#everyone 'was' 'originally' 'indigenous'

[steelbluehome]

July 4th is the birthday of Steve "Captain America" Rogers.

The celebrations will be nationwide in the United States of America.

Festivities may include: barbecue or grilling, loud music, your great-auntie's infamous potato salad, games (cornhole, baseball, basket ball, euchre, poker, tug-of-war, which couple will start fighting first, etc.), a body of water (lake, swimming pool, kiddie pool, the pond left in the yard after hours of kids running through the sprinkler), coolers of beverages, almost always some of which will be alcoholic, bags and bags of ice, fireworks displays (professional, amateur, illegal, dumbass, drunk dumbass, sparklers) and many generations coming together to yell and scream with and at eachother, and, always, pictures.

For many people this is an old and treasured tradition. Usually the only time it coincides with the state or condition of America as a country is when someone plays patriotic country music, or misplaced songs which are actually critical of America (Born in the USA, This is America, Living in the USA, Independence Day, Pink House's (Ain't That America), American Girl, American Woman, American Pie, etc.) which is funny as hell. Of course, there can be vicious political arguments as well. That's always fun.

The theme will be red, white, and blue.

Participation is voluntary.

[blood-ology]

Finally got my dna test so I finally know my precolonial ancestry woo :)

[ramshacklefey]

It's amazing to me just how good the Mormon church has been at hiding just how bad they really are from public view. Even the shit that gets spread around is the relatively harmless bullshit. They had a crazy prophet with magic glasses. They believe in god-mandated polygyny. They think everyone who is good enough will get their very own planet after the world ends. They wear magic underpants. Mormon men are all paladins.

Here's one of the ones you hear less often:

See, like many other Christian sects, the Mormons really do believe that the existence of Christ obviates the existence of Judaism. Judaism was just a placeholder until the "real" church could be established by Jesus.

And the Mormons in particular believe, dead ass, that the entire inheritance of Israel has been given to them, because the Jews failed to recognize the Messiah when he was on Earth. They really do. They have this whole system where people are given a "divine revelation" about which of the Tribes of Israel they're a member of (don't worry, they decided that most people belong to the two tribes that are willing to "adopt" people. Only the most specialest boys and girls are members of the original ten).

Let's sum up so far. The Mormons believe that they are the people of Israel, chosen and protected by God. If Jews want to get back in on that party, they can always repent and convert to Mormonism, the one true church to which God gave all the rights and blessings that were originally bestowed on Abraham's house.

But it doesn't stop there!

The Mormons also believe, in all seriousness, that all Indigenous peoples of the Americas are descended from a small group of Jewish people who left just before the fall of Jerusalem (~600 bc iirc). Their entire weird-ass extra bible is a chronicle of those people's history in [unspecific part of America]. At the very beginning of the book, two brothers in the original family turn away from god, so they and all their descendants are cursed with dark skin, so that the good Nephites (who remain "white and delightsome") will always be able to tell themselves apart from the wicked Lamanites.

So, you've got supposedly Jewish people running around the Americas. And the "good" ones are white, and the "bad" ones are brown. Then, ofc, Jesus comes to visit them (I guess supposedly that's part of what he was doing during his dirt nap? Or possibly after he left again, it's not clear), and they all convert to Christianity, which they think is clearly the natural evolution of Judaism. Well, at the end of the book, all of them become wicked, in a kind of weird pseudo-apocalyptic series of events. They are all cursed with dark skin, until such time as they repent for their ancestors sins and return to the gospel.

But of course, Mormons being the good and kind people they are, they want everyone to receive the blessings of God and be brought into the houses of Israel etc etc. And it isn't the fault of those poor little Indigenous children that their distant ancestors turned away from God and became wicked.

So what's the natural answer? Well, Mormons are real big on missionary work, as we all know. But apparently that wasn't enough in this case.

Because the Mormon church has been one of the big players in abducting as many Indigenous children as possible, in order to indoctrinate them into being good Mormons, so that they can turn white again and be blessed. My mother remembers hearing talks about this in the 70s and 80s. The church literally had a "Lamanite Adoption Program," where families in the church were encouraged to get as many Indigenous children as possible away from their families and not let them be reunited until they were fully assimilated and ready to go back and proselytize about how wonderful the church is.

The church leadership literally talked about how wonderful it was to see these children becoming whiter. Actually whiter. Like, saying that when they finally saw them with their families again, it was beautiful how much paler they were.

I'm pretty sure this program has been officially ended, but it doesn't take a genius to speculate about who might be behind the curtains on the movement in the western US to gut the ICWA....

So yeah. Next time someone tries to tell you that the Mormons are just harmless weirdos, please remember that they're an antisemitic cult that advocates for the forced assimilation of Indigenous children to help them escape the cursed brown skin of their ancestors.

[traegorn]

I thought I'd warn you that the two wolves meme references a quote by a racist man who claimed to be Native American and made up a fake Native American quote.

Sort of.

Famous evangelist Billy Graham made it up. He claimed it was a story from indigenous people (originally Inuit but when they called him on his shit he changed it to Cherokee). But as far as I can tell, he didn't claim he was a Native American. It's certainly not something he was known for.

I know young people might not know who Billy Graham was -- his peak fame was decades ago and he passed away like five years ago -- but trust me, this wasn't just "some guy."

But also you get that, like, the joke wasn't trying to validate the quote, right? It's a play on expectations joke. Like you're expecting some variation of the story, and instead you get a transporter accident. The joke doesn't require the original story to be valid, and in no way assumes endorsement.

I need you to sit down and consider a few things for the future. The first is that if you're going to randomly "educate" strangers on the internet, make sure that you actually know exactly what you're talking about. Passing along misinformation helps no one.

Secondly, not everyone who references something is endorsing that thing. Sometimes a joke is sarcastic. Sometimes part of a joke is how wrong something is. Sometimes it's an expectation play. If you're going to dedicate your time to this kind of activism, you need to pick your battles better.

Thirdly, maybe make sure you know more about something than the person you're telling it to. I beg of you.

[infiniteglitterfall]

I do realize this is a real niche post but I cannot tell you how many damn times over the past 10 months I've seen gentiles tell Jews some version of, "Your own holy book SAYS God doesn't want you to have a country yet!"

And it's such an incredibly blatant and weirdly specific tell that they're not part of something that grew from progressive grassroots, but something based on right-wing astroturfing.

1. Staying in your own lane is a pretty huge progressive principle.

Telling people in another group that their deity said they couldn't do X is, I think, as far as you can get from your own lane.

2. It's also very clearly Not In Your Own Lane because I've never seen anyone actually be able to EITHER quote the passage they're thinking of, OR cite where it is.

It's purely, "I saw somebody else say this, and it seemed like it would make me win the debate I wasn't invited to."

3. It betrays a complete ignorance of Jewish culture and history.

Seriously? You don't know what you're referencing, its context, or even what it specifically says, but you're... coming to a community that reads and often discusses the entire Torah together each year, at weekly services... who have massive books holding generations of debate about it that it takes 7 years to read, at one page per day....

And saying, "YOUR book told you not to!"

I've been to services where we discussed just one word from the reading the whole time. The etymology. The connotations. The use of it in this passage versus in other passages.

And then there is the famous saying, "Ask two Jews, get three opinions." There is a culture of questioning and discussion and debate throughout Judaism.

You think maybe, in the decades and decades of public discussion about whether to buy land in Eretz Yisrael and move back there; whether it should keep being an individual thing, or keep shifting to intentional community projects; what the risks were; whether it should really be in Argentina or Canada or someplace instead; how this would be received by the Jews and gentiles already there, how to respect their boundaries, how to work with them before and during; and whether ending up with a fuckton of Jews in one place might not be exactly as dangerous for them as it had always been everywhere else....

You think NOBODY brought up anything scriptural? Nobody looked through the Torah, the Nevi'im, the Ketuvim, or the Talmud for any thoughts about any of this?? It took 200 years and some rando in the comments to blow everyone's minds???

4. It relies on an unspoken assumption that people can and should take very literal readings of religious texts and use them to control others.

And a sense of ownership and power over those texts, even without any accompanying knowledge about what they say.

It's kind of a supercessionist know-it-all vibe. It reads like, "I know what you should be doing. Because even if I'm not personally part of a fundamentalist branch of a related religion, the culture I'm rooted in is."

Bonus version I found when I was looking for an example. NOBODY should do this:

There are a lot of people who pull weird historical claims like "It SAYS Abraham came from Chaldea! That's Iraq!"

Like, first of all, a group is indigenous to a land if it arose as a people and culture there, before (not because of) colonization.

People aren't spontaneously spawning in groups, like "Boom! A new indigenous people just spawned!!"

People come from places. They go places. Sometimes, they gel as a new community and culture. Sometimes, they bop around for a while and eventually assimilate into another group.

Second: THE TORAH IS NOT A HISTORY TEXTBOOK OMFG.

It's an oral history, largely written centuries after the fact.

There is a TON of historical and archaeological research on when and where the Jewish culture originated, how it developed over time, etc. It's extremely well-established.

Nobody has to try to pull what they remember from Sunday school for this argument.

[txttletale]

hey not trying to be a shithead but genuinely curious; and not saying it isnt, but what makes honest hearts like super racist? because, okay its been a while but i dont remember it being *that* bad?

am i missing something? (probably)

well, essentially, the whole dlc hinges its plot on its idea of 'tribal' society vs. 'civilized' society. this is like... a distinction with origins in 19th century scientific racism used to argue that indigenous peoples were 'primitive' and 'backwards', a lesser form of life compared to the more developed 'civilized' people. and this is a distinction that is everywhere in all the fallout games, including new vegas (i think it's super fucking racist that the white gloves practice of cannibalism is constantly narratively linked to their 'tribal origins' and described in the terms of a regression or degeneration)--but honest hearts is about it and so it's really inescapable.

joshua sawyer can say whatever he likes about multi-ethnic diverse groups or whatever but the tribes in honest hearts are very clearly inspired by racist stereotypes about native americans--they are naive, gullible morons (follows-chalk can't understand the concept of a casino) at worst and noble savages with (textually) biblical innocence at best. their names, their art, their societies--all just a white guy's idea of "vaguely native american" without any research or care.

and imo worst of all (and this is something im aware the devs have properly acknowledged) they have absolutely no agency--your role in the dlc is to be a "civilized" outsider who tells them which of two white "civilized" mormons to listen to. none of the 'tribals' are able to make their own decisions or lead themselves--they need a mormon missionary to tell them what to do! there is no way to resolve the dlc without picking which white mormon missionary they should listen to other than just murdering everyone indiscriminately.

and, like--i am aware that honest hearts thinks it is gesturing towards a critique of these ideas. you can criticize the paternalism daniel shows towards the sorrows, and the dlc clearly intended it to be criticized--but that criticism is weak and hollow when the only way to follow up on it is to put a different white mormon in charge. it is the most archetypal white saviour narrative possible--and yes, i also know daniel was 'supposed to be asian', but that doesn't change anything because he is in fact, as the "civilized" missionary preaching paternalistically to the "primitive tribals", fundamentally white-coded

so i mean yea it's racist because it relies on racist stereotypes about native americans, mandates that a white person come and take charge of these poor stupid 'tribes'--but even if you changed all that, it's fundamentally about an idea of 'civilization vs. tribal society' that it accepts as a true and meaningful distinction as its core premise, and that is just a straight up racist premise.

(and the reason i keep bringing up that both daniel and josh are mormons is that mormons have a long and storied history of brutal violence and colonialism against indigenous peoples, from their original violent settlement of utah to their 'indian placement program' to their deeply racist scripture, which makes their portrayal as benevolent white saviours particularly galling and repulsive)

[alpaca-clouds]

You Cannot Create A Solarpunk Future Under Capitalism

I am feeling like a broken record, but I just need to make this clear once more: No, Solarpunk in any form is not possible under capitalism. If you think it is, you either fail to understand Solarpunk, or you don't get what capitalism even means.

Technically I wrote about this already almost exactly a year ago. Let me reiterate it again, though: Solarpunk at its core is build around a couple of ideas. Those are:

Living in relative harmony with our environment, rather than destroying it. (Which includes using renewable energies.)

Decolonialism.

Social justice and the same rights, chances and possibilities for all people.

Neither of those three points is archievable under capitalism, as the end goals of capitalism are opposed to each of them.

Let me go through each of them.

Environmental Sustainability is not archievable under capitalism.

This is the point people tend to argue about the most. Because they will go: "But if the renewable energy sources are cheaper than fossil fuels, the capitalist will see more possibilities to make money with it." Well, do I have news for you: A variety of renewable sources, such as solar and wind power, are already a lot cheaper than fossil fuels and yet somehow the capitalist argue against using them. Care to explain that? No? Well, I'll do it for you. (Technically already did in that blog last year.)

See, when someone's net worth is listed somewhere, most of them actually do not have billions of dollars on their bank accounts. And no, they also do not swim in gold coins. Instead their net worth comes from calculating how much money they would be able to make if they sold all thier assets. A lot of those assets are shares in companies they have, as well as stuff like their fancy houses, fancy cars, fancy private jets and fancy yachts. Most billionaires have not more than a couple tens million dollars in liquid money, meaning money they can just spend. If they wanna buy something that is more expensive, they will usually go to a bank, say: "Look at all the stuff I have. I wanna buy myself more stuff. Gimme money?" And the bank will go: "Of course, Sir Billionaire, here you go. Have a nice 10 billion dollars."

And this is where the issue arrises: Most of the billionaires who are investing in the energy market, have already invested billions in fossil fuels. Be it by owning shares of fossil fuel companies, or by owning mines, oil rigs, power plants and the like. And this puts them into a silly little position: Even if they wanted to make more money through renewables, they cannot without harming themselves. Because in the moment that renewables become even more viable than they already are, fossil fuels lose their viabilities - and hence all the assets they hold in fossil fuels lose their value in an instant. The billionairs know that. The banks know it, too. Which is why banks do not want to give the fossil fuel billionaires money for that, even if they ask.

And that is only on the energy-generating side of it. If you go into the other stuff that harms our environment... Simply put: Public transport will never make as much money, as selling everyone their own car. And plastics are just so much cheaper than any alternatives. And the companies need fast fashion, because they won't make as much money, if folks only go buying new clothes every ten years.

Capitalism is build on the exploitation of the environment.

You cannot archieve decolonialization under capitalism.

Let's talk about the call to decolonize next. This is even easier explained: Capitalism is build on colonialism. And contrary to what you might have been told in school, colonialism has never ended. Most indigenous folks never got their ancestral land back - or have to fight to remain on it to this day. The most notable examples you know off might be indigenous people on their land (at times the land they originally had been forced onto after their ancestral land had been stolen from them) fighting pipelines that the capitalists want to put onto that land. That is colonialism.

In fact a lot of the raw material we use to power capitalism is produced on stolen land or is moved across stolen land to be financially viable. Be it oil springs, that can be found there. Or be it mines. That is both mines that produce coal, but also mines that are used to produce lithium and other materials used in batteries of electric cars. These raw materials should technically belong to the indigenous people from whose land those materials are sourced. And we do know for a fact that some of them will prefer to leave those materials in the ground. Maybe because of the harm to the environment that mining for them creates. Maybe because the land is sacred to them. Maybe because some of them just do not care about cheap electric cars.

It is more than that, of course. Because colonialism also allows for slave labor. And yes, I mean slave labor. Like classical slave labor where people are pressganged into laboring in those mines, or in other factories, where they are not paid at all - or are paid in breadcrums. The reason that the global south is so abhorently poor, even though most of the raw materials powering our world are found there, is, that the people in the global south are exploited, while the land is often owned by people from the global north, who either got it through colonialism - or by buying it from someone who got it through colonialism.

And once again: The profit motive of capitalism is directly opposed to decolonizing - and because of that it won't happen. Capitalism is built on colonial exploitation.

You cannot archive social justice under capitalism.

Capitalism as a system was invented for one reason and one reason alone: To allow former nobility, who were close to lose their power and influence in a Europe of anti-royal revolutions, to hold onto the power and influence and veil it underneath the idea of meritocracy. Basically saying: "Everyone gets what they deserve based on the work they got in." Obviosly they got the most, because they owned the land that everyone was working and living on. And then they did their best to brainwash everyone into believing this - at which they actually succeeded.

Here is the thing: Capitalism needs an underclass to exploit. Sure, a good chunk of that exploitation will happen in other countries, where the poor white middleclass folks do not need to see them toil, but some of that exploitation simply cannot be done in those other countries. At times because the work physically needs to happen in the western nations - stuff like road contruction, general contruction work, cleaning and such are an example of this. And at times because some things might be time critical, cannot be transported that far and stuff like that - like farm work in some cases, or also all the Amazon warehouse stuff. Oh, and all those fastfood jobs belong into this area. Stuff that is paid minimum wage and exploited to no end.

And then there is of course prison labor in the US, which once again is just slavery.

And all of that does not even go into the care and nursing work that is either underpaid by a ton when it is happening on the open market (like in hospitals, schools, kindergardens and other care facilities) - or is happening completely for free. Mosten done by women, who will care for both children, as well as elders and disabled family members for free.

The true endgoal of capitalism is to turn the labor of the lower classes into money and value for the upper class to hoard like bloody dragons. As such capitalism will never be compatible with any sort of equal rights and equal chances.

Those three aspects are truths that just cannot be changed. Capitalism will never be able to create any sort of justice, equal rights, or sustainability. It is not in the interest of capitalism to do so, either.

[allthecanadianpolitics]

[...] “God knows I see this in the national assembly every day, the construction of this other, this other who is North African, who is Muslim, who is Black, who is Indigenous, and whose culture, by definition, would be dangerous or inferior,” Bouazzi told the audience earlier this month.

He was called to order by the party’s two co-spokespeople, Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois and Ruba Ghazal, who claimed that his statements were “clumsy, exaggerated and polarizing.” But Bouazzi didn’t back down, and during a radio interview on Radio-Canada Friday, he accused ministers Christian Dubé and Lionel Carmant of blaming immigrants for putting strain on health care and social services. [...]

The Coalition Avenir Québec has drafted a motion demanding that Mr. Bouazzi withdraw his remarks and apologize to all members of the legislature “who were targeted by his accusations of racism.” The opposition Liberals and Parti Québécois have also drafted motions calling on the legislature to affirm that its members are not racist. [...]

Party members gathered at a convention on Sunday appeared to be divided on the issue. Eleven Québec solidaire constituency associations publicly supported Bouazzi and called on the party to adopt a resolution denouncing what they described as a smear campaign against him. [...]

Continue Reading.

Tagging: @newsfromstolenland, @vague-humanoid, @palipunk

Note from the poster @el-shab-hussein: if you didn't quite catch that, a Québec legislature ministre of Arab and North African origin got coerced by every party - including his own - into rescinding his comments about the racism he experiences and sees everyday from the Québec legislative assembly and its legislation. Québec is a gutter of racism and it will continue to fester with no end in sight as the fascism mounts and everyone refuses to acknowledge who the principle targets are.

[indigofyrebird]

Wrecker baked a berry pie and a fresh loaf of bread.

Echo helped by hovering over him, making sure he didn't leave anything out.

Hunter cleaned up the kitchen.

Omega played "Lula is my baby".

Crosshair set the table, and Tech found a most interesting article on the origins of indigenous peoples that he shared with everyone.

Happy Thanksgiving!

[clangenrising]

Hey everyone.

Today, many of you are celebrating American Thanksgiving, but I wanted to take a moment to use this platform I've somehow stumbled into to do something different. Today is the National Day of Mourning, a day where we take time to remember and mourn the suffering and deaths of the indigenous American people who were brutally colonized by the founders of the country. It is also a day to remember that their descendants are still suffering, that their struggles are not over.

Now, I am very white and living on stolen land. I am not the expert here and I don't think it would be my place to explain the struggles the indigenous Americans are facing.

But I do run a fairly popular Warrior Cats blog and I do think it would be worthwhile to highlight the fact that Warrior Cats and its fandom are full of Anti-Indigenous bigotry. You may notice that I use the term "Healer" instead of "Medicine Cats" and that's because the original term is blatant and disrespectful cultural appropriation that I don't want to take part in. And that's just one example.

HERE is a link to a comprehensive article researched and written by an All-Native/Indigenous team of Warrior Cats fans that details the harmful stereotypes the Erins use and suggestions on what you can do to avoid contributing to them. Please, read this document and take some time to think about what it says.

I also encourage any Native/Indigenous people who find this post to add to it or link places where my fans can support you and your communities.

Thank you for your time.

-Rowan

[lakecountylibrary]

Kate's Top 3 Adult Nonfiction Reads of 2024

Demystifying Disability: What to Know, What to Say and How to Be an Ally by Emily Ladau

This book gives readers actionable steps to be an ally to the disabled community as well as how to act and what to say or not to say to disabled people. The author describes how to follow these steps in a nonjudgmental way. She realizes that everyone makes mistakes and she informs readers on terminology to use and to eliminate from your vocabulary when it comes to the disabled community.

This is a concise guide to help readers become more educated, empathetic and accepting. I highly recommend reading this book.

The Serviceberry: Abundance and Reciprocity in the Natural World by Robin Wall Kimmerer

This book focuses on life values that align with my way of thinking, therefore I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book. The author explains how important it is to focus on gratitude, reciprocity and community. She uses nature based examples to explain how the natural world also lives by these values.

Other books by this author include Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants and Gathering Moss: A Natural and Cultural History of Mosses. Give this book a try if you enjoy nature and short reads.

The Good Enough Job: Reclaiming Life from Work by Simone Stolzoff

This book urges readers to reclaim their lives from a work obsessed world. It suggests putting more emphasis on our lives outside of work and allowing ourselves to believe we are doing a good enough job in our work lives.

The author offers strategies for how to have a healthier relationship with work and how to have a better work-life balance. If you are struggling with burnout at your job, this book will hopefully help you realign the important things in your life and make you realize you are doing a 'good enough job' in your career.

I really enjoyed these two quotes from the book:

“You are not the work you do, you are the person you are.”

(Edited to add: This was originally said - or rather, written - by Toni Morrison in a 2017 New Yorker article titled The Work You Do, the Person You Are. It was quoted with the source in the book. Thanks to the reader who pointed out this additional context would be good to add!)

and

“A good enough job is a job that allows you to be the person you want to be.”

See more of Kate's recs

[thelcsdaily]

Beef Rendang

A delectable dish from the Minangkabau ethnic group in Indonesia, beef rendang is indigenous to the country. The dish was introduced to Malaysia during the Melaka Sultanate era, when Minangkabau settlers from Sumatra moved to the southern region of the Malay peninsula.

Rendang is a curry made using slow-simmered beef that lets the flavors seep into the flesh. A recipe that takes hours to prepare on the burner. Depending on the desired result, the dish must be cooked in coconut milk with all of the spices for a specified length of time. The original recipe needs to be cooked for two to three hours minimum until dry. To ensure you have leftovers, I suggest that you make a big portion. Over the next day, the flavors and aroma intensify. Perfect with a bowl of steam rice and your veggies of choice.

FYI: Rendang, creating it from scratch may seem difficult or time-consuming to someone who works. You can take a shortcut by using Rendang paste. This will shorten the preparation period.

"Cooking is all about people. Food is maybe the only universal thing that really has the power to bring everyone together." — Guy Fieri

[master-of-47-dudes]

Oh! For those of you who like Lancer, I've made major progress in the campaign I'm writing: Kindness of strangers!

LRBT-III, otherwise known as Blanche to the locals. This sun-baked dustbowl of a planet has the high honor of being one of the few habitable terrestrial bodies that anyone has discovered in the Long Rim, and probably the only one that's actually any use to anyone. Luckily- or not so luckily, if you ask some people- it was Union that found it first. Well, about 70 years ago when they stumbled across this star system they got it in their heads that the Long Rim's days were numbered. There’s untold millions living out there scattered along the emptiest shipping lane in the known galaxy who'd need a way out once no one needed to pass them by, and by Christ the Buddha Union was gonna be there for them waiting with open arms.

All of that is background, though. You? You’re a bunch of mercenaries who got their hands on a couple of GMSes, decided to make your manna selling violence for pay. Worlds like Blanche don't take to colonies very well, so even two generations in there's still plenty of frontier out there being settled and railroad tracks being laid. The people out there struggle day by day to survive, and people like you are there to protect them from those who got sick of the hard life. Not everyone out there has the guts to stand up for the little guy- that's why you're called Lancers.

A setting and a campaign all in one, Kindness Of Strangers and its (eventual) follow-up Dancing With the Devil are a series of Wild West-themed 2-mission adventures intended to take players from 0-12 as they find themselves embroiled in the midst of a corporate conspiracy to overthrow the Union-backed government of the isolated colony of Blanche and a ploy to seize control over a nearly completed Blinkstation. All the while, a strange religious movement worshipping an eons-dead alien civilization grows ever more influential in the background...

This campaign tackles themes of colonialism, nationalism, corruption, and conflict between indigenous peoples, settlers, and immigrants, all in a world where well-meaning intentions have gone sour and the ghosts of the past have come back to haunt it.

Kindness of Strangers, Missions 1-3

Field Guide to LRBT-PN

Exotic Gear Documentation

Variant Frame Documentation

Kindness of Strangers Worldbuilding Short Stories

Kindness of Strangers LCP, Maps, and Assets

This latest update includes the first(ish) draft of Mission 3: The Field of Blue Children, allowing play of the first half of Act 2 and extending the LL range from 0-3. Mission 3 is heavily intrigue and RP focused, featuring a wide suite of characters, relationships, and locations in the Tourist town of Baugh- a thriving immigrant community situated on a soda lake.

The PCs have been hired to investigate a bomb threat at the newly completed Baugh Pumpworks, and water filtration and chemical processing facility that stands to end the water shortage and threatens corporate control over the colony's water supply- but is everything really as it seems? In the process, the PCs will go toe to toe with teenage gearheads, Pinkerton-expies, and a group of Sparri Espadas who got roped into this whole mess, and uncover the mystery behind the threat!

Also, there's a subaltern that talks like a pirate and catholicism.

Anyway this mission also includes a custom NPC Template (kind of, I don't know how to design the LCP for that but i did include instructions on how it works), several new reserves, and several custom sitreps!

So, check it out- I'm always looking for feedback.

[flagellant]

Hey! Please correct me if I'm wrong, but you seem like you actually know things about wend*gos and I genuinely want to have a better understanding.

Based on my limited understanding, the association with deer and wend*gos is more of a pop culture thing and the original concept of wend*gos arent like that at all. They're regular humans who got cursed for being cannibals, right?

Dont get me wrong, youre completely right in saying that people need to stop associating deer imagery with cannibalism as pop culture doesnt erase appropriation, but am I at least right on the history?

No pressure to answer if you dont want to, thanks for taking time to read this regardless.

Alright, it's been a while since I've spoken about the winter hunger so it's time for the perennial disclaimer: I am not Anishinaabe, and I cannot be considered a true authority on their practices and beliefs. Native America is, after all, not a monolith, and I can only speak for what I know through research and seeking to learn about this topic in order to be more respectful of them and advocate for that respect due to my audience's size.

With that said: You're correct. There is absolutely no deer imagery aligned with the Anishinaabe culture's portrayals and understanding of the being in question. I'm not 100% sure on its origins, but I'd be willing to bet that much of the inspiration would come from the Witcher 3's depictions of leshy--they click all of the buttons through visual language, and I can see why people would see that sort of iconography and begin applying it disrespectfully. Like I keep saying--fucked up deers are cool and spooky as hell! It's not a shock that through law-of-large-numbers and a history of oppression and thievery that the horror genre can often be anti-indigenous bc of that!

For clarification of the most commonly understood appearance of the winter hunger--and this is not so that you can more accurately use it, it is so you can more accurately defend against racist and inaccurate depictions--it takes the shape of humans. Often of people you know. There are sometimes qualifiers like frostbite or lack of feet but at the very root of it, it is supposed to look like a human being.

Further disclaimer: What I'm about to say may be an entirely wrong interpretation of the winter hunger, but it is rooted in my culture's understanding of a very similar evil being which exists in Dine and other desert-dwelling native tribes such as mine. It's further rooted in my specific understanding of religion through anthropological lenses, since that's why I love studying religion so much--because it doesn't exist in a vacuum it is defined by our understanding of our surroundings.

Picture it this way: Both the Anishinaabe and my own people are in some way considered extremophilic cultures. We both live in an environment which reliably becomes lethally dangerous to exist within if you aren't prepared, willing to sacrifice your own comfort for the survival of everyone, and combines a level of isolation during those extreme climates with a need to be able to trust those around you implicitly because you all want to survive. Deserts, be they snow or sand, are difficult places to live within. There are enough resources to go around, but it's not exactly uncommon for there to be enough to go around and that's all. You're surviving because you and everyone around you are putting the survival of everyone over individualist comforts.

The winter hunger and the desert swallowing you whole are always taught as something which looks like a human. Which sounds like a human. Which can trick others into thinking it is human. Beings which have the shape of a person, but have no humanity--they lost it or they never had it. And both of them are things which gain power over you when spoken of and thought of--they're a type of memetophage. They feed on people who know about them, so you're forced to balance "aware that this danger exists" with "need to know what the danger is". They often will try and trick you into evil deeds or danger yourself by wearing the face and voice of family and loved ones. People you know well to let your guard down.

Now remember that you are a culture which needs to prepare itself for extreme climate survival. Everyone has to rely on everyone else. But sometimes people aren't going to like the people they're surviving with. People will resent other people for whatever reasons they choose, justified or not. Living so close together and in such tight quarters can be stressful and bring out the absolute worst in us.

Imagine, for a moment, going out into a snowstorm or the bitter desert night, looking for food for everyone else, sent with someone you hate. It's a harsh life. Even at your safest you are at risk of death for whatever reason--getting lost, being attacked by an animal, taking a bad fall. It happens. It's a fact of life. It's horribly tragic but it's acknowledged as inevitable.

Imagine the knowledge of how dangerous what you two are doing worming its way into your head during this time. If you were willing to hate this person enough to kill them...it wouldn't be hard to convince everyone it was just an accident. Just something which happens. Kill a stag, then kill them and jam the stag's antlers through the wound. Or just disable them somehow and leave them to freeze in the snowdrifts and say they got lost. Or push them down a ravine. There are so many possibilities and all of them exonerate you of any complicity, because yeah, you didn't like them...

...but you trust each other to survive. You trust that you're all willing to give up things to make sure everyone is able to survive and get through these things. You trust that when you are in danger, you don't need to worry about it coming from someone you know. And so why would anyone suspect you? And maybe you convince yourself that what you did was good, actually. One less mouth to feed. More food for everyone. Or it's just easier for you--someone who you hated so much, and now you never need to worry about them again.

Imagine the way that knowledge that you've done it once would show up again and again. Anyone and everyone is now in danger because you've become aware of the benefits of being greedy. Of choosing to hurt and kill other people to further your own goals and desires. Of deciding that the sacrosanct ties of the whole community's survival is not a priority over your own violent impulses. The knowledge of what you can do to other people is, itself, a danger. You put the idea of it, the possibility, in someone's head, and there is every chance that it could start dwelling in there and taking root, changing them from a good person, someone you know, a member of the community, into an evil, selfish monster which has lost its humanity and merely wears that person's face. Uses its voice to lie to you. Wants you all to have your guards down around it. Something waiting to strike where it can.

Now remember that we turn rainbows into the bridges of gods because we needed to create a reason for them. That's the history of magic: we don't know how to explain something, or we don't know how to process it, or we do and need to obfuscate that knowledge through a layer of fiction to cope with it. We don't invent the divine for no reason, on instinct, without thinking. We do it because there is something that creating it offers us as a species and culture that would otherwise be lacked. So think: Why would tribal cultures who need everyone to be willing to set aside personal wants and grievances to ensure that everyone survives through harsh climates need to have something like the winter hunger or the desert swallowing you whole? What benefit does it offer the community? What is the purpose of sharing knowledge about this monster? Where would it fit into that culture's way of life and philosophies?

The answer becomes self-evident soon enough. We all know what it looks like when one person decides they can sacrifice other humans for their own personal greed. We call them oligarchs.

[bixels]

I commend your willingness to include an Indigenous character in the main cast, and that you're willing to listen to indigenous voices, but when you said a few weeks ago that she was just "First Nations" and didn't elaborate... at the moment I didn't want to say anything, but it did feel bad that you made an effort to specify the country of origin of everyone else but could only say first nations/indigenous for her. And now that I know your explanation, again, I really like your art and your world building, and it's great that you ask indigenous people to talk to you, but how would you feel if someone made an AU where everyone is Italian, Venezuelan, Bangladeshi, and then there's an "East Asian" character with no specification of which country they're from because the author didn't feel prepared to actually define it?

I hear you. Dash is Lakota. I'll be sure to distinguish that moving forward.

[g0ldgauntlet]

Hilichurls and "Tribal" Portrayals.

While we're talking about Natlan, I also want to mention how awful it is that a section of the fandom tried to make us all out to be crazy years ago for pointing out how racist the portrayal of the Hilichurls are.

Quick content warning for mentions of slavery, colonization, genocide, and anti-Indigenous racism. (Image description is in alt text)

Hoyo used Indigenous people as references for these in-game enemies, which we literally have video proof of, provided by the company itself (Timestamp: 1:30).

The Hilichurls were constantly belittled by Teyvat's people, with an Inazuma npc likening them to demons. I remember Paimon acting like the items they collected were meaningless or pieces of junk during the earlier parts of the game.

They become a lot more sympathetic later due to their actual origins in-game (which I'm sure @phoenix-creates can confirm for me because I know you're farther ahead in Genshin than I am right now), sure, but I always found it strange that Hoyo used Indigenous cultures to portray these "monsters" who have lost their sense of selves (meanwhile their human forms are white), as if to imply that Indigenous cultures are more "wild" or "savage."

Genshin fans of color, since 2020, have pointed out the racist undertones that Teyvat's people were perpetuating against the Hilichurls due to them acting the same way that racists irl act towards non-White cultures, but they were told that they were overreacting and this was swept under the rug as a result. The very next year, it's brought up again with more people finding out about it, and we were still being told that we're overreacting.

So now that we're at Natlan, is it seriously that hard to believe that Hoyo straight up just doesn't respect Indigenous cultures? Black (and many brown) cultures too, because it's very telling that Iansan, the Natlan character with the darkest skin so far, is given a more stereotypically "tribal" look on her design with a bunch of bones used as her accessories despite that not being what her actual inspiration looks like.

(Artist for picture on the right: vieirapx on Instagram)

Sucrose has confirmed in her "Something to Share" voiceline that she collects Hilichurl bones, which is similar to colonizers taking the bones of dead Indigenous people with this added context.

Also, please read or reread the Teyvat Travel Guide Vol. 1. Alice basically confirms that she wants to enslave the Hilichurls for labor and also feed the weaker ones to the stronger ones.

That latter point is cannibalism. I know that many people are fans of Alice, but a lot of what she talks about in the first guide is why I don't like her.

Yes, it can be argued that Indigenous cultures are not the only inspiration for the Hilichurls, as it's been said that they may take inspiration from goblins, Bokoblins from the Zelda franchise, and the Amanojuku from Japanese mythology. Answer me this question, though.

Why is Hoyo capable of referencing a creature and not a human being when it comes to the Japanese inspiration for the Hilichurls, but this does not apply to the Indigenous references? It's dehumanizing, and it feels like another double-standard that needs to be addressed.

Hoyo has casually made black and brown cultures in Genshin appear to be less civilized and more "tribal" compared to our White and East Asian peers, both with the human characters and the non-human ones. Sumeru's quests and enemy npcs had multiple examples of this, with the Traveler and Jeht even destroying almost the entire Tanit tribe with the narrative justification being that, conveniently, most or all of them were selfish, bloodthirsty, and manipulative (Jeht's profile on the wiki page goes into what happened with more depth). They had to die because the tribe was dangerous - even though the main problem seems to be Babel - and Jeht's white, blonde companion needed to help save everyone from these evil, power-hungry savages.

(Sidenote: I think this is the second time overall that Hoyo has come up with an excuse to justify Traveler committing genocide on an entire group of people, with the first being the Iwakura Clan.)

I'm sure that the same thing is going to happen with Natlan's quests and npcs because Hoyo has always been weird about the portrayal of black and brown-inspired characters. The question is not whether any of the creatures or humans from specific groups are bad, suspicious, or designed to fit a specific image. We know the answer to that. The real question is why they are portrayed like this, and why it keeps happening more commonly to the black and brown cast members compared to our lighter peers.