#it happens with a lot of first/second gen immigrants

[alwaysthecleric]

I started playing D&D with a friend a little over a year ago, and one of the things that we wanted to do with the campaign was to be able to see both our cultures and other cultures represented in the fantasy world that we would be playing in, because, frankly, a lot of the fantasy media we grew up with was pretty dang white. I’ve ended up pulling parts of Vietnamese culture, because I’m Vietnamese, he’s pulled from his culture, and that’s been really fun to see.

Anyway, my character, Keri, is a dwarf, and is a character I had previously played in a campaign with mostly white friends, where we weren’t thinking about including our cultures in this way. And as I was doing some prep and thinking about aspects of dwarven culture for this current campaign, I decided that instead of basing the dwarven writing system on runes, which is what Tolkien's and D&D's dwarven writing system is based on, dwarves in this setting would have a writing system inspired by cuneiform, which is a writing system from ancient Mesopotamia.

[image description: A chart which shows 30 Anglo-Saxon "futhorc" runes. It shows their names, transliteration characters, and the meanings of their names.]

[image description: a Sumero-Akkadian cuneiform syllabary, used by early Akkadian rulers. It is a grid that has English letters on the top and left axis and shows the corresponding cuneiform characters]

I liked the visual similarities—both runes and cuneiform have very geometric, angular characters; both are written on materials that have been preserved really well—but then I wanted to make a reference sheet for myself, so I didn't have to keep on going to D&D Beyond to look up information. So I went on Canva and looked for a sufficiently angular and blocky font until I found a font called Obra Letra and made my reference sheet.

[image description: The first page of my reference sheet. It has brown angular text on a parchment background. The text has information from Tasha's Cauldron of Everything about the Artficer D&D class]

And then I got annoyed with Canva, switched to the Affinity suite of design programs, and Googled Obra Letra to see if I would be able to buy the font. And then I found out that it was inspired by vintage Filipino typography! Which is super cool!

[image description: Text over an image of a bay in the Philippines. The text reads "Obra Letra Display Typeface by Lorenzo Martinez; a modern take on filipino vintage typography"]

And I currently have this document of of spells that my character can pick from, but I've been debating whether or not I use Obra Letra as the only font for all of it, or if I should find a different one for the body text and just use Obra Letra as like the font for like the spell names and stuff.

[image description: The first page of my spell description document. There is brown angular text over a parchment background. The text includes the spell information for the spells "Prestidigitation" and "Mage Hand"]

So I Googled Filipino inspired fonts, just going off of the description of Obra Letra, and found an article from Canva of Filipino inspired fonts! And then I was like, “Well, these are all like, display fonts and not quite what I'm looking for…What if I google Vietnamese inspired fonts!” And I found a website called vietnamesetypography.com that lists recommendations for fonts that can accommodate all of the tonal markings that Vietnamese has as well as resources for designing fonts with those markings in mind and a brief history of writing in Vietnam! Which is so cool!!

There’s probably a deeper conversation about Asian diaspora and being a second gen immigrant engaging with my family’s culture to be had here, but I’m just so dang excited that:

1. There’s no “right”way to worldbuild. Tolkien was a language nerd, so he built Middle Earth and all the cultures within to house the conlangs he was making. If you happen to be stuck with worldbuilding, start from the place that makes you excited to go down Wikipedia rabbit holes. I love calligraphy and typography, so that’s where I started.

2. That what you, or I create, or anyone creates will always have a part of them in it. And that when you’re able to bring all of yourself—your culture, your experience, your interests—what you create becomes even richer

#d&d #dungeons and dragons

[gemsofgreece]

greeks are indeed the main issue when it comes to spread the greek language. I live in germany and also went to a Greek school a few times a week in the afternoon (after my normal German school) and although my greek isn't perfect I dare to say I was still the best pupil speaking it bc my parents were of the few ones only speaking in Greek to me. most other parents spoke either a mix of Greek and German or straight up only German w them. partially it wasn't the parents' fault as they were 2nd gen greeks living there so they grew up in Germany, too and their parents also didn't really bother speaking to them fully greek, in an attempt to merge w their new home country and the culture (as it often happens w immigrant families). wasn't much different w my Italian neighbors either where the kids barely spoke/understood Italian. but then I see people from other countries/ continents only speaking in their native language to their kids no matter what and I'm like, why can't greeks be like this, too? I know greek isn't always the easiest especially when living in a different country. but if other immigrants manage keeping their native languages along w learning/speaking German, why can't we? or worse, they come up w new words like μπροτάκια. a mix of the German word "Brot" (bread) and the greek word ψωμάκια (buns), essentially meaning buns w it but instead of using the greek word they just mixed it w the German one 🙃 like the amount of times I met greeks (in my age) but they could barely speak greek is alarming. and it's obviously the parents/grandparents' fault. my grandpa has relatives in South Germany and when he asked them if they speak greek to their grandchildren they said no. and he told them "they're gonna learn German in school anyway. what they're not going to learn there is greek! so speak greek to them!" and I think he is right. sure you can still be and feel greek even without speaking it by just keeping traditions and other cultural stuff alive. but speaking the language helps you connect w all this and other greeks in a deeper way. so speak greek to your kids! please! it's such a nice language, it's a pity!

(sorry for the long message. just needed to vent about my personal experience a little)

Thank you for this message! I have no insight what the Greek immigrant (or just immigrant)’s experience with struggling to preserve the heritage is like but it must definitely be tough work. I understand second generation parents who don’t succeed much in teaching the mother tongue to their kids. But first generation? That’s straight out problematic. I believe your grandpa is right. Besides, it is absolutely possible for kids to learn more than one language - if a kid can learn English and another foreign language besides, say, German then they are perfectly capable of learning their own ethnic language too. If they don’t, then apparently the parents have failed or intentionally didn’t make it clear to the children what the significance of this is.

A kid desn’t understand concepts like heritage, roots, culture very well. If the parents try to teach the language as a chore or as a form of ethical obligation, it might not succeed. They should treat the language learning as something natural or obvious or if that’s not easy then as something fascinating or useful IMO. Because I have received mail from Greeks of the diaspora who weren’t taught Greek well by their family and they realise they want to know it only in late puberty or adulthood, when the aforementioned concepts are better understood. This is generally something that usually interests people when they grow and mature. But when a lot of time has passed people often make the mistake to feel that maybe they lost their chance or the cord is cut for good now or that they wouldn’t be able to get connected on a deeper level even if they tried. Which is wrong of course, you can (re)gain the lost touch at any age as long as you genuinely try to. But the neglect or avoidance of the parents (for whatever reason) in this matter makes it so much more difficult for their offspring later.

This of course applies to all immigrants struggling with the preservation of their language and culture. The immigrants you mentioned, who still succeed a lot in that are probably ones where tradition and religion have a very strong influence in the structure of their family / society so it is necessary for them. Not always, but usually, I think.

#Greek #Greek language #languages #emigration #greeks of diaspora #anon #mail #hide

[beardedmrbean]

Hi, read up on the African forums…..have these people travel across the USA and interact with the locals much less African ones?

Also I can tell they are mainly boomers and gen x, but I heard in Michelle Obama autobiography she went to Africa think she could get ancestral connections…then quickly realize she was a foreigner like every white person

That’s another thing, y’all think you’re Harry Potter or Wakanda real? It’s been centuries

We only started to locally interact with them in 60’s due immigration. And we only know what Hollywood or rich people wanted to show Africa is like

You know in the late 00’s-2010’s there was this attempt to “globalized” media for all…which expose the American centric

Ugh one character I like been getting “Americanized” and people been saying “He finally acting like a real kid!” Aka they changing him into a generic middle class American idea of a child

Which is irrating because as you know I’m an autistic adhd zoomer…and my generation behavior on Tik Tok shows how we’re worlds apart

Though when pick up the same toxicity your abusive stepmom had with feminists…

But yeah the globalized push in media act push for me to identify with America more…I think Rowling trying to flesh out the American wizards stuff starting my awareness

And Africans complaints about Wakanda

But women king is probably my breaking point

“Oh Hollywood finally done something being slavery for African history that fine-wait they were some of the most prolific slaves traders in human history and only stop after the French kick their asses in 1892?”

“Oh shit that wrong I hope it can’t get that-DA FUCK YOU MEAN AFRICAN AMERICANS HAVE A HORRIFIC CONNECTION TO THEM THAT DNA ANCESTRY RESEARCH CONFIRMED?!”

Sorry I’m LIVID how I wasn’t told about the dna ancestry idea until Hollywood (the left in particular) show how truly fuck up their perceptions of history is.

Hmm sorry second essay anon soon

Hi, read up on the African forums…..have these people travel across the USA and interact with the locals much less African ones?

Not really I don't think, how funny would that be tho, get delegations from the major US population centers together for cultural exchange, be bad enough trying to get the boroughs of NYC to come to agreements.

Also I can tell they are mainly boomers and gen x, but I heard in Michelle Obama autobiography she went to Africa think she could get ancestral connections…then quickly realize she was a foreigner like every white person

Ya there was a big wave of pan african sentiment in the 90's big push happening, Spike Lee movies were playing a part in that, specifically Malcolm X, as well as musical acts like The Fugees, Lauren Hill of The Fugees, DeLa Soul, Tribe Called Quest, many others who's names slip my mind, as opposed to now most of that that I can recall was about embracing yourself and your history but not a lot of anger towards others, well the Malcolm X movie got some angries but for the most part.....

Lot of people did the pilgrimage to the motherland and were sorely disappointed, wonder how Akon's thing is going.........

Ugh one character I like been getting “Americanized” and people been saying “He finally acting like a real kid!” Aka they changing him into a generic middle class American idea of a child

I have to wonder who the world would hate for being self centered and arrogant about everything if it weren't for the US, honestly though not a 'oh it'd be France or the UK' thing, who has the cultural and economic clout to manage that level of arrogance, probably China.

“Oh Hollywood finally done something being slavery for African history that fine-wait they were some of the most prolific slaves traders in human history and only stop after the French kick their asses in 1892?”

UK was the first major world power to outlaw slavery and they use the PaxBritanica to try to enforce it globally, at least on the seas since they were the world police before the US got the job post WW1, they sank their economy into the toilet to purchase the freedom of a whole lot of people in the process too.

Reparations were paid when the equivalent of billions of pounds to purchase the freedom for those people, didn't finish paying it off till like 2015, then they incurred even more expenses to stop more people from being sold, meanwhile certain African kingdoms were raking in the cash selling people.

Be why the 'my brother in Christ we already paid you for them' line when some African countries started in on the reparations train was so funny.

“Oh shit that wrong I hope it can’t get that-DA FUCK YOU MEAN AFRICAN AMERICANS HAVE A HORRIFIC CONNECTION TO THEM THAT DNA ANCESTRY RESEARCH CONFIRMED?!” Sorry I’m LIVID how I wasn’t told about the dna ancestry idea until Hollywood (the left in particular) show how truly fuck up their perceptions of history is.

information is king, now to get people to learn that information

Hmm sorry second essay anon soon

I look forward to it, might be going to a Maunday Thursday service so I may or may not get to it today.

#zoomer huey anon

[cosmosees]

in lieu of drawing a ref (hard) (boring) im gonna list some stuff abt my funne tome oc radrabzz...yippie!

white hat hacker obviously. due to the period accurate Rona Virus shes stuck doing coding classes at home and takes the insane pay to fund hrt and her tuition. she does other small coding jobs on the side, maybe working on a game of her own

has a roommate irl! havent thought much of what to do with it but she miight become relevant in my brain world

she was going into tome literally so hard trying to be like okay just gotta do my job and not talk to anyone. and then alpha showed up and her being utterly interaction starved due to the once again aforementioned rona shes like oh ok we r best friends now. dandy alliance having her is really fun for her

she REALLY likes nylocke. in a platonic way ofc (she is a lesbian) but thats her emotional support funny dude

i do think the nature of tome characters especially in the rpg is like. to have a Rival. i was joking abt it earlier but thats like 100% rockoon in my head. theyre both silly dudes but she is genuinely kind of angry at him for cheating at the game with so much cash on the line and getting her so close to like...just straight up being kicked out of her new friendgroup it seems?? ill have to see more of rpg rocky before i decide how this develops but i have THINGS cooking in my brain

as a side effect of the last one she does not use her Hacking Abilities in battle against anyone who isnt actively cheating themselves. game is weird to navigate sometimes because of it (the way she set up her skill class is weird reflective of mine ((i shouldve gone brawler HELP))) so shes not really. strong at first and struggles a LOT

a lot of the struggles in the PREVIOUS point however are solved when she gets the bomb rush spell. that wasnt even an intentional rockoon parallel, when i got it ingame it just did a BUNCH of damage when i needed it. but now i'm rolling with it

second gen immigrant to the us from jamaica! im still working out the family tree (her mom n dad are already concepted characters in her main story but i gotta expand) but she has family back there she visits as well. was raised in florida and moved to socal for school (ended up staying there after the rona happened bcus she already had an apartment)

her irl name is raeni, she still doesnt give it out ingame but either goes by hatty or rab online

#my ocs #radrabzz #tome oc

[eddie-marie]

Tutorial 11/1/23

what I discussed:

did open discussions with family and friends on their opinions about 2052 (primary research)

read Ray Bradbury stories

read art books: Into the Spiderverse/ Doctor Who/ Rogue One

A lot of futurist websites

did my own self-reflection on my own beliefs and ideas for 2052 and my relationship with the future and technology

My main interpretation of 2052 is how nostalgia will affect the future's visual aesthetic but also the difference in the way future advancements happen differently in different places- and I could feel this as a 2nd gen immigrant, where we would have a lot of the cheaper, older, second-hand technology and clothes and what my parents were familiar with in the Philippines while my classmates would have more up-to-date technologies. How am I going to protray these themes strongly in a single image? No idea yet.

For "A Meal"= want to try and use blender/ nomad sculpt= my concept so far is doing a double-page spread of a cookbook recipe for Spam Musubi. Initially thought of the method and greater use of technology being updated such as spam cutter 3000 but Emily pointed out that the ingredients could also be reimagined into healthier or vegan subsitutes such as psuedo/ vegetarian spam. My direction for this piece is the strongest so I will be completing this first

For "Costume"= wanted to do a character design format and use sketchbook pro only or maybe use photoshop and photo bashing for textures. It would also play into nostalgia and I want to research how a lot of today's clothing captures y2k or pre-modern fashion but you can tell it's modern. I should read blogs and videos about how and why this happens. It'll require a front and side profile and also 3 dynamic poses: one with energy, one interacting with technology, and one casual. I need to research modeling poses since I want the costume to stand out and not be overshadowed by the character.

For "Domestic Room"= I want to use sketch-up and sketchbook pro. The composition would act like the establishing shots of a graphic novel, where a character is introduced. The room would reflect a city flat where there’s a mix of futuristic and “retro” technology and furnishing. It would be a kitchen/ living room space and ideally. I would model off the house I grew up in but it would be asking a lot of my parents. I need to do this straight after the meal because my skills in settings and perspective aren’t very strong. I want to research establishing shots and maximizing space within a single page- especially in comic format.

[inimoo]

idk man but i really do not understand how anyone can look at abuela's character in encanto and have a definite straight forward answer that she is either good or bad because??? thats?? not??? what was going on???

this isnt me defending her or anything because like i said she isnt completely good and she isnt completely bad either.

to elaborate abuela went through absolute hell and lost everything she had in a matter of hours. Her sense of self, her home, the love of her life, her entire village, stability and her freedom were taken away from her not even in a complete day.

She was 25 years old with the responsibility of her three children and the entire village and she was all alone. Sure she probably had help but she was the leader and the lives of all those people were on her.

When she gets her miracle she does everything in her power to keep it. To make sure that no one ever loses the one thing that saved them.

Now, all this being said the way she treated her family was fucked up. Alienating her son and granddaughter was terrible. The generational trauma was on her fifteen-year-old grandchild to break. And like the vision said it was on Mirabel and it wasn't helping that Abuela was terrified of what she was doing.

Still, abuela's character is not totally evil and it is not purely innocent. She's a morally grey character. It's kinda unsettling how violent people want to get with her.

Mirabel has all the right to not forgive her but she did and Abuela genuinely wants to get better and break the cycle that has been going on for fifty years. The end scene was like one day obviously not everything is going to be rainbows and butterflies immediately the important thing is that they're all trying.

you can disagree with me and say what you think but im not touching this subject again bc i feel like if i did thered by an argument but just, consider it. I respect your opinion and I'm sure people who have this opinion on abuela have a reason. But idk it just doesnt make much sense to me if you take into account everythings that happened in the story.

#this isnt defending her its just: why do people want to get physical with her #thats not going to help them #mirabel did what was right for her family bc she thinks that abuela is capable of changing #she knows that she has love for all of them but theyre relationship was toxic #at the end of the movie abuela realizes this and knows she messed up and apologizes and shes changing #when theyre rebuilding their house theyre also rebuidling their relationship with the family #im saying this as someone who does have generational trauma #it happens with a lot of first/second gen immigrants #its great that mirabel has a chance to fix her relationship with her family #im not saying that everyone has to forgive #to make it clear #mirabel had every single right to not forigve and i think a part of her will stay unhappy #encanto #encanto spoilers #alma madrigal #encanto meta #this isnt salt bc ik a lot of ppl who think this way have a reason but it smore of a critique i think #not ml

[theliterarywolf]

I'm white, but my mother is of an Eastern European ethnicity, my father isn't btw, and my family lives as diaspora in a different country. She was always super strict with me, I wasn't even allowed to play with many neighbour kids bc she was absolutely paranoid something would happen. There's a lot about Turning 🔴 that felt relatable, and honestly, in the worst ways. While I still care for my family, I definitely wish there'd been a part of my life that was like Ming realising she fucked up.

Anonymous asked:

Turning Red definitely feels like a movie for immigrant children, or 1st gen diaspora. Even if you're not Asian, or even Chinese, a lot of things are relatable, especially the stronger focus on the home-culture, and focus on the family that's available where you live. I know a lot of parts are obviously 100% part of the Chinese culture thing where family, and parent worship is already pretty intense, but I don't really think it detracts much from the general "FAMILY" aspect for general diaspora

First anon: I remember being allowed to play with neighboring kids and even go over to other kids houses, but not after, like, 2 o'clock and definitely no sleepovers because of that cultural paranoia combined with me being a child in the 90s where Stranger Danger was in its second wave.

And while I can understand the concern there, there are other things that my mother did/has done/does that I feel like I could start healing from if I just got a genuine apology. Rather than either a turn around ('Do you know what I used to go through back home?'/'After all the struggling I've done--'/'Why are you lashing out at me all of a sudden?!') or a half-hearted non-apology ('Well. I'm sorry that you feel that way.') that a lot of children from immigrant households know far too well.

Second anon: I've been hearing that conversation a lot, particularly with the Red Panda in the movie being a multifaceted metaphor for puberty and Mei's heritage. Particularly the latter with such lines as 'we decided to come to a new world... where what was once a blessing became a minor inconvenience' and 'the more you let it out, the harder it will be to control'. So, yes, Domee Shi did a really good job of creating a story that so many people, including people who grew up in similar environments that she did, can relate to.

[isabeljkim]

LN: Homecoming is Just Another Word for the Sublimation Of The Self

DO NOT READ UNLESS YOU HAVE READ THE STORY HERE.

People assume that Homecoming is autobiographical or reflects my emotions in that the main character’s perspective is my own. I think this happens a lot when someone writes Immigrant Narratives, and I have a hard time saying “hey people shouldn’t do that” because I also think that a lot of time the application of the self into the story is true. But when people have talked to me about Homecoming, they’ve assumed a specific background/state of mind for me which isn’t necessarily accurate. 

It’s a pretty personal story for me in that I dropped a lot of cosmetic details about my history into the story, but not a personal story for me in that I don’t think it reflects any sort of immigrant angst that I feel, only sort of a clean desire to explain to those who have non-diaspora lives that diaspora is complicated and people don’t always feel the way you think they should feel about it. My goal with the story was to really just drive home the thesis that diaspora is messy, you don’t get to choose who you become, the line between foreigner and homeland is thin, America is like a worm that gets into your brain, please experience being uncomfortable for 6000 words, I am not here to play.

I feel a weird need to disclose that I’m not technically an immigrant. Everyone who reads this assumes I am, but I was born in NJ, and my parents lived in the states for 20 years before they had me…but I spent a lot of my childhood in Korea because my dad got a job in Korea right before I was born. I spent the first ten years of my life shuttling between California and Korea because he was a professor at universities in both countries, though I went to school in Korea. I call myself 1.5 gen, haha. I’m an edge case. 

This story was one of those cases where I wrote something kind of sad and I thought “this isn’t that sad” and everyone I showed it to was like “dude this is sad as shit” and I was like “oh is it sad?” because I considered the story more about the tension between the decisions about your life that you get to choose, versus the ones that are chosen for you, and I didn’t feel that was particularly sad as much as it is one of the clean realities of life: a lot of the choices that create who you are get made for you. 

I wrote this story because I felt that I hadn’t read any immigrant/second generation narratives that talked about the tension between the fact that we live in a global world and it’s not hard anymore to return places, held against the fact that you can never actually return to somewhere you last left, and the compounding fact the person you are has changed in the intervening time so that they would be unrecognizable to the self you left behind. 

I felt that there wasn’t a story for Guys Like Me, who went to Korea most summers after moving to the states until they stopped and then eventually realized that they had turned into someone who can confidently say “I’m from New Jersey” rather than tentatively say “I’m from New Jersey?” and what that means about loss and change. 

I also wrote this story because I thought “haha wouldn’t it be fucked up if immigration worked like github instancing?”

I don’t know if I’m going to write more things about Korea Stuff. This is my first bigboy publication (but check out my game at Sub-Q!! It’s good!!) and I don’t want to get pigeonholed as a diaspora writer/asian things specifically by the market. I am just some guy who likes wizards and lasers. I am kind of an ambivalent asian. i just go here. You just think I go here because I’ve got the eyes and hair and skin tone. 

The folktale about the knife, fisherman, is a bastardized version of a folktale I heard in elementary school, which I couldn’t find online even though I searched for it quite a bit. There’s a lot of stories about “guy goes to the fae court under the sea, comes back, oh shit, time has passed,” but I made up all the stuff about the knife, the killing of the self, etc. Based on a real story though! That’s real! 

I named Soyoung after my childhood best friend, who I’ve lost touch with for the last decade on account of her living in Korea and me moving permanently to the states. Don’t read too much into that. Claire Soyoung Ko if you’re out there…..

I accidentally named Jungwon after one of my cousins because I forgot it was his name because I always call him by his American name and now I can’t show him the story because it has his name in it. I swear this wasn’t on purpose.

In the first draft, Soyoung was bisexual, but I couldn’t fit that fact in the final draft. Know in your heart that this is true and canon, though.

The grandfather’s apartment, the Shinsegae department store basement, and the grandfather’s gravesite are all based on my actual human grandpa’s apartment/grave/places near it, and it was really just an exercise in nostalgic laziness that I described places I was pretty intimately familiar with. (If you want to know something meta that’s a little sad and strange related to the story: my family is talking about what to do with my grandfather’s grave now, because it’s too far from most of the family for them to visit. We’re trying to figure out where to take my grandparent’s ashes. I learned about this a month after my story was published and felt some kind of way).

Homecoming really is the best example I’ve written of how a story is sad or happy depending on where you end it. I ended it at the saddest moment. Soyoung’s life ends up pretty good! Soyoung ends up happy mostly, in the way that happiness is a mutable state for most people.

I cannot stress enough that Dr. Crouton, best cat, does get sent for and Soyoung DOES get her cat back. This is fucking crucial.

I always think about doing more with this story, because I think it’s an interesting concept that says a lot about migration/diaspora/immigration stuff, but I hesitate because I don’t know if I’m the best writer to write a story about this. 

#linernotes

[writingwithcolor]

Gay Mixed Korean & Korean Names and Terminology

@theablaireking-main asked:

I’m a queer slavic person writing a contemporary queer romance and I have 3 questions about it:

Gay Korean character, other PoC

My main character (K) is a gay man, who is half-Korean on dad’s side, half-white (American) on mom’s; & his love interest is a white bi man. I’m pretty sure I won’t end up fetishizing him as I have been doing my research and I’m writing him as 3D and rounded, but I was wondering: my other Asian male characters (1, maybe 2 Korean men & 1 half Filipino, half Black) are all straight. Should I make one of them gay or bi in order to show more diversity in appearance and personality in queer Asian men? I have only planned the main arc of the story, so I am not 100% sure about which side characters will make it in (except for the two Asian men I mentioned, they are definitely in there) but in my previous draft - I’m basically rewriting the whole thing from scratch - all the queer men were white and all the MoC were straight and that’s maybe not the best. I think did it because I was too afraid to handle the complexities of intersectional representation. 

As a half-Korean lesbian, I feel pretty close to this topic. I think subconsciously, both in communities of color and white communities, there’s a lot of association with queerness and whiteness, and I often find myself debating whether to choose between going to a queer space or a space with other people of color. I think when you have three max people of color and only one of them is queer, and then you have all the other queer characters being white, you may be inadvertently following those subconscious biases, and I’m glad you were able to realize the complexity intersectional representation brings.

If you already have one Korean character that’s gay and you’ve done your research on how not to fetishize East Asian men, why not add another one? If you’ve done your research well, I don’t see why you shouldn’t make another man of color queer–I think it would be great representation of queer people of color and it would do more to alleviate the isolation queer people of color feel in their community. It would also reduce the risk of you inadvertently creating one monolithic version of “queer Asian man”, which definitely can’t hurt.

–Sophia

Naming a 4th-Generation Korean-American

This Is about names as I couldn’t find much relevant info online. So K is a 4th generation Korean immigrant in the US. Is it okay to give him a Western own and family name, or would that border on erasure? If I give him a legal Korean name, can it be Western “own” name and Korean family name and would the family name come before his own name? Or Western first “own” name, Korean “second” name and Korean family name? Would it be disrespectful to have him use a Western last name publicly, so he would be distinguished from the K pop idols, as he makes American pop and he feels his culture is more American culture, rather than Korean culture (he obviously still feels connection to Korean culture and likes Kpop, but he was born and raised in the US after all.) Also he doesn’t know Korean very well, outside off some basic stuff (how to say his name, hello/bye, ask for directions, order food etc.)

Speaking from my own experience as a 3rd-gen Korean, I have a Western first name and a Korean middle and last name, where my middle name is considered my “Korean” name, I suppose, although I refer to myself by my first Western name.

My initial gut reaction to having him refer to himself with a Western last name in order to separate himself from Kpop idols is pretty negative, frankly. Even though he makes American music, I see no reason why he should whitewash his own name to distinguish himself from Korean music–I’d like to remind you that Kpop is literally just pop music, in all its separate mini-genres and sounds, that just happens to be in Korean. He can be both Korean and American, and assuming consciously or not that if someone has a Korean last name, they must make Kpop, is playing into a stereotype. 

Let this character keep his culture and make the music he wants to make. There’s no need to whitewash his name–especially his last name and the name of his family.

–Sophia

My first question upon reading “4th generation Korean” was “so… is this character somehow miraculously a full-blooded Korean?” Because frankly, by four generations I would be surprised if he didn’t have any non-Korean heritage, and if his father has non-Korean heritage then it wouldn’t be odd for your character to have a Western last name. This doesn’t mean I encourage your character using a Western name to differentiate themselves from K-pop, just that I genuinely find the idea of a 4th-gen Korean not having any non-Korean heritage unlikely.

A related thing I’d like to ask is, are both his parents 3rd-gen Koreans? As in, they never really lived in Korea? Because in that case, I’m genuinely wondering how much of Korean culture he would have had exposure to, other than through the media. Him being 4th-gen means that the first generation of immigrants most likely came to America before the second world war, and probably at some time during Japan’s influence-turned-annexation of Joseon (the country that eventually was split into North and South Korea). Going that far back, it’s quite plausible that the first generation might have come from what is now North Korea. They might also have a more Japanese accent when speaking English (my grandmother’s cousin lives in America and actually has this problem), and if they even have Korean given names (whether it’s legally their first or middle name) then it might not be something remotely common in modern Korea.

-Rune

Is it okay to use “Blaisian”and “Eurasian”?

I don’t live in an English speaking country (writing in English), but I was wondering if it was okay to have my mixed race characters jokingly refer to themselves as “Eurasian” (white + Asian)  or “Blasian” (Black + Asian). Would they allow people close to them to do it too, or would it be seen as offensive if coming from people who don’t share their ethnicity? Or perhaps offensive coming from a white author?

I’ve seen mixed Black & Asian folks use the term “Blasian” (not in a joking context but just a casual one), but “Eurasian” is…something else entirely. I’ve never seen that term used by a white/Asian person, and I’m white/Asian with white/Asian friends. Eurasia is a continent…lol… Honestly the only term I’ve seen used for white/Asian is “half”/”halfie” (the second one’s YMMV and I don’t recommend it) and that’s specifically for half Japanese as far as I know. 

~Mod Rina

During the 1990s and the 2000s, “Eurasian” was a term often used to describe half-white/ half-East Asian models who were perceived as having the ideal combination of European and ~ exotic ~ East Asian features (ex. Devon Aoki). Within Central Asia and Eastern Europe there are people who accurately use this term to describe themselves, but I share this information to make you aware of potential fetishistic implications. I do not recommend  googling “Eurasian mail-order brides.” It is regretfully a thing.

- Marika.

I’ve seen white+Asian people refer to themselves as “Wasian” in the same way Black+Asian people refer to themselves as “Blasian”–that seems like a more appropriate name than “Eurasian” in this context

–Sophia

#Korean #Korean man #Korean names #names #terms #terminology #history #Korean History #submission #fetishization #asks

[rotationalsymmetry]

A brief history of Unitarian Universalism (casual, with swears, have not fact checked as such but I think it’s correct): In New England back before US independence, there was Calvinism -- you know, that predestination thing, you’re already going to go to heaven or hell, but you should be good anyways so people will think you’re going to heaven, or something like that. Then there wasn’t. Then there was Congregationalism. Which was a lot more chill, but still very “fuck Catholicism”. And around this time, deism was on the rise: the idea that maybe God created the universe, then fucked off, and hasn’t been actively involved with anything since. Then, some people who were actually reading the Bible, because you can’t look down on Catholicism unless you actually read the Bible, were like... wait, maybe Jesus isn’t all that. You know -- the Savior, the Son of God, one third of the Trinity, all that. Maybe he was just, like... a prophet, or some guy who said some interesting things. A teacher. And other congregationalists were like: uh, what, no, Jesus has to be all that. If you don’t think Jesus is all that, how can you even call yourself a Christian? And they decided they couldn’t really be around each other any more. So the first group, which was mostly in Boston, started calling themselves Unitarians (because they rejected the doctrine of the Trinity and instead believed in a one part God), and incidentally at some point also stopped calling themselves Christians because the other guys had a point, and the others called themselves the United Church of Christ (UCC.) Emerson and Thorough -- sorry, Thoreau -- were both Unitarians, as were John Adams, John Quincy Adams, and pretty much everyone else from Boston in early US history. (We like to claim Jefferson, because his beliefs were kindasorta similar to Unitarian beliefs at the time, but as I understand it he was never actually part of a Unitarian congregation.) (Btw: if you’re lgbtq+ and Christian, they’re a pretty friendly denomination. If you’re lgbtq+ and Christian and you think the UCC is too liberal (in the religious sense) or you want a majority-lgbtq+ congregation, consider MCC, which is otherwise unconnected to all this. If you’re not Christian and are lgbtq+ -- atheist/agnostic, or maybe something else if you’re down with worshipping with people that aren’t specifically your thing -- Unitarian Universalism tends to be pretty good. As in: we have a bunch of gay/lesbian ministers and other religious leaders, and a few transgender ones. (Knowledge of less mainstream lgbtq+ identities can vary a lot between congregations and generations -- the younger generations tend to be more aware than the gen x’ers.) I’ve been involved with Church of the Larger Fellowship for most of the past year, which did zoom worship before it got cool and serves people around the world, and people like me who live a mile from a UU brick and mortar congregation but still can’t get their disabled ass over there anyways. Anyways, CLF has more POC on the worship team than most UU congregations (the denomination does tend to run pretty white), is very social justice oriented even by UU standards, and is somewhat more cool about general weirdness than most congregations, which again for UU congregations is saying something.) Then, at some point (sadly, I’m significantly more familiar with the history of the first U than the second) there was this other protestant denomination in the South (as in, the US South) where people decided that God was too nice to send people to hell for all eternity, so they started calling themselves the Universalists, as in Universal Salvation. All dogs go to heaven. Well, time passed, each denomination evolved in its own way. (In particular, Unitarianism caught humanism pretty hard -- the joke was the Unitarians believe in one God at most.) In the -- ok, I’ll look this one up -- in 1961, there was a big old merger, creating Unitarian Universalism, and in the process, everyone got together and was all...wait, so what are our official beliefs about God and stuff? Should we even have official beliefs about God? Maybe we can unify around some ideas around how people should treat each other instead. So they did: they drafted a set of Principles (broad-strokes guidelines on how people should act -- peace is good, truth is good, people have value, stuff like that) and a set of Sources (where UU’s get their ideas about God and morality and so on from, starting with direct experience) and left everything else up to the individual. And then a little while later, the tree-huggers got a seventh Principle and a sixth Source added in -- respect for the environment and Earth-centered religions, respectively -- so now the joke is that UU’s believe in one God, more or less. Currently there’s a movement on to add an 8th Principal that explicitly names racial equality and fighting oppression as something we value, since while the current Principles mention justice and equality, they don’t specifically name race, and the people of color who have stuck with the predominantly white denomination figure Unitarian Universalism can and should be doing better on that front. Unitarian Universalism runs religiously liberal (ie, decentralized, individualistic, non-authoritarian, non-dogmatic, inclined to believe science over the Bible) and politically progressive. Unitarian Universalist congregations tend to be very politically active and concerned with social justice, mostly in a well-educated middle class kind of way: committees, Robert’s Rules of Order, donating to non-profits, Get Out the Vote, inviting in speakers and asking “questions” that aren’t really questions, forming partnerships with other congregations and community organizations, etc. Many UU congregations have put a Black Lives Matter sign out (and when necessary keep putting it out when it gets torn down or vandalized), shown up for the protests, opposed the weird immigration BS that’s been going on in the US recently, etc. In addition to more charity style work, like food pantries and homeless shelters.

Point is: yeah it’s got flaws (don’t even get me started on Unitarian Universalism’s flaws) but if you’re a social justice person and want to meet other social justice people who are doing things, Unitarian Universalism can be a good place to look for that. You get more done in groups.

You’re less likely to burn out, too. With marginalization, it’s complicated, right? Again, for LGBTQ+ people, it’s going to be better than most religious organizations. For people a little bit on the autism spectrum, you probably won’t be the only one. (If you’re unmistakeably autistic, people might be weird/ableist; it might depend on the congregation.) If you’re from a working class background or are currently kinda broke, you might run into some frustrations or feel like you don’t fit in; if you’re a poc or if you’re disabled (or your kid is) or you want a lot of personal support, you might struggle more -- this really might vary a lot, but at least the congregations I’m used to tend to assume congregants can mostly stand on their own feet, metaphorically speaking, and have some extra time/money/skills/whatever that can be directed out into the wider world. It can be a good place for pagans and Buddhists and other people who don’t want a church but are having trouble finding a church-like religious community where you can hang out with people on the same spiritual path. (Uh, for a while UU congregations were emphatically not churches and some officially still aren’t; others gave up and were all “eh, it looks like a church, whatever, we’re just a weird church.) Some congregations are more atheist-dominated than others -- many avoid Jesus language most of the time, some avoid God language most of the time (UU’s who believe in God tend to believe in God in a relatively abstract/metaphorical way), some I hear are pagan-heavy, others do use Christian language a lot more. In all honesty you don’t have to go to Sunday worship if you don’t want to, and really a lot of UU’s don’t; if you want to be heavily involved in the congregation but don’t want to go to Sunday worship and don’t want to deal with pressure to, one way out is to teach RE (religious education -- basically “Sunday school”) the RE curricula are amazing, just absolutely astounding, and if you’re teaching it you get a ton of leeway with adjusting anything you don’t like. (Which could happen -- a lot of this stuff was developed before the idea that cultural appropriation is a big problem became mainstream in social justice circles.) What adult worship is like has basically zero correlation (perhaps negative correlation) to what RE is like. (Which sucks for young adults coming of age in a UU congregation, like I said don’t get me started on UU’s flaws.) Finally: for people who care about sex positivity and sex ed, Unitarian Universalists (in partnership with UCC) developed Our Whole Lives, a sex ed curriculum that, well, it’s not abstinence based education. You wouldn’t expect sex ed coming from a religious org to be better than the sex ed in schools, would you? And yet. Comprehensive sex ed that acknowledges gay bi and trans people and that disabled people have sex too and teaches about birth control and masturbation and abuse and consent and boundaries and bullying and internet safety and abortion. It’s good stuff. The course aimed at teens is most popular of course, but there’s actually (age-appropriate) OWL curricula for all stages of life: young kids, adults, older adults, everyone. And it’s versatile enough to be taught in secular contexts (after school programs etc). Given the direction that unfortunately a lot of school districts in the US have been going in in terms of sex ed, it’s a really important program.

#Unitarian Universalism #unitarian universalist history #feels weird plugging the denomination when I get so frikkin frustrated but still #if it's not something you know about and you care about social justice #it's something you should know something about #even if you're not interested personally #I'm open to questions on this drop me a line

[serinemolecule]

Not to harp on the obvious, but the discussion feels hollow without it: the only reason some people - not all, maybe not most, but definitely some - push for "equality" and "inclusiveness" and etc. in tech is because it's seen as a desirable and powerful position. No one's been belly-aching about it back when it was fashionable to tell nerds to stop being fat and ugly and what a bunch of losers they are. It's only up for discussion now that there's something to be gained from it. It's hypocrisy.

(context: a lot of women-in-tech discourse)

I mean, I was belly-aching about it.

I like to say I was a feminist until I met other feminists. I definitely saw plenty of things nerds could be doing better for equality. But then the first time I met other feminists, they were harassing nerds and writing long essays about how nerds were even worse than average men (which still seems to me like an absolutely insane position).

That was... a really big crisis of faith there. I spent years reading feminist literature, trying to understand their point. And the crazy thing was, a lot of the principles and concepts do appeal to me. But then the way they’d apply it, talking about how privileged nerds were, or just using it as an excuse to be assholes to people, that’s always seemed wrong to me.

My approach at the time was just to try to understand it better in private, and never talk about it in public. This lasted until I read the SSC essays on social justice which I entirely agreed on, then I joined Tumblr to hit on Scott, and since then I started getting more comfortable with writing out my thoughts, but also the really bad SJ of the early 2010s just mostly faded away from the spaces I’m in. I still hear insane stories from other places (like the New York Times! wtf!) but it no longer feels like a crisis afflicting my own community, so I never wrote anything out.

Part of it’s that my community is the rats, now. SJWs may still exist here, but they don’t have a social power to turn us against each other. Whatever effect Topher’s tweet had on the rest of the world, it means he’s no longer welcome among rats anymore. We dismiss them with equanimity using the ancient proverb, “Haters gonna hate”.

Anyway, I suppose now’s as good a time as any for me to talk about what I think about feminist theory.

I get the impression that Scott is embarrassed by his old posts on gender politics, but I still endorse every word. Even the words people like to criticize the most, I endorse as an angry expression of “Why don’t you care about how many people your ideology is hurting?” That said:

Privilege theory – I remember encountering privilege theory and thinking “yes, this totally fits the model that normies are privileged and nerds are marginalized”, until I got to the part where they started talking about how privileged nerds were. I think the theory is still pretty good, and of course the practice about writing privilege checklists and using it to silence people is incredibly fucked up.

Patriarchy theory – Fortunately, no one talks about patriarchy theory anymore. It came from the radfems and it always seemed horrible to me. It's uncontroversially true that ruling class is mostly male, but patriarchy theory seems to just equivocate between that and insane conspiracy theories.

For example, “culture is built for the benefit of men at the expense of women” requires you to just dismiss everything that hurts men and helps women, to excuse that fashion policing is nearly solely perpetuated by other women, and even if it’s true, the fact that it is perpetuated by everyone means pointing the finger at a specific group will not help fix the problem. Did Kamala Harris exercise “girl power” when she kept black prisoners in jail past their release date? 

Cultural appropriation – The usual steelman I hear for this is “it sucks when white people take your culture for themselves, and yet still call it cringe when you practice your own culture” – but the only objectionable part is the latter! Stop objecting to the former part! There’s nothing wrong with culture mixing and it is in fact one of the most beautiful things in the world!

Part of it’s that I’m a first-gen immigrant, and cultural appropriation attitudes often come from insecurities second-gen immigrants have. Cultural appropriation just means I’m now an expert on your new culture and you’re not allowed to stop me from infodumping on it.

The other steelman is “misusing religious artifacts is bad” and I think to the extent that it’s bad, it’s bad whether you’re doing it to your own culture or to other cultures.

In general I think Halloween was, among other things, a great celebration of diversity that did not need to be cancelled, and I don’t think any costume was offensive to the majority of any culture.

Intersectionality – This word confused me for so long. People kept explaining it as “black women often have problems specific to their group that neither women’s groups nor black groups themselves are equipped to fight” which just seemed obviously true and didn’t seem like we needed a word for it.

Over the years, I’ve seen it be used as a reminder of “don’t forget how your activism affects other marginalized groups”, so it’s probably a useful concept to keep around.

Microaggressions – I think being oblivious to microaggressions is an autism thing, but I still think it’s insane to make them a political issue. Sure, you can vent about them, but acting like they’re on par with actual aggressions just seems like a losing cause.

On second thought, I don’t think I have a problem with making them a political issue in general. I think the whole tactic of SJWs being a hateful harassment mob makes the microaggressions thing just come off as especially petty.

I also think there’s a lot of competing access needs here. I actually really like infodumping about what kind of Asian I am to anyone willing to listen, and I think acting like the question is the root of all evil is really unfair, especially since literally everyone who’s ever asked has been happy to learn about the finer points about Chinese ethnic groups.

Isms as prejudice + power – People have mostly stopped discoursing about this, which is good. Language policing always seemed bad to me.

Objectification – SSC says everything I feel on the topic: https://slatestarcodex.com/2013/03/17/my-objections-to-objectification/

The last time this came up in Discord, people said that objectification is more than the straw-man being criticized in this article, that it’s about people being entitled to your body or whatever. But I think the article does address that: “This is obviously a legitimate complaint. It’s just not a complaint about objectification.”

I got exposed to objectification as a criticism of hot girls in video games. And I just can’t see hot girls in video games as a bad thing.

Rape culture – [cw rape] This is an incredibly sensitive subject so I’m going to give you some time to stop reading here.

Our culture has a serious problem with rape. I think it’s important to understand that it’s usually committed by friends and family, that it’s depressingly common and has nearly definitely happened to people you know, that it’s usually committed by people who don’t think of what they’re doing as rape, and that all the discourse on it is really fucked up.

I also think that calling this “rape culture” entirely misses the point. I’m sympathetic that SSC doesn’t understand it: https://slatestarcodex.com/2013/04/19/i-do-not-understand-rape-culture/

Our problem isn’t that we glorify rape. Our problem is that we consider it a special kind of evil so bad that of course no normal person would ever do it, and this makes it easy to rationalize that whatever this normal person did couldn’t have been rape, which causes huge harms.

I don’t have answers, but I think it’s incredibly clear that calling it “rape culture” doesn’t help.

In general, I don’t think feminist activism on the topic of rape goes in the right direction. The smug “consent is like tea” video has the exact same problem. People don’t need to hear more “normal people would never rape” messaging.

#gender politics

[sanstropfremir]

oh my god i am SO in love with lord of the dance. however i never think about michael flatley first when i think about it because in my mind gillian norris is the most important and iconic person in that show.

i used to have it on a dvd when i was little, i must have watched it like two times a week and never got bored of it. it was the original 1996 dublin stage, the only version i enjoy to its maximum capacity. fun fact, they came to bucharest in 2014, and i wanted to go, but ultimately didn't. and thank god for that. i found clips on youtube after that and everything was worse: the music, the outfits, the acting.

fortunately there are clips on youtube of the 1996 dublin stage too, as well as the whole show. i still sometimes watch them. and after much consideration, i have come to the conclusion that fiery nights, warriors and gypsy (however unfortunate the name) are my favorite numbers, in that respective order.

fiery nights wouldn't be what it is without the soundtrack, that fucking saxophone. i saw somebody say that that is what sex sounds like. i have heard the same thing said about ateez's desire outro. these things are so unrelated right now but i honestly can hear it and feel it for both and it makes so much sense to describe them that way. gillian norris is so mesmerizing, so captivating, like i am fucking seduced through the screen. and when she starts dancing with the guy who plays don dorcha and gives him that smile you can only see a brief second in shitty 360p quality? i am positively passed out. after they leave the stage the rest of the performance is kinda meh because the other girls don't give me any passion, much less the guys. they're lucky the choreography is so tight tho.

warriors is a fucking experience from start to finish. the "oh shit it's going down" vibe right from the beginning, the intensity of the dance, the speed, the accuracy, the synchronization, the piercing looks of don dorcha - i am both horny and intimidated. today's warriors number doesn't even come close to sparking up the same kind of heavy feeling the original did. it's so... cartoonish.

and finally, gypsy, which was my og favorite. i really wonder how i did not turn out bisexual, because gillian norris definitely made me question some things. i was always impressed with her elegance and power of seduction, my dream was to be sexy like her but also to jump as high as her for my birdies. sadly i never did learn irish dance. also i really wanted her hair.

special shoutout goes to breakout tho. i don't even know if i love the first half of it or the second more. bernadette flynn as the leader all the other girls follow, girlboss moment. her unspoken duel with gillian, exchanging those fucking murderous looks, i was SO there for it!!! again, watching today's version, it's like watching a bad disney channel series. there's no seriousness to it, no commitment, it's like putting on a puppet show for kids, which this musical is so not.

ugh, i'm probably gonna go and watch some scenes again. thank you for letting me rant in your inbox!! i've only really shared my interest and love for this show with my parents, who only like it a moderate amount (not because they think it's bad but because it's just not something they're passionate about) and my ex, who couldn't care less about dance and acting and who wasn't really interested in it.

if it's okay, let me ask, how did you get interested in stage performances, dance, theatre, all that jazz? for me, it was because i did cheerleading and dance for 5 years when i was little (then i quit because i thought i had it hard in school in 5th grade). i regret not continuing with it so much. and i daresay i was pretty good at it too. oh well, at least the passion for dance remained. it's the main part i got into kpop!!

it's no problem at all!! like i said, this is my virtual pub please come talk about about random things while i serve you a pint!! i love reading about other people's passions, this was lovely!

i only think of michael flatley because he's top billed and also one of the producers so his name is always on it, and also i haven't actually seen the whole show since probably 2005 because it didn't much strike a nerve with me as a kid. i think it was probably because i watched waaaaaayyyy too much cirque. i won't say very much on it but i will say that adolphe saxe knew what he was doing when he unleashed the saxophone on the world and we are still dealing with the repercussions (i say this lovingly as a saxophone player). i'm also a horrible person and i cannot watch any fiddle + flute based musical and not think of the the lord of the rings musical, because i love the lord of the rings musical.

well i got into theatre kind of unintentionally because i thought it might be fun to try doing stage crew for the musical when i started high school and then a year later i was the stage manager. my tragic flaw is that i need to be in a position of knowledge and authority at all times, but i’m slowly getting over it. i liked it so much that i decided at like 14 that it was going to be my career and here i am over a decade later. but i also watched a lot of perfomance and art programming as a child because my parents were weird hippies, so lots of cirque du soleil, a lot of classical ballet, and also shows like toy castle (do not click on this is you are in any way afraid of clowns or frogs) which is mildly horrifying in the way all children's content is mildly horrifying in hindsight but as a child in 2000 i ate that shit with a spoon. i also dated a contemp/ballet dancer in high school and then had a very weird and ethically dubious affair with another ballet dancer in undergrad. it's a long story. it helps that i'm truly obsessed with performance and art in pretty much all its forms and i'm one of those awful people that draws in art galleries and watches shows that i know are going to be bad so i can analyze them and avoid making the same mistakes in the future. kpop was a thing that just happened as a byproduct of being friends with lot of first gen asian immigrants as a kid. i've been around and aware since 2008 but i didn't get that deep into actually following releases until first lockdown because i just didn't have the time. but i'm glad i did, because it's been a really nice hobby!

#fun fact i actually know the production designer of toy castle and have worked very closely with her #she is exactly as insane as you would expect #also yes canadian childrens programming in the 2000s was just like that #look up nanalan if you want to be even more horrified #geniunely im obsessed with the lord of the rings musical it is SO GOOD it didnt deserve to flop!!! #the stage alone.............just the mechanics...........(heart eyes) #galadriel entering lothlorian on aerial silks..........whatever in the mardigras fuck elronds costume was....... #brown haired legolas my beloved.....the uruk hai on pogo stilts...... #it is a TRAGEDY that ive never found a boot and there's a grand total of ten (10) minutes of footage of the entire show #surprise!! betcha didnt think i was a lord of the rings fan but haha!! ive fooled you all!! #ive even read the silmarillion!! #i am a huge nerd please adjust your assumptions i am not cool in the slightest #answers #text #non kpop questions

[ffamranxii]

So as usual tumblr got me into a new show. I don’t like anthology horror (I very much disliked American Horror Story) and was disappointed when I found out that The Terror Infamy was one, but decided to give it a shot based on one extremely captivating gif set of George Takei’s character reuniting with an old friend.

The Terror is the name of the series, and Infamy is the name of its second season. I checked out the first and it didn’t interest me so I skipped it. The second season is set during WW2 and largely takes place in a Japanese internment camp. I’ve seen George Takei be very vocal about internment camps on twitter and citing his own experiences in one over the past few years, and was pleased to see that he was a consultant for the season. George Takei was four years old when he went into the camps and didn’t leave until he was eight or nine. I really wonder how shooting some of the scenes affected him emotionally.

His character doesn’t play a large part, for which I’m both grateful (I dislike when big/more familiar names are cast in a more unfamiliar group just to attract attention) and upset (because I love him). The season has two major storylines - the obvious one in the struggle of being forced into an internment camp and the horror one. Tbh I really wasn’t interested in the horror one. I do like Asian horror (it’s mostly psychological and relies on uncanny valley and little to no jump scares or gore usually) but I’ve never seen a network tv show with multi language script, with one of those languages being Japanese, nor have I ever seen anything about the Japanese internment camps, so I was more interested in that. The horror story was a pretty common one in Japanese horror and folklore, of a vengeful mother, and was done very well. I was worried that they would Americanize the trope — remember all the gore and jump scares in AHS? — but they didn’t and I really liked that.

They also didn’t objectify the female characters. One, a Latina, is the love interest of the main male character, and has three different scenes in a bed with him and is never naked or blatantly sexualized. Another is literally in a bath scene and she gets out she’s immediately covered in a yukata and we get a blink and you’ll miss it shot of her back, with no butt visible. There’s also an important subplot involving another woman with the male warden and I am relieved that she was not raped, and he never showed a sexual or romantic interest in her — she was literally kidnapped by him and nothing of that nature was even suggested. I feel this has a lot to do with the fact that the director was a woman.

I loved the internment camp plot. Of course the horror storyline took center stage so it couldn’t be as developed as I’d hoped, but the director and the script took great care in how they portrayed the camps and Japanese culture. The Japanese weren’t living in squalor but they weren’t living the high life either. The first camp looked to be little more than a long building containing multiple chicken coops (at least that’s what they looked like) with no doors, peeling paint, and rotting straw on the floor and the Japanese were separated by assigned numerical order; the last camp was a series of buildings separated by gender that crammed multiple families into one room. They had very few belongings and were liable to be searched at any time. The subplot between the character Amy and the warden especially did a good job conveying the powerlessness of the Japanese towards the white guards — Amy is seen by many as the warden’s favorite because she’s his secretary, but she’s unable to even attempt to exert influence over the man, and the one time she tries she’s vowed by his erratic behavior immediately, fearing his change in demeanor spells something bad for the Japanese. The character Henry also does a great job portraying that powerlessness before the Japanese are ever even interred.

There are white cast members but they are not the focus (as so often regrettably happens in mainstream POC-driven stories) and none of them are included in the opening credits. Most of the show is firmly set on its Japanese cast — all of whom ARE Japanese (which was surprising, given Hollywood’s propensity to shove any person of Asian descent into a movie and simply say they’re whatever ethnicity they’re supposed to be), with a small handful of Hispanic/Latinx characters (I don’t know which term is correct, I’m sorry), and I’d say about 60% of the dialogue is in Japanese. (There was also a significant amount in Spanish near the end.) Entire scenes took place in Japanese and when the characters did speak English it never felt like it was forced for the benefit of the show’s white American viewers. Many Japanese immigrants (and first gen immigrants in general back in the 20s-40s) didn’t teach Japanese to their children and gave them white names/took on white names to better fit into American society. The first gen Japanese characters all spoke with accents, and some of them were on the heavy side, which was surprising, but at no point did it feel like they were being belittled or used for entertainment value by the script for doing so.

The very last episode had some very touching credits, showing in a split screen the families of cast members who had been interred. The main character as well as a handful of secondary characters all had multiple family members who’d been put into camps, and so did the director and another crew member. George Takei and the man who portrayed his character’s old friend were both in camps themselves. It was extremely moving and I actually cried.

I binged the season in one day and really enjoyed it, and I highly recommend it.

#ffamran watches stuff #the terror infamy

[moved-attre]

la noire oc thoughts under the cut

millie is more independent she was originally, gets her own job straight outta college as a proofreader and doesn’t want to rely on her parents!! she moves out of the family home at age 18 to live with a friend and has a second job as a portrait photographer to pay her bills (occasionally going to her father subtly for loans like... for a nice car or a shiny new television... unbeknownst to her mother) also she’s absolutely a photojournalist now as of ‘47, no true crime authoring since proofreading made her hate the english language. a picture tells a thousand words and she’d rather not write any 👎🏼 she just comes up with a caption, someone else writes the articles

barbara is super smart, like: would’ve got a job coding at nasa had it been around in 1947 kind of smart, but helen (her mother) wants desperately for her to be an actress or a model and is kind of living her fantasies through her daughter... bleaching her hair, signing her up for d*eting programs, acting lessons, singing lessons, pageants... (and despite all this babs cannot act or sing!!!) helen was married at 18 and pregnant immediately, then pregnant again and again almost one after the other so she didn’t have time to look into her own interests or hobbies with 3 kids!!! barbara is like a doll to her, a medium for happiness rather than a daughter to love unconditionally and it’s gonna bite helen in the ass because babs is gonna leave her at the first opportunity and never look back :^)

albert is a big dumb dumb but he’s adorable and there’s no malice in him. he’s just a dope. loves his sisters, is oblivious to most in life (ignorance is bliss) but knows more than people think!!! he’ll inherit his father’s lumber business which is terrible for all involved, as he will run it into the ground and would gamble it away in a poker game for a bottle of dodgy booze. partners of the business are hoping albert’s father would leave a will with enough loopholes they can give the business to matilda or one of her uncles but that’s not gonna happen huehue... 👀

ed is like... he’s not a bad guy, per se but definitely not a good guy. he’s negligent and emotionally empty. just throws money at his kids and hope it fixes everything. crying? here’s some money. need advice? money. in legal trouble? money. no heart-to-hearts, no affection (aside from the occasional ‘poppet’ thrown at millie and babs... he’s 2nd gen english immigrant so lots of english slang. another point against him.) and certainly no parenting!!! he’s the kind of guy to go golfing rather than attend his kids birthday parties. he runs a pretty big lumber business (selling lumber for the new builds.. lucrative!) so very anti-environment... probably votes republican, only donates to the charities that’ll get him clout. despite all that, he’s loyal to helen and does love her. he values family and would do anything for his kids except... give them a hug lol :) ok maybe he is a bad guy

maude (paternal grandmother of albie, millie and babs) is 72, lived through two world wars and is sick of the bullshit™️ she has a permanently croaky voice from a lifetime of smoking, has various lumps and bumps removed every month and walks with a cane due to a slipped disk in her back. she’s from derbyshire in england, very strong accent. she’d a cut a bitch for a packet of custard creams, is constantly stirring the pot and creating drama for the fun of it — especially amongst her friends — once saw Queen Victoria with her own two eyes and won’t shut up about it! her favorite grandchild is matilda; she thinks albie is an idiot and babs is ‘useless’ (uncalled for 😡) maude gets along well with helen but thinks her parenting is a bit... lacklustre and won’t hesitate to bring it up at sunday dinner. she doesn’t like going to church, thinks it’s a load of “hooey” but ed makes her go anyway. she has two little parakeets in her room that millie’s cat is always trying to eat! and maude won’t hesitate to kick him (again... uncalled for 😡) she’s had 3 husbands (first gave her a child who sadly passed in infancy, second gave her ed, third with no children) and thinks men are overrated, starting with her son who she thinks is a total plank! no other children, one was more than enough. she has millie and that makes her happy :)

#ocstuff #i’m still working on albie... he’s illusive... #all i have down is ‘dopey’ and loves his sisters especially matilda because she’s more present than helen is #eldest daughters are caretakers as well as sisters as well as therapists =_=

[milimiki]

This is my history with the LGBTQIA+ community:

Learned about it in high school, freshman year. Didn’t really understand it. Actually, I was probably against it, considering I was ultra conservative without realizing I was ultra conservative, and a christian. <- I blame a LOT of things that happened to me at all the churches I’ve been to. ALL of them. Christian churches of all kinds in NYC, in my personal experience, have proven to be THE MOST TOXIC communities I was ever a part of. That was my first step of deconditioning myself. I’m no longer religious.

Once I got into my first college (I’ve been to a few), I started to accept the concept of LGBT+. That maybe, they’re not so bad. They’re not hurting anyone. They just wanna be themselves. As a 1st gen Korean American from immigrant parents, I can understand wanting to find a place you can call your own. That being straight isn’t all there is to life.

At my second college, that was around the time I became an ally. I started to befriend others who fell under a flag or two. Learned more about gender and sexual identities. Introduced to asexuality as a legit sexual identity. I remember thinking asexual was a term for a... I’m trying to think of a fancier word for a “living thing,” but the word escapes me, that doesn’t require a partner to reproduce. Yeah, I was that asshole. I was, like, 20 or 21.

2018 or 2019. Final years of college. I was no longer just an ally; I fell under a flag, too. Demisexual. Unable to feel sexual attraction towards others unless I develop an emotion bond with the person first. I thought I was pansexual, but it didn’t seem quite right. This was around the time I learned about demisexuality. I made it my own.

2021. Realizing I was actually never comfortable being a boy/man my whole life. Felt gender dysphoria more often. Borderline disgusted that I have a p*nis and not a v*gina. Last month, I genuinely thought of wanting a woman’s body, more than a man’s. I wanted breasts, I wanted to wear dresses, I wanted cute shit, and maybe wear lipstick. 2021 is the year I realized all of this were repressed thoughts, at least since high school. When I became aware of LGBT+. I was also drinking a lot.

So now I have all these conflicting thoughts and feelings. Only a handful of people know that I’m out. My folks don’t. My extended family doesn’t. I hope they never do; I intend to cut ties with them once I’m independent. They’ll never let me live my life the way I want to. This is my only reprieve, the only place I can speak my mind online without it tracing back to me. No real life repercussions.

NSFW bit under here.

It’s a weird feeling, but I don’t just m*sturbate to fall asleep anymore. I do it because I’m disgusted at myself, at my body. I wonder if that makes any sense. I m*sturbate while wishing I had a v*gina.

#nonbinary #transgender #woman #transfem #transgirl #lgbtq #i'm still learning #late night thoughts

[allthislove]

I wanna come back to the affirmative action thing, because I’ve been thinking about it for a while and the shit bothers me, okay?

Racial intelligence is a myth. Positive or negative, this is not a real thing. I’m going to talk about the Model Minority Myth and bit here, and also how Black people, especially Black Americans, are seen as inherently stupider than other people.

On one end of the spectrum, you have Asian people, who do well academically. People talk about them like they’re inherently better at school, or smarter than other people.

On the other end, you have Black people, who are thought of as bad students, stupid, incapable of succeeding in school without the assistance of affirmative action.

Neither point makes much sense, because they ask the person listening to imagine that neither Black nor Asian students have individuality. They can’t succeed or fail because of their own merits, but that their success or failure is because of some thing encoded into their DNA. 

In reality, this is socialization. Before I get into this, I wanted to remind the world that Black women are the most educated demographic in America, today, and so what I’m about to talk about is (thankfully) changing, but let’s take a look at what factors help create both of these myths. 

Asian families, especially immigrant families, tend to push education. It’s almost a virtue. Getting good grades became important for some Asian immigrants because they wanted their children to have their best chance. Immigration is hard. Many immigrants (not just Asian immigrants) come here and have to completely start over. Degrees they earned in their home countries sometimes become useless, here, especially if they’re not fluent in English. They often came to this country and had to initially work very menial, hard labor or dirty task jobs that Americans didn’t want. So, they pushed for their children to do well academically, so that they could become something better when they grew up. 

So, right from the start, Asian parents are pushing for their kids to do extremely well in school.

What happened to Black kids, then? People never seem to tell the full story, here, but when I thought about it, it was obvious. I’m working on a play, right now, about Black people in the American South around the time of the first World War. The main character is a young Black woman who “finished” school at the 8th grade level because there wasn’t a school that taught Black people after that in her area. This wasn’t just some random thing I made up for my play. This is the situation that Black people lived in for a very long time, after Emancipation. While some HBCUs were being founded (thought many of them were initially just seminaries or agricultural schools) many parts of the country just didn’t have places where Black people could learn after a certain point. Couple that with a country that really doesn’t give a crap if Black people get good educations and education just never really became the most important thing, for us. 

Black people valued a lot. We valued our stories. We valued our culture, which we built ourselves because most of our original cultures were stolen from us. We valued music. But, we never got a chance to be socialized to value education, because education was not available to us. And then when it was, it was often subpar.

So, right away, you have two completely different situations. One group, largely immigrants who have everything to lose and access to education; education being one of the main reasons to even come here. One group, brought here on slave ships, enslaved, freed, and then kept from good education for decades, if not an actual century. 

The other factor in Asian academic excellence is that, especially at the college level, you have the top students coming to the US specifically to study at American universities. So, already, you’re skewing the numbers.

Anyway. So, Black people weren’t socialized to treat education with the reverence that many immigrant families do. So, once we started to get better access to education by the mid 1960s, most Black people just didn’t find it to be a virtuous thing to have good grades. Good or bad grades are just a thing. Don’t get me wrong. Black parents still get happy when their kids get an A, and upset when their kids get an F. But it was never treated as this all-encompassing thing. It just is what it is. 

Couple that with, you know... a lot of socioeconomic factors that a lot of Black people still live in, and grades and scores just aren’t that important. 

The thing is, that is shifting. A lot. Like, almost the sharpest course correction Black Americans could have. As I mentioned before, Black women are the most educated demographic in America, now. Why did this happen? I’m not exactly sure. A lot of people credit the emergence of images of Black success on TV in the 80s with shows like The Cosby Show and A Different World with sparking this shift. More Black kids saw that it was possible and therefore more Black kids went to college. The thing, though, is that that’s still mostly Millennials and Gen-Z. Meaning barely 1 generation of Black people have started to become more educated. Which also means, like... we haven’t had the time to see what the impact of this is going to be.

The Model Minority Myth for Asians is decades old. Black people even being able to go to PWIs is shorter than the Model Minority Myth. 

I guess what I’m trying to say is... Black people aren’t more educated because education went easier on us than other people. We’re more educated because we’re capable, and we never were not capable. 

Again, affirmative action makes sure you’re not overlooked because of your race. It doesn’t magically create a spot for you just because you’re Black, and especially not because you’re Black in spite of you being undeserving. And the other thing Affirmative Action doesn’t do is change your grades. If a Black student earned a 4.0, they earned the same 4.0 as and Asian student with a 4.0. Black students succeed or fail on their own merit, not because they’re Black. 

And as for poverty... poverty is incredibly difficult to escape, no matter your race. I’m not the best person to speak on Black poverty, because I’m not poor and I grew up comfortably middle class with two college educated and professional parents, so yeah, but I can say that because I grew up like that, it was far easier for me to go to any 4 year college and earn any degree I wanted than it will be for some poor kid living in the projects with a single parent with a GED. I’m not sure why people act like Black poor people are an example of why Black people are inherently bad or stupid. First of all, you can be incredibly good and incredibly smart and still live in the projects and be poor. Second of all, the existence of bad people in the Black race doesn’t mean that all or even most Black people are bad. Third of all, nobody is stupid, and if they seem “stupid” to you, something else is going on. A lack of education. A cognitive disability. Something. “Stupid”, like “crazy”, is a dismissive, and often ableist, word, and basically means nothing. 

And since I brought up the Model Minority Myth, I think I should mention that it’s also very harmful to Asian people, especially students. One, it’s dehumanizing, and makes people hold Asian people to impossible standards that obviously every Asian person can’t meet. And two, it misses the experiences of Asian people who didn’t come here for academic reasons, many of whom don’t have the same “education as a virtue” thing that many specifically East Asian or Indian immigrants have. Like, people who came here as refugees instead of exchange students. Many of those people find that they get left behind by the myth, teachers offer them less help because they’re Asian and are supposed to be “smarter than everyone else”, and they end up falling into a sort of gap. Many of them drop out, and the cycle of poverty continues. And I guess a third, big problem is that it makes colleges and universities judge Asian applicants more harshly and hold them to a higher standard than everyone else, which means that unless you’re a high flying Asian overachiever, you might have a harder time getting into college than your white or Black friends. 

So, anyway, what I’m saying is that assigning a certain intelligence level to someone based on their race is bad and like... America really has a big problem with race and we need to fix it.

Also, we need to do better, as a whole, about understanding why we have the misconceptions that we have. It’s really frustrating, for me, to constantly feel like I have to prove I’m not stupid to strangers because they all assume I am because I’m Black. Or at least less intelligent than they are. And to have to defend my two degrees constantly because old Duck Dynasty looking white guys think I didn’t earn them because of affirmative action. To have to constantly explain that a Black person’s A is the same A as anyone else in the class, because, while teachers do sometimes grade on a curve, it’s not given racially. And that if you answer a question correctly, it’s correct. And if you solve an equation correctly, you solved it correctly. And that the answer doesn’t change for Black people, and that the work isn’t easier. 

And I think people know that it doesn’t make sense, because when you think about it logically, it doesn’t make sense that one group of people is inherently stupid or that another is inherently smart. We understand individuals. We know lots of people, each of us. We know someone who isn’t bright at all, we know someone who is incredibly smart, we know some people like this who are the same race as each other, and even the same race as us. We know they’re different because they’re individual people, and that they don’t represent our entire race. So, why, FOR THE LOVE OF PETE, can we not... as a society... yet understand that race effects our conditions, but does not dictate the type of person we are in the slightest?? Good, bad, smart, pretty, not smart, ugly, short, tall, funny, boring, brave, scared, energetic, whatever the hell... THESE ARE TRAITS THAT MAKE UP INDIVIDUALS, NOT RACES. Race is a lie we tell ourselves to explain why certain people share certain physically features and/or geography. Nothing more. We have built entire societies around this lie, and like... I’m not naive enough to think that race will no longer be a factor any time soon. Some people are far too hung up on their racism for us to truly move on as a society. But I also know that, for us to begin the process of moving on from it, we have to be honest about how it has shaped our society and stop this thing of blaming people for the conditions the society forced on them and how it affected them through the generations. 

This was a lot, and I’m not sure if it’s clear, but yeah. All of this shit is more complicated than you want it to be, and people don’t fit neatly into little stereotype boxes. You have to get that shit out of your head and learn to both see individuals AND understand how history shapes our present reality. 

#racism #the dreaded affirmative action conversation #the model minority myth #BLM #BIPOC #BIPOC thoughts