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shuinami · 8 months

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Part 2: Why is the accent? Where and when does Hobie come from? Part 1: Who, What (London Accents) | Part 3: How (Writing Tips)

In this section, we'll touch on racism since the 70s, black Londoner youth culture and how punk has historically interacted with those things.

To begin, let’s answer the question of what the hell all us black people are doing here in the U.K. 😂

Long story short, after World War II, the U.K. invited subjects of the empire over, in need of help rebuilding the place and doing essential work after getting bombed and stuff. There was further incentive on the subjects’ side to come as many of their men had been sent off for the war but were out of work and not properly compensated upon their return, leading to a poor economy and many people hoping for better in the ‘mother country’. Caribbean people, mostly Jamaicans, came over from then right through the 60s but were not welcomed and treated as British as many of them thought they might be… cause, you know, racism.

In 1962, 1968, 1971 and 1981, legislation was passed that made it incredibly difficult for black Caribbeans to come over, even to this day, which led to the migration of black people shifting to predominantly Africans, mostly West Africans, in the 80s, who would come for education and work purposes mostly. (For context, in the 2020s, there are more African people than Caribbean people in the U.K.). In the 70s and 90s, East Africans fleeing conflict have also immigrated en masse, although the numbers were quite a bit smaller than the West African and black Caribbean diaspora.

[not an expansive breakdown of all ethnicities, I just wanted to talk about the most populous black nationalities for the general gist of where black British life really got on a roll]

So, onto life as a black person in the U.K.

It’s important to remember that the U.K. was racist as fuck AND did not have Jim Crow laws or a history of relegating certain cities or neighbourhoods to ethnic minorities because, by the time we had been invited, there were not so many of us living in England for such laws to be deemed necessary (by racists).

Living literally side by side, often in the same building, with people who wanted to see them brutalized had a big impact on how black British people navigated life back then and has residual cultural effects on how we behave to this day.

One thing that stood out to me was the line where Hobie says he has “a laugh at the pub with the mandem”. As many of you will know, the pub is a large part of general British culture as the main drinking scene. Until more recently, you couldn’t just go and buy alcohol from the supermarket or whatever like you can now, so people had to go to the pub for a drink. Additionally, during times when getting clean water was unreliable due to cholera outbreaks, a drink from the pub was safer than drinking water.

It’s also important to know that, unlike clubs, many pubs sell food and are family-friendly, so while it’s not likely for a little kid to be bouncing to go the pub because it’s just basically like a restaurant to them, it’s a place that a child can be used to going to.

Not only do pubs sell food, but pubs also are places that are mostly used to watch football, as well as play pool, participate in pub quizzes (competitive general knowledge pop quizzes done in teams) and generally be out late to sit and talk.

That being said, as I mentioned before, how black people navigate where we live is different to how white people do.

Whilst many black people will go to the pub with their work colleagues or with their mixed friend groups, pubs generally have never been a haunt for black adolescents.

Instead, black drinking culture is more associated with dance and music, i.e. house parties, clubs (particularly clubs or club nights where music popular amongst the black community is played and, in older times, basement boozers) and lounges. Unlike white counterparts, most black kids will not have grown up going to the pub or around people who went and would not be used to going until they got invited out, likely by workmates.

To this day, although racism has chilled out so much since the mid-20th century, a lot of younger people actually still have a latent fear of facing racism from white football hooligan types and drunk, older white people in pubs. If you went to a pub, you typically wouldn’t see many young black people in there, if any.

The epitome of this mindset was on display during the last World Cup, during which Gen Z black U.K. TikTok was filled with half-jokes about the brutality they would face sitting in the pub to watch an England game if a black team member were to miss a kick or otherwise make a mistake. It was something we joked about in real life too and there was a rumour that went around - which many of us believed to be true - that two black guys had been thrown in the Thames because the black players had missed the penalty kicks they took.

It was just a rumour, however, people did take to racially abusing the players online and, whilst it wasn’t true, you can see what the general attitude towards pubs tends to be and why it’s not a hotspot for black youth.

There are U.K. pubs that historically have had more black patronage in black communities but there’s only a few and they’re not really a thing in London.

Knowing that, it’s not to say that no young black people frequent pubs, but it means that it says something about Hobie that he does (or his world, which we’ll talk about later). What it says exactly is up to your headcanon, but it’s worth noting that it’s not typical for a black teenager in London to hang out at the pub, even if they are rebellious and not concerned by the drinking age.

So you may be thinking, damn, why do pubs have such a reputation? What happened that meant that - to this day - there’s such a divide?

While the U.K. was always racist and was unwelcoming to those who arrived during the Windrush period, it continued to get worse going into the 70s. The increasing popularity of the fascistic political party called the ‘National Front’ saw the rise of ‘the immigrants are taking our jobs’ rhetoric used to appeal to the white working class that persists, to a less extreme, today, such as with the political party UKIP, as well as the English Defense League (EDL), both of which have taken on a more Islamophobic angle than the focused and explicit anti-black & anti-browness of the National Front. The National Front’s supporters would chant and sing stuff like “We’re gonna send the blacks back”.

In daily life, black kids had to deal with shameless racism, bullying and violence from their white peers. There was a ‘sus’ law implemented, which essentially made it so that police could (and very much did) stop and arrest any black person they saw on the street that they felt was ““““suspected person””””, which included unprovable and outrageously ridiculous bullshit like being suspected of ‘loitering with the intent to steal’ (so basically, if you’re black and outside, you were - and still are, especially if you’re young - likely to be suspected of this). As mentioned earlier, there were people who would watch games and get drunk in the pub, then go out into the streets on a destructive rampage would also take those opportunities of chaos to physically assault black and brown people.

All of this was on top of institutional racism and micro-aggressions like we have today but turned up to 10. Minorities didn’t feel safe going around their own city alone for fear of getting mobbed or having rocks thrown at them. Even in their own homes, racists were putting literal shit and bombs in their letterboxes. The popularity of the National Front saw a rise in Nazism - an especially wild expression of racism, considering the Nazis had bombed the fuck out of London in WW2, which was the reason the U.K. went crying to the subjects for help in the first place.

So, naturally, ethnic Londoners tended to craft and operate in their own spaces when it came to leisure, more attuned to the cultures from their family’s countries of origin as well as the kinds where they were just generally more accepted for who they are. Though no longer out of necessity for safety, this aspect of Black British culture persists today, to a lesser extent though, and latent anxieties about acts of extreme racism still remain in the collective subconscious, even though most young people today will have never experienced such extremes.

Just for clarity, this is not to say black people are afraid of white people in general, I’m not sure that could even have been said in the 70s, since there were also plenty of non-racist (aka normal) people too. Back then, the culture was probably a lot more gatekept than it has been for the past few decades, but I’m trying to explain why black British culture and black British life is a different experience to being white British, it’s not only experiencing racism, but it’s also that we just do different stuff cause we historically didn’t feel welcome at their figurative tables and thus did our own thing mostly. It’s why you still get friend groups that are predominantly black despite everyone’s families likely coming from different countries with different cultures, because we relate in terms of black British culture and not feeling especially understood amongst white counterparts. But if white people make us feel like they are down with us, we’re down with them, as one would hope lol.

Speaking of down white people, another huge part of Hobie’s character is that he’s a punk, of course.

So, not gonna lie to you guys, due to the things I just stated about how black people had to navigate the world and craft their own spaces in order to feel comfortable and safe, the punk scene (as we would think of it) has never been a thing that was popular amongst black British people. It’s a predominantly white scene and during the 70s was not unaffected by rising Nazism. To this day, there are still Nazi punks and what we call dirtbag leftists, so you can imagine, at the time, though there were and still are more non-racist white punks, there were enough Nazis that a. it’s not something that seemed welcoming to black people and b. non-racist White punks in the 70s felt that the Nazi problem was bad enough that they needed to do something big about it, which we’ll get onto.

Because we’re not a monolith, of course, there were black punks such as Poly Styrene, the lead singer of X-Ray Spex, and Basement 5, a punk-reggae band (remember this), but other than that, I haven’t been able to find documentation of black punk life in particular, nor have I been able to get any personal accounts from family. Punk is a small-ish scene to begin with, so you can imagine that the black people who participated are very few. Here, I’m not trying to say that few black people enjoyed listening to the music as part of their taste, I’m pretty sure a lot of young people would have liked the music but not necessarily been active in the scene/culture in the way that white counterparts were.

Again, the fact that Hobie is a full-out punk as a black teen says something about him or his world; what in particular, is totally up to interpretation and headcanon, but understand that it’s another unique behaviour.

A similar thing that did include black people was ‘skinhead’ culture, something that emerged from and celebrated the working class, especially Jamaican people, in the 1960s, but it was co-opted by ‘punk’ and white people, then drifted away from its associations with and relevance amongst black people and became most popular amongst Nazis in the 80s, associated with the ‘British Movement’. Most people will think of racist white football hooligan types when they think of skinheads nowadays, even though in reality, for both punks and skinheads, not all people in these subcultures are racist/fascist.

As I mentioned earlier, because minorities were living side by side with working-class white people, a lot of stuff that wasn’t kind of gatekeepy (i.e. super black) has always been at risk of being yanked from us and has historically been done by literal Nazis and I’m sure this plays a part in alternative scenes that stray very far from the cultures we’re raised in not being the most popular amongst us.

Nonetheless, non-racist punks and black people agreed on a lot of core points about classism/capitalism and the need to stomp out racism, which led to white punks starting the Rock Against Racism (RAR) organisation, which held concerts across the country with the intention of bringing people together to take a stand against racism. If you’re able to, I recommend watching the documentary about it called White Riot (2019), which whilst it does include some black interviewees, focuses on the white punks’ side of things and the racism of the time, as opposed to black life. Still worth the watch :)

Other than punk rock, you know what other acts were invited to play at these RAR concerts?

Black musicians who played funk and reggae were also invited. Even though their music taste was different, the message was the same. Additionally, it might surprise non-British people to hear but even white British people have long loved themselves some reggae, hence Bob Marley’s popularity here.

Reggae is a genre that is often used to speak on politics and social issues, it’s why Rastafarians love it and make such music. So, whilst the punk-reggae fusion of Basement 5 might sound strange today when reggae is not as popular as it once was, it makes total sense why. You can also see references to the London punk scene in the 70s (the time he was living in London) in Bob Marley’s song “Punky Reggae Party”.

I mention this to emphasise how the blackness of black British people, even in white space, has not typically proven to give way, that to be punk or believe in such values is not to relinquish all traces of black culture. I also say this to say, as I’ve said in a previous post bouncing off of Daniel Kaluuya’s thoughts on ‘punk’, that people who are adamant Hobie would not listen to genres of music that are popular with or created by predominantly black people alongside the more typical punk rock give off strange vibes. There’s no precedent for a black person to totally give up that part of them that they would’ve grown up with just because they’ve solidified a political view. Of course, some people are less into it than others, as I said earlier, black people are not a monolith, but given all this context, I’m begging people to not post things like ‘Hobie would never listen to [insert black genre here] because he’s a punk! Other people’s headcanons/playlists are stupid and they’re punk posers!’.

You can believe he only listens to genres of rock, and that’s fine, but stop telling black people that their headcanons where they project their more black tastes onto Hobie are inaccurate because they aren’t and it’s very strange to gatekeep interpretations of a black character from blackness in that way.

If you do want to know some genres popular amongst or pioneered by black British people, most of which popped off in the 90s, look to grime (hip hop, electronic), garage (electronic), drum n bass (electronic), jungle (electronic), U.K. drill (hip hop), afroswing (hip hop, r&b), reggae, dancehall (hip hop, reggae), hip hop, funk and r&b. I’d say pop since it’s popular amongst all ethnicities lol but, since Hobie is a punk, you’re gonna wanna exchange that for rock and indie, though I think it’s also fair to think there’s a few pop songs that Hobie would like, since being an anarcho-communist doesn’t mean you can’t have a little fun, idk. Headcanons and stuff are not really what I’m here to share or enforce. Plus, of course, a lot of these genres are anachronistic but, at the same time, I’m pretty sure most people’s playlists feature more modern songs anyway, hell, even the song selected as Hobie’s intro is from 2011.

And none of this is not to downplay Hobie’s love of rock genres either.

I did make a playlist for myself, if anyone wants it or recommendations you can drop an ask 🤓

In the past few years, there’s been a noticeable growth of alternative life in London black youth culture, notably the roller-skating scene, as well as more people participating in more classic takes on alternative culture like goths, punks, etc. and, of course, black nerd culture has been popping since the late 90s. The black people participating in these alternative cultures aren’t relinquishing their blackness, putting hip-hop in the bin and whatnot - people can be multi-faceted.

What I hope you take away from this is that Hobie is a unique and nuanced character, he’s not a typical representation of any of the things he is, which is personally why I love him so much. I also hope you understand that being a black punk in the U.K., before more recent times, would have been a different thing to being a white punk because, not only are you participating in a counter-culture, you’re going outside the safety net and norms of black British culture which has been positioned as inherently counter-cultural anyways and is one you can never hide your associations with or come out of. It says a lot about him, it comes down to headcanon what, but it’s important to recognise that these aspects of him are not a given but things that would have been purposeful developments or huge moments of self-discovery in his life.

Headcanons are something that throws somewhat of a spanner into the works. Everything I’ve said is historically accurate but we also don’t know that Earth-138’s New London would reflect all these aspects of our Earth’s London. Perhaps 138 is written in a race-blind kind of way or, not coming from black British culture, the writers may not envision the world authentically from our point of view and might be unaware of how it’s different; maybe the execs would not allow them to tap into the racist aspect of Nazism and have the writers keep it vague for marketability's sake; hell, maybe the date on the mugshot was just an Easter egg and not a canon-accurate date, who knows?

On top of that, if you headcanon Hobie as a transracial adoptee (meaning adopted by people of another race) or that he was orphaned at a very young age or otherwise not enculturated and socialised as a black boy, maybe none of this applies.

From the current slang to the casting of Daniel Kaluuya, it seems clear to me that, in tandem with the retro vibe, Hobie has been designed to also evoke more contemporary ideas of blackness so the full picture of what the writers have in mind is anyone’s guess at this point.

That being said, I feel like those conclusions would all take some stretching and reaching to come to. I’m not here to tell you what you can and cannot interpret or write, but I’m just trying to give some information so you can write more accurately and understand Hobie and Black Londoner life better.

So, now you understand where we’re coming from, I think you’re ready for the writing advice 😎

#atsv fanfiction #hobie brown #spider punk #black british #across the spiderverse #shui fic #shuinami

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black-arcana · 2 months

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HEAVY MUSIC HISTORY: Hydra – Within Temptation

Although not confirmed to be a subtle dig, the timing was suspicious: during the recording of NIGHTWISH’s Endless Forms Most Beautiful in the summer of 2014, their newest member, Troy Donockley, said in a video diary that it is “still absolutely NIGHTWISH, but there are some parts that will probably startle some people. But nothing cheesy. There’s gonna be no dreadful, pathetic stabs at trying to jump on some bandwagon, slap some shit rap on it or something, none of that nonsense.” A few months earlier, WITHIN TEMPTATION released their sixth full-length record, Hydra.

In the run up to its January launch, much had been made of their choice of collaborators across its tracklist. Dreams came true when Tarja Turunen was announced to feature alongside Sharon Den Adel on Paradise (What About Us?), a song which has become the answer to ‘what does symphonic metal sound like?’

What raised eyebrows was And We Run (feat. Xzibit). While other guest vocalists from KILLSWITCH ENGAGE and SOUL ASYLUM broadly drew from the same rock palette as WITHIN TEMPTATION, here was an artist from a genre that could seriously be considered the polar opposite of symphonic metal.

Whether And We Run entirely works is subjective, but history has vindicated the band and Xzibit as being ahead of the curve. In the ten years since Hydra, heavy music has not only become more fashionable again, but it has diversified – and the two are surely linked. In 2023, SPIRITBOX remixed MEGAN THEE STALLION’s Cobra, introducing metal’s most hyped band in years to a whole new audience by a show of respect between them and one of the world’s biggest stars. In the UK, BRING ME THE HORIZON sell out the country’s largest venues because they introduced elements of pop, electronica, and hip hop to their initially abrasive sound. The future of music is genreless, but to get there, bands have to break down barriers.

There is more to it than just the music. One of symphonic metal’s most defining tropes is the vocal talent of its lead singer, who is often female and often white. Its lyrical content is heavily fantastical, referring to literary works by European authors who have written in predominantly white cultures. The lack of diversity in the genre can be seen in the source material for many of its songs. Introducing Xzibit’s deep vocals, having him write his own verse, destroyed the notion that symphonic metal has to look or sound a certain way.

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In the years since, WITHIN TEMPTATION have taken up the mantle to promote peace and love. During live performances of Raise Your Banner, Den Adel would wave the rainbow LGBTQ+ flag, and in the last few years changed it to the Ukrainian one. Their new album Bleed Out draws heavily from accounts of war, documenting its horrors in anthems of solidarity.

Hydra was when the band realised this music, their music, was for everyone. When NIGHTWISH, who had long gone unchallenged at the top of the genre, decided to double down on their usual shtick, WITHIN TEMPTATION looked outward and opened their arms. They saw no reason why a rapped verse could not exist alongside all the other elements of their arsenal. The rousing Paradise that featured Turunen was inspired by a Dutch general who emphasised seeing the world as ‘us’ instead of ‘yourself’ and ‘them’.

It makes sense then that the album is also the band’s most palatable. There is none of The Unforgiving’s prog rock-like storyline, no epics like The Truth Beneath The Rose from The Heart Of Everything. In return, the acoustic-driven Whole World Is Watching received radio airplay in the UK – and was debuted on BBC Radio 2 by the legendary Ken Bruce. While rock music is a little more welcome on the airways in 2024, this marked a significant shift in WITHIN TEMPTATION’s profile at the time. No longer a niche band, they were welcome on the most listened to radio show in the country.

The rest of the album follows in this vein, for better or worse. That it lacks a distinct personality alongside most of their other records – the technicolour of The Unforgiving, the natural wonder of Mother Earth – is a symptom of how straight-forward it is. But there is an argument for Hydra as the band’s most consistent collection of songs, all of which are built on a strong foundation of pop music and familiar structures. Silver Moonlight in particular is overflowing with hooks, built upon chunky guitars and small symphonic flourishes. It sounds massive, which might be the only gear WITHIN TEMPTATION know how to operate in, but it sounds instant and immediate too.

Hydra arrived a year after the band recorded 15 cover songs for Belgian radio station Q-Music, in celebration of the band’s 15th anniversary. Most of these tracks were pop songs, like SIA’s Titanium, BRUNO MARS’s Grenade, and LANA DEL REY’s Summertime Sadness, which featured in their live shows at the time (and on the deluxe edition of Hydra). Den Adel said they wanted each cover to sound like a WITHIN TEMPTATION song, and not just a simple stripped back arrangement. It is no surprise then, after spending months familiarising themselves with mainstream hits, that they became tighter songwriters, something which they continue to reap the benefits of to this day, but which was first heard on Hydra.

The reason WITHIN TEMPTATION are headlining Wembley Arenathis year is because of Hydra. It is the turning point in their career where they said no to limiting themselves, and realised their capabilities reached far beyond the confines of symphonic metal. They are too good at songwriting, too strong as performers to be anything less than a legitimate marquee band. Throw on any of its 10 tracks and you hear a band with a new sense of confidence at the start of a new beginning, discovering what they are truly capable of. It was the blueprint to go even bigger, even more widescreen, on what came next. Everyone was welcome on the journey. Just look at them now.

Hydra was originally released on January 22nd, 2014 via BMG.

#within temptation #hydra

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bromelads · 7 months

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My unrealistic wish for the ofmd fandom in 2023-2024: that a critical mass of fans (3% lol) learn that whiteness is a *~state of mind~* and not a biological imperative hahaha

Which is not so unrealistic because diaspora communities of mostly ethnic/racial majorities in their home countries understand this intrinsically--it's what happens when you, as a member of the dominant ethnoracial group in your home country, are able to apply the schema of ur society in the new country.

Like the fallacy of latinidad as an ethnoracial category that’s always subordinate to whiteness when it’s actually an extension of it. Most latam countries do have a dominant white and mestize, functionally white, racial class that’s heavily bolstered by brown mestizes reproducing white culture. It’s one of the intended outcomes of blanqueamiento initiatives and policies).

Here’s my controversial opinion about the state of racism discourse in the ofmd fandom: it is severely americentric, severely perfectionistic, blind to americentric cultural hegemony within fandom, prioritizes white exceptionalism, and has absolutely no concept of the subaltern within the show nevermind the fandom itself.

Sorry, but the ability to navigate fandom culture as it exists on the internet now (with its English-language, americentric, predominantly white roots) makes you an adept navigator of white culture in the imperial core.

This is power everyone in the ofmd fandom, regardless of race, has.

#ofmd fandom discourse #fandom racism #fandom discourse #fandom wank #ofmd meta #ofmd fandom crit #because here’s another lens thru which to read the show #question: who are the subaltern in the show?#the izcourse #because that ongoing conflict came from the retroactive belief that white ppl(tm) were runing the fandom for poc and not like #white normativity putting everyone in the mindset that racial justice in interpersonal contexts is always adversarial #la meta de mi meta

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magnoliamyrrh · 6 months

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theres something deeply disingenous abt how whenever some issue gets brought up let's say abortion for example ppl on this website wanna pretend like white american women have nothing to say on it and wont be impacted and as if white american women have experienced like, no opression in america. as if till VERY RECENTLY they had no right to vote, to say no to sex in marriage, own a bank account, get abortions - hey, remember too when white women literally had to kneel in front of their husbands and beg their sins to be forgiven, and when they put those god awful mechanical cages on their faces to force them to smile?

yea. listen. i have my issues w many of them too for sure. but this sort of attitude is detached from reality

are we still aware Many white women exist in this country who are poor? like, poor as shit. who will Most definitely and Have Already Been impacted by the abortion laws bc they dont have the money to simply leave the state to another one to get an abortion (and also, bc the governments have made it illegal to do so). Can we not pretend that there arent white women who live in grueling poverty, especially in the rust belt and other such places where there are entire communities forgotten by everyone in deep poverty? can we not pretend white teenage girls dont get raped and forcibly impregnated? can we not pretend many of them dont come from very conservative families which either never gave them the education to know about sex and abortion, or would not allow them to get one? can we not pretend that white women arent still experiencing domestic abuse and rape and other forms of male violence in this country, also, one of them being being killed by men the moment they find out theyre pregnant?

even like "rich white women" in which case the conversation stops actually being predominantly about race but is now Actually about class status and yes, there are minority women w money. even rich women and them rich white women and Girls are susceptible to domestic abuse, rape, and violence, as well as having insane conservative families which would flip their shit if they found out they had an abortion. And yes, many of those conservative families Wont make an exception for their daughters and will absolutely force their little girls and teenagers, wether it be rape or consensual, to Not get an abortion and carry out a pregnancy till the end. Also, theres plenty of cases in which higher class women are so not because they have their own independent money but bc of their husbands money, which again makes the idea that they can just willy nilly skip town to another state for an abortion easily unrealistic and detached from reality. Yes. there Are Definetely cases in which economic status means a women in a place which has banned abortions will still b able to get one, absolutely. but its more complicated than what ppl make it out to be

like, this website going on for weeks about how american white women have like nothing to say on abortion and it being banned was insane and the peak of dumbass identity politics being taken to an extreme. the other part of this too people going "the handmaidens tale is so stupid blah blah there will never be a time when white women will be used as broodmaids" like..... yall are fucking stupid and have no idea, like clearly absolutely no idea of the history of america like At All, and because you live in a liberal area youve got no idea what conservative and rural america is like in the current day either

-_- this is way past the point of complains about white women. this is just stupidity and frankly fucking privilege lmao to not understand a series of things and its also another example of identity politics taken to a stupid level, being used to divide women, not being an Actually productive conversation, and also the erasure of class

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writingwithcolor · 2 years

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so, when i was a young teenager (about 13), i created a fantasy world based off of fairytales, with characters that were predominantly white, and or jewish, as that's what i am. over the years it's been diversified, with characters changing to reflect some of the countries of origin that the stories have come from (all through coding, as this is a series set in a world i created). i've become attached and can no longer see these characters as white (honestly taking out the descriptions and pieces of coding would just feel wrong at this point, and isn't something i want to do in any way) however, several issues have popped up as i've grown and my consciousness about what can be deemed as problematic representation has grown. firstly, many of my characters have eurocentric names still. as a writer it's hard to rename characters i've been working with for over a decade, and for some characters it makes sense (for example, the main characters of one of my series is a princess, half white and half iranian, though coding makes this more vague, and has a mostly european name as she's the heir to her father's kingdom, and her father was the one to name her) however, for other characters i'm aware that it doesn't make sense, and am having trouble renaming them as the names no longer feel like the same character. tips on this would be appreciated!

another issue i've run into is that in being fairytale inspired, a small handful of my characters (only two or three) spend some time as animals in the series, a critique i've seen of disney films such as princess and the frog. out of these characters only one is a person of color (the princess from before) and she spends half of her time as a human, as her book is based off of the swan princess, as opposed to one of my white characters, who's in my retelling of beauty and the beast as the beast (with the "beauty" being an indian character i've been having issues renaming). i feel like in comparison to religion, which has been very simple for me to integrate due to my own personal experience, as well as overlaps in the muslim and jewish faith (both of which i have characters from), my handling of race and making sure that my meaning and intentions are clear doesn't translate as well. td;lr: i conceptualized characters as white when i was a child and nearly a decade later am having issues with making sure that i don't portray the changes i've made wrong, as well as renaming characters that have had set names in my mind for this time

Can my characters of color from non-European backgrounds have European names? Also, Characters of Color spending screen-time in animal form

Names

It’s good that you’ve recognized where you’re having difficulty with this. While there may be scenarios in which a character of color has a Eurocentric name for plot reasons, it’s done so often that it wouldn’t feel quite as genuine, as you mentioned. For your Indian character, you will likely need to go more in depth on her background in order to find a name that feels authentic to her character. Check out our naming guide, as well as this previous post as to why we feel that characters of South Asian origin, as well as all other characters of color, should be able to have names that reflect their background. I would suggest looking for names that have a) a similar syllabic/phonetic structure to your previous names and/or b) similar meaning. To make it a bit easier, try to look for names that have a traceable origin before trying to make up your own.

For your animal shifting characters

look here for some commentary from mod Colette on the connotations of racism in animal transformation. Since you’re not solely transforming a character of color, and the swan princess is presumably going to spend most of her interactions as a human, it doesn’t really ping as fantastic racism.

In terms of your swan princess in particular, while swans tend to be a good-neutral association, many of the original stories of swan maidens tended to center around the maidens being rendered helpless by a man stealing their ‘swan-skins’ and forcing them into a situation where they had to escape or simply acquiesce to their captors’ demands. This can get dicey–where are you intending to go with it beyond the inspiration??

Finally, I’m assuming you’ve included multiple specific cultural aspects and traits that indicate the bases you’re drawing your coding from. Reflect on the manner in which you’ve done so and see how it compares to your sources of inspiration. Then, see how your biases/impressions have affected your coding.

~Abhaya

A few notes on the Iranian-coded character

Firstly, you mentioned that you chose your characters’ cultural coding based on where their stories originated from, but Swan Princess is not an Iranian story. Is there a different inspiration for making her Iranian, then? I admit I’m a bit confused on that front.

Secondly I don’t see anything inherently problematic about giving her a European-sounding name. But coupled with the fact that she lives in and is the heir to her (European) father’s kingdom, I would advise you to make sure you’re also giving her cultural connections to her mother’s culture. Writing mixed characters can be tricky, and if you make her essentially disconnected from one of her two cultures, you’re creating a lot of baggage that can be hard to address appropriately, especially if you don’t have that experience yourself.

Some ideas of how to emphasize her connection to her Iranian culture:

Give her an Iranian middle name and/or a hyphenated surname

Have her eat Iranian food–maybe it’s hard to come by in her European kingdom, but she has special treats shipped to her and cherishes them? Or maybe she has Iranian cooks and staff in the palace that make her favorite dishes for her?

Mention that she visits her mother’s country regularly, or if she can’t (with a good reason why), that she misses it

Give her Iranian clothes and jewelry and explore her relationship to those: does she feel comfortable wearing them on a daily basis if the fashion where she lives is very different? Or does she only wear them on special occasions? Does she make a point to use them to honor her culture?

Have her make references to Iranian stories, songs, and poetry that she likes. Is it something her mother taught her as a child? Is she still immersed in them now?

If your worldbuilding includes different languages, mention that she speaks the Iranian-analog language. Who does she speak it with? Do people in her European-coded kingdom speak it too? If not, are there other Iranian characters around who can speak it with her and engage in her culture with her? (if you don’t have any, I highly encourage you to consider including them)

Which brings me to my last point: make sure she’s not your only representation of an Iranian character. All of the things you’re worried about are much less of an issue if they’re not happening to the only Iranian-coded character in the story. If you have other Iranian characters with relatively important, positive roles who have Iranian names and don’t spend half their time as animals, then it becomes easier to see this specific character as just a character instead of a trope.

- Niki

#names #animals #animal shifters #South Asian #Iranian #culture #dehumanization #asks

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intersectionalpraxis · 5 months

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do you mind me asking what, in your experience, has the general vibe been in canada among like everyday people? are more canadians pro-palestine or pro-isnotreal? this site is us-centric so I wonder about neighboring country perspectives. if you don't want to answer, that's cool btw! def not expecting you to be an expert!

Hello! Thank you for your questions, and of course I can share some of my thoughts.

In my city we had a march to protest IOF violence (a few thousand people showed up) but a lot of folks from my area tend to go downtown to gather (especially since the Consulates are there too), and the turn outs in Toronto have been high, just like they have been in Ottawa. Compared to 'pro-Israel' crowds in Canada, visibly, it can't compare to people who have come out to support and be in solidarity with Palestine in larger cities -in that respect, it is similar to the US in terms of images we have seen to compare the gatherings. There are a range of people, from Vancouver to Halifax where thousands to hundreds gathered, to only under a dozen -and that speaks volumes in many ways. There have been a few direct-action activist protests where railways were blocked (I know of one in Winnipeg, Manitoba back a few weeks ago that were demanding a ceasefire, and one in Montreal, Quebec very recently [a few days ago] that was demanding an end to IOF terror and Canadian complicity).

In my area the only few visible acts of solidarity I have seen was when I saw a huge Palestinian flag being waved, and I saw someone in the mall, who wore a keffiyeh, and had a small Palestinian flag on their bag. I still see predominantly white women getting their starbucks around (I get there are exceptions, but they're the demographic I mostly see getting their drinks there, much to my dismay). I also work in a mall (and I had to work the Sunday that weekend of Black Friday), and it was BEYOND packed in there -and it's a big shopping centre. This is just my inference, and I don't know anyone's stances based on behaviors like this, which could range from ignorance to bigotry, but I am unsure.

I did, however, look over some articles to give you and anyone interested a little more perspective. Sadly, in terms of polls and politicians support - most 'Canadians,' support a ceasefire, but only on the condition IOF hostages are released, and that even if a majority support humanitarian aid to Gaza, the sentiment is very much pro-IOF, and based on my understanding that there is no acknowledge as Israhell as a settler-colonial force and power that is committing war crimes, genocide, and crimes against humanity.

Here is one article, with some excerpts below with the most recent information available. I will include the link here:

"A majority of Canadians, 75 per cent, hold Hamas (33 per cent) or Iran (42 per cent) responsible for the Oct. 7 attack in Israel that left 1,400 people dead and led to Hamas capturing some 240 hostages. In response, Israel declared war on Hamas." "The Palestinian health ministry, which is part of the Hamas-run government in the Gaza Strip, says some 10,000 Palestinians have been killed so far. That figure has not been independently verified." "Most Canadians (76 per cent) classify Hamas as a terrorist organization and another nine per cent say it is a proxy for Iran. Just eight per cent consider Hamas to be freedom fighters. Overall, 71 per cent of Canadians support Canada calling for a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, but 81 per cent say that a ceasefire must start with the return of hostages taken by Hamas. Just 18 per cent of Canadians oppose calls for a ceasefire." "New Democrats are most likely to support calls for a ceasefire: 86 per cent support the call, compared to 57 per cent of Conservative voters, 82 per cent of Liberal voters and 85 per cent of Bloc Québécois voters." "When given a choice, 68 per cent said the priority in the conflict should be protecting Palestinian civilians living in Gaza and ensuring they have humanitarian aid, while 32 per cent said retaliation against Hamas should be the priority. Here, there are stark differences between parties: Forty-eight per cent of Conservatives say the fight against Hamas should be the priority, compared to 25 per cent of Liberals, 20 per cent of New Democrats and 18 per cent of Bloc voters." "Fifty-nine per cent approve of Canada’s support for Israel (only 18 per cent disapprove). At 71 per cent, Liberal voters back Canada’s support for Israel most strongly, followed by Conservative voters (67 per cent) and Bloc Québécois voters (61 per cent). Just 39 per cent of New Democrat voters back Canada’s support for Israel."

I think it's also important to add that the Liberals passed a new bill a few years ago, called Bill C-10, which was to amend the Broadcasting Act (which is a way for them to decide which *content* to censor, which includes most videos on the ground from Palestine, depending on the platform -but I can't access Eyes on Palestine, and can't see videos uploaded on Let's Talk Palestine). They say this is so that people turn to 'reliable' and 'credible,' news sources (as one element), but when mainstream western media isn't covering the genocide the way it needs to be because the IOF is a settler-power ethnically cleansing Palestinian people -that is clear as day, but similar to the US -the Canadian government has a vested interest in 'Israel,' and has been, since day one, saying 'Israel' has a right to defend itself, and classifies Hamas as a terrorist organization like the US, and STILL advocates for a two-state solution:

I would also like too that here, too, multiple politicians and journalists have been fired for their 'pro-Palestine' comments. It's just despicable. You can read more about this here and about the people/what they posted:

Of course this wasn't all-encompassing, and I am by no means an expert, but I would say generally, Canada and their 'pro-Israel' crowd (unsurprisingly) is similar to the United States. I hope this offered a bit more insight into what's going on here. I will try to keep updating about Canada here as well, because yes -a lot of what we see tends to be from the US, which understandably, but I will try to be reflexive of this moving forward.

#feminist #feminism #social justice #freepalastine🇵🇸#palestine #free palestine #free gaza #canada #canadian politics #end the occupation #end the genocide #settler colonialism #settler violence #colonialism #colonial violence

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regalfairytaleacademy · 1 year

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Welcome to Aquadormancy !!

Aquadormancy was founded on the Independent of the Fairy Princess of the Oceans. It's used to be the dorm for fairies, magicians and mermaids, but it currently for students in kinds of species.

Students in this dorm are actively in sports and more extroverted to people. They sometimes do their missions independently, but preferable to help others. They has always been friendly with pixies and visits them at Pixie Village every year.

Although it's representative element is water, Aquadormancy was not always predominantly covered in water. In fact, it used to be the exact opposite sometime during its expansive history, during which half-women, half-serpentine beings called the Melusina roamed the realm in place of the merfolk, who they were at war with. It is unknown what caused the sudden shift in the realm's geography but, as the kingdom' landmasses shrunk in response to the oceans expanding, the Melusina began going extinct as due to their weakness towards water. As the Melusina were dying out, the merfolk thrived in place of them until one Melusina was left living alone on an island. In the end, the Melusina has fully extinct after Fairy Guardian and her husband attacked her with the power of water.

Building

Aquadormancy is a dorm predominantly covered in water with a few jungle islands. Those islands currently not allowed let the visitors go there, as it is described as the most dangerous. In the book, there's some abandoned ruins of ancient buildings also rest both above and below the ocean waves which were never explained. It is thusly connected to all the oceans of other countries within Twisted Wonderland.

Terrestrial

The dorm's castle on the land features an Arabian Palace. The roof looks like a spiral shell and the walls are colored in ivory covered with small colorful shells. Past the entrance hall is the marble staircase, then a long hall direct to the dorm leader's bedroom that is in angle where has the sea and moon can be seen.

Fountain - It locates at the outside of the entrance. Once was a boring displayed object, but after it become the most popular thing on Magicam. They said the fountain start at night when water gushed, surprisly happened as water suspended ponds were illuminated by soft lights. It is described as the most colourful and dreamy fountain at night.

Portal - Connected to the Fairy Village for quick access. The color of ring portal is pastel pink with butterflies. It not only for students, but also for pixies from Nymfevilla when they needed to get to the dorm just in time. It is in the secret room that only dorm leader can open.

Ballroom - The place where they dance or doing gymnastics. All the gym equipments and clothes are prepared with the magic case.

Swimming Pool - The place for students who have a passion for swimming. It is also for them to train their fast abilities. The germs and wastes on pool occasionally be cleaned by the water pixies after students had left.

Undersea

In the underwater, the building was designed in Denmark Castle. The outside has coral reefs, algae and more aquatic plants as decorations. Externally, it glows with lights.

According to the book, the depth of the oceans does not have a definitive bottom, and the Fairy Guardian even referred to the Oceans of Water Realm as the "Heart of All Oceans" when a dimensional shock wave triggered a tidal wave on Twisted Wonderland.

Portal - Linked to all the oceans of other dorm. It is for merfolks, if they want to go to other places. Each oceans of dormitories has a specialized Selkies who are tasked with guarding the portal at oceans.

Secret Library - It is the more ancient and mysterious library that guards all secrets from the kingdom, above and under the sea. It has a school of white sharks as a guarded of this library day and night. The archeomagic site had evidences about the black pearls.

Although completely immersed in water, it is specified to be full of perfectly-dry books of all genres, ordered in an immense spiral of shelves. It has house millions of volumes, and contained the Fortune Teller Book (Water Realm Enemies book).

Dorm Wear

The tradition and cultural clothes is the best choice for the dorm. But for the gym suit, they allowed to wear any styles they like. The accessories may have jewelries and pearls. Any aquatic plants and objects like corals as the main core.

#twst #twisted wonderland #regal fairytale academy #rfa #aquadormancy

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thedum1 · 1 year

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I wanna talk about my dumb little OCs and whatnot.

This will get long and I will go overboard. So I’m trying out the read more thing. I’ll list them off from oldest to youngest, not when I made them but the year they would’ve been born...this list made me realize I’m not good at naming my OCs.

--For most of these the year the show/thing came out will be the year it takes place as well.--

Jazz and Coy the Goody Two Shoes Cat Siblings, not their actual last name, for Animaniacs They were made not long after the Warner Siblings were locked away. So I’d say around Christmas season of 1934. They were made to balance out the very high energy and extremely tooney Warner siblings. But their show flopped big time and the studio saw it as a waste of money. So similar to the Warner they got locked away but in a spare and mostly forgotten storage space. Why did it flop? Most popular cartoons had a very toon energy about them. Being full of slapstick comedy and cartoonish violence. The Cat Siblings were the exact opposite of that. Being calm and full of life lessons on being a well behave kid without the fun parts of cartoons. They were freed in 2020 during the C-19 Plague by Yakko accidentally. Now they chill with the Warner sibs and are slowly learning how to do slapstick toon things. (They are cartoon cats....they have no race...)

Some quick facts about the siblings:

Jazz, lowkey based off me in the sense of older sibling with a strong “must protect my younger siblings” vibe, imagine her around the same age as Yakko.

She’s a bisexual demigirl and goes by she/it.

Its got a crush on Roxanne from A Goofy Movie. It and and the others sometime pop by the D*sney Studio for a visit.

Coy, lowkey based of my younger siblings. A very big bookworm and enjoys school. He’s around Dot’s age.

Currently cisgendered and goes by he/him.

Michael Smith is my first and currently only trans OC. He’s from the YouTube series Good Game, though I’ve never watched it myself. He runs and own his own café/bakery, which is below his apartment. His food is what fuels Alex, Ryland and the others during practice sessions. It was actually Ryland who found his place and actually becomes a regular, he recommends his place as “gamer fuel” for practice. This leads to Michael and Ryland getting close and eventually developing a mutual crush, because yes. Michael was born in the year of 1987, his birthday is June 9th....because 6/9/87 as I am a child and 69 is fucking hilarious to me. (My special boy is just a regular white American boy.)

Facts about my son:

Michael’s parents LOVE the country Queen, Dolly Parton and originally named Michael after one of her songs, Jolene. They accept Michael’s transition and name change with open arms.

Alex and Michael’s relationship is a little rocky in the beginning because I’ve decided Alex has a slight thing for his gamer roomie and is jealous. He gets over it and actually ends up with one of Michael’s BFFs, a male Australian Cartoonist.

Michael and Ryland get married and even have a kid, which they announce at the Announcement of Michael’s second shop location becoming a thing.

I’ve come up with a stripper AU for Michael, I don’t have much info on it other than Michael works at an LGBT+ club and is a top tier stripper.

Phoebe “Frostine” Summers my ice power wielding villain for Teen Titans (2003 version which I’ve decided also takes place in 2003). She was brought into the world in 1987. She’s got her powers not long after turning 9. To be exact she started showing weird signs (always cold and could never warm up) the day after her 9th birthday. The first time her powers come out is around 7 months later. Of course her parents freak out and shipped her off somewhere. H.I.V.E. academy took her in when she turned 12. She learned to control her powers and became a really good villain. Though that wavers after meeting Robin. (My daughter is full white. Most ancestors come from predominantly white European contries.)

Facts about my icy daughter:

Yes, she got her villain name, Frostine, from the CandyLand character Queen Frostine. I am not sorry about that.

Around the time the show starts, ‘Go!’, Phoebe makes a civilian persona out of boredom. She goes to the same school as the bratty teen villain Kitten. She was very jealous of the fact that Kitten got Robin to be her date to the dance...yeah she was that into being a regular teen.

Did is say jealous? Yes I fucking did. I’m pushing my old childhood crush onto her. The reason she got into being a civilian was because she likes Robin how he’s nicer to her. She does reveal herself to him at some point.

While Phoebe is a villain for most of the series she actually doesn’t really like the other H.I.V.E. teens and likes to take their steals sometimes. Other times she’ll just annoy/distract them and get them caught. She eventually just stops being a villain at some point, which is great because she knows villain things to help the heroes.

Beau Young my bisexual “6teen” half Canadian Indigenous teen. Born in the year of 1988. Beau works at the Galleria Mall in the Albatross and Finch store. I haven’t touched his “story” in forever so I don’t remember too much for him. But he is half-sibs with another OC of that’s coming up. (His mother is where he gets his Indigenous blood from.)

Some facts I do remember about boy:

He’s friends with the main 6teen cast but is particularly close with Nikki and Wyatt...he thinks Wyatt is pretty and Nikki is super cool. But he’s not close with Jen or Jonesy. He finds Jen to be too uptight and Jonesy a very annoying, especially when it comes to girls.

He’s a grade above the main teens and is willing to help with school shit if asked. Yes that includes Jonesy...as long as someone else is there too.

Beau plays the violin and likes having coffee and jam sessions with Wyatt. The violin also gets him extra attention from girls, which Jonesy hates.

Him and Caitlin talk about relationships and judge each other on their taste in boys.

Beau Carriedo the half Spanish half French teen of Code Lyoko. Born in 1989 from a surrogate for two men...a French man, Francis Bonnefoy, and a Spanish man, Antonio Fernández Carriedo. (I have ZERO shame in that one). He’s somewhat new to the OC pile. Another gay OC as I refuse to be stopped. Sometime ago I looked at Odd Della-Robbia and decided he needs a BF, so Beau was born. I also decided Odd may have not yet come to terms with non-heterosexuality so it takes time for anything to happen between them. Beau also has an on-off crush on William, which doesn’t become a thing anyways.

Facts about my NOT A-Hetalia-Love-Child child:

Beau is the same age and year as Yumi, which is why he knows William and is close with him. But he’s not a Lyoko warrior.

He knows French, Spanish and English. Which makes him my first/oldest multilingual OC on this list.

It was Odd who made Beau realize he liked boys. For a while he thought none of the girls at Kadic were his type. Then BOOM!! Odd came into his life and he realized that there were girls who were his type...except for their gender.

Beau was someone who found Clone!William weird and off putting, not funny. I don’t know if I want him to find out that Clone!William is a clone and Real!William is trapped in Lyoko, which would then lead him to learning about Lyoko.

Taro “Yama” “Sakura” Yamada my Japanese femboy for Death Note. Born in 1990, between Matt and Mello. Been at Whammy’s house since he was but a wee babe of 2. He is cis and gay, just finds feminine clothes more comfortable to wear. He has a deep crush on Mello and even left Whammy’s to go for him, with Matt. The young boy learned coming off as a cute and a “needs to be protected” girl got extra cash and sadly attention. When the boys meet again Taro, who goes by Sakura to be “undercover”, helps Mello to get the Death Note. I’ve yet to decide if I wanna go with the canon ending for Matt and Mello or give the boys a semi-happy ending. I’m slowly working on a fic for him. Dunno if it’ll come out or actually be finished, it’s just a thing I work on on and off. Either way Taro doesn’t die.

Facts about my sad boy:

He’s good at acting and manipulation which Mello uses to his advantage.

Because I stopped caring I’ve decided Matt has a crush on Taro while Taro has a crush on Mello who is undecided on romance. How does it end? It depends on how I want to finish Taro’s story.

He is somewhat friendly with Near and would sit in silence with the boy before he left Whammy’s.

Taro is a fairly recent OC actually. Not even 2 years old if I’m remembering correctly.

Jean Grey my only goth OC at the moment. She’s the half-sister to my other OC Beau Young. In 1991 she was born and her X-Men loving mother named her after her (mother’s) favorite character. Yes. Beau and Jean have different mothers. They come from polyamory parents and Jean carries that on into her own relationships. She’s very bi and has dated both boys and girls before Total Drama takes place. She eventually starts dating Cody, sometime before the end of season one, and Lindsay, between Action and World Tour. (Homegirl is just white...that’s it really.)

Fact ‘aboot’ bi-poly goth girl:

She’s got a couple of pet chinchillas and misses them terribly when she’s doing Total Drama.

She’s goth in terms of clothes mostly. She definitely doesn’t act like typical goths do and is fine with that. She’s been tempted to “borrow” Gwen’s clothes during the competition.

She’s got the strong urge to fist fight Heather, Courtney and Alejandro...Chris and Chef too obviously, as I’m sure most of the competitors do.

I’m working on a fic where Jean is a new to fame cover artist and is still dealing with Total Drama nonsense...I’m also not that far into it.

Jasmine “Jas” Luna was technically me at one point before just becoming her own person. She was born in 1994 to a workaholic mother and loving father. Sadly her father was a victim of a speeding accident when she was 8 and her mother never cared for children. She left home at 18 to wherever Mystic Messenger takes place. She meets and befriend a young man who also recently left home. They find a kitten and become cat parents for the little guy. Her canon story is intertwined with said friend and they go through Zen and Saeyoung’s stories at the same time. She’s related to an MC on this list as well. (She’s half American Indigenous and half Caucasian.)

Facts about no-longer-me MC:

She discovered the lovecore aesthetic right before she moved away from home and it became her everything. The soft pinks and vibrant reds paired with hearts is just her vibe. Even the food she makes is cute and soft looking.

Her cat is my cat but smaller and nicer. She has him during the events of Mystic Messenger and will set up kitty playdates with Elizabeth the Third no matter the ending.

Her “true” ending is with Saeyoung. But if I had to chose a different member for her to end up with it’d be best coffee wife Jaehee. She finds her very pretty and is touchy with her, though it’s platonic when she’s dating one of the boys.

My shortest adult human MC/OC. Standing at a whopping 5 feet even and on the plump side to boot. If she was a male....4′10″ max. We love short kings and queens.

She knows English, Korean and Japanese. Which makes her my second multilingual OC. While I’m sure Mystic Messenger takes place in Korea I thought it’d be fun if it was in Japan and was amongst a group of Korean folks.

Jaci Summerhill the younger but much taller than his cousin, Jas, MC of Obey Me. 1997 the year of their birth...along with their twin brother Jack. Jaci, and Obey Me, got me to come to terms with my non-cis...ness?? When I first started the game I used my name but that felt wrong. So a google search later Jaci was born. While it took some time for Jaci to become what he is today I knew he was meant to be masc presenting, so a masculine nonbinary Jaci became permanent. His pronouns are he/they. At the moment, when not in the Devildom Jaci lives in France as a professional chef. (Jaci is mostly American Indigenous.)

Facts about my tallest OC/MC:

Tallest? YES!! This version of Jaci is my tallest character. They stand at a WHOPPING 7 feet even!! It’s why I’m such a big fan of tall reader/MC fics. Had Jaci been AFAB instead of AMAB they’d be slightly taller standing at 7′3″ because tall ladies are my favorite.

Jaci is very weak when it comes to Asmodeus, Simeon and of course Luke. The Little D’s are also a slight weak point for them. He’d do anything they asked because he just loves them that much.

My sweet tall child....is a bit of a himbo. They are very big, both height and build. Not the best when it comes to school. Yet he did learn 2 other languages. He speaks English, French and Japanese.

Jas and Jaci are very close and see each other as siblings more than cousins. Before Jaci became an exchange student he used to visit at least twice a year. They even learned Japanese because she did.

Miguel Jimenez my only selective mute OC who lives in Gravity Falls. Born in 1999 just before summer season, so May-ish I’d say. He’s the young nephew to local TV personality Shandra Jimenez. He lives not to far from a bestie of his with Shandra and his older sister, Andrea. He likes to spend the summer with the Pines Twins post-Stan’s-first-party-at-the-Shack. Miguel and Andrea lost their parents to a terrible accident when the young boy was even younger. That lead him to being mute, only talking if he feels comfortable around the person. (If you didn’t pick up on it Miguel is Hispanic.)

Facts about my quiet child:

He was gonna be gay but I believe just queer is more fitting for him. It’s a nice umbrella term for him and he feels most comfortable using it. He does date Dipper by the end of the show though, so draw up whatever conclusions you want.

Miguel “co-parents” Waddles with Mable, as he’s grew quite attached to the sweet pig.

Miguel’s first friends are Candy and Grenda. But he considers Dipper to be his best friend and talks to him for the first time right before the twins leave. They do nightly phone calls till they can see each other again.

Wendy and her group of friends (which includes Andrea) will sometimes let Miguel hangout with them, especially when Candy and Grenda are busy and can’t hangout with him themselves.

Jasmine “Jazz” Luna (Alt version of Jas) Uh...I’m gonna be real with y’all. Jazz is for the new-ish Cheritz game ‘The Ssum’ and I don’t have any plans playing it after the 200 days are over. Since I have no real way to say this game as a set date, other than the early 2020s, I’ll say she was born in 1999. (She’s just like Jas...don’t know what to tell you.)

Do I have facts for her??

Um....she dated Zen (not MysMes timeline) for a hot minute I guess.

She’s cousins with TWST!Jaci.

So far she’s not me but not her own person??? Does that make sense?

This is probably it for her. I’m planning on uninstalling The Ssum when I’ve finished the story for Teo. Won’t even bother looking at Harry’s. Way too many microtransactions.

Julien DeForest the fully French OC for Miraculous Ladybug. He’s got lesbian moms who run a popular flower shop. He has no contact with his dad beyond birthday gifts and congratulation phone calls, by mutual agreement as papa moved and has a budding career. 2001 is Julien’s year. He’s my gay little mural artist who’s got a FAT crush on Cat Noir. He does enjoy helping his moms in the shop though. He may or may not also end up crushing on Nathaniel, his BFF, and Adrien. Thomas Astruc can fight me in the back of a Denny’s for the adoption papers for his characters. I’d treat them better....also make more of them openly LGBT+. (Boy is just white.)

Fact about gay flower son:

If I wanted to give him a canon miraculous it would be the Bee. He’d place it on the back on his head right above his little ponytail, if I feel like drawing him with it. If he doesn’t get a miraculous he actually cuts his hair shorter.

Julien has been friends with Nathaniel for years, since they were 8ish. Julien used to do those stupid looking anime doodles on Nath’s notes when he was bored, which is how he got into The Arts~!!

My boy just loves jamming out to Clara Nightingale and Jagged Stone while working on his next mural....sometimes his music gets too loud and he gets paint on some poor soul who “sneaks” up on him.

One of Julien’s mom is a black woman named Odette. He loves her and how happy she’s made his birth mom. When he was little, about 6ish, he got to be the ring bearer in their wedding. It’s one of his favorite memories and stories.

Jaci Summerhill (Alt version of Obey Me!Jaci) but now he’s cisgender and hangs out with twink-ified (for the most part) D*sney Villains. Just like The Ssum I have no idea when Twisted Wonderland takes place so I’ll say the early 2020s. With my...sub-par math skills I’ve come to the conclusion that TWsT!Jaci was born in 2005. I’m not too far into the game at the moment so TWST!Jaci doesn’t have much to him. I do like the idea of him being a theater kid and he likes musicals in particular. (Again, he’s just like Obey Me!Jaci.)

Some facts I do have about boy:

His favorite musical is Chicago and he loves Billy Flynn’s songs the most. He’s also fond of Sweeney Todd and knows all the lyrics to all the songs.

Jaci actually doesn’t really like Grim and blames him for them almost losing Ramshackle when they were dealing with Azul. He does feel a little bad the little gremlin doesn’t have family.

He’s slowly learning all 800+ rules that Heartslabyul has to follow...mainly to get on Riddle’s good side because he thinks the dormleader is very pretty. Also cause his favorite dorm to hang out in is the Red Queen’s dorm.

Despite Jaci learning all of the Queen’s rules he finds Vil’s to be too much for him. Perhaps it’s because of the power Vil has. Good with potions and a huge fan base? Yeah, that’s intimidating.

Kan-D is my rollerblading and graffitiing teen for Jet Set Radio Future. I read somewhere from Google JSRF takes place in 2024. Since I want Kan-D to be around 16 he was born in 2008. The canon characters don’t have too much going on for them so neither does Kan-D TBH. (He’s fully Indigenous.)

Facts ‘bout skater boi:

He lives in Tokyo with his dad’s parents because he was causing problems and his parents were sick of him.

I’ve dubbed this boy as pansexual. He likes to tease Yoyo because he likes to see him all flustered. He’s also got a crush on Boogie and maybe had a thing with one of the Rapid 99 girls....though that’s “just a rumor”.

This skater teen loves grinding and is found in Sky Dinosaurian Square. The way he joins the GGs is actually a grinding challenge. Gotta do the same tricks he does, like Combo’s challenge.

Beat and Kan-D have a frenemies relationship. Kan-D just finds him annoying and a little egotistical.

Ishya Chee my first fully adult OC. MHA takes plays mid to late 2100s so I have no idea when she’d be born. I will say she’s 30. Ishya and her parents moved to Japan when she was just starting her last year of middle school. Her powers are plant based, she can grow plants from her limbs and her “hair” is thick vines. She’s in a relationship with FatGum and they want to get married, with the 1-A students as guests because those are her kids now...sans Mineta. (Ms. Chee is afro-indigenous, she’s got a black mom and American indigenous dad.)

Facts about plant mom:

I said the 1-A (-Mineta) kids are her children...I’m not really lying. She cares for them obviously but Bakugo is the one kids she definitely sees as hers. Seeing how his mom treats him (WHO SMACKS THEIR KID INFRONT OF HIS TEACHERS ONE WHO WAS THE NUMBER ONE HERO!!???) leads her to being protective of him when talking about the class.

Inshya is a class assistant?? Like in the MHA where she is a real character the first year classes get a little like...teacher assistant. They help pass out papers, grade assignments and act as a bit of a counselor for the students, especially the heroes-in-training. She got that job though Aizawa after a heroing accident.

Her reaction when Bakugo was kidnapped was heart wrenching. After all the students were taken care of she just clung onto Aizawa and sobbed. In the UA apology she’s in standing behind the others, with the other TA, and she’s clearly tired and not paying attention.

Ishya’s always wanted kids but the heroing accident left her unable to. That’s why Aizawa got her the UA job. She gets to help budding heroes grow up and act as a sort of parental figure for them if need be.

Jazz is my ACsona so no real age other than young adult. Currently he is a mostly masculine pronoun using genderfluid 20-something year old. The pronouns he uses are he/they/it. Their backstory differs depending on the AC game. I play New Leaf (I need a 3ds charger) and Pocket Camp but I desperately want New Horizons. (He’s American Indigenous and Hispanic.)

Small facts about the sona:

He likes wearing feminine clothes with a predominantly soft pastel color pallet. Things like skirts in a mid to light neutral color with a pastel colored top. Typically paired with cute accessories and mary janes.

He’s very close with Apollo, Julien and Cherry. I like to imagine Julien and Cherry take turns in playing dress up with him. Apollo gets the after pics for final say though.

Please gift this sweet child flowers. He loves them so much and cherishes them for so long and gets sad when they wilt. He’ll save and press a flower from each bouquet he’s received.

Bubblegum KK is his favorite. Do I need to say it? Probably not. Is it cliché and over done? Definitely. Do I care? Pft. Fuck no, man. Just let my little guy bop along amongst the flowers with the homies as they sing Bubblegum KK.

~~~~~~Feel free to ask about any of them or just judge me.~~~~~~

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josiebelladonna · 11 months

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remember kids: if someone says they “support all women, especially the unborn”, they are probably so flagrant with antisemitism and racism, and a r a p e apologist to boot that they probably don’t even realize it and we probably should start writing feminism’s obituary while we’re at it. they’re probably blatantly misandrist, too.

“men only support abortion because it proves that they’re deadbeat dads”. so, you believe that men force abortions on women, which is not only a completely alien concept to me because in my experience it’s the other way around (growing up around christians who thought that abortion was morally wrong; if a woman got pregnant, that was it, she has to carry it out and raise the child once it’s born no matter what the circumstances; i.e., i’ve always seen the pro-life side as far more controlling, so the whole “men forcing abortions on women” is science fiction to me), but also tells me that rather than being smart with your choices from who you choose to sleep with to what you do the day after to being responsible over your own fucking body, you instead blame the men and wish to make everybody else suffer because of your own hang-up against the male gender? you bitch.

you know how feminists had the reputation of being man-haters for decades and it wasn’t until about ten years ago when we started seeing a pushback against it, but it’s now rather pointless and back to square one now that i write this out and see how men are often trashed while women are built up? this is why.

“i survived a botched abortion”. i think this was the sentiment that made me realize that she was absolutely full of it and it really made me question her legitimacy, too. her mother had an illegal abortion when she was pregnant with her, either out of shame or guilt or fear or what have you, but kristin never expanded on it, though… at least that’s what i think the story is. again, she never expanded on it. when you ask her about it, she gives this convoluted statement that is really hard to follow unless you know both sides of the argument down to a t; nobody like me who admittedly only had a basic understanding of this until pretty recently (i just never saw the point of this argument: if someone wants an abortion, that should be okay, why is this a problem?) was going to get out from under it. total sensationalism on her end, and she doesn’t seem to realize this, either.

the whole “support all women” thing will never not make me laugh, either, because she’s one of those “everything after the year 2000 sucks” people (read: classic rock supremacy, that is officially a joke now), without really realizing that her precious classic rock and grunge were considered pop music at their time. plus, what genres of music have more women (or people of color for that matter) in them than pop? maybe jazz or the blues or country or hip hop. rock n roll, as much as i love it, is predominantly white and male: what women there are should be cherished. i’ll admit, i used to be like that, too, but then i started exploring more popular stuff just out of curiosity and then i realized this whole supremacy thing, “rockism” as it’s known, is complete nonsense. most rock n roll guys are into popular stuff, too (like alex’s love of hip hop, or a guy like eric being into ariana grande of all people, or dave grohl liking taylor swift), and most pop musicians and rappers ironically tend to be into rock n roll, so it comes off as totally pretentious.

in fact, i think that’s a word i used on her some time ago, “pretentious.” assuming that i know what you’re talking about and just blindly buying into it, but i have this nagging feeling that something about this just isn’t right. it feels “off”. there’s something about all of this that doesn’t sit well with me, and i feel helpless to say something because i don’t feel smart enough.

and then… the jews. i forget where or when i saw it, but all i know is when roe was overturned, i started seeing things how it violates jewish law. yes, separate church from state, but you should also respect other people’s religion and their right to practice it. she advocates something that infringes upon the right of jewish women to do as they please. plus, i started thinking, “you know i’ve never seen her say ‘happy Hanukkah’ or l’shanah tova or anything like that. i have never seen a single jewish person on her profile. i have never seen her with a black person before (i caught her using ebonics—that’s just one time, too, it makes me morbidly curious as to how many other times it’s happened).” the whole “support all women” thing becomes not only hollow but incredibly confusing, especially for someone like me, your basic bitch pro-choice advocate. (it becomes even more confusing once you realize that she actually wants courtney love, A WOMAN, dead. i wish i was making that up.)

the other night, before all of this happened, she was going on about the election how we’re having to choose predator #1 or predator #2, and how someone in their early twenties was groomed by one of them… something like that, i don’t remember the whole thing and i frankly don’t care, either. first off, you’re a legal adult when you’re in your early twenties (and i was literally laughing when i wrote that, too). second, in a perfect world, we’d have candidates who are actually good and clean people. but that’s not the world we live in, though: they’re all garbage, they’re all horrible people (it’s why i vote independent). but would you rather have the ones who have us in mind or the ones who pull dumb shit like banning drag shows? third, it’s so rich coming out of her because she is a r a p e apologist, there’s no way around that. she’s posted stories from people who “regret their abortions” and you actually read the whole thing and find the person was 11 years old when they had it done, failing to realize that that was a literal child. 11 year olds go outside and play, they watch cartoons and play with dolls; they shouldn’t have to worry about becoming pregnant and going through the traumatic experience of it and having their lives threatened all the while, and going in for a single scraping will save them. which tells me she’s okay with literal children having children of their own. in fact, because of that, i started wondering if she’s a closet p e d o for that reason. saying that r a p e is not okay but also saying that literal young girls should not have a procedure that can genuinely save their life because “it could kill the young girl inside”… yeah, that does not sit well with me.

like i said, it… gets so fucking disturbing once you read between the lines and start putting the pieces together. she tries to soften the blow by saying shit like “but life is complex!” yeah, don’t piss on my leg and tell me it’s raining, kristin. you live in a fantasy world. you live in a fantasy world and you complain about shit that either isn’t an issue, is an issue but your approach is utterly baffling, or you phrase it in such a way that the implications surrounding you are abhorrent and i can’t help but wonder if you’re harboring some dark secrets and you come across as an absolute bitch in the process. what’s worse is she doesn’t realize it. i mean, the fact she’s never apologized or shown any nugget of humility is telling to me. she’ll also say bullshit like “yeah, i know” in the snottiest way possible. well, if you know, then why aren’t you doing anything, miss 3 feminist 5 u? you know, i’m so sick of this “armchair activism” as it’s known: after seeing too many people being shot in the last several years, i’ve started to take strongly worded tweets and blog posts as nothing more than airy noise that does fuck-all to get a point across. in the election post from the other night, i pointed out how 2023 isn’t even halfway done yet and yet here she is out here rambling about it in the vein of those fuckign ron desantis commercials I’ve been seeing lately. 2016 was awful: i remember that election cycle, it was hyped to the moon. and it literally began in 2015. which tells me this next one is going to be even worse.

here’s something interesting: when i was 10th grade, believe it or not, i picked up this trait about dictatorships of all things, in that the further they go onto a certain wing of the political spectrum, they end looping around to the other side. you get so conservative and strict in your rules and laws, that you wind up making sweeping changes and destroying everything in the process. conversely, you get so liberal in everything that you wind up being incredibly strict and hateful and everything around you goes sideways. i realize it’s not just politics, either: you see it at the granular level. i.e., someone this staunch in her positions cannot have her head screwed on right.

this woman is far too liberal for her own good. she’s so feminist that she winds up being a literal misandrist. her brand is feminism is pure white, to the point i couldn’t tell you if she has any minorities on her page (oh, she’s also a bully to christians, many of whom didn’t even come up to her and tell her she’s going to hell for being a flaming atheist, they’re usually just regular people). she’s so pro-science and yet she ignores all the science surrounding female biology. she’s also one of those royally annoying vegans who tries to convince you that it’s the gospel, but… I’m not even touching that one. she claims to be pro-lgbtq+, saying that lgbtq+ rights “start at conception”—another disturbing implication that you know your sexuality when you’re a bundle of cells the size of a dime—but i’m literally pansexual (and a crossdresser!) and she has patronized me far more than supported me. if you speak out against her, she humiliates you and rallies people up so they can verbally attack you, while she plays up this victim complex in that she’s this delicate girl, a fragile helpless little flower, even though she’s a year older than me and i would touch billie eilish before i touched her, and i wouldn’t touch billie with a 10-feet pole covered in grease.

i’ve said it to her before, it’s going to look even weirder the more time goes on; it already looks really bad just from her frivolousness, her ego, and the fact that she does not ask questions about her own beliefs: i have, many times, and i’m still questioning. i can only hope that she wakes up one day and realizes just how much she advocates is actually either unethical or illegal, and just how shitty of a person she’s been on top of it.

#pro-life feminism is a joke #kristinnirvana #avoid her at all costs #text #hope you can understand my ramblings here

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shawnjacksonsbs · 16 days

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"Far be it from me, and forgive me for asking, and I don't mean to pry, but would you consider yourself a happy person?" 4-13-24

"How many of us, I wonder, can recall a childhood moment when we experienced happiness as a state of being? That single moment of untarnished joy. That moment when everything in our world, inside and out, was all right. Everything was all right. But, now, we've become a colony of adults and everything is all wrong, all the time. It's as if we're on a quest to get it back and yet the more we focus on our own personal happiness, the more it eludes us. In fact, it's only when we are otherwise engaged, you know, focused, absorbed, inspired, communicating, discovering, learning, dancing, for heaven's sake, that we experience happiness as a by-product, a side-effect. Oh no. We should concern ourselves not so much with the pursuit of happiness, but, with the happiness of pursuit." - Professor Coreman from Hector and the Search for Happiness

I watched.

I watched Hector expecting, eh. . .

but he ended up finding his silver (-ish).

I learned, what most probably already know, most of us don't have the money or the means to go all- eat, pray, love in the search for happiness.

We have to try and find it here, in our . . .stuckness, which is inherently part of the problem in itself.

A little traveling and moving can work wonders on those of us who needed a journey of discovery to find our truth.

I am one of the fortunate ones in that respect. I think I'm somewhere between the poor inner urban kid/poor white trash kid from the country - and that eat, pray, love shit. Lol no lol

~some notes, not edited:

Writing all the time letting you all know how I found it.

May not even work for some of you.

Do you even know what makes you happy?

And are you a happy person?

~more, unedited:

Happiness, just like the rest of my emotional states are . . .varying and in bouts, with peace and joy at the pulpit.

~even more:

Happiness as a state of being probably hasn't existed inside of me since before the fear of knowing "life's not forever" really took hold of me.

Early childhood, probably. It's been bouts ever since.

What is happiness?

Are you happy?

Ask me as a question looking back on a limited amount of my time, and my answer will be yes . . .now.

That wasn't always so.

In the now, it may or may not be, but inevitably, it's always on a rising curve, for grading purposes. At least it has been for about the last 10 years or so. Lol no lol

Ever changing, ever learning, ever growing, and of course, ever grateful.

Almost, always, like as almost to always as you can get without being actual always, I am at peace.

It feels so . . .always most of the time.

Its close enough to constant for me to say, always.

~end of notes.

Hector and the Search for Happiness did play me. I shouldn't have prejudged. I hoped it would be good and it surpassed that. I really liked it.

Instead of one final quote at the end, I'm going to share Hector's list from his journey. If you get a chance go watch the movie. Let me know whatcha think.

Remember to share your love and your laughter with all the rest of us.

And please be kind as always as possible. Civility is only the back up plan. Lol

Until next time;

"1. Making comparisons can spoil your happiness.

2. A lot of people think happiness means being richer or more important.

3. Many people only see happiness in their future.

4. Happiness could be the freedom to love more than one woman at the same time.

5. Sometimes happiness is not knowing the whole story.

6. Avoiding unhappiness is not the road to happiness.

7. Does this person bring you predominantly a. up b. down?

8. Happiness is answering your calling.

9. Happiness is being loved for who you are.

10. Sweet Potato Stew!

11. Fear is an impediment to happiness.

12. Happiness is feeling completely alive.

13. Happiness is knowing how to celebrate.

14. Listening is loving.

15. Nostalgia is not what it used to be." - Hector

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vvpamedia · 1 month

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Taco Tuesday

I can still remember the first time I ever had tacos. I was 14 and our family had just moved from a predominantly white community - where my school had gotten its first student of color ever the previous year – to a more diverse one that fostered the birth of the first Del Taco fast food restaurant in the United States. Our church youth group was planning a beginning of the year activity, and the leader of the young women’s auxiliary told my parents that my sister and I would each need to bring a dozen tacos to the activity. She told our mother that it was Tuesday so the tacos would be discounted at the local Del Taco restaurant. Our mother didn’t quite know what to do with that information, but she dutifully complied. We followed the directions we were given to the Del Taco on First Street, and my sister and I stood in the very long line to get our dozen tacos. I think that our mother was just grateful that this youth mixer was being sponsored by the young women’s group and not the young men or she might have had to supply 3 dozen tacos – another dozen as my younger brother’s contribution. With a family of seven children to feed, having just spent quite a bit of money to move to a new town, it would have been an even greater challenge.

In our new home in California there was a rather large population of Latino immigrants from, for the most part, Mexico. These immigrants moved to the U.S. to work for the railroad. According to reports on immigration to California, “Between 1960 and 1995, the number of immigrants living in the state increased from 1.3 million to eight million, and tripled as a percentage of the state’s population, from 8.2 percent to 24.1 percent.” 1.

During that era, a lot of Mexican immigrants also chose to work on the California farms where most of the produce in the United States is grown. “Over a third of the country's vegetables and nearly three-quarters of the country's fruits and nuts are grown in California.” 2.

I remember listening to a television news report about the political debate this raised sometime during this period in which a Latino California State Assemblyman quoted the statistics about the growing Latino population and predicted that his community would “take back California.” By 1994, when California’s proposition 187 was passed, which was also known as the “Save Our State referendum", “ militant Mexican- American groups [embraced the challenge] and vowed [publicly] to take back California” 3.

My grandparents lived in a farming community in the central valley of California where our family also lived when I was younger. The changes in the membership of our little branch of our church illustrate graphically this change in dynamic in California. In the 1950’s and 1960’s, the population of this town was largely non-Latino. And the membership of the branch of our church was mostly white. But as the Latino farm workers, Mexican American and others, began to dominate the work force on farms in California, the number of Latino members of our branch increased proportionately. My grandparents stopped going to church because every other week the lessons were in Spanish not English. And, she complained, when the lessons were in English, someone would translate for the Spanish speaking members. But, when the lessons were in Spanish, they did not reciprocate by translating the lessons into English. It was difficult for her to attend church when she didn’t understand a word. My aunt and uncle who also lived there moved away for much the same reason. My aunt said it was hard to attend a church where English wasn’t spoken any more.

Because of my family’s experience, you can imagine, I was not too surprised when, in a regional meeting of our church, our visiting church authority shared some statistics about the future of California and The Church. He began by saying that we should not leave California. It has a great legacy, and we should stay to be a part of it. But we could expect that not too long in the distant future, instead of translating the meeting into Spanish for the Spanish speaking members as was being done on that day; the meeting would be held in Spanish and the translations would be into English for the non-Spanish speaking members.

He also shared that The Church is growing in Africa like it was in the 1980’s and 1990’s in Central and South America. Right now, more members of the church live South of the Border in Mexico, Central and South America than anywhere else. And Spanish is the predominant language spoken by members in the world. But, the predictions are, that will change. That, by 2040, French will be the predominant language of the members of the church – the language spoken by many of the nations in Africa where the church is growing.

I don’t know if I think that his predictions will actually stand. There is still a great deal of work to be done in mainland China. And maybe, ultimately, the church will have growth in Asia that will surpass these two milestones.

What I do know is that I am getting too old to learn Spanish, French or Chinese. I am lucky that I can manage English. At my age though, maybe I won’t have to. Besides my husband sometimes talks about leaving California to escape.

****************************************************************

(Steven A. Camarota, “The Impact of Immigration on California: Summary and Analysis of Immigration in a Changing Economy,” Immigration Review, no. 32 (July 1998): 1-6, accessed March 4, 2014, http://cis.org/ImmigrationReview32-ImmigrationinCalifornia.)

(https://www.cdfa.ca.gov/Statistics/)

(Time Magazine, THE ELECTION: Making and Breaking Law: California's sweeping ballot initiative against illegal immigrants wins big before landing in court By Margot Hornblower/Lamont Monday, Nov. 21, 1994; https://content.time.com/time/subscriber/article/0,33009,981841-3,00.html)

#Taco Tuesday #Del Taco

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rennyji · 2 months

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America, lets go to new heights...

On Super Tuesday 2024, Trump won. With Nikki Haley, I saw an America like the 1979 Spider-woman series On Disney+ i.e. people being part of the process or workings of American government. In the clip in the Twitter link (video uploaded to that site/as unable on Tumblr), Jessica Drew(Spider-woman & a reporter), her co-reporter, and her young nephew, are invited to go see a secret government base, to see the progress that the government is making with time travel. ( I know. Very Sci-Fi, but still...) Imagine if a regular American felt part of the workings of government. Wouldn't that make people feel valued/involved, and give them a sense of pride and accomplishment, through the achievements of their country's best and brightest representatives/scientists?

This is the link ( Tumblr has issue with embedding videos in posts, so I'm including this link with the clip I'm referring to. Because, again, its Tumblr, you might need to copy/paste link to your browser, if in case you can't just click it)

https://x.com/RennyJi/status/1765245684159017260?s=20

I posted the previous thought on Twitter because I really wish America would be transparent & inclusive of citizens, in decisions/progress, like with the inclusion of a teenager and two reporters, in the 1979 Spider-Woman cartoon.

I feel at the time of The Brady Bunch, like in the 60's and 70's, people felt pride in America, from a sense of belonging, in the workings of the country. Since then, the country's government and citizens, seems to be lanes apart/estranged.

But Nikki Haley lost the GOP primaries. She gave her speech, stating she's ending her campaign. I cannot imagine the grief, in losing over something she firmly believed could be achieved. I say "believe firmly" because she was out/about daily/all day. But while Trump spent most of his time in court cases, though Nikki Haley did campaign, regrettably, the message was predominantly: "ending chaos, Trump is chaos, let's return to normalcy." More of the feeling "was female empowerment" (which is great), but the feeling with Trump is "we're going to come back with a vengeance", which is incorrectly summed up, under the words "dictator & retribution." What Donald Trump means by "vengeance" is in terms of the ferocity in which he will assure success, in bringing back America, to some form of glory.

In my weird, surreal "SITUATION," during times, where fortunate people evolved with normal evolution of accomplishments, from news channels to White House Positions, like Nikki Haley herself,

I had a suspicion, my writing or my speech, in my house was heard.

I felt if I talked aloud in the dining room of my old house, people would "hear" my ideas, in the same way I'm now thinking, people are "reading" my ideas, as I'm writing, probably to myself.

In 2016, to an invisible crowd, I said Trump is the best option. I said aloud in my dining room, if he can find the best quality material, the best workers, the best lawyers (quality all around), he'll find the best way to Make America Great Again. And now, against all odds, facing-I think-91 criminal charges, Donald Trump wins the Republican nomination. One thing is for sure: Trump is a fighter and fighters do come back with a spirit of vengeance.

It's always through trial/error, with crazy things like talking to myself in my own house, that I find a cause/effect relation, between things like what's said/what could be heard.

When it comes to Trump and Biden, what pissed me off, personally, was that the most powerful men in the country, couldn't end my situation. Is it because it has some root with government/military?! I mean mind mind reading? Takes intelligence gathering to whole new levels.

-And doing it to me for around 16 years, while making me think I'm crazy.

Overturning Roe v. Wade, regarding Abortion, doesn't affect my life. Removing green jobs for coal jobs, doesn't affect me.

The Presidents help American prisoners in Russia. They help Israel. From Obama, to Trump, to Biden...I just don't get why no one helps me.

In Nikki Haley, I saw compassion/heart/spirit. Selfish though it is, after 16 years of confinement, with no life, no social contact, I thought maybe she could make a difference "for me."

Isn't what makes America great, the idea that even one American life is valuable?! Why don't I matter? I was born and raised in New York. Renny George is my actual name...what's the issue?!

Trump just came off as a guy who'll side with the powerful, big handed/tall/strong military men, probably doing "this" to "me."

But my issues aside,

at the stage we're in now, where its between Trump and Biden,

The choice is so obvious. You have to elect Trump. Only Trump makes sense.

Why?!

When people say: respect the flag, honor the military, it's a level of indoctrination. People need to be taught these things. But Donald Trump? People naturally gravitate towards him. His message doesn't get into specifics, but his inner fire is felt by America. He wants to come back with a vengeance.-Revenge for all the catastrophe and disruption in The States, though people read into it as something to spite other human beings.

On his aspiration on being a dictator "just day 1/the 1st day"? You can't misconstrue that or distort that. He didn't say "I'm going to be a dictator." What he means is "on day 1, I'm going to get to work, and, with utmost urgency, enact change, regardless of how lazy Congress is."

Donald Trump, Nikki Haley, Joe Biden, all agree: country is on fire. I think during critical times, the Office of the Presidency has inherent elevated privileges.

I would always say, in my SITUATION, that I achieve the fruits of optimism, by taking the route of pessimism. I assume the worst, so nothing surprises me, which gives peace.

Likewise, perhaps the next President needs to be strong & decisive, like a dictator, to achieve the "fruits" of democracy, rather than harping on the "word": democracy. This is already happening, first, before America, in El Salvador. A dictator took charge in chaotic El Salvador, by name of Nayib Bukeles. He stopped crime by enforcing strict changes quickly, without remorse. And now his country's citizens are enjoying what's like democracy, or the fruits of democracy.

With all those gravitating to Trump, there is growing unity within the country. Maybe in this one small way, it's not bad that people don't care on what/how it's going to be done. People just want a guy who "gets the job "DONE." People want a guy that "JUST DOES IT." They're too preoccupied with their lives, and basically want to hire someone else, to clear their grievances/problems.

What could unity within a country do? What could minding our own business for a period accomplish, by not getting involved internationally? What could getting our own house in order do for our capability towards helping other nations, down the road? Green energy/jobs is the way to go. But in these urgent times, what if we did use gas, and drill in Alaska? But "simultaneously," it is imperative that you "actively" find renewable energy sources. Our lives may not depend on it, but the lives of our children and grandchildren will. We owe it to them, like a parent who sets up a house/education for their child's future. Today's America, needs to pave the way for tomorrow's citizens and green card holders.

While taking the time to get our house in order through Donald Trump, we need to follow Kevin McCarthy's advice about rebuild, restore, renew. But also definitely "retribution" in the sense of the fire that fuels us, in the sense of getting revenge against "THE TIMES" we're in, and rising from it.

Our houses need to stop using cheap materials like sheet rock, when the British use bricks. Heating costs/air conditioning costs need to come down. If electric cars are the way to go, we need rebates or vouchers or exchange programs that are government funded with for our current cars. (Like in Back to the Future II, where everyone gets a free Car HOVER conversion, in the spirit of modernization). We need an exchange program for dryers/washing machines. We need to better the United States Postal Service, as everyone knows they're unreliable and slow. We need to modernize infrastructure, in terms of homes, workplaces, and government buildings/attractions.

To Trump's credit, his speech on Super Tuesday was humble, good spirited, and...civil?-I felt in that moment, that I could talk to the guy, unlike the retard doctors, police, family, and orchestrators of my situation, who just spew nonsensical & random/mechanical one liners, in response/and oblivious to everything you tell them.)

Trump even did a little dance and made a couple of jokes.

There was one snide remark on COVID being the China virus. It risks retaliation against East Asians. Maybe it is a virus like SARs, rooted in China, if I remember correctly. Regardless, spend less time criticizing/pointing fingers, "just settle down and "solve the problem" ", as they say in the space program and movies about the space program. From solving one problem, jump to solving the next problem.

Yes, both Biden and Trump are old. But it's one of those quality vs quantity type of things. In terms of quantity, yes, both are similar in age. But quality? Trump's old age is a sign of an energetic, focused, willful, frontal cortex in his brain. Biden fumbles and stammers and looks like he's forced into pushing through, for another four years. He should Rest and relax and Gain satisfaction from time as Senator, Vice President, and now President. Biden? You've done it all. You're in your 80's-Play with your grandchildren.

Something that can be learned from Trump, these is a time to move/think fast/strategize vs. going about saying "feel good" speeches, shaking hands, holding babies. He didn't campaign. He put people in powerful positions, lawyers here/there, went to the right meetings/places; strategy. Maybe the times are urgent enough, to just acting quickly and strategically.

In the Bible, there is the story of the Tower of Babel.

The story has some conflicting messages. But one things certain: when people come together, speak 1 language, talk/listen/understand each other, work together, they can use building technologies from 2-3000 years ago, to build a tower, reaching the heavens/maybe even space.

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To step away from Trump for a moment:

(SIDENOTE: Why the tower was destroyed, and people scattered, and one language split into many? It would've hindered spiritual growth by having too much too early. People need to learn the value of working together and the value of learning from differences. Like the mind readers/mind controllers w/the fMRI's and brain mapping, people were trying to be a god, without mastering human decency and mental strength. We'd have been like stereotypical Reptilian aliens, who act on instinct and impulse, constantly seeking physical strength/power, instead of growing heart and having a conscience.)

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To get back to Trump:

Congress is divided. Everyone's trying to get their way by having side issues put into a package, advertising the dominant issue. Because of the side issues raising controversy, the dominant issue even gets cancelled/ignored. Under Trump alone, the Republican Party is united. Instead of stop gaps with pay and vacations, Congress might actually get something done under Trump's guidance. He can unite the country, and help us reach the sky, so that we'll at least be among the stars.

There are instances where I find myself just thinking and thinking. When I was in school and in a circle of endless pondering, a stimulant like coffee, gave me focus/tunnel vision of sorts, to break out of the loop and ACT not think. Trump seems to have mastered the art of ACTION, and if it's between him and Biden, electing Trump is obvious. We already have Biden's report card. There are areas he failed. Let's give Trump a chance to get an "A" in politics.

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