Lord Shen's Hot Vent

I'm absolutely sick of it!

Today, I will be addressing a common misconception regarding my... plumage. One that I've seen many people in my fandom debate about, and one that I'm sick, sick, sick of hearing!

I. AM. NOT. ALBINO!

How stupid, blind and outright thoughtless must you be to not only confuse me for an albino, but actually stand by your incorrect view when you are rightfully corrected by people who know much more about me than you?

Usually I ridicule the stupid, but by my ancestors, you people have not only managed to baffle me with whatever thought process you have (Or lack thereof) but have also disgusted and offended me. 

Here's some context: My paleness has been a curse on my life from the very moment I crawled out of my egg, and the sole reason that my parents discriminated against me and loved me so little they hired a stupid old goat to take care of me! Despite being the one who should have been raised and nurtured like the prince I was destined to be, I was left at society's faeces-ridden pits with those idiot wolves. 

"But-", I hear you say, "You fed them and cared for them!"

You'd take care of the only form of social interaction you had that wasn't your bearded grandmother who speaks in riddles, wouldn't you? And even then, most of that was to bribe them into not being either scared of me or feeling hate towards me.

I rarely had the company of my parents as a chick, especially my father. I appreciate that he was busy signing treaties and waging wars, but surely every father before him had prioritised raising his heir!?!? It's as if I wasn't even related to him, like I wasn't ever part of his family, like he disowned me!

He had already disowned me.

He disowned me the moment I broke open that eggshell and he saw my white plumage.

That white plumage is the very reason that I am as hated as I am, as utterly DESPISED as I am. If I looked like my father, my inventions would be heralded as the greatest inventions in chinese history and instead of slaughtering a farming village I would have been stamping out a threat to the continuation of the Royal Family and China itself.

Now that that's out of the way, you know well how much comments and arguments like this offend me.

Firstly, and I think this is one of the most important things to say, PEACOCKS CANNOT BE ALBINO! Every time you see a white peacock, he's like me. Leucistic. No peacock in ALL OF HISTORY has been observed to be actually albino. 

And do you know how I know that I am leucistic, despite never seeing a peafowl apart from my own mother and father?

Because when the bunnies and the geese and the sheep in the city were albino, there were great lists of things that their condition affected. It went something like this:

They couldn't see very well and in some cases at all, as the albinism turned their eyes red and made their eyesight blurry. 

They had little to no sense of balance and poor hearing.

If they went out in open sunlight, they'd get burnt.

They were physically weak, despite usually being the most well looked after in their family and the best fed.

Everywhere on their bodies was affected by it, from their feet, to their snouts, to their tongues and under their fur, it was all a deathly, sickly pale.

Now, here are some differences I have with say... an albino goose, or a peacock who was SOMEHOW albino.

My eyesight is perfect, I have full 20/20 vision. I need it, considering I am a chemist who measures by eye, I design various mechanisms and I invented my own form of martial art.

My balance and hearing are healthy too, as you need good balance to ride a Guan Dao falling eleven feet from the air to land it on its pommel, wrapped around its handle.

I have spent many days outside in the full sun, and have not gotten sunburned once. I even had a long nap on one of the palace balconies after looking out over the city to ease myself to a midday sleep after a long and very hard night.

Now, in terms of physical strength... have you ever seen even a rhino sustain a full-force kick from a panda and then holding him up with just one leg? Or have you ever seen a mighty bear fling an ox into the sky and pull him back down? Have you ever seen a panda hold the head of a crocodile, who is made of nearly solid muscle, with one foot? I haven't, but I've seen a peacock do it.

The pigmentation on my body, apart from that of my feathers, is completely identical to my parents'. My beak is black, my eyelids are black, my legs are black and, if you were to part my feathers, you can see that my skin is black too, just like a "Regular" peacock. If you were to take off all of my feathers and take off all of my father's, you wouldn't be able to distinguish between us! There is colour on some of my feathers too and that apparently has to do with my father's unique combination of blackshoulder and white eyespot colors.

Some people claim that my red eyes are an obvious indicator of albinism, and anyone who believes that is absolutely blind and absolutely ignorant. An albino animal has red PUPILS, not red IRISES. Irises in albinos have no colour at all! My mother had red irises, and I just simply have my mother's eyes! That's where I get it from!

And finally, the wonderful school of thought: "Leucism was bred into peafowl! It cannot occur naturally in peacocks!"

IT CAN. If there are two peafowl who have a "carrier" form of leucism, there is a one in four chance that the offspring of those parents will have full leucism. This is because leucism is a recessive trait, just like albinism, so it works in the exact same way.

Leucism is more common amongst families with a high amount of incest... and knowing I'm of royal blood... I'll just leave that there.

So, NOW DO YOU SEE? Have you finally pulled the veil from your eyes? I'm leucistic, and anyone who knows what leucism is would have no trouble distinguishing me from a type of peacock that doesn't even exist.

YOU DON'T GET TO DECIDE IF I'M LEUCISTIC OR ALBINO. The answer is right in front of you, and if you do not accept it you are either stupid or ignorant. Goodbye.