Silver Adept (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
silveradept) wrote2020-07-01 12:04 pm
silveradept) wrote2020-07-01 12:04 pm
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Sunshine Challenge 2020 #1: Red, Like Roses
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sunshine_challenge begins today, and it looks like this year is going with a spectral theme! (It's no-pressure, things every other day, and there's no penalty for only doing the things you like or have the capacity for.)
Here's the 1 July 2020 prompt on the theme of red:
I've always been taught that red is a color of anger ("seeing red") and of blood, usually someone else's. This isn't surprising, given that I look like a dude and was raised in a provincial environment that thought very highly of gender roles. (I might be the last generation raised before the gender spectrum became a widespread and mostly-accepted concept, depending on where someone puts the boundary lines for generations.) Accompanying that upbringing was a lack of tools for engaging with frustration and a space where emotions could be expressed when they were small instead of building into big things. (There's also a thread woven in here about the only seemingly safe place as a small being the unflinchingly perfect person who never failed, fixed versus growth mindsets, the interplay between The Fool and the Magician, as well as the Unnamable Way, the spark of enlightenment that comes from getting outside your own thoughts, and the society that probably owes a lot more to Masters Moh and Kong than it would admit, even if it wants to think of itself as being more of the school of Master Lao.) It does not help that many of the ways that I have learned for dealing with things that produce frustration and anger are maladaptive to the more important matter of not standing on someone else's triggers. Even now, my red shirt is specifically for the days when I need to project a "don't fork with me" attitude, and it's telling that there are still plenty of days where I need that attitude, and the backing red, to succeed.
Red has also been the color of leadership for a lot of my fannish experience. Red is almost always the leader of any given Super Sentai squadron (even the unofficial one), Command staff for many, if not most, of the Star Trek series wear red uniforms, Ruby Rose of RWBY is all red and the leader of her team, and Jaune really only comes into himself as a confident leader of JN_R after Pyrrha is gone, signified by Jaune taking up the red of her sash into his own outfit. Carmen Sandiego's signature fedora and trenchcoat are red, signifying her place as the leader of her team, whether that's V.I.L.E. or in opposition to them.
Yes, there's also a certain amount of expandability associated with red-shirt crewmembers from Star Trek, because we are vast, we contain contradictions.
Health is almost always red in a game (there's that "blood" connection, even when the characters aren't human), and also the color of danger or warnings related to life and the imminent loss thereof.
Red carries with it an interesting connection to romance and to sexual power both, at least in my current society, even though if you asked a person raised in an even more gender-essentialist environment than mine about red, they'd claim one red was appropriate and the other less so, even though the historical record says this was not always the case. Pink, a lighter form of red, is more often than not associated with romantic love, feelings, and women, who have a long history of being constructed as either not-men or men-lite, when they hold any form of position considered to be the domain of men. Because of the emphasis that pink currently receives on feelings and women, it gets rejected by the self-appointed guardians of the ever-shifting sand-castle called masculinity. They want the full, "undiluted" red much more associated with power and over-powering all they want to control, and a lot of that is based in sexual dominion. Pink hearts and flowers are for "feelings", which are weak. Red hearts (and their chocolate boxes) and flowers are for the people you want to have sex with, by which you assert that you are a member in good standing of masculinity.
And then there's Steven Universe, which was probably where this was going to end up anyway. (Spoilers!) Pink is a thematic color for both the show and for Steven himself, since he wears pink shirts. His mother, Rose Quartz, is styled as someone with curly hair and a conventionally feminine body. (His mother's Diamond form, as Pink Diamond, is much more childlike and small compared to the other diamonds, which makes me wonder whether a story that goes in a different direction would have Pink Diamond eventually decide to become Red Diamond and change accordingly.) Steven presents a differing conception of masculinity, in that he's not particularly strong or tough physically, he expresses his feelings freely, his empathy often gets him in trouble, although it is almost never fully wrong once all the context comes out, and the first few items he can summon to help himself with is a shield, meant to defend himself and others, and a bubble, with the same protective effects. The sword, the weapon of action and impetus and attack, instead, goes to Connie, who is trying to break free of the strictures of passive femininity placed on her by her society and family. (Which makes Stevonnie a right and proper fusion of Steven's empathetic masculinity and Connie's activist feminism, the only character able to wield both sword and shield together effectively and maintain the balance needed for both.)
Steven's pink is contrasted with the Rubies, the red gems who are the soldiers of the Diamond Authority and who are mostly not interested in anything at all aside from violence and conquering. They're one of the first instances where we see Steven's attempts at empathy and understanding fail, although the show is careful not to make the Rubies irredeemable - Garnet is, after all, carrying two signs to indicate she didn't know whether or not Steven's appeal to the Rubies would work. And, of course, there's Garnet herself, a fusion between the hot-blooded Ruby of the Now and the foresight-enabled but otherwise fairly passive Sapphire, who work far better as a team, and because of their love, are most comfortable and effective as their fused form rather than their separate components. (Garnet is appropriately primarily magenta, the halfway point between red and blue on a color spectrum, closely related to pink but not actually a pink.)
Anyway. Red is a color I mostly feel closed off to, because of the representations that it has about diving full-bore into emotions and societal implications I don't particularly like or want. A little red is fine, because sometimes you have to tap the well, but it's not the color I would want to live in. Pink took a little getting around and a certain amount of "if someone gives me gendered grief about wearing a pink shirt with Steven Universe and Rose Quartz on it, they'll be reminded that pink is a still light red" to myself. It's fine, but it's also not a color I want to live in, mostly due to the over-commercialization and strong romantic associations with it. And because living in pink in a toxically masculine society means having to deal with the constant drumbeat of "you are not acceptable" and I have so many other colors I enthusiastically like better.
That really wasn't much fannishly at all, but in the spirit of both "more courage than brains" and "sometimes the real breadth of options appears when someone shows a different path," here it is, all the same.
sunshine_challenge begins today, and it looks like this year is going with a spectral theme! (It's no-pressure, things every other day, and there's no penalty for only doing the things you like or have the capacity for.)Here's the 1 July 2020 prompt on the theme of red:
Red is a strong color that is associated with a variety of things including: courage, power, glory, love, passion, inner strength, romance, sensuality, defiance, tenacity, violence, life, pleasure, fire, and revolution.Life moves out of a red flare of dreams
into a common light of common hours
Until old age brings the red flare again.
(William Butler Yeats)
For some, the color red can signify personal power and tenacity. When something flares red for you, what does that mean? When was the last time you felt the power of a red concept or emotion?
Please feel free to answer in whichever way comes naturally to you, be it a memory you share or a work you create. If you'd like a more specific idea to kick things off, try writing a poem or a drabble that encapsulates the red theme.
I've always been taught that red is a color of anger ("seeing red") and of blood, usually someone else's. This isn't surprising, given that I look like a dude and was raised in a provincial environment that thought very highly of gender roles. (I might be the last generation raised before the gender spectrum became a widespread and mostly-accepted concept, depending on where someone puts the boundary lines for generations.) Accompanying that upbringing was a lack of tools for engaging with frustration and a space where emotions could be expressed when they were small instead of building into big things. (There's also a thread woven in here about the only seemingly safe place as a small being the unflinchingly perfect person who never failed, fixed versus growth mindsets, the interplay between The Fool and the Magician, as well as the Unnamable Way, the spark of enlightenment that comes from getting outside your own thoughts, and the society that probably owes a lot more to Masters Moh and Kong than it would admit, even if it wants to think of itself as being more of the school of Master Lao.) It does not help that many of the ways that I have learned for dealing with things that produce frustration and anger are maladaptive to the more important matter of not standing on someone else's triggers. Even now, my red shirt is specifically for the days when I need to project a "don't fork with me" attitude, and it's telling that there are still plenty of days where I need that attitude, and the backing red, to succeed.
Red has also been the color of leadership for a lot of my fannish experience. Red is almost always the leader of any given Super Sentai squadron (even the unofficial one), Command staff for many, if not most, of the Star Trek series wear red uniforms, Ruby Rose of RWBY is all red and the leader of her team, and Jaune really only comes into himself as a confident leader of JN_R after Pyrrha is gone, signified by Jaune taking up the red of her sash into his own outfit. Carmen Sandiego's signature fedora and trenchcoat are red, signifying her place as the leader of her team, whether that's V.I.L.E. or in opposition to them.
Yes, there's also a certain amount of expandability associated with red-shirt crewmembers from Star Trek, because we are vast, we contain contradictions.
Health is almost always red in a game (there's that "blood" connection, even when the characters aren't human), and also the color of danger or warnings related to life and the imminent loss thereof.
Red carries with it an interesting connection to romance and to sexual power both, at least in my current society, even though if you asked a person raised in an even more gender-essentialist environment than mine about red, they'd claim one red was appropriate and the other less so, even though the historical record says this was not always the case. Pink, a lighter form of red, is more often than not associated with romantic love, feelings, and women, who have a long history of being constructed as either not-men or men-lite, when they hold any form of position considered to be the domain of men. Because of the emphasis that pink currently receives on feelings and women, it gets rejected by the self-appointed guardians of the ever-shifting sand-castle called masculinity. They want the full, "undiluted" red much more associated with power and over-powering all they want to control, and a lot of that is based in sexual dominion. Pink hearts and flowers are for "feelings", which are weak. Red hearts (and their chocolate boxes) and flowers are for the people you want to have sex with, by which you assert that you are a member in good standing of masculinity.
And then there's Steven Universe, which was probably where this was going to end up anyway. (Spoilers!) Pink is a thematic color for both the show and for Steven himself, since he wears pink shirts. His mother, Rose Quartz, is styled as someone with curly hair and a conventionally feminine body. (His mother's Diamond form, as Pink Diamond, is much more childlike and small compared to the other diamonds, which makes me wonder whether a story that goes in a different direction would have Pink Diamond eventually decide to become Red Diamond and change accordingly.) Steven presents a differing conception of masculinity, in that he's not particularly strong or tough physically, he expresses his feelings freely, his empathy often gets him in trouble, although it is almost never fully wrong once all the context comes out, and the first few items he can summon to help himself with is a shield, meant to defend himself and others, and a bubble, with the same protective effects. The sword, the weapon of action and impetus and attack, instead, goes to Connie, who is trying to break free of the strictures of passive femininity placed on her by her society and family. (Which makes Stevonnie a right and proper fusion of Steven's empathetic masculinity and Connie's activist feminism, the only character able to wield both sword and shield together effectively and maintain the balance needed for both.)
Steven's pink is contrasted with the Rubies, the red gems who are the soldiers of the Diamond Authority and who are mostly not interested in anything at all aside from violence and conquering. They're one of the first instances where we see Steven's attempts at empathy and understanding fail, although the show is careful not to make the Rubies irredeemable - Garnet is, after all, carrying two signs to indicate she didn't know whether or not Steven's appeal to the Rubies would work. And, of course, there's Garnet herself, a fusion between the hot-blooded Ruby of the Now and the foresight-enabled but otherwise fairly passive Sapphire, who work far better as a team, and because of their love, are most comfortable and effective as their fused form rather than their separate components. (Garnet is appropriately primarily magenta, the halfway point between red and blue on a color spectrum, closely related to pink but not actually a pink.)
Anyway. Red is a color I mostly feel closed off to, because of the representations that it has about diving full-bore into emotions and societal implications I don't particularly like or want. A little red is fine, because sometimes you have to tap the well, but it's not the color I would want to live in. Pink took a little getting around and a certain amount of "if someone gives me gendered grief about wearing a pink shirt with Steven Universe and Rose Quartz on it, they'll be reminded that pink is a still light red" to myself. It's fine, but it's also not a color I want to live in, mostly due to the over-commercialization and strong romantic associations with it. And because living in pink in a toxically masculine society means having to deal with the constant drumbeat of "you are not acceptable" and I have so many other colors I enthusiastically like better.
That really wasn't much fannishly at all, but in the spirit of both "more courage than brains" and "sometimes the real breadth of options appears when someone shows a different path," here it is, all the same.