#arab american fiction

[doubledaybooks]

“A gorgeously written and profoundly intimate debut.” —Etaf Rum, author of New York Times bestseller A Woman Is No Man

Read BETWEEN TWO MOONS by Aisha Abdel Gawad

[battyaboutbooksreviews]

Read Palestine Week

🇵🇸 Good morning, my beautiful bookish bats. Can I start by saying a huge THANK YOU for sharing my Queer Palestinian Book post? Seriously, thank you so much. Let's keep that momentum by observing Read Palestine Week (Nov 29 - Dec 5). I've compiled a list of books to help you, along with a list of upcoming events and resources you can use this week and beyond.

🇵🇸 A collective of over 350 global publishers and individuals issued a public statement expressing solidarity with the Palestinian people. Publishers for Palestine have organized an international #ReadPalestine week, starting today (International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People).

🇵🇸 These publishers have made many resources and e-books available for free (with more to come). A few include award-winning fiction and poetry by Palestinian and Palestinian diaspora authors. You'll also find non-fiction books about Palestinian history, politics, arts, culture, and “books about organizing, resistance, and solidarity for a Free Palestine.” You can visit publishersforpalestine.org to download some of the books they have available.

POETRY 🌙 Things You May Find Hidden in My Ear by Mosab Abu Toha 🌙 Affiliation by Mira Mattar 🌙 Enemy of the Sun by Samih al-Qasim 🌙 I Saw Ramallah by Mourid Barghouti 🌙 A Mountainous Journey by Fadwa Tuqan 🌙 So What by Taha Muhammad Ali 🌙 The Butterfly’s Burden by Mahmoud Darwish 🌙 To All the Yellow Flowers by Raya Tuffaha

FICTION 🌙 Gate of the Sun by Elias Khoury 🌙 Speak, Bird, Speak Again: Palestinian Arab Folktales 🌙 Men in the Sun by Ghassan Kanafani 🌙 Morning in Jenin by Susan Abulhawa 🌙 Gaze Writes Back by Young Writers in Gaze 🌙 Palestine +100:Stories from a Century after the Nakba 🌙 Wild Thorns by Sahar Khalifeh 🌙 Out of Time by Samira Azzam

🌙 The Skin and Its Girl by Sarah Cypher 🌙 You Exist Too Much by Zaina Arafat 🌙 A Woman is No Man by Etaf Rum 🌙 Salt Houses by Hala Alyan 🌙 A Map of Home by Randa Jarrar 🌙 Against the Loveless World by Susan Abulhawa 🌙 Minor Detail by Adania Shibli 🌙 The Woman From Tantoura by Radwa Ashour

NON-FICTION 🌙 Blood Brothers by Elias Chacour 🌙 Strangers in the House: Coming of Age in Occupied Palestine by Raja Shehadeh 🌙 Palestinian Art, 1850–2005 by Kamal Boullata 🌙 Palestine by Joe Sacco 🌙 The Hour of Sunlight: One Palestinian’s Journey from Prisoner to Peacemaker by Sami Al Jundi & Jen Marlowe 🌙 Palestine: A Four Thousand Year History by Nur Masalha 🌙 Justice for Some: Law and the Question of Palestine by Noura Erakat 🌙 The Words of My Father: Love and Pain in Palestine by Yousef Khalil Bashir

🌙 Traditional Palestinian Costume: Origins and Evolution by Hanan Karaman Munayyer 🌙 Mountain against the Sea: Essays on Palestinian Society and Culture by Salim Tamari 🌙 This Is Not a Border: Reportage and Reflection from the Palestine Festival of Literature 🌙 We Could Have Been Friends, My Father and I: A Palestinian Memoir, by Raja Shehadeh 🌙 Les échos de la mémoire. Une enfance palestinienne à Jérusalem, by Issa J. Boullata 🌙 A Party For Thaera: Palestinian Women Write Life In Prison 🌙 Light in Gaza: Writings Born of Fire, 🌙 Voices of the Nakba: A Living History of Palestine

[theblobmaster]

i'm curious about something. bcs in my head if a waiter introduces themselves by name in a fic i automatically assume the writer is us american so

please reblog to get a bigger sample pool & put in the tags what your answer is and where you're from if you want :]

[arabian-batboy]

So we can't play characters in Aladdin, a centuries-old Arab folktale, because in the 90's an American company made an Orientalist animated-adaptation where they used some Indian elements, so therefore its okay to erase us from our folktales and contribute them to a completely separate/unrelated culture.

We can't play characters in Dune, a story from a sc-fi novel that's explicitly inspired by Arabic/Islamic culture and the European colonialism of the Middle East, because it takes place in a planet called Arrakis (literally based on Iraq) so therefore it just a "FIcTioNal pLanet! It hAs NoTHinG tO Do wiTH REaL wOrLD CuLtUreS!!."

We can't play characters from Kahndaq, a country that's literally located in the real-life Sinai Peninsula (which is a part of Egypt), but because it's own independent country that got detached from Egypt, people will gaslight us into thinking it has nothing to do with Egypt or any Arab county, so therefore its okay not to hire any Egyptian or Arab actors.

And now we can't even play characters from a fictional kingdom called "ARABster," probably the most stereotypical Arabic nation in fiction ever with how down-right stereotypically Arabic it is (it's in the name for God's sake), because the studio's CEO is a racist Zionist and because 20+ years later in a random book that wasn't even written by the author there's a line that claims they might have been slightly inspired by an Indian city on top of his extremely heavy inspiration of Egypt.

Like Goddamn, who tf are we supposed to play then? Beside racist caricatures that dehumanize and demonize us so that people who grow up watching them will not feel sorry for us when the US's army kills us, I'm sure Hollywood will make sure to hire us for those roles.

[nkjemisin]

Hey there. I'm writing a story set in New York City and am not American. I have few characters, but most of them are arab or white. I can't help but feel a bit wrong about it, given that America is much more diverse than that, and NYC being an emblem of that. Do you think I should force myself to include more representation or should I just tell my story, and leave that more diverse cast to some other story I could write? I know this is a neverending debate and there are many opinions about it, but I've always agreed with everything you've said in matters of representation in fiction, and so I'd be curious to know your personal answer on it.

I'm a little confused by how you're using "representation," here. It sounds like you think representation = "randomly sticking BIPOC everywhere." I think when most people use that word, it means something more like "create an accurate or at least plausible depiction of a group or place." In actual New York, there are plenty of Middle Easterners and white people who live in relatively homogeneous small communities where they might only see someone of a different ethnicity on the subway. If your story is set in one of those communities -- and you do stick some random BIPOC in that subway scene, because that's plausible -- then it sounds like your characters might be an example of good representation.

(Note: if you're not writing something set in the real world, but it features human beings, it needs to represent humanity as a whole, unless there's a good in-world reason not to. But if it's our world? You can get specific.)

Here's the catch, tho: plausibility is relative. If you've absorbed some biases and haven't done enough research, then you might end up writing something that feels plausible to you, but which isn't actually representative or plausible to anyone else. The way to avoid this is to do the research and check (to the best of your ability) your biases. For example, you aren't American, I assume you've at least visited NYC? If not, you should. You can visit some of the communities I mentioned! You can eat in restaurants, visit mosques, have conversations with actual real people who are living the life you're writing about! If you don't have the time, money, or spoons to do that, there are other ways to do good research -- films and YT/Tiktok videos made by people from the communities in question, for example. But you'd need to watch a lot of them to get a good representative sample.

I recommend this book to all the writing students I've taught at Clarion, and other writer workshops: Writing the Other, by Nisi Shawl and Cynthia Ward. There's a particular part of it that seems relevant here, which is a kind of hierarchy of "appropriate" appropriation, I think first mentioned by Diantha Day Sprouse but included in Writing the Other. Basically it says that if you want to write about a culture that isn't your own, you can learn about that culture in one of several ways: a) You can be an Invader, and just go take whatever intellectual and artistic tidbits from that culture that you want, regardless of how damaging this might be to members of that group. Example: non-Indigenous people who write about actual secret practices, or who encourage the desecration of sacred places. b) You can be a Tourist, in which you're still mooching from that culture, but at least you're figuratively paying someone for it and accepting tidbits that the culture has chosen to sell. Example: getting a sensitivity reader. Or c) you can be an Invited Guest, who brings in as much as they take out, and who has formed relationships that are beneficial to all involved. Example: being part of an exchange program, both as a student and later as a host, and maintaining those friendships outside of the program.

The goal is to be an IG, but that isn't always possible. Tourist is still better than being an Invader. (...I feel like I'm leaving out a category. It's been a while since I read the book; any more recent readers want to check me here?) But the closer you can get to actually participating in that culture, the more your work will be informed by reality instead of biases or misinformation, and the more likely your work will read as plausible not just to you, but to your widest possible audience -- people familiar with the culture and people who aren't.

(I'm a little concerned about your phrasing of "force myself to include more representation," note. Why would that need to be a forced thing? A writer's goal should be to write something that feels lived-in and authentic to [if it's a real place] most people's experience -- not to meet some arbitrary standard, but because that's how you master immersion and characterization. If good immersion and characterization feel forced to you right now, that suggests you need more practice. I recommend writing short stories!)

[cosmothealien358]

Lego Ninjago and Race: An Analysis for the Upcoming Live Action

I know there’s been a lot of discourse in the ninjago community since a live action movie has been announced, and there’s sure to be even more after the cast list is released. Many fans are afraid the cast will be all white, while others don’t care what race the ninja will be. Non-fans looking in from the outside might say, “Why does it matter? They’re legos, they’re yellow.” I’ve seen this argument more recently, especially revolving Arin in the soft reboot Dragons Rising.

The point of this longer post is to explain how race still exists in Ninjago despite the plastic, yellow nature of the characters, and why making the cast entirely or mostly white would be a disservice to the fans and the source material as a whole. So let’s ninja-go into this topic.

Part 1: Hair and Black-Coding

When people claim that legos don’t have race, they often claim it’s because they are yellow. However, they forget that legos still have humanoid characteristics, and one of the easiest ways to tell when a lego character is black-coded is to look at their hairpiece.

Here are some examples of hairpieces clearly meant to resemble black hair textures/hairstyles:

When characters have textured hair (i.e. Arin and Euphrasia from Ninjago) or locs/braids (i.e. Mateo and Zoey from Dreamzzz), it’s hard to argue they’re meant to be interpreted as anything other than black. And if that’s not obvious enough, there’s also:

Part 1b: Voice Actors and Black-Coding

People of color voice acting non-human characters doesn’t determine race, but it does add to character coding. This can be seen in characters from other shows, such as Darwin from The Amazing World of Gumball. Even though Darwin is a 2D animated goldfish, he has been voiced exclusively by black voice actors. Because of his voice (and other mannerisms/narrative elements), Darwin is generally accepted to be black-coded.

Being voiced by a person of color does not automatically make a character black-coded, but it can certainly add credence to characters who already have black characteristics, such as Arin and Euphrasia.

Part 2: Names

Another reason it’s hard for ninjago fans to interpret certain characters as white is because of their names. While many have stereotypical “American white boy names” (i.e. Jay, Cole, and Zane), other characters have names that are certainly not strictly American. Examples include Wu (a Chinese surname), Misako (a Japanese name), Chen (a Chinese surname), Okino (a Japanese surname) and Sora (Japanese given name). Ninjago may be set in a fictional world of animated, plastic people, but it’s still based on real-world names, and considering how a lot of the characters’ names come from East Asia, there is merit to declare that characters like Misako and Sora are meant to be interpreted as East Asian.

Part 3: Cultural Influences

Now, to the most obvious reason why it would be absurd to put an all-white cast on screen: the cultural influences. I am not Asian myself, but other ninjago fans have expressed frustration about the cultural melting pot that is Ninjago. It takes influence from both Eastern and Western cultures for its setting, worldbuilding, lore, and fantastical elements. Ninjago puts ninja, samurai, Kabuki, and Oni from Japanese history and culture, Djinn from Arabic regions, the yin/yang concept from Chinese philosophy, and dragons from various cultures into one narrative. There’s even a character named Ronin (which means a “wandering samurai”).

Additionally, the ninjago language seems to be inspired by Tategaki, an East Asian style of writing.

What this means is that Ninjago is brimming with real-life cultural influences. They rarely come from the same places and are not always faithful or accurate. In fact, they can sometimes seem borderline disrespectful and stereotypical in the earlier seasons- particularly with the portrayal of Chen and pilot Wu. However, it doesn’t take a genius to spot the East Asian cultural influences on ninjago. This is clear in the character designs, attire, and especially in the settings:

Part 4: What does this mean?

In summary, Ninjago is a fictional setting that takes inspiration from East Asian cultures, and has coded certain characters as certain races through more indirect means such as naming and designs. Even though none of the ninjago characters have 100% canon races, there is still evidence that some are meant to be interpreted as black or Asian. Therefore, making all the ninjago characters white would be a disservice to the fans AND the source material because it takes away subtle but essential parts of the characters and world.

Additionally: Representation matters. It could mean a lot for fans new and old to see the ninja becoming humanized and seeing themselves on screen. Not only would an all-white cast be unfaithful to the source material, but it would be disheartening to fans hoping for racial representation, especially in an age where “wokeness” is considered a touchy subject in some areas.

Part 5: Other Thoughts/Clarifications

The beautiful thing about Ninjago is that the Lego nature of the characters allows them to be interpreted in so many ways. The characters don’t have canon skin tones, eye color, body types, ages, heights, etc., so they can be whatever fans want. Whatever the fans interpret them to be or even what they feel like, they can be. And I think that’s beautiful.

TLDR: I don’t want the movie casting to limit the fan’s creativity or headcanons. Even if the cast isn’t entirely white, I hope people continue to make creations with their own interpretations of the characters.

Also: I urge fans to not harass the actors if they are white. I feel like the ninjago fandom is above that but I feel inclined to make this statement in advance regardless.

Finally: I’m leaving this post wide-open to discussion and discourse. I did surface-level research for the ninjago cultural influences, so if anyone wants to add on to or correct anything, feel free to do so. All I ask is that the conversations remain civil.

That is all :)

[cer-rata]

TW: racism

I think the way that comic book media has uncritically pushed anti-Arab racist propaganda (among other kinds) for decades upon decades is an important thing to acknowledge. Like it's not just a couple of bad apples here and there, it's always been pervasive. So many stories, so many villains, so many Arab coded fake evil countries. That kind of thing desensitizes people, dehumanizes entire groups. The politics of media designed for young men and boys (and not just them but for years that was the only audience that mattered, thanks sexism) has consequences.

Seriously, what was this:

As far as I'm aware this never even got an explicit retcon.

I was a little Muslim boy in the mid 2000s reading a Death in the Family because I wanted to know what happened to Jason Todd, and I didn't understand the depths of the propaganda that was being fed to me. I was so desensitized to hearing about terrible things happening in the middle east, and evil terrorists that I didn't question it. And my parents talked to me about what was going on and how it was wrong. But I was still a little kid and I loved Batman and I wasn't at the point where I could really look at the narrative critically, to realize that the authors have worldviews that are biased. I don't think I even grasped that different people wrote the characters. Iran electing known super-terrorist-serial killer-baby eating clown The Joker to represent them because he understood their values is yes, notably crazy, but most of this stuff isn't so loud and obvious, and we didn't leave it in the 80s. Just look at what happened to the depiction of Talia and Ra's post 911 and how they progressive became less human. So just think about the generations of kids reading this crap who had no counter messaging at all. Where does that leave their empathy?

I'm not saying that everything we're seeing is the fault of comic books, that's stupid and reductive and insulting to the complexity of the reality. But what I'm saying is that a lot of these narratives are actively complicit in the kinds of inhumanity we're seeing. Marvel thinking it's appropriate to throw Sabra into a movie in current day is a glaring transgression but it's not some kind of strange outlier. Lots of those films are actively funded by arms of the American military, just look at Captain marvel and Iron Man. And if anyone likes imposing an agenda onto the narrative, it's the military. A lot of this is baked into the fiction, and we owe it to ourselves and others to actively contend with what that means.

I dunno I'm just mad, and disappointed and maybe a little guilty that it took me this long to really realize the full state of things. I spent a lot of time blindly consuming. Like these books were created to be aspirational, to show good people trying to make a better world. But as always happens when art is completely beholden to money, they still serve the politics of the ruling class at the end of the day.

[tlajtollirambles]

Fiction Podcasts + Language Learning!

(Audiodramas recommendations whcih main language is English but they also future heavily other languages)

Korean- Moonface

A fiction show about a Korean American son (Joel Kim Booster) who wants to come out to his mom (Esther Moon), but can't because they don't speak the same language

Tagalog- Hi Nay

Hi Nay, literally translated to “Hi Mom”, is a supernatural horror fictional podcast about Filipina immigrant Mari Datuin, whose babaylan (shaman) family background accidentally gets her involved in stopping dangerous supernatural events in Toronto.

Spanish- Celestial Blood

Celestial Blood is a bilingual radionovela about love and secrets in the family of twins Sol and Mundo Lucero.

If you have any other recs (specially of hindi, nahuatl, arabic, tagalog or thai) pls comment!

[oldgayjew]

Kash Patel should release the files on Trump. His Tax Returns, how much money he's made off of the taxpayers while golfing at his resorts, how much tax payers paid for the stays of his guests at his Hotel and Resorts, and his bone spurs claim because Veterans who served in Viet Nam need to know that!

You're right ... and he should also release Obozo's weekly expenses, golf trips, 4 vacations per year for Mike and the girls, her "staff" of 25 (who did nothing), weekly BBQ take-outs, Wednesday cook-outs with his homeys, the distribution of his "Infrastructure and Shovel Ready" give-away from his first month in office, how much money and technical info he gave to Iran and exactly what he did his first month in office to deserve a Nobel Prize, besides starting 3 wars, the Arab Spring and funding of ISIS ... oh ... and release the real truth about his Benghazi fiasco that cost the lives of 4 Americans ... Obozo's tax returns would make a great "Creative Writing" class for fictionalization of an 8 year farce ...

... and finally ... release John Kerry's Military Medical Records so that all Vietnam veterans can so how he "earned" his 3 Purple Boo-Boos ...

[doubledaybooks]

There’s a chapter of the Qur’an called “Comfort,” sometimes translated as “Consolation” or “Solace.” And in it, a verse: “With every hardship there is ease. With every hardship there is ease.” The same line repeated twice, in case we have trouble believing it the first time. In case we have a hard time recognizing ease even when it is offered to us, even when it is served to us on a white plate. In case we are drowning in our hardship and cannot see those tiny life rafts of ease—soft potatoes, meat slow-roasted to velvet, your mother’s laugh trilling gently in your ear. -Aisha Abdel Gawad, BETWEEN TWO MOONS

[battyaboutbooksreviews]

🇵🇸 Palestinian Fiction Books for Your TBR 🇵🇸

✨ Fiction stories can make an individual's experience universal and easier to understand from an outsider's perspective. We learn about one another's histories, realities, and cultures through fiction stories, even if we don't realize it. As a way of educating yourself and empathizing, here are a few Palestinian fiction books you can add to your ever-growing TBR for read Palestine Week.

🇵🇸 Please, please help me ensure these books receive the attention they deserve by sharing this post.

🌙 Minor Detail by Adania Shibli 🇵🇸 Salt Houses by Hala Alyan ✨ A Woman is No Man by Etaf Rum 🌙 Against the Loveless World by Susan Abulhawa 🇵🇸 The Sea Cloak: And Other Stories by Nayrouz Qarmout ✨ Wild Thorns by Sahar Khalifeh 🌙 The Parisian by Isabella Hammad 🇵🇸 Palestine +100: Stories from a Century after the Nakba ✨ Mornings in Jenin by Susan Abulhawa 🌙 We are All Equally Far from Love by Adania Shibli 🇵🇸 My First and Only Love by Sahar Khalifeh ✨ Where the Bird Disappeared by Ghassan Zaqtan 🌙 Trees for the Absentees by Ahlam Bsharat 🇵🇸 Mother of Strangers by Suad Amiry ✨ You Exist Too Much by Zaina Arafat

[out-of-the-forest-i-come]

Feminist Non-Fiction Recs

Because feminism isn't only about your own voice and your own rights, but about the liberation of all women, it's important to uplift the voices of women who are rarely heard. To honour this international day of Women's Rights, here are some recommendations for non-fiction feminist theory books centered on women of colour.

Please note that this is a non-exhaustive list, and that some very important works might not figure on it. Take it as inspiration, not as a binding list of works to have read, and remember that this is only the surface of women of colour's writings on feminism.

all of bell hooks' books, but I would recommend "Ain't I a Woman: Black Women and Feminism" to start with intersectional feminism

There Is No Hierarchy of Oppression; by Audre Lorde

Sister Outsider; by Audre Lorde (all of Audre Lorde, actually)

Hood Feminism; by Mikki Kendall

White Tears, Brown Scars; by Ruby Hamad

Mediocre; Ijeoma Oluo

We Should All Be Feminists; by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

This Bridge Called My Back; an anthology edited by Cherríe Moraga and Gloria E. Anzaldúa

Bad Feminist; by Roxane Gay

I Am Malala; by Malala Yousafzai

Black Feminist Thought: Knowledge, Consciousness, and the Politics of Empowerment; by Patricia Hill Collins

Arab & Arab American Feminisms: Gender, Violence, & Belonging; an anthology edited by Rabab Abduhaldi, Evelyn Alsultany and Nadine Naber

Making Space for Indigenous Feminism; an anthology edited by Joyce Green

Beyond Veiled Clichés: The Real Lives of Arab Women; by Amal Awad

The Trouble with White Women: A Counterhistory of Feminism; by Kyla Schuller

A Decolonial Feminism; Françoise Vergès

Eloquent Rage: A Black Feminist Discovers Her Superpower; by Brittney Cooper

Women, Race, & Class; by Angela Y. Davis

These books really only scrape the surface of an intersectional approach of feminism focused on race, and if you want to discover more works, I would recommend looking at intersectional feminism and decolonial feminism. Also, if you're not a native English speaker or if you speak fluently multiple languages, I recommend looking for feminist books originally written in other languages that may not have been translated to English, as they offer a perspective that is not so American-centered, which I feel is the case in too much of today's feminism.

[dedalvs]

My apologies, what I meant is that most of your languages are made for fantastic, fantasy worlds, as opposed to a fictional culture on Earth. If you're creating a language for a culture set on Earth, you'd probably incorporate features that tie it to a real language, am I correct?

I think you still may be misunderstanding what the key questions are and how they factor into language creation. There are two questions:

Is this language supposed to be descended from an existing language (or set of languages) on Earth?

Is this language spoken by creatures that are identical to humans in all the ways that play a crucial role in language use, comprehensijon, and transmission?

These are the only relevant questions. Notice I didn't say anything about where the languages are spoken. That bit is irrelevant. Language has its own geography and it's the only geography that matters when it comes to a posteriori language construction.

For example, looking at Dothraki, the answer to (1) is no, and the answer to (2) is yes. For that reason, Dothraki should be a language that looks entirely ordinary, in terms of how it stacks up with languages spoken currently on Earth, but its vocabulary and grammar shouldn't be directly related to any language on the planet. How could it be, if our planet doesn't exist in that universe? But since Dothraki are completely ordinary human beings their language should be a compeltely ordinary human language.

If you look at the aliens District 9, the answers to both (1) and (2) are no, despite the fact that the movie takes place in South Africa. And, in fact, you see some very interesting linguistic phenomena in that movie, where you have two species that understand but cannot use each other's languages. Its setting, though, doesn't mean that the alien language should be influenced by Afrikaans in any important way, though. It may have "borrowings", but even those would be strange (calques, most likely), since the aliens can't actually make human sounds—the same way the humans wouldn't have "borrowings" from the alien language.

On the other hand, if you look at Trigedasleng, the answers to both (1) and (2) are yes. But the suggestion you seem to be making is that I might kind of haphazardly "borrow" features from an existing language into a language that I'm nevertheless creating from scratch. That wouldn't make sense. Trigedasleng is simply an evolved form of American English with some specific constraints (some quite unrealistic, due to the scifi setting) placed on the evolution. I didn't "incorporate" features from American English: it IS American English, through and through, evolved in a way that makes sense for the setting.

There are certainly a posteriori conlangs where the creator approaches the creation of the language by saying, "I took the initial consonant mutation of Irish and combined it with the triconsonantal root system of Arabic and added the Turkish plural suffix (with vowel harmony) and added the accusative from Esperanto", and the like. This is one of the hallmarks of an amateur conlanger. Not even a creole language in the real world does this. Creole languages draw influences from many different languages, but the resulting system can't be divided up neatly into different linguistic sources. Furthermore, the result is a coherent system that doesn't look like any of the sources. Tok Pisin gets a lot of its vocabulary and grammar from English, but also gets vocabulary from German and other languages that were native to the region. When listening to the language, though, it's not like it sounds like English, then it suddenly sounds like German for a word, then it sounds like a Papuan language, then back to English: the whole thing sounds like Tok Pisin. It's a seamless, coherent system—just like any language, since all languages on Earth have borrowings and features from other languages.

Also, minor nitpick: "real" language doesn't make sense. We say natural language vs. constructed languages. Both are equally real, in that neither has any kind of material existence. A constructed language is a real language with a fake history.

Does this make sense?

[sweetiebriar]

I really shouldn’t get involved in this debate because, first, it's utterly absurd and immature, and second, it will likely earn me a few enemies and drag me into conflicts, which I despise more than anything… Yet, I can’t stay silent. My anger is boiling over because creators and writers like myself are being bullied by so-called fans with narrow-minded perspectives, forcing us to bow down to politically correct foolishness just to be able to continue our work in peace.

¡Swearwords Alert!

What the fucking, shitty, bloody heck is wrong with these people?! This is a work of fiction—a story set in a fantasy, medieval Slavic world. The rules of the modern, real world do not apply here. Why on earth is representation being demanded in a context where it makes no sense?

¡Swearwords Alert End!

For those who’ve wisely avoided this whole debacle—and I congratulate you, keep doing so in the future if possible, let me fill you in: our dear RC team, along with the author of "The Thunderstorm Saga," Alexander D., were recently pressured (and in some cases harassed) into changing the main character sprites, which originally consisted of various elven races—forest, moon, and dark elves—into human representations (Asian, Caucasian, African, Latin, etc.).

AS: I didn’t get involved in the uproar about Volot’s skin tone in "And The Haze Will Take Us" being a player choice, because frankly, it was ridiculous for a portion of the community to react negatively, as if RC’s decision was some kind of racist move. Let me remind you, we’ve had this kind of choice before, like in "Vying For Versailles" with King Louis, and no one complained. Also, if you weren’t aware, book covers are often altered in their Russian versions. A main character who is Black or Brown in the American/European editions is frequently depicted as white in the Russian versions, except in rare cases where the character’s ethnicity is central to the story, like in "Garden of Eden" or the "Kalis". This change is due to the narrow-mindedness of the Russian community, and RC makes these changes to avoid backlash from its largest player base. Perhaps the decision to change Volot's skin was made with the Russian market in mind, and they decided to keep it consistent for all players. But frankly, I don’t care, and I don’t want to know.

Now, back to the main issue:

I’ve been a writer for most of my life, and I cannot stress this enough: a writer’s vision is theirs and theirs alone. While we might choose to revise certain aspects of our stories or find new ways to tell them, the opinions of readers and fans should never dictate those decisions. We are the creators of the content you enjoy. You read our work because you appreciate our vision. If we start crafting stories the way you want, it ceases to be our vision, and the magic is lost. Instead of venturing into the unknown, the story becomes a mundane reflection of everyday life. People read books to escape reality, not to mirror it.

Frankly, I find the elven races in this story quite representative, if you ask me—certainly more so than in LOTR (And remember the backlash about the Black dwarf queen? How ironic…).

- Forest Elves One have very fair skin, which can be linked to Caucasians. The Forest Elves Two can be more compared to Mediterranean people.

- Moon Elves One & Two, with their warm, brownish skin, can be connected to Hispanic or Latin people.

- Dark Elves, as you might expect, are associated with people of African descent, with group One being darker than group Two.

Sure, not every community is represented here—where are the Asians, the Eastern Europeans, the Arabs, Indians, and Indigenous peoples? There are more than just three skin tones, after all.

But this debate is utterly ridiculous. This is a work of fiction set in a fantasy realm. These characters are elves, not humans, and they don’t need to represent human diversity. The vast majority of players enjoyed the story as it was, and do you know why? Because they chose their main character based on who they found most appealing, not because the character resembled them. Contrary to what some believe, representation isn’t always necessary in fiction. Yes, there were fewer Black and brown-skinned characters in the past due to racism and segregation, but today, in a diverse and cosmopolitan world, young writers incorporate their modern perspectives into their work, and people generally don’t complain about representation anymore. So stop making a fuss over something that was never an issue to begin with. Let writers do their work. Criticising elves for not being "human enough" is not constructive; it’s just nonsense. And if you want to argue with me over this, don’t bother. I refuse to debate anyone over a fictional world, and especially over a game.

[hussyknee]

This article hits a lot of my discomfort around comparing the LTTE to Hamas, or any of the Palestinian resistance.

Do I believe in Tamil self-determination? Yes. Should they have a sovereign state? Yes. Should they have won the North instead of the SL military? Absolutely. Does any indigenous Tamil or Muslim person in the North and East have the right to armed resistance against majoritarian rule? Also yes. Was the LTTE rank and file fighters resisting annihilation and the SL military to a man was committing murder? Yes.

Do I believe the LTTE as an organisation and Prabhakaran as its head actually stood for anything but replacing the Sinhalese ethnostate with a Tamil one of their own choosing? Fucking no.

Navaratnam, after splitting away from the Federal Party, also published a newspaper, Viduthalai. I read the paper in the 1970s, when it often compared Tamils and Jews in terms of cultural character—including a supposed predisposition for intelligence and entrepreneurship—and argued that they were similar. (This line of thinking survives to this day: I know of Tamil nationalists in the diaspora who invoke the establishment of Israel as an example for their own goals, and see similarities in the Tamil and Jewish struggles.) Viduthalai also serialised Exodus, a popular 1958 novel by the American Jewish writer Leon Uris, which was translated by Navaratnam and published in Tamil as Namakkoru Naadu—A Country of Our Own.

Exodus presents a factually inaccurate but heroic account of the Zionist project to establish Israel as a Jewish nation state, and follows a group of Jewish arrivals in Palestine after the Second World War. It makes no mention of the mass dispossession and ethnic cleansing of Palestinians by Zionist forces in 1948. Edward Said, the Palestinian activist and intellectual, has highlighted how the novel dehumanises Arabs. Said has also argued that, when it comes to Israel, “the main narrative model that dominates American thinking still seems to be Leon Uris’ 1958 novel Exodus.” The British journalist Robert Fisk once described the novel as a “racist fictional account of the birth of Israel” in which Arabs are “rarely mentioned without the adjectives ‘dirty’ and ‘stinking’.”

Velupillai Prabhakaran, who established the LTTE in 1976, was a supporter of the Self-Rule Party as a young man. He would also have been a Viduthalai reader, and was inspired by Exodus. I was informed by a former LTTE member that the organisation also separately translated Exodus in full in the mid-1980s, and that it was widely distributed among LTTE cadres and supporters. Two prominent members of the organisation told me separately that the film adaptation of Exodus was also screened to LTTE cadres at camps in both Sri Lanka and the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu.

Following long-term disillusionment with the LTTE, and seeing no democratic space to raise my concerns with the organisation’s autocratic leader, Prabhakaran, I quit the LTTE for good in April 1984. Many others also left, both before and after me, with the same concerns – among them the one-man leadership and complete intolerance for political discussion or difference. Some of them were murdered by the LTTE for leaving. One tragic example is Patkunam, one of the group’s founding members, who was murdered by Prabhakaran sometime in or around 1977 with the agreement of the appointed central committee of the LTTE. Prabhakaran suspected that Patkunam had been influenced by EROS’s leftist ideas and wanted to leave the LTTE. The LTTE had a policy that those who wanted to leave and join another group or establish another organisation would face capital punishment.

...

As it increasingly gained control of the North and East of Sri Lanka, the LTTE arbitrarily declared itself the “sole representative” of the Sri Lankan Tamil people. On this basis, it targeted Tamil activists from leftist and progressive organisations, killing or otherwise silencing them. The leadership of the TULF, the Tamil parliamentary party, was also wiped out. From as far back as the mid 1980s, the LTTE also suppressed other Tamil militant organisations such as TELO, PLOTE and the EPRLF. Eventually this meant targeted killings and massacres of both cadres and leaders from rival groups. Sections of EROS were forcibly absorbed into LTTE ranks. The LTTE also killed numerous EPRLF and PLOTE cadres who had received training from the PFLP in Syria.

...

In 1990, the LTTE executed a plan to ethnically cleanse Muslims from territories under its control in the North of Sri Lanka. The entire Muslim population of the Jaffna, Vavuniya, Mullaitivu, Mannar and Kilinochchi districts, numbering approximately 75,000 people, was evicted at gunpoint. This demonstrated the LTTE’s desire to establish an ethnically exclusive Tamil state, much like the Jewish state of Israel envisioned by the Zionists. The LTTE’s entire ideology was based on exclusive Tamil nationalism; its idea of a homeland and a nation meant treating Muslims and other minority communities in Tamil-dominated areas as second-class citizens at best. In this, it had uncomfortable similarities with the Zionist outlook on Palestinians and Muslims.

...

The LTTE was a right-wing organisation, with a statist approach to popular struggles. Prabhakaran made it clear that the LTTE would not interfere with “domestic issues” in other countries. I know this because, while I was with the organisation, he did not want to have any links with Marxist-Leninist parties in India as he did not want to antagonise the Indian state. The LTTE’s international network consistently aligned with Western governments and lobbied for their support. Although the LTTE was deemed a terrorist organisation and proscribed by the United States, the United Kingdom and the European Union, these governments’ notices stated clearly that the LTTE had no intention of targeting Western interests.

The LTTE leadership was a corrupt bunch of autocrats that ethnically cleansed and killed anyone that got in their way, including their own people, having solidarity with no one and led by a personality cult not so different from MR's. Nurturing Karuna and Pillayan at their breast while they massacred Muslims, conscripted children and killed and disappeared Tamil activists and journalists, and then crying foul when they defected to get away with their loot? Nah son. Just like the SL government, the LTTE didn't care what they were doing as long as they didn't do it to them. Because in their ego-driven ideology, Tamil self-determination began and ended with them. Even now, it continues to obstruct the Tamil struggle because, since the LTTE made itself and its own nationalist project the sole representative of Tamil freedom, their defeat in 2009 makes the Tamil resistance itself look like it's dead in the water. Tamil Eelam's generational legacy of varied ideologies, factions, alternative enterprises and coalitions that preceded them all erased by this one failed cadre.

Hamas is far from perfect, but there's a continuity to its evolution, a devolution of power within their ranks, a willingness to work as a coalition with other resistance groups, and a generational network of anti-imperialist, anti-colonial solidarity and diplomacy behind them. The LTTE was just cut from the same post-colonial ethnonationalist cloth as the Sinhalese majoritarian state. Freire spoke truly when he said that the oppressed see their model of manhood in their oppressor. As long as we continue to identify with the powerful instead of the powerless, we will never be anything but pawns in the imperial project of coloniality.

*I do wish the author hadn't just...glossed over the horror that was the Indian Peace Keeping Force. Those freaks somehow managed to commit worse massacres and rapes than the Sri Lankan military. Absolutely heartbreaking because so many Tamil people believed they would be their allies. It says a lot that both the government and LTTE had enough of their shit within two years that they came together to kick them out. This alliance also came in useful because it allowed the government to crush the JVP's Marxist insurrection in the South without having to fight a war on two fronts. By that I mean Premadasa was grand chums with the LTTE while his forces killed over 60,000 innocent people in the rest of the country. At least right up until the LTTE killed him. Lol. The late '80s was their trollface era.

[kara-zor-els]

Some more random Jason Todd headcanons:

He collects rare books, knives and vinyls

Can cook fairly decently and likes to experiment with new recipes.

He picked up multiple languages when traveling with Talia, especially Arabic.

His favorite subjects at school were history and english literature. He's still a massive history buff.

Loves magical realism, poetry and historical fiction. He especially loves Latin American lit and Russian lit. He would consider War and Peace to be light reading.

Speaking of poetry, he loves Plath and Neruda, especially the Love Sonnets.

Huge romantic. He hates the idea or dating apps or hook up culture. He rarely falls in love but when he does it's all in.

Doesn't watch a lot of TV.

Still smokes. He tried vaping but didn't like it.

He listens to some pretty obscure and underground punk. He often listens to non English music. Sometimes he will branch out to rock and rap.

He's grew up catholic but choose to become an atheist pretty early on (about the time catherine died)

The white streak in his hair is actually not directly related to his death/the lazarus pit but a case of poliosis/vitiligo. He will sometimes dye it black to match the rest of his hair.

He actually had blond/ginger hair as a baby but it got darker with time (that happens irl btw, my hair was also ginger when I was born). It was totally black by the time he has 12.

Has big doe bown eyes.