#bc some regions use it more negatively than others

[gsirvitor]

Another weird question when did the….uuuh…glamorization of the Roman civilization began? I thought the Roman Empire was a abusive regime (especially towards provinces like Britannia) to Western Europe. So when did the Europeans decided to romanticize the Romans?(pun intended)

Because Rome went from being one of many city-states in the Italian Peninsula to being the center of the most powerful empire in the world between the fifth century BC and the first century AD.

From Rome, Europe got its languages, law, philosophy, and most importantly Christianity, it was viewed as Europe's own cradle of civilization along side Greece.

Rome was no more abusive than any other regime back then, even the Gauls and other tribes were as bad, or worse, however, the people's conquered by Rome and living in its provinces enjoyed a much higher standard of living than those living outside of its borders.

Roman citizens paid taxes and in return enjoyed safety, stability, increased commerce, and the technological benefits of Roman roads and Roman aqueducts. Roman sanitation systems not only created a more pleasant environment, but also drastically reduced disease.

While some civilizations are remembered for massive monuments, the Romans are remembered as builders of civilization. We still use Roman numerals, and our calendar is almost exactly the same as the Romans. Our planets are named after Roman deities.

Rome’s advances lived on in the countries and regions that would come to dominate the world in a few hundred years.

Yet none of the successors of Rome were as grand, and as large and powerful as Rome in the period following the decline of the Roman Empire.

But to answer the question of when this started, it began immediately after the collapse of Rome, when the German chieftain Odoacer deposed the last Roman emperor of the West, Romulus Augustulus, 476 AD.

Odoacer became the first barbarian King of Italy, initiating a new era. With the backing of the Roman Senate, Odoacer thenceforth ruled Italy autonomously, paying lip service to the authority of Julius Nepos, the last Western emperor, and Zeno, the emperor of the East.

Rome never truly fell, its influence and name carried so much weight across Europe no nation or people would declare it was dead, instead each nation that gained power would declare themselves Rome's successor.

The most enduring and significant claimants of continuation of the Roman Empire have been, in the East, the Ottoman Empire and Russian Empire, which both claimed succession of the Byzantine Empire after 1453; and in the West, the Holy Roman Empire from 800 to 1806.

Separately from claims of continuation, the view that the Empire had ended has led to various attempts to revive it or appropriate its legacy, notably in the case of Orthodox Russia.

There's also Imperial Spain, Fascist Italy which was called Third Rome, Napoleonic France, Austrian Empire, the Greeks in 1844 through the Byzantines, and the German Empire.

Hell, Rome held so much weight that the Church is considered a continuation of the Empire, even Constantinople was considered the second Rome.

Today only one entity is trying to be like Rome today, and it isn't the US, it's the EU.

Memories of the Roman Empire have accompanied the European Union since its inception with the 1950 Schuman Plan. The Roman Empire has provided the European Union, like many countries, with Roman legal concepts and their language, Latin.

As such Latin has been used as one non-official lingua franca in the European Union, for example by EU Institutions using Latin concepts in texts and titles.

The comparison of the European Union with the Holy Roman Empire, in a both negative and positive light, is an all too common trope of political commentary.

The EU has been viewed as a reincarnation of a foreign and overbearing Roman Empire in some European countries, particularly the United Kingdom.

The 2020 withdrawal of the UK from the Union, or Brexit, has been variously compared with the Rebellion of Boudica or the end of Roman rule in Britain.

A different negative view of the EU as a new Roman Empire has been used in Christian circles in the US.

According to that view, the EU, like other supranational endeavors such as the United Nations and World Bank, by attempting to revive the Roman Empire, signals the approaching end time, rapture or Second Coming, these Christian circles are usually fundamentalist in their teachings.

Occasionally, the EU is portrayed as a Fourth Reich. This critique is often portrayed as fringe in media despite the fact the EU is Hitler's wet dream.

Oh yes, and we can't forget, the League of Nations, the UN's predecessors were seen as the start of a new Roman form of rule.

The French historian Louis Eisenmann, in a 1926 article titled The Imperial Idea in the History of Europe, chose to portray the newly created League as the modern expression of an imperial idea that had been degraded by the German Empire, Habsburg monarchy and Russian Empire.

He argued that the three empires' final demise and the League's establishment represent a renewal of the Pax Romana.

In a sense he was right, since the end of WWII, we have been living, at least in the west, in a pseudo Pax Romana, an era of unprecedented peace, though I suspect it won't last the 200 years required to be the Golden Age of Roman Peace.

[kagiura-akira]

I just finished reading "I'll love you if you let me" and I'm currently making my way through writing a comprehensible appreciation comment. (Since ao3 was down I have lots of things to say because downloading the fic meant I could annotate a ton on little details)

Having said that and being a film student I'm kinda obssessed with the movies you choose to reference and the way you did it. (The whole talk about Jennifer's body had laughter so much that I couldn't concentrate on them having a moment lol.)

The scene of howl's moving castle is so cute too because the way Kagi guesses that Hirano will mention it before he does showcases how much they know each other. However, if he could guess that it means Hirano must either: mention the movie frequently or show that he really really likes it.

What is it? Why does he likes it so much? Do you have any headcanon about it? (Sorry if I'm sounding overbearing I just really liked the fic and wanted to hear your thoughts on the relation between Hirano and Howl's moving castle)

nonono it's not overbearing I just finished reading your comment too I think. :)

I had it in my head that they'd probably watched it at some point. idk "that's my girl" is something I personally immediately associate with it even though I'm a way bigger fan of the book than the movie (HUGE fan of the book series btw), so more than Hirano not knowing anything other than HMC that has that kind of line, it was mostly me not knowing another movie that says that. 😂 LOL I hope that's not disappointing cause I didn't have any real intention behind it when I first wrote it, but I have some ideas on Hirano's movie preferences, at least. I'm gonna put a cut cause my answer is getting long sjcjsjf

Given they watch movies together somewhat frequently, I think it's only natural at some point one of them is a Miyazaki movie, and for him to mention it by name is most likely because they'd watched it recently in my mind. I'm of the mindset that Hirano likes a good psychological thriller to keep his mind busy, but sometimes when he's too tired to think, he'll like a nice feel good movie he can enjoy as-is. ☺️ Not that there aren't things to analyze or appreciate in the fluffier movies, but a movie that doesn't mindfuck you is just inherently easier to digest. LOL

I mentioned in my other reply too but Jennifer's Body being used as a bad horror movie for them to watch took some deep diving into the movie again. There's a part in the story that one of them mentions I think the slippery squirrel thing? And they say that it's probably a dig at the region the characters live in. Of course there's no way for either of them to know that, but I had to make mention of it somewhere because the regional humor in the movie is much more appreciable now that I like live in that area of the midwest 😂 I have for several years now but I didn't when the movie came out bc I was still in college then, so watching it now makes it funnier.

"That is the most 'Wisconsin' thing I've ever heard you say" is a favorite phrase in our house lmaooo

I don't have too many preconceptions on Kagi's movie interests but I firmly believe he loves a good drama, especially a romance. Kagi a k drama enthusiast by accident??? Quite possibly. He's definitely a crier, but I don't think he would seek sad movies or scenes out on his own. I can see him accidentally getting hooked on a drama and being a blubbering mess, so Hirano asks why he's still watching it, but he insists he's too invested now and he has to keep suffering through it just to see the happy ending or else it'll haunt him for life. LOL He's probably prone to liking comedies and sports movies as well, but I can't see him having too many strong negative opinions or genres he hates. I can see Hirano being pickier (not by genre but by synopsis - the man's got high standards for the movie blurb 😂) but he's likely to not say anything if it's something Kagi really wants to watch. He'd probably just focus on watching Kagi's reactions instead of the movie itself.

As for howls moving castle, I think it's possible that the movie resonates with Hirano a little bit. Sophie in particular I feel like he could sympathize with. Not because she feels old/dull and has this complex about being a failure (and is keeping herself locked under the spell herself but that's a book revelation and not the movie), but I am assuming you've seen it so like. You know the kind of special hell the inside of the castle was like before she came along. Lol her distaste for the chaos and disarray probably resonates with Hirano feeling like that with Kagi sometimes. Kagi is inherently flirtatious with him, too, so howl being a big flirt is another parallel to Kagi. But again Howl and his vanity and basically womanizing personality is more apparent in the book so I don't remember how much of it is apparent in the movie.

I can see Hirano resonating highly with Sophie, even if Kagi's similarities Howl aren't super strong or apparent. If they were to watch it more than once I'm sure he would be a little more analytical in his second watching experience and think about some deeper character analysis. That would be about when he starts drawing parallels

#Strawberry Dreams reflects any and all personal preferences I have for hrkg headcanons I think #So it's never a bother being asked about them! #Hrkg strawberry dreams universe #kagihira #film student anon

[sharkmind]

Okay re: the accent post, you gotta understand with American accents 😭 Here there's a pretty big difference btwn very specific regional accents(so specific towns/cities) and a standard American accent. I think every American's accent is always bound to have some quirks based on where exactly they're from, but we don't rly consider them to be specific accents because the differences are pretty marginal that there's really no point of calling it a [insert state] accent."(especially bcs states are so vast that you can't rly say there's one specific accent)

There's plenty of accents within states but a lot of people generally really do just have a standard accent! I hope that makes sense :) I understand what you're getting at with your tags but, for me personally it's hard to call my accent anything other than "American"!

haha absolutely!! i wasn't actually talking about you in those tags coz you said american and a lil explanation lol, it was more a reaction to a brief scroll through the post tags 😭😭 sorry if u thought i was doing a dig!!

totally get regional differences - here in the uk we have some very different accents just in the next town over so it's normal for us to quite narrowly specify a region when talking about where we're from or what our accent may be like, but i know that that's quite unusual compared to the rest of the world! i think i read somewhere that the uk has the most accents per square mile than any other country? not sure of how accurate that is though....

and i also appreciate that most people internationally won't necessarily get that a liverpool accent is drastically different to a manchester accent even though they're geographically close!

all that being said i think it's fascinating that people in the usa can have such similar accents over much larger geographical areas and that it seems almost unifying in a way? like that there is a "standard" american accent is so different to here! in the uk i think we're much more exposed to what might be called a standard accent over there through tv and film as well, i find it all so interesting and was not intentionally being negative towards anyone haha

[air-duct-cleaning-in-surrey]

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[missjanjie]

Referring to your prior posts, I think the behaviour of non-Americans towards Americans asking about niche American things comes from a place of Americans acting as their country is the epicentre around which the world operates. Americans are frequently guilty of assuming that their way of living and doing is automatically everyone else's way. In countries outside of America, the world view isn't quite as........centralized,I suppose. We know of and about America, but it's not a idolized view. Honestly,depending on the region, the view of America can be quite negative(mostly for how they consider America as having the belief that they run the world. Hell, some might say your reaction is "typical American nonsense".)

So, it's annoyance more than anything else on the non-American side. Just a non-American's take. I'm open to hearing other opinions.

The thing is — and I’m not supporting/defending it — aspects of American culture permeate into the mainstream of other cultures, but it tends not to happen in reverse. I feel like I could ask the average person in France if they could name three famous American singers and they probably could. But the average American likely couldn’t name three famous French singers because we just aren’t readily exposed to them, but someone with an interest in French music could seek it out.

Actually as I was writing this I realized that above anything else, it’s probably the fact that English is considered a lingua franca - a global means of communication. So, English content is more widely spread because it’s so widely spoken. It would then make sense that places like America would falsely believe their cultural norms are universal. I think this has led to this stereotype of Americans being arrogant and self-involved when there’s just never been any obvious reason to believe people in other countries that speak the same language would have similar cultural frames of reference. It’d also explain why the reverse wouldn’t work.

Non-Americans also, through no fault of their own, sometimes have this very caricature-like version of us. I see this recurring belief that because we have so many issues with things like gun control, healthcare, etc, that the majority of the country is also pro-unregulated guns, anti-abortion, etc bcs it’s people like the Fox News assholes that are the loudest and the most ridiculous, they say the shit that makes international headlines. I could go into further detail about dissecting American stereotypes as it’s one of the only remotely useful things I got from my sociology degree, but I digress.

TL;DR: the Americans that behave the way you’re describing just don’t have that frame of reference (or sometimes even the access to resources) to understand cultural nuances, whereas American culture is saturated globally that it makes it frustrating to have to fight the idea that fifty states are a monolith in ideals/behavior/etc

#gen asks #again this isn’t meant to be defensive or a debate or anything #just kind of elaborating on my thought process

[gaypleasantview]

✓❀☮✌

thanks!!

✓ : funniest word in your language

i think one is бараболя (bahrahbólya) which is one of the words that mean potato, we have at least like 10 different ways to say potato across the country (and according to wikipedia there are sooooo many different versions). im not from one of the regions that typically use this word but i think its fun :) and i love potatoes

❀ : which language(s) would you like to speak fluently?

german, im begging. bc i live in germany and its pure hell not to speak it well 😭 i would also love to learn spanish, korean, dutch, and/or norwegian at least a bit more because i know some of the most basic things about these languages but like not even nearly enough for it to mean something. and not to speak of the other languages that im interested in but know nothing about!! its so exciting to me i love languages (but rn german is more than enough stress for me tbh)

☮ : translate the first lines of your favourite song in your language

this question and the next one on the list confused me a bit bc i don't know what the difference is supposed to be, like should i translate eng -> ukr or the other way? i figured the second option would be a bit more interesting so here goes: one of the songs i really like is "Де ти є" by The Hardkiss, the first verse goes something like "i left my pass to you at home, now i'm unknown with only the sky left that you and i wanted to get drunk with. i'm gonna remain myself whatever it takes, i will forget the route where you and i used to get lost and share kisses" idkkk this entire song has so many interesting choices from both lyrical and phonetic standpoint, when i first heard it i was amazed 🥹

✌ : favourite proverb/saying from your language

i still dont know about these bc i dont use them but i tried to think of just like any phrases at all and the first one that came to mind is дати драпака (dáty drahpahká) which basically means to run away in a non-serious way (usually negative) and its so funny to me idk 😭

#non sims #profesionalpartyguest

[frawed]

I haven't felt like I've had much to say lately so I haven't been writing. Haven't felt inspired or like I had thoughts worth sharing. But sometimes, writing, in & of itself, is a worthwhile activity & can spark creativity and help me to put those underlying and perhaps somewhat unconscious feelings down where I can see them and see if it rings true. And I have often benefited from re-reading old posts and seeing where I was at mentally, spiritually and emotionally at different points of my life.

Quite often, after a breakup is a very reflective time in my life. And, interestingly, around that time, without you going searching for it, it seems previous exes or even other non-romantic relationships that have fallen by the wayside seem to have a way of cropping back up as if to say, "hey, there's some unresolved stuff here - since you're processing so much, want to process this, too?". LOL Well... this time has been no exception. I've actually had some surprisingly not unpleasant conversations and interactions with some people who previous relationships had failed with. It seems I am not the only one who has been going through a difficult time lately.

Whether or not you want to acknowledge or draw attention to it (by calling it BC or AC or whatever), times after Covid do seem inherently different than before. It does feel like we have lost a lightness of being (that most, not all, of us had) and that things have taken on a more serious tone. Kinda like a fast-forwarding of adulthood for many of us. I don't have many teenagers in my life to ask but I know that in my age group, the people I have talked to seem to collectively be suffering from the trauma resulting from a worldwide pandemic and various countries' and regions' responses to it by forcing compliance on things like self-quarantining. Or, conversely, the enormous stress that resulted for many who did not have the option to quarantine when that was the CDC's and WHO's recommendations but we were considered "essential workers" or worked for employers that rebuffed those notions that quarantining was even necessary.

At the very least, it seems to have shaken us up. Some, it shook into a sort of rebellion against being told what to do by our government. Others seem permanently more withdrawn and perhaps even more reliant on instruction from authorities. But overall, the effect seems much deeper and we were forced to come to terms with what we ourselves deemed as important and what we ourselves wanted to prioritize. Our options may have been limited but we still have opinions, desires, goals, etc. In a way, all the possible responses to the pandemic felt like one more thing to divide us when unity and perhaps empathy was most needed. Former activities like dating and hanging out with friends or going out to make more friends felt more difficult and the implications of those actions felt more serious (whether for health or more ideological reasons). Every decision felt more serious and difficult in some ways or the decisions we did make seemed to have more of a possible negative impact - perhaps judgement from our peers, for example. This may have had the effect of chipping away at our autonomy in a very insidious way.

When we break all the noise away, though, what we are left with is quite simple. We are all trying to do the best we can do with the resources we have in an increasingly partisan and charged environment. A more SERIOUS environment where every choice we make and action we take seems to have possible detrimental consequences. Gone is the lightheartedness that much of us had pre-Covid. Now the actions we take for our own mental well-being often feel like a giant "fuck you!" - and we're not even sure to whom or why.

There are, I think, many reasons for this. Many of us worked possibly the hardest we have ever worked in our lives during the pandemic and while work got more intense with no signs of letting up, and with fewer outlets to blow off steam (work hard, play hard, anyone?), we got increasingly burnt out while being told we should be thankful for our jobs because now, more than before, employers are letting people go. And the pandemic assistance has dried up while the Fed tries feverishly (a little late, perhaps) to correct the inflation. No more free money. We're now adjusting to life with one more rapidly mutating seasonal thing to fight alongside common colds and the flu. But with no more paid time off and perhaps worse job prospects than before (despite the supposed number of vacancies at jobs).

So, when we do take a stand and do something for our mental health, it is perhaps extra urgent to us. It is perhaps something we put off for far too long. It can be something we might get a little defensive or upset about if anyone were to try to stop us or try to get us to adult a bit more and play a bit less. We might be tempted to flip a desk and say "fuck all this b.s.!" while we run off on a long overdue vacation. Our childlike senses of wonder, hope and love for the world and adventure have suffered during this time. Those of us who have held on might be dealing with anger and resentment for what we've been put through. Even if we don't feel we have someone specific to blame. It's like shadowboxing. We have an enemy - but what is it, exactly? The pandemic? Our greedy employers who seem insistent to preserve profit margins above all else? Is it other humans who think and believe differently from us and try to impose their beliefs on us? Is our way of life irretrievably changing and becoming more serious and less playful and fun, for us to never get it back?

I think Americans specifically are having a hard time, especially those of middle class status. We're accustomed to a certain standard of living that has been threatened increasingly so lately (& not just by the pandemic). It's almost a palpable noose tightening around our necks. Some may have come closer to homelessness than they ever thought possible and feel incredibly disillusioned and unsafe in a way they never had before. It is all too common in America to be living paycheck to paycheck so you might already have had a love/hate relationship with your employer, but now? I think the tension between employer and employee is the most I have ever known and witnessed. Without an employer, most cannot afford health insurance, for example. It doesn't take much to plunge to new depths of a situation that feels impossible to dig oneself out of.

But - you might ask - is it really all bad? Is all of this that we have endured for over 2 years now ALL BAD? Are there any positives we can take away from this? I would say yes. I think in most things, it is your perspective and what you choose to take away from a situation that ultimately matters and impacts you the most. Instead of focusing on the negatives, we can realize that life is cyclical. We are in a very important time politically and we have the power to affect change. Many of the things we were focused on BC were trivial and superficial. The pandemic has helped give us perspective on what is important and helped us to see how we react in times of stress. And if you don't find that of value, perhaps you'll find it of value that it has shown how others around you react in times of stress. You've been given a window to see into the minds and souls of others. Not as a way to judge but still it can be a quicker way to know who you might align with more even on an energetic level (if not ideologically or politically). You can see those who tend to bury their heads in the sand. You can see those whose strength emerged against all odds when they were tested by fire. Y'all - we have been THROUGH it. We really have. As a nation, as a world, as humanity. We have been tested. And not all of the things we did or learned from this are good. But we can hold on to the good and we can also use this as a time to practice empathy & remember - we all are limited at times. We all have only so much capacity and resources with which to live this life with. We can be a bridge for some who have run out. We can be a safe space where they can just BE. It doesn't have to be about judgement and about lessons and learning all the time. Sometimes it is just about BEING. Existing. Breathing. Or as it is also sometimes called - living. But I think most of us long to begin to find a way to emerge and hopefully get back to thriving - not merely subsisting.

For that, I wish you good luck. And one of the best things we can do right now is cultivate a practice of gratefulness - for what we DO have.

[abeltownshipslittlebitch]

Spoilers for S9M22

It’s kind of long because I have a lot to say, but it’s not all negative. There’s just one thing that’s mentioned in particular I feel the need to elaborate on

@dorkylittleweirdo I’m tagging you because I always like telling you my opinion on everything

While I was wanting to punch Maryam in the face for dismissing Sam’s VERY VALID worry for Peter, I’m happy to know Peter is safe and unharmed.

But if Maryam says shit like that again idk if she secretly knows he’s safe my Five is punching her on sight. Like the amount of times Peter’s safety has been dismissed this season is insane and I’m not here for it.

Also Maryam being a spy 😱. Who would have guessed? It’s not like we’d been all theorizing it since she was introduced or anything. True she’s not a RSB spy but still.

But I don’t trust her bc there is one thing thats very sus. RSB had cameras of places all around the world and yet they somehow have no idea what’s going on in United States? Like you’re telling me they have connections to countries they aren’t even a part of, but being an outpost to America they haven’t been able to contact one (1) military base in the US? Like do you know how many bases there are in the US?

Also like Maryam saying “no one knows what happened in the US”. Like if any place could survive the apocalypse it’s America bc the southern regions have guns and as a born and raised Arkansan I know motherfuckers down here blow shit up for fun. Also hunting is huge here. You’d never find these ppl hiding in camo. Also some 90 year old hillbilly could give you some homemade Moonshine and if that doesn’t make you immune to the zom virus, you can throw it at a zom and it would probably melt it.

And here I am just talking about the south. The Midwest lives in buttfuck middle of nowhere and knows how to can good and grow their own food, the north is cold as fuck and can survive it. New Yorkers would see zoms, shrug and then probably make their way to the subway bc they have to get to work. Also in places like Florida and New Jersey and specially Chicago Illinois, the zombies would be more afraid of the humans than humans afraid of zombies bc it takes a special type of person to live in those areas. I don’t know much about the west coast besides the fact that California is always on fire or having an earthquake so tbh I feel like zombies are like the secondary problem for them.

My point is there is no way that America has fell in the apocalypse. Not to mention even tho I’m only talking about regional point, we’ve had conspiracy theorists across the country WAITING FOR THIS DAY. Like no. This ain’t tracking.

Also there’s like a military base in almost every state I think. Sometimes multiple in a state. And we’re well defended, and we, ya know, have the biggest military in the world. The fact that Maryam is saying that RSB has no clue what’s happened in America when they were able to secure Van Ark goo from the black market (meaning a base in Tunisia had connections to England in order to get ahold of it), and literally had cameras looking at other countries in Europe (the Eiffel Tower toppled over in Paris France) AND the big boss knew who we are means that they had connections to know about ABEL TOWNSHIP which canonically probably has maybe 1,000 bc we did talk about in S7 how we kept bringing people in and we’re getting a bit overpopulated for us. It’s just…

There is no way they haven’t been able to make contact with America. Janine was able to contact Canada via Rofflenet in S2 on a unstable network, so to say this highly secure base with great tech that has been making some very horrifying experiments can’t contact the country their base is meant to be an outpost for is bs.

This either means S2S did crappy with their writing, or Maryam is lying. I’m really hoping it’s the latter.

Also Ernie I love you. He and my Five are clone buddies, or they will be after some character development and Callista trying not to be a hypocrite bc she knows she’s not the same as the person she’s cloned after but it’s hard to have that logic against the clone of the guy who experimented on you and gave you lifelong trauma.

Also Sam “yeah we have no idea who it was that shot you down with a rocket launcher 😬.” That made me laugh ngl.

Also there was no Janine this ep so extra points for that. Also Maryam said Janine said it was unlikely that Peter would be hurt, and then it’s revealed that Maryam knew that Peter was picked up by one of her spy friends. This gives the implication that Janine may have known Maryam is a spy. If she did, and she knew Peter was safe and withheld that from us my Five is going feral on her. Like I’m already mad she had us leave him but IF it turns out she knew he was okay and said nothing im not gonna be happy.

Bc Janine knowing stuff and not saying Is why Peter unnecessary cut off his own nose (don’t think I’ve forgotten about that S2S). I haven’t.

Also no Mo and Peter this ep so it also loses points for that.

Okay. Now time for me to crawl back into my hole. I have to get ready for work soon any way. (I’m heading in early to get some LSAT studies done.)

But yeah. That’s it for today.

#zombies run #zr #runner five #runners five #zrs9 #zrs9 spoilers

[cephalomon]

ok i am almost done wth pokemon ruby and i have to say i may have judged gen 3 a bit harshly. i used to not like it very much and cpuld never finish my playthroughs but now im thinkin these games r pretty good. 👍. if u care uhhh my extended thoughts will be under the read more

ok brief negative thoughts. the beginning of the game feels reeeeeally slow to me, and there are like NO good places to train until right before norman's gym. i felt like i was constantly struggling to get aaaany exp it was very annoying. controversial, but i honestly just dont find the hoenn region to be very interesting. it could be because i replayed ORAS sixty million times, though. and i reaaaaally hate how these games dont let you run inside buildings, it can be really frustrating at times, but thats nitpicky

ok thats the end of my negative thoughts. i LOVE the selection of pokemon in gen 3, and the new pokemon are almost all fantastic which is definitely more than i can say for recent gens. these designs are just so solid, and my whole team is comprised of gen 3 pokemon which doesnt always happen in other games. like, in the most recent two gens ive struggled to have more than 1 or 2 new pokemon on my team bc the designs just havent been resonating with me. pokemon ruby definitely doesnt have that problem.

the soundtrack is hit or miss for me (which, again, i think is because i played ORAS too much so the songs start to get on my nerves more easily), but when it hits it really hits. in general im not a fan of most of the town themes, but the gym theme and evil team themes are really fun. i havent gotten there, but i already know i like Steven's theme in this game. dont even get me started on steven (i love him).

i thought it would be frustrating, but playing a game without the physical/special move split has been really interesting! im having fun playing around with my teams movesets and im using some pokemon and moves i wouldnt have used before. rn one of my MVPs is a Zangoose named Kitty. Since ghost is physical in this gen, shes absolutely obliterating things with shadow ball.

one of my favorite things about this game so far has been just how interactive and alive the hoenn region is. i bitched about Violet feeling extremely barren; hoenn is the exact opposite. although i dont find the region itself to be super interesting, im extremely appreciative of how much life is in the region. every route and city has something going on, the story requires you to interact with random NPCs and explore the towns to progress.

Scarlet/Violet and SWSH felt very much like "go to city. battle gym. go to city. battle gym." but pokemon ruby feels like you are genuinely exploring this region, meeting and helping all kinds of people, etc. the region just feels like its bustling, and it makes me wish this kind of life was present in the newer games.

Overall, i think i see why these games are beloved. Although there are some pokemon games i definitely like more than these ones, these are some pretty good pokemon games.

#having fun and thats what matters most ! #percy chirps

[downtoearthmarkets]

In some much-needed positive news of late, several large vessels carrying thousands of tons of grain departed the Ukrainian port of Odessa earlier this month. It is hoped that these bulk carriers’ safe passage to Lebanon, Turkey and onward will help ease growing global food shortages and soaring food prices. Sanctions against Russian grain exports, along with a Russian naval blockade of Ukrainian Black Sea ports, have caused a mounting international crisis. Together the two countries produce over a quarter of the world’s wheat supply and a significant percentage of its barley, sunflower seed oil and corn. Spiking concerns over inadequate grain and food supplies, plus record high food costs, have caused widespread economic and political uncertainty and backlash, including right here at home. Combine the effects of the war in Ukraine with economic fallout from the pandemic, an escalating climate crisis, worker shortages and ongoing supply chain breakdowns, and you have all the ingredients for a perfect storm which is disrupting grain supplies – and the food system they rely upon – across the world. When you contrast this gloomy global backdrop against New York State’s homegrown production of wheat, oat, barley and other grains, you’ll happily find that it’s actually growing year-over-year! In fact, New York State currently stands as the 24th largest producer of wheat in the United States. Not only that, New York’s grain harvest increased across the board in 2021. This data includes a record-high harvest of 9.63 million bushels of winter wheat and a record-breaking average yield of 63 bushels per acre of barley last year. This growth trend is expected to continue for the 2022 harvest with increasing acreage being devoted to the planting of these critical crops. And now for some even better news! Many Down to Earth Markets bakers, bread-makers, distilleries and food producers incorporate these locally grown grains, whenever possible, in the creation of their small-batch products. By supporting these small businesses who rely on NYS grown grains and other locally sourced ingredients, Down to Earth shoppers, such as yourself dear reader, are directly contributing to the resilience, enhancement and protection of our regional food systems and environment. Given the aforementioned concomitant crises that have exposed the negative environmental consequences and inherent vulnerabilities of the industrialized global food system, opting for locally, sustainably grown food and investing in smaller, sustainable food systems are more pressing than ever. So read on to learn about several New York State grown grains that you’ll find featured in the products of our vendors. Wheat Wheat is actually a type of grass that has been cultivated over millennia for its seed, a cereal grain, which has become a worldwide staple food. Following corn, wheat is the second most important grain produced in the United States. Types of wheat crop can be classified into five major classes: hard red winter, hard red spring, soft red winter, white and durum wheat. Wheat flour has many different culinary applications. Spelt Spelt (Triticum spelta), also known as dinkel wheat or hulled wheat, is an ancient grain that is a subspecies of wheat. It has been cultivated since approximately 5000 BC. Spelt flour is a versatile baking ingredient that is light and airy, imparting a nutty flavor and sweetness to baked goods. Barley Barley is another type of cereal grain that is used to make breads, beverages, stews, and other dishes. As a whole grain, barley provides fiber, vitamins, and minerals. New York State grown barley is used by our distilleries to produce malted beverages such as whiskey. Cheers to that! Oat Oat (Avena sativa), is a type of cereal grain from the Poaceae grass family of plants. The grain refers specifically to the edible seeds of oat grass. Oat flour has become quite popular in gluten-free cooking and has a higher fiber content than wheat flour. Einkorn Einkorn flour is made from the grains of an ancient species of wheat that was cultivated in the Fertile Crescent approximately 12,000 years ago. Unlike modern wheat, einkorn produces only a single grain on each stem (ein korn means ‘one grain’ in German). It is a hardy plant that can survive tough conditions, including the unpredictable and harsh New York State growing climate!

#downtoearthmkts #grain shortage #local grain production #local grain

[narrative-critical-understanding]

East-West dichotomy

In sociology, the East–West dichotomy is the perceived difference between the Eastern and the Western worlds. The division is more in regard to culture or social structures rather than geographical. Therefore, the boundaries of East and West depend on where the focus lies (in consideration to criteria, purpose, time).

[What follows below the cut are pieces of information from a few sources.]

Historically in sociological perspectives, Asia was regarded as the East, and Europe was regarded as the West. 

Nowadays, some - let’s just say it: tends to be Westerners - see the "West" as divided into three categories: the core area, the marginal area and the area of Western influence. The core area consists of Australasia, Northern America and Western Europe. 

The marginal area consists of Latin America and the Caribbean, the post-Soviet states, the rest of Europe and South Africa. However, the post-Soviet states are often grouped in the “East” despite perceived Western influence and there is debate as to whether Latin America as a whole is in a category of its own. 

The alleged area of Western influence consists of countries which have either adopted or influenced by the Western culture, language, political system, religion, way of life or writing system. Some examples are Hong Kong, India, Israel and Japan. However, these areas may be still included in the “East”.

The “East” traditionally includes all of East and Southeast Asia, the Greater Middle East, Central Asia, and South Asia. (Sorry for the Wiki link, but I won’t go in-depth into this.)

Unsurprisingly, the concept is criticized for example because of the difficulties in defining regions, generalizations, overlooking regional hybridity and resulting in “elite narratives” of those with power being more easily believed as the supposed representatives of many; in particular, the imperialist narrative of Western Orientalists.

As written by Edward Said in “Orientalism” (1978): 

There is nothing mysterious or natural about authority. It is formed, irradiated, disseminated; it is instrumental, it is persuasive; it has status, it establishes canons of taste and value; it is virtually indistinguishable from certain ideas it dignifies as true, and from traditions, perceptions, and judgments it forms, transmits, reproduces.

This brings us to the origin of the concept - here from “The East-West dichotomy” by Thorsten Pattberg (2009):

Herodotus (484 BC–425 BC), the ‘father of history’ (Cambridge Dictionary, 1999), was possibly the first recorded historian who deliberately portrayed the ‘east’ (Persians) and the ‘west’ (Greeks) as mutual antagonists, thereby proposing the nucleus of all ancient history. Others, Thucydides (460 BC–400 BC), and Xenephone (430 BC–354 BC), similarly, found it natural to employ strong polarities and concentrate on the ‘otherness’ of the East, while accepting the necessity of resistance to external force by defining a Western ‘self’. Thus came into being the first system of the so-called East-West dichotomy. 

In another part of the world, meanwhile, the ideas of Confucian China (551 BC–479 BC) and unification was beaten into the feudal states of the Eastern Zhou period (starting in 770 BC), spurred by the constant menace of invasion by exterior barbarians. 

In parallel, the Aryan masters of the Indus Valley who had long merged with the Dravidian inhabitants started to unite the tribes and founded kingdoms (1500 BC–400 BC), and as a matter of survival against aggressors from the West created their own classical Indian culture and identity in opposition to the categorical otherness of the West.

This opposition is part of the concept’s naming itself because: “A dichotomy is any splitting of a whole into exactly two non-overlapping parts. Nothing can belong simultaneously to both parts.” [Wikipedia (2008)]

And yet, the concept is useful - as long as you keep the negatives in mind - because it offers an orientation. So as Edward Said wrote in “Orientalism”:  

The secular world is the world of history as made by human beings. Human agency is subject to investigation and analysis, which it is the mission of understanding to apprehend, criticize, influence, and judge. Above all, critical thought does not submit to state power or to commands to join in the ranks marching against one or another approved enemy. Rather than the manufactured clash of civilizations, we need to concentrate on the slow working together of cultures that overlap, borrow from each other, and live together in far more interesting ways than any abridged or inauthentic mode of understanding can allow. But for that kind of wider perception we need time and patient and skeptical inquiry, supported by faith in communities of interpretation that are difficult to sustain in a world demanding instant action and reaction.

The more one is able to leave one’s cultural home, the more easily is one able to judge it, and the whole world as well, with the spiritual detachment and generosity necessary for true vision. The more easily, too, does one assess oneself and alien cultures with the same combination of intimacy and distance.

Better keep that in mind when looking at this one possible summarization where the East is characterized by “religious or spiritual sensibilities, familial social orders and ageless traditions” in contrast to Western "rationality, material and technical dynamism, and individualism."

How does seeing this as a complete contrast even make sense?

To give an example, in “After the end of conceit and theory: postcolonial critique of Western rationality” by Anindya Sekhar Purakayastha, which is a review of “The End of Conceit: Western Rationality after Postcolonialism” by Patrick Chabal (2012), the hubris of Western rationality is shown as the primary center of antagonism because of the pitfalls of Western hegemony. It examines the fallacies of Western reason and Western social sciences theories and “goes further, adressing contemporary controversies of human rights and democratic citizenship”. 

The first chapter, ‘West and non-West ’, discusses how the West is suffering from a crisis of identity that requires those in the West explicitly to define who they are, and the problem is they think of who they are in terms of who they are not (pp 123 – 126). The idea that the world is divided between the two — West and non-West — permeates our thinking, and this dichotomous configuration prioritizes the Western model of rational progress into a privileged signifier, a privilege that generates Western conceit. Chabal’s book is a critique of this superiority logic and argues for the ‘end of conceit ’. The heyday of the superiority of Western rationality, Chabal claims, is under siege and its ill-founded hubris is under attack now, or is found wanting. Consequently Western concepts such as the universal discourse of human rights, secularism, democracy, etc are in question too. Western rationality seems to have reached the limits of its instrumental value.

The book divides the discussion into three segments — Rationality, Theory, and Thinking — and goes on to stress the need to re-examine the concepts that underlie everyday Western assumptions. The West equates the rational wholly with the secular, distinguishing it from religious beliefs. This extreme divide in Western thinking between rational and irrational makes Westerners individually and collectively schizophrenic. This book strives to ‘explain why our [Western] mode of thinking is a threat to our own rationality which is the foundation of our western societies. As we have become more secular […] we have lost the side of our personal and psychological makeup that answered to our spiritual needs [… It is, the book defines], ‘at heart a debate about the meaning of rationality (p 37).

Postcolonial theory attempted to subvert the West – non-West binary but the book critiques the current form of postcolonial theory, accusing it of being a mere offshoot or by-product of the same Western form of rationalism that fails to challenge the texture of Western rational paradigms.    

The public exhibition of ethnicity by many in the form of the burqa, and other ritual fashions, is not always religious as is perceived in Western rational thought. The West needs to recognize the fact that ‘individuals’ are not ‘logical persons’ but the concatenation of many types of identities, each one of which evolves according to its own logic (p 177). Hence, immigrants identify themselves not as discrete persons as per Western assumptions, but as ‘communal individuals’ whose behaviour is primarily determined by the group (p 191). So what is problematic for the West is the presence of people who choose to identify themselves as ‘communal individuals’ in an individual-based society — the definition of which we now need to re-examine.

Akin to the idea of the individual comes the rethink/re-examination on the notion of the social as well. There is a realization today in the West that ‘society could no longer be seen merely as the agglomeration of the individuals who are its recognized members […] society could be seen no longer as the arena of free choice but as the expression of the socially acceptable limitations to the individual “pursuit of happiness”’ (p 196). Western societies are Christian in faith but secular in practice, and Western legislation, Chabal maintains, is fundamentally discriminatory against those who want to live their Islamic faith unhindered as individual citizens of Western societies in which they were born and chose to live. Contrary to Western rational belief, religion, the book asserts, continues to impinge greatly on our ethics, as is evident in the discussions about abortion, IVF, euthanasia, stem cell research and cloning, etc.

Yet, existing theories of hybridity have failed to do away with the assumption that the West is the best. The West continues to cast itself as the judge and the jury by extending its protection of theories of individual rights to the non-Western world, thereby redesigning its relation with the citizens of the rest of the world. A perfect postcolonial critique of this should be to uphold that non-Western countries have different norms and there is no one way of defining human rights, and, as the ‘end of conceit is upon us, Western rationality must be rethought’.

To sum it up generalized: Context matters.

Pattberg writes about the West and East “different mode of thinking”:

According to the universal historians Arnold J. Toynbee (1889-1975) Samuel P. Huntington (1927-) and Ji Xianlin (1911-), the world’s states form 21, 23 or 25 spheres, nine civilizations, and fall into four cultural systems: Arabic/Islam, Confucian, Hindi/Brahmin, and Western/Christian, with the former three forming the Oriental cultural system, and the latter one the Occidental cultural system (Toynbee, 1961; Huntington, 1993; Ji, 2006). The main difference between the Orient and the Occident, so people say, lies in their different mode of thinking: The East is inductive, the West is deductive.

西方文化注重分析，一分为二；而东方文化注重综合，合二为一. The West is deductive, from the universal to the particular; the East is inductive, from the particular to the universal. (Ji Xianlin, 2006)

Henceforth, the Orient’s search for universal formulas describing balance, harmony or equilibrium, for example 阴阳 (yin and yang) meaning two primal opposing but complementary forces.

By means of continuously inducing the universal, Confucianism, Taoism, Shinto, Hinduism and Buddhism – as a rough guide - all ultimately arrive at:

“All observed things are connected, therefore all things are one.”

In inductive reasoning, one induces the universal “all things are one” from the particular “all things” that are “observed”. The conclusion may be sound, but cannot be certain.

While the vigorous deductive West had to occupy foreign terrain, build churches and spread the Gospel, the inductive East entertained certain passivity, albeit with a long-term holistic world view: 

“We firmly believe, no matter how long it requires, the day will be with us when universal peace and the world of oneness will finally come true.” (Ji Xianlin, 1996)

The West, on the other hand, separates God and the world. After all, we are not Him, but created by Him: 

 “Then God said, Let us make man in our image; in the image of God he created him”. (Old Testament, Gen 1;31)

Accordingly, in Western classrooms we teach an analytic ‘concrete reality’ based on conditioned textual analysis and interpretation of the world, rather than a holistic ‘absolute reality’ [...], the underlying deductive principle (as old as the Greeks themselves) being that: 

 "All observed men are unique. Socrates is a man, therefore Socrates is unique."

In deductive reasoning, one deduces the particular “Socrates is unique” from universal “all men are unique”, relying on the premises “Socrates is a man” and “All men are unique”. The conclusion is sound and valid.

A world thus described by deductive reasoning reaches new conclusions from previously known facts ad infinitum. A world by inductive reasoning on the other hand allocates relations to recurring phenomenal patterns. We may call the former a “string of cause and effect”, whereas in the latter we see a “puzzle made of its parts”. 

Accordingly, in the same way as some cultures hold belief in one, many, or no gods at all, they also have different ways of perceiving the world and reasoning about it: Western civilization became analysis-based while the Orient became integration-based.

I believe in this peculiar difference [...] Yet, I do not believe in some ideas of two mysterious forces bound for confrontation as in “Clash of civilizations” by Samuel P. Huntington (1993), nor do I believe that one is inevitably superior and the other necessarily inferior in accumulating either wealth or wisdom as in “The Protestant Ethic” by Max Weber (1930) or in “The Eastern Religious Mind” by Nishitani Keiji (1942). There has been a difference in the independent development of the two great cultural systems, deeply embedded from their earliest history, in symbiosis with their people, and arranged according to their cultural outlooks – deduction and induction. This is what I believe.

I will not go so far as Mazahéri to say they do only this and we do only that, nor will I claim that someone is definitely deductive in outlook just because he was born in London. It is not that easy. The making of every civilization’s treasures and contributions towards history is determined by its methodology for explaining the world’s phenomena according to its own experience and mode of rational interpretation: The East became more inductive while the West became more deductive – this appears to be born out by all the evidence.

So how does this play out in our society regarding the view of history?

According to the intrinsic powers of Western analytical reasoning over history, the East had to become westernized – gradually – by law of nature. 

Similar to the extension of the universe, demonstrable after the discovery of the ‘Planck constant’ (Planck, 1901), or the direction of time, demonstrable by applying the ‘Special theory of relativity’ (Einstein, 1905), for the analytically-based West history has a qualitative nature. It has aim, it is progressive in nature, it can only improve in one direction, from a general (the universal) to a more complex stage (the particular), and advance with one truth only. 

For the integration-based East on the other hand, what might be called ‘truth’ is given at any time (the ‘one’) and always justifiable through ‘being a part of the whole’. In other words, there are many truths, and the mere existence of the more inductive East as an alternative a priori to the more deductive West qualifies it to provide a genuine, believable non-Western experience of history: history as a non-directional but timeless tangible realm.

The integration-based East, for the greater part of its at least 5000 years of extraordinary civilization (in case of India and China, certainly even older), nurtured the importance of inductive reasoning ability by a strong emphasis on broadening all traditional knowledge, increased their culture’s memory-capacity, favored the ability to learn from analogy, and promoted high generalization skills (for example, in Asia, “yes” is the universal confirmative answer in formal dialog, even if ‘no’ is implied).

Generalized “East” view:

In the integration-based East, where knowledge comes from traditions, ancient concepts of the inductive Eastern ‘moral superiority’ vs. Western deductive ‘scientific superiority’ were soon identified as the nucleus of the East-West dichotomy and the struggle for the ‘Eastern soul’. By all means Western technology and ways of rational inquiry – the deductive way - had to be acquired in order to defend against Western imperialism, yet it was the humanitarian Eastern soul and its wisdom – the inductive way - that should guide the East.

In the latter half of the 20th century, just as the West aggressively propagated its own political values, so did the East. The ‘soul of Asia’ had to be internalized by each and every member of its collective Eastern societies obedient to a universal Asiatic ‘code of conduct’ (e. g. Confucian conduct) driven by the Eastern notion of ‘oneness’.

Finally, the spiritual East identified the material West as the sole competitor for everything that is worthwhile in life: culture, values, wealth and dignity. Yet, because of its inductive cognitive ways, the East could only perceive the West as the short-sighted, destructive force of millions of self-determined individuals who spread out and conquer nature and undermine the great harmony, constantly neglecting the oneness of all things, and dwelling in the minuscule particular. [...]

All of this lead to:

East and West [...] became competitors for better theories, with an Eastern affinity for hyperbole, gigantisms and holistic totality – the glorifications of idols and leaders, state-monopolies, authoritarianism, and autarchy [...]; and a Western affinity for an historical ‘sense of mission’ to dissolve and deconstruct the seemingly coherent Eastern cultures and take the lead [...].

Equilibrium of the two great cultural systems:

Fortunately, the Western fabricated fairy-tale of former Eastern ‘backwardness’ and Western ‘glory’ in this century now lies tattered and wrenched. In reality, Eastern and Western knowledge is fairly balanced and complementary, and always has been: 

As Francis Bacon and James Clerk Maxwell (1831-1879, mathematician and theoretical physicist) have sufficiently explained, ideally, the most sincere science is done today when both the inductive and the deductive methods find their due application. In some disciplines we prefer the inductive way – the arts; in many we tend to sway from side to side, like in sociology, archeology, psychology, philosophy – the humanities; in others we prefer the deductive way, like in mathematics, physics, biology, chemistry – the classical sciences, but ideally, induction and deduction should be used more balanced.

On a sidenote here; Sir Rev. Arthur Smith in his “The Chinese Characteristics” (1890) said, that “the Chinese mind absolutely must be algebraic, while the Western mind is arithmetical”.

This is what Amartya Kumar Sen, the 1998 Nobel Laureate in Economics, has to say about the two civilization modes and their views: 

“There are two ways of thinking of the history of civilization in the world. One is to pursue the story in an inclusive form, paying attention to the divisions as well as the interdependence involved, possibly varying over time, between the manifestations of civilization in different parts of the world. This I shall call the ‘inclusive approach’.”

“The other, which I shall call the ‘fragmentary approach’, segregates the beliefs and practices of different regions separately, paying attention to the interdependences between them as an after thought (when any attention is paid to them at all).” (2006)

So the Western analytic-deductive mind tends to think of ‘deconstruction’ while the Eastern intuitive-inductive theories tend to be made with ‘oneness’ in mind.

Cultural evolution:

Although Aristotle’s analytical-deductive method (384-322 BC) and Confucius’ intuitive-inductive method (551-479 BC) seem purely accidental, singular, isolated incidents, but once they introduced those methods, one more logic-scientific, the other more intuitive-social, those two methods helped shaping their respective civilization, and unintentionally pushed them apart into two different directions.

The West searches for the power over nature (matter). The East searches for the power over man (mind). This is their equilibrium.

Truth and values:

The products of human reasoning are always artificial. Any original state immediately does not make much sense to us nor has not much use until it has been transformed or modified into an artificial state. There are only two modes of reasoning. Deductive reasoning will create the artificial product of certain but valueless truth. Inductive reasoning will create the artificial product of value but uncertain truth. The function of human reasoning is to produce two artificial things: truths and values

-------

Notes: It doesn’t mean that I agree with everything just because I list all of these sources down below.

(!) especially recommended

(-) not recommended for this topic; I think it would be more accurate to call it “Dismantling the Orientalist East-West dichotomy and insisting on a regional as well as global perspective while wanting to ‘exterminate’ the (in between) East-West perspective because of what it means for anthropology”. It has interesting information about Japanese anthropology and other kind of information though.

most sources (not necessarily included in the post): 

Wikipedia: Dichotomy, East–West dichotomy, Western world, Eastern world, Orient, Orientalism, Occidentalism, Orientalism (book), Rationality; for quick introduction

Japan Society: What's the Matter with Saying 'The Orient'? - Christopher Hill

PDF: What We Mean by the West - Foreign Policy Research Institute - William H. McNeill; in order to have more perspectives

PDF: "The West": A Conceptual Exploration - European History Online -  Riccardo Bavaj

(!) Internet Archive: The East-West dichotomy - Thorsten Pattberg (2009)

(!) zlibrary: Orientalism: Western Conceptions of the Orient (Penguin Modern Classics) - Edward W. Said (2003 version with preface and afterword)

-> from the viewpoint of Elif Notes:

https://elifnotes.com/summary-of-orientalism-by-edward-said/

https://elifnotes.com/edward-said-orientalism-definition-summary-analysis-quotes/

https://elifnotes.com/edward-saids-orientalism-flaws-and-weaknesses/

(!) Academia: After the end of conceit and theory: postcolonial critique of Western rationality - Anindya Sekhar Purakayastha (Postcolonial Studies, 2016, Vol. 19, No. 1, p.122 – 125; Review of “The End of Conceit: Western Rationality after Postcolonialism” by Patrick Chabal (2012)) 

(-) PDF Read Book Page: Dismantling the East-West dichotomy; essays in honour of Jan van Bremen - edited by Joy Hendry and Heung Wah Wong (2006)

#long post #sociology #culture #orientalism #east-west #east-west dichotomy #Edward Said is almost everywhere at least mentioned when it's about this topic #honestly - I wanted to quote way more from Thorsten Pattberg #I ended up making long quotes - I just can't think of writing it better (and not longer or too short and leaving sth. out) #I can't write these kind of posts... #I read more for this than for my term paper... back to my term paper... #east #west

[chippedaxe]

𝑨 𝑳𝒊𝒕𝒕𝒍𝒆 𝑷𝒓𝒂𝒏𝒌

ੈ✩‧₊˚

Title: 𝑨 𝑳𝒊𝒕𝒕𝒍𝒆 𝑷𝒓𝒂𝒏𝒌

Warning(s): NSFW, not sure what other warnings ?? Pet names used, unedited (as always)

Pronouns : they/them, non specified genitalia (Or at least I tried to keep it vague)

Synopsis: What was a seemingly harmless prank turns out to cause a helluva lot of chaos.

Pairing: c!Sapnap X gn reader (Sub reader btw)

Word count: 2k

Note: simping for Sapnap hours <3 No one requested it but I suddenly got this idea and was like 'I have to write it, it's what the people would want' and I also wrote it bc Sapnap has no full fics in my masterlist yet <3

* lemme know if I've missed any warnings/tags or if you see a mistake in this fic that I can quickly change (I didn't rlly proof read, I just sorta scanned over it with my eyes)

ੈ✩‧₊˚

2nd POV

You walked to the bathroom after a long day. You were held back a few hours to work overtime without warning and you’re pretty sure that you won’t be getting paid extra, you weren’t in the mood and just needed to relax with a nice shower.

You entered your bathroom and closed the door, you assumed by default that Sapnap wouldn’t bother you since he’s normally such a good roommate and he hadn’t bothered you in the bathroom before! You stripped yourself of your clothes and hung up your outfit that you were planning to wear when you get out of the shower.

You placed the clothes on your sink counter and then approached the shower, your feet were placed on the bath mat as you stood there patiently. You took a deep breath before walking in, you turned both faucets and waited for the water to warm up to a good temperature. You got underneath the water and let the shower rinse off all of the dirt and negative emotions.

You could only hear the water hitting the shower floor since most of the water plugged up your ears, you tried to wash it out but failed so you better hope that no roommate of yours comes in here and plays games while you’re basically half deaf. You grabbed the soap and lathered it in your hands, your soapy hands running over your soft skin.

You came to a pause when you thought you heard something but decided to shrug it off “what would it be anyways? It’s not like Sapnap would come in here” you thought to yourself as you continued washing up. Your hand trailed down to your nether regions and you whined a bit as you cleaned down there, you were just cleaning but your body didn’t know that and so you became a bit aroused.

You ignored the arousal and just continued to have your shower, if you were still horny later on than you’d deal with it but not now. You rinsed the soap off your body and sighed, today was a rough and tiring day but you got through it.

You turned the shower off when you were finished getting clean, grabbing the towel and wrapping it around your body. You got out onto the bathroom mat and started to dry yourself with the towel, you glanced over towards the bathroom sink and your eyes widened.

“Where the fuck did my clothes go?” You asked out loud, your eyes searching the floor just in case they may have fallen down. You groaned in annoyance and wrapped your towel around yourself securely so it wouldn’t fall and then you stomped out to your bedroom to look for the little thief.

You had a look through your drawers to quickly get dressed and confront the troublemaker but it seemed as all your clothes had mysteriously disappeared. You pulled out all the drawers and you searched all the shelves, even your closet was completely empty apart from some scattered shoes.

You whined angrily and then stomped downstairs, your feet dragging along the floor “Sapnap!” You called out to him and he came to your call “what’s up? Like the new look!” Sapnap looked up and down at your towel covered body “Oh hush up! Where’s my clothes? I know you had something to do with their disappearance!” You accused.

“What? Me? What makes you think that?!” Sapnap gasped “they couldn’t have just grown legs and ran away!” You put your hands on your hips “psh, you got me! It’s just a harmless prank..” Sapnap put his hands up in defeat “Good- great, now give them back please!” You held your hand out expectedly.

“Why? I’m liking this outfit you’ve got on right now..” Sapnap teased “oh please, do not start with the flirting again” you rolled your eyes “I can’t give your clothes back right now but feel free to borrow some of mine!” Sapnap smiled “Huh?? Why can’t you give them back?” You exclaimed “if I told you than it’d ruin the whole prank! Just borrow some of my clothes” Sapnap invited you to his wardrobe.

You pouted and entered his room, roaming his closet and just mindlessly picking some of his clothes. “What am I meant to do about my underwear? Can you at least give that back?” You asked “you don’t need underwear, if you do then just borrow some of mine” Sapnap shrugged it off. You wanted to argue with him but found that he had already turned his back to you and left.

You changed into his clothes, his baggy shirt and pants made your body look more boxed up. You tugged at the fabric and it started to cling to your body more “stupid electricity-“ you tried to get it to move away from your curves but it stayed stuck to you.

You walked out into the living room and crossed your arms “When am I supposed to be ‘getting pranked’?” You sighed “oh fuck, you’re looking hella good in my clothes, maybe I’m doin you a favor” Sapnap licked his lips quickly. You scoffed and flicked his forehead “I look good in my own clothes too, you know??” You huffed “I personally think you’d look way better without any clothes, you looked amazing in that towel earlier” Sapnap wiggled his eyebrows at you.

“You’re disgusting!” You laughed at his little flirting attempts “you know you love it, baby!” Sapnap winked “oh I do” you decided to tease back which made the tip of his ears turn slightly red “oh you do? That really warms my heart, c’mere and show me some love!” Sapnap held his arms out to you but you only pushed him away.

“Your offer is very kind but I must decline, I don’t show love to people who steal my clothes!” You told him. Sapnap lowered his head and frowned “What’re you so upset for? I was gonna get you out of your clothes anyways” he jokes around “oh be quiet!” You slap his arm playfully.

He gasps and exclaims dramatically “OUCH! I can’t believe you’ve striked me! All I did was love you and this is how you repay me??” He falls to the ground slowly and fakes his own death “may I have one final request?” He whispered and You leaned down “maybe one..” you decided to play along “can a dying man please have one final kiss?” Sapnap closed his eyes.

You decided ‘fuck it’ and leaned in, your lips pressing against his. He caressed your cheek and deepened the kiss but you were quick to pull away “hey, I don’t go making out with thieves” you smirked “Oh? Maybe you can make this ol’ criminal a good guy again, what’dya think?” Sapnap wrapped an arm around your waist.

You looked up at him and smiled “oh of course, is this thief gonna return my clothes?” You asked “only if you return mine..” Sapnap whispered and started to slowly tug at your collar “hm.. I think we have a deal” you slipped your shirt off and stood there with a bare chest “you look good, baby” Sapnap blew a kiss at you.

You slipped the rest of your clothes off and kicked them away, you were completely naked now “Shit- I can’t believe you were hiding all this from me..” Sapnap came up to you and ran his hands down your sides “my eyes are up here, play boy” you grinned. Sapnap’s eyes snapped from your body up to meet your gaze.

You leaned in and kissed him again, your mouth parting to allow his tongue entrance. You wrapped your arms around his neck and panted slightly as you two were now having a heated make out session. You pulled away for air and gulped down your spit “Sapnap..” you breathed out “yes, Y/n?” He smirked.

“Take your clothes off, it’s unfair” you complained and started to pull at his clothes “calm down. I’ll take my clothes off whenever you ask, baby” Sapnap stripped himself hastily and then posed for you, your eyes narrowed as you stared at him “checking me out?” Sapnap laughed.

Your eyes couldn’t help but be attracted to the large thing hanging between his legs, his cock was huge and throbbing “oh fuck..” you muttered “what was that?” Sapnap got closer “your cock is humongous!” You shouted “haven’t I told you that before?” Sapnap kissed your neck gently as you two were speaking and taking in each other’s beautiful bodies.

His hands rubbed at your hips gently “I’ve been waiting so long for you, Y/n.. I’ve had this crazy attraction to you ever since we met, you were the only one that ever joked back with me..” Sapnap confessed “I always had a soft spot for your stupid jokes..” you whispered softly, “I KNEW IT!” Sapnap hugged you and started to pepper kisses all over your face excitedly.

“Does this mean we’re dating??” You questioned “no it means we’re mortal enemies, of course we’re dating!!” Sapnap joked around “oh wow..” you blushed softly before realizing that you two were in the middle of having sex “oh um..” your face was red.

“Do you need me to stretch you out, do a little foreplay?” Sapnap’s hands caressed your torso, his mouth leaving soft kisses on your neck which left tiny purple marks “ah.. No, I just need your cock now..” you were ready for him! Sapnap guided you to his bed and laid you down onto your back, he then crawled on top of you and smiled.

Sapnap positioned his huge throbbing cock with your tiny hole, you gasped and threw your head back when he started to slide into your slowly “does this hurt?” Sapnap asked when he saw your facial expressions “n-no! It feels so good..” you cooed.

Sapnap gripped onto your hips and started to thrust inside of you, his cock was overwhelmed by the feeling of your tight warm squishy insides. Your legs were quivering and your hands were covering your mouth, you felt embarrassed to have such loud lewd sounds spewing out of your mouth like this but it was hard to control.

Sapnap thrusted harder and faster which made you yelp, tears pricked at your eyes from the overwhelming pleasure that you were getting from his cock stretching your insides “Fuck! Gonna cum-“ you scratch his back, leaving light claw marks on his skin. Sapnap continued to fuck into you roughly “cum for me, baby..” he encouraged.

You went over the edge and came hard, your juices running down your thighs. Your head was thrown back and your eyes were rolling into the back of your head, your back arched and your legs were shaking uncontrollably from the stimulation “FUCK! I love you!-“ you then panted and whined as you tried to catch your breath after just having the best orgasm of your life.

Sapnap came shortly after, his cum leaking out of your hole and down your thighs “shit, sorry about the mess-“ you shut him up with a kiss “clean the mess. Return my clothes. Cuddle me.” You instructed as you tiredly laid down on the bed “will do! I love you too, Y/n” he gave your forehead a kiss before going to clean everything up.

#mcyt x reader smut #sapnap smut #dream smp smut #dsmp smut #mcyt smut #c!sapnap smut #smut

[death-ward]

So I see Dori is a divination wizard, and having my own tiefling divination wizard, I'd love to know more about them, if you'd care to share details and story?

OH BOY LETS SEE IF I REMEMBER HOW TO USE TUMBLR AND ITS FORMATTING HEHE I HOPE UR READY FOR A LORE DUMP BC I LOVE MY GIRLLLL I DO NOT BLAME U IF U DO NOT READ THIS LAL LMFAOIEHGAIOWEH

So my campaign that she is in is a homebrew that my friend DMs and its myself, my boyfriend, and my two other friends that are players.

I throw the map in credits to my DM @/yotation on twit LMAWEOGIAH

The continent our campaign takes place on is called Maka and it's regions are very influenced by the different planes such as elemental, fey, spiritual, infernal, etc. And there is a weird thing happening to some of the citizens where they are falling asleep and aren't able to be roused just to preface HEEHEE.

Dori comes from a small quaint little desert town called Albis. A ranch style town that's comprised of mainly humans and tieflings (red). Dori was born to her human family as the first child and they kinda took the infernal heritage as a bad omen, especially since she was purple. (DM reasoning to be made methinks hehe just recently found out all tiefs of Albis are red and the planes can influence physical traits)

She spent most of her childhood with her nose in books and was painfully shy that she struggled making friends. Her one true friend was her younger sister Yorah who to be quite honest, she was jealous of as her personality mirrored Dori's and everything she wanted to be. She resorted to imaginary friends for a good portion of her childhood as she struggled with her inability to overcome her shy disposition.

As she grew older it appeared that some of her imaginary friends weren't so imaginary. They'd send whispers through the planes, offering advice, trying to get her into mischievous pranks, and cryptic messages alike now and then. As she entered her teenage years it became apparent that her connection to what she now calls 'spirits' was stronger than ever. The voices were almost non-stop which caused her anxiety to peak and she sought out help from her family only to be met with odd gawks and fear. This combined with her being purple only solidified her being as a bad omen to the family. Her mother specifically looked at her through a negative lens and didn't want misfortune to be brought to their family because of it.

There was one voice in particular that always came through clearer than the rest, and was always very kind and friendly to her. She considered this one to be her closest friend next to her sister of course.

Wracked with guilt Dori stopped talking about the issues which meant bottling them up, and doing her best to act like these voices didn't exist. It got to the point where she decided to head out and leave her home and search for a way to better control this 'curse'. Whether that be through magic or otherwise. She taught herself magic mostly through picking up and studying books through her travels. Until she made it to the city known as Cleys where she met an older water genasi woman named Madame Flo who took her under her wing and taught her to use this 'curse' alongside divination practices.

Her mentor taught her what she knew, and invited her to join her and the circus troupe she belonged to as one of their fortune tellers. With the ability to use divination magic, in combination of these voices that gave cryptic advice from time to time she agreed. She traveled with them for a bit, partaking in shows and earning her keep. Using what money she earned to buy any books or spell scrolls she thought to be useful.

As she traveled the one clear persistent voice she considered her closest friend started to fade, and eventually disappeared. When this happened and she realized that it wasn't returning she decided it was time to set out on her own and try to figure out what had happened to her friend. This led her to one of the main cities of Sentinel. This is where she met the group she currently travels with, which consists of Rorik the Rune Knight Fighter dwarf, and Road the College of Lore bard Hexblood.

Through an odd encounter at the local tavern and finding out some of the citizens of the city were falling asleep and stuck in a comatose state, the three decided to kinda just...travel together and take on guild missions for who knows what reason tbh and also see what they could find out about this sleeping disease.. LMFAOWEIHGAOWIEH THEYRE A BUNCH OF IDIOTS TRULY....BUT ANYWHO their missions and travels brought them on a few wacky encounters and eventually back to Cleys. Which is where they pick up Patchouli their grave cleric.

In Cleys there was an issue with the royal family members falling asleep and not being able to be roused and they attributed it the sleeping disease that they saw in Sentinel but decided to investigate as there was a sussy diplomat that stuck around way longer than he should've. Through some trials and tribulations they solved the mystery and found it was the doing of one of the royal family members G'yael. We ended up getting him out of punishment w a motivational speech from Rorik and using a guidance bardic and portent LMFAO SO NOW G'YAEL IS OUR DMPC LITTLE MEOW MEOW and his true punishment is havin to spend the journey with us tbh... BUT ANYWHO after they cleared shit up in Cleys they moved onto their next adventures which included

-Going to Roriks home mountain village only to find out that majority of it had been wiped out by monsters that are known as shimmers (which is a homebrewed version of shades) and solving the issue there.

-Going to the snowy region of Sitka where they ended up helping a crime syndicate with some tasks and also defeating a mutated hag known as the 'Dream Reaper'. She could move between the plane of dreams and the real world and she actually haunted Dori's dreams and almost made her sleep walk off a cliff, thank god her party got her.

-And are currently assisting with delivering a weird ass necromantic dagger across the continent to Eden for one of the crime syndicate bosses which we retrieved from a pocket dimension which contained a weird ass house that had these super mutated freaky monsters which were an amalgamation of two lovers where one was deathly ill and the other went crazy because of it and didn't want them to die so they used necromancy to revive and fuse the two of them together into these horrible monsters....

On the way to Eden though the gang made their way to a pit stop in Albis which Dori was NOT thrilled about. Only to find themselves in Albis, but 347 years in the past. She got to meet her great great great great great great great ... grandmother. Albis wasn't keen on magic back then and there was only one woman in the village who was kinda crazy that practiced it. They decided to chat with her to see if she knew how to get them out of this what seemed to be a time bubble. This womans name was Ayuka and she also heard voices and spoke to them much like Dori did. Come to find out that Ayukas friend was named Lilith or Lily. Dori asked if she could speak to her and Ayuka ended up being possessed by Lilith so the two could communicate. The voice of Lilith set off bells in Doris head as the same voice of her friend who disappeared.

They came to find out that Lilith is the Archdemon of the 7th level of hell and knew of a coming calamity in the future that would merge all planes with the plane of dreams and send everyone into a deep slumber that would end the world, that she was trying to prevent. Using her powers and energy she shattered herself into shards and sent her echos out to those who would listen. She asked Dori if she'd help her stop this calamity and inadvertently agreed, sealing a deal with an archdemon LMFAO. With the agreement Lilith sent them back to the present time. She visited with her family much against her will but thanks to the pressure of the party. She also received a gift while she was gone. It was a necklace with a purple stone and had really strong energy associated to it. Through word of her sister she took it to the weird old lady next door for information only to find out that that lady was Ayuka who was still kickin from 347 years ago. With her help they discerned it's a phylactery. Possibly containing one of Liliths shards maybe who knows. So now the gang has a necromantic dagger and a lich maker essentially LAMWEGOAIWHE and theyve continued on their quest to deliver this dagger...and thats where we're at!

If you've made it this far congrats bc i really just lore dumped LMAWEOGHAWOEIGHAWOIEHGI

#krampsers #hahaha get it kramp and answers #dnd #dnd oc #dori #asks

[writingwithcolor]

Including diversity where there may be little

Including diversity where there may be little: Black Radium Girls as example

post-scriptvm asked: [ask clipped for length]

I have an interest in the ‘Radium Girls’, groups of women who worked at studios in America from the late 1910s onwards painting radium onto clock faces, and later took their companies to court for the horrible impacts the radium had on their body. 

I want to make a musical, just for fun. I’ve decided to use a fictionalized version of events, with composite characters based on multiple different women, rather than one of the real-life groups and the actual women from them. It will be mostly set in New Jersey, in the roaring 20s. 

Neither of the two real-life groups I know of had any Black women in them, and I can’t see any Black women in any of the big group photos of the dial factories’ employees. But I know there’s a lot of Black history and culture in that time and place bc of the great migration and stuff, so I feel like if I’m not going to use the real life ladies, I should probably take the opportunity to also make some of them Black, bc making a whole cast of white ladies in the name of potentially wrong ‘historical accuracy’ seems like a bad thing.

My question is, should I? [ask clipped for length]

I wouldn’t be surprised if there were African American radium girls. Speculating People of Color/Women of Color’s involvement is far more realistic than portraying everyone as white. Go for it! 

Perhaps look into what other races were predominantly in the New Jersey area for inspiration, too.

Hidden History

This section features just a few examples of PoC in lesser known historical settings.

The histories of People of Color are highly and actively erased. Women of Color especially get their stories left to footnotes in the textbooks. You hear about certain amazing women again and again, but there’s so many others that don’t get their time of day.

Hidden Figures (book and movie) is a prime example of that erasure and lesser known history. To summarize: It’s “the powerful story of four African-American female mathematicians at NASA who helped achieve some of the greatest moments in our space program.”

Here’s another example:

Photo of female firefights on Pearl Harbor, 1941. Identities unknown

It would be nice to know more about these women, and i’ve seen inquiries from people requesting info from anyone who may know. This struggle to find details is a prime example of that erasure in itself.

Enemies in Love: A German POW, a Black Nurse, and an Unlikely Romance by Alexis Clark

The book pictured above is the true story of a Black nurse and German Prisoner of War who fall in love during World War II. They face many hardships (disowning from his family, racism, and shunning from towns) but stay together for their whole lives, marry, and have children (One of their sons highly informed the writing of the book!)

This book discusses the discrimination the Black soldiers and nurses faced. They struggled to even be allowed to serve their country, and were treated worse than POWs.

Video: The Unlikely Romance of a Black Nurse & German P.O.W. in WW II 

Research

Research “[RACE] + Firsts” and find many more examples of little unknown bits of history where they’ve been involved. 

First doesn’t mean it came without limitations, discrimination or hardships. But they happened, and many sooner than you’d think.

Explore beyond what you know about whitewashed history and learn the true stories of People of Color.

Making it “realistic”

People will question how “realistic” it is to feature a Black women in this position for the time period, unfortunately. It doesn’t hurt to provide an explanation until we get to a place where diversity isn’t interrogated when it shows up.

Giving her backstory. 

You can briefly explain the journey to the job, such as shortages due to a war. Take a look at those real world firsts for inspiration. 

Especially take a look at the specific region of the story. What firsts were there? Any government power influences? How did PoC break barriers to make the strides they did?

Use the web, but also go beyond. Seek books, historians, artwork. Search those “footnotes” for that one sentence mention. (That’s actually how the writer of Enemies in Love found their story. Just a quick sentence and a search for the story began. It helped that she was a journalist!)

Relationships with Peers: 

“I will cut off this right arm of mine before I will ever work or demand the ballot for the Negro and not the woman.” - Susan B. Anthony

White women weren’t, historically, welcoming to Black women. For example, white sufferists insisted Black women march in the back of the protests for, allegedly, both their rights.  You’ll need to decide how your Black woman is treated in this situation. 

You might face the following from peers, superiors, or others:

Hesitation to work or interact with her

Curiosity and intrigue (The “Other”

Unsure of how to approach or be friends with her  

Microaggressions

Blatant racism 

Your musical doesn’t seem like it is meant to focus too heavily on the hardships. It begs a mention, but just how much is up to you.

Call the Midwife, period racism example

Call the Midwife (BBC) is set in East End London, Late 1950s, early 1960s. The show features a Black midwife named Lucille Anderson. There’s a shortage on nurses so Caribbean nurses were being called in to support the growing population. 

Call the Midwife is from a midwife, Jennifer Worth’s, memoir, so it’s based on history.

Check out this short clip: Nurse Lucille Anderson - Call the Midwife 

Lucille on Call the Midwife (Take notes!)

The show handles racism and microaggressions very well. It’s not overdone.

Lucille is accepted by her peers and is especially close to one of the girls.

There’s an episode where she actively faces blame and discrimination during a case. It’s a major story line of the episode. 

She does face occasional micro-aggressions where she is othered, but it is not every single time she is on screen and not every episode. 

Her peers talk to her about her experiences and in the case where she had an aggressive family member to deal with, they tried to protect her by reassigning her from the family. Lucille asks to handle it her way and they respect her decision.

Lucille can mostly perform her job and have peace, and is treated kindly by patients.

She has a personality, a romantic life, family & friendships.

It’s about 90% allowing her to exist, 10% navigating racism/microaggressions. That’s a comfortable, realist balance for such a story and setting. 

If you want to check out how they handled these issues for yourself, the show is on Netflix as of this post (2020). She’s introduced in Season 7. (I highly recommend watching this show from the beginning. I cry like every episode, and the diversity of several ethnic backgrounds picks up a lot mid season!)

I’ll kick you three scenarios for your Black radium girl:

Peer Acceptance, Initial Hesitation 

awkward friendliness & initial hesitation, perhaps more fear of the unknown vs. hostility

Upon having interactions and talking to her, they become comfortable and accept her. It could take just one simple conversation. Perhaps they’re more used to listening to Black music or have Black staff who work for them, but haven’t had an equal one-on-one experience with WoC without a power dynamic or service involved. Now, with a Black fellow radium girl thrown in a similar situation as them, they could develop kinship.

This might not describe every one of the woman at all. Others might be just fine with her with no awkwardness.

Types of racism experienced: 

some micro-aggressions (likely ignorance from peers)

no major racism experienced

Most Peer Acceptance, Racism From Some Peers

Most peers have no problem with her, even if they have their initial awkwardness. 1-2 more aggressive racists who don’t want her there. 

Sometimes everyone else gets along, but there’s that 1 bully and their minion, and they feed off each other. If the BS isn’t tolerated by the other girls, it could shut them up to make peace or at least behave themselves. It’s likely someone like this would remain hatefully stubborn, but would grimace from the corner if outnumbered.

In the case you create a situation where someone is hostile to the Black girl but learns better: real apologies and efforts should be made if this occurs. It also doesn’t excuse their past behavior. Read our posts on redemption arcs for more info. We’re not fans, personally.

In an intense racial situation, it would be nice if the girls (with sense) protected and defended her instead of standing idly by. They’re strong enough to rise up against the agencies who poisoned them, so they can fight for their fellow radium sisters if one’s being targeted. 

Types of racism experienced: 

several micro-aggressions

maybe 1 major incident 

Peer Acceptance, Racism from Other People

Radium girl acceptance within, but experiences racism from others she interacts with on/off the job. 

The Call the Midwife example fits this one. Lucille’s peers are comfortable with her. It’s some of the ladies she care for and/or their families that may have negative things to say or show hesitance. 

I’ll repeat what I said above: it’d be nice if the girls protected and defended her and didn’t stand by idly. Solidarity is important for establishing kinship and trust when it comes to white - woc friendships. 

Types of racism experienced: 

could vary from some to several micro-aggressions 

maybe 1 major incident

Balancing race issues in the musical 

Give the intersections of your Black girl’s situation proper attention. You can achieve this without overdoing it or making her whole arc about facing racism.

Perhaps the Black radium girl(s) has a song to express major woes, like segregation and poor treatment, or experiencing dismay over even less of a fighting chance in this fight for their rights.

If anyone does know anything but radium girls of color, please share! 

–Mod Colette

#intersectionality #intersectional feminism #women #black #black women #woc #women of color #diversity #poc in history #radium girls #musicials #asks #submission

[magic-is-something-we-create]

happy wbw :D kind of since the ember being angry about capitalism snippet, i've been meaning to ask: what are some things that are affected by class and how? i'm thinking specifically about art forms, entertainment, religion/philosophy, and language (because housing, education, etc. feel more straightforward), but feel free to talk about anything!!

Happy WBW to you, too!! :D

OKAY so. One of the Things about how class affects people like Ember in the Ehlven system (other than, yknow, food + shelter) is that the way religion is presented and taught is very different between those in poverty and those at the top of the proverbial ladder! And, of course, regional differences - but I won’t get into that quite as much right now. One of the ways I’ve been trying to show this is through Ember (born into a terrible economic situation, and has now been forced into one thats even worse bc orphan) and Iceberg (born into one of the highest positions in their society, Going Through It rn but still infinitely better off) interacting, so I’ll try to use them as examples in this:

Ember, as a person who has felt abandoned by the system so often, has grown up with lots of religious friends, but still feels pretty apathetic to the idea of the Goddesses. Despite their apathy, they know they can seek kindness, help, and wisdom from the temples, and, by extension, from the Goddesses themselves. Their interaction with religion has always proven to be that of gentleness and acceptance, with Priestesses who encourage them to grow as a person and learn to love themself, seek connection with others, and indulge in their creativity.

Iceberg, who has been among the leaders of the Maelands since he was young, grew up around people who either follow the “Chosen One” without acknowledging why and by whom he was Chosen, or who speak of the Goddesses as distant beings who would rather not meddle in mortal affairs. He’s often been met with quiet disapproval in the Mae court when he expresses himself through art and emotion, and poorly-disguised ridicule in the Rill court when he refuses to pick up a blade and “prove himself”. Most of his interaction with religion has been offhand comments about “What would the Goddesses think...” in the most negative ways, and no reason to think that those might just be people’s opinions, rather than actual criticisms of the Goddesses.

Essentially, lots of the lower class seek religion as a guiding light and comfort, where much of the upper class doesn’t want to face the idea that they’re not actually following their own morals, and thus uses religion as a way to hurt others and push their own beliefs. It doesn’t help that a lot of the nobility sees Tieling as being incapable of misinterpreting or misrepresenting the Goddesses. Some of them even worship him as if he were a deity - always in private, because he doesn’t want them to, but they do it nonetheless.

Thank you again for the question!! I might rb this later with the firebreathers taglist, tbh, cause it seems like something that would be cool to know about the characters...

#wbw #ehlverse #ehlverse religion #mayhism #idk its hard to put it into words the way i want to #but class differences in the ehlverse are very much a matter #of living/food/clothing conditions and religious disconnect #a&a

[firelord-frowny]

this is Hashtag Problematic lmao but i honestly kinda feel like one way to encourage people to be proactive about mitigating the effects of racism is to play up the negative impact it has on white people. 

bc like... face it, y’all. we all know good and well that even Generally Decent white people tend to kinda thrive on a victim mentality, and the reason why so many white folks are loathe to address racism is because they belong to the demographic that is perpetrating the victimization of Actual Victimized Peoples, and any effort to help those victimized peoples must inherently confront the fact that the aggressive acts/policies/attitudes are being carried out by white people. So the minute we start talking about all the ways ~white supremacy~ hurts people of color, half of them are already sticking their fingers in their ears and refusing to take even the slightest bit of responsibility for Making Things Better.

but i BET that if we framed the conversation in such a way that it highlights the ways white people harm OTHER white people via racism, a loooot of folks would suddenly be all ears. 

OBVIOUSLY the list of Ways White Supremacy Hurts White People is not nearly as critical or painful as the ways white supremacy hurts people of color, but the list includes stuff like:

(for creatives/artists) being Too Afraid of representing minorities in your creative work because you’re afraid of offending anyone if you Get It Wrong

uneasiness of not knowing whether you’ve been given an opportunity because you genuinely deserved it, or because a person of color was discriminated against

racist whites voting against their own best interest JUST because they don’t want The Blacks to benefit from anything, effectively keeping many white communities in poverty/without health care/without good housing/etc

white people sometimes - though VERY indirectly - have to pick up the tab in terms of the ways racial inequality effects an entire population. for example, poverty is correlated with homelessness is correlated with crime is correlated with drug use is correlated with illness, blah blah blah, either causing regions to be Dangerous And Unsightly, OR forcing communities to allocate taxpayer money toward  ~treating the symptoms rather than the disease~ by, for instance, deterring homeless people from sleeping on park benches, but not giving homeless people a way to get on their feet and secure safe housing and/or eliminating the conditions that lead to homelessness in the first place.

the fact that whiteness is the default in terms of beauty/professionalism/media/etc, has made whiteness invisible to white people, rendering them unable to Feel Special in the same way that they assume poc must Feel Special when we get recognized for being a person of color with a Positive Trait. For instance, Viola Davis gets hailed for being a beautiful, gifted BLACK actress. Meryl Streep gets hailed for being a beautiful and gifted actress, but her whiteness is “ignored” because it’s The Default. A lot of white people just straight up lack the ability to truly understand this, and so feel ~left out~. 

White people may feel obligated to Not Complain about things because it’s ~not as bad~ as what poc are subject to. A lot of them feel like there’s never a good time to discuss their own concerns, because it would inevitably mean drowning out the concerns of groups who need more support. 

These are things that white people wouldn’t have to grapple with if racism wasn’t so thoroughly entrenched in the dominant culture’s values and legislations. So, I kinda theorize that some white folks would feel more inclined to denounce racism and participate in its dismantlement if the narrative was “Let’s End Racism So We Can Go To Trader Joe’s Without Having To Step Over A Homeless Negro” instead of “Let’s End Racism So More Black People Are Able to Become Home Owners.” Or “Let’s End Racism So I Can Brag About My Beautiful Blond Hair Without Being Accused Of Being Racist” instead of “Let’s End Racism So Black People’s Natural Hair Won’t Deter Employers From Hiring Them.” 

lmfao it’s SO fucking stupid, but like. racism itself is so fucking stupid and i guess sometimes you have to fight stupid with stupid??? idk!

Like, SOOOO often I hear white people lamenting about how unfaaaaiiiir they think it is that there are scholarships specifically for people of color, and that they shouldn’t have Special Opportunities just because of their race, and i’m like!!!

glad we fucking agree! it IS unfair that the past and present of racism in america has created a social climate where it’s necessary to give minorities a perceived advantage! it IS unfair that hard work/talent/intellect isn’t the only criteria that’s considered when deciding whether or not to admit a student/hire an employee/etc! 

RACISM IS THE CAUSE OF THE THING YOU’RE UPSET ABOUT!!! FIX RACISM, AND YOU WON’T HAVE TO SPEND SLEEPLESS NIGHTS WORRYING ABOUT THE RARE MEDIOCRE BLACK PERSON GETTING AN OPPORTUNITY THEY WEREN’T BEST SUITED FOR! FIX RACISM, YOU WON’T HAVE TO STEP OVER ANY HOMELESS NEGROS! FIX RACISM, AND YOU CAN SING AND DANCE ABOUT HOW MUCH YOU LOVE YOUR ~PORCELAIN SKIN AND BLOND HAIR~! FIX RACISM AND YOU CAN FINALLY FREELY INDULGE IN YOUR DISTURBING FIXATION ON THE CUTENESS OF MIXED BABIES!!! 

IT’S RAAAAACISM THAT’S MAKING YOU POUT LIKE A JEALOUS CHILD, NOT PEOPLE OF COLOR!! IT’S RACIST WHITE PEOPLE WHO ARE FACILITATING THE OCCURANCES THAT UPSET YOU!!!!!!! OUR ENEMY IS YOUR ENEMY, TOO, YOU FUCKING OSIFGUJRLTRGJTYBEY

OHHHHHMYGOD

#obligatory disclaimer that the reason why i tend to use black people in most of my examples #is just because i'm black and that's the experience i'm knowledgable about