#immigrant thoughts

[alisha-on-arcane]

My immigrant brain is dwelling on Vi trying to make a life for herself in Piltover, even if there wasn't a war on.

The Kirammans and their friends will do their best to make her feel welcome, but it will be difficult to find conversation topics in common. Well-meaning people will not know what to say when Vi says she's from the undercity and now lives in the upper city. There will inevitably be the assumption that Vi must be very happy to have left, and that she must think Piltover is wonderful in every way. If she talks about what she misses (and what she misses is from a Zaun long gone, seen through the eyes of a child), she will be perceived as ungrateful and rough.

People will assure her kindly that she's not like the others, she's one of the good ones, the ones we want. She will be praised for her Enforcer work. Doesn't she like the beautiful clean streets, the clear air, the shady parks, the lack of crime? What problems the undercity has, of course, isn't it just awful, but it must be nice to be here instead, eh?

And Vi will think, I could have stayed with Ekko and tried to do something about those problems, but instead I ran away. If I ever loved my home, I betrayed it already by leaving, by not making my life and my community there. I do not like the people in power there but I do nothing to support those who would do better.

(This may assume more introspection than Vi is capable of).

I also don't see it being that difficult to convince her that "Zaun" was all Silco's idea, that the two cities are not really two different nations, that she hasn't really left. Much less cognitive dissonance about leading a strike force against Silco's people than leading one against Vander's people.

[360degreesasthecrowflies]

I think another thing about living here as an immigrant, especially as I get older...

I really have NO ties here.

I don't care about it at all, if I'm honest.

I mostly don't care about the politics. Like, obviously other people can, and if it's your country or your homeland, I understand. But it isn't mine, it's just somewhere I live right now.

Some of my friends like architecture and stuff. I don't care about it. Maybe it's something in how I see things or something like that but buildings really look all the same to me unless they're obviously aesthetically really unattractive or impractical. So some of the buildings are hundreds of years old. Ok, they used good stone. Saves rebuilding them or fixing them. That's literally my only reaction.

The landscape? It's fine. I love parks of course, nature and flowers and trees, it's good to see the life out there just living wildly and renewing and the lifecycles it goes through. But, again, that's not really unique to here. Everywhere has those, everywhere within broadly the same temperate climate at least, and in other places they will have their own variations.

The people themselves and their character? Like, mostly fine. Again, it's not something I have nostalgia for. All of the friends I've made here have strong ties, years of history, years or decades of friends and acquaintances and family who all live here still and who they have so much established foundation with and a constant support circle. I don't have any of that and I can't compete either.

I don't think this is an absolutely universal immigrant experience everywhere. But it's my immigrant experience here and maybe at this point I should just stop trying to break in. The only immigrants I know that are properly accepted and welcomed here are the people who have a) married into a local family, especially alongside b) strongly assimilating into the culture - not just in broad terms of knowledge, but being like, actively nationalistic. And I haven't done either of those things. And I thought that would be fine, but the older I get, the more either or especially both seem to be unspoken prerequisites to actually justify or give you a pass to be part of the community here.

[ffsg0jo]

uncle sukuna whose snores sound like a lawn mower but is the only person who little yuuji can sleep peacefully in a bed with. stays asleep the whole night in sukuna's arms, foot against his chest, and bits of hair blowing with the strong gusts of sukuna's snores.

uncle sukuna, who shadowboxes little yuuji when he's sitting on the sofa, trying to watch his shows. yuuji remains unfazed but is slightly annoyed at sukuna constantly blocking the TV. sukuna probably shouldn't pretend to punch the kid, but they both know he'd rather slit his throat and die than hurt a single nerve on yuuji.

uncle sukuna who dresses yuuji in matching outfits whenever they go outside. women flocked to him when they saw the kid in his arms, and suddenly, having the snotty little brat was worth it. he was a sweetheart and smiled shyly at them all, but sukuna would hit them with the 'he likes you, he isn't this affectionate with most people'. works every single time.

uncle sukuna, who does that weird hacking up phlegm thing that scares yuuji half to death. the poor toddler immediately starts tearing up at the noise.

uncle sukuna who makes sure yuuji always has the best and most fashionable trainers. he doesn't care if it's pointless because yuuji's constantly growing. no nephew of his is allowed to have dead shoes. it's embarrassing for him.

(every time he buys himself new shoes, he always buys two pairs, one in his massive size 13 (14/49) and one in yuuji's cutesy teeny size. turns his heart into goo)

uncle sukuna who gets yuuji a mini version of his motorbike (or one that's similar enough) and helps the cutie decorate it however he wants with stickers and paint (even though he's dying on the inside). yuuji begs and begs sukuna to let him put stickers on his, but he vehemently refuses. they both settle on decorating sukuna's helmet instead <33

here's another post in the same universe, kinda like a pt 2 :))

© ffsg0jo 2024 — do not plagiarise, repost, modify, or translate any of my work, in any way shape or form; i will piss in your cereal if you do. all work belongs to me and me only.

[konjacjellysoup]

Southeast-asian chinese miku but she’s a 4th gen immigrant who’s never gotten to try hanfu on in her life because we only have cheongsams here,,,

i’m also part peranakan so heres peranakan miku

[musings-n-museums]

i don't know which one feels more like home. (the uncertainty or the chaos)

fireworks by jaedha godwin, pinterest // split by niki // post by @haykhighland (infinite thanks for letting me use your post // special by sza // images from pinterest // post-glacial by tori mccandless // "saga (i won't forget you when i'm gone)", andrei voznesensk - translated by @metamorphesque // split by niki // image from pinterest

[teleportationmagic]

"You weakened me!" By Ambessa is not a declaration of apathy! It is not her blaming Mel! It is when Mel finally learns that her mother isn't apathetic to her, that she isn't disinterested in her fate or disappointing in her, but instead she loved her too much and too deeply. That Mel threatened Ambessa with ruination, because the only way Ambessa has ever known to survive is by embracing brutality and sacrificing a peaceful death, while all Mel has ever wanted is peace. That a peaceful death would have literally meant the death of her child, back when she was still pregnant with one of them!

And Mel's disapproval of her meant that Ambessa could feel herself tumbling into a path of peace. Into a better path, maybe, but a path that for Ambessa has only ever meant death. If she could be more hardhearted, maybe she could have kept both - her family's survival, and her daughter - but alas. Her sending Mel away is not a failure on Mel's part, but in fact a failure on Ambessa's - because she could not withstand the arrows of her disapproval, now she needs to come to Piltover to collect her before whatever older enemies she has catch up with them both. She comes to Piltover to correct that mistake, to show Mel a harder heart, and yet! It's doeesn't work! Because Mel still demands of her vulnerability and she cannot help giving it to her!

Is there no greater expression of love, for her? To even contemplate opening herself up to that which is deadly, for the sake of the life and soul of her daughter? Is there nothing so undoing?

[listles-s]

man laios and toshiro's/shuro's dynamic is incredibly compelling to me on multiple levels

when you look at them, you can see the cultural and personal barriers that drive almost every single aspect of their relationship, both positively and negatively. laios is incredibly outspoken and driven by his passions, which he expresses freely even in the face of annoyance and/or criticism- he's allowed to be as authentically himself as he pleases, and it's this drive that allows him and the others to survive as long as they have, especially due to the fact that these passions and interests are intertwined with his skills as a dungeon diver. toshiro, in contrast, is incredibly reserved, not only due to his eastern upbringing but also his status as nobility- a combo of cultures that both demand that one save face, to avoid conflict at any cost, even at the expense of one's own feelings and individuality. this, in turn, has made toshiro the perfect samurai, as he's politely-spoken, agreeable, and an honorable, skilled man. both are also incredibly devoted to falin on different levels, having come to accomplish the same mission of her rescue despite drifting apart from the party.

on the flipside, it's these same strengths that cause them to clash- laios is outspoken but unable to truly decipher the emotions of others, leading to a lot of false assumptions and frustration from those who interact with him. toshiro is stoic but to the point of complacency, leading to a aggressively neutral disposition that's ushered by the needs and wants of others, rather than himself. neither man truly knows where they stand with the people important to them in their lives, and hold the ones that they do know how they feel with a fierce admiration expressed in ways that aren't always traditional.

in the end, they both share a growing feeling of isolation from other people that comes to a head when they meet again in the depths of the dungeon, and they both have different ways of coping with the frustrations that arise, seeing the other as only the things they have seen face to face.

it's laios' ability to express himself emotionally without consequence that sparks jealousy in toshiro, leading to a physical fight born out of miscommunication and envy. while toshiro is a driving force in the conflict, it should be noted that the actual fight is started by laios, breaking the dam of indirect communication through force. nothing is more direct than a slap to the face, and it's only after they start hitting each other that toshiro's true feelings come to light.

however, at the end of it all, toshiro is the one who stops torturing himself, listening to laios and giving him the bell, allowing laios and his party entrance into his homeland should they need it, and ultimately giving him support in his mission to defeat the dungeon mage, albeit in his own way. despite it all, they're still good friends with a conflict that boiled over, but came out the other end with a slightly better understanding of each other. the fight was painful for both of them, but it was a necessity for their dynamic to improve, and for them to be made aware of their faults and improve as individuals as well.

but also, if you think about it, their dynamic is literally just this

[liesmyth]

I'm always thinking about how G— was an engineer. A damn good one: the sole engineer of the cryo project, good enough that of all the ten billion, the FTL project chose him to inspect their work, back when the project was still a pipe dream. He was a man from an immigrant family in an underprivileged area who became arguably the world's best engineer, which is impressive in its own right, but it gets me thinking... Pre-Resurrection, John says they can't grow food on Mars (and for all John's unreliability, that's pretty believable, given that the high perchlorate concentration in Martian soil is one of the big obstacles to carrying out a sustained Mars mission), and as silly as this might sound, the engineer and scientist divide is real, and of all the nerds that John resurrected, I can't imagine it was the artist or the contract lawyer or the medical and chemistry experts that made the Mars installation viable. Gideon made a House out of it, and one that accepts recruits from across the Dominican system! "Saint of Duty" is said to fit him, evident in his loyalty and commitment to the Cohort and fighting the Resurrection Beasts, but I have to wonder, how much of that was his commitment to making shit work? I can't shake the image of a couple million people awaking to a ruined world, and someone had to get the other Houses settled, figure out spacecraft and space habitats using what little supplies they have left, and what better candidate for that than the man who canonically engineered spacecraft twice?

ANON I love this so much. You're SO right, and you put into words something about G1deon and John's shared background that I've tried to articulate for a while. In the very first chapter, John says, "It wasn’t that they didn’t have the money for a bigger team; we were simply the only ones capable of what they were asking."

This was an incredibly elite team. They were a brilliant bunch of hyperspecialised nerds. And, like, among John's squad, A- and M- and everyone else started out as colleagues — very smart people he probably met in academic circles, where being smart was kind of a prerequisite. It was their research that brought them together to begin with.

G1deon, though! He was John's friend growing up. John knew his grandparents. They spotted each other spare changes for snacks!! Then John went on to Dilworth, then to university and then overseas, and G1deon had his own (probably different) academic path, and maybe they only stayed vaguely in touch, but when it was time to look for an engineer that could help them build spaceships constructed to provide life support to the whole of humanity for centuries — and G1deon was the guy for that.

The fact that two boys from similar underprivileged backgrounds individually made huge breakthroughs in their chosen fields, and got to work together on a project that was meant to save the world... I bet at the time it felt like a miraculous coincidence. I think they thought, if they'd made it that far, that they could do anything.

(yet another layer to the tragedy of what happened etc etc. G1deon torn between John and P—. John stopping G1deon's heart)

Thank you so much for all your thoughts about the Mars space installation, also — I wonder how long there was between Mars becoming the Second House (founded by G1deon! he and Pyrrha did the bulk of the work!) and the institution of the Third House, which doesn't have a named founder and might very well have been a shared project built on the blueprint of what G1deon set up. "the man who canonically engineered spacecraft twice" — my god I love this so much. It's G1deon emo hours today

[jesncin]

I hope Superman fandom as a whole will one day understand that if you truly want to commit to the immigrant allegory, scenes like Lois shooting Clark with a gun or her jumping off a building to prove he's Superman pair really badly with that allegory.

I know some fans like to say "Superman was always an immigrant allegory" and while I get the sentiment of retroactively looking at how the lives of his creators inform the character they made, we also have to acknowledge that the allegory was never consistent to begin with. The original Superman comics were fun gags and shenanigans. Superman Smashes the Klan wouldn't stand out so much if his immigrant identity was consistently integral to his character.

And if you're going to commit to Superman being an immigrant, then you've got to be open to changes on staple Superman lore. So much of this fandom is dedicated to nostalgia, references, canon events, "but Lois does that in the comics! It's not Lois Lane if she doesn't do crazy things to prove who Superman is!" without considering how that is contextualized in the allegory.

I still get so many comments on my Clois comics but especially the Private Interview comic saying "I've never seen Superman this way before" from even longtime fans of the character. Honestly, I never saw him that way until I read Smashes the Klan. Since then I want people to have that recognition of themselves in him too. But that means being brave with changes! Maybe it's okay for this version of Lois to respect Superman's boundaries. Maybe an Asian Lois can be more than an aesthetic shallow retread of white Lois.

These characters are more than callbacks and references. The reason they persist throughout many versions is because they hold themes. Lois isn't just "stunt girl reporter obsessed with Superman and THE TRUTH", she's also a jaded reporter hardened by life who finds hope again in Superman. Superman isn't just "save cats from trees" guy. He's an alien immigrant, and you can make a ton of new stories from that lens alone.

[6footeel]

haven’t made any decisions about his colors yet so i kind of just had fun with it lol

[spelllingandthemysteryschool]

i need an additional job and also maybe a master’s degree

[mynqzo]

Why do you like vampires specifically, what do you like of them?

the sucking and fucking

[a-chaotically-small-lunta]

Okay okay, so we all know the idea of like tiny aliens crashing in a humans yard. With said aliens being either a pilot who had a crash landing, or a team of scientists studying a new world. But what about an escape pod type situation.

Picture it! One day a person is just minding their business maybe they’re gardening outside or typing away at a computer when suddenly something crashes near them (Rip the window if they were inside)looking over they see a crashed alien space ship. Except it’s not slim like the movies and doesn’t even have guns on the side, at least visibly. It’s more bulky and more the size of a decent size rock, one requiring two hands at least. Anyway, a hatch opens and two small aliens step out holding strange weapons (cause ya know aliens) and they look around before seeing the human. Both sides freak out. The tiny aliens shout something back into the ship as they stand guard, but they are shaking.

The person after shaking of the shock of “holy shit aliens are real and they just ruined my roses” notices that the aliens aren’t wearing proper space suits, Nothing fancy at least, but rather normal clothing. No belts, no fancy equipment, something a more day to day person would wear; but what do they know about alien culture. Perhaps more then they think as they notice that through a few of the windows or even on the opened hatch, a few more aliens are appearing, looking out to gaze at the strange huge world they crashed on. That’s when the human figures out that this space ship isn’t for battle, transporting goods, or science. It’s most likely an escape pod, and a big one. Think ships that would transport immigrants to their new home but ya know space. That explains why the two “guards” aren’t trained, it probably wasn’t a super important ship and probably carried whatever the alien equivalent to a lower class was. Maybe this is reflected in the design of the ship, with it not being super fancy or have weapons.

Either way there are still aliens in the persons home. Maybe the human lowers themself down trying to be non-threatening towards the aliens. There’s clearly a language barrier and probably a non-verbal language barrier too. Perhaps the human decides they want to help the aliens and find out what happened. Destroyed home world? Escape of an evil Monarchy? Space Nazis? Who knows!

Somehow the aliens trust the human through very slow non-verbal communication with a few miscommunications with said communication. (How were they supposed to know that the hands up wasn’t peace but meant hungry?) Either way, the pick up the spaceship and all its passengers and puts them in a safer place. Let’s say the aliens and the human build a friendship, even though communication may not be possible, the two species learn a to understand and communicate anyway. Maybe through time the aliens and the human build a small city or settlement for all the aliens who arrived on the ship. Maybe using a pool table and a train table as a base and just slowly expanding to accommodate the growth.

Who knows what happens next. Perhaps they help the aliens rebuild their ship and fit it with a defense system, so that they can continue their journey, and maybe a few decide to stay with the human. Maybe the house is passed down from generation to generation, keeping the aliens secret until they decide it’s time to leave or simply becomes impossible due to population size. Perhaps the government gets involved and our once average human joe has to go and save all their tiny alien friends!

Just tiny aliens. Not all of them have to be scientists and pilots. Some are just people looking for a better place to live

[crazycatsiren]

I've been thinking about the "it's not that autistic people don't know how to communicate, it's that we communicate differently" statement. True. Very true. 100% agreed. Absolutely and totally valid. But, hear me out: communication is also highly culture dependent.

In the USA, my being direct, literal, honest, frank, answering what I'm asked, and speaking what I'm thinking, is often considered "rude" and "mean". In Germany, it's neutral, appropriate even. In China, I'm being nice because I'm not actually insulting anyone.

Example: "Does this dress make me look fat" when it actually does.

USA: "Of course not! You look great!"

Germany: "Yes."

China: "It makes your ass look as big as the Yellow River."

Another example: "How are you?"

USA: "I'm very well, thank you!"

Germany: "I have diarrhea."

China: "I need to go shit my brains out for the eighth time, you idiot, go away."

[river-of-wine]

A long way from home

[psychic-waffles]

Cw: child death, racism (particularly islamophobia)

The last couple of days have seen multiple full blown fascist riots in the UK and we're likely to see more over the weekend.

On Monday there was a horrific incident where a 17 year old attacked a dance school in Southport, killing three children and injuring many more. Because of the attacker's age his name has not been released, however the far right quickly started circulating a made up name and said the attacker was Muslim and an immigrant.

On Tuesday, when a vigil was being held in the town for the victims, fascists travelled to Southport and started a riot, centering around attacking a mosque. I really don't have words for how disgusting it is to use the death of children to further their violently racist agenda and take all of this out on a grieving town.

Following this there were multiple fascist riots on Wednesday, the largest of which being in London and Hartlepool. These involved further attacks on mosques, surrounding hotels where asylum seekers were being housed, and attacking brown and black people on the street and in their homes.

There are plans by the far right to hold multiple further rallies over the next few days, I've seen particular mention of Liverpool tomorrow (Friday) and Middlesbrough on Sunday, but I think it's likely we'll see violence across the UK.

There is also a huge demo for Palestine organised for Saturday which involves action across the country and with a march in London, and quite frankly I will be shocked if the fash don't try to disrupt that in any way, so just be prepared that there is a heightened risk of violence.

Overall in response to the riots there's been a lot of talk about the spread of misinformation and how that needs to be tackled, and while this is true it doesn't address the fact that the majority of these fascists really don't care. Even if the attacker had been Muslim or had been an immigrant, that doesn't give anyone the right to try and attack every Muslim and immigrant in the country. This couldn't have and hasn't been stopped by correcting a bit of misinformation, this is about decades of deeply racist islamophobic and anti-immigrant rhetoric baked into the core of the UK and reinforced constantly by the media and politicians across the spectrum as ""legitimate concerns"".

Right now we need community support more than ever. Organise, protect your local Muslim communities, and of course stay safe.

Edit: while I was writing this post the name of the attacker was released as Axel Rudakubana. As I have already said the fash do not care, and islamaphobic and anti-immigrant violence will almost definitely continue, however there will now likely also be an increase in anti-black violence and we need to be prepared for that.

2nd edit: check my reblogs for more info on specific places they're planning to target