#it is literally just about like creating a mentally homogenous community | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

astrallines · 4 years

Text

Earth to Air #02

The most pertinent astrological event of these years is the once-every-two-centuries transition in the elements of the Jupiter-Saturn synodic cycle. In December 2020, we are moving from an earth age to an air age. I will be cataloguing reflections and predictions, as well as amplifications of the elements and their zodiacal signs. What follows is a short essay on how the bias of the material age might compromise the utility of astrology.

Who do I speak to about astrology, and what is the purpose of public speech about astrology?

At its best, the astrological community comprises spiritually fluent, intellectual, open-minded, zeitgeist-informed individuals who are interested in cultural progression and restoration in appropriate measure. However, the common use of astrology appears more and more predicated on the determination of a natal chart in the governance of an individual—but this is typically contradicted through practices of individuation. The more a person is in touch with themselves, the less a birth chart is “lived out,” and the more that it is “felt out.” As archetypal currents flow through an individual, it seems that these forces only becomes externalized if the native is not consciously engaging with the material in their inner life. If someone is continuously meditating on Pluto-conjunct-Venus, for instance, and is unfolding the archetypal material through contemplation, art, and attention, it is less likely to manifest as a concrete objective event in their life.

This is something seen easily during every mercury retrograde. For those who are following mercury-as-psychopomp into continual modes of reflection, the life becomes slower and not as many trains are missed.

When you’re reading the chart of an individual, or checking their transits, you are essentially painting the attitudinal environment of that person or that period. But you cannot account for the actions that result from these moods—the client is governor of their own responses going forward. Skilled astrologers can sometimes predict specific events, but that is a testimony to the homogeneity of the culture as manifest in the client as much as anything. It is probably harmless to see Uranus transiting a person’s 4th house and say, “Oh, you might move soon,” but to frame transits as only literal denies the complexity of the psychological backdrop upon which the transits are operating.

What is far more harmful, and ideologically related, is using astrological tools to shame people and create scapegoats. “Geminis are liars,” or “Any Leo placement produces narcissism,” etc. In this case you are fixing the conception of the archetypes involved, limiting their expression in the life. It accrues over time, just as any other constructed cultural narrative—internalized gender or class prejudices, for instance. But if you were to actually unpack “gemini” and its significations, you would arrive at no limit. Any depth psychologist knows that archetypes are literally inexhaustible, and that is what makes them archetypes. And when you have any planet in any sign, that is already two inexhaustibilities in conversation with each other—boundless permeability.

That we think we can pin an archetype down, objectify it, is a result of our materialist era bias, by the way. A material conception of the world, predicated on atomic sciences and all that, benefits from categories and objects. That’s how we fit them into the scientific method. We also like it for business purposes. When something can be boxed it can be sold. Whether we are building a formula or an economic system, an incredible amount of our mental effort goes into navigating these assemblies. This is the Minecraft world we’re in, and it does not seem unrealistic to us.

Taking Marie-Louis von Franz’ view that matter is psyche’s extension into time, if we are to turn around and look at psyche in its pre-instantiated state, of course we are going to bring the bias of materiality with us as observers. Inevitable as it is, the narrower we settle in our conceptualization of psychic content, the more we become trapped in our own lives. The operational shorthands of logic are great for designing a machine, but hopelessly impoverished for assessing character: “Virgos keep clean roooms because they like organization!” As if it will happen each time. “It depends,” is the continual cry of the feeling function. Feeling is only the measure of appropriateness, the evaluation of meaning which is never twice the same. Imagination is the sole tool we have for creation, it is the force that coheres form, and in order for it to design an effective world it needs both discernments: reason and feeling.

It is not only in astrology that people want to take psychic subjects and put a pin in them. There is always going to be a fascination with the uncanniness of fringe phenomena, objects of mysticism, occultism, parapsychology. Of course it is a very thin margin between the uncanny and the fearsome, for the uncanny marks the edge of the known.

Thinking now of some memes and things that were recently trending as punchlines: the moon, hexes, fairies. “Astral projection” has long been a twitter punchline, as has “the name of God.” Psychedelic depictions of angels were having a moment not long ago, but these renditions were really only monstrous eyes upon flaming wheels. There is no supernal fire in any of them. Psychedelic means “manifesting the mind,” and all art is thus inherently psychedelic, but the copy-of-copy-of-copy of what was once a mystic encounter produces not any more exuding of mana than the average spongebob fan art. What mind is manifest here? Only some pale mimicry.

All of this is a commodification and a profanity of the unknowable. Weirdly, the history of lovecraftian motifs in net culture has long been associated with the STEM set of people. “Imagine something outside of reason! What the heck?!” On the other hand, Ezekielian angels and the “astral project to ur job” memes seemed to be more endemic to arty types. Just an observation.

We are flirting a little with these edges of the unknown because we can never shake the drive to expand our awareness, a little inner flame licks at our hearts telling us that some concept is unresolved. We draw to ourselves the low-res, more palatable images of archetypes so that we can position them in our lives or let them simmer on the back burner. Even hella long ago Plato recognized that false images can act like crutches leading you closer to the numinous, ineffable subject. Really the only risk is keeping them around inordinately as they leak more and more of their prejudice into your worldview, or worse yet that you cling to them so long you mistake them for yourself.

Astrology in its excellence functions as an alphabet of myth, living and dynamic, responding to the zeitgeist as much as the subjects of its study are coloring that zeitgeist. So when we cheapen the practice, by reducing it to operating instructions and standardizing its prejudices, we deprive ourselves of what could be the most accessible and practical psychological tool of our time. It’s a little awkward, since interest in astrology was relatively dormant for a while, and is now trending hard... We are coming back to it with a fervor that attests to our thirst for myth! Let’s hope that we give the archetypes enough time and space to speak for themselves.

#astrology #earth epoch #materialism #spiritual materialism #depth psychology #von franz #simulacrum

10 notes · View notes

kihyunswrath · 5 years

Text

To everyone wanting to join the kpop industry: kpop is not a genre of music

For real sometimes it feels like people have literally no idea of what kpop means or where it stems from or why it exists, so for the 100th time, here is the reminder again:

Kpop is not a genre. It’s not something you can imitate, or adopt into your own music style. It’s not something you can steal, copy or appropriate. Musically, kpop is just different genres of popular music that have been invented by different groups of people (most often black people, but not always), in different cultures, in different times. Popular music as it is today, cannot be claimed by any singular group because it has been influenced by too many communities and new songs are created literally everywhere on this planet every second of the day, but it has clear historical roots within black communities (and obviously too many entertainment industries fail to acknowledge that fact). Therefore Koreans cannot claim they own the pop part of kpop, nor have they done so. There is also no reason for any of us to claim that kpop is a style of music we can start practicing, or that we deserve to see representation within kpop as non-Koreans.

Again, kpop is not a genre, it is literally simply an industry that promotes Korean people.

That’s about the depth of it. Kpop exists because Korean people wanted to find a tool to have influence over their region, aka they wanted to invest into their soft power. They wanted to find a voice within a global community that didn’t have anything for them in the first place. No one knew anything about Korean people, their history or their culture before the 2000′s. People were dismissive, ignorant and racist toward Koreans (and we still are). Nothing about them was cool, interesting or worth investing in, because people saw them as a third world country. Kpop became one of their tools they used to gain attention from international audiences.

And that’s why it was critical that they used music styles created specifically in America. Not because they were thinking of appropriating black cultures, or because they were necessarily even remotely aware of those racial dynamics and a history of discrimination within America, but because for decades they were told that American audiences and cultural concepts were the only truly modernized, futuristic platforms worth imitating, following and investing in. That is common knowledge among any non-American people. Even today, people living outside of the USA all around the world are told the only way to gain true recognition in the global community is to make a breakthrough in America. People are still told America invented literally everything modern culture-related, that the world revolves around them and all the “classics” in music come from there and that the rest of us could never produce anything as cool or modern using our own cultural heritage and that the American entertainment industry is the only “real” or “relevant” entertainment industry.

So obviously Koreans thought this is the way for them to get views, to find a platform, a voice. They created an industry that catered to Korean people and their needs, and the end goal was to be recognized worldwide by using tools that people were already familiar with. Hence, a combination of mashed music genres that were not created by Koreans but were very popular and easily relatable.

So, what does that mean? It means that without Koreans involved at every stage of the music production, it ceases being kpop. Kpop cannot be produced in any other country, among any other group of people, within any other context, within any other entertainment industry. If the producers and performers are not mostly Korean, if the production system is not mainly based in Korea and the songs they make are not mostly sung in Korean, there is no reason to call it kpop. It just becomes pop. Like I said, the only difference between kpop and pop is that kpop is representing Koreans.

Therefore it does not make sense that hundreds of thousands of non-Korean teenagers, especially non-Asians, rush to use the popularity of Korean pop to their own personal benefit and think that they can become kpop idols if they just create something that “sounds like kpop” or if they join Korean entertainment industries and become trainees. At the moment, a few of them are used as trophy members to make certain groups seem multicultural and multilingual, for those groups to gain more fans in countries those foreigners came from, but the fact of the day is that foreigners cannot claim ownership to kpop. They cannot say they want to create kpop music on their own. They cannot say they want to be the “change” in how kpop is being perceived. They cannot say they are there to shift the goals and “add more diversity” to an industry that was not created for them and is not their platform by definition. They cannot say they “belong” to the industry on the basis that someone from their own community long time ago created a certain music style Koreans are now using. They cannot say kpop represents mainstream music or western music and therefore any and every westerner should be welcomed to that industry with open arms, and that it’s inherently racist if they are not.

Are Koreans racists? Certainly yes. Is their entertainment industry giving credit to black communities for inventing the music styles they now benefit from? Not that I’ve ever seen. Are they appropriating fashion trends from black people even as we speak? Yes. Are they ignorant, dismissive and racist toward many other groups of people, including other Asians and Arabs? Yes.

Yet that does not remove their agency in the matter of kpop. It does not remove the fact that they built their own industry to promote themselves, when they had little to no representation in the global media. Foreigners, while they don’t have to support kpop industry or participate in it and while they have every right to criticize the industry for being racist, sexist and capitalistic shithole, still don’t get to enter the industry however and whenever they wish, thinking they can become closer to their favourite oppas, change the industry in their own terms, demand attention for themselves and think they deserve an opportunity to shine for being “that exotic refreshing foreign presence” (as if they don’t have an entire music industry catering to their own personal needs in their own home country).

If anyone gets to “diversify” the Korean entertainment industry, it’s Koreans themselves. You know, those black Koreans, Korean-Americans, Joseonjok people, Zainichi Koreans, Vietnamese Koreans, white Koreans, Korean diaspora, half-Koreans, North Koreans, disabled Koreans, fat Koreans, LGBT Koreans... you name it. We foreigners are not inherently entitled to anything in that society.

These aforementioned people are perfectly capable of changing, developing, challenging and diversifying their own media and entertainment industry without our “help”. We can call out kpop industry for treating its idols unfairly, for discriminating against their own people, for being abusive, for gaining profit at the expense of their idols’ health and mental well-being. We can call them racist for being racist. We can have an effect on the industry by deciding NOT to support them financially, like really, that’s just literal inactivity and the easiest possible way to have a say in what’s going on there.

But not a single one of us has an ownership to kpop, not a single one of us truly understands how Koreans live their lives or how we could “represent” them without being Koreans ourselves. We do not have a free entrance to that industry, even if we think that none of the things they produce are originated from Korea, or if we think they are “shitty racists” in this or that aspect.

People think that just because kpop is now becoming more and more mainstream and because it is targeted to all kinds of audiences that it’s somehow a free field of music anyone can enter. The music itself could be considered a free field - it is indeed just a bunch of different genres of music everyone is creating and recreating. Korean language is somewhat of a free field, too - anyone can learn to speak it. But kpop is not. Surely you can call yourself a kpop artist if you make songs in Korean or say you are a kpop idol because you used to be a trainee inside an entertainment company, but that simply does not make sense. Music sang in Korean language exists outside of kpop, so that does not make kpop kpop. Entertainment industries that train you to become a professional performer exist outside of the kpop industry, so that either does not kpop make. The only way you can be a kpop idol is if you represent Koreans (and their occasional multicultural aspects) in a Korean entertainment company and perform in Korean - and considering how the industry is insanely hard, oppressive, restrictive and limits your artistic talents in every possible way, one could fairly ask what made you want that. What inspires you to represent people of another country, other than fetishization, positive racism and you wanting to jump on the bandwagon because kpop is trendy now and you have the misinformed belief that kpop is a genre of music you could also create? Or perhaps people think they might be treated as special gems because they would then become exotic foreigners in a society that is very homogeneously Korean?

I remember times when jpop, jrock and manga/anime were still HUGELY popular everywhere in the world (in the beginning of 2000s). Times where everyone around me was identifying with Japanese popular culture and their fashion/music/art trends because it was edgy, cool and “alternative”. I still remember those times when people told me they wanted to travel to Japan and become manga artists, and you know what? They were also saying how cartoons/pop music weren’t originally a Japanese invention, so therefore it was well within reason for them to call themselves manga artists or jpop musicians for just “imitating” those styles, or hope they would be welcomed to those industries immediately after travelling to Japan. And I’m not saying Japanese people used these industries only to promote themselves, no, quite the contrary. But I am saying that people did feel entitled to jump onto those bandwagons mostly because they wanted to be seen as “cool and popular” too, Japanese people themselves be damned.

So yeah. Kpop is not the first, and probably not the last popular culture movement that people think they should have an access to simply because it’s fashionable now and because some of the basic elements in it are not originated from one single place. It’s probably also not the first or last industry people think they want to enter because they think that the language spoken or some of the cultural elements added to it made it into a whole “different genre” they could imitate by performing in that language or cosplaying their favourite pop culture acts. You cannot cosplay a Korean person. You cannot adopt kpop if you’re not Korean yourself and/or participating in their entertainment industry while ready to cater to their economy/society as a whole.

Do you guys even know why kpop entertainment industry is the way it is? The reason why the industry developed that way specifically was because Korea, in order to maintain its identity, was extremely protective and nationalistic and had only a very specific platform for playing Korean-made music in 1990s: two TV channels that were owned by the government. Not even radio stations, just two tv channels. They dictated how, when and what kind of music was allowed to be published. That’s why kpop became extremely performance-oriented, because it was created for the television from the very beginning. That’s also why the industry started dictating how the idols were behaving, how they looked and what they were allowed to do/say. That meant an extensive amount of training, manufacturing and controlling and therefore created a need for trainee system. That system ultimately became the only way for Koreans to reach for fame and musical career, because learning all those skills required for acceptable performances in the tv meant you had to have extensive amounts of time and money to practice them. But most Korean teens were and are bound to sit in schools and hagwons all day around, studying immense amounts, so they literally did not have those free hours to practice singing/dancing/performing skills on their own. Joining an entertainment company was the only option they had, and the fact that that route was harsh, time-taking and unforgiving, was simply reflecting the typical mindset of Korean people who think nothing should come easy.

So them going through those industries to become successful artists and idols is because they lack other options, not because that system is somehow superior to all other entertainment industries in the whole world. It is indeed weird, in that context, that people coming from more privileged backgrounds with more freedom and time to spend developing their musical skills should even want to enter an industry that is not built for them, does not answer to their needs and often dehumanizes them because of the kpop industry’s ideology that thinks people are products used for profit and nationalistic promotion.

#kpop #k pop #bts #monsta x #exo #twice #blackpink #seventeen #nct #itzy #red velvet #mine #korean pop #vixx #stray kidz #wanna one

37 notes · View notes

v-le · 5 years

Text

Ktravels / Klife: Three quarters of the way through Thoughts

Foreword: I hate myself for basically posting this a whole half-a-semester later than planned. But i still believe in better late than never. Here is my journey up until midterms of semester two at Yonsei.

Who wouldve thought that this day would come…. Jk we all knew it was coming. But it has surely crept up onto me must faster than I would’ve liked… I knew that this semester here in Korea, at Yonsei University, was going to be vastly different than my previous one, but before coming into it, there was no way of gauging exactly HOW different things would be.

And yes, it has ended up being quite different indeed…. Almost every day, even with just the smallest of activities and places, I can’t help but compare to last semester. It’s just habitual at this point. “I went here last semester, I ate there last semester, we did that last semester”. Etc etc. But last semester already feels like it is worlds away. In fact, it really is.

The biggest change that I want to address is the subtle yet undeniable feeling of intensifying alienation as I stay here longer and longer. I know it sounds quite… dark. But I think it is a reality that is really worth exploring for all people that dream of different places around, that wish to create a future in the great unknown. Because once that unknown starts to become more known, how would you react? How do you deal with a society that seems to be unhealthy for your own mental standards? How do you grow in a foreign environment that is becoming less and less foreign to you as the days go by?

There have definitely been several added factors that combine together for me to come to such a conclusion…. Or no. Nothing is necessarily concluded yet. Just…a finding, a discovery thus far. As of today, I have lived in Korea for about 210 days. That’s well over half a year, that’s a pretty good chunk of my life, I would say. And just very blatantly, I want to say that I can feel how unwelcoming the Korean society is to things that it is unfamiliar with. I can feel parts of its hidden heartlessness and prejudice and condescension. The Korean society as a whole has inflicted these feelings onto me throughout the past few months. As briefly as I can, here is why:

Roy

Badminton team

Korean beauty

Sewol

Jeonju

Air pollution

로이

The situation with Roy is one that I can go on and on about, in all honesty… it is something that will haunt me for a long time and will leave a lasting impression on my heart. I’ve put a lot of my feelings onto a separate piece of writing, one that discloses a pain I wish I never had to spill into that text. What is most certain is that Roy’s case of facing public scrutiny was my firsthand experience of witnessing, almost essentially experiencing, how brutal, cruel, and hateful Korean netizens can be. For years, I have been aware of this online community’s relentlessness. But I never imagined in a million years that the poison of these toxic hate comments would actually affect me. I never thought there would be a day I would actually care about what these people were saying, that their words literally ended up hurting me. Even though no one was actually cussing me out, telling me to rot in jail, yelling at me to never lift my head in public again…No, I mean those malicious comments weren’t for me. They were all aimed straight for Roy, straight for his heart, straight for his life. These people were attacking his entire life like there was no tomorrow. These people spit words without even blinking once, without even thinking about the consequences of their actions, without considering how damaging. For weeks now, I have been witnessing this vicious chain of hate grow and grow. I am sick of it. It makes me cry sometimes. I cannot bear to read what so many people are saying to him now. They are sickening, they are heartless, they are pure evil. It is unfair. It is all so unfair. Just 1 picture, but a lack of knowledge, name mix-ups, and a heightened level of ignorance fuels all these terrible people’s fingers to type away behind their screens and literally ruin someone’s life. And right before my eyes, as all of this happens, I cannot do anything. I can try to manage to report some of the especially derogatory comments, I can try to support the supportive comments. But that is the most. All I can really do, what I have no other choice to do, is to just sit and watch. I’ve been watching and waiting, watching and monitoring, waiting for something more to come out, waiting for some form of reassurance. But no, ever since that day, even though today marks a month since then, nothing has changed. My heart remains shattered, I am lost, I don’t know what to do. But the hate comments continue. They will continue to be fueled by spitefulness.

And what I particularly hate about all of this are Korean news reporters’ terrible, despicable way of pulling his name into things he never had an involvement with, adding pictures and names that are irrelevant, and just their entire lack of professionalism from a factual point of view. I can tell that they are playing on people’s emotions and anger to get more publicity, to stir up more baseless hate and unnecessary misunderstandings. It is so extremely frustrating and painful to watch. I don’t understand. I don’t understand why they must be so cruel and inconsiderate. Is it amusing to watch someone’s life fall apart? Does it make you happy? Is your article’s publicity worth the entire wellbeing of an another human? I don’t understand it, I will never understand it.

The official fan organizations have never stated their removal of support for Roy. The fans never asked for his forest to get destroyed. But why does the media report these things as if they’re true? Why are they lying, literally creating false information, when they don’t even know how we actually feel or what we’ve been saying? It is so flabbergasting, and it makes me feel even more hopeless at the end of the day. Mere months ago, I saw him. He was okay. And now the entire nation hates him.

배드민턴

This semester, I decided to challenge myself and join the badminton team at Yonsei. It may not sound like that much of a big deal, but it is actually quite intimidating simply because my Korean is still far from perfect, and I am already a pretty introverted person to begin with. I wasn’t sure how I could even come close to making friends there. I really just wanted to play because it felt so terrible not playing for 4 months last semester. The first “friend” I made literally only ever talked to me in English (and he still occasionally continues to do so), but he actually talks about the most useless and dumb shit that, if I were to be quite honest, do not really care about. The conversations I had were just… weird… But at one point, I finally met another foreigner who is from Taiwan. And since the day we first met, we became extremely close & we actually only communicate in Korean so it’s been amazing practice for me.

But through lots of talking with her, I have discovered that she is not a newbie to the team as I am: she is a pretty long-term member but with no Korean friends. Because no one has ever once approached her. And to be honestly I was thoroughly shocked by this. She has been on the team long enough to recognize members and even some names. But before I met her, no one ever asked her to play with them, no one ever approached her & talked to her, even though her Korean is literally FLAWLESS. She is studying Korean in grad school right now! So, communication-wise she has absolutely no issues. Yet, she has never received acknowledgement from the team. And that sort of left me scarred, even though these things never personally happened to me? Before meeting her, I had at least had many decent interactions with the other members of the team and the only way I ever played a game in the first place was because someone else asked me. I never asked others first because I am just too shy. But to hear that my friend had been that sort of figure on the team for so long, was just…. Shockingly sad. I could’ve never imagined that prejudice was that real. Granted, I highly doubt the other teammates’ ever acted cold purposefully. I can tell it’s just a problem of ignorance. But that is still very serious and very.. disheartening. I think the entire situation has gotten a lot better now that I have been trying to bridge all of us together, to the best of my ability. But it is definitely not simple. As much as I enjoy playing badminton with Yonsei, I can still feel some pain on her part, too.

케이뷰티

Being extremely skinny, wearing makeup every day, dressing nicely and in a way that is similar to everyone else, is a norm here. People strategically look a certain way in order to fit in. And that’s understandable, it is a homogenous society after all. But for me, I literally feel fat. I feel stressed every day because I feel like I should be losing weight, I should be skinnier, I should be more like everyone else. To be quite frank, it is just hard. All of these social appearance norms take a big toll on my mental health, but at the same time I can never actually bring myself to change drastically because that also would not feel natural. So I tend to stay stuck in this uncomfortable state of not knowing where I belong, not knowing where I can try to fit it in, or if I could ever been accepted in the first place. And honestly, I probably never will.

세월

This year marks 5 years since the Sewol Fairy accident and I had the opportunity to be here in Korea during its anniversary, on 4/16. To be honest, I didn’t know much about the accident for a while. I always just assumed it was a really unfortunate occurrence. But this time, since I was really here in Korea and I could witness the people’s efforts to continue to pay their respects to the victims and their families, I ended up watching a few documentaries and videos on the event. And it was a lot worse, much deeper, and more painful than I could have ever imagined. I know all the political tensions and social questions behind this accident are extremely DEEP, so I won’t explain too much. But it just gave me a very vivid, new perspective on Korean society, in so many interesting, different ways. There is so much to ask and discuss about behind the Sewol tragedy.

Welp, life kinda smacked me right in the face so I had to take a break from this piece for a quite a while.. but here I am again in attempts to finally put it out there.

전주

Nice on the outside, fantastic weather and kind people and an area that is very easy to walk through within a few hours. But, it very quickly dawned on me that this place is just a capitalism hotspot where I couldn’t get even a small glimpse of local traditions or just… normal life. Everything in that town was pretty much centered around tourism that it made me feel quite sad ☹ even the things that seemed like they should house normal life…. They didn’t. they were empty. Im not sure why I originally found this necessary to mention but I guess it really bothered me to a certain extent.

미세먼지

It’s absolute ass. Just know that. Its very very very terrible.

So…. I know im cheating, like cheating really badly by typing out all these feelings during the wrong timing, but I have no choice. A lot has been happening, and I guess I have to save that shitfest of my life for my final wrap-up piece…. Damn I don’t even want to think about that. O well. I think all I really should say for now is that… things have not been as easy as I would have liked them to be. There have been many occurrences that are just unnecessarily exhausting, stressful, and ridiculous. There are people around me that have been making my life really hard, for various reasons and in various ways. None of this even has to do with Korea or my lifestyle or school. It’s just a literal mess.

It’s all a mess and it’s kicking butt. Life is winning well ahead of me at this rate. Im overwhelmed like every day and it sucks ass but it’s okay. I am!!! Trying!! There are still many things left to be done and plans to be fulfilled. I am not giving up. Im just… crawling forward LMAO. Aight. Till next time.

끝까지 가자.

#korea #life #yonsei #lol i suck #sigh

1 note · View note

carpemermaidtales · 6 years

Note

How about we put extra effort into celebrating the writers and artists who follow their personal passions and don't copy the most popular kids in order to suck up to them or ride on the tail coats of their popularity? The homogeneity of Drarry fandom is grotesque. It's a huge self-congratulatory circle jerk. If people create fanworks that differ from what the consensus encourages they get accused of being racist. Don't act like it's as simple as you describe.

Hello, salty friend, I’m very sorry to hear that you feel that way about this community. I’m not sure where you got the idea that my post wasn’t about encouraging exactly what you suggest, because I literally said ‘fandom is about community at its core. We want to welcome and celebrate new creators - especially those who offer a unique interpretation of our favorite material.’ So, I’m not really sure where that wasn’t clear? I’m all about putting the effort into celebrating writers and artists who are following their passion. If that’s what you’re about, too, then great. Do it, support non-mainstream creative works, because they do exist out there. As an example: a chubby Draco post is likely to get fewer notes, so fewer people see it, and the vicious cycle continues on. So you see something that isn’t mainstream that you like? Reblog it, comment and tell the creator you like it.

And if by circle jerk you mean that thing where hp authors like to rec new works or reblog art when it’s made? Well, yeah, my dude, that’s a big aspect of being in fandom? And I have to say, the level of reccing is actually really awesome in the drarry community in comparison to other fandoms I’m active in. On top of that, this idea of popularity and coat tails is absolute bullshit. I’d like to reiterate from my post: we’re all the same people with a common interest in Harry Potter. It’s 2017 and I am old and tired of Big Name Fan mentality. You want to be friends with awesome people like @bixgirl1, @l0vegl0wsinthedark, @femmequixotic, @lqtraintracks, @firethesound, @synonym-for-life, @goldentruth813, @camael-fanart, @jadepresley and countless other nice people you see getting lots of notes and who are active on tumblr? Here’s a secret: just say hi. It’s not that hard. Say hi and make friends, or better yet come hang out on discord, now that LJ has gotten quieter. There’s a link in my sidebar.

You also claim there’s no creativity in the drarry community, but there’s all these different headcanons and works that say otherwise. To be fair, this is a tumblr problem with how reblogs and likes are set up, but if that’s the case then perhaps you should follow/unfollow people to curate your tumblr experience to something that you enjoy better. Once again, this is where that reccing and reblogging thing comes in. Since you bring up being racist, I’m going to presume your point has to do with the popularity of the Indian or Black or mixed race Harry Potter headcanon, and while I know this is a really popular headcanon (one I share, by the way) I’m going to ask why people are getting accused of being racist when, from where I stand, there’s only 50 drarry works on AO3 tagged as “Person of Color Harry Potter”. And on top of that, I’d like to add one more reminder from my post: “We all interpret these things differently. My thoughts on Harry and Draco’s heights, or sexualities, or hair length, or races, or the choices they make about their surnames when they get married, or their weight, or disposition - all of that might differ from how you enjoy seeing them portrayed. Again, this is fine. This is part of fandom. It’s completely okay to have differing opinions on these things.”If you want to come off anon and talk more about this, I’d be happy to. I must hang out in the right corners of fandom because I’ve always found the people I interact with in drarry fandom to be some of the nicest people I’ve ever met.

#anonymous #carpemermaid answers #carpemermaid talks #Anonymous #drarry #fandom discussion

252 notes · View notes

libraford · 7 years

Note

"I made a quick icon for queer creators" if you wanna call aces lgbt fine i guess even though i disagree but why do you think they can reclaim q***r? the q slur is a slur that has been used explicitly against gay/bi/trans people. nobody has ever been called q***r for not feeling sexual attraction. like historically speaking that's just not something that has happened routinely (if at all).

This is what you basically just said: ‘You must be THIS oppressed to claim an identity.’

First off- I know a LOT of ace-spectrum people who have been not only been called ‘queer’ by oppressors but have also experienced sexuality-based oppression in the form of erasure, corrective rape, and coercive social conditioning. Just about every Ace I know finds themselves thinking 'something is wrong with me’ because formative sex education does not include topics of non-attraction or sexual repulsion, and this lack of representation often leads to hazardous emotional issues as they grow up. I am literally talking about suicide.

Your claim that they don’t belong in our community, even, actually is evidence that they deserve representation- simply because despite all the evidence that Aces experience sexuality-based violence and oppression, some of y'all can’t get your heads out of your asses to see that there’s fucking room for them. Every time I get someone hollering up my inbox about how 'aces aren’t queer’ I get about three dozen aces in chorus on how they’re queer as fuck.

Aces belong in the LGBTQIA community. Full stop.

But let’s get to the real meat of this discussion. I’m going to summarize my feelings on the matter of ‘queer’ being starred out like this. Because this shit has got to stop.

I’m gonna start off this part by saying that there are plenty of other people who have said this better than I have.

Item A

Item B

Item C

Item D

Item E

Item F

Item G

Almost all the words we use to describe ourselves come from a place of pain. Lesbian, dyke, and gay have all been used as slurs at one point in our history. Why are 'gay’ and 'lesbian’ acceptable labels, celebrated by our community, and the word 'queer’ is not? We reclaimed those, why can’t we reclaim this? If I can’t use 'queer’ because it used to be a slur, then you’re going to have to give up every word that has ever been used to describe us and start from scratch.

Queer activism has historically been about taking the labels that have been put upon us and turning them into weapons. “I wasn’t recruited, I enlisted” was a classic slogan during a time that people were afraid to be near us, lest we 'recruit’ them into our unsavory lifestyle. Embracing a word used against us removes the pain it creates. Calling myself 'queer’ means that no one can use that word to hurt me.

I will build my house with the stones thrown by those who seek to hurt me.

But let’s put history aside for the moment and talk about the future. As the study of gender and sexuality progresses, the definitions of terms become more gray and it benefits us to have a word that exemplifies the blurring of terms. I mean… am I really a lesbian if I’m genderfluid and experience the occasional attraction to people who are not female- even though I’ve only had relationships with women? And what about when I’m feeling masculine? Am I a lesbian then? Christ- what am I?

I’m fucking queer, friend-o.

Queer is an incredibly useful term that encapsulates the vagueness of the relationship between gender and attraction. There are so many different terms in the LGBTQIA community that we often question which letter we are. 'Queer’ is a useful term for people whose intersectionality puts them in an indefinite area of identity.

What better word to describe a person who does not fit than one synonymous with oddness? We gather together in our strangehoods and we are queered together.

Up until the 2000’s, 'queer’ was a perfectly acceptable word to use in the community and was in fact used academically to describe the movement. The slogan was 'We’re here, we’re queer: get used to it.’ Queer as Folk. Queer Eye for the Straight Guy. It was THE WORD. Its use as a slur had been diminished to the point that very few people even equated the word with violence anymore- it was just the word that we used to describe ourselves.

Don’t think I don’t see a correlation between the shunning of queerness and the rise of intersectionality. When we started seeing more gender nonconformists, more poc, people of religious inclinations, more variety of ability, of age, of mental state, variety of sexual activity and attraction. When we started seeing a rise in demand for representation, when we started calling for more diverse discussions, when we started calling out supremacy in our community.

That was when I started seeing people rally against the word 'queer.’ Because it was these people, who were so radically not homogenous homosexuals, that were using the word loudly and proudly. And the LGBTQIA community can call itself as welcoming as it wants- but don’t think for a second that this wasn’t about gatekeeping. The battlecry of queerness just suddenly isn’t cool anymore, guys.

I’d be willing to believe that most people don’t see it that way. That they hear 'hey, 'queer’ is a slur and you shouldn’t use it’ and think that this isn’t just yet-another gatekeeping method. But that is where it comes from. It comes from not wanting a us to be proud of our ambiguity and our intersectionality.

I’m not going to make anyone call themselves anything, but you can’t stop me from calling myself the one thing in a long, long time that fit so right in the seat of my soul. You cannot censor me. You cannot stop me.

Just like you can’t stop Asexuals from reclaiming queerness.

We’re here, we’re queer- and you can pry my queerness from my cold, dead, ace-loving, skyward fist.

#ace #queer

1K notes · View notes

rebeccadirects · 7 years

Text

On Water By The Spoonful

Everyone in Water by the Spoonful is, in one way or another, haunted. Elliot battles PTSD and addiction embodied in the ghost of the first person he killed in Iraq. Odessa fights to keep her addiction and the guilt from her daughter’s death at bay. Yaz and Orangutan struggle with the ghosts of selves left behind in different neighborhoods and countries. Chutes&Ladders’ ghost is his addiction and the loss of his family, while John wrestles with the possibilities of what may come if he does not get clean. Throughout the play, these ghosts do everything they can to prevent our heroes from achieving what they all desire: love, peace, and deep connection across the yawning chasm that is human loneliness. Some of them succeed. Some succumb. Some require rescuing. But the play’s conclusion offers a thesis that is courageous in its optimism: even our most malicious ghosts are conquerable provided we do not face them alone.

One of the most distinctive elements of Hudes’ play is the emotive, uniquely musical quality to her dialogue. Each play in The Elliot Trilogy is based around a specific style of music. That style of music informs the structure of the play and, in many ways, the language and content. Water by the Spoonful was inspired by the structure and dissonance of free jazz as played by John Coltrane. Free jazz often sounds like noise, but the structure is very clear: songs begin with the melody (or the “head”), followed by the verse, and then the band takes turn soloing and abstracting on the melody before returning to the head. When we hear the head again, we hear it with greater complexity. Water by the Spoonful mimics this structure. Hudes introduces us to Elliot and Yaz first and Odessa and the chatroom second, before she begins to overlap scenes and settings, creating both visual and auditory dissonance. Music will feature heavily in my work with the actors. I plan to both expose them to improvisational jazz both as listeners and as performers. I will need actors who are at least musically literate and ideally play an instrument or sing so that we can experiment with “singing” the play as well as learning how to improvise musically. We will investigate how this manifests both in language and physicality.

Because this play is so linguistically rich, it feels wrong to burden the audience with too much scenery. What’s more, the play bounces from location to location and much of the action takes place online. However, Hudes chose very specific places to locate her action. Like almost all of her plays, Water by the Spoonful takes place largely in Philadelphia, specifically the Swarthmore campus and the Puerto Rican neighborhood of North Philadelphia. Many of the locations Hudes uses in this play are bleak, gray spaces: the slums of North Philly, an IRS tax cubicle, cold, sterile Sapporo. However, we end in the verdant landscape of El Yunque National Park in Puerto Rico. Thus, the play requires a space that can be both specific and mutable. Philadelphia’s poorer neighborhoods are graced with thousands of murals, designed and executed by the people living in the community. They are glimmers of vibrant beauty in an otherwise depressed landscape. They offer hope and possibility, but also memorialize departed legends and offer an outlet to express collective pain. I want to incorporate both what those murals look like and what they represent in the design of this set, while still maintaining the spirit of the locations chosen by Hudes. The bulk of the set will be a white, animated floor that will display abstracted, mural-esque images that help suggest the varied locations. Color will be used sparingly and introduced slowly so that, when we arrive in El Yunque and the play’s emotional resolution, we feel the impact of the color and return to life.

The reasons for doing this play now are painfully clear. This play places the most vulnerable members of our society at the front and center of the narrative. Immigrants, refugees, veterans, people of color, the mentally ill, and the poor are all given equal time and visibility in the narrative. At a time when hate is rampant and the people depicted in this play are actively being threatened, it is critically important we tell their stories. It is hard to hate a group of people when you are presented with an opportunity to empathize with them. That is what this play does. I agree with Toni Morrison when she said:

All good art is political! There is none that isn’t. And the ones that try hard not to be political are political by saying, ‘We love the status quo.’ We’ve just dirtied the word ‘politics,’ made it sound like it’s unpatriotic or something… My point is that is has to be both: beautiful and political at the same time. I’m not interested in art that is not in the world. And it’s not just the narrative, it’s not just the story; it’s the language and the structure and what’s going on behind it. Anybody can make up a story.

Water by the Spoonful may not be laden with slogans and rallying cries, but its primary focus is on people and issues urgently important to modern audiences. It is for this reason that I want to produce this play as a touring production that can be taken across the country. It is not enough to continually perform for liberal audiences in cities and college towns. This play needs to be seen in rural Wisconsin as much as it does in North Philadelphia. This play offers an opportunity both for marginalized people to see themselves and their stories in action and for people stuck in homogenous communities to see past their front lawn.

I feel that I am uniquely equipped to tell this story. Reading this play felt like coming home. It felt like it spoke to the very heart of who I am and why I make theatre. I am the daughter of immigrants; the latest in a long line of refugees. I know, intimately, what it is to be followed by ghosts I cannot wish away. I grew up studying music at school and listening to my brother, a jazz guitarist, chew my ear off about the virtuosity of John Coltrane. I grew up in Baltimore, a city afflicted with many of the same problems as Philadelphia. More than anything, though, my work is rooted in empathy and emotion. This, coupled with a love of heightened, poetic language of all kinds. I feel my many years of performing and directing Shakespeare along with my music training will enable me to bring the vibrant, challenging writing of this play to life, both in the environment and the actors onstage.

#current project #grad school #Water by the Spoonful #Quiara Alegria Hudes

12 notes · View notes

delwray-blog · 6 years

Text

TAKE YOUR CHOICE SEPARATION OR MONGRELIZATION

The Jewish ‘One-Worlders’ Race-Mixing Intentions

By Col. Gordon "Jack" Mohr, Army US, Ret.

One of the major objectives of the New World Order is to create a homogenous race which can be more easily controlled than the white race, which is predominantly freedom-minded. They are particularly interested in the destruction of White Christian Civilization and are open in declaring their intentions. They know this will have to take place before they become successful in their bid for World Control, and only White Christianity stands between them and their objectives. So we become their most potent enemy.

We have the historic example of how while Christian South Africa, was destroyed by our Zionist controlled State Department in conjunction with the objectives of the anti-Christ United Nations. The conspiracy was upset with the manner in which South Africa classified their population by race. This leads us to wonder why, if they objected to this happening in South Africa, they are now proposing the same thing in our present census. Somewhere along the line, something is rotten and it isn't in Denmark.

Are the liberals trying to establish a system of apartheid, as it was called in South Africa, to further control America through a racial confrontation?

This question flies in the face of repeated declarations by President Clinton, which requires an end to all forms of segregation, and an end to all racial profiling. What do these New Worlders have up their sleeves, if racial questions are asked as they are in the present census?

The Census form asks racial questions in shocking detail, even on the short form, and tell the planned future of the United States and its now White Majority. Their plans are for America to become so racially intermixed that no one will be able to recognize us as the Republic which once existed and flourished. Already California has lost its White majority and is headed for Hispanic rule. In many areas, the English language is not the predominate tongue spoken and street signs, ballot forms, and public documents are now being printed in Spanish.

Jewish organizations have been vigorously attempting to end police racially profiling criminals, and are hindering their operations. They are keeping the truth concerning Black and Hispanic crimes from coming to the attention of the White majority. By clever media maneuvering, the responsibility for crime is always placed on White shoulders, when statistics are quite the opposite. It is this same group of International Zionists, who have threatened the end of White Christian Civilization, who are working towards this end by fostering racial hatred in this country.

Be forewarned! If this should happen, say goodbye to religious freedom in America and the institution of the World anti-God religion of the Internationalists. Many of us are aware that it was International Jewish bankers such as the Rothschild’s who financed the Communist Revolution in Russia and provided most of its leadership. They succeeded in killing off over 60 million of the Russian people, most of them Christians. Yet they have the chutzpah to harass us with their 'Holocaust' claims.

These same Internationalists who helped Hitler to power in Germany, made a deal with him to get the Jewish people out of Germany, not to kill them, as claimed. Today, Holocaust guilt is being constantly pounded down the throats of the American people, even in our schools and churches, while little is ever said about the complicity of the Jews in killing millions of Christians. Why is it that we have no Holocaust Museum for the hundreds of thousands of German women and children who were murdered by the Allies under International pressure at places such as Dresden?

The fact remains, that the Holocaust was manufactured by International Jewry to get Jews illegally into Palestine, and then milk the stupid goyim of billions of dollars by way of sympathy for the poor mistreated Jews.

The purpose of the census is to eliminate the power base of the White community in America and replace it with a racial mixing which will end the biological existence of the White Race. The extent of Jewish leadership in pro-race-mixing propaganda can be seen in the following article, taken from the September 5, 1967 issue of Maclean's Magazine, and written by Rabbi Abraham L. Feinstein, a prominent Canadian rabbi:

"For small 'l'-liberals—and most Canadians fall into this category—one of the most nagging dilemmas of their creed is the gap between the preaching and practice of racial equality. This refusal to sanction the mixing of the races is the final bastion of racial hostility. Until we learn to fight our ingrown fears of sexual relations between races, the end of the race problems will not be in sight. Only when we no longer raise our eyebrows at the sight of a Negro holding hands with a White girl (a sickening sight!), will the West have begun to tear racial poison from its vitals. "This will mean a remodeling of the White psyche from inside out, for our fear of mixed marriages is deeply rooted. (It should be since God forbids it—Mohr.) Finally, there is the objection (perhaps this is the wrong word to apply to such an emotional problem) that some races are innately savage. According to this view and it is surprising how many earnest liberals half believe it—the chaos in the Congo and the mob violence in Harlem and Los Angeles, spring from a Black source. History shows, however, that regardless of their technical progress, no race has a monopoly on savageness. (However, "By their fruits shall ye know them"—and I know of no White country, where the people deliberately chop their neighbors to pieces, just for the fun of It.—Mohr). "I do not mean to suggest there are no racial differences, of course, there are. They differ in blood type distribution, in taste sensitivity, in hairiness, and perhaps in body smell. There are some areas of racial differences which seem to support the segregationist view, and on intelligence tests, Blacks, for the most part, perform less well than Whites. During the Second World War, the percentage of Blacks rejected on mental grounds was six times that of the White percentage. These are real disabilities and civil rights leaders are attempting to overcome them. "Certainly, the mixed couple will face a whole sea of troubles that couples of the same race never encounter. There is evidence that the barriers once imposed by society are beginning to crumble. Laws should be enforced, not to forbid the intermingling of bloods, but to encourage it. The only way we can have a FINAL SOLUTION to the race problem: is to create a mixture of races."

It is interesting to note that the Jewish leaders resent it when their people intermarry. The present census was set up to target foreign-born, with the ultimate plan that no area in America can ever be designated a White Bastion. They fear a new White Nation might be formed, very possibly in the Northwest, which could oppose their plans for world conquest. This could very possibly happen if racial pressure continues to mount. It may become necessary for White survival!

It is a well-known fact, that gun control is always a prelude to people control and has one objective, to get the means of protection out of the hands of patriots who might use them against a rogue government out of control. The Texas Supreme Court has already ruled that the only information the government can require you to answer on the census form is the number of people living at your address. This is as the Constitution requires.

The lower half of California has been literally taken over by Hispanics, who boast that it will soon be a Mexican country, AZATLAN, either through popular vote or by force of arms if necessary. This new country would take in five of our Southwestern states.

What Would Be the Results?

We can easily visualize what would happen if America is taken over primarily by Blacks, by looking at Africa. In every so-called Republic in Africa, the blacks there today are infinitely worse off in every respect, education, health care, housing, and freedom, under their presidents for life, than they were under the sometimes harsh rule of White colonialism. They were much safer then than they are now, under the Black dictators, that our State Department has turned into billionaires. (Idi Amin in Uganda is a prime example). The majority are Marxist oriented, and like Mugabe in Zimbabwe, are destroying their countries for a little monetary glory and power. They show very little interest in their own people and are bent on destroying the only people who have ever helped them, the Whites. It is a classic example of biting the hand that feeds you.

While missionary activity, for the most part, has been a lesson in frustration. A White missionary goes to this benighted land and works for forty years building a strong church. He often starts a seminary to educate native pastors. Then a political upheaval takes place that forces him to leave. He comes back a few years later to find his church still in operation, but with the local witch doctor as pastor. They still sing the old church hymns, but their worship is interlaced with heathen occultism until there are very few vestiges of Christianity left.

A few years ago, when I lived on the Gulf Coast, I listened to the little Jewish evangelist Benny Hinn, as he bragged on TBN how his missionary efforts had Christianized twelve African nations. Less than a month later, his Rwanda Pentecostals were hacking their Tutu countrymen to pieces with their pangas, in spite of all liberal arguments to the contrary. One of the biggest lessons Whites must learn if we are to survive is that Blacks, in particular, do not have the same spiritual thought process as Whites. We are not the same! The difference in races can be explained Scripturally but it is not my purpose to go into that here.

Are we ready for scenes in our large urban areas, like those now taking place in Sierre Leone, where Black rebels are chopping the limbs off women and children, after first raping them? Every Black Country in Africa is under turmoil today, proving that when Whites left and handed Black countries over to natives on a silver platter they could not maintain modern civilization. The same is true of Hispanic countries such as Brazil, Mexico, and Central America.

The same people, who destroyed these nations, are trying to do the same thing with a homogenized America.

The British turned Rhodesia, one of the most modern and beautiful countries in Africa, back to the natives in 1980. Before Mugabe took over, he had his minions slaughter everyone who was opposed to him in usual Black African style and became President for Life. The white farmers who number less than 70,000 out of a total population of some 15 million, produced most of the agriculture produce of Southern Africa and fed most of its population. Today under Black Marxist rule, they cannot feed their own People, and Mugabe is killing or running off the only people who can and would help him. Today thousands of acres of productive farmland are lying idle, and dairy herds are being slaughtered for momentary barbecues. This, my Christian friends, is the Black heathen mentality at work and is what the Zionist One Worlders wish for America.

Many years ago, a very wise Southern politician wrote a book tided, "Take Your Choice—Separation or Mongrelization" He was demonized by the liberals as being a race hater when in reality he wished only happiness for this country.

He wrote, "If our highways and our railroads should be wrecked, we would rebuild them, if our cities should be destroyed, we could rebuild them bigger and better. Even if our Armed Forces should be destroyed, we would rear sons who would redeem our power. But if the blood of our White race should become corrupted (adulterated—Thou shalt NOT commit adultery—Mohr) and mingled with the blood of Africa, then this present great nation will be destroyed, as all hope for civilization would be impossible for a Negroid America."

If God had wanted all mankind to be one big amalgamated blob, no doubt He would have created us that way. He must have had a reason for separation of the races, and His Word indicates this. He has ordered His Israel people (that's not the Jews!), to remain separated, and keep their bloodlines pure and when we disobey this, we destroy ourselves.

0 notes