to be faced with the centuries of struggle that led to that genre of music, or dance, or hairstyle being created.

I do want to touch on one more thing. When black people were stolen from Africa and put on those ships. They stripped us of our culture, our language and our history. A lot of us in present day can’t even say where our ancestors came from exactly, we can’t speak the language, we don’t even know the names of our forefathers.

That music scene was so moving because it highlights that despite all of the terrible atrocities, we are connected. Past, present and future. It’s in our soul, it’s in our very bones. We will always carry each other. It’s spiritual and it’s unbreakable. That power is our birthright.

I'm so happy Ryan Coogler hired Yvonne Chireau as his Hoodoo consultant for "Sinners'. That man really respects our roots. Yvonne don't play about Black American culture and our connections to spirit and Africa. Her books and lectures are always on point

Some after "Sinners" reading material if you're interested in Black American and Indigenous History (and the immigrants who came over, too). I put in the Jones-Rogers book too so y'all won't think the 58% had no serious role in shaping the horrors of America.

Adding this amazing "Sinners Syllabus" too for further resources to educate yourself. The books above are ones I have in my personal library, but some very cool people put together an entire webpage of information. Check it out HERE.

im thinking abt sinners and The Scene: how Sammie played so beautifully that the house caught fire and showed the people inside, but he wasn't the center of it - there was so much movement in that scene!!! so much to SEE - no two people danced the same way - you're focusing on the spirits of the old and the new and how Together everyone looked even without four walls around them.

And then you have Remmick and his song. There's uniformity in the dancing!!! in the singing!!!! in the movements!!!!!!! Those same people who were dancing so freely and expressively!!!!! Now following remmick step after step!!!!!

Whiteness as vampirism!!! Leeching away individuality!!!! culture!!! freedom!!! ughhgghh this movie !!!!!¡!!! so good !!!!!¡!!!!!!!

i know i shouldnt be suprised but sinners being out for less than a week and already tumblr is fandomifying and 'poor wet pathetic cat'-ifying the main white man villain of the movie is so... disapointing??? like did the fucking point of the movie really go over your heads that badly or are you just willingly ignorant and stupid?

AND BEFORE ANYONE STARTS; im not saying you cant like remmick, he's a very interesting character, a great villain, and jack o'connell gave a great performance playing him, nor do i care if you think hes sexy, I think hes sexy

but i think to come out of a movie where vampires serve as a metaphor for how black american communities have the life sucked out of them by white people via cultural appropriation (remmick wanting to use sammie's gift to summon his own ancestors) and forced assimilation (all the turned vampires singing and dancing along with remmick's irish folk song and dance juxtaposed with the blend of cultures during sammie's song in the juke joint) and for your main take away to be 'aww the main villain is just a misunderstood sadboy' or 'idc abt the atrocities he looked sexy doing them (when the atrocities in question were racism)' then youre just being so disengenuous and antithetical to the whole point of the film?

and dont come at me with the 'let people enjoy things' bullshit, sinners is a movie FUNDAMENTALLY about racism and racial dynamics in the united states, and i do think focusing on your little y/n x [whiteboy of the month] fics and 'hes so babygirl' posts do actually stunt your own critical engagement with the message this movie was trying to convey to its audience

i think its also a disservice to remmick's character; the moral nuance that comes to light when you consider his position as an irish immigrant to the US, a victim of the colonialist british empire just like the black main cast (although in a very different way) and how, whilst his desire to reclaim his ancestry and heritage is understandable and even relatable, his pursuit of sammie and willingness to kill literally everyone else at the juke joint is allegorical for how, regardless of their own marginalisation, white people will prey upon and steal from black culture(s) and destroy/disenfranchise black communities to serve their own interests, and the movie is NOT subtle about this either, delta slim literally lays it out for us "white folks like the blues just fine, they just don't like the people who make them"

idk im yelling into the void here, the ppl im complaining about are never going to give a shit about racism or even just critically engaging with art when theres a new cute whiteboy to write fluff and angst about, but its just soooo annoying to see, yet again, how fandom spaces, which SHOULD be about uplifing and celebrating art in all its diversity and complexity, once again is nothing more than people ignoring anything that actually makes them have to confront reality and filing off the serial numbers to slot characters into pre-determined fanon molds so they can pump out incorrect quotes and coffee shop AUs en masse until the media iliterate heat death of the universe

if sinners (2025) taught me anything, it's that it IS actually always about race.

you can be oppressed, and still promote and maintain the very same systems of oppression onto other marginalized people. being oppressed in one dimension doesn't allow you to be exempt from oppressing in other dimensions. the "villain" of the movie, remmick, being from the time period of the english colonization of ireland, all the while wanting to take a piece of sammie's own culture from him, use him for it. and this plot point coming after remmick witnesses the significance of sammie's playing within his culture, for his ancestors and how it would shape Black culture in the future.

even in today's society, ive noticed that people treat Black people like a commodity. our worth is only as much as other people decide it to be, and that's usually dependent on how much the oppressor can take from us. for example, the controversy of"internet slang" and how it is blatantly just AAVE with a bad disguise on

do you listen to Black musicians? do you watch Black movies? do you engage with Black creators? do you defend the racist tendencies you notice in your friends, in your family, or do you stay silent? do you listen when Black people tell you you've said or done something racist? do you actually care about not being racist, or do you just not want to look like you're racist?

i just think people have a very specific take on what racism is, and that if they're not committing KKK-levels of violence on people, then they're not racist. or if you've experienced oppression in one form, you cannot possibly be engaging with oppression in another form. but the ways in which we interact with other people and the world will always be through the lens of race, because that is simply what it means for oppression to be systemic, especially in the US and our current political climate

anyway 10/10 movie. highly recommend

remmick and the vampires present a false dichotomy

Hogwood (the man who sold the twins the mill) and the KKK are very obviously bad, they are outright malicious bigotry, they use the n-word and plan to lynch the moore's and their community, they are so blatantly racist and hateful it's unavoidably obvious

remmick and the vampires however say that they believe in equality, say that they want to create a community, and yet remmick's goal throught the movie is to both metaphorically and literally steal sammie's ability for his own goal of reconnecting with his irish ancestors, a white man wants to harm a young and upcoming black man and use talents for his own goals without giving any regard to said black man's autonomy or agency

when sammie sings 'I lied to you' in the juke joint and calls forth the spirits from the past and future, it's a blend of cultures; west african, east asian, native american, and african american song and dance blend together across time and space to tell the stories of blues; where it takes its inspiration from, the music genres it then inspired, the complex history of black american culture and its intersections with other peoples of colour in the USA

when remmick and the vampires kill and turn the people in the juke joint, and then perform rocky road to dublin, only remmick's irish culture is on display, there is no influence from the black and asian people he has forcibly assimilated into his song, it's juxtaposition with the earlier scene is blatant, remmick is more than happy to assimilate people of colour into his 'community' of 'equals', and yet its only whiteness that is celebrated, that is normative

remmick claims that he's doing people a favour by turning them immortal, conviently ignoring that he literally has to suck the life out of them to do so, trapping their spirits on earth, he claims that he's the good guy, that the KKK were gonna come and lynch everyone at the joint in the morning anyways, conviently ignoring that he's doing the exact same thing; a white man leading a mob to kill a bunch of black people

in the final confrontation with sammie remmick repeatedly dunks him into the river, a forceful baptism. both the celtic irish and enslaved west africans had their religions suppressed and destroyed by colonialsm, had christianity forced upon them by the british empire, and in that scene we see remmick repeating that cycle, using christianity to inflict harm, and sammie reclaiming christianity, despite all the complex emotions he has arround it, as many colonised peoples have and still do, when he recites the lord's prayer

remmick and the vampires are no less racist than hogwood and the KKK, are no less predatory or evil, they're just less blantant about their bigotry, they represent the system, the normalised white supremacy that is seeped into the very foundation of culture in america, the point isnt that remmick would call any of the black characters in the movie the n-word, i dont think he would, the point is that his exploitation and desacration and inserting-himself-into-when-he-wasn't-invited of the juke joint is a microcosm of what white people have done to black american arts and culture since ever since there have been black and white people in america, and even before that

theres a reason vultures are shown early on in this movie

it really frustrates me to think about how people are inevitably going to take Remmick’s one (1) singular statement about how much he resents the way the Irish were colonized and forcibly converted to Christianity and use it as fuel for “actually he had a point” and “he was right actually” and “he’s not really the villain here” posts, when the whole point is that Remmick is, through the vampiric hive mind he’s creating, forcibly assimilating people into yet another manipulative and parasitical system. he doesn't value the cultures of the people he assimilates—notice how all the vampires he turns dance to his culture's music using his culture's dances, and how he only uses the languages or knowledge other vampires have to offer when he needs to manipulate someone. Remmick is extremely transparent about the way he sees the people he turns as resources to exploit.

he’s perpetuating a cycle that he claims to hate and resent, and I think the movie is pretty damn clear about the fact that he doesn’t see anybody as valuable or useful to him except as prey and as pawns—otherwise he would just, you know, focus solely on people who actually consent to being turned. but he looked sad in that one scene and he’s an apparently attractive white cis man so people are gonna bend over backwards justifying all the harm he did.

saw a theory that the SmokeStack twins were posing as one man in Chicago, which helped them get away with stealing from both sides. i'm poised to believe that because visually their clothing was very clearly of the two mobs. smoke was full irish— tweed, bowler hat. while stack had the full mafia look. yk italian leather shoes, fedora etc etc . like the details!!