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hsu-liangyu · 3 years

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“Orientalia”: White Fascination and Nostalgia for China and the Orient

4/11/2021

Denver, CO

CW: Racism, anti-Asian and anti-Chinese sentiment, violence/sexual assault

Preface:

Today was certainly a day. I’ve been on a cross country trek, which I’ve come to call “The Great Journey East”, where I’m driving from my home in the Seattle area to Portland, Maine to ply my usual trade, working aboard some traditionally rigged sailing vessels that operate from the Maine State Pier. I’ve most recently arrived in Denver, CO, after a tumultuous night of camping in un-ideal circumstances on the shores of Great Salt Lake in Utah. I decided to treat myself to a middling hotel downtown to try to affect an aura of urban tranquility before I head out for Wichita in the morning, and then on to see my mother’s family in Oklahoma. The drive thus far has been marked by astounding natural beauty, kind people, and a long series of audio books that I’ve only just begun to make a dent in. I began this journey listening to “Tribe” by Sebastian Junger, which I found to be extremely interesting and helped some of my own understanding of how society today does not serve the community, and how we may one day return to a society where the people come first, as opposed to the individual. After finishing Mr Junger’s audiobook, I turned my ears to a tome that I have put off reading for a long time: “The Chinese in America: A Narrative History” by Iris Chang.

Listening to this audiobook over the last few days, which begins in Qing dynasty China and ends in the modern day, I can say a great many things. I can say that I deeply feel the experiences that were collected by the author and compiled into this book, not only on an intellectual and emotional level, but on a spiritual level. I can say that, despite years of my own research into my familial experiences and the experiences of contemporary Chinese Americans, my level of knowledge was severely lacking, even though I considered myself to be a relatively robust lay-scholar on the topic. I can say that the experience of we Chinese Americans, foreign and natural born, has changed very little in our time here. While circumstances change from person to person, family to family, and era to era, we are all bound together in trends that have haunted our communities, not unlike the tigers that have stalked southeast Asia for time immemorial, striking out when least expected.

All of that, however, is a surface level understanding. Those realities are the first few layers of a complicated and long history of horrific, violent, brutal, and inhuman oppression in the United States.

I began this audiobook believing that I knew most of what I needed, enough to enlighten the odd person in online discourse, or conversation over dinner. Enough to tell-off the casual bigot that accused me and other Chinese people of overblowing our racial, social, and economic anxieties while making them look a fool. I realized very quickly that while I was not wrong in my knowledge, my staunchly anti-racist rhetoric, or my suspicious attitudes towards the US government and law enforcement, I was missing so much of the story. I was not missing the statistics or the legislative history: I was missing word-to-paper stories of my ancestors -- our ancestors -- and the cold, hard, and hellacious reality that they faced when they got here. These realities may have differed from generation to generation (the Chinese washer-man and washer-woman, miner, and restaurateur of the 19th century was faced with markedly different circumstances from the Chinese who fled WWII, the PRC, or settled in other areas of the world during the diaspora), but they are cold and hard, none-the-less.

I have cried more in the last three days than I think I have in the last three years. My heart hurts for our ancestors, our elders, our parents, our siblings, our uncles, our aunties, and our future children as we exist in a country that has committed nearly every atrocity it could think of to rid us from their stolen land.

This was the state of being I’ve come to Denver with. Finally in the privacy of a hotel room, I showered and talked with my partner. She found a book today, written by the child of white missionaries who fled China just before WWII, that was a compilation of “Oriental” inspired needle-work patterns. She shared the preface of this book with me, which I found to be incredibly alarming, and has prompted me to write on the subject of “Orientalism”, the exotic, and how the experience of white Europeans and Americans in China was vastly different from the Chinese people. Out of respect for the author and their work, which I believe was written as an honest tribute to Chinese culture and its influence on them, I am choosing to omit the author’s name and the title of the book in question. While some may see this as underhanded, I am choosing to do so because I do not wish to wage a war of rhetoric with an author who I have very little personal knowledge of, because I believe it is unethical of me to do so.

However, I will be addressing some problematic concepts that are present in the preface of this book, as they are worth speaking about as we attempt to further society’s collective understanding of differential experiences between people and people groups.

Thank you for reading on, as well as for reading my preface. The following issues are things that I have struggled with for a long time, and I hope that my words bring you additional perspective on Chinese American issues.

“The Orient, the Oriental, and Orientalia: A Curious Lens of Exoticism Riddled with Racism”

Today, I saw a word that I had not seen in a very, very long time.

As most any Asian person will tell you, the words “orient” and “oriental” are generally unwelcome descriptors of Asian people and culture. These two descriptors are applied to clothing, architecture, pottery, art, furniture, cookware -- the list keeps going. I often joke to those who use these words, “what am I, a rug to you?”, which normally drives the point home in a friendly way They are both hangers-on from an era that we’d best leave in the past. An era where the Occident and the Orient were opposites of one another, incompatible, and fundamentally in conflict. The two terms saw relatively common usage in the 19th century, and many Euro-Americans considered “the orient” to be interchangeable with “the far east” while the occident was a catch-all word for Euro-American civilizations ranging from western Europe to the New World. It could be said that the Occident and the Orient began as harmless descriptor words that only communicated a vague notion of differences between cultures, they were rapidly weaponized as anti-Asian, especially anti-Chinese, sentiments began to flare in the western world. Imperial Germany used the two terms to great affect, framing the differences between the Occident and the Orient to be far more than cultural and societal. It was a matter of life and death.

The Occident was the pinnacle of industrialized civilization. It was moral and upright, beholden to the Christian god, supported by the titans of industry, government, and cutting-edge military technology. The Orient was backwards, overrun with dirty Chinese heathens who constantly lied, cheated, and stole from the superior whites. The Chinese were looking to enslave white women, turning them into sex slaves or take them as wives so that they could propagate a wretched half-breed race that would overrun the world and mark the end of all Occidental civilization.

This rhetoric was incredibly powerful, and one only needs to look at early anti-Chinese political cartoons and articles to see these words used in incredibly derogatory ways. The other side of the Orient/Oriental dichotomy was steeped in foreign luxury and exoticism, which served to peak the interest of wealthy whites that bought up all kinds of Asian furniture, clothing, fabrics, cookware, and art from unscrupulous dealers and certifiable importers alike. Affluent white women of the 19th century are well-documented as being deeply invested in luxurious goods imported from “the Orient” and marketed as “Oriental” or “Orientalia” to garner societal notoriety, whereas their fathers, husbands, brothers, and sons would have dressing gowns, cravats, and handkerchiefs created out of fine imported silk. All of these goods were considered exotic and other-worldly, which is not a debased outlook for the time, considering that so few westerners had actually managed to travel in the vicinity of China, let alone disembark in one of the few official trading ports open to European traders. This fascination with all things Chinese, entirely divorced from the reality that many Europeans and Americans viewed the Chinese as grave existential threats to white civilization, is not without irony.

While Chinese peasants and workers died in droves from starvation, disease, localized conflict, or at the hands of white Europeans and Americans acting with impunity in a country that was barred from holding them legally accountable for their actions, cargo hold upon cargo hold of Chinese goods were exported for consumption by westerners. These westerners had military and diplomatic presence in China, especially in the mid to late 19th century, often seizing prime real estate in Chinese port cities for international settlements where it was the westerners, not the Chinese, in charge. These ostentatious settlements, coupled with missions run by Christian organizations from all over the western world, exercised great influence with local Qing dynasty officials, and western nationals all throughout the southern coast of China were free to use and abuse the Chinese around them as they please. These prosperous settlements, a highly visible and permanent show of colonization and foreign aggression, were made so by the labor of Chinese workers and peasants. The same workers who were forced into horrific working conditions in and around the settlements while western nationals were free to treat them as they please with no repercussions, ever for outright murder. Any fascination with the Chinese lifestyle, manner of dress, and other items that could be quickly imported to the west as exotic tokens of the Orient was inherently divorced from the horrific reality of daily life within China, and was nearly always a fascination that arose from social tiers that could afford to be ignorant of those realities while directly benefiting from them.

“Orientalia and the Noble Savage”

The westerners’ fascination with all things Orientalia outlines another phenomenon present in the west’s view of China in the 19th and 20th centuries, an phenomenon that Americans are familiar with as it is applied to Indigenous peoples in North America: the Noble Savage.

The Noble Savage idea and stereotype found quick traction with American colonists as they fought to drive out Indigenous peoples from their ancestral lands all over North America. These Indigenous groups, savage as they were perceived to be, were often regarded as principled and noble in their way of life, whether that was seen in their treatment of the lands, natural resources, their art and craftwork, their societal structure, or in how they treated white settlers when they were taken prisoner. While all of this talk of nobility betrayed the slimmest undercurrents of admiration from white settlers towards Indigenous peoples, the second word of the phrase was integral to its application: Savage. Despite these noble ideas and practices, a savage is a savage is a savage. This two-faced admiration served only one purpose -- to communicate the slightest inkling of fake remorse in widespread acts of genocide against people that white settlers hated and chose not to understand.

For the Chinese and Chinese Americans, the idea of the noble savage is easily translated. While Indigenous peoples in North America had a comparatively low level of technology to Americans, the same could not be said of the Chinese. Despite lacking robust gunpowder arms and other advanced forms of military technology, the technological prowess of the Chinese people was without doubt. Massive cities, sprawling agriculture, advanced irrigation, roads, palaces, and so much more was plainly evident to any westerner who arrived on Chinese shores (the same can be said of Indigenous populations throughout the Americas despite the prevailing myth of "primordial wilderness" perpetuated by white settlers) . Despite the different perspectives that westerns had between the two groups, westerners applied the Noble Savage ideal to the Chinese just as quickly and easily as they did to the Indigenous peoples across the oceans.

While the Chinese were obviously proficient in architecture, engineering, and in art, many westerners were quick to follow up any admiration of their eastern counterparts with staunch, racial criticism, highlighting their savagery in their daily lives such as gambling, long fingernails, or their seemingly archaic dress. Much of the criticism leveled on the basis of savagery had to deal with the assumption that Chinese men would, without hesitation, steal from white men and kill them, while selling white women into slavery. And while this was based in very loose reality (the triad societies of Canton did, indeed, participate in the sex trafficking of Chinese women to California and the Coolie trade that sent enslaved Chinese men to work on plantations in South America), the fears were stoked by ferocious anti-Chinese rhetoric in Europe and America.

The Chinese who emigrated to America were seen no different, and while public opinion waxed and waned, it was always understood that the Chinaman was a noble savage at best, and the earthly embodiment of evil at his worst. While modern Chinese and Chinese Americans may not be subject to the Noble Savage ideas from two centuries ago, it is not uncommon for Americans, especially white American youths, to take this idea as gospel, tormenting their Asian classmates throughout their formative years.

“China’s Sorrow: Nostalgia for a China that did not exist”

(As a forewarning, this the section where I may become quite emotional.)

Something that I encountered today was nostalgia. Not my own nostalgia, but the nostalgia of an author who grew up in a mission or international settlement in pre-WWII China, and fled from the country just before Pearl Harbor. This author, who shall remain nameless for the reason I stated in the preface of this essay, spoke highly of China’s sights and sounds, the people, the food, the craftwork, and of their pleasant life as the child of white missionaries in China. They spoke on how the pace of life in China was different than America, and that they much preferred the comforts of life in the Orient, surrounded by Oriental people and objects, enamored with Orientialia well into their adult life.

I found this passage to be absolutely appalling. I understand that I may be picking the wrong fight here, but this is my emotional response to an issue that I have found difficult to articulate that managed to, somehow, someway, manifest succinctly in the preface of a book that I randomly encountered. I lay my thoughts here:

White missionaries in China lived privileged lives, much like the other westerners that inhabited international settlements all throughout the major cities of the country. Missionaries, like the other westerners, were an extremely privileged class, living privileged lives in a country that was being torn apart by colonization, internal strife, famine, disease, and violence. While the average Chinese peasant in late Qing, early republic-era China had to contend with the daily realities of starvation, material scarcity, and the reality that a western could beat them or kill them and face no legal consequences for that action. Merchants were forced to deal with countless one-sided trade and land treaties, while government officials struggled to keep the country together, if they weren’t themselves contributing to the horrendous reality. Life in international settlements for western nationals is often reminisced upon as idyllic, quaint, and prosperous, which paints a stark contrast to their Chinese neighbors’ experiences. The westerners were off-limits, exempt from legal prosecution, and largely able to conduct themselves as they saw fit, even when their conduct directly endangered Chinese lives.

Meanwhile, outside of these international settlements, war ravaged the country. When the Qing dynasty fell and the Republic of China was established, the country fractured. The nationalist government was constantly at war, sometimes with itself, sometimes with bandits and warlords, sometimes with organized crime, and most of all with the Chinese Communist Party. The Koumintang government, in the wake of Sun Yat-sen’s death, saw Chiang Kai-shek seize power. The Japanese began to aggressively push their borders into China, fighting with superior military technology and training while the national army faltered from unwilling conscripts led into disastrous battles by inept, corrupt, and tyrannical officers. The CCP fought a guerilla campaign against the KMT that further muddied the conflict, with innocents caught between two radical and violent sides while Japan tightened the noose. Communist and Nationalist fought together against the Japanese one day, and may have fought against each other the next.

While the country was torn apart, the westerners in international settlements were unconcerned with the wars raging across the land. They continued to live their idyllic lives until the war was literally at their doorstop -- only then did they become concerned with the plight of the Chinese people.

Only then did the westerners in international settlements care for the circumstances of the average Chinese peasant in the countryside or worker in the city. They could bear no concern while they benefited from cheap Chinese labor, horrific working conditions, or while some of them got away with murder. They could bear no concern while Europe and America colonized China and ransacked the economy. And they could bear no concern for the Chinese being tortured, beaten, raped, and murdered in the countryside, far from their gates, until it was on their doorstep.

The nostalgia that some westerners feel for China, a China that existed before the chaos of the 1920s onwards, is propped up by lives of privilege and white-washed memories that ignore the struggle of the Chinese people right under their noses.

They feel nostalgia for a China that did not exist, because the one that existed was destroyed in part by their international settlements and the colonization efforts of their home countries.

This nostalgia for a China that was at least slightly better than the chaos of the 1920s through the 1940s, or better than the Cultural Revolution, or better before Tiananmen Square exists also within the Chinese immigrant community. But this nostalgia strikes in a way that the other does not.

While the westerner who lived in an international settlement may be able to intellectually sympathize with the Chinese experience during this tumultuous time, it is the Chinese themselves who bear the actual scars. Many of our elders long for a prosperous China as well, but there is a key difference in this: our elders, our family, sometimes we ourselves, bear the scars of the past. Our nostalgia is momentary, continuously shattered by the very real heartbreak that the Chinese and Chinese American community has been subject to over the last century. While circumstances and perspectives differed, the China that some of us long for is just as much a painful sore on our souls as it is a pleasant memory. The pain, the loss, the grief, anxiety, and struggle.

It is a nostalgia for our ancestral land that cannot be found anywhere else, as precious as it is painful.

Hsu Liang Yu

#aapi #end aapi hate #aapi history #aapi authors #chinese american #history #white allyship #white allies

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newcatwords · 3 years

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approaching very old stories, stories from ancestors, stories from elders

inspired by the thread "How to Read Myths and Folklore" by Mythological Africans, i'm sharing my approach to very old stories, stories from ancestors, and stories from elders.

while i hope that this might be useful to any reader, the context here is that i'm a westerner who grew up in a western family with western values. i was educated in western schools with their values.

the mainstream white western relationship with very old stories is complicated. the abrahamic stories (judaism, christianity) are well-respected, but even most of the west's own old stories (norse stories, greek stories, little old village stories, etc.) are treated as myths (in the sense of "things people used to believe as true but that are generally no longer considered true because of scientific advances in understanding about the world").

among western peoples, most of what might be called "indigenous" culture (including stories) was suppressed & destroyed a very long time ago. christianity has been dominant in europe for so long that aside from things like the old religion of ireland, very little remains that's commonly known. specific national stories might be historical epics/legends, "fairy tales", & "mythology." often pre-christian beliefs in europe are lumped into a sort of generic "nature worship" and then dismissed.

the mainstream white western attitude is that there is little of value in very old stories for people today. newer knowledge is more highly valued. there are people who still study aristotle, etc., but generally, aside from judaism & christianity, there aren't many extremely old stories that western people value today. and many westerners are not religious & don't take their peoples' religious traditions seriously either.

(i would argue that part of this skepticism comes from the triumph of science in setting itself up as the only source of truth. part of it also comes from the fact that most of the old stories are religious, from large, patriarchical, institutionalized religions that have abused the idea of "listen to your elders" to keep people down. by not being wise elders, they have made people not trust them and also not trust the idea that listening to one's elders is important. these elders tell women to submit, tell gay people they are going to hell, claim to be virtuous while abusing children, and all the other things that have shown them to be bankrupt. there is no trust.

even aside from religious elders and ancestors, other thinkers from europe's past (ancient philosophers, national heroes, etc.) were not good people who had all kinds of terrible ideas, including racism, sexism, support for imperialism and monarchy, support for slavery, support for exploitation of natural resources, etc. the western (liberal) story goes: "people in the past were barbaric and we are more enlightened now." because of the universalizing part of western culture, this is treated as true for all people everywhere, not as something that's specific to particular peoples.

in western education, we usually don't learn that among many peoples of the world, ancestors & elders are considered wise, trusted, caring, and had many gifts to share with younger generations. i believe it's important to understand this when listening to & reading very old stories. not to say that elders were *necessarily* wise, but to accept that people from different groups see their own ancestors and knowledge passed down from ancestors in different ways.)

after considering all that, here are some specific ways i approach very old stories, stories from ancestors, and stories from elders:

first, i think about the source of the story i'm reading/listening to. how did this story come to cross my path? who is telling it? are they telling a story from their own people? what are the conditions under which i am encountering this story? among many peoples, sharing a traditional story is not done lightly. as a listener, i understand that it's an honor to be an outsider hearing a story. i have to understand who i am, who the speaker/writer is, what is our relationship (are we a settler & a colonized person? are we an "educated" person and a person from the village? it makes a difference!) who is the speaker/writer's intended audience, what is the context in which i am receiving this story?

here is an example: i live on hawai'i island (i'm a white (but also jewish and immigrant) settler on hawaiian land). every year there's a large festival and competition of hula (traditional hawaiian dance) called merrie monarch. hula is an ancient art form, sacred to the goddess laka. hula is often accompanied by singing, chanting, and is a whole performance. there's a huge variety: hula can be for ritual, for entertainment, to tell/perform historical stories, to prepare for battle, to be playful, to welcome visitors, to welcome the birth of a child, and for many other purposes. there are similar dances all across the pacific, and usually groups come from all over the world to share the very best they have to offer. as such, it's an important event for hawaiians and for other pacific people.

here are some excerpts from merrie monarch 2019 to give you an idea of what it's like:

youtube

if i'm in the audience, or watching merrie monarch on tv, i have to understand that i'm an outsider spectator and that this event is mainly by and for hawaiians and other pacific people. i am an outsider who they have graciously let in to their culture in this way. i think it's important to understand all this in order to take the proper attitude towards old stories. see them as a gift from the speaker/writer/performer that one is being allowed to hear. the next thing to consider: who is the teller? in english (the only language i have experience reading stories in), we often get stories from non-western peoples as filtered through white westerners. i take all of these with a grain of salt. if at all possible, i try to find the story as told/written by someone *from the group* that the story is from. i mostly skip over retellings/interpretations by white westerners entirely. if the story is within an anthropology text, i'll try to get any historical context that the anthropologist provides, and then just read the story itself. white western interpretations of non-western stories are usually a garbled mess. translations can also be a minefield. here in hawai'i, anthropologists & folklorists have been "recording hawaiian stories" for over a hundred years. it's a complicated history of tellings of tellings, translations that have become canon, and more. (if you're interested in learning more, i recommend the excellent book Mai Paʻa I Ka Leo: Historical Voice in Hawaiian Primary Materials, Looking Forward and Listening Back by M. Puakea Nogelmeier. it discusses the formation of an english-language canon of a huge archive of hawaiian-language newspapers, which contain many serialized stories & legends.) although it may seem difficult, i encourage you, the reader, to learn about the complicated landscape around the story you're reading/listening to. in other words, how did this particular version of the story come to end up with you? the preface and introduction in a book can often provide a lot of background info on the text in your hand. you don't want to be reading the hand-me-down version of some white supremacist's version of the story, assuming that that's really the story of a certain people! if at all possible, try to get to the actual words of the people whose story it is. also, consider that like hula, "stories" are not just the words, but might include the dance, the music, the performance, how the words are delivered, etc. "the story" might be all of those things together. the listener/reader's understanding might only arise from having that whole experience...without it, you might not get the actual message the story is meant to give. a story that might seem violent and off-putting in text, it might turn out that it's commonly told around a campfire to entertain children, complete with fart sounds and jokes. knowing that is important. that kind of story is very different from a story told during a ritual, or a creation story. aside from the conditions under which the story is told/performed among a people, it's important to know how old the story is. i've seen anthropologists describe stories from the late 1800s as "very old." i would dispute that characterization. generally, the older a story is, the more carefully i listen. often the storyteller will tell you the age and context of the story. they might say "this is a story i heard from my elders. this story has been among our people for many generations." ok, so i am about to hear a story passed down for many generations...it's a story that people remember and a story that people think is important enough to pass down to their children, who in turn remember it and pass it down. how many stories do *i* have like that? exactly zero. so in my mind, when i hear "this is a story that's been passed down among my people for generations," i listen carefully because something important is about to be shared. the teller/writer will often also tell you why they're sharing the story or who it's meant for. i've heard things like "this story is important not just for

our people, or for indigenous people, it's important for people all over the world." well in that case, i better listen. sometimes they might say "we are recording this story for younger generations", to help their own people remember their peoples' stories. stories told to anthropologists can be a whole minefield. imagine you're minding your own business at home, when an anthropologist shows up and wants to ~record your stories~. why? just because they're interested and want to share them with their pals back home. now imagine that those anthropologists are of the same background and from the same people who have colonized your land, enslaved your people, driven your people from your land, and continue to marginalize your people. this anthro might claim they're "not like that", but once you've given them the story, maybe you never hear from them again and you never even see what they actually wrote in their book. it's important to remember that there's a story extraction history. white westerners have built careers off "harvesting" stories from non-western peoples. what have they given back? it's even worse when you consider that many white members of the academy are seen as "experts" on the culture they study (even if their understanding is poor!), while members of that culture are excluded from the western academy and can't get their works published. it's important to consider that history when reading stories in anthropology (and similar) books. many people have had generations of anthropologists come and go, all asking for stories. let's just say that i wouldn't blame them if they gave a silly or "fake" story to the latest generation of clueless white anthro. i have no way to know how common it is, but i've read at least one story that led me to wonder "is the person telling the story just taking the piss out of this anthro?" how many stories might subtly mock or poke fun at the westerner and the westerner doesn't even realize it? it's something to consider. which brings me to the next thing i consider: many meanings. oral traditions are often incredibly rich and nuanced. some stories are straightforward (maybe it's a story to entertain) and some stories have *many* layers of meaning, including historical, political, serious, humorous, and much more. you might have to hear the story or understand the tone the teller uses in different parts of the story to understand whether something is meant to be serious or funny. you may have to know a lot about the history, culture, and context of the story to understand all the layers. (for an excellent example from here in hawai'i, i recommend the book Ka Honua Ola: ‘Eli‘eli Kau Mai / The Living Earth: Descend, Deepen the Revelation by Pualani Kanaka‘ole Kanahele. she goes line-by-line in several important chants discussing the multiple meanings.)

anyway, these are the main things i keep in mind when approaching ancient stories, stories from ancestors, stories told by elders. i hope this helped you. if you see anything i've gotten wrong, please let me know! thank you for reading.

#reading #mythology #stories

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missn11 · 3 years

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I tried sending this question on Anon earlier (only my desktop has Tumblr and I was zoning out away from thinking of this), but what if Ming Xiao was a Cainite and Nines and LaCroix were Kuei-jin? What Clan/Dharmas would they be, and how would they feel about it, and how would it affect their storylines? Like maybe Nines rose and was taken in by the Chinatown Wu, and LaCroix has been living somewhere in China since the Napoleonic Wars? Thanks!

@badass-at-cuddling oh wow this is a big question to go into but I’ll try my best! XD

Well, I think it would be best to make changes to LaCroix’s and Nines’ backstory since as far I know Kuei-jin are made from people of Eastern or Southern Asian descent.

Now I think we can keep Nines being an American, in this case a Chinese American (he could be even be part latino as well), and it would makes he could’ve received the second breath after dying during a strike or perhaps he got caught in a cross fire, regardless, he would’ve died young and before his time. (Noooo ;_;)

Considering Nines’ clan in vtmb being a Brujah, his connection to humanity through his politcal beliefs, I feel the Dharma of the Dance of the Thrashing Dragon is likeily the one that fits him best since tbh, not only would that give him the chance to continue to fight for others but also give him a second chance to really live life to the fullest. (Honestly I was thinking of the Way of the Resplendent Crane for him as well but I think that’s too restricted for Nines’ character to be honest but I wonder what you guys might think)

I do think Nines would be quickly taken in by LA Chinatown Kuei-jin but I do think he would butt heads with the elders a lot but also perhaps more being willing to listen to them as well, provided they didn’t treat him badly that is. Although, he could end up becoming the leader of a movement within the Chinatown court that don’t want to be messed around by their elders. But while I think Nines would try to broker some peace treaty with the Anarchs in LA he could end up butting heads with some of the more rowdy Anarchs. And Nines wouldn’t feel happy with the mainland Kuei-jin taking over and saying “Hey we gotta kick or enlighten those awful Cainites to stop the Sixth Age!” but he would also be fed up with the Anarchs just leaving their shit everywhere and whoops the freaking Camarilla and the Sabbat are rolling into town as well!

So I would say that Nines is in a bind in what to do! 0_0

As for LaCroix, oh man this is a tricky one, because I’m trying to figure out if there was enough of a French Chinese presence in France at the time of Napoleon or not.

If there was and they allowed Chinese men to join the army then, I think that LaCroix could have been a French ex noble’s illegitimate son with a Chinese woman and even though there was a draft, I think he would want to prove himself to his father and country that he is worth something. (Ohhh don’t make me sad again ;_;) But he instead dies on the battle field and receiving the second breath and finding out that all of the beliefs his Chinese heritage actually are partly true and he would be super confused and likey eat some people before coming to on his own or being found by his fellow Kuei-jin and after some time he sent around europe to scope things for the Kuei-jin (not for conquering purposes per say but to see if there is any way to help the Kuei-jin in the mainlands).

However, if not then I can see him being a son of a trader in Hong Kong (obvs he isn’t going to be called LaCroix here in this case) and soon following in his father’s footsteps, perhaps even getting involved in the opium trade, (I’m going to be honest here and say that I don’t know as much about China during the 1800s at this point so if anyone has any suggestions please let me know :D) However, he would’ve died young and maybe to move his brith and death forward to from liekly 1794-1815 to 1815-1839 so he could have been involved in the first Opium War and died in the conflict. Upon receiving the second breath and being found and taken to the Hong Kong court.

Now picking LaCroix’s Dharma in either origin story was difficult for me to be honest, but I’m thinking for the first origin LaCroix might have been attracted to the Howl of the Devil-Tiger Dharma, since I can see him wanting to be a powerful demon (Yomi ain’t a nice place bro) and that could go for his second orgin too.

Buttt the other Dharmas he might also go for are the Way of the Resplendent Crane or the Dance of the Thrashing Dragon Dharma, Resplendent Crane cause he might feel guilty for not following tradition and sinning a lot when he was alive and Thrashing Dragon so he could really live his unlife to the fullest!

Now LaCroix regardless would either be sent to LA to asist the Kuei-jin in conquering the city or he would already be in LA and butting heads with Nines no matter his Dharma! XD But LaCroix would have ambitions of becoming an Ancestor (It’s going to take a bit though) but first he’s going to do his bit to help the effort to stop the Sixth Age (it’s going to get in the way of his goal darn it!) and of course that means screwing over the Kindred through manipulative means!

Ming Xiao is a tricky one for me as I wanna say she could be a Ventrue due commanding air and her ability to be a Leader of a community, I can totally see her rock Domination and Presence easily and with Fortiude, she’s one tough lady that’s hard to kill! However, she could be a Tzimisce, maybe a Tzimisce who isn’t too into changing her image so much but is into having a kick ass war form! (either way, she’ll have some high level Vicissitude baby!!!)

Okay as for Ming Xiao’s Kindred origins, I’m thinking that while the Kuei-jin are the main undead creatures of Eastern Asia there is a tiny population of Kindred scattered around as well. and one of those Kindred (Ventrue/Tzimisce) found an interest in Ming Xiao, in my headcanon a unhappy and necglected wife to a minster of the imperial palace during the Tang Dynasty. A beautiful, intelligent, charismatic and manipulative who would do anything to get what she wanted (since her husband wasn’t going to, lol!) she quickly drew the eye of her sire and they wanted to show a fun time and have her as their companion (dominating or meatcrimes) and embraced her after ghouling her husband.

And after Ming Xiao enjoys herself and gaining herself some power in a little domain for around 400 years (I guess she got bored with her sire and ate them or something) or so, she’ll go into torpor after the Kuei-jin come a knocking to tell her to knock it off. so after like a 1000 years or so (phew that’s a long nap) Ming Xiao wakes up and sees that China had really changed, but oh boy those Kuei-jin are sure to be annoying when she tries to build a domain here again!

Rude, why won’t they let her to do meat crimes or any dominating anyway, instead she’ll be sharing her wisdom to those who need to hear it duh. Regardless, Ming Xiao then searches for a great place to crash without these annoying Kuei-jin trying to kill her!

So Ming Xiao’s arrival in LA is going to spook some of the Kindred cause she basically nearly at Methuselah level, but they don’t know it’s her cause she’s not advertising how old she really is. However she is real annoyed that the Kuei-jin are here as well, and well the Camarilla are too european, the Sabbat are just no and the Anarchs really need her help! So Ming Xiao starts subtly recruiting herself some pawns likemind Kindred to help her cause to get the Anarchs’ shit together.

So here you have it, Nines and LaCroix are still butting heads but are way more on the same and Ming Xiao manipulativing the Anarchs for her goals, it’s quite a difference but yet has some shades of the original plot of VTMB!

Phew this was a long post, I hope this answers your question @badass-at-cuddling I’m sorry it took so long to answer! thank you again for the ask it was really fun to think about! :D

#vampire the masquerade #Vampire The Masquerade Bloodlines #VTMB #kindred of the east #Sebastian LaCroix #nines rodriguez #Ming Xiao #asks #badass-at-cuddling

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arcticdementor · 3 years

Link

On July 16, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken sent a cable to American embassies across the globe with new instructions. In the face of what he described as the growing threat from authoritarian and populist forces emanating from countries around the world, he urged U.S. diplomats to actively “seek ways to exert effective pressure on those countries to uphold democratic norms and respect human rights,” and vowed that “standing up for democracy and human rights everywhere is not in tension with America’s national interests nor with our national security.” This, he specified, must apply even to America’s allies and partners, declaring that “there is no relationship or situation where we will stop raising human rights concerns.”

U.S. President Joe Biden has explicitly characterized his foreign policy as waging “a battle between the utility of democracies in the 21st century and autocracies,” and described the world as at an “inflection point” that will determine for the future “who succeeded, autocracy or democracy, because that is what is at stake.” And while he has named China and Russia as the top threats to democracy, he has stated that, “in so many places, including in Europe and the United States, democratic progress is under assault.”

This kind of rhetoric has led many to describe Biden as gearing up to lead a new round of global ideological competition akin to the Cold War, and Blinken’s cable appears to be a step toward operationalizing this conception into everyday U.S. policy.

…

Blinken’s invitation had in fact been a response to a June 26 declaration made by UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet, which itself followed the completion of a “comprehensive report on systemic racism,” which had unsurprisingly discovered its titular subject ingrained around the world – especially in the “excessive policing of Black bodies and communities” in the United States. In her statement, Bachelet castigated the West for a “piecemeal approach to dismantling systems entrenched in centuries of discrimination and violence,” declared that “the status quo is untenable,” and called instead for an immediate “whole-of-society” “systemic response,” with a “transformative agenda” to uproot systemic racism everywhere and implement the “restorative justice” urgently demanded by “the worldwide mobilization of people calling for racial justice.”

The Biden administration could hardly have responded with anything less than full-throated support for such an idea, given that battling the omnipresent specter of America’s “systemic racism” has become a core feature of the administration’s political identity.

And few administration officials have embraced this battle with as much personal zeal as Blinken, who moved immediately after his confirmation to not only install a Chief Diversity and Inclusion Officer at the State Department (in a powerful new position reporting only to himself), but ordered every bureau in the department to also appoint a Deputy Assistant Secretary of Diversity and Inclusion as well – with his stated goal being “to incorporate diversity and inclusion into the [State] Department’s work at every level.”

…

Speaking of that kind of thing, most of those upset about Blinken’s invitation of the UNHRC’s racism inquisitors strangely seem to have missed another development in a related front of the global culture war.

This despite the fact that the State Department is eager for you to know that, “On June 23, the United States led, and 20 countries co-sponsored, its first-ever side event on the human rights of transgender women, highlighting the violence and structural, legal, and intersectional barriers faced by transgender women of color.”

So there’s that. But side event to what? That would be the last session of the UNHRC, where the U.S. worked to address assorted “dire human rights situations” by helping to pioneer the launch of the “Group of Friends of the Mandate of the United Nations Independent Expert on Protection Against Violence and Discrimination Based on Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity” (GoF IE SOGI).

Besides the United States, the inaugural SOGI Group includes: Argentina, Chile, Uruguay, Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Costa Rica, Denmark, Greece, Finland, Germany, Iceland, Israel, Ireland, Italy, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Malta, Mexico, Norway, Netherlands, Portugal, the United Kingdom, Sweden, and Switzerland.

Who is this Independent Expert with so many friends? That would be Víctor Madrigal-Borloz, Senior Visiting Researcher at the Harvard Law School’s Human Rights Program.

After its formation, the Group’s first act was to consider a report produced for the UNHRC by Mr. Madrigal-Borloz titled “The Law of Inclusion.”

“The Law of Inclusion” states that all evidence necessarily “leads to the conclusion that all human beings live in gendered societies traversed by power hierarchies,” and declares that, as we all seek to “build back better” (here inexplicably adopting Joe Biden’s campaign slogan) the “adoption of gender-based and intersectional analysis” is “a fundamental component of a diligent discharge of [all countries’ human rights] responsibility.”

Crucially, an intersectional approach leads to a “recognition of how race is gendered and gender is raced, as well as the many other factors which affect how one is allocated rights.” Plus, as a bonus, “gender theory is also relevant as a tool to address, analyse and transform systems of violent masculinity.”

…

Ultimately, based on his intersectional analysis, the Independent Expert declares a new “fundamental duty of the State” based on his careful investigation:

To recognize every human being’s freedom to determine the confines of their existence, including their gender identity and expression.

(I don’t think you will find a more flawless one-sentence summation of the End-Stage Liberalism I’ve previously outlined, characterized by its endless quest to liberate us from any and all limits, than this, by the way.)

…

The United States and the rest of the SOGI Group immediately issued a statement fully endorsing the report, noting that they “would like to reaffirm” that: “As clearly demonstrated by the thorough analysis provided by the report, gender is a social construct”; that intersectional analysis has “proven to be fundamental to the design and implementation of inclusive public policies”; that they support “the importance of advancing legal gender recognition based on self-identification”; and that they “oppose any attempt to erase gender from international human rights law instruments and processes.”

I hope you will retain at least one takeaway from my subjection of you to this word salad of intersectional jargon on race and gender: that the distinctive language and doctrinal ideological concepts of the New Faith have extended far past the Harvard Quad, crossed the oceans, and have now, as the report puts it, thoroughly “permeated” themselves through elite-managed global institutions like the UN Human Rights Council.

Conservatives, in particular, are typically dismissive of the UN in general and the UNHRC in particular (President Trump officially pulled the U.S. out of the council in 2018, after which Biden rejoined as an observer), as they see it as a pointless talk-shop that spends a majority of its time criticizing the United States and its allies, though with little practical effect. This is a mistake.

What is happening here is the steady creation and entrenchment of new norms that aim to redefine what is considered the normal and acceptable window of cultural, political, and legal practice by countries the world over. The UNHRC may have no direct political power, but it is precisely the ignorance or flippant disregard for the transformative long-term power of norms that has so far lost conservatives every culture war battle they have fought. Somehow conservatives – and now Liberals – have been consistently blindsided by norms falling out from under them (gradually, and then suddenly) even as they have held positions of political power.

Meanwhile, under the Biden administration, Washington has now embraced this kind of norm-setting mechanism for remaking the world in its new and ideologically improved image.

…

Not every country is completely woke to the need for unlimited gender self-identification or a “whole-of-society transformation” to address its hierarchies of oppression, however.

International Expert Mr. Madrigal-Borloz has also noticed this problem, which is why he and the SOGI Group are producing a follow-up companion report to “The Law of Inclusion,” this time to be titled “Practices of Exclusion.”

…

Probably in most other contexts, when an external power or powers attempt to “deconstruct” and replace the “traditional values” and “cultural and religious” norms of a distinct people against their will, this would be called that what it is: imperialism (or, occasionally, worse).

Nonetheless, “Practices of Exclusion” is set to be published at the upcoming UN General Assembly meeting in New York this September and will undoubtedly be endorsed by the U.S., U.K., and the other progressive members of the SOGI Group at that time – even as many of these same countries are actually still experiencing their own fierce bouts of “resistance” to its core ideas.

What does this all mean? In short, that the ideological battles of Cold War 2.0 are not going to be limited to categories similar to those which at least broadly seemed to characterize Cold War 1.0, or necessarily even uphold the classic conceptions of “liberal-democracy” and “authoritarianism” or “autocracy” with which we are familiar.

Instead, it should be understood that the Biden administration and its like-minded partners are now operating under a rather different ideological calculus about what “democracy” and “human rights” mean, even as, similar to the original Cold War, that calculus directly links domestic and international ideological foes.

In this worldview, in order for a democratic state to be a legitimate “Democracy,” it is not enough for it to have a popularly elected government chosen through free and fair elections – it also has to hold the correct progressive values. That is, it has to be Woke. Otherwise it is not a real Democracy, but something else. Here the term “populism” has become a useful one: even if a state is not yet authoritarian or “autocratic” in a traditional sense, it may be in the grip of “Populism,” an ill-defined concept vague enough to encompass the wide range of reactionary sentiments and tendencies that can characterize “resistance” to progress, as based on “traditional values,” etc. And ultimately, we are told, “Populism” is liable to lead to Autocracy – because if you aren’t progressing forward in sync with Democracy, you are sliding backwards along the binary spectrum toward Autocracy.

Moreover, as in the case of the struggle between Capitalist-Liberalism and Communist-Authoritarianism during the original Cold War, the insidious “forces” of Populism-Autocracy are present not only out in the undecided “Third World,” but even lurking inside Democracies in good standing – constantly threatening to tip them, like dominoes, into the opposite camp. Hence why Biden issues warnings like the one claiming that, “in so many places, including in Europe and the United States, democratic progress is under assault.” The fight against the perceived forces of Populism-Autocracy within the United States, or within the European Union, is not in this conception at all separate from the fight against the likes of China and Russia on the world stage; they are the same fight.

…

Exacerbating this sense of fear and division is the fact that a Democracy can’t just hold some of the correct values – it has to hold all of them, in toto. This is after all the prime conclusion of intersectional analysis: all injustice is interlinked, forming interlocking systems of oppression; therefore injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. Intersectionality thus demands liberation in totality; there can be no pluralism – no one can simply be left alone or granted the slightest leniency, because no injustice in any place or of any degree can be suffered to exist, lest it pollute and threaten the entire system.

The conclusion is inevitable: the New Faith must be a missionary, evangelical faith. By its own internal logic, for its own survival, it must march abroad to convert the heathens even as it hunts heretics at home.

…

There are still plenty of countries out there – in fact, a vast majority of them – who think intersectional gender theory and other fruits of the New Faith are in essence stark raving mad, and are also rather attached to keeping their own cultures and traditions.

So even if you are a strong supporter of LGBT rights, feminism, or other liberal-progressive ideals (and yes, many countries around the world of course do treat LGBT people, women, and racial minorities terribly), it is still worth considering the practical consequences of Intersectional Imperialism. If the West makes ideological conformity an integral requirement for joining, receiving aid from, or even working with its Democracy bloc (as Blinken has implied), then many of these countries are liable to flee into the arms of China and other genuinely authoritarian but ideologically non-missionary states, despite the security concerns they may have.

…

At this time it was the Soviet bloc, including communist controlled Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Poland, and Yugoslavia, who argued that freedom from discrimination should take precedence over the rights of freedom of expression and assembly.

And it was the Western liberal democracies, together with the Latin American states, that rose to (unsuccessfully) oppose this idea.

The “fundamental right of free speech” was, argued U.K. representative Lady Gaitskell, “the foundation-stone on which many of the other human rights were built,” and it was the U.K.’s position that, despite abhorring racism, “in an advanced democracy the expression of such views was a risk that had to be taken.” Hungary shot back that free speech and tolerance was pointless if “fascists” were tolerated anywhere.

When the U.S. delegation attempted to restrict the scope of speech defined in the law to that “resulting in or likely to cause acts of violence,” the move was blocked by the Soviet group, with Czechoslovakia countering that there could be no democracy if “movements directed towards hatred and discrimination were allowed to exist.”

…

Times have changed. As the European Union prepares to consider writing “hate speech” into the official list of EU crimes, tweeting “gender-critical” thoughts is already an arrestable offense in the United Kingdom, and the United States looks to enlighten the world about the dangers of oppressive microaggressions, one wonders if there is any country remaining, the world over, still willing to genuinely represent liberal values in these terms today.

Instead only the crusaders of the New Faith remain to march into battle against the Autocrats and their Populist allies, and you are either with them or against them. Welcome to the Woke Cold War.

#n.s. lyons #substack #left wing cultural imperialism #read the whole thing

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katemarley · 4 years

Text

fanfiction: fugue in a minor

Fandom: Hetalia Pairing: SpAus (Austria/Spain) Characters: Austria, Spain, Belgium, Augsburg, Swabia, Bavaria, Holy Roman Empire, Saxony Rating: E

Summary: 23 October 1520. Spain and Austria get married. The Imperial Estates and their guests while away the evening with music and courtly dances, celebrating both the union and Charles V’s crowning as “elected Roman emperor” in Aachen Cathedral. But what is expected of the newlyweds? And what is in for them on their wedding night?

This story has been written for Hetabang 2020. It’s a collaboration project with @aph--lietuva who was my Beta and who created wonderful art for this story that you can find on her tumblr. With her permission, I also inserted her art into this tumblr post. It’s been a pleasure working with you! ❤︎

Also available on AO3 (see the link in my profile).

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This story also is the sequel to “Prelude in A Minor” that you can also find on AO3 and that I have been talking about, but not written, for almost four years, oops... xD Both stories can be read independently from each other.

Preliminary notes: Augusta – Augsburg: brown hair, green eyes, elegant low bun Hilde/Hildegard – Swabia (Reichskreis/Imperial Circle, Reichsritterschaft/Imperial Knighthood): blond locks, green eyes, some resemblance to Switzerland and Liechtenstein Léa – Burgundy: our canon Belgium before she came to be called Belgium

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“Roderich!”

Austria turned slowly. He was wearing a cumbersome ceremonial robe that was far heavier than his usual formal attire. It had been made especially for today in order to dress him in the latest fashion and he didn’t want to rip any fabric by accident—and definitely not before the wedding.

“I’m sorry to interrupt,” said Burgundy, not sounding sorry at all as she pried him from the clutches of a dozen courtiers. He didn’t mind—courtly talk was stressful because it contained a dozen pitfalls, and Léa was a straightforward woman. Also, in a moment like this, he’d much rather be with someone comforting and familiar rather than navigate the sea of faces and names of humans he had probably only met once but was to remember regardless. Usually, he had no problem with that; he was actually very skilled at the diplomatic game. But right now, his head was too full of other thoughts.

“I need some moments alone with my consort, my partner.” Burgundy gave off an air of sovereignty as she spoke to her court who all accepted without question that this was business for the immortals to tend to. Roderich sighed in relief and let her steal him away into their bedroom.

She was fussing at his outfit, straightening it and picking imaginary lint off the velvet before making him sit down on a chair in front of the dresser. She took a brush and took off his black beret to run it softly through his hair, obviously just to have something to do while they talked.

“Liefsteling, I think we should have a little chat before you and Antonio exchange rings.”

“Didn’t we talk about all I need to know already?” Austria frowned. He was unable to keep in all his pent-up frustration and around her, he wasn’t too scrupulous to show it. “You and Charles want to strengthen the unity of the empire, so I am to marry Spain. I understand that. I don’t like it and you know I don’t like Charles, but I can see your point that marriage is a useful device to strengthen the empire.” He huffed indignantly. Sometimes, it was annoying to be “a sensible lad”, as Charles had once dubbed him, but he knew too well how these things worked to waste his time on rebelling. She let him pour it all out with a patient smile.

Finally, he quieted down and added more demurely: “I just wish it wasn’t me, and I wish I didn’t have to marry another male personification. It seems … indecent.”

“I know, dear. It’s a bit … unorthodox.” Burgundy touched his arm and squeezed it in an attempt to comfort him. A smile played on her lips that already showed her intent to lighten Roderich’s mood. “Well, listen to you complaining! You get to marry Europe’s newcomer, a surprise uncovered from Al Andalus. A shiny, new, mysterious knight, a devout catholic, and dare I say … a fair countenance. I’m sure many of the ladies here envy you. But it seemed more important to strengthen relations between two important parts of the empire that are further away from each other, rather than between him and me.” She sighed wistfully, but a bit theatrically.

“Burgundy, if you talk like that I’d swear you want to wed him!” He feigned indignance. “I wish you were the one to marry him,” he added glumly. “And the ladies can have him, for all I care.”

“Now! To think you’d give me away that easily. I’d want my husband to be jealous and fight for me!” She then stopped the theatrics and, with a soft smile, put her arm around him, just like an older sister would do. “I am a little jealous to give you away … I’m going to miss our library talks.” Roderich’s smile softened and he touched her hand.

“There is another thing I must discuss…” She seemed to hesitate. “Remember our wedding night and what we left unfulfilled?”

“Ah.” Austria tensed. “So this is what we’re talking about.”

“It is indeed.” Burgundy paused. “We didn’t complete our union that night and while we did later, it did affect us. Charles and I believe it is vital to strengthen the union of Spain and Austria as much as possible, and for that…” Her arm around Austria tensed. He could feel the topic was uncomfortable for her.

“And for that, the marriage needs to be consummated,” Austria said flatly. “That doesn’t exactly come as a surprise, Léa.”

“Yes, but it’s not the only thing we discussed…”

Roderich now felt his cheeks redden “What? The insolence!” He sighed. “That imprudent man was actually discussing the technicalities of a coupling between two men with you? ”

“He only wants to ensure that the strength of the union…”

“Don’t defend him!” Austria snapped. Léa flinched.

“I’m sorry,” he said in a quieter tone. “It’s just that he has no idea how things actually work at my place. I don’t like how little interest he takes, and now he focuses on the anatomy of the personification rather than on the resources of the land…” He sighed. The duality of beings like them further complicated everything.

Spain and him were “mere manifestations of the political body shaping them”, Charles had told him not long ago. Manifestations of the body politic—not men. That meant the laws of the Church regarding marriages between humans didn’t apply to them. Archbishop Hermann of Cologne had agreed and had added that the biblical example for a country was to be the heavenly Jerusalem, which further expands itself to gain as much territory as possible and to help the spread of Christianity all over the world. To strengthen their holy empire like this was to behave exactly as the Bible dedicated.

“The fact that we’re human personifications really is convenient to the likes of him: Whether they consider us human or not ultimately depends on what’s more convenient to them. Two men couldn’t marry, but the human-shaped, but not human, personifications of Spain and Austria can. It doesn’t matter to him that our anatomy is exactly the same as that of two male human beings.”

“I know. I agree with you, I’ve seen kings and bishops use scripture as a justification rather than as a guide many times. As a woman, I have often felt what it was like to be an exception to the rule”, said Burgundy firmly, reminding him of her own position. “However, there’s another message those cowards have made me the messenger of” She stopped brushing his hair, seemingly looking for the right words.

“Yes?” Austria waited. He had no intention to help her with this.

“The king and bishop believe that because this is already infringing on normal matrimony, everything else should mimic a normal marriage as closely as possible.” She interrupted herself, She looked at Austria as if she was hoping that he would understand it. He did but he was going to have her say it.

“Well, you know. Have the position of the wife be taken by the—by the—more gallant one of the two.” Even her silver tongue couldn’t phrase this more delicately.

Austria was speechless. Charles—this morally rigid, exceedingly religious person—not only insisted two men marry for political reasons, as an unpleasant but ultimately bearable formality. No, he had also insisted these two men actually consummate their marriage and had elaborate thoughts on the mechanics of it. Austria was seriously tempted to rush off, grab Charles by the ruff and give him a piece of his mind. Including the rhetorical question what he thought their private parts looked like.

Burgundy saw the face he was making and spat out the rest. “And only the accepted position, all else is fornication. So you’re to lay on your back.” She let out a small whimper and looked faint. Austria realized that he shouldn’t direct his anger at her. She had always been his friend.

“Cowards, the both of them. In treating you as a country, they are indeed forgetting you’re a lady. Your nature is far too delicate for such crass messages.” He stood up and took her hands gently. He didn’t want to fight with her.

She embraced him, held him for a moment and then stepped back.

“I have something for you.” She opened a chest with a key from her belt and produced a box. “Open it, I’d like for you to wear it today.” Roderich did so and found an ornate golden chain with the Golden Fleece in it.

“Your order…” Roderich smiled at her.

“When you united with me, you obtained the right to be a part of the Order of the Golden Fleece. When you’re out there, I’m with you.” Roderich felt a tightness around his chest as he recognised the curls on top of the ram shaping the letter B for Burgundy.

He wasn’t in this alone.

She placed the chain around his neck with an air of ceremony and made sure it lay evenly over his shoulders. She smiled at him and kissed his forehead, after which she traced the sign of the cross on it with her finger. After the tender gesture, she rather forcefully put the beret back on his head and chuckled. “There, you’re ready!”

Oh, he wasn’t ready. Far from it, but it was happening now.

---

The procession departed from the house he shared with Burgundy in Aachen. Usually, the bride was led to the house of her new husband, but Spain did not have a house there. Out of convenience, they were using the cathedral, which had already been prepared for the coronation of Charles V, and the city hall for the festivities after that. In the procession, all the nuptial gifts Austria had received were carried along and displayed. Some of them were made of strange, exotic-looking gold brought from the new world that gleamed ostentatiously in the afternoon sun. Roderich could feel the presence of Spain through everything surrounding him. Even the new coat had been paid for by him.

The marriage itself was overwhelming in terms of pompously clad courtiers and country personifications, but rather underwhelming in terms of anything else. Roderich’s feelings were a mixture of nervousness because so many people watched him and carefully veiled anger at being one of the two pawns in Charles’s and Burgundy’s political plans.

The truly annoying thing was that he saw the logic behind their actions. He just didn’t like how they affected him.

They were met by the second procession coming from the opposite direction with Spain at its centre. Roderich sought out his eyes, but he was still mostly obscured by the crowd. Both processions reached the cathedral and filled the front part of the space. The nave and choir were reserved for mass, after all, and weddings were worldly affairs. So, leaving the late Gothic choir unoccupied, everyone gathered in the octagonal Palatine Chapel at the very front of the church, leaving the centre open for the couple and the priest.

Roderich’s eyes had to adjust to the relative darkness of the church in contrast with the bright afternoon outside. Two young boys were made to hold long torches over Spain’s and his head and above them, a plethora of little candles were lit in the giant octagonal candelabra. For a moment, he was captivated by the little lights and a realisation dawned upon him: The small structures on the chandelier represented gates. It was a direct depiction of Heavenly Jerusalem. The architecture mimicked the octagonal shape of the chandelier and thus that of Jerusalem as well. The words of the archbishop about the biblical duties of a country echoed through his head. He realized that his duty was literally hanging over his head.

As his gaze war already turned upwards, he saw that the upper gallery was filling with people as well, all of them waiting while a small shadow was passing in front of them. The figure walking around the upper gallery barely reached over the coiled cast-iron balustrades when he finally halted and stepped into the light. The Holy Roman Empire wore the Imperial Regalia and made a gesture of blessing. He was their witness, as it was his empire they were fortifying. The ancient child climbed onto the bare marble throne that had once belonged to their forefather in order to oversee the wedding. Roderich would have laughed at the image of Karl der Kleine playing at being Karl der Große, had he not felt a chill run down his spine at the image of Karl on his throne. Among everyone here, he was the one that belonged there. His spirit had been there when these walls had been built and through his presence, through his breath, the spirit of history slowly filled the space.

When the priest asked them to say their vows, Austria obliged, speaking flatly and without emotion. Spain’s intonation was much livelier, but from what little he had learned about the other country in the past months, that was the way they were: One who usually remained calm unless you crossed him one too many times; and another who seemed to be ever vigorous.

The priest produced a small dish on which Spain put a piece of gold, a piece of silver and a ring.

Roderich extended his hand meekly for Antonio to put on the ring, but then noticed something. The ring was of a German type. He wondered if this was Spain being thoughtful or him purchasing one at the last minute. Spain held up the ring and clicked it open to be two separate rings. To Roderich’s surprise, they were gimmel rings …

Spain explained in a hushed voice: “Because we are both men, I felt I couldn’t just put a ring on you. We should both wear one. I liked these because of what they say.” He was referring to the words around the band, which he read out in horribly accented German: was Gott zusammen fueget soll der Mensch nicht schneiden. They were a purplish ruby and an emerald. Antonio carefully put the half with the emerald on Roderich’s left ring finger and then handed him the ruby to do the same. This was thoughtful of Antonio—had he come up with this himself or was this the council of Karl advising him? Austria was very aware of the new weight around his finger and his resolve to remain cold started to waver.

When the priest asked them to kiss, Austria’s first impulse was to do it as unemotionally as he had made his vows. Then his eyes caught the pleading look in Spain’s, and his resolve faltered.

Spain was a pawn as well. He didn’t deserve Austria’s coldness. If anyone, it was Charles who deserved coldness.

They settled for a chaste but tender kiss. There was relief in Spain’s eyes when they separated, and Austria was glad his softer side had got the best of him.

They didn’t deserve to be pawns.

They were in this together.

They were then taken to the altar to kneel and be blessed. Austria stole a glance to Spain halfway who had his eyes shut tightly and was fervently praying. Thoughts were drowning out Roderich’s own prayers as well as the words of the priest. Worries about everything—about whether God could really approve of their union, about how his life was going to change after this, even about the impending consummation. They all seemed to lump together in an all-encompassing buzzing noise in his head.

He barely registered the “Amen”.

Then they were hoisted back on their feet and, with much loud music and cheering, led out of the church for another procession to the city hall that had been readied for further festivities. For a moment, Roderich stood there like a deer facing a hunter. Then, almost as if it was the most natural thing ever, Spain took his hand and pulled him into the cacophony of the crowd, but the act did make Austria’s thoughts quieten down.

Remember, Austria thought to himself.

They were in this together.

---

“Austria.”

Austria turned to the speaker. He had recognised her voice instantly.

Augsburg bowed, albeit not very low. She was an imperial city, much smaller than him in terms of her land and yet so much wealthier.

“Augsburg.” Austria bowed on his part, anxious not to incline his head lower than she had. He could at least keep up appearances, if nothing else.

It was her who took his hand for the basse danse—almost imperceptible, but the transgression was there. She swept her eyes over the people that had gathered inside Aachen’s town hall: Most of them were members of the high nobility and imperial estates who wouldn’t have missed the opportunity to show themselves for Charles’s crowning and the establishment of the Austro-Spanish union alike. There were guests from other kingdoms, too, moving in the slow and elegant sequence of steps so characteristic for this dance. Not all of those people had come to Austria and Spain’s wedding ceremony itself.

It makes them uncomfortable, Austria thought. But who was he to complain? It made him uncomfortable, too.

“Lovely, isn’t it?” Augsburg said with the attitude of a self-satisfied host. “Don’t you think the banquet was quite decent, too?”

Hand movements, steps, hand movements—they all came naturally to Austria. He didn’t need to think with his brain when he danced. His feet had memorised the steps, going through the motions without his conscious thought.

“One could almost think it was your marriage,” Austria replied in the politest tone he could muster.

Stop it, Aunt Augusta, this isn’t your marriage.

Augsburg understood him very well. She pulled them aside before they were to change partners, giving him her piece of mind. Someone like Augusta didn’t even need to raise her eyebrow. One look was enough.

“Oh, I much prefer to be the merchant who pays for all of this,” she said bluntly. “I pay; you do my bidding. That’s how things work these days, dearie. It’s the same for your Charles and my Jakob Fugger.”

He’s not my Charles. Austria bit down on his lips. It would have been unwise to wear his heart on his sleeve in front of her. You never knew what she might do with a delicate piece of information such as this. How she might profit from it. For this seemed to be what the world of merchants was all about: Profit; personal gain.

“You’ve become cold,” he said eventually. The irony wasn’t lost on him: Augsburg seemed cold because she focused on monetary gain; Charles seemed cold because he focused on political gain; and Austria acted cold because he did what needed to be done.

Still, marrying someone he barely knew felt daunting. So did the uncertainty of how other people thought about his marriage: Did they perceive it the way Charles had presented it to everyone—as a political union only? Were they secretly disgusted because both personifications who had exchanged vows inhabited male human bodies? Did they expect them to consummate their marriage?

“I’m not cold, dearie,” Augsburg interrupted his train of thoughts. Her voice was warmer and darker now; a tone he remembered from his childhood. “I’m only trying to achieve the best for my people, as we all do—or should be doing, at the very least.”

That was undoubtedly true. It was the truth at the very core of all country personifications: You are the land—or, in Augsburg’s case, the city. Do what is best for the land and those who call it their home.

You could go against that, but not for very long. It drove you insane. There had been examples of that, too…

Swabia had told him to be the land, time and time again. When she had vanished, everybody had thought her dead. Then she had returned, telling everyone she would always be there as long as there was one soul who remembered her name and called themselves Swabian. Histrionics, they had thought, and yet…

Perhaps there was some grain of truth in it. Perhaps the key was to believe in it yourself.

“You look far too serious, darling,” Augsburg said into his thoughts. “Cheer up, it’s your wedding day!” She patted his cheek in an almost motherly gesture. “It’s all new to you now, but you’ll get used to being his husband.”

“Will I?” he said flatly. His anger was still there, bubbling under the surface. “Will I ever?”

She ignored his despondent answer and studied Spain from across the room before leaning in with a conspiratory grin. “So, what do you think: Is he or isn’t he?”

Austria was confused. “Is he what?”

She answered as if she was discussing the latest court scandal. “Moorish, of course! He spent so much time under Muslim occupation. Perhaps he obtained some Moorish blood or strange habits! Hmm, his skin is pale, but his curls are dark! If he’d grow a beard, he’d look the part.”

She had achieved her aim. Roderich had been fighting the Ottoman Turks at his eastern border for a while now, and he was thoroughly scandalized.

“I sure hope you’re joking!”

“Oh, well, it doesn’t matter, as long as he has no more Muslim tendencies. Take a piece of advice from someone who’s been around for one and a half millennia,” she told him, glancing meaningfully at Spain’s back once she had spotted him among the dancers. “You could have had it worse. At least he’s handsome.”

“He plays the vihuela.” Austria hadn’t even intended to give her this piece of information; it had simply slipped out.

“Does he?” Now Augsburg did raise an eyebrow. “That’s even better. I may know less than you about arranged marriages between rulers unless we’re only talking about ceremonies, but I believe it’s always useful to have some common ground.” She glanced at Spain again. “And like I said, he’s nicely shaped.” Her hands made curving motions, forming two semicircles.

“What?” Austria looked at her in puzzlement.

It took a few seconds until the penny dropped.

“Augusta!” Austria hissed, blushing furiously. “How very indecent!”

“You’re the one who’s going to see it without all those layers of clothing,” Augsburg deadpanned. “Most likely, in any case.” She shrugged. “Unless Charles told you not to make inquiries in that direction. But if I were you, I’d still try to squeeze it, no matter what Charles says. I feel tempted to do it even now.”

“Please don’t!” Austria felt very hot all of a sudden. Until now, he had pushed thoughts about the technical side of consummating a marriage out of his mind. Trust Augusta not to let me get away with it. Augsburg’s words planted mental images in his head that he really didn’t want to think about just now.

“Hmm...” Augsburg threw a calculating glance in Spain’s general direction. “No, I won’t squeeze it. But tempted I am.”

They joined the basse danse again. At some point, Spain gave a little yelp, looking around himself in puzzlement. Austria was entirely unsurprised to spot Augusta quite close to him, looking just as surprised about the sound as anyone else.

Austria sighed.

She was a good actor, he had to give her that.

---

“Roderich!”

Third time’s the charm, Roderich thought, turning toward the person who had uttered his name in a mixture between a hiss and a rough whisper.

Swabia took him by the arm—not a very comfortable experience from an old warrior with an iron grip. Austria winced.

“Sorry,” Swabia said casually, not sounding sorry at all. Austria inwardly rolled his eyes. Why was half his family like this?

She dragged him in a corner suitably far away from spying eyes and ears. Only then she released her grip. Austria rubbed his protesting upper arm.

“Listen to me, boy,” she said urgently. Her voice was dark, almost masculine. When Austria had been little, he had thought she was a man, and she had done nothing to discourage that notion. Then the Duchy of Swabia had been no more, and for all people knew, she had vanished from the face of the Earth. It was only when she had reappeared a few decades ago, from Heaven knew where, that she had been open about being a woman.

“What is it, Hilde?” He couldn’t help it; he sounded unnerved.

“I do realise that everyone wants you to do or be something for them today,” Swabia said gruffly, “but that is precisely the reason why we need to talk. What do you know about bedding ceremonies?”

“Oh no,” Austria groaned. “They wouldn’t, would they.” His tone was too flat to count as a question. They would, he knew that. Or at least certain people would.

“I discouraged them from actually witnessing the consummation,” Swabia said in the tone of the long-suffering. “But Burgundy will guide Spain and I will guide you to your chamber.”

Austria smacked his head against the nearest wall. He did it with caution, so as not to accidentally hurt himself, but the message was clear. As soon as he leaned back, Swabia patted his back not very gently. He suspected it would take several minutes until it recovered from this onslaught.

“We’re going to leave as soon as we’ve finished escorting you,” she reassured him. “I, for my part, have no intention whatsoever to watch the actual consummation, whether it actually takes place or not.” Her voice sounded affronted at the mere suggestion, one clear indication, Austria thought, that someone had indeed suggested she stay and watch.

“But others might have fewer qualms,” Austria said. Swabia had always appreciated straightforwardness, a no-bullshit attitude and, last but not least, people who thought for themselves. That was one thing that hadn’t changed between before and after.

“Precisely,” she said darkly. “Don’t look at him, but you know who I mean.”

Bavaria, thought Austria. Out loud, he said: “He has always been a bully.”

“He has been a bully towards you from the very moment Redbeard and I decided to make you a duchy independent from him,” Swabia specified. “Which, even though it is all water under the bridge now, it is a major reason why I feel responsible to protect you from him in a moment when you will be vulnerable.”

Austria’s heart softened. Thinking back, she had always had an impressive ability to put herself in other people’s shoes—oh well, nothing special there; think like the enemy was one of the first things Bavaria himself had taught him. But Swabia had always had a motherly streak towards him, Austria—and that made all the difference, even though he hadn’t realised it when he was little.

“In any case,” Swabia swiftly returned to the matters at hand, “Bavaria will probably try to sneak up on you. If you don’t want that—and I’m sure you don’t—I urgently advise you not to start anything until he has made the attempt. I don’t know, sing some merry songs instead. Play a nice board game with your husband, for all I care. But see to it that there will be nothing for Bavaria to see. Alright?”

“Alright,” said Austria, “but how can I be sure that he won’t come back for another attempt?”

“I will see to that,” Swabia said gloomily. Austria had to pull himself together so as not to take an involuntary step back. She could be menacing when she set her mind to it.

An old warrior, they said. Better with the sword than with the head. But that wasn’t true; Austria knew it wasn’t. In order to be as good with the sword as her, you had to be a quick thinker, too. The difference was that she was no schemer at all—nothing like Augusta. But she was no schemer because she had an aversion to scheming, not because she was fundamentally unable to think in such a way.

“Thank you.” He gave her a genuine smile. She smiled back, in her own firm and earnest way, insofar as you could smile earnestly.

“You will remain in the corridor?” he asked.

“Don’t worry, I will keep my distance.”

“I did not worry. In fact, I’m glad it will be you who stays there.”

---

As the festivities progressed, Swabia came over once again—this time for everyone to be seen—took Austria gently by the hand—the hand, not the arm—and guided him away. He did not see Burgundy approach Spain, but they arrived in front of Spain and his chamber at the same time.

“Have fun, boys!” Burgundy said with a cat-like smile before she left them alone.

Swabia exchanged a meaningful glance with Austria. Then she nodded at them both and went away. Her footsteps echoed in the corridor—still a soldier’s steps despite the elegant dress she was wearing.

“Who is she?” whispered Spain in Italian as soon as the footsteps had died away.

“Swabia.” My guardian angel, he thought. And she is still here.

“The one who—” Spain craned his neck as if he could catch another glimpse of her that way.

“Who what?” Austria pretended not to know what Spain was asking about.

“Who spent her time in that mountain—you know, the same that Emperor Frederick II went to?”

“The Kyffhäuser, you mean,” Austria said.

“And said she had returned because it was a time of need for her children?” Spain continued, still craning his neck to see what was not to be seen anymore.

Oh dear, my husband is naïve. Roderich sighed.

“For all I know, Frederick II died in Castel Fiorentino in 1250,” he said drily. “For all I know, she has never been gone. Probably kept her head down because her children wanted so many different things. But as soon as aforesaid children think it best to unite, she’s there again, as head of their league. Head of the Swabian Circle now, too.”

“I hear grudging respect,” said Spain.

“At some point when I was little, I used to look up to her,” Austria explained. “She was the leading power of the empire back then. I wanted to be like her. Wanted to earn the empire’s crown.”

“So you did.”

“So I did,” Austria repeated sourly. “And look what good it is doing me. I’m nothing but a pawn in a game too big for me to play. She has never been a pawn.”

“Oh no,” Spain said earnestly. “She has always been a knight.” He paused. “So are you. And so am I.”

There was a small silence before Spain opened the door.

“Shall we go in?”

The room was pleasant and warm. Roderich noticed he’d been gifted a marriage chest. He had no time to look at it, though. Instead, he was looking for the right words to say.

For the first time after their wedding ceremony, Austria looked directly into his husband’s eyes. Play a nice board game with your husband, for all I care.

Then, to his dismay, Spain stepped closer to him and leaned in, inclining his head for a kiss.

“No! Wait.” Roderich’s voice came out more shrill than he had intended. He stepped back and tried to compose himself.

“May I challenge you to a game of chess?”

Shock and hurt manifested in Spain’s eyes. Austria could read him like an open book.

Oh. So this is important to you, Austria thought. Who would have thought.

“But…” Spain whimpered.

“I do not intend to eschew my marital duties,” Austria reassured him in his most formal tone. “I do, however, intend to postpone them for some more minutes or, as it may be, hours.”

Spain looked at him in confusion.

“You will see why.”

Spain thought about that.

“Chess it is, then,” he decided in the end.

They had barely lit all the candles in the room, taken off their shoes and laid out the chessboard in the middle of their four-poster when a long-haired blonde barged into their chamber.

“Austria!” he barked.

“You know, Saxony, there is such a thing as a door,” Austria said gently, placing his first pawn to e4 on the board. “The concept might seem novel to you, but it is for knocking.”

“Don’t give me that bullshit!” The blond man’s blue eyes bored into Austria’s purple ones. “I’m here to warn you! Your brother wants to be an asshole once again and spy on you…”

“Spy on me playing chess with my husband?” Austria asked sweetly.

Saxony visibly deflated.

“I should have expected you to know.”

“No harm done. But, Saxony—” Austria paused.

“Yes?”

“Next time you intend to warn someone of potential bedding ceremonies, do knock before you barge in. You might, you know … cause the exact thing you aim to prevent.”

“Sorry, Austria.” Saxony hung his head.

“Chin up,” Austria said jovially. “Like I said, no harm done.”

There was silence after Saxony had trudged out of the room.

“So this is why you suggested a game of chess,” Spain said eventually, moving one of his own pawns to e5.

“Exactly.” In a split-second decision, Austria moved a second pawn to f4. Spain whistled.

“Classic! Did you read Francesch Vicent’s book on chess?”

Austria gave him his best enigmatic smile.

---

They hadn’t played for long when the door clicked open one more time, and Augsburg put her head inside.

“Chess?” she asked in disapproval. “How boring!”

“It is a very interesting game!” insisted Spain.

Augsburg pouted.

“Your butt is far more interesting to me, young man. One should have thought seeing it was included in the price I paid for this wedding, but this seems not to be so. Good evening, gentlemen.”

With that, her head vanished, and the door clicked shut. Spain stared after her, open-mouthed.

“What was that?”

“The question is: Who was that, dear Antonio,” said Austria patiently. “The answer is: Meet Aunt Augusta, the moneybag who pays for everything you have seen so far, except for the fixed interior of this building. Then again, you have already met her or, rather, met her thumb and forefinger when she pinched your behind earlier this evening.”

“That was her?” Spain stared at the door.

“I’m afraid so.”

With that, Austria returned his focus to the game.

---

“Do you really think this is appropriate—”

Everyone was surprised when they first heard the child’s voice that sounded so very old. Austria’s first thought now was bafflement.

“Let me down!” the voice clamoured. “Let me down this instant! I don’t want—”

Then their camber door was kicked open with a bang, revealing Bavaria with a struggling Holy Roman Empire in one of his arms.

Something within Austria’s mind clicked. He stalked towards Bavaria in his stockings, putting his hands on his hips.

“What do you even think you’re doing?” he hissed. White-hot anger coursed through his veins.

“Roderich!” Bavaria said in what he had clearly attempted to be a jovial tone. It slipped. “We just…”

“We?” hissed Austria. “We?” His voice rose. “You dragged little Karl here against his will and you have the nerve to suggest he was in any way involved in the idea of seeing his guardian in a compromising situation?” Austria was still growing and only wore socks, but somehow, he managed to tower over Bavaria regardless.

“Erm…” Bavaria did one sensible thing and put Holy Rome to the ground. Austria grabbed him by the collar, still seething with anger.

“Roderich?” the young, old voice said calmly. “Theodor?”

Both countries looked at him.

“I think we should all calm down now, and then Theodor and I will return to the festivities. Is that not a good idea, Theodor?”

“Yes,” Bavaria said glumly. Then Holy Rome took his hand and guided him away. Austria closed the door after them—with deliberate care. Antagonising Karl was never a good idea. It made you seem childish.

“Alright.” Austria let out a long sigh. “After this, I think they will leave us alone at last.”

Then he saw the look in Spain’s eyes. There was a flicker of reverence in them as well as a distinct spark of—interest? Austria’s stomach did a tiny flip.

“So…” Spain was brushing his hand alongside the nape of his neck; a clear, if somewhat clumsy, sign of nervousness.

“So.” Austria was nervous, too. He tried not to show it; tied to muster the stoic bravery he always associated with Swabia.

“I rather think there will be no more disturbances now, and … I think we both know what is expected of us.” Damn. He was sure Swabia’s voice would not have been quavering.

“Have you ever done this before? I mean, with…” He didn’t know how to continue the sentence. With another man? But were they men? They weren’t human beings; that he was sure of. But their bodies were built like those of two male human beings, and the fact that the church itself had made it official today that human law did not apply to them… To him, it seemed like cheating. It appeared that kings and popes would always decide what they were on the basis of what was most convenient to them.

He looked on the chessboard. Were they pawns in this game of kings?

Spain followed his gaze. He picked up the chessboard from the bed and placed it carefully on the floor.

“You’re thinking too much.” Even Spain’s voice was gentle.

“I always do.” Austria looked away, on the cushions of the large four-poster. So, he thought once more. This was when…

“Will you let me guide you?” Spain said in the same quiet voice he had used before. “Because I actually have done this before.”

“You?” Austria’s head whipped up. He stared at Spain incredulously. “I thought…” He didn’t know how to continue. “Religion…”

For a split second, Spain appeared to be flustered but then answered with an aloofness that seemed almost like he was overcompensating:

“I know what the authorities say on the matter, and in the beginning, I was confused, too. But … it’s not really all that different, you know.” He shrugged. “I’m not a theologian, so I might miss a few points, but if the bishop approves of it, I can’t find fault with it either. Especially when it’s about our kind, who don’t have children the human way anyway.”

“Hm.” Austria thought. “That seems to be the main point, doesn’t it?”

Spain didn’t reply. Austria didn’t know if Spain really thought what he suspected—what he would have thought in Spain’s stead, in any case: Think like that if it makes you feel better about it.

He would try to, anyway.

“What do I need to do?”

“Stop looking like you’re going to face down an enemy, for starters.” Spain smiled as he was inching closer to him.

“I’m trying to.” Austria relaxed his features. Perhaps thinking How would Swabia handle this? wasn’t a good approach in every situation.

“First of all, I’m going to kiss you,” Spain declared. There was an edge to his voice Austria couldn’t quite place. “Then … just follow my lead. And push me away if you want me to stop, okay?”

Austria nodded.

Then a gentle, calloused hand cupped his chin and warm, slightly chapped lips captured his lower lip.

This really was no different to being with a woman, Austria thought involuntarily. At least so far.

He opened his mouth to let Spain in when his tongue demanded it. Spain was a good kisser, at the least; Austria had to give him that. He made an involuntary, small sound at the back of his throat and could feel Spain smile against his lips before he started to kiss Austria’s cheek.

“That is a fine coat you’re wearing but it’s in my way.” Spain deftly pushed the fur-lined coat down Austria’s shoulders and let it fall to the floor with a heavy thud. He kissed down Austria’s neck where the wide necked undershirt left him ample room for kisses. While kissing he got at the laces and points that held Austria’s doublet closed down his side and carefully started undoing them.

Austria’s hands were much more clumsy as he tried to open Spain’s belt that held his sayo gathered at the waist. It was an action dangerously close to the codpiece that peeked from between Spain’s skirts. The kissing had made him light-headed; he refused to accept thinking of himself as aroused yet.

Spain was progressing rapidly and now moved to the laces that tied his doublet to his hoses, it wouldn’t be long or he’d be in his shirt. Austria believed it his duty to do the same, but it was hard to think with Spain’s lips and hair touching his skin, and he had to get Spain to remove his coat and say first before he could get at any laces himself…

Spain sat back and laughed.

“We should have changed into our nightshirts before we started this, shouldn’t we?”

“Probably,” Austria said breathlessly. His mouth twitched upwards, too. “I always underestimate the time it takes to change out of ceremonial clothing.”

Spain flashed back a grin.

“Especially when you’re dead tired after some tedious reception, isn’t it?” He chucked off his own heavy coat and then pulled off the sayo over his head, leaving him in just his jubón and very short breeches and stockings, a state of undress that was already quite scandalous. Austria watched him before he realised that now would be a good time to start unfastening what Spain hadn’t unfastened yet. He took off his doublet and was left in just his undershirt and his breeches.

There was just one problem: The moment he untied the codpiece that was closing his breeches, Spain would see that… Well, that the kissing hadn’t quite left Austria unaffected. And wasn’t that too early…

Meanwhile, Spain had loosened his jubón from the shorts and undid just as many laces as needed to hastily pull it off. He accidentally pulled his linen undershirt along and got a bit stuck. With a little determination he had freed himself and stretched, his upper body was now completely bare. Austria stared. Where he was soft and a little skinny, Spain’s body was covered in hard planes of muscle. He suddenly felt self-conscious about his own body.

Then, Spain pulled loose his garter bands and loosened his codpiece and pushed down everything he wore on the lower half of his body. It was tight so he had to work it down a bit before being able to pull it off. The man was stark naked now. Without conscious thought, Austria’s eyes were drawn to his half-hard cock.

“But you didn’t even…” Austria had no idea how he wanted to finish this sentence.

“It’s basically been like this since we entered the bedroom,” Spain admitted frankly. “But it got a little harder when you put your brother in his place.”

“But … why?” That probably ranked pretty high on a list of most stupid questions ever uttered, Austria realised, so he clarified: “I mean … it’s not as if we had much of a choice…”

“Simple,” Spain said. “You look good. You’re graceful when you dance, among other things. I knew kissing you would feel good, too, and it does.”

“You’re the one who looks good.” Austria knew he was simply stating a fact. “I, on the other hand…” He pulled his wide linen shirt, over his head, leaving himself shirtless. He was trying not to think too much about how he looked.

Then he caught Spain’s stare.

He blinked.

“You know the saying,” murmured Spain, walking over to Austria’s side of the bed. “Beauty lies in the eyes of the beholder.” He raked his eyes over Austria’s, as Austria thought himself, rather scrawny chest. Spain’s broad, warm hands followed, and that did feel good…

Then Spain had managed to untie Austria’s knee breeches. He pulled them down.

“Oh.” Spain stared at Austria’s cock—a rather unbecoming thing, Austria thought; pale with some angry red at the tip.

“And here I was actually worried your body might not react, no matter what I do.”

Was that before or after you kissed me breathless? Austria wanted to quip, but then Spain was on his knees and—alright, that was something he had experienced before too, but Spain had swallowed him whole, and…

He cried out and swore in German, in words he would otherwise have denied he even knew. So much for keeping this to ‘the approved position’ Burgundy had demanded of him this was definitely fornication. He liked that idea, yes there were so many things he had to comply with about this marriage. But there were parts of it that no one could control except for the two of them, no matter how much others might want to.

Spain pushed him on the bed, getting rid of Austria’s breeches and socks while he was at it, never stopping with his mouth…

Rational thought escaped Austria, and that was probably just as fine because he wasn’t keen on evaluating the sounds he made anyway.

Then one of Spain’s hands held down his hips. Cold air hit his cock as Spain sat on his knees, raking his eyes over Austria while he was stroking himself.

Austria stared. He hadn’t felt so aroused in a long time.

“Want to touch me?” Spain asked. Austria nodded. He ran his hands over the muscles on Spain’s chest before he let one hand dip down into Spain’s soft flank. His other hand wrapped around Spain’s cock.

It was a new sensation to hold a cock that wasn’t his own, but Austria knew how he liked to be touched … if he twisted his hand just like this … Spain’s hips bucked under his hands.

“Okay, okay, you’re making me come!” Spain pushed his hand off. “Not yet.”

Oh yes… So far, it had been easy. But that had just been Spain’s way of making the whole thing more bearable, hadn’t it?

Austria rolled on his stomach. Better get it over with…

Broad hands started to knead his … backside, for want of a more becoming term. He felt a puff of air between his cheeks, and then…

He didn’t know if he had bucked or flinched. In any case, he hadn’t been prepared for Spain’s tongue … there.

At first, the sensations were just confusing. Then Spain’s tongue started to work him for real, darting in and out and caressing his inner walls. He started to pant again.

“Hmm…” Spain hummed against his arse. Austria’s hips bucked out of their own volition. “And I didn’t even need to tell you to relax.” The puffs of air against his hole made him buck his hips again.

“That’s good,” Spain continued. “I’m going to work you open now,” he explained. “That might get a bit uncomfortable. You need to tell me if it gets too much, alright?”

“Yes,” said Austria. It was hard to think through his arousal, but he had understood. On the other hand, he had no intention whatsoever to tell Spain that anything was too much. Grit your teeth…

Spain leaned away from him, taking something from his clothes. Austria looked after him.

“Olive oil,” Spain explained as he opened the jar. “The very best.”

Then Spain started, using his tongue and an oil-coated finger to stretch Austria from the inside… It didn’t feel good, but it was also not the horrible feeling Austria had expected: A mixture of pleasure—yes, it was still there—and the uncomfortable sensation of being stretched in a place that hadn’t been made for stretching all that much. Austria’s hips still bucked when Spain inserted two oily fingers and his tongue, moving them in and out, but his moans were now half pain, half pleasure.

“I think you’re ready,” Spain said eventually.

Am I? thought Austria. He wasn’t ready at all; not mentally, at the least.

Something warm and spongy that had also been coated in oil nudged his arse, and then he had to bite his lips hard not to cry out in pain because that was definitely bigger than…

“Oh, shit,” Spain swore. A number of Spanish expletives followed as he rolled them both to the side, arms flailing. At least it distracted Austria from the unpleasant feeling.

“What…?” he started to ask.

“Damn. Sorry. I almost lost control… Did I hurt you?”

“Not much,” Austria said, more or less truthfully. “Is there something I can do to help?”

“I’d better … hold my legs still. Can you, uh, move against me?”

Austria understood immediately. He tugged one of Spain’s arms across his chest.

“Alright. Hold me.”

Spain did, muscles quivering from the effort not to move while Austria pushed his ass against him again and again, panting in the effort of moving.

“This doesn’t work,” he concluded. “On your back.”

Spain did as he was told. Austria took the jar from Spain’s hand, rubbing more oil on his dick and between his ass cheeks. Then he sat on him, face to his legs because Spain really didn’t need to see the grimace he pulled. He gave himself no time to think about the fact that suddenly it seemed to be him, not Spain, who controlled the situation. Instead, he used his weight to push Spain’s dick inside of him in slow thrusts that strained his leg muscles

When he was almost inside, Spain’s hips jerked upward, knocking the wind out of Austria’s lungs.

“You can turn me around now,” Austria panted as soon as he was sure his voice wouldn’t come out an octave too high. Spain did so, trying to hold his dick inside of Austria as it was. It wasn’t really possible because Austria could feel every little movement, and it wasn’t a pleasant sensation at all.

In the end, they were on their sides again, Spain’s arm once again slung across Austria’s chest.

“You’re so tight,” Spain panted. “Too tight. Can you try to relax?”

Austria did his best. He thought about Spain’s hands on him; the moment he had touched Spain; Spain’s lips around him… That had felt good.

“Better,” Spain grunted. He rocked his hips, keeping Austria in place with his arm.

It actually was better. The stretch was still unpleasant, but the oil did its job quite nicely now, and the pace Spain set suited Austria well: Not too fast, but not too slow either; not too hard and not too soft. He felt his cock that had become softer in the past minutes harden once again.

Then Spain’s hand brushed down Austria’s chest, gripped his cock, and—oh, that was more like it.

Spain’s mouth started to pepper kisses on his neck. Austria understood what he wanted, turning his head until Spain could kiss him. The kiss was open-mouthed and clumsy. Spain moaned into it as his hips moved harder and faster. At last, Austria’s hips started to jerk out of their own volition, torn between the thrusts from behind, the hand around his cock and the tongue in his mouth.

Suddenly, Spain brushed something inside of him that sent a shock of arousal through him. He cried out. Spain’s hand that had only held his cock before twisted up and down. Before Austria had registered what was happening, sticky wetness hit his stomach. Then Spain brushed the same spot as before, and another spurt of come followed the first.

Spain pumped Austria’s cock in a frenzy while his hips jerked up fast and erratically. Spots started to dance before Austria’s eyes. Then Spain’s hips stilled, and Austria felt hot fluid inside of him.

So this was penetrative sex between men, Austria thought with the part of his brain that never seemed to shut off. He pumped air between his lungs in long gasps until the spots in front of his eyes vanished.

The next things he registered were how sensitive the skin on his thighs felt—again, something that was not entirely new—and that he felt unable to move his legs even an inch.

“Austria?” Spain asked in a small voice.

“Hmm?” He couldn’t bring himself to say more.

“Are you … I mean, did I hurt you?” Spain sounded worried.

You mean, when didn’t you hurt me, a malicious part of Austria wanted to quip. He reined it in and settled for the truth.

“It stung when you spread me and it did hurt in the beginning,” he admitted. “But I don’t mind that you were chasing your own release at the end, which is what I think you are referring to.”

“I’m sorry.” Spain sounded sincere. “It gets easier if you do it more often.” There was an unspoken question in that statement, but Austria chose to ignore it for the time being. He had done his duty—the marriage had been consummated—but he didn’t know yet what he wanted for the future.

“Still,” Spain said. Austria felt the bed dip as he stood. He heard him move, but couldn’t bring himself to lift his head. “It was your first time. I should have been gentler.” Spain’s upper body entered Austria’s field of vision, holding a wet piece of cloth. “Allow me to clean you up, too?”

“Please.” Austria realised his own switch back to a formal tone. It seemed to have an effect on Spain: The way he cleaned him up was meticulous and efficient. Austria noted he had warmed the piece of cloth with his body—an act of care he appreciated.

“Tell me,” Austria asked, “if we hadn’t been ordered to consummate our marriage properly, would you have done all you did tonight?”

“No,” Spain answered at once. “I wanted you to enjoy it. I’d probably have stroked us off together, and that’s it. And you can keep caressing each other while you do that…” His voice trailed off. “Look, I think you’re clever and brave and beautiful, and I want to touch you. I’d want it if we weren’t married. But I’m worried I thwarted my own chances before I had any because we were doing what others expected of us.”

“Don’t be cross with me, but I believe I’m unable to think about that just now.” Austria only realised how true this was as he said it: He was exhausted; his legs felt like jelly; and he needed a good night’s sleep anyway after the dances, the chess match and Swabia’s and his own valiant efforts to thwart all spectators.

“Don’t misunderstand me,” he hurried to say as he saw the disappointment on Spain’s face. “If I say I need to think about it, I don’t mean no. I mean that I need to think about it, but I’m about to fall asleep. So … come to bed with me?”

Spain nodded. Then he doused the candles and went to bed, putting the blankets over them both as well as he could. Austria made a point of taking Spain’s hand.

It had been a long day, and he really needed to think. He also needed his legs to work again, but he assumed that problem would have solved itself by tomorrow.

#hetalia #hetabang 2020 #spaus #aph spain #aph austria #historical hetalia #aph belgium #aph bavaria #aph holy roman empire #aph saxony #hws spain #hws austria #hetalia fanfiction #aph fanfiction #aph #fanfiction #my fanfiction #katemarley #there be citrus fruit

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woeismyhoe · 4 years

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I disagree. When people only use a certain culture for aesthetic, it’s more of a fetishization than. The fans of the show tend to do it. Idk about anime or where they borrow from but it’s more painful if your they once tried to wipe out your whole culture. The sandbenders being portrayed as bad guys, zaheer and Ghassan as villains really tells you what they think about Islam and muslims. No the eipsode was wring in so many ways. It’s basically saying ok no problem u lost your people to genocide and these are the last remains of your ancestors but we will try to wipe that out and you don’t get to be angry about it. You can tell the show is written by and markated to white people. I don’t know about you but representation really does matter to me and many other people. People fetishizes East Asian, white people esp. SA ppl are dark skinned compared. You can’t tell me they didn’t take these things while creating the show. Aang had his everything wiped out. Imagine the trauma but nah we have another kid who is allowed to express his trauma and y’all should be sympathetic towards him. Tell me it’s not the colonizer mindset.

But how would you know if it was only used for aesthetics? When in ATLA has it ever been about aesthetics? That word wasn’t even casually used during those years. If it were simply aesthetics, then I doubt that the whole research the team used in ATLA for architecture, designs and clothings wouldn’t have even been made in the first place— and shockingly, ATLA had more combination of cultural respectable inspired designs than kid shows from native countries (I’m not even kidding).

You don’t know anime, so you can’t really say much about it. I have, and I can tell you that the Chinese during WWII was targeted to be massacred by the Imperial Japanese. Just search up the Nanjing massacre. That shit was absolute monstrosity that idek what happened to those soldiers for them to do those things. And those didn’t only occur in Nanjing, but in Asia overall particularly to anyone Chinese simply because they didn’t like the Chinese. And yet hundreds of anime constantly borrow elements from Chinese culture and the Chinese rarely have a problem with it despite their history with Japan. It’s the same thing with South Korea. These countries have their conflicts day to day until it gets political, but anime is never involved because like I said, they know how to separate fiction from reality.

And Zaheer and Ghassan? The country I’m living in is also populated by the Muslim community (and obviously grew up with their culture), yet none of them have complained about that or assumed there was a hidden agenda because again, they don’t immediately suspect it to be a deliberate attack on their community just because a villain happened to share a Muslim name. There are several villains with Chinese names in the Avatarverse and even in anime where villains are ethnically Chinese, Korean, German, African— yet again, they don’t give a fuck because they understand evil doesn’t stem from race but rather from the character’s backstory.

Bryke wasn’t obligated to insert any South Asian as a main character in ATLA. They weren’t obligated to make everyone good people. You’re complaining about sandbenders being portrayed as the bad guys, so does that mean East Asians are also bad guys? Because that’s your logic right now. Throughout at least one Chinese, Korean, Japanese based character has been shown to partake in looting and criminalistics activities, yet you’ve chosen to specifically only see the sandbenders being portrayed as the bad guys DESPITE that being only done by one group while the father was honorable and so were the ones who helped Zuko and Iroh, and Guru Pathik was the most obvious SA and he was definitely not a bad guy. I don’t see how the show’s treatment of them was any less different than how East Asian based characters were treated.

Was the show marketed to white people? Perhaps. It’s the US where white ppl dominate the market. But you act as if the accents were specifically only for white people, as if POCs don’t speak the same American accent. You claim that white people fetishize East Asian culture, as if that’s just specifically done more often by white people. Idk about you but that sounds awfully racist right now. So what? ATLA was mostly based off of East Asia, so that means it was a fetish, seriously? So anyone who chooses to base something off of East Asia, that’s only because of a fetish, and not because they were genuinely interested in the culture. That’s your assumption? FYI that is ridiculously presumptuous and offensive af.

It was released in 2005. Different era and time. Representation wasn’t demanded but rather done casually that didn’t have to scream WE HAVE REPRESENTATION AND DIVERSITY SO WATCH OUR SHOW! like shows are doing nowadays. Why? Because storytelling and good entertainment was prioritized over representation, unlike today where y’all are literally making everything about representation that shows aren’t even fun to watch anymore.

You keep seeing white people as the enemy that your hatred has extended even to a freaking cartoon show that actually has good messages and progressive af for it’s time (and I’m not just talking about it being Asian based). No where in the Northern Air Temple episode did it imply that Aang had no right to be mad about what happened to the air temple or that he was being unreasonable. Literally everyone emphasized with his feelings but again, SURVIVAL and PRACTICALITY. That was their reasoning, which are completely valid during a time of WAR.

I grew up in a country which basically and shockingly shares the themes of the Avatarverse which is to ultimately appreciate each other’s cultures and not to isolate themselves from one another. There are the Chinese, Malays, Indians, South Asians, Eurasians over here— It’s not even that hard to say that Singapore is prospering much more than the US or majority of Europe because we don’t think of any race as the enemy, even if the Chinese here are the majority and there’s still subtle racism around. Why? Because it’s encouraged here to spread their cultures around and dress in their ethnic clothes. Everything is done respectfully, which was what ATLA did. I’m literally comparing an actual country that has achieved multicultural harmony to ATLA. That means ATLA must have done something right, contrary to the SJWs opinion.

What I’m basically saying is, don’t keep accusing something to be problematic, when the actual natives don’t. It’s ridiculous when people somehow think they know everything about their culture that they can nitpick what’s appropriate and what’s not, when they didn’t even grow up surrounded by that culture. Hint: if you grew up with a westernized thinking (which is practically everyone), then you should really go and visit your roots first and then ask older people who tend to have the traditional mentality about the issue in question, before jumping to conclusions and getting offended when the rest aren’t.

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taylortruther · 3 years

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I need to rant, sorry

I’m SO tired of the US cultural imperialism that every single country in the world has to endure. I live in Europe and I’ve been witnessing it my entire life but lately I’ve been getting so tired of it. The day of the storming of the Congress we had a LIVE coverage about it that lasted two hours on my country’s main public TV channel (I was extra salty about it because I wanted to watch a movie and it was postponed lol). How is that necessary? It’s an event that happened on the other side of the world and it lasted four hours and yeah, it was important, but it does not justify a live coverage in a random European country in any way. And the fact that I saw dozens of people criticizing Zayn for promoting his album while that was happening is antonishing... why should a British person interrupt their own life because of a mess that happened in the US? Are American celebrities expected to organize their schedules around the relevant events that happen in Germany, in the UK, in Brazil, in China or in another “really important” country?

We have full reports any time Trump sneezes, and yet much more important events (for Europe) which happen in the Middle East or in North African countries receive very little attention. At the end of the day, even if an event does not influence my country, it should still receive coverage, I’m not arguing with that, but the point is that it’s mainly American events that receive coverage, even irrelevant ones (it’s important to cover school shootings, obviously, but we even had the fucking Nashville explosion on the news... does the US cover every single homicide-suicide case around the world?).

And it’s actually dangerous too. The local news talked about the BLM protest for weeks, which, fine, I guess... but what about racism in my country? BLM protests were an historic event and they obviously needed to be covered. But the downside is that suddenly everyone couldn’t stop talking about “police brutality” and “BLM” without realizing that racism happens in different ways around the globe, the history of the American police is NOT the same as the one in my country, and it’s stupid to write “black lives matter” in an Instagram story when you couldn’t care less about the racism that happens in your own country

It’s no one’s fault, I guess (the US has been imposing itself in other countries for years and years; some Americans and incredibly self-entitled and some Europeans need to let go of the importance they assign to the US), but it’s tiring as hell

honestly, as an american, i cannot truly understand how exhausting that is. i live here and i'm sick to death of our media; i imagine it's a lot worse for someone outside the country.

i also don't have any sophisticated explanation or reason for you... but i do think about this topic often because i'm a media nerd. this very brief breakdown of media coverage of different geographic locations may be of interest.

basically, it's due to a lot of factors. some are fair, some not so fair. either way, no less frustrating for people who live in other countries because it has very real impacts on how people see the world.

edited for clarity

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firsthopemedia · 3 years

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The Democratic Ideal and New Colonialism FIRST HOPE MEDIA "Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful concerned individuals can precipitate change in the world ... indeed, it is the only thing that ever has" (Margaret Mead) "Democracy" is not the rule of the people. It is government by periodically vetted representatives of the people. Democracy is not tantamount to a continuous expression of the popular will as it pertains to a range of issues. Functioning and fair democracy is representative and not participatory. Participatory "people power" is mob rule, not democracy. Granted, "people power" is often required in order to establish democracy where it is unprecedented. Revolutions - velvet, rose, and orange - recently introduced democracy in Eastern Europe, for instance. People power - mass street demonstrations - toppled obnoxious dictatorships from Iran to the Philippines and from Peru to Indonesia. But once the institutions of democracy are in place and more or less functional, the people can and must rest. They should let their chosen delegates do the job they were elected to do. And they must hold their emissaries responsible and accountable in fair and free ballots once every two or four or five years. As heads of the state in Latin America, Africa, Asia, and East Europe can attest, these vital lessons are lost on the dozens of "new democracies" the world over. Many of these presidents and prime ministers, though democratically elected (multiply, in some cases), have fallen prey to enraged and vigorous "people power" movements in their countries. And these breaches of the democratic tradition are not the only or most egregious ones. The West boasts of the three waves of democratization that swept across the world 1975. Yet, in most developing countries and nations in transition, "democracy" is an empty word. Granted, the hallmarks of democracy are there: candidate lists, parties, election propaganda, and voting. But its quiddity is absent. It is being consistently hollowed out and rendered mock by election fraud, exclusionary policies, cronyism, corruption, intimidation, and collusion with Western interests, both commercial and political. The new "democracies" are thinly-disguised and criminalized plutocracies (recall the Russian oligarchs), authoritarian regimes (Central Asia and the Caucasus), or Vichy-like heterarchies (Macedonia, Bosnia, and Iraq, to mention three recent examples). The new "democracies" suffer from many of the same ills that afflict their veteran role models: murky campaign finances, venal revolving doors between state administration and private enterprise, endemic corruption, self-censoring media, socially, economically, and politically excluded minorities, and so on. But while this malaise does not threaten the foundations of the United States and France - it does imperil the stability and future of the likes of Ukraine, Serbia, and Moldova, Indonesia, Mexico, and Bolivia. Worse still, the West has transformed the ideal of democracy into an ideology at the service of imposing a new colonial regime on its former colonies. Spearheaded by the United States, the white and Christian nations of the West embarked with missionary zeal on a transformation, willy-nilly, of their erstwhile charges into paragons of democracy and good governance. And not for the first time. Napoleon justified his gory campaigns by claiming that they served to spread French ideals throughout a barbarous world. Kipling bemoaned the "White Man's (civilizing) burden", referring specifically to Britain's role in India. Hitler believed himself to be the last remaining barrier between the hordes of Bolshevism and the West. The Vatican concurred with him. This self-righteousness would have been more tolerable had the West actually meant and practiced what it preached, however self-delusionally. Yet, in dozens of cases in the last 60 years alone, Western countries intervened, often by force of arms, to reverse and nullify the outcomes of perfectly legal and legitimate popular and democratic elections. They did so because of economic and geopolitical interests and they usually installed rabid dictators in place of the deposed elected functionaries. This hypocrisy cost them dearly. Few in the poor and developing world believe that the United States or any of its allies are out to further the causes of democracy, human rights, and global peace. The nations of the West have sown cynicism and they are reaping strife and terrorism in return. Moreover, democracy is far from what it is made out to be. Confronted with history, the myth breaks down. For instance, it is maintained by their chief proponents that democracies are more peaceful than dictatorships. But the two most belligerent countries in the world are, by a wide margin, Israel and the United States (closely followed by the United Kingdom). As of late, China is one of the most tranquil polities. Democracies are said to be inherently stable (or to successfully incorporate the instability inherent in politics). This, too, is a confabulation. The Weimar Republic gave birth to Adolf Hitler and Italy had almost 50 governments in as many years. The bloodiest civil wars in history erupted in Republican Spain and, seven decades earlier, in the United States. Czechoslovakia, the USSR, and Yugoslavia imploded upon becoming democratic, having survived intact for more than half a century as tyrannies. Democracies are said to be conducive to economic growth (indeed, to be a prerequisite to such). But the fastest economic growth rates in history go to imperial Rome, Nazi Germany, Stalinist Russia, and post-Mao China. Finally, how represented is the vox populi even in established democracies? In a democracy, people can freely protest and make their opinions known, no doubt. Sometimes, they can even change their representatives (though the rate of turnover in the US Congress in the last two decades is lower than it was in the last 20 years of the Politburo). But is this a sufficient incentive (or deterrent)? The members of the various elites in Western democracies are mobile - they ceaselessly and facilely hop from one lucrative sinecure to another. Lost the elections as a Senator? How about a multi-million dollar book contract, a consultant position with a firm you formerly oversaw or regulated, your own talk show on television, a cushy job in the administration? The truth is that voters are powerless. The rich and mighty take care of their own. Malfeasance carries little risk and rarely any sanction. Western democracies are ossified bastions of self-perpetuating interest groups aided and abetted and legitimized by the ritualized spectacle that we call "elections". And don't you think the denizens of Africa and Asia and eastern Europe and the Middle East are blissfully unaware of this charade.

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write-crawler · 5 years

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Why culture matters, especially in times of economical crisis

A defense of Brazilian SAT (ENEM)'s essay theme: “Democratization of access to movies”

B A C K G R O U N D - What is ENEM?

The ENEM - Exame Nacional do Ensino Médio (National High School Exam) - is one of the most important tests for high school kids. It's a chance to get into an university, it's a chance to get into a public university - which, in Brazil, are free of tuition and are usually the highest ranking universities of the country. It's the Brazilian SAT.

The test is divided into Humanities, Languages, and an essay - which are tested on the first day - and Mathematics, Sciences, and Biology - tested on the second day. The ENEM happens all across the country in the first 2 Sundays of November, starting at 1:30 pm and lasts a maximum of 5 hours and 30 minutes. That means the first half happened already this past Sunday (November 3rd, 2019).

This is the first ENEM applied under the Presidency of Jair Bolsonaro, far-right politician who got elected in 2018. Last year, he criticized the test and a specific question about language that used as example a dialect used by the Brazilian transgender community. This is also the first ENEM that had an ideological screening. Also the first ENEM that had no questions about the Brazilian military dictatorship (1964 - 1985) - which Bolsonaro supported and still openly supports - or about the dictatorship of Getúlio Vargas (1937 - 1946), who was a nazi and fascism sympathizer.

T H E E S S A Y - The “controversy”, its history, and my opinion

The essay is a dissertative-argumentative one that requires students to present na introduction, thesis, argumentation, conclusion, and a solution proposal. Every year it has a different theme, which the candidates only find out what it is when they recieve the test. It is released to the press and public later on the day, while candidates are still taking the test. This year the theme was "Democratization of the access to movies". And, like always, many many people complained about it.

Part of the complaints were about how there are many other important topics to discuss, such as the fires in the Amazon rainforest or other political matters more closely connected to Jair Bolsonaro and his government. Other complaints were that most Brazilians don’t have access to the movies – only 10% of the country’s cities have movie theaters -, so it was very hard for most of the candidates to talk about that theme, making the theme unfair. A tweet that became viral after the test reports a candidate saying “Dude, some days, my house doesn’t even have water, and they want me to write about the democratization of movies”. So, basically, the complaints are that the movies are a reality that is too far away for many Brazilians and there are other social problems that affect everyone, which makes them more important than the movies.

What these people aren’t getting about the theme is that it is not about movies. Or rather, it’s not just about movies. It’s about democracy and accessibility. But, because these two topics are too broad and the essay has a limit of 30 lines, with a focus on movies. The essay didn’t require you to explain why “The Shape of Water” wasn’t just a monsterfucker fantasy of Guillermo del Toro. It didn’t require you to point out all the symbolism in “Donnie Darko”. Or to talk about how “Fight Club” is an amazing criticism of current society. It didn’t require any knowledge of cinema or movies because it wasn’t about it. It wasn’t necessary to have ever stepped foot in a movie theater to be able to talk about this theme. Because the actual keywords of the theme are “democratization” and “access”. The “movies” part was there simply to help candidates narrow down the topics, to make it easier to talk about these topics.

This year’s theme has suffered the same criticism so many past themes have suffered, because people want the simple and obvious themes. And, to accomplish that, they reduce the theme to just one word. They take the word in the theme that is meant to help you think about the others and make it the theme of the essay.

For example, in 2018 the theme was “Manipulation of user behavior by internet data control”. Everyone said the theme was hard and that it was “the internet”. It was NOT about the internet. It was about how the internet is used to MANIPULATE people, how it is used to CONTROL and TRACK people’s behaviors. We all saw the election of Donald Trump in 2016 happen with a lot of fake news in the internet. We saw in 2018 Bolsonaro get elected by bombarding conservative’s WhatsApp groups with fake news. We KNOW Facebook tracks us and our behavior so they’ll know what ads to show us. Hell, Facebook watches us so closely, they can make shadow profiles of people who don’t have a Facebooks account. So, if in the ENEM of 2018, you talked about the internet, and not about the manipulation of internet data, you failed the essay.

And 2017’s theme wasn’t deaf people. It was “Dificulties in the education of deaf people”. I did the ENEM that year. And, like most, I thought “fuck” when I read the theme. I, like so many others, complained on the internet about the theme, about how hard it was. And yet, I scored a 840 out of 1000 on my essay. It’s a really good score that would’ve gotten me into several good colleges. How did I manage to get a 840 even though I knew very little about the life of someone with a hearing disability? It’s not because I’m fucking incredible, or because I’m gifted, supersmart or because I suddenly developed an empathical bond with every deaf person in Brazil that allowed me to write the essay. But because I focused first on the first words of the theme, because I thought about the Brazilian educational system, it’s flaws, what affected me and those close to me. Then, after I identified the problems, I figured out how deaf people are affected by them. The theme didn’t require you to be na expert on deafness or to personally be deaf or know a deaf person. You had to think about Brazil’s educational system, the flaws it has and how could they be worse for deaf people. It required you to think about inclusion, disabilities, diversity, and, most of all, education, schools. So, if in 2017 you talked about deaf people instead of their inclusion in schools, you fucked up.

And here is the thing, and maybe you’ve noticed it already, the ENEM’s essay is always about social issues. More specifically, social issues regarding citizenship, democracy, and inclusion. No matter the theme, these three topics, somehow, are always involved in the discussion – because that’s the estructure of the essay. So the theme will never be about just one word or one concept. It’ll always be more complex than that. For more proof, let’s look at all the other previous themes since ENEM’s beggining:

2016: Ways to fight religious intolerance in Brazil

2015: The persistency of violence against women in Brazilian society

2014: The question of child advertising in Brazil

2013: Effects of the prohibition in Brazil

2012: Immigration movement to Brazil in the 21st century

2011: Linving online in the 21st century: the limits between public and private

2010: The work (as in job) in building human dignity

2009: The individual facing national ethics

2008: How to preserve the Amazon rainforest: immediatly suspend deforestation; give financial incentives to landowners that stop deforesting; or increase law enforcement and impose fines on those who deforest

2007: The challenge of living with differences

2006: The transformative power of reading

2005: Child labor in Brazilian society

2004: How to garantee freedom of information and avoid abuses in the means of communication

2003: The violence in Brazilian society: how to change the rule of this game

2002: The right to vote: how to make of this conquest a way to promote the social changes that Brazil needs?

2001: Development and environmental preservation: how to conciliate these conflicting interests?

2000: Children and teenagers’ rights: how to face this national challenge

1999: Citizenship and social participation

1998: Living and learning

Apart from 1998’s theme, which really is simplistic, all others contain at least one of the topics I mentioned above: citizenship, democracy, and inclusion – perhaps not explicit in the title, but if you think about them, it’s not hard to get to these topics. And all the themes are about social issues. So this is why 2019’s theme is not, in any way, shape or form, a divergence from ENEM’s usual estructure. It’s true that it’s been a long while since ENEM’s essay tackled culture, but it still follows the usual formula, it still expects the same things from 2019’s candidates that it expected from the candidates of previous years.

Another part of the criticism that I haven’t addressed yet: that there are more important themes to discuss.

Honestly, Brazil has always been a country that didn’t give a shit about culture in general so this shouldn’t surprise me. Like most Third World countries, we serve only to supply Europe and the USA with raw materials and give them our natural resources. This isn’t by choice, by the way, that’s the result of living under colonization and USAmerican imperialism. The USA has kept a very tight leash on Brazil, us being it’s most loyal follower in South America – and, when we aren’t that loyal, the USA is quick to orchestrate a coup. And because of all of this, Brazilian society has na ironic culture of dismissing culture. Or rather, dismissing critical thinking and the arts and anything that isn’t pragmatical or practical. What matters here are real jobs, jobs that make money. You go to college so you can work, not to get culture. Because culture is for the elites and, unfortunately, that’s how Brazil wants to keep it.

The lower social classes are taught to only care about majors that will get them a job. Here, we have a thing called Technical Education, and it’s purpose is solely to prepare kids to work. Like the name suggests, it’s just technical information, it doesn’t encourage or teaches critical thinking – again, because in Brazilian mentality, that’s all you need to do, work and shut up. You can opt for Technical Education rather than go to High School – the subjects that are required in High School are integrated with others – or you can do it after High School. Technical Education is NOT college, it doesn’t count as college or superior education. So, again, it really is meant to keep poor people away from college and culture and just get them to work. In 2016, after leftist President Dilma Rousseff’s impeachment – or coup, depends on your political position and how you see the process – and her right-wing VP, Michel Temer, took over, Technical Education started being encouraged a lot on TV with government advertisement. After Temer took over, it was passed a reform of our Educational System that no longer required schools to teach philosophy.

Currently, Bolsonaro’s government has constantly attacked education, especially public universities. Like I said before, public universities in Brazil are free of tuition, which means that it’s the only chance for many to go to college. And public colleges here also have social and racial quotas, some universities even have transgender quotas, to help the less privileged students get into colleges as part of historic reparations. One of the biggest projects of Bolsonaro’s government is to end all these quotas, making diversity in universities drop even lower. And his government also wants to impose monthly fees on public universities, claiming that those who attend public universities can afford it (we can’t, asshole). (Also, here’s the thing about a right given to you by the Constitution: if you have to pay for it, then it’s no longer right, it’s a privilege. So, charging anything at a public university is unconstitutional. Charging for education is against the Constitution.)

What is also concerning, is the project Future-se (comes from the word “futuro” meaning “future”), nicknamed Fature-se (a play on the name, comes from “fatura” meaning “bill”), that would make public universities depend on financial aid from private companies. Meaning that only the colleges, only the areas, that can be capitalized and/or that appeal to the capitalist market, would get fundings. That means, arts and human sciences are doomed. Those two areas already don’t have enough funding and already suffer with attacks from conservatives, constantly, for not being “productive” and not producing “anything” for society, now imagine when they have data from private companies refusing to invest in those areas. We’ll be cut for sure. Especially because the project states that it is meant to supply the entrepreneurial sector, the privates sector of economy. It’s not about giving back to the community, it’s about fueling capitalism. The project also allows private companies to buy and name buildings of the college. So, literally, you could have na auditorium at a public university called Wall-Mart or Jeff Bezos. Totally not capitalist propaganda, right?

This capitalism-covenient project comes at a time where Universities are struggling to pay their bills – because the State has made a cut on fundings (BOLSONARO’s government cut the fundings, it’s directly his fault a need for financial aid coming from outside the government is even needed). Another area that has suffered a lot of financial cuts is – guess it – culture!

I know I went on and on and on about Brazilian education, but I needed you to understand just a little bit of the extent that the higher classes will go to to keep the lower classes away from anything that may teach them critical thinking. Culture, movies, literature, and paintings are all things that make us look critically at our society. Art has always existed as a form of protest, as a form of expressing your political beliefs, be it left or right wing beliefs. To keep it away from the population, to restrict it, is to put restrictions on our souls, minds, and, obviously, freedom. We need the fictional to function in reality.

Fiction is not reality, obviously. But it doesn’t exist on a vaccum. It feeds on reality and it feeds reality, they’re both stuck in an endless cycle. Fiction isn’t reality, but it does have the most potential, out of anything, to change reality. If it didn’t, fascists wouldn’t need to burn books. If fiction didn’t matter, there would be no censorship of song lyrics under dictatorial regimes. If it didn’t matter, Bolsonaro wouldn’t have felt the need to extinguish the Ministry of Culture, turn it into the Secretary of Culture and put the son of a pastor in charge of it. If it didn’t matter, Bolsonaro wouldn’t have cut 43% of the National Cinema Agency (Ancine)’s budget for 2020 – making it the lowest since 2012. If it didn’t matter, Bolsonaro wouldn’t have threatened to end Ancine because of the movie “Bruna Surfistinha”, which told the story of a teenager who ended up being a prostitute. If it didn’t matter, Bolsonaro wouldn’t have censored LGBTQ+ themed movies that were being made by Ancine. And if it didn’t matter, Bolsonaro wouldn’t have asked Ancine to make a movie about himself, and the rise of the Brazilian reactionary movement. If it didn’t matter, Crivella, the mayor of Rio de Janeiro, wouldn’t have tried to enter a book event with the police to aprehend a Marvel Avengers comic book because it had two gay characters kissing in it. If it didn’t matter, they wouldn’t care.

But they do, a lot. Because, like I said, fiction doesn’t exist in a vaccum, it exists with reality. And so, what we see in fictional work has come from reality, in one way or the other. Because if you see gay people in a comic book, it’s because gay people exist. If there’s transgender people in movies or in a book, it’s because transgender people exist in real life. If minorities exist in fiction, it’s because they exist in reality. And what bothers them is not that we are present in books, but that we are present in real life. And, since genocide would take more effort, they take the easy way out and try to kill us in fiction hoping that it will lead to our dissapearence from real life. That’s why censorship happens. That’s why representation matters.

Protecting culture means protecting the rights of people to exist and be seen. And that is a political act. Shouldn’t be, but it is. Because the right is very firm and clear about the fact that they don’t want groups of people to exist because of who they are.

And, no, that’s not the same as antifa. Antifa hates fascists because their ideology inhenrently wants to persue the genocide of minorities. Antifa hates fascists because of what they believe in, not because of who they are. If antifa confronts a fascist, the fascist can say they regret defending that ideology and leave it behind. Antifa maybe won’t buy their motives, but will leave them alone. However, when it comes to fascists, either they lose or we die. It’s not the same.

But back to culture, literature and movies are a important part of people’s political position formation. Like I said before, education is not accessible to all and critical thinking isn’t being taught to many lower classes kids. So, for these kids that don’t have access to theorical texts – and, even if they did get their hands on these books, the vocabulary would probably be too hard for them (not because they’re stupid, but simply because no one has taught them these words and meanings before) and the quantity of information is not one they’re used to, making the text hard to digest and understand – movies are a great way to show them the ugly truths of our society in a way that they can understand.

Movies like “Freedom Writers” are very, very important to show exactly everything I’ve been saying so far. The movie is based on a real story about a teacher, Erin Gruwell, who starts teaching at a High School in 1995 where a lot of students are poc and involved with gangs, living in poverty and in violent neighborhoods. Gruwell understands the reality of these students and introduce them to books they can relate to, but that also teach them about history, the history of oppresed minorities – like the Diary of Anne Frank and the Diary of Zlata Filipovic. She knows these students won’t respond to textbooks, or hundreds of grammar lessons that seem meaningless to them. So she buys them books. Books written by teenagers like them who they can relate to. Now, I know these books aren’t fiction, but, still, they’re literature and they changed the lives of those teenagers – some of them were the first to graduate High School on their families. But as for the movie telling these stories, it’s essential that kids on the same situation as these teenagers see it. They have to see kids like them on TV going through the same things and making it out alive, well, and going to college. It’s important for them to see a teacher buy the Diary of Anne Frank to a group of teenagers deemed stupid by the educational system. It’s important that they see that the reason they might not understand Diary of Anne Frank isn’t because they’re stupid, but because they didn’t have a Erin Gruwell to help them, to explain it to them.

But “Freedom Writers” isn’t the only movie that does that. “Que Horas Ela Volta”, a Brazilian movie titled “Second Mother” in English, tells the story of Val, a woman who left her young daughter in the Northeast of Brazil to be a nanny, then domestic maid, in the Southeast, working for na affluent family – and living with them. She leaves her daughter in a poor state, with her grandmother, while she takes care of someone else’s son. Years later, Val’s daughter, Jessica, asks to stay with her for a while so she can take na entrance exam for a public university, the same one the family’s son, Fabinho, is trying to get into. As Jessica lives with them, she questions the unspoken and tight rules that dictate the places each social class gets to ocupate, creating tension within the household.

Brazilian TV series, “Assédio” (“Harrassment”), talks about a doctor at a fertilization clinic who is exposed for sexually abusing and even raping his patients. “Saneamento básico” (“Basic sanitation”) is a comedy about how the lack of basic sanitation changes a small town – the residents decide to make a movie, that has to be of a fictional story, to shed light on the sanitary problem they face. “Cidade de Deus” (“City of God”) talks about the favelas, the “slums”, police brutality, and racism. “Central do Brasil” (“Central of Brazil”) is about a retired teacher who writes letters that are dictated for her by poor people who are illiterate, and want to send letters to realtives. “Larte-se” is about a transgender cartoonist who started transitioning at 59 years old. “Hoje Eu Quero Voltar Sozinho” (“Today I Want To Go Back Alone”) is about a blind gay boy. “O Filho Eterno” (“The Eternal Son”) is about a couple who happily waits for their first son, and then find out the child has Down Syndrome.

See, all these movies are extremely relevant themes. All of them could be cited in an ENEM essay. All these movies are very political. All these movies talk about problems of our society and inequality. They show what life is like for those less privileged. To see those fictional stories, is to develop a better understanding of how society works and it’s problems. To see those fictional stories is to develop a bigger empathy for those suffering.

And to keep them away from people, to censor movies, to keep the price of movie tickets high, to restrict what stories can be told, is to limit the population’s right to think for ourselves. Think and criticize. It’s a violation of free speech, it’s a violation of democracy.

In times of economical crisis, the right rises with “magical” solutions for the economy that almost always means cuting the fundings of arts and encouranging the lower classes to work. Work, not think. It is in those times of crisis that music, movies, and literature suffer bigger and bigger attempts of being crushed. Because art is political, because to do art you have to think. And it is in those times that we must protect the most the arts. It is in those times that we have to do what we can to make the arts accessible.

And this is why the democratization of access to the movies is a very very important theme. And this is why culture matters, especially in times of economical crisis.

So we can think. So we can fight. So we can survive. So we can thrive.

#enem #enem essay #essay #redação #redação do enem #arts #art #culture #movie #movies #movie recs #lgbtq+#minorities #protect the arts #fascism #antifa #bolsonaro

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