Jess, 26, Belgian.
My cosplayalias is Chameleoncat! This is my personal/fandom/cosplay/... blog.
Main fandoms: dc, foxhole court, .... Instagram = chameleonxcat.
Facebook page = Chameleoncat Creations
That went from zero to 100 REAL quick lets get some education about tā moko up in here before we make these wild claims!
Tatau or tattoos have been found all over the world in many
civilisations, but it was absolutely the Age of Sail and the
colonisation of the Pacific Islands that popularised it and spread it
around the world. Tatau is a samoan word that means to strike, and many
polynesian cultures have a rich history of tattooing with very specific
meanings and connections. Western sailors visiting the islands got their
own and soon brought tattoos back to white civilisation where we know
and love it today as artistic body modifications. Western tattoos usually come with
deep individual personal meaning as opposed to the widespread cultural meaning that occurs in polynesian tattoos.
Tattooing has also had a big impact on the queer community too which
makes the ofmd connections all the more interwoven (it’s about the
intricate rituals)
Edward
“Blackbeard“ Teach from Our Flag Means Death is played by Taika Waititi, a Māori and jewish man,
and as part of his character design, Taika’s own tattoos were added
upon to create the visuals of blackbeard! These tattoos are an essential
part of the character and it makes sense that anyone drawing or
especially cosplaying Blackbeard would want to make sure that these
tattoos are included. Unfortunately there has already been a few
(probably well-intentioned) call-out posts for doing so (see above), saying that
cosplayers should not be drawing on tattoos that have specific cultural
significance! Which is absolutely correct!
The problem is these
posts have also failed to recognise what is and isn’t Māori tā moko and
what is literally just . . a regular tattoo 🙈
Here’s Taika and his tattoos:
The eagle on his chest, the little Rita Ora tattoo on his hip and yes, those black bands on his arms are all likely to have very personal meaning to Taika but they are not tā moko.
Tā moko is the practice of tattooing that is specific to the Māori people and a quick google search will show you just how recognisable tā moko is, a tradition that goes back hundreds of years.
Tā moko is usually the more traditional type reserved for the face and the more modern concept of tattoos as body art can be referred to as Kirituhi. Every piece is unique to the wearer, with koru (spirals) that represent family and the darker infilled parts using various symbolic patterns.
Here to give some input as Māori people themselves are my friends on twitter speaking about the specific tā moko that Taika has that you shouldn’t try to reproduce: The tā moko on his leg, the whare (meeting house) on his wrist, and the traditional imagery of rā the sun on his back (seen in the above photo of Taika also)
So to conclude: YES as a non Māori person you should avoid drawing on tā moko as part of a cosplay as there is very deep cultural and personal significance in those specific tattoos, and Māori people who see their culture misrepresented in a poor rendition of tā moko will likely take offense.
but unless Taika himself has asked people not to there’s nothing wrong with drawing on the tattoo’s that aren’t tā moko, including the eagle on his chest and yes, those two black bands on his arms.
BUT ALSO: do not erase tā moko from fanart of blackbeard, if you want to draw the whare on his wrist or the rā on his back, or the kirituhi on his leg - power to you!!! And don’t bloody whitewash the man either or I’ll set the kraken on you!!! ☠🐙
(Please go retweet and support my friends on twitter I have linked them all above their tweet screenshots!)
richard -> dick so obviously we should start the charles -> cock process
how the fuck do you get cock from charles
you ask him nicely
The Richard-dick naming situation actually comes from a fad that existed back in I think it was the 17th or 18th century, can’t remember which. But the naming fad/convention of the time was for rhyming secondary nicknames for names that already had a 4 letter nickname. Ie: William-will-bill, Richard-rick-dick
I didn’t feel it was appropriate for me to add to that last post but it’s related so - Please, for the love of God, learn to manage your own emotional responses to media on your own.
Maybe it’s because I started reading horror at a young age, but I learned pretty quickly that if a book is too heavy or graphic or whatever for you, it’s alright to recognise those feelings, and either stop reading it entirely, or take a break. Do something that helps you calm down. Re-engage with comfort media. Give your pets a lil kiss.
It’s not a moral failing on the author for a book to upset you. It’s not a moral failing for you to be upset. It’s just a fact of life we all have to learn to cope with.
If you don’t know how to handle discomfort in a book you’re not going to enjoy Life™.
Maybe this sounds dismissive to you but stop for a moment and think about it. If you’re losing your mind at a minor inconvenience, a serious incident will destroy you. I had to learn to triage my emotions by severity, and it made my anxiety far more manageable and given the pile of shit life has handed me lately and I’m still here it seems to have worked.
I don’t know yet how to clearly express this but this is something I think about from a different angle: young children. Who, obviously, become adults, so it’s still directly related.
So many parents I’ve encountered, when discussing what media they show their children, have this standard: if it upsets the child, they weren’t ready for it. Ah, they cried watching the Lion King, so I should have waited until they were older. It’s SO STRANGE to me and I’m at a loss to know when we got like this. You are supposed to cry watching the Lion King. I do.
One Crazy Summer is supposed to upset you and challenge you, shock you and make you angry. When we were reading it, and the kids needed extra time to process something, we’d just pause and either discuss it or just wait until we could all collect ourselves again, and then continue. My son struggled with the subject of anti-black racism for weeks afterwards. I took that as a sign that he HAD been old enough to grapple with the themes of the book, and connected well.
I think the cultural tendency to shield children from any painful emotion a piece of media might create leads pretty obviously and directly to the stuff discussed above. The ability to process, discuss, and analyze media, or just to sit with your pain and then collect yourself and move past it, is a skill and must be practiced.
I think that makes a ton of sense, thank you for sharing this perspective.
Me, aged 14, reading Tolkien: Hobbits are considered chuldren until they are 30? How funky! Fantasy worldbuilding! This is so different from us humans!
Me, aged 25: Oh i get it now
JRR Tolkien looking upon a quad of Oxford post-graduate students: “Children, all of them children.”
Are you kidding me this is the best video I’ve ever seen
those are wood ducks! they tend to lay their eggs inside tree hollows away from predators and when their ducklings hatch they sort of plop down. The parents usually only nest about as high as their young can handle which can be up to 50 feet up!
this momma had the misfortune of making her nest over concrete so it sgood that she had assistance.
@is-the-owl-vid-cute, I’m curious about your take here. Is this guy genuinely saving their lives, or would touching the babies be more help than harm in this situation?
Touching them does not do any harm. Unless the thing touching them is concrete at a high velocity. That would do harm.
