#but i am asian american and i grew up knowing so many japanese people. it just. pissed me off. yeah

[girlcored]

idk i was watching the new defunctland about disney animatronics and i realized i'd never seen the hall of presidents. which then i watched and it made me pissed about FDR again. most of the presidents in that show get their COMPLETELY fair criticism but no one ever wants to talk about japanese internment. the white washing of his presidency gets done too easily around here just because of the new deal and the allies winning the war...girl the atomic bombs

[weird-dere-writes]

Good morning! I love you💖

I am humbly requesting more Ichidere lore please. 🙏🏾

Where do you guys live?

Do you have any pets?

Who cooks more?

Who cleans more?

Do you guys want babiessss?

I need to know MORE.

Good morrow, Sunflower :3 🫶🏾💛💛💛

I would love to talk about more Ichidere lore with u uwu <3.

Where do you guys live?

We live in a nice house in Japan with a gate in the front. It's a large one story abode with a pretty garden. It is quite licherally this house, but i hate the front of that house so we're gonna pretend the outside looks like the one below.

also below are a few photos from angles not included in the link :3

Do you have any pets?

To be honest I never really thought about this one before 👀. But i think it would be nice to have at least one owo. And y'know what our pet would be??? A HEDGEHOG. Specifically an African Pygmy Hedgehog (the ones people have as pets!). THEY ARE MY FAVORITE LITTLE GUYS EVER!! 🥺🦔

(if i could have one as a pet irl i SO would, but it is not allowed in my state RIP).

Look at these little GUYS!!!! LOOK AT HIM STANCE :((((( <3

AND IF I GOT AN ALBINO HEDGIE AND NAMED HIM KATSUKI???? FUSSY LITTLE DUDE WHO HISSES A LOT??? (Their hisses are literally just aggressive sniffing btw lmao they are SOOOOOO cute)

LOOK AT HIM EEP 🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺. And hedgie snores are so fuckin adorable 😭

Who cooks more?

I'd say we come pretty close to cooking the same amount! But I think I cook just sliiiiightly more. Also I do some baking, which he doesn't tend to do owo.

But I like the idea of us spending time in the kitchen together <3

Like maybe sometimes he'll help me bake or we both experiment when making a meal together.

I also also looooove the idea of him teaching me how to make more Japanese or Asian foods! Since, coming from America, I of course grew up making more western foods and Americanized Asian foods.

AUGH imagining his first time trying so many of the foods I love. Like Black soul foods I grew up eating 🥺. And he just loves them so much. So when the seasons are right we work together to go hunting for the needed ingredients which aren't as easy to come by in Japan 🥺🥺🥺.

Also idk about his spice tolerance but uuuuhhh... If it ain't too great we're gonna have to get them numbers up 👀👀👀👀👀 LMAO little by little uwu

Who cleans more?

We both clean, but I feel like I take care of the smaller things and let Ichigo take care of the bigger things if that makes sense?

Like I keep our kitchen pretty clean. There are never dishes in the sink on my watch. And I'm always wiping down the counters n table after someone eats. I also wipe down our sinks and mirrors in the bathroom with each use. Vacuum rooms in the house every once in a while.

I know how to clean the showers and toilets, but I tend to procrastinate on it bc its so much WORK, so Ichi usually takes care of it. Sweeping and mopping the whole house is something we do together, but because it's also so big a task I typically kinda avoid doing it for long periods. So Ichigo usually has to initiate it.

We both take care of the garbage, but most times I am gathering everything inside that needs to be taken out then Ichi is the one to bring it outside (bc i am a somewhat a germaphobe hELP).

As far as laundry, Ichi washes his clothes more often and I wash the bedsheets more often. A bitch will procrastinate the hell out of washing and putting away her own clothes AUGH. So Ichi makes it an activity we do together so it isn't as painful enourhnuiohbneiokr.

Do you guys want babiessss?

Yes indeed we do want babies <333333

Since most of this talk has been surrounding the proposal, they have not come yet BUT in the ichidere selfshipping multiverse, over the years I've been building it, he and I have come to have 5 kids in total :3

You can learn a little more belowwwwww uwu + mention of the kiddies (amongst other ichidere nuggets) + baby names! + Ichigo as a dad (amongst other nuggets about him)

Thank you for stopping by to learn more uwu. Your hunger for my self ship is so so encouraging for sharing my self indulgence <33333.

Kith 😘💋💋💋💋

[uc1wa]

Ok, so, it's the middle of the night and I have some thoughts about the beauty of accents that I need to share, this is probably be ranty and unnecessarily long so bear with me (or don't it's your blog, right!)

I'm Canadian but i listen to this band from Japan and I have for 17ish years, the lead singer sometimes sings in English and I love his accent. Most of the time he sings clearly and I can understand what he is saying even if he pronounced something incorrectly and sometimes I can't because it's a metal band and I probably wouldn't fully understand without reading the lyrics even if he didn't have an accent.

So, while listening to them tonight it got me thinking about accents, like jjk happens in Japan so obviously they would speak Japanese, I watch in English because I don't know Japanese, but I was wondering what Geto, gojo, and the rest of them actually speaking English would sound like. Obviously they wouldn't sound like the English VAs.

Accents tell you so much about a person that most people don't even realize. More than just where they are from. Accents come from languages having different sounds and different cadence in speaking. For example, there is no "L" or "th" sound in most Asian languages. So those are difficult sounds to make when learning english. Like, the singer in the band I listen to sings a line in English "gasp for breath" but it sounds like "gasp for bress." If you pay attention to where your tongue is in your mouth when you make a "th" sound compared to a "ss" sound it's not very different but if you didn't grow up moving your tongue that way or haven't specifically been told where to put your tongue you're not going to make the sound like a native speaker. Same with the "L" sound coming out as an "R" sound, very minor differences in tongue position. And to be fair even if you know where to put your tongue and have a minimal accent, if you speak too quickly you'll naturally go back to moving your tongue the way your muscles are used to and your accent will come back. On the flip side Swedish uses almost the exact same set of sounds as English so while learning either language is still a difficult task, pronunciation isn't and when most Swedish people speak English they have very minor accents. (I'm one of your hockey anons and my team has had a LOT of Swedish players over the years so I looked into why they didn't sound like Swedish people you see in movies, it's because Swedish people don't actually talk like that at all 😂) So the language(s) you grew up speaking affect the way your muscles move.

Language also affects the way you perceive the world. For example, the Inuit have between 40 and 70 words for snow! Imagine knowing the difference between that many types of snow! Like I said, I'm Canadian and I can only think of snow with adjectives in front of it (packy snow, frozen snow, fluffy snow) but it's still all the word snow. But it goes deeper than that. There is a stereotype that Asian people are amazing at math so "they," I don't remember who at the moment, ( the moment being 1:38 am) did I study on it, and they found that students in Eastern Asia consistently could remember more numbers when given a list of numbers than north American students could. But Asian students in North America were a mixed bag. They realized the Asian students in North America whose numbers were comparable to the east Asian scores weren't native English speakers, their first language was an East Asian language. Whereas the Asian students whose first language was English had numbers comparable to the rest of the English speakers. Most east Asian languages have a very simple way of counting, like Japanese, from my minimal understanding, the number 84 would be spoken as eight ten four, whereas in English each set of ten has it's own name which causes a longer processing time in your mind. (84 in french is 4 20 4, you have to do math just to count! I assume that would make french speakers even slower at math than English speakers, insert that video of the new York cabby going off about french numbers) also the individual numbers tend to be a single short syllable and that also quickens processing time. This allows east Asian native speakers to remember more numbers than native English speakers. Being Asian doesn't make you better at math, being a native Asian language speaker does. It's not race, it's language.

If you think about it the laws of the universe are defined by physics, and what is physics but math in motion. So, your language literally affects the wiring in your brain and your perception of the world around you.

You can hear the way a brain is wired from the way someone's tongue moves, how cool is that? AND, it can change depending on where you grew up, even with the same language! I tongue from Scotland will move differently than a tongue in Oklahoma! And you can hear it and I love it! I love accents so much. 😩😩😩

Back to jjk, would Geto put in the effort to minimize his accent? I don't think so, honestly I don't think cult leader Geto would even attempt learning English since Jujutsu is mostly in Japan, why would he want to talk to monkeys? (Also, Naoya? Not learning English either, too proud of his family line and honestly not willing to be bad at something, like everyone is at the beginning) Gojo on the other hand, I think he would learn English (to annoy more people) and know lots of words but not necessarily speak clearly, he's the best at everything right? Why wouldn't he be the best at English? So he puts no effort into minimizing his accent, doesn't think he needs to, spoiler he does, haha. I think Yuuji might learn for fun or to understand Jennifer Lawrence interviews, I think he'd have a decent accent but speak clearly.

Anyways, do you have thoughts on this? This being accents in jjk (or any anime) Or am I deliriously tired and not making sense.

finally answering this now that i can give this the attention it deserves. beforehand note, this is such a coincidence bc i took an anthropological linguistic class last sem! also HELLO ONE OF MY HOCKEY ANONS!! MISSED U!

in terms of jjk! most (besides kyoto ppl) are from northern jp, miyagi i think!! i'm from the osaka-hyogo area so there is definitely a different dialect in comparison to miyagi! i do speak more similar to that of kyoto ofc since it is closer. but, just like any city, there are sayings that are foreign in one and the ssame in another.

Most east Asian languages have a very simple way of counting, like Japanese, from my minimal understanding, the number 84 would be spoken as eight ten four, whereas in English each set of ten has it's own name which causes a longer processing time in your mind.

this part was crazy^^ to me. honestly, as somebody who speaks japanese, i never thought of this on my own though it makes perfect sense. saying this as a data science major who grew up being trilingual HAHA

gojo... i honestly think he' grow up speaking english. coming from the most notorious clan in all of jujutsu, i feel like it would just come natural to him and his clan to speak both jp and english. yuuji w the jlaw interviews made me LOL btw.

so, something funny ab naoya (specifically naoya cuz he;s fucking crazy ofc) is he speaks the kansai dialect (this is what i speak as well so ab to clown myself in the process. yk how in english there is like a "valley girl" way of speaking? kansai is the jp version of that. so naoya the all and powerful speaks japanese like a socal valley girl would speak english.

anyways, i loved reading this! language and anthropology in general is so interesting to me. its so cool learned about different people and what makes them... them!! another silly to imagine, when i was little i would sometimes accidentally use an accent from one of my languages when speakig another. imagine a 5 year old xi speaking spanish in a japanese accent lol

[renbennett]

My brief

What is the project asking you to do?

I am going to map out the different ways in which the model minority myth was perpetuated through incarceration, how it still harms people and why abolition is necessary.

What exists already? What needs are people addressing? Who are the big/historical players? What research do you need to do? Who is usually addressed or privileged? Who is disrupting this category?

The model minority myth and our penal system are ways in which white supremacy has been allowed to continue flourishing in the US. Minority groups have been ignored and are typically stuck in lower income communities without substantial government aid. Taxes that could be used to help these communities with social programs for young students or struggling families are instead used for military and police funding. A system that has historically been used against its own people, as long as they are minorities. Black people, Native Americans and Asian people have been used for unpaid labor and have been forced to relocate by our government and we need a solution that will help us move away from this problem. Minority communities are left to struggle and are incarcerated at a ridiculous rate where they are then forced to live in horrible conditions and work for a couple cents an hour so that they have no chance of going anywhere in life. We have continued the cycle of slavery and racism but it is hidden in our “justice” system. This is why it needs to be completely restructured so that it can serve the people and allow for real rehabilitation for those who need it.

Owning your perspective

What communities are you a part of? What communities are you accountable to?

I am the child of wealthy white parents. This means that I am very untouchable by the law and have the power to speak out without such harsh punishment and I believe that this creates a responsibility to my friends of color (and all POC). I grew up in a wealth community going to private schools and have been given recourses and power that for decades have been used to keep white supremacy alive and I believe that it is the responsibility of many of my counterparts to stop this generational cycle.

Identifying your audience

What communities does this project ask you to address?

While abolition and the model minority myth affect many groups, I am specifically addressing its effect on Asian Americans as it relates to the internment of Japanese Americans during World War 2

Who do you think should be the main audience for your work? Who  are you trying to reach?

My audience is ideally apolitical people. I think there are a lot of people that would be supportive of abolition if they had a clear understanding of why it is important. A lot of voters don’t understand the systems they regularly support.

Why do you think they should be the main audience for your work? What do you want them to know or do after viewing/interacting with your work?

I think they should be the main audience because I believe that leftists and abolitionists are viewed as dangerous in a very problematic way as narrated by our government. People find it extreme to want to take down our system but it hasn’t been working for us and has caused years of generational trauma.

What communities do you need to build more understanding/relationships with to do this work?

I have been listening to audios of people who went through internment and have been reading first hand accounts to do this work. As a white person I learned about the Japanese internment but I did not learn about the economical impact on people or the individual experiences after the fact.

Values

What do YOU think is the most important value to the user that should be present in your product/project?

I think it is most important for this project to convey the deeply rooted incompetence of the United States government to deal with racial issues.

Why?

Because people have an expectation that if they ask the government for stricter laws or more help that it will do something. The sad truth is that the result of government help will only hurt minority communities more because our entire system is built to support white supremacy.

What are some of the themes you are noticing or drawn to in your research? What are some gaps in your knowledge that you are filling in? Are you noticing any dominant perspectives? Misrepresentation? Limited or missing narratives? Lack of mention of other groups or histories?

Large themes that I am noticing is that the government made so many mistakes throughout internment. For example, prioritizing the military and putting in place executive order 9066 caused a wartime food shortage because of all the farmers being placed in camps. The inmates had to produce most of their living materials because the government was incompetent. I needed to fill in gaps for what happened afterwards because I notice that people don’t exactly cover that but once you look at first-hand reports, you find that people struggled heavily after internment.

What issue or problem do you want to respond to with your work? What is important to you?

Abolition is important to me and so is stereotyping as a means of proving white supremacy.

Inspiration - What inspires YOU as a designer, person, human? What do you respond to?

Limits

 What are you making? Revisit your assignment - this is where you get technical - a map, an audio track, a book, etc - what form will it take?

I am constructing a rube goldberg machine. I had a lot of different ideas regarding materials but then I decided to make the whole thing a tree and I didn’t want to distract from the point. I also wanted to use recycled cardboard although I had originally planned on wood because I just had so much cardboard and didn’t want to throw it away. Anyways, the whole thing is a tree and the roots kind of explain and document all the nasty parts within executive order 9066.

What are typical trends in this category?

I ended up just using marbles because I felt like it was a classic and would be straight forward.

My Goal: this statement should be your aspirational summary statement that you can come back to for reference. Let your goal be your guide.

My goal is to demonstrate our need for abolition through addressing the racism and expectations of minority groups, specifically Asian Americans in relation to Executive Order 9066.

[tayegi]

A note on Asian privilege

As some of you know, I live in a small, predominantly white suburban town. Last week, I went to the grocery store and stood in line waiting to check out behind this old white couple. I noticed the nice conversation the cashier was having with the couple, and figured that we might have a similar exchange. So I went up to the cashier when it was my turn with a friendly greeting, but the moment she laid eyes on me, her expression completely changed. She immediately dove for her hand sanitizer and smeared it all over before she would even touch my groceries, and didn’t respond to my greeting. And even as she bagged my groceries, she refused to make eye contact, and kept a healthy distance between us, even with the glass divider already in place. And that’s when I realized that she wasn’t just being rude-- she was terrified of me. That even though I was born and raised in the US and have not stepped foot in Wuhan China, she was scared that I might carry a deadly virus and get her sick. 

I have experienced many condescending and outright racist insults in my life, both subtle (e.g., “But where are you really from?”) and overt (e.g., “Go back to your country” and other racist slurs), but never have I ever experienced anyone reacting to me with fear before. And when I told this story to my family, they were equally as shocked. “Why would she be scared?” “But you’re so small and harmless!” I remember feeling strangely embarrassed by the encounter-- like I was the one to blame for the cashier’s fear of me. That I should apologize for the deadly coronavirus just on account of me being Asian. 

And that’s when I realized that this is exactly what Black Americans have experienced everyday for hundreds of years. 

That feeling of being seen as dangerous. Of others being afraid of you. It is gut-wrenching. And it is mind-blowing that no one in my family has experienced this until 2020 with COVID-19. This fear of Asians will pass, as COVID-19 either passes or becomes integrated into our daily lives. But the association of Blacks as dangerous criminals still continues, and will continue unless we do something about it. 

I am so beyond privileged that I can walk into a store without fear of being followed by a cashier or accused of robbery. That I can call police for help without fear of being shot or arrested instead. 

Asian Americans are called the “model minority” and some even wear this title as a badge of honor. It is not a compliment and should not be viewed as such. It’s a manipulative way to turn minority groups against each other. “Look at how much Asians have achieved. Why can’t black/Latino people be more like them?” Why? Because Asians already come from a place of immense privilege. 

We love to pat ourselves on the back and think of ourselves as hard-working underdogs who overcame the barriers of language and racism to succeed. I won’t deny that there are hardships that immigrants and other Asians face. No one is saying that you didn’t suffer!! But your sufferings are in no way comparable to what Black Americans face on a daily basis. And that’s because most Asians come from highly educated or wealthy backgrounds. Think of all the international students you know-- what’s the stereotype about them? That they’re filthy rich, huh? And why’s that? Because it’s true. Asians currently have the highest SES and are the most educated of all ethnic groups in the United States. The only Asians who are allowed to immigrate to the U.S. are usually the richest or most educated. And there aren’t negative stereotypes about dangerousness or criminal behavior around us. 

My dad was a poor grad student, and I grew up in relative poverty as a kid. I remember watching him struggle to make ends meet. But even then, we were highly privileged. Both my parents already had their bachelor’s degrees before immigrating. Do you know how rare that is? Both of them had decades of education and support that set them up for success in the United States. Sure, there was the language barrier, but they were offered free ESL classes from the university. And if all else failed, they could easily just go back to their homeland and find work there. And once my dad graduated with his graduate degree, he was instantly able to find high paying jobs that instantly launched us up to the middle class. Yes, I was poor growing up. Yes, my parents struggled. But they were highly educated, coming from privileged families, and could teach me and pass down those skills. 

The number one predictor of your future SES and income is your parents’ income. 

Let that sink in. 

It’s not hard work. It’s not intelligence. It’s what privilege you were born with that determines your success. Now imagine if you had to start all the way back with slavery. Where you were just an object and had no rights or money. The “American Dream” is just a lie rich people tell to keep poor people in their place. “If you work hard, you can achieve success.” And then they try to use Bill Gates or Zuckerberg as examples of this “American Dream.” Bullshit. Sure, Gates & Zuckerberg dropped out of Harvard to pursue their dreams, but they were privileged enough to get into Harvard in the first place. And I can guarantee you that I would have never gotten into my PhD program-- wouldn’t have even dreamt of applying, if not for my family of academics. 

Asian Americans need to shake off the title of “model minority” and stand with Black Americans. We might be seen as particularly well-behaved dogs, but we’re still dogs in the system. We’ve seen how fast the American public has turned on us during the COVID pandemic. I doubt there’d be even a fraction of this xenophobia and violent hatred if the virus came from Europe. Don’t forget that Japanese Americans were imprisoned in internment camps during WWII. Not even Germans, who started the war, but the foreign-looking ones. And don’t forget that the Chinese weren’t even considered human and weren’t allowed to be U.S. citizens until less than 80 years ago. The system is no friend of ours. No matter how they try to flatter us with all this “model minority” bullshit. We are not special and we will never be seen as equals by Whites. 

Standing in solidarity with Black Lives Matter is standing for equality. It means that we will not put up with white supremacy and systemic injustices anymore. The system is broken, and I am sick and tired of seeing other Asian Americans do everything in their power to try to be perfect, unoffending citizens and appease white people in power. We have to fight for justice and equality. Not just because the tides can turn at any time and put us at harm, but simply because it is the right thing to do. And we, as a community, are in a unique position of privilege in order to make change. 

Black Lives Matter. And check your goddamn privilege. 

[aliceyabusamesoneball]

litle bit vent

i genuinely do not know what race i am like?? im chinese but also im cuban and also im white?? i guess?? BUT LIKE when people ask me what ethnicity i am i dont know what to tell them.. i jjst say chinese cuban american but like i dont feel like i look like any of those

like chinese people think i look chinese, cuban people think i look cuban, and white people think i look white, and technicallyyeah im all of those things but like what do i actually look like then?? like what do i identify as

on like those forms that are like indicate yuor race and there isnt a mixed option i never know what to put normally i just put asian because im more chinese than anything else (if you want to get into percentages im half chinese a quarter cuban and a quarter white) (but im not sure how much those count)

sometimes i feel like i should jjst identify as white because having to say those percentages feels so ridiculois sometimes like if i have to prove im a certain race should i even identify as it?? but at the same time just calling myself white feels like im erasing parts of myself i feel like those cultures are important to me esepcially chinese culture

but also i feel like really really whitewashed because i cant speak any dialect of chinese and i cant speak spanish either, my dad is half cuban/half white but he didnt really grow up in cuban culture so i never got to either,, my mom is from china and is fully chinese so she did teach me some culture stuff but i feel like im jsut. not chinese enough. does that even make sense.. like i dont look chinese i cant speak chinese i grew up in the usa and i’ve never even been to china

when i told that girl who asked if i was japanese that i was chinese she started talking to me excitedly in mandarin and i jjst felt so awful having to tell her that i cant speak it because she seemed so happy to find someone else who was also chinese and i told her i was half chinese and she said “so youre half american?” and i. ITS NOT HER FAULT NOT IN THE SLIGHTEST AND IM NOT MAD AT HER but it jjst made me feel so bad inside i dont know anything about chinese culture really and i cant even speak chinese. i dont even look chinese so what even makes me chinese i feel like i’m just a dumb american who doesn’t knww anytthing pretending to be a chinese person i know i’m chinese ethnically but i dont feel like it

and also the fact that i know absolutely nothing about cubans or cuban culture or anyhtuohng makes me feel so bad my dad doesnt really either so its not his fault for not teaching me bbut ohgod i wish i knew about it so bad there isnt much about cuban culture that i can find and its not like my dad knows much either and i dont really know many cuban people and i cant speak spanish and i dont evne feel cuban at all in the slightest like i at least know a little bit about chinese stuff but id ont know shit about cuban culture

i feel like a white person masquerading as different cultures and even though i know im not i still feel like it and i feel like maybe other people see me that way because i dotn know that much about my cultruel and i jjst uhsdfijjn

it just feels really lonely because i don’t really have anyone in my life that can relate to my experience because its a pretty unique mix of cultures?? ive never met anyone else who was chinese and cuban and i guessits cool but it feels incredibly lonely knowing ill probably never have anyone to relate to,, like ive never felt  truly represented in any type of media or anythinkg like ive seen more representation of nonwhite people in general and thats genuinely great!! but ive never seen anything that can relate to me as ap erson even though when i was a kid id watch things with chinese people in it and sometimes could relate i dont know if ill ever be able to really connect with a character like me SORRY THATS KIND OF A STUPID THING TO WANT OUT OF ALL OF THIS IMPORTANT STUFF BUTSTILL

sorryif this doesnt make sense  i jjst have a lot o f feelings ☹️

[ahhhsami]

ATLA/TLOK Culture to an Adoptee

As someone who is adopted and from an Asian country (China), I cannot express how truly important ATLA and TLOK were to me. I know that there is flack when it comes to how people have interpreted the "whiteness" of the series (in regard to the setting/environment not POC) and how two white males are the creators, but in all honesty, that is why I connect to it more than any other form of media.

I guess it would be good to start with my background and the things that I have gone through growing up. I was adopted from China when I was a 1 year old by a white middle class couple. They already had one daughter, also adopted, but also white. Growing up I was immersed in white American culture. My parents tried to help me learn about my Chinese culture, but I shunned it when I was younger. I grew up in Maine, one of the most predominantly white states in all of the US (fights for number 1 with Vermont and New Hampshire every year). This didn't lead to me wanting to embrace my Chinese culture. I grew up knowing of the stereotypes of Asian people and often times to protect myself I beat people to the punches, I joked and said I was good at sports because I was a ninja, that I was good at math because I was Asian, that I was in shape because I was Asian, that I was book-smart because I was Asian, etc. I always beat people to the punchline of racial jokes by saying them myself. On top of this, I was subject to racial slurs and other harmful stereotypes, jokes, and discrimination, but I never told this to anyone. I shouldered the burden and powered on. I didn't want to be the pushover, weak Asian girl. I didn't want to burden my parents, who already were dealing with outbursts from my older sister. And I didn't realize how detrimental this had been until I really self-reflected later on.

On top of often shunning my Asian culture, I fully embraced the culture that I was surrounded by. I praised Eurocentric beauty, practices, media, sports, entertainment, etc. I often joked and said that I was a banana, yellow on the outside, but white on the inside. And for so long I believed that. For so long that was me.

And then ATLA came along. For the first time I got to see Asian culture on a major television network. I got to see people that looked like me. Places that my parents had tried to teach me about. Culture that I had turned away from. And my friends also talked about it. We watched it together, we talked about it, we loved it. As a child, I obviously knew nothing about the creators, didn't even understand the full picture or how mature the main points of the show were, but I still loved it and even now as an adult, I still do.

TLOK came next and the target audience was me once again. It was for the fans that were now in college, people who had been children when ATLA aired. It was more mature and had completely different pacing and writing. And it had a female POC as the lead. So once again the Avatar universe gave me something that I didn't know I needed. Once again I was becoming empowered through a show that was created by white males.

And finally we get to the point that I had brought up at the beginning. The fact that Bryke are two white males, was what I personally needed. I never felt like I fit in. I felt alone. I was never enough Chinese, enough Asian, enough American, enough Woman (I'm queer btw). But the Avatar universe showed me that that was okay. It wasn't "enough" of any of that either, but it worked. It was never enough because it was created by two white males, but it was again, exactly what I needed to see to truly realize that being me is okay.

The Avatar Universe embraces multiple cultures, from Chinese, Inuit, Japanese, American, and so many more. And for so long I felt that I didn't fit because I didn't just embrace my American side and Chinese side, but also Japanese culture, Korean culture, African American culture, and so much more. I felt like I was mess of pieces of different cultures, but in reality I was a mosaic that was being worked on and am still being worked on. And that's what the Avatar Universe represents to me.

ATLA/TLOK was something beloved by many and still is. And I can say that I love myself and people love me, which I definitely could not have said when I was younger.

[blunixfurtle]

I didn't want to get involved in the current issues in the fandom. The atmosphere felt so aggressive and as if I would get attacked if I said the wrong thing. I just wanted to enjoy being around fellow zutara shippers and talk about the two characters I loved. But this all had to turn into Twitter 2.0 and it's so hostile. But I realized that as an East Asian girl, I can and am allowed to say something for this issue.

I was born in Japan but grew up in a South Pacific country, the local population were mostly Pacific Islanders. This is a rare case I guess where even though I was the minority there, the majority were also POC.

Since I could remember, me and my community there have been shown micro and blatant racism. From seeing a bunch of adults pulling their eye corners at us when we were just casually driving by, to having a birthday party of one of the kids in my community get attacked by drunk locals who were passing by and I guess got offended of our existence? it got so bad that they hid me and the other kids in the basement and locked us in there because they were afraid they'd hurt us too. That hour in there being able to hear screaming and human bodies hitting against the walls and floor, I'll never forget. The police didn't respond immediately, I guess because it's us. When it was over, I had to see many of the adults in my community, including my dad, that day go to the hospital, bloodied and beaten.

I've had more individual experiences as well, like not being given awards and scholarships I earned, because I was asian, but what I'm trying to say is that I grew up in a place where my race was met with hostility, and hate.

The situation got a little better though when the country got ahold of anime and asian dramas. My aggressors now enjoyed media that primarily had Asians in it. So now instead of seeing me and my community, and feeling hostile, they now associated us to those shows they watched, which was positive to them in context.

We got less and less racist encounters and some people even started learning and saying japanese greeting phrases they learnt to us when they met us somewhere. My classmates back then would finally ask me about my home country, curious about Japan. For a few years now even, my dad would always be given a budget and begged to bring one of his signature japanese dishes to office parties. He would always return home with an empty platter and look very happy he was able to share our food with others.

Some people might call this fetishizing my people and culture, but me and my community saw this as breaking the ignorance they have of our people and cultural appreciation. Because they were exposed to media they enjoyed that had Asians. They began seeing us more as fellow humans who just happened to be from different countries.

My brothers had a lot of girls and guys liking them, but that was even before the asian media hit the country. Girls and guys liked them because of their personalities and how nice they were, and yeah according to them they were also handsome. These guys and girls however only felt more free to show their attraction to my brothers, after the media came and made it more okay for people to show positive reactions to my community. Not once though did they mention that they liked them because they were asian. And back when it was still the ignorant times against Asians there, one could even argue they liked them 'despite' being asian.

What I'm getting at is, the whole discourse going around about fetishizing east Asians, feels like a very American discourse to me. I don't know about east Asians from actual east Asia, but as an East Asian that lived in non america, as long as Zuko's east Asian features were not blatantly being the things mentioned that people found attractive, then I do not see it as fetishizing.

I've had my fair share of being fetishized myself. From people saying they want to have my eye shape to look more 'kawaii', to guys full on telling me they wanted to carry me around because I was petite and short like anime girls. This is when I think it's fetishizing asians. But when my boyfriend, who isn't japanese, tells me I'm hot in general, that's not fetishizing.

So far, those shirtless Zuko posts don't mention any east Asian features once. The character happens to be east Asian but the intent and the wording behind shirtless Zuko posts were not mentioning or fetishizing his east Asian-ness. Because a lot of people have abs. And so far, those that I've seen participating in shirtless Zuko, have also other posts that find other, non east Asians hot.

I sympathize with fellow east Asians that find those posts disturbing, uncomfortable and don't want to see them. Your feelings are very valid. But, the discourse around this has blown out of proportion, and so hostile that even I, a fellow east Asian, do not feel comfortable to disagree with the other east Asians talking about this, else I be labeled something I'm not. Or invalidated and ignored. Because living in the islands, I've had enough of that.

I'm all for having WoC voices heard, but when one side is making this discourse feel so hostile and 'twitter cancel culture like' it actually makes other WoC who disagree with their side, feel afraid and unable to voice out themselves.

[meichenxi]

Dear ‘White guy speaks perfect X and shocks Y!’ language YouTubers: STOP

A rant about every single fucking video by Xiaomanyc and similar YouTubers all titled things like CLUELESS WHITE GUY/GIRL LEARNS [INSERT NON-WHITE LANGUAGE HERE] AND SHOCKS [INSERT PLACE].

Disclaimer: I am white British, and I am also very often a moron. I'm trying to inform myself more, and would like to learn. So let me know if there is anything I should change, anything I’ve got wrong or any terminology I can change. 

So this evening I opened YouTube to get some quality Hikaru no Go content, and saw yet another video recommended to me about Xiaomanyc called Clueless white guy orders in perfect Chinese, shocks patrons and staff!!!!

Really? Really. Ok, his Chinese certainly is good - but it isn't great. And it isn’t necessarily any better than people I've seen in the higher levels of a class at university who have spent some time in China. It's solidly intermediate. That's not an insult - that level of Chinese is hard to attain, and definitely worth celebrating!! Hell, I celebrate every new word I learn. But while it may be unusual, it doesn't forgive the clickbait type videos like 'White guy speaks perfect Chinese and wows [insert place]'. 

These kind of clickbait titles rest on a number of assumptions. Before I say any more, I just want to make a note about terminology. Note that ’majority’ and ‘minority’ are not necessarily helpful labels, because they imply both a) a higher number of speakers in a certain place, and b) socially prestigious in some way. Of course a language like standard Mandarin is not a minority in China, but it might be in Germany. Talking about ‘minority’ languages that have a large speaker base outside of the country, like Chinese, is also not the same as talking about languages that have been systematically surpressed by a colonising, dominant language in their original communities, like indigenous languages. In many communities, especially in colonial and post-colonial situations, the language spoken by the majority is not one of prestige at all. Or some languages may be prestigious and expected in oral contexts, but not written - and so on. I use these terms here as best I can, but don't expect them to work 100% of the time.

So let’s unpack these assumptions a little. 

1) That there is something inherently more ‘worthy’ in somebody who learns languages because they want to, rather than because they have to: and that, correspondingly, the people who want to are white (spoilers: much of Europe is multilingual, and white immigrants in majority white countries also exist, as well as discrimination against them e.g. Polish people in the UK), and that those who have to learn are not (spoilers: really? There are plenty of non-white monolinguals who are either happy being monolingual, don’t have access to learning, or don’t have to learn another language but are interested in it).

2) That everybody from a certain background automatically speaks all ‘those’ languages already, or that childhood multilingualism is a free pass - spoilers, it isn’t. Achieving high levels of fluency in multiple languages is hard, especially for languages with different writing systems, because no matter how perfect your upbringing, you’re still ultimately exposed to it maximum 50% of the time of monolingual speakers. Realistically, most people get far less exposure than 50% in any of their languages. Also, situations of multilingualism in many parts of the world are far more complex than home language / social language. You might speak one language with your father and his father, another with your mother and her family, another in the community, and another at school. Which one is your native language then? Monolinguals tell horror stories of ‘both cups half empty’ scenarios, but come on - how on earth do you expect a person to have the same size vocabulary in a language they hear only 25% of the time? Also, languages are spoken in different domains, to different people, in different social situations: just because someone hears Farsi at home doesn’t mean they can give a talk on the filing system at their local library. If something is outside of a multilingual person’s langauge domain, they might have to learn the vocabulary for it just like monolinguals. There’s no such thing as the ‘perfect bilingual’. 

3) That learning another language imperfectly for leisure is laudable, but learning one imperfectly for work or survival is not. If you’re a speaker of a minority language, learning another language is necessary, ‘just what you have to do’, and if you don’t do it ‘properly’, that’s because of your lack of intelligence / laziness etc. It’s cool for the seconday school student to speak a bit of bad Japanese, but not so cool for the Indian guy who runs her favourite restaurant in Tokyo. 

4) That majority speakers learning a minority language is somehow an act of surprising benevolence that should not go unrewarded. Languages are intrinsically tied up with identity - and access to them may not be a right, but a gift. Don’t assume that because you get a good reception with some speakers of one language that speakers of another will be grateful you’re learning their language, or that everyone will react the same. One of the reasons these videos are possible at all is that many Chinese speakers, in my experience, are incredibly welcoming and enthusiastic to non-natives learning Chinese. Some languages and linguistic groups have been so heavily persecuted that imagining such thing as an ‘apolitical’ language learner is a fundamental misunderstanding of the context in which the language is spoken, and essentially an impossibility when the act of speaking claims ownership to a group. Many people will not want you to learn their language, because it has been suppressed for hundreds of years - it’s theirs, not yours. We respect that. Whilst it’s great to learn a minority language, don’t do it for the YouTube likes - do it because you’re genuinely interested in the language, people, culture and history. We don’t deserve anything special for having done so. 

5) That speaking a ‘foreign’ (i.e. culturally impressive / prestigious) language is much more impressive and socially acceptable than speaking a heritage language, home language or indigenous language. There are harmful language policies all around the world that simultaneously encourage the learning of ‘educational’ languages like Spanish, and at the same time forbid the use of the child’s mother tongue in class. And many non-majority languages are not foreign at all - they were spoken here, wherever you are, before English or Spanish or Russian or, yes, standard Mandarin Chinese. Policies that encourage standardised testing in English from a very young age like the ‘No Child Left Behind’ policy in the US disproportionately affect indigenous communities that are trying to revitalise their language against overwhelming callousness and cruelty - they expect bilingual children to attain the same level of English as a monolingual in first grade, which in an immersion school, they obviously won’t (and shouldn’t - they’ll get enough exposure to English as they grow up to make it not matter later down the line). But if the schools want funding, their kids have to pass those tests. 

There’s more to cover - that’s just the tip of the iceberg. 

Some people’s response to these videos and why the titles are ‘wrong’ would be: does it matter that he's white? Shouldn't it just be 'second language learner speaks perfect Chinese'? This is the same sort of attitude as ‘I don’t see race’. I think it does matter that he is white - because communities of many languages around the world are so used to them having to learn a second language and colonial powers not bothering to learn theirs. You wouldn't get the same reactions in these videos if he were Asian American but grew up speaking / hearing no Chinese - because then it would be expected. You also wouldn't get the same reaction if he were an immigrant in a Chinese-speaking community from somewhere else in Asia.

It also implies that all white people = monolingual Americans with no interest in other cultures. While we all are complacent and complicit in failing to educate ourselves about the effects of historical and modern colonialism, titles like this perpetuate a very harmful stereotype - and I don't mean harmful as in 'poor Xiaomanyc', but harmful in that it suggests that this attitude is ok, it's part of 'being white', and therefore doesn't need to change. The reaction when someone doesn't engage with other cultures and isn't willing to learn about them shouldn't be 'lmao classic white guy'. That not only puts the subject in a group with other 'classic white guys', but puts a nice acceptable label on what really is privilege, a lack of curiosity, ignorance, and the opportunity (which most non-white people don't have) to have everything you learn in school and university be about you. If you're ignorant - ok. We are all about many things. But you don't have any excuse not to educate yourself. The 'foreigner experience' that white people get in places like China is not the same as immigrants in a predominantly monolingual, predominantly white English speaking area. As we can see in those kind of videos, white foreigners may be stared at, but ultimately enjoy huge privilege in many places around the world. It's not the same. 

It also ignores, well, essentially the whole of Europe outside the UK and Ireland and many other places around the globe, where multilingualism is incredibly common - and where the racial dichotomy commonly heard in America isn't quite appropriate, or an oversimplification of many complex ethnic/national/racial/religious/linguistic etc factors that all influence discrimination and privilege. Actually many 'white guys' in Europe and places all around the world speak four or five languages to get by - some in highly privileged upbringings and school systems, yes, but others because they have grown up in a border town, or because they are immigrants and want to give their children a better start than they did, or because they want to work abroad and send home money. Many, like people all around the world, don't get a chance to learn to read and write their first language or dialect, which is considered 'lesser' than the majority language (French, Russian, English etc); many people, like Gaelic speakers in Scotland or speakers of Basque in France, have faced historical persecution and have been denied opportunities for speaking their mother tongue. My mother was beaten and my grandparents denied jobs for being Gaelic speakers. They are white, and they have benefited from being white in lots of other ways - but their linguistic experience is light-years from Xiaomanyc's. 

It isn't 'white' to be surprised at a white person speaking another language - it's just ignorant. But the two ARE correlated, because who in modern America can afford to go through twenty one years and still be ignorant? People who have never had to learn a second language; people who have always had everybody adapt to THEIR linguistic needs, and not the other way around. People who have had all media, all books, centred around people who look like them and speak like them. And even in America, that's not just 'white' - that's specifically white (often middle class) English monolinguals.

I'm not saying everybody who doesn't speak a language should feel guilty for not learning one ( it's understandably not the priority for everyone - economic reasons, family, only so many hours in the day - there are plenty of reasons why language learning when you don’t have to is also not accessible to everyone).  But be aware of the double standards we have as a society towards other socially/racially/religiously disadvantaged groups versus white college grads. You can't demonise one whilst lauding the other. 

To all language YouTubers - do yourself a favour, and stop doing this. Your skills are impressive - that's enough. 

 tldr; clickbait titles like this rely on double standards and perpetuate harmful ideas - don't write them, and let your own language skills do the talking please.

[bedlamsbard]

What was Frigga's backstory? What was she like before she met Odin/had kids?

okay, I haven't really had to quantify Frigga's backstory yet so I mostly have not come up with it! so this is just some rambling about things as I think of them or as they've come up for writing/worldbuilding.

I know that in the comics Freyja is Vanir and as a result a lot of fic writers make Frigga a Vanir princess. I really, really did not want to make Frigga Vanir, because the only for-sure Vanir characters we have seen in the films are Asian/have Asian actors, and our view of Vanaheim itself is essentially space Asia. I did not want to make a white woman a space Asian princess, you know? And for the record -- which I know you know but not everyone does -- I am mixed race Japanese and Scandinavian-American, so it means a lot to me that the MCU chose to make the Vanir (a group of Scandinavian gods) Asian-inspired and that Hogun's actor is Japanese. I love Frigga; whatever the comics did, when the MCU chose which characters were Vanir and when they designed Vanaheim, they went Asian. I'm not making Frigga Vanir.

okay well now that that disclaimer is out of the way (I just feel really strongly about it -- and this is my issue! I don't care what anyone else does!)

canonically we know that Frigga was "raised by witches" -- for Morning I went with the patronym "Freyrdottir" because that's what the comics use and I had to have one for the TVA. [insert Wiki article about the mythological Freyr and Freyja here, we're talking about the Marvel Cinematic Universe, not Norse mythology and religion] I have her as the goddess of prophecy and clairvoyance (which the mythological Frigg was associated with). There are various reasons I went for "clairvoyance" over "marriage and motherhood" but tbh since I went with "all Asgardians are freakishly magical and as gods have powers associated with their divine attributes" it's easier and less weird if Frigga's particular attributes are something like clairvoyance and prophecy.

I don't have a strong sense of what she was like prior to her marriage or her upbringing -- I'm doing a thing with the volur in Morning that I don't want to talk about too much out of context, but Frigga would have been mostly raised with them (and my volur were NOT all Aesir but instead are drawn from across the Nine Realms; as an aside, Loki's birth-mother Farbauti is also a volva) and was (still is) a volva. Aesir nobility, for certain; probably a distant cousin of Odin's? haven't decided if theirs was an arranged marriage or a love-match. the Asgard and the Nine Realms that she grew up and came of age in were very, very different from the current Asgard and Nine Realms. (and would be near-unrecognizable to Thor and Loki as a result.)

she and Odin were married while Bor was still alive, and both participated in the Asgard-Svartalfheim war, as did a very young Hela. and yes, I made the choice to have Hela as Frigga's daughter rather than as a stepdaughter (as IW implies), because...complicated family relationships are fun to write. (and honestly, on some level it was easiest for Morning rather than throwing in "actually Hela has a different mother." plus I'm very contrary and if I see too many other people doing it I'll do the opposite.)

she was the patroness of witches and magic on Midgard and throughout the Nine for most of her life and used to spend a lot of time on Midgard with mortal magicians. Asgard went pretty insular after the whole Hela thing, and a lot of her offworld patronage sort of went to name-only rather than active participation.

[terubakudan]

My Lesbian Experience with Loneliness by Nagata Kabi - Book Review and Impressions

(light reflection) Perfect :D Hoping Tumblr doesn't flag me for this xD

Ok, I'm going to start this off with 'this is probably the first and only book review I'm going to do' xD Because I rarely do read books now, and just as rarely buy them. Also, I would have preferred to buy the English version but alas they only had the Chinese version in stock ^^"

Stumbling upon this on the Internet, I was immediately compelled to buy this, as if I knew I would love it and that Nagata's story would resonate with me.

【Short Version】 I can't recommend this book enough, it doesn't matter what sexuality you are or from what culture are you. Nagata makes sure to tell an honest and 'naked' (without embellishments) portrait of her own personal experiences. How she herself is a college drop-out (having only graduated from high school), pushed herself to live/work while struggling with depression and eating disorders, not being sure of what she wants and feeling that she doesn't 'deserve' things, realizing her own sexuality in that she likes girls, and just not feeling 'good enough'...all through her cutesy and unassuming art style.

I will say again though, cutesy art style aside, the book deals with some very heavy topics. Nagata is very honest and doesn't shy away from the gritty details, and I admire her all the more for doing so. Many yaoi and yuri comics often portray an unrealistic and fetishistic view of the LGBTQ+ community whereas Nagata's story is much more grounded and sincere. This is not an easy read, but it's not an overly depressive one either. Nagata literally struggled for years with her mental health, but ultimately found light on the other side. Not mainly through the help of others, but through her own choice to forgive and love herself.

5/5⭐ Definitely recommend and would read again. And if I could, I'd give Nagata a big hug and a heartfelt 'thank you' for sharing her story.

【Long Version】 While it's written primarily from an Asian (particularly Japanese) perspective, Nagata's experiences are ones that should resonate with anyone who has been through the same or similar things, regardless of one's personal background. And I myself, while being fortunate enough to not have gone through eating disorders or self harm, am no exception.

I grew up in an Asian (Taiwanese/Chinese Filipino) household, while my parents weren't Tiger Parents (no offense but fuck Amy Chua for thinking that's a proper way of raising your children), they still had certain expectations on their children: to find a good husband/wife, have a good education, have a 'stable' career, etc. And while I love my parents very much, I'd be lying if I said there weren't any times where I felt they were smothering me, there weren't any times where they kept on nagging and bugging me for very trivial details. My biggest pet peeve: guilt-tripping me just for wanting to spend time alone.

"For me, my parents' opinion of me is absolute." (NOTE: While I won't be providing exact translations of the excerpts I used here, I'll do my best to summarize the gist of them.)

At the same time, I cared very much about their opinion of me. I made it a point to do well in school, to do things according to their wishes, and just like Nagata, I didn't know what I wanted. This even extended to caring about others' opinion of me, more than my own. In my freshman year of college, I 'went along' with being friends with someone, who while was nice to me, turned out to be a manipulative bitch skilled in passive-aggressiveness xD Being half-Taiwanese/half-Filipino, it was hard to fit in since people always treated me differently, it didn't occur to me I could be choosy with friends, I thought as long as they were 'nice' to me, that would do.

Asian culture is largely a collective one, where we define ourselves by our relationships with others, compared with Western culture (primarily America, I'll be using America as a reference point) where individualism is absolute, where you define yourself as you like. In Asia, it's also normal for children to still live in the same house as their parents well into adulthood, compared with Americans who are expected to move out the house once they finish high school or start college, and they're quite literally 'on their own', having to pay their own tuition, rent, etc. Where I live (Taiwan), it's normal for adults to continue relying on their parents financially well until college. Nagata for instance, while saying her parents really make her feel so pressured, is grateful that she still had a home to stay in (and she's 28!).

If you ask me though, neither a collectivist culture or an individualist culture is absolutely good nor bad. Each have their own pros and cons, and both Asian culture and Western culture could learn a thing or two from each other.

After going through quite a few job applications, one of the interviewers tells her "Ganbatte!" (You can do it!) after Nagata tells her what she really wants is to be a manga artist.

And sometimes that's all we need really, a small gesture or kind remark can do wonders. Even if there's no base or reason for it, it's something worth believing in.

I often have doubts if I'm doing what I really want, if I chose the right major for college, if I'm doing the right thing, if I'm 'good enough'. I didn't grow up with much self-esteem as a kid, and often derived my value from others. But even at my lowest times, a 'you're doing ok' was very reassuring to me, be it from family, strangers, or people I care about. Sometimes that's exactly what we need, it may be small but it could be the difference between continuing to wallow in depression or re-evaluating and choosing to be better to oneself.

I find it's really important to know, that however alone you may feel sometimes, there are other people out there going through the exact same thing. It's something universal, and while a lot of things are really unfair in life, each person has their own lot or burden to deal with. I have a Taiwanese friend who, while being more financially well-off than me, has terrible parents. And I mean parents who are quite so literally toxic, unsupportive of her, and would outright say the worst things to their own daughter.

How depression and anxiety can feel sometimes, we can literally feel like it's impossible to breathe and be in a state of disconnection from the world.

"The sounds that invaded my ears occupied my empty brain, making me unable to think at all."

If you only did what your parents asked you to do, wouldn't days like those be very painful? In the end, only you can understand what you really want.

Nagata's art style is one I would describe as simple, cute, and effective. I personally think had her story been drawn in a more serious style, it would have been even harder to read, much less finish. It's also a choice that has artistic appeal to me, serious subject matter juxtaposed with a 'kawaii' art style.

Nagata also depicts very well her mental state and thoughts throughout her struggle and journey to self-actualization. Depression is a really tough thing to deal with, and sometimes we don't even realize that we have it or if we do, refuse to acknowledge it. In Asian cultures especially, mental health has always been something of a taboo subject and there is a very heavy social stigma associated with it. Nagata herself even said that her parents seemingly refused to acknowledge that their daughter's mental health was in a state of distress. In Japan, there is a concept called gaman (我慢), which is described as 'enduring the seemingly unbearable with patience and dignity', and while it is portrayed as an ideal virtue that inspires perseverance, it can be a source of heavy pressure for others. Gaman also means that you are expected to suppress whatever emotion or negative feelings you have, often for the sake of others and no matter how tough the situation becomes for you. And while I agree that through gaman you can become more selfless for others, it shouldn't have to come at the expense of your own well-being.

I was quite fortunate to have grown up in a more liberal Asian household, but even when it came to mental health, our family also adopted the same kind of attitude towards it, by carrying on as if nothing was wrong, or just not talking about it. And to be honest, there were numerous times I wished we had been more open about what was bothering ourselves at that time. Talking and being open about your feelings is not a 'weakness' but something incredibly brave to do, and it's my wish for that to slowly become more acceptable in Asian cultures, which I know is kind of a stretch, but it doesn't hurt to hope.

Nagata makes the decision to clean herself up, by taking a bath everyday, habitually exercising, and no longer wearing worn-out clothes.

Depression especially can be a bitch. It deprives you even of your physiological needs, like your need for food. Nagata had to struggle with that on top of eating disorders for a long ten years. She ate so little and even felt that she didn't 'deserve' to eat, and at one point, anorexia became hyperphagia, and she would feel so guilty for eating almost expired/expired food. Things that would otherwise be simple to do also end up becoming difficult/impossible to do, like taking care of your personal hygiene, getting up from bed, doing simple tasks etc.

Thankfully, after Nagata realizes that she never truly 'valued herself', she starts to turn over a new leaf. Even just starting with cleaning herself up, she takes this as a form of 'valuing oneself' and her mood starts to improve, which her family also points out. In the end, taking care of yourself is not a selfish thing to do, it can even make you a better person who is there for others.

Nagata meets up with the female escort she hired, as a means to experience human sexuality, which she had always repressed her curiosity for and treated as a taboo subject. (NOTE: And I'm glad that she met a really nice girl for her first time too!)

Sex and sexuality is also a subject that I feel is hard to talk about sometimes, which I think also owes itself to most Asian cultures being relatively conservative about it. I myself have only recently identified as bisexual, which I attribute to internalized homophobia, not wanting to admit I was into girls too. And to be honest, 'coming out' is something I'm still uncomfortable about, because I don't want to risk my relationship with my family and it's still something I would choose to be selective about with colleagues and friends. I'm grateful though that as crazy the Internet can be sometimes, it can be quite accepting and tolerant towards things that we wouldn't otherwise discuss with even the closest people in our circle. Nagata's memoir ended up capturing the hearts of many readers ever since she first published it on Pixiv.

Exploring your sexuality doesn't have to be scary, it should be something exciting and liberating. Nagata decided to take matters into her own hands, and while the days leading up to the encounter made her really nervous and she even considered not going through with it at all, she willed herself to continue, because she wanted to do this for herself, it would be pointless if she gave up after coming so far in her decision to value herself.

And it's these series of actions that she decided to do that ultimately led to her life turning out for the better, it gave her the courage to do what she always wanted: to be a manga artist, which lead to the publishing of this autobiographical memoir, something she wanted to create that would 'make people want to buy this book' and from her own preference for reading stories that 'speak of secrets people wouldn't want to tell others'.

Nagata mentions what she calls 'honey': something that varies from person to person. It could be your reason for living, that thing that drives/pushes you, or even your sense of belonging. It may not be something permanent, but you can always find yourself a new one. (she mentions the last time she had her 'honey' was during her high school days, and while she has grown apart from the friends she made, she has found her new 'honey' in the form of being a full-time manga artist.)

Nagata stumbles and trips a lot on her way to being a better version of herself, but who doesn't? She admits to things not necessarily being smooth, but at least she's doing better than before. And it's that decision to at least try that counts. We don't have to be perfect, we're all human after all.

TL;DR My Lesbian Experience With Loneliness is a honest, down-to-earth, and ultimately hopeful memoir about the struggles of mental health and learning about one's sexuality. It's an amazing book, and very much worth the buy.

A big thank you if you read through all of this too. I know it's a mess and writing isn't exactly my strong point, but hopefully I've convinced some people out there to give this book a read! Please feel free to share your thoughts and I'd appreciate it very much too if you reblog/like this post.

[ressyfaerie]

OKAY YALL. 

I haven’t been paying attention at all. 

Do you want to be really angry,

Like really, really angry? 

I’m putting this in a read more since there’s going to be a LOT and it may start a FIRE.

It was a lonely snowy night in the north of British Columbia Canada.

Just kidding.

For real though- I had no internet! We could only watch TV on satellite (the only anime I watched was on YTV). If it snowed in the winter we had to go outside and brush the snow off the satellite to continue watching Beyblade or Inuyasha. 

So I was 5-6 when I first started watching Beyblade. Of course I LOVED IT. I would rush home to try to watch it everyday. Beyblade has just airing and it was a HIT. I watched season 1 religiously, I actually don’t remember watching much of V-force or G-rev but that’s probably because it wasn’t made yet lmao. 

I grew up in a small town, whatever you’re imagining, imagine it smaller. (I could write a whole essay on the social hierarchy of Port Ed in the early 2000s but I’ll keep it short for now) White kids= rich/ pretentious, Native kids=poor. I didn’t like the attitude of most of the white girls, so I mostly made friends with the native kids (I miss yall btw) but anyways, this is where you’re going to get angry.

So I didn’t know what Japanese WAS. Like I knew what Chinese was (Small town surrounded by racists? Who would have guessed?) I don’t even think I knew Japanese existed, but any other anime I watched (Sailor moon, Inuyasha, Gundam Wing) most of the characters were white representing or had extremely light skin tones.

So what the heck was 5 year old me supposed to do with beyblade? Which was a show filled with lots of different ethnicities? 5 year old me was obsessed with beyblade, tearing apart every episode I saw, so I gathered: Max=American, Ray=Chinese, Kai=Russian (Because that’s what matched with all their championships, makes sense to a kid right?)

But what WAS Japanese? I dunno? But you know who Tyson looked like? 

My chubby native friends.

THAT’S RIGHT

YALL ARE DEBATING BIRACIAL KAI

LITTLE ME THOUGHT TYSON WAS NATIVE FOR YEEEAAAARRRSSSSS.

I’m laughing as I write this, when I learned Japan was indeed a real place, it didn’t dawn on me immediately. It still took finding beyblade online when I was like 11, re-watching it and being like ‘huh’. (Note: Remember when beyblade was on youtube but each episode was like 4 parts? Good times.) 

So, on the topic of Kai.

First of all, I need to point something out that I deem obvious, but must be said. 

Beyblade (As well as many other shows from long ago (Yugioh, Naruto, Inuyasha, and Sailor moon come to mind), a lot of us latched on to these shows so hard because of trauma or lonely childhoods. Which means a lot of us find our connections to these shows or characters very personal, which is why it’s hard to break headcannons. It’s more than a fandom for us, and any of us who feel this way, are risking their comfort show to involve themselves in the fandom (This is why I believe a lot of beyblade fans don’t interact with fandom, and I go out of my way to warmly welcome all whenever I can)

It needs to be said, that you owe no explanation to anyone, and neither do I, nor do I apologize for my headcannons.  

With this being said, I knew eventually the fandom would blow up (as it has many times, over the idea of biracial Kai/ Kai with Russian ancestry/ Japanese Kai), now that it has hit so close to home, I feel the need to validate my decision to make Kai biracial in my two long main fics. However, it needs to be stated, I am not doing this to validate myself, but because I simply want to talk about it, I’m not explaining, or apologizing, simply stating some facts, and how I feel. 

For a lot of us, these characters are so personal and we’ve kept them for so long that they’re verging on OC’s, this is NOT YOUR JOB to point out! Although I believe my Kai is very close to canon, there’s many things that aren’t, regardless, myself and many others, still belong to the fandom. 

Back to my childhood:

FINALLY DIAL-UP INTERNET!

The first thing I did when I learned how to read and had private access to internet was google ‘Kai Beyblade’, if you asked, I probably would have said a child’s equivalent to ‘“fuck you that’s why”. 

I learned his last name was Hiwatari, and man, I thought that was SO COOL. But that wasn’t a Russian name was it? I dived further, I don’t think the beyblade wiki even existed at this point, I think I was reading everything off of wikipedia. What I read was: Kai’s father was Russian and his mother was Japanese. I didn’t think too much of it, I mean, it made sense. It would explain Voltaire’s connection to Russia. Later on I realised it made more sense for Kai’s mother to be Russian since the Hiwatari name is Japanese and would most likely come from his grandfather, and for some reason, I was convinced Susumu was Voltaire’s son. The idea of Voltaire marrying his son off to some Russian heiress made so much sense to me. I never read fics, my ideas were definitely influenced by wiki edits, I had no reason to doubt it, or think any differently, I think a lot of people followed the same footsteps. It’s interesting to think that’s how headcanons became universal back in the day. 

I learned the manga existed after a trip to Metrotown Vancouver where I bought every volume they had (3 lmao) (I still haven’t read every volume, and will when I can afford them). 

I just always assumed Kai was biracial, IT JUST MADE SENSE. Kai’s family’s deep ties to Russia, the reason why he knew Russian (regardless of the Abbey), his figure compared to Tyson’s in season 1, I had no reason to doubt it, and it seemed the Dub side of the internet agreed! 

When I wrote my fanfics at 18-19, 5 (years ago now, wow), I still assumed Kai was biracial. Only recently have I dived into the fandom and got into every side (Sub, Dub, Manga). I learned there’s 3 things Dub/Sub/Manga people will instantly fight over: Kai’s race, character’s names, and their ages. 

The reason these three things are so debated is because of the dramatically different storylines/ differences in language versions. The Dub and Sub are two completely different shows when played side by side. I am most familiar with the Dub, as it stays close to my heart, which influences most of my headcanons.

I still headcanon Kai as biracial. We actually don’t know much about his parents, and canon is very loosey goosey. We’re learning more in Rising, but I highly doubt Takao Aoki is going to be like “AND THEN KAI’S MOM WENT TO VISIT HER RUSSIAN FAMILY IS RUSSIA BECAUSE SHE IS RUSSIAN” I’m not going to go into super detail why I think it’s likely that Kai is biracial, but you know what? It doesn’t really matter. This fandom is old, and being from the early 2000’s that means the dub is much different, which means there are MULTIPLE versions of canons. I guarantee you, in every version there is something problematic, and one of the least important ones, is whether or not the fandom white-washes Kai by making him biracial (Maybe full Russia could be an issue, but you know what? Does it really matter?). You know what DOES MATTER. What they did to Eddy, they did that boy dirty. 

I mean they LITERALLY white-washed him. LIKE. 

Also changing Tyson/ Takao’s skin tone in G-rev/ V-force will forever annoy me; that might be an asian skin whitening thing though, still, problematic.

But anyways, in the end I’m sure the reason why the English fandom so frequently headcanons Kai as biracial is not because of white-washing, but because of the time the Dub was created. 

The early 2000’s was an interesting time. Some towns were still stuck in the 90’s, lots of kids had no access to the internet, and when they finally DID, they did not use it wisely. Misinformation was spread easily. Not many people in America read the manga, and very few people watched the Sub.

People like me, young and old, filled in the gaps that were missing.

It’s been 20 YEARS GUYS. A lot has changed. Headcanons that aren’t problematic will stick. As long as it’s not hurting anybody, or anyone else, it’s really not a bad thing. 

Our main focus should be to keep the fandom going! We can’t die, we’ve been together too long to die and I refuse to let it happen, where will I get my serotonin from?? 

Here’s a pic of my love to end it off:

Dumb idiot loser fuckin smiles fucking lunatic.

[pocfansmatter]

Okay I said before I was going to get more in depth with blood quantum eventually so now is as better time than any I guess. Mind you I'm speaking as a Native American meaning an Indigenous person from America. Specifically from 2 southern California tribes. I cannot speak for all Native or Indigenous people. I can only speak for myself, I can’t even speak for my tribe. However most Natives tend to have the same view when it comes to the blood quantum debate. From this point on blood quantum will be shortened to BQ & Native American to Native(s).

Originally this was gonna be a reply to another comment but decided to make it it's own post so I don't associate my blog with that anti Indigenous one. Please try to read the whole post before clicking the articles. I screenshotted the main parts to keep the discussion going. Feel free to click on all the articles because they are good & most of them are from Native run news websites.

I was gonna do this with a read more tag but my laptop doesn't want to work. I'm literally getting anyther one on Thanksgiving but my old one doesn't cooperate sorry so y'all are gonna get a long post. 😕

So let's start with the basics. What is blood quantum?

"Blood quantum laws or Indian blood laws are laws in the United States and the former Thirteen colonies that define Native American identity by percentages of ancestry. ... For instance, a person who has one parent who is a full-blood Native American and one who has no Native ancestry has a blood quantum of 1/2."

In case that was confusing if one person is "full blood native" they are considered 4/4. Meaning they have no relatives who are of any other race or ethnicity. If the "full blood native" has a child with a non Native person the child would have a BQ of 1/2 Native blood. If that child has a child with a non Native that child will be considered 1/4. This will continue to get lower & lower unless the child has a baby with another Native. Then the BQ raises or stays the same depending on the other parents BQ.

Now that the definition is out of the way lets get into the issue with this.

This is a good article that narrowed down an issue with Pharrell wearing a headdress. I wanna focus on one part of the article though.

"... deeply connected to their Native culture & live it every day."

"Having Native American ancestors doesn't get you off the hook if you don't bother to do the homework."

So I mentioned before that a lot of Natives don't consider BQ as a proper way of measuring your culture. Being Native isn't something you can pull out when it's convenient like for a photoshoot. Its every single day. It's in the words we speak, in the clothes we wear & in the food we cook. Same as any other culture.

Asian people don't wake up not Asian. Black people don't wake up not Black.

So why is do some people pull out the Native card when it is convenient? Like Pharrell did or Elizabeth Warren claims.

This article sums it up well but I wanna focus on the last 2 paragraphs.

Link to the full article:

There's similarities in both articles by 2 different Native authors from 2 different news websites.

They both speak about connections to our culture. A DNA test cannot measure ones Indigenous Ancestry because being Indigenous is much more than something in your blood.

I made a post asking some questions that might help understand if one is Indigenous or not. Now I'm not saying these are all the questions nor that I'm the expert on this. These are just STARTER questions to help people understand what it means to be Native.

Does the tribe you claim, claim you?

Have you been to the reservation?

Do you participate in the community?

Have you met your family from the tribe?

Do you know your history, traditions, anything about the tribe you claim?

The big one is are you claimed. You cannot claim a tribe that doesn't claim you. Now I'm not saying the entirety of the tribe has to know you personally. I'm not even saying you have to stand in front of the tribal council & ask them if they claim you. A claim can be made as little as just your family saying "this person is one of us".

The reason I bring this up is because multiple tribes have in the past & continue the practice of "adopting" a person into their tribe. There's many examples of this. Some can be adopted because they married into a tribe. Non Natives & Natives of other tribes alike have been adopted into tribes. There can be legal adoptions like adopting a child. And countless other examples.

A lot of the time biologically those members aren't apart of the tribe & cannot be enrolled but are still viewed as a member by the community.

For personal example, my sister has been adopted by my tribe. She's actually an enrolled member from another tribe & technically my cousin but was taking away by CPS & my family took her in. She grew up & still lives on my reservation. She is from another reservation. Although her tribe still claims her as a member my tribe also does. People in my community know her as a member of my family & have grown up with her. She knows many of our traditions & practices some ceremonies with us that are specific to my tribe. No one in our tribe has expressed any issue with this so far & even if they did they would have a stern talking to. We are even in the process of organizing her to be buried on our tribal land instead of hers. Her choice & we are okay with it.

Now I want to point out another way people can be considered Native even if they aren't enrolled or cannot answer those questions properly.

Let's look at something called "reconnecting Natives".

What is a reconnecting Native?

A reconnecting Native is someone of Native Ancestry who for whatever reason has been removed from their culture, family, reservation, etc so they do not know them & are actively trying to learn those things so they can reclaim their Native roots.

So, how does this happen? This is actually a very common issue in the community.

One of the main ways a Native might become disconnected is through the process of Residential Schools or Indian Boarding Schools. What is that? Here's a snippet of an article to help explain.

Of course here is the link:

The official motto of these schools was "kill the Indian, save the man” and if you think it sounds awful I promise you, it was much worse than you could imagine.

There's a movie on Netflix called Indian Horse which I have not watched yet but is based off a novel by an Indigenous author that looks at these Boarding Schools if you wish to check that out.

The goals of these schools were to strip Indigenous children of their culture. They were beaten, starved, punished of things as simple as speaking in their languages. A lot of them didn't even speak English. It was illegal to keep your kids from this school & often times tribal children went to these schools and never returned to their family. Natives who attended these schools or are children of children who attended these schools more often than not stop practicing their culture or forget it. In that way they become "disconnected".

Those members can if chosen too began the process of reconnecting.

I found this really good article going a little more in depth on the do's & don't's of reconnecting.

But here's a screenshot of important parts.

Granted this is a long process. Lifelong. Every journey to reconnect is difficult & very different from others. It depends on your tribe & community. Some of them make it easier & some make it harder. It's up to the individual to put in the work.

Now I don't want to make it like being a connected Native is easy. Yes it's easier but connected Natives also put in work to live their culture everyday.

Now what does this have to do with blood quantum? As you can see none of these articles about being Native or even a reconnecting Native mention blood quantum or DNA being a requirement.

If one is Japanese & someone asks "how are you Japanese?" What would the answer be?

"Because I just am. Because my parents are Japanese."

If someone is white & has kids those kids are white, correct?

So if it's so easy to explain for other cultures why does mine require math? Why are some of my family members not enrolled members despite having Native parents & growing up on the reservation? Why do my people have to actively think about the DNA results of our children if we choose to have them?

Because of BQ. Its a tool created by colonizers that are forced upon us. If we do not abide by the rules & requirements the government sets in place we run the very big risk of

Losing our status of a Native American tribe.

Losing our land & land rights.

Losing funding from the federal government.

Losing our housing.

Losing Healthcare.

Losing our basic citizenship rights.

The thing about BQ is it's designed so that we fail. If we fail to keep a certain amount of enrolled tribal members in a tribe then the government can break treaties & take away our land & things that are rightfully ours.

BQ is a lose/lose situation all around for us as well as extremely racist.

Because of the BQ requirements Natives actively worry about who they have children with. Some don't date outside of the their culture in fear of their children not being seen as legally Native. The problem here is a lot of the tribe is related. The issue of inbreeding increases. How do we solve that problem? Well we can have children with Natives of another tribe. But there's a problem here too. Most tribes do not allow what we call dual enrollment. Both of my tribes for example don't allow this. Which means one would have to pick which tribe to enroll their child. That means one of the tribes will lose out on a member. So that's another way identities are erased using BQ.

Okay I think I'm going to end this here. There is so much more I could've added. I also could've expanded on residential schools, what it means to be Indigenous, & reconnecting Natives but I wanted to keep it focused on BQ. If you have anymore questions feel free to ask or research on your own. We're still here. We aren't stuck in the 1800's. We weren't all killed by cowboys but the government is still actively trying to erase us.

[rein-ette]

Hi!

I was inspired by your asks, so I wanted to hear from you! What do you think of Canada as a country? I had a bit of a Canadian phase long ago and I tried to consume as much literature and history as I could, but reading about a place and living in it are very different experiences, so is there anything you'd like to share about Canada, about the culture or the people? Do you like living there? What are some of your favorites things? How do you survive the winters?

And also, as a character, what do you think of Matt?

(´｡• ᵕ •｡`) ♡

Aaaaaaaaah okay okay *ahem*

If you’re not here for a Ted talk the exit is to your left, have a great day!

I do love Canada very much! I was born and pretty much grew up here, and as I’ve grown older I’ve become more and more grateful for everything that my country has provided for me! I remember my history teacher in high school said once that by being born into the middle class and as a Canadian, you’ve already won the lottery of life. That was not to disparage other countries, but to remind us of how remarkably privileged we are and how much we take for granted.

One of the first things you hear when you ask people what does it mean to Canadian is the word “multicultural.” I find this word realllyyyyyy cringeyyyy and not really reflective of reality, but I suppose it’s a good starting point for more in depth discussion. People often say Canada is a “cultural melting pot”, but the indigenous poet Marilyn Dumont pointed out in her poems that in some ways it’s more of a mosaic — there are many cultures, but they don’t always meld together. To say it’s a melting pot is ignoring the fact that racism and discrimination certainly have and do still exist here.

But I would argue that in some areas it is a “melting pot”, even if I kinda hate that word. I prefer to think of where I live as cultural delta — a place where many mighty tributaries meet as they thunder into the sea. (It is also literally a delta, funnily enough) Here, I grew up absorbing Canadian ideas, studying British history, reading American literature, learning French — but I also grew up listening to Kpop, watching Ghibli, eating rice. When I meet up with friends, we don’t grab a coffee, we grab milk tea. If you ask people here where they would like to visit or live, they will most likely say New York, London, Hong Kong, or Seoul — which tells you a bit about both how powerful and diverse the cultural influences here are.

Perhaps the thing most indicative of Canada’s “multiculturalism” and what I am most grateful for, however, is that I grew up here without fear. I didn’t even know the words “chink” or other words existed until I could access the internet. Recently, the beatings of Asian immigrants in the UK and US brought this home for me — how lucky I am to have such a privileged childhood. And I know this kind of privilege is hard won; in my research of WW2 I found that one of the amusement parks that I used to frequent as a child was built on land that once housed a Japanese internment camp. How fragile our lives are!

But enough about the serious stuff. I can’t really answer your question about how to survive winters in Canada lol, except to say that where I am in Canada it is absolutely necessary everyone own at least 3-4 umbrellas. That’s because this side of the Rockies in BC, the temperatures are pretty mild year round — the coldest it gets is usually 0, and the hottest around 25. But, by god, it rains. I did go to Ottawa in the winter though, where it was -13 one day, but honestly? Everything below 0 feels pretty much the same. Once it gets that cold, you can’t even tell anymore. I wore a skirt and tights that day, with a good, thick winter coat. And I survived :D

Besides not being heckled on the street for being Asian, my favourite things about Canada are probably the amazing diversity of good food and how tremendously beautiful the wilderness here is. And I say this as someone who loses her mind when a mosquito flies past (ie. I am not a nature person). You can kinda tell from these photos here, but the trees and water and whatnot here, are like, real. Maybe I just find that amazing because I lived in Tianjin, but it just feels like this is a city built among the trees and the sky and water that was always here, and not a city where humans have brought in nature for our amusement.

Okay, gotta move on to your other questions or I’ll go on forever. As a state I think Canada does a fairly good job of providing for its own people, but I wish we had a greater global influence. A lot of youth especially express the view that Canada is kinda...boring if your career doesn’t have to do with, like, sports, nature, or medicine, and I would tend to agree. We have great universities, but as someone who studies international relations I often wish Canada would like? Do more? On the global scale. The only thing we really have under our name is the UN peacekeeping, which PM Pearson started after the Suez Canal Crisis. I mean, I’ve heard that many people abroad identify Canada with peace and like ofc I’m not complaining about that, but I just wish our history was a little spicier, ya know? We did kick Americas ass that one time in 1812 and that was amazing. No regrets.

So that brings me to Matt. A lot of Canada’s existence has just been dominated by trying to carve a way between the US and the British while not being swallowed by either. Britain gave us the protection and strength and diversification of identity to not be annexed by the US, but at the same time it hobbled Canada’s relation with our only neighbour. One of the very first treaties Canada negotiated alone, if I’m recalling correctly, was a trade contract with the US over fishing (?) in BC and Alaska, where London was like no you can’t and Canada was like uh we gotta make money too, bro. So yes, while I do believe Mattie is just a very loyal person in general, he was also loyal to the empire because he needed to survive. A lot of Canadian identity was solidified around our prompt assistance of England and the sacrifices made in the two world wars, especially the campaigns in the Low Countries and Italy. Essentially, Canada has historically differentiated itself from the US through its loyalty.

Uuuuh just realized that has nothing to do with my opinion of Matt. Um. I like him? He’s real best friend/big brother material, and I do hc him as far more cunning and capable than canon portrays him to be. However, sometimes he’s just...too nice. He doesn’t have that edge that England has that makes me wanna slap him tf up and sob and call him my baby at the same time. Also, as oumaheroes mentioned here, that kind of selflessness can get pretty toxic. After all, by consistently not voicing or examining your own needs, you make it incredibly and unnecessarily frustrating for the people who care about you to help you, and that creates a relationship just as one sided as one where the person is extremely selfish. Actually, now that I think about it, my biggest gripe with Mattie as a character and Canada as a country is in that word: selfless. Without self. Perhaps because Canada is still so young, but it feels a little lost, a little like it doesn’t know quite know yet why it exists.

TLDR: If you’re under 18 or over 60, Canada is the place to be. If, however, you’re like me and wish you could touch a building that’s over 150 years old and maybe visit a square somebody’s been guillotined in, perhaps try someplace else. Personally Portugal’s golden visa is lookin especially tempting lately

[photonflight]

Hello, I read and loved your last post. I know this is not what it was about but you mentioned it later on briefly that there is a difference between BIPOC groups of the same basic descent. When is it appropriate to distinguis between?

When is it okay to talk about different varieties of cultures?

When it comes to Representation.

Will try to make this as SPECIFIC and detailed as possible with examples.

In cases where unity among an entire ethnic group is promoted, it may be counterproductive to insist on dividing or differentiating between a group. Similarly when one is referring to a culture, the place of origin and its entire diaspora fall under that culture. (For example when Indian and African culture is discussed usually, the diaspora is not separated as they are also considered Indian and African or descended from them, so they are also part of the culture.

The diaspora here meaning people who are descended from these groups, mixed with these ethnicities or grew up in the cultures outside of the country of origin.)

example: Ordinarily, people of Asian descent or of the Asian diaspora all refer to themselves as Asian, and this can be done without distinguishing the region of Asia or the country or culture, because it’s a broad term to describe people of or descended from people of Asia. It is also used by people who know they are of Asian descent but are not exactly sure what part of Asia their ancestry lies. This does not mean they’re not Asian. Some people are just not able to trace the exact origin of their family beyond the broad term, and it would be unfair to tell them they aren’t Asian or aren’t Asian enough because of this. The same could be said for European people and those descended of them. There are different countries with different cultures and there is a European diaspora as well but they can also all choose to identify broadly as European, because they are.

When speaking of Representation, however it is important to note differences to avoid interchanging and erasing some cultures in favor of others, because when it comes to representation SPECIFICALLY, every cultural group does not represent each other.

Even if you belong to one variety of culture in a broader ethnicity, for example what is acceptable for Indo-Caribbean people may be unacceptable or offensive to Indians from India. This is not to deny the cultural similarities between them, but acknowledge the cultural differences make them all independent of each other and worthy of note. Not to divide them, but to compare them.

For example, when talking about Latin America on a whole any examples may be used, but when a role calls for representation for an Argentinian person, a Costa Rican person would not be ideal because while they’re both Latin American, they are not the same, two different countries and cultures

Another example is the diaspora of African people globally. The movement of Pan-Africanism calls for unity among all Black people around the world, and in a case like that, it may not always be appropriate to differentiate or separate each person.

However, when it comes to representation, and the role calls for a Caribbean Person, it cannot be accurately filled by an American or European or Asian person who does not have Caribbean roots, but it can be filled by an American or European or Asian person who does unless the role explicitly states the character is strictly from the Caribbean with no other influence.

It is not gatekeeping or saying they aren’t “Caribbean enough” to say that someone without Caribbean roots cannot represent Caribbean people, or to say that someone who isn’t Caribbean, and isn’t of Caribbean descent whatsoever is not Caribbean, because they’re not.

I don’t know why people fight and argue this point. If you’re not you’re not, and it doesn’t make you better or worse than anyone who IS. It just means you may not be right for a role.

Similarly, if a role calls for a Trinidadian actor, casting a Trinidadian-American is appropriate unless the role specified the character is born and raised in Trinidad, but casting a Jamaican-American or Jamaican person is absolutely a problem because they’re different cultures and doing so promotes the interchanging of unrelated cultures that leads to stereotypes, ideas, preconceptions, perceptions of attitudes and beliefs from one culture being imposed on people of a completely different culture who have nothing to do with it. As a Trinidadian person, I’ve had so many non Caribbean people say “yeah mon” to me although in Trinidad that’s not our slang.

Doing this is what leads to cultural misinterpretation and misrepresentation.

African American and Afro-Caribbean people are of different cultures, countries and speak a different language entirely. By using an African American person (who does not have Caribbean roots) to represent an Afro-Caribbean person, it results in erasure of Caribbean culture because while they are both diaspora culture African groups and cultures, they are very different and cannot be interchanged or substitute each other. And vice versa.

In Disney’s The Little Mermaid as revealed in an interview with Samuel E. Wright, Sebastian was intended to have a Trinidadian accent, but as the actor couldn’t do it, they told him to just do a Jamaican accent because they felt there was no difference, when in fact Trinidad and Jamaica don’t even speak the same language. (According to Communication Studies Syllabus by the Caribbean Examinations Council for the Caribbean Advanced Proficiency Examination)

This would also be true if a character is meant to be from an African country, and assuming they were also meant to be Black, were played by an African American person (without ancestry from that specific country) or an Afro-Caribbean person (without ancestry from that country). There would be erasure of accent, culture, and even mannerisms as what may be normal in America or the Caribbean may not be acceptable in that African country, something I learned in my university History course AND Linguistics (Phonetics & Phonology) course

Similarly, refusal of people to acknowledge the differences between the cultures of the Caribbean islands is why SO MANY NON CARIBBEAN PEOPLE think that all Caribbean people are Jamaican or have Jamaican accents when all the islands in fact speak a different variety of Creole altogether. The refusal to let Caribbean people fill Caribbean roles also adds to this, because people who don’t know any better tend to give every Caribbean character a Jamaican accent, examples below:

(See Ajay Chase, Haitian with a Jamaican accent/ and George, Guyanese with a Jamaican accent/ Sebastian the Crab, Trinidadian coded with a Jamaican Accent)

Again, this distinction is drawn for the purpose of accurate representation because this is an appropriate context. However, if the matter at hand was regional integration then similarities would be examined over differences; so this is just to remind you that there’s an appropriate time and place to do this. Don’t go throwing this at people randomly, you asked me about a specific time to do this and I am answering.

Another reason why it’s important to research a specific culture when creating a character is because you can say you are creating, for example, an Indian character, but There are separate cultural groups in India as well and customs vary throughout. If you treat them as generic, you may add elements that are offensive. This is because what may be acceptable in one Indian culture may be a taboo in another one, and so cross-breeding these cultures may cause problems when people from the actual cultures encounter your character.

Even AFRICA isn’t one country with one culture, the different tribes possess different cultures, and therefore when creating African-coded characters it is better to focus on a specific tribe instead of combining random “African” (which is again not a country) elements. Every African culture is different although the people are all African. If you are referencing African culture it’s best to focus on a specific country THEN focus on a tribe from that country, instead of copying and pasting elements cut and dry from every tribe and mashing them together; some tribes don’t have a friendly history with each other and it may be offensive to just combine their elements.

Similarly, when the recent hate crimes against Asian Americans are being spoken about, it is important to make the distinction that the most recent victims are East Asians, because Asian is only a broad category that does not make a distinction between Asians based on region. People that look East Asian as opposed to those who look like they’re from another part of Asia might be more at risk for a COVID-19 motivated hate crime, because people do see a difference. (Although these racist people believe that anyone that appears East Asian is Chinese because they can’t tell the difference, they can differentiate between someone who appears to be South Asian and someone who appears to have features that are more East Asian; putting that specific group at risk.)

Just like if a role just calls for an “Asian” character anyone from any Asian country can be used, but if it calls specifically for East Asian, it would be misrepresentation to put an Indian person in that role if they aren’t mixed at all, and if it calls for someone who is 100% East Asian, then in theory it would be misrepresentation to place someone who is mixed or from another region of Asia to fill that role, but anyone from any East Asian country may be cast.

If the role is narrowed from East Asian to Japanese, then a distinction must be made between East Asian actors. A Chinese or Korean person in the role instead would be misrepresentation, because the role calls for a Japanese person, even though they all fall under the general term East Asian, which falls under the general term of Asian

It isn’t gatekeeping, it is what is required under the topic of accurate representation. By saying that differentiating between different BIPOC cultures is unnecessary because “they’re all BIPOC”, it gives room for people to misrepresent them and interchange them.

Representation is where we have to make these distinctions; but remember there is a time and a place to do so.

It’s not gatekeeping to say that if you are DEFINITELY* not part of a culture then it’s inaccurate to say that you represent it.

In fact, BIPOC can erase each other too. Pro-Black African American YouTubers constantly raise the issue of Light Skinned Black Americans and even mixed Americans being cast in roles meant for unambiguous, non mixed Dark-Skinned Black Americans. They believe it takes roles from them and perpetuates colorism because according to them, lighter skinned women and mixed women have different features and are treated differently in America than dark-skinned women, so they feel that they cannot be represented by them as they can’t relate to them; which leads to them feeling like they are being erased by members of their own group. (see video by I Am Eloho on YouTube: “Jorja Smith REMIX PROVES Bi-racial women erase DSBW” (Dark Skinned Black Women).

*Definitely here means if you are not a part of a group or it’s diaspora whatsoever. Does not apply to people who are of the diaspora because they are considered part of the group under normal non-specific circumstances

[watchtheworldargue]

egg magazine, april 1990. interview with Michael Hutchence

transcription below :)

Michael Hutchence on Lower Broadway

By Hal Rubenstein \ Photography by Steven Meisel

Globe-hopping is hell on a wardrobe and hard on the feet. Sometimes you have to get out of the limo to spend your money.

Michael Hutchence rarely comes to New York without luggage monogrammed INXS or Max Q, so one would think that on a visit without portfolio, the last thing he'd want to do is add on more baggage. But given a free day, a book of tickets, and our offer to go anywhere to do anything, Hutchence got into the limo with an agenda we could hardly call a new sensation. What kept us from sulking was that he hadn't left the devil outside.

Michael: You think we can load this car up with Yamamoto, Comme des Garcons, and Armani by 6?

Hal: Driver, step on it. Down to Grand and make a left.

[The car turns onto Union Square West.]

Isn't there a club on the corner here?

The Underground.

That's the one that keeps surviving regardless of how many people get shot there. How many are they up to?

No one's quite sure.

Where are we now? I don't recognise this.

This strip of lower Broadway didn't exist last time you were here. Now it's like a mall-less town's Main Street.

And Tower Records is City Hall. Not bad. It's wild to see this much activity because people around the world now talk about New York in terms of decay, how New York is such a rude place, and we keep telling them, No, New Yorkers are quite friendly, we like it there. New Yorkers are just very honest. They don't have time to bullshit. I like New York because people are linked to each other. L.A. Is fun, but segregated. Here there is a metro, and a different philosophy of getting around so there's rich upon poor upon rich. The only thing I don't remember is how many homeless are asleep on Park Avenue and everywhere else. Or is it my imagination?

No, it's real. How come you choose to live in Hong Kong instead of Australia?

For about three years, I thought it didn't matter where I lived. But I kept passing through it again. I grew up there, from when I was four until twelve. My dad still lives there. It has great energy, like New York. And it's ten hours closer to the world than Australia is. If you travel a lot, it adds up.

[We enter the Yohji Yamamoto store.]

So austere. Do they go wild if you hand back anything wrinkled? Those clothes over there are good acid-house colors. Has acid house caught on here?

Not like in England.

That's 'cause New York has bad radio. Are these dogs always here? They must sleep in the shoes. Ooh, look at these here. Not very me, but very Star Trek. $500 for a T-shirt. I see. I'll buy six. No, twelve. Now, here is something very stagy. Ultraflouncy. I like that, but the general consensus might kill my career.

Is what you wear onstage the same as you wear off?

I sort of smush them all together. My favorite piece of clothing is a leather jacket I had made for me that says “Hutch” in chain mail on the back.

Did Michael Schmidt make it for you?

Yeah – how'd you know? He's great. He sort of looks like a beautiful snake. He loves all the Hollywood stuff, but he's so sincere when he talks about it. Almost makes me like it. Is there somewhere funkier we can go, like Yankel's House of Pile? I saw that on the way down.

If you want old clothes, we should go to Cheap Jack's.

[We head back up to Broadway and 13th Street. Several young ladies on the corner stare at Hutchence as he enters Cheap Jack's.]

Do you enjoy recognition?

Depends on where I am.

Like when you're out on your own. Shopping, for instance.

Shopping, yeah, 'cause I get discounts. And there is a definite bonus to recognition when I'm onstage.

It makes the night go faster. But I'm not an institution yet. Sometimes I think about how hard it must be for someone like Bob Hope to go for a stroll. I don't really get hassled. I can stand in the middle of a street in London, or even New York, and usually nothing happens. I don't think I have that distinctive of a face. I got recognized in Tangier once, going by in a taxi, very fast … from a distance … in a fog … during monsoon season. Just kidding. It's odd how once you are conscious of being watched, you stop being so self-conscious because you realize there's nothing you can do about it. Of course, nobody in Hong Kong gives a shit who I am.

Aren't people there freaking about the city's eventual realignment with China?

Thousands are leaving a year, but they're the ones who can afford to leave, to give Australia half a million to let them in, though a lot more are going to Vancouver or New Zealand instead because they've heard, and it's fairly true, about Australia's racism.

It's actually more like unconscious racism. There's a naivete to it that you might call charming if it wasn't so sick. See, most foreigners don't realize – because we refuse to believe it ourselves – that Australia is southern Asia. Australia is linked to England in everyone's minds.

Yet most Australians don't have the faintest idea why the Japanese tried to invade us during the Second World War, and can't understand why they might not have wanted any foreigners on the biggest island in the Asian paradise. If we had lost, my home would be covered in rice paddies by now. Australia would have been Japan's Great Plains, their grain barrel.

I've never met one Australian who knows that. We have it so easy in Australia. It's very easy to live there. Tougher than it was before, but that's because five years ago it was ridiculous. I used to live in a three-story, five-bedroom house. It cost me $20 a week.

Did you make that much playing music?

Nah, but so what, we were all on the dole. Everyone went on it. That's one of the reasons you have so many bands in Australia. It's cheap to live and collect, so all the bands go on it. You wouldn't even have to go pick up your employment check; they'd mail it to you or transfer it to your account. Ready cash. I guess because there is such an anti-authoritarian vibe in Australia that people are quite happy to accept government checks. “Aw, screw 'em” - that's the attitude. Lots of people accept four and five checks or even have jobs. It's very lax. That's why we're stuck with the tall-poppy syndrome.

Translation?

Don't be successful, don't rise above your mates, or you'll get chopped. It's weird. It's the don't-leave-the-pub way of life. I think people in America are generally happy for someone's good fortune; they know how to let themselves go. In Australia, they go, “Good, mate,” and don't ask a single question. There are no celebrations for a job well done. I'm still shocked at how Americans cheer you on when they like you. I know you don't fancy it anymore, but I like phrases like “dress for success.”

And that's why you're shopping here?

I love hideous ties. Girls love 'em. Dunno why. Its like red socks. Are the playing Richard Hell? I haven't heard this song in 20 years. God, you must hear better music in clothing stores than you do anywhere else in New York. All these baseball jackets are so cheap. You know what they pay for these in Australia? I should buy the whole lot, take them back. I'd never have to tour again. I could get 150 to 200 bucks just for the ratty ones. I think this is the first clothing store I've been in that wasn't playing videos.

Are videos big in Australia?

We've actually been involved in music video a whole lot longer than in America. Because we are so far away, the only way we've had to understand all this music flying around the world is through video. Since the '50s, even when it was only 10 minutes a week, Aussie tv has been showing music videos.

And we don't censor the way you guys do. The “Way of the World” single is a very serious song, but MTV is quite shy of the video, you should note – I say this diplomatically. They censor here for all the wrong reasons. Like it's okay to stare at Cher's crotch for four minutes, but it's hard to say something truthful about the state of the world.

Could it be because with a group that's become as wildly successful as INXS has, it's inevitable that favorable reaction always turns?

I don't think INXS has reached that point yet. Give us four more years. We've only recently become hip in England. At the beginning, they hated our guts.

Why?

'Cause we are Australians writing pop music, why else? They don't make much in England, apart from nice jumpers and Jaguars, and one of the few things they can claim some turf on is pop music. So, they're not happy when someone else does it. It's a standard trait of island people; they're very territorial.

But you guys are island people too.

Yeah, but we got a bigger island. Now, if we can just get rid of some competition from the expatriate colonies.

Isn't it enough already with this rivalry between Australia and England? L.A. And New York have settled their feud.

England still treats Australia like we're descendants of convicts. Well, I guess we are, aren't we? We're trying to get rid of them, but unfortunately, they're coming back with money and buying up half the country. Don't you resent the Japanese buying Rockefeller Center?

I resent the Rockefellers more.

[Having tried on everything and bought nothing, Hutchence decides against old clothes. We head down to If boutique.]

Armand Basi. Nice stuff. That Claude Montana is fabulous, but God, this stuff is expensive. We don't know anyone here for a discount, do we? My father used to design clothes for a shop in Hong Kong called Dynasty. Glitzy evening wear for too much money. One year, when we did our first tour, we bough ta lot of Sprouse, real colorful stuff, and we spent a fortune, especially when you consider it's disposable fashion. All it had to do was last a month. All the buttons fell off, it shrunk, seams opened up. We would have been more upset, but it made us homesick for the mother country. Disposable fashion is very English. The nice thing about it when it comes from there, however, is that even though the stuff falls apart, it's cheap.

Ah, I like this. Very sexy, very smart. Basi, right? I found the best underwear. I think it's called Nikos. Someone gave it to me last night. Well, that's a plug. No names, please. These pants might go with the Basi shirt. [Like Navy pants, they have over a dozen buttons instead of a fly.] Not good clubwear. Certainly not quick enough to please me.

Your choice of underwear would have to be very discreet.

And always clean. Maybe these pants come with a catheter. Should I ask the shopgirl? [He raises his arm to call her and, wincing, puts it down.]

Just realized a colostomy bag wouldn't hurt?

No. I think I have a cracked rib, from too much fun the other night at Inflation, this super club in Melbourne. Melbourne has some of the best clubs in the world. Great people. Amazing clubs. Sydney has nothing. Boring as hell. Nice place if you're a surfer. Really pretty, like L.A. But very corrupt, Sydney. Everyone is always paying everyone off. That's why you can't afford to do a club there. It's like, in order to get a club license, all the other nightclub owners have to agree to your having a license. And four people control the voting on that. Melbourne now has a club called Razor that is so exciting. It used to an automobile club, especially popular during the '50s, where people used to talk about their cars, you know, with photos of Mini-Minors making hairpin turns around corners. Like a racing club, I guess, except for slower cars. Razor gets the best people.

[He picks up a pair of huge, get-lost-in-the-rain-forest-and-survive black shoes and delights.]

Many people have shoe fetishes. I guess it's around the world actually, not just with Imelda. I think people are probably just jealous of her because they secretly wanted so many pair. But these are big, like size big. Are Americans getting larger feet, or do they just want more room? I always notice shoes when I'm here.

There's almost like a $100 tax on shoes in Australia. Like a pair that will cost you $50 here will cost you almost $200 in Australia. A pair of Levi's cost $100. I never buy furniture in Australia, either, and I have an obsession with furniture the way Americans love shoes. It's a shame I don't have an obsession with homes, too, since I have no place to put all the furniture. I have it stored all over the world.

Let me get the Basi shirt, and then I want to buy records. I would get them later, but I just remembered I have a friend coming in tonight for only one night. He and his father are trying to get down to Nicaragua. They're helping Ortega keep the Contras back. Good luck. What's so weird about their going is that these guys are publishing magnates in England. Entrepreneurs. They should be serious Thatcherites, but they just hate Thatcher. Real lefties.

If everyone is so vocal of their dislike of her, how come she's so strong?

The British love her because they love to be miserable; they love to complain. Thatcher's become irrepressible. She's finally showing signs of faltering, except she's winning by default, because no one wants to put Kinnock in, either. It's like your Dan Quayle. What an alternative.

Are Australians political?

It's compulsory to vote, if you want to call that political. Frankly, nobody particularly gives a fuck. That doesn't mean Australians are not aware people. I think they know more about what's going on in the rest of the world than the average American, but that's because they have to compensate for being in the middle of nowhere. They're more concerned about international politics, about the environment. Every time the Americans come into Sydney harbor with their nuclear ships and submarines, there's always 5,000 people telling them to fuck off.

But the hell with domestic politics?

Do you know anything about our system? It's built on a bickering sort of war. The front page is always about politicos throwing shit at each other, spending more time insulting each other than governing.

Mind you, they are really very good at it. It's a fine Australian tradition of political insult. Listening to parliament is hilarious - “Shut up, you bastard!” - and that's our prime minister, Bob Hawke. He's in the Guinness Book of World Records for having drunk a yard of beer in record time. He is actually a brilliant leader, a Rhodes scholar at Oxford, and he has done a bloody good job, considering the apathy he's up against. What he should be real pleased about its restoring pride in being Australian, particularly after all that nonsense when the governor general dismissed Prime Minister Whitlam in 1975.

How was that possible without the consent of the Australian parliament?

We're still a colony. I think a lot of us were cynical after that. They felt like puppets. Probably had something to do with the CIA. The good old CIA. I'm in their files, I found out. That they should waste their time on me. I'm listed as subversive, for my lyrics to “Guns in the Sky” and because I once threw condoms out to the audience in Northern Australia.

How is that subversive?

The more north you get in Australia, the more it is like the South in America. The man who ran Queensland, one of the biggest states in Australia, was this guy, Joh Peterson, who was in power for over 20 years. Peterson was this sort of South African leftover who arrived in Australia, and he made things illegal, like sex education, abortion, condoms to minors – you couldn't have the vending machines in clubs. [You can now.] Well, I slandered him, and so I got taken to court, where he was thrown out of office from the corruption uncovered during the proceedings.

Did that make you a hero down there?

Say what, mate? This is Australia, remember. Our heroes are bushrangers, outlaws, and sporting stars. If you're an athlete, you can get away with anything.

[Hutchence purchases the Basi shirts, and then we head to Tower Records at the corner. A street person approaches us.]

is this the official mugging committee?

Street person: “Ooh, ooh, here they come in their limo, straight from Saks Fifth Avenue. Board of directors, how you doing, moneys, you big-time decision makers. Uh-oh, who's you? You must be a rock man. Stand aside for the rock man.”

They always pick on me.

“I want to give you something, man. Some humility. But there's only enough for one.”

I don't care for some, but humility is something we can spread around.

“Hey man, this is for seriously. You will love this humility. No side effects, no speed. Say yes, and I can be back in an hour.”

[We go through the revolving door and right to the rock section; within three minutes, Max Q is playing on the system.]

That's good, somebody knows it's out.

[Hutchence buys albums by Ciccone Youth, Camper Van Beethoven, Soul II Soul, Grace Jones, Shakespear's Sister, Jesus and Mary Chain, and Suicidal Tendencies. As he is paying for them, he spots a postcard stand that features a picture of him.]

Holy shit. When did they take this thing? What a bizarre likeness. I hardly know this guy. This is not an approved photo. [He gets the attention of a young lady behind the counter.] Excuse me, please, this is not an approved photo. It's a pirate. Do you know where you get these from?

Salesgirl: “No idea.”

Can you find out?

“Why, do you want to buy a lot of them?”

See, I told you no one recognizes me.

[We walk outside and the street person comes up to him again.]

Street person: “I know who you are.”

Who am I?

“You are someone who's gonna give me a lot of money.”

How much you want?

“Just give me one of those bills, thank you. Now I'm officially your biggest fan. Just tell me what you want to buy.”

I must be dressed for success.