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religion-is-a-mental-illness · 8 months ago

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By: Alta Ifland

Published: Mar 25, 2024

Most of us have had at least once in a lifetime the experience of paradise when a place seems suddenly transfigured and elevated to an otherworldly realm. I experienced paradise in Iceland’s Reykjavik Airport in September 1991, where the plane that took me as a political refugee from Romania to the United States stopped for a couple of hours for a layover. It was the first time I had left my country of birth, and Reykjavik’s airport was my first contact with the West. I remember entering spaces that made me think of Aladdin’s cave of wonders, where under transparent glass lay mesmerizing diamond necklaces, and gorgeous saleswomen with seducing smiles inviting me to try them on; and I remember the impeccable marble-white restrooms like an alien spaceship with curious buttons I had no idea how to maneuver. Everything was clean, as if under the care of a doting fairy, and everybody smiled quietly as if life was a streak of uninterrupted joy.

I went back to Reykjavik for a literary conference twenty years later, but I could no longer find paradise. The diamond necklaces had no sparkle, Aladdin’s cave turned out to be a banal store, the women were like everywhere else, and the toilets nothing to write home about. The gap between the two experiences paralleled my first encounter with JFK Airport in New York, where—having to wait for my connecting flight to Jacksonville, Florida—I wandered for several hours among a hustle and bustle of people, stores, restaurants, buses and taxis, convinced that I was exploring the city itself. I mean, who in their right mind would imagine that they could find all of the above in an airport? It was only years later when I returned to New York that I realized that all I had seen of the city was, in fact, the airport.

These two primal encounters have left me with a lifelong love of airports, although life post-9/11 has considerably altered the experience. But the impression that our existence is made of two irreconcilable universes remained for a long time until, roughly, the advent of social media, which managed to unite the two into one indistinguishable blur and a chorus of mingled, screaming voices. Having spent my life between different worlds, I’m fascinated by the different frameworks people can place around the same events, according to the point of view given to them by their location in time and space.

As newly-arrived immigrants, my then-husband and I naturally gravitated toward other immigrants from Eastern Europe, and since they often went to church—which was, anyhow, the only socializing venue in Jacksonville (a city immortalized by Henry Miller in The Air-Conditioned Nightmare as a soul-killing locale)—we found ourselves for two years in the strange company of puritan evangelicals. After this edifying experience, my admission to an M.A. program at the University of Florida threw me into an environment that seemed completely opposite to the previous one, as if America were made of two separate worlds with two different types of people. Both types were a shock because they didn’t resemble the Americans I had known from the movies I’d seen—neither the neighbors who asked our Romanian friends to cover the non-existent breasts of their five-year-old daughter at the pool, nor my professors from the English department who joyfully professed their Communist and Marxist convictions to a roomful of sympathetic ears.

I cannot forget one professor who praised Mao’s “cultural revolution”—to this day I have no idea whether he was aware that millions had died as a result of this “revolution,” and that many Chinese in rural areas were so starved that they ate their own children.

It was clear to me that these academics knew nothing about the world I came from, which was, again, shocking, given that I knew a lot more about their world even though the country I grew up in was so isolated from the West that we used to refer to it as “outside.” I was the one who grew up in a prison, yet it was American academics who were the ignorant ones.

Growing up in Communist Romania, I read many American classics (the first book I read at eight years old was Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Tom Sawyer) and watched countless American movies. On the other hand, my American counterparts never read any books by Romanians (though I am not arrogant enough to demand that) or by Eastern Europeans generally, and rarely watched any European movies, let alone Eastern European movies. Yet these people who were clearly ignorant about my world were not shy about letting me know that what I experienced was not “real” Communism and that they—who had never set foot in a Communist country—were much better positioned to define Communism. How was that possible?

Let me tell you what nobody teaches Americans about the part of the world I come from.

For years, whenever I drove on one of America’s ten-lane highways, it felt impossible that this world existed in the same historical era as the world of my grandparents. I don’t have any photos of my paternal grandparents because in Communist Romania very few of us owned cameras. But they have remained etched in my mind in a way that makes them immortal, eternally old, as if their dark faces had always been crossed by deep ridges—the kind of faces only Indians (as we called them back then) had in black and white Hollywood movies, their feet always bare and so thick with calluses that when they washed them at night you could see the solidified dirt like mortar between brick-like layers of skin. They never used soap yet they had a drawer full of it, every single piece sent or brought by my father from the city. For them, soap was the equivalent of expensive jewelry, which Grandmother occasionally showed me, opening the drawer with pride: “See? Your father sent them. I keep them all.”

My grandparents lived in a world in which there was no money—I mean, there was no exchange of money, save for the rare occasions when Father gave them a few coins to buy bread. I remember walking with Grandfather unending kilometers through a sea of yellow corn until we reemerged in the world of the living, and Grandfather took out a handkerchief with a complicated knot that he untied to free the coins in exchange for the loaf of bread handed to him by the store clerk at the edge of the cornfield. But this type of exchange happened rarely. Usually, we ate hard polenta, the default everyday meal of Romanian peasants. We ate it either as a substitute for bread, which my grandparents usually couldn’t afford, or else as a meal immersed in a bowl of milk, one bowl for the entire table, inside of which our spoons often met, clanking.

My grandparents lived in the same way their ancestors had for generations in that part of the world: the province of Oltenia in Southern Romania. The only thing that had changed was that they were no longer periodically invaded by the Turks. The stove Grandmother used for cooking was like none other I’d seen except in films about remote indigenous populations—an oval-shaped structure of whitewashed clay set on the ground, with an opening through which one could glimpse the burning twigs, and atop, simmering pots full of aromatic dishes. In front of the stove, wearing her long Gypsy-like dress and stirring the pots, was seated Grandmother on a tiny chair, it too from a different world—about twenty inches high, with only three legs.

My grandparents’ village is where I spent my summers until I finished high school. During the school year, I lived with my parents in a small town in Transylvania in one of the countless intensely ugly Soviet-style flats. The grade school I went to was five minutes away on foot—since first grade, we all went on foot everywhere, unsupervised, and had the apartment key tied on a cord around our neck (apparently, today’s Romanians call us “the generation with the key by the neck”). Needless to say, we came back home on our own, warmed up the food prepared by our mothers, and were responsible for the supervision of our younger siblings until our parents came home from work.

My classmates were mostly children of factory workers and public office clerks; many of these parents had never finished high school and those with university diplomas were rare. Under Communism there was almost no middle class, and for a simple reason: the majority of people who had been part of it (university professors, politicians, economists, sociologists, priests, artists, writers, journalists, etc.) had been imprisoned, tortured and murdered.

Their guilt? They were all “enemies of the people,” the “people” being defined as dirt-poor peasants and what Marx called “the “proletariat.” Neither of my parents had college degrees. My father, whose parents were illiterate, never read a book; my mother, whose father was a chiabur (a farmer who paid for the sin of once owning land by spending a year in prison and having his eldest daughter refused admission to high school), used to read and over the years acquired a small library of Romanian, French, and English classics which I read dozens of times. After I finished reading our library, I began to explore the local libraries. With my best friend, whose parents were construction workers and morbid alcoholics, we took weekly trips to a library where the books were so yellowed and old they fell apart, and returned with a huge travel bag full of books. Without any guidance, we discovered many of the great classics: Sartre, Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, Cervantes, Gide, Flaubert, Zweig, Twain, Dickens—we read them all, entirely unaware that they were “great writers,” because no one had lectured us on their greatness. In our isolated world, we had a great advantage over children growing up in Western countries: we could discover the world with our own minds and in our own words.

When I say we had an “advantage,” don’t imagine that I'm glorifying the “system” in which we grew up. The world in which we were reading these books had the following characteristics: long lines to buy anything, major food items (sugar, oil, coffee, flour, butter) rationed and hard to find, hygiene products (soap, feminine products, toothpaste) entirely absent, winters without heat spent with our coats on inside our homes, electricity two hours a day, a single TV channel with most of its programs being delirious political propaganda, water cut off for days and sometimes weeks. In order to survive most city dwellers had to use the black market, where you could buy a pair of jeans for the cost of a monthly salary. For reference, my parents’ incomes combined totaled about eighty dollars per month.

In school we studied French. Without anyone’s exhortation and only the help of a dictionary, I soon began to read French classics for my own pleasure: Mérimée, Gide, Zola, Martin du Gard, Dumas, everything I could find. I was the best student in my grade in French, so I decided to major in it. In order to be admitted to college one needed to pass a very difficult exam in one’s specialty, and there were only about twenty positions for French students per university with just a handful of universities in the entire country. The majority of applicants able to pass the exam were either children of university professors or students from preparatory high schools. Given these circumstances, my teachers, neighbors, and parents all insisted that I should study engineering like everybody else and told me I was crazy to even consider French. Yet I persisted and passed the exam with the highest possible grade. While in college, during an internship where I worked as an assistant French teacher in a high school, I attended a class where the lead teacher introduced French food to the students, and after several minutes of hearing descriptions of baguettes, brie, camembert, and the like, one of them fainted. For us, this food was like fiction—not only had we never tasted it, we couldn’t even imagine that we would ever see it outside of a book. We were hungry and cold all the time, yet whenever we’d turn on the TV all we'd hear was that we lived in a “golden era”—the regime’s official language—for which we’d have to thank the Communist Party and its General Secretary, Comrade Nicolae Ceaușescu. All the country’s institutions held regular meetings where everybody, using a language of thought-terminating clichés which we called “wooden language,” had to massage the ego of the “Dear Leader” who made such an era possible. In this language, Ceaușescu was a “skilled helmsman,” a “beloved parent,” and “the exploitation of man by man” had been forever abolished.

During this "golden era” of Communism, when I was barely twenty-one, I got blacklisted as a “person very dangerous for the security of the state” because I had married a dissident. You see, in Communism, the entire family paid for the deeds of any of its members, including those of the dead ones. My husband’s main guilt was that he was the brother of a famous Romanian journalist who worked abroad for one of the Western radio stations that condemned the injustices of Communism. To understand why this was considered a crime, you need to know that the first thing Ceaușescu did every day was read a report on what had been said about him the previous day.

Since his fate was already sealed and he wasn’t even allowed to go to college, my husband and a few friends tried to create a political party that would have been an alternative to the only official one. Needless to say in a country where one in four citizens was an informant, they were quickly apprehended and subjected to harsh interrogations. This happened before my husband and I met; him being too traumatized to talk about it, I found out from his parents how he had been imprisoned and cruelly beaten. After we got married, he signed a petition demanding that the regime stop the demolition of villages and churches, a project Ceaușescu had started because he realized that the traditional rural lifestyle still gave people some independence. Consequently, Ceaușescu put us under 24-hour surveillance, with a car constantly parked in front of our building. We were young and foolish, and so we made fun of the unending series of spies who were struggling to remain inconspicuous every time we went out and they followed us. Sometimes we mocked them overtly, laughing out loud as we hopped on a bus, while they remained outside, but it was a dangerous game: you never knew when an “accident” could happen.

One afternoon, an individual in a black leather jacket got out of the car parked in front of our building while holding an envelope in his hand, entered for a few seconds, then returned with his hand empty. We didn’t keep the letter that my husband had retrieved from our mailbox because it made him so furious he tore it to pieces. The letter warned that “some people” might want to hurt me badly. The police summoned me a few days later to their headquarters for an undisclosed matter, with my husband forced to wait outside. Nothing horrible happened to me that day, save for the fact that I was asked to wait for several hours while my husband remained outside, not knowing when—or if—I was going to come out. When I was finally brought into an office, the officer informed me in a performatively worried tone that “some people” wanted to hurt me, and he wanted to make me aware of this danger.

This is how we lived for about two years until the anti-Communist Revolution from December 1989 swept the dictator and his clique away.

In the first week after the dictator was killed a member of the newly formed Front of the National Salute—the revolutionary organization that replaced the Communist Party and of which my husband was briefly a member—came to our home to uninstall a microphone that the Securitate (the Secret Police) had hidden behind our bed.

It took another quarter of a century until my husband was allowed to see the file the Secret Police had on us. It contained two thousand pages of content produced through the coordinated efforts of dozens of individuals and tens of thousands of dollars spent every month on our surveillance—in a country in which the average income was forty dollars. It also included the names of the “friends" who had informed on us—some of which we’d already guessed, others, a surprise. Our Secret Police file remained open until December 1991, that is, two years after the regime had fallen, and three months after we had left the country for America.

I left the building where my parents lived almost forty years ago, but when I last visited, some of the neighbors I had growing up were still there. Imagine passing by an old man who looks twenty years older than you, and then remembering that you had a crush on him when you were twelve and he was fourteen. The grey Soviet flats have remained unchanged, but in a certain way give you the reassuring feeling that time stands still and there's a continuity between generations—something absent in ever-changing American society.

While the memory of life in the small town of my childhood is ambivalently hazy, when I remember the rural world of my grandparents a wave of nostalgia washes over me. The three-legged wobbling chairs, the haystack above the cow barn where I used to read, even the short-lived doll made of rags that a friend from across the street had taught me how to make, ephemeral as she was, is now bathed in a golden aura of longing for a lost world.

[ Photos of Alta's grandparent's home, taken during a recent visit to Romania. On the left is the cow barn where Alta used to read. ]

I sometimes look at the children of my American friends, with their room full of toys, and I know that their toys don’t make them any happier than my rag doll had made me. And I know that my American female friends, emancipated as they are from the “patriarchy,” aren’t happier than Grandmother. In all traditional societies, labor is organized according to the existence of the two sexes and this has nothing to do with anyone’s “oppression.” Men do some things, women do other things—it's simply a division of labor based on physical differences between the two, and it’s a division that can be observed across cultures and millennia. According to all statistics and their own statements, it’s obvious that many American women are in profound disharmony with themselves and the world in which they live. And this is certainly not because the world in which Grandmother lived was better—although I am wondering more and more whether it was much worse.

The first thing you need to be unhappy is to ask yourself whether you are happy or not—Unlike American women, I am convinced that this is a question Grandmother never asked herself.

Grandmother, just like her mother and her mother’s mother, lived in a way that imitated the lives of previous generations, in an entanglement with “tradition”—the dirty word that American feminists and progressives utter with so much disdain and which they translate as “oppression” and “victimization.” I often try to imagine what Grandmother would have answered had I told her that she was “oppressed” by the patriarchy in particular and society in general. I think she would have had a hard time understanding the concept. You see, it’s hard to feel “oppressed” when you have inner freedom. Aside from this, nobody in the world of my grandparents thought in these terms because in traditional societies it is shameful to be a victim. Only in a world of privilege can victimhood acquire a desirable status. I call this the law of subliminal contradiction, something I discovered by observing how Americans behave. Another example: only in a society of excess can the richest people dress in a way that imitates the homeless. In the society of poverty in which I grew up, it was shameful to wear torn-apart clothes; on the other hand, if you look at the way most well-to-do Americans are dressed today, you’d think they live on the street. Consider high fashion clothing that gives the illusion of poverty and manual labor, like mud-splashes and rips on jeans.

Today I write these lines from France, in my second exile. And many things have changed! My husband is now my ex-husband; he has returned to Romania, and I to Europe. My best friend with whom I used to explore libraries and books, and who grew up in a one-bedroom apartment with two parents, a grandmother, an older sister, and her daughter, and who at ten years old was forced by circumstances to take care of the entire household while her father lay drunk in a ditch and her mother worked on construction sites, is now a doctor and owner of a major medical lab. Unlike my American acquaintances, she never saw herself as a “victim” of anything. When I came to this country as a political refugee over thirty years ago, the thing that most impressed me about Americans was that they were very responsible and resilient. Thirty years later this country has been turned upside-down. But the truth is that the signs and the seeds of this reversal were already present thirty years ago, mostly in one particular space: academia.

The rare Marxists from back then are now the norm (although many traditional Marxists point out that, unlike American academics, Marx was never concerned with “race and gender”). They are the people who call Putin “right-wing,” as if he'd been schooled by the Republican Party rather than the Communist Party, whose Secret Police he represented as an officer of the KGB. The reason Putin is “right-wing” is because he’s a nationalist and anti-LGBT—but if these academics had read any books from my part of the world, they’d know that every single Communist country was ultra-nationalist and homophobic. In Communist Romania you could go to prison for twenty years for being a homosexual. Putin may no longer be a “Communist” because the gifts of the Capital are way too sweet, but his authoritarianism is rooted in Communism nonetheless, and his homophobia has nothing to do with being “right-wing” unless you project a Western value system onto a completely different world in which the categories of Left and Right merge.

After you’ve experienced the clichés of Communist propaganda, you can easily spot the mental structures underlying the impulse to reduce the complexity of the world down to one huge power struggle in which everybody is either an oppressor or a victim. This is why having lived through Communism has become very useful in contemporary America, and it's why the few of us who denounced the insanity of Communism when it could have cost our lives won’t keep our mouths shut now that America is losing its mind. For instance, the concept of “reparations” based on inherited collective guilt is eerily similar to the Communist practice of punishing an entire family for the deeds of any of its members, including the dead. Just like the “Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion” activists who are being paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to lecture you, the Communists created a privileged class called the “nomenklatura”—Party activists who did nothing but spread ideology and propaganda, making sure that the rest of us conformed to the official dogma. One trait of people who create dogmatic ideologies is that they never feel obligated to obey their own dogma—if they did, they would have to cancel their own privilege.

Because history is always written from one point of view, being an American academic often comes with the privilege of (re)writing history. And in an Americentric world, these academics look at everything through the lens of their own history, which they project onto everybody else. When have you ever heard academics from English departments and Women/Gender/Ethnic Studies—who have been teaching generations of students about the evils of European colonization—denounce the colonization of Eastern Europe by the Russians and by the Turks? It’s as if 500 years of history—the history of the Ottoman Empire—never existed. Or as if Russia started its colonial history with the invasion of Ukraine.

According to these academics, being European is equivalent to having a mysterious essence called “whiteness,” and I should repent for my “white privilege” and Europe’s colonial history, as if my “white” ancestors had colonized anyone and not the other way around, or as if they had enslaved “brown” Muslims and not the other way around.

Let me tell you an anecdote about how I was made to pay for my “white privilege.” You may remember the brouhaha after the poem performed by the young, black author, Amanda Gorman, at Biden’s inauguration, was commissioned to be translated into Dutch not by another black woman, but by a white person. This white person happened to be Marieke Lukas Rijneveld, who identifies as “non-binary” and is a few years older than Gorman. After a complaint that the chosen translator was not black, the translator withdrew from the project and the publisher issued a public apology—never mind that it was Gorman herself who had chosen the translator and that it’s quite likely that there aren’t many black translators who translate into Dutch and have Rijneveld’s literary skills. I know this because I had read Rijneveld’s award-winning book translated into English and recommended it on social media. When the scandal broke, many American translators—some of whom I was personally acquainted with through my work as a translator—commented on the affair online, supporting the decision to replace the white translator with a black translator. In response, I dared to share the comment of a French member of PEN, who believed that skin color should have nothing to do with who translates what. I accompanied this comment with my own: “I think that, this being a forum of translators, we should give a voice to different opinions from other languages.” I was subjected to a pile-on of virulent attacks, summoned to delete my “inflammatory” remarks, and it was made clear to me that my opinion could only be the result of my “white privilege” because I was (I'm not kidding you) a “cultural essentialist.” The cherry on top was that I was also called a “transphobe” because I had “misgendered” Rijneveld—the irony being that I was the only one in that group who had actually read and supported the “non-binary” author. I left these discussions after it was clear that I didn’t have the “revolutionary consciousness” to belong.

The fact is that nothing—and certainly not “white privilege” or any kind of “systemic” anything—is stopping anyone in America from learning languages and translating. When I was a graduate student in French at the University of Florida, my black classmate had spent time in France, just like everybody else in our program. I was the only one who had never been to France. Yet if I could learn French while believing that I would never see France because traveling to Western Europe was, for a Romanian of my station, as impossible as going to Mars, then any American—black, blue, or purple—can do it.

Privilege is a funny thing, especially in a society in which being a victim grants the highest social status. I for one prefer to assume the privilege of having experienced both Communism and life as an immigrant—a privilege America’s social justice warriors will never have—because it has taught me that you can be free under the worst dictatorship and a slave to groupthink in the freest of worlds.

#SmashCapitalism

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#Alta Ifland #We The Black Sheep #communism #capitalism #smash capitalism #Marxism #late stage Marxism #Communist Party #religion is a mental illness

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eveistdiepommes · 10 months ago

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What activities does Sweden enjoy doing with each of his nordbros? And his sons?

If it wasn’t for this ask, I wouldn’t have gotten to draw the cutest doodles I’ve drawn to this day!! Thank you so much for your ask, Anon!! 😊🫶❤️

I think for Sweden, doing actions comes easier to him than words! Parallel play and quality time is very important to him! Let’s go down the list!!

Iceland- Sweden and Iceland get along amazingly! Like I mentioned, Sweden seems to have a calming effect on Iceland. Iceland can get heated about stuff pretty quickly (his volcanic nature!!) which can lead to outbursts or meltdowns that leave him drained and tired. Because Sweden knows what’s that like, both from personal experience and from experience with his sons, he’s very well suited for grounding Iceland! The important part is that Sweden treats him as an equal, not like a kid, and Iceland really appreciates this (even if he won’t say it outright!) Their activities usually involve critical thinking, video games, chess, stuff like that! Iceland loves the challenge, but he also loves knowing that he doesn’t have to worry about getting too frustrated around Sweden. He can wordlessly count on Sweden to keep him levelheaded!

Norway- Sweden and Norway are very close friends! Norway doesn’t pressure Sweden to talk like others who don’t know him too well might. Their activities very much fall under the term “parallel play!” They don’t have to be doing the exact same thing, but being around each other, not being alone while they do their own activities, makes them both feel happy. Most of their time spent with each other is in quiet environments, hiking nature trails, reading in the same room, going to the library to get books to read in the same room, stuff like that! Though, sometimes Sweden can get a little too absorbed in his activity, in which Norway reminds him to eat or drink some water.

Denmark- Sweden and Denmark are best friends til the end! I believe they get along well more so now than in the past, but their rivalry has never ended! Instead, it’s grown into something they use to push each other to be better! Their activities involve a lot of physical movement or manual labour! They build, craft things, they chop firewood for the other three, and they even spar with each other! Things might still get a little petty, one of them might play a little dirty to “win” at whatever they’re doing, but there’s no genuine malice! Denmark really brings out Sweden’s mischievous nature, as he enjoys messing with his friend, especially when he doesn’t expect it!

Ladonia and Sealand- OKAY OKAY OKAY this is my favorite thing ever! You guys already know I’m a sucker for family dynamics! Sweden spends time with his sons by creating bright and warm memories! He feels so lucky he is able to have kids, to have a family, despite being a “nation.” And he feels so relieved he can give his children a safe and almost normal childhood. Sealand had come into his life with his own bad memories, since he manifested in the midst of WWII. But Sweden is grateful he can protect and guide his son now. Ladonia is younger than Sealand, and thus, he really doesn’t have a scary past. I think Sealand was the last of the nations to manifest and have to deal with that fear so young, but I can explain that in another separate post!! All this to say, Sweden feels honored he can be for his sons what he wish he had as a young nation! He brings them on many excursions, and each one is filled with whimsy and adventure! Sealand, being energetic and rambunctious, loves going anywhere and everywhere! His younger, but taller, brother Ladonia prefers staying indoors due to the nature of his being. But Sweden believes Ladonia needs more fresh air, and Sealand could definitely benefit from getting his energy out, so they do things like fishing! That’s become their favorite thing to do! Ladonia can’t swim, so he wears a life vest in the boat. Sealand helps him put it on and makes sure his younger brother is secure and safe, much to his annoyance! It’s a very precious display, and it makes Sweden’s chest warm! It takes Ladonia a bit to get used to fishing, as he gets nervous catching fish and reeling them in, so to ease him into it, Sealand or Sweden help him catch one and hold it for him to touch. Ladonia eventually holds his own fish and suddenly feels very proud!! After hours of having fun, and with their bellies full from Finland’s home cooked lunch, Ladonia and Sealand fall asleep in Sweden’s truck as he drives them home. And Sweden snaps a picture of how cute they look before carrying them inside, with Finland’s help of course.

I love the doodles I did for this ask so much, so you guys get my favorites without the text!! If you guys want me to post the other two without the text, just let me know!! I’ll try to clean them up a bit!! Sorry this took so long, Anon! I just had so many ideas and I was so excited, I had to calm myself down enough to draw them!!! Thank you for this ask!! It made me so happy to doodle all of these!!

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betty-bourgeoisie · 1 year ago

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The thing from Mrs. America (best show in the world) that I would like to bring to Hetalia (worst show in the world, but it does have bright colors) is the idea of children being in political space.

All throughout Mrs. America you see women bringing their children along to important political and activist meetings. Children and childcare are portrayed as an equal responsibility and obligation to the political ones these women have taken on.

And it occurs to me like... who is running the daycare for immortal nation children? No one.

Baby nations absolutely would get brought along to diplomatic meetings and held while negotiations were going down. There is no reason to think Romania isn't bringing little Moldova to world meetings, or that Norway didn't have little Iceland set up in a corner with his favorite toys while he took meetings with royalty.

The negotiation of childcare in the Hetalia universe has always troubled me, because I'm a deeply boring person who can't suspend my disbelief and accept world building until I know how the dishes get done. I have thought through this issue in so many different ways.

Maybe there is a daycare/ school just for young nations but how would that work with time zones and traveling? Where would it even be located? And how does the location of said nation daycare not end up being a huge fucking political issue in universe?

Maybe the nations hand their children off to other friend and family nations to be watched, just like human parents often do. But all those friend and family nations also work in politics, so that's not necessarily a realistic solution.

I've seen nannys suggested as a childcare solution for Hetalia characters a number of times, but personally, I think that young nations probably have different enough care needs from human children that finding a nanny who's skills transfer adequately would be difficult.

Maybe the micro-nations get babysitting gigs whenever a young nation needs to be watched, but then, you know, I wouldn't want Sealand to be in charge of my kid.

Maybe governments provide childcare for their nations, but that would imply a world where governments actually gave a shit about making work spaces equitable for parents, so that's probably the least realistic of all 🙄

Anyway, all of this is to say that it never really occurred to me that the nations would just bring their kids with them. Like in some ways, it's the most obvious answer, but I am so unused to seeing children anywhere near political spaces that I didn't even think about it.

The idea that nations with children just bring their kids to work most of the time totally changes so much about their world for me. Like they show up to world meetings and there are always kids there? That's a totally different energy from what is portrayed in the show! That is a whole other dynamic. Is child rearing in these group settings communal? Or are parents the only people in charge of their kids during meetings? And how does that all interact with whatever political tensions and rivalries a parent nation might have? I have so many questions!

Anyways, if you read all this please do share how you think nations handle child rearing because I actually think about this far more than I would like to admit, and I would love to hear other people's takes

#Hetalia #hws #aph #aph norway #hws norway #aph romania #hws romania #aph iceland #hws iceland #aph moldova #hws moldova #long post #nationverse

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marine-indie-gal · 8 months ago

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Been awhile since I haven't drawn any Tabaluga lately, not since that I've finally got a chance to watch the Kristin Fairlie version online since I first found the Mackenzie Ziegler version from it's Alternate Stupid Title, "Ice Princess Lilly" only to fool a lot of people into thinking it was a Frozen knock-off from a Regular Old Dollar Store. Though it's still not a big surprise from Me for the US to give out some CGI Movie Adaptations of Kids Shows from an Old Decade under their own Cheap Titles like "Here Comes The Grump" to "A Wizard's Tale" and even "The Magic Roundabout" to "Doogal" (seriously, the last one sucked ass. Even though I haven't had a chance to watch the British version, I heard a lot of good things about the OG version of that Other Adaptation much better than how Weinstein butchered it with their own Pop Culture references).

So I had a small talk with my Friend, @djinarocks of how we loved Tabaluga and how that Arktos is one of our Favorite Villains of Musical Theatres (compare to Von Rothbart from "Swan Lake" and even The Mouse King from "The Nutcracker") after I introduced her to this German Franchise.

While that both Me and My Friend love Obscure Media a whole lot, we both ship Tabaluga/Lilli together as a Romeo and Juliet like pairing (since these Two Elemental Kids did reminded Me a lot of that Other Elemental Romeo and Juliet Movie made by Sanrio (not to be confused with the Pixar one that is)). During in one of our conversations, we talked about on how we wondered if Lilli didn't leave Iceland and started her own New Life up in Space if Arktos did raised her and treated her as his own Actual Heir (something as if his own Mother would've liked to have Grandchildren if the Son were to pass the Whole "Dictator" thing to his own Children like a Family Thing).

If you're one of the Fans who both love the Musical and the Show other than the Movie, you'd probably would know that Arktos created Her, only to lure Tabaluga in for exchange of his Fire (in which the 2018 Adaptation did by its own self, but without the Whole "Give Your Own Fire to Me" thing and replace it into having "One Last Hero to be Killed" scenario that made Arktos into a much more Sinister Creepy Dragon Genocidal Monster as an Akin Contrast to the OG Arktos). But since Me and My Friend had this "Thought" if Lilli didn't leave Iceland, what if Arktos had a different way with her? Something like raising a Heir and make them a Future Dictator for your own Country. If anything, that could've had make Lilli give her so much more character other than just a "Love Interest" (akin to the Movie's Lilli as well).

Basically, Arktos creates Lilli through Sculpture (but it goes different than the last one than in the show through a twist), instead of creating a Trap for Dragon Bait, he actually creates Lilli as a single heir of his own so that way she'd beat Tabaluga to rule all over the lands one day. After trying to wind her up with a Wind-Up Key, Arktos thought of a better solution by breathing her into Life to make her Real. He names his own Daughter, "Lilli" because after researching through a Book about Humans, he mispronounced the name "Lilith" (The First Wife of Adam) into "Lilli" and mistaken Her as Eve (Adam's True Wife) (because that's clearly how he created her according to some of the Musical's lore from what I can remember). Although while Tabaluga was deeply in love with Arktos' Humanoid Daughter, Arktos forbid their own love and didn't want to be a Father-In-Law to his own Arch-Nemesis (whose the Son of his First Enemy).

Teaching his own Child everything about Iceland Life, Lilli was somehow fascinated by the World of Greenland and wanted to explore around Other Countries instead invading to in which, She and Her Father have a Huge Conflict about. Unlike the Movie's Lilli, this AU Lilli has more personality than the one in the show of her single appearance; She is more Meek and Shy with a Quiet Personality but is still Curious about the Entire World that she demands to ask a Whole Lot of Questions (even if her Father dares to answer one of them). Despite their own disagreements, Arktos loved his own Daughter deeply similar to how his own Mother passed on her Son's Spoiled Love to Another (even James would still have to be Lilli's own Manny whenever his Penguin Butler would have to keep an eye on her whenever the Father's not around).

When Tabaluga got over his own crush for her after their first meeting, he basically decided on how to teach Lilli to be more "Independent" whenever she'd come and visit Greenland (either with or without her own Father), even with the help of her own Friends. Although that while most of the Greenlanders didn't like Lilli at first, the Ice Princess then expand more of her Kindness to her Surroundings as throughout her own Arc between Seasons 2-3, She and Tabaluga develop more of their Romance (instead of having a Rushed One). After the Frozen Defeat of Arktos, Lilli then decides for her own life that it is best to join her own Boyfriend and become the Rulers of both their own Lands after a Long Journey ahead of having Each of The Four Seasons be released every year as they start their own New Life together, thus, ending their own Families' hate feud.

I've probably should've had put this in my version of Tabaluga but oh well, at least this is probably from a Simple AU where if Lilli did had more Character than just being the Main Character's Love Interest. 🤷‍♀️

BTW, when I finally got a chance to watch the First English Dub Movie online, I was so Happy that I got a chance to seeing the Scene where Tabaluga and Lilli sing their own Love for Each Other from one of the Musicals and let me tell you it was sooooooo Adorable to see Tabaluga and Lilli's love for each other, which makes my Love for the Both of Them even more 🥰

And while that I still haven't checked out the Rest of the Musicals and their Songs (since I still can't understand German as Someone who wishes to learn more about Any Foreign Language for the Same Person who watches Foreign Cartoons all the time), I did try out the Original versions for "Devil In White" and "I'm Feeling You" as I still need to practice more of my own Tabaluga homework. XP

I was also afraid on how I would deal with my own first time drawing with Canon Arktos after doing my own version of Him (since his Left Arm was a bit hard for Me), but I think I nailed it after trying to draw out their own Canon Designs from the Franchise.

Arktos and Lilli (c) Peter Maffay, Rolf Zuckowski, and Gregor Rottschalk.

#tabaluga #arktos #lilli #tabaluga lilli #lilli tabaluga #arktos tabaluga #tabaluga arktos #au #alternate universe

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practically-an-x-man · 3 months ago

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14, 21, 26, 27, 28 for Taking Flight? (Don't worry about spoilers!)

Thank you so much!!! <3

Even More Fic Writer Asks

14. Talk about the fic’s opening scene & how you approached it

The fic's opening scene has Kendra (the canon protagonist of the books) looking through a journal on magical creatures and stumbling over the remarkably sparse entry on changelings. She asks Vanessa (another canon character) about it, and Vanessa responded with her personal, very biased depiction of changelings. Then, of course, her story of being injured and betrayed is offset by the next scene, which shows Kestrel silently grieving a catatonic Warren outside his cabin.

There are two reasons I decided to go about the scene that way. For one thing, changelings to my knowledge are not in the original books, so I needed to introduce my version of the lore to the story in a way that's easy for the reader to digest (Kendra reading the journal). And for another thing, I wanted to start the readers off with the canon protagonist Kendra, so that the fic would feel more like one of the original books and would be easier for fans of the books to just sink right into. That way, by the time we're introduced to Kestrel in the following scene, we have both the setup for their character and the way they subvert those expectations.

21. Did the fic end up shorter or longer than you had planned?

It's still an ongoing fic and I expect it will be very long, but it's already longer than I originally planned. I have two flashback compilation chapters that are 12k words each, plus the whole vault chapter is another 10k words or so. And that's among other long, rich chapters. I've fallen into this fic so much more than I originally intended, and it's longer than I expected just because of how many scenes have just bloomed out from my original idea.

26. Share your favorite detail

I wanted to save this for when you got to it in the story, but... the most recent chapter has a bit of detail into Chimeric as a language and the structure of it, and I was incredibly proud of this whole section here:

There was no word for love in Chimeric. Languages reflected their circumstance, after all. Just as there were over four hundred words for snow in Scots, or no word for “please” in Danish or Icelandic, or nearly a thousand distinct terms related to construction in the language of the brownies, the changeling language was devoid of all terms related to connection. The closest word for “mother” directly translated as “host”, and was used for all members of a changeling’s surrogate family. The closest thing to “friend” was a loose translation of “ally”, and even that term had a derogatory sort of connotation - many changelings viewed even a temporary alliance as incredibly distasteful, and the word was akin to calling a police officer a pig. Obviously, this had caused a bit of trouble when Warren first expressed the desire to learn Chimeric. Kestrel was more than happy to teach him, but his innate humanity made things awfully difficult at first. His first requests were of introducing himself, asking for and offering help, and of course, expressing his feelings. Changelings… didn’t do that. It had stumped Kestrel at first - how did you teach someone terms that didn’t exist? - and even an explanation of how the language functioned wasn’t quite enough to suffice. “How do you learn the language if you can’t ask questions?” he asked, “Or if you don’t have someone to teach you?” “It’s a magical language,” Kestrel had replied, “It sort of… trickles in at the same time we’re learning whatever language our surrogates decide to teach us. You know all the stories of young children speaking in tongues?” “But what if you’re translating what someone else says?” Warren had persisted, “What if you’re telling another changeling about how someone told you that they loved you? Even if you weren’t saying it yourself, you’d have to recount the story, wouldn’t you?” “Switch to a human language,” he’d suggested, "Or there are… workarounds. There is a word for affection, I guess, but it’s about as romantic as, like… ‘heart palpitations’.” “I don’t know, I think that could still be romantic…” That comment had brought on a bit of… distraction, for lack of a better term, and the conversation had trickled away. Kestrel hadn’t forgotten it, though, and by the time Warren approached him for another lesson, he’d come up with a few workarounds of his own. Many of them were repurposed words. While Chimeric was lacking in words for connection, it was flooded with terms for the natural world. So the word for a domesticated dog became the word for friendship, because dogs were the most unfathomably social animals Kestrel could think of. The word for a mushroom’s mycelium, a branching web of roots that couldn’t be seen from the surface, became the word for family. Atmospheric static became affection, for that prickling-electric feeling he got whenever Warren smiled at him in just that right way. A calico cat became a sister, a tabby a brother, a tortoiseshell a mother and a tomcat a father. An offer of help was borrowed from the word describing a meerkat’s warning-call to its mob, and a request for help was the high-pitched chirp of a baby alligator. Infants were sprouts newly poking through the earth, and children were the saplings that stretched upwards in the months that followed. Marriage was a swan, a lifelong mate. After much consideration, Kestrel had added terms to distinguish adoptive families from blood relatives: an adoptive relative was a honeyguide, a blood relative a stork. And the word for love was borrowed from one of the many words for autumn. It was the word for the seasons changing, the leaves as they first began to shed their summer colors. It was the end of the green and the beginning of the gold. It was the color of Warren’s eyes. After all, how could the word for love be anything other than the purest love he’d ever known?

27. Share a piece of lore you made up for the story

I came up with a TON of changeling lore for this story, and I have a whole chapter that outlines it in detail (called Kestrel's Letter, it's all about Kestrel sharing their story with Kendra after the vault). I won't go through all that here, I think it's better just to read the chapter in full, but I'm so proud of all of the worldbuilding and lore I came up with for that section!

28. Write a new summary for the fic, but badly

Yet another excuse for the author to dive back into his childhood mythology and cryptidology obsessions, this time with allegories for queer identity and autism tossed into the mix. Any concerns about the validity of these allegories can likely be resolved by reading the fic itself - you think a cishet neurotypical could write something like this?

#my friends!!!#answered asks #ask game #my writing #taking flight fic #my ocs #oc kestrel #witchy-self-shipper

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breitzbachbea · 7 months ago

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Could you answer ALL the questions for pady

THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR ASKING ABOUT PADDY, I'D LOVE FOR YOU TO GET TO KNOW MY FUCKED UP OLD MIDDLE AGED MAN.

Ask Game for someone's OCs

✨- How did you come up with the OC’s name?

Babyname website, ten most popular boys names in Ireland all time. I don’t know if I picked his surname from a similar/the same site, but I must assume so. Et voilà – Patrick “Paddy” O’Neill!

🌼 - How old are they? (Or approximate age range)

Born on the 2nd of May 1965 in canon. He’s 48 in Irish Problems, the first story in the mainseries, which is usually the age range he also appears in in most AUs.

🌺- Do they have any love interest(s)?

Ohhh, does he ever! My man used to be quite the charmer in his youth! Not really putting the love in love interest, but he had a ONS with Daisy Grey, the mother of Shane Grey, who’s part of Charlie’s gay social circle after he left school. He’s also had a few flings with Þóra, @swabianmapley’s lovely OC and one of the Icelandic subordinates. The list could go on - Ben didn't call him a louser for nothing!

But the woman he ends up dating (if I'll get this far in the main story and stick to it) is Donella Ramsay. She's a middle school physics and english teacher from Glasgow he met on a bender in Dublin, where she has relatives. It's ... an odd match, but it works out for both of them.

Shoutout to his childhood/teenhood friends Kilian MacLeod and Angus O'Malley though! I don't ship them in canon, but I love a good AU with Kilick, Padus or a Derry Trio OT3. Welcome to the worst Polycule this side of the Foyle, maybe in the entire North West.

🍕 - What is their favorite food?

Honestly, I think nothing would top a good full Irish breakfast roll for this man. Something as big as his entire hand, stuffed with eggs, bacon, sausages, mushrooms ... only acceptable way to start the day.

💼 - What do they do for a living?

Be a menace to society! No literally, he's in the mob. Right hand to Harry O'Connel, the biggest shark in the Irish tank. Aaron O'Connel, Harry's father, was who picked Paddy off the Dublin streets and offered him to work for him. Ain't much of a living with the guilt his job produces but well, someone's got to protect the kids now and make their life cushy.

🎹 - Do they have any hobbies?

He plays the guitar! His father taught him. He also branched into other string instruments and is pretty good at the Banjo. His fiddling is good enough for government work. Needless to say, not only does he play, he also sings.

🎯 -What do they do best?

Being a calm mediator, to be honest. Everyone else always looks to him, due to his experience and Paddy's here to get shit done. Doesn't mean he's always calm or hides his emotions particularly well, but he's determined like no other and very good at both executing orders and giving orders. He's so splendid at being a father to be honest, it's a shame he never had any kids on his own, but doesn't matter - he loves Harry, Soph and Charlie to bits. Adopts every lost kid in need of a dad he can find, giving as much love as his big body can store.

🥊 -What do they love to do? What do they hate to do?

Loves to be a bastard with his children, a carefree ne'er-do-well, hates that to live that life he routinely makes it worse for a hundred other families who're just struggling to get by. Paddy is filled to the brim with guilt, believes God no longer listens to him and that there's no redemption for a man like him.

❤️ - What is one of your OC’s best memories?

Night out in the pub with friends in Derry; Kilian, Angus, a few others - and the daughter of the Orangeman who's none the wiser that his daughter is hanging with at least one Catholic and Rotten Prods and getting shifted by the latter.

✂️ - What is one of your OC’s worst memories?

Hearing about Kilian's death after the funeral already happened. Kilian's older brother Keith didn't want him there.

🧊 - Is their current design the first one?

It is! I rarely change designs, mostly because the hugest chunk of my characters exist solely as personality and a vague idea of a physical appearance for months, if not years. Paddy had his design pretty quickly because I had to describe him, but I love it anyways. Especially the fact that he's 2 m tall and built like a brickwall.

🍀 - What originally inspired the OC?

I needed a right hand man for my mafia story and I knew vaguely that there's Protestants in Northern Ireland. That's it and as I learnt more and more about the actual situation and nuances of Irish history and identity, it just has made Paddy more and more interesting.

🌂 - What genre do they belong in?

Born to be in a romantic comedy or a GOOFY heist movie, forced to be in Angela's Ashes meets The Godfather.

💚 - What is your OC’s gender identity and sexuality?

Cishetero man as they come, though I make exceptions in AUs for Derry Trio OT3 shenanigans babyyyy. To be fair, too, he's moved in overwhelmingly queer circles due to the job and the kids in the past years that he's not at all fazed by the myriad of gender expressions and sexualities this world got to offer.

🙌 - How many sibling does your OC have?

None! However, he has/had a cousing called Caoimhe, who he loved so dearly, pretty much like an older sister. However, after his aunt/her mother died in a bombing, the family moved away and he never heard from her again.

🍎 - What is the OC’s relationship w/their parents like?

Very good! Both of his parents died in the 80s, sadly, but he loved them very much and they did him. They also were both rather old parents (William O'Neill was born 1917, Davian O'Neill in the early 1920s), so it's sad they died so young regardless, but not out of the clear blue sky. As I said, his father taught him how to play guitar and Davina also always looked out for her son. Paddy wouldn't have left Derry if one of his parents were still alive.

🧠 - What do you like most about the OC?

THE GHOOOOSTS, Paddy is so fucking haunted! He has lived three lives and to not lose the third one, he is willing to dig himself and everyone a grave without a bottom. Willing to do and encourage the worst things out of a deep, deep sense of love. He lost his cousin, his parents, Angus moved to London and then a bomb wrecked his and Kili's flat, so he walked out of town, left Kilian behind who died in the mid 2000s in a car crash. He got taken in by Aaron, traded his morals for a new family and helped raise Aaron's kids. Then Freya, Aaron's wife, dies in childbirth, Aaron's other right hand Ben gets shot in 2006 and Aaron accidentally poisoned in 2009. Once again, Paddy is the last man standing. So if anything happened to Harry, his sister Sophie or Harry's best friend Charlie, he'd kill everyone and then himself. No hyperbole. His actions in Irish Problems underscore that.

✏️ - How often do you draw/write about the OC?

Pretty much any time I work on the mainseries. He isn't in every AU and I also write a lot of one-shots/other fanfics about entirely different corners of the world that have nothing to do with him, but Paddy never strays far from my mind. Since I've been rewriting Irish Problems since 2022, rarely a month went by without writing about him.

💎 - Do you ever see yourself killing off the OC?

I've toyed with the idea of killing Paddy a lot, because he'd be potent drama. But at the end of the day, I could never go through with it because it breaks my own heart far too much.

💀 - Does your OC have any phobias?

Don't think he likes anything about bombs, but that's less of a phobia and more ... being traumatized by a civil war. He's got over his dislike of guns for the same reason, but still loathes most big guns and will not use anything automatic unless you held the man himself at gunpoint.

🍩 -Who is your OC’s arch-nemesis or rival?

Ben was always the man to pick fights and hold grudges, so Paddy doesn't really have any personal nemesis or rivals. Team England can be counted as such, simply because they're Team Ireland's biggest antagonists, but he has no particular bone to pick with Arthur (unlike Harry), Robert (unlike Charlie) or Tahir.

🎓 - How long have you had the OC?

Since 2013! "Like Father Like Son", how the entire story universe is called, was a Hetalia AU I created for an art trade. I needed human OCs for the story and that is how he came about.

🍥 - What age were you when you created the OC?

14. Insane shit.

Here's a drawing of him done by @pyromaniacqueen!

#storie nostre #paddy #beareplies #the-goblin-cat #EVERYONE GIVE IT UP FOR MY OLD MAN WHO ISN'T ACTUALLY OLD - Okay I mean he would have turned 59 this year.#and it is just fucked up how he is one of the older/oldest people in the biz because you just don't get old in there #Aaron got to be 60. That's ancient for LFLS. Most people of the parent generation did not get to be that old.

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focsle · 2 years ago

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Oh Hai, I am going to Svalbard and thence on a ship into the ice - can you talk to me about whaling on the ice? I remember there were whaling stations in Greenland and possibly Iceland as well, where whales were brought be smaller ships for rendering, but that was never a big New England practice?

Oh, sounds chilly! I hope the excursion is all you wish for. Sorry for the incredibly long post--it got away from me! This is how I spent my evening! Sorry for any typos; it’s near 1 am.

Shore whaling isn't my forte so I can't speak much to that. There were whaling settlements set up on places like Herschel Island to support the industry as it stretched into the Arctic, though that's not quite the same as shore whaling stations. There were some 20th century ones up in the Arctic too, but again, not my forte.

I can talk about whaling on the ice, though. After 1848 when the commercial whaling fleet learned of bowheads, it pushed northwards in pursuit of them as the old whaling grounds were increasingly overfished.

A struck bowhead whale drawn by Captain Benjamin Boodry.

An anonymous letter published in the Quaker newspaper The Friend in 1850, written from the perspective of a Bowhead whale, offered up a rare perspective in opposition to the industry at this time:

“Although our situation, and that of our neighbors in the Arctic is remote from our enemy’s country, yet we have been knowing to the progress of affairs in the Japan and Ochotsk seas, the Atlantic and Indian oceans, and all the other “whaling grounds”. We have imagined that we were safe in these cold regions; but no; within these last two years a furious attack has been made upon us, an attack more deadly and bloody than any of our race ever experienced in any part of the world. I scorn to speak of the cruelty that has been practiced by our blood-thirsty enemies, armed with harpoon and lance; no age or sex has been spared.”

The expansion was both a detriment to the whales and a detriment to the men who hunted them. Many whalers were ill-prepared for the colder conditions, with often inadequate outfits purchased from the ship’s slop chest. Cases of scurvy (and death from such) increased significantly as months were spent in regions where the resupply of fresh produce wasn’t possible as it was in the South Pacific. The US Consul in Honolulu frequently commented on the condition of the men filling their hospital from a season up North, describing whalers who “died after reaching port and before they could be landed, while others were carried to the hospital on litters, being too feeble to walk.”

The whaling Bark Samboul, 1886. Via New Bedford Whaling Museum.

It also could be a psychologically bleak time as well. Allen Newman, captain of the Covington (1852-55, and 56-59) wrote:

“All this day a strong gale from the East with thick rainy weather, this is hard if I was alone I think I should be tempted to some rash act, such as Murder or Suicide, but I am surrounded with A plenty as poor as myself, misery loves company.”

Later he wished for all the things he couldn't have access to while bound up in fog and ice.

“hard gale from the North with cold Weather & A Bad Sea such is life on the Ocean. I Wish myself at Home with my Wife & Children, seated by A good fire & eating apples or I would willingly go Without the apples to be there O Lord watch over us keep us in health & give us Prosperity as the years rool round.. I hope to find myself with my family on some May morning & enjoying all the Blessings of A Happy Home.”

Benjamin Boodry, 2nd mate of the Arnolda (1852-55) also missed home after a failed attempt to catch Bowheads.

“Saw B[ow]Heads lowered without success chased all day came on board hungry and I am unhappy as a dog and homesick discontented wish I was at home I’d give all that I have got in the ship and run the risk of going naked or starving to death”

It wasn’t all misery, however. William Stetson, cabin-boy-to-foremast-hand on the Arab (1853-57) talked about some of the fun they had, too.

“We saw several bowheads but could get no where near them, and then all three boats penetrated farther into the ice, our boats crew all got out on a large cake of ice which was covered with snow, and enjoyed a little game of snow ball. To set foot anywhere out of the ship or boat soon on an ice cake in the Kamtschatka sea is very agreeable for a change; we enjoy ourselves among the ice, chasing seals and birds, snow balling, &c.”

Bowheads, with their battering ram heads designed to break through thick ice, knew their world far better than the new predators that just entered into it. In all instances, when pursued, they would make their escape attempt by running under the ice.

“Our officers were not very anxious to tackle them in the ice, as it needs an expert whaleman to handle them there,” wrote Albert Peck, greenhand on the Covington, the same voyage in which his captain was privately contemplating Murder And/Or Suicide and dreaming about home and hearths and apples. “As soon as one is struck he instantly makes for the compact ice and if he runs under, they are obliged to give him line til they can get the boat clear, and it often happens that before the boat can be cleared the line is gone, it being useless to try to hold it. Sometimes when he is running and they are holding on to the line [...] it will strike with its full force against a cake of ice, and if not very large and struck fairly with her stern, it will split and the boat will go between the pieces, but if not struck fairly then wo[e] to the boat. Often times the line will be cut or chaffed off against the ice, and then farewell Mr. Whale.”

Whaling wife Mary Lawrence on board the Addison (1856-60) described such a hunt, and the improvising whalers did when a whale ran under the ice.

“Our boats had not been down more than ten minutes before the whale came up between our bow boat and a boat from another ship. They both started for him, but our boat, having the best chance, struck. He ran under the ice soon after they fastened, but our brave crew were not going to give him up so, so two boats went around the other side of the ice to lance him and send him back, which they finally did after having quite an exciting time. Mr. Nickerson got out of his boat and went on to the ice to try to shoot him, while another boats crew from another ship landed and snowballed the whale, probably wounding him severely.”

The whale was ultimately killed by all this and brought alongside.

Bark Jacob A. Howland, trying out blubber among the ice. 1887. NBWM.

Benjamin Boodry, for all his misery as a 2nd mate on the Arnolda, would find himself up in the ice again as captain on his next voyage aboard the Fanny (1856-60). In icy regions he often described whaling happening in a ‘pond hole’, meaning a section of open water amidst all the ice floes. From the safety of said pond hole, he saw the peril that came with whaling in the Arctic.

“Comes in with light gales from East ship in a pond hole boiling with the Roman [another whaleship] thick and plenty of snow and verry heavy swell at ½ past 7 came to the N side of the pond hole it lighted some saw the wreck of a vessel about 2 miles in the Ice dismasted and the ship Brutus lying by her the swell being to heavy dare not venture through the Ice as the Brutus was there to render all assistence in saveng life poor fellows I pitty them God only knows whose turn it will be next this is a dangerous way of getting an honest living at 8 saw a large light set supposed to be on board of the wreck I wonder what poor fellow it is Middle and latter part blowing spoke Capt Henry of the Brutus haveing Capt Sherman and crew of Bark Newton on board there vessel being stove in the Ice he belongs in Rochester town and has lost his wife since he sailed and now has lost his vessel take my vessel but save me my Little Mary”

Getting wrecked by ice was the greatest risk in the region. At one point the Addison found itself almost entirely bound up in ice, and Mary described the anxiety of the scene.

"The first flow of ice that came to us was not bad, quite thick but considerably broken up. After that it came on pretty bad. We were obliged to have men out on the ice cutting our way along, until we came to a field that was impossible to get through. Just then there came on a slight breeze, so that we slipped out anchor, and turning around a little, we cleared all of that except the point. Then we put down our large anchor and drifted through the remainder, some of which was very heavy, solid field ice two miles in length. After cutting, spading, sawing, and pulling with ropes, we finally worked through the last of it about four o’clock in the morning. It was a night of hard work and anxiety. We were afraid mostly of staving our ship again. There was also danger of dragging our anchor and going ashore."

Thomas Howes Norton, captain of the whaleship the Citizen (1852), found his ship less fortunate in navigating the ice.

“Ice was all around us, which would have passed us on the larboard bow, and thus we should have escaped a concussion; but instead of doing this he put the wheel down, which brought the ship into the wind and the consequence was a large hole was stoven in her larboard bow; the ship began to leak badly. Casks were immediately filled with water, and placed on the starboard side of the ship, and thus in a measure heeled the ship, which brought the leak to a considerable extent out of the water; otherwise she must have sunk in a very little time.”

While the crew of the Citizen would patch the damage made on that instance, it wouldn’t help them for long. Their ship would be utterly destroyed in a gale in the Arctic Ocean in September 1852, with five lives lost and thirty-three men stranded ashore with little to protect them.

Wreck of the Citizen, via Library of Congress.

While stranded, those thirty-three men were assisted by the local Yupik people and lived with them for nine months before eventually being brought home by two New England whalers.

It was the Arctic that played a huge role in finishing the American whale fishery, too. In 1871, thirty-three American whaling vessels were unexpectedly bound up in pack ice off Alaska. Their collective crews (and families aboard) reflected 1219 lives suddenly plunged into mortal peril. All the captains came together and signed a statement of what they all agreed to do:

"We, the undersigned, masters of whaleships now lying at Point Belcher, after holding a meeting concerning our dreadful situation, have all come to the conclusion that our ships cannot be got out this year, and there being no harbor that we can get our vessels into, and not having provisions enough to feed our crews to exceed three months, and being in a barren country, where there is neither food nor fuel to be obtained, we feel ourselves under the painful necessity of abandoning our vessels, and trying to work our way south with our boats, and, if possible, get on board of ships that south of the ice."

They set their ensigns upside-down, took to their whaleboats, and abandoned the whole endeavor to the Arctic.

Image from Harpers Weekly 1871, of some of the whaleships bound up in ice and the crews evacuating.

Through heavy swells and ice they rowed, hoping to make it to open water where other ships from the fleet might be there to save them. It took them near 90 miles to reach the rest of the fleet, who readily brought them all aboard and returned everyone home at the expense of their own voyages. Remarkably, not a single life was lost in this event. But all but one of the trapped whaleships were crushed by the ice. With the industry already staggered by the discovery of petroleum and by losses during the Civil War when Confederate raiders made a point to target the whaling fleet, this massive loss was the final nail in the coffin for American whaling. Beyond that event, wrecking in the ice became a fate for many a whaleship in the last couple decades of the 19th century.

#asks #awhalin #dancing-crow #long post //#animal death //#ok bedtime…

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aphicelend · 1 month ago

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OC - Profile

Sigurdur Borchgrevink

24 y.o | 1.73 cm | Feb 28th | ISTP | Chaotic Evil

Story - ❤️‍🩹 North

⚠️ TW: S.A.

🧸 Oc Masterlist

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Manipulator | Impulsive | Aggressive | Emotional

Sigurdur is a complicated guy, he can go from calm to violent for nothing. Sigurdur acts according to his own interests, is kind when it suits him, and has contempt for authority figures. He hates his older brother, he blames him for everything bad that happened. He usually plays the victim, everyone is to blame except him, He enjoys making his brother and Christian feel bad by blaming them.

About him

Born in Sweden, Sig is the second son of the Borchgrevink family. Their family moved to Copenhagen when he was 4.

Not much later, his father abandoned them, Sig's mother became mentally unstable and began to beat her children, Erik, his older brother tried to protect him from the blows.

On one occasion the woman threatened Sigurdur with a knife, Erik intervened so that she would not hurt him, In the struggle, Erik ended up stabbing his mother in the chest by accident, killing her instantly.

Later, Erik and Sigurdur left their home, their mother buried in the backyard. They were looking for a better life, until they came across a young man, Ulrik, who offered them shelter in exchange for working for him.

Sig and Erik found a new "family" with other guys living there under Ulrik's control. Erkki and Lennart were other kids living there. They often argued about money, Erik worked so that he and Sig could stay there, Lennar worked so that Erkki could be there too.

Long short story, one day they had a discussion, Ulrik threatened Erik with a knife but Sig put between them and then Ulrik hurt Sig.

Sig ran away, and then things happened.

When he came back to the house he wasn't the same. Neither Ulrik, now Christian.

His story it's too long so I'm gonna cut things.

Now

After an incident where Sig almost kills his brother 🫡, he's now recovering. But I wanna ruin him more so I'll prob make him suffer later. Kinda did him a redemption arc but I like him being a shitty person 😀

Cool bug facts

He was my version of 2p Iceland, I made him on 2013 lmao

He was? On a relationship with Ulrik/Christian (Sig was abusive with him)

He likes to manipulate his brother 💘 they did things

Dom Bottom

He's bi but he despises labels and such

He's blind of his right eye

He has BPD and was admitted to a psychiatric hospital

After leaving the hospital he devoted himself to studying plastic arts.

He fell in love with his psychiatrist 🫡

Unemployed

Used to do drugs (he always made his brother worry about him)

He used to get into trouble at school, once he stabbed a classmate and he was sent to reformatory

He harms himself and deals with his condition poorly

I love you and I hate you Sig...my baby girl with a disorder.....

My edgy boy but I love him so much, as much as Misaki they're important to me 🗣️

Prob gonna hide his profile later LMAO

Gallery

They blonde guy is Ulrik/Christian he was the 2p Denmark of a friend when we used to rp back then :3

#karuocs #karuocs sigurdur

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universe-in-the-void-in-the-cube · 2 months ago

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My headcanon bio for 2P Norway

Finally got him updated and fleshed out. This is my version of 2P Norway. Take it or leave it.

Also if anyone wants to RP this version of 2P Norway let me know so I can follow them.

Character Profile: 2P Norway – Loki Bondevik

Basic Information

Full Name: Loki Bondevik

Nickname(s): The Puppet Master, Flameheart

Title: 2P Norway

Age: 23

Birthday: November 18

Species: Personification of the country of Norway

Nationality: Norwegian

Sex: Male

Gender: Cisgender Male

Preferred Pronoun(s): He/Him

Romantic Orientation: Biromantic

Sexual Orientation: Bisexual

Religion: None specified

Occupation: Manipulator, Influencer, and Pyromaniac

Status: Active

Fandom: Original Character; could fit within various fandoms involving trickster or villain archetypes

Face Claim: (Left to user discretion)

Relationships

Parents: Unknown; Loki's upbringing is shadowed by a troubled and complex family background, possibly involving neglect or estrangement. This lack of connection fuels his fear of vulnerability and abandonment.

Siblings: 2P Iceland/Egil Steilsson (Brother)

Family: 2P Iceland/Egil Steilsson (Brother)

Significant Other(s): N/A; due to his manipulative tendencies, Loki struggles to form genuine relationships, leading to a complicated love life.

Children: None specified

Closest Friends: Other dark figures or manipulators who appreciate and align with his cunning ways, forming a tightly-knit yet treacherous circle of influence.

Rivals: Heroes or other skilled manipulators capable of seeing through his charming façade, posing a challenge to his schemes.

Enemies: Those who have suffered from his chaotic influence and destructive nature, possibly individuals or groups that oppose his pyromania.

Physical Traits

Eye Color(s): Magenta red, eerily captivating and often reflecting his inner chaos and mischief.

Hair Color(s): Platinum blonde, contrasting sharply with his pale skin and emphasizing his striking features.

Height: 6’8” (203 cm); towering over most, lending him an imposing presence that he skillfully exploits.

Weight: 146 lbs (66 kg); his lean and athletic build adds to his gracefulness and agility.

Body Build: Lean and athletic, giving him an agile appearance; a dancer's grace intertwined with something predatory.

Notable Physical Traits: Pale skin, sharp angular facial features, and an unsettling, predatory smile that hints at his malicious intent.

Phobias and Diseases

Phobia(s): Fear of genuine intimacy and vulnerability; a defense mechanism born from a fear of abandonment that plagues his interpersonal relationships.

Mental Health: Exhibits narcissistic tendencies, and potential for other personality disorders tied to manipulation; not clinically diagnosed but inferred through behavior.

Physical Disease(s): None specified.

Personality

Usual Mood/Expression: A charismatic yet unsettling demeanor; possesses a sly, almost predatory smile that draws in while it unnerves.

Moral Alignment: Chaotic neutral; acts primarily based on self-interest and sees the world as a stage for his manipulation.

Jung Type: ENTP (Extraverted, Intuitive, Thinking, Perceiving)

Enneagram: Type 3 (The Achiever) or Type 8 (The Challenger)

Four Temperaments: Melancholic/Choleric; reflective yet forceful and dominant in his interactions.

Astrological Sign: Scorpio; symbolizing depth, intensity, and transformation.

Hogwarts House: Slytherin; aligning with cunning and ambition.

Top Five Tropes: Manipulative Charmer, Dark Mentor, Tragic Villain, Pyromaniac, Enigmatic Trickster

Five Prominent Traits: Charming, Cunning, Flamboyant, Malevolent, Charismatic

Misc

Skills: Mastery in manipulation, adept at social engineering, pyromancy, storytelling, and wielding influence elegantly.

Hobbies: Playing with fire—both literally and metaphorically—weaving mesmerizing tales, attending social gatherings, causing chaos, relishing in unpredictability.

Element: Fire, representing both passion and destruction.

Animal: Symbolically represents a serpent, embodying duplicity, temptation, and danger.

Plant: Nightshade or similarly dark plants that evoke a sense of danger and allure, highlighting his complex character.

Stats

Compassion: 0/10; manipulative tendencies overshadow any genuine compassion he might display.

Empathy: 0/10; uses charm solely for manipulation, lacking real empathetic connections.

Creativity: 8/10; remarkably imaginative, especially in crafting schemes and plots.

Mental Flexibility: 9/10; an agile thinker, adaptable in various social situations, easily shifting tactics to maintain control.

Passion/Motivation: 8/10; intensely driven by chaotic ambition and the thrill of manipulation.

Education: 6/10; self-taught through observation, learning the darker arts of persuasion and control.

Stamina: 6/10; moderate endurance, able to engage in prolonged social dramas.

Physical Strength: 5/10; not his emphasis, often relying more on cunning than brute strength.

Battle Skill: 4/10; prefers manipulation and finesse over physical confrontation.

Initiative: 7/10; steps up to take charge when it aligns with his goals and desires.

Restraint: 2/10; very little self-control, especially when chaos is at hand.

Agility: 7/10; graceful in movements, akin to a predator stalking its prey.

Strategy: 9/10; a master manipulator, always thinking several moves ahead.

Teamwork: 3/10; prefers playing solo, viewing collaboration as a burden to his control.

Intelligence Breakdown

Musical-Rhythmic Intelligence: 5/10; enjoys storytelling with dramatic flair.

Visual-Spatial Intelligence: 7/10; sharp eye for details, noticing nuances others overlook.

Verbal-Linguistic Intelligence: 9/10; a silver-tongued communicator, gifted in persuasion and rhetoric.

Logical-Mathematical Intelligence: 6/10; clever and strategic in plotting schemes and maneuvers.

Bodily-Kinesthetic Intelligence: 6/10; exhibits agility and grace in physical movement.

Interpersonal Intelligence: 3/10; manipulates others rather than forming genuine connections; often misreads emotions.

Intrapersonal Intelligence: 4/10; grapples with his identity and moral compass.

Existential Intelligence: 5/10; questions his role and purpose amidst his schemes and desires.

Naturalistic Intelligence: 3/10; limited connection to nature outside of fire; finds beauty in destruction.

Comprehensive Characterization

Physical Appearance

Loki Bondevik stands at a striking 6'8", his height imposing and allowing him to loom over most people he interacts with. His platinum blonde hair falls in tousled waves, often styled slicked back to frame his sharply chiseled features—an angular face marked by high cheekbones and an eternally pale complexion that seems almost ethereal against the backdrop of his darkly flamboyant attire. His magenta red eyes are a focal point, ablaze with intrigue; a window into the tumultuous soul beneath. When he walks into a room, his mere presence sends a ripple of unease and curiosity among those present.

Dressed in tailored suits that echo elegance minus the subtlety, Loki typically opts for darker hues—a mesmerizing mix of deep reds, blacks, and silver that speak both of rich taste and a penchant for the dramatic. Each outfit is accessorized with intricate rings, each a symbol of his storied past, and a signature crimson scarf that billows ever so slightly as he moves, enhancing the air of mystery that surrounds him.

Personality

Complex and multifaceted, Loki embodies a cauldron of charm and chaos. To the casual observer, he appears a charismatic enigma, skillfully entrancing those around him with his clever words and attractive demeanor. Yet beneath this façade lies an unsettling undercurrent; a strategic mind that views human connections as mere pawns in his manipulative game.

His relationship with fire is as tumultuous as his mind; a fascination that borders on obsession. Pyromania speaks to his spirit—an insatiable desire for destruction and rebirth, mirroring his internal struggle between chaos and control. He thrives in chaotic environments, seamlessly transitioning from charming to terrifying—the ultimate puppet master skillfully pulling strings, relishing the thrill of chaos he creates.

However, this chaotic manipulation isn't without its battles. Internally, Loki wrestles with the darkness within; his fear of genuine connections often leaves him isolated, torn between his instinct to manipulate and the genuine desire for closeness that he can't quite grasp. His psyche—a messy collection of cunning ambition, self-doubt, and narcissistic tendencies—creates layers of conflict that drive his character development.

Background Narrative

Raised amidst the breathtaking yet harsh landscapes of Norway, Loki grew up surrounded by the folklore of cunning tricksters and dark heroes. His upbringing was marked by isolation and emotional detachment, driven by a family history shrouded in neglect that birthed his fear of vulnerability. Learning early that manipulation was his greatest shield, he turned to the stories around him, absorbing tales of deception and cleverness.

Loki’s early fascination with fire developed into a deep-seated obsession, a violent marriage between the potential for destruction and beauty. As the years passed, he honed his skills in social manipulation and pyromancy, releasing flames both literally and metaphorically onto the world, striking a balance between artistry and chaos.

Driving Forces and Internal Conflicts

Loki's primary goals orbit around obtaining power and influence, guiding events both mundane and extraordinary from the shadows. The more chaotic his world, the more he feels alive, yet this very thrill threatens to swallow him whole. His insatiable need for control intertwines his motivations with a consuming desire for admiration, adoration, and conflict.

His manipulative lifestyle, while effective, carries a moral weight that begins to press down on him as he forges connections, contradictions that arise between who he is versus who he wishes to be. The deeper he ventures into the art of manipulation, the lonelier he becomes, facing the dilemma of whether the chaos he incites is worth the rapidly increasing isolation.

General Plot Ideas

Ascension: A story arc where Loki seeks to solidify his influence may encounter formidable resistance from an unassuming mortal or equivalent dark figure with the capacity to see through his schemes. Their encounters push Loki to confront his vulnerabilities, revealing depths to his character that shift his motives and perceptions of power.

The Flame Within: A narrative focusing on the consequences of Loki’s pyromania—an encounter where his fires, both proverbial and literal, threaten his allies and romantic interests—forces him to grapple with the brunt of his actions versus his desire for chaos.

Romantic Plot Ideas

The One Who Sees: Loki becomes infatuated with an intelligent figure who sees through his charming mask, giving rise to a psychological battle of wills, challenge and attraction. Their complex relationship unfolds as he must choose between exposing his authentic self or maintaining a façade.

Dangerous Liaisons: This plot involves a romance characterized by tension, where each character drawn to the other's aura of danger must navigate their respective manipulative tendencies while grappling with vulnerability and the true nature of intimacy.

Overall Theme

Loki Bondevik embodies the duality of charisma and treachery. He exists within a world of seductive danger and chaos, traversing the thin line between villainy and vulnerability. His character arc explores the balance between surface allure and the complex, shadow-laden inner realms of betrayal, ambition, and the desperate need for genuine connection. His journey serves as a reflection of the eternal struggle between darkness and light within the self—where ambition risks overshadowing the one thing he ultimately seeks: authenticity and acceptance.

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