#plus i think it’s very important that I learn about native culture and how they were mistreated

[bloodyselfshipping]

I love your Hetalia main eight headcanons, how would they be with an British s/o? Cuz I personally believe that with France and America would be funny ^____^

(Hetalia Main 8 x Reader) British S/O!

(Gender Neutral) Headcanons ~ A/N it isnt as funny as you probably expected (i cant help but be sappy) but i hope u like it <3 ALSO two requests already?!?!?! im loisng my mind over here keep em comin

This is also hysterical to him. Like, he’s always had so many issues with the British and now he’s in LOVE with a British person?! What reality is this?!

Because your native language is English like his, he’ll completely forget that the UK is not like the US.

“What do you mean you’ve never had Snickers salad?! Everyone has!”

“Hold on… what did you just say I need to get?... a “bog roll”? Wh- are you kidding me? You’re making that one up.”

Probably a little bitch about it not going to lie. He respects where you come from, but he’s probably gonna insist on things being more American than British.

Alfred has been to the UK many times, but that doesn’t mean he isn’t gonna be very whiney about it. Except when it comes to your family, who he LOVES. Seriously, he would be so great with your relatives.

Obviously, as a British person himself, this is not out of the ordinary at all. Most likely his S/O would be British, I can’t see him having much of a thing for foreigners anymore.

But he is very happy that he doesn’t have to simplify how he talks, god forbid learn another language.

He appreciates having a S/O that he doesn’t have to explain anything about his country to. He can go on living his life the same way (which is so frustratingly important to him) and you’ll have no problem.

It’s always comforting to him knowing his S/O lives in his country, it removes so much pressure off his shoulders.

Oh boy, oh lord, what is Arthur going to say! Having to put all of his constant British-specific insults aside because now his S/O is what he’s always hated!

“Those rostbif l'idiotes, they’re d- oh, my apologies. I- uh… that doesn’t include you, my love.”

He’s definitely gonna insist you learn French. He says it’s because he wants to distance you from Arthur, but really he just thinks your accent is so cute-

Francis knows a lot about British culture, so you probably won’t have to explain anything to him. But he’s definitely gonna try to immerse you in his own culture, no pressure of course.

It’s really a surprise to him how little your nationality bothers him. I guess love can always change a man’s heart <3

Depending on the time period, Yao’s reaction would vary. Nowadays, he doesn’t really care that much. But if it was any earlier, he would be so ashamed of himself!

He’d try to teach you Mandarin, but that wouldn’t last long. His version of Mandarin is a mess of like 50 dead dialects, and he would get real annoyed when you mess it up, sorry /:

Yao has had to deal with foreigners so much nowadays, he doesn’t care much to learn about your country or teach you about his. He’ll assume you already know about his culture.

He doesn’t like traveling, but he’ll always make an exception for you and your family <3 Just… be aware he’s gonna try to get you to move to China constantly.

Ivan would quite like this arrangement actually! He’s always had an admiration for the UK, plus now he has something to bother Arthur with-

He wouldn’t care much about the language thing (he might even try stopping you from learning Russian,) but if you make fun of his bad English he would take it so personally ):

He wants you to take him on tours around where you’ve lived in the UK!!! Tell him everything!!! No one usually wants him to visit their country, so he’s very excited to come home with you!

Fully embraces your multi-cultural little family unit!

Frankly, I don’t think Feliciano would have much of a reaction. Him and Arthur are not close, but he’s never had any real animosity for the country. He loves foreigners, where exactly you’re from doesn’t make much difference!

Loves speaking to you in Italian! He thinks your confused and flushed face is just the cutest.

As much as he likes hearing about your country, he is way more excited to show you the sights and sounds of his own.

Gives you a lot of homemade cultural foods but forgets you’re British and makes them way too … seasoned.

You may be from across the continent, but you’ll always be his persona amata.

Despite Ludwig’s general annoyance towards British politics, he actually quite likes that his S/O is British! He finds a lot to enjoy about the culture.

Will insist that you teach him about growing up in the UK. He just finds it fascinating!

German and English are relatively similar languages, so he’ll suggest you learn at least a little. But he’s not gonna push you on it, your accent is terrible anyway.

You guys probably live and eat very similarly, since Ludwig has adapted very quickly to globalization. Very convenient for you, very annoying for Gilbert.

Overall, this would be a great relationship. Ludwig would be very casual about you being British (cough cough, Alfred)

Generally, Kiku finds most Europeans quite annoying to deal with, but he’ll always make an exception for you <3

Considering how Arthur reacted to Japanese, he’s not even gonna try to get you to learn. He’ll teach you if you ask nicely, but only then.

He’s not very into teaching you about Japan, more casually explains cultural things as they come up.

He would love to go back to the UK with you! He’s very touristy, and would love if you are too.

Kiku is always willing to set aside any bias or personal history aside for you <3

#holy shit i hate tagging these so much #hetalia imagines #hetalia x reader #aph america x reader #hws america x reader #aph england x reader #hws england x reader #aph france x reader #hws france x reader #aph china x reader #hws china x reader #aph russia x reader #hws russia x reader #aph italy x reader #hws italy x reader #aph germany x reader #hws germany x reader #aph japan x reader #hws japan x reader

[blank-house]

Would the guys try to learn a bit of mc's language when dating if English wasn't their first language? I'm just curious at what point would each try to get, as for Jamie it's not something that far-fetched

Hmm…

I think Jamie would go all the way, just because it would be easy for him. Plus the amount of shenanigans he can get up to talking about things that only MC would understand would be incredibly appealing to him. Talking about other people, messing with MC, talking to MC’s parent(s) in their native tongue.

Yeah he’d learn the whole thing if he really likes them. But he wouldn’t flaunt that he learned it just for them, it would be more like MC learns one random day that Jamie can fluently speak it and they’re just like:

MC: “Since when did you learn how to speak my language???”

Jamie: “Since the first week I knew you were the one for me. Come on, MC, keep up.”

And he’s just smug about catching them off guard haha

Elio and Percy I think would be entirely dependent on if MC wants them to learn it, their parent(s) only speak that language, or if they’re made aware that MC’s culture and native tongue is very important to them. Like if any of those case are true then 100% they’ll learn it!

Otherwise, they probably wouldn’t. Like maybe Percy would learn a pickup line or two or Elio might try calling MC an affectionate name in their first language, but I really don’t see them learning beyond that. ^^,

AJFJFHEHEHR I feel bad saying it in case someone was dreaming of them making the effort on their own— but unless it’s dear to MC… yeah…

#keyframes vn #keyframes asks #jamie #percy #elio #djfhdjej no one would want to hear me go on a tangent about ESLs and what their native tongue might mean to them #but I think about those a lot and so even if it's not as romantic I just think it's more realistic ^^

[promiseiwillwrite]

Bad Stuff

Disclaimer: This post is about some Really Rough experiences I had here on Tumblr while I was trying to come out from under the Rock. I was trying to reach out and interact in a community where I didn't know the established rules of etiquette, and I learned them the hard way. They had major consequences for me and my path as a witch, and I am just now sorting this shit out and trying to repair the damage. I was gatekept and treated cruelly for making mistakes, and I didn't know any better. The culture on Tumblr is very different from the culture in which I was raised, (80s and 90s Kentucky) so it was quite difficult to adjust. So read at your own risk.

One of the first things that happened was that I became accidentally involved in a flame war with a person who called me "ableist" before I knew what that even was. It sent me into a 6 month depression where I did a LOT of internal work and thought deeply about how I perceive humans with different levels of intelligence. I adjusted my views about human validity surrounding intelligence, and I solidified my observation that the human who called me out was being exceptionally Mean and Shitty about it to me and a bunch of other people. They were right that me calling anyone "stupid" or "an idiot" is ableist use of language. However, they were Very Wrong in their approach and assumptions about me. I DO care about people, and my views ARE something I actively seek to adjust in the face of new information. I also have Moral OCD, so I self-punished harshly in the face of this new information, for a Lifetime of thinking badly of other humans for various reasons connected to their perceived level of intelligence. I did eventually bring it back around, however and realize that no difference in level of intelligence, real or perceived was any excuse for being mean and shitty to others. Calling out bad behavior is important, but you can do that without being mean or shitty. And it turns out that how I really feel is that I have a problem with people choosing to be mean and shitty, and not with their level of intelligence. I had just Falsely correlated the two things, and now I do not.

Not long after that, I experienced the Discourse on Lillith for the first time. I had never worked with Lillith. It didn't apply to me at all. But I could see how some humans, for whom this entity had been an important part of their practice and lived experience, finding out for the first time that this entity was closed might have had some thoughts and feelings about that. I did not engage in Any of these conversations. I didn't have a dog in the fight. But I felt very bad for people who had been working with this entity for years who were being called appropriative. What do you DO about something like that? What if you've called Lillith your Patron for a Decade, and then a bunch of people tell you you are Completely Wrong and Out of Bounds? I can't imagine that is something where you can just go, "Oh, My bad." and stop. Plus, there were a lot of people being VERY MEAN about it.

It was about this time that I realized some very important adjacent things about the way I was raised, and the stories I had been told about my Native American Heritage. According to what my Grandmother said, my Great Grandmother was the daughter of a Choctaw Chief. I had been raised with great pride in that heritage. But I had been raised as a White Girl. I've never been to a reservation. I've never known anything of the culture of the tribe, or anything but stories of my Great Grandmother. So when my mother incorporated Native American traditions/practices into her religious beliefs and practices, it seemed right and natural. We went to Native American Gatherings, invitation only events two states away. I helped build a medicine wheel on Black Mountain. I talked with Grandmother Joy Earthwalker about what it meant to be a Beaver person... A builder and a Story Teller. I was still a punk-ass little white freak girl, but this was a part of my life and my belief system... Until I encountered the Lillith discourse and thought Deeply about appropriation for the first time.

And standing in the Forest out on the peninsula in Washington, I very painfully decided that in all honesty, I had no right to that part of my practice. The thing that had resonated so strongly with me was the connection to the land, and plants and animals. I had no idea how I was going to give all that up. It was SO deeply fundamental to the core of my being. But if that part of my belief was Stolen and Harmful to an oppressed people I decided I would rather die than be that way. And I guess I did... When I gave it all up I was depressed for months. It took a lot of talking with people to come to the conclusion that animist perspectives did not have to be "Native American", but were instead present in paradigms all over the world, Many of which were decidedly open. So I didn't have to give up connection to the land, and plants and animals. I just stopped thinking of it as a Native American way, and started thinking of it as My way. My observations. My connections. And I felt better eventually.

But not before I ran into the most painful discourse of all. The folks who were bashing godspouses got to me the worst. I have had a very intimate relationship with my patron since I was 10 years old. Because of my Plural Internal Architecture, I interacted with my Patron Deity on a very personal level, and as a part of myself. I understood that this deity was a deity, AND ALSO a part of me. And it was confusing as hell. And it was very different, necessarily, from the experiences that many people described, but also similar in some ways. Over the course of my relationship with my Patron, the interactions changed immensely with time. They were a psychological outpicturing of me trying to make sense of my life and my environment, which was often very poor. The relationship at times was incredibly unhealthy, because I was unhealthy. I was a product of that environment, and my thoughts and beliefs were full of distortions that were the product of abuse and neglect. However, my relationship with my Patron was, many times, the most positive, most consistent, predictable, safe relationship in my life. The relationship I had with Him saved my life, and kept pointing me out of my depressions. He Always tried to make my life better. Always tried to Ease my suffering. Always tried to help me to be a better, more resilient being.

And then the antis told me that I shouldn't have an unhealthy parasocial relationship with a god, because why would a god, who in my patron's case and in their eyes wasn't even a god, want to have anything like that with an insignificant human person. They told me wanting it was disgusting and disrespectful. It was projecting what I wanted onto a deity figure. Just Mental Illness, and nothing real.

They spoke to me in words of doubt that I had said to myself a thousand times, that were so much more damning coming from an external source. They used that word, that my Abuser often used against me, to label even the smallest transgressions (breathing wrong, moving my eyes at the wrong time) as Morally Wrong.

I backed away from the relationship in Horror. What had I DONE? I was Horrible. I was disrespectful, I was dishonoring my patron with some distorted, self-created obsessive idea of a relationship born in some massive lack of discretion. Nothing I had thought or done or felt in the last 30 years was Real, AND it was wrong. I broke it. I broke it Badly, believing these motherfuckers and their words that parroted the worst things that crawled around in my mind.

Nevermind that Loki is a trash panda of a god, and a slut, and a freaky little guy, and that None of this would shock, amaze or even put him off.

And I haven't successfully repaired it yet. Loki is still there. He is still trying. I still want it, but I Deeply mistrust that. I feel like everything I want is hurtful somehow. Thanks Moral OCD. I hate it.

#loki #mental health bullshit

[softgrungeprophet]

okay i'm gonna post a bunch of pics i took at the seattle art museum with my phone lol - i pasted the full captions onto/beside the images but i'll put the titles and artists underneath in text too.

Weltempfänger (World Receiver) (2018) - Isa Genzken

I started in the modern art area specifically in the section with post-war german art mostly engaging w/ the war in some way, which is neat, but the presentation left me kind of wondering who had curated it. there was a lot of vague language and i'm not sure that any of the artists were like... jewish...?

there were like three pieces by a sculptor who is apparently one of the top 1000 wealthiest men in germany though. lmao. didn't take a picture of those though.

anyway then was the rest of the modern art.

View from the Other Side of the Mountain (1985) - Roger Brown

i liked this painting. the sense of scale etc. w/ the little tiny people is good.

A Cloud Index (2020) - Spencer Finch

Untitled (2001) - Cameron Martin

Thought this was striking. I like that the background and the tree body are slightly different shades of white.

(background): You Mist, Again (Rattle) (2019) - Natalie Ball

(foreground): IF I RULED THE WORLD (2018) - Jeffrey Gibson

There was a section on modern art by marginalized groups which included some indigenous artists, black artists, and stuff, that was pretty cool.

Architecture of return, escape (the British Museum) (2022) - Nicholas Galanin

(this is a floorplan of the British Museum in the context of indigenous American art pieces that have not been repatriated)

Painting, 1950 - Ad Reinhardt

Untitled (1963) - Mark Rothko

I was a little bit psyched to see this. I didn't check what they had ahead of time so I had no idea they had in person Rothko paintings (two of them! though i only took a pic of this one) I always liked his color paintings since I learned about it in college so it was really neat to see this up close and be able to see the like... texture of the paint and stuff.

(left): Frog Feast Bowl (1997)

(right): Whale Hat (1999)

Both by Preston Singletary.

I thought these were neat. Glasswork has such an interesting feel.

There was this as well—Shaman's Soul Catcher (2000)—by the same glass artist plus underneath it an 1860 Tsimshian bone soul catcher, as a contrast/comparison. Both very pretty in very different ways.

The places I've lived have often had coastal tribal art in various areas but going to the museum and seeing a lot of the artworks in this section was neat because at least half of the stuff on display has abalone shell so it's very sparkly in person. the public carvings and paintings outside usually don't have abalone lol

There was a lot of Native art from all up and down the coast from like, oly to canada, which was really cool to see. I'm not sure how much of it is donated by the tribes or not but I know that's a thing—the MAC in Spokane does that. Plus there's the Burke here which has the Native American Advisory Board. But there's still a chance some of the stuff at the SAM is like... less than ethical.

this is on their website though:

it seems like most of their stuff is probably ethical but there's always a chance some of it isn't, esp since the section on Native art mentions that "grave goods and certain categories of cultural objects" may be repatriated which kind of implies some don't have to be.

a huge chunk of the very large collection comes from one guy:

Headress with frontlet (sakíid) (ca. 1870) - Simeon Sdiihldaa (skil kingaans)

This is very pretty and seems important and valuable.

(background): Interior housepost (Dłam) (ca. 1907) - Arthur Shaughnessy (Hemasilakw)

(foreground): Mask of the Hux̱whukw-Cannibal Bird (Hux̱whukw'iwe') (ca. 1940) - Mungo Martin (Nakapankam)

There were a bunch of these (as well as some other masks) which were pretty cool, and I think the lower beaks are hinged. It would be neat to see them used.

Mask of the Hux̱whukw-Cannibal Bird (Hux̱whukw'iwe') (ca. 1938) - Willie Seaweed (Hilamas)

this one was really big.

more on the house posts and their history. there was another pair (two big faces stacked) on the opposite side of the room I didn't take a pic of. All of the stuff is very pretty but obviously there's a lot of shitty history—like potlatch bans and houses being dismantled—that's just kind of inextricable in both the US and Canada.

adjacent to the large local native art there was a section of Australian Dreaming art as well, with a small short documentary/interview with one of the artists playing nearby.

Kalipinypa Rockhole (2003) - Elizabeth Marks Nakamarra

I only took a picture of this one. It's very striking. The entrance to this area had a hot pink wall with a black and white painting and then inside was all very dark walls. I think it's one of those things that's best in person (lots of art is, really)

nearby was some Japanese art and they had a whole case of netsuke

Seated Monkey Poking at a (Turtle? I think... got cut off lol) (ca. 1770) - Okatomo

It was hard to photograph cause they're so small and in a glass case but they all had such fine details, it was neat to look at them and see all the little tiny lines

There were quite a few, ivory and wood, plus fish sculpture... this one didn't photograph very well though. the fish is really beautiful.

I like these deer-shaped bronze water droppers too. There were a bunch of them of various sizes.

Concretion of Chinese porcelain fragments and coral from a shipwreck, 17th/early 18th century

There were sections on Japanese art, Chinese art, and some Vietnamese porcelain and I thought this was neat. I didn't take a photograph but directly next to this was a modern porcelain sculpture that was definitely intended to be a pairing in overall form and shape and material but still very different.

Ivory, ostrich egg, and silver pieces. I think this section was meant to be a kind of comparison of similar art forms separated by location and temporality—the ways similar forms convergently exist in different locales and time periods. There was an insane-looking Tiffany silver goblet near a much older and simpler silver goblet. Or tankard? it may have been tankards. I didn't take a picture.

next place I went was the ancient art cause that was the nearest bathroom lol—actually it was next to the Italian and Christian European art which I didn't take any photos of. I like medieval and renaissance European art fine but after like. 2 or 3 hours at the museum I was more interested in the Ancient Egyptian and Greek stuff lol.

like this 1st century snake bracelet from Roman Egypt. Phone camera refused to focus though... But like, hey that's wild, that bracelet is probably almost 2000 years old. it's so pretty and i wonder what the red coloration in the lines is. maybe it's a gold alloy? or pigment?

they had a bunch of Roman glasswork as well which is always fun to see. Lots of people think of pristine white marble (it was painted!) when they think of Classical art but glass was such a distinctive thing in those periods—the iridescence and color especially

They had some Greek vases as well, and this Etruscan krater lid with sirens painted on it, which was pretty cool.

also Check out these Sumerian (and one Elamite) frogs!!!!!!

look at them!!!

Babylonian clay foundation peg with cuneiform inscription ca. 2400 BC—think about that. That's like. over 4000 years old. Crazy.

next to the Egyptian art was Islamic art, and I really liked this silver pen and ink holder. It had so many fine details. The entire section was really beautiful. for some reason this also ended up my highest resolution photo? lmao? i don't understand my phone camera at all.

this Turkish floral tile from the 16th century is so pretty

i hit the image limit so i'm gonna add the last four pictures on a reblog

#nadia rambles #arghphoto

[minggukieology]

Hi ! I hope you didn’t already answered a similar ask that I missed but I just wanted to know, if you’re okay to share, are you Korean or from Korean descent or did you learn Korean as a foreigner? I’m asking because I’ve been self-studying Korean for the past 6 months, I’m at the very beginning of my journey haha it’s not easy but I’m loving it it has become a hobby now. I’m always looking for tips and ressources from people who are at an advanced level so if you have advices for a beginner like me…. ☺️ I’m so happy you’re willing to share with us your knowledge about the langage and the culture and stuff regarding Jikook, they’re both my biases and I love to learn more about the way these two talk to each other and the nuance in the language it’s super interesting! Have a good day !

Hi, thanks for your lovely message! ♡

It's great you decided to start learning Korean, I'm sure the members would be grateful (I always think of how thankful Jungkook was in his IG stories towards those who messaged him about it)

Just for clarification and complete transparency, I am keeping my identity out of my jkk accounts because of the amount of trolls and dts I already had to face and I saw other people receive. I talked about this multiple times on twitter but I understand I have to make it clear on here as well as I never claimed or wanted to pretend I am someone I am not. I am not Korean, I am not a native speaker. I've lived in SK, I've been studying Korean for a few years now and I've finished a Master's degree in Sociology with a focus on the spread of Korean culture. Throughout my studies (and even before) I focused largely on Korean society, economics and politics and I am currently in the process of considering a PhD degree in connection with Korean public diplomacy and Korean cultural export. (Plus my passion is learning languages, I'm currently learning my 4th and would like to dust off my French as well at some point 😄)

That being said, I am not sure what would be the best advice because I believe everyone learns differently, for me talking to natives, going to classes, consuming Korean content and consantly keeping engaged with it is what helps me. Some apps for vocabulary, books for self learners are ok too, but for me personally the active use of the language is the most important part. And in the meantime also learning the cultural context and history of the country along with it to be able to learn how to think in the language and recognize the different social situations.

Most importantly though have fun with it! Try to learn little phrases that you heard from the boys while watching their content, try to remember a few new words from their lyrics. Anything that will make you inspired to keep going ✊️

I am cheering you on on your learning journey! 화이팅!!

#ask #anonymous #language learning

[cksmart-world]

SMART BOMB

The Completely Unnecessary News Analysis

By Christopher Smart

November 14, 2023

GLOBETROTTING A.G. SEAN REYES GOES ON WILD HOG HUNT

You just can't keep a good man down — especially if that man is Utah Attorney General Sean Reyes. In 2022 alone he spent $491,206 on travel, according to Tribune ace Tony Semerad. Just imagine the frequent flyer miles — a bonanza on top of a real chill gig. Good work if you can get it. The cash came from Reyes campaign account even though he was not up for reelection in 2022. His contributors must be digging it. And hey, we need an attorney general who gets around, going on luxury wild hog hunts in Texas, World Cup soccer in Qatar, beaching it in Acapulco and anywhere he can build contacts and connections with important people — especially on hog hunts. Reyes has been on a roll lately. His links to Tim Ballard, formerly of Operation Underground Railroad, an anti-child-trafficking organization, got him some bad ink when five women filed suit against Ballard alleging sexual misconduct. Ballard denies the allegations. They also say that Reyes intimidated people who complained about Ballard's actions. Reyes denies that. Some frowny faces on Capitol Hill wonder how Reyes finds time for his real job. It's the internet, stupid. The A.G. can easily work on his laptop at the soccer matches or on the beach. Don't they know big shots can walk and chew gum at the same time.

THE FIRST THANKSGIVING AND A DAY OF MOURNING

Well Wilson your favorite holiday is coming right up. No stupid gifts, no damn wrapping paper, just good food and plenty of it. We all learned the story in elementary school. The Pilgrims came to the new world seeking religious freedom. As winter came on in 1621 they got hungry and depressed. But then some nice red people showed up with feathers in their hair carrying big turkeys; they brought mashed potatoes, cranberry sauce, dressing and gravy and pumpkin pies and everyone had a great time. Later on, they watched a little football. Plus, there were plenty of leftovers for turkey sandwiches. Well, there is no Santa Claus and Native Americans think our story of the first Thanksgiving is a lot of bull. T-Day for many American Indians is a day of mourning. It's a reminder of the theft of indigenous lands, the killing of millions of indigenous people and a relentless assault on their native culture. Here's something you didn't know, Wilson — the day after Thanksgiving is Native American Heritage Day. It celebrates “Native American spirituality and emphasizes gratitude for creation, care for the environment, and recognition of the human need for communion with nature,” according to the publication “Native Hope.” Ever wonder if us white Americans could learn something from the first Americans. Nah.

VERY PRESIDENTIAL: HALEY IS TOAST, RAMASWAMY IS SCUM

Nikki Haley has cut her own throat. Yep, the one-time South Carolina governor and former U.S. ambassador to the U. N. is toast. According to Fox News pundit Laura Ingraham, Haley's performance in the last Republican presidential “debate” (read sideshow) got plaudits from The New York Times and Politico and therefore she is not right (read too sane) for the Trump GOP. “Politically this is suicide for Nikki Haley,” the blonde gutter-mouth blabbed. If you're not completely whacked-out you don't cut it in MAGA-world. Meanwhile Vivek Ramaswamy, the self-styled genius businessman, commanded the debate stage by calling Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy a “Nazi.” WTF. It may be a popular epithet with MAGA folks but Zelenskyy is Jewish. Perfect timing coming on the heels of the slaughter of some 1,400 Jews by Hamas. Vivek then ripped Haley for her daughter's use of Tik-Tok, aka Satan's video app that Republicans say turns people into communists or Democrats. To which Haley responded: “You're just scum.” It was all quite presidential. The staff here at Smart Bomb still can't figure out what the side-show is about — Trump, who doesn't participate in the “debates,” is a shoe-in for the GOP nomination. And you thought the Dems were dumb.

Post script — That's going to do it for another strange week here at Smart Bomb where we keep track of the polls so you don't have to. Every day it seems there is an new avalanche of polling. Some of these polls have Trump beating Biden even though the Big Orange One has been indicted on more felonies than John Gotti. You're right Wilson, a year out from the election these polls are meaningless, so why do they keep doing them? Wouldn't it save a lot of time and money if each political party just hired a psychic medium to peer into the future. It could be more accurate, too. As an aside, Republican National Committee Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel says it matters not whether the former president gets convicted in one or all of his four criminal trials. She added that everyone knows there is a two-tiered justice system: One for Trump and other fat people with orange skin and hair and one for everybody else. For the MAGA folks Trump is a Christ-like figure who just happens to grope women, get it on with porn stars, cheat on his taxes and suck up to Vladimir “Beelzebub” Putin. He's never committed a crime in his life. But if he has, so what? Sorry Wilson, we know the band is sick and tired of hearing about Trump. Wouldn't it be great to live in a Trump-free world. Dream on.

Well Wilson, maybe the band should do a little something for Sean “Frequent Flyer” Reyes. The guy has run into a stretch of bad luck. It's going so poorly that even The Salt Lake Tribune editorial board call him “an embarrassment.” The worm has turned for Sean, these days if he didn't have bad luck he wouldn't have any at all. So hit it, Wilson:

You must leave now, take what you need, you think will last But whatever you wish to keep, you better grab it fast Yonder stands your orphan with his gun Crying like a fire in the sun Look out the saints are comin' through And it's all over now, Baby Blue The highway is for gamblers, better use your sense Take what you have gathered from coincidence The empty-handed painter from your streets Is drawing crazy patterns on your sheets The sky, too, is folding under you And it's all over now, Baby Blue All your seasick sailors, they are rowing home Your empty-handed armies are going home Your lover who just walked out the door Has taken all his blankets from the floor The carpet, too, is moving under you And it's all over now, Baby Blue Leave your stepping stones behind, there something a-calls for you Forget the dead you've left, they will not follow you The vagabond who's rapping at your door Is standing in the clothes that you once wore Strike another match, go start anew And it's all over now, Baby Blue

(It's All Over Now Baby Blue — Bob Dylan)

[mb-blue-roses]

Which GreedFall companion has the most fics on Ao3? - A quick analysis and why I think so

So, there are five companions in Greedfall. I'm just looking at the number of fics they're tagged in, not how many they're major characters in. Here's me and my twin's predictions for the order.

#1. Kurt (most)

We both agreed on this one. He's the first person you meet, and relevant to the story even when he isn't physically present. Plus, the straight girls and gay guys of the internet seem to think he's pretty damn hot.

#2. Vasco (me) | Síora (my twin)

The characters people are attracted to seems to greatly affect the number of fics written, and a lot of people seem to think Vasco's damn hot. (Which, I mean, I'm gay but I can see where they're coming from)

Síora is your connection to the natives, who are super important to the story of GreedFall. Also, she's one of the three most important companions in the game itself.

#3. Síora (me) | Vasco (my twin)

Like my twin said, Síora's your connection to the natives. Plus, she's quite endearing with her interest in foreign cultures. Also I'm gay and I love her.

My twin kinda agreed with me on the whole people-find-Vasco-hot thing. Also, he's one of the three most important companions.

#4. Petrus

We agreed on this one again. From what I can tell, the internet seems to be Interested (be it for better or for worse) in his story about knowing de Sardet's mother.

Also there are more Petrus x de Sardet fics than there are de Sardet x Aphra. (Which, y'all, what. the. fuck. That's just gross)

#5. Aphra (least)

This disappoints both of us, because we're both quite fond of her character, but the internet doesn't seem to share the same enthusiasm for her that we both do. She's just interested in science and learning about the natives. Also, she's significantly less racist than the rest of the Bridge Alliance.

And then I searched the tags on Ao3 to see how accurate our predictions were.

And here are the results!

#1. Vasco (376 fics)

This surprised both of us. Although, to be fair, people do seem to love writing de Sardet x Vasco.

#2. Kurt (359 fics)

This didn't really surprise me or my twin, given that he's such an important character.

#3. Síora (174 fics)

This also didn't surprise us. She's important and very pretty.

#4. Petrus (124 fics)

Disappointing but not surprising.

#5. Aphra (97 fics)

Just as disappointing and just as not surprising.

All in all, the only thing that really surprised me was that Vasco beat Kurt. The rest of it lined up with my expectations.

#GreedFall #Ao3 #kurt greedfall #vasco greedfall #síora greedfall #petrus greedfall #aphra greedfall #Arty_Girl's_Talks

[cherry-pop-soda]

HAPPY INDIGENOUS PEOPLES DAY!

Here's some things to remember in honor of this day and in honor of Native/Indigenous people everywhere:

Indigenous tribes each have their own unique and rich cultures and you absolutely can learn more about them and appreciate them WITHOUT appropriating them or stereotyping them

Please do not talk about Indigenous tribes and people as if they are a long dead group, they are very much alive still DESPITE all the efforts to whitewash and kill them throughout history

We absolutely should spend more time talking about the persecution of indigenous people in history class and we need to recognize that it is still a problem

Please DO NOT USE WHITE SAGE. It is sacred to many tribes and should be reserved for them (there's more to this issue than that but I don't know all the details)

Indigenous people aren't restricted to being American. They're all over the world!

Please do not call Indigenous people the S word or the R word as those are very offensive terms with a lot of negative historical connotations around them

Indigenous people also face racism, and when we talk about racial issues they ABSOLUTELY should be included.

Do NOT forget about the boarding schools that were set up here in america or the dehumanizing slogans used by such schools.

Do NOT forget about the missing and murdered indigenous women!! Many of them never get justice and the issue is going under the radar quite a bit

If any Indigenous people would like to add on, you are ABSOLUTELY WELCOME to do so!

*I AM NOT INDIGENOUS/NATIVE SO IF I GOT ANY OF THIS WRONG I WOULD GREATLY APPRECIATE IT IF PEOPLE WHO ARE NATIVE/INDIGENOUS CORRECTED ME. THANK YOU :)

(edit: Changed terminology because i found out that “native” has negative connotations in some places so I removed the word.)

#indigenous peoples day #indigenous #native #native american #sorry if it seems like i’m talking over native people #i am not trying to do that and god knows not enough people listen to them #plus i think it’s very important that I learn about native culture and how they were mistreated #because i have european roots #It’s important that people like me acknowledge our ancestors roles in damaging natives #Happy indigenous peoples day #indigenous peoples

[theoryofmagick]

Ash's Introductory Witchcraft Reading List: Wicca-Based Edition

These books form a solitary Wiccan or neo-Wiccan-based framework (I'm not Officially Wiccan but I do use a framework based heavily off of both Wicca and modern tradcraft, which - let's not get into the Nigel Pearson style argument about THAT right now, no disrespect to dear Nigel!) This list covers books that come from a Wiccan or Neo-Wiccan reference point beyond the Gardnerian perspective.

Ann Moura's Green Witchcraft series

I've seen some very conflicting opinions on this one, which I acknowledge - primarily either "Moura is totally inscrutable and I have no idea what I'm doing and none of this makes sense", or "Moura covers the basicy basics but is WAY more dense than it needs to be", both of which are admittedly valid; but I've never seen someone just lay it down like Moura. I primarily use one of her practical-instructional books for reference, and it's a good one; just be aware that Moura, like many others, throws intentional curveballs to obfuscate, so break out that pencil and make corrections based on your double-checked knowledge.

Witchcraft on a Shoestring - Deborah Blake

This is a lighthearted, informative, and fun little book that details some of the "practical" elements of witchery popular on Tumblr, and how you can use household objects, create items, or otherwise budget-cut to achieve the same result. Contains masses of lower-case C craft knowledge, and I still, to this day, use the budget Sabbat feasting recipe book in the back - tomato pie for Lammas, anyone? This book doesn't contain anything spiritually instructional - if you know how to use a wand (or know where to learn it) but can't afford to buy one or don't know where to begin with sourcing and prepping your wood, here's a good beginner's guide.

Drawing Down the Moon: Witches, Druids, Goddess-Worshippers, and Other Pagans in America Today - Margot Adler

Though this book was written in the late 70's, it provides a fascinating insight into witchcraft history and the active sects and practitioners of magic during that time. Astute readers will probably notice some similarities between Adler's groups and some of the groups mentioned in the appendix of Buckland's book! Things during the 70's were a bit "wild west" in terms of Western witchcraft, so you'll encounter some appropriative practices, but it's a very thorough history.

Titania's Book of Hours - Titania Hardie

All right, all right - this is a beautiful coffee-table book about the passage of magical time, listing important days, quarters and cross-quarters, splitting things up by week, and is generally a lovely introduction to the Wheel of the Year from a not-entirely-Wiccan perspective. A thing Hardie does is also include sections for the seasons, so it breaks down quite nicely and is an excellent introduction to the concept of time and holidays ("holidays"! - Sabbats and Esbats and the big Wheel days, more like!)

Almost-But-Not-Quite-Making-the-Cut:

Scott Cunningham's works, especially Wicca and Living Wicca: Okay, by now you've heard the Cunningham criticism, but let me lay it down for you: Cunningham massively appropriates Native Hawaiian culture and spiritualism. He's a big ol softy in that hippie-ish way where he swings right back over to cultural appropriation. He's got that "new age" sting that you prooobably shouldn't replicate. And, from what I hear from die-hard Wiccans, he's out there watering down or sometimes misunderstanding the core Gardnerian principles - but the book doesn't purport to be Gardnerian, so there's that. I'd say it's still a simple and solid general introduction to neo-Wicca and those principles; it has some solid info you can take and use in building your own practice; the consecration rituals for altar tools in particular are ones I still use. Living Wicca if I remember has the better appendix, but you can get a combo-set of both books plus the Herbal, which.... might warrant another post, because it's more than a bit outdated in its safety info!

Judika Illes' gigantic Encyclopedia of 5000 Spells: This is like the "Joy of Cooking" of spellbooks. It includes a huge amount of spells, divided by category, from an array of cultures and traditions. I think it's an amazing encyclopedia, but I'd also caution readers from accidentally (or not so accidentally) using a spell from a closed tradition or culture, and for that reason, I'd not recommend it to true beginners until they have a grasp of their own culture and craft, and understand whether it is or is not appropriate for them to use spells from, for example, hoodoo or rootwork. That said, if you're a multicultural witch, or researcher, or actually FROM the culture and traditions, it's a great simple resource. I've found some traditional Chinese spellwork in there, but I've ALSO gone through and crossed out with a big red pencil anything that's just obviously jacked from a closed tradition to me.

Not a Wicca book at all, but a Tradcraft book, but I'd be remiss to mention the jab I made at the beginning of the post was towards Nigel Pearson's Treading the Mill, a book I love, but whose second edition (imo) reads way better, including a funny and sheepish intro by Pearson himself where he takes the mickey out of his old "Wicca is for softies! I've never used a single Wiccan idea! It's a compass, not a circle!!" ways, which just makes me love the book more.

#witchy books #witchcraft books #book reccs #witch books #neo-wicca #witchcraft #witchcraft 101 #book recommendations

[starberry-cupcake]

Free Short Stories: Aromantic Recommendations

Aro week is over but I spent it reading aro stories that are entirely accessible online (with their authors' consent) and thought I'd share some with you, as well as some extra resources. I’m going to include under “read more” content warnings and specific details, like the kind of rep included or important notes, so if you want to be sure and safe before reading them, you can click “read more” for all that information, or if you prefer just the blurb, avoid it easily enough. There you will also find the extra links of interest and other masterposts.

Edit: This post used to be split in two parts, I’ve integrated them into one whole post for everyone’s convenience. 

1. Nkásht ii by Darcie Little Badger

Josie and Annie set to investigate a strange death that may involve more than they expected. Sometimes the love that heals isn’t romantic and bonds that are strong are those chosen.

2. Hope of the Future by Elizabeth Barrette

In a fantasy setting, a human cleric finds an elf bard and a strong female dwarf, all cast aside for their identities, and create their own home and family. The same characters also appear in another poem that continued their story: The Underground Gardens.

3. Tanith’s Sky by Penny Stirling

Ash is left with the loss of Tanith, after she sacrifices herself to save the world. Tanith's memories resurface in people's minds and Ash has to navigate their identity, their memories and how to label for others’ sake their lost relationship.

4. And If The Body Were Not The Soul by A. C. Wise

Ro is a human who forms an unlikely bond with an alien refugee, discovering a different layer of proximity that doesn't chain to the type of physicality humanity sets. In that process of discovery, Ro learns about the other side of the social oppression in their own city.

5. The Crows Her Dragon’s Gate by Benjanun Sriduangkaew

An exploration of the background and re-telling of the story of the goddess Xihe. Marrying out of the obligation of customs and pressure, this story explores the feelings of Xihe, her relationship with Di Jun and the freedom she ultimately seeks.

6. The Girl Turns West by Darcie Little Badger

Another tale set in Native American culture (the author is a Lipan Apache writer), this story is about family, sacrifice and forms of non romantic love and devotion that transcend the limits of life and death.

7. Kin, Painted by Penny Stirling

The narrator can’t find a place in a family that seems so determined, so certain, painted each in a specific way. A poetic prose filled with magic and the colors that we paint ourselves with, which can sometimes change with time.

8. Cucumber by Penny Stirling

A queerplatonic couple in a fantasy setting deals with social pressure in a story written in poetic verse.

9. The Famine King by Darcie Little Badger

A woman is chased by fear, memories and a being that affects her relationship with her own identity and mental health, while finding refuge in a found family. These characters are also included in a previous story called To Sleep.

10. How My Best Friend Rania Crashed A Party And Saved The World by Ada Hoffman

Emma, a Relator, finds out that her best friend Rania, a World Saver, is being used by her boyfriend and can lose her credibility as a Hero for it, so she enlists a tech-savvy Number Fiend, Deborah, to crash a high school party in a forbidden sector to confront the guy.

11. Unlike Most Tides by Darcie Little Badger

Mathilda is in peace with her solitude until she communicates with energy beyond her understanding and finds the voice of a murdered woman who asks her for help to deal with her killer: her ex boyfriend.

Content Warnings and Extra Details

1. Nkásht íí by Darcie Little Badger

Details: urban fantasy, folklore, suspense, aromantic lead character, main platonic relationship between female characters. CW: minor characters deaths, accidents, the death of a child is mentioned, domestic abuse in flashbacks.

2. Hope for the Future by Elizabeth Barrette

Details: aroace male lead in a poly relationship with a female and male character, fantasy, story in poetry, happy ending. CW: arophobia and acephobia, family abandonment.

3. Tanith’s Sky by Penny Stirling

Details: fantasy, sci fi, drama, hurt/comfort. Main qp relationship between an aroace cis female lead and a non binary allo lead. The aroace lead is dead by the start of the story, which I had my hesitation about, but the story does a wonderful job capturing Tanith’s life in an aftermath of what would be another untold story, as well as Ash’s identity and their relationship, as well as the process of grief and moving forward. CW: major character death, grief, depression, transphobia, arophobia and acephobia.

4. And If The Body Were Not The Soul by A. C. Wise

Details: explicitly touch-averse asexual non binary lead, very likely aromantic (expressed but not named in the text), sci fi, social strife, hurt/comfort, found family and friendship (nb and cis female, nb and alien friendships). Many commenters have expressed that Ro is potentially an autistic character, some autistic authors and reviewers have agreed or disagreed but I couldn’t find whether the author stated that at any point. CW: mild depictions of violence, xenophobia, social issues and unrest, happy ending.

5. The Crows Her Dragon’s Gate by Benjanun Sriduangkaew

Details: the goddess Xihe is depicted as aroace yet marries the god Di Jun for a time in which she lives troubled. Fantasy, mythology, re-interpretations, angst with a happy ending. CW: internalized acephobia and arophobia, dubious consent, violence, animal death, toxic marriage, there is a side wlw couple of mortals who die.

6. The Girl Turns West by Darcie Little Badger

Details: there isn’t romance in the story, the lead character doesn’t seemingly have romance in the future and there is a side female character who explicitly rejects suitors and prefers to live independently yet with her family. Considering that the author has written several aroace characters, I decided to include this one and another story in Part 2 as strong potentials (there is another story by the same author that other sites recommend as aro-representative, but I think these two are a lot less vague). Fantasy, mythology, folklore, bittersweet ending. CW: death mentions, wounds and accidents, blood mentions.

7. Kin, Painted by Penny Stirling

Details: poetic prose, fantasy, aromantic lead character, trans male character, non binary characters.

8. Cucumber by Penny Stirling

Details: fiction in poetry form, queerplatonic relationship in a fantasy setting. CW: arophobia and acephobia, social pressure.

9. The Famine King by Darcie Little Badger

Details: mystery, suspense, horror, folklore, hurt/comfort, angst w/optimistic ending, explicit non romantic & non sexual main relationship between to female characters. CW: blood, wounds, cannibalism mentions, mental illness with hallucination episodes, racism.

10. How My Best Friend Rania Crashed A Party And Saved The World by Ada Hoffman.

Details: high school setting, uplifting, sci fi, aroace lead character in a friendship with a heterosexual girl and a bisexual girl. CW: arophobia by the best friend, which is not confronted or discussed, mentions of racism. Notes: I read this story for the Pride list last year and I didn't include it because I had a bone to pick with Rania's character. The story is fun, a lot more lighthearted than many of the ones here and has a distinct tone that makes it good to include, plus Emma (the lead) is a very friendly, social and well-liked person, rather than the traditional robot/alien foil aro, ace and aroace characters tend to receive. So, even if I'm still uneasy about Rania and how her bad attitude is not acknowledged in the story, I’m still including it for all its perks.

11. Unlike Most Tides by Darcie Little Badger

Details: there is a protagonist who prefers to live in solitude and speaks about it and about her favorable feelings towards it. It isn’t explicitly stated that she is aromantic but, much like The Girl Turns West in Part 1, I’d say it’s a good addition to the list, though it's probably the least explicit of the bunch. Mystery, supernatural, sci fi, suspense, positive ending. CW: murder, corpses, side character death, blood, femicide.

Other masterposts:

@coolcurrybooks's first and second masterpost I consulted

Penny Stirling's recommendation list

LGBTQReads recommendations list

Claudie Arsenault recommendation list

Aro and Ace character database

Aroaessidhe recommendations list

YA Pride masterlist

My own LGBTQ+ free short stories rec list from last year, some of these stories are in it but the majority is not

#book recs #short stories #masterpost #lgbtq+ books #aromantic books #aromantic stories #aro week #aro awareness week #aromantic awareness week #aroace space #long post #books

[danteinthedevildom]

So, talkin abt multilingual Mams, 

I was gonna make this post anyway but then I saw @cheerypining​​ put this in the tags of my post re: Mams’ English in his character song:

I would like to hollar out a hell yes! 

The thing with Mams is that he isn’t stupid. He’s smart as fuck, he’s just motivated by self interest and fixation. It’s easier for him to learn things that are of interest to him, or that expand his interests. He’s got that sweet, sweet ADD brain.

So, if language helps him spread out his influence, make money, expand his contacts? It’s gonna be that lil bit easier for him to figure out. It might even be a fixation of his. Learn a language; open opportunities in the place that language hails from. Gain an interest in how language works. Learn other languages bc it’s fun. 

Consider, then, if you will, for some of that tastey lore-building, 

Mams starting out learning the languages of the most influencial/opulent human powers. It’s beneficial for him to figure out how to speak their language if he really wants to get at their pockets, and you can’t really smooth talk someone if you barely understand the way their haggling works. How is anyone going to trust you if their idioms go over your head, or if you miss some slang that marks you very starkly as an outsider? It’s a lot easier if they think you’re like them; if you know the little things that’ll get them lowering their guard around you. 

He’s great with dialects, too. With differences between the upper and lower classes. It only takes one slip-up using court language around the common folk, or using the dialet of the north in the south, for him to recognise how important those divisions are. He works with trust, and the eventual corruption of that trust, and it becomes pretty clear to him pretty quick that trust can only be attained the more like his target he sounds. 

Dead languages still live on in Mammon’s brain. He’s fluent in them, and even though he hasn’t really had to use them in some time, for some reason they’ve just never faded away. You can pretty much use him as a way to track how languages changed over time, how regional variants were influenced by other languages or cultures, when various languages died out and what replaced them. 

It’s not something that he really thinks about. It was beneficial for him, so he learnt it. Beyond that, it was fun, and he enjoyed it. He doesn’t really give himself credit for just how much linguistic history he has stored inside his head, and he really doesn’t put much credit into how goddamn useful it is - or would be - for modern historians. That’s not what he’s interested in. He’s content to leave Satan to the books, to the past; he’s got more of a propensity for the practicality, anyway. 

Listening to him talk is actually pretty astounding. The ease with which he slips into each language, the depth of his understanding for even the slight nuances between regions, makes him seem like a native speaker. The speed, too, is absolutely stunning; you’ve never seen a more baffling sight than Mammon, speaking mild-mannered in Russian to a witch, switching mid-sentence into heavily-flirtatious French to order from the waitress that came to their table. It’s like he doesn’t even stumble between the two, both as natural to him as breathing. 

He has his preferences, of course. When he’s not using the language for his own goals - doesn’t need to, for instance, be careful about his word choice to ensure a bond of trust is made - he quickly slips into a dialect that is most comfortable for him. He might use ‘watashi’ or ‘ore’ when he’s on the job, might tack on the ‘gozaimasu’ to his greetings to make them polite, but when he’s just generally speaking Japanese? That’s when he starts using ‘ore-sama’, when he drops all the humble or stilted phrases; uses ‘ja ne’ instead of ‘sayounara'. That’s when, in English, he stops making sure to enunciate fully; starts shortening ‘you’ to ‘ya’, cuts off the ‘g’ from ‘ing’ words, starts peppering in ‘crap’ instead of ‘stuff’, lets his words slur together to make ‘whaddaya’ out of ‘what are you’. 

He’s naturally an informal guy! It’s just the way he prefers to talk. He hates the pompous lingo, even if it’s usually the most beneficial to learn for what he does. If the language he’s speaking has a way to show belligerent informality, he will absolutely use it whenever he can. It’s a choice, make no mistake; he can arguably speak better in most languages than the stupid high academics. He just doesn’t enjoy that crap when it’s not immediately useful to him. 

(Yes, that does mean he can comprehend even the most pompously written academic papers. No, that doesn’t mean he wants to read them. He would much sooner stab a fork into his giblets than sit down for any period of time and read that wordy bullshit. Same goes for a lot of Satan’s literature; it’s just not enjoyable for him to read, even if he can perfectly understand it.)

Sometimes a word works better in one language than another. It can get extremely frustrating for him, if he has a very specific point to get across; unless someone knows both languages, they’re never going to fully understand. And why use five words in the inefficient language when one in the efficient language would have been even better for his intent? ‘Fernweh’ works much better than ‘imagine being homesick for a place you’ve never been’, after all.  

Mams has a tendency to drop in words he likes from other languages, which makes some of his speech sound a little confusing. He doesn’t think it makes him sound smarter, and he’s not doing it to show off; just, sometimes, he thinks ‘hey’ sounds better than ‘ohayou’, or that ‘ciao’ is cooler and more aloof than ‘au revoir’. Plus, it’s kinda funny when you’re talking to someone Lucifer and you insult them in a language they don’t understand. 

(I mean, in English, we literally say stuff like “it has a little je ne sais quoi,” [it has a little something that I can’t adequately express] so we merge languages into our own in order to better express ourselves. Mams does the same. He just does it with words and phrases that aren’t always naturally used together within that language.)

Do you understand the amount of skill that comes with being able to do this without even stopping to think? He somehow manages to do it in a way that makes each sentence still perfectly fluent and understandable in translation. It’s a little incredible, actually, considering he doesn’t put any stock into this ability. It’s just natural for him. Why’s he gotta think on it more than that? 

(This does mean, the few times someone points it out, that he gets incredibly flustered. Especially if they say it in awe, or in praise. It really is just second nature to him, not even something he’s putting on for show or something that he’s trying to be good at, so being given so much positive attention for it is... well. It’s surprising, and a little nice, actually. But also genuinely embarrasing. It’s perhaps the only time he’ll struggle to find words in any language.)

In conclusion:

Hell yeah I love reinforcin the idea that Mams ain’t stupid and that there’s a lot of goddamn skill that comes with learnin languages and learnin them to such a degree you can accurately pepper their words into your speech without stoppin to think. 

#obey me #obey me headcanons #obey me hc #obey me mammon

[richincolor]

*As is usual with our discussions, there may be a few spoilers ahead, so beware.*

We all were incredibly excited to read Angeline Boulley's FIREKEEPER'S DAUGHTER when we first heard about it, so we decided to make it our second group discussion book for the year. Come join us!

As a biracial, unenrolled tribal member and the product of a scandal, eighteen-year-old Daunis Fontaine has never quite fit in, both in her hometown and on the nearby Ojibwe reservation. Daunis dreams of studying medicine, but when her family is struck by tragedy, she puts her future on hold to care for her fragile mother.

The only bright spot is meeting Jamie, the charming new recruit on her brother Levi’s hockey team. Yet even as Daunis falls for Jamie, certain details don’t add up and she senses the dashing hockey star is hiding something. Everything comes to light when Daunis witnesses a shocking murder, thrusting her into the heart of a criminal investigation.

Reluctantly, Daunis agrees to go undercover, but secretly pursues her own investigation, tracking down the criminals with her knowledge of chemistry and traditional medicine. But the deceptions—and deaths—keep piling up and soon the threat strikes too close to home.

Now, Daunis must learn what it means to be a strong Anishinaabe kwe (Ojibwe woman) and how far she'll go to protect her community, even if it tears apart the only world she’s ever known.

[Note: While we will not go into any great detail in this discussion, Firekeeper’s Daughter contains murder, suicide, kidnapping, sexual assault, addiction and drug use, racism, colorism, and death of parents/family members.

You can read an excerpt of the book here!]

Audrey: To get us started--let’s talk about this gorgeous cover! The cover art was created by Moses Lunham and designed by Rich Deas. The first thing I noticed when I got my copy of the book was that the two faces at the top had different skin tones. According to this interview, author Angeline Boulley says that “the different shades of the faces symbolizes Daunis claiming her biracial identity,” which is a major part of the book.

Jessica: The cover is so beautiful. It’s next to me on my desk right now and I can’t stop looking at it. Love how the cover ties into the themes of the book.

K. Imani: This cover is absolutely beautiful! I love the design of the faces looking like a butterfly as well as the bird and bear (I think) and the fire. There are so many subtle images in this cover that you can almost find something new each time. And the colors are so stunning. Like you Audrey, I noticed the faces had different skin tones which I found interesting and made me wonder what was going to happen in the book. Knowing the faces symbolize Daunis’s biracial identity now is powerful and really brings home the meaning of the book.

Crystal: I agree that the cover is gorgeous. In addition to the aspects of her physical appearance and physical identity, Daunis’ cultural identity is also displayed within the illustrations with bears representing her clan. In addition there are the birds like the one that guides her and the sun is in the background too which is from the story of the original Fire Keeper’s Daughter. The faces forming a butterfly is also just brilliant for a coming-of-age story. There’s so much to see. Each time I notice more.

Audrey: Daunis, our heroine, is on the older end of the YA protagonist spectrum at 18. She’s dealing with a lot of upheaval in her life, and things only get more complicated in short order. Something I really liked about Daunis was how often she thought about and evaluated what her responsibilities were--to her family, to her friends, to her community, and to herself. These sometimes complementary, sometimes competing, responsibilities strongly influenced her decisions.

Jessica: You mention the complementary and sometimes competing responsibilities -- that’s exactly it. I loved how her thought process was explored throughout the book in such a thorough and complex way. The way Daunis balances and reconciles the interests of her community with what the FBI wants from her and her quest for justice is laid out really clearly. Sometimes, narratives can tend toward simplistic, binary summations of the issues people, especially from marginalized communities, face -- but that’s just not the case, and Daunis really highlights that. To be honest, I was a little nervous at the introduction of law enforcement and the FBI, given the racism and oppression baked into these institutions, but the way Daunis navigates her interactions with them, plus the way other members of the community tell the truth about these institutions, really played out in such a nuanced way. (I really, really hope that the Netflix adaptation keeps these nuances and hard truths in the show, but I suspect that won’t be the case, unfortunately.)

K. Imani: I enjoyed that Daunis was 18 and on the cusp of adulthood. So many YA novels focus on the character’s high school life but a lot does happen and teens do grow and change a lot in that year after high school. Many have left home for college (that was me) or working full time and they are learning how to navigate a life that was not completely so structured. In addition to having to deal with changing friendships as people move away or just become busy. It’s a unique time and I loved that we got to spend time with Daunis as she was going through this change. She was learning how to become an adult in one of the most stressful ways possible, and sometimes I felt she was a little too idealistic, but I’m glad that she kept her truth throughout and was focused on helping her community in addition to helping the FBI. Her perspective helped keep the investigation grounded in what mattered which wouldn’t have happened if she wasn’t involved.

Crystal: Daunis balances a lot of responsibilities and really tries to follow what she’s learned from elders. She considers how her actions may affect all of her relatives within her family, clan, community, and beyond. Boulley embedded a lot of elder wisdom within Daunis’ inner dialogue such as thinking about the seventh generation when making decisions.

Audrey: One of the things that I really appreciated about Firekeeper’s Daughter was the depth of the setting and the characters in it. While Boulley says that Daunis’s tribe is fictionalized in the author note, it’s clear how much care and thought Boulley put into creating Daunis’s community. It’s filled with people who have complex histories (both within and between Native and non-Native groups), with differing opinions and prejudices and goals.

Jessica: This really highlights how important it is to have stories where cultures and communities aren’t portrayed as a monolith. It’s not just the right thing to do, it makes for a better and more accurate story. I read Firekeeper’s Daughter and watched the TV show Rutherford Falls back to back, which really drove home the power of depicting a community with nuance. (Also, sidebar: Highly recommend checking out Rutherford Falls, which does this really well.)

K. Imani: One of my favorite aspects of Firekeeper’s Daughter were the elders in Daunis’s tribe and how we got to hear many of their individual stories which showed the complexity of real life. I loved that Daunis listened to her elders, really took in their stories and learned from them. Her interactions with the elders greatly contributed to her growing sense of self and her desire to help her community. And this is where this novel being truly #ownvoices shines because of Boulley’s connection to her community that she took great care in making sure Daunis’s tribe felt real and authentic as well as culturally accurate. It was not full of stereotypes but filled with real people who had real lives and real stories. I was drawn into Daunis’s community and really cared about the people that made Daunis who she is and becomes.

Crystal: Like Jessica says, there is a lot of nuance here. When you have a wide variety of characters who are not simply good or bad, the story has more power and is definitely more believable. The people in our everyday lives are also complex and have a story if only we take the time to listen. This is what Daunis excels at with elders and others around her. She is paying attention and trying to connect with people. There is a lot of love throughout the book of many different types. The love is beautiful and yet also has some ugliness too in the betrayals. It’s not picture perfect and that makes it so much more real.

Audrey: Boulley tackles a lot of difficult topics in Firekeeper’s Daughter, especially ones that can hit hard on a community level. Much of the plot focuses on drug use and addiction, of course, but violence against Native women also has a significant impact on what happens in the book and affects multiple characters, including Daunis.

Crystal: Daunis and the other women are examples of the many, many, women who have been harmed in the past and the present. That’s not the whole story though. As Daunis is learning, there are many ways of being brave. Throughout the story, we see many women being strong and brave though at initial glance their actions may not seem to be either of those things. There is bravery in speaking out, but sometimes bravery requires something else. These women have done what they needed to do to survive or help their loved ones survive.

Audrey: Firekeeper’s Daughter has a complicated ending, and it left me thinking about two things. The first was how proud I was of Daunis and her character growth. There were a couple of times where she came across as very Not Like Other Girls (particularly with the hockey players’ girlfriends), but that changed over the course of the book. The second was grief at how many people and institutions failed Daunis and her community, both within and without. Just as one example, even though Daunis is a confidential informant for the FBI, the FBI doesn’t come out of this story as a Good Guy.

K. Imani: I was torn by the ending too. I so wanted justice for Daunis and Lily and for others who were murdered, but on the other hand life doesn’t always have a happy ending and I recognize that Boulley gave us that horribly realistic ending because the fight for missing and murdered Indigenous women continues and the fight for justice for Indigenous peoples. It was a heartbreaking reminder of a very real issue. On the other hand, I was so proud of Daunis as well. She was able to achieve her goals of helping out the FBI while staying true to herself and her community. She grew so much as a character and really found her place in her world.

Crystal: The ending gave me much to think about too. Daunis grew a lot as she worked through this complicated puzzle in her community. She learned much about herself and some of the assumptions folks have about others. I also really, really wanted justice, but unfortunately, would be unlikely in real life with our current justice system. I also found Jamie’s growth to be interesting. He is truly struggling with his own identity as an adopted child with Cherokee roots, but no Cherokee teachings or culture to turn to. I don’t know if a sequel or companion book is planned, but I would be interested in seeing more of their journeys whether their paths cross again or not.

Jessica: Audrey, thanks so much for leading this discussion! Now I have a question for you all -- what YA books by/about BIPOC are you reading right now?

For AAPI month, I’m rereading Turtle Under Ice by Juleah del Rosario. After that, I’m planning on reading The Ones We're Meant to Find by Joan He, Apple: Skin to the Core by Eric Gansworth, and Witches Steeped in Gold by Ciannon Smart! Yes, my TBR pile is excellent. :P

Audrey: Next up on my list are The Theft of Sunlight by Intisar Khanani, Forest of Stolen Girls by June Hur, and Simone Breaks All the Rules by Debbie Rigaud. I feel like that’s a pretty good mix of genres and authors right there!

K. Imani: Since I’m needing some inspiration for my vampire manuscript, I’m re-reading and new reading some vampire novels. Currently I am reading Fledgling by Octavia Butler then up next is Renee Ahdieh’s series The Beautiful and the sequel The Damned.

Crystal: I just re-read Saints & Misfits and then dove into the sequel Misfit in Love. S.K. Ali is an author that I really enjoy and I am loving it so far. Next up is American Betiya by Anuradha D. Rajurkar along with Love & Other Natural Disasters by Misa Sugiura. I also think my TBR is pretty stellar.

If you've had the chance to read FIREKEEPER'S DAUGHTER, please join in the discussion below! We'd love to hear what you think.

#firekeeper's daughter #weneeddiversebooks #group discussion #contemporary #thriller

[kyidyl]

Kyidyl Does Archaeology - Part 5

(as per usual, all these posts are collected under the KyidylCL tag)

Pottery and shErds

So, what are we talking about today? Well, I think the next thing is gonna be pottery.  This is where we’re gonna talk about time, space, and dating a site.  Because most people think that the only way to date an archaeological site is via C14.  That’s not true, and actually we don’t always do it.  C14 dating can have some problems, including that the wood used in the fire is likely older than the time in which it was cut down and burned.  It also only goes back 50,000 years, so anything older than that won’t have any carbon isotopes (it’ll have all decayed), and we have to use other things that are more expensive.  And c14 testing itself is expensive - we sent in 2 samples and it was around $500/sample so we spent about $1000 on testing.  Instead, there are other ways to date a site and one of the most accurate is pottery.  

See, like all other kinds of material culture (AKA, stuff people leave behind.  Non-material culture is like...song and story and stuff like that.), pottery follows stylistic trends and trends in how it was made.  And it does this both regionally and chronologically.  Which is great, because if we find bits of one type of pottery we know is made in one place in a settlement in another place, then we know the two people traded with each other.  But I have to explain something else so that determining a date from pottery makes sense.  

Every area of the country has what’s called a “type site” for a given period of time.  In undergrad I was lucky enough to actually get to work on the type site for the Safety Harbour period, which is Weedon Island....ironically enough there’s a Weedon Island period and Weedon Island isn’t the type site for that period so uuuhhh...yeah it’s weird lol.  Anyway, a type site is a site that is considered stereotypical for a given time and place in history.  Usually they’re large and well-preserved, and they’re often the first sites found in that time period/area (but not always, which is how the above weirdness happened.). And so what happens is we dig ‘em and analyze the finds and do testing on those finds.  So now we know “hey, this kind of pottery comes from here and it is X years old”. Now you know when you find it in other places where and when it comes from.  This is all a very generalized explanation, but I think any more is like extraneous detail you don’t need.  Just know that things like type sites help us determine where and when stuff like pottery was made.  Lots of literature usually exists for type sites, but I actually can’t remember the type site for this area for this time period.  

We also use a term called “diagnostic”, which is used much as it is in medicine.  If we find a certain thing that was only made during a specific time period or in a certain place, then it’s diagnostic.  IE, a certain kind of pottery is diagnostic of the late, middle, or early Woodland.  The pottery we have at our site is diagnostic of the late Woodland.  Some of the lithics we thought might be a bit earlier, but honestly I think that was just misidentification by the site director bc we were in the field at the time.  Lastly, identifying pottery has a few components.  Color and decoration I think are easy to understand (they didn’t have glazes, but you can make different colored pottery by varying the composition of the clay and the temperature at which it is fired.). Paste and temper are the other two.  IDK how modern pottery is made, but old ass pottery is made with paste - the main body of the clay, the matrix that contains the temper - and temper. Temper is stuff they’d crush up and mix in to help it not break during firing and heating during normal use.  So we combine these factors to ID the pottery and thus the age of the site and trading habits of the people in question.  One last thing you need to understand about pottery - ancient people used pottery the way that we use disposable things.  They didn’t think it was like an important thing that had to keep safe.  They’d use it until it broke and then toss it in the garbage pit and make a new one.  So it’s really common and we find it all over the place, but TBH in the future pottery *won’t* be diagnostic anymore because our ceramics come in such a wide variety that we couldn’t possibly hope to narrow down time or place.  

Alright, so who wants pictures? You, of course.  Who *doesn’t* want pictures? Here’s some of the pottery we found: 

This is the larger shard that I found in the features I’ve talked about in previous installments.  You can see where I accidentally broke it. >.> Anyway it’s kind of unique bc of the light color outside and the black inside.  It’s like...idk, 4 or so inches long.  

This is a rim piece that I happened to find two matching sherds of.  I always check the rim pieces because the patterns on them usually make them easier to fit together.  Honestly I’ve got hundreds of pot sherds from this site and I don’t have the sanity to try and make pots from them.  

This is the outside and inside respectively of the largest piece we have.  TBH taking this thing out of its box and handling it makes me nervous because of how large it is - about the size of my hand, but I did include my earbuds for scale.  The black is charring from both firing and subsequent use, and it came out of the pit feature I’ve been talking about.  And do you wanna know the cool thing about the inner surface of pottery? Because they didn’t use glazes, the surface was porous and retains the unique chemical traces of what was made in them.  However, the vast majority of the time those kinds of tests aren’t done because archaeology as a whole is extremely underfunded and trace chemical analysis of pot residue is an expensive test requiring expensive equipment and expensive scientists.  Funnily enough I probably could do some of this testing bc I used to be premed and so I’ve taken a lot of chemistry and know how to read a mass spec thing, but I don’t have access to the chemicals or tools to do these kinds of tests.  Plus, they’re often destructive...which....I mean...there’s so much pottery that it doesn’t really matter if one piece gets destroyed but like you do still have to be careful *which* piece you destroy.  

Anyway, you also can see the striations on the outside piece, and that’s decoration on the pot.  It probably also helped with gripping it.  This is a piece of Shepardware, which is diagnostic of the late Woodland period in the Shenandoah valley. Here’s some more cool pottery: 

This is a random assortment of the kind of stuff we regularly pull out of the ground when it comes to pottery.  The most common kind we have is the orange on one side black on the other (3 upper rt pieces), whiteish (upper left 2), orange on both sides (lower left 3) and totally black (lower right 3).  All of ‘em are some variety of shepard or pageware.  You can see the texture on a lot of them, too.  We have a good mix of textured and untextured, and that’s why the composition of the pottery is more diagnostic than the decoration.  Frankly, people can and will put whatever design they think looks cool.  But they made that particular design by wrapping twine around the end of a flat stick and pressing it into the surface of the wet clay.  I also chose those two upper right pieces because they have really visible temper.  Here’s a side shot of one of them: 

You can see how big the bits are compared to my fingers (yeah, there’s dirt under my nails....I haven’t taken some tweezers to them yet after working on the car.). And...wait, I WAS going to try to describe this to you but then I was like “no, they deserve better” and I broke out my DSLR and my macro lens and took some pics.  Here are some macros of the temper: 

The white balance is a little off on the top one...the bottom one is more true to color (they aren’t the same piece of pottery, but they are a similar color).  So you can see that it’s crushed up limestone.  Pardon the depth of field on those...I had to open the aperture pretty wide to get one that wasn’t blurry bc I don’t exactly have bright lights in my room.  

Anyway....so that’s the pottery we’ve gotten at the site and what we can learn from it.  It’s going to take some time before we can start determining patterns and whatnot in regards to style, but we do have some evidence of trading here because some of the pottery we have is from the piedmont culture....

...wait, let me explain what that means.  When archaeologists need to describe a group of people who existed in a given place in a given time based on similarities in material culture regardless of ethnic and social grouping we call it a culture.  This is different than the standard meaning of the world culture, or even the way a cultural anthropologist would use the word.  So when I say the piedmont culture, I mean people that lived in the general area of the Piedmont plateau during the late woodland.  They were of varying tribes, languages, etc.  And we do this to describe the extant boundaries of cultural influence of particular trends in physical objects and not the social groupings of the humans in question.  So, for example, lots of people are familiar with the Clovis culture.  When archaeologists use this term we mean “these are the boundaries of the places we are finding physical objects in the group we’ve named Clovis” not “everyone in this area was a Clovis person”. Like no, obviously, they weren’t.  There were tons of social groups, tribes, etc. that were all distinct and different.  It’s a way of mapping cultural influence via physical objects to see how far they spread and who was using them.  

So, we have some piedmont stuff despite not being in the piedmont area, so we know that they were trading with those natives.  If you’re interested in more detail here, this is the VDHR resource I use for IDing pottery.  It looks like it came to visit you from the late 1990s, but the info is good and it’s easy to use. 

Anyway, that’s it for tonight.  Tomorrow is gonna be rocks and weird stuff, depending on how much I end up saying about rocks.  Probably not much bc we know how I feel about rocks.   ;) 

#kyidylCL #archaeology #science #pottery #native pottery #native americans #anthropology

[hxneydreamers]

Hello dear ! I have read your blogs. You are amazing !!!! (10000x 💞 for you ). I wanted to ask a question . Neville goddard said that time doesn't really exist in manifesting . So actually my sp who is celebrity is very very older than me . Like we have a age gap of 12 years. 😥 as said i am minor. I decided to manifest him when i am 18 . But sometimes i get impatient but then i feel a bit upset and it's not legal to date a minor. Plus he lives in korea . As i have indian parents they never will allow me to even fly to korea. And even if we get in a relationship . They will never like him. Tho my mother is into the group (he is in a group ) she won't ever. As being in india , india is pathetic country with bs Trash . They ( the group is seen as bunch of gays) and most hurting thing is lgbtq is not accepted in this fuking country . Ppl tread them as trash not human. They get so much discrimination ( most of them are transgender ) and hate . Like they have to live together because thier parents disown them and stuff. Makeup is gender less. But in this country men have to be men. like all the fking indian celebrity don't ever wear makeup (males) . (Not gonna lie they all don't even have clear skin like korean ) Skin care is not menly . Men shouldn't do it. The mentally in this country is fucked up.

Now back to the topic.

- how my parents will judge him ? (Most my papa because mom knows a lot about korean cultural but she won't stand with me including some mfs relatives who judgemental af . Relatives ohh my these bishs are hella judgement (most the old one) doesn't matter how they themselves look or personality )

- is he gay ? Why he so feminine ? He is uses makeup damn sure he is gay or somthing he is a girl for sure !!

Doesn't matter how successfully he is and his personality . Doesn't matter how much more he is successful more than you. (Relatives and parent) don't matter if loves your beautiful daughter. doesn't fuken matter if he is caring and financial stable.

- as i minor they won't let me go to even study in korea !

- tbh my plans are to skip 12 or 10 grade (i am in 8 th grade now) and study in korean university as it's one of my dream. Then work as cosmologist here . I want to to have family here.

But but but

My parents hahah never i even asked them they even made fun of my dreams and they said it's gonna take 20 years to reach there .

I am extremely discouraged .

Then on the other hand i also want to desire body before everything happens . Like going to korea and stuff.

I suck at affirming and visualizing . I habe never got results from scripting.

Plus i got my school too. Omg also learning korean too.

Omg i am so done !! 😭 please help me and guide me. And advice me ! i am extremely sorry for my bad english . I am not a native.

Everything is so hard

Hey! Thank you so so so much for reaching out to me! I really appreciate you coming to me for advice! Don’t worry, your English was fine!

*I'm going to begin this post by clarifying that whilst it is possible for you to manifest anything in your reality, I do not encourage you manifesting this person if you are underage and they are much older. You have said in your question that you will not manifest them until you are 18, which is good, however I will just make it clear that this post is to help you manifest the other circumstances in your reality, and not the person or the age gap.*

Let me start by telling you I obviously haven’t experienced this as intensely as you have as I live in a country where people are much more open-minded about sexuality and ideas of masculinity, but I have stories to share with you from my own life that are very similar to what you want to manifest! They might encourage you! (PS, these following stories all took place from when I was at the age of 19 and up.)

(This story is before I knew about manifesting). My parents are very strict and traditional and I always wanted to go overseas to study in a specific country for at least a few months. My parents forbid it and I never would have been allowed to go, but I wanted it so badly that it was all I thought about and dreamed about! I started watching a TV show set in that country every single day. I even learned the language for fun. I somehow manifested it, because the next year, I took a semester off university and I went to that country for 3 months to live. So no matter what your parents say, you can 100% manifest this.

I had a celebrity crush in that country and I wanted to meet him and be with him SO BADLY! I didn’t know about manifesting until afterwards unfortunately, but guess what? I manifested seeing him MULTIPLE TIMES on the street, because I constantly thought about seeing him there and bumping into him! I even messaged him once and he responded. I also had one of his best friends on snapchat because I met him when I was there lol. I never got the celebrity crush because I focused too much on negative things. If I knew about manifesting, I would have gotten what I wanted.

My (specific person) SP who I am currently dating is actually someone who my parents also didn’t approve of for a long time because of sexuality and he is not stereotypically masculine! They also kept telling me negative things. The good news is that now my parents accept him and are happy for us!

Thank you for giving me the background information on your circumstances, it helps me understand your situation much better, and it also shows me how you’re thinking about the situation as well, which is the most important thing.

The beliefs you have are these:

Parents and other people not approving of the kind of people you are interested in.

You don’t think you can go to Korea for a long time

I’m happy to tell you that YOU CAN CHANGE THIS SITUATION!

As I said in the beginning, the age gap is illegal and should not be manifested. So as a result, you should begin with your beliefs about your family's negative opinions and your ability to travel in the future.

You need to stop mentally reacting to what they say when it’s negative about men who are not stereotypically masculine etc, and also when they say negative things about you ever traveling. They are only saying these things because in your mind you believe this to be true. Reality is an illusion and you need to know that if you really push through and persist, even if it feels extremely difficult, you can change this!

You should start by affirming your self-concept, something like this (you can also affirm in your own language if you prefer so it's natural to you :) whatever is comfortable for you!)

I am capable of anything!

I am a master at manifesting!

I always get what I want easily and effortlessly!

Everything always works out how I want!

Then I want you to affirm for your circumstances:

My family is always extremely accepting and encouraging!

I’m so happy that I’m going to Korea!

If you find it hard to visualise you can just affirm. I know you may feel like you’re bad at it, but if you practice it will get easier. Set a timer for 5 minutes and say your affirmations over and over! Make sure you don’t have any distractions. Focus on them. Do this several times a day, every day.

Also, if you can get the app ‘ThinkUp’ record yourself saying your strongest affirmations, and listen to them at night when you sleep. Start with your self-concept affirmations only for maybe 2 weeks! Then you can add your other affirmations.

Your goal is to change the way you feel and think about yourself and what you are able to do, your surroundings and your family’s opinions. Start with these things. Really persist in them.

I hope this helps in some way! If you ever need to reach out to anyone, so many people on Tumblr in the manifesting community are here to listen! We all want each other to succeed and I know that if you put the work in to do this, you will too!!

I also recommend you start binge-watching one of these youtube channels:

Sammy Ingram

Manifesting With Kimberly

Manifesting Secrets

Dylan James

Create Your Future

YOU CAN DO THIS <3

#manifest #manifesting #manifestation #affirm #affirmations #neville goddard #law of assumption

[i-did]

wait id love to hear your rant about how fanon deals with the race in tfc fics/fanon's of everyone else’s race :0

I would like to start this response with the fact that I do not believe anyone is being intentionally harmful in their race head cannons, simply that people tend to follow Fanon blindly and I believe people should not do that, and remember Fanon is only Fanon and we should make our own ideas and stray from the pack more often.

Okay, my thoughts on common race headcanons for the foxes and how they are often accidentally racist:

I know @bloodydamnit has spoken up about this before, but people specifically portraying Seth as black falls into a lot of unhealthy anti-black stereotypes of black men, especially the lack of development people tend to give him. She has written him and deconstructed these issues from her perspective and me a non-black person don’t think I could ever achieve such a thing and therefore do not headcanon him or will write him as black.

I personally headcanon him as hard Vietnamese and half white and made a long post about him before, I love Seth.

Matt and Dan are also often written as black, this isn’t inherently problematic necessarily, but it does often overlook the issue that people see this likely because of Matt’s history with drugs and Dan’s sex work playing into anti-black stereotypes without a tally going into race theory or redlining or any of the following issues in a way that gives them any development.

I like to headcanon Matt as Filipino, his straight hair is perfect for spiking, and dan as 75% black and 25% Oceti Sakowin (commonly known as Sioux), I want to write about how her leaving the reservation was a big deal for her, especially at the 25% mark which means if she is with anyone who isn’t of the same tribe her kids would not be considered a part of the tribe since the US minimum to register is 25% and this was part of her hesitance to be with Matt as well as other pressures. I like to think the baby her aunt had in the EC she ends up adopting from the foster system and that baby is 75% Oceti Sakowin and Matt is super excited to learn about their traditions and bring in both indigenous Filipino culture that he got disconnected with as well as Oceti Sakowin culture that she got disconnected with into their lives with their unexpected kid.

Renee is often headcanoned as Asian, but typically just generally Asian without nuance or explanation and also this plays into the passivity stereotype of Asian women. I headcanon her has African American, with very dark skin and Stephanie Walker was the first black foster mom she had and they hit it off really well, also Renees hair is a wig, no one can bleach their hair to white that’s just… it melts before it does that usually.

Again I’m not saying Renee can’t be Asian, It can be done right and written well, but overall I think it’s important for people to remember why they headcanon things and not accept Fanon blindly. Fanon often plays into harmful ideas. While people of color don’t have to have a reason for being people of color, I think it’s important to notice why you think charters who aren’t described at all are whatever race you headcanon and think critically. Our cultures and races make us experience the world in a certain way that contributes to who we are outside of blanket diversity, and it is important to think about that.

I often see people saying they headcanon Womack as Native American to make him having the tribal tattoos “unracist”, and to make Nora not racist, but Nora wasn’t being racist by saying Womack has tribal tattoos, Womack having shitty Tates in tattoos, which faux tribal was a huge cultural staple despite how cringe it is from the 90’s to mid 2000’s in America. It’s important also to not just say Native American but to do research on specific groups because each culture is unique and different.

That being said, I bounce back between Wymack just being some 70’s looking dad with cut off shorts to Maori where the swirl tattoos are very significant, and Kevin is white-passing but discovered he’s not white like he thought he was, and becomes an AOA history major (Africa, Oceana, Americas, aka indigenous history major).

Also considering Neil and Allison are supposed to be significantly attractive I don’t like them being white because of that, so I headcanon Allison as half middle eastern, (or maybe Indian I have more research to do before I decide), she was told she was adopted as a kid and often her mom would buy her whitening cremes like fair and lovely as a kid, but later found some papers when she was older finding out her dad actually got a woman pregnant and to keep her quiet took Allison and pretended he was such a good philanthropist and adopted a brown kid. She has a lot of problems with this, and bleaches her hair blond to try and fit in with her family without even realizing it. She never finds out who her birth mom is

I am a bit annoyed at white fans constantly calling Nora racist, while also using the lightest skinned headcanons every time for black characters playing into colorism and Spanish Nickys instead of darker toned people. Also, I think people should really try to critically think about their own ideas before calling out someone else. Do I think Nora is perfectly woke? No, no one is, but Fanon is just as bad but in a different way. There is a lot of colorism I see in both headcanon photos people use for the foxes as well as people tending to draw looser curls and thinner noses for characters they headcanon as black. Not every black person is half white and darker-skinned rep is very important. I’ve also seen people use Reece king as a Nicky face claim before and I wasn’t even surprised.

I've also seen people almost always have Erik be “Aryan” some even using the word to describe him unironically, and as a Jewish person this obviously doesn’t sit right with me. I would like to see less straight passing blond haired blue eyed taller than Nicky Erik sometimes.

Again I’m not calling anyone racist, I just think that people should go outside Fanon and think of their own ideas on who they want the characters to be in their headcanons and why. I'm tiers of the same 4 Instagram model photos being used for every Aftg edit, the same light-skinned Dan’s, Matt’s, and Nicky’s. Also while I’m at it, add some body diversity, they’re athletes all playing different positions, I think all the defense players are at least chubby if not plus size. Aaron, Andrew, and Renee are all fat and proud, Nicky and Matt are bulkier with their bodies good for blocking, while Seth is an awkward string bean, an offensive striker who can slip through people quickly despite his height.

Again I know discussions about race can be tense, I am not trying to sound like I am attacking anybody, and I'm not calling out anyone in particular, I didn't even touch on how nicky is written in fanon or canon and how it can often be both racist and homophobic coming from my prospective as a gay latino.

Okay I'm tired sorry this took me so long to respond lol

#aftg #all for the game #fandom politics #tfc #the foxhole court #ask #mailob

[sapphirewolf1122]

¡¿Por Qué Eres tan Flaco?! (Why Are You So Skinny)

Request/Summary: Fatgum/Reader fic where Reader owns a Latin restaurant that Fatgum frequents and reader sees him in skinny form and pretty much yanks him into her restaurant and holds him captive at a table that she fills with food for him and she pretty much mother hens him and by the end of it he's just like "marry me"

Word Count: 1,268

A/N: So this was a request by @gemstoneconstellations that I finally got around to; sorry for the long wait, hermana. Thank you to @crazythypoon for helping me with the translation, as well as your patience and encouragement. Also, this takes place in the Vigilante timeline; idk why I chose to do that, it just felt right. 

~~~~~~~~

Propping open your restaurant door, you started setting up the sign that listed your special of the day. Today, you were offering pernil relleno con mofongo with a choice of either maduros or arroz con gandules for a side. 

When you’d first decided to move to Japan and open a borinquen restaurant, most of your family had had their doubts and strongly discouraged you. Even you half-expected to be returning home after barely a year with your tail between your legs. But the response had been a lot better than anybody thought it could be; it helped that you had no problems learning the language. You had to admit though, your success wouldn’t have been half as great if it weren’t for your star customer. 

Right now, you were working on getting your liquor license. When it came time for the holidays this year, you wanted to be able to sell some coquito. You were even looking into getting some moonshine from home...God, you missed Puerto Rican moonshine. 

You also had some recipes you wanted to try out, but those you would run by your favorite customer. He’s been your biggest supporter since coming here and you liked to test dishes on him. But you hadn’t seen him in a while…

As a hero, it wasn’t abnormal for Fat Gum to seemingly disappear for days at a time. But you still worry, him being the brawler that he is. Last you heard, he was helping with some sort of investigation. Something about the instant-villain drug that had been circulating recently.

Sighing, you stood outside your shop, hands on your hips. Scanning the crowd, you started wondering whether to send out the cart today. The weather was good for it. Plus, it might be a good way to check up on Fat...ugh, perhaps you were obsessing too much. It’s not like you were his girlfriend…

Shaking your head at yourself, you turned to go back inside and tell your employees to prep the cart but the sight of someone stopped you.

Walking towards the shop was a man covered in bandages in a yellow hoodie, reminiscent of Fat Gum’s; it even had the signature black F and G on the bottom. In fact, with the mask, hair color, and the fact that he was currently munching on takoyaki, you almost thought it was Fat. 

Except he was too skinny. Everyone knew that Fat Gum’s quirk was fat absorption, so he had to keep his body fat percentage high. This also meant he had a pretty big appetite. The amount of times he had caused you to sell out from just a single visit…

Yes, there was no way this was Fat...he would have had to expel a great deal of energy in order to reveal his skinny form...but he was known to be a brawler…

The man had caught sight of you and, with a large smile, waved at you. Your eyes widened in horror.

Before you knew what was happening, you were running towards the hero, yelling at the top of your lungs.

"¡¿Que carajaro le paso a tu goldura bello! ¡¿Quien te hizo esto?! ¡Estas tan desperdiciado! Como pudiste ser tan inconsiderado de ti mismo. Tenias que venir directo a donde mi, te hubiera volvido a tu ser usual en menos nada! Esto es lo que te pasa cuando te pones a peliar en vez de defender, idiota. Ven te voy a dar tanta comida que nunca mas vas a poder volver flaco otra vez! Como pudiste dejar que esto pasara... " 

As you approached, Fat froze, out of shock or fear, you weren’t sure. “___, you okay? I can’t understand you, you’re not speaking Japanese. What’s wrong? Why aren’t you using your quirk?”

Your quirk was languages. After listening to a native speaker only a few times, you were able to speak the language perfectly yourself. It’s how you managed to get by in a whole new country. But when you got angry, you lost control and reverted to your own native language.

Once you’d reached the hero, you started inspecting him, poking at the large hoodie. Not a bit of fat left...in fact it was all muscle...shaking your head, you glared up at Fat Gum, momentarily regaining control of your quirk. “What happened?”

He shrugged, which only infuriated you more. “I told you I had a mission and the situation called for the full extent of my quirk. And before you say anything about brawling, there was a bomb; I had to absorb the explosion before people got hurt.”

The next part came out with a chuckle. “Y’know, I don’t think I’ve ever heard your accent so thickly before…your quirk normally masks it so well.”

Scowling, you replied, “That’s because you’ve never seen me angry before. ¡Vamos!”

With that, you grabbed him and started dragging him into your restaurant, grumbling the whole time.

"Idiota, te tienes que cuidar mas. ¡¿Y si un villano te encuentra asi! AHH!?, estarias indefenso ."

You ignored the bystanders gaping at you; they seemed to know better than to interfere though. There was something about an angry boricua that made others cringe in fear. Even Fat Gum accepted what was happening and stopped struggling. 

Once inside, you started barking orders at your employees. 

“Start preparing everything on the menu. And I mean everything! I want alcapurrias, todas las empanadas, sorullitos, emparedados, bacalaitos, tostones, las entradas y postres también! ¡Ahora!”

Knowing better than to argue with you, your staff got to it. Placing Fat Gum at a table in the back, you told him to stay, whether in Japanese or Spanish, you weren’t sure. But he seemed to get the message. With a stern nod, you waved one of your waiters over to get his drink order. While they did that, you went and closed the door, locking it. No one was coming in until you got this sorted. 

With that, you rushed into the kitchen, putting up your hair and grabbing your apron. You were going to make sure your gordo precioso was going to get the best there was out of this restaurant. 

You served him all of his favorites and more. You started with the aperitivos, then onto las entradas. You swelled with pride at the look on his face when you brought out the pernil relleno con mofongo. This wasn’t a special you served normally. You also went all out with arroz con gandules and arroz amarillo con habichuelas. 

After that, you moved onto desserts. Guava cakes, bizcocho de batata borinquen, flan in almost every flavor, tembleque, arroz con coco; even guava empanadas. 

It was hours before you finally stopped bringing out food. Watching as he finished the last of the desserts, you nodded in approval. He was finally looking like his proper self. 

“Feeling better, Fat Gum?” Though still kind of thick, your accent had lessened considerably now that you’d managed to regain full control of your quirk.

The BMI hero looked up at you, his usual large grin back on his face. “Greatly. And please ___, call me Taishiro, even Toshi.”

Your mouth dropped open. “B-but I thought first names were reserved for those close to you in Japanese culture. Forget nicknames.”

“Yes. And you have definitely earned that right. In fact, ___,  I have a very important question to ask you.” The grin suddenly disappeared from his face as he stood up, towering over you. But you didn’t have time to process the look before he suddenly dropped to one knee, his big hands grabbing hold of one of yours, practically making it disappear. .

“Will you marry me?”

Wait...what?!

~~~~~~~

A/N2: Please note that I though I was able to do the foods and such on my own, I had help with the large translations. Here are the English translations as I originally wrote them; the foods you can either ask me or Google. 

-  What the hell happened to your beautiful fat? Who did this to you?! You look wasted away! How could you be so reckless?! You should have come straight to me, I would have gotten you back to your normal self in no time...this is what you get for being a brawler...you’re coming with me, you idiot. I’m going to feed you and make it so you’ll never be skinny again. That you could let such a thing happen…

-  Idiot, you need to take care of yourself. What if a villain caught you like this, huh? You’d be defenseless…

Thank you for reading!

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