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ren-c-leyn · 2 years

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I'm going to use this WBW to continue asking - that's a really good start! How does it turn out with the dark elf?👀 Will he become her bodyguard? What would it mean politically? Are these dark elves different than usual, aka Ren's world touch?

@writingonesdreams

Sounds like a plan to me ^^

So yes, he does become her bodyguard. It's an interesting situation that all parties find themselves in as a result. I've been giving this particular part a lot of thought because this is something that has a lot of potential for chaos. My history-geek roomate has also been helping me with this part, so it does have some historical influences on top of my 'that sounds cool' approach.

So, here's your third readmore for the day, I hope you enjoy it :D

The dark elf body guard (I need to name all of these characters, I don't even think I've named the princess yet XD), is the youngest son of a member of the dark elf council. So, fairly important but not a critically important figure to them, which is why at the end of the war, when Acontinum won the dark elves let them keep him as a 'guest.' In truth, he and three other dark elf nobles are there as sort of political hostages to ensure that the dark elves keep true to their word, just as four minor nobles of Acontinum were sent there as 'guests'. Don't worry, they are all treated well on both sides, because if they weren't it'd spark another war.

But, having him as the princess's bodyguard sets several of the nobles on edge. She's the king's only child, she's beaten this elf in combat, they only just got out of a war, so everyone is freaking out because there might be an assassination which would start an internal battle of succession. And even if that doesn't come to pass, it puts a former enemy in a position to gain sensitive information.

She's not worried about it, because she has beaten him on the battlefield, and is actually the one who proposed the idea after talking with him during the first several months of his stay. The dark elf is cool with it for several reasons, not least of which because of his relatively low rank back home. At least here he gets to do something besides act as canon fodder for his house's battles. Since the dark elves do run on order of birth, he's the very last in line to gain his father's position and thus is the most over-looked of his siblings. So, having someone who both recognizes and values his skills is a plus.

It also creates a sort of image of unity between the two countries, with a princess picking a former enemy as he bodyguard. In some ways, it may make them more reluctant to openly act against her. In other ways, it could create a loophole to make it easier to get at her. That will mostly hinge on how the dark elf bodyguard chooses to play his guards.

As for the dark elves in general, they're a larger country that sits between the dragon empire and Acontinum and also shares a little of their southern boarder with the wood elves' territory (where the dark princess's assassinated lover is from.) Unlike many fantasy settings, they are surface dwellers. They have always been surface dwellers and have no problem with the sun. But, unlike many of my settings, the elves did not come from the same god, and some were not even born of Gods' meddling. So they all vary drastically in appearances and cultures.

They do have dark gray skin, but their hair runs a gray tone spectrum from stark white to deep black. Their eyes run a similar spectrum, but include varying shades of colors both normal and fantasy, like a super dark brown or a really pale purple are both normal for them.

Their lands, much like Acontinum, are cold and icy for much of the year and boarder the ocean. Unlike Acontinum, though, they massive mountain range doesn't cut them off from the south. So they are as versed with the open sea as they are with the frozen plains and the thick forests. Their country is mostly self-sufficient and even trade off some of their goods with Acontinum, the dragon empire, and the wood elves in exchange for other goods.

However, this great influence of varying cultures makes it where the dark elves are even further from being a monolith than the rest of their elven cousins. The different regions of their country have adopted different food staples, fashions, customs, and the like based on their influences and mixed with their own traditions. So it's a bit of a melting pot. The ones on the western side, for example, tend to be more warrior-like since they share the boarder with Acontinum. The ones in the north tend to be more sea-oriented since they boarder the ocean, and so on.

Their ruling system is a council made up of the heads of several families from each region. I don't have an exact number, yet, but I think each region gets multiple representatives and that these families have changed over the years as bloodlines ended, people got fed up with corruption, political workings put some families out of power, ect. Competition for these seats can become fierce and sometimes end in bloodshed. Different families are allied with each other and will vote on actions together, or work together to frustration the plans of political rivals. These heads of the families, and usually their spouses, live in the capital city while their eldest children or trusted stewards run things back home and keep them updated on what's going on there.

They typically prefer diplomacy to war, but will not shy away from war if it is called for. Though, I'm still working out what the clash between them and Acontinum was about.

And that's what I have on them so far. Thanks for stopping by, I hope you have a lovely day/evening.

#wbw #The Dark Princess of Acontinum

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writingwithcolor · 3 years

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Hello, I am a Black girl writing a story with a predominantly Black group that revolves around magic and royalty. The story is dual perspective, and while one of the narrators is Black, the other is South Asian, specifically of Indian descent.

As I make up this new system of magic and mythology, I'm worried that I'm erasing the culture of the character. I wanted to ask if me creating this new culture and history will make my brown characters seem more like decoration instead of people with their own backgrounds, or if I'm just overthinking it and I should continue writing with this system.

Note: In the mythology, the land and the people on it were created from clay which is why a majority of them are brown (complexion wise). The group later discovers things that put their religion question, but overall these beliefs play a big role in the story.

Black and Indian characters, people compared to clay and and newly created magical history & mythology

I really don’t think it’s a good idea for these people to be brown because they’re made of clay, or any type of dirt. In South Asian cultures, shadeism and the implication that someone is brown, or dark skinned, because they’re dirty, or of dirt, has deep ties to classism, casteism, and the oppression of Adivasi people.

- SK

Agreed with Mod SK about the clay thing. From my personal experience, this is a comparison which is extremely prevalent within South Asian communities due to deeply entrenched beauty norms, dating back to imperialist-typical racism in the British legislation and even pre-colonial decades. Refer to: my school dance teacher worrying aloud about putting me in the front line during a recital because my "rong" (complexion) was not "porishkar" ("clean"; as in, fair or light). Refer to even supposedly “progressive” movies and shows like Udta Punjab and The Family Man which used brownface on pale-skinned actresses for consciously perpetuating class stereotypes. In certain Indian linguistic systems at least, like my mother tongue Bengali, pale skin has often been linked to connotations of cleanliness and purity, carrying within itself an unmistakably casteist tone. I would strongly recommend researching the Varna (Varna literally translates to colour in Sanskrit) system of India, with emphasis on the way its implications have been codified into modern practices of Hinduism in India.

Finally, India as a country does not consist of a homogenous population of “brown people '', even though social media and fandom culture often tends to lump us into one mass, without taking into account that Indians can hail from a multitude of ethnicities.

Also, and I’m not being facetious here and am genuinely curious:

How do you intend to go about assigning our origin to clay when India itself has a varied topographic profile?

Would this indicate that the people hailing from the Deccan Plateau region would have a darker skin tone, owing to the black soil of that region (equating skin tone to the clay of origin)?

More reading:

Dark skin / dirt comparisons

Skin comparisons to soil

~Mod Colette

I’d agree with what the other mods are saying and maybe review why clay. It’s not unheard of for African writers to use this motif; Lesley Nneka Arimah uses it in her short story “What We Bring At Home” when the protagonist wants a child and fashions one. The rub is that it’s a horror tale, so maybe consider your reason for paying homage to this, how you want the worldbuilding to affect the tone. Clay can come in different colors naturally from red in river clay and so forth. If you want to use the motif, it may be worth going beyond black, brown and white tones.

- Mod Jaya

Ask published Oct 2021

#babybirdnight #skin color #black and white #eurocentric beauty standards #Black #Indian #Desi #skin tone #description #colorism #shadeism #caste #asks

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palmett-hoes · 3 years

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i said in this post that i have original characters and backstories for neil's extended family. it took me,, a really long time to write it all down. it's been a full month since the original post, and this is still just a run through of things, not full prose, which i might be interested in doing one day but not anytime soon

now, some things to note about what i'm writing, why, and how. methodology, basically. this might not have come through yet in my posts, because i just don't post about my half-finished ideas, but i research a LOT. i like to base what i write about on real life, even if it's just headcanons and fanfic

also, i love helping people with research, so if anyone wants help with research for a fic or just their personal headcanons or anything hit me up!!

as a white person who wants to write characters from different ethnic backgrounds, i feel i have a responsibility to really do my due diligence and research as much as possible to consider things from every angle. and part of that for me is making sure that every character of color has a backstory. they don't just appear somewhere, i have to give them a reason for being there and a story for how they got there, even if that's not what i write their STORY about. people, come from places, basically. i follow a lot of demographic census information and population averages, as well as a lot of history, from as general as transatlantic trade in the last 500 years to as specific as the changes in a single city in a certain year

talking to other writers in the fandom i know i'm a little overzealous, but this is what gives me peace of mind to feel like i am putting the effort in to get things right

so anyway, as for what that means here:

i like writing neil as mixed black/jewish. it works well thematically for his character, as well as just what FEELS right for how i visualize him in my head

only, that can't simply come from nowhere. we know who his parents are. they need to also be poc for neil to be one, and they're a complicated pair to handle in that lens

one choice i made about that, for multiple reasons, is that everything about neil's parents' backgrounds should mirror each other. it can't simply be that one if them is black and one is jewish, or even that mary is both and nathan is white, because that says something i don't want to say any way you slice it. additionally, i want both facets of his ethnicity to be important to neil, and i feel as though he would want to ignore the half of himself from his father.

so: they both have to be mixed, giving them a sort of,, ideological equal footing, as it were. that way, i can also write three different experiences, rather than accidentally implying that This is what being black is, or This is what being jewish is, or This is what being mixed is. and that's also important to me, even if it's just in my head or not even directly addressed. it's still a big consideration of mine anytime i write about any of them

now, finally, onto mary and nathan! i'll put it below a cut because this is already long enough, the under-the-cut is much longer, and i don't want to wear out your thumbs if you don't care

mary hatford

canon timeline, neil was born in 1988. as a tentative number let's say mary was around 30 when he was born, meaning she would be born in the 50s. say her parents were roughly the same age, so they were born around the 20s

like i said, what's happening where in history is very important to me for building these backstories, and major historical events tend to have a lot of influence on population shifts. and well,, jews and europeans in the early-to-mid 20th century? there's no getting around involving world war II. nothing explicit, but it is mentioned and part of the story

mary’s paternal family are the hatfords. they're from the british west indies, largely jamaica, but they've been involved with shipping and trade all over the trans-atlantic region for generations.

they have a complicated relationship with the british empire, having both worked for them and against them at various points, sometimes both at once. similarly, they've tried multiple times through the generations to relocate the family to england permanently, but have been turned away or pressured out

they associate england and the british empire with power, and they both disagree with and desire that power in degrees which vary person to person. they do have a general idea between them though that living in england is a sign of status and authenticity, and while they don't want to leave jamaica permanently they do want their center of power to be in england, and there is a deep resentment against the anglos for not allowing them to stay permanently despite their wealth and influence, the fact that their work will always be looked down on and seen as lesser

i did come into building the hatfords with the primary idea of them being black british, and looking into the organized crime connection second. them being jamaican/west indies is a reference to the jamaican posse, who have a large presence in the london crime scene, although that's really the only connection. the hatfords aren't really yardies in any sense

the hatfords' status as organized crime is a little iffy. mostly they skirt the line between legal and illegal, owning legal trading companies and doing plenty of legal shipping. their main business in the criminal underworld is being middlemen moving supplies for other groups. they have a lot of contacts, and they serve an invaluable role in international smuggling, but they rarely get their own hands dirty. they move things from one place to the other and don't question too much what it is, though they don't deal in people

mary's father is named samuel hatford (first name in reference to samuel bellamy, the gentleman pirate king of the early 18th century). he was born in England, raised largely in Jamaica, then moved back to England as a teenager/young man. he's light-hearted and a bit idealistic for someone from a crime family, seeing the best in people even when they're cold and often believing in principle over profit, which at times put him in conflict with what's best for business

he almost enlisted in world war II, but instead convinced the family to work as weapons and supplies runners supporting the Allies and guerilla resistance groups

mary's mother is named cima ben nahman (ladino/judeo-spanish/sephardic names, doesn't really reference anything or anyone in particular). She's is an algerian jew. Born in algeria (city undecided, though algiers had the largest jewish community at the time), she moved to france for a few years as a young woman, probably for education. she joined anti-fascist organizations which became resistance groups once germany invaded

she's stoic, and has a ruthless mind for strategy. like most algerian jews, she's caught between her home country and its colonizer. the french empire played the algerian muslim majority against the jewish minority as a way to create infighting and distract the algerians from uniting and turning against them, but the algerian jews also then became reliant on the french for protection. (it's a really, really complicated situation)

cima sort of hates them both, both algeria and france. her only allegiance is to being jewish

(contrast this to samuel, who feels that he is BOTH british and caribbean, even when those two identities may be in conflict)

cima and samuel met when samuel provided weapons and supplies to cima's militia group. he took particular interest in them and went out of his way to help, above and beyond the other groups the hatfords were supplying

in the waning period of the war, cima was seriously injured, i'm currently thinking a land mine accident. she survived, but her recovery was slow. she lost an arm and had burns across half her torso, neck, and face. samuel brought her to england supported her through her recovery. in the hospital, they spoke a lot about why they each chose to fight, and the ways they did because neither were formal soldiers fighting for a country. samuel was in many ways fighting for an ideal, while cima was fighting for her people. cima also talked to him a lot about judaism and religion during this time, which samuel took an interest in. eventually, cima decided to stay

they got married. samuel converted, which was somewhat controversial with his family. however, cima agreed to join the family business, where she became an integral but sometimes ruthless member. after algerian independence, she brought some of her trusted family and community into the fold as well, some moving to england and others to france

both cima and samuel believed very heavily in responsibility, though what it meant for each of them was different. cima believed in preparedness and follow-through, samuel believed in family and protection, doing what's right outside of the bounds of the law. this contributed a lot to how they raised their children

when they were born, mary and stuart were raised in england (and i like to think they have an oldest brother). the hatfords were a big family, and influential, although careful about balancing the legal and less-legal sides of their business. the ben nahmans were smaller, and most of them were in france so mary and her brothers saw them less often. they were raised very religiously and culturally jewish, though close with the caribbean side of their family too, as well as being the first generation who were born and raised in england. this put them at a cross-section of three very different cultures, and was where mary first learned about changing and blending in with different groups

mary was the youngest and a little bit spoiled by her father, aunties, and uncles. her mother however was much less tolerant of her. clearly very affected by her time in the war, cima became extremely distrustful and suspicious, and tried to instill in her children a similar sentiment of secrecy and self-sufficiency, avoiding attention and casual relationships. she could be harsh on them, especially mary, who was the most resistant to this

growing up, mary was irresponsible and fun-loving, goading her brothers and cousins, getting in trouble, and starting fights. she didn't understand the tenuous balance of being organized crime, and at times put the whole family at risk by overestimating their sway. her mistakes affected the whole family but it was usually her mother who confronted her about them first and most harshly

she resented her mother's control, and didn't understand the reasons behind it. she also couldn't differentiate between the boundaries her mother sets as a result of her own trauma, and the necessary boundaries she set for the safety of the family, viewing them as one and the same, and leading her to hate any kind of control exerted over her

really, a lot of cima's character is just who mary ends up becoming after being married to nathan and being on the run. i like the story of a child becoming the parent they once hated. rather than learn from her mother, both her failures and her successes, mary becomes her, doomed to make the same mistakes. this is also why cima is wounded by a landmine, because mary dies in fire

---

nathan wesninski

nathan was HARD to come up with a story for, mostly because,,, WHY THE FUCK DOES THIS GUY WORK FOR THE JAPANESE YAKUZA

wesninski is a VERY polish name. the japanese-polish connection is,, not super strong

so anyway, working off the idea of the wesninski family being a polish jewish one, WHERE is he going to meet a japanese crimelord to get into a multi-generation debt/business arrangement with?

turns out, the answer is brazil

brazil actually has a large jewish population (roughly 10th largest in the world). it began with its colonization by the portuguese, but the 19th century to modern population largely comes from central and eastern europe. brazil ALSO has the largest japanese population outside of japan

also this story ended up being WAY more detailed and prosaic than samuel&cima's story, which is basically just bullet points. there's no reason for this i love both stories very much just for some reason the words flowed for me here and not there

to avoid having a second jewish story where wwII is prominent, the wesninskis get a page out of my own family's book: nathan's grandfather (neil's great grandfather) came to the americas fleeing the russian pograms around the turn of the 20th century

Wesninski came to brazil (city undecided, have a lot more research to do about individual cities in brazil). he had waardenburg syndrome(a hereditary genetic condition that can affect eyes and hearing) which runs very strongly in his family (his son, nathan, and neil will all inherit it), and he is completely Deaf. while he came to brazil alone, in his new home he connected both with the local jewish community and the local deaf community, and eventually marries another Deaf Jewish woman

eventually they were able to establish a kosher deli and restaurant in the city, one which became a common hangout for the Deaf community. then one day (probably around 1915), a group of japanese men came in, and kept returning

these were the moriyamas, recently arrived from japan, in a place with very few japanese people and businesses. they liked the wesninski deli because they didn't share a language with anyone in there, couldn't even be heard by most of them, and it would also be difficult for the authorities to question them. two layers of protection for a crime family in a vulnerable place

wesninski and the moriyamas were amicable to each other, but as they didn't actually have a way to communicate that was the extent of it. but the moriyamas were polite and payed well and didn't bother the other customers. als, as a jewish establishment, they had a lot of education resources, which were helpful to the moriyamas in learning about brazilian society, including beginning to understand portuguese

now, in japan, the moriyamas were a small yakuza family. they got driven out by their bigger and stronger and more established competition around the time when japanese immigration to brazil was just starting, so that was where they went. though they had little option in where they ended up, they also had little competition in establishing their business

i still have a lot of research to do about the moriyamas. about both how the yakuza operate and about how brazilian organized crime works, and about life in brazil for early japanese immigrants. so a lot of the moriyama details are pretty vague

now the wesninskis had a son, meyer (nathan's father. name in reference to meyer lansky, famous american jewish mobster of polish descent) who was around 14 when the moriyamas arrived. he himself was not fully deaf like his parents, though was hard of hearing and raised in the Deaf community. as he goes through his rebellious teenage years, well, the gangsters are right there

in the early days the moriyamas were still more concerned with mostly the japanese enclaves, but they had aspirations of expanding. meyer wasn't japanese, but he was helpful to the moriyamas who came into the deli to study. he was perceptive and bold, could keep a secret, knew his way around knives from working in the deli, and knew the city. he was a good asset to them, and he was interested in causing some trouble

over the next ten years or so, meyer got increasingly more involved, alongside the moriyamas becoming increasingly more established throughout the city. he goes from someone who helps out occasionally and relays information beyween parties to getting involved with minor shakedowns, bribery, evidence disposal. by the time he's in his 20s he's thoroughly enmeshed

his parents were older when they had him, and his father died relatively young, leaving meyer the store and his mother to take care of. they were vaguely aware of his connections to the moriyamas and didn't approve of what he did with them but he also kept the worst from them, and was always a diligent son, and the only one they had. he assured them no matter how far he went that he wasn't "really" part of the gang

"yakuza have tattoos, and see, ima? no tattoos. i'm still a good jewish son, not a gangster"

now the problem arises when meyer falls for camara da machado, a young Deaf woman who frequents the store

(based on/inspired by/FC yaya dacosta (where the name comes from) and rutina wesley)

she was a Deaf girl born to a hearing family who struggled to give her the support she needed, maybe even just a single mother, and she'd spent a lot of time alone at the deli from a young age (12-ish?). she was shy and quiet and a little bit of a shrinking violet, but the wesninskis became very fond of her. she started tentatively helping them out around the store which became a job. she was often included in family meals and holidays, and always had a bed in their apartment above the deli if she needed one, and more than once had helped patch meyer up after he got in trouble to hide the extent of it from his parents

she was a couple years younger than him but he'd always been sweet on her. and she'd had a crush on him from basically the moment she'd layed eyes on him. they'd known each for years and camara was basically family, and then one day when they were both in their 20s it just suddenly clicked for them

so meyer and camara fell in love. meyer was head of the house, had to keep the deli running, and had his mother, camara, and possibly camara's mother (undecided at this juncture) to worry about and he decided he didn't want to continue working with the moriyamas in case it dragged his family into danger. being a gangster was a fling of youth and he was ready to grow up

when he informed the moriyamas of this though, they,,, did not agree.

while MEYER might not have considered himself part of the gang, THEY didn't think he just got to walk away. he'd worked with them for too long and knew too much. there might even have been a desire to tie him to the family permanently through marriage. and well,, one man against a growing criminal empire can't do much

it was a huge shock to him, and made him truly realize how naive and reckless he'd been. he'd been a dumb kid who wanted to start some trouble, the moriyamas were career criminals. they expected that once you were in, you were in for life, and they did not take kindly to meyer disagreeing with this

he didn't know how to explain this to his family... so he didn't. they'd all told him they wanted him to stop, but he'd meant for the announcement to be a surprise. after learning that he would not be permitted to walk away, he chose to just hide it and continue with business as usual

it worked for a while, maybe a few years, a time during which the moriyamas were getting a lot more brutal as they got more established and increasingly looked to expand, putting them in competition with other gangs and greater law enforcement, until they were a true crime empire spread across whole regions of the country. meyer had lost a lot of esteem in their eyes by asking to leave, leading them to put him under increasing scrutiny and giving him more incriminating tasks, to ensure that he would be incriminated if he ever tried to turn them in. it's during this time that he first had to kill for them

then camara got pregnant

and meyer was terrified. he didn't know how the moriyamas would deal with a kid. the only marriages and children he knew of within the family were endorsed by the boss, many arranged by him, and he knew his wouldn't be approved. yakuza wives were heavily involved with the business too, and he absolutely did not want that for camara

he broke down and told her everything. she's horrified, and furious that he kept it from her, but she didn't want to give up her baby. it would be hard, but she believed they can keep it hidden, and if the moriyamas found out, maybe it wouln't be so bad?

(spoiler: it would)

they have a son, born natan da machado, under his mother's name

meyer and camara never got married. meyer was going to propose after he left the moriyamas but that obviously didn't happen. marriages were supposed to be blessed by the boss, and meyer never dared to ask. they already lived together, anyway

but with natan, they decided that meyer couldn't acknowledge him as his own. in the deli or in the streets, he didn't acknowledge natan. he was camara's bastard son, and meyer didn't want anything to do with him

it was a flimsy disguise at best. natan was mixed, but there was a strong enough resemblance to his father. even if his hair was a darker red or he had brown skin, they had the same eyes

they tried to keep him away from the moriyamas as he grew up, hoping they wouldn't see him and make the connection, but they also kept him very hidden in general, just in case. he spent a lot of time inside, with his grandmothers

and that was how natan grew up, feeling like a secret, his father cold and distant, only acknowledging him in their apartment. cut off from other kids his age. a hearing boy in a Deaf family (natan himself was HoH but still had most of his hearing. meyer and his maternal grandmother could both hear, but they had gotten out of the habit of it and mostly communicated through sign)

natan developed a deep feeling of resentment towards his father and shame about himself from a young age. he felt like a mistake, defective somehow. so wrong he had to be hidden away from everyone

there's only so long that you can hide a child, though, and when natan was around ten the moriyamas found out about him, and they were not happy.

they didn't like split attention or loyalty. they kept children and family under very tight wraps. they should be one hundred percent enmeshed in the moriyama empire, raised to be loyal and helpful in whatever way they were needed. the fact that meyer wanted and was willing to leave for this family, and then hid his son, was a huge betrayal

still, they gave him an opportunity to prove his loyalty: kill camara or the moriyamas would kill them all: her, natan, meyer, and both their mothers

but meyer couldn't do it, and instead he told camara to run and hope they didn't actually care enough to chase her down. and she did. and she couldn't take natan with her. (i haven't fully fleshed out why yet, currently thinking that meyer was given this ultimatium when they already had natan)

so camara left her son, and got away

i built the story of mary's mother as a reflection of mary's story if something had been different, and i built nathan's story the same way. his wife takes her son and runs away with him when the moriyamas try to take him from her. nathan's mother was in the same situation and left him behind

over the next forty years of his belonging to the moriyamas he gets to marinate in that resentment. from the father that ignored to the mother who ran away from him, he internalizes it as being something wrong with him, not the circumstances. the more he's taught to torture and kill and the more he excels at it, the more this belief gets cemented. he's good at killing, he was meant to kill. he's twisted and broken and wrong inside and he always was and his parents always knew

and then when it happens again but differently this time he throws away a decade and millions of dollars and his standing with his boss to hunt down his son and his wife because he didn't get to run away so why should they? why does mary love nathaniel more than camara loved natan?

from here, the exact detail's of nathan's story aren't quite solidified. whether he was raised by his father from then on or by his grandmothers (or whether his grandmothers left with his mother) or whether the moriyamas put him somewhere else entirely, but from then on he lived under the moriyamas' direct supervision, and they taught him how to turn a knife on a man

they took his mother's name from him, though, so he's natan wesninski, not natan da machado, because they own the wesninskis now

and when the moriyamas decided to expand beyond brazil when natan was a young man instead of a child, and settled on the east coast of the US, they renamed him nathan, because it sounded more "american"

---

so that's it. obviously there are still a lot of unfinished details in both stories, but they're strong enough at this point to stand on their own and i haven't changed or rethought a lot of the major details in a long time

i've become extremely attached to these OCs and their stories, and i hope they interest other people too. some day i'd like to write them out in prose properly, along with the story of nathan and mary meeting, but that'll be a while away considering the pace i move at

so until then i just wanted to put this out there

#aftg #tfc #neil josten #nathaniel wesninski #mary hatford #nathan wesninski #txt #my fics #my writing #my posts #black neil josten #jewish neil josten #cw gangs #cw organized crime #cw ww11 #cw wwII #long form post

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tl-notes · 3 years

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Kobayashi’s Maid Dragon S2 Episode 10 Notes

I’m extremely not an expert in birds, but I tried to look these up to see if they were a species native to New York (since they’re similar to the sparrows we usually see around Kobayashi’s place). Apparently there are few similar-looking species in New York? My totally uninformed guess is that they may be house sparrows.

The sun sets in Japan relatively early (probably around 6:30pm when this episode takes place), which would make it entirely plausible that if she just flew east (with a slight northward angle) she’d find herself over New York in the early morning while most of the rest of the country is still dark.

These bumpy grey pads at the pedestrian part of the intersection here are known as (among other things) tactile paving; they’re to assist people who can’t fully rely on eyesight to get around.

Interestingly (imo), they were actually invented in Japan in the 60s (by a Miyake Seiichi), where today they’re extremely ubiquitous. They even show up later this episode!

They’re often referred to in Japan as 点字ブロック, tenji (Braille) blocks, and they tend to come in two types: the “dot” design, which indicates a place to stop (or an angle change, or more generally “caution”), and the “line” design which indicates you can safely keep going. They’re generally colored yellow in Japan, ideally making them stand out more to help people with impaired vision find them, and are mandated by law in most places public transport can be found (among others).

Not really a translation note, but “deer cola” felt especially funny in the context of all the horse medicine stuff.

I guess “[animal] [drink]” is a common branding device in-universe, given the crab beer Kobayashi’s always drinking.

Also not really a translation note, but the difference between how “hard” Kanna and Chloe are running to be at the same speed was a nice animation touch.

遊んだ遊んだ！ asonda asonda!

One feature of the Japanese language is a very heavy use of repetition. This includes “reduplication,” a linguistic term for creating words by repeating a root (e.g. a “boo-boo” in English or the dara-dara example below in Japanese), but also just like… saying the same word multiple times, as Chloe does here.

Typically this is done for emphasis or to help increase clarity: if you’ve worked in a Japanese office, you’ve likely heard someone in a phone conversation say desu desu in response to someone asking for confirmation.

This acceptance of repetition sort of extends beyond the obvious uses like this as well: for example, personal pronouns are much less common; instead (if the subject isn’t dropped) you’ll often just use the person’s name again. You’ll notice similar trends with other types of words as well.

Not to mention the ubiquity of things like otsukare.

This often ends up being a challenge for translators, because reusing words in English (when it’s not for an obvious reason) tends to stick out rather unflatteringly, even if they aren’t that close together.

(Like when I overuse “hence” in these notes.)

This “Christ” in the Japanese was “ったく” (short for 全く mattaku, but just used as a semi-generic exclamation). I mostly bring this up because it’s a good example of a word that doesn’t work out of its cultural context; e.g. it wouldn’t make any sense for a fantasy character to say “Christ,” but since this is an American speaker it works just fine (and helps distinguish that fact, even).

I think I’ve mentioned this before, but English uses a lot of “explicit reference” words like this, that can break immersion if put in the mouths of characters who wouldn’t have exposure to said reference—which can be annoyingly limiting when trying to write dialogue sometimes.

As a bit of a culture shock for a lot of Americans I’ve met, most Japanese homes tend to have wall mounted air conditioning units, like this one, that are only for heating/cooling the one room they’re in. (Many also have a “Dry” setting that makes them act kind of like a dehumidifier as well.) It’s common to not have them in every room, like bedrooms, however.

This is in contrast to the central air conditioning system used by a majority of homes in the US (though type/use of AC in the US varies a lot by region; less common in the north for example)—and places like the UK where apparently residential AC units of any kind are quite rare.

You may have noticed that the doors between rooms always seem closed in Kobayashi’s apartment. That’s not just to make the backgrounds simpler, it’s also a good habit to keep if you’re going to be running the AC!

“Kobayashi, are you お休み today?”

“Yeah, お休み.”

お休み o-yasumi, is a noun form of the 休む yasumu, to rest. The word has a variety of applications, as we see here. A day off work/school, i.e. a rest day? お休み. Want to say “good night” to someone before bed? Also お休み.

In this case, it’s not even necessarily clear it’s being said as a pun; as mentioned earlier, repetition is a common feature of the language, so despite the yawn there wouldn’t really be any reason for Kanna to think Kobayashi was about to go to nap or anything.

“Laze about” here is だらだら dara-dara, another phenomime (擬態語 gitaigo in Japanese)—one of those words that mimics the “sound” of an idea/concept/state, which don’t actually make a sound per se.

These phrases aren’t necessarily childish or anything (overuse of them can be, but you can find them even in news articles and political speeches for example). They are, however, used frequently by children, and by adults talking to children, as they’re very “easy” words: they’re expressive, they capture useful daily-life concepts, and they usually roll off the tongue. You’ll notice, for example, that Kanna uses them a lot.

Kanna has a very interesting way of talking actually, which I’ll touch on a bit more later.

Kobayashi’s “bean jam” here is あんみつ anmitsu, a traditional Japanese dessert (technically a spinoff of mitsumame). It typically is a mix of red beans (and/or red peas), agar (an algae-based gelatin equivalent), some fruit, some variety of rice flour product (shiratama in this case, similar to mochi), and a syrup (often black sugar based).

You can find it year-round, but it has a strong summer association and is even used as a summer season word. (It’s typically chilled and you can often get it with ice cream as an ingredient.)

It’s also sometimes paired with a green-tea flavored something as well (e.g. ice cream, agar, or syrup). The trinity of green tea, red beans (aka azuki), and shiratama makes what I like to think of as the “Japanese S’mores Flavor (for Adults)”. No I will not elaborate on this.

I will though point out the shaved ice flavor Kobayashi ordered later in the episode:

え？今スイカ様子あった？

A word of note here for language learners is 様子 yousu, which has a lot of definitions, but in cases like this where it’s attached to a noun or phrase means roughly “the appearance of __” or “an indication of ___” etc. In actual use, it typically means something that makes you think of whatever ___ is—or the lack of something that would make you think ___.

For example here, it’s like “Watermelon? Where’d that come from?” (since the TV was talking about a different dessert-y food entirely).

Or an unrelated example: “I think that guy is hiding something” → “Really? I haven’t seen any yousu of that.” In other words, it can be a lot like “sign,” as in “I’ve seen no sign of ___.”

These color-bordered envelopes (originally colored based on the flag of the country of origin) used to be the standard for air mail, domestic or international, though they haven’t been required for several decades.

That said, they’re still popular for that “ooh, international mail!” feel (at least in Japan) and you can buy them at most places that sell stuff like envelopes. As here, they’re often used in media to immediately convey that a letter came from outside Japan.

Kanna (and Kobayashi) says エアメール, lit. “air mail” in English, which is used colloquially for international mail specifically, rather than “mail sent by plane.”

They’re having what’s called 冷やしそうめん hiyashi soumen, chilled/cold soumen for lunch here. (Soumen being a thin wheat noodle; udon but thinner.) As Kanna says, it’s very easy to make!

Basically you just boil it, wash it in cold water, add ice, get some sort of sauce to dip it in, and you’re done! It’s a popular quick meal in summer, and much easier than the more involved nagashi soumen setups you may have seen elsewhere, where they slide the noodles down a chute for you to try to grab and eat. (It’s basically the same meal aside from that though.)

(You can of course add more to it, but as we see here, you don’t really have to.)

The type of tea here, for the curious, is 麦茶 mugicha, barley tea. Mugi is the general name for cereals/grains including wheat (komugi), barley (oomugi), rye (kuromugi or rye mugi), and oats (enbaku or oat mugi). It’s incredibly common in Japan (and much of East Asia), where it's the household summer drink.

It has no caffeine like many other teas, and has a bunch of various nutritional benefits, so it’s considered a good way to stay hydrated as you’re sweating buckets in the muggy Japanese summer weather.

帽子した？ boushi shita? した！ shita!

I thought this was a cute way of phrasing this question/answer, and a good example of the “parent and their young child” way these two talk.

The suru (past tense shita) verb used here is the ultimate in “generic verb,” and it basically doesn’t get any simpler grammar-wise to phrase something as “noun+suru” like Kobayashi does here (even the particles are dropped).

Kanna, for her part, doesn’t respond with a “yes” or etc, but instead just repeats back the verb itself in confirmation.

Just to note another one of those words like dara-dara: bura-bura, used for things like wandering around, doing something (or nothing) casually/aimlessly, or (with one bura) for something dangling/swinging in a more literal sense, like a spider, slack yo-yo, or wind chime.

These booklets are a common homework assignment for practicing kanji; you can see along the left side there it shows the stroke order, with the first block giving an example to trace over & showing where to start each stroke.

Each character is made up of radicals (e.g. “hot” above: 日 and 耂), which each have a standard way to write them. There’s 214 such radicals (though many are pretty niche; only about ~50 of them are needed to make most characters), and once you get a hang of them it makes learning new characters much easier (not too different from learning word spellings in English imo).

Kanna is repeating out loud the reading for the “hot” character as she writes it.

In addition to the above workbooks (which usually involve both kanji and math problems at Kanna’s grade), elementary school summer homework in Japan typically involves doing an illustrated diary (not a daily one necessarily) and some sort of research project about a subject of your choice. (Think kind of like a small science fair project).

The “research” project part is pretty expansive, and you can typically even do something more arts & craftsy for it.

Manhole covers in a lot of Japanese municipalities feature art representative of the area. For example, the city of Chofu, where the author of GeGeGe no Kitaro lived most of his life, has several with art of that series.

(Photo from https://www.gotokyo.org/jp/spot/1734/index.html)

I mentioned earlier that Kanna has an interesting way of speaking. Probably a better way to put it is that she has a pretty convincingly childish way of speaking (despite the monotone). That is, she uses simple grammar and “easy” words most of the time, but then throws out random big words and fancy idioms from time to time that make you go “...where did you learn that?”

In this case, the phrase she uses is 巷で人気 chimata de ninki. Chimata originally means like a fork (in the road), and since those are often places with lots of people passing through, it expanded to mean “the undefined place where people talk about ~stuff~.” So it’s used for “many people are saying~” or “word on the street is~” types of situations (or “talk of the town,” as here).

It’s kind of an “adult” word though; for example the character for it isn’t included in the jouyou kanji (the 2000+ that are taught in elementary through high school). Hence Kobayashi’s reaction here.

The word she uses for “protected” here is 死守 shishu. The word is the combination of the characters for “death” and “protect,” ~meaning to protect something even at risk to one’s life (to the death, as it were).

It's a word that you learn in third grade in the Japanese education system—the same grade Kanna is in!

Both of these types of signs are common sights in residential areas like this: depending on where you live, it can feel like there’s always some sort of construction project going on, and Japan’s many family/individually-owned businesses like this tend to be closed on various extra days during the summer (and certain other times) to allow for time off.

In this case, them being closed August 12th~16th implies they’re taking off for Obon (and probably leaving town to visit family).

The word Kobayashi uses here is 風物詩 fuubutsu-shi. Fuubutsu refers to something that makes up part of the “scenery” of a place or season, in a pretty broad sense. This shi typically means “poem.”

So fuubutsu-shi is originally a type of poem celebrating a season or a scene of natural beauty, that sort of thing. From that, it’s also now (more popularly) used to describe things that are representative of a season; the kind of stuff you say “it’s not winter until…” about, or “you know it’s summer when…” (It can also be used for places + seasons, like the ice sculptures of Hokkaido winters, or even summer Comiket in Tokyo.)

They’re very similar to the season words I’ve mentioned previously, though they’re far less strict about what counts as one. Here, Kobayashi’s could be referring to the whole package experience of “having to take cover and wait out a sudden heavy rain, despite it being mostly clear skies a few minutes ago,” which you could call fuubutsu-shi (summed up probably as like 夏の雨宿り etc.)

In contrast the relevant season word here would probably be yuudachi (or niwaka-ame), a word referring to the short, sudden bouts of rain that tend to fall (from cumulonimbus clouds, the makings of which are noticeable in the backgrounds before this) on summer evenings.

Feels like in season one she woulda eaten it. Three cheers for character growth!

The parentheticals there are just the “English” in hiragana/katakana.

Kobayashi’s comment (nihongo de ok, roughly “you can just use Japanese”) is an internet-born term people originally would use to reply to someone who said something that didn’t make any sense, had terrible grammar, or was so full of katakana loanwords it was hard to read etc.

Kanna says this line in English, and while I have no proof at all, my guess is that the specific choice of “wicked” was taken from the translation of “maji yabakune?” used in season one.

#maidragon #Miss Kobayashi's Dragon Maid #kobayashi-san chi no maid dragon #translation notes #anime

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fyeah-bangtan7 · 4 years

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The Boundless Optimism of BTS

IT IS THE MORNING OF CHUSEOK, A KOREAN HARVEST FESTIVAL akin to Thanksgiving, and the members of BTS would normally be spending it with their families, eating tteokguk, a traditional rice-cake soup. Instead, Jin, 28; Suga, 27; J-Hope, 26; RM, 26; Jimin, 25; V, 24; and Jung Kook, 23, are working. Practicing. Honing their choreography. In a few days, the biggest musical act in the world will perform in the live-stream concert that, for now, will have to stand in for the massive tour they spent the first part of this year rehearsing. At this moment, they’re seated inside Big Hit Entertainment headquarters in Seoul, South Korea, the house they built, dressed mostly in black and white, ready to answer my questions. They’re gracious about it. And groggy.

Before I’m done speaking with them for this story, BTS will have the number-one and number-two songs on the BillboardHot 100, a feat that’s been achieved only a handful of times in the sixty-odd years the chart has existed. Their next album, Be, is weeks away from being released, and speculation about the record, the tracklist, the statement, is rampant across the Internet. BTS are, to put it mildly, huge.

There is something about complete world domination that can really cement a friendship. What jumps out at me as I connect with the members of BTS is their level of comfort with one another. Tension has a way of making itself evident—even over Zoom, even through a translator. There’s none to be found here. They are relaxed in the manner of family. Lounging with their arms around each other’s shoulders, tugging on each other’s sleeves, fixing each other’s collars. When they speak about one another, it is with kindness.

“Jimin has a particular passion for the stage and really thinks about performance, and in that sense, there are many things to learn from him,” J-Hope says. “Despite all the things he has accomplished, he still tries his best and brings something new to the table, and I really want to applaud him for that.”

“Thank you for saying all these things about me,” Jimin responds.

Jimin turns his attention to V, explaining that he is “loved by so many” and describing him as one of his best friends. Suga jumps in, sharing that Jimin and V fight the most among the group. V replies, “We haven’t fought in three years!” They tell me this distinction now belongs to Jin and Jung Kook, the oldest and youngest members. “It all starts as a joke, but then it gets serious,” Jimin says.

Jin agrees and recounts what their arguments sound like. “Why did you hit me so hard?” he says, before mimicking Jung Kook’s response: “I didn’t hit you that hard.” And then they start hitting each other. But not that hard.

Since the start of their careers, BTS have shown a certain confidence in their aesthetic, their performances, and their music videos. It’s right there in the name: BTS stands for “Bangtan Sonyeondan,” which translates to “Bulletproof Boy Scouts,” but as their popularity grew in English-speaking markets, the acronym was retrofitted to mean “Beyond the Scene,” which Big Hit has described as “symbolizing youth who don’t settle for their current reality and instead open the door and go forward to achieve growth.” And their affection with one another, their vulnerability and emotional openness in their lives and in their lyrics, strikes me as more grown-up and masculine than all the frantic and perpetual box-checking and tone-policing that American boys force themselves and their peers to do. It looks like the future.

“There is this culture where masculinity is defined by certain emotions, characteristics. I’m not fond of these expressions,” Suga tells me. “What does being masculine mean? People’s conditions vary day by day. Sometimes you’re in a good condition; sometimes you aren’t. Based on that, you get an idea of your physical health. And that same thing applies mentally. Some days you’re in a good state; sometimes you’re not. Many pretend to be okay, saying that they’re not ‘weak,’ as if that would make you a weak person. I don’t think that’s right. People won’t say you’re a weak person if your physical condition is not that good. It should be the same for the mental condition as well. Society should be more understanding.”

When I hear these words in October 2020, from my house in a country whose leader is actively trying to make the case that only the weak die of COVID-19, well, it sounds like the future, too.

IF YOU ARE JUST NOW CONSIDERING GETTING INTO BTS, IT IS natural to feel overwhelmed by the sheer amount of stuff. It’s a bit like saying, right this second, “Let’s see what Marvel Comics is all about.” In the streaming age, BTS have sold more than twenty million physical units across fourteen albums. Their multi-album concept cycles, The Most Beautiful Moment in Life, Love Yourself, and Map of the Soul, have unfolded over multiple records and EPs. There are collaborations with brands, including a BTS smartphone with Samsung. There is a series of short films and music videos, called BU, or BTS Universe, and an animated universe called BT21, in which they’re all represented by gender-neutral avatars. Their fan base, known as ARMY, is a global cultural movement unto itself.

“Dynamite,” their first English-language single and their first American number one, is pure, ecstatic pop. Shiny and joyful. What sets them apart from many of their peers, and many of the pop acts who achieved worldwide fame before them, is what came earlier. Beneath the sheen and the beats has always been an unflinching examination of human emotion. Their lyrics seek to challenge the conventions of society—to question and even denounce them. BTS’s first single, “No More Dream,” unveiled at their debut showcase in June 2013, concerns the intense pressure South Korean schoolchildren face to conform and to succeed. According to Suga, lyrics about the mental health of young people were mostly absent in Korean pop music. “The reason I started making music is because I grew up listening for lyrics that speak about dreams, hopes, and social issues,” he tells me. “It just came naturally to me when making music.”

Suga’s early ambition of making music didn’t involve him being in a group at all. About a decade ago, in his hometown of Daegu, the fourth-largest city in South Korea, he started recording underground rap tracks under the name Gloss, listening to and learning from the early works of songwriter and producer Bang Si-hyuk, known as Hitman Bang. Bang is the founder and CEO of Big Hit Entertainment. In 2010, Suga, a junior in high school, moved to Seoul to join Big Hit as a producer and rapper. Then Bang asked him to become part of a group, envisioning a hip-hop act with fellow new Big Hit recruits RM and J-Hope. The guys call this “season one” of their development.

“At that time, I don’t think our label exactly knew what to do with us,” RM says. “They just basically let us be and we had some lessons, but we also just chilled and made music sometimes.”

It got more intense. The family grew, occasionally by accident.

V accompanied a friend to a Big Hit casting call in Daegu for moral support and ended up being the person chosen from those sessions.

Jung Kook was signed in a feeding frenzy after being dropped from the talent show Superstar K, fielding offers from numerous entertainment companies before settling on Big Hit because he was impressed by RM’s rapping.

Jimin was a dance student and class president for nine years running at his school in Busan; he auditioned at the behest of his teacher.

And then, to hear him tell it, Jin got picked up off the street. “I was just going to school,” he says. “Someone from the company approached me, like, ‘Oh, this is my first time seeing anyone that looked like this.’ He suggested having a meeting with me.”

“Season two is when we officially underwent hard training,” J-Hope says. “We started dancing, and that’s how I would say our team building started.”

School in the daytime, training at night. “We slept during classes,” V says.

“I slept in the practice studio,” J-Hope counters.

Hitman Bang kept the pressure comparatively low. And he encouraged the guys to write and produce their own music, to be honest about their emotions in their lyrics. Suga is on record saying that no BTS album would be complete without a track that scrutinizes society.

And yet for their new album, Be, they’re putting that aside. Even this has a greater purpose that relates to mental wellness: RM, the group’s main rapper, says, “I don’t think this album will have any songs that criticize social issues. Everybody is going through very trying times right now. So I don’t think there will be any songs that will be that aggressive.”

Though the new rules of COVID-19 mean they can’t come here and promote Be, its first single might not have happened in the first place but for the pandemic. “ ‘Dynamite’ wouldn’t be here if there was no COVID-19,” says RM. “For this song, we wanted to go easy and simple and positive. Not some, like, deep vibes or shadows. We just wanted to go easy.”

Jin agrees. “We were trying to convey the message of healing and comfort to our fans.” He pauses. “World domination wasn’t actually our plan when we were releasing ‘Dynamite.’ ” World domination just happens sometimes. You get it.

MAP OF THE SOUL ONE AIRED VIA THEIR ONLINE FAN PLATFORM and attracted almost a million viewers across 191 countries. The guys say they tried not to think about the enormousness. J-Hope adds, “I felt a little bit more nervous knowing that this was being broadcast live. I actually feel less nervous performing live at a stadium.” Jin replies with a smile, “J-Hope, born to perform at a stadium.”

The graphic layout of the title throws a colon between the final N and E, which makes it look like Map of the Soul On: E, and as I watch it live, as I do in my office at 3:00 a.m. with noise-canceling headphones and a steaming pot of coffee, it feels a lot like I’m watching Map of the Soul on E. It is an explosion of color and fashion and passion, over four gigantic stages, from the boozy swagger of “Dionysus” to the emo-trap introspection of “Black Swan.” Not a step, not a gesture, not a hair is out of place. If there were nerves, they didn’t come through.

There is also, at the end of Map of the Soul One, an intimate version of their 2017 track “Spring Day,” which encapsulates what’s really made BTS stand out. On the surface, it’s about nonspecific love and loss, about yearning for the past. “I think that song really represents me,” says Jin. “I like to look to the past and be lost in it.”

Fair enough, but there is an undeniable allusion, in both the song’s video and its cover concept, to a specific incident in recent South Korean history. “Spring Day” was released just a few years after the sinking of the Sewol ferry, one of the country’s biggest maritime disasters, in which a poorly inspected, overloaded ferry toppled in a sharp right turn. Hundreds of high school students drowned, having obeyed orders to stay in their cabins as the boat was going down. According to some reports, the South Korean government actively tried to silence entertainers who spoke out against it, with the Korean Ministry of Education fully banning the tragedy’s commemorative yellow ribbons in schools. I ask whether it was about a specific sad event, and Jin tells me, “It is about a sad event, as you said, but it is also about longing.” The song kept the disaster front of mind for young Koreans and for the media, indirectly leading to the impeachment and removal of then president Park Geun-hye.

If an overburdened, undermaintained, slow-moving vessel capsizing because of a reckless rightward turn strikes you as somehow symbolic of the country in which BTS are about to explode even further, you won’t hear it from them. “We’re outsiders—we can’t really express what we feel about the United States,” says V. But their actions speak volumes; in the wake of the George Floyd murder and subsequent protests in America, the group made a $1 million donation with Big Hit Entertainment to Black Lives Matter, one that was matched by BTS ARMY.

The fans offer a fascinating inversion of stan culture: Rather than bullying rivals like many other ardent online fan bases do, ARMY have put the positive message of the music into action. Their activism goes deep. Through micro-donations, they’ve regrown rain forests, adopted whales, funded hundreds of hours of dance classes for Rwandan youth, and raised money to feed LGBTQ refugees around the world. Where pop fans a generation ago might have sent teddy bears or cards to their idols for their birthdays, where five years ago they might have promoted a hashtag to get a video’s YouTube viewer count up, for RM’s twenty-sixth birthday in September, international fan collective One in an Army raised more than $20,000 for digital night schools to improve rural children’s access to education during the COVID-19 crisis. ARMY may have even entered the conversation around the 2020 presidential election when hundreds of thousands of Tulsa Trump rally tickets got snapped up online in June. The event’s actual attendance was pathetically low. No particular person or entity claimed credit for this top-notch trolling, but a video urging BTS fans to RSVP to that rally did get hundreds of thousands of views. We have no choice but to stan this fan base.

The relationship is intense. “We and our ARMY are always charging each other’s batteries,” RM says. “When we feel exhausted, when we hear the news all over the world, the tutoring programs, and donations, and every good thing, we feel responsible for all of this.” The music may have inspired the good works, but the good works inspire the music. “We’ve got to be greater; we’ve got to be better,” RM continues. “All those behaviors always influence us to be better people, before all this music and artist stuff.”

Yet for every devoted member of BTS ARMY, there is someone who’s looked right past BTS. Jimmy Fallon, whose Tonight Show hosted the group for a full week this past fall, was one of those people. “Usually if an artist is on the rise, I hear about them ahead of time. With BTS, I knew they had crazy momentum, and I’d never heard of them.”

Here’s a thought that used to be funny to me: There were members of the live audience of The Ed Sullivan Showon February 9, 1964, who weren’t there to see the Beatles. Elvis was in the Army, Buddy Holly was gone, and the three number-one albums in the months before Meet the Beatles! were an Allan Sherman comedy record, the West Side Story original cast recording, and Soeur Sourire: The Singing Nun. America had left rock ’n’ roll behind for the moment, and with the culture aimless and fragmented, it wasn’t quite sure what to pick up in its place. It is possible to imagine that a youngish, reasonably hip, and culturally aware human being might cop a ticket to that week’s show, settle into his seat, and say, “Bring on a medley of numbers from the Broadway musical Oliver! and banjo sensation Tessie O’Shea.”

The instinct is to laugh at that guy, and it’s a good instinct, because what a dope.

And then you become that guy.

Sometimes there is a whole universe alongside your own, bursting with color you’re too stubborn to see, bouncing with joy you think is for someone else, with a beat you thought you were finished dancing to. BTS are the biggest thing on the planet right now, yet the job of introducing them to someone new, particularly in America, seems like it’s never done. Maybe it’s because they are adored by screaming teenagers and we live in a society patriarchal enough to forget that screaming teenagers are nearly always right. Maybe it’s the cultural divide, in a moment when our country is unashamed enough of its own xenophobia to get openly bent out of shape when it has to press 1 for English. Maybe it’s the language barrier, as though we understood a single word Michael Stipe sang before 1989.

Whatever the reason, the result is that you might be missing out on a paradigm shift and a historic moment of pop greatness.

IF BTS SEEM A BIT CAUTIOUS WITH THEIR WORDS PUBLICLY, IT’S because—perhaps more than any other massive pop act in history—they have to be. Shortly after our second meeting, BTS were given the General James A. Van Fleet Award by the U. S.–based Korea Society for their outstanding contributions to advancing relations between the United States and Korea. In his acceptance speech, RM said, “We will always remember the history of pain that our two nations shared together, and the sacrifices of countless men and women,” as seemingly diplomatic and innocuous a statement as he could have made. But because he didn’t mention the Chinese soldiers who died in the Korean War, it didn’t go over well. The Samsung BTS smartphone disappeared from Chinese e-commerce platforms, Fila and Hyundai pulled ads in China that featured the group, the nationalistic newspaper Global Times accused them of hurting Chinese citizens’ feelings and negating history, and the hashtags “BTS humiliated China” and “there are no idols that come before my country” began trending on the social-media site Weibo. The pressure is not small.

Even as the number-one pop group in the world, even with their hard work day in and day out, even with tens of millions of adoring fans redefining the concept of “adoring fans” by literally healing the planet in their name, these guys still suffer from impostor syndrome. RM explains, “I’ve heard that there’s this mask complex. Seventy percent of so-called successful people have this, mentally. It’s basically this: There’s this mask on my face. And these people are afraid that someone is going to take off this mask. We have those fears as well. But I said 70 percent, so I think it’s very natural. Sometimes it’s a condition to be successful. Humans are imperfect, and we have these flaws and defects. And one way to deal with all this pressure and weight is to admit the shadows.”

The music helps. “When we write the songs and lyrics, we study these emotions, we are aware of that situation, and we relate to that emotionally,” J-Hope says. “And that’s why when the song is released, we listen to it and get consolation from those songs as well. I think our fans also feel those emotions, maybe even more than us. And I think we are a positive influence on each other.”

If there’s one thing they’re sacrificing, besides free time and the ability to speak freely without the Chinese foreign ministry releasing an official statement, it’s a love life. I ask about dating, broad questions like “Are you?” and “Is there time?” and “Can you?” and the answer to all of them is pretty clear: “No.” “The most important thing for us now is to sleep,” Jung Kook insists. Suga follows right up with “Can you see my dark circles?” I cannot, because there are none, because flawless skin translates even over Zoom when there’s an ocean between us.

So they’re not, at least publicly, having romantic relationships with anyone. If there is a strong relationship that’s guided their journey into adulthood, it’s with Big Hit. “Our company started with twenty to thirty people, but now we have a company with so many employees,” RM says. “We have our fans, and we have our music. So we have a lot of things that we have to be responsible for, to safeguard.” He considers it for a moment. “I think that’s what an adult is.”

“Our love life—twenty-four hours, seven days a week—is with all the ARMYs all over the world,” RM adds.

In a world that is determined to sand down anything that isn’t immediately recognizable to the average pop-music fan, when it comes to acquainting you with Korean culture, BTS very much do not wanna hold your hand. While the first song on night one of their Tonight Show week was a joyous but expected take on “Dynamite” with Fallon and the Roots, they took some chances during their second performance.

As a friend of mine, a thirty-three-year-old BTS fan in Los Angeles, told me, “The second song they performed was ‘IDOL,’ ” from 2018’s Love Yourself: Answer, “and it celebrated their Korean identity. They performed it in Gyeongbokgung Palace in Seoul. They wore clothes inspired by traditional dresses called hanboks;it was almost entirely in Korean, so it felt super subversive. As a fan, I read it as: ‘Dynamite’ was an invitation, and this is who we are and this is our home.”

“I was a little concerned that people might not understand,” Fallon says. “I was like, ‘There’s nothing in English here.’ But what you see is just pure star power. Pure talent. Immediately, I thought, Oh, this is everything. If you’re that powerful, it transcends language.”

American popular music in the twenty-first century is more fragmented than it has been since . . . well, since Allan Sherman, Leonard Bernstein and Stephen Sondheim, and the Singing Nun battled for that number-one spot. The monoculture that the Beatles helped bring on has breathed its last breath. Each of us is the program director for our own private radio station, letting our own past habits and streaming-service algorithms serve up something close to what we want. Which is great, except that huge moments can whiz right past our ears. Each of us, even if we’re more clued in than our parents were when they were our age, can miss some era-defining, excellent shit. Particularly if the radio is our Spotify Discover Weekly, or the Pandora channel based on the band whose T-shirts we wore in college. We can let a moment pass us by if prime time is a Netflix binge, and the Tonight Show hour is spent on one more episode before bed. But we shouldn’t. “Honestly, I think it’s history that we’re living through with BTS,” Fallon says. “It’s the biggest band I’ve seen since I’ve started late night, definitely.”

THERE IS ALSO THE SMALL DETAIL THAT, UNLIKE THE BEATLES AND literally every other worldwide sensation to break in America, BTS don’t particularly need to go to the trouble. They are massive all over the world. Thanks to the recent IPO of Big Hit Entertainment, of which each member is a partner, they are all now incredibly wealthy. (Hitman Bang is the first South Korean entertainment mogul to become a billionaire.) What good is a culture in decline to a pop act this much on the ascent? “When I dreamed of becoming an artist, I listened to pop and watched all the awards shows in the United States. Being successful and being a hit in the U. S. is, of course, such an honor as an artist,” says Suga. “I feel very proud of that.”

They’re breaking out in a country that either worships them or fails to notice them. So do they feel like they’re getting enough respect in America? “How can we win everyone’s respect?” Jin asks. “I think it’s enough to get respect from people who support us. It’s similar everywhere else in the world. You can’t like everyone, and I think it’s enough to be respected by people who really love you.”

Suga agrees. “You can’t always be comfortable, and I think it’s all part of life. Honestly, we are not used to getting a ton of respect from when we first started out. But I think that gradually changes, whether it be in the States or other parts of the world, as we do more and more.”

There is, without a doubt, one colossal, unmistakable sign of respect for a musician: a Grammy. They’ve been nominated only once, and even then it was for best recording package. But their sights are set on a big one next year. RM puts it out there: “We would like to be nominated and possibly get an award.” Dragging the hoary, backward-looking, and Western-focused Grammys into the gorgeous, global world of the present through sheer force of will, talent, and hard work? Stranger things have happened. “I think the Grammys are the last part, like the final part of the whole American journey,” he says with a smile. “So yeah, we’ll see.”

The Recording Academy’s seal of approval is one thing. But BTS have already conquered the world, clowned tyrants, inspired individual fans to perform the small and achievable acts of activism that have collectively begun to save the planet, challenged toxic masculinity by leading with vulnerability, and, along the way, become bajillionaires and international idols. Whether the Grammys are paying attention matters about as much as what an Ed Sullivan audience member expected to see that night in 1964. BTS have already won.

#bangtan #jungkook #jimin #v #suga #jhope #jin #rm #o:esquire #o:interview #201123

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kiragecko · 3 years

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Reviews of Christian Allegorical FANTASY

Note: Christianity is a broad, varied thing. I can only write from my perspective, and it’s hard to describe that perspective to an international audience. Words have different meanings in different countries. But this is what I think about the various Christian allegorical fiction I’ve read, measured by writing quality, allegorical quality, and ability to make me happy. Your perspective may vary.

Chronicles of Narnia, by C.S. Lewis –

Writing: Y’all know this guy is good.

Allegory: Shockingly strong for something with such mass appeal. And deeper than you thought as a kid. Never sidelines the story, because he’s integrated the two so well.

Problems: So, you don’t notice the colonialism, racism, classism, sexism, and mild ableism as a kid. Dude was a white British man during the early and mid 1900s. He does not entirely rise above his culture. Some of the dehumanization of species/cultures that are obvious stand-ins for real world cultures horrified me during my latest reread. And it’s subtle enough that it’s hard to point out to kids.

Story: The story is great. I’ve read ‘The Horse And His Boy’ so many times that my papa’s copy is held together with tape. He wouldn’t let me take them when I moved out. Had to buy my own. It was tragic.

The Archives of Anthropos, by John White –

Writing: Reminds me of Terry Brooks, a little. In that the writing is servicable, and some of the fantasy is pretty derivative, but it’s definitely not bad. The roots are strong, but he didn’t have enough experience to cut all the weaker bits and ruthlessly rewrite.

Allegory: Solid. Not tacked on, not super deep. Really good for a Narnia imitation.

Problems: Not sure, haven’t reread in a while. Pika didn’t like a battle near the beginning, so we had to stop.

Story: It’s set in Winnipeg!!! Unashamed about being heavily inspired by Narnia, this series is a delight. Not as good as it’s inspiration, of course, but it feels like a heartfelt fan letter. Some of the ideas are REALLY cool. This series is worth reading, you guys! Especially the first 2 books.

The Circle (Black, Red, and White), by Ted Dekker –

Writing: Readable. Slick. Masculine.

Allegory: Lacked both the desired subtly and the necessary depth. Felt like it was written for fantasy fans that felt guilty about reading secular books, rather than to say something important.

Story: Don’t like Narnia-esque books aimed at adults. Allegories shouldn’t be trying to be cool. Not a fan. (But please note that these opinions were formed 15-20 years ago. I may have been missing something.)

The Space Trilogy, by C.S. Lewis –

Writing: Again, this is C.S. Lewis. He’s good at writing.

Allegory: A little weird, for me. But I struggle with allegory for adults. One of the books is Adam and Eve on Venus, with original sin working slightly differently? I don’t get it.

Problems: My problem is that I don’t like it! Sometimes it reads like Douglas Adams, but not funny. That makes no sense!

Story: Don’t like Narnia-esque books aimed at adults, even if they’re written by the authour of Narnia. This is Sci-Fi. There is romance. Really not for me.

The Story of the Other Wise Man, by Henry Van Dyke –

Writing: Good, if I remember correctly. Feels dated and classic, like it should be from Victorian times. (I just checked, it’s from 1895.)

Allegory: Like most morality from more than a century ago, it reads a bit weird. Just, life was a lot harsher then. Nice clear simple message, just taught from a mindset I don’t totally understand.

Story: As a kid, this one made me SAD! He loses everything and feels like a failure! Does have a good message, teaching is sound, good storytelling, but it wasn’t fun enough to make the lesson stick.

Left Behind, by Tim Lahaye and Jerry B. Jenkins -

Writing: I remember the writing being fine. They read like thrillers, which isn’t a bad thing. I’ve enjoyed some thrillers.

Allegory: Revelations is ALREADY an allegory. This is just an uninspired expansion.

Problems: Everything.

Story: I hate apocalyptic/post-apocalyptic stories. This series wasn’t written by someone who was bothered by the suffering of everyone who made ‘wrong’ choices, and that makes it hollow and awful. ‘We’re so good and smart and better than other people!’ NO. That is not Christianity.

A Wrinkle In Time, by Madeleine L’Engle –

I still don’t get how this series is Christian?? Really freaked me out as a kid. Had quite a few nightmares.

After a little research, it turns out that she has a very different understanding of Christianity then me. You’ll have to get a review from someone who can see from that perspective.

Duncton Wood, by William Horwood –

Writing: Extremely good. Heavy and beautiful. Kept me reading as I got more and more weirded out.

Allegory: Not a Christian allegory. And yet Christian enough, in a weird Anglican(??) way, to make it difficult to interpret as non-Christian. There’s a Jesus figure who gets martyred. There are schisms. It’s weird.

Problems: Almost certainly shouldn’t be on this list, yet I spent half an hour searching for it because I was so sure it was supposed to be on this list.

Story: Moles and their experiences with religion. There are similarities to Watership Down and Redwall, Narnia and Lord of the Rings. (The last mostly in language/writing style). If it wasn’t so close to Christian allegory as to be in the uncanny valley, I would have loved it! As it is, I would have prefered LESS Christ.

Christian ALLEGORICAL Fantasy

The Pilgrim’s Progress, by Paul Bunyan –

Writing: (Note: I’ve only read versions rewritten for kids. At least one was heavily abridged.) This was written in 1678. That is a LONG time ago. The worldview is really different from ours. Also, the versions I read were not inspired updates.

Allegory: This was written only 100 years after the Protestant Reformation. Punishments are incredibly disproportionate. Rich people have completely different rules than the poor, and this is seen as Godly. It’s been over 20 years since I read this book, and I don’t remember much, but it’s a weird read if you’re expecting modern concepts of right and wrong.

Story: Fascinating! Did not enjoy. Might as an adult. Reading an allegory that you can’t relate to at all is a weird experience.

Hind’s Feet On High Places, by Hannah Hunnard -

Writing: (Note: I’ve only read the version rewritten for kids.) Writing is really good.

Allegory: Names that are just English words have always annoyed me. Other than that pet peeve, this is extremely good. Straight-forward enough to be read to a 7 year old, complex enough for me to reference when I’m trying to describe my experiences to my husband. Solid Christianity, with enough hard stuff to challenge you, while still managing to be fun.

Problems: We’ve got some nasty ableism baked into the setting (disability as metaphor for sin and bondage), and the images are painfully white.

Story: I love this book! This is a Pilgrim’s Progress that actually matches with Christianity as I understand it. If you’re looking for a fun fantasy with a good message, this isn’t it. If you’re looking for a distillation of Christianity, told as a story because that makes it more accessible – this is a good one.

The Divine Comedy, by Dante Alighieri –

Haven’t read it.

Tales of the Kingdom, by David and Karen Mains -

Writing: The first collection of stories is really strong. The next 2 get weaker. Short stories read differently than novels, and the writing style works well for that format.

Allegory: TOO strong. Some of the stories still make me mad to think about, because the messages are HARD. (Also, names that are just English words still annoy me, no matter now much I love the series.)

Problems: Ableism – true selves don’t have disabilities and are always beautiful. Art is not 100% white, but all the most beautiful people seem to be. And I love lizards far too much to handle the dragon story.

Story: These stories mean a lot to me. They are very much not something a non-believer is going to enjoy. They tend to focus on the parts of Christianity that are hard, uncomfortable, and/or different from mainstream culture. They also stick with you for decades. Narnia is my favourite series on this list to read, but Tales of the Kingdom might be the best for exploring your faith. Highly, highly recommend.

#religion #christianity #gecko recs stuff #people write things #these were the ones I could think of #anyone else know good allegories #(preferably aimed at kids but not tiny kids)#?

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photonflight · 3 years

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Hello, I read and loved your last post. I know this is not what it was about but you mentioned it later on briefly that there is a difference between BIPOC groups of the same basic descent. When is it appropriate to distinguis between?

When is it okay to talk about different varieties of cultures?

When it comes to Representation.

Will try to make this as SPECIFIC and detailed as possible with examples.

In cases where unity among an entire ethnic group is promoted, it may be counterproductive to insist on dividing or differentiating between a group. Similarly when one is referring to a culture, the place of origin and its entire diaspora fall under that culture. (For example when Indian and African culture is discussed usually, the diaspora is not separated as they are also considered Indian and African or descended from them, so they are also part of the culture.

The diaspora here meaning people who are descended from these groups, mixed with these ethnicities or grew up in the cultures outside of the country of origin.)

example: Ordinarily, people of Asian descent or of the Asian diaspora all refer to themselves as Asian, and this can be done without distinguishing the region of Asia or the country or culture, because it’s a broad term to describe people of or descended from people of Asia. It is also used by people who know they are of Asian descent but are not exactly sure what part of Asia their ancestry lies. This does not mean they’re not Asian. Some people are just not able to trace the exact origin of their family beyond the broad term, and it would be unfair to tell them they aren’t Asian or aren’t Asian enough because of this. The same could be said for European people and those descended of them. There are different countries with different cultures and there is a European diaspora as well but they can also all choose to identify broadly as European, because they are.

When speaking of Representation, however it is important to note differences to avoid interchanging and erasing some cultures in favor of others, because when it comes to representation SPECIFICALLY, every cultural group does not represent each other.

Even if you belong to one variety of culture in a broader ethnicity, for example what is acceptable for Indo-Caribbean people may be unacceptable or offensive to Indians from India. This is not to deny the cultural similarities between them, but acknowledge the cultural differences make them all independent of each other and worthy of note. Not to divide them, but to compare them.

For example, when talking about Latin America on a whole any examples may be used, but when a role calls for representation for an Argentinian person, a Costa Rican person would not be ideal because while they’re both Latin American, they are not the same, two different countries and cultures

Another example is the diaspora of African people globally. The movement of Pan-Africanism calls for unity among all Black people around the world, and in a case like that, it may not always be appropriate to differentiate or separate each person.

However, when it comes to representation, and the role calls for a Caribbean Person, it cannot be accurately filled by an American or European or Asian person who does not have Caribbean roots, but it can be filled by an American or European or Asian person who does unless the role explicitly states the character is strictly from the Caribbean with no other influence.

It is not gatekeeping or saying they aren’t “Caribbean enough” to say that someone without Caribbean roots cannot represent Caribbean people, or to say that someone who isn’t Caribbean, and isn’t of Caribbean descent whatsoever is not Caribbean, because they’re not.

I don’t know why people fight and argue this point. If you’re not you’re not, and it doesn’t make you better or worse than anyone who IS. It just means you may not be right for a role.

Similarly, if a role calls for a Trinidadian actor, casting a Trinidadian-American is appropriate unless the role specified the character is born and raised in Trinidad, but casting a Jamaican-American or Jamaican person is absolutely a problem because they’re different cultures and doing so promotes the interchanging of unrelated cultures that leads to stereotypes, ideas, preconceptions, perceptions of attitudes and beliefs from one culture being imposed on people of a completely different culture who have nothing to do with it. As a Trinidadian person, I’ve had so many non Caribbean people say “yeah mon” to me although in Trinidad that’s not our slang.

Doing this is what leads to cultural misinterpretation and misrepresentation.

African American and Afro-Caribbean people are of different cultures, countries and speak a different language entirely. By using an African American person (who does not have Caribbean roots) to represent an Afro-Caribbean person, it results in erasure of Caribbean culture because while they are both diaspora culture African groups and cultures, they are very different and cannot be interchanged or substitute each other. And vice versa.

In Disney’s The Little Mermaid as revealed in an interview with Samuel E. Wright, Sebastian was intended to have a Trinidadian accent, but as the actor couldn’t do it, they told him to just do a Jamaican accent because they felt there was no difference, when in fact Trinidad and Jamaica don’t even speak the same language. (According to Communication Studies Syllabus by the Caribbean Examinations Council for the Caribbean Advanced Proficiency Examination)

This would also be true if a character is meant to be from an African country, and assuming they were also meant to be Black, were played by an African American person (without ancestry from that specific country) or an Afro-Caribbean person (without ancestry from that country). There would be erasure of accent, culture, and even mannerisms as what may be normal in America or the Caribbean may not be acceptable in that African country, something I learned in my university History course AND Linguistics (Phonetics & Phonology) course

Similarly, refusal of people to acknowledge the differences between the cultures of the Caribbean islands is why SO MANY NON CARIBBEAN PEOPLE think that all Caribbean people are Jamaican or have Jamaican accents when all the islands in fact speak a different variety of Creole altogether. The refusal to let Caribbean people fill Caribbean roles also adds to this, because people who don’t know any better tend to give every Caribbean character a Jamaican accent, examples below:

(See Ajay Chase, Haitian with a Jamaican accent/ and George, Guyanese with a Jamaican accent/ Sebastian the Crab, Trinidadian coded with a Jamaican Accent)

Again, this distinction is drawn for the purpose of accurate representation because this is an appropriate context. However, if the matter at hand was regional integration then similarities would be examined over differences; so this is just to remind you that there’s an appropriate time and place to do this. Don’t go throwing this at people randomly, you asked me about a specific time to do this and I am answering.

Another reason why it’s important to research a specific culture when creating a character is because you can say you are creating, for example, an Indian character, but There are separate cultural groups in India as well and customs vary throughout. If you treat them as generic, you may add elements that are offensive. This is because what may be acceptable in one Indian culture may be a taboo in another one, and so cross-breeding these cultures may cause problems when people from the actual cultures encounter your character.

Even AFRICA isn’t one country with one culture, the different tribes possess different cultures, and therefore when creating African-coded characters it is better to focus on a specific tribe instead of combining random “African” (which is again not a country) elements. Every African culture is different although the people are all African. If you are referencing African culture it’s best to focus on a specific country THEN focus on a tribe from that country, instead of copying and pasting elements cut and dry from every tribe and mashing them together; some tribes don’t have a friendly history with each other and it may be offensive to just combine their elements.

Similarly, when the recent hate crimes against Asian Americans are being spoken about, it is important to make the distinction that the most recent victims are East Asians, because Asian is only a broad category that does not make a distinction between Asians based on region. People that look East Asian as opposed to those who look like they’re from another part of Asia might be more at risk for a COVID-19 motivated hate crime, because people do see a difference. (Although these racist people believe that anyone that appears East Asian is Chinese because they can’t tell the difference, they can differentiate between someone who appears to be South Asian and someone who appears to have features that are more East Asian; putting that specific group at risk.)

Just like if a role just calls for an “Asian” character anyone from any Asian country can be used, but if it calls specifically for East Asian, it would be misrepresentation to put an Indian person in that role if they aren’t mixed at all, and if it calls for someone who is 100% East Asian, then in theory it would be misrepresentation to place someone who is mixed or from another region of Asia to fill that role, but anyone from any East Asian country may be cast.

If the role is narrowed from East Asian to Japanese, then a distinction must be made between East Asian actors. A Chinese or Korean person in the role instead would be misrepresentation, because the role calls for a Japanese person, even though they all fall under the general term East Asian, which falls under the general term of Asian

It isn’t gatekeeping, it is what is required under the topic of accurate representation. By saying that differentiating between different BIPOC cultures is unnecessary because “they’re all BIPOC”, it gives room for people to misrepresent them and interchange them.

Representation is where we have to make these distinctions; but remember there is a time and a place to do so.

It’s not gatekeeping to say that if you are DEFINITELY* not part of a culture then it’s inaccurate to say that you represent it.

In fact, BIPOC can erase each other too. Pro-Black African American YouTubers constantly raise the issue of Light Skinned Black Americans and even mixed Americans being cast in roles meant for unambiguous, non mixed Dark-Skinned Black Americans. They believe it takes roles from them and perpetuates colorism because according to them, lighter skinned women and mixed women have different features and are treated differently in America than dark-skinned women, so they feel that they cannot be represented by them as they can’t relate to them; which leads to them feeling like they are being erased by members of their own group. (see video by I Am Eloho on YouTube: “Jorja Smith REMIX PROVES Bi-racial women erase DSBW” (Dark Skinned Black Women).

*Definitely here means if you are not a part of a group or it’s diaspora whatsoever. Does not apply to people who are of the diaspora because they are considered part of the group under normal non-specific circumstances

#artists on tumblr #art #artwork #digital art #digital illustration #the arcana #the arcana apprentice #the arcana game #drawing #the arcana oc

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skaldish · 4 years

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(Discerning Dubious Heathen Resources: A Guide by Skaldish)

Not all Heathens are academics, but we all want to develop a fulfilling practice. For most, that means learning from books, articles, and groups. But how can we be sure a resource is credible? And how can we separate the useful from the dubious?

Fortunately, discernment is pretty easy once you know what to look for. Here are some signs that your Heathen resource may be dubious:

It Lacks Source Transparency

Some Heathen resources will dive into “How to be a Heathen” without mentioning where their information comes from, which can dupe you into believing it’s something it’s not. A transparent resource will acknowledge its information’s origins, whether it’s from a person’s personal practice, a living folk tradition, reconstructed from old texts, etc. This can be done through citations or disclaimers.

Should you throw out resources that aren’t open about their origins? Not necessarily. But it does means you can’t fully trust what that resource is leading you to believe.

It Frames Heathenry as a High-Demand Religion

@north-of-annwn introduced me to the concept of a High-Demand Religion. To quote:

A religion can be considered “high demand” if it involves any or all of the following:

Intense demands of time and resources

Emphasis on leadership

Orthodox belief

Scriptural inerrancy or literalism

Strict behavioral codes including rules of diet, dress, tithing, education, sexual practices, media and technology use, language, social involvement, and marriage.

(Myers, Summer Anne, “Visualizing the Transition Out of High-Demand Religions” (2017). LMU/LLS Theses and Dissertations. 321)

Not all religions act like high-demand Christianity. Heathenry, with its origins in folkloric practice, isn’t inherently a High-Demand Religion and is not required to look like one.

It Conflates Healing from Christian Trauma as Heathen Practice

Trauma caused by Christianity is very real and deserves proper attention and space. However, it’s not a cultural staple of Heathenry, nor is it even an experience shared by all Heathens. A good resource will help you foster an identity wholly separate from Christianity, not in direct opposition to it.

It Suggests Heathenry has a Certain “Look”

I’ve rarely seen a resource state it’s the “one true way”, but some will definitely talk as though they define what all of Heathenry is, or at least their sect of it. In reality, Heathenry varies between groups and has pretty much always done so...and the values of one group do not define the values of all Heathenry. This is why pulling from multiple sources and authors builds a stronger foundation for your practice than using just one.

It Contains Morally Questionable Content

A part of me is baffled I’m even writing this, but you’d be surprised the kind of bullshit authors will parade around. Prime example: Galina Krasskova portrays Loki as a pedophile in one of her devotionals because she has UPG that his wife Sigyn is a child bride.

This goes for all paganism: Mystical experiences are not a “Get out of Jail Free” card for accountability. You’re allowed to hold authors accountable if their content is questionable.

It Overstates Academic and Historical Merit

The opposite of lacking source transparency is the idea that a valid Heathen practice is one built ONLY upon historical or “pre-Christian” evidence, applying even to UPGs. It makes academic prowess the proof of faith, rather than practice or even belief itself. It also discredits modern Heathen practices and lineaged Heathen practices that were passed down from historical ones.

Academia itself isn’t bad, and academic papers are some of the most reliable sources on Heathenry out there. But anyone treating academia as the source of legitimacy for a Heathen practice is operating off of a standard not required in Heathenry.

It Contains White Supremacist Dogwhistles and Virtues

We knew this one was coming. Let’s take a few examples for a speed run:

Emphasis on bloodlines/heritage/race

The Nine Noble Virtues

Claiming Heathenry is a closed religion

Implies a shared experience of whiteness

Emphasis on War Culture

Glorification of Ragnarok

Glorification of Valhalla

Obsession with Vikings

Idealization of Odin, demonization or pointed absence of Loki

Chosen vs. Unchosen, Us vs.Them narratives

Innangard and Utangard (requires context)

Odinism/Odinist

Tribalism/Tribalist

Folkish, Volkische, “the Folk”

“Metagenetics”, “Blood and Soil”, “Heritage not Hate”

Nordicism

Social issues are “politics” and “politics don’t belong in Heathenry”

The Black Sun

SS Symbol

The Triple Horn (logo of the Asatru Folk Assembly, a hate group.)

“Anti-Immigration”

Racialism

White supremacy is a real issue in Heathenry, and dogwhistles have become so subtle that many can be written off as harmless or unrelated to white supremacy...which is exactly the point.

Ask yourself this: Does the book, group, or resource state or imply that white people have lost their pre-Christian roots, and that they can reclaim them through the brotherhood of Heathenry? If so, then you have found the introductory narrative of white supremacy.*

Remember that a trustworthy resource on Heathenry will not prey on bitter feelings you may have coming into Heathenry. Instead it’ll give you the room and tools to build your practice regardless of where your come from or the religion you were previously in. Your inherent worth and wellbeing are important and should not be leveraged against you.

The front-line defense against white supremacist sources is Googling the author of your resource. A few popular and easily-found authors out there like Edred Thorrson/Stephen Flowers are active white supremacists, and even if a book of theirs doesn’t talk about race, their ideals bleed through their works.

*As a side note, many pagans turn to family origins to inform their path, including people with ancestry in Nordic countries. Just because someone comes to Heathenry this way doesn’t automatically make them a white supremacist or a sympathizer. The narrative only begins to darken when bloodlines are used to measure the legitimacy of someone’s Heathen practice.

That being said, this post is not suggesting you should point out the white supremacist red flags in other people when you see them. Rather, this post is meant to help you identify when the narrative tries to prey on YOU. Regular people aren’t equipped to reverse radicalization in other people, no matter what point it’s at, and trying to do so will do more harm than good. Please exercise good personal discernment in all situations.

#norse paganism #norse polytheism #asatru #lokean #vanatru #heathenry #skaldish resource #articles

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sekoui · 4 years

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so i’ve been wanting to write this for a while now

but i wasn’t sure where to start or what to say. i’ve made a few posts similar before, but i figured after a conversation i had today that this was a good time to make a few comments that have been bouncing around in my head.

as we approach three sana seasons respectively (skam espana, skam italia and wtfock), i’ve noticed a lot of people having conversations about possible yousefs. in particular, for skamesp. i won’t speak much about skam italia because there are issues surrounding the sana season itself and i don’t want to comment on it at this time.

for skam espana and for wtfock, a lot of the ship conversations i’ve seen surround our what-if yousefs. for wtfock, some people are truly holding onto hope that zoe will be yasmina’s yousef (i’d say don’t hold your breath, the show is not brave enough to talk about lgbtq muslim issues right now). otherwise, there are guesses that she had someone in morocco who might be coming.

for skam espana, a lot of the conversation surrounds dani and whether or not he might be the next yousef. and then the conversation is split up into pieces about the implications of dani as amira’s love interest:

- he’s white

- he is non muslim

through the seasons, we’ve seen sanas struggle significantly with what it means to fall in love with someone who is not religious/practicing or observant.

there are theories about dani and amira and what it would mean to have them become a couple. to have dani convert. is this realistic? absolutely. do people fall in love and when religion is so important to someone, they convert? yes. is it possible that dani could be interested on his own? yes. have muslims (men and women) married nonmuslims despite it all? yes! do we know any of these answers yet? no bitch the season didn’t air yet !

but what is missing from these conversations is a genuine understanding of islam. muslim voices are drowned out by conversations from people who are not muslim who want to chime in about what amira should / should not do.

this seems to happen with every skam season. there is a voice that is represented and the louder, more dominating voices are those without the experience of growing up muslim.

let me be frank, if you are not muslim and you did not grow up muslim then you are likely going to miss the nuances of the season. it is incredibly complicated to grow up muslim in a country that is not an islamic country.

muslims in islamic countries have their own issues that are different respectively.

this is what tends to happen in the skamverse with opinions:

as funny as it is, it’s true.

islam is more than just a religion. it is a literal way of life.

islam is the name of the faith

muslim is the name of someone who follows the faith

“islamic” is not an appropriate term.

muslims follow, essentially, 3 general sets of rules:

1. the quran

2. the hadith (sayings of the prophet mohammad)

3. sunnah (actions/behaviors of the prophet mohammad)

and as a result, islam is more than just a belief system.

muslim does not equal arab. arab does not equal muslim. muslims come from all walks of life. white muslims (like bosnians, for example!), asian muslims (pakistan, india, uyghur!), arab muslims, north african muslims, australian, american, english, german, spanish--

islam is a religion, not a race.

islam literally has rules, regulations and guidelines around almost EVERY ASPECT of our lives. this includes but is not limited to:

1. education

2. eating (what to eat, what not to eat, how much to eat)

3. grooming and hygiene (even our PUBES have rules like??? come on)

4. marriage

5. gender relations

6. sex

7. government and law

8. how to give charity

9. travel

10. how to drink water

11. how to treat animals

12. economics

13. health

14. literally how to wipe your ass after you use the bathroom and which hand to use and why

i’d keep going but i think you get the picture. and for practicing muslims, these are all things that we take REALLY seriously. for most of us, we’re raised with them so they seem like second thoughts.

specifically when it comes to marriage (which to muslims is considered “half of your faith”), the rules are pretty tight. they vary culturally but muslim women are supposed to marry muslim men.

is this idea being changed? challenged by young muslims? yes. but it is not for nonmuslims to criticize, challenge or consider outdated. it is for us to discuss and discourse about. when you watch a season that is not about you, you are an observer in someone’s life. and if you don’t take the time to discover the small nuances of why a character is doing x/y/z, then you don’t get to comment on it.

it is not the burden of the marginalized minorities to educate others.

this extends to every single issue in skam: eating disorders, religion, lgbtq, mental health, hearing loss, invisible illness, sexual assault --

it is easier to say something is black and white / this or that when you have not lived it as an experience. it is complicated and it is layered and it is emotional. on top of that, these characters are also teenagers.

unless you have the same lived experience as a character, you don’t get to comment on what is right or wrong for them to do, how they should or should not feel, or what is wrong with a system they believe in.

moving forward, do your research. do not criticize islam, a muslim character’s parents, a closeted character, a character hiding their ED from their friends, a trans character, a character with an invisible illness isolating themselves unless you have lived it yourself and can speak on it with genuine experience, understanding and compassion.

if you want to understand something, reach out to that community and ask questions. inquire. implore. explore. get to know each other.

does this mean you cannot criticise bad writing? no. but it does mean that you can’t grab hold of someone’s “otherness” and make it your lit class analysis.

#skam france #skam españa #wtfock #eddithinks #sry please dont cancel me

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revlyncox · 3 years

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Superhero Values (2021)

Whether we have great powers or simply great responsibilities, we return to our values to guide our actions. This talk was revised and expanded for the Washington Ethical Society, February 21, 2021.

Earlier, you gave some advice to “Human Person” (a fictional superhero who “visited” earlier in the Platform) about compassion, understanding, and commitment, which are easier words to say than to practice. It helps to have role models, even if their stories didn’t happen exactly in the way they are told. It seems to me that mythology, fiction, and maybe even history can supply us with examples of values we can agree on. Stories that have captured our imaginations in the past may remind us of the people we hope to become.

When I was a kid, Batman was the lead character in some of those stories. He showed up in comic books and Pez dispensers, but the most influential form of Batman from my childhood was the Adam West character on television. When I was six or seven years old, the other kids who went to my babysitter and I used to run around the yard chasing super villains, pretending the basement steps were the Bat Cave, and generally doing our part for the good of Gotham City. We all traded roles as the heroes, heroines, and the various arch-nemeses.

I learned a couple of things from the Bat-team. I learned that superheroes have origin stories, events that changed the direction of their lives. You might not be able to tell from looking at them, especially in their secret identities, but every superhero has a past. The Bat-team also taught me that superheroes struggle with power. Whether the super skills come from hard work, cool gadgets, or another planet, heroes have to figure out the most effective and responsible way to use those skills. Finally, I learned that superheroes form coalitions. Batman and Robin and Batgirl worked together, not to mention Commissioner Gordon and Chief O’Hara. Even an independent vigilante needs other people for the toughest problems.

Come to think of it, those same things are true for all of us. Each of us has to decide how to respond to the past. Individually and as a group, we are faced with questions of power and responsibility. Teaming up with other people is a source of strength, in spite of and perhaps because of our differences. I think these characteristics of superheroes call attention to WES’s future as a community.

Heroes Have Origins

First, superheroes have origin stories. Some event from the past sparked the character’s discovery of talents and passions, leading to a new sense of identity and purpose. Those events might be associated with death or separation from a loved one, or with the loss of the character’s pre-heroic dreams.

Superman’s powers come from his extra-planetary birth, but his ideas about truth, justice, and the American way come from Martha and Jonathan Kent. There is some speculation that Superman’s creators (Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster) modeled him after Moses, a baby whose people faced destruction, and was carried in a small vessel to a land where his birth identity had to be concealed.

There is a category of stories in which the characters have qualities that were typical in their place of origin, but something called them to help people in a world similar to our own, where their profound difference turned out to be a gift. Wonder Woman, Black Panther, AquaMan, and Valkyrie fall into this category.

On the other hand, some superheroes start off with an event of pain or trauma, like Peter Parker’s radioactive spider bite to become Spiderman. Batman’s path is a response to trauma. In the Watchmen mini-series on HBO, one of the characters’ commitment to justice came from being a survivor of the 1921 white supremacist attack on Tulsa, Oklahoma. Ms. Marvel’s Kamala Khan is mainly in this category, having gained her powers during an unusual event.

Whatever the story, most extra-human comic book characters have faced a life-changing event that seems to isolate them from important people in their lives. Often, the character will acquire or discover or place new value on a gift or a talent they have during that experience. Picking up these pieces of loss, loneliness, and strength, the character eventually forges a new sense of purpose.

Michael Servetus (Miguel Serveto) is someone from history whose story follows this pattern a bit. He wasn’t always brave, and he wasn’t known for being kind, but he did set himself apart and commit his life to the truth as he saw it. I wouldn’t necessarily call him a Humanist, but he was a free thinker in that he defied the orthodoxy of his time, and his sacrifices made it possible for the people who came after him to do even more questioning of creeds, dogmas, and oppressive religious organizations.

When Servetus read the Bible for himself for the first time as a young student in the 1520s, he was shocked to discover no evidence for the doctrine of the Trinity. In 1531, he published a tract, De Trinitatis Erroribus (On the Errors of the Trinity), seemingly convinced that people would see it his way if only they would listen. That’s not what happened. He was run out of town, his books were confiscated, and the Supreme Council of the Inquisition started looking for him.

This is where the secret identity comes in. Servetus fled to Paris and assumed the name of Michel de Villeneuve. He had a varied career as de Villeneuve, first as an editor and publisher, then as a doctor. He worked on a seven-volume edition of the Bible, adding insightful footnotes. He was the first European to publish about the link between the pulmonary and respiratory systems.

During his time as the personal physician for the Archbishop of Vienne, he secretly worked on his next theological treatise, Christianismi Restitutio (The Restoration of Christianity). He also struck up a correspondence with his old classmate, John Calvin. Servetus was not diplomatic in his criticisms of Calvin’s writing, and Calvin broke off correspondence. Servetus seemed to think that their exchange was illuminating, because he included copies of the letters when he sent an advance copy of the Restitutio to Geneva.

The publication of the Restitutio in 1553 marked the end of Servetus’ secret identity. Both Protestant and Catholic authorities pursued him as a dangerous heretic. He was burned at the stake on October 27, 1553, by the order of The Council of Geneva. Reportedly, he maintained his beliefs until the end, shouting heretical prayers from the flames. The Catholic Inquisition in France burned Servetus in effigy a few months later. There were a lot of people who didn’t want his ideas to be heard. Luckily for us, a few copies of his books were preserved, and went on to generate new ideas among religious reformers for over 450 years.

Now, I’m not saying Michael Servetus was a superhero. It might be hard to identify with him in some ways. Though he had ideas that were called Unitarian at the time, Unitarian Universalists oday would disagree with most of what he wrote, as would most Ethical Culturists. His creeds don’t match most of our beliefs; though some of his deeds, such as challenging authority and being a medical provider, might resonate. Nevertheless, we can see how a turning point in someone’s life can bring isolation, energy, purpose, abilities, and vulnerabilities, all at the same time. His origins were more like Spiderman than Superman: Being in the right place at the right time, Servetus was bitten by the free thinking bug. He had to adopt an alter ego, but the bug also afforded him the drive and the insight to make great contributions to scholarship and religious freedom.

How often is it the same for those of us who are regular folks? The events that make us who we are may bring a sense of loss or loneliness. These same events may bring a chance for us to develop new talents, or personal connection to the work we aspire to do. Passion and vulnerability can come from a single point in time.

The thing that sets a superhero origin story apart from a villain origin story is how the character translates their past into a future of meaning and purpose. Most of us are not consistently villains or heroes; we have to choose in every moment how to draw from our past to make choices in the present. We can’t control the historical facts of our origin stories. Even if our own choices led to the turning points in our lives, they are in the past now. What we can do is bring our values to the way we understand those turning points, and to our decisions about what to do with the gifts we have now. Let’s do our best to choose to use our origins well.

Heroes Form Coalitions

The very first appearance of Spiderman (in Amazing Fantasy #15 in 1962) saw the teenage Peter Parker misusing his new powers, only to have his negligence contribute to the death of his Uncle Ben, one of his adoptive parents. Peter’s understanding of Ben’s teaching that “With great power there must also come—great responsibility!” shaped his character from then on. The spider counterparts from other universes, heroes like Gwen Stacy and Miles Morales, also have turning points on that theme.

Superhero characters struggling with power and responsibility would have benefitted from reading about James Luther Adams, who was a professor at Harvard during the 1950s and 1960s. Adams had a great deal to say about power and what that meant for the responsibilities of movements for liberation.

Between 1927 and the late 1930s, Adams made several trips to Germany, a country that was renowned for philosophical scholarship. He spoke with religious and academic leaders, was detained for questioning by the Gestapo, and developed a sense of urgency about the political, cultural, moral, and spiritual crisis that went along with the rise of the Nazi party. While Adams developed great respect for the anti-Nazi Confessing Church movement, he noticed that Germany’s churches as a whole were not pushing back against the crisis.

Adams said that individual and organized philosophy should be “examined.” There must be a path for critique, self-correction, and development. Adams wrote, “the achievement of freedom in community requires the power of organization and the organization of power.”

In that same period when Adams was noticing trends of power, organization, and responsibility in Germany, Humanists in the United States were also teaming up. The roots of some of these relationships went back to the Free Religious Association, which was the group where Felix Adler hung around with Ralph Waldo Emerson and the other Transcendentalists. The FRA led to another trend called the “Ethical Basis” group within Unitarianism.

I’m drawing here from The Humanist Way: An Introduction to Ethical Humanist Religion, a book by former WES Senior Leader Ed Ericson. Ericson writes that, by the end of the nineteenth century, the Ethical Basis bloc had successfully advocated that inclusion as either a member or a clergy person in Unitarian congregations be purely on an ethical basis rather than having any doctrinal basis. Ericson continues:

They resisted all attempts to impose any theological requirement, however broadly such a test might be construed. Like Felix Adler’s Ethical Culture, the Ethical Basis Unitarians regarded the dedicated ethical life to be inherently religious without any necessary underpinning of theological belief. This concurrence of views resulted in a close working relationship between the leaders of the Ethical Societies of Chicago and St. Louis and their ministerial counterparts in the Western Unitarian Conference.

(Ericson, The Humanist Way, p. 46-47)

Ericson goes on to say that, while this cohort was concentrated in the midwest, Octavius Brooks Frothingham in New York also largely shared Adler’s philosophy. Ericson also points out that the Ethical Basis cohort provided “a seedbed where organized religious Humanism, under that name, would first put down roots in American soil,” making this development of interest to Ethical Humanism. So, already at the turn of the century, there is some superhero teaming up going on. It gets better!

In 1913, the Unitarian minister John H. Dietrich began using the term “Humanism” to identify his non-theistic philosophy of religion. Dietrich said that he first encountered the term as a religious designation in the text of a lecture delivered to the London Ethical Society (Ericson, p. 61). Ericson writes that “the Ethical Union in Britain had described their movement by the turn of the century.” Ethical Culture in the United States started identifying more closely as a unique expression within the broader Humanist movement a little later, not until after Adler’s death in 1933. At that point, they found a whole league’s worth of Humanists to team up with.

But back to Dietrich, who discovered that his colleague Curtis Reese in Chicago was writing about the same kind of philosophy. Having found each other, they attracted others to the growing Humanist movement. By 1927, they had connected with scientists, philosophers, and journalists, who collectively were turning out what Ericson describes as “a torrent of books, articles, sermons and lectures” (p. 67) that established Humanism as a significant force in American society. In 1933, thirty-four of these prominent figures signed on to The Humanist Manifesto.

Later groups wrote the Humanist Manifesto II of 1973 and the Humanist Manifesto III of 2003. The original 1933 document set a historic precedent, bringing together people from a variety of perspectives and settings. Unitarian and Universalist ministers were well represented, along with V.T. Thayer, Director of the Ethical Culture Schools of New York, plus A. Eustace Haydon and Lester Mondale, who later became Ethical leaders (Ericson, p. 70).

I would suggest that the Washington Ethical Society, by affiliating with both the Unitarian Universalist Association and the American Ethical Union, is living out the spirit of cooperation that has powered the Humanist movement in the United States from its inception. Ethical Humanism is a unique expression and tradition within the larger Humanist movement, and yet that larger movement remains important for understanding who we are and what we are here to do. We come to a deeper understanding of identity and mission when we team up.

In fiction, superheroes seem to gravitate to one another. From the X-Men to the Avengers to the Teen Titans, collections of lead characters become ensembles. They have very different abilities and outlooks. Teaming up isn’t always easy, and it can be risky. Household squabbles may become epic battles if super abilities get out of hand. However, when they combine their gifts in the same direction, they can tackle complex problems that none of them would be able to handle alone.

This is why we form coalitions, too. WES is a community of people who have many differences in your individual lives. Diversity in creed and unity in deed, WES members are able to learn together, make music together, serve the community, and witness for justice, without worrying too much about who is an atheist or an agnostic or a theist or a polytheist. Whether among members, or in coalition with our neighbors across religious or geographic lines, we are able to put differences aside as we work for the benefit of our shared community. It does happen, though, that human beings forget, or retreat into what we think is a bubble of sameness, or narrow our scope of what seems possible.

Let’s build on what is already going well as we resist the shrinking of our horizons. There may be partners in our community that we have yet to meet. There may be institutes for exceptional heroes, or halls of justice, that we have to overcome our internalized hurdles of classism and racism before we can join.

At the very least, we can ensure that we’re making the most of our super team here at WES. Like the superheroes, we can do more and support each other when we come together.

Conclusion

There is a lot that WES has in common with an assembly of superheroes. Each one of us has an origin story, a set of events that shaped our talents, passions, and vulnerabilities. Each one of us has the opportunity to shape that story into a life of meaning and purpose. Like superheroes, it is incumbent on us to come to terms with power. Our collective abilities and assets make us a force to be reckoned with, and it is up to us to do the moral discernment to make sure we’re doing a good job wielding that power. Our honesty with each other and practicing all of our shared values and commitments will help. Like the best superheroes, we form alliances. Within the WES community, we share our specialized powers and support one another to accomplish goals none of us could handle alone. In our coalitions with other groups, we build bridges that support compassion. May all that has been divided be made whole.

May it be so.

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adriata-archive · 5 years

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things you really shouldn’t be saying to me (or any poc)

“what are you?”

not only is this rude/ignorant af, it also implies that i dont look like your stereotypical idea of a chinese person and that i somehow owe it to you to explain my identity

“if you’re ___, then why don’t you speak ____?”

there are a lot of reasons why poc born in my generation don’t speak their parents’ languages, but again, we don’t owe you an explanation!!! my inability to speak cantonese is something i’m actually very sensitive about and not something i had control over growing up. my parents chose to stop speaking to me and my siblings in chinese once we started school because they had the misguided belief it would make things easier for us. where do you think they got that impression from?

“you don’t look ____”

again, this tells me you have a stereotypical idea of what i should look like, and goes to show you have no idea how diverse and beautiful poc are

“really? you’re ___? you act so white”

this is REAL SHIT people have said to me, white and poc alike. a lot of times it’s a reaction to my major (english literature), how i express myself (verbally + in writing), and the way that i dress. NONE of these things belong to white people and it goes to show how many people expect me to act like a “””fOb””” because i’m asian, which is yet another harmful stereotype

“stop being so sensitive, it was just a joke”

it might be a joke to you, but when i hear/see a million racist microaggressions a day, i don’t find it very funny. you don’t get to draw the line for me to be offended - every individual person has their own limits and boundaries and you need to respect that

“so what do ___ people think about this?”

i’m not a spokesperson for all poc. don’t ask me to be. poc have varying experiences based on culture, skin tone, ethnicity, nationality, etc. the list goes on and on. i can only speak for myself and this is no way translates into a universal poc experience because that doesn’t exist.

“people in china aren’t offended by this, so why are you?”

other (more eloquent) people have spoken about the diaspora felt by immigrants and the children of immigrants, but basically it’s this - in countries where you belong to the majority, it is easy to laugh off the antics of a teenage white girl who wants to wear a cheongsam to prom and say that it is harmless. in places where you are a minoritized group and grew up having your culture ridiculed and mocked, “small” incidents like this can have a very harmful impact. again, you don’t get to draw the line for me to be offended.

“___ used this (slur). why is it ok for them to say it and not me?”/”___ said they didn’t mind when i said (slur). why does it bother you?”

this one is simple - it’s not your word to use! if you’re not black and you insist on using the n word because it’s in your favorite rap songs, congrats, you’re ignoring the extremely detrimental history of that word and the empowerment that black people feel in taking it back! and what bothers some poc doesn’t bother others, but if someone tells you they don’t like you using a certain word, you don’t use it. this goes for ANY marginalized community and is a fundamental part of human decency.

on the same note and coming from my actual life experience, if you are NOT black, you do not get to ask other black people to use the n word because it makes YOU uncomfortable. your comfort does not come before theirs and you do not get to take the use of the word away from them.

“i don’t see race”

this is, quite frankly, a big fat lie. you do see race. everyone sees race, because we were trained to. and saying that you don’t, that you’re “colorblind,” negates the fact that darker skinned poc are disproportionately affected by violence and are treated differently because of their skin tone. yes, we are all human, but some humans are targeted more than others, and by saying that you ONLY see people as humans means you’re ignoring the racism poc face on a daily basis.

and this last one is for me, personally:

“how do i, as a white person, authentically represent poc?”

sometimes you have to recognize that as a person with immense privilege, you need to take a backseat. instead of trying to “give a voice” to the voiceless, sit back and let them speak for themselves. i appreciate the surge in diversity in books especially nowadays, but it is just a fact that white people will never fully understand what poc go through, no matter how hard they try. it’s not as simple as taking a character and making them look “ethnic” and have a few phrases of a different language in their back pocket. there are infinite factors that go into how poc move through the world, and if you haven’t experienced that yourself, there is no way to authentically represent the daily life of a poc. if you don’t know what it’s like to be told that your food stinks/looks nasty, that you or your family members speak “really good english for...yenno,” or have all eyes turn to you when your teacher starts talking about communism and asks for the class to respond, then let someone who DOES know write the story.

feel free to add anything else you’ve heard as a poc that made you think “wow, did that really come out of your mouth?”

#this isn't to call anyone out or anything it's just something i've been thinking about as i prep for my thesis #long post #*mine

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williamsockner · 4 years

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I saw your comments about country music on the Chicks thread and I’m curious about your opinion. I grew up on country music and feel like “9/11 killed country” is pretty valid. But I’d love to hear your take because I miss it [country music].

Hi! So, my major issue with the “9/11 killed country music” post, as someone who listens to a ton of musical genres but has both a history of and soft spot for country, is that it’s a reductive, cherrypicking way to define an entire massive genre based on a handful of individual songs and high-profile artists that had their heyday at this point nearly two decades ago (Toby Keith, Big & Rich, etc.). It’s a very slanted read on pop radio country, and it’s not even remotely accurate to quantifying the broader genre.

It’s just bizarre that people allow their idea of the whole genre to be molded by a spate of reactionary right-wing songs that found traction immediately after 9/11 and then largely lost dominance in the genre. Most country songs on the radio are not about jingoism - they’re still about a lover done you wrong, or drinking after a hard day’s work, or finding happiness without much money, or teenagers in love, or about the tragedies of alcoholism and domestic abuse, or appreciating your small town, as so much of this genre has always been. If you look at the top 10 right now, there isn’t a patriot song in the whole thing (although two of the songs have overtly Christian references, but that’s always been part of country music too). The militaristic patriotism songs tend to just be one or two songs a year that end up in heavy rotation around the fourth of July and in September, but they get outsized attention comparatively because they’re so offensively grating.

And even after 9/11, for the last two decades most country songs on the radio still haven’t been “nationalist pop with twang”. Yes, in the 2000’s we had “Courtesy of the Red White and Blue” and “Where Were You When the World Stopped Turning” and “American Soldier”, but this was also LGBT+ supporter Shania Twain’s* and avowed Democrat Tim McGraw’s imperial phases, the era of “Before He Cheats” and “Concrete Angel” and “Red Ragtop”, the years that made a Blake Shelton song about breaking out of prison his calling card and gave Miranda Lambert a massive hit with a song about burning her abuser’s house down.

This isn’t to say that country is progressive. Country music has a major problem with being dominated by straight white men, and even straight white women spent several of the last years underrepresented** (to say nothing of LGBT+ artists and artists of color). But that issue predates 9/11, as does the whitewashing of country’s history; the aforementioned Ken Burns documentary does go into how white country musicians forced black musicians out of the scene and erased their accomplishments going back decades before 2001. “Proud to Be an American” and “God Bless the USA”, for the record, were recorded in 1980’s.

Country, as a genre, does lean more conservative than many other genres, but it still holds a wide array of political viewpoints, even on the pop charts. I’m not just talking about indie alt-country darlings, although I’ll get to those in a minute - even pop country megastars are a varied bunch. Eric Church, who currently has a hit on the top 10, just dropped a scathing track called “Stick That in Your Country Song” that cusses out underfunding schools and mass incarceration; Luke Bryan got a #1 hit in 2017 with a chorus that included “I believe you love who you love and ain’t nothing you should ever be ashamed of”; Carrie Underwood pinned an entire album and tour cycle around a single about escaping domestic abuse and recently released a song criticizing gun proliferation; Kacey Musgraves won a CMA for her hit single where she criticizes slut-shaming and encourages women to “kiss lots of boys or kiss lots of girls if that’s something you’re into”, then she won a Grammy for an album where she sings about smoking weed and dedicates an empowerment anthem to the LGBT+ community; Miley Cyrus had an explicitly bisexual song on her most recent “back to her roots” country album; Tim McGraw discussed running for governor of Tennessee as a Democrat and threw his support behind Obama way back during Obama’s 2008 campaign. I’ve been relatively unplugged from country radio for the last few years, but this is all stuff relatively off the top of my head.

And that moves us to alt-country. I die a little inside whenever someone says that they “just mean radio country” when they say they “hate country music”, because alt-country is just the tits. It just is. It’s the best. If someone says they listen to rock music, we don’t assume they only mean Nickelback and Shinedown - and yet somehow we’ve shut country out so much that we don’t even consider that there’s an entire world of the genre beyond what charts - and that world is rich and powerful and thoughtful and as valid a form of music as any other genre. Some favorites contemporary alt-country artists of mine (including some songs about immigration, opiate addiction, protesting war, sexism, agricultural exploitation, homophobia, one bashing Trump directly and even one about female cunnilingus): Courtney Marie Andrews, Ruston Kelly, Tyler Childers, Margo Price, Jason Isbell, Colter Wall, Ian Noe, Kathleen Edwards, Lydia Loveless, Lori McKenna, Amanda Shires, Ashley Monroe, Lucinda Williams, Over the Rhine, Samantha Crain, Shooter Jennings, Cam, John Moreland, Chris Stapleton, Lindi Ortega, Lavender Country, Cody Belew, Honey Harper, Lera Lynn, Nina Nastasia, Patty Griffin, Holly Williams.

The problem with the “9/11 killed country” attitude, to me, is that it’s a stance that requires limited knowledge of country that happened after 9/11 and a selective memory for the country that existed before 9/11. Jingoist country songs existed and found massive success before 9/11; more progressive country songs existed and found success after 9/11. Contrary to what people on tumblr seem to believe, the genre of country music was not just outlaw country, “Jolene” and Woodie Guthrie folk songs until Toby Keith came along; it was already highly Christian/gospel-influenced and highly patriarchal. And it was already full of goofy songs about getting drunk and partying and driving tractors, the predecessors to “bro country”.

I think, personally, we lose so much by centering “Courtesy of the Red White and Blue” and Florida Georgia Line as the first things we think of when we think about country music, because those songs and acts aren’t representative of the genre, or even of the pop country charts. We lose a lot because we lose sight of all the fantastic progressive or apolitical music in the genre, and we lose a lot because we ignore the sins of pre-9/11 country and the opportunity to critique its history of whitewashing, heteronormativity and cultural Christianity by likening it to some sort of good ol’ days.

Thank you for letting me ramble!

*I’m aware of Shania’s ignorant-ass Trump comments, but those reflect more recent political developments for her and came with a hasty retraction.

**Although lol the pop, rock and rap charts have all been brutal to women for the last several years.

#music #country music #i have a lot of feelings about country music #this got long #not-quite-wild

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