#mena talks

[tsukasalvr]

Now way I just got broken up with after I begged them to not leave me not even a week ago I feel so stupid omg????? Moral of story is to NEVER beg cus ur gonna end up regretting it in the end then ur gonna look stupid

#mena talks #actually sobbing rn omg

[brrbrina]

Hi everyone! I know i’ve been MIA, but there has been a lot going on in my mind, so let’s do a little recap!

I’m on my third year of college! Which is insane i can’t believe we are almost done im 5 semesters in of 8 which tbh scares me a lot.

I also got an Intership over the summer who turned into a full time job lmao, i can’t believe im doing all of this IM EXHAUSTED

But the good news is: i’ve started working on a few stories as well as brainstorming the last chapter of echoes 😬 i hope i can bring you so much cozy and fluff -and angsty- stories for you to read over the holidays!! 🎄🩷

#mena talks #brrbrina #joe burrow x reader

[boysborntodie]

“I don’t talk about Palestine because I don’t like going into politics : /” fuck you. The existence of Muslims and MENA people has always been political to the West. Their lives and their deaths. Their happiness and anger and sorrow. Their love and hatred. Their sweat and blood and tears. Everything has always been reduced to politics when they are more than you could ever begin to comprehend. Palestine will be free. And so will Sudan and Pakistan and Lebanon and Yemen and Syria and every other country, place and people who suffer only for their pain to be called political by those responsible for and complicit in it

#before anyone starts i fucking know you personally aren’t responsible #that doesn’t change the fact everyone in the west benefits from this system that has historically oppressed and harmed non-western countrie #and it’s your responsibility to acknowledge and understand this #i also have been living in a western (generalised not geographically #and it’s easier and i know why it’s easier #my heart goes out to non-muslim and mena countries and people but i wanted to talk about their very specific plight they experience #pakistan #middle east #north africa #free palestine #palestine #falesteen #lebanon #syria #yemen #sudan #free sudan #non-outsiders

[thebusylilbee]

ooooh I didn't know that until today but the Institut Lumière (literally where cinema was invented and the first film was shot) in Lyon has been organizing a Middle-east and North African film festival called Cinémas du Sud for two decades now and they're going to show a premiere of a palestinian film this year !! this is cool !!! lord knows we need to support MENA artists and palestinians especially now more than ever

les français-es cinéphiles si vous vivez dans les parages je vous encourage à y faire un tour !

here's the poster for the festival :

#upthebaguette #whatthefrance #french side of tumblr #cinema #mena #bee tries to talk #palestine #tunisia #syria #lebanon #yemen #egypt #algeria #irak #morocco

[gojo-mochi]

@saenora ZEN ZEN IM DYING

Omg 🫡🫡🫡 HE SO CUTE WITH IT I CANT

#softy talks to you​ (·•᷄ࡇ•᷅ ) (•᷄ •᷅ ;) #IM DROOLING I MENA WHAT?!? #😩🙏🙏🙏

[white-spirit-of-darkness]

and another thing!!!! since you keep bringing up good omens, you sucker, aziraphale and crowley had instant chemistry before time was invented so yeah dan, shut up

#dan and phil #i mena if we're talking real people then yeah yeah you guys win #but otherwise. shut up. y'all aren't even my faves anymore (lying)

[narcissa-black-supermacy]

Ohh elaborate on the Mena house of Black :D

ok so. I think after all the time i spent ranting about this, it's time for the official dissertation. If someone reads this and is still not convinced that the Blacks are mena-coded, talk to me (that's a threat). @soloorganaas feel free to add on if i missed something

Note: MENA is short for the geographical region of Middle East-North Africa which includes a variety of ethnicities and cultures that share certain traits and stereotypes I'll be addressing here.

Disclaimer: I have lived my entire life in the Levant. I am speaking from my own experience with these cultures not within British diaspora. If anybody can provide input on that, it will be great.

my main points (going from the more superficial things to the more niche topics)

Very obvious non-white features and appearance among the majority of the members

French being used as a second native language in many mena regions ("toujours pur")

Big, multi-sibling families in comparison to most pure-bloods in canon

Cousin intermarriage (is second cousin marriage incest?)

Frequent reuse of names

The tapestry

Pure-blood mania as a parallel to mena religious Sectarianism

12GP being located at the heart of muggle London

Family values, betrayal and "all or nothing" approach (= mena blood feud culture)

JKR's tendency to let her internal biases seep through her writing unintentionally

Let's tackle these one by one, I will try to be short (HA that's funny. under the cut):

(I will highlight the main points in bold for those of you who don't want to read through all of my ramblings)

Very obvious non-white features and appearance. I think this one is self-explanatory. Sirius, Bellatrix, Regulus, Walburga - except for Narcissa, who is intentionally altered to resemble the Malfoys since page one, all of the Black are described to have very non-white features and appearance. Black curly hair and grey eyes are extremely common in the NA + Levant region, regardless of skin colour.

The most wide-spread fanon ethnicity for the Blacks appears to be French. Genuinely no idea where that came from. I am guessing that some of it stems from the "toujours pur" line, to which, I must point out: tons of regions in MENA have been French colonies. French is taught at schools (I learned French at school before English), spoken alongside Arabic/Hebrew/etc within the family, used for things like slogans and mottos. Kill the idea that French is only spoke in France and if a character speaks French it gives us a clear idea of where they come from.

This is something I don't see talked about, but the Blacks have very abnormally large families in comparison to the rest of the pure-bloods we are presented with in canon. Most are only children (James, Remus, Peter, Draco, Lucius, so on) and the only exception to the rule is the Weasleys, who are constantly ridiculed for it by others. Cygnus and Druella have 3 daughters. Walburga has 2 sons and she comes from a family of 3 siblings. Orion's parents are 3 siblings, Walburga's parents are 3. The generation before their parents are 4 siblings. The one before it is 4 as well. Anyway. There's a pattern. See? The average number of children for the Blacks appears to be 3, while for most pure-blood families, even 2 is way above the average.

Cousin intermarriage - also pretty self explanatory? Might be a bit of a harmful stereotype here, but it's true - second cousin intermarriage is not seen as a big deal in most MENA cultures, to this day, and definitely not back then. It is much more widespread than in most European cultures, I believe.

Reuse of names - another very common trait in all MENA cultures. My husband has 7 Mordechai's and 8 Moris'es just in the last 3 generations of his family. Half of my cousins are called Muhammad. Typical.

The tapestry - another example of something that's portrayed as strange in canon, but is actually typical MENA culture. I don't think I know a single Arab or Jewish family that does not have some kind of equivalent of the Black family tapestry showing off their lineage generations back. And the disowned family members get taken off, yes, that's a thing.

Pure-blood mania as a parallel to MENA religious sectarianism Now, THIS is something I want to focus on. Most MENA cultures are very sectarian. Not in a "well, duh, it's the middle east" kind of way - I am talking about the most progressive regions and cities. People will consider themselves progressive, support women's and LGBT rights, but still view intermarriage as a dirty thing. Religious intermarriage between the different sects of Christians, Jews, Shias, Sunnis etc is strictly forbidden and frowned upon almost everywhere. Now, you might say - well, isn't this just a general pure-blood thing? No. The Blacks are NOT modal pure-bloods. They are a very radical, extreme version of it. I would argue that the average pure-bloods look like the Malfoys - who are stated to be rather moderate, not accepting muggle-borns, but having no problem with half-bloods. The Blacks' pure-blood mania dates back to before Voldemort's rise, it's a family trait passed through generations, and it goes beyond the regular pure-blood snobbism. This is typical, by-the-book sectarianism.

12GP being located at the heart of muggle London This is an interesting one, I think, because it might not be as obvious as the others. The Blacks are very known bigots and muggle-haters, but surprisingly, unlike most pure-bloods we know (even the muggle friendly ones!), their house is located at the HEART of muggle London. Why the hell is that? This actually makes PERFECT SENSE if you understand how Sectarianism works, which ties back to point N 7. Typical religious sectarianism does NOT look like western racism or bigotry. Sectarianism is NOT hatred or fear. Different sects across MENA work together, study together, even make friends on occasion, but they make this very strict separation between accepting the presence of someone different in their immediate surroundings, and actually letting them into their circle. In other words: we can work with muggle-borns and blood-traitors. We can study with them. They are allowed to exist. Actually, we will go out of our way to live among them, state our existence, remind them who is the boss, but we will not engage. We will not marry them, we will not let them into our house. This is sectarianism. It's a behaviour VERY specific to the Blacks in the HP universe, not pure-bloods in general.

Family values, betrayal and "all or nothing" approach (= mena blood feud culture) Blood feud culture is a strong thing in all MENA cultures, even to this day. Blood feud can be used to mean revenge on someone who hurt a member of your family, OR it can also mean "honour killing" within the family itself. If a member of the family is considered to be a disgrace and brings shame with a certain type of their behaviour (that is typically a young unmarried woman who slept with a man outside of a permitted relationship, an openly LGBT individual, someone who speaks against the political stance of the family). Reminds you of something? Yep. Disownment, disinheritance, the only thing we do not see here is the Blacks actively seeking to kill the members who have left. Again, this is NOT typical pure-bloods behaviour, this is something we see specifically within their family. Just like with Sectarianism, this is classic, by-the-book Blood Feud culture and honour killing.

JKR's tendency to let her internal biases seep through her writing unintentionally Do I think JKR consciously sat down and said "let's write the Blacks as mena-coded characters"? Of course not. Just like she did not intend for many things to come off the way they did (like wolfstar, desi potters, etc), but that happened. I think it's natural that when you are raised with certain biases and stereotypes towards a certain group, it will seep through when you're writing characters that are meant to be "evil" and "bad". Again, maybe it's just me. But there are simply way too many similarities and coincidences. I remember reading and watching HP with my siblings when the books/movies were just coming out, and we were all 100% convinced that the Blacks being Arab is just... common knowledge. It wasn't until I started engaging with the Western fandom that I realised it wasn't.

This is all, I think. Well, not nearly all, but these are my main points. It's been long overdue. Feel free to shoot me an ask if you want me to elaborate on something.

#is anyone going to read this? #probably no #but this makes me feel calmer lmao #mena house of black #hp meta #marauders meta #house of black #asks #dani talks

[miyuecakes]

can your UAE oc allow stuffed toys on Emirates (a sub-subsidiary airline the government owns) to be given out to adults too...I used to get stuffed toys every time I went but they stopped giving it out to me once I started looking like a teenager 😔

#anonymous #ask #aph uae #hws uae #hws united arab emirates #aph united arab emirates #hws mena #hws khaleej #if i remember correctly from one of my assigned readings #the royal families or whatever important people in the khaleej (particularly uae) is pretty accessible to the public #like in order to air out some grievances or suggestions related to domestic policy or whatnot #the author of that reading noted having a casual dinner with a number of important sheikhs in uae as a journalist of all occupations #so i suppose mr uae would be easily accessible to talk to i guess lol #i cant attest to the effectiveness of these norms other than for bahrain which i wrote a 19 page paper on lol #whatever enough rambling im sorry for being a polsci major

[fabdante]

fun tag game i was tagged in by @skullgirrl !! (thank you for tagging me!!!) starting a new thread also to keep it from getting too, to long!

five comfort characters, five tags! (I'm going to cheat at this, please forgive me)

Kat (DmC: Devil May Cry)

Vergil (DmC: Devil May Cry)

Dante (Any Devil May Cry, special shout out to the old man in DMC5 and my rat boy from the reboot)

Jin, Fuu, and Mugen (Samurai Champloo) (look, I will NOT separate them. I refuse.)

Jim Hawkins (Treasure Planet)

I tag: @bigsister-watches @cainite-bite @thevampireauthoress @festeringfaery and, as always, all of you who want to do this who follow me!! i would love to see your comfort characters (i'm very curious and i mean it!)

#thank you again for tagging me!! this was weirdly difficult asdfghjk #initially i had kat and vergil sharing number one as they are just so interwoven to me #and i wanted like someone else not from DMC but i just like could not pick a 5th #honorary mentions were: the triforce trio #our girl katara #our rat boy jet #every goth girl in media #janis ian mean girls (gay lebanese alt girl my beloved) #and also every MENA character whom i enjoy #fabtalks #fab talks #i still never remember which is the right tag asdfghjk

[frogathy]

one way to say you havent seen the barbie movie without saying you haven’t seen the barbie movie is hating on female characters that are just normal girls who don’t do very much. or writing off female characters as shallow because they don’t have outwardly exceptional traits (i.e. big massive boobs, incredible otherworldly power, super tiny boobs, she owns a business and also runs a country and also she’s really mean and cold because that’s hot and it goes against the gender stereotype, she’s an alien, she’s a furry, she’s secretly a spy, her personality is very clearly different and special OR she’s so mysterious that she REALLY has no personality but bc she’s so vaguely mysterious that doesnt matter bc the mystery makes her deep and alluring, etc)

girls can just be girls.. girls just.. wanna have…. fun..

let us embrace the concept of the ambiguous female character, i beg of you. just as there are twink boys and big buff himbos, let there be president barbies and “just mom” barbies. how about we just. stop placing expectations of either extreme onto anyone. let’s try that. thank you

#love: a girl who was raised ‘anti-feminist’ (the joking words of my dad) #(the words that made me think i could not have opinions about women at all even though i am one) #(as if commenting on or even thinking about the subject of women is in itself an act of RADICAL FEMINISM!) #(like holy shit thats a damaging concept! anyways im enjoying acknowledging what i think about the issue of Women. personally? #i have opinuons about women😼and im sharing them on the internet😼😼) #this post is about nilou from genshin impact🗣️ #she’s just some fucking girl and shes a dancer and shes just. like. DUMB. because shes purehearted and innocent #and people look at her and say shes useless and she did nothing for the storyline and shes shallow #SHUT UP!! SHUT UP!!!!! #idiots. all of them. idiots #even though she’s canonically the LITERAL embodiment of beauty. that is not enough for them #the hypocrisy. its so grand #anyways #girls. am i right #i could talk so much about her i love her so much she literally menas so much to me #i could talk about her for so long snd all of the amazing things about her that are not on the surface but ill spare this website #froegis meep tag #barbie #nilou #genshin nilou #female characters #i feel so free being able to just fucjing acknowledge that i think this #i still have a sense of ‘but what if im wrong and im being a snowflake’ as if having an opinion that differs from my dad makes me a snowfla #like wat da hel! enmeshed families be hittin different 😼 #and perhaps theres a bit of internalized mysoginy in these little bonez of mine😼 butt who knows. something for my therpist to unpack #important

[tsukasalvr]

That one older person who wants nothing to do w me anymore after we had sex❤️❤️❤️❤️

#mena talks #come backkk #I miss uu #I miss ur accent and muscles💔💔

[brrbrina]

ho everyone!! i have a new part of echoes written but i decided to scrap it and re write lol, if you want to be add to the tag list please lmk!!!

#joe burrow #joe burrow fluff #joe burrow x reader #joe burrow blurb #joe burrow angst #mena talks #joe burrow echoes

[anartificialsatellite]

I think it's absolutely wild that people also apparently don't know the difference between natural gas and oil

#y'all learned One (1) thing about the MENA region and decided you were done huh #i realize natural gas and oil are often found close to one another but that's not what we're talking about

[unicornsaures]

uuhh I would just like to apologize ahead of time for the meade comic.

..this cant be good.

#hamalicious..what.. #what do you mean.. #what do you mena apologize ahead of time.. #you..you said it would be a talk over candle light.. #asks

[rustchild]

.

#It’s kind of wild to see how people talk about mizrahim and the beta israel on here. Like. #people are Just Now discovering that people(s) who are colonial subjects #which they are #as much as anyone else from the mena region #can also perpetuate and have conditional gain within colonial systems #and there’s like… no awareness of how that works over and over again in colonial and immediately post-colonial societies #When in fact one of the most basic structures of colonial power #is pitting colonized peoples against each other through the construction of elaborate unstable racialized hierarchies #like #I think the thing it drives home for me #is how many people in the west a. Operate off of a purely binary moral framework #in which oppressed is good and oppressor is evil and no one is both #And b. Don’t know enough about the histories or current realities of the colonized world to draw meaningful conclusions about anything #And also c. Don’t know shit about Jews #of course #but especially non-ashkenazi Jews #it’s easier to view Israel as the embodiment of the sin of western colonialism #than to genuinely unpack and understand the structures that comprise it #and the ways in which they truly aren’t unique #and the sheer horror of that reality! #Y’all absorbed one (1) idea from fanon and really just stopped there huh #Anyway. The closest parallel to Israel in the world isn’t Algeria #that’s just the only one y’all know about because fanon wrote about it. #the closest parallel is maybe Liberia and that’s sure something to think about

[thewingedwolf]

i feel like felicia was kinda dismissive of guessing jag’s mom’s name esp bc her & cirie said he might be related to kaysar earlier which was so. but also i might just be a lil sensitive about it since they just made the kaysar comment & they also gave up on trying to guess america’s mom’s name immediately too

altho i also thought immediately giving up was kind of weird bc america said “l” and they didn’t even try to guess, i feel like they were [redacted i feel i’m being too sensitive fr about it aksjdj] it was funny watching them interact but at the same time i felt like i was watching jag experience a microaggression 😭😭

#and kind of america too but they didn’t even guess with her they just moved past it. #bb25 #idk if anyone else felt a little weird. #it’s fine all the old alums were talking about it & the lack of asian & mena rep on the show & how it’s obviously coming from a place #of ignorance and not malice. i’m not saying i’m just saying ya know.