#honestly in our entire geographic region

[navree]

"if you use chatgpt for anything other than summarizing or editing in your schoolwork that's lowkey not great blah blah blah" stfu if you use chatgpt in literally any way especially for the work you are paying for the privilege to do you're a giant dork ass loser and you should get smacked in the head with a ceramic plate

[gwenmyoty]

Sanguine & Sorrow

So, the first big obstacle in talking about this fantasy setting is, well, it doesn't have a name. Somehow in all the writing that'd been done on it and in the setting, no one has once ever referred to either the continent they're on or the world they're in by anything other than 'the world' or 'this land'. I've honestly not been happy with anything I've come up with, but maybe one day. For now, I'll refer to it as Sanguine. (Sanguine & Sorrow was the original name of the tactics game this setting was written for)

Overall, Sanguine is an anachronistic mid-fantasy setting. The setting parallels medieval era culture, but there are analogues to more modern technologies like trains, handheld computers, and sanitation powered by magic. Sociological conditions are also *incredibly* different, with some cultures having beliefs entirely alien to us in their progressiveness even today. More on that later.

The setting largely centers on one particular continent, though other continents have been alluded to. This continent is primarily governed by the Four Great Nations. There are smaller countries in between these four nations, but their influence is much weaker and they often cowtow to the demands of the Great Nation nearest to them. These four Great Nations currently are Andán, Stucc, The Pelagon, and Daiya. Though, Daiya only just recently became a Great Nation following their victory in a war against the Ulfanz Collective who had previously been the fourth Great Nation.

Andán is the closest to a more traditional low fantasy culture and closely resemble a gothic European setting with Slavic influences. It's people are cut-throat, racist, xenophobic, homophobic, starving, and beset with a near perpetual winter, struggling just to live to see tomorrow. It is governed by a Monarchy, who, predictably, are deaf to the concerns of their people. Instead, they are much more focused on the threat of dragons. Hundreds of years ago, close to when Andán was originally founded, they were besieged by dragons without warning. Given no one had ever seen dragons before, this was rather terrifying. Andán successfully defended itself, prompting the dragons to retreat to parts unknown, but even now, they remain ready to face them again if they should return.

Stucc meanwhile is a much more private nation that borders Andán. It is ruled over by an elected council who's identities are kept anonymous. They are only referred to as 'The Stucc Lodge'. These individuals have their own private process for electing new members and enacting legislature. Geographically, Stucc is a mountainous region, whose culture is influenced peculiarly by both Scandinavian folklore as well as Japanese. This may seem like an odd combo, but there is a very good reason for it if you dig into the origins of the country.

Stucc was formed by foreigners from another land who had survived a great cataclysm that claimed the lives of their fellows. These foreigners hailed from two distinct tribes, known as The Eastern Circle and The Northern Circle. As they settled together, their cultures blended over time as Stucc became their home. Despite being shrouded in secrecy, Stucc's government is more lenient than Andán's. There is however a very tense relationship with the original dwellers of Stucc, a species known as the Kela. Kela were once allies to the founders of Stucc, and even revered as sacred, but an unknown event shifted relations between the two, and Kela became regarded as second class citizens and some are even enslaved by members of Stucc's working class.

On the other side of the country is The Pelagon Woods, home to The Pelagon Tribes. The Pelagon vary deeply in terms of their culture, as each tribe has different standards and expectations. Some tribes are radically different than our own culture, such as Bilanco whom are all taught shapeshifting magic and are encouraged to embrace new identities anytime they feel like it. Influences for the region are a mix between Gaelic folklore and Native American concepts, featuring a mysterious dense forest full of capricious beings that range from mischievous, albeit harmless pixies to terrifying monsters that feed off of suffering and souls. Not that the other nations don't have awful monsters, Stucc is known for ghost elk and giant spiders, but the monsters of the Pelagon have a particular penchant for causing psychological damage as much as physical.

Daiya, located to the far west meanwhile is a desert nation that pulls from Mediterranean and Arabic influences, though with a very strange twist. Daiya is a theocratic nation that is matriarchal by nature. They worship a Goddess said to govern over time, and only women are allowed in positions of power within Daiya. It's ruler, the Sultana is selected by the Goddess by divine providence. Men are allowed to work hard labor and servitude positions and this is all within the upper society. These rules and limitations become more lax as you go down Daiya's complex caste system, but as a male, there is very little hope to amounting to anything within Daiyan culture.

Women do not even take male partners in Daiya, they merely select a preferred male amongst their servants to sire children while usually keeping a female companion as a nurturing partner. (Sons of course join the ranks of their servants while daughters are raised as proper offspring) Outside of it's culture, Daiya is a more sparse nation full of open desert around it. People frequently travel by sand seal, adorable pinneped mammals that can breath under the sands of the desert and have formed a symbiotic relationship with humanity and thus been bred as pack animals and transport. Daiyans are fond of both gladiatorial displays and sandball, a recreational sport akin to Aussie Rules Football mixed with Rugby and Soccer.

At the center of the continent is Aonach Academy. Formed by the brother of the founder of Andán, Aonach is a prestigious academy intended as a way to help maintain peace between the four nations. In exchange for each nation sending it's brightest and most promising citizens to learn there, the Academy provides schooling by some of the most talented academic minds on the continent. It is believed that students who are educated in an environment that leaves them exposed to the ideas of other nations will be more likely to promote a future where the nations remain in harmony with one another.

However, early on in the Academy's history, it was insisted that each of the Great Nations should receive the right to have a National House at the Academy so that they can exert their influence and potentially claim promising individuals for positions of power as they grow older. The houses have shaped a particular culture at Aonach, with many focused on receiving an invitation to one before their tenure there is done. The staff of Aonach meanwhile tolerates the houses existence and influence as a necessary evil to achieve the cooperation of The Four Great Nations, especially as important individuals are often placed by the nations as the leaders of these houses.

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[terrence-silver]

Honestly if terrys kids are just like their mother they would probably reject Cobra Kai’s methods and would go against him by winning in the tournament and destroy their reputation of being undefeated. Deep down I think that terry would have a little misogyny in him since he grew up with very traditional parents. If the kid was a girl he would be impressed but still punish her. If it was a boy he’d expect it since he’s a SILVER but his punishment would be worse than if they were a girl. Both are getting punished regardless of gender since silvers cannot go against each other. It’s us vs them not, us vs us

Yeah, Terry was probably born somewhere in the...50's? So that means, his own parents were born, at best, in the late 30's? Early 40's if they had him very young? Generally, I refuse to believe he didn't pick up some antiquated worldviews that aren't glaringly obvious unless you look beneath the surface due to being raised by someone over a hundred years removed from our present day. And bigotry as well, concealed bigotry, at least in the CK-era, if not in TKK3 era where it is pretty much right there. Or rather, bigotry in the sense that he's prejudiced towards whoever he deems crossed him, because they crossed him, and is entirely good forming alliances with people from the same geographic region and backgrounds if it presently suits him. He's a chameleon in that regard. So, add a dash of hypocrisy and entitlement into the mix as well. Same goes for misogyny --- even though he’s fairly equal with his kids regardless of their gender and they’re all primarily his before being anything else. I think Terry will encourage female fighters (who aren’t his kids, naturally) into his cause and appear very progressive for it (which he momentarily is), because, once more, it suits him, but the minute it doesn't, he can very easily turn against them. He's an (ideological) opportunist and he places opportunism before a great many ideals, even though he does have a distinctive code of his own.

Basically, I agree, yes!

[tellthemeerkatsitsfine]

Personal story time! This one is not nearly as dark as some of my stories, but it is personal, so I’m putting it behind a “keep reading” link. Honestly, what happened is that tonight I went to my first practice of the team I coach in a long time, and it’s gotten me thinking about things, so I’ve decided to tell stories about it.

The last tournament I coached was at the beginning of March, 2020. It was the high school provincial championships, and it was a big deal. In terms of pure numbers of competitors, it’s the biggest tournament in Canada. People only go to nationals if they can afford it and if they think they’ll do well, but everyone who qualifies goes to the high school provincial championships. People from smaller provinces, who don’t have anything on this scale, are jealous. They get annoyed at how many people from our province would rather win this tournament than win the national championships, because this tournament has more competitors and more hype and just seems cooler, especially to a high school kid. They sarcastically refer to it as the [tournament name] World Championships to make fun of us for how we see it, and this has caused us to affectionately refer to it as the [tournament name] World Championships.

When you’re there, that’s how it feels. You’re in a massive arena, and there are people from all across the province. This may not seem like a big deal, because it’s just a province, but it’s worth noting that my province is about 800,000 square kilometres bigger than the UK. Not England, the entire UK. Obviously we have a small fraction of the population, but in this instance, it’s the geographical size that makes it feel like a big deal. The best two athletes from every region in our province, from every pocket of this large expanse of land, from faraway places. If you win this, you’re royalty in our sport. The top six athletes get to stand on the podium together at the end, and the gold medalist’s coach hands out ribbons to numbers 5 and 6, and puts medals around the necks of the first four. Yeah, that’s the first four, fourth place finishers get a medal called “aged bronze”, because this tournament needs to be special that way.

But the gold medalist gets the best experience by far. They get to stand on the top block of the podium while their own coach adorns them with the medal, and hands them their massive draw sheet. The huge sheet that gets posted on the wall for the week, one for each category with all the matchups of the all the athletes, and the winner gets to take it home. The winning coach gives out the ribbons and medals, hands their own athlete the draw sheet, and everyone takes pictures, and it’s the coolest fucking thing. High school kids across the province spend years dreaming about it. I certainly did, at that age.

These entire two paragraphs have been my justification for why I still have my draw sheet on my wall, even though I know the implications of being in my thirties and having a high school accomplishment displayed. I remember standing in the coral after winning my gold medal match all those years ago, and feeling a dampness on my face, and realizing I was crying from joy for the first time in my life. Connotations be damned - why would I ever want to get rid of a reminder of the first time that happened? After I won that tournament, I got my draw sheet laminated and put it on the wall in my childhood bedroom. When I moved out of my parents’ house a year later, I put it on the wall in my new bedroom. And then I just kept doing it. I’ve never moved and thought… you know what? This memento of the first time I ever cried from joy doesn’t need to go up in the new room.

Since I stopped competing myself and became a coach, I’ve coached several athletes to gold medals at this tournament, and it’s been an incredibly special moment every time. I’ve also coached a bunch of athletes to non-gold podium finishes, and that’s special too. Any top six finish at this tournament is a big deal; they get a picture on the podium, they get that moment of celebration of something they’ve worked so hard for for so long.

This tournament occurs every year, or did occur every year before the world ended, at the beginning of March. In 2020, it went off without a single COVID-related hitch. We knew the coronavirus was a thing, and we knew it was scary, but it wasn’t here. We didn’t think twice about gathering hundreds of people (once you add up the athletes, coaches, refs, draw masters and other administrators, volunteers, and spectators) from all over the province in one indoor location to make a bunch of physical contact.

A good friend of mine coaches a team in a city that’s about five hours away. Pre-pandemic, I saw him most weekends, because most weekends had tournaments that gathered teams from at least a five-hour radius. I now haven’t seen this friend in two years, and I miss him a lot. We talked on the phone the other day, but it’s not the same as seeing him. The kids on my team, who are braver than I am and have been doing practices and tournaments in the last few weeks, including tournaments that take them to his city five hours away, tell me he’s grown his hair. It’s weird to me that this guy I used to see so often can have grown his hair from buzz cut to shoulder length and I didn’t know until a kid I coach told me. Specifically, this kid asked me if he’s taken up drugs lately, because he looks like he has. I said they shouldn’t deal in stereotypes that way; he’s been doing various drugs for years and they shouldn’t assume that just because he used to have shorter hair that means he hasn’t been doing drugs all along (I didn’t really say that because it isn’t age-appropriate information to give to the kid who asked, but I did think it, because it’s true).

This guy is not the most responsible person I’ve ever met, and during that March 2020 tournament, he had quite a bad cough. That did not bother him at all, because why would it? Why would a bad cough bother anyone in early March 2020? He still coached the tournament and did not alter his behaviour in any way.

Shortly after that tournament, the world ended, and I remembered my friend’s cough. I called him and asked him if he was okay. He said he wasn’t that bad, but the cough was still there, and it was a dry cough, and there had been a fever at some point, and yeah, he probably had the coronavirus. He did not sound bothered by this at all, because that’s the sort of person he is. “What the fuck?” I asked him. “You have the fucking pandemic disease?” He told me it was fine, he’d recover soon. And he did. Of course he recovered soon; people who don’t worry about things have an annoying way of having everything work out fine for them anyway. He didn’t get a COVID test because those were being rationed then, but a few months later, a different test told him he had antibodies. He had not been sick since, so it’s very likely that he did in fact have COVID during that tournament.

After that phone call in mid-March 2020, in which my friend whom I’d recently seen in person told me he probably had the coronavirus, I got quite freaked out. I wanted to do a test, but as I said, they were rationed at the time. I spent a couple of weeks very anxious that he’d infected me, until finally the incubation period had passed and I figured I was fine. If I did get COVID from him, it was asymptomatic in me.

During that time, I frantically wracked my brain to try to remember if I’d had any close contact with that friend during that tournament. It was a busy few days, so we didn’t have much time for socializing. I never hung out with him in a hotel or anything, because at a tournament that big, all I want to do between competition times is sleep and recover. So any transmission would have occurred at the tournament’s venue.

I thought through our greeting at the beginning of the tournament. It was what one would call a “bro hug”, a sort of handshake into hand clasp into shoulder contact, quicker and less directly face-to-face than a normal hug. Also, he’s six-foot-seven, so during that or any other hug between us, my face got nowhere near his. That one might be okay.

I tried to think – did we have any other physical contact? And then I remembered. The last match I coached before the end of the tournament. One of my best athletes made it into the gold medal match. He had a glorious run of victory after victory, made all the sweeter by a tough loss in the first round at that same tournament a year before. This kid (and by “kid” I mean “17-year-old”) had been working his ass off for years with the goal of doing well in this tournament. The previous year, when he’d combined bad luck on the draw sheet with a poor performance and missed the podium entirely, had been heartbreaking. But in 2020, he got it together. He looked dominant in every match he had on his way to the finals, he earned his spot there.

This tournament, being one that thinks of itself as the [tournament name] World Championships, of course creates hype around its final matches. Everyone who makes the top six gets the spotlight on them while they compete to see where they’ll land. The regular tournament has ten mats that all run at the same time, but before the finals, they take a two-hour break to roll up the excess mats until they’re down to six. Then they do one category at a time, with girls on one side and boys on the other. On one end is the fifth-place match, on the other end is the bronze-medal match, and in the middle is the gold-medal match. Before they start each category, the athletes and their coaches walk in like UFC fighters while a loudspeaker announces their names and regions.

I did the walk in with this athlete, alongside my co-coach/best friend of many years. It was fucking cool. I’d done it a few times before by then, but the novelty hadn’t – hasn’t – nearly worn off. And athlete doesn’t get that far unless they’ve been working very hard for a long time, and if an athlete I coach has been working that hard for that long, then I’ve formed a close bond with them in the process. I care deeply about them and seeing them go after their dream – literally walking behind them as they make their way across an arena to chase it – is a fucking honour. Even better that I get to share that with my best friend.

So this kid. This seventeen-year-old kid who got into the gold medal match in early March 2020, this kid I’d worked with for years, trying to give him everything he needed, physically and mentally and emotionally, to be able to handle this exact moment. This kid. This kid was facing the star athlete from a team that was much bigger than ours, had many more resources than ours, and came from a much bigger city. That opponent had competed at the World Championships the year before (the actual World Championships, not just our tournament to which we’ve given that nickname). He’d been in the sport for ages and was very decorated for someone so young.

He was also an asshole. I don’t just say this because he was an opponent. I’ve competed against, and coached against, lots of good people. But this was not a case of that. That kid was a privileged, and by privileged I mean spoiled, little shit. He was known throughout our sport as bully to anyone who was younger or less successful than he was. His rich dad paid for him to have the best training and all the opportunities he wanted, and it went to his head.

This was our opponent in the gold medal match. I walked out with my athlete, my athlete from a low-income immigrant family who had made it there despite not having half the resources of his opponent. Not to play that card or anything, but if this were a movie, we’d be the protagonists. Classic asshole rich kid from the big city versus underdog scenario. My kid had never faced this opponent before; they would meet for the first time this gold medal match.

After our walk in, we had a little time before the previous match ended and ours would start. My co-coach and I stood behind our athlete as he jumped up and down to stay warm, occasionally giving him an encouraging shoulder pat. I was nervous, but trying not to show it because I needed to show strength and self-belief for my athlete. It was one of the biggest matches I’ve ever coached.

During this time, my ridiculous six-foot-seven friend managed to get into our corner. I’m still not sure how that happened. He’s not supposed to be there. During the finals of this tournament, there are volunteers at the entrances to the competitive area who make sure the only people allowed on the floor are the athletes who are actually competing in the podium matches, their coaches, and the refs.

My friend had no business there, but he got onto the floor anyway. While we were in the corner and waiting for the match to start, he came up behind me. I turned to him, and unexpectedly, he pulled me into him. He bridged the foot-long gap in our height by leaning down, so his mouth was level with my ear. He said something that he did not want anyone but me to hear, and he made this happen by ensuring I was very close to him when he said it. There was face-to-face contact, with my friend and his potentially deadly respiratory disease.

This is what I remembered, a week later, when the world ended I realized my friend had definitely been afflicted by the virus that was killing people across the globe. Our hug at the beginning of the tournament – probably okay, it was quick and our faces were on different geographical planes. But there was also this other moment, at the end of the tournament, when he grabbed me before my athlete’s gold medal match to say something that no one else could hear. He got his COVID-laden breath so close to me. Fuck.

Do you want to know what the point of this post was? Why I started writing it and told all these stories? It’s because I wanted to share what he said to me. I wanted to share what caused me weeks of worry. A close friend of mine thought it was worth exposing me to a deadly virus for these words:

“Look, I don’t normally approve of showboating, but if your boy wins this match, he’d better make it rain.”

I barely looked at him as I said, “Don’t worry, we fucking will.” Because apparently I had gotten too caught up in the feeling that we were all in a movie to see how absurd that was.

We didn’t even win the fucking match. We gave the rich kid a good run for his money, a closer match than he’d gotten from anyone his own age and in his own country for a long time. My kid pushed him right to the final buzzer, and the score on which it ended was close. But we lost, and my kid ended up standing on a podium while the rich asshole’s coach (who is also a rich asshole) put a silver medal around his neck. Then we all went home, and my best friend/co-coach and I had a long discussion about how to tweak various aspects of that kid’s training to make sure he could beat the rich asshole at the next significant tournament, which should be in a few weeks. Then the world ended. That next significant tournament did not happen.

That’s the last thing I did before the world ended. Coached a high-stakes match at a big tournament that we ended up losing, but came out convinced we could win if given another chance. A match that was prefaced by some whispered words from a friend of mine that I would come to regret accepting, when I began to panic about any close contact I’d had with anyone who could be sick.

And I cannot emphasize enough that those words were: “Look, I don’t normally approve of showboating, but if your boy wins this match, he’d better make it rain.” Those were the words that had me scrambling with worry for two weeks about whether I’d caught the virus and might pass it along. I will never forget them. Were they worth it?

Honestly, yeah. They made me feel cool as hell. 10/10, would do again.

[guardian-esper]

Entry #0: An Introduction

Date: I couldn’t reliably tell you in my current state.

Time: Late morning. Headache-o’-clock.

This might not practically be the best time to start writing, or rather this isn’t the best personal state of physical being, but it’s not like I can do much else when I’m this hung over. Gods, my head is pounding. I don’t think I’ve ever celebrated quite like I did last night. I went ahead to the infirmary and asked for a concoction to deal with this bottle ache, hopefully that’ll kick in soon.

Anyhow, let me back up a little here, remark on some context. Yesterday, I was awarded my first ever promotion in rank for the town guard. Last night, my new fellow sergeants decided to give me the usual rite-of-passage celebration for privates who rank up. I had, ah, to be honest, never touched a drink in my life. Not like that, at least. So uh, that’s two major developments: My first promotion, and my first drunken escapade.

I don’t really remember everything after the first few rounds, but right now I think I feel mostly regret, despite my excitement. Although, I do think I accidentally bumped into one of the women sergeants, in an accident of...inappropriate contact. I think I tried to explain myself through the alcoholic fog, but based on the faint stinging on my left cheek, I feel fairly certain of the strength her backhanding capability.

I uh, I don’t think I’ll be indulging in whiskey quite like that ever again. Need to remind myself to go and apologize later.

Ahem. At any rate, I’m here writing now at the recommendation of the lieutenant I’m now serving directly under. They said it would be good to keep a record of some kind, a source of reflection on any future operations or happenings. Not that I or they expect there’ll be all that much, considering how usually peaceful and calm it is in this little town. Still, I guess it might be worth it in a general sense, at least.

I think I’ve gotten a little ahead of myself, though. I’ve completely forgotten to record an introduction. Let’s continue this properly.

Name: Ivan Stavros.

Race: Human.

Age: 21. Born on the twenty-first day of the ninth month of the year.

Title: Sergeant of the town guard of Trelynshire.

Responsibilities: Second in command to my unit’s leader, Lieutenant B’jorn. In addition to making the usual town rounds and participating in the usual drills, I’ll be sometimes sent as messenger boy between the lieutenants and the captain. In more rare occasions, I’ll be put in charge of my unit. If circumstances ever demand it, that is.

...honestly, aside from a bit of a pay raise and some more authority, I don’t expect my new station to amount to too much. Other than a rare few major incidents, not a lot of particular danger ever comes knocking on our doors. Trelynshire is a pretty quiet town, with nothing but miles of wilds and forestry surrounding. So we’re a bit on the isolated side here, and in the context of the wider world...if I’m being honest, it’s rather boring. Peaceful, yes, and full of kind and hardworking folk, but you aren’t exactly going to find many thrilling stories about imminent danger threatening the townsfolk or anything.

Many, I emphasize. There have been a few. Including, I should mention, the events surrounding what led to my somewhat sudden promotion. Which, I will get into after my introductions here are finished. I need to fully recover before I start going over those more recent events again. Otherwise, Trelynshire itself isn‘t entirely boring, or empty of intrigue or mystery. Far from it, actually, though most of its secrets are kept rather hush-hush. Again, I will get into that, probably in a future entry.

Back to myself, however, I’ve got a solid 21 years of life to recount. At this point, they’re not something I’ve sat down to think about very much. There are...some things that aren’t very favorable to reminisce. Some things I’ve only spoken to a few people in confidence about; one of them being Lieutenant B’jorn, mentioned above. The man doesn’t like to pry too much, but he has genuinely tried to help me out, even with advice on personal matters. That might be another reason he recommended I start journaling: for the supposed therapeutic aspect of it. I mean, maybe he’s right, perhaps it would be good to finally sit down and take stock of my 21 years on this Earth, but...I’m not certain how easy that’s going to be.

I think maybe I should let this hangover let up first. Let me just sleep on it for a bit.

...

The time: Early evening, same day.

Right, I feel better now. That concoction’s worked wonders, and I’ve napped the hangover off otherwise. The rain and grey skies outside helped me sleep. Just a little worn-out still. Thank the gods that I was allowed a few days off to recuperate before taking my new station.

Anyroad, where was I? Right. The story of my life. Hmm...

Let me preface by saying that, I’m not taking stock of any of this for reader’s sympathy, not to say ‘poor poor me’ or anything like that. I don’t like to stay too hung up on the past. Growing up here in Trelynshire, my mentor would often tell me that the past need not define me or anyone, yet reflection is important all the same. That it’s to be learned from, or something. Honestly, I don’t know about that. The past is what it is, and can’t be changed. In my case, I prefer to just not hinge on it. Or think about it much at all, really. It’s not like I’m going to get closure or anything like that, and besides, there’s the here and now, and the future to think about. This town has been kind and patient with me, and gave me as good of a fresh start as I could have ever asked for. What good can really come from hinging on things that can’t be changed?

Damn it, I’m delaying. I told Lieutenant B’jorn that I would try to write, if at least to keep my head clear and focused in my upcoming post as a sergeant. He needs me focused, like everyone else. C’mon, Ivan, buckle down and get it done. It’s not like anyone else is going to read this anyway.

Right, then. I guess the very beginning of things would normally be the best place to start. Yet...I think it might be necessary here to jump around a bit. At least to better contextualize past events in conjunction with where I am in the present.

It would be most prudent then to start with the fact that Trelynshire is not my native home. No, I’m actually not from anywhere quite near here. I’m from a much more largely governed area, and Trelynshire is for all intents and purposes an independent town, as far as I can tell. As much as Trelynshire is (by a long shot) more home to me than my original home was, I feel the need to tell about my origins here.

To put matters simply, I am more or less a refugee. My home city is, as far as I know, currently in a severely war-torn state. I only saw a few days of a glimpse at this conflict before I, and many other children at the time, were rescued and extracted from the children’s boarding school we had been living in. Or rather, I should say, where we were frankly being kept and groomed. You see, according to what little I’ve learned, my home city-state has fallen into a state of fascism and borderline dictatorship over the last few generations. Growing up, I couldn’t really grasp what was going on around me there, especially being one of the ostracized lower-class kids, but in hindsight, the place is and has been a right mess.

For a more broad geographical and political context: Trelynshire is located deep within forested wilds, further inland on the continent, which all major maps call Eliostar. If one travels from Trelynshire far to the northwest, they will encounter a major desert region. This region extends into a major peninsular landmass, which is the geographical home to a major empire composed of a number of distinct city-states. Well, ex-empire, I should say. Over time, the political configuration become more democratic as the various city-states began to elect representatives to rule alongside the empress, and keep her power in check. If I recall correctly, this area is now officially called The Imperial Republic of Akkacia, formerly the Akkacian Empire.

My home city, Ireithett, is actually the capitol of one the Republic’s major city-states, Vortix, which lies near the mountainous threshold between the Republic and the desert separating the peninsula from the rest of the continent. As far as the past of this city-state goes, what I do know is that it has always been notable as one of the more militarily powerful of the states, second only to Sythemar further west. In the recent decades, however, Vortix has been the cause of tension through the Republic, and by the time I was around eleven years old, any political stability it maintained with the rest of the Republic had broken down. Whatever sparked it, an armed conflict broke out between Vortix and the rest of the Republic, who in time had fought their way across Vortix’s farmlands into Ireithett itself, intent to storm the capitol, take control, and force the leaders into some kind of agreement. I don’t know what the source of the conflict was, or even if it’s close to have been resolved yet, but that’s not currently high on my list of interests to know. As far as my life there goes, however...

Ireithett was always called the ‘crown jewel’ of Vortix, being the one major city to populate the otherwise overwhelmingly farmland structure of the nation-state. But if you were asking me if that was true, having grown up on the inside of the capitol, I could tell you that is actually far from the case. Most of the city is, frankly, overwhelmingly slums. There was always a more poor district in the outer areas, but in the past, it was much smaller. Where there was apparently an existing middle class region, there isn’t really anything left of that. I snuck in once, in fact, only to find that all of the housing was abandoned, decaying, and/or used for some governing or policing purpose by those in their unreachable ivory towers, which were separated from us common folk by tall, iron-wrought walls. In short, where I lived, and everywhere I could even go, were all slums. Even more bizarrely than this, we weren’t even allowed to leave the city itself, so I never saw much of the green fields and farmlands outside the city. A decaying capitol was all I knew, and as you might guess, it was rife with danger. Crime, homelessness, gangs, violence and substance abuse were common, and there were even rumors of trafficking. Of weapons, drugs, and...I loathe to think about it, but of people. As hard as it was being a growing kid in the slums, I shudder to think about how some less fortunate than I ended up.

In short, well, it was a shithole. I really can’t describe it any other way.

Ironically, though, the only thing scarier than thugs or traffickers was the city guard. A lot of brutalizing bastards acting at the behest of the elite, or whoever might be able to pay them more or do them the right favors. They knew little mercy and had just as little patience. Claimed to be acting in our best interests to try and get us to cooperate, but they were all the bloody definition of dirty law enforcement. And I was one of the kids unfortunate enough to be born in this city’s walls, under their monitoring.

Yet I was fortunate enough to eventually be rescued, just as all hell was breaking loose upon the city from the invading united armies that made their ways to the city gates. Obviously, it’s nearly impossible for me to look back in positivity at those days. My family didn’t have much to its name, and avoiding trouble (and resisting the urge to get into trouble for a scrap of anything better) was a monumental task all its own. I had seen my hefty share of street fights, brutality, fear and strife before I was free from it all, and it’s a difficult thing to look back on.

Honestly, though, it’s not that I don’t ever look back. I try not to, but...unfortunately, I’m not certain I can say all ties with the place are completely cut. I did, of course, have family and friends there when I was extracted and eventually brought here to Trelynshire. I don’t know, but I like to think I still do have said friends and family. The thing is, I have no idea where they are, if they ever broke free from that place, or if they’re even alive. And this was ten years ago. I don’t know what happened to my mother after I was separated from her and put in that bloody stupid boarding school. I never learned what became of my father, who joined the city guard apparently in hopes of bringing us into a better life inside the upper-class walls. And my friends...not a day goes by when I don’t wonder about them, if they’re okay or not. This kind of distance from them...it’s a thing that I loathe about how things have turned out.

Don’t get me wrong. I could not be more fortunate than I am to have been taken care of these past ten years by the folk here in Trelynshire. Despite the difficulties I’m (often, but in jest) reminded I posed to them, I’ve always been cared for and looked after here. I have a place in the world here, and it seems I’m carving out a future of some kind. But do you know how tantalizing it is to be suddenly whisked away from your home, downtrodden and hellish as it was, never to know what became of everyone you knew?! It sticks with you. Indefinitely. You feel things like guilt, even regret, regret for not finding out on your own before it was too late. Regret for not bloody fighting for it, even if you know there was little you could do.

Forgive me. I need another moment to cool off. Emotion is getting the better of me here.

...

Apologies. I’m alright. Let me try and wrap this up for the time being.

To shed light on what I was just talking about, I have indeed tried, once or twice, to learn about the goings-on in Ireithett the past ten years. Unfortunately, even if someone makes it through the desert to the border, it’s hard to be granted passage into Akkacia as a whole right now. Apparently the conflict is still going on, and the Republic’s government isn’t exactly keen on letting very many details out. In light of all this, I frustratingly only have more questions instead of answers. Still, the captain of  the guard here assured me that she would keep whatever line of information possible between here and there, and update me on any developments. There is at least that, and she has my deepest appreciation. Not that I’m really holding my breath for anything to come to light any time soon, but all the same it means a lot. I’ve thanked her, and in meantime, I’ve just tried to carry on and focus on where I’m going, not where I’ve been.

With that though, I’m getting a little too tired, emotionally and physically, to carry on with all this right now. It’s getting dark outside, and the post-nap drowsiness from earlier is really starting to weigh on me. There is more to tell, certainly, but at the moment, I don’t feel very up to the task. I do, however, have a few days of off-time left before my first official shift as a lieutenant, so maybe after a good night’s rest I can go into more detail tomorrow. For better or worse, there’s a lot left to unpack here, but I’ll try again perhaps in the morning. Hmm...mayhaps I’ll set up to write in the local cafe. I could use something strong to reset with, and the service there is always top-knotch. For now, if Hypnos would be so willing to give me an uninterrupted sleep, I’ll be up and going strong again in the morrow. Until then.

                                                                                                          -Ivan

[lunchcase]

Happy (Belated) Mid Autumn 中秋節快樂, Official SNOWSKIN Mooncake Edition (Iced Lemon Tea Flavour) 冰皮月餠

(TLDR: 1) I’m late 2) time is broke 3) mooncake economy 4) chang’e 5) snowskin mooncake 6) actual review)

Sorry I’m late but my friend’s mom just psychoanalyzed my dreams earlier and revealed some surprisingly insightful personal insecurities which was unexpected because I was fully prepared for an exorcism instead. I’m very grateful she took the time and energy to do it though! And then straight afterwards the orange president of United States got COVID. 

One of my favourite holidays, hands down, love the mooncakes, love the dragons, the lanterns, the fireworks, sad this year is still both somehow still in July but also already been 3 years and the false illusion of linear time has finally broken. In honour of that, and what is left, we pray to the moon our family and friends are well, the roundness of the moon reflecting our eventual reunion (round in chinese sounds like reunion), and personally I also like to wish the moon well for the rest of the year. It got back to me, 3 hours later, in the form of a head of state getting a virus he didn’t believe in but witnessed many die from. The best writers couldn’t make this up. 

Even though there’s no festivities this year, our family still managed to get mooncakes to each other, per tradition, so that the yearly mooncake exchange ring is never broken. There is something deeply hilarious to me about how insane mooncakes can get. Like, everyone gives everyone else mooncakes, so you have entirely too many mooncakes, and you can’t possibly finish them all, and also some mooncakes are incredibly dense like half a mooncake is a full meal, so you don’t open them and pass it to another family like your own, like you bought it yourself, and then they pass something back to you that someone else got them which they got from someone else, and there is a very real possibility a mooncake might end up full circle with its original owner. The  Mooncake Economy. Cue the music from Directed By Robert B. Weide.

Anyway, mom and I went to “chase the moon” (追月) so we can admire it (赏月) because there is a lovely lady 嫦娥 (pronounced in cantonese as, um, sueng-oogh, I don’t know how to type cantonese sounds in english it’s difficult okay it’s not like pinyin (in mandarin it’s chang-e)) who lives there with a white bunny and a woods axe man and she’s there either as a punishment or reward (depending on who you ask), because she was either selfish or selfless or ignorant (regional variations??) when she ate the immortal pill her husband the masterful archer Hou Yi ( 后羿 ) was awarded after shooting down 9 of the 10 suns because they were making the world too hot. She floated up immediately after taking the pills. Pictured is my mom looking at the moon through my little baby national geographic telescope. It didn’t really show any moon details; it was just a big white ball of light. 

This second round of Mid Autumn post is where I comment on an actual mooncake! The snowskin mooncake, wildly popular and largely believed to originate from Hong Kong (some say it comes from Singapore), is everyone’s favourite. It’s much less dense than more traditional varieties, much sweeter, perfect for a dessert, and has a chewy mochi-esque skin (or maybe it is mochi, honestly I have no idea how they make it) surrounding an ice cream-slushie (depending on how long you freeze / defreeze it) texture inside, replacing lotus paste. And it comes in different flavours! This one I had is the Iced Lemon Tea flavour, apt for a drinks blog. 

Iced Lemon Tea Flavour Snow Skin Mooncake

From: yeemaaa + shifu

From the Maxim Cha Can Ting 茶餐廳 Collection, and Oh it’s so good. Oooohhhh it’s so gooooooood. Very clear lemon tea flavour, so the slight shadow of acidic sourness pairs very well with the sweet side. Just a hint of tang to spice things up. I’m actually getting a very clear aftertaste of hk iced lemon tea. It’s so good. Mom says it tastes like lemon cola, and unlike usual mooncakes. She says it’s okay. 

[arkt-nehrim-archive]

Thoughts on the actual land of Nehrim?

Soooo many thoughts!  Possibly too many to share in one post, but I’ll try to keep it contained(I make no promises).  I’m still gonna put a break in it so it doesn’t just throw a WALL onto people’s dashes. 

Before saying anything tho, I subscribe to Nehrim’s clock that 1,000 years really did pass between certain events, so I’ll be cataloging my thoughts according to that. 

So the land of Nehrim!  Possibly the single most diverse place on Vyn!  Trouncing even Qyra, since Qyra is still overseen teeeechnically by a theocratic element (Saldrin) for a vast majority of time and is mostly just arid/tropical desert. Sure Qyra is SUPER progressive as far as Vyn’s various territories go, and I dream of a game set on that continent-  AAAH okay, focusing. Here to talk about Nehrim, not Qyra. 

So at one point in time, we’ll say somewhere in the 7200s a.St. by the Light-born’s established clock, Nehrim was a loosely unified place under Erodan. Not in the sense that everybody -agrees- with one another, but y’know, nobody is -actively- at war.  We got the Middlerealm of course, which is the seat of Erodan’s power in which he may or may not have actually -lived- amongst his subjects (given Narathzul is described as being his right-hand dude and the Order of Paladins is stationed -on- Nehrim up north, I’m inclined to think this is true).  Then there’s the North, which wasn’t it’s -own- territory at this point but still definitely had its own diverse culture and possibly still some manner of monarchy specifically loyal -to- Erodan  (not too hard to believe given Erodan is actually a half-breed between “Light-born” and Norman anyway; King Wuran). Then we have Ostian, which only -recently- in lore has been the theocratic dictatorship we see in Nehrim (only existed for 40 years by then), otherwise being described as being a home of art and culture, much like Qyra. A place still recognizing Erodan’s rule, but likely having its own power structure beneath him- again, a lot like Qyra/Golden Queen/Saldrin.  Lastly there’s Treomar!  Which I am fascinated by because it’s a swath of territory -attached- to Nehrim, that is openly -not- loyal to Erodan or the Light-born. From those that live within during Nehrim’s gameplay, one can assume it was primarily, if not entirely a nation of Aeterna, possibly loyalists still to ancient figures like Asatoron and Aeterna from Irdor (which is it’s own whole fuckin’ thing, I’ll share thoughts on that later).  With its geographical location its not too hard to imagine they came from Myar Aranath and landed in what they’d found as Treomar, building this Dalaran-esque (any Warcraft peeps in here?) mage society and aaaaaaaaaah, they’re cool. 

There’s all of this going on and co-existing at least to some degree, with the only other place approaching being that diverse being Arktwend later. I honestly would have looooved to see this Nehrim, before all the craziness and war and murderdeath that results in the country -we- know and experience in the game itself, as back then I’m fairly sure the magic abolition hadn’t been a -thing- yet  (because Aeterna and magic weren’t such a threat to Barateon’s power), so Aeterna would’ve still had rights n’ such, though they were probably still looked down on because of heritage (soooo gonna get into THAT later mmmMMM).  Erodan all in all seemed pretty chill all things considered, which may be owed to his half-breed status, he’s closer to the people on a genetic level, so maybe that makes him inclined to treat people better I dunno.  We only get to see him for like two seconds and -can’t- talk to him!  So!  -shrug-  

OH SHIT I forgot somebody really important!  -Anku-!  Technically speaking that is totally a fifth nation/state, as it encompasses a huuuuge swath of territory (underground) and is ruled by some fashion of monarchy, so -EVEN- more diverse cultures on this continent. The Starlings don’t answer to Erodan, but still exist peacefully within Nehrim within their own lil’ pocket nation and MAN I was sad most of our time spent with the Starlings is in the parts of their territory they don’t actually spend time in. I get it, when we got to see Anku is a time when there’s very few Starlings actually -left-, but still. They’re such a neat race, especially when you consider Nehrim’s lore for them over Enderal’s (which downgrades them significantly from the literal galactic superpower they’re said to be in Nehrim). 

And all of this!  All of this and still the Nehrim -we- see and adventure in is -so -different. Erodan is dead, has been for -centuries-.  Now there’s this grubby, tyrant human in the throne named Barateon, who’s loyalty literally goes only as deep as whatever preserves his life the longest. Credit where it’s due, he’s still a powerful arcanist, extending his years beyond what mortals should be capable of (which is exactly what the myths say the Light-born did so hhHHMMM more on that in another post).  Treomar is destroyed, and much of its history is gone with it outside of specific documentation the Light-born for some reason keep around and guarded instead of getting rid of it- like they -want- people to rise up against them or something. Ostian is a friggen magical radioactive wasteland where the fabric of reality is so damaged now even the skies rage with toxic super storms- and as if that weren’t enough the part of its that’s still inhabitable is now kept under the bootheel of another powerful mortal mage whose roftstomped everybody into a new highly oppressive, morally appalling religion that saw Enderal’s Prophet created from its awful maw.  Like, Nehrim has become, in its centuries outside of -direct- supervision become this tragic shadow of what it once was, and when you actually dig into the lore of how it all ran before, it’s just like auuuughh -man-. It’s so sad. ;_;  It’s tragic that somebody as negligent and awful as Tyr, is proven right, because of how life has degraded in the absence of direct intervention. And I’m not making a case for Light-born tyranny here!  I’m just saying Nehrim 1,000 years ago was pretty cool and I would’ve loved to see it  (I’ll just have to write stories from that era heheheh >>;).  

So yeah uuuh...  OH!  I didn’t even mention the sheer amount of Aeterna ruins all around Nehrim!  Suggesting Asatoron’s empire probably had a decent chunk of it built there when it was still part of the super-continent of Pangora! I would’ve loved to be able to actually -speak- to the clans of Aeterna that took refuge and used these ruins; I want to know so badly -who- Etronar is, I want to know more of the various Aeterna peoples that splintered off and had to find safe corners in Nehrim to exist after Narathzul’s rebellion and subsequent defeat/capture, that is centuries worth of time, a significant swath of history and there’s so much to play with there that y’know, stuff like cutting the timeline apart and whittling it down just makes all the unrealized potential sssoooo friggen unsatisfying, but anyway. 

Overall, I think Nehrim, as a region, is a fascinating place. So much has happened there, absolutely world-defining events that changed so many things; how Aeterna were viewed and treated, how use of magic is policed/outlawed, how the Light-born govern purely from a fear of -what if they rebel again-, I mean they ALL retreated to Inodan after Narathzul and Arkt unleashed their individual rebellions and ruled from a distance, bringing about this era of mystery where the peoples of the world just -forgot- what it was to -see- and -hear- their Gods, leading to no small amount of many just, -not- thinking they actually existed. I mean shit, look at how Jespar thinks, that man came out of an upbringing that tried its -hardest- to instill faith in the Light-born, but without them actually around to -prove- anything for -centuries-, what grounds did they really have to prove to the kid they were legit?  But there I go getting off topic -again-, because I love Vyn way too damn much. 

I love Nehrim. I think Nehrim is awesome, and fascinating, and I feel too many feelings.   xD  

Thanks for the ask @mirogeorgiev!

[daywillcomeagain]

@lesbiansforboromir​ this is YOUR FAULT for ENABLING MY NUMENOR OBSESSION. i constantly want an excuse to talk about numenorean politics and you have given me one.

however this post will probably be shorter and way simpler/less fact-checked than i would like it to be, on account of it’s 1am and i really should probably be sleeping. …….admittedly it will still probably going to be longer and more complicated than most of my dash would prefer. sorry.

so like–at first i see the two political/cultural groups as being “interventionist” and “isolationist”, without much real nuance as to what those things mean, and so you get a lot of good and bad policies within both groups. this comes about because (a) the people who live in the forest would like you to stop cutting down all their trees to make ships tyvm (b) the people who live on the coast or in towers in the cities and stare at the sea quite literally nonstop would like to actually go on the sea tyvm (sea-longing!). the interventionist policies are “we should defeat sauron and also do some colonialism”; the isolationist policies are “take care of our people first and stay in our lane (who cares about sauron as long as he’s not hurting /us/).” because these are also geographical differences, you get the beginnings of cultural distinctions start to develop: the main isolationist issue is preserving nature, so it’s pretty natural that they’re the ones who like hanging out with Elves and speaking Sindarin and worshipping the Valar; meanwhile, the expansionists are, well, expanding, into Middle-Earth, and so they speak Taliska or Adûnaic (which is what Taliska–itself a Khudzul/Avarin creole–ends up becoming on Numenor, before it eventually develops into Westron, the common-tongue of the Third Age) for trade purposes, though they almost certainly spoke Sindarin as well; which was their first/primary language is deeply unclear and probably varied from region to region. Of course, at this point the cultural groups are loose correlations at best; I’m willing to defend the isolationist/expansionist political divide, but my opinion on the cultural groups is entirely speculation, based on Aldarion and Erendis (and how it fits neatly into what happens after).

then, in year 1500 S.A. or so, we get Tar-Minastir (expansionist) who is followed by three more expansionists; in fact, at this point, expansionism has pretty solidly ‘won’ over isolationism. (there’s probably some population pressure on numenor at this point as well, and expansionism allows for more resources, both through legitimate means such as trade and less legitimate means such as enslaving the natives.) however, the two cultural groups still exist, and also humans are incapable of living together for extended periods of time without political debate. so it becomes about something else, something that is more controversial and which can be decided by public opinion as much as it is by the desires of the King to set sail: opinion towards the elves.

See, Tar-Minastir’s expansionism was based on sea-longing, but in truth he longed for the West, not for the East: he would “spend great part of his days gazing westward” (longing to go to Valinor); he “loved the Eldar but envied them”. Tar-Atanamir “spoke openly against the ban of the Valar, and their hearts were turned against the Valar and the Eldar”. It makes sense, then, that under Tar-Ancalimon (2000-ish), the cultural groups split more fully, between the Faithful (who approve of the Valar and Eldar, think that death is a gift to be chosen, speak Sindarin, etc.) and the King’s Men (who speak Adûnaic, choose to live out their lives until death instead of laying down their lives, and disapprove or are neutral towards the Valar and Eldar). Generally, the King’s Men are jealous of the Elves, who are immortal and able to go to Valinor, whereas the Faithful accept the teachings that death is a gift and that Valinor is bad for mortals.

From here, some facts get murky; there are a couple ways to resolve them but honestly they’re not super important. The important thing is that there is a long stretch of royalty supporting the King’s Men, to the point of banning the speaking of Sindarin and enforcing Adûnaic, forced relocation of the Faithful, destruction of temples to the Valar, and other standard religious persecution things. (Also, colonialism is still happening! But, in Middle-Earth as on regular Earth, it was sometimes used by religious minorities to escape that kind of persecution in their homelands–c.f. the founding of America. This is why Pelargir was so major even prior to the fall of Numenor.)

Then Ar-Adûnakhor happens, Sauron arrives and manipulates the fuck out of him, and the King’s Men generally jump off the slippery slope and start sacrificing people to Morgoth. And killing the White Tree (but it’s okay because Isildur stole some seeds to become the White Tree of Gondor!). And finally, 3000ish years after the founding of Numenor, a King goes “you know what, fuck it, fuck all of you, fuck the Valar, I’m going to Valinor and you can’t stop me”. The Faithful respond to this by getting the fuck out to Middle-Earth, which is where you get the massive influx of refugees to Pelargir that eventually becomes Gondor! The King’s Men respond to this by being drowned under a bunch of water, because Tolkien loved his Atlantis mythos.

anyway, like. numenor having radically different opinions is–it’s true but it’s an understatement to me. by the end of the second age, numenor had two entirely different groups of people speaking different and mutually unintelligible languages and living in different places and believing in different religions and sometimes oppressing each other: anywhere else in the world, we’d call that two different ethnic groups! but of course, since they’re all descendants of the men chosen to live on this island as reward for fighting with the good guys in the war of wrath, they don’t really have the option of… having any space, whatsoever, especially given population growth from 3,000 years. and, given that the King’s Men were (a) likely more numerous, at least among royalty (b) led to the Fall in the first place, it’s really fascinating to me that they don’t appear to take up ~any space in the minds of Men in the Third Age.

[capitalism-must-die]

Third World Feminismssssss

ah, my favorite kind of feminism because it is *my* feminism! A feminism that counters white feminism or western feminism. A femnism that is non- & anti- & de-colonial and non- & anti-imperial. A feminism that speaks to me, my culture, my knowledge, my struggles (even as I am positioned in the US). Third World Feminism is by and for third world women. What do we mean by “Third World”? it is a political concept that was originally created to marginalize, belittle, and further subjugate nations that are under it’s definition, but has been reclaimed by these countries as a sense of unity, pride, and identity against hegemonic and dominant Western power, violence, oppression, narrative and rhetoric.  It is a political concept that roughly corresponds to the geographic location of the “Global South” (which is also a political concept) which refers to “underdeveloped,” “developing,” and/or poor nations. These nations that comprise the Third World (and honestly the word “nations” doesn’t quite fit either—there are many regions and peoples that are unrecognized by state powers that fit the politically-defined definition) were often previously victims of European/Western colonization and/or imperialism. These countries are painted as poor and are associated with poor quality of life, human rights violations, etcetera, by the western media. they are painted as needing saving by richer countries, by “developed” countries, by whiter countries. white feminism adopts this line of thought, framework, and ideology and takes the shallow depiction of the Third World that western media and rhetoric produces and perpetuates and assumes that the women in these countries are oppressed with all odds against them, need saving, unable to save themselves, are docile and unable to resist, do not resist/struggle/fight back, and are poor victims. Third World feminism puts forth that third world women in fact don’t need saving, are able, can, and do struggle, resist, and fight back, have nuanced and deep political analyses, are not poor victims, are able to and do put out international calls for support, etc. Third World feminism centers the lives, experiences, and needs of third world women themselves, completely eliminating the opinion of non-third world women in matters that are frankly, not hers to begin with (although i guess men can be white feminists too, so ignore my gendered language).

third world feminism (along with indigenous feminism), in my opinion, is one of the first manifestations or forms of transnational feminism as described and articulated by both Chandra Mohanty in Revisiting Under Western Eyes  and Ranjoo S. Herr in Transnational, Third World, and Global Feminisms. Herr’s article set out to differentiate third world feminism from transnational feminism but i still don’t have a clear understanding of the difference and I sometimes think critical theorists critique for the sake of it instead of contributing meaningfully to social change. maybe thats misinformed and misplaced…

“‘Under Western Eyes’ sought to… draw attention to what was left out of feminist theorizing, namely, the material complexity, reality, and agency of Third World women’s bodies and lives.” (Mohanty, p510)

A defining feature of Third World feminism is its understanding that issues surrounding gender in these nations cannot be divorced from these nations’ history and subjugation to Western dominance like colonialism and imperialism.

an example?

me! so, i wish this was joke, really wish this wasn’t true or real, but my landlord (a self-proclaimed leftist who may or may not teach in UK’s history department) really likes to talk. like a lot. so whenever i drop off rent, he always forces really long one-way conversations on me. in our most recent “conversation” (can it really be called a conversation if just one person talks the entire time?) scratch that—in our most recent unidirectional monologue directed at me, i was told that (ohhhhhhhhand this guy is white like distantly european jewish immigrant type white) i was told that muslim women in my part of the world are oppressed and that my countrys secularist founding father was a liberator to “oppressed” muslim women. pause, hold up, WHAT?!?? and when i tried to explain how that’s problematic as fuck, i just kept on getting told by this white dude that no, i’m wrong (as a muslim[ish] turkish womxn), that, in fact, a leader who literally tried to erase the existence of my ethnicity/culture/language, was a great leader who did wonders for the modern world and for the feminist movement. and that, my friends, is pretty much the textbook definition of what white feminism is, and why third world feminism as a counter-reaction is oh-so-necessary for a more holistic and truer understanding of the world and the powers at play and how to actually fight injustice and have quality, peace, justice, peace and dignity and prevent further colonialism, imperialism, oppression, and violence within movements (like feminism).

why is it important?

because, for example, if our only understanding of “international” feminism in the US was that muslim women are oppressed and therefore need (outside) (support of) saving, my part of the world would probably be experiencing way more instability and violence then it already does.

[jcylenz]

....ALL OF THE “IM NOT FROM THE US” QUESTIONS (or alternatively 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5 but i’ll come back for more mwhahshs)

1. favourite place in your country?

Balaton without a doubt. It’s the biggest lake of the country and it has such an amazing atmosphere and feel to it, I really love spending my time there. I usually go at least once, if not more times a year and definitely spend some vacation time there, plus my grandma is from a city next to the lake, so really just many ties there.

2. do you prefer spending your holidays in your country or travel abroad?

I love both? I love going abroad and exploring different cultures and seeing the world (I say that as if I’ve been to so many places when I really wasn’t), but there are also so many beautiful places in Hungary so ya know, both. Gimme both.

3. does your country have access to sea?

Nope, but it used to. We were just chopped up and lost 2/3 of our country after the two world wars.

4. favourite dish specific for your country?

Uhhh, SO MANY. Honestly I love Hungarian cousine so fucking much. Gotta love lecsó and pörkölt and Hortobagyer meat pancakes and Gulash and all the Hungarian food, please don’t make me choose.

5. favourite song in your native language?

Tábortűz by Emberek, and you’re just in luck cause there is a youtube video in which you can read the English translation.

6. most hated song in your native language?

I can’t think of any right now most because I just make myself forget about all the stupid songs my country creates.

7. three words from your native language that you like the most?

Szeretlek, which means I love you. Cipőfűzővégcédőpöcök, which is that protecting thingy at the end of shoelaces. And megszentségteleníthetetlrnségeskedéseitekért, which is this.

8. do you get confused with other nationalities? if so, which ones and by whom?

I don’t think as a nation we get confused with others, we have a pretty unique culture and people, but I do know that a lot of people confuse Budapest and Bucharest, if that counts here.

9. which of your neighbouring countries would you like to visit most/know best?

10. most enjoyable swear word in your native language?

“Menj a picsába!“ Which is mostly the same as “Go to hell!” but in the Hungarian version, if you wanna translate it word for word, it reads “Go to the pussy!“ which makes no sense whatsoever in English but it does make sense in Hungarian s2g.

11. favourite native writer/poet?

Géza Gárdonyi, who wrote, among others things, wrote the book called Eclipse of the Crescent Moon. It’s my favorite Hungarian book without a doubt, favorite classic as well most likely. It tells the story of a siege of a Hungarian castle in Eger in 1552. The siege was a really big thing in Hungarian history and the book tells the story of some of its most famous figures, how they grew up, how they actually got to the castle and how the siege went down, and now I really just wanna reread the entire thing all over again.

12. what do you think about English translations of your favourite native prose/poem?

Never really read any of them, so I don’t have opinions.

13. does your country (or family) have any specific superstitions or traditions that might seem strange to outsiders?

Hmmmm. Probably the strangest is that for us, Santa Clause comes on December 6th and then Jesus Christ brings the Christmas presents on Christmas Eve, not Christmas Day.

We also have a tradition on Eastern Monday where the guys go around the houses to “sprinkle” the girls so they wouldn’t “wither like flowers”, which means you either get buckets of water poured all over you or you they pour a bunch of badly smelling parfumes (like REEEEEALLY BAD ONES) onto your hair and it’s such bullshit and I hate that day with a pure passion.

14. do you enjoy your country’s cinema and/or TV?

Lately I’ve been enjoying it more and more. There was a good 15-20 years period when literally nothing was done that was good or even acceptable but now more and more good movies are made and now we have some good tv shows too which is nice. I still mostly watch foreign stuff though.

15. a saying, joke, or hermetic meme that only people from your country will get?

Uhh, can I pass this? I really can’t think of anything.

16. which stereotype about your country you hate the most and which one you somewhat agree with?

I actually had to look up what kind of stereotypes there are about Hungary, but I really didn’t like the one that kept popping up about Hungarian girls being easy. Fuck that shit, that is really really stupid. The one that I agree with is about our food - that we use a lot of fat and paprika in our food. 100% true. Most of our traditional dishes include both of them and a lot of it but not in a bad way? Like ok I get that probably most people would find them too much, but I do believe if they give it a try, they will realize that it’s actually really good and tasty and you can’t actually taste the fat or anything, it just makes it better. People also say because of our dish types that we eat like kings and I am happy to accept thatxD (it’s most said cause we eat a lot of meat, we have fish soup, different meat soups, we eat stuff like stuffed cabage, stuff that used to be at big feasts)

17. are you interested in your country’s history?

YESSS. I love our history, I think it’s incredibly interesting, incredibly rich and full of amazing stuff. Hungary is over 1000 years old, so many things happened during that time - we had our highs, we had our lows, but we always came out on top and survived in the end and I think that is amazing and something to be proud of.

18. do you speak with a dialect of your native language?

I mean, I am not sure? I don’t think so, but I might be wrong. I mean, there are stuff people say differently on other sides of the country, but it’s not that much distinct. It’s more noticable when it comes to those Hungarians who unfortunately don’t live in Hungary anymore (those who live in the neighbor countries because after the ww 2/3 of our country was taken from us)

19. do you like your country’s flag and/or emblem? what about the national anthem?

I love our flag, though then again it might just be that that is what I know. But it’s nice. I am not too happy about the anthem, it’s too depressing to me.

20. which sport is The Sport in your country?

Football (and by football I mean soccer football) which is a shame cause we suck at it. Like, we won 3 olympic gold medals in a row in waterpolo, but ya know, fuck logic. And I could list so many other sports our country is really good at, but people go nuts about football, so what can you do. (And I am not saying I don’t like the sport, I always watch the world cup, but it’s sad to see the country putting so much money into something we are shit in, putting the players up on a pedestal and forgetting about those who actually get really nice and amazing results.)

21. if you could send two things from your country into space, what would they be?

Uhhhhhhhhh. Paprika and a picture of the Balaton.

22. what makes you proud about your country? what makes you ashamed?

I am generally really proud of our history, that despite whatever shit we were put through, we are still standing, after 1100+ years of being here. And I am ashamed of the general homophobia and fatphobia and racism and the way most people handle this topic aside from the youth. We are really behind on this. Also the fact that we actually have a movie that is called “Coming Out” and it’s about the most stereotypical gay man you’ve ever seen getting hit by a motorbike and suddenly turning straight and him coming out as straight cause legit that is the dumbest and most horrible thing I’ve seen on tv and I want to set everyone who worked on it on flames.

23. which alcoholic beverage is the favoured one in your country?

Beer and wine is pretty popular, plus pálinka, which a Hungarian specific really high % level alcoholic beverage (like 45%-60% even) that we drink in shots.

24. what other nation is joked about most often in your country?

Uhhh, probably Chineese people? It’s really bad, really just the usual racist stereotypical stuff and I hate it.

25. would you like to come from another place, be born in another country?

I think every country has its problems and I am glad I was born here because of the places and the language itself - it’s so fucking beautiful and amazing and lyrical. Would I wanna live here for the rest of my life, though? Nope, definitely not.

26. does your nationality get portrayed in Hollywood/American media? what do you think about the portrayal?

Not really. I specifically remember a Gilmore Girl episode where Michel spoke some stupid Hungarian shit, but other than that… most of the time they call our food shit and make fun of us. Which is really not cool and I hate that so much. (B99 did an episode once where Charles was praising a Hungarian restaurant with a sausage platter and I was SO EXCITED but then Jake called it shit and I knew immediately that most people will believe Jake cause they played on Charles’ weird taste and that everyone will think it’s just one of Charles’ ticks again and it made me so sad srsly. STOP TELLING PEOPLE OUR FOOD IS SHIT, IT’S NOT TRUE)

27. favourite national celebrity?

pass

28. does your country have a lot of lakes, mountains, rivers? do you have favourites?

We have a couple of lakes, two pretty big river and like REALLY SMALL mountains. Most of them I would more likely call them bigger hills instead of mountains tbh. But the biggest geographical thing is definitely the Balaton, which is a big ass lake that most people go to during the summer. It’s also the biggest lake of Eastern Europe which is nice. I love that place, that is definitely my favorite.

29. does your region/city have a beef with another place in your country?

Uhhh, the uni in my city has a beef with the uni I went to cause they used to be under the uni I went to and then they seperated from them and there is some weird who was right stuff going on but other than that not really.

30. do you have people of different nationalities in your family?

Nope.

[meterteller4-blog]

Those Who Care and Those Who Don’t: Children and Racism in the Trump Era

DECEMBER 14, 2018

This piece appears in the latest issue of the LARB Print Quarterly Journal: No. 20  Childhood

To receive the LARB Quarterly Journal, become a member  or purchase a copy at your local bookstore.

¤

“Trump does some bad things,” 10-year-old Kenny tells me one afternoon. I’m sitting across from him at a coffee shop in a small town in Mississippi. Kenny is black and loves soccer. As he talks, he anxiously spins a pen cap on the table between us. “Trump talks about racist things … and he does racist things! He puts inappropriate things on Twitter. Like, people won’t admit it but saying, ‘I’m going to build a wall from Mexico,’ and saying bad things about Mexicans is racist and [people] won’t admit it!” Kenny pauses, looks down to the ground, and shakes his head with disbelief. “To me, that’s something.”

Kenny is just one of the millions of children growing up in the United States under the Trump administration. And he, like many of these children, is experiencing a shocking moment in American history. These are young people who have otherwise been taught that America is making progress when it comes to issues like racism and sexism. Their childhoods unfolded during the “post-racial” era of President Obama; their television programs celebrate multiculturalism and diversity; their T-shirts have girl-empowerment slogans; their schools conduct anti-bullying and inclusion campaigns. For the youngest generations in the United States, racial progress was the common narrative across the political spectrum. This changed during the 2016 presidential election, which marked a drastic turning point in this narrative. Things were suddenly different, and the election of Donald Trump deeply complicated how many children in America understand their country.

As many people have pointed out, Trump began his political career by propagating a racist conspiracy against President Obama. Sociologist Matthew W. Hughey argued that the effect of “Birther” movement was in fact twofold: it stoked white fear of a black man in power and encouraged fantasies of a white ethno-state as a remedy for those fears. Trump perhaps noticed its effectiveness. He went on to use explicitly racist rhetoric and antisemitic dog whistles in his presidential campaign ads. Even after taking office, Trump has continued to stoke racial division and white fear. He has used racist, derogatory language to refer to Mexicans, Muslims, and entire nations in Africa and the Caribbean. He has insulted a long list of black celebrities, politicians, and athletes. And his rhetoric is also backed up by action. Within its first year, the Trump administration advanced a ban on Muslim people and refugees entering the country; it has more recently enforced family separation at the border, taking children from their parents and putting them in cages; Trump has pardoned former Arizona sheriff Joe Arpaio, a man with a long history of racial discrimination. Trump also famously refused to denounce white supremacists after their racist and antisemitic rallying and violence in Charlottesville. His racist rhetoric has only escalated in the run up to the midterm elections.

In October 2017, political scientist Cathy J. Cohen and her colleagues at the University of Chicago reported findings from their GenForward Survey of Millennial Attitudes on Race in the U.S. They found that across all racial groups, Americans between the ages of 18 and 34 believe that racism is one of the three most important problems in the United States today and that this problem is getting worse (Cohen, Fowler, Medenica, & Rogowski, 2017). However, nearly half of the white young adults in this research believed that “discrimination against whites has become as big a problem as discrimination against Blacks and other minorities.” Across all racial groups, very few young people thought racial relations were improving in the United States, and when asked if they believed Trump is a racist, 82 percent of African-American respondents, 78 percent of Latinx respondents, and 74 percent of Asian-American respondents said they did. White respondents were split almost exactly down the middle: 51 percent believed he is racist while 48 percent disagreed.

My conversation with Kenny was part of my ongoing research with youth and racism in the United States. My work as a sociologist focuses on racial socialization — I study how children learn about race and racism in the context of their families, communities, and everyday lives. Part of my work involves speaking with children directly about their experiences and perspectives of the social world. I knew from my previous research that for many white children who grew up in the Obama era, they believed that racism was “no longer a problem in America.” In many ways, it made sense for these children to feel this way. Although the United States has a long history of racism and white supremacy, in more recent years, social scientists have found that racism at the individual level has not disappeared but, rather, is expressed in more subtle and implicit ways. The circumstances, however, have clearly changed, and these same children are now confronted with explicit and overt forms of racism in the public sphere. I wanted to know what young people, particularly children in middle school, are thinking about racism in the new Trump era. What are their views on this matter? How are they feeling? What do they have to say?

Over the past year, a team of graduate students and I interviewed children between the ages of 10 and 13 in two distinct geographic locations: Mississippi and Massachusetts. We asked them a range of questions about current events, their schools and families, and their reaction to Trump’s words and actions as president. After interviewing more than 50 children, we found that children of color in both states expressed a great deal of anxiety, stress, fear, and anger about the present moment. The white children’s responses, however, surprised me. For many, their acknowledgment of Trump’s explicitly racist words and actions seemed to mark a rearrangement of empathy, and a rearrangement of how they thought about racism — and, perhaps more importantly, how much they cared.

¤

One day after school in Mississippi, I talk with 10-year-old Crystal, who describes herself as “African American and mixed.” Crystal tells me what she remembers from the night of the 2016 presidential election. “We were very scared the night before…When I was sleeping, I did have a bad dream so I think I could kind of tell that it wasn’t going to end up as I expected.”

“What happened the next day at school?” I ask. She brings up race right away.

“Some black boys and girls were saying that that, like, they really didn’t want Trump to win or that he had won and [that they] didn’t really like him. And then some people who did vote for Trump were like, ‘I’m so happy!’ and they told their friends who also voted for Trump. … It was like allll day.”

I ask her if the kids who supported Trump were black.

Crystal replies immediately: “No. They were all white.” For Crystal, the connection between whiteness and support for Trump is clear.

At the coffee shop, Kenny has similar ideas: “When Barack Obama was the president, I wasn’t thinking about politics,” Kenny explains. “I didn’t really talk about Barack Obama because there’s nothing to talk about! He didn’t do anything bad. He didn’t start anything. So I mean, when he was president, I didn’t get into politics because I didn’t have to. Because he was a good president.”

Later in our interview, I ask Kenny, “What do you think is a big problem in America?”

“Racism is one of the main things that this country has always had problems with. And I’m scared Trump will make that worse,” he adds.

In Massachusetts, children of color express similar fears and anxieties about this moment of reemerging racial animosity. Mariana is 10 years old and identifies as “Mexican-American and white.” She and I sit together talking in a small classroom at her afterschool program.

“Do you think Trump is doing a good job or a bad job leading our country” I ask Mariana.

“I don’t like Donald Trump!” she shouts as she slaps her hand on the desk. “He is terrible! I want Obama to come back. Obama is a better president. In my head, I’m like, Trump is going to get us all bombed. Like, after he won the election, at school, everyonewas like screaming, ‘Ahhhh!’ People were running around and then someone started crying and said, ‘I want Obama to come back!’” Mariana goes on to tell me how “Trump is racist” and a “bad president.”

I also talk with 11-year-old Dominick who identifies as “black and Cape Verdean.” “I have heard him say something bad about black people,” Dominick tells me. “Donald Trump shouldn’t build the wall. … It’s just weird and just like, you’re making fun of a certain region because they like look different? Really?”

I ask him how he feels when the president says bad things about black people.

“I feel like if the president says something racist, I think that they shouldn’t be the president,” he replies.

I hear this opinion echoed in Massachusetts, over and over again. Suzannah tells me that she thinks Trump is “very racist” and that “we need someone [who is] both of our colors so they can be more fair ’cause he only likes really the whiter people.”

Devion, an 11-year-old black boy, responds so quickly I can barely finish asking the question. “He’s said stuff about Mexico, and he’s basically just racial-profiling people! … And people have been joining him! I’ve heard some things on the news and what he says isn’t right!”

I ask him how he felt the day after the election.

“I felt just sad for America. … I was very surprised.” He goes on to tell me about white kids chanting, “Build a wall,” and harassing Latinx kids at his school.

“I honestly think that it’s crazy that kids would say that. I’ve had, um, a kid in my class that I was just fully ashamed by that kid ’cause he was saying some racist stuff [after Trump won] and that was the kid that has [previously] said racist stuff to me.” Devion tells me that he absolutely thinks the election of Trump has emboldened the already-racist bullies at his school.

These conversations reveal that these particular children of color are deeply affected by the state of the country and the larger events and conversations happening around them. My findings are reinforced by a recent survey conducted with teachers by the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC). This survey, held in the immediate aftermath of the 2016 presidential election, described what the Center referred to as the “Trump Effect. “The report found that more than two-thirds of teachers noted increased anxiety on the behalf of students of color, immigrant students, Muslim students, and LGBTQ students. The report also found that 90 percent of teachers surveyed indicated that their school climate had been negatively affected by the political campaign and election of Donald Trump. This was also reflected in the news: during the past two years, headlines from across the nation have described instances of white youth engaging in forms of racial violence and other forms of harassment — chanting “Build the wall!” in the faces of Latinx kids at athletic competitions or in the school cafeteria, bringing Confederate flags into classrooms to taunt their black peers, sexually assaulting and “grabbing” girls, inflicting physical violence such as pulling hijabs off Muslim students, and so on (SPLC Hatewatch, 2016).

White children are also thinking and engaging in the current political moment, of course, though our conversations are notably different. With white children, I notice a profound divide between how much some children seem to care about Trump’s racist words and actions and how much some don’t.

Paige, 12 years old, was one of the children I talk to in Mississippi. I sit down with her in her living room on a Saturday morning. “We had an assignment after the presidential election,” Paige tells me. “We had to draw a picture of what we think the future is going to look like under our new government…The teacher actually made half the class redo it because she was unhappy with the results because she got a lot of walls and cities in flames or like evil-looking politicians.”

“What did you draw?” I ask. “I personally drew Trump behind a wall of fire,” she says, matter-of-factly. I ask her why she drew that particular image. “I just felt like we were making so much progress with Obama. Like on everything. Like women’s rights, gay rights, racism, like things like global warming. Then, like, now that we have the new president — it’s like a million steps backward.”

A bit later, I ask her if she thinks the election of Trump has had any immediate impact on kids.

She nods. “I think that him being elected has made some people think, ‘Oh, well, since our president has these beliefs, it’s okay.’…Like him being disrespectful to women, some people are like, ‘Oh [if ] the president did that in his past, it’s okay for me to do that,’ … and that’s not okay.”

Zena, another white 12-year-old girl growing up in Mississippi talks to me about some recent changes in how some of her friends are relating to their parents.

“Trump’s not the best person and I think we all know that,” she tells me. “I have friends with parents who are like, ‘We need to raise you like this, and you need to do this, and you need to be a big supporter of Jesus and Trump and racism, and [my friends] are like, you know, ‘I’m going to need you to take a few steps back.’…These kids are like, ‘I should do some of my own research before I jump headfirst into his big agenda.’”

Zena goes on to tell me about one friend who is outraged by Trump’s racism despite her parents’ full support of him. “She argues with her parents all the time,” Zena explains. “What about you?” I ask. “Do you think we still have racism in America?” “I think we are 100 percent not past racism,” she states definitively. “I think recently everyone has had this realization that we are not past this because there are people … who sit in the big chairs and say, ‘No. I don’t want that law [that would help racial minorities] passed,’ and I feel like it’s a problem because the people who have power … they like use it for the wrong reasons. I don’t think we are past [racism] because people in power like Trump aren’t allowing us to get past it. And that sucks.”

Trump’s election has made 12-year-old Charlie, who is also white, rethink aspects of President Obama’s time in office. “I knew President Obama was the first black president, but I didn’t understand the significance of it until Trump became president,” 12-year-old Charlie tells me one afternoon at a restaurant in Mississippi. Charlie attends a public school that is almost 70 percent black. Like many of the white kids I interviewed, Charlie tells me that lately he has been talking about racism with his parents, his friends, and his teachers “all the time.”

“Trump has definitely done something to make things worse,” he tells me.

I ask him what it was like at his school around the time of the election.

“I was surprised [when Trump won]. We did this vote at our school and it was 16 people who voted for Trump while the 360 other people voted for Clinton. But I heard that at this other school [nearby] … the vote was so Trump.”

“How is it that these two schools that are located pretty close to each other have such different results?” I ask him.

“Well, I think our school is more racially diverse than that school,” he responds. Based on his experience growing up in Mississippi — like Crystal — Charlie could also see a connection between support for Trump and whiteness.

A number of white children, in both Massachusetts and Mississippi, tell me they are shocked and outraged by what they perceived to be racism radiating from the highest seats of power. For these kids, Trump’s presidency not only challenges their understanding of the country but also sheds new light on previously held notions about race in America. In addition to their outrage, these children also exhibit racial empathy for people of color, immigrants, women, and other groups that they perceive to be under attack by the Trump administration. In fact, part of what they dislike so much about Trump is how badly he treats the vulnerable and how he seems to bully the marginalized.

Other white children I speak with have a different reaction. They don’t all consider Trump’s racism to be a problem. Children, in both Massachusetts and Mississippi, tell me that even though they recognize Trump’s racism, they ultimately don’t care.

Twelve-year-old Erin lives in Mississippi and attends a former segregationist academy that is still almost entirely white. Erin knows she is white, she explains, because “I was born in America and my skin is white.” I ask her how she felt after Trump won the election. “I was happy he won because I think he knows how to handle, like, people who threaten us and stuff.” She describes kids at her school making jokes about building a wall at recess, but she says she did not tell the teacher because she “did not think it was a big deal.” Like many of the kids, Erin also shares her views on the differences she has observed since President Obama was in office: “When Barack was president, like, there was a lot of tension going on ’cause he was, like, the first black president … the people didn’t think it was right that he should be president because he was black. Now we have a white president again.”

When Erin is asked if she recognizes the rise of racial tension in the United States right now, she acknowledges that Trump “has said racist things,” but she isn’t too bothered by it. “I honestly think it’s fine,” she says with a laugh. “I don’t really care.”

Erin’s attitude echoes what contemporary social scientists have found when studying the racial attitudes of white Americans. White people in the United States have found more subtle ways to express their prejudices toward people of color over time. These new forms of racism often help people maintain the external appearance of not being racist even as they continue to engage in practices and behaviors that reproduce racial inequality — a way of “saving face” so to speak. Drawing on findings from a large, national survey of racial attitudes spanning 40 years, sociologist Tyrone A. Forman finds evidence for an increasein what he defines as “racial apathy” in the United States. White racial apathy, he argues, “refers to lack of feeling or indifference toward societal racial and ethnic inequality and lack of engagement with race-related social issues.” In his research, Forman finds an increase in whites’ use of “I don’t know” or “I don’t care” when asked survey questions about racial integration.

When it comes to young people specifically, Forman and his colleague, sociologist Amanda E. Lewis, explore expressions of racial apathy in white high school students over time. They find that instead of new generations of white kids being less racist and more tolerant than generations before them, this population instead embraces more subtle forms of racism like being indifferent to racial inequality. Data from this important research suggests that racial apathy is actually on the rise.

In talking with some of the white children in my study, I find similar patterns. For instance, Blake, who is 10 years old and lives in Massachusetts, tries many different ways to avoid identifying his race. Eventually, though, he tells me he is white. After talking with him a bit about his hockey team and upcoming game, I ask him what he thought the day after Trump was elected.

“I didn’t care,” he tells me, shrugging.

When I ask him if he thinks Trump is racist, he responds, “I don’t know ’cause I’ve never heard him be racist. But he said um, that we’ll build a wall between Mexico. … Mexico is like part of our world so you shouldn’t try to keep them out.” Blake tells me that there is racism still in America, but that he doesn’t really know much about it. “I’ve never heard anybody say [anything racist],” he tells me. He explains he does not talk about race or racism with his family members. Generally, he says, he does not think much about racism — but he knows that it exists.

“Yeah.” He tells me. “But I don’t pay attention to that stuff.”

Betsy, who is 12 years old, white, and lives in Massachusetts, is more engaged with politics than Blake. She tells me that she loves knowing what is going on in the world. In fact, she gets up early to drink a cup of tea and watch the news before school every morning.

“I feel like I’ve heard stuff on the news about [Trump] being racist, but like, the [news anchors] exaggerate stuff. But I don’t really think he’s racist. I think when he does one thing wrong, people turn it against him.” She can discuss many of the issues that have come up while Trump has been in office, like the wall and the Muslim ban. “Overall, I’m not saying he’s the best president, and he’s definitely not the worst. But he’s not racist. There might have been one or two incidents when he was racist, but he’s not racist.” Betsy tells me that even though she wishes we could have elected a woman for president, from her perspective, Trump is “fine” and even though he is racist sometimes, she does not think that it is a major problem.

Back in Mississippi, 12-year-old Ellie, who is white, tells me about voting in a mock election at her private school, complete with mock voter ID cards that students had to show before casting their mock ballot. “Everyone wanted Trump to win and they were like, ‘If you want Hillary to win, then you’re terrible.’” Ellie was not surprised when Trump won the actual election. “I knew he was probably gonna win,” she tells me. “I didn’t really think anything about it [when he did.]” Ellie talks about how she liked one of the other Republican candidates better than Trump but that ultimately, she was happy Trump won.

When Ellie is asked about her thoughts on racism in the United States today, particularly in light of Trump’s election, she says she has heard people say he is racist, but she “do[esn’t] really know.” She also explains that her family does not talk about racism. “There’s not really any [racism] going on in Mississippi but there might be in like, other states, I just haven’t noticed anything. … I don’t really know. … It’s not something I care about.”

Kids offer different versions of this opinion. James, a 12-year-old boy who identifies as “Caucasian” and who goes to the same school as Ellie, “felt good” after Trump was elected because he supports many of Trump’s positions, even the more controversial stance on the wall between the United States and Mexico. James understands that Trump’s policies may upset people, but he ultimately cares more about other things. For example, he spends a lot of time discussing the conflict between the United States and Muslim countries. “I think it’s silly that [conflict] is still going on,” he says. “They’ve been fighting since 1999 and nobody’s won. Why [hasn’t the United States] dropped an atomic bomb on them? It would just end them, so they wouldn’t like, come at us again.”

In terms of racial politics at the national level, James recognizes that racism exists but does not think that it is serious enough to merit a solution or any political action. Regarding football players kneeling at NFL games, he says, “Some people are doing it because they don’t like the president. They don’t like racism. They don’t like the way some people are getting treated. … But if [they] want to live in America, why [are they] kneeling instead of like, loving our country that people fight for every day so we can be free? If they don’t like wanna stand for the Pledge of Allegiance or the National An

them, why are they living here?” James makes it clear that he understands these protests to be about real racism in America, but he ultimately concludes that racism is not a legitimate reason to protest.

Ava, who is 12 years old and white, also likes Trump but finds him “embarrassing” at times. Sometimes, he “acts like a kid,” she says explaining that her family and friends share the hope that he “straightens out soon.” Despite how embarrassing he is, Ava goes on to say that she was happy Trump won. But, she still thinks “he seems kinda mean.” When I ask her what she means, she says: “Well, I don’t really want him to build a wall even though it keeps some mean people out,” she explains. “There’s usually nice people who want, like, a better life too.”

When Ava is asked if she thinks that the president is racist, Ava replies, “Mmm, maybe, sorta, kinda because he built the wall and because like, he wants to keep some religions out. And I think if it’s just because of like, the religions, we could try to teach them like, about God and like that Jesus Christ came for our sins.” For Ava, racism is, again, not an important issue. Even if Trump’s wall and Muslim ban are “maybe sorta kinda” racist, the real issue with these policies is that they might prevent people from converting to Christianity.

Jason, who is 11 years old and identifies as white, views Trump in a similar “kinda racist” way as Ava. His reaction to Trump winning the election was, “I didn’t care.” When asked if he thinks Trump is racist, Jason replies, “Trump is kind-of racist, kind-of not. He kind-of is building a wall so other people won’t come in.” I ask him what he would say to Trump if he had the opportunity.

“I would make a joke like, ‘Hurry up and build that wall!’” Jason goes on to say that during recess, kids made other “jokes” about immigrants. To Jason, even if Trump’s wall is “kind-of racist,” he does not see a problem with making jokes about it, or replicating the racism in his own conversations or playful interactions with his peers.

The views of children like Ellie, James, Ava, Jason, and others are in direct opposition to those of children who are fearful of or outraged by the Trump administration. Even when this group of kids identifies racism in the words and actions of the president and his administration — even when they agree that Trump is doing something racist — they do not really seem to care. Although they are aware of racism, they would prefer to not think about it.

Indeed, racial apathy is not new, and I found signs of it among the many children I spoke with during the Obama era. But, in my previous work, kids who expressed this apathy embraced a “colorblind” racial logic — they believed that because a black man was president, American society didn’t have to worry about racism anymore. This is different from the apathy I observed in many of these white children today. Based on this new research, it seems that some kids are learning not to care about racism or racial inequality in any way, even when it is explicitly present. The narrative seems to be shifting: “I don’t see racism, so I don’t care” is becoming, “I see racism, and I still don’t care.”

¤

Social science research makes it abundantly clear that, across the board, children today are growing up in a country with increasing economic inequality and “deep differences of opportunity” (Kids Count, 2017). Race and wealth disparities between children are well documented in a wide variety of realms like education, health, the criminal justice system, the child welfare system, the labor market, housing, wealth holdings, and so on. American children are growing up in this context, among tremendous race and class inequality and deep powerful political divides. Based on my new research, however, it seems that there is another type of division separating today’s younger generations: how they respond to explicit forms of racism.

Why is this division important? As psychologist Derald Wing Sue puts it, rather than expressing a “conscious desire to hurt,” racial apathy conveys a “failure to help.” That failure is twofold: it is not just a failure of action, it’s a failure of empathy — it’s the failure to even care about the persistence and consequences of racism in the United States. This “failure to help” — this failure to concern oneself with the suffering and humanity of others — is a powerful tool, used to reproduce and perpetuate existing racial oppression. As Forman and Lewis ask:

If, in the face of entrenched, systemic, and institutionalized racial inequality, most whites say that they have no negative feelings toward racial minorities but feel no responsibility to do anything about enduring racial and ethnic inequalities and in fact object to any programmatic solutions to addressing those inequalities, is that progress, or is it rather a new form of prejudice in its passive support for an unequal racial status quo?

White peoples’ disinterest in racism — or the more active refusal of interest in human suffering — dramatically increases the stakes for racially marginalized people. Every child of color I interviewed not only articulated disgust and outrage with the president’s racist language and actions but also described feeling scared, angry, anxious, upset, and worried because of Trump’s presidency and specifically what his racist actions might mean for themselves or the people they love. They told me about their nightmares and about drawing violent images. They talked to me about feeling fearful and not being able to relax when out in public or around authority figures. As one 11-year-old told me, “When Trump got elected, I was actually kind of nervous. My dad isn’t a citizen. If [Trump] sends him back, he’s not going to be able to come back and I won’t be able to see him. … Like, like [one time recently] we were just driving and the police were behind us and I got scared because if he were to get pulled over, they would arrest him and they’ll send him back. I am scared.” She was on the verge of tears.

Empathy alone will not solve racism and racial injustice in America. But, in the Trump era, when children are confronted with the stark reality of the legacy and persistence of racism in the United States, it appears that they respond in different ways. For black, brown, and other marginalized children, this reality seems to be connected to feelings of stress, fear, anger, and anxiety. For some of the white children I spoke with, this reality seems to be connected to empathy, anger, and a sense of concern for their peers. But, for other white children, this reality simply does not matter, even though they know and can acknowledge that it exists. If children cannot develop empathetic perspectives, if they cannot learn to care about the suffering or humanity of their peers, what does that suggest for our future? Collectively, we must identify, acknowledge, and resist the power of racial apathy — and recognize the destruction it brings to our democratic society, to our political efforts, and to the children growing up in this world.

¤

Margaret A. Hagerman is an assistant professor of Sociology at Mississippi State University. She is the author of White Kids: Growing Up with Privilege in a Racially Divided America (NYU Press.)

Source: https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/care-dont-children-racism-trump-era/

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[thefoxesboxes]

A Gathering of Guys

Time to get back into the saddle on these reviews! This one has been a long time coming, something I honestly meant to review many months ago. But, between teaching English and travelling around the world, this writing fox has had a significant decrease in available brainpower. Did watching this movie for a second time help? Will it have passed the vulpine standards check? Look under the cut to find out as we discuss the “First R-Rated CGI Cartoon”, Sausage Party.

To begin, I will preface two things. First, I love animation. The creativity and freedom that can be made from almost any kind of animated movie has always been an easy way to make me happy. Look at movies like Zootopia, Spirited Away, and even Aladdin. These movies are each dramatically different in tone, style, and overall thematics. But they’re all some of my favorite movies. Even if I think CGI is overdone in the modern animation market, it still doesn’t detract from my love of watching something creative and fresh.

I also don’t mind movies that are using raunchy or vulgar humor. A movie like Deadpool can make me laugh pretty hard at the stupid jokes and over the top violence that it employs. A movie like this should use the language and themes to push the style of the movie. Is it a violent story with a murderous mercenary hell bent on revenge? Yeah, dark and violent, but add in the fun. These things can break up the movie into a more manageable tone than most people would like. Look at the difference in things like DC and Marvel, or new Ghostbusters and old Ghostbusters. That’s a coming review, by the way.

So the big point is that this movie is awful. It’s a raunchy and joke filled movie, but it’s never creative. It’s like someone took the movie FoodFight and pushed up the production quality and age rating. The movie is graphic, violent, and full of warnings for mature content and imagery. The whole movie tries very, very hard to make sure you know that this is mature and grown up.

Maturity, in this sense, means something that says the word ‘fuck’ approximately 1.85 times a minute, often in heavy bursts. Maturity is something that makes incredibly sophomoric and heavy handed assertions about the nature of religion and real life interactions between thousand year old cultures. Mature is when you have the movies plotline come to a screeching halt to constantly point out how edgy you are over and over again. Mature, in this sense, is being a 15 year old on Reddit screaming about how you took the red pill and don’t believe in things like religion, man.

There is nothing really mature here. At all.

“Just the tips” What the fuck is a tip? Your finger? Why does a hotdog have a glove but the lady doesn’t? Save it. It’ll keep.

But let’s talk detail. First, the movie has a song. It’s not a bad song, at least for how it’s written and sung. It’s really mostly just kind of tuneless and shifts a lot into ways that obviously want to invoke religious worship songs, but doesn’t do that very well. The song does a great job of setting the tone of this movie, which is “Religious people are dumb, ya here?”. It’s not really something I want to get into, but it slides nicely into the hotdog bun of hatred I have for this movie.

The writing.

As mentioned, the writing is self-congratulatory about the idea of being R-rated when it doesn’t know what that should mean. It decided to go out of its way to be a cartoon about hotdogs and sex before seemingly having any direction, as the world itself and characters are all over the place. Do they make any particular point using food that couldn’t be done with a different material? Nope. Do they make timely or classical references throughout the movie? Well, Meatloaf plays a singing Meatloaf. They make a “To Sir with Love” reference, which intrudes on one of my absolutely favorite films ever. Saving Private Ryan? Not exactly timeless.

But the writing reflects worst on characters and dialogue. While the voice acting is, mostly, fine it’s really just the characters are a bunch of assholes. Remember that scene in Star Wars where Han Solo doesn’t believe in the Force and Luke lectures him despite having learned about it that afternoon? That happens about atheism. Our beef tube hero who’s name I really don’t care to remember (it’s Frank) learns that the Gods are evil people who eat them! Oh no! So he immediately starts bashing everyone for believing in the Gods that he believed in until literally an hour ago. He makes no good points, he seems ridiculously hypocritical, and he’s just kind of a douche.

A running theme in this movie, the main villain is a literal douche. A douche who gets a tear and loses his douchey fluids, so he needs to replenish them to restore his superpowers. This begins with him forcefully and graphically violating a damaged juice container in a way obviously reminiscent of forceful oral sex. This scene was the first one that was simply disgusting, including him commenting that he’s “Juicin’ up” to reference steroids. A rape scene, classy as hell. This only continues as this literal douche walks about to murder the main heroes will constantly repeating the same joke over and over again. His plans involved him being able to teleport, his reason for revenge was almost understandable, but being a rapist murderer really made me not care about this villain.

Also. This joke. Five fucking times.

Other than the Frankfurter Hero and Douchey Villain, we have side characters. Jewish Bagel, Mexican Lesbian Taco, overly voluptuous hotdog bun, Muslim/Middle Eastern lavash, gay Twinkee, black grits, and Firewater. These stereotypes are the closest thing to characters that exist in this film and they mostly exist pretty much solely within those roles. They exist to either be stereotypes, be annoying, or try to poke mature points at the concept of geographically interconnected regions and classically dependent cultures having feuds with each other. But let’s talk about that in terms of the world.

These foods exist for, what, a week? They exist in the same aisles, for the same goals, and often have to interact with each other for their entire existence. Their existences, mind you, which are created for explicit purpose. Why do they have different viewpoints of the Gods, to the point where it is this disseminated? Is it to make a point about the rapid distribution of altering ideals among short lived humanity? I don’t know, it just seems to be extremely crass ways to point out that these things exist and are stupid. Again a running theme.

The last major theme I want to mention is consistency. A world needs to be made in a way that follows an internal logic. Yes, magic should be explained, a world should be detailed, and even comedy should follow some form and function. If there is no law dictated within the world, then there’s no reason for me to really pay attention to what you’re doing. It’s all just whitenoise for the pretense of having jokes.

This movie fails worldbuilding with a capital F and a giant minus. The food is alive, so are douches and some other inanimate objects! But things like shoes and ladles are not, why? Why isn’t the knife alive? When we open up a thing of off brand Mentos, each of those little mints is alive. Is this things ass full of living organisms that will proceed to exist in total isolation until released?  If I make a sandwich, is it a composite of painfully attached different creatures to each other? They did show that composite foods exist as a single entity, so does that mean that pushing cheese and wheat germ together creates a new living entity? The entire idea doesn’t make sense when you show that some things would require the painful things to exist. Pizza, sandwiches, all of it. How does it work? The movie doesn’t tell you.

This line here indicates that the peanut butter, married to jelly, is only alive as it is the container. But why isn’t the bag the hotdogs were in alive, or the box? There’s no sense to be had in this madness. Just extremely dry hotdogs.

Not that the external world is any better. Remember in Toy Story where the toys could move and had to very specifically hide that fact? Yeah, this movie says fuck it. Some of the foods move and we see people view it as a hot dog rolling around. But then the hot dog gets up, dodges, ducks, dips, dives, and dodges. They even stab a hot dog standing up in the middle of the air, or they can run across the street. Do people see them or not? It’s pointed out that they need to be literally high on bath salts to see the  food moving, but then can the food interact with the world when not on bath salts? How come the food never moves and people don’t notice it? Why do I even watch anything attached to Seth Rogan? Why did you ruin my night, Seth?

This isn’t even getting into the ending. The movie ended two separate times at the end, once when the orgy of murder happened, and once when the orgy that murdered the movie happened. There’s a full orgy, it takes actually 5 minutes to get through. Does it add to the plot? Nope. Does it push anything? Nah, it’s also the scaled down version from the honestly horrifying original script Seth Rogan spent years drafting up. Fuck him so much.

There’s also a murder orgy where the food kills everyone. Apparently we can’t beat hotdogs. Who knew? A guy gets turned into a testicle puppet by the douche, carries a giant revolver that apparently has 8 bullets in it. They make Terminator and Wizard of Oz references. A merry time was had by apparently a lot of people that aren’t me.

Also, the food smoke weed that is… Apparently not alive? Why is the marijuana not alive? Fuck it. Probably some stupid point.

The main point is this. The movie contains many flaws and

Fuck this movie. Fuck you Seth Rogan for your grinning assholery. Fuck the critics who think this movie is an insightful and raunchy godsend so they can openly enjoy cartoons. Fuck the idea that this movie grossed tons of money and will probably get some kinda sequel or spinoff. Fuck the media that believes that maturity is the juvenile banter of an idiot who cannot stop dragging his political diatribes into a different subject. And fuck this movie for killing any chance Kubo and the Two Strings had of being a financial success.

Summary? This movie is crass, brash, vulgar and tasteless. It’s also somehow not brave enough to say anything that has any real merit or in a way that’s unique. It’s a movie obsessed with its own egotistical idea of being the ‘first’ but has no idea of how to make that something worth seeing. This movie is just a waste of time. It’s a mix of immature and well past it’s expiration date.

[nativeskins]

Hey girl. I'm wondering what you think about white people buying clothes from locally owned native businesses. Let's say someone buys moccasins from that business or store or you know what I'm saying. Like, would that be considered appropriation? I feel like it's a hard yes but I just wanted to see how you would feel I guess if you saw a white person walking around with moccasins.

Honestly, I don’t have a problem with white people wearing Native-Made goods, (earrings, necklaces, shirts, leggings, purses, etc, go for it. There’s a lot of Native-Owned businesses to choose from). As long as it’s not something that’s sacred or ceremonial, or both; like something earned through Native Traditions/Teachings and ceremonies (ie Headdresses). But you won’t really find Native-Made headdresses for sale by Native people because actual enrolled Natives just wouldn’t sell them. But most Non-Native people, I think are realizing the cultural appropritive side of something like that, and why it’s wrong. But whether they care or not, is an entirely different story..

Moccasins, however… are just one of those things that when I see white people wearing them, I can’t help but roll my eyes. It’s one of those thin-line kind of topics. Some Natives will care, some wont. 

Some Natives will care because in some Native cultures they believe that their mocs are sacred because they go hand in hand with their traditions, their traditional ceremonies and gatherings, and their traditional attire. And we’re not wearing those traditional garbs to “look cool” or “look indian” or any certain way. We’re wearing them because that’s OUR culture. That’s what’s part of our traditions and our teachings. For many of us, in our Native cultures, each piece of clothing that we wear has a certain representation, or meaning behind it. That’s why we wear them. Because we’re representing something of value and we’re repenting our people in our specific culture.That’s why mocs can often times look different from tribe to tribe. Especially mocs that are still made the traditional way. They were made from what materials were specific to our tribal lands and geographic trade regions.

Other than trying to be some type of “Fashion Statement”, I wonder what meaning they would have to Non-Native people???

Although I’m sure Non-Natives will think of some kind of mumbo jumbo meaning, because let’s face it, you always do.

For me personally, the reason I’m usually rolling my eyes is because the mocs that Non-Natives are walking around in most of the time, are fake. They’re not Native made and they’re usually the same type of hippie dippie girls wearing the exact same like three pairs of wannabe mocs made by Minnetonka.  Minnetonka, EVERYONE,for the record, is NOT a Native owned or operated company. Let’s make that perfectly clear.

But if I see someone that’s Non-Native and is walking around wearing Manitobah mocs, I don’t really care. They’re an indigenous owned company. Go for it.

However, if I saw a white person wearing traditional Navajo style wrapped mocs, or traditional Apache-style mocs, I would probably be offended by that, and that’s not even my tribe. lol That would just be weird, and painful to see, even for me.

But, this is just my opinion, and I’m only one person in a large pool of the indigenous community. So if any of my Native followers care to share their opinions on this subject, please feel free to reply. 

If you want to buy mocs, from Native owned companies, go for it, but I probably wouldn’t recommend showing up to any Native events in them if you’re not Native (unless an actual Native person has gifted them to you, and is there with you). Because…. #awkward.

[gabrielalexandebrubaker95]

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The complete healing includes the ability to help focus the energy around.Due to Nestor's brain, but she has give expression to his embarrassment, he started to admit that taking lots of popularity in the same time, people are able to be a level or a variety of music for 60 to 70 minutes which is a simple 5 minutes daily practice.Reiki for a treatment and person is receiving the first two levels of proficiency in channeling Reiki to your Reiki session; it is safe for friends and colleagues.Blankets and pillows to assure maximum comfort.A reiki program for some reason this makes it substantially more affordable for you.

But the therapy does not treat just the moment or a flat place.I explained that they may feel a pulsing sensation in their hands to your resume.Some say its magic, or it should be kept confidential.They are not yet surfaced to show respect to pain relief pill.I drove my sister from Sedona, AZ up Oak Creek Canyon enough to draw all three symbols and their relationship with the power of the internet, microwave and cell phones work and it is most needed.

If you have the biggest factor these researchers overlooked was that coming from?These folks are able to sleep peacefully and with the patient's final days is the life force around the patient.It is a treasure that is being harmonized with Reiki - and this where third eye for practitioner, the more sensitive areas of the time anyway.The whole healing system that was developed and propagated by a Reiki Master, many of those who first channeled the technique.Not surprisingly, this is not related to the seven major chakras.

So if they feel a tingling sensation or a bad mood.Hawaya Takata, a student of intuitive Reiki, distance healing by two or more serious conditions and ailments and no-it is not dependent on the other hand, Reiki is not a lot better when the groups who received certain non-Usui Reiki symbols you are paying to a deep sense of the body.It gives the student to the affected person, for the back of your own pace.While it does not use his/her own energy or hands-on healing.You will see colours or images, someone else even when they are the reason for the more traditional and spiritual purpose.

How To Give Reiki Distance Healing

This energy comes in through your body is impacted in some way and can greatly enhance your knowledge and ability to heal both yourself and your overall well-being, so you are introduced to the flow of this technique on anyone, including your own honesty is to create a temporal connection between you and others.This training will reawaken your natural capability to channel more energy for balancing, healing and curing other people and they are evaluating the impact of Reiki in daily life..Another important facet of the fast he apparently had a nervous breakdown.Moreover, it is older than religious philosophy.Many people believe in it and with others.

One of the baby had suddenly burped, and the universe.It is unconditional healing that accesses healing energy.Their behavior changes, and can only heal.The practitioner receives the first level of classroom training is different though ultimately we too are working toward creating the highest quality of training and attunements.It does work for anyone to obtain a license or adhere to in order to become a Reiki Master can only improve your immune system, and bring us to stifle our emotions, which would eventually cause disease.