#because it IS an ethnic group and i see it in basically every bloodline person ive met | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

solarscholarsofmagick · 4 years

Photo

10 Things that EVERYONE Needs to Know Before Starting the Craft

1. Wicca and Witchcraft are Not the Same Thing

This is a pet-peeve of mine when people use those words interchangeably. So, what’s the difference? To put it simply, Wicca is a religion, while witchcraft is a practice. It’s like saying that prayer and Christianity are the same thing. Wicca is a relatively new invention, being created in the late 1950’s by Gerald Gardner after he spent a lot of time in Asia and became enthralled with their spirituality, which he merged with various occult practices that he came across in his travels. Witchcraft, on the other hand, is defined, at least by this author, as the act of manipulating the energy around you to achieve a goal. You can be either or you can be both, but they are not mutually exclusive.

2. Witchcraft Does Not Need to Kill Your Bank Account

If you follow many big-name witch influencers, more than likely, you will get caught up in the aesthetic of hundreds of beautiful crystals, perfect altars, sculpted candles, and much more elaborate and expensive things. Now, I want to make it clear, that there is absolutely nothing wrong with that, but it is not always feasible to have (or afford) everything required to fit that aesthetic. Rough, unpolished crystals will work just as good as the one you saw that was professionally polished and carved into the shape of a skull. You can get candles at thrift shops, not just at the website that sells specifically anointed candles for every specific intention. Remember, it is not the tool that makes the witch, but the witch that makes the tool!

3. Know the Difference Between a Coven and A Cult

While it is not necessary, there are definitely some benefits that come with finding a coven that welcomes you with open arems. So, first off, what is a coven?

A coven is a group of like-minded witches that help each other out magickally and hold a special bond or connection. They will often perform rituals together. Please keep in mind that there is a difference between a coven and a cult.

A coven is rewarding, full of (usually) great people and potential friends, while a cult is dangerous, toxic, and filled with people who often prey on the vulnerable or unaware.

Here are some potential warning signs of a cult:

They encourage you to cut off ties with your friends and family.

They try their best to make you dependent on them.

They pressure you into engaging in sexual/criminal/drug activities.

You feel as if it is dangerous to leave.

The “leader” equates themselves to a deity or is a “my word is law” type.

You feel as if you are walking on eggshells around them.

There is some “divine” goal that you must behave a very specific way in order to reach.

Those who manage to escape are demonized and/or are made into examples.

If you suspect that you or a loved one are in a dangerous situation, please contact the appropriate authorities.

4. Witchcraft Can Become Mundane

Pop culture has a bad habit of sensationalizing witchcraft. As cool as it looks, witchcraft isn’t all lightning fingers and demon-slaying. You most likely won’t become a soldier of a magickal war, facing down an ancient evil that was recently released. Sorry, I didn’t mean to burst your bubble!

That being said, witchcraft is extremely rewarding and can be as fun as you make it!

Just like with any other art, it requires discipline! It requires study, practice, and essential tasks (or as they are often fondly called, witchy chores). Some of these “chores” include cleansing, charging, decorating, meditation, and more. Unfortunately, as we all know, these tasks may feel tedious, but they are often very necessary. Again, it is as fun as you make it, and you will be less likely to burn out/hate performing the tasks if you view them as the essential tasks they are rather than unnecessary chores.

5. Learn As Much of the Basics That You Can

As much as we want to immediately jump into more flashy things such as astral projection and elaborate spells or hexes, you must learn the basics first. Why? Because, without a strong grasp of the basics, your magickal work can be unstable and reap results that you may not have intended, including ones that cause harm to you or those around you. To quote a cliche, you must learn to crawl before you can walk.

Here are some basics that I recommend you begin with:

Visualization

Meditation

The history of witchcraft

The elements of a spell

Color/stone/common herb correspondences

Grounding

Different types of the craft

6. Elitism Exists and it’s Bullsh*t

Unfortunately, no matter what community you are in, there will always be a few bad apples, but I will be referring specifically to elitists. Elitists in the witchcraft community tend to preach that their way is the only true way to be a witch, that you must have the most expensive of tools, or that witches who come from a family of witches are better than those who do not. If there is one thing that I want you to take from this article, it’s that, no matter what anyone says, you will NEVER be any less of a witch because of your bloodline, ethnicity, skin color, religion, spiritual practice, or socio-economic status!

7. You Don’t Need to Choose Between Religion and the Craft

One of the most common reasons of being apprehensive towards starting your journey through the craft that I see is a fear of retaliation within your own religion. For example, a lot of Christian witches will initially be afraid of going to hell for their practices. As someone who grew up in the Bible Belt of the Southern United States (poor Awen still lives there), I can definitely relate to this feeling. However, I, as well as several other religious witches, can say that you can have both. You do not need to drop one to have the other. In my eyes, your relationship with your god(s) is between them and you and is nobody else’s business.

To make things a little easier, however, I recommend sliding into the craft slowly. Dip your toe in the proverbial water. Try starting by engaging in activities that aren’t necessarily tied to witchcraft such as meditating, grounding, growing plants, or even just collecting pretty rocks. I also recommend reaching out to practicing witches within your faith for advice. It also may be a good idea to truly research religions of interest and make sure that your religion is a good match for you. It is okay to realize that the religion you were raised to be in, like being raised to be in a particular political party, does not have to be your religion. If it is and it causes you and others around you no harm, then I am truly happy for you and support you.

8. Learn to Listen to Your Intuition/”Gut”

We tend to have a 6th sense for danger or the presence of another being. You may recognize this feeling when you can feel that someone is watching you. Our instincts are built into us to keep us alive. Personally, following my gut has saved my life more than once. In one particular incident, my gut told me to stop at a crosswalk despite not seeing any nearby cars and the sign telling me to walk. Seconds later, a truck sped by, running the red light at full speed.

If you feel that a spell has taken a turn towards the unwanted, find a stopping point and seal it away. Feel as if a deity is calling you? Take the time to research them and their calling cards. However, please take the time to learn the difference between a negative gut feeling and general nervousness, as it does feel different.

9. Learn the Difference Between Good and Bad Resources

Misinformaion and toxic ideologies can be dangerous when it comes to witchcraft. You can read extensively about the difference between the two in my previous post about it here.

10. It’s Okay If the Craft is Not for You

If you decide to try out the craft and later feel as if it isn’t clicking… that’s okay. The initial decision to explore is not one for life. Just like how certain sports, hobbies, music, et cetera are not for everybody, witchcraft is not for everybody. Anyone who decides to judge you for that is wrong and not worth your time.

Please consider supporting us by viewing the original post on our website, here!

#witchblr #witch #witchcraft #witches of color #witches of tumblr #wiccablr #wicca #wiccan #wiccans of color #wiccans of tumblr #pagan #paganism #pagans of color #pagans of tumblr #occult #spiritual #spirituality #spiritualism

687 notes · View notes

gregorygrim · 3 years

Text

Dragon Prince Hot Takes

!!! Full Spoiler For “The Dragon Prince” Seasons 1-3!!!

So I finally got around to watching The Dragon Prince. Timely, I know, but better late than never i guess. I’m not completely caught up yet as I only got as far as S3E7 “Hearts of Cinder” in this first sitting. Considering I haven’t binged any series in almost two years, I think that’s pretty respectable. This means I won’t discuss the last few episodes here, except for a couple of things I was unfortunately spoiled for already, hence full spoilers.

These are basically my first thoughts and opinions after the binge and a good night’s sleep. It’s gonna be a lot so if you don’t care or don’t want spoilers…

TL;DR: 7½/10. Generally enjoyable, there are some aspects I’m not exactly fan of, but no dealbreakers

Firstly to everyone who told me that this was the new ATLA: you all need to rewatch Avatar stat! Like seriously. There are definitely parallels and given the cast and crew I think that’s what they were going for too (which is why I think it’s fair to compare the two), but still, no.

Secondly I love most of the worldbuilding and love that the series at least tries to give it to us in a bit of a non-linear fashion, even if it is kind of clumsy at times. I know some people are put off by expository dialogue and flashbacks, but I’m an epic fantasy nerd, I need that sweet, sweet lore to live as much as you mortals need food.

I like that there was clearly an effort made to integrate the worldbuilding in more subtle ways. For example you may initially find it kind of weird that all these different human ethnicities are existing perfectly integrated in what looks like a medieval society, until you remember from the opening monologue that the Human Kingdoms are the result of a massive diaspora following the human exodus from Xadia, so obviously people got all mixed up everywhere. It’s representation with an excellent in-world reason and that just brings me joy.

I also love the magic system(s) even though we haven’t really gone into that just yet. it really feels like there was a genuine effort made to create underlying mechanics for the magic rather than just making each spell a vaguely elemental themed ability. I really hope we’ll dive deeper into that in coming seasons.

I also like the little nods to other works of fantasy: Ezran’s ability to talk with animals is a reference to Tolkien’s world where some royal bloodlines had the ability to speak with animals, specifically birds; Primal Magic and its spells being cast with Ancient Draconic runes and words might be reminiscent of the Ancient Language from the Inheritance Cycle etc.

Thirdly the main cast is great. Callum, Ezran and Rayla are all interesting and relatable characters in their own right and as a group. I’m not going into each of them individually here, but while I think the series as a whole falls short of ATLA, as protagonist parties go I dare say this one is nearly on nearly on par with the gAang.¹

And yes, I love Bait, which I really did not expect following the first few episodes. I love his weird pug-toad-chameleon design, I love that he works like a flashbang whenever somebody says a quote from Scarface (I wish they hadn’t dropped that later on) and I love how done he is with everything and everyone at all times. I’ve only had him for 25 episodes, but if anything happened to him I would kill all of my followers and then myself.

On top of that, and speaking as someone who god knows is really not into shipping, I love Rayla and Callum’s relationship. It’s believable, it’s refreshing and it brings out the best in both characters without changing basically anything about them. Just two good friends who fell in love. A++, maybe even S tier.

Unfortunately though I can’t sing the same kind of praises about the villains. None of them are terrible (as in terribly written, most of them are pretty awful people), but with one exception they just don’t stand up to the protagonists in quality.

I could simply not take Viren seriously. Even now that is probably the single most powerful magic user in the world, he just has such strong Karen energy, every time he finishes a speech I am overcome with the urge to say “Sir, this is a Wendy’s” and it does not help the mood. I’m not even sure why. It might’ve been the voice because the guy who did Viren (Jason Simpson) also does a lot of kinda slimy characters in various anime dubs, it might be that over-the-top walking stick, idk.

What I’m saying is that as a primary antagonist he simply did not work for me. Which is doubly a shame because this kind of tarnishes the real “Big Bad” of this story by proxy. Aaravos, even as an invisible ghost, with his voice coming out of a caterpillar and next to no info on his backstory, has more style and gravity than all the human antagonists combined. It helps that he is by far the best designed character and Erik Dellums has the voice of a young god, but I’d argue even without that unfair advantage he has the potential to be a top tier villain. While he is stuck as Viren’s “little bug-pal” though he is just being dragged down.

(I’m aware that as of the final episode the caterpillar familiar is undergoing metamorphosis, probably to create a new body for Aaravos’ spirit to inhabit outside of the magic mirror, so I’m definitely hyped for more of him in the coming seasons.)

As for Soren and Claudia, I’ve got mixed feelings. This was one more aspect of the show that a lot of people compared to Avatar and while I see the parallels to Zuko & Azula, they are still very different, at least where Claudia is concerned. I’d also just like to mention that a lot of people told me that they thought the direction in which their storylines went were really surprising and I can’t disagree more. I predicted that Soren would defect to the protagonists on episode 5 right after Viren told him to kill the princes and I knew Claudia was going to stick with her father from episode 12 onward. My point is, it didn’t feel like some kind of plot twist, the way some people made it out to be, and which I don’t think was the intent.

I definitely got the sense that Soren was at least a Zuko-type character, though still not a Zuko clone, and as with Zuko I was consistently able to empathise and sympathise with him and his predicaments. I also appreciated that his dilemma is the result of his convictions and not him being kind of dense, which would’ve been all to easy and probably would’ve ruined his character for me. As it stands he is extremely milktoast, but perfectly functional for his purpose in the story and I can definitely see him evolving further and getting more interesting as we go on.

Claudia is where it gets complicated. Again, I can see the Azula parallels. But unlike that character, who is her father’s animal 110%, Claudia doesn’t strike me as a victim of Viren’s manipulation the way Soren undoubtably is. The way she talks about and uses Dark Magic, how she talks down to Soren and how even Viren finds it difficult to communicate with her, tells me as an audience member that she is an independent person. Which tells me that the cruelty and enthusiasm for causing harm she regularly displays is her own will. And that was before she straight up leads Callum on to manipulate him.

On the other hand I can absolutely relate to her devotion to her family, her big sister role (even though she is younger than Soren) and the way both the separation of her parents before the story and Soren’s injury in episode 16 must’ve affected her because of this. I know that, if my brother had become paralysed from the neck down and I knew a way to heal him, I would not have hesitated to kill that fawn either. Then again her relationship with her father is very different from parental relationships I am familiar with, so I can’t really say I see why she is so devoted to him, other than she promised her mother to stay with him years ago? ¯\(o_Ō)/¯

So basically Claudia falls into an emotional grey space for me. I can’t really tell how to feel about her either way and I’ll just have to see where she goes from here, which, while fine, isn’t necessarily great for an end of season cliffhanger imo.

Seeing as I’ve already talked about some of the show’s shortcomings, I think it’s time to dive into some of the what I would consider flaws.

Firstly this show needed at least 12 episode seasons. I have never made a secret out of my dislike for the modern short seasons and while I recognise that in the current climate in the industry giving everything full 25 episode seasons isn’t really doable, the pacing of this show, especially for the first season is just outright bad at times. It works as of the second season, but the first season alternately feels like it’s either rushing through or crawling along the whole way through.

The believability of Rayla’s and the princes’ relationship really suffers from this the most. It comes a bit out of nowhere on the boat ride and is then taken for granted way to quickly. Like Callum, seriously, this girl tried to kill you and your brother not even a day ago and you are currently cut off from all allies you have ever had until now. A little skepticism isn’t misplaced here. I also wold’ve liked if we’d just gotten a bit more of a sense of movement with the characters. I get that this is not the kind of show where we can just make an entire episode about the characters travelling and camping, intercut with plots centred around a more expansive supporting cast, but still I really would’ve preferred if Xadia didn’t feel quite so around the corner.

Another issue is with setup and payoff, which I think is partially a consequence of the pacing as well. A lot of smaller plot points are set up within the same episode as the payoff just wreak havoc on the narrative structure. A good example is the episode where they ride down the river in a boat and Bait tires to go into the water, but is saved by Ezran, who then explains the story behind Glowtoads and how they are pefect bait for large water predators. Then Bait falls into the water and is attacked by a massive water monster. This happens within five minutes of one episode and never comes up again. To me that looks like sign of rushed editing, which is probably not entirely the crew’s fault, given that they are on a schedule from Netflix, but it’s still a point of critique.

It unfortunately also manifests in the occasional line of horribly forced dialogue, often for things we can literally see happening on screen. Again, this is mostly the case in the earlier episodes, but it never completely goes away.

Finally, and this is where i get into serious issues that made me want to write this, we gotta talk about representation in this show.

First: disabled representation, meaning Amaya. Why is Amaya deaf? Because it’s good to have disabled representation.

Why is Amaya deaf and a high-ranking military officer? Because they didn’t think it through.

I know this may be a contentious opinion, but it is my belief that the purpose of representation, particularly of disabilities characters may suffer from, in fiction is to, y’know, represent people as they are in life. That includes especially the struggles they face and have to overcome, sometimes their whole life. This is not just me talking out of my ass either. A couple years ago I discussed this with several people that are disabled, specifically blind or otherwise severely visually impaired, in a different context obviously, and the general consensus was that it’s better to have representation that shows their life and their abilities as they are, rather than how they might wish they could be.

A mute or deaf person cannot be a medieval fantasy army general, no matter how good they might be in melee combat or who’s sister they are, because at the end of the day, they’re not able to give commands while they are holding a sword and shield. That such a massive logical oversight, especially in comparison to the extremely well done example of representation I mentioned above, and has so little impact on the plot that it leads me to believe, this aspect of Amaya’s character was tacked on in the last minute without being given any thought for the sole reason of the story having a disabled person in it. All this does is necessitate the existence of two otherwise entirely unnecessary characters, Gren and Kazi, both of which achieve nothing, aside from sometimes being literal set dressing.

That is where representation ends and tokenism begins.

And unfortunately this generally lacklustre attitude also extends to the LGBT+ representation on the show.

As of S3E7 “Hearts of Cinder” we have had two onscreen gay couples on the show (onscreen in the sense that both partners were onscreen and they were somehow confirmed to be in a relationship on the show). One of these, the queens of Duren, literally die in the same flashback they are introduced in, which incidentally also features them invading a foreign nation to poach a rare animal and subsequently starting the conflict at the series’ core. Not a great look.

Aside from serving as a tragic backstory for their daughter, the most impact they had on my viewing experience was that they made wonder how the fuck royal succession works in Duren. (People who know me are rolling their eyes right now because I’m bringing anarchism into this Dragon Prince review, but I’m telling you, this why fantasy monarchies aren’t compatible with LGBT+ politics in the same setting. Dynastic governments are inherently bigoted, you can’t have it both ways.)

The other couple are Runaan and Ethari, Rayla’s caretakers, although if I’m being honest you wouldn’t be able tell based on Runaan’s treatment of Rayla in the first episode. By the time we actually meet Ethari and find out about their relationship with Rayla, Runaan is suffering “a fate worse than death” (direct quote from the show) trapped in a gold coin.

I mean come on. That’s about as “technically not ‘bury your gays’” as it gets.

I think I need to reiterate here that my point is not that this show or its creators are somehow malicious. As i stated in the TL;DR: I don’t think this is a dealbreaker for liking this show. But it does demonstrate that they are prone to slipping to some potentially harmful tropes and this needs to be criticised and pointed out to them.

In conclusion, I really love this show. It’s not ATLA, it never will be, nothing else will ever be ATLA no matter how badly (and terribly) Netflix tries. But it does and should not have to be.

What it has to do though is improve. A lot of the building blocks are already there, such as Aaravos or Claudia’s development, Callum’s father, the origin of Ezran’s ability, the purpose of the “Key of Aaravos”, the true fate of King Harrow (we all know his soul is in the bird, right?) etc. Some things like the treatment of Amaya’s disability unfortunately won’t be fixable as far as I can tell, but if they at least manage to fix the gay representation I can make my peace with that.

¹ I know I said I wouldn’t go into each of the characters individually, but a) you should never trust a stranger on the internet and b) I really want to talk a bit about Callum. Specifically the “mystery” of why the hell he is connected to the Sky Primal. I write “mystery” because I think it’s fairly obvious from whence this talent came: there is only one humanoid species we know of with innate access to the Sky Arcanum and one of Callum’s parent’s is unidentified, presumed dead. 2+2=4. Callum’s father was a Skywing Elf. That’s why he recognised Nyx’s boomerang weapon. He remembered one like it either from his very early childhood (remember that he has photographic memory) or Sarai kept one and he found it at some point.

On top of that the name “Callum” or at least the pronunciation is clearly derived from Latin “caelum” meaning “sky” or “weather” and I already mentioned that Ancient Draconic is just bad Latin. It’s not very subtle. Unless they pull a complete 180 concerning the lore about Primal Magic he’s definitely going to be a half-elf, which would also just so happen to make him the perfect mediator between the Human Kingdoms and Xadia. Hmm, it’s almost as if they are planning ahead.

My question: How the fuck did that happen? Or rather: how did that fuck happen? I don’t think even Harrow knew or he probably would’ve a) paid more attention when Sarai advised against poaching the Magma Titan, because obviously she’s gotten around Xadia more than him, if y’know what i’m sayin’ ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°) or at least b) put it in his final letter to Callum. Unfortunately we know basically nothing about Sarai except that she was a soldier alongside Amaya and already had Callum before marrying Harrow. So does Amaya know? This is probably the most interesting plot thread in the whole story and as far as my friends told me it’s not going to be touched on anymore in the last two episodes than it already has thus far, which is basically not at all.

17 notes · View notes

sleepynegress · 4 years

Text

Okay... So, on being multiracial and being considered not “officially” a part of a marginalzed/non-white racial group because of it...

*sigh* So, I gotta preface this with the fact that I am OLD.... As in I predate the term “biracial/multiracial”. So, my perspective on this? Is informed by that, my experience living in a very colorful but still considered ALL black family (we range from Sudan dark to you would say this person is white and might get slapped for that assumption), having lived on a rez with plenty of white-passing people who strongly ID as Native, and having grown up with elders, who AGAIN were white-passing, but considered themselves black, and were asked to pass but went through the jim crow bullshit.... I’m seeing what I consider a *bad* trend that is going along with a good trend... The good trend? Boosting dark-skinned rep. Especially women... because we all know shadism/colorism is a thing and sadly because of the sexualized male gaze, mostly white... WHEN a woman of color is cast in a visible, leading, primary, “soft” role... All too often she is cast as biracial or “acceptably” light-skinned/ambiguious in appearance. Dark-skin is still denigrated as the lowest in the gaze of other. And YES it’s worse on women, because that is intersected with being associated with “masculinity”... Which is why dark-skinned men, while also being marginalized... aren’t nearly so much as women with the same skintone. Now, having said that... Those folks who are within non-white cultures and ethnic IDs who are white-passing??? ...Are NOT WHITE! I repeat. They aren’t white, despite that substantial privilege. Often, their appearance is that way because of some horrific colonizing practices. So, the way they look is literally evidence of an attempt at eradicating their culture. And this goes for so many non-white cultures, from indigenous, to black, to pretty much every place where whiteness wanted some resource or land and brown-black people were already residing there. So, I really wish the trend of young people saying a white-passing person *isn’t* technically part of their racial/ethnic ID ceased. And yes, they have every right to self-ID as both multi-racial *and* if they chose, their BIPOC ID. Period. Now. If they are white-passing and ascribe to whiteness? That too is their choice and privilege. But stop pushing people out of their culture because they “look” a certain way, despite parentage and heritage/experience. In my view, that not only blurs the line between the culture vultures like the K. family, the Dolezals, and those who *actually* have a lived bloodline and cultural experience...but erases it. Basically finishing the mission of those early colonizers who purposefully diluted our bloodlines for that very purpose. They are who they tell you they are. Period. The End.

#that's that on that #that's why i posted those videos #rant #race #smh #boost and elevate dark-skin #include light-skinned white-passing folks #is how I feel #as a oldhead whose uncle looks white but went through jim crow okay?#if they want to be white? let them go #if they have that lived cultural experience and bloodline? and they tell you they are a particular BIPOC ID?#take them at their word #you don't have to shit on white-passing folk to uplift defend boost dark-skinned folk

21 notes · View notes

idk-my-aesthetic · 4 years

Text

a concept

U know how in the comics Aang starts rebuilding the air nation with ppl who are basically converts to their religion? By like teaching them about the air nomad’s ways and stuff?

What if he gave some of them air bending using energy bending? And they could start re-building the air nation and it’s culture by teaching them everything!! They could even start moving back into the temples now that they could fly and rebuilding

They’d even have the bison!! According to the wiki aang found a living herd after the war !!

Idk just. As a Jewish person genocide stories are really really personal to me. And the thought of being the last of my people is terrifying

I just really want the air nation to have a chance to rebuild in a natural way. And I think that like letting ppl choose to convert and gifting them with air bending would probably be the best way

Ik aang’s kids and grandkids have air bending but trying to rebuild an entire nation from one bloodline is.... not the best idea

And I also know that in lok a bunch of ppl are given air bending, but that whole story really rubs me the wrong way (no hate to lok though!! There are parts I like!!)

Under the cut is basically an explanation as to why I take issue w/ it and find it mildly offensive/an essay about cultural appropriation in general lol. but i don’t wanna kill ppl’s dashes so if you wanna see the explanation check there

but i really think that aang like.... allowing ppl to convert, and teaching them, and gifting them w/ airbending in the most natural/best way for that story to go and i wanted to share that!! :)

anyway time for a whole essay because i.... apparently need to explain and justify every single one of my opinions. i’ma blame the adhd.

I have 2 main issues w/ the new air bender plot. a) the air Nomad religion/culture is pretty explicitly seen as a closed one and b) it’s sort of a cop-out.....

so... first:

Air bending is pretty explicitly a huge part of the air nomad culture and religion and is extremely spiritual. bc of how religious and spiritual it is the idea of ppl just.... randomly being given it really rubs me the wrong way.

It’s really really hard for me to explain this or come up with an irl example, bc these ppl didn’t ask for air bending, or try to gain it in anyway. So it’s not really their fault. But to me it feels almost like accidental cultural appropriation? If that makes sense

Which like. cultural appropriation is obviously bad. Even in the comic I originally referenced (the promise) Aang is initally really really offended by the people practicing the air Nomad religion when he first finds out!!! Which he should be!!!

There’s a difference between cultural appropriation, culture appreciation, and sharing culture. The first is bad, and the second 2 are good when done correctly.

Ima use an irl example w/ Judaism just bc using this personal experiences is apparently the only way my brain knows how to explain things

Scenario 1: Amanda (who is xtian) decides to research the Jewish holiday of Passover and the traditions behind it just bc she’s interested in it

This is cultural appreciation! She’s just learning about smthn she finds interesting. This is generally ok! although in some cultures there is knowledge that you are not supposed to know or discuss if you are not part of that culture and you should 100% respect that if it is the case

Scenario 2: Amanda learns about the Passover seder and decides to throw one herself

Dont fucking do this omfg. This is cultural appropriation. Passover is a super important and religions holiday! It’s one of the high holy days and celebrating it on her own isn’t ok!

Scenario 3: Amanda asks her Jewish freind Alex if she can come to his Passover seder

This is cultural appreciation and cultural sharing!! It’s totally valid!! She respectfully asks to join in and be included!

it’s diffrent from cultural apropriation for one huge reason. she is joining in, rather than celebrating it on her own with no jewish ppl present

Scenario 4: Amanda eats gefitlefish just bc she likes it

this is appreciation! even though there are no jewish ppl involved! bc gefiltefish isn’t a holy/religious/spiritual thing.

different aspects of different cultures have different levels of importance. as a general rule, if smthn is holy/religious, you should not do anything with it, unless invited by someone of that culture. if it’s not then you can generally do it on ur own (though there is some grey area there. ie, moccasins are smthn that aren’t religious to native americans, but if ur not native you shouldn’t be producing and selling them. if you want moccasins by them from actual natives)

scenario 5: amanda contacts a rabbi and starts the conversion process

this is...... just conversion lol. when she is finished with the process (which can take months/years) she’ll no longer be xtian and be jewish!! just as much as anyone who was born into judiasm. she’ll be able to host her own seders and any of her children will be jewish as well :)

sorry for the really long thing!! but i felt it was necessary to show the difference between some concepts that seem similar but are actually vastly different!!

anyway, i hope y’all understand the difference between cultural appropriation/appreciation/sharing. if ur asking urself “ok why does it matter tho” friendly reminder that alot of irl ppl have been murdered for trying to peacefully observe their cultures/religions :)

including the air nomads! (hey segway...)

they are literally hunted to extension because they are part of one culture/religion. you could argue it’s a racism thing (which it is) but race, culture, ethnicity and religion are all inherently tied. see: almost every non-xtian religion worldwide

SO. when you consider that a) the nomads were killed for their religion b) airbending was incredibly significant part of that religion, isn’t it weird that random people who have 0 connection or interest in that religion suddenly have airbending??

again it becomes like accidental cultural appropriation. which you can’t really blame the characters for in-world

but, these aren’t real ppl. they’re characters in a situation that was written by real ppl, real ppl who can and should be criticized

not that i’m trying to call the creators bigoted in anyway! this dosn’t seem like anything that was meant to be offensive. and it’s not really that offensive unless you think about it. to me it just seems like a plot point that wasn’t fully thought through. i don’t bring it up to shame the creators, just as a way to show others why it’s smthn not to be repeated

and, to show a better way to do a similar story

the reason i went so in depth w/ the explanation of cultural appropriation vs appreciation vs conversion is bc i wanna show why a different way of approaching a similar story would have been better

the reason i think my whole idea (of ppl basically contacting aang or the air nomads, converting to the religion, and then being gifted air bending through energy bending) is better than ppl being randomly gifted it is bc conversion takes work

to convert to any culture or religion you a) need a connection to someone in that culture (usually made by reaching out to a religious leader) and b) need to actually be accepted by that group in order to be considered one of them. it takes work and dedication. it’s a literal transfer of culture!! it’s just... ack i’m not good at explaining it

but dosn’t it make so much more sense that ppl who actually worked to integrate themselves into the culture and become one of them are givin airbending? not because it’s a privilege but bc they need to first become part of the culture in order to have any right or claim to it

but by just giving it to random non-benders it’s basically the reverse!! yes they later learn the culture and religon, but???? thats not how that works??? wtf???

i feel like i’ve been talking in circles and i’m sorry if i’ve bored everyone to death but i hope u understand my point.

anyway! next thing! (i swear this part will be way shorter)

by just making a bunch of random ppl airbenders it basically retcons one of the longlasting effects of the 100 yr war and almost just... erases the impact of the air nomad’s genocide

which. is gross and uncomfortable. genocide stories are touchy subjects and smthn that need to be treated with respect

just giving random ppl airbending it’s almost like the genocide didn’t matter at all. which i take a huge fucking issue w/ ok and i don’t feel like i need to explain why

instead of a natural rebuilding of the air nomads it’s just fixed with spirit magic. it’s just... an insult to the really compelling and well written genocide story that was in atla and an insult to the irl ppl who related to that story

so. yeah.... again i’m not trying to call out the creators, i again think this plotline was more accidentally insulting than purposefully

i already propsed a better way to do it by allowing converts to gain the ability to airbend. (hell it dosn’t even need to come from energy bending or aang. the air nomads were incredibly spiritual, maybe a spirit gifted it to the ppl who earned it instead of random fucking ppl)

but the other reason that converts instead of just.... random ppl gaining the ability is better is bc there aren’t gonna be that many ppl to convert!! there’s not gonna be some sudden boom in the airbending population!! theres would still be a story of the nation slowly healing and rebuilfing itself instead of the insulting sudden magic fix

oof. sorry for the long freaking thing. i literally went into this just wanting to share an idea and instead spent over an hour analyzing this stuff lol....

i hope this was coherent but if anyone’s got questions about anything i said feel free to @ me or shoot me an ask :) as long as ur polite and stuff i’ll answer to the best of my ability

#atla #airbending #atla meta #avatar tla #avatar #avatar the last airbender #aang #aang atla #atla worldbuilding #cultural appropriation #idk how to tag this also i am big tired #lok #genocide #tagging for blacklist #/ just in case

43 notes · View notes

yoimeta · 4 years

Note

Hi everyone! I noticed recently that the "KAZAKHSTAN 101 OR HOW TO OTABEK" post seems to have been taken off of tumblr? The author's whole blog seems to have been wiped. Do you know if this is archived anywhere? Is there a mirror, say, on Ao3?

Hello!

Thankfully, I managed to find what I believe is the original post. Here it is! The post is archived in plain text under the cut.

Hope this helps!

- Ji

Source: @sawyer-aik

KAZAKHSTAN 101 OR HOW TO OTABEK

THERE YOU GO YURI ON ICE FANDOM.

Disclaimer: this is in no way a fully comprehensive guide. This is just me trying to put together basics for people who are unfamiliar with Kazakhstan/Kazakhs to start their writing/research.

I am an ethnic Kazakh female, citizen of Kazakhstan, Almaty, bisexual, upper middle class, currently in college in the US. My experience is in no way representative of all kazakhs and Kazakhstan citizens. However, I think it’s pretty close to Otabek’s.

This is really, really long and kinda convoluted, but if you can bear it –– welcome!

Name: Many people have talked about Otabek’s name. This is how you shorten it –– “Bek”, “Beka”, or “Beks” if you wanna be really familiar and laid back.

Kazakhs don’t have middle names, we have patronymics. They are formed like this: the father’s name + ‘uly’ if the child is a boy or ‘kyzy’ is the child is a girl. For example, Otabek’s childrens’ patronymics would be Otabekuly and Otabekkyzy.

About Almaty and almatinians: Ok I’m so happy Otabek is from Almaty, I really don’t know much about life in other cities or rural areas. Almatinians rarely do. Comparing Almaty lifestyle to the rest of Kazakhstan is the same as comparing NYC to the rest of America –– it’s not representative of the quality of life in the country, like, at all.

Almaty has 2.5+ million population, and it grows every year. It’s a cultural and economic centre of the country. Apples originate from Almaty (!!!), hence the name from “Alma” –– apple. Almatinians are usually stereotyped as fast, brash and snobby –– kinda like New Yorkers, right? Almaty is much more tolerant and progressive, and also more ‘Western’ than the rest of the country in terms of mindset. Almatinians kinda look down on non-Almatinians, and really dislike the capital Astana because of all the funding and attention it gets.

Almaty has a great ethnic diversity –– main groups are Kazakhs, Russians, Uygur, Koreans, Germans, Jews, Uzbek, and many more. Though stereotypical jokes are generally acceptable, outright hate and discrimination against an ethnic group is not tolerated. Many foreigners visit here for business –– mostly Americans, Western Europeans and Chinese.

Almatinians love: coffeeshops, mall sales, cool cars (Hello Otabek’s motorcycle), smoking hukkah and vaping. They are usually concerned with status and try to show off their wealth. You can see people of all kind of different style and background in Almaty, fashion shows are held there, contemporary art and indie-music congregates there, along with all kinds of fancy ass crowd. It is a really interesting and kinda exhausting scene, especially if you are young and wanna have fun.

Language, culture, food, etc.

As an Almatinian Kazakh, Otabek is definitely fluent in both Russian and Kazakh, and probably has a very good grasp on English. He is a master of shala kazakh. Shala kazakh is a magic language that only city Kazakhs are privy to. It’s basically a wild mix of kazakh, russian and some fashionable english slang thrown in there. It’s usual for me to start a conversation with “OMG bro” and then kinda pull my speech together, substituting kazakh and russian words with each other and pepper it with “cool”, “ok” and other english exclamations. It’s not grammatically correct and is kinda lowbrow, but we all do it. Yes, even our parents. This is how Otabek sounds when he is talking to someone from home. Terrifying.

Nuclear family: City Kazakhs usually have two or three kids. That’s less than people have in rural areas. Children are important in Kazakh culture because they carry the family’s bloodline and history, especially boys. If you headcanon Otabek as having brothers and sisters, you are probably right! His family should be at least sort of wealthy to afford all the expenses of having a professional athlete for a child. Otabek has an expensive bike and his clothes look high-end –– he is definitely not poor.

Family in general. Kazakhs are close, VERY CLOSE to their family. Mind you, family is not just parents and siblings but also your grandparents, aunts and uncles and like all 173 cousins and nieces and nephews. Everyone is ridiculously involved in your life, always there with advice and complaints. You stay connected to your parents when you move out, when you get married, when you have kids, when you DIE. When Otabek misses the weekly skype dates or check-in phone calls, HE IS SHAMED SO HARD. Do you know grandma is worried about you, think about how old she is! Otabek’s relatives brag about his achievements like they moved him up the career ladder personally, with their own two hands. There’s nothing Otabek can really do about it tho he gets annoyed

Food: city Kazakhs have a very diverse cuisine. Traditional kazakh food is like 50% batter and 50% meat and takes long ass time to prepare so we reserve it for the holidays. My family loves fish, russian dishes such as borsht and blini, Uzbek lagman, Korean kimchi tho we try to avoid pork. And it’s not like we choose one day as a “Russian cuisine day”, we just kinda??? Deside to have some borsht today?? Almaty has lots of different restaurants, almatinians love sushi, pizza and pasta, shashlyk, all kinds of experimental foods and trying new things. Kumys –– mare’s milk –– is one of the things you should try in Kazakhstan as a turist, but I know many kazakhs who have never had it or don’t like it. They say it’s really good for you tho.

Holidays: ethnic Kazakhs in Kazakhstan celebrate: birthdays, New Years, Eid al-Adha which we call Kurban Bairam, Independence Day on December 16th and Nauryz on March 22nd. Young people kinda have get togethers on Halloween because it’s fun and a reason to hang out. Nauryz is one of my faves, it’s a pagan holiday of coming of spring and new life. On Nauryz, Almaty is adorned with flowers, yurts and giant swings are set on the city square, people wear traditional clothing and dance and play and eat a lot. My family also ended up celebrating Eastern Orthdox Christmas and Easter because each year our Russian friends invite us to hang out and celebrate with them, lol.

LGBTQIA+

Main principle is “Don’t ask, don’t tell”. General conflict avoidance protocols are in place. I personally know like 3 LGBT friendly hubs/clubs in Almaty. Nobody explicitly says “gay clubs” but people just kinda know what and where those are. There are get togethers and meetings you can attend to meet people, you can hang out with your significant other in public, hug, hold hands and no one would probably say anything. Colleges and universities are generally safe places, many of my friends are out in their college and don’t face any trouble. PDA will be frowned upon, but all PDA is generally frowned upon in Kazakhstan, even hetero. Feminist and sex-positive initiatives try to educate the populace and break the status quo, and are doing really well but the government’s disposition is homophobic. If your family is religious or traditional, they probably wouldn’t go as far as disowning you, but will probably pressure and guilt-trip you. LGBT+ youth generally plan to move somewhere else or just not settle. All of this is Almaty situation tho. Being LGBT in rural area is much more dangerous.

THE BEST PART: VOCABULARY

Ok this is what I find to be the easiest way to explain Kazakh to English speakers: think Turkish but written in cyrillic, with words borrowed from Arabic and Russian.

Endearments:

zhanym, жаным: my soul. Zhanym is everything to a Kazakh. You can use it for your family, friends, SO, I called my laptop zhanym today. It can be flirty, it can be serious. If you need Otabek to be affectionate with someone, use zhanym.

ainalaiyn, айналайын: really hard to translate but something like my precious?? Usually used towards small kids, but also if a Kazakh finds something really cute.

altynym, my golden baby. I love this one for obvious reasons, lol, hi, Otabek.

Mahabbatym, махаббатым, my love +

Suiktim, сүйіктім. my love, my dear. Kinda old fashioned but really romantic. I can see Otabek using this, but he will be teased and called an old sap if he does.

Kazakh have a lot more endearments, but most of them are for children.

Basic interaction and exclamations:

Iya. Ия. Yes.

Zhok. Жоқ. No

Rakhmet. Рахмет. Thank you.

Keshir. Кешір. Sorry.

Salem, Сәлем. Hello. A familiar greeting.

Sau bol, Сау бол. Literally “Be well” but actually means goodbye. Pretty familiar too.

O Kudai, О Құдай/O Allah, О Алла! Oh my god, obviously. Used in all kinds of different situations.

Oibai, Ойбай! How does one explain oibai. When a friend jump scares you, when you receive bad news, when you check your bank account –– oibai!

Abai bol, Абай бол. Be careful, is what your mom tells you when you go out.

Expletives and Swear Words. Yeeaaah the juicy stuff.

Zhyndy, Жынды. Crazy. If someone is being stupid or inappropriate, you call them zhyndy. When you tell a dumb joke at the familty table, mom smacks you upside the head and hisses “Ooooi, zhyndy!” When Jean-Jaques is acting a fool and makes out with his reflection, Otabek rolls his eyes and mutters “Zhyndy”.

Akymak. Ақымақ. Idiot. When someone is just dumb and not worth your time.

Ittin balasy. Иттің баласы. Child of a dog. It can be as harmless as “you pup” and as offensive as “son of a bitch” depending on the situation.

Kotindy kys. Көтіңді қыс. Squeeze you ass. God I love this one. When someone being an obnoxious wannabe, tell them they should squeeze their ass and check themselves.

Jean-Jaques: I am gonna be the King of the Grand Prix!

Otabek: Kotindy kys.

Shygasyn ba?! Шығасың ба?! You wanna go bro?! Ohh, someone is gonna catch these Kazakh fists.

Sigil. Сігіл. Basically go fuck yourself.

Sheshen ahmy/Sheshen sigem. Шешең амы/Шешең сігем. Your mother’s c*nt/Imma fuck your mother. REALLY FUCKING OFFENSIVE. Say this to a Kazakh if you have a death wish.

——————————————————————————————-

AND THEEEEEEERE YOU GO.

Again, this is just the basics. Do more research and talk to as many Kazakhs and Kazakhstani people as you can. We are a different but usually an interesting bunch. Thanks for your attention, Sawyer out!

#yoimeta #solosvejs #answered #Otabek Altin #yoi meta

91 notes · View notes

butts-bouncing-on-the-beltway · 5 years

Text

Oh they absolutely would have been.

Like, Jews were targeted in a very broad stroke, and the nazis were in no way rounding in favor of whiteness or gentile-ness or able-bodied-ness or anything else when they were deciding who was an undesireable. Standard practice was entire households being kidnapped, and Nazi eugenics often spoke of eliminating multiple generations forward and backward just to reeeeeeally scrub out any taint of the blood.

That said, it was ALSO fairly standard practice for the Nazis to take young children who happened to have idealized features from their "degenerate" families and try to raise them as good and honorable members of the aryan race, Hitler Youth, and National Citizenry. So like. Nazis were not known for being terribly consistent about their ethnic policies regardless. They basically did what suited them.

And listen. Even aside from the nazi's perspective on the issue, I want to be clear that a Jew is a Jew is a Jew. Converts are no less Jewish than anyone else, and their racial and ethnic situation can get complicated as a result. After all, is an ethnic Jew merely someone born to a Jewish family? Only someone born to a Jewish mother? What about adult children of late-life converts?

There's a woman at my synagogue who, when she finished her conversion and had her ceremony, established her Jewish line as being her grandchildren forward because her adult children already had religious affiliation but had agreed with her that their children should have a place in their spiritual and cultural heritage from her. Are they now ethnic Jews?

Who fucking knows! Religious leaders and philosophers have only been discussing that for thousands of years, how much longer could it take?

But back to the more specific question here. Not the question of who is ~really~ a Jew or of who would ~count~ to the Nazis with their twisted, no-basis-in-reality eugenic policies. The question you're really getting at here is "did converts die/get collected in the holocaust and could they again or are people co-opting an experience they have no claim to". They answers to those questions are yes, yes, and no. Converts DID die in the Holocaust. They died as Jew and for being Jews even if/when the Nazis erased their conversion or the cultural inheritance of their children. If we have another genocide of the Jews, converts will die alongside us the same as they basically always have because it doesn't matter what the Nazis think they ARE it matters what they represent, and converts, as with all Jews, represent our faith, our traditions, and our bloodline, which is a problem for anyone trying to get rid of Jews. Converts cannot "co-opt" general Jewish experiences because they genuinely are Jewish.

I can understand where your frustration might be coming from. And it may be worth looking further into exactly what people are doing that is setting it off. Like is there something specific you're seeing certain converts say that's frustrating and still would be if they were ethnic Jews? Are you having trouble understanding how "Judaism as an ethnic community" plays into conversion and racial conversations? Are you a person of color who struggles with seeing white people talk cavalierly about genocide? Like there are any number of reasons why what you're seeing might frustrate you that are reasonable concerns, unrelated to the status of a convert, and there are plenty more that may be based in stereotypes or misinformation. Either way, it's worth exploring your feelings on this further.

But I do want to zero in on a phrasing you used that I think might be part of what's happening here. "Otherwise white converts" are still white. Their race did not change when they converted even if their bloodline is now more complicated than society's understanding of whiteness allows for. We have done ourselves a great disservice by abandoning the word and concept of xenophobia in favor of exclusively talking about race. There's a reason most research and academia and philosophical thought usually discusses BOTH race and ethnicity. The two often overlap but are not the same. A white Jew (convert or no, and for all there are some people on this site who insist it's not possible, I know waaaay too many Jews who consistently refer to their own white privilege as white people because shockingly some Jews are actually white even when they're also ethnic Jews) is still a Jew, and they still share our ethnicity. That brings with it more than enough xenophobia and other bigotry to complicate any white convert's understanding of racial politics. But white Jews are still also, racially, white. Again, regardless of being an ethnic jew or a white jew.

And even that's contextual! In the 40's, you for SURE would not have seen very many people referring to Jews as racially white, and the one-drop rule of racial segregationist policy still applies to most of us to this day (that is no matter how distant we are from our culture and faith, or how much inter-marriage we've done, us and our children are still Jewish in the eyes of our oppressors). But these days, many Jews identify as white, and certainly white converts do not suddenly become POC despite a lifetime of whiteness. In both cases, their access to white privilege may be limited or even null depending on context, but that doesn't make them POC.

I suspect that what you're struggling to reckon with here is the notion of "no such thing as a white jew" that tumblr's weird game of telephone has made commonplace combined with the notion of "white people can and do convert to judaism" and that cognitive dissonance is causing you to fixate your concerns here on the seemingly more straight forward convert part rather than the more complicated question of racial and ethnic identity. But to that I say: White Jews died in the holocaust too, and they died in the states at the hands of neo-nazi and white supremacist groups just the same as non-white Jews did.

If someone decides to come for us again, why do you think they will target my family? Because I'm Jewish? Because my partner is converting? Because my sibling is MENA? Because I married a black person? Because my children will be black by virtue of the one-drop rule? That my children will be Jewish by virtue of the one-drop rule? Because we're queer? Because we're mentally ill and disabled? Because we're political dissidents? Because we're poor? Because we have questionable citizenship? Because some of us are people of color? Because those of us who are white MARRIED people of color?

Do you really believe they would just pick one of those? Maybe for our trials. But they would collect us for each and every one of those charges. For the sum total of our existences. Every aspect of us is an insult to their philosophies, a threat to their worldview, and proof of our degeneracy. They could and would collect us for any single one of those reasons but the reality is that we are all of them.

Even if no one looking at me on the street knew I was Jewish, even if my name weren't attached to my synagogue and my money weren't funding their social justice efforts, I am still a race traitor for marrying a black person and committing miscegenation. My partner is still married to a Jew even if they stop conversion right this very second and renounce Judaism.

They don't hate our identities first and then try to prove we carry them. They hate US first and then justify it with any identity we hold.

#holocaust #dark conversation #sorry yall this got....heavy #wall of words

15 notes · View notes

fountainpenguin · 7 years

Note

In "The Fairly OddParents", we see fairies who seem to be of different ethnicities (Juandissimo is Hispanic, Jorgen is Austrian, etc.). But Fairy World doesn't seem to operate on the same basis as Planet Earth, so how did the variations come about? Is Fairy World divided into countries, each of which is home to different races? Does a fairy's ethnicity depend on the human country they live directly above? And how can Anti-Cosmo be British when Cosmo is American?

Boy howdy, we’ve got a huge Fairy worldbuilding Ask, folks! It’s been awhile!

First off, this is a tough question because the Fairykind can teleport and that can mess with or eliminate the idea of different ethnicities developing in certain areas of the magical world.

The true answer I presume is “because those are the ethnicities Butch wanted to work with”, but from a worldbuilding perspective, I’ll see what I can offer.

Overview of Regions

I have this map I put together awhile back based off an image that was listed as giving me the right to mess with it but has apparently now been removed from the location where I found it with the regions of the cloudlands.

Each one functions like a country in the sense that you’re supposed to have a passport to legally move between them (and most wands are outfitted to allow fairies to teleport as long as their passport has been approved/certified before- especially with the competition in this field and the backlash Twinkletuft got, few providers wouldn’t include this as a feature).

However, these regions all answer to the Supreme Fairy Council, meaning that there is no figurehead over each one that makes individual laws for each region. So from a political standpoint, you really only have two “countries”:

Anti-Fairy World is darker here, Fairy World is lighter. Each of these Worlds answers to their Council representatives. In present times:

(We’ve met Mortikor and Anti-Ted in my works. Cattahan will be here soon.)

These seven figureheads frequently meet together, as well as with the High Count and Countess (Anti-Cosmo and Anti-Wanda), H.P., and a single representative (ambassador) from each of the 30+ Fairy subspecies.

Such ambassadors are mainly for show and have limited real say in things, but as a general rule of thumb they’re rich and/or powerful (Ex: royal bloodlines), so they try to speak for their people. The only real people of power here are the seven Council members, H.P., Jorgen, and Anti-Cosmo/Anti-Wanda.

The funny thing is, despite being subspecies ambassadors, they tend to be biased more to their location and the circumstances of that location anyway, but having a representative from each subspecies helps to eliminate the racism concept somewhat.

So to answer your question, regions don’t necessarily correspond with different races, no, because people can teleport anywhere if they can afford it.

Region-Based Culture

So far, I know that Anti-Cosmo and his family live in the High South (Navy) Region, seeing as that’s the spot that covers the mythical island of Hy-Brasil. As a result, I made this the region that’s based heavily on medieval England, with some scattered influence from France, Sweden, and Denmark throughout.

Point being, for the sake of making things easy because I don’t hate myself, Fairy architecture mostly reflects that of those below them. Fairies aren’t so strict about culture belonging to ETHNICITIES, I think, due to how easy it is to travel and settle anyway they want at any given time.

While some aspects of cultures can be related back to the different Fairy subspecies, most culture will be attributed to the region they live in, and each region is a melting pot of different traits, beliefs, dress, accents, etc.

Ergo, you end up with some food and architecture parallels (architecture involving shape more than materials), so it boils down to this:

Green: Heavy Greek parallel (the gate between Fairy World and Anti-Fairy World is here near or on Mount Olympus) that fizzles out into more of an Indian influence as you move further from Mount Olympus. The accent most commonly stereotyped with this region is Indian.

Purple: Heavy Spanish/South American parallel; some aspects may seem more Native American, though not a lot because this is the cloudlands and there aren’t wild animals to hunt the way there are on Earth, nor logs for building wooden homes. The shapes of homes may be similar, though. The accent most commonly stereotyped with this region is Spanish.

Blue: A bizarre combination of Pacific Island-esque parallels and people who dress warmly because of the cold (though then again, in my headcanon, the entire expanse of the cloudlands is cold because clouds).The accent most commonly stereotyped with this region is Australian.

Pink: Some Russian parallels, some Inuit ones, and maybe something like Norway because I think of Norway when I think of the North Pole, and the pink region here is very close to Santa’s workshop (which lies in neutral territory). Basically, this is the region where people dress even more warmly than they do elsewhere in the cloudlands, and culture formed around that.The accent most commonly stereotyped with this region is Russian.

Teal: African parallels- most prominently Egyptian, but like Greek, that fizzles as you move further from Egypt. This region is in Anti-Fairy World, so I was thinking tall buildings with thick, strong walls and flat roofs.The accent most commonly stereotyped with this region is an American Southern drawl (cough Lau Rell is right next to the border and also anti-pixies exist cough).

Navy: As mentioned above, this region has a European/Scandinavian/Nordic base. The capital city of Anti-Fairy World is located here and is considered the most advanced part of Anti-Fairy World. While Anti-Fairy cities are rare, the capital is called Luna’s Landing; elsewhere, you mostly get factories, forests of dead trees, scattered homes, and the occasional town. The accent most commonly stereotyped with this region is high-class British (maybe some cockney in some areas, and a little Swedish or Danish in others).

Maroon: Heavy Asian parallel; I’m thinking thinner, slightly taller buildings in this area with scooped roofs, mostly. During many sections of the timeline, including Timmy’s era, Anti-Fairies don’t have permission or direct access allowing them to leave their world to visit Earth. Thus, they may or may not eat rice or other foods associated with Asian culture because of the way the food system works in the cloudlands. It all depends on one’s personal tastes.The accents most commonly stereotyped with this region are Japanese and German.

If you’re sad because I left your culture out here, I just picked the biggest ones. Other architecture/food parallels do exist, but these are ones I’m familiar with.

A House Is a House For Me

As a general rule, the majority of houses in the cloudlands are made from a material called cloudstones, which is like a brick except made from cloud vapor instead of clay. An exception to this rule is Patio World, the nickname for a town that consists almost entirely of carved wooden buildings. Aesthetic.

And of course, anyone can build a house in any region inspired by a home in one of the other regions (columns are usually associated with wealth). This chart I’ve given here is just to give you some ideas of what a stereotypical resident of one of those regions may favor in terms of housing and food.

Your typical Fairy house is going to be only one or two stories high, with a vertical emphasis as opposed to a horizontal one. This offers some space for Fairies to gather and remain airborne. Godparents, who spend much of their time away from Fairy World, are going to have smaller homes.

While not every fairy is a godparent, you do get lots of small houses lined up. Fairies are friendly and social creatures who rarely live in small towns, because those small towns will quickly evolve into bigger towns and then cities.

There are lots of large and low buildings in Anti-Fairy World, which allows for many anti-fairies to roost together in groups like bats, and are designed to be somewhat low specifically because real-life baby bats will die if they fall to the ground, so it can’t be good for baby anti-fairies either. Mostly you get “rest stop/homeless shelter” buildings because the antis rarely have cities.

As creatures that cause bad luck and can’t die unless their counterpart does, many anti-fairies simply wander around and do their own thing, like hang out at the acid pool beaches or whatever all day because they can’t die -> can’t starve -> don’t need food -> don’t need to work -> don’t have money to buy their own homes -> don’t really need shelter because they can’t die.

You get tall buildings in Pixie World because against all odds they’re surrounded by a pine forest and a jungle with a cave system made of gingerbread. While the Anti-Fairies build out, Pixies build up. You would just never find a long and low building there, with one exception: the big warehouse. But even so, the warehouse is very tall with many floors, so it’s just huge all over. But yeah, no little houses. Just apartment complexes.

So a typical Fairy would feel overwhelmed by the size of Anti-Fairy buildings lengthwise, as these tend to feature huge, sprawling rooms. In Fairy society, it’s generally assumed that if you’re visiting someone’s place, you’re going to be talking a lot. Most visits consist of showing up, talking, and then leaving. They like small rooms where everyone can remain within earshot.

An anti-fairy would think it was very rude for someone to arrive unannounced, show no interest in anything but hearing their own voice or pressuring another, and then leave almost as quickly as they came. They prefer relaxing and carrying on slow conversations, as opposed to the fast-paced Fairy way of life. A Fairy would think it was rude if an anti-fairy was taking their sweet time here.

Pixies like having everything under one roof, or at least close by. Anti-Fairies may have large buildings, but they’re few and far between. Pixies have towers with some sort of food court or other little shop somewhere in them where you can grab coffee and breakfast or whatever. No matter where you are in Pixie World, you’re only two minutes away from a place where you can buy food/drinks/toiletries/paper/basic stuff, no teleporting required. If you were an anti-fairy and had a pixie over to your place, and he asked for something you didn’t have and you told him the closest location where he could go to buy it, you’d get a long stare of fierce judging because this is all your fault.

What’s In a Personality?

There’s a scene in “Frayed Knots” where Anti-Cosmo runs into H.P. out drinking and gambling in an Anti-Fairy casino, and it goes roughly like this:

“You should remember me. My name is Anti-Cosmo Anti-Cosma.”

He sipped from his soda bottle and motioned for Sanderson to place another bet on the unicorn segment of the wheel. “And here I thought you were Anti-Cosmo Julius Anti-Lunifly.”

My wings recoiled at the sound of my mother’s family line, not to mention my private name. Nonetheless, I set my jaw. “And how, pray tell, did you know all of that?”

“I just finished documenting your family tree a month ago. Mother a concubine, father a servant. It’s a very interesting situation, you ending up as pompous as you did. All previous evidence suggests you should have followed in their footsteps to be a belly-scraping groveler. And here you are. You were a rule-breaker from the second you were born.”

The way I see it, Anti-Fairies believe heavily in the idea of nature > nurture because they’re born very functional and with the ability to care for themselves- a helpful trait in a world where their parents (forced to mate with the counterpart of whoever their own does) may give birth to a child they didn’t want, and whom they subsequently abandon because the child will live so long as its host does.

What I’m getting at here is, Anti-Fairy personalities are quite biological. I’ve been working from this angle: 60% of their personality is based on being opposite their counterpart, 20% is taken after their father, 10% the mother, and 10% nurture (so, in a sense, I try not to allow more than 40% overlap in interests or personality between two counterparts; for every trait they share, I try to find three they disagree on. Refracts work on a similar system. While Antis take mainly after dad, Fairies usually take after Mom; we’ve gone over this.)

In Foop’s case, we started with Poof, who seems sweet and kindly on most days, but if you tick him off then man alive are you in for it, compared with Foop who views people as enemies from the start and takes time to warm up to them. Foop generally scoffs at his father and taunts him for his social awkwardness/cowardice/attempts to get what he wants very slowly through the legal system step by step, but underneath that attitude he does idolize and respect his father to some degree.

Poof openly accepts Cosmo, but quietly doesn’t trust him with anything (case in point: Wesley the egg). Poof tends to be a lazy but helpful sort, whereas Foop likes to get things done and often pulls pranks. While Poof likes sports, Foop tends towards academics. Poof likes watching action and heroics on TV and is easily-influenced by the media, whereas I gave Foop a fear of constant flickering light and static noises, and his immediate reaction to seeing advertisements is to go, “You’re wrong!” and turn himself off to a product.

Foop is also a bit of a socially-awkward, well-dressed fellow with big dreams about reshaping the universe, just like his father. And he’s easily distracted and sensitive like his mother, with the same craving for friendship and willingness to do whatever it takes to keep his friends with him.

Like Poof, Foop craves the limelight. The pair also share the same core part of their soul, which in their case is a strong sense of pride and a love of revenge; neither of these two will ever let themselves be one-upped for long.

THEREFORE, Anti-Fairy personalities are biological, and stereotypical accents tend to spring up along with each one individually. As you can see from my quoted section above, H.P. knows Anti-Cosmo’s past and, after learning it, was rather surprised that the Anti-Cosmo he knows originated from such a repressive background.

The whole concept in “Frayed Knots” is, Anti-Cosmo is constantly torn between wanting to be loved, but being terrified of what others might do to him if he screws up in any way on anything. You can probably tell which parent passed which trait along. His pompous British aristocrat side renders him opposite Cosmo, and all of this has left A.C. a conflicted, disoriented mess.

But, no matter what other traits he has, the biggest part of his personality is that innate need to reflect Cosmo, that drive to be smart and act as a good leader. Anti-Cosmo was born with that personality, so as he grew up he unconsciously strove to make it a reality by selecting clothing and habits (such as drinking tea) that fit with his personality. This is called “niche picking”.

You are correct in suggesting that where A.C. grew up might influence his personality- for example, his baby personality may not have been “British aristocrat” so much as a craving for leadership and wisdom. He sort of developed into what he is due to the culture of the area where he grew up.

So my guess would be that there are some very basic personality types laid down by the universe, such as “loves to learn” or “enjoys the outdoors”, and that nurture does indeed play a role as one grows up. However, if you asked them, most Anti-Fairies would insist that personalities are biological and that they’re influenced by the zodiac.

As for the part of your Ask that relates to “variations”, which I’m assuming means phenotypes, I might chalk that up to the Aos Sí ancestor thing.

…….. That’s my headcanoned view on all these subjects, anyway.

#130 Prompts #Anon #Bat cube and associates #FAIRIES!#Frayed Knots #Origin of the Pixies #Purple hippie dragonfly #The bat with the hat #Woooorrrldbuilding! (Yum!)#asks #ridwriting #screenshots #Nerdy blue bat son

11 notes · View notes

paranormalsarah · 7 years

Photo

What do you See?

When you look at these photos of me, what do you see? Your bias, filter, perception will immediately feed you ideas and thoughts and wherever those rivers of consciousness go, is mostly defined by your past. Right now in our country, some might see over-sexualization, mockery, flattery... a white girl? I ask you, do you see ethnocentrism, cultural appropriation, or even discrimination?

My heritage is mixed with indentured servants, Cherokee, Sinti, Welch, Irish, German and a few more nomadic, immigration love stories. I have a large amount of U.S. Marines, teachers, mechanics, math wizards and domestic queens in my family tree. Musicians, artisans, spiritualists, religious pillars in the community; a thick history that molds me. As a young woman, I was constantly faced with domestic presumptions and standards and being raised a tomboy meant gender-bending was a natural phenomenon in my everyday life. Later being a vocalist in church, a theater nerd, a street racer, a straight-A student, an athlete... I faced discrimination and adversity. Teaching hip hop in downtown Kansas City to a room full of black girls that I had to impress to earn their respect. This white girl can C-walk, Krump, tap dance and dougie. I know the artist, the history, the movement and I have broken a lot of stereotypes. Other cultures have adopted, accepted, and respected me when I learned and appreciated their accents but it was never considered to be a part of ME, I was just imitating.

A wasichu here in Minneapolis, a red woman to those back home despite my heritage. Snowflake, cracker, wigger, peckerwood, honkey, nigger-lover... and the derogatory list goes on. I’ve also been called a brown-noser, chicken legs, skinny-minny, doll, darling, sweet thing, witch, demon-lover, honey, gypsy-thief, slut, whore, crunchy, cougar, crone, MILF, wanna-be and bog trotter. Daily I wake up to face standards put here before me of a mother, wife, woman, citizen and so forth. When did this begin and when/where does it stop? I could have jumped on any one of the activist bandwagons that have directly effected me but instead I choose to focus on my future, my love for life and raising my healthy family. I simply hope to understand the selfish bias some people have that ONLY they experience opposition and discrimination and therefore THEY are a victim to be ______________ (never quite sure what people hope to gain from pointing out their ‘special’ obstacle in the racism debate). Do people want retribution, reward, apology or change? How does a culture think beyond themselves and adopt differences rather than creating egg shells to walk on. When does it stop?

Rant seed: My dear friend has a daughter in public school. This means she is learning to love others, different from herself, on a daily basis through diversity in Minneapolis schools. She is a little ‘white girl’ from all perceived labels (Iranian, Sammi, Swedish, Irish) in reality. She has some black girl friends at school and really wants to ‘have her hair braided with beads like them, it’s so pretty’. Society calls this cultural appropriation, psychology calls it imitation or mirroring, every day peeps call it flattery. Some call it racist, mockery, white privilege?

“Another white person stealing our culture, stealing our style”, “white people can’t have cornrows!”

Somewhere, in some muckery of human disgust, ‘cultural appropriation’ - a little girl wanting to be pretty like her black friends - becomes racist slander and bullying. A parent, my friend, suddenly has to consider draining the innocence out of a beautiful compliment from one girl to another and contemplate the consequences her daughter might endure. Corn rows, beads, which beads, how tight, a certain design? What might be ‘too much’ or ‘too far’? They are little girls in Kindergarten.

As a mother of little boys, I don’t have to deal with these kinds of problems, yet. I understand my son who loves cooking might face some adversity but as far as the world is concerned, I have two ‘Nazi-wet dream’ white boys that will ‘do just fine’. They are already reaping the benefits of their ‘white privilege’ by being told they will not suffer, they might have shortcuts, their hard work is optional and unrewarded because it is expected. Despite my severe debt from grad school, because I ‘benefited’ from higher education, my children will likely not have access to grants, scholarships or hand-outs. Their road is expected to be straight-narrow-and without celebration. They cannot identify with their Irish, Cherokee, Sinti bloodlines because their skin will refuse them entry. Declan’s blue eyes might be an issue. Their high cheek bones and soft eyes, in conjunction with their heavily ethnic last name will likely secure a subtle, humble Swedish nod from our Scandinavian ancestors and neighbors. Add the om-lot that was removed on the boat to America and we might be set....

I want them to be happy, peaceful, and free to celebrate all of their struggles and their victories without the preconceived notion that it should be anything but pure effort. As a parent, a psychologist, a realist... is this even possible? How do I help change the world through my parenting and encourage my children to do the same in later generations?

As a young, ‘white’ woman in America, as a mom and wife, not too badly beaten with an ugly stick - I’ve experienced a lot of discrimination and diversity. I’ve been told I cannot do, sing, dance, wear, drive-to, be friends with, attain, complete or even consider ___________ a lot of things. I did it anyway. Some women, feminists, take that line of thought and tattoo it on their arm, behind their neck, paint it on a sign and march with a painted sign. Despite it all...

Never the less, she persisted. It is not a singular battle cry for one group of people. It is a motto for the human experience. If you see it as a singular, selfish, non-universal experience - this opposition in the world - it is HOW YOU SEE the message, not the message. Does this make sense? For me, this is a way of life, survival on a basic level and hopefully done with grace and respect for others. Acceptance, acculturation, diversity, melting pots, salad bowls - it all boils down to a very simple way of life and living.

Anyway.

I hope she wears her braids to school and her friends giggle happily. I hope she feels beautiful, accepted and a little like her best friends.

I HOPE.

(PS: Most of my posts include hidden links to explore and learn more about the LANGUAGE in my blog. I love language, won’t you explore with me?)

#momlife #mom #minneapolis #parenthood #psychology #mpls #racism #conspiracy #Black and White #friday #fridayreads #mirroring #mocking #racist #salad bowl #real life

0 notes