a-personiftranslator

[a-personiftranslator]

A CountryPapers Map of Papers, Please. (1982)

Author's comment:

"Papers, Please map, in a form of Cartographic propaganda. It's much different to my usual artworks (using 3 colors) and it was a pain! I hope you enjoy regardless!"

[a-personiftranslator]

Countryhumans being disconnected with their body has to go crazy because what do you mean your appearance changes based on some shit like territorial gain/loss and changing of flags

[a-personiftranslator]

hi

[a-personiftranslator]

ngl like 90% of the reason im making everyone//everywhere is so i can have personifwhump without the. violations of my personal ethics code that come with doing that to real ones

[a-personiftranslator]

[a-personiftranslator]

Hey, so as a person who has in my unpublished works a story wherein APH Greenland is minorly featured, after I saw your post complaining about Greenland's current characterisation in fanworks, I realised that my story 100% fits all the things you were complaining about. And if it's not too much trouble how would you characterise Greenland in a way that is less problematic?

Or do you have any reccomendations for resources I can use to educate myself about Greenlandic culture?

So, I will preface this with the following:

I AM NOT INDIGENOUS. I AM NOT INUK. YOU SHOULD GO ASK SOMEONE INDIGENOUS OR BETTER YET, SOMEONE WHO IS GREENLANDIC INUIT.

However, in this post, I will primarily give some guidelines that are generally applicable to any nation personification of color that has experienced colonialism/imperialism by a Western nation and is still dealing with its legacy. Keep in mind that what you're asking for is a lot, however- we're touching on topics of national anthropomorphizations in political cartoons, the depiction of the colonized, particularly the indigenous, and the relationship between the colonized and the colonizer.

Don't make Greenland America and Canada's relative.

Don't make Greenland Denmark's kid, biological or otherwise.

Don't use sensitive contemporary issues in Greenland for fandom content.

Don't Make Greenland America and Canada's Relative

Every time I've seen this come up, this is usually justified one of two ways-

a) Greenland is related to America and Canada because the Vikings set up the first European settlements in continental North America, so they would be related via their Norse heritage. b) Greenland is related to America and Canada because America and Canada have a native parent, and Greenland is a sibling of that native parent.

To head things off- The first one is bad. See my next section for the issues of making Greenland a child of the Nordics/Nordic ancestors.

The second one almost always carries the implication of that the native parent of America and Canada is some kind of nebulous pan-American "APH Native America" personification; the issues with having the many indigenous peoples of the Americas as similar and interchangeable enough to warrant only one personification to represent them all are obvious, I should hope.

The slightly more plausible alternative is that America and Canada's native parent represents some Inuit group, and through that, Greenland is their sibling. Even if more plausible, we run into the same issue of turning a group into a monolith- there are many different Inuit groups, all with their own unique histories and cultures. Though Inuit groups may be more related than all Indigenous Americans to each other, they are still not a monolith, and determining their relationships to each other shouldn't be resolved with a blanket solution of "they're all related, nuff said."

If we want to dig into the weeds of historical accuracy, it makes no sense for America to have Inuit heritage, seeing as the United States began as the Thirteen Colonies in the Eastern Seaboard of the modern United States which doesn't overlap with the traditional lands of the Inuit. The Alaska Purchase was not made until 1867, hundreds of years after the establishment of the Thirteen Colonies.

I would also like to point out another issue I’ve seen with many “Auntie/Uncle Greenland depictions” in the fandom. Whenever you do see such depictions of Greenland in the fandom, almost never do we see the creator of such interpretations shedding light on any other indigenous characters (particularly ones not related to the USA and Canada). Therefore, such depictions are exceptionalizing and exalting an indigenous character above all other indigenous characters because they have more of a connection to major Western countries. 

Overall summary: The primary issue with making Greenland related to America and Canada is that Greenland is never allowed to exist outside of their links to these two. If you want to depict Greenland with respect, the most basic thing you can do is to not reduce Greenland into a tool for you to better characterize America and Canada and flesh out their background.

Don't make Greenland Denmark's Child, Biological or Otherwise

TW: racist caricatures of black, Latino, Native American, and Asian people

So first some quick historical background: Norse settlement of Greenland began around the 900s-1100s and died out sometime between 1450 and 1500 due to a variety of environmental and sociopolitical reasons. The surviving Norse settlers most likely either left or assimilated with the local Inuit populations, so there is some genetic legacy, but 85-90% of the population of Greenland today considers themselves Greenlandic Inuit.

For the following centuries, there were sporadic interactions between European whalers and the local Inuit. It was only until 1721 that another attempt at colonization was made, this time by the missionary Hans Egede, who founded a trading company and Lutheran mission near present day Nuuk, with the express permission of the Kingdom of Denmark-Norway.

Greenland took on a special status in both Danish policy and imagination, a far-off land that was "vulnerable" to other nation's influences and in need of Danish protection. In line with that thinking, the Danish state held an exclusive monopoly on Greenland's resources and all trade with Greenlanders. It pressured Greenlandic Inuit to stay in their occupations of hunting and fishing so that Denmark could maintain access to resources Greenland provided, mainly animal products from local wildlife the Inuit hunted.

Additionally, the Danish also tightly regulated interactions between the Danish colonial population and the local Inuits. For a time, intermarriage was strictly controlled, limited to only Danish men and Greenlandic women of mixed descent and had to be approved by the colonial administration. When the US wanted to build military bases on Greenland for military purposes during WW2, a major concern of Greenlandic authorities was minimizing contact between the US soldiers and the local Inuits.

Of course, Greenland didn’t stay this way forever. Against Denmark’s wishes, Greenland did open up and become further integrated into the global economy and order of nations, and to this day a lot of Greenlanders have a Danish ancestor somewhere in their family tree.

However, to make Greenland (substantially) related to the Norse is to do a disservice to the hundreds of years of Greenlandic Inuit culture that already existed and then continued to thrive for hundreds of years in the absence of continued Nordic contact and influence. It implies that the ethnogenesis of the Greenlandic Inuit was kicked off by the Norse settlers, when in reality, the Greenlandic Inuit are largely descended from the native Thule people and later waves of migration of other Inuit people from modern day Nunavut and Nunavik. To make Greenland the child of Denmark is worse, and stands in stark contrast to the fact that compared to other nations and their settler colonies (think, England and America), Denmark heavily controlled Danish migration to Greenland and wanted to keep Greenland isolated and contained.

Now, moving past the issue of historical accuracy, there's been a long history in political cartoons starring national anthropomorphizations of allegorizing international relationships as familial relationships, or "mentor-mentee" relationships, especially when it comes to colonizer-colony relationships.

REPORT FROM THE FILIPINES Send more soldiers -Otis Uncle Sam: Balm in Gilead! Well, thank heavens both my new daughters haven't got the same disposition.

'School Begins', cartoon of Uncle Sam teaching a class in civilisation to pupils labelled 'Philippines', 'Hawaii', 'Porto Rico' and 'Cuba'

In these cartoons, the colonized is portrayed as child-like, infantile, in need of the US's benevolent guidance to be "civilized." After all, if the relationship between the colonizer and its colonial possessions was like that of a parent and their children (or a teacher and their students)- well, children need their parents, so therefore, the colonies need the colonizer and its guidance, right? By doing so, it portrays the relationship between the colonizer and its colonies as a necessary, benevolent one, one done for the benefit of the colony, and masks the inherently exploitative, unequal nature of colonialism. 

To make Denmark a parental influence on Greenland, then, is to replicate the same paternalistic attitude Denmark took to Greenland as a colonial possession in need of guidance and direction, and possibly whitewashing the toll Danish colonization has taken on Greenland. Even depictions of Denmark and Greenland that emphasize their “little brother/big brother” relationship are problematic, because they fall into the same colonial rhetoric of Greenland "needing" Denmark's civilizing guidance.

Moreover, sensitivity is another concern for depictions of Greenland. At the risk of speaking for groups I do not belong to, having a child Greenland be raised by Denmark and the other Nordics (esp if Greenland has a negative relationship w them) hews a little too closely to the real life kidnapping of Indigenous children from their families to be raised instead by white families, in an attempt to remove them from their heritage and culture. Unless you're actually Greenlandic Inuit or indigenous, I don't think this is your story to tell.

Don't Use Sensitive Contemporary Issues in Greenland for Fandom Content

Don't use sensitive contemporary issues for fandom content, especially as an outsider. Don't be like the person I saw making angst headcanons around Greenland's high suicide rate.

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Recommended Reading

This video is a great introduction to Danish colonization of Greenland, and how I began my dive into Greenlandic history. Bear in mind that this is a 25 minute long video, so it's compressing a lot, but it's a jumping off point, not the end-all be all. Content warnings should be in the beginning of the video.

Phasing out the Colonial Status of Greenland by Erik Beukel

This is a report commissioned by the Danish government and Greenlandic Home Rule analyzing the period between 1945 and 1954, where Greenland's status was changed from that of a colony to an equal part of the Kingdom of Denmark. It's a series of political science essays looking at this period, but I found Chapter 2 the most useful, as it provides an overview of the relevant historical background factors in the relationship between Greenland and Denmark. Warning for some dated language (mostly because it uses Esk*mo at certain points) but otherwise there's not really any content warnings.

Worldviews of the Greenlanders: An Inuit Arctic Perspective by Brigitte Sonne

I haven't fully read this book so I can't totally vouch for this, but given the difficulty of accessing academic material of Greenland (especially as someone who doesn't speak or read Danish), this does fill in some much needed gaps in perspectives on Greenland. I realize the inherent problems of needing to read about Inuit perspectives in a book compiled by an outsider academic as well as the issues with the field of ethnography as a whole, but this may still be useful to some!

Articles I enjoyed that look at Greenlandic history and contemporary issues:

The Arctic Suicides: It's Not the Dark that Kills you

A Brief History of the Indignities Heaped Upon Greenland

How a failed social experiment in Denmark separated Inuit children from their families

[a-personiftranslator]

Ive just realised your map shape reminds me of a dog

at least 3 other people have told me this. i may change it

[a-personiftranslator]

I feel like one of the reasons why the US is Like That is the difference between countries and states. Because apparently when you're nominally still the same country, different states can pull absolute bullshit on each other that would not fly in relations between two countries.

Like if idk Belgium decided "hey we have this huge homelesness problem that we've been neglecting for decades while allowing it to get progressively worse, but we figured out how to fix it: we're loading all the homeless people onto buses and moving them across the border to France", the french response wouldn't just be "aw naw ugh I wish they couldn't do that :/"

It'd be "hey buddy that's really funny, do you want to see how fast we can get tanks on the streets of your capital?"

[a-personiftranslator]

For some reason tumblr wont let me answer your ask but I LOVE that song! Thanks so much for sharing!

no problem :)

[a-personiftranslator]

stupid topography map wip for everyone//everywhere and shadow silhouetting for qeltramarr from the beyond the ice wall project comparison. pleased to note its the same software outside and inside my brain. i don't know how mountains work but i have reference images

[a-personiftranslator]

Ironically, while I was drawing my Reno and Vegas art today the song “I Am the City” by ABBA came on, and it’s honestly perfect. I have honestly never heard it before today and idk how bc I normally consider myself really good at finding personification-themed songs/media.

Somewhere in the middle of the never ending noise

There is a constant steady rhythm of a heart that beats

And a million voices blend into a single voice

And you can hear it in the glamor of the crowded streets

People come and take their chances

Sometimes you win sometimes you lose a lot

Come make your own contribution to this melting pot

//

I'm the street you walk

The language you talk

I am the city

The skyline is me and the energy

I am the city

The famous hotels and the cocktail bars

And the funny smells

And the turmoil, the cars and the people

The air that you're breathing is me

Yes I am the city, you let me be

People feed me with their lives I have a hungry soul

And they all worship me and pay their homage day and night

Every day I knew a lot of tired shopping feet

But come the night they will be dancing in the neon light

Dazzled by the crazy magic

They're grabbing pieces of the fatted calf

And in the wind if you listen hard you'll hear me laugh

@a-personiftranslator I think you’ll like this one!

[a-personiftranslator]

My version of NV cities! (They’re sisters)

^^A user in the Reno subreddit, describing Reno^^

So I had to draw the aforementioned as-described Hot Mess Reno, and then figured, what the hell, I’ll add in Las Vegas as well because they go through their lives constantly being compared.

Some headcanons under the cut:

Reno:

-She’s scrappy, mean, asks for rides to the check cashing place, keeps cigarettes in her leopard print bra, but the moment you need something whether big or small, if it's 3 pm or 3 am. she is there. even if all she can do is lend a shoulder she is there. (From @firsttraintovictoriaville who also inspired her outfit by reminding me of this classic Britney Spears moment.)

-Reno used to be known as the “divorce capital of the world” so she wants to hear about all of your relationship drama, and no matter what it is, her go-to advice is to get a divorce. Even if you’re not married. She might even suggest *getting* married *specifically* so that you can get divorced.

-She’s the older sister, and in a lot of ways she acts like it, but in some ways she doesn’t. She’s definitely less “put together” than Vegas, and more down to earth. She actually knows how to talk to people without a monetary transaction being involved.

-She gets annoyed with people comparing her to Vegas; she’s insecure about her (perceived) lack of a unique identity and just wants space to find her own thing without living in her sister’s shadow.

-She’s super outdoorsy! Loves hiking, kayaking, cycling, etc.

-Will constantly complain about the weather despite having objectively great weather. (She CanNOT (and I can’t stress this enough) cannot handle rain.)

Vegas:

-Despite her city’s reputation as “fun” and “sinful” she’s actually a pretty serious and driven person who doesn’t play around!. She’s a commensurate businesswoman, always talking about the “hustle” and always looking for new ways to make money.

-Don’t even THINK of looking at her/talking to her without giving her 💵💵💵💵💵

-Pretty much literally never sleeps. Only seems to be out at night. Avoids the sun. Wait a second…is she actually a vampire?🤔

-Can’t handle the cold. Can’t function at under 60F. You’ll find her under 10 blankets with a hot coffee at that point.

-Has an unhealthy obsession with perfection. She goes to great lengths to make sure no one ever sees her “off.” Her makeup’s always done, hair always perfect, smile always ready.

-She’s super creative with absolutely wild ideas, and she’ll go to any length to make them work.

-What happens when the party is over? She doesn’t wanna think about it…she can’t let herself think about it. What would she be? A railroad stop, just another backwater desert town, her life-giving springs dried up and abandoned when the railroad leaves. She escaped that fate…but for how long? How long will the people come before they get tired of it all and move on to something new? (She shakes her head, pulling herself out of the downward existential spiral and facing the night with a seemingly unwavering energy)

[a-personiftranslator]

Wealthy whumper who insists they are trying to "civilize" whumpee, vs whumpee who's from a poor background who keeps overplaying their "poor habits" to seem more feral

anon i see your vision but i feel like i'm just not the right person for this one

[a-personiftranslator]

sorry before i can worldbuild i have to reinvent the organic theory of the state

[a-personiftranslator]

Musical organs are named such because they were once believed to be internal organs of a church, which was considered a reptile for tax purposes under feudalism.

[a-personiftranslator]

house is a girl you have to take care of her

[a-personiftranslator]

the og why are you white works for this 99% of the time but to account for the rare case an avatar is washed another color