#they're not even on the fucking european continent

[alatismeni-theitsa]

God, I always hate that in posts where indigenous people are calling out the denial of European governments in their respective roles in the slave trade/colonialism/imperi8 and the refusal to take accountability for it and without fail, you always get a smug Usian in the replies being like "lmao yeah fuck europe!" With absolutely zero self awareness

Fuck these people to hell and back. Just because they can't bother to look up the EIGHT (!) European countries which did the colonizing, they curse the whole continent of 45 countries.

I repeat: 8 countries out of the fucking 45 (or 50 depending who you ask) countries! And many of us Europeans were second class citizens and traded as slaves during "the colonial period".

These 8 countries are: Great Britain, France, Spain, Portugal, the Netherlands, Germany, Belgium, and Italy.

Also, every fucking time a post about France is out there, without fail, multiple of them say "fuck the French". AS IF they know ANYTHING about France except 1-2 historical moments. They don't even live close to France, they don't even interact with French people, they don't know the real reasons someone might dislike France. They have just inherited a hate for France because of previous centuries and don't know what the fuck they're talking about.

I'm sorry....does France have any fucking power over you - the US - atm, or you just want to bitch and moan while other nations - Greece included - are at the mercy of whims of French politicians? Or have we forgotten how many French (and Belgian and German) politicians have been keeping Greece under a financial leash after our our country became poorer because we saved their damned banks??

Still... I'll take a French guy any day over a USAmerican guy because the USian guy is usually the most snob and out of touch of the two. Oh, and the US has fucked up my country worse then France at this point, and is easily the most powerful Empire at the moment.

I'm not against calling out colonialist powers but fuck everyone who speaks bullshit with such confidence. I want delusional USians to SHUT UP

#us centrism #answered #colonization #colonialism #imperialism

[theconstitutionisgayculture]

That post you shared about invaders and hordes of illegals hit me hard man. I'm from Spain and trust me when I say most Europeans agree that access to weapons should be easier, borders should be closed and the EU should fuck off. We want to defend ourselves too. But our governments do nothing, people are numbed and I'm losing hope. After the elections in France were rigged, Meloni was a miracle, but I don't know how long she'll last. We lived through Roman invasion, Moorish invasion, the fucking Inquisition and that's how it's gonna end? Being swept over just like that? What does it take for us to step up and fight for our heritage?

Honestly, I think Europe is finished as a western continent. I don't think there's enough will or skill in your people to fight against what your government is doing or the invaders they're replacing you with. It's honestly baffling how you don't have open revolt in certain countries over what your governments and the EU are doing. I know you guys can't get guns easily, but still. If it came out that the entire EU is putting docility drugs in the water supply I wouldn't even be surprised. The way Europeans just bend over and let the government do what they want is appalling.

I hope I'm wrong. I hope that there's still some western spirit somewhere in Europe. But I doubt it. Your countries have mostly bent the knee to globalism and socialism and you're going to be reaping the results of that for the foreseeable future.

[eventhorizon8]

so I didn't mean to send that ask before it wad finished oops 😭 I also don't know if it was on anon but if it isn't just delete it please LOL

As for pirate politics, I can't say I'm too sure because I always take it at face value 😂 like I see "I'm a fucking pirate" and I'm like HELL YEAH IM A PIRATE (as in a yarr harr jack sparrow pirate)

In Magellans Expedition they talk about serving the throne and killing the traitors, also they mention traitors walking the plank in keelhauled so I suppose that's the idea of a community working better under a government right? Like get rid of those trying to threaten the government

I think some of alestorms stuff is historical too, even if it's very loosely (ex. Battle of cartagena) so maybe that's talking about past historical political values??

As for ethics, I mean killing people and encouraging alcohol abuse and theft probably isn't very accepted under any political group unless they're like a not very nice one 💀

But overall, I've seen a lot of quotes from the band about lore and meanings and stuff and Chris basically says that he's incapable of writing serious songs so it's all a bunch of shit you shouldn't take seriously 😂 there's a quote from Elliott too that says "don't mistake lore for using the same line again so we don't have to come up with something else" LOL

So it's definitely interesting and I'd love to hear what you think about it and any songs you think are inherently political/ethical but I also will probably continue to take it as it is lmaoo

(BUT ALSO tell me everything, song recs, fave band stories, share any pics you like of them because I'm a new fan - like in the last month or so lol - so I really want new content and someone to talk to about them with 😂)

i also like to imagine myself as a pirate doing pirate things when listening to their music, that's one of the reasons why i like them :)

i don't pretend to be too knowledgeable about politics, i know i'm definitely a leftist, and i think i'm more of an anarchist than anything else. i generally believe that positions of power in any kind of institution are a flaw, because they're pretty much guaranteed to get exploited by people seeking power. this is one of the reasons why i don't think very highly of most forms of government, because they have too much power concentrated in too few people.

Magellan's Expedition is one of the songs that always makes me think of the politics. from what i understand, Magellan was one of those european colonizers who worked for the monarchies of spain and portugal, so i think working for him would be pretty unethical. not to mention the fact that they're probably doing all these horrible things (stealing, killing) to innocent people in the name of the government. this is pretty much exactly the reason why people hate cops and the military where i live, and i don't think they'd enjoy songs that glorify those things. but like you said, the thing about Alestorm is that they're just silly and not meant to be taken seriously, so i never really read into it too much. it's just those times when i do start reading into it that i realize how concerning the premise is.

as for the band itself, i don't actually know very much about Alestorm, i just know i like their music lol. i've never seen them perform and given that i live on a different continent, i don't see that happening any time soon. (and don't worry, that other ask was on anon) :)

#alestorm #metal #pirate metal #politics #anarchism #music #long #ask #asks

[femmesandhoney]

Europeans talk a lot of shit about america to deflect from their own bloody history of violent colonialism. Especially the brits like who the fuck's fault do you think america is??? Lmfao??? They wanna act like they're soooo advanced with culture and art and blah blah blah and the only reason they have such like...pristine landscapes/well-preserved history still present on the land is because they pillaged burned and destroyed everyone else's and used the blood money to enrich themselves. Europeans needs to have several seats and address their own structural inequalities/dirty secrets if they wanna act all high and mighty about Americans. I'm so tired of their obnoxious egos, false sense of self-importance, and self-aggrandizement they try to justify by pretending they don't have skeletons in their closets, too. They looove to call americans self-centered as if they can enter any conversation without immediately going "well i'm EUROPEAN [and you should be impressed by that] and how DARE you not research and study my country's culture and history (not the violent part and especially not what we did to africa asia and the american continents tho aha) before you made a random post on the internet when i don't even follow you. Americans are so full of themselves, they didn't even research everything about me specifically before talking to themselves on their own blog."

And TBH if Americans weren't right about british "food" (pey whet??? Lmfao????) brits wouldn't get so butthurt and defensive and immediately go "yeah well you don't have healthcare 😋" like damn 0-60 real fast, must have hit a nerve a little too close to home, huh? Go back to bootlicking for your monarchy and preaching to everyone about how it's fine to have one ackshually and shut the fuck up about how bitter and jealous you are that americans make tasty food. (Lbr here. No country has a monopoly on tasty food)

i love the UK and find it a very beautiful place, but same as anywhere, there's people who really hate americans for no discernable reasons and just want to see everything we do and say in the worst light even when we're obviously joking around. it's just like can yall lighten up please for once in your life lol. and yeah it's always odd when anyone not just brits try and attack americans for the trauma we go through at the hands of our government. like wow thanks you really showed me!🙄

and you're so right most all countries have delicious food and i do think i'm lucky as an american to have grown up where i did because i had access to a lot of other cultural cuisines just because of the larger city i lived in. i feel very sorry for people who don't get the same access and variety that most americans do, we get to try so much and it's wonderful lol

#i think you're pretty correct in most of this ask lol i cannot respond to all of it tho but its just like yeah basically #i have more nuanced ideas about this but i won't bog down your point either

[thessalian]

Thess vs A Global Laughingstock

So for those of you who aren't aware, this bloody country is still going around in circles about the Rwanda Bill. Catch-up and updates follow:

What the fuck is the Rwanda Bill? Well, y'see, the current Prime Minister, Rishi Sunak, has decided to really appeal to the racist right-wing asshole voter - the kind of nitwit that voted for Brexit because of "those damned foreigners" - by dealing with "illegal migrants" once and for all. For a definition of "illegal migrants", see also "refugees" - people who are fleeing from their country of origin because their country is unsafe. The UK Nitwit Brigade keep bitching about, "They really should stop in the first safe country they find!" and ignore anyone who explains that people are only willing to pay literal people-smugglers to cross the English Channel in very small unsafe boats for very good reasons - like, they have family here, or can speak the language, or all of the above. The whole problem is that there aren't enough safe legal routes for refugees to take to get here, so they take what they can get. Anyway, the three-word slogan currently dominating the noise from 10 Downing Street is "Stop The Boats", and after discussions about things like "literally shoving the small boats back towards France with fucking gunships, inevitably causing them to capsize and drown in the process" were shut down by "lefty lawyers" who care about human rights and, y'know, not drowning innocent people. So then came the next step: "Deport them all to Rwanda".

Why Rwanda? Fuck only knows. I'm assuming it's to do with an awful lot of money. Though weirdly, we seem to have paid them more than they've paid us.

What's the problem with Rwanda? Well, it's been deemed an unsafe country by the European Commission of Human Rights, to which we still belong - it's not an EU thing, it's a European continent thing. The only two countries in Europe-the-continent that aren't a part of the ECHR are Russia (yes, it's classified by the UN as a European country) and Belarus. Neither of which have ever struck me as all that interested in human rights on the whole, honestly. Anyway, Rwanda's run by a despot, and whatever Sunak meebles about how "It's totally safe now!", the ECHR - and our own Supreme Court - have been calling that bullshit out for awhile.

So your Supreme Court said the Bill is illegal. Why are they still talking about it? Because Sunak, apparently having glommed onto this as the thing that will save his arse at the next general election (coming at the end of this year), is trying to write amendments into this fucking thing that will somehow circumvent any and all human rights law, and somehow ignore any human rights law it can't circumvent (like, all of them). This Bill is full of things like, "Oh, our civil servants will just ignore ECHR law and process things like we tell them to!" and "We'll get 150 new justices to rubber-stamp the deportation papers like good little puppets!" and holy fuck, it's kind of disgusting.

So ... and I realise you've answered half the question, but... How is this making the UK even more of a laughingstock than it already was to begin with? Well. Currently the Conservative party that came up with this bullshit is tearing itself apart. Some want the bill as it is. There's a whole cluster of rebels who want to vote it down because it's "not hardline enough and not punitive enough" when it comes to stripping human rights from refugees (and they're also the ones insisting that we have to leave the ECHR, which is part of the laughingstock thing because I don't think we want to be in the same boat as Russia and Belarus). There are a very few moderates who are actually accepting that this is never going to work and saying "enough is enough; drop this already". Meanwhile, one of Sunak's people is going, "If you don't vote for this, start looking for another job". I am only very slightly paraphrasing. So in the run-up to an election, the Tories are fighting like rats in a sack. Add to that the fact that if this thing manages to pass the Commons, it still has to pass the Lords, who have no horse in the election race (they're appointed, not elected) ... and a lot of them are lawyers. Lawyers know very well what will happen if we keep attempting to violate (or actually succeed in violating) international law. They probably won't like that idea very much. So once again, the absolute fucking irony of the "lazy unelected shit-lumps in the Lords" maybe saving our international reputation is beyond compare. ...But that's nothing compared to what Rwanda's doing.

...I am afraid to ask. Well, apparently Rwanda has been offering us (us as a country, that is) our money back. See, we've already paid Rwanda scads of money for even setting up for this doomed-to-failure bit of bullshit, as previously stated. And apparently this is getting so ridiculous and so very obviously blatantly violating international law that the president of Rwanda of all places has offered to give back a significant amount of money just to get his name and that of his country out of the whole mess. I have to wonder at what point Rwanda just goes, "You know what, no - if you don't want the money back, fine, but we're out of this shit".

I'm still terrified for refugees. I don't know what happens with this because seriously, there's no fucking way to tell what anyone in this government is going to do from one minute to the next. But I can still hope that we don't end up leaving the ECHR, because I don't really know what happens if we do that just to be able to send poor miserable people to fucking Rwanda. I mean, beyond the UN also giving up on this whole country because the UN doesn't like the idea of deporting people to Rwanda either. I mean, given the anti-trans sentiment in this country, and the fact that they're already being assholes to the disabled by cutting their benefits if they don't work from home to "do their duty" (yes, that is exactly how the government put that) ... I'm foreign, disabled, and not cishet (though I pass, and I guess that's something but I HATE IT SO MUCH THAT I HAVE TO), and this country already hates me. Take away basic human rights, and whatever replaces it is going to fuck me over very, very hard.

Gods, this place is a fucked-up mess.

#Thess vs the Tories #Thess on politics

[robotpussy]

I saw that post with all the antiblack racists dogpiling. They are all so fucking stupid. Reminds me of today. I was speaking with an Italian man and he told me his country doesn’t have the same racism problem as usa…when I tell you my blood was boiling. Why is it so hard for white Europeans to recognize their own issues? And I don’t say that from a high horse. I am from the USA and will always be the first in line to say fuck the USA

white europeans do this because they're in denial, it would require them to challenge their ideals and thoughts and customs. it is so they can uphold their desired superiority over America which is so absurd because 1. white europeans get xenophobic REAL QUICK, they don't even like each other but they want to say they somehow don't hate non white ppl living in the continent and 2. nobody is able to have their voice heard when talking about racism over here, a lot of people just act like nothing happened, I've heard people yell racial slurs and everybody just sits and acts like nothing happened to avoid "breaking the peace" or whatever its so absurd that white europeans want so badly to believe that their countries are not racist because they're literally the reason why America is the way it is today

#asks

[blautitlewave]

One of the thousands of frustrating things about this Israel v. Palestine thing is how brainwashed Zionists are. Cuz that's what it is. Brainwashing. If they lived in Israel they were given the same indoctrination spiel that every American had up until very recently. If they were raised anywhere else and then traveled to Israel they were also hit with brainwashing about why it's so important and vital that Jews have Israel, why all the meanies surrounding them just want to see the extinction of the Jewish people, why it's necessary and right to have a military as brutal as it is. It's predicated on this fear of extinction that was very much a real threat 80 years ago with the Holocaust, but it wasn't Muslims who organized the whole thing, it was Christians. Christians have probably been the most prolific threat to Jewish existence over the centuries.

And what is so fucking frustrating is that the arguments and beliefs that Zionists have are the exact, exact, exact same beliefs that Europeans had when colonizing and terrorizing indigenous peoples. "They're not using the land right." "It's in God's plan." "This land was destined for us." It does not fucking matter that you were once persecuted to the point of genocide, it does not matter if the people you are targeting are lobbing shit back at you, and it doesn't matter even IF they supposedly also plan to exterminate you. You don't get to commit genocide, no one does, not for any reason or with any historical argument or in any context. And no, just because you experienced one of the most extreme forms of genocide does not mean that you can turn around and say that anything less than the Holocaust is 'not a genocide'. That logic is how genocides go unchecked and manifest in the future. And by the by, the word "genocide" was coined in 1944 by the Jewish Polish lawyer Raphael Lemkin to describe the horrific crimes committed during the Nazi occupation of Poland against both Jews and non-Jews, so using the genocide of Jews as the sterling example of genocide feels like a deliberate overshadowing and monopolization of trauma, terror, and destruction that vulnerable underprivileged groups have faced and continue to face by a State. Genocides happen because one group has the power to destroy another people and thus do it. It does not matter if the group doing it is doing it out of "self-defense".

All this does is remind me of how Whites in the South were terrified of black slave uprisings because 1) They constituted a sizeable population in the region, and 2) Despite all the religion and pseudoscience and economic justifications for slavery, Whites knew exactly what they'd done to slaves and were terrified of what retribution would look like from those who had been mistreated for so long.

That is the position that the Zionist Israeli government is in. Even if they believe Palestinians to be inferior, even if they believe Palestinians to be a thorn in their side that should vamoose, they know that all of their policies are, from the most emotionally intelligent perspective, more than enough to inspire terrorism. But the enduring issue, and the heart of this genocide, is that they don't recognize Palestinians as innately possessing the full faculties that they would otherwise recognize in other human beings. Because they are Palestinian, they are not fully people in part because of what they represent (a people that existed before Israel's founding), and the only way to fully solidify Israel's sense of self is to erase all traces of "Before the Nation". That's what it is at the end of the day. It's just European-derived genocidal state-making right AFTER a genocide had just occurred on another continent. The Jews that helped found Israel deliberately copied the Western blueprints for colonization because they were inundated with European ideas to "re-transplant" themselves into a land that has been dealing with Western incursion for centuries to fast-track them into creating a nation state that then turned around and labelled Palestinians as non-citizens, or people that were not to receive full rights because that's how the state functions, as a purveyor of violence through legal bullshit. The Jews that founded Israel took the pain and suffering they experienced and decided that their desire for a new nation outweighed the pain and suffering that other people would experience because of it, because borders are always stained with blood.

But oh we can't say that because for some reason being victims of a genocide means you're given carte blanche to inflict similar pain onto other people so long as the numbers aren't too high and you have the "anti-semitism!" card to pull out whenever someone criticizes your policies. Policies which are apartheid in nature at best.

Zionist Jews are no different from the Manifest Destiny Christians of yore, who now exist in the more palatable and marketable guise of missionaries. Gag me with this 'oh it's different this time because X, Y, Z" bullshit. It's the same song played in a different time signature, that's all it fucking is.

#palestine #zionism #anti zionism #israel

[peridot-tears]

I think a lot about how US-centrism is a really big thing, and something we USians commit whether we are conscious of it or not -- because, quite frankly, no matter how much we proclaim to dislike our country or want it to change, or straight up just want to leave it behind, it's already been deeply intertwined into our personalities.

But there's also that other factor where when it comes to fandom, we end up writing AUs set in the USA, because, well...that's still our home? That's what we're familiar with? So of course I want to play around and reimagine WangXian as diaspora Chinese growing up in New York, just like me. I think it'd be really funny to reimagine Arno as an exchange student who has to deal with NYU kids out here (I pity the man, NYU is an elitist nightmare). And if Tumblr is a US-based site, where most of us end up gathering, that's just math, right? There are going to be a lot of USians here writing about our experiences in this country, because they're the things that immediately affect us the most.

I don't think it's inherently bad to want to reimagine characters in the world we personally live in, but we do have to ask ourselves some hard questions about why we want to take these characters and put them in a setting that we are comfortable with. Would we appreciate them all the same if they were in a setting unfamiliar to us?

And if we were on a non-American site doing the same thing, and the people on that site got mad at us, how would we react? We have to be honest with ourselves.

Also, HUGE disclaimer:

This is not permission to whitewash characters.

If you're writing an AU with characters of non-American origin, do your research on their cultural norms.

Also, the USA is the "melting pot" or whatever the fuck you wanna call it, right. So is this character going to be an immigrant, a tourist, a tenth-generation American, or a second-generation American from another country's diaspora?

*Or are they Indigenous? In which case, what nation are they from, did they grow up on the rez, elsewhere, and what relationship do they have with their family and identity?

We should still think outside of our country. Realizing and acknowledging that we are raised to be ignorant of the world, and that our country holds a cultural Monopoly (i.e. our fucking media and entertainment are EVERYWHERE, and my roommate from Vietnam knows iCarly as well as I do, and I know someone from Nigeria who grew up on Johnny Bravo, just to name a few examples) are only the first step. We need to deprogram and see the rest of the world as a place that exists outside of us while still being affected by just how sprawling our influence is.

My personal experience:

I'm an immigrants' kid who grew up among other immigrants' kids in New York (note, I say "immigrants' kid," meaning I am explicitly not saying we immigrated, only that our parents did. People assume I came here just because I'm not white, which is some racist bullshit).

I have lived on other continents.

MDZS is easy for me because it's my culture. I've written them as diaspora Gen Z kids, Chinese people who grew up in mainland cities I'm familiar with, and in the canon Ye Olde China (Tang-dynasty-ish, but also a Ming-dynasty AU) setting.

I write French Frye in modern-day Paris and London very easily because as a USian, we're taught that "world history" is just "Western and Central European history." We're a Eurocentric society. Also, I've been in those cities and know people from there.

I struggle with writing Ratohnhaké:ton even though he is literally Indigenous to the land I grew up on (Kanien'kéha:ka were from upstate New York, just a day's drive from me, before colonization forced them to move further north). As a USian, that means I was taught the colonizers' attitude towards Indigenous folks, and despite all my research and talks with Indigenous folks to learn to be better, I will eventually trip up and accidentally say something racist or culturally offensive.

This isn't going to stop me from writing fanfic about him, but I'm gonna do my due diligence and consider the circumstances he would be in in a modern AU.

Yes, I want to write a modern-day AU where he goes to China and trains with Shao Jun, because I'm Chinese and I think that would be neat.

When I read modern AU MDZS fanfiction, I can tell who's not Chinese when I read about WangXian living in a house in China. I cannot emphasize how different the apartment-to-house ratio in most major Chinese cities is from the USA. I don't find it offensive, it's just a really strong tell.

If you're writing an AU set in NYC and there isn't a single "yerrrr" in it, you've already outed yourself (this is a joke).

#idk what this is #issa rant #tears falling like peridots

[thedreadvampy]

American leftists are so fucking optimistic about the state of European politics they're always like AND EUROPE ALREADY HAS ALL THESE RAD DEMSOC POLICIES and I'm like hmmmmm. does it though? I mean France is good at striking and a lot of northern European countries have genuinely ok labour laws but also. waves hands. no recognised national government on this continent is Doing Socialism and a bunch of them are Doing Fascism Again. like lads I know American lawmakers have never heard of the concept of minimum wage or nationalised anything but also. set your sights higher.

and ps similarly lately I keep seeing ppl outside the UK be like "everywhere is awful for trans people. except Scotland thanks Scotland." Scotland is only good in comparison to England on trans shit and even then like the reason this is even a conversation we're having is bc Scottish civil society has been the nexus of TERF bullshit in the UK for like 10 years now.

and the gender recognition reform bill is only an improvement on the gender recognition act that brings it within sight of the legal gender change legislation that's been in place for years in many other European countries - the reform is to make the Outdated Legislation Slightly Less Bad. bc British gender recognition certificates currently require either a formal dysphoria diagnosis from within the UK or you to jump through a bunch of hoops including surgery, 6+ years social transition and, for some reason, for you to have been married by 2014. and you have to get 2 medical opinions to count as a diagnosis. and one has to come from a gender clinic. and waitlists for gender clinics are currently so long that even in good areas patients are waiting 2-3 years for their FIRST APPOINTMENT. my housemate has her first appointment in March and she's been on the list since early 2020, and honestly compared to a lot of areas that's pretty good.

terfism is so fucking rampant here. that's connected to why this is such a Thing, bc you can't breathe the word trans in Scottish media or public facing work without the TERFs and reactionary transphobes descending. and I do not think that's representative of the Scottish public and I do think it's good that the Scottish Government have made moves to address the issue instead of appeasing or ignoring transphobes, but it's so fucking weird to see people talking about Scotland as a beacon of trans welfare when like. have you been here? have you seen the state of Scottish media and Scottish trans healthcare? Like????

#red said

[normal-thoughts-official]

joe is from north africa

joe is from north africa

joe is from north africa

joe is from north africa

joe is from north africa

joe is from north africa

joe is from north africa

joe is from north africa

joe is from NORTH FUCKING AFRICA

if you people make Nicky Italian raised in Italy and Booker French raised in France in every single fucking AU that crosses ur path, then why the FUCK dont you also make joe north african raised in north africa and instead go for him being Vaguely Muslim™ or else the child of immigrants but born and raised in the First World Country Of The Day. Like I know why but can you think for five seconds about your biases before you do this

Joe is from the Maghreb. That's Morocco, Tunisia, Argelia, Mauritania, and Libya. Take your pick from one of these instead of making him from the fucking Netherlands or whatever the fuck for absolutely no reason

a few tips!

north africa is not the middle east any more than italy is mexico. just because both areas have a muslim majority doesn't mean they're interchangeable

if you're making him from jerusalem because of the crusades thing... that means you're making your modern au joe palestinian. you do realize that, yes? you do realize that you're having him be born in one of the most dangerous places in the world to be Arab and Muslim, in the heart of one of the most brutal conflicts and areas of colonization in the modern world, yes? you do realize that you can't just gloss over that?

people writing canonverse: please please PLEASE stop having joe be super involved with european culture shit (eurovision, the eurocup, rooting for random european teams in football), ESPECIALLY if you're going to make him have a weird attachment to the people that HE SAW COLONIZE HIS OWN PEOPLE

France and Spain in particular are directly responsible for the destruction of a great deal of Joe's culture. Like they literally tried to destroy the native Maghrebian cultures. And Joe was there to see it. He SAW them killing and enslaving his people and making his native practices forbidden and trying to eradicate his culture, and changing it forever and taking another part of his past from him. Joe would not fucking sing the marselleise with his whole chest for no reason, are you kidding me

and before you justify this by telling me that well, he doesn't gave a particular attachment to any of these countries because they didn't exist by the time he was born: Italy didn't exist when Nicky was born either, and none of you people ever hesitate to make him super attached to Italy and Italian culture in general. and like morocco was out there commemorating their victories with "dima maghreb" so i think its safe to say that there is still a sense of union between the maghrebian countries anyway. there's no reason joe cant have an attachment to the particular country that now includes the specific territory he was born in, or even all of them

there is no reason other than eurocentrism for you people to assume they have spent the majority of their lives in the first world. at the beginning of the story they meet in morocco. they go then for a job in south sudan. they are very familiar with afghanistan. the only reason they went to london was to follow copley because he blew their cover. also they are constantly traveling anyway, so there's no reason they wouldn't go between all continents and favor Europe for no reason, especially considering that a good chunk of the major current conflicts take place in the third world thanks to colonialism

check your eurocentrism

stop erasing joe's origins

thanks

#salt #tog

[vulturevanity]

Could you please tell us about Tales of Terin.

Oh my gosh. Yes I can. This will get long so bear with me.

Tales of Terin is my project for a fantasy series set in the world of Terin, which is populated by anthropomorphic animals in a magical society inspired partly by the culture of the region where I live, partly by Iberian Europe and South America from around the 17th century -- more specifically, Colonial Brazil (which at the time was under Portugal). I just got tired of fantasy settings based almost exclusively on Central and East European cultures and wanted something closer to myself.

I'll keep this post to a sparknotes version of the lore up until the inciting incident, because it will get long enough without me trying to summarize the world at large AND the entire story AND all the characters, and also I've posted extensively about some of those aspects in previous posts (I may make a masterpost with links to all the relevant stuff because the tag is a mess of character memes, inspiration pictures and some outdated art shfkfjdk)

Anyway lore

Magic in this world comes from five extremely Sacred Stones whose existence in-universe is somewhere between rumour and myth. There are two known gods, Telgaros and Haedin. It's widely believed Telgaros "died", because people were being shitty and he allegedly wanted to wipe them out, so Haedin went "nah" and turned him into the stars, then became the sun herself.

Pretty story, there are even holidays about it, but it's very much not true.

The gods are alive, and they lied. There is a third god no one knows about who's imprisoned Somewhere due to Reasons, they're Pissed About It, and Haedin and Telgaros are currently having a pretty heated debate on whether or not they should free them. And since this somehow concerns the mortals, they're bringing the fight to Terin.

So. Terin. There's this continent called Guaraitá (Gwah-rah-ee-TAH). If you're a merchant or noble living there, things are pretty nice. If you look like you might be trouble, though, get ready to have a bad time. It's what happened to Ani, the jailbird, one of our main characters. He used to be a high-grade thief along with his childhood friend and partner in crime Agatha. They scammed nobles out of a pretty penny for years, until Agatha fell in love with one of their targets and betrayed him. Just like that: sentenced to 25 years in the dungeons. The justice system is pretty nasty to people who mess with nobles.

But then something funny happened. A decade before the end of his sentence, the rich guy who threw him under comes up and offers to pardon him if he manages to track down Agatha and bring to him their child, whom he'd never got to meet, as his health is deteriorating and he needs an heir. Huh. That's one hell of a way to find out she'd ditched her noble lover while pregnant. Ani's feeling pretty bitter about... everything right now so he takes the offer out of spite, pretty certain he knows her enough to find her even after 15 years.

So he gets Parole Bracelets put on him (more on that here) and sets off to the very quaint Sun Village, a rural town at the edge of a beautiful forest. The fertile ground is great for farming, the DuBach family (renowned for their grade-A dewcattle*) is even established here, but mostly it's small commerce and a tight-knit community. And there, on that morning, in their old hometown, as Ani predicted, he sees Agatha. He finds her at the farmer's market, a smaller, lighter-furred version of her clinging to the hem of her dress.

He feels approximately 37 different emotions when their eyes meet, and after a minute of looking at him like he's a ghost, she manages to reluctantly invite him for coffee and cake later at her house. Which he accepts, partly because he really, really missed Agatha, partly because he's planning to be extremely petty and vengeful and abduct the little pup -- Jade, he learns -- and bring her to his patron against her will because fuck Agatha, he hates Agatha, and he has a job to do.

But he never gets the chance to, because at noon the town is gone, engulfed in flames, as are the entire forest and the crops and most of the dewcattle. The terinians who survived the giant wave of magical fire are desperately running around trying to save themselves, their friends and their valuables. Ani knows he won't get pardoned if he brings back a corpse, so he bolts to Agatha's house and finds her crushed under rubble, having shielded little Jade from it (Jade herself got hit while trying to grab her little accordion and fell unconscious). With her dying breath, she begs for forgiveness and for him to take care of Jade. He uh. He takes Jade and leaves without a word.

After the chaos dies down and grief sets in, the fraction of the village's population that survived congregates at the edge of town, where Malvina DuBach is organizing the people so her friend Rusty can use his healing magic to help everyone he can. As Ani approaches, Rusty recognizes the little Jade and immediately tells him to jump the line so he can heal her. They introduce themselves, Ani tells them he's taking her to the Capital, and they offer to take him there in their wagon, since they're coincidentally also going there. He reluctantly takes the offer, since the journey back on foot would take too long.

Not two days after, they're intercepted by a stranger who introduces himself as Theo, says the world is starting to end and he needs help stopping that. Shenanigans ensue, they end up embarking on a worldwide journey for the Sacred Stones.

Any follow-up questions?

Oh, also Magnolia caused the fire.

Edit: oh, forgot to clarify: Dewcattle is what they call the equivalent of cows in this world, because non-sapient animals are fusions between normal animals and bugs. In this case they're cows who are also aphids. Pretty fluffy and produce honeydew instead of milk.

#tales of terin #i am vibrating #thanks for the ask! #padeko

[mishkakagehishka]

Korka I just came back from work and was so shocked and concerned when I saw you mentioning a hate anon at the top of my dashboard so I went on your blog to see what happened, kind of doom-scrolling, trying to prepare myself for what might have triggered this ( because fuck you anon, what is wrong with you)

And what brought on all of this was... a post where you said that not all literature classics originated from English speaking countries? Like THAT is what caused someone to send petty anon hate to you??? 😭

I'm glad you seem to be taking it well though, all things considered

SHAHSBDBDN sorry for giving you a fright! I hope you've had a good day at work, tho!

And literally right????😭 But, here's the thing. I pride myself on being able to see from anyone's point of view and understanding people's motivations for almost anything. This isn't my first rodeo, as I said, people getting angry at me when I said I'd like people to start saying "dalmatian dogs" is smth I understood - Oh, I was angry when I wrote the post, I came across agressive, so they must have felt attacked. And when you feel attacked, you want to defend yourself, and this is how people often do that - by attacking back" and I could like. Calmly eplain myself to those off-anon (and make fun of anons), bc I understood that they're just responding in an emotional way to what they assumed was me attacking them first, is what I'm saying.

But THIS PERSON😭😭 took me saying "classics aren't just anglo" and "you should read classics from as many countries as you can because it's enriching and will broaden your horizons" and they somehow extrapolated "I think my culture specifically is superior to all others" from that. I've seen people fail reading comprehension exams for less. Not even mentioning the "europeans don't deserve rights" bc 1) that was such obvious bait and 2) my post was a response to calling classics only english and white american. What continent do they think those would be from?😭😭

Man. As I said. So many more valid things to send me hate over. If someone was on anon calling me a freak for writing gore I'd just go "Understandable, it's not for everyone, and I know I seem like a maniac when you don't know why I write it" but this...😭😭😭

#in conclusion idk i just. what the fuck my brother #asks

[oldfritz]

for the ship bingo: pruhun, fruk, and frederick the great/his own wife

ok first off, dear anon, thank you for including three ships i have Thoughts about. blowing you a little kiss. my thoughts are under the cut to be respectful of everyone else's time

PruHun

this is my crack, this is my heroin, it's the air i breathe. gun to my head, if you asked me to pick my one supreme OTP it's them. i don't even care about the historical grasping of straws you gotta do to "justify" it - though that is fun! - they're just...so compatible. i could wax poetic on gil + erzsi for hours on end, but i try to let my fanfics do the talking on them and, brothers, their ao3 tag alone proves how much i have to say on them. the worst part about my love of them though and going back so hard into my own fanfic-verse is that...well, i'm picky now. there's a specific version of pruhun i'm looking for and there's been one or two other authors on ao3 (in english!) i found who even came close but my favorite of which deactivated (cuneifire, whoever you were, i miss you </3). thankfully, there are quite a few fanartists here with the same vision but nothing compares to the written word. i'm trying to keep this reasonable since there's three other ships to talk about, but you get the idea. you ever need someone to fangirl over gil and erzsi, i'm your girl

FrUK

as i've said before, it took me a hot minute to get into them because i was such a USUK fan. but...i'm english, i am a casual enjoyer of english history. shipping them was bound to happen, though it did take me becoming closer to adulthood and engaging with more books, film, and tv with some fucked up psychological themes to 'get it.' i don't like when it's all cute and fluffy for them, i just can't buy into that. you're telling me that these two ancient entities and former superpowers who got into wars against each other on virtually every fucking continent are now, what? snuggling up together in front of the telly while francis reads and arthur knits? what's next, ivan and alfred making sweet tender love in the ISS? ('yes,' i hear you guys say, 'that's what exactly what we're saying you curmudgeon'). keep the frog and the limey's love affair toxic!!

Fritz and....Elisabeth Christine

kinda have to put my historian hat on for this, but i can't ship this. i know too much. you have to be either homophobic or incredibly ignorant on european monarchy in the 18c. to look at these two and think 'wow! such love and tenderness here!' he was repulsed by her before he even met her. upon seeing her for the first time after the seven year's war, he told her she'd gotten fat. one member of elisabeth christine's staff, who really admired fritz, resented how terribly he treated her! modern historians (myself included) are flummoxed at why even after his death she retained any loyalty to him. as i circled above, it's so bad and atrocious that it becomes almost comical. i wish FW1 had allowed fritz to marry his cousin, not for any 'rule britannia' reasons, but because i wish elisabeth christine had had a chance to marry someone who would've at least tolerated her and not torn her down in every conceivable way with his equally bitchy sister!! modern AU where she divorces him and she works as a translator without having to be chained to shitty men like frederick (and so he can just marry katte, fredersdorf, or some man. some poor man take one for the team. be a feminist)

#asks #anonymous #thank you this was very very fun! #especially for including gil and erzsi. i figured no one would ever ask me about them because its so obvious but really. warmed my heart #hws fruk #hws pruhun #old fritz #elisabeth christine

[gaykey]

is air conditioning rare in the uk?

i mean, not rare as in, unheard of.

like, of course most shops, restaurants ect. have it, and some.....public transport has it (trains and maybe a bus here & there will have air con, but it's not the norm. and the tube, which is underground!! has only recently started installing aircon.)

but, in terms of homes? i'd say only middle to upper class families have it? if they're particularly boujie.

it's because it's just? not worth the money.

very hot weather isn't common here - houses are designed to keep heat in, because it's often colder here than not.

yes we get the few odd days or week or two every year, but, it's just not cost effective to install an aircon system when the annual average high temperature is 14°c/56°f and the low is 6°c/43°f.

especially currently when energy prices are at an all-time high.

in very hot temperatures, the average brit relies on fans and open windows.

so, yes, our hot days are few and far between, but they really do hit different here.

our humidity level is higher than on the european continent, so even 25°c/77°f here can feel like over 35°c/95°f in other places.

we're a fucking shambles anon. we don't cope well with extreme heat or extreme cold.

#anon #the way i didn't know air con was a thing you could have in your own home for a long time lmao

[claratyler]

bro do you ever just read up on some aspect of american (as in the continent) history and go like bro..what a mess the colonial powers made, a mess we will never clean up. This is in light of me reading the wikipedia article for Guyana bc the Venezuela-Guyana debacle in the news again. Also because i've been reading a book about mexican history. The enormity of the scars european colonialism left makes me feel a little sick. How do you even move forwards? How do you even begin to address all the shit it left behind?

Ah yes, but you go to London/Madrid/whatever and they've got their wealth and "progress" and resources and education and its like..do the citizens even know why they're so well off?? Do they know? sure, i bet they touch on these topics in mandatory history courses at school, but do europeans really, profoundly understand that the comfort they take for granted and experience every day was at the expense of so many lives, annihilated cultures and knowledge that was destroyed for good, genocide, centuries of occupation, slavery, segregated societies and ravaged native lands and resources? Do they know of the racism and disparity in american countries? That is direct legacy of what they've done? Do they know of the indigenous people to these lands THAT ARE STILL VERY MUCH HERE that face marginalization, erasure and poverty? Do they really actually know???

Note: also yes, you all say fuck the english and fuck the french, but also fuck the spanish and fuck the portuguese and fuck the dutch

[disquiet-doll]

fantasy western is one of those things that's so... complicated

because like, i like the aesthetic of a western a lot! it's kind of a vice for me.

but uh, you can't really escape the Problems there. y'know. colonialism and such. lionization of american imperialism.

and the thing is a lot of more modern stuff using the aesthetic gets around that in a way that's like, better than the older stuff in the genre but still bad, by which i mean just ignoring that native americans exist and focusing on conflicts between settlers.

(better because hey at least if they ignore them they're not being extremely racist about them, but obviously worse than y'know. going "yeah this is fucking awful" like they should. kind of obvious why that doesn't happen as much as it could, though.)

and the problem i have is with fantasy westerns i kind of expect them to either:

do the above but even harder by making terra nullius real - mysteriously uninhabited continents, continents where the people mysteriously disappeared but like from magic not colonialism, etc. OR

have a native american analogue but get weird about it, mostly because a lot of the fantasy genre is often dedicated to being weird about in-universe indigenous people just like, not!European ones or not!Asian ones (and occasionally not!African ones) already, so. yeah.

which are both uh, obviously not ideal.

would kind of need to be someone who can be trusted to include colonialism and like, actually depict it well, and people like that are few and far between.

(i mean if fromsoft does cowboy bloodborne or something like that i'll probably still play it, but i'll have at least part of my brain going "hmm....." the whole time. 's how it goes.)

(also space cowboys - something i again, love even if i recognize The Problems - are in an even weirder spot, where it's like. ok so yes terra nullius bad. but also unlike fantasy where you have to go out of your way to do that, space is like... actually empty. so it's kinda complicated, although at the end of the day choosing to use the whole "american frontier" aesthetic is like, a thing one does by choice, so y'know. worth at least thinking about even if they don't do an uncomfortable native american aliens thing or something.)

#musing