#and it isn't even touching the impact of imperialism

[witchofthesouls]

I would to preface this that I'm not Japanese or of Japanese-descent, so-

Ehhhh, not gonna lie. I thought it was really strange that her established name was Miko, but there are various ways to interpret the meaning with how it's spelled in kanji.

Because I'm terrible with kanji, I used this site to check out the sets and their interpretation.

I have some thoughts about a background like that for Miko's family in my various Other!Aus because it's my takes on "what if magic was real," but without delving too deep, Japan has a very rich culture about the supernatural, and the Shinto religion reflects that. Over the course of the millennia, it really diversified with local folk-religious beliefs, Buddhism, and Confucianism (and from the attempts to separate them throughout various periods). The early Miko/female shamans in pre-modern Japan were considered part of the ruling class or at least really important social leaders.

Note: I'm not an expert in this. I just think it's really fascinating, especially since Miko/Shrine Maidens are a really popular trope in supernatural/fantasy anime.

While I am doing a fantasy take with Transformers, I'm leery of directly utilizing active religions and faiths since I would be an outsider's perspective on their beliefs and practices. But I'm also in a weird position because of my own family's blended customs from mom's Christian/Mexican folk beliefs (like the use of a curandero/a) and dad's Buddhist/Vietnamese folk beliefs (like offering food and drink to departed spirits under incense). I know this doesn't make sense, but it's a really weird headspace for me.

Bottom line, my take on the Nakadai family and their hidden customs will be more of an interpretation of sea-folk mysticism and how it could have shifted in land-dwelling kith and kin. I would really love to find more information on coastal folklore in Japan to blend it.

Back to anon's question, it can be possible. It's not as nefarious as you think, though. The miko of today are really different from those of the mystic past. Some Miko are more like shop attendants, so university students get hired as a part-job time during festivals. There are also elementary school girls at rural shrines who will perform the Miko mai.

Our girl Miko could have placed a transfer to the United States to get some adventure because she didn't want to get roped into being a shop attendant for her uncle at his shrine again.

Hey, what if Miko came from a Shrine Maiden background but had been trying to avoid it?

You have to excuse me anon, but I have no idea what a Shrine Maiden is. From what Google is telling me

But I'm not 100% sure, this comes from a culture I know nothing about and I don't want to disrespect anyone with my stupid AU ideas.

I want to first get a full background and info about this before saying something.

maybe @novafire-is-thinking @tfp-is-my-lifeblood-lol @moonshade45 @witchofthesouls @transformers-platonic @i-mean-technically @justawannabearchaeologist maybe they can help me 😆😅😓

[ladyloveandjustice]

Fall 2023 Anime Overview: Frieren: Beyond Journey's End and The Apothecary Diaries

Frieren: Beyond Journey's End

Premise: Frieren and her adventuring party saved the world from the Demon King after a ten year quest, and now their adventure is over. Frieren, as an elf who's lived for thousands of years, calls the journey a "short" one and casually says goodbye to her companions, promising to pop back around in fifty years. She does exactly that, only to find her companions have significantly aged, and when a beloved friend quickly passes away, she's wracked with grief and suddenly realizes this very "short" journey was important to her. In order to try to understand her feelings and human lives in general, she decided to retrace the steps of her journey, picking up companions on the way.

Frieren is both an interesting examination of what happens after the hero saves the world, as well as a meditation on mortality, grief, and the endless march of time. Frieren's long life allows her to see the impact she and her friends had on tons of people, even as, heartbreakingly, the memories of her companions are slowly fading from the collective consciousness, with only the legend remaining. There's a beautiful, bittersweet, hopeful but melancholy  atmosphere to the narrative, and the animation is absolutely breathtaking. Frieren herself is an intriguing character, seemingly stoic and disconnected but achingly human underneath it all and not without her funny quirks. She also has a good dynamic with the companions she picks up.

A sticking point for some might be the small arc where Frieren takes on some demons. It's a tone shift from the rest, being more of a fight against the Evil Enemy rather than a quiet meditation on loss, and I'll never be fond of the Innately Evil Fantasy Race trope.

Frieren does try to counteract the implications by saying the demons are just evolved from monsters who would mimic human speech to lure in and eat people. So they're basically monsters! ..But that actually just makes some parts just straight up not make sense (they're clearly sentient, animals don't get together to plot like the demons do, etc). I think what Frieren is going for is the horror of a monster almost indistinguishable from humans that only has interest in eating and killing us, which is has it's basis in mythology (while having it's own loaded implications) but the execution... could be better. There's something uncomfortable whenever a hero's motivation is "wipe all of this sentient race out" and the narrative seemingly bends over backwards to justify that. (And even if the demons sincerely did actually act like animals, I would have a hard time with Frieren declaring she's going to kill every last dragon on earth because some destroyed her village).

I'm told that Frieren isn't necessarily meant to be right about demons, and later on the manga introduces some elements that make the demons much more complex and less 'innately evil'' than that arc has them appear to be, but for now, it's awkward. However, I really did enjoy the amazingly animated fights and bonechilling moments we got out of that arc, and afterward the show went back to doing it's usual exploration of loss thing.

I think Frieren is a well crafted, beautiful and sometimes touching journey though a pastoral fantasy world. There's just a jarring and somewhat poorly executed element as a bump in the road (that nevertheless is a mostly entertaining arc). It also has girls that kick ass and are interesting characters and there's no fanservice bullshit, always a bonus. I'm on board for the rest!

The Apothecary Diaries

Premise: Maomao works as an apothecary in a land much like 15th century China and she LOVES poisons. After being kidnapped and forced to work as a servant girl in the imperial palace, she solves a mysterious case of poisoning and catches the eye one of the Emporer's top concubines, who makes her a lady in waiting. Thanks to her sharp mind and knowledge of poisons, Mao Mao is unwilling pulled into the cauldron of deception and sabotage that is the inner palace, and there's lots of mysteries to solve...

The Apothecary Diaries is definitely among my top anime this season, and a lot of it is down to Maomao, who's an incredible character. She's whip smart and refreshingly pragmatic, she's a cynical, bizarre little gremlin who loves poison way too much and she wishes everyone would just leave her alone so she can do weird medical experiments (often on herself). She just wants to keep her head down and not attract any trouble but annoyingly, her sense of justice means she can't ignore people in trouble! She's also disgusted by any man who tries to seduce her (girl, same). She's just plain fun to follow. She's impressive with her deductions, and intensely relatable at times. I love her, and Aoi Yuki does a fantastic job with her deadpan affect.

The anime is beautifully done, and it really gets across the cutthroat world of the Imperial Palace. Maomao lives among the concubines, so a lot of the anime is concerned with how women are treated as disposable, and how they're pitted against each other for the Emperor's approval. Without being direct about it, it shows that being a concubine and palace servant is not a happy life, and even the most favored long for more freedom. Maomao is a girl without any power to change things, so she has to accept the way it is, but does extend kindnesses and helps the women around her when she can.

Then there's Jinshi, who. uh.  He's an interesting character and is slowly developing, but I hate how he treats Maomao a lot of the time. The gag that he can't seduce her is fine enough, but he's super willing to use his social power over her to force her into uncomfortable situations. There's a part where he tries to force Maomao to taste honey from his fingers, backing her up against a wall, and it's so realistic about how it feels to have a man weaponize his higher standing in the workplace to harass you that it's very hard to watch. Maomao sweats and desperately strategizes to figure out how to refuse him without getting beheaded, looks at his assistant for help only for him to ignore her-- it's heartbreaking. The show does acknowledge how messed up with this is. Concubine Gyokuyo comes in to save Maomao and is furious at Jinshi for how he's treating her, Maomao tells off the assistant for ignoring her, and takes pleasure in getting a small bit of revenge on Jinshi later. But it makes me want Jinshi to go away. He's framed as Maomao's potential love interest sometimes, despite the fact she doesn't show any interest in him so far, (though I'm told they haven't gotten together in the English release of the source yet). I hope it doesn't happen (Maomao reads so aroace right now), but who knows, maybe he'll develop a lot.

Jinshi aside, you should also know that this being based off imperial China, pretty horrifying things are presented casually (like a nine year old concubine) though again, the show is well aware the system is messed up. There's also an incredibly quick, weird moment where Maomao tells a rape joke? She obliquely threatens sexual assault to a concubine who's bullying and threatening her (so obliquely I didn't realize at first and thought she was threatening to poison her, which would have been way more in character) and then goes 'whooops it was just a joke'. Nothing like that happens again, but it was completely bizarre and seemed OOC. There's also some "women are like this" dialogue that fits the time period but can still be annoying.

Overall, The Apothecary Diaries has intrigue, well-developed characters and an impeccable atmosphere, with a fascinating examination of the social constraints placed on women as an undercurrent. It tells a great range of stories, from romantic triumph, to bittersweet tales of recovering from grief, to pure tragedies, MaoMao is extremely lovable and entertaining, and I adore seeing her Sherlock Holmes her way though all the medical mysteries, while squeeing over horrible poison. Definitely check this out!

[nerdyadoptee]

Mask of the Rose: The NerdyAdoptee Review

PUBLISH DATE: June 8, 2023 PLATFORMS: Windows, macOS, SteamOS, Linux, Nintendo Switch (launch); PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S (unspecified later, post-launch)

This is the game I've been waiting for.

Mask of the Rose is a visual novel from UK-based Failbetter Games, developers of Sunless Skies, Sunless Sea, and Fallen London. I've long followed Failbetter's work because of their commitment to worldbuilding. All of their games share a common universe, an alternate Victorian vision of the 19th century world, with generous helpings of the unexplained, the supernatural, and even dashes of Cthulhu-esque cosmic horror. London has sunk underground, and the residents of London have lost contact with the surface. In this dark world (nicknamed "the Neath"), we encounter things that are familiar (the Queen is still around, although she's become curiously reclusive) along with the less familiar (what exactly are the "Clay Men?").

This world has been built by Failbetter over three games and thirteen years, but Mask of the Rose doesn’t require any previous knowledge or experience with their games. A character creator allows you to choose your character's background, silhouetted portrait, and how others address your character, from "Captain" to "My Lady" to "Citizen." In addition to the gender inclusivity of the character creator, it's wonderful to see Failbetter give the player the option to specify the kind of romance they're looking for in this visual novel. You can pursue friendships only, seek romantic relationships, physical relationships, or both--and choosing any of those options doesn't prevent you from seeing certain endings or lore, it just gives the player agency in this quite personal choice.

From there, we're introduced to the world and its wide and diverse cast of characters. Going into almost any detail risks ruining the discovery that is such a beautiful part of Mask of the Rose, but I'll at least say that the characters in Mask of the Rose feel complex and unique, each with their own voice and desires. The gameplay loop revolves around choosing how to spend your time--like with other time-management-style games, you can't have conversations with everyone. In each conversation, you're making dialogue choices that have an impact on the people you speak with and on the character you're building over time. The choices are well-written, and show an insight into the complexity of conversation and tone that is often missing from less thoughtful visual novels.

Each day in Mask of the Rose is split up into a Morning and Afternoon time, adding weight and stakes to each playthrough: do I try to get the exhausted pastor to spend more time with a mutual friend, or do I cozy up to the streetwise merchant who seems to know what's going on behind the scenes? More importantly, WHOM DO I WANT TO SMOOCH?

Ahem. Excuse me.

Mask of the Rose has so much story to uncover that one playthrough isn't sufficient. You're trying to solve a mystery, you're trying to uncover more about London's peculiar new surroundings, and you're trying to matchmake your friends, and you might be looking for romance for yourself. A playthrough generally takes me about 3-4 hours, and although I've done multiple playthroughs, there's still more to discover. I'm excited to learn more about each one of the fascinating characters, and I'm further drawn in because Mask of the Rose weaves a tale that touches upon so many elements of 19th century English society, from British global imperialism and colonialism to class struggles and privilege.

While I love the writing and Mask of the Rose's visual novel gameplay (and unique "storycrafting" mechanic/minigame, which is another gameplay pillar), I did run into a few frustrations. I would've appreciated an option to fast-forward text I've already seen. Mask of the Rose helpfully provides a fast-forward option, but it's too easy to accidentally skip past new dialogue and lore. In a game that demands multiple playthroughs, a smarter fast-forwarding option is a really unfortunate omission. I also felt like the time management aspect felt very constraining; it could be my own lack of intuition and understanding, but I sometimes found progression dense or unforgiving. The subtlety of Mask of the Rose is a strength, so I’d love if hints or some kind of help could be an option that players choose to turn on. More days and levels of signposting to clues would go a long way to making me even more excited about future playthroughs.

Overall, I'm smitten by Mask of the Rose. It's the game I've been waiting for because I've wanted to explore this world for a long time, but have struggled with the gameplay and difficulty of Sunless Sea and Sunless Skies. If you share a love for evocative writing and thoughtful worldbuilding, you've got to get Mask of the Rose.

Be sure to tell me whom you smooch!

[kermitsex]

Those graphs showing how certain companies emit X times as much CO2 as the average USAmerican or whatnot always rub me the wrong way. Who do you think the corporations cater to and have built the immense environment-destruction infrastructure for? It's callous, as someone in the imperial core, the prime demographic catered to by the top corporations, to wash your hands of the harm they do just because you aren't sitting in the director's chair, I guess. If you recognise that X company has Y impact on the environment, which you then rightfully criticise without then actually changing something about where your money goes (provided there is a viable alternative), then you have to at least recognise that you are at least somewhat culpable in the impact of these corporations.

And this isn't even touching on the emissions of the USAmerican military.

[sparrowpharoh]

I mostly live out of my car. It has heated seats and backup cameras. Some days the only food I have is restaurant mayo packets, but I always have a pocket computer with 24/7 internet access. When I do get actual food I rely pretty heavily on shoplifting, and even when "proper" food is hard to find I can still usually swipe chocolate and fancy nuts from a gas station- i.e. my "fallback" options are luxury items, because those are often easier to find and steal than proper staples which I couldn't exactly cook in my car anyways.

I think I lost my train of thought a little but you get the point. Even being homeless in the imperial core still exposes me to opportunities that others would kill for. Others America certainly don't have the same specific advantages as i do (shoplifting is a hell of a lot easier because I'm white and fem-identified, for example) but everyone is going to be in some way touched by this. That doesn't change the fact that it FUCKING SUCKS, that people in the US die every day in spite of this. Privilege isn't a simple net-sum equation, opportunities can mitigate oppression in some ways but they don't jus cancel each other out. But it still bears acknowledging, and ignoring it's impact is not helpful.

access to imperial benefits is clearly unevenly distributed across the united states, but the ferocity with which americans deny the existence of any imperial benefits is insane, especially when there are signs all around us. why do you think you can buy dole bananas for 40 cents literally any time of the year?

[quillheel]

How do they react to scares or frights? Do they laugh, get nervous, or not react at all? (Harry)

HALLOWEEN QUESTIONS // always accepting!

Harry most often has a myriad of responses to being scared, but the most often ones he has are;

a) laughing! it's a coping mechanism mostly stemming from the more social ━ and logical ━ sections of his brain. He laughs when he doesn't know what to do, or understands that whatever response that something was supposed to illicit simply didn't happen, or is just flat-out confused! it initially came from the idea that, well, if you're already laughing, you're in on the joke; Harry was always the joke, so being the first to laugh at himself, at least for a while, made the ridiculous feel intentional, as though even he was having a 'i can't believe i just did that' moment, even if the cause was entirely unintentional or from something that's just part of him but he knew wasn't socially 'normal' ( a good example is how autistic people, including myself, might laugh at themselves when they've done something that neurotypical people find strange. Definitely not the healthiest, but a very rare few things he does are! )

with laughter as a response to being afraid, it can be from the social point of 'hes supposed to experience one thing and hes not, therefore: laugh', but most often its from an incongruous emotion in of itself ( an emotion in a situation that doesn't necessarily call for it, like laughing as someone's crying, which is often perceived as a result socially as 'not making sense' ) or straight-up just finding the failed scare attempt funny! like watching an actor fuck something up in their take, yknow? sometimes its a shield from the fact he got spooked in the first place, making it nervous laughter to calm himself down, which leads into...

b) flinching! This is the more sincere out of the two, where the scare actually lands to some extent moreso. Harry, almost ALWAYS, responds to just about everything. his composure may mask it, but he is, at all times, answering and responding to and calculating just about everything. this often feeds into his Already pretty bad paranoia ( Imperial Empire, you're doing your best but alas you oft freak him out more than anything actually threatening him... ) and bodily responses to traumas he no longer remembers, things the skills keep from him; huddled in blankets citing its better not to know than to know at all, to make choices of what to do with the pearls of something terrible coddled in those clothes of neurons and grey-matter ━ or, at least, that's how it feels. like keeping secrets.

this means, even in false strikes and in fake-outs, there are things to respond to. even if he already knows the threat isn't real, and even isn't very scared of it at all, the overwhelming sensation of that abrupt happening can make him recoil, half overwhelmed, half new information, always tied to the impulse. be it by physically flinching back, violently lunging forward, parts of his mind surging to answer, or his mind going dead for juuust a moment ━ like the moment the rock breaches the lake's surface ━ then it ripples out again, the latter; a feeling he often finds himself craving to recreate. the impact felt but faux nonetheless. at the end of the day; it invokes a survival response him, and for a split second it's like a millisecond, high saturation dream of watching reality burn alive before reverting to how he knew it like the colors of a broken camera. a microbomb of trauma re-firing, before going dead again.

( Though, if the scare in question has anything to do with touching him, you can bet your bottom dollar that he's going to start swinging )

overall, though, what he does exactly highly depends on what specifically the scare is, how it's performed, the medium ( is it a movie, is it a coworker trying to scare him, is it in his home, is it in the office, how has he mentally been doing overall himself lately, etc etc ) and so on! it's extremely conditional, including whether or not he get's scared in the first place! some days he's untouchable, other days he jumps at everything! depending on what it is and how it's done, harry's responses can ENTIRELY change! it's his nature to be inconsistent and unpredictable, in a way.

he IS however a big horror fan, especially gore since it taps into an animalistic sense in his head kinda that Half Light really digs especially, as well as his creative sense to see how they did it! plus something could 100000% be said about desensitizing himself from terrible things given his job is seeing terrible things a lot of the time. ━ sometimes he's a fan despite himself, given he sometimes uses horror as a 'safe' method to punish himself with triggers or generally invoking a fear/disgust response at all or fucking up his paranoia which bleeds back into his age-old problem of self flagellation and self-loathing, which also ties into his desensitization thing, but that aside, he sincerely does enjoy horror in general!!! I personally like to think he and Jean used to watch horror marathons together during October and November, depending on what they could get their hands on, though Harry doesn't remember this.

this is only tapping into the 'non-harmful scares', though! things like horror movies or the like. his response to genuine threats are overwhelmed with his mind clicking together like the joints of a machine with one goal; to keep him alive.

it's done a surprisingly good job thus far, given how difficult he makes it.

[flagellant]

international politics is complicated and often morally grey. there is a theory that there is no ethical state as most every modern country has had something shady happen in the past. not sure how i feel about this exactly but it’s interesting to think about

that being said - international politics and war is not something that can be boiled down to “an eye for an eye.” yes, japans occupation of korea in particular but also nanking and quite a bit of china, SE asia, and indonesia was wrong and cruel and imperialistic. that does not mean the united states was justified in dropping two atomic bombs on the country. this impacted mostly average japanese citizens, not the imperialists with power. sure, a lot of japanese at the time agreed with imperialism, call me crazy but i don’t think a normal person believing in imperialism and nationalism deserves to be straight up nuked. not even touching on internment camps. apologies i am very interested in international and wartime politics i had to share my thoughts

I love your thoughts! and like. Yknow. As an anti-government radical element and whatnot I am completely in agreement that there's really no such thing yet as a form of state/federal government which has not relied on doing incredibly horrendous things in order to keep itself stable and its power structures intact. Some are worse than others but it isn't a game or a balancing scale, it's just what reality is.

I'm not doing this research with some weird anti-American angle or whatever. I'm doing it because I have yet to find evidence which would not corroborate with a need to continue researching. In all of my digging and translations and looking into GHQ-SCAP structures and the zaibatsu break-ups, I have not found anything yet which didn't just make me feel confident that digging deeper is the right thing to do in this situation.

If I find total evidence that I'm wrong about something, or even many things--remember, this whole project started with the very wrong assumption of Blink's nonexistence--then I'll confirm it, publish it, and acknowledge that the theories I worked under have been proven wrong. Life goes on. If it's just soy sauce then it's just soy sauce, and I had a blast (and I hope many others did) researching what I have.

It's just that I haven't found that yet. And so I'm still researching for the right threads to pull which can connect all of them together on the loom and build something recognizable.

[beautifulpersonpeach]

What do you think about Namjoon saying 'I wanna touch you I wanna feel you'? Isn't that a bit creepy?

Ask 2:

BPP😭

It was so heartbreaking to watch NJ be emotional while telling us that they can’t be their usual straightforward selves at the moment, but they will soon be able to tell us a lot more after everything has been decided.

I can’t imagine how much pressure and stress they’re under right now… 

I hope everything will work out in their favor in the long run.

**

Hi Anon(s),

I found it funny how I got these asks around the same time, about the same subject, and yet the perceptions by both anons seem worlds apart lmao.

Anon 1, I can totally understand why you might feel uncomfortable hearing Namjoon's speech, but I'm going to spend some time here talking about why exactly your question pisses me off, though you likely meant nothing bad from asking it, and at the end I'll explain why I'm thankful you asked it.

Generally speaking here, one pet peeve I have with native English speakers and/or white people who take an interest in k-pop or in another culture, is how casually ignorant they can sometimes be and when corrected, I've observed many just dismiss it as not a big deal or 'identity politics'.

Lol.

It's not racist that a native English speaker who is non-POC has no idea what code-switching is and what it can look like, but if you've taken an interest in an industry where majority of the people speak English as a second language, which then impacts how they apply certain words (think of how Jungkook titled My You, even after he acknowledged it's not grammatically correct), then some kind of self-awareness is sorely needed.

Code-switching is not just a function of language but of culture. Think of any Black person you know, find them and ask them if they have a 'white' or 'office' speaking voice and if they're careful of what words to use to a white audience. Everything from the type of words used, to the tone or accent, to even posture, changes sometimes when non-white/native speakers switch into that language. And this is just for Black people in America who have spoken English all their lives. Imagine for a moment what it is like for a Korean. Imagine what it's like for a Korean who is mostly self-taught in another language.

I was drafting this response when a moot also talked about this on Twitter, so rather than continue responding to Anon 1 (this subject is very personal for me and the more I talk about it, the more direct I'll be, though Anon 1 was likely just asking out of curiosity), I'll just link to a fuller explanation of what happened with Namjoon's speech here, (end of thread to read upwards linked here too). If any of those explanations seem like too much of a stretch, feel free to come back here with more questions if you have them. :)

*

The curious thing is, BTS have made these sort of cringe missteps when speaking in Japanese, but Japanese speakers don't immediately jump to assuming the worst (like assuming Joon means to sexually assault children), nor do Japanese speakers mock them for using words in an odd way. No, that's a reaction I've only observed in English speakers who are almost always white. And in a sense I don't blame them. After all, it's 2022 - anybody with an international presence should speak and use English the way native speakers do. Apparently. Whatever your feelings about the British monarchy, the fact remains that we live in a world shaped by their centuries of imperialism and colonialism. It bleeds into most things, including subtle expectations like this that most of the time is invisible to English speakers/Western people.

Oh, and then there's the typical hate for Namjoon k-pop stans are notorious for lmao. He's an easy target, and k-pop stans operate on that kind of frequency.

Anon 1, thank you for asking your question. Because honestly, your question/reaction is completely understandable and I thoroughly sympathize, but I can recognize that it can be also borne of ignorance. The great thing about ignorance is that it can be quickly tossed. All one has to do is ask a question, and they'll be informed of other perspectives which hopefully expand the views of all involved. I'm also thankful you asked your question because as I said above, this is something personal to me given my background and where I've lived most of my life. Thank you for giving me the opportunity to say my mind on this, because this is something that will keep coming up the more k-pop (and BTS) move into the international spotlight.

**

To Anon in Ask 2, I caught that too and honestly my heart feels a bit heavy for them. I have some theories on what his words could mean, but October 13th to 15th is only a few days away. The best thing at this point is to live in the moment, live with them in the moment, have a good time during Jimin's birthday and the concert, and trust that these adult men who have navigated waters not known to anyone like them before, will continue to do what is right for them.

[rf-times]

Tho it isn't discussed as much as it should have been, one of the core reasons for many self-proclaimed “radical feminists” display these kind of behaviors is because unlike some people like to argue, rf was heavily impacted by the backlash against feminism not only in the fact of being marginalized, dismissed and demonized but also how this attack took away almost entirely from rf its leftist/revolutionary roots.

The identidarism is a big problem within rf. Being a “radfem” became an aesthetic, a lifestyle, something to do because you're bored or just because you want to vent. Many women talk about radicalism without knowing nothing about it(a lot of them don't want to know about it neither) this is why even when they conserve parts of rf politics like the opposition to sex trade or gender id, they often do it in a liberal manner. They ignore the economic system and twist rf revolutionary concept of sisterhood to support white supremacy and the class system.

It's frustrating when we remember how rfs were so active in the anti war protests, how they actively opposed to capitalism/imperialism/racism and comparing what have been done to their legacy. The idea that we can only oppose to the male supremacy in other cultures with racism/imperialism is by no means a genuine feminist project.

These situations also show how being “radical” only regarding to the sex-based oppression while isolating class, race, sexuality, etc is impossible because it always ended up empowering imperialism, bringing even more oppression/exploitation to the most vulnerable women.

100% losing touch with materialism has been so so damaging to radical feminism and you've articulated this so well.

[dodscans]

Neighborhoods of İstanbul that are named after DoD characters

İstanbul doesn't show it as much as it should, but this place is old. The traces the old days are more sparse than I would have liked here, but when I stop and think "hey, why do we call this neighborhood this way?", the history just comes back to life. Reading and translating DoD made me have so many epiphany moments in that regard, so let me note them down.

I wish I could organize myself another little İstanbul DoD tour and visit all of these neighborhoods to take pictures, but I am writing this post while I have Covid and am in quarantine. Sad. So no pictures.

Süleymaniye - Suleiman Of course, our beloved bishie sultan lives on in the city. The place where he had his imperial mosque and its complex built is still called "Süleymaniye". What to do there today: It is a hot spot for haricot bean restaurants (yeah I know, strange choice of dish). So you go there, order some beans, pilaf and cacık, and admire the views of Süleymaniye Mosque.

Haseki - Hürrem As avid readers, you all know that "Haseki" is a common title given to the favorite of the Sultan. But the Haseki neighborhood in İstanbul is named after Hürrem herself. In the manga, she has established her vakif instutitions in Galata neighborhood; but in reality, her vakif in İstanbul was located in Galata. To be frank, I couldn't find any records of a Hürrem vakif in Galata, but I probably don't know where to look. This neighborhood actually screams power for her: First, a woman who doesn't even have royal blood was allowed to have something built under her name inside the city walls. Yes, Haseki neighborhood is right in the middle of the old city. Considering how previous Valide Sultans had their vakifs in the provinces or remote rural areas of İstanbul at best, that is a statement y'all. Second, like in the manga, she indeed had a hospital and medical school built there. If you ask me, that has a stronger impact on the populace than building a mosque and calling it a day. She touched people's lives. Third, that institution is still alive today. The original buildings are owned by the Directorate of Religious Affairs and do not serve their original intended purpose, but you still have a huge and well-known hospital there called "Haseki Eğitim ve Araştırma Hastanesi", and İstanbul University's medical school is located in the vicinity. 500 years later, the neighborhood still thrives on thanks to the health services it provides.

Cihangir - Prince Cihangir When Cihangir died, Suleiman had a mosque built to his name on the other side of the Golden Horn (See? Even his beloved son doesn't get to have his mosque within the old city walls. Hürrem is that cool.) Today, it's known as a den of hipsters, but when it hits you the name is related to DoD, you go soft.

Şehzadebaşı - Prince Mehmed Shinohara doesn't use this word in the JP original, so I don't use it either so that I don't confuse the readers further with the titles, but the proper way to call an Ottoman prince in Turkish would be "şehzade". When Mehmed dies, Suleiman has a mosque built for him in the old city. It's close to his own mosque complex too. Today most people would call this neighborhood "Saraçhane", but it is kind of interchangeable with "Şehzadebaşı" because the mosque is commonly called as "Şehzadebaşı mosque". Especially older people call the place "Şehzadebaşı".

Beyoğlu - Alvise Gritti Iirc, this was explained somewhere in the manga but I'm too lazy to check. So, since Alvise was the son of the Venetian Doge, a "bey" (lord), he was called "son of the lord" (beyoğlu) in Turkish. This is a huge area which is also a municipality, so Alvise had the biggest impact on İstanbul in a sense.

Barbaros Bulvarı (Barbarossa Boulevard) - Hayreddin Barbarossa The avenue which has Barbarossa's tomb at its ending point is called "Barbaros Avenue". This isn't some random street, it's pretty much a main artery of İstanbul traffic in Beşiktaş, so it's impressive that it was named after him.

Ayaspaşa - Vizier Ayas Paşa Yes, even that old guy Suleiman sometimes gives orders to has a neighborhood named after him. The place where he used to have his mansion is still called "Ayaspaşa" although the said estate is no more.

Kasımpaşa - Vizier Kasım Paşa Another one of Suleiman's viziers, Güzelce Kasım Paşa, was tasked with the development of this neighborhood and he himself used to live there. He had his mosque, school, public bath etc. built there.

Belgrad Ormanı (Belgrade Forest) After Suleiman's 1926 Hungarian Expedition, a village was set up here for the Serbian prisoners.

[missmarthanightingale]

ohhh man there's no way i'm going to find the words that make sense for this but uh.

okay so there's this idea floating around that swarm & azure may be right to say that time cannot & should not be controlled, operating under the assumption that bc the division are the bad guys, therefore they're probably in the wrong. for the record, i'm not totally convinced yet that just bc the division did something automatically makes it bad, but say that it is - i still think swarm & azure have completely the wrong idea about what should be done about it.

i think it was about a year ago now that @isagrimorie & i had a really interesting exchange about real-world politics & the impact of us imperialism on the world at large. specifically, coming from two countries that were in some way negatively impacted by the absence of the us as a reliable player on the global stage, we were touching on how difficult it is, practically speaking, to dismantle us imperialism without immense negative repercussions for a lot of people, bc the fact is that the world we live in is one that has for a good 80 years now been shaped around the us existing as a global superpower, & that isn't something which can just be magically undone.

the very structure of global relations has adapted to the reality of us imperialism. if you took a sledgehammer to the us tomorrow you would leave a gaping void of power & a lot, a lot of problems to clean up. the global society we've built now in many ways relies on the us being what it is, for better or worse, & undoing that would have to be a very long, slow, careful process in order to not fuck things up further. the legacy of colonialism & imperialism isn't something that can just be turned off! even when the imperial power withdraws, their effect lingers, in social convention & institutional structures, in ways that are almost impossible to excise, & i just.

i think this can probably be applied to the idea that gallifrey/the division may have "colonized" time. maybe they shouldn't have chained time, but undoing it would be a difficult & complicated thing, & acting like just smashing it to pieces would fix anything is clearly insane - we've seen, through bel's storyline, the immense negative repercussions to real people from what went down in atropos. it didn't really do anything to undo gallifrey's lingering influence over time, & it only got innocent people hurt through carelessness. the universe as it exists is one which has adapted to time existing as it does, & suddenly reverting to a much older, wilder version of time is inevitably going to do a lot of damage.

besides, swarm & azure don't seem particularly interested in following through on their professed ideology. why don't they stay on atropos & keep fighting to unchain time or whatever? they had, in theory, the ability to continue destroying mouri, & the doctor didn't have much power to stop them. it really seems like all they really wanted was to cause destruction, & this stuff about the battle between time & space is just a convenient ideology to attach themselves to in pursuit of that goal. if they do honestly believe in it, they've gotten so lost in their own fanaticism that they're completely incapable of actually working towards their professed goal of ... how would you characterize it, "decolonizing" time?

idk, chibnall might well not go there, but i do think there's an interesting story to be told here about the difficulty of dealing with the legacy of imperialism in reality, as opposed to in theory.

[cocoaswatches]

For Colored Girls Who've Found Makeup As a Creative Outlet - When Telling People To "Love Themselves" Isn't Enough

When I first became interested in makeup, I didn't see it as a way to alter my looks or hide my features, I saw it as a way to further express my creativity. Similar to my interests in fashion, dipping and dabbling in makeup just seemed like something I would really enjoy.

The satisfaction of finding the perfect red lip or the perfect bronzy eye shadow was analogous to finding the perfect pair of boyfriend jeans ---gratifying, rewarding, in other words, sweet.

The feeling was so satisfying that although it took me YEARS to figure things out in the makeup department (and I think most of us know why,) I kept pursuing it, and I still am. 

While I realize that there are many existing societal pressures making women feel the need to wear makeup, I also believe that the beauty world is changing into a place that helps many utilize makeup as a tool to express their creativity. It helps many come alive in ways that little else does. It's an underrated art form that often gets more flack than it deserves. That's why comments like those of Zadie Smith, and others often rub me the wrong way. 

When speaking about raising her daughter, Smith felt disheartened when she noticed she was "spending too much time looking in mirrors." She promptly implemented a "15 min rule," for getting ready in the morning.

She mentioned things like:

“You are wasting time, your brother is not going to waste any time doing this. Every day of his life he will put a shirt on, he’s out the door and he doesn’t give a shit if you waste an hour and a half doing your makeup."

As a prominent Black British author, Smith's comments carry a lot of weight and were covered my major news outlets. But I found her comments to be extremely problematic. And I'll tell you why. 

1. Women should have the autonomy to decide how they spend their time. 

If little Jaimie or Joelle or John wants to spend an hour and a half on makeup, maybe, just maybe, that interest and that talent can be fostered into something that can eventually turn into a career. (And even if it doesn't, but it makes them happy, who cares? As long as they get their other shit done. 🤷🏿‍♀️) Apart from the obvious makeup artist route, practicing makeup artistry teaches one about color theory just as much as it does about patience + perseverance.

Why is something that has been pigeonholed as a "woman's activity," automatically given a negative connotation? Do we tell boys to stop playing video games because "girls aren't wasting their time doing it." No, we don't.

I firmly believe that feminism is not about being equal to men, its about women having the access to choices without meeting violence and prejudice in the process. 

The choice to pursue a career in engineering, without meeting the sexist environment that world brings. The choice to wear short skirts and crop tops freely, without having to worry about the wandering eyes of men looking to take advantage. The choice to pursue a career in makeup artistry, without facing any stigmas about it being frivolous or superficial. Its about autonomy, its about choice.  

2. Conventionally attractive people should check their privilege before telling someone how to be.

Smith's comments were annoying, but, ironically the impact of her words were crushingly coupled with the way she looks. 

Whether she likes it or not, Smith is conventionally beautiful, especially for a black woman. Her light skin, narrow nose, and loosely coiled hair makes her a prime candidate for Jet Beauty of the Week in the black community. As someone with this bit of privilege, Smith's words on beauty come off harsh, uninformed, and out of touch.

Instead of criticizing her daughter, or anyone else for the matter, for being worried about the way they look, why not take a look at the societal pressures that make one feel this way. It's almost like victim blaming in a sense.

It's why I also took issue with Alicia Keys, #NOMakeup Movement (which she didn't launch until after she got her acne and skin issues under control btw.) I believe our time would be much better served tackling the reasons why someone with hyper-pigmentation needs to wear makeup in an interview rather than judging her for putting some concealer under her eyes. Our time would be much better served exploring why someone like Lil Kim, who was a gorgeous mahogany successful female rapper, felt the need to alter herself to the point where she is no longer recognizable, instead of placing the blame and onus on her for doing so.

"In a 2000 interview with Newsweek, Lil' Kim said, “Guys always cheated on me with women who were European-looking. You know, the long-haired type. Really beautiful women [who] left me thinking, 'How I can I compete with that?' Being a regular black girl wasn't good enough.""  -- Essence Mag

In the past, society has told women that we need makeup to get jobs, or to get the attention of men, and then we wear it and are somehow we are wrong for it? Then all of a sudden our patriarchal society decides that being "natural" and wearing ones real hair is of the upmost importance, and "you gotta take her swimming on the first date." 🙄 It just doesn't make any sense.

Instead of criticizing the way people respond to societal pressures, maybe we should work on ways we can try to change society and alleviate those pressures.  

3. Shallow pieces of advice do little to combat the depth of beauty issues that stem from today's society.

Our society is deeply flawed and has placed value on certain skin tones and facial features. This isn't groundbreaking news. This phenomenon goes back centuries and is marked with racism, imperialism, and anti-blackness. While I am the first one to say I love a good inspirational quote or meme, simply telling those, for example, with darker skin, who don't feel beautiful to "love themselves," or "value themselves," isn't going to fix this wicked problem.

Does it help? Sure. When it's delivered in the right way, from the right source, messages of inspiration encouraging self love and self care can help someone begin to see value when they look in the mirror, especially if that message is coming from someone who looks like them. (which is why representation is SO important, but let me not make this article hella long)

But we need to do more. In addition to presenting more diverse representations of beauty standards in the media, we need more spaces where people feel comfortable and safe being their authentic selves; which is why I can stan for the beauty community on social media. Although it is definitely flawed in many ways, the beauty world on social media has allowed so many people to find a creative outlet that makes them feel beautiful by their own standards. The beauty of something like YouTube, for example, is that people feel amazing emulating makeup looks inspired by everything from an album cover to a candy bar to potato chip packaging. (seriously.)

The amount of innovation I see on the daily is truly mind blowing, and is just one way many are reclaiming the beauty industry and redefining it in a way that works for them. 

One of my favorite quotes is by Steve Maraboli (although side eye that this is coming from a man.)

"There is nothing more rare, nor more beautiful, than a woman being unapologetically herself; comfortable in her perfect imperfection. To me, that is the true essence of beauty."

Let's create spaces where we can be unapologetically ourselves, whether its with makeup or otherwise.