Queen's Calling & Co.

prythian + locations: velaris

 i’ll give you the sun by jandy nelson 

The colorful scene melded two time-honored Texas traditions: political protest and the quinceañera.

With skirts flouncing, 15 young women ascended the steps of the Texas State Capitol in Austin on Wednesday morning to a traditional Mexican birthday song played in a mariachi style.

But there was no birthday to celebrate. Instead, the girls had gathered to protest a controversial immigration enforcement law that goes into effect September 1.

“We are here to take a stand against Senate Bill 4, the most discriminatory and hateful law in recent history,” declared Magdalena Juarez, 17, wearing a bright red gown. “When Gov. Greg Abbott signed the bill into law on May 7, he disrespected my community. He put a lot of Texas in danger. SB4 is not only an attack on immigrant communities; it threatens the lives of all people of color.”

With Speeches And Bright Dresses, Quinceañeras Protest Texas Sanctuary City Ban

Everyone starts drawing enthusiasticly, and can’t wait to see what they look like in the drawings. When pictures are ready you notice that popular students have more pictures than rest, but nobody has done a drawing of you. The teacher notices that too, and asks if someone would do your picture. To your horror the class clown takes the job, and comes up with a caricature of you. Others are laughing, but you’re not. You feel awful. The teacher notices that. and asks again someone to do a drawing of you. One of the ‘good students’ starts drawing, but the result is forced. It’s just a drawing of a generic child wearing a shirt of same color as you a wearing. There’s no spirit, no soul in it. You start sensing that the class is geting frustrated with you. They want to be done with this. You ask quietly the teacher if you could do a drawing yourself.

After school your classmates confront you. Why did you have to make such a big deal out of it? The first picture was funny. The second picture was just fine! The drawing you did yourself wasn’t right, do you think you are that good-looking? There were other kids who got only one or two pictures of themselves. Who are you to demand special treatment? Maybe there would have been a picture of you if you weren’t such annoying baby, nobody likes you anyway, and nobody’s going to if you keep on being like that, you don’t deserve a drawing!

This could be story of bullying, but it’s also about how I see portraying LGBTQ+-people and PoC in mainstream entertainment.

We have lost yet another black woman to state violence this week.

Charleena Lyles, a pregnant mother of four was gunned down by police in her home. Lyles called the police reporting a burglar in her home. Instead, they showed up and killed her in front of her children.

There are many things about this devastating tragedy that are worth writing about. The narrative being spun by Seattle police via The Seattle Times and other media outlets, the eyewitness accounts of the incident, the notion that bullets are needed to “handle” a tiny black woman in her own home.

But I’d like to focus on just one part of this — the lack of attention being paid to this death in the wide and expanding movement for black lives.

On Monday, a boy who was obsessed with Iron Man, told me he had asked his parents for a new Wonder Woman lunchbox. 

A little girl said “When I grow up I want to speak hundreds of languages like Diana”

This girl had her parents revamp her Beauty and the Beast birthday party in THREE DAYS because she simply had to have a Wonder Woman party. 

Seven girls playing together during recess on Tuesday, saying that since they all wanted to be Wonder Woman they had agreed to be Amazons and not fight but work together to defeat evil. 

There is this one girl that refuses to listen to you unless you address her as Wonder Woman. 

Another girl very seriously asked the teacher if she could ditch her uniform for the Wonder Woman armor bc she “wanted to be ready if she needed to save the world”. The teacher laughed and said it was okay, and the next day the girl came dressed as Wonder Woman and not a single kid batted an eye.

They are making a wrap-up dance show, and they asked the teacher if they could come as superheroes, they are going to sing a song about bunnies. 

This kid got angry and threw a plastic car over his head and a girl gasped “LIKE IN THE MOVIE”

A boy threw his candy wrapping in the floor and a 5-year-old girl screamed “DON’T POLLUTE YOU IDIOT, THAT IS WHY THERE ARE NO MEN IN TEMYSCIRA”

On Wednesday, a girl came with a printed list of every single female superhero and her powers, to avoid any trouble when deciding roles at recess. 

I was talking to one of the girls that hadn’t seen the movie, and the next day she came and very seriously told me “you were right, Wonder Woman was way better than Frozen.”