#Pasifika Stories

[hazzelle-kento]

GREAT MOVIE AND REPRESENTATION 🇹🇴🏳️‍⚧️

Everyone watch this movie NOW

[oceanusborealis]

Next Goal Wins - Movie Review

TL;DR – A fun time that gets held back by some wooden acting and forced storytelling. ⭐⭐⭐ Rating: 3 out of 5. Disclosure – I paid to watch this film.Warning – Contains scenes that may cause distress. Next Goal Wins Review – I have been enjoying my time at the Brisbane International Film Festival, but as always, things must come to an end. But if you are going to pick a film to end it on,…

[annafromuni]

Ineke Meredith's On Call - Gut-Wrenching, Heartbreaking and Inspirational

I knew as soon as I saw On Call I needed to pick it up. I love Adam Kay’s This is Going to Hurt and Ineke Meredith’s On Call is New Zealand’s version. I also can’t help but be interested in the memoirs of medical professionals because of how much strength, love and care they have for their jobs and patients. One thing I wasn’t prepared for though was the deep-seated anger I felt as a result of…

[sosefinamovie]

Watch Sosefina at www.manuscriptfilms.com

#sosefina #micronesian #melanesian #polynesian #islandgirl #pacificpeople #fypage #polylove #pasifika #polyfilm #foryourpage #fyp #fypviral #islandtiktok #marshallese #southpacific #fyppp #xyzbca #marshallese #chuukesetiktok #cookisland

[pandemic-info]

‘This isn’t a life’: The crushing burden of Long Covid | RNZ News

Ashleigh was saving up to travel overseas in the near future. Now, she's housebound at 28, sometimes even bedbound, unable to drive or walk more than a short distance.

"My mum has had to take care of me a lot this year, and I feel a bit bad for her experience as well."

Michael, 32, was a busy Crown prosecutor. Now he's been disabled for more than 18 months, taking long stretches off work and struggling with his mental health and damaged relationships.

"It's probably the worst thing that's ever happened to me."

Renee was elected as the first Samoan and first female Pasifika on the Palmerston North City Council in 2019.

"It felt like I was just reaching the top of my career, with loads of future potential."

Then she spent a year living on the couch, with a commode toilet next to her because she couldn't walk to the toilet. More than a year later, she can now take a few steps from her chair to the toilet. She can chat with people, if she paces herself, and use the internet. The rest of the time, she sleeps or rests.

"This isn't a life. I'm only hanging on for my kids."

These are just a handful of the heartbreaking stories of New Zealanders with Long Covid, uncovered by a new research project into the extent of what has been described as a "mass disabling event" in New Zealand.

[billdenbrough]

my uncle killed himself last night.

technically, he’s my mum’s cousin, but we’re pasifika, which means he’s my uncle. he’s one of her best friends in the whole world. she’s closer to him than she is to her actual brother.

when he told me the news, my dad gave a tiny biography. a refresher course, if you will. to some, this would indicate, i imagine, a great distance. a lack of familiarity. the thing you have to know, then, is my mother has one hundred and eight first cousins. multiple of them (who are also related to each other) have the same name.

but i’m sitting in a mall, looking at my google doc, thinking to myself, how am i going to connect a to b, and then i get a text, and i am staring at my phone for ten minutes. there is something weird and staticky and tight and panicky in my chest, but mostly everything is numb. i do not own a weighted blanket, but i imagine sometimes it might be like this. a grounding pressure coating everything. or maybe vaseline is closer to what i mean, keeping things in, keeping things out.

i call my dad. i take a list of errands. nothing to do with my uncle, or my mother, or grief, or death. they are the tasks my dad needs done, the things he was going to do today but now is not, because my mother’s heart is broken and he can’t leave her alone. so maybe they are to do with grief, kind of.

i drive through the city, and it sucks, because of course it does, but also it’s a saturday, and it’s a long weekend, and there are sales, and i am driving to the biggest mall in my area. and i get there, and i don’t really know where to go or what to do, so i try to nap in the back of my car. i lock all the doors, bunch up several of my jackets lying around, and set a timer for half an hour. after three minutes, it’s too hot, so i climb back up, figure out how to unlock the whole car, make my way to the front, turn it on, and put the back two windows down, just an inch or two. inches aren’t my favourite measurement—imprecise, unpractical, american—but it is what it is. i lay back down, and i try sleep, and i get maybe ten minutes of semi-aware rest before the noises outside stress me out too much, and then i spend the rest of the timer curled on my side, staring at my phone battery go down. my dad calls me back eventually, and gives me a direction. the first half of the great impersonator is my company for this, until my battery level stresses me out even more than the vaseline works, and i switch off bluetooth completely.

it starts raining at some point, and there is a wind tunnel, and my feet are sore because i’m not wearing my orthotics, which i am not wearing because they were making my feet ache. catch-22. i keep doing errands, and eventually, the lane i take when driving from one of the stores to a different mall leads me all the way to the house of someone i used to know, a boy who dated someone in my family for years and years and years. this is not great. i do not love this. i have spent the better part of a year adjusting to his absence, see, and reckoning with the big hurts people can deal people in ways that are small, in the greater scheme of things.

and i’m driving past his parents’ house, thinking about the last time i was there, and it’s probably less upsetting than it would be on a good day, but it is still a bad thing on a day that just managed to already be worse. and then i start thinking about my uncle, and my dad’s refresher bio, and how it did not include the fact that this man taught me how to weave, even though he did. he showed me how to weave hammocks and nets and helped me into a dinghy when i was ten and trying to bridge the gap of the ocean from the ladder to the boat and my mother loved him and relied on him and his smile is etched into my brain and now he is dead.

i finally get hungry. i woke up at 5am, my body causing me problems even after being up past midnight revisiting old stories and universes and ideas, and i’ve had one thing to eat around 9:30, and then everything has been too funny in my stomach to contend with the idea of eating. and then, suddenly, i am finally hungry, so much that it hurts. and i get food for my mother, who has not been eating all day, too full with grief, and i get food for myself, and some extra for my dad, and i drive through the rain and behind bad drivers and with songs i don’t know playing, until i get to the kitchen where my mother is, and i drop all my bags, and i hold her for a full minute while she shakes against me.

dad went for a walk, she says, and i give her the food, and i tell her i got the broth separate from the noodles so she can heat and eat it later if she isn’t ready now, and she says she will eat it.

and she is eating. and i am eating. and there she is. and here i am. and she says she wants to go back home. she wants to go this week, but she doesn’t know who can take care of the cat, because i will be in another city for three days and dad will be away for two. and she says how my uncle was such a big part of the reason she was so looking forward to going back home with all of us this christmas. they had so many big plans. and her voice shakes. and she says my aunt, her sister, is taking it badly, and i am not surprised, and then she says that my aunt is the one who found him, that it was in her house, and now i am surprised. now i am shaking too.

my dad comes home. she doesn’t bring up wanting to go back. maybe she is waiting. i wash my new sheets. the rugby game is starting in one room, and we all slowly migrate there, and we sit in separate chairs, and we watch, by which i mean we have devices in front of us that we sometimes look away from to observe the game. i’m still staring at that same google doc from this morning.

every so often, when i look up, i don’t watch the game. i watch my mother, and i watch how her face crumples, so many times that i cannot count. her whole mouth turns down, and her face shakes, and her eyes are so, so sad, and she is across the room from me, and all i can do is watch. she does not cry. she does not speak. but her face crumples, over and over.

my dad goes to shower. she goes to shower. i end up on a wikipedia deep dive of something even more horrible, even sadder, and close my laptop screen. i go to shower, because i almost had a breakdown over something that isn’t even a thing to have a reaction to on twitter, and i need to do something to douse the rising anxiety beneath my skin. so i go to shower, and i open tumblr, and i start typing. i don’t really know why i’m saying all this. i guess i’m still trying to douse the rising thing in my chest. the vaseline is wearing thin, and i don’t know if it’s all better out or in.

i guess it’s just a lot. and i don’t know where to put it down. and today is the first day. and we will do it all again tomorrow, and my mother will still be staring at the ceiling, and i will be watching her, and my dad will go for walks in the rain, and nobody will have anything big enough to say to make it better. i don’t know if anyone has told my sister.

[larnax]

yknow what im tired of being nice idc if it starts annoying arguments

like ok i stand by being annoyed of and suspicious at people uncritically treating ochette as a child bc of the aggressive and obviously racist infantilization of the beastlings and also the beastlings as a concept. outside of some ppl commenting on a really old game announcement like "what do you mean the pasifika coded main character is an animal girl who is obsessed with food . why would you do this" the only actual ot2 fan ive seen criticizing the ochette racism is someone acting like temenos' chapter 5 came from temenos the character being racist

temenos isnt real, he is a fake guy. he is racist(im never letting go of the 'human language' banter. i will be mad about that until i die), and so is his story(kaldena...), and the beastlings' 'history' definitely makes things substantially Worse but im shaking you like a soda can please tell me you understand that ochette's story is Already Racist. it is already racist to infantilize them and make them the only characters who speak in a repetitive simplistic dialect and make the only speakers of the beastling language incomprehensible(dont even worry abt why none of the others speak beastling thats, uh, fine probably) and have Beastling Village Apartheid wherein the explicitly colonizer characters have like cute little sidequests and a redemption arc where they kinda chill out and are satisfied with Only half the village they colonized. it is already racist to make them Noble Savages who are so in touch with Nature that they're kemonomimi and they talk to their animal companions and they're obsessed with food, specifically meat. it's already racist to have them be Called beastlings and have the nameless village and beastling village be nameless when everyone else gets a real demonym! in fact despite me continuing to believe that the beastlings were reverse engineered from the concept of the hunter subjob making you a catgirl the writers wrote themselves into a situation where the hunter subjob is brownface!

so it's like. really bad that despite ochette being 20 she is characterized like a toddler. temenos is definitely the worst to her and is the source of the most open racism but despite me liking her castti is also super racist to ochette, she's just not as much of a dick about it. i kind of want to be generous to people who thought ochette was supposed to be a kid because that is how she's written but like... no, man, i don't think so. i dont think that joke about ochette being a child soldier is all that funny and i think you maybe should have thought for like two more seconds about why that would still be bad and ultimately an excuse to have the protagonist be infantilized. ochette should both be an adult and be treated like an adult and in larger terms the beastlings as a concept should've either been scrapped, massively reworked, or at the very least treated like actual people. i don't even want ot2 to have acknowledged the depth and prevalence of racism because ot2 is just not a game that's equipped to deal with the kind of systemic oppression it introduced with the beastlings, which i know because they fucked up so badly that they ended up just accepting the premise of racism and simply arguing that you shouldn't be so mean to biologically inferior races. this isn't something they should have put in the game if they weren't prepared to reckon with it.

there's no like conclusion here. i still like ochette(the version of her i made up in my brain thats essentially a completely different character, anyway) and idk what the most ethical thing to do in this situation would be. probably not making jokes about how baby and stupid she is, though.

[heyybaejjk]

SAU, LA'U TAMA AULELEI - IMPORTANT !

NOTE/WARNING ! : mentions of sexual assault

I desperately hope you all read this because it has a very important update on the series.

This is an important notice for my ongoing series. Before I begin, I'd like to apologise for not uploading any new chapters, but I wanted to come on here and explain myself.

For the past few days, I did some thinking of this series started out as a joke, until I gradually came to the conclusion of taking it seriously. Mainly for my Pasifika people, and everyone else as well, but my main focus is Pasifika.

One of my main characters, Y/N, wasn't someone I was going to take serious, as well as the other characters. I thought that I could just write her as some silly Samoan girl with a crush, when I could write her character as so much more. I plan on giving her a Samoan name.

This leads me to what changes I'm going to be adding, and why.

The anecdotes that I've told from my own friends, family, pasifika people is all too common, and most of them started within their families. Their issues and problems starting from their families. Something real, it can dive deep into the reality of people's lives that we don't even know about. Give notice to them.

Since I am going to be working this series more seriously, it does mean that updates of chapters will be slow because they're going to have to be thought out rather than rushed. All the jokes, shits and giggles within the series is what I use to cope with my shitty experience, and I really hope it does with you.

Trigger warnings are going to be added to the series masterlist and updated.

Warning Ahead

One of the many warnings is about sexual assault. I have noticed that whenever I have opened up about my story to my pasifika friends, they always have something to share as well. The way they joke, laugh and push it away as if it was nothing, hitting me with the universal line, "They're family, they'd never do that to you," something they've been told from a family member they told. And I can't really say anything because I used to do the same thing because of how my own family pushed my experience aside.

I ramble a lot and I'm half asleep, so I hope this makes sense, please comment if I've caused confusion or anything like that.

If anyone could please help me and read along my drafts I'll be writing along the way, it would help me 100%.

Again, I am very sorry for not uploading but I will be working on each chapter on my own (if school decides to let me sleep) but thank you to those who are being patient and supportive with my work 💞💞

Updates will be slow.

[coulson-is-an-avenger]

a brief timeline of fucking events regarding myself and the studio album "kill the whale" by daniel emond because I'm losing my mind

>get recommended this album by an anon on tumblr

>listen to said album and have an Extremely goodbad time (fedallah and gay people i LOVE YOU, quishmael and the erasure of indigeneity and the Lots of other racist things happening in there i hate you i hate you i hate you

>begin a project to transcribe the album because dear god what are they saying

>find that daniel emond himself has posted the lyrics to reddit

>make a 30k google doc comparing the lyrics of the studio album, the reddit lyrics, and the recorded live performance lyrics (because they are all very different!) with commentary (WHICH I FORGOT TO POST AND WILL BE SHARING IMMEDIATELY)

>get mad, decide to leave a comment on emond's reddit lyrics noting some of my critiques, most notably, why queequeg has been raceswapped and also had much of his story/relationships/plot entirely removed

>get a FIVE PAGE RESPONSE from emond arguing that he did not in fact erase anyone's indigenous/pasifika identity and that he was 'casting for talent, not accuracy bc the characters are "more" than their cultural backgrounds and ethnicities' which is a load of horseshit in my opinion

>notably also in that comment he reveals that the studio album is in progress to be adapted into a full broadway musical performance

>respond again, admittedly meaner this time

>get ANOTHER response from emond, that starts like this

[ID: A screenshot of a reddit notifications email of a comment from u/Danielhenriemond that reads: "Very busy these days, so much to respond to here. Thanks again for critical insight and questions which have continued to live with me as I develop the project, in particular your inquiry into my vers..." End ID.]

>open the comment to find that it has been completely deleted 🧍so I guess I'll never fucking know

>weeks later emond SHOWS UP ON MY INSTAGRAM (which has no ties to my reddit, he def doesn't know I'm the same person) and comments on my art of his musical

>go to his instagram page to see that the musical is currently in a week-long workshop

>scream

>something has tied me to this musical and i have no knife to cut the line (threat)

[ladyimaginarium]

Indigenous History Month ask game !

What is your Indigenous identity/identities?

Are you connected, semiconnected reconnecting or disconnected to your culture?

What is your favorite indigenous character? (Canon, headcanon and OC's are okay!)

What does your indigeneity mean to you?

Where are your traditional lands?

What's something that you'd like to see for indigenous representation in media and why?

Can you speak your traditional indigenous language(s)? If so, can you say something in it?

Can you share some traditional knowledge if possible?

If you're connected, semiconnected or reconnecting, can you share a favorite traditional story of your people?

What's an unpopular opinion you have?

What's an intracommunity discussion you'd want to see be talked about more?

Do you have any pet peeves surrounding your community?

How does your indigeneity effect your queerness?

How does your indigeneity affect your plurality, if you are plural and if applicable?

What are your peoples' architecture like?

If you could share one thing with your ancestors, what would it be?

Indigenous vampires or Indigenous werewolves?

What's something you'd want nonindigenous peoples to understand?

What is your faith, if applicable?

Do you practice your traditional indigenous religion?

If you don't practice your indigenous religion, what do you practice, if applicable?

What's something that you feel the loss of with colonization?

Do you own traditional attire?

What is your favorite cultural clothing?

Do you have plant & ecological knowledge?

What's something that makes you proud of your indigeneity?

How has decolonization impacted you?

How do you show up for your community?

Who's your favorite indigenous celebrity, if applicable?

What's something you'd want to say to your future descendants, biological or otherwise?

Note: this is by Indigenous people for Indigenous peoples ONLY! While this was mostly made for Indigenous peoples of Turtle Island, it's by no means exclusive to these groups, it's not specific to one culture, but nor is it open for all POC to use. This inherently includes First Nations, Métis, Inuit, Indigenous Americans, Alaska Natives, Greenlandic Inuit / Kalaalit Nunaat, Indigenous Mexicans, Indigenous Central Americans, Indigenous peoples of Abya Ayala (South America), Afroindigenous people in the diaspora (ie Black ndns, Black Americans, Black Canadians, Black South Americans, Black Carribeans, Black Mexicans, etc), Indigenous Africans (Maasai, Somalis, Tigrayans, Xhosa, Zulu, etc), African Diasporic Asians (ie the Siddi in India), Pasifika (Native Hawaiians / Kanaka Maoli, Polynesians, Melanesians, Micronesians, etc.), Aboriginal Australians & Torres Straits Islanders, Māori, Papuans, Black Austronesian peoples, colonized people in China (ie Tibetans, Uighurs, etc), the Ainu of Ainumoshir & Ryūkyūans/Okinawans of Ryūkyū in Japan, colonized people in India, Central Asia & Southeast Asia, Indigenous Taiwanese, peoples of West Asia (Indigenous Palestinians, Jewish people predominantly in the diasporas, Armenians, Kurds, etc.), Indigenous Europeans (Sámi, Karelians, Basque, Crimean Tatars, Irish Travellers, etc.), Indigenous Siberians, Romani & mixed race indigenous peoples! Do not use these for yourselves if you're not Indigenous in any way and especially not if you're white. Zionists, Kahanists, blood quantum purists & enrollment enforcers & assimilated Indigenous peoples who have no intention of connecting to their cultures whatsoever & do not fight for indigenous sovereignty DNI with this post. Please no discourse in the notes or with each other, I want us all to be kind to each other and to have fun with each other, ty!! 💕

[scentedsstuff]

Dragonfruit

By Markiia Lucier

Rating: 4/5⭐️

I fell in love with this cover at first sight because well…look at it! It was only afterwards that I realised this was a cover for a Pacific Islander based fantasy book! As a Pacific Islander who has long loved reading fantasy books I have dreamed of there being pasifika inspired fantasy books to get lost in. Don’t get me wrong, I love getting to explore other settings based on different parts of the world but to finally have a pasifika based fantasy book is just so exciting!

Quick Summary:

A dragons egg is a powerful thing. According to legend, a dragons egg has the power to grant a wish, any wish your heart so desires but beware, every wish has a price.

Hanalei of Tamarind is the only daughter of one of the once-respectable families of old. The once respectable family name was tarnished when Hanalei's father had stolen a dragon egg intended for the island's ailing princess. Having lived these last 10 years in exile, one chance encounter with a dragon offers Hanalei a chance to undo the wrongs of the past and to finally return home.

However, where dragons are, dragon hunters are sure to follow, and where there are such treasures, you can trust that Hanalei is not the only one aware and in need of what a dragon egg can offer.

Thoughts:

I was in a reading slump before this and had tried one other book to get me back into reading but that didn’t work. Then I picked this up and here we are.

The pacing of the book was much quicker than I had anticipated but that definitely worked in its favor. When reading, new characters and settings are introduced, given ample time for the reader to become acquainted with and then moved on from, there was no lingering more than necessary and no rushing through things either. The details you needed were given and nothing else was unnecessarily focused on.

The main characters felt fleshed out in this stand alone. Their motives and reasoning behind actions taken was understandable. Not to mention the setting felt so immersive and lush, the general description of the area reminded me of home (minus the huge latti stone structures).

As for the fantasy element of it all, I loved the fantastical myths/legends, creatures and powers shown and introduced. I've always loved tattoos and the significance of such in pasifika culture, so to see that given more precedence in the book and have that be part of a cool new magic system was very satisfying to read.

When it came to the romance, I was very pleased to find that I ended up adoring the couple and being so invested in whatever interactions they had. I'll admit, the whole childhood friends to lovers arc is not something I've ever found myself enjoying in the past, but these two got me.

But if I enjoyed the book so much, why 4 stars and not 5? Well, the ending was what ultimately decided that fate. The book is fast-paced and that was true till the end. Towards the end of the book I felt we could have gone into detail about certain things and characters, closing off their stories a bit more. Everything felt so up in the air that it genuinely had me believing that this was the first book in either a duology or series. Either way, whilst the ending was fine it left a lot to be desired and thus I had to give only 4 stars.

Overall, I'd definitely still recommend this book to those whose interest(s) lies within anything I've mentioned over the course of this review or if you're simply curious and want to read it. It's made me more excited at the prospect of more pasifika inspired books and specifically more pasifika inspired fantasy books!

[ofmdtereomaori]

Georgina Beyer tribute roundup

Stuff obituary with her life story

Tribute from Gender Minorities Aotearoa

Tagata Pasifika tribute

Louisa Wall tribute on Radio Waatea

Chris Carter tribute in the Spinoff

NZ Herald article with tributes from all over Twitter

Newshub story with tributes from Aotearoa NZ Sex Workers’ Collective founder Dame Catherine Healy and former PM Helen Clark

Carterton District Council have unanimously voted to name a street after her

Poroporoaki from Willie Jackson

Bonus: the Georgie Girl doco is online

[oceanusborealis]

Red, White & Brass - Movie Review

TL;DR – A film that brings you joy from the moment they start in a house covered in Tongan flags till those final credits roll. ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Rating: 4.5 out of 5. Post-Credit Scene – There is no post-credit scene.Disclosure – I paid to watch this film. Red, White & Brass Review – There are many emotions that cinema can bring forth, and if I am honest, my favourite is joy. You are just sitting there…

[multiplicity-positivity]

Here’s some positivity for Pasifika systems!

Systems all over the world are important, cherished, and welcome members of the plural community. No matter where you are, we want to listen to you, uplift you, and celebrate your stories! This post is for all the Pasifika systems out there!

Shoutout to Pasifika systems whose plurality is directly attributed to their cultural heritage and tradition!

Shoutout to Pasifika systems who formed due to, or have struggled with, anti-Asian racism!

Shoutout to Pasifika systems who are indigenous or native to Oceania!

Shoutout to Pasifika systems who struggle with inter-generational trauma due to their homeland being colonized in the past or present!

Shoutout to Pasifika systems who are immigrants, live abroad, or otherwise aren’t able to return to their cultural home!

Shoutout to Pasifika systems who are learning more about their culture and trying to embrace their heritage!

Shoutout to Pasifika systems who are leaders, activists, and otherwise fight for the rights of their people!

Shoutout to Pasifika systems who formed without trauma, whether by consciously creating their system, forming their system through spiritual means, or otherwise becoming a system without trauma playing a role!

Shoutout to Pasifika systems who struggle to find community and connections within the plural community, or the greater Pasifika/Asian community!

There is no right or wrong way to be a system, and systems come from everywhere! It’s true that the plural community tends to be white-dominated, but we see you, we care for you, and we want to lift you up and support you however we can! Being intersectionally marginalized can seem hopeless, but we want you to know that there is hope for you!

We wish you love, peace, joy, and much happiness in your future. We hope you can find meaningful connections in your lives, both inside and outside your system! Thank you so much for reading - please take care and have a wonderful day!

(Image ID:) A pale orange userbox with a cluster of multicolored flowers for the userbox image. The border and text are both dark orange, and the text reads “all plurals can interact with this post!” (End ID.)

[conquerhq]

WELCOME TO THE COMPREHENSIVE GUIDE TO ALL THE IMPORTANT PLOT POINTS IN OUR OVERARCHING STORY SO FAR :

ACT ONE.

the demigods of the ark heard about the death of zeus in the hands of one of his demigod children, electra. not much was known about electra's motives nor where she received the power to kill a deity. however, they knew that she was trying to amass more power in every way she could ────── from gaining the innovator cyclops' favor, invading acoma for a dragon, to attempting to kill her half-brother, harlan, so she can steal his nemean pelt. ultimately, electra and her co-conspirator, xochitl, a daughter of tezcatlipoca, were killed by the demigods of the ark.

harlan, aleki, and cepos were also killed in their final skirmish against electra. thousands of gecko rose from the earth, attempting to abduct the bodies : and they managed to save every body, even electra, with the exception of cepos. aleki was also able to return to life after reid and armando ventured to rarohenga, with the help of levin, to retrieve his soul.

after some research and investigation, the demigods uncover that those geckos were agents of whiro-te-tepua, the pasifika god of evil, seeking to consume the bodies of demigods to absorb their powers.

the demigods of the ark were also alerted about the missing imperial regalia of the shinto pantheon. keiko, a guardian kitsune, helped the demigods in their investigation. their first lead ? sugaru, a legendary hunter rumored to have been resurrected through one of the stolen treasures. the demigods managed to defeat the hunter, but at the cost of keiko's life. and although the legendary hunter didn't possess any of the relics, his defeat led to their next lead : the three great onryo of japan.

after a number of decomposing, flayed bodies were discovered near a phalanstery in the olympic national park in washington, the demigods were sent to infiltrate a cult with possible connections to xipe totec, the aztec god of nature and ritual flaying. cassia, the cult's leader, reveals that the god showed her glimpses of future where both natural and man-made disasters befall the earth. and to prevent the end of world in the hands of humankind, she revealed that xipe totec would need blood and ritualistic sacrifices to return to this realm and bring forth change that will return power to nature instead of the man.

the demigods also investigated the disturbances in the ley lines, leading them to a place called mirrored lake where these lines intersect. there, they felt magic being siphoned, and saw spirits wandering and unable to pass into to the underworld. they discovered a cabin near the lake, but frightened by what might be inside, the demigods cut their investigations short and returned to camp.

and after everything they went through, the demigods were able to have some time to rest and relax, invited to the flying city of acoma for the dance of dragons festival.

ㅤㅤㅤㅤ

ㅤㅤㅤㅤ

ACT TWO.

tragedy struck when the roman camp was massacred and left in ruins, and amongst the dead were friends of the ark. the demigods of the ark discovered the slaughter to be the work of caligula, a cruel emperor that had somehow came back to life. they launched a rescue mission, freeing the surviving roman demigods from the emperor's torture dungeons.

with so many threats on the horizon and questions left unanswered, the demigods began finding answers where they least expected it. ratatoskr, the guardian of the world tree and ally of the ark, was inflicted with madness when he followed oran to a meeting with a woman ( revealed to be also named electra, and described as woman of light ) ────── but was ultimately caught. in his mad ramblings, the squirrel revealed thor's death and the corruption of the world tree. one of the ark's demigods, amant, attempted to look into the norse god of thunder's death and experienced the god's death in his own's eyes : and the killer ? a towering figure that wore jaguar pelts and wielded an obsidian blade.

attuning more into his seer abilities, waaiz also tried to find answers to his questions. using the threads of fate to uncover the reason for seth's sudden disappearance, waaiz received a vision of persephone, the greek goddess of spring and queen of the underworld, at the roots of yggdrasil, the world tree. the goddess tried to use the tree to manipulate the fabric of reality ────── attempting to turn gods into mortals, but it backfired when the tree reacted violently to her tampering. rifts in reality began to open and yggdrasil became corrupted by the incomprehensible power leaking from the rifts ... affecing its lateral roots, also known as the ley lines spanning around the world.

the shinto demigods also made some progress in their investigation, discovering that shrines of the three great onryo were desecrated and turned them into malevolent spirits again. they found reasons to believe that the magatama were given to the three great onryo so they could tear the veil that separated the mortal realm and yomi and destabilize the rule of the kami. but the question still remained, who stole the imperial regalia to begin with ?

in another instance of attuning with the threads, waaiz and reid find out that the cabin by the mirrored lake is the home of a siphoner : leeching vitality and power from the spirits dragged back to earth due to the disturbance in the ley lines and those who had opened portals to the underworld, such a levin. electra's spirit now also roamed around the mirrored lake, stuck while being siphoned for her power.

but the spirits were not the only ones affected by the corruption of the ley lines, ancient beasts slumbering on them also began waking up. the demigods fought and defeated the markupo, an ancient serpent. but it wouldn't be the last mythical beast they'd be up against.

the demigods were sent to amalfi coast to save marinus, a demigod son of calypso, and investigate what was going on at the coast. they discover a war brewing between the fishermen and the sirens : allira, the alpha siren, told them that hari, a half-siren, must kill his husband, the captain of the fishermen, to fulfill his destiny. however, the demigods didn't follow allira's plans ────── and the alpha angrily vowed that they would face her again.

after a summer camp for mundane children was massacred, the demigods were sent there to find out what happened as they had reasons to believe that it might be connected to the former unsanctioned greek camp that used to be there. initially suspecting the ghost of pyrrhus, a bullied demigod who drowned, they discover the true killer to be beelzebub, one of pyrrhus’ tormentors. they found evidence of beelzebub's descent to madness : mind twisted by another being and granted with exceptional power that almost killed the demigods in their battle against him.

there are still many questions left unanswered and it is up to our demigods to find answers to them !

[nochd]

Naturism as social justice

← Part 1

Part 2: Race

Western modesty standards have served colonial racism ever since colonization was a thing, and they continue to do so.

I'm not sure if this is still the case, but within my lifetime there were still Indigenous Australian communities where clothes were something you put on when you had to go into town.

In New Zealand, where I live, Māori people adopted European clothing by about the 1900s. Previously they had had a variety of garments for formal occasions and bad weather, but for day-to-day life in the summer women could get away with an apron the size of a handkerchief, while men could go completely naked as long as they were able to avoid getting aroused in public.

Adapting to changing conditions is part of Māori culture, and that included accommodating European sensibilities. In response to the requirement that women cover their breasts, they invented those now-iconic intricately woven bodice tops you see in kapa haka performances. But there were other consequences that haven't gone away.

The Treaty of Waitangi, after being held as legally binding for over thirty years, was declared a nullity in 1877, so that white people could take the land and carve it up as they chose. All racial inequity in New Zealand ever since can be traced back to that declaration.

The reason given in the 1877 court case for nullifying the Treaty was, to cut a long and depressing story short, that Māori occupation of the land didn't count as ownership; they were just squatting there.

"Primitive barbarians" was the phrase the judge used. But a more common term used in the colonial discourse of the time, leading up to that case, was the racist slur "naked savages".

Nowadays we think of the Victorian attitude to nudity as conservative, traditionalistic, perhaps fusty and old-fashioned. But although the Victorians were great enthusiasts for romanticizing and pedestalizing (European) tradition, that wasn't what they were doing here. To them, covering up nudity and hushing up all suggestion of sexuality was progressive, modern, and civilized.

And when the Victorians said "civilized", it always meant "white".

The flip-side of this coin is the relentless colonial sexualization of indigenous women, which has been particularly acute here in the Pacific. It created what came to be called the "National Geographic double standard": you can print photos of naked people for general consumption as long as they're brown.

Nowadays I think National Geographic is doing at least better than that. Instead, the problem has shifted to YouTube. YouTube puts displays of nudity, including female-presenting nipples, under age restrictions. Following complaints from a number of indigenous groups, it makes exceptions for at least some traditional cultural expressions, notably from Brazil and southern Africa... so once again, you can display breasts as long as they're brown.

I mean, you can see the bind YouTube is in. If they age-restrict all breasts, they're being racist by repressing indigenous cultural expression. If they make exceptions for brown breasts, they're being racist by participating in the sexualization of indigenous people.

The not racist option would be to not age-restrict any breasts, regardless of race. But in the present climate that's unthinkable. Instead, YouTube of late has become so censorious that videos of paintings showing breasts have to be covered up in the thumbnail. Even the Victorians weren't as prudish as that.

Fictional depictions of indigenous people -- whether historic indigenous people (as in Disney's Moana) or made-up indigenous people (as in James Cameron's Avatar movies) -- always impose Western nudity prohibitions on them. (In the Avatar movies the way the female characters' neck ornaments always just happen to fall so as to hide their nipples is frankly laughable; Moana just, anhistorically, puts upper-body wrap garments on pre-colonial Pasifika women.)

And I'm afraid this practice spills over into what are supposed to be historical depictions of real people. Accurate depictions of pre-colonial Māori life are considered unsuitable material for New Zealand schoolchildren to see.

Do I need to explain why that's a problem?

Part 3, Part 4 →