#perhaps have native american in us so its ok' like no if you were actually respecting the cultures we might be from you'd know you

[snekdood]

i think my problem with other ppl who claim to possibly have native american ancestry but dont know is when they dont seem to treat it like as if it could *actually* be true and just treat it like "yeah im a spicy white person" dshdfshjv? idk if that makes sense, like they dont do the internal work of deconstructing racism around native people, they dont start listening to native ppl- its more or less used as either an excuse for appropriation or just to seem more "exotic".

[sasquapossum]

OK, this Dawn of Everything book has really got me going. I'm only up to page 63, out of 526 plus notes. Already, this exchange between Lahontan (a Frenchman) and Kandiaronk (of the Wendat people in the Great Lakes area) is gold.

Lahontan: Try for once in your life to actually listen. Can't you see, my dear friend, that the nations of Europe could not survive, without gold and silver - or some similar precious symbol. Without it, nobles, priests, merchants and any number of others who lack the strength to work the soil would simply die of hunger. Our kings would not be kings; what soldiers would we have? Who would work for kings, or anybody else? ... It would plunge Europe into chaos and create the most dismal confusion imaginable. Kandiaronk: You honestly think you're going to sway me by appealing to the needs of nobles, merchants, and priests? If you abandoned concepts of mine and thine, yes, such distinctions between men would dissolve; a levelling [sic] equality would then take its place among you as it now does among the Wendat. And yes, for the first thirty years after the banishing of self-interest, no doubt you would indeed see a certain desolation as those who are only qualified to eat, drink, sleep, and take pleasure would languish and die. But their progeny would be fit for our way of living. Over and over I have set forth the qualities that we Wendat believe ought to define humanity - wisdom, reason, equity, etc. - and demonstrated that the existence of separate material interests knocks all of those on the head. A man motivated by interest cannot be a man of reason.

The book authors' intent here is to show how many ideas we consider foundational now, especially from the so-called Enlightenment, actually had their roots somewhere other than Europe - specifically, in this case, among North American native people. The above is from 1703. Already we see a clear precursor of themes addressed by Adam Smith and Karl Marx. Smith wasn't even born until 1723, Marx until 1818. Their best known works were published until 1776 (Wealth of Nations) and 1867 (Das Kapital) respectively. Kandiaronk beat them by 73-164 years!

Elsewhere, on issues of freedom and equality, Kandiaronk and his peers seem to have been ahead of European thinkers like David Hume (born 1711) or Jean-Jacques Rousseau (born 1712). And those were the vanguard of European thought on such issues. Thomas Hobbes's Leviathan had been published in 1651, John Locke's Treatises of Government in 1689, but it still seems like they were barely ahead (if at all) of those "savages" across the sea.

So yes, that's a very interesting perspective. That said, I still have some reservations. These now-familiar ideas about individual freedom might be an improvement over the monarchist/feudalist sentiment that had prevailed before, but they're also part of the "every man for himself" attitude that so afflicts the modern US. Did we just take some parts (rejection of arbitrary authority) and jettison others (mutual aid) that should have been kept together? Perhaps. Further reading might tell.

In particular, the ableist tone in the middle part of Kandiaronk's reply is troubling. "Only qualified to eat, drink, sleep, and take pleasure" might have been intended to mean the aristocracy, but it also cuts a bit close to the lot of the disabled. That seems insensitive, at best. What sources I've been able to find suggest that Wendat (and other Native American) treatment of mental disability was much more progressive than is common in Eurocentric society even today, but those same sources are disturbingly silent on what happened to people with physical disabilities. Kandiaronk's "fit" remark suggests a grim answer (though no grimmer than in other societies at that time).

That's all for now. More later, I'm sure.

[fatehbaz]

is it OK to watch national geographic and channels like that? they make me so happy and are informative i guess but idk is it exploitative? is it ok? sorry if i sound dumb

Well, I am the last person who ought ever to act as an arbiter of what’s “right” and what’s “wrong”, or what’s “OK” and what’s “not OK”. That said, I don’t think this is a dumb concern at all. The opposite: I think this is very conscientious to ask, and good of you to be concerned. A great question. I don’t know the answer.

In fact, without exaggeration, I ask myself this, in some form or another, every day, you could say. When encountering field guides, textbooks, wildlife documentaries, distribution maps, etc. I must ask myself about the violence committed in pursuit of quote-unquote “scientific knowledge” because of the consistent, blatant, egregious centuries-long history of Euro-American scientific institutions committing violence to acquire, systematize, monopolize, and weaponize knowledge. And even when a larger institution is not involved in the “encounter”, I still ask myself: “I appreciate that my friend thought to send me a photo of this toad, but were the photos acquired in an ethical way? Was the toad harmed?”

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I’ve got a couple of recommendations, some reading stuff I think you might like. I’ll share those below.

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Temporarily setting aside the history of Euro-American bioprospecting, imperial botany, and dispossession of Indigenous knowledge, some thoughts regarding wildlife documentaries and visual media, specifically:

You see a viral photograph of a frog sitting on a mushroom. Did the photographer unnecessarily corral, physically coerce, chemically anesthetize, and then artificially position the frog for this quaint shot? (Most likely, yes.)

Are the “small” harms and ‘little” violences and transgressions committed in pursuit of this scientific media or wildlife documentary acceptable or excusable because the end result is that a wider human audience -- through viewing this media -- has now been inspired to gain an interest in ecology, inspired to gain an interest in traditional ecological knowledge, inspired to preserve a local remnant prairie? Maybe not.

You see a photograph of a terrestrial mollusc, a land snail, a rare species. In fact, because the photographer documented the snail, perhaps we now have a better understanding of its ecological needs, its uniqueness, the perogative for preserving the snail’s specific streamside microhabitat. But you ask yourself: Did the photographer trample other microhabitat to reach this location? Did they flip over a bunch of decaying logs on the forest floor, looking for the snail, thereby destroying the worlds of nearby slugs, worms, salamanders, etc.? Did the sponsoring institution, like an academic biology department, send along a field technician with an electrofishing device, which was used to shock other creatures in the stream and catalogue its fish species, and will this information eventually be used by land management to interfere with the stream, to introduce non-native sport fish?

You see a magazine piece about the “ethnobotany” and plant knowledge of an Indigenous people in Amazonia. The piece is very flattering; the author admires and celebrates these people and their knowledge. But are they a voyeur? They’re just ... popping in, stopping by, to gawk in wonder at “these strange people”? Isn’t it weird, insulting, absurd that the author keeps describing these peoples’ lives with terms like “ethnobotanical”? Girl, this is how they cook food, why are you invoking nineteenth-century French anthropologists to describe these “strange and wonderful people”? Is the magazine, by promoting this plant knowledge, even in positive light, actually opening this Indigenous community to an influx of Bay Area psychonaut tourists or eco-lodges? Will pharmaceutical companies now send a team of bioprospectors to document local plants, to steal this plant knowledge, looking for a profit-gaining drug marketable in the metropole?

So, with National Geographic specifically, especially when they're dealing with Indigenous and non-Western cultures, there is great reason to ask: Is this exploitative?

Just some questions to keep in mind.

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I also make a big distinction among certain institutions. Like, it seems there’s a difference in the scale of potential ethical compromise, violence, and boundary-crossing. A difference between when, say, a backyard birdwatcher or mushroom-lover or well-meaning ecologist seeks to “capture” through research or media some element of the creature/landscape or the human encounter with the other-than-human ... a difference between that, and when a larger well-funded institutions seeks to capture these encounters. What are the motives of the larger institution? In the US for example, land management agencies (major employers of ecologists) function as de facto enablers of resource extraction, with their ecological research ultimately geared towards justifying those policy decisions, even if genuine “knowledge” is gained or “good ecologically-sound decisions” inadvertently result. And then there are the TLC’s and latter-day Discovery Channel’s of the world, whomst capture theses encounters to sensationalize and profit. But I’ll concede: As a child, living in the rural hinterland before the existence of internet search engines, nowhere near a library, sure, sensationalized wildlife documentary programming and bare-bones basic entry-level kids’ “animal books” were a lifeline to me, and did inspire and influence me. Specifically, regional field guides and the earlier BBC programming (Life of Birds and Blue Planet, especially) were formative for me. After all, Blue Planet was a revelation; who else on this planet, besides the most well-connected, wealthiest inheritors of British imperial wealth and networks could have afforded to acquire such intimate images of the deep sea, visuals and new ecological knowledge which was shocking in its revelation of hidden worlds? But how is it that BBC came to have so much wealth? How did British power-brokers come to gain exclusive access to certain Caribbean or South Pacific islands? This is the legacy of empire. And given my interests in the intersections between landscapes, ecologies, and human communities, I’d be lying if I didn’t concede that National Geographic, specifically, wasn’t a major inspiration. But, again, as someone who was given a scholarship once upon a time by National Geographic, I’ve since come to despise National Geographic’s voyeuristic, imperialist, chauvinist, possessive, Euro-American gaze; its gawking at foreign cultures; it’s (not-so-)passive support of US-led global hegemony/neoliberalism; it’s glorification of a sort of vaguely-”progressive”-appearing evolution of what basically still amounts to Victorian Explorer expeditionary “pioneer” masculinity; the way it extracts Indigenous stories and Indigenous pain as curiosities; etc. Of course, you will have well-meaning ecology enthusiasts argue: “Sure, television shows like Epic Crocodile-vs-Shark Explosion and Deadliest Monsters of the Jungle: Ultimate Predator Showdown are a little silly, but ultimately, if they inspire some young kids to get interest in ecology, some good results!” OK, maybe so, on occasion. But we do have to honestly ask ourselves if we’re really protecting our own egos by making that justification. Ecology enthusiasts and academics and “scientists” will sometimes -- to protect their own self-image as “an environmentalist” or to protect their ego against accusations that their “conservation traditions” or sponsoring institutions might be culpable in violence/dispossession -- jealously defend the merits of sensationalizing wildlife documentary media. That’s a whole other can of worms that I don’t really have the energy to get into now.

A lot to consider.

I’m not trying to make some kind of definitive statements here. I still grapple with my role, involvement, culpability in dispossession. Am I transgressing boundaries I ought not to? Who was harmed to bring me this information? So, if I sound harsh -- if it sounds like I’m insulting what for you was formative media: Some of us may have been initially introduced to ecology, wildlife biology, non-Western ontology through bad, harmful, problematique media. Can we make reparations for this? Maybe, maybe not. But we can resolve to now do better regardless.

Like. Do I watch clips from Blue Planet? Yes. All the time. Maybe we can approach it, occasionally, as a “no ethical consumption under capital!sm” situation, like a repurposing of the tools of the villains.

Did the US military-industrial complex create the tech/infrastructure to establish a system of orbital satellites for power-hungry reasons? Yes. Can I still use G00gle Earth imagery, taken from those satellites, to find a cool place to go swimming or look for snake habitat? Yes.

Can we watch footage of bioluminescent sea creatures in order to admire the planet, and enjoy it, while still keeping in mind how these institutions came to acquire enough power to produce the images?

Ultimately, is watching documentary programming about social/environmental justice better than watching something like F0x News? Sure, probably. And if it’s inspiring you to do good? Cool. At least, you could say that you’re consuming problematique media, still gaining some info, it’s informative. So long as we’re conscious of, for example, NatGeo’s motives, origins, etc. We can take useful information from some problematique sources. The fact that you’re watching stuff with the right intent (to learn, to grow, to be inspired, etc.) is probably a good sign.

All media sucks, in some way, in some aspect. All media has its problems. So maybe sometimes the best we can do is watch it with good intent while conscious of its shortcomings and origins.

-------

Anyway, I’ll defer to these authors. Some interesting perspectives. I don’t necessarily agree with everything they say, but definitely interesting to think about.

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A discussion of visualizing nature through wildlife documentaries and eco-tourism, who controls these visuals, and to what ends they’re employed.

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Alaina Claire Feldman. "Minor Listening, Major Influence: Revisiting Songs of the Humpback Whale." e-flux. May 2021.

Recent (May 2021) and good discussion of how “environmentalists” and ecology enthusiasts and scientists, even when ostensibly attempting to be wholly objective, still heavily mediate their audience’s encounters with other-than-human life by choosing what to write, what to include, what language to use. This essay explores the famous and influential 1970 environmental field recording album Songs of the Humpback Whale.

[Excerpt:] The conditions of recording sounds outside are significantly different than recording them in a studio. In “Sound Sterile: Making Scientific Field Recordings in Ornithology,” Joeri Bruyninckx discusses how ornithologists in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries made conscious decisions about what to record and how to record it. These decisions were structured by recording techniques and technologies that muddled traditional scientific boundaries between fieldwork and the laboratory (and therefore binaries such as the uncontrollable/overcontrolled, found/made, immersed/detached, and so on). Despite the removal of contextual sounds like the wind or machinery, ornithologists considered extracted and edited bird calls as authentic and faithful reproductions. [...] Songs of the Humpback Whale wasn’t the album one would play at a club, a birthday, or a social gathering. [...] The original fieldwork required to record these tracks in the open ocean was now domesticated and even personalized through the many samples and remixes the album inspired. Popular musicians like Kate Bush, Judy Collins, and Pete Seeger contributed to framing the sounds as musical commodities. The production, circulation, and popularization of these sounds might be compared to Victorian popularizations of aquariums. Indeed, throughout the nineteenth century, once unknowable species came to be understood via meaning-making technology like microphones, spectrographs, photography, and the aquarium tank. Just as the aquarium brought the ocean into domestic space for amateur scientists and entertainment alike, so too did this record. [...] At the turn of the nineteenth century, representations of animals once considered wild could easily be domesticated and studied through the popularization of such technology. In fact, the language used around sound itself -- “captured,” “channel,” “wave” -- has much to do with Western epistemologies of colonial exploration, control, and domination. [End quote.]

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Helen F. Wilson. "Contact zones: Multispecies scholarship through Imperial Eyes." Nature and Space. 2019.

An excellent discussion of the implications of wildlife documentaries for interspecies understanding, focused specifically on BBC’s Blue Planet. This article is available for free online. Some really good portions in here. While wildlife documentaries provoke “affective and haptic encounters with alterity” -- perhaps promoting healthier interspecies relationships or an ecological consciousness -- this media is produced through “heavily mediated ways.” Take the narration, for example: “these awkward creatures” or “this adorable cuttlefish” or “this untouched abyss” or other language choices, or the way that the BBC might play carnival-like or whimsical ukelele music over footage of crabs, pre-determining how an audience ought to interpret what might be their first encounter with or consideration of these animals.

This article also has some really cool things to say about the indecipherability of communication with other-than-human creatures. Untranslatable. Other creatures may be sentient, but not in a "human" way. So we can respect the autonomy of other-than-human creatures without anthropomorphizing them. There will always be a barrier to complete understanding, just as their may be between two humans.

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This brings to mind an article that I really enjoyed, from the words of Bawaka Country elders.

Bawaka Country including, S. Wright, S. Suchet-Pearson, K. Lloyd, L. Burarrwanga, R. Ganambarr, M. Ganambarr-Stubbs, B. Ganambarr, D. Maymuru. “Gathering of the Clouds: Attending to Indigenous understandings of time and climate through songspirals.” Geoforum. January 2020.

As they put it:

Ada Smailbegovic talks of starfish time (2015). Starfish may seem to be still, but longer attention, through time-lapse photography for example, shows them moving, changing. Smailbegovic also talks of larval time, the time it takes for eggs to develop and hatch [...]. Then there are beings that experience hundreds, thousands of generations within a human lifetime. For such beings, the memories, learnings and modes of passing on experience are, it almost goes without saying (yet it must be said as it is so often not), radically different from any human’s in terms of the ways they experience change. The immensity of the alterity is, literally, incomprehensible to humans. We can’t know how and what these beings know. But we can be aware that they have knowledges and experiences beyond us. For many people, coming from different cultural and ontological positions, not knowing does not mean not connecting or not respecting. For it would seem that there are things that humans cannot and should not know. We don’t need to know what starfish know. But we should know they live and experience and think beyond us. We should seek respect and be aware of how our lives are entangled […]. It is not abstract, or empty.

[nightcoremoon]

weird opinion but christians aren't religious.

ok so like, jews generally follow god's rules, muslims follow allah's rules, hindus probably follow their gods rules, so on and so forth. and overall they do it out of faith; they do it because they want to honor the deity who loves them rather than because society forces them to.

granted the zionists and the radical extremists and the zealots do exist but as loud minorities and thus are statistical outliers & don't matter.

christians are... a different breed.

"if you aren't x branch and dont obey y rules you'll go to hell so we'll fucking murder you" is pretty much the main driving force behind a significant portion of christianity in history. the catholics, the protestants, the orthodoxy, all are built on a foundation of fear, anger, and hatred. it's shaped the way society developed; in the 4 nations that did the most genocidal imperialist colonialism- England, France, Spain, and Italy- a combination of convenient coastal locations, naval prowess, military tendency, christianity, and ultranationalism lead them down a path of missionaries, holding bibles in one hand and bloodstained knives in the other. the religion is inseparable from the culture and inseparable from the horrible things done in the name of their god, and the resulting cancers of society we feel today from the campaigns of slaughter. xenophobia. capitalism. savage barbarism via sensationalized capitol punishment. misogyny. queerphobia. gender fascism. classism. racism. all of these issues in the "civilized world" stem predominantly from those four nations and the disease ridden pestilent filth some call pilgrims.

here's something interesting:

there are less than 1 million rastafari in the world.

there are less than 5 million shinto in the world.

there are less than 25 million jews in the world.

there are less than 30 million sikhs in the world.

there are roughly 100 million african cultural religious adherents in the world.

there are less than 400 million chinese cultural religious adherents in the world.

there are about 500 million buddhists in the world.

there are about 1.1 billion hindus in the world.

there are about 1.2 billion nonreligious people in the world.

there are 1.6 billion muslims in the world.

and one final statistic

there are over 2.1 billion christians in the world.

the jewish count is a highball, rounded up, and includes several different definitions of jewish including people who are only one quarter. so for every single person who is even remotely jewish, there are more than 8 christians. for every hindu, there are 4 christians. for every atheist, agnostic, or "other", 2 christians. this frightening statistic should set off warning bells for everyone who is involved in a discussion about religion. and anyone who knows BASIC world history and can correlate data at all can probably piece together what I'm putting down.

now, I may be slightly biased here considering my eclectic religious beliefs. now, I personally believe that there is some primary force of energy that may or may not manifest itself as a humanoid being, that engineered the most basic laws of physics in the universe: atomic magnetism. as can be inferred by planck's constant and its implications, our universe is digital, written in binary. an electron either moves or doesn't move. there are no other options. so I genuinely believe in some form of intelligent design; whether it's a bearded guy on a cloud, some dude with six arms and an elephant for a face, just a big swirling pool of ectoplasm, or a big ol' plate of spaghetti and meatballs, something is out there that we are physically incapable of contacting from our plane of existence, just as a drawing on a piece of paper cannot reach out to interact with the world: a gif will move on its own but it will never acknowledge our existence, even if it could think by itself. and all the different mythologies of the world- egyptian, greek, norse, shinto, whatever- very well could be the agents of that unknown "god". perhaps anubis, ra, and bastet are just angels with animal heads that all of the peoples of ancient egypt saw and were like oh I guess this must be a god. maybe zeus and loki were the same person with a magic dick who fucked a bunch of animals in both greece and the scandinavian countries and spawned all of the horrible half-animal monstrosities that, idk, made vishnu think "well I have to kill that" and caused the biblical flood or something. maybe the jewish god gifted wisdom to siddhartha for sitting under a fig tree for 6 years through the angel pomona [roman goddess of fruit, had to google that one], so buddha gets his wisdom from demeter and is in nirvana right now right a step up from hades on yggdrasil the world tree keeping an eye on his charge persephone. any theory could theoretically be true but we ants of humans will never fucking know because we can't just point a telescope at the magellanic clouds and say "look, there's amaterasu with russell's teapot, and she's having tea with... *rubs eyes* lemmy kilmister??? wow I guess gods are real after all!" it's impossible to know the secrets of our universe because of the very restrictive nature of the universe itself. is it a circle? is it a donut? WE DONT FUCKIN KNOW.

we cannot know what religion is truthful.

""anyone who says that any one religion is more or less true than any other is a fucking moron, and if they're suggesting that White Western European Colonial Imperialist Protestantism is the one true faith, they're probably a fucking racist colonizer who beats his wife/sister and burns gays at the stake. and considering how that exact demographic is typically the one that murdered people for not converting to their religion, I don't think they have the intellectual non-deranged ability to make those logical connections.

again, I'm not saying that there AREN'T a lot of people of every religion who are evil assholes who contributed to mass genocide. israelites killed palestinians. shiites killed sunnis. hutus killed tutsis. danes killed geats. turks killed armenians. the ottoman empire has as much blood on its hands as the holy roman empire. germans who called themselves aryans but weren't actually aryan killed jews. but all of these tragedies were isolated incidents rather than repeated patterns over the course of two thousand years. not like christianity was and is.

just look at the United States, Canada, Mexico, Hong Kong, South Africa, Australia, & India's British Raj. Britain, France, Spain, and Italy, by extension Protestantism and Catholicism, are the shared factor between the long and bloody history fraught with massacring indigenous populations who wouldn't convert religions. native americans, indigenous canadians, latin americans but predominantly mexicans, the eastern chinese, coastal africans, aborigine aussies, indians- coastal coastal coastal. true the western chinese and the mongols/hunnu and xinjiang muslims haven't exactly been on civil terms and the silk road has always been a battleground and the middle east was already tenuous before murrica bombed them for oil but those happened in such a spread out area among asia which is FUCKING HUGE, MIND YOU! but also that's three high traffic places with massive diversity, it's human nature to have conflict, but not nearly to the same level as all of the shit christianity has done to the world. it's impossible to separate the religion from the cultures; victorian england without protestantism is just dirty people who die at 15 from having their 3rd child. italy without the catholicism is just grass and cheese. france and spain without religion are just kingdoms that fought wars with england for forever and now just make food that's one part delicious and three parts horrifying. religion is directly responsible for a significant portion of the evils those countries committed. one religion in particular.

they don't practice religion the same way as the rest do. they aren't faithful to their god. they don't follow his rules out of love but out of fear. they execute dissenters without a second thought, heresy they cry. they execute women and little girls for being free thinking or having sickness associated with mercury poisoning in the water, witch they cry. they slaughter men women and kids alike in the name of cramming their beliefs down the natives throats, we're chasing out the snakes they cry, we're bringing god to your godless people they cry, we're just civilizing you they cry. they shit in the streets and proudly display rotting corpses and leave the impoverished disabled and starving to die alone and whip their slaves and rape teenage girls and scrap in the streets while sopping wet with spilled ale over insignificant insults and stab people to death in the night and never even fucking BATHE, and they have the nerve to say the natives were uncivilized. the nerve. because hey. they read a magic book they stole from a culture who stole from another culture who stole from another culture, mistranslating each time from hebrew to greek to italian to english, and they think they're better because their skin is white.

christians never evolved. their mentalities have stayed the same. all thatms advanced has been technology. that's it. they're still the same evil disgusting degenerate bastards they always were. they just have the money they stole to buy stained glass windows, rosary beads, giant tacky metal statues, bigass robes, leather, and printing presses. and as time passed they used the money they continued to steal to buy cars and websites and radio stations and commit felony tax evasion and secretly molest children and line the pockets of the politicians.

all of their holidays are stolen from pagans anyway.

so fuck christmas. fuck easter. fuck lent. fuck the golden calf christian holidays that the tiny minded fragile snowflake conservatives lose their collective shit over because the pandemic response common sense stipulations won't let them buy the shit they can't afford with money they shouldn't have for people they don't even LIKE, all in the name of tradition, tradition! the rituals that worship something so much worse than satan or baphomet or pan or whatever: the dollar. they buy all the new shiny shit they can, at the expense of the chinese kids that the corporate pigs outsource to, buy the pine trees and the coca cola vunderbar and the fake mint corn syrup Js and watch the same shitty cookie cutter white supremacist hallmark fash movies and stuff their kids full of enough sugar to go into a goddamn coma when the african slaves who pick the cocoa beans will never get to know what actually being a kid will ever feel like because they're gonna die from falling into a combine harvester and be eternally forgotten to history and no christian will ever give a shit because they don't fucking care about what they don't see on their safe space news or hear on their safe space radio or read on their safe space social media. they think their worst sin is eating cheeseburgers so instead they'll go eat a mcchicken or chick fil a or an arby's chicken sandwich instead but not at popeyes because "that place is sketchy" and by that they mean they don't wanna eat where black people eat, that's why cracker barrel was so popular for so many white christians for so long because it had racially segregated seating until barely 20 years ago.

they don't love jesus. they love a paper doll they shove into their back pockets until every other sunday where they go to a fucking mall with a baptism waterslide and raise their hands like a bunch of dumbass weirdos and away to adult contemporary indie schlock with the word jesus pasted into a boring-ass hetero romance song, pat themselves on the back, then go to starbucks to scream slurs and misgenderings at 14 year old starbucks baristas who give them a cappamochalattechino instead of a fucking carmamochalattechino because you mumbled under the mask you didn't even fucking cover your nose with because you don't give a shit about the virus beyond how it inconveniences you.

they are horrible people who pretend to be good. until you suggest the slightest infinitely small inconvenience to them that would alter their holiday plans even the littlest smidge. then they would kill you if not for the police. don't get me started on them because you know by now what I'd say about those fuckers. but they'll gladly wear shirts about how they'll kill you. how they'll go back 200 years. how they'll murder you and watch you slowly suffer because their primate brains shoot a million endorphins when they watch things die by their hands because they never evolved a sense of empathy, compassion, or morality beyond how wearing a cross necklace will remove any of the consequences they will face in their afterlife.

they are horrible people who pretend to be good. unless you're gay or black or trans or Not Christian™ or mexican or disagree with them about politics economics sociology science technology music or movies. assimilate or die. assimilate or die. assimilate or die.

they don't deserve special treatment for their false idols.

they aren't better than jews or muslims.

they're worse.

so much worse.

and they should be stopped.""

-Nightingale Quietioca

save as draft arch draft bookmark draft where did I put my keys contra code kontra kode I need to remember this and copy it buzzwords keywords find it later please god tumblr don't bork on me this is good stream of consciousness repackage repackage change the words this is a great character study if I do say so myself thanks 3am me you're welcome 3am me

[alatismeni-theitsa]

Thanks for bringing the racebending to my attention. I never considered that it was harmful towards the origin culture. I considered that it was kind of strong to claim that sort of race thing in a way, but maybe that comes from the more.. christianity? view of where there isnt a direct way that God looks, except any way the person perceives. That's probably what I thought, too, until just now reading your answer to someone else. So.. it's not okay? 1/?

I honestly want to understand as my perspective on this now changes. It makes total sense why it would be entitled of someone to do such a thing, and how it's inconsiderate of the actual origin culture that the deities come from now that I'm thinking about it in this way. So again thank you for bringing this up and answering that other anon. I have some things to revise in my head on this, as I honor Apollo and Hermes, I want to make sure that I get accurate and do my research.

I really enjoy being able to read your experiences and I think it's important as, someone outside the culture, gets to experience and understand more to be as accurate and non... whats the word... inappropriate with representing such a thing, I guess I can say. If that makes sense.__________________________________________________________

Thank you for sending a message and for listening to the opinion of Greek people. (I am not the only one with that opinion, many of my 500 followers also share the same ideas.) Anyways prepare yourself for a looooooong analysis! So, get under comfy blankets and take your tea/coffee next to you!

To begin with, there are Greeks that don’t mind but those are usually Greeks who have close contact with the American way of thinking through social media. Or some that don’t care because the approach our mythology in a kinda superficial way? I am not saying this to offend any Greeks who don’t mind the racebending. Every Greek has the right to have a relationship with their culture according to their own standards. Those people who think racebending is ok are usually no less patriots than the ones who do. However, those who don’t mind the race bending are extremely rare to find. 

If I go to my 50 y/o aunt and announce to her that foreigners depict Demeter as Black she is gonna lose her mind. I have also asked the opinion of Greeks who are not into social media or groups where Greek mythology is discussed by foreigners. When they were informed of the racebending the first thing they said was “but... why??” and they couldn’t fathom how this could help anyone. The second thing they say is “But the Gods are white!” explaining that our ancestor have depicted them as Caucasian for centuries and we, as Greeks, know no other depiction of them.

I assure you, it has nothing to do with white superiority - which is a myth anyways. Greeks can be perfectly racist to people who are pastry white :P If you racebended the gods into any other race, we would still have a problem. It’s all a matter of respecting iconography and tradition. It would be ignorant of even us Greeks to change the depiction of the gods when our ancestors were very clear in their art about their race. It was also clear in antiquity that the gods had bodies. I am in another computer and I cannot access my files, but I had a file for a philosopher who tried to argue against the public opinion that the gods didn’t have bodies. But the majority of ancient Greeks believed that the gods had a physical presence.

Also, race matters for Greeks as it does for most of other cultures. You expect Nigerian deities to look like the average Nigerian, yes? Because they were created by a homogenous Black population. You think the same for Indian and Chinese deities, yes? It makes sense for deities and public figures from a certain culture to look like the people of that culture. I think it’s common sense. Turning an old Nigerian deity into a Chinese, would’t represent the Nigerian people any more. For similar reasons, we don’t want our important heritage figures changed. (In case a warrior was described as Black African in our ancient texts, then of course we wouldn’t have a problem with keeping that figure Black).

You are correct when saying that the race bending comes from a Christian point of view. I think many hellenic polytheists/pagans/wiccans haven't managed to escape the Christian logic. In Christianity we have accepted for many centuries that saints and important figures would be viewed with different races, so people can come closer to them. For example, there is a Chinese, Native American, Mexican (different tribes), Black Jesus etc. Most of the times they are also dressed in the traditional regalia of the respective culture. It's a thing for the last 200 years at least. 

Even Greeks depicted Jesus kinda white (he has an olive skin complexionand brown hair, which is closer to the Greek standards). And this happened since the Byzantine Empire. We even call the Virgin Mary "Mother of all Greeks" (apparently Mary has a particular interest in our nation xD) We have made her into a Greek mum. But we kinda have the freedom to do this because Christianity is an international religion which is alive for the last 2.000 years, so these changes come organically.

On the contrary, almost nobody has worshipped the Greek gods since 500 AC. The religion was been dead for almost 2.000 years, until Western classicists made it a popular. Now people who have no actual contact with the Greek culture start worshiping those gods. Don’t get me wrong, I believe any foreigner can worship the Greek gods! The thing is that most of the foreign worshippers don’t see the Greek gods as part of the culture that created them, because of the Americanization of the gods in the media and the complete stripping of the Greek elements from them.

But gods are still part of the Greeks’ heritage. Many ancient traditions and myths have kept from the ancient years, we have the names of gods and the gods are still used as symbols here. Our culture hasn’t died, as many westerners (perhaps subconciously) believe. It is alive and evolving, despite foreigners usually ignoring us. So, the ideas about our ancient religion have been involving with us, becoming part of our national identity in a unique way. 

After 2.000 years of the religion’s “death”, foreigners become enamored with Greece again. But not our Greece. They become enamored with a part of our culture that hasn’t existed in millenia. They study the culture only till the Roman years and then they skip 2.000 years of evolving cultural identity and go straight to the 21st century western (west Europe/America) ideals and societies.

You can only imagine how it seems to us Greeks, when foreigners suddenly remember us again and, on top of that, they don’t become part of our culture but they insist that a part of our culture (in its ancient form) becomes tailored to their own standards. And now foreigners ingore our own point of view, because, as they have done the last 2.000 years, they keep on ignoring us :P (I mean they as a people, greatly generalizing here). Please see that post for how disconnected a Greek feels about the modern Greek religion, and the analysis that comes with it. (Link)

Similarly, imagine if suddenly the Nigerian culture became a trend in Greece and now some Greeks become interesting in the old (almost dead to Nigeria) worship of Orishas. And now they want to depict the Orishas as White, because they, themselves are white and maybe white deities reflect better the racial situation in Greece. Wouldn’t that be disrespectful, though? Not only because the Black becomes White, but because we would take an inactive worship from the Nigerians and add our own politics to it.

Our situation is also kind of special because for the last centuries every country that has become interested in our culture has abused it. They have stolen antiquities from us and northwestern Europe but also in the US have no problem having those stolen artifacts and displaying them. There is a tradition of foreigners claiming to “love” Greece but they are really in love with our ancient aesthetic and they don’t give a shit about the Greeks who preserve the culture and even die to protect their antiquities. 

So we are used to this kind of treatment and it hurts extra when it’s happening again. But we are also desensitized. For some reason a person can be dressed as a Greek deity for Halloween and we won’t bat an eye. At the same time, I see people from other cultures defending the importance of their figures, when foreigners dress up as them for fun. 

I don’t understand how we consider this disrespectful for any other culture but if it’s the Greek we don’t care. Why could this be? Perhaps because many Greeks have come to see their own culture as public property. Perhaps because it is what the prominent international media tells us and maybe because we are used to selling our culture for profit (we are a tourist country) and we only see it as merchandise. 

Let me add I am not only fascinated by my own cultures but also cultures around the world. It makes no sense to me that people want Gods of color and their only solution is to make the Greek gods Black. Have we forgotten the numerous rich cultures of Asia and Africa?? There are a ton of deities there who, if you want to draw Afrocentric art for example, will be great inspiration! It reminds me of a publishing house which put POC in the covers of western classic books (thus kinda turning the white main characters into POC only in the cover) while not promoting books from POC or books featuring POC. I think it’s counterproductive.

I think that’s all I have to say for now! Feel free to ask more questions if I haven’t covered you! And if you have more thoughts you can drop them in my ask box.

Also, one question for you before you leave. You mentioned “I considered that it was kind of strong to claim that sort of race thing in a way”. Can you explain to me why? I would like to understand better people who think this way. Then maybe I could explain more effectively to them that their race bending practice isn’t as helpful as they think it is.

P.S. Even saying “races” of people exist is considered deeply racist in Greece (and Europe). I mention that as potential food of thought. For us there are only hues of skin colors, not races, so our social politics are different. 

[theoppositeofadults]

1. Pfff

It might sound (and look) a bit silly but this word is a staple of French conversation and used in the right way, it will give your spoken French a bit of native attitude.

Pfff often goes hand in hand with a facial expression that exudes boredom or dislike because it is used to convey contempt, disdain and scorn.

The French use it when somebody is saying something they consider to be stupid, ridiculous, pathetic so much so that they are at a loss for a real answer and are reduced to saying pfff.

There isn't an exact translation in English, but it could be compared to sighing loudly when someone is speaking and some might even make a similar noise to the French pfff to go with it.

Here's an example of this noise in use: Pfff, elle n'avait rien d'exceptionnel cette femme. - Pfff, there was nothing exceptional about that woman.

Or, Pfff, c'est n'importe quoi - Pfff, whatever.

Remember that while it is very common, it is still colloquial and is certainly one to avoid using in front of your boss.

2. Aïe

Aïe is a sound you will hear a lot around France and it may be one that moves you to ask the person who utters it if they're ok.

The action that goes with this word is a deep frown or perhaps even a wince of pain, because it is the French equivalent of 'ouch!' or 'ow!' in English.

So for example you might say: Aïe! Je me suis piqué le doigt. - Ow! I pricked my finger.

Or Aïe! Aïe! Aïe! Je viens de me couper. - Ouch! I just cut my finger.

It can also mean 'oh', 'oh dear', 'oh no' or 'oh my'.

In this case, you might say: Aïe! Que se passe-t-il? - Oh my! What's happening?

3. Bah

Bah will make you sound as French as the French, particularly if you deliver it with your eyebrows raised, your hands turned palms upwards and your mouth formed so that both corners are pointed to the floor. Or with your eyes wide open and an expression of complete perplexity.

Bah can mean ‘I know everything' or ‘I know nothing', it all depends on the delivery and context.

Say it quickly and you can sound dismissively confident. However, you can also say it quickly to sound genuinely surprised. It can also be stretched out to demonstrate just how sceptical and incredulous you are. Or indeed how dubious you are. Everything depends on your facial expression.

Baaaah oui.... 'But of course, you are a fool for asking this question'. Or 'I think so….' (showing your hesitation)

Bah oui! 'Yes!' (showing the answer is blatantly obvious)

Bah oui? 'Goodness me! Is that really true?'

4. Ben

This is one of those French words that you're unlikely to be taught in school and it can really throw a spanner into the works when people start using it in informal conversations.

And if your name is 'Ben' then you're even more likely to be confused... particularly when you see it written down.

But the main translation for Ben isn't exactly a word.

The equivalent in English would be 'er' as in the noise you make when hesitating or playing for time at the beginning of a sentence.

For example, Et tu sais à quelle heure revient ton frère? - Ben, j'en sais rien. (And do you know what time your brother got home? - Er, I don't know anything).

If you're surprised it can also mean 'well'.

Or, J'ai gagné €10,000  à un jeu à gratter! - Eh ben, t'en as, de la chance! (I won €10,000 on a scratchcard game! - Well, you're lucky!)

It can also translate to 'of course', such as Et tu vas à l'anniversaire de Pascal samedi? - Ben oui! (And you're coming to Pascal's birthday on Saturday? - Of course!)

You could also say Ben ça alors! to mean 'well, well, well!'

5. Blow a raspberry

Difficult to spell, this is the noise that babies make when they blow out their cheeks, or the noise of someone making a farting sound.

Unlike in British and Americans cultures, though, in French this is not rude, it's simply a way of saying 'I have absolutely no idea'. It can be used as well as or instead of a shrug if you've asked something that is simply impossible to answer.

6. Hein

French speakers pepper informal conversation with hein all the time. It's one of those things that no one teaches in school, but will make you sound a lot more natural when you talk.

Hein is an interjection which is used to pose a question or seek confirmation. It is usually found at the end of a phrase, but also sometimes at the beginning or on its own, and serves a number of different purposes.

Hein?, when it's on its own or at the beginning of a phrase, is very similar to the English ‘huh?' or ‘what?', used to indicate that the speaker has not understood something and would like it to be repeated. As in, Hein? Qu'est-ce que tu as dit? - ‘Huh? What did you say?'

And just like ‘what?', hein? used in this way can also indicate the surprise of the speaker, rather than that they have not heard what the person they are talking with has said: Hein? Tu as déjà fini? - ‘What? You already finished?'

It can also be used to insist on a response, even when the speaker may already suspect that they know the answer: Pourquoi est-ce que vous êtes en retard, hein? Vous êtes réveillé tard ? - ‘Why are you late, huh? Did you wake up late?'

Or to simply solicit the agreement of the listener, like ‘eh?' or ‘right?', especially at the end of the phrase. For example, Ce n'est pas si facile que ça, hein? - ‘It's not so easy, right?'

Finally, hein can be used at the end of a phrase to emphasise what has just been said, as in Laissez-moi tranquille, hein! - Let me be, ok? (In this case, no question is actually being asked).

However hein is used, it's usually in an informal context, and is the kind of filler word you want to avoid in presentations at work or school.

7. Kif-Kif

This informal phrase will help you out when comparing multiple things that are more or less the same, or when you want to make someone believe that that's the case.

Kif-kif means ‘it's all the same', ‘it's equal', or ‘it makes no difference'. This phrase is usually used in informal scenarios to compare two options that are so similar that they are virtually equal.

For example, Si je prends le métro ou le bus, c'est kif-kif, ça va durer une demi-heure (Whether I take the metro or the bus, it's all the same, it's going to take half an hour).

It can also be used to indicate that two parties have contributed equally to something, especially expenses: Tu as payé le dîner? Non, on a payé kif-kif. (Did you pay for dinner? No, we split the bill).

In this case, the term moite-moite or moitié-moitié (half and half) can also be used.

8. Bof

If you're feeling demotivated, indifferent, or want to engage in the traditional French pastime of avoiding being positive (being honest) about things, this is a need to know word.

Plus it's a French classic, right up there with pfff, exaggerated shrugging and oh la la.

Historically it's thought that this word might be linked to the acronym of Boeuf, Oeuf, Fromage. All three foods were rationed during the German war-time occupation in France and black marketeers became known as BOFs. Overtime bof  has lost this unscrupulous association and come to mean something quite different.

Bof is a spoken interjection that translates more as a feeling of disinterest or mild unhappiness than an actual word.  

It's nearly always used as an indifferent or slightly negative response to a question, for example, - Que penses-tu de ce film? – Bof. Pas terrible. (What did you think of the film? – Whatever. It wasn't terrible.)

Similarly bof could also be the response to ‘Don't you think the film is great?' (Tu trouves pas que ce film est génial?) or ‘Do you want to go to the cinema? (Ca te dit d'aller au cinéma?), meaning an apathetic ‘not really' in both cases.

It could also be a slightly depressing reply to ça va? meaning ‘not great', ‘ok', or ‘meh'.

Considering that a normal reply would be ‘fine' or ‘good thanks' (bien, merci) saying you are just ‘alright', ‘ok' or bof actually implies that you feeling a bit miserable.

Finally, if you're going to use this classic French sound you might as well go the whole hog and Frenchify your gestures too; bof is often said with an indifferent expression and dismissive shrug of the shoulders.

9. Oh la la

And let's finish on a French classic. Any caricature of the French involves someone saying Oh là là and the best thing about this cliché is that it's actually true.

Living in France you hear it at least once a day, probably more, and after a while you find yourself saying it almost as much.

There are several meanings for Oh là là and to work out which one you're hearing you'll need to rely on context.

One important thing to note is that unlike in English (when we say 'Ooh la la') when the French use this expression it is never intended to express that someone is sexually attractive.

Here's a look at the different ways it is used.

There is the 'traditional' method, most known to foreigners and often (though not exclusively) used by women, which is the prim and proper Oh là là. This is used to express admiration, almost in the same way we anglophone girls of a certain age use the phrase 'Oh my god'.

For example, you show someone your new ring and they say Oh là là c'est trop jolie! (Oh my god it's so pretty!). It is high, light and happy. This is a good Oh là là.

Then there is the bad Oh là là.  Perhaps predictably, the French often employ the bad Oh là là, used more in the sense 'Oh my god that's freaking annoying'. .

For example: a car burns through a pedestrian crossing nearly knocking you over or just doesn't stop to let you cross the road generally or the cashier at the supermarket tells you je ferme ma caisse, moi (I'm closing my till) even though the queues are huge.

This Oh là là (or even Ho là là) is low, baritone and disapproving, often muttered under your breath.

Then there is the pièce de la résistance (which, incidentally, is not something the French say. Go figure.) - the Oh là là là là là là. Yes, that's right. Six “là”s - no more, no less - in quick succession. This is bad. This is very bad.  Not to be bandied around lightly, this is reserved for those head-in-hands, all hope is lost kind of moments which, again perhaps unsurprisingly, happen in Paris more often than you think.

This is used when the French miss a crucial goal in the (soccer/rugby/other ball sport) or when you get halfway home from CDG and realise the cab driver doesn't take carte blue.

[tulunnguaq]

Etymology of Greenlandic “Tuluk”- an alternative hypothesis

So a little while ago I posted this extract from a Greenlandic dictionary tool (Qimawin), which purported to show the etymology of the Greenlandic word tuluk Englishman, British person:

The Danish text says: “The word is generally assumed to be from English ‘do you look’, which Greenlanders accordingly may appear to have heard especially often on board English ships.”

Now, the trouble is that I thought about this some more and didn’t really buy it. I mean, “do you look” (and much less “do look”), are not really typical English phrases, and I can’t think of a good reason why they would be used so much on board English ships that Greenlanders there (travelling for what reason, where?) would have assumed that this phrase was a suitable one to apply to the whole British people.  So while in discussion on the Inuit/Yupik/Aleut Discord forum I came up with a rather flippant solution - maybe one of these ships had a “Captain Tullock” or some such.

On a whim, I then searched for him, and blow me, he actually existed:

OK, not so fast though. This guy doesn’t seem to be in the right part of the world. But then Tullock appears to be a variant spelling of Tulloch, which is a Scots name, and Scotland is as close to Greenland as you can get. So here’s another Captain Tulloch from the right part of the world:

OK, this is getting interesting. Is Tulloch a common name up in the North of Scotland? Yes it is, here in descending order are where the most Tullochs are found on a sample genealogy website:

So a hefty number from Shetland and Orkney. So where next? Well it turns out there is a very old connection between the whaling industry and the people of Shetland and Orkney.  Commercial whaling started from the UK in various locations from 1600, and many whaling ships (from Hull, Dundee, Peterhead or other locations) would stop off in Shetland and Orkney en route to pick up additional hands, presumably due to lower cost.

This fascinating article: The fiddle at sea: tradition and innovation among Shetland musicians in the whaling industry goes into some detail on the Shetland connection:

The Arctic whaling industry began in the early 1700s when ships started travelling to the Davis Straits off the Greenland coast in order to hunt down the whales. Leaving in the spring, a whaling season tended to last between four and five months. Greenland was the centre for the industry in the late 1700s, after which time attention was drawn to areas further west such as Hudson Bay and the Bering Straits. Figure 5 is a map showing the routes taken by ships employed in the industry. In 1851 American whalers introduced the practice of ‘wintering’. Vessels became frozen into the ice and the crew members were forced to live off the land. This required them to depend on the Inuit for food and clothing, and trading became established, which resulted in interdependence between indigenous populations and the whalers.

The article also speculates on the importance of the Shetland fiddle on these long journeys:

Due to its portability, it was often taken aboard sailing ships and other vessels for musical entertainment. The necessity of music among whalers was described by David Proctor as follows:

“The men who undertook expeditions to Polar regions were perhaps those who needed music most, in order to maintain their morale during the long dark hours of winter when their ships were caught in the ice or they were living in huts, separated by vast distances from their homelands. This was especially true in those periods when wireless communication and aircraft, that might bring relief, did not exist.”

Also:

“Each Greenland ship used to carry a fiddler, sometimes a Southerner, sometimes a Shetlander, to play to the men while at work to enliven them. And sometimes the fiddlers from several ships would meet and try their skill. And I think I have heard of a Shetland fiddler competing with the Dutch from a buss or ship. No wonder that tunes are so abundant. Several of them are fairy tunes, and are likely very old; many are of Norse origin and many Scotch; and many of them must have been learned from the sources indicated above. There is even a Yaki, i.e. Eskimo tune.”

The article also notes:

“The influence of the fiddle was not only confined to crew members working aboard whaling ships, but extended to the indigenous populations in Arctic Alaska, Canada, and Greenland with whom whalers came into contact. Dan Worrall noted that anthropologists and musicologists of the early twentieth century ‘remarked upon the frequent use of fiddles, concertinas, and accordions by Inuit and Aleut people, as well as upon the proportion of European and American dance music that they played’.”

One Shetland tune preserved to this day is fitting called “Da Merry Boys o’ Greenland”:

So where does this involve the Tullochs? Well, we can tell from old records which ships went for whale and seal to Greenland, like this ship log from the Dundee registered “Erik” in 1881:

And who do we find in the crew list itself?:

Not just one, but two Tullochs (John and William), both from Bressay in Shetland.

Now, these records would appear to be too late to prove an etymology, as Greenlandic tuluk for British person already appears to be established in Samuel Kleinschmidt’s Den Grønlandske Ordbog of 1871:

And not only that, but it also appeared in Otto Fabricius’ Den Grønlandske Ordbog of 1804 (at least in the plural form Tulluït (modern Tuluit):

So the next major Greenlandic dictionary before that is Danish missionary Poul Egede’s Dictionarium grönlandico-danico-latinum of 1750:

There is no reference for tuluk. Now, this doesn’t prove that the word wasn’t in use at this time, because the dictionary might not be comprehensive, but since the heyday of the British whaling trade near Greenland was the 1700s, it may well have taken some time for enough visits to be made before the native Greenlanders saw enough Brits - to distinguish them from Danish colonists who had only started arriving in the 1720s (in search of the lost Norse colonies - that’s another story) - to give them a distinct name. But they clearly did have a distinct name by 1804 at least, when tuluk/tuluit formally entered the dictionary.

So my theory is this:

British whaling ships from Hull, Dundee and elsewhere started plying their trade in the waters near Greenland by the 1700s.

These ships took on many people from Shetland and Orkney en route to Greenland.

Shetland fiddlers would have been welcome and memorable shipmates, bringing a popular and portable form of entertainment for all.

Many of these Shetlanders would have been of the Tulloch family name, as the 1881 records show.

Tulloch is originally a Scots Gaelic name, meaning hillock. It would be pronounced /’tuləx/ and a similar pronunciation may well have been used by non-Gaelic Scottish shipmates from Dundee; and possibly Northern England shipmates from Hull may have been more like /tʊlək/. I’m not sure what the Shetlanders of the time would have said - possibly there may have been a Norn language influence to pronunciation. Either way, the closest analogue in Greenlandic pronunciation to either would be tuluk (Greenlandic does not allow final fricatives). Nouns ending in -k form their plurals in -it, hence tuluit plural. (NB Tuluit Nunaat - the country of the British = UK, England)

The whaling ships clearly had enough contact with native Greenlanders to register as a different form of foreigner than the Danes (who became Qallunaat: those with big eyebrows, a generic eastern Inuit term for ‘White European’, which may have already been established at the earlier Norse contact)

Maybe - and this is clearly a much higher underpant-gnome level of speculation - the Greenlanders who made contact were very taken with the fiddlers’ music, and possibly they kept hearing the crewmates shout “Tulloch, another tune!”, that they eventually assumed “tuluk” was a form of address among these seafaring folk, and internalised it into their vocabulary.

Any thoughts at all are welcome. 

[unfolded73]

How Do We Get Back (1/16) - schitt’s creek ff

(AO3 link)

Summary:  In a literal alternate universe where the Roses escaped financial ruin, David and Patrick struggle with loneliness and a sense that something isn’t right. A chance meeting in New York and a terrible tragedy drive them to question whether the timeline they are on is the right one.

Notes:  I'm really excited to start posting this fic which has been obsessing me for a few weeks. Thanks to @j-philly-b for being my New York-native nit-picker - pizza fight forever. See notes at the end for warnings about plot elements in this fic ... or don't if you prefer not to know.

Rating will be explicit in later chapters. This chapter 3.5k words.

______________________________

Soft music played from somewhere, infused into the space like just the right amount of an expensive perfume: not enough to draw attention to itself, but enough to help round out the aesthetic with taste and class. The white walls positively glowed under warm, carefully selected lighting, offering a contrast to the pieces on offer to buyers. Minimalist and spare, every item was lovingly placed by the owner in exactly the perfect spot to highlight its assets and mask its flaws. It was why buyers went out of their way to come here, or so the proprietor had been told in more prosperous days.

“Tell me about this sculpture,” said a woman in a severe suit and a severe haircut and impossibly high heels.

David Rose, the gallerist she was addressing, put his hands together in an obsequious manner and walked over to stand at her side. Her command had come without the courtesy of turning and looking at him; rather with the expectation that she would get a prompt response — she was the kind of woman who always got a prompt response.

“This is another exciting piece by Devonaé Streeter. She works out of New York now, but after a few months in Prague—”

“I don’t want to hear about the artist. Tell me about the work.”

David squinted an eye at the bronze sculpture, standing its solitary vigil on a white pedestal. He imagined the… woman? it depicted was looking back at him, or would have been if she had more than empty eye sockets to look at him with. He launched into his patter.

“Devonaé’s bronze works often challenge the viewer to look past the grotesque features of the art to see the grotesque features in themselves. This particular figure is an allegory for the way in which we fail to recognize each other’s pain, and I think—”

The woman turned on her heel and walked away, dismissing him and the statue with one quick wave of her hand. She turned her attention to the art on the walls, scanning over the canvasses quickly. David could almost see the calculations going on behind her eyes, like a scrolling ticker on a cable business news show. She wasn’t here to appreciate the art, she was here to find something to invest in. Most of them were, especially people like her.

“Tell me about that one,” she said, pointing to the largest canvas.

David winced. He would have taken the painting in question down a while ago, or perhaps never would have hung it in the first place, if he weren’t hurting a little bit for artists these days. And of course if he hadn’t signed a contract. He’d met Carmen at a party, and okay yes, she’d seemed a little crazy at the time but he’d assumed that was because of all the drugs they were taking. He’d agreed to display her art in his gallery. Now, months later, not a single one of the paintings had ever sold.

Clearing his throat, David said, “Carmen Herrera. She has a… unique vision, as you can see from this piece.” He focused on the track lighting above the painting as he talked; he’d never been able to look at this piece without developing an anxious flutter in his stomach. “It is intended to shock, of course. The worshippers…” He let his eyes glance over the blood-soaked imagery, wondering why he was bothering. This woman was never going to buy one of Carmen’s paintings. “The worshippers hurt themselves and each other at the behest of their goddess.” He gestured vaguely upward.

“Mictēcacihuātl,” the woman murmured.

“Umm… bless you?”

“The Aztec goddess of death,” she explained, still staring at the painting.

“Oh, uhh, yes exactly,” he vamped. “Personally, I’ve always thought the worshippers represent the American electorate, voting against their own self interest because of the lies politicians tell them.” He didn’t really think that. He wasn’t sure Carmen could have said, if pressed, who the President of the United States even was. But he gave potential buyers this line, figuring they might recoil a little less from the painting if they thought it was allegorical.

The sharp-suited woman couldn’t seem to take her eyes off of it. “No, I don’t think that’s what it’s about,” she said. Then she turned to him. “I’ll take it.”

David gaped at her for a second before he recovered enough to respond. “Yes, of course.”

After several minutes of dealing with the payment and shipping, tasks that always made David’s palms sweat with anxiety that he’d screw up some detail of the transaction, the woman was gone and the gallery was quiet as a tomb — its usual state. David sighed and looked up at Carmen’s terrifying painting. “See you never, you creepy fucker.”

He walked back into his office and pulled out his phone. Opening Instagram, David scrolled aimlessly through posts by celebrities and influencers, many of whom he had met and a few of whom he had fucked. When no images of his sister appeared after a few minutes of scrolling, he pulled up her profile and checked her last post — two days ago, which was very unlike Alexis. David’s heart started to hammer in his chest with familiar worry for his sister. He checked the time and counted forward. It would be close to midnight in Italy, probably as good a time as any to catch her on her phone.

Hey r u ok? he texted, and then spent a full minute watching for any sign of a return message before he clicked off the screen and tossed the phone onto his desk with a huff. Then when that dramatic gesture didn’t give him a result, he picked his phone up again, just in time for it to vibrate with an incoming call. He almost dropped it.

Seeing who was calling, David almost let it go unanswered, but at the last second he tapped the screen. “Hi, Dad.”

“David, how are you?” His father’s voice was always confident and booming, as if he could summon happiness if he just projected from his diaphragm. David held the phone away from his ear with a wince, and then put it on speaker before setting it down.

“Fine. Why are you calling me?”

“Do I need a reason to call my only son?”

David rolled his eyes. “Yes.”

There was a pause. “Well, actually, I just heard that Eli was released from prison.”

Pulling a nail file out of his desk drawer, David snorted. “What, and you’re going to rehire him as your business manager?”

“Well, of course not, David.”

“Good.”

“I’m never going to speak to him again.”

“Good.”

“I mean, can you imagine how our lives might have turned out if he’d managed to get on that plane to the Cayman Islands before the police caught him?”

“Yes, I can, because you’ve mentioned it an average of once a month for the last three years,” David said, taking a few desultory swipes across the end of the nail on his middle finger.

“I mean, it was bad enough with all the tax penalties we had to pay. If it weren’t for Eli, we’d still have the beach house!”

“Uh huh.” If David had heard all of this before once, he’d heard it a hundred times. “Where’s Mom?”

“She’s on location with Sharknado 5. And you know, the prison that jackass was in was pretty swanky.”

“Then maybe Eli will actually be more miserable now that he’s been released. When does Mom get back?”

“Two more weeks. She’s got her phone in Bulgaria; you can call her.”

David didn’t want to call her. He wanted his father to call her so that she could talk him off of this angry ledge before he had another scare with his heart.

“Just… don’t worry about Eli, okay?” David set the nail file down and pinched the bridge of his nose. “He’s not a part of your life anymore.”

“Damn straight he’s not.”

“Weren’t you telling me something about a new business venture at Christmas? Some kind of app?” David didn’t want to talk about this, or about anything really, but he figured he could at least try to pull his father out of this emotional tailspin about the former business manager who almost made off with the Rose family fortune.

“Yes, well, the spouting video market is quite crowded now, of course, but we’re making some in-roads. Slow and steady wins the race, that’s what I always say.”

“It’s streaming video. And that’s what you used to say about your rivalry with Blockbuster,” David snarked, his moment of charitability toward his father difficult to keep front of mind when he was being so irritating.

“And Blockbuster went out of business.”

“So did you!”

“It was a strategic restructuring, David. A shift into other markets. Like streaming video. Sure, the money isn’t flowing as freely as it did in the Rose Video heyday, but we’re doing fine.”

“Okay.” He went back to filing his nails.

“Are you still seeing… what was her name?” Johnny asked.

Trying to remember who his dad was even talking about, David squinted. “Who?”

“You know, the girl who used to eat garbage as performance art?”

David huffed. “Eliose didn’t eat garbage, she covered herself in… you know what, it doesn’t matter. We haven’t seen each other in months.”

“Oh. Is there anyone special in your life right now?”

An image of Brenton flashed in his mind. He was probably back in David’s apartment as they spoke, making the place reek of bong water and eating all of David’s food. He sighed. “No, no one special.”

“Well, don’t give up, son,” Johnny said. “How’s the gallery?”

“I just sold a painting.”

“That’s great!” his father boomed. “Good for you!”

“Okay, selling paintings is my job, you don’t have to praise me quite so effusively for doing my job.”

“No, of course I don’t need to. But I’m proud of you, son. Especially now that…” There was a moment of dead air.

“You still there?” David asked.

“Oh! Yes, I’m still here.”

“I thought the call had dropped. Now that what?”

An uncomfortable chuckle came out of the phone speaker. “You know, I forgot what I was saying.”

“Uhhh… okay.” David rolled his eyes again. “Anyway, the art business isn’t booming like it used to be, but today was good.”

“You know what? I just remembered I need to make another call,” his father said. “Sorry, David.”

“Whatever. You called me.”

“Talk to you soon, son.”

“Mm-hmm. Bye.” David tapped the screen and ended the call. He noticed the time and sighed, glancing out of his office door at the empty gallery. He might as well lock up and go back to his apartment. He moved quietly around the space, flipping off all of the lights and turning off the music that he played from a spare iPad that he’d gotten in a gift bag when he was Hayden Panettiere’s date to the 2012 Teen Choice Awards. Once he had his coat and messenger bag and had the security gate pulled down and locked, David pocketed his keys and stepped out onto the busy SoHo sidewalk. It had been misting rain for hours, the January day not cold enough to produce snow, but the temperature was now dropping below freezing and making the sidewalks treacherous.

The stationary store next door to his gallery was still open and doing a brisk business, and he was tempted to go in and look at the journals, but he resisted the impulse. Even though he used them sporadically, he’d already bought more empty journals than he could fill in a lifetime. The bar at the end of the block was also starting to fill up, and while he’d been known to get a drink there after closing the gallery, he wasn’t in the mood to be around people at the moment. Pulling his phone out of his pocket, he summoned an Uber to ferry him the two miles to his apartment in Chelsea.

Braulio is 4 minutes away, his phone told him. While he waited, he texted Alexis again. Can you respond pls???

“Want me to talk or not talk?” his Uber driver asked as soon as David was settled into the back seat of the black Nissan.

“Don’t talk, please,” he responded. “Sorry.”

“Hey, no worries, man. That’s why I ask.” Braulio turned up his music a couple of clicks, the kind of unobjectionable, nondescript soundscape that was like something you’d hear in a modern hotel lobby. The driver had probably read on a website that it was the key to increasing tips or 5-star ratings.

David’s block on West 21st Street was packed with four and five-story apartment buildings, the short trees at regular intervals along the sidewalk offering a tiny break from the monotony of sandstone and concrete — although not this time of year, when they stuck up like twigs haphazardly shoved into the dirt by a giant, bored child. Shivering in his too-thin but fashionable jacket, he clicked on a rating for his Uber driver and shoved his phone in his pocket before making his way over to the short flight of stairs that led up to his building.

“Spare change,” a familiar voice called from a heap of blankets at the base of the building.

David opened his messenger bag and fished for the coins at the bottom. “It’s getting cold; you need to go to a shelter.”

“Not that cold,” the woman countered, holding her dingy Starbucks cup aloft. He dropped the coins in.

“The temperature’s dropping though.”

“Cold enough to ice skate.”

He took the non-sequitur in stride. “Well, not quite, but almost.”

“Your skates have to stay on the right line, ya know. You slip off and then suddenly—” She hit the cup, making the coins rattle. “Different universe.”

“Uh-huh. Will you go to a shelter, please? Don’t stay out here all night.” He re-clipped his bag and turned to walk away.

“You’re not supposed to be here, Mister Rose.”

“Well, I live here.”

“Not supposed to. Supposed to live in a motel with your family.”

David stopped and turned around. “What? Ew.”

“Rosebud,” she murmured.

“Oh, are we in Citizen Kane now?”

She hunkered down in her blankets, putting an end to what could only loosely be termed a conversation. Sighing, David left the homeless woman behind and entered the building’s vestibule. He then unlocked the inner door, shoving his way in with a grunt when the door inevitably stuck a little bit.

He mounted the one flight of stairs to his apartment. At the height of his family’s wealth, when David had been in his late twenties, he’d lived in a very posh apartment on the upper east side, but after the incident with his father’s business manager, he’d downgraded and moved to Chelsea. It was still a very nice, modern apartment, but it wasn’t what he’d once had.

The scent of sandlewood incense greeted him as he unlocked his door, and he wrinkled his nose and recoiled a little. Dropping his bag, he made his way to the kitchen and opened the refrigerator, hoping to find his leftovers from last night’s take-out. Of course they were gone. He slammed the refrigerator and swung around, ready to have it out with Brenton once and for all.

The man in question chose that moment to stride into the kitchen, shirtless, a pair of athletic shorts slung low on his waist. “Hey,” Brenton said. “Glad you’re here, we need to talk.”

“Yeah, we sure do.” David tried not to let his eyes drift down to the v-shaped crease of Brenton’s hips and failed.

“I’m gonna go stay with my boyfriend in LA for a while, so…” He shrugged. “Thanks for everything.”

“I’m sorry, your what? You never mentioned a boyfriend before,” David said, grimacing. He’d met Brenton last month at a cocktail party he’d thrown at the gallery. Young and blond and in his mid-twenties, Brenton was the son of a well-known hedge fund manager, and he seemed to be a guy whose sole occupation was drifting from one party to another, looking for a good time. He and David had hooked up several times in recent weeks, but their conversations had been limited to fashion and art world trends and what kind of sex they were into.

“Because we weren’t like that, you and me,” Brenton said with a disarming smile. “This was never about, you know, unpacking our pasts. And we never said we were exclusive.”

“I know that,” David snapped. “I didn’t say I expected exclusivity. Still, you might have mentioned—”

“He and I were figuring some things out, you know? But he’s gone out there for pilot season and the auditions are stressful, so I think I really just need to be there for him.”

“Oh, he’s an actor,” David said. “How fun for you.”

There wasn’t really much more to say, so after a few more empty platitudes from Brenton, he disappeared into David’s bedroom to get dressed and to gather whatever belongings he’d brought over in the course of their month-long affair. David sat at the kitchen island and flipped through an issue of Vogue without seeing the pages. He probed a little bit at his feelings, pressing against them like you’d touch a bruise, trying to determine how painful it was. He didn’t really care that much about Brenton — he was shallow and mostly unkind. David didn’t think he’d miss him. What did hurt was once again being shoved aside as soon as something better came along, after a lifetime of being shoved aside as soon as something better came along.

Once Brenton was gone, David tried cracking open a window to air out the apartment, but quickly closed it when it let in a biting cold wind. He was starting to get a headache, and he reached up to massage the back of his neck, trying to stave it off. Pulling out his phone, he checked Alexis’ instagram again, and then opened his messaging app.

[David] 911. Call me.

Surprisingly, his phone rang only a few seconds later.

“David, what? What’s the emergency?” Alexis sounded manic and not a little annoyed.

“I’ve been texting you all evening!” he almost shouted. “I’m sorry for worrying that you were dead.”

“I’m fine, why would I be dead?”

“Your social’s been dark for days.”

“Ugh. I’ve just been busy, David, I don’t have to post something every day as proof of life, do I?”

“You have to at least respond to my texts, Alexis.”

“Look, the club we were in might’ve gotten raided by police earlier, a little bit, but it’s fine because we found a back way out and we ran. It’s no big deal.”

“It kind of sounds like a big deal,” David said, rubbing his neck again. The headache was getting worse; the muscles running down from his skull were like iron rods. “Why were the police raiding the club?”

“How should I know what the Monaco police were doing?” she asked.

“Monaco? I thought you were in Italy.”

Alexis laughed. “Monaco is in Italy, David.”

“Monaco is a separate country, Alexis.”

“No, it’s… is it? Well anyway, Tiff and Lily and I are back at the hotel. I might come home, though. Stavros called and he wants to see me.”

David moaned unhappily. “Alexis, no, don’t go see Stavros. You’ll end up getting back together with him and that would be a terrible life choice.”

“Speaking of terrible life choices, is that Brett guy still crashing at your place?”

“It’s Brenton, and we were seeing each other, he wasn’t just ‘crashing’ here.”

“Mm-hmm.”

“And it’s over anyway.”

“Oh.” Her voice softened for the first time. “I’m sorry, David.”

He waved his hand, not that she could see him. “It doesn’t matter. I didn’t like him that much. He was just really hot.” He looked around the quiet, empty apartment. “You could stay here for a while, if you want.” Alexis was a chaos engine, but he also kind of missed her. Her whirlwind life would keep him from thinking about his own sad existence as much.

“Ew, what? Why? I’ve got way more space at Mom and Dad’s, and when I want to stay in the city, Klair lets me stay at the apartment with her stepmom. Who’s actually really cool, although she takes way too many pills.”

“Fine, whatever. Far be it from me to come between you and Klair’s stepmom.” He fluttered his hand again.

“Okay, don’t be like that. See, David, I know how you are. You’re lonely right now and you think you miss me, but you’d be sick of me the second I set foot through your doorway. You’d complain that I was too messy and that my friends were too loud and that I hadn’t used a coaster for my water glass.”

“Well, if you’d use a coaster—”

“David, it’s 3 a.m. here and you’re lecturing me about a hypothetical coaster. I’m gonna get some sleep now, okay?”

“Fine.”

“Go to Mom and Dad’s if you’re lonely,” Alexis said.

“I’m not lonely.”

“Goodnight, David.”

“Goodnight, Alexis.”

(Chapter 2)

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This fic will include a temporary character death, the temporariness of which should be obvious by the time it happens. Also note that this fic does include marital problems and adultery committed by Patrick, who didn't meet David in Schitt's Creek in this timeline, and (as you will see in the next chapter) ended up marrying Rachel. Just giving you an extra warning for that if it squicks you out. 

[lhne]

James Turrell’s Into the Light at Mass MoCA

     The first time I visited the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art in North Adams, also known as MASS MoCA, I was almost overwhelmed by the space, stupefied by the immensity of, well, everything.  MASS MoCA contains the largest contemporary installation space in America and thus offers a massive amount of room to explore a singular concept. This became evident as I delved into the work of James Turrell, which I was seeing for the first time. MASS MoCA had launched a retrospective of Turrell’s work, Into the Light. I was particularly interested in the centerpiece of the retrospective, a work entitled “Perfectly Clear”(1991) but I also visited an earlier work, “Hind Sight” (1984). In all, there were five installations of Turrell’s work in the retrospective, testament to just how much space MASS MoCA now has.

     If you know Turrell’s work, you know that it deploys light in disorienting ways. All I could think about, in my initial response to it, was THX 1138, an early George Lucas film about a post-apocalyptic, Orwellian future, where humans live underground in a highly organized and technically advanced society, in which love is forbidden. When the protagonist, THX 1138, does fall in love, he is sent to a limbo jail, in which he wanders endlessly (fig 1,2). No matter which direction he travels in the white space, he ends up right back to where he started, like a glitch: a ghost in the shell.

Fig. 1 From THX 1138

Fig. 2 From THX 1138

     It is easy for me to create a connection between a fragmented digital rendering--which I will refer to as a “glitch” or a “ghost in the shell”--and a  negative feedback loop created in the human mind. Not only does Turrell’s use of light recall the sixties and seventies era of science fiction in film, but it seeks to force viewers into their own panopticon-like, subconscious hell. 

Fig. 3 Hal from 2001: A Space Odyssey

Here I am thinking about 2001: A Space Odyssey in addition to THX 1138. In that earlier, 1968 masterpiece, David Bowman (the protagonist) is taken to a limbo space which Turrell’s work reminds me of. There is little agreement about what actually happens in  2001: A Space Odyssey, but my view is that Bowman ends up in an alien zoo as a result of the failure of the computer Hal (fig 3), which because of a glitch, a ghost in the shell,  rejects its human programming and fails to deliver Bowman to his new imprisonment in what appears to be a timeless space. Perhaps Hal’s failure makes Bowman lose his mind, so that he can be more easily transmuted into his new holding cell. Although there are more human artifacts in this film’s landscape than in that of THX 1138, the room where Bowman resides (fig 4) nevertheless looks and feels disorienting. As an actual living space, it’s an illusion.

Fig. 4 From 2001: A Space Odd

     The limbo-jails in THX1138 and 2001: A Space Odyssey parallel, to a remarkable degree, the installation of Turrell’s “Perfectly Clear,” with its cornerless walls creating a kind of white vacuum. I wonder if Turrell’s piece is meant to be likened to a zoo, or was he trying to create a feeling of transcendence?  Turrell’s retrospective appeals to me because I am curious about the idea of hell spaces. Both “Hind Sight” and “Perfectly Clear” can be an intolerable and uncomfortable imprisonment, similar to what THX 1138 and Bowman suffered in their respective limbos. But for some people they can offer a kind of transcendence. In a sense it depends on how prepared they are. Voluntarily entering a space that feels like a vacuum can lead to real insight if we have prepared ourselves for the experience. But when an individual is not ready to for the self-exploration that these environments occasion, the result can be disturbing.      When I experienced “Perfectly Clear,” I was afraid to let my eyes lose focus. I concentrated on seeing the seams in the room, which in fact was meant to be perceived as both seamless and without corners. Granted, the loss of focus can lead to a gain in insight. But I was scared of having a seizure or passing out. Moreover, Turrell’s work seems to command time and patience, which for some reason I felt like I did not have. I lacked the attention span that the work seemed to require of me. You can merely walk past or through a Turrell piece and say, Yes it was large and dark, or Yes it was large and bright. But in my first go through “Perfectly Clear,” I thought mostly of how I looked as I stood there. I thought of value. Who was valuable enough or well versed enough to stand here and consume the spectacle? Who had the correct baggage to process this information?  I kept thinking about the types of people who were in the space with me and if they knew something I did not.      My experience of “Hind Sight” was different. In fact, the contrast between “Hind Sight” and “Perfectly Clear” seemed to me a remarkable feat of curation. Indeed, “Hind Sight” became the most exceptional experience I have sustained in some number of years. When the docent told me to cross the threshold and enter this labyrinthian installation, where each turn blocked more and more light, I was completely elated and aroused, especially since I was leaving more and more light behind me. What was this space? No one had accompanied me. Could a gallery attendant have been watching me with infrared goggles? What is the value of this piece if I damaged it?  Why would I want to damage it? Should I touch myself, my breast? Can I fart? Shall I get naked? I was allotted fourteen minutes to do nothing but sit in a darkness so complete I could not see the hand in front of my face. I could, conceivably, do anything I wanted for fourteen minutes--the amount of time it takes a human to see something in the dark, apparently. The amount of time it takes for an individual to pick up on what Turrell seems to have left behind.      I sat still, my knees to my chest. I saw a light far, far away. There probably wasn’t a light. No, there was a light, I’m sure. Maybe not. Ok, there was a light and now I am beginning to see a kaleidoscopic effect. How interesting I thought. There were faces, so many faces, almost too many patterns. It was all moving quickly. I was out of breath at how frightened and elated I had become from the near incessant stream of visuals I was observing out of that singular, faint light. Then a voice from far off, from outside of this beautiful, cozy cave, calls to me. She tells me it is time to return. Like Orpheus leaving Eurydice in the hollows of Hades, I pull myself so pitifully back into the light.      Interestingly, I watched several people bail out of “Hind Sight”.  Was this because it created a sort of existential crisis? Were those who abandoned “Hind Sight” facing themselves in a void? Were they unable to make peace with their  pasts  and its transgressions? Can viewers handle what the colors and lights and darkness trigger in their mind? 

     After emerging from “Hind Sight,” I believed I had almost understood what it was Turrell wanted to explain to the audience. When I saw my lady docent I exclaimed, Tell me! What was being projected, a turning wheel in the light like a slide, or perhaps a viewmaster? She smiled and said, Nope. I exclaimed, Well what then? She said it is a little part of the wall they had sanded, illuminated by a cheap, faint light bulb—the source of all that panic and imagery that I have been experiencing a moment before.

     As I read more about Turrell’s process and background, I am beginning to think that these pieces are designed to create a space where we can merely watch ourselves in a purer form, removed from objecthood, and interact more totally with our own perception of space-time.  Whatever the case, “Perfectly Clear” and “Hind Sight” make it easier to understand why the Guggenheim describes Turrell’s work as “speaking to the materialism of light.”

Yasamin Safarzadeh is a native Angelino who has moved to Manchester, New Hampshire to pursue a Masters of Fine Arts degree and begin a new life on the East Coast. A published poet and art educator, Yasamin has always been drawn to underserved populations because of her background as a first generation American whose family escaped a country torn apart by revolution and coups. 

In Manchester, New Hampshire, Yasamin has been working for the Currier Art Museum and YWCA to create accessibility to arts and career opportunities for underserved populations.  In addition, she works to create safe spaces and events for the LGBTQ+ community and has been archiving and digitizing YWCA New Hampshire's rich history. She also works for The Dancing Lion, which brings so much pleasure to chocolate connoisseurs globally.  

Photo by Arnold Imaging LLC

About the LHNE Collective

[insatiabletc]

This is Alillia “Lala” Minthorn, a 25 year old member of the Yakama Nation in Washington. Here is how her friends and family remember her:

“Alillia “Lala” Minthorn was a daughter, a friend and a sister: big-hearted, a caretaker to everyone and altogether curious.” – as described to Emily Goodell with the Associated Press*

 “She was there in the rough times and in the dark times when nobody else wanted to be…And she never left until you were OK.” – Her sister, Tanya Miller*

Overall, outside of her sister, Alillia’s family has been quiet about the case.

One disturbing fact is that Tanya and Alillia knew quite a few women that have gone missing over recent years. They had a relationship with Linda Dave, Destiny Lloyd, and Rosenda Strong. They also knew Felina Metsker and Roselita Longee. Longee went missing in 2019 and has not been found. Felina Metsker was murdered in 2016. These women are not disappearing in a vacuum – a whole community of women are being harmed and taken.  Whole networks of families are impacted. Children, mothers, fathers, grandmothers, grandfathers, aunts, uncles, cousins, sisters, nieces, nephews, brothers, and friends. What is happening is an insidious toxin that is working its way through generation after generation of a people that have already experienced tremendous trauma and harm. We must start asking questions and demanding answers from our law enforcement agencies and lawmakers. By looking away we are robbing communities of the justice they so deeply deserve. Even if a perpetrator is not a white man, the racist and genocidal systems our country has implemented since the birth of our nation hold culpability. We must start caring.

Facts of the Case

On May 3rd, 2019 Alillia left a homeless camp and got into a car driven by Jordan Stevens and two unnamed “witnesses.” On May 9th a missing persons report was filed. On May 29th, with the assistance of one of two “witnesses,” police were led to Alillia’s body, where it had been left in a remote part of the Yakama Reservation. On July 10th, Stevens was remanded into custody. The cause of death was a gunshot to the head.

Currently, a trial is scheduled for February 2020. Because both Alillia and Stevens are enrolled members of the Yakama Nation, the case is being handled by the FBI and the trial will be held in federal court.

Jordan Stevens

Jordan Stevens has a long history of violence.

In 2011 Stevens was incarcerated for a serious assault against a romantic partner. He was sentenced to 41 months in jail and was released December 12th, 2016. In 2017 a warrant was issued for his arrest as he had not followed through with any of his probation conditions. The latest court document we could view for this case said his whereabouts were unknown.

He is also believed to be responsible for an assault in April, 2019, in a homeless camp in Toppenish.

 April 30th Assault

Several news sources have indicated that Stevens was involved in an assault on April 30th, 2019 at the same homeless camp that Alillia was picked up from. The court documents actually say “on or around” April 30th and “near” the homeless camp. We found three assaults that could be the one referred to.

This is the “Compound” as seen on Google Maps:

There was an assault on April 21st:

An assault April 26th:

And an assault on April 30th:

There was also an assault that occurred on May 3rd at 11pm, but since that’s the day Alillia went missing, it seems unlikely that this was the April 30th assault.

We are unable to dig up any other information about these three cases or how they relate to Stevens. We do know from the Criminal Complaint filed on June 28th 2019, that Alillia was “questioned at the scene.” She also told family “If I don’t come back, look for me” when she got into Stevens’ car.* To us, this sounds like Alillia knew that Stevens thought she had “ratted” him out to federal authorities. Later, the “witness” referred to as “Witness 1” confirmed that this was Stevens’ motive in the homicide.

What’s interesting about the court document referring to this case is that it is not expressly said that the two events are related. The April 30th date is presented, and it is implied that this is what Alillia was murdered over. We wonder though if this is truly the reason why Stevens felt he had been sold out. Maybe it was related to his probation issues. Maybe Alillia told the federal agents investigating the assault where he could be found? We won’t know really, until February 2020, so stay tuned for updates when the trial begins.

Next of Kin

One thing that stood out as incredibly strange to us about this case is how authorities treated Alillia’s sister, Tanya. When Alillia was reported missing, Tanya was determined to spread the word and find her sister. She had an active Facebook group dedicated to doing so, and made posts hoping to find her sister from May through August 2019. While authorities had identified Alillia’s body and had a suspect by May 29th, no one told Tanya until August. It is not publicly known who Alillia’s dedicated Next of Kin (NOK) was, but we know they chose to stay quiet and not alert the rest of the family. Tanya and her aunt, Tina, felt a rightful sense of betrayal, not just from the NOK, but also from authorities who they had contacted daily to get updates to Alillia’s case. We imagine it would be embarrassing and angering to be so vocal in the search for a loved one, and now know that others knew what happened and kept quiet.

Some have called for policy changes to ensure this doesn’t occur again, and we have some speculations on what might have happened in this case in particular. Before we start, it is important to remember that we do not actually know what happened so take our theories with a grain of salt.

First, authorities knew by May 29th that Stevens had murdered Alillia. They knew this because “Witness 1” came forward and led them to the body, as the “witness” felt Stevens may murder them for having information related to the homicide.

Stevens was arrested July 10th, 2019.

Newspaper articles began coming out in mid-August stating that Alillia had been found and identified, and Stevens was in custody. Tanya made a post on the page acknowledging that the search was over for her sister.

We wonder if authorities instructed Alillia’s NOK to keep quiet about the body discovery for two reasons:

1.     “Witness 1” was afraid they would be murdered for cooperating with federal agents, and since this person had been a party to a murder with Stevens that had been carried out for that very reason, this was a reasonable fear.

2.     Authorities may not have known where Stevens was (as indicated by it taking them almost two months to arrest him).

Had Tanya put on her page that Alillia had been found, Stevens may have seen that and known that one of the two “witnesses” had aided federal authorities (especially since the body was in such a remote location that authorities could only have found it with assistance. They searched for it before without the aid of the “witness” and were unable to find her). He could have left town or hurt the “witnesses.” The same would have been true for news media reporting the same information.

Perhaps this is why authorities did not reveal information to Tanya and her aunt when they sent in their daily requests for information.

There is a kink in this interpretation of events, however. On the Facebook post Tanya made about her sister being found and dead, there was this comment:

Whoever made that comment knew Alillia had been discovered and that the NOK was keeping quiet. And this person doesn’t indicate any reason why Tanya would be left in the dark.

One thing is for certain, though: if there was no good reason for keeping Tanya and her aunt in the dark, this was an exceptionally cruel undertaking by the authorities they were in contact with.

 The Compound

Tanya has stated to the press that Alillia was homeless. We cannot find anything else that states this explicitly, but it sounds like she may have been living at the “Compound.” In 2017 350 – 500 families were evicted from Tribal owned housing, forcing some to become homeless. This led to the creation of the semi-permanent “Compound” and another lot with tiny homes.

The top three reasons families were evicted were:

1.     Drug test failure

2.     Late rent payments

3.     Overcrowding in units

Before leaping on the drug test failures, it is widely known that drug use is prevalent in rural communities across the United States and is not unique to these Toppenish families. The other two reasons speak to poverty and a housing crisis currently affecting reservations.

Tribal owned housing is desperately needed on the Yakama Reservation, and in Native American communities in general. On the Yakama Reservation alone, the poverty rate is 37.3%, compared to the US average of 26.8%.

Factors that contribute to poverty on reservations:

·       Remote locations – many reservations were placed by the federal government in isolated plots of land away from urbanized environments (aka, further away from jobs).

Looking at this map, it appears that the Yakama Reservation is close to both Portland and Seattle, but in actuality it is 4.5 and 2.5 hours away by car, respectively.

·       Lack of public transportation to get to jobs

·       Tribal lands are owned by the federal government. Yakama specifically is 80% owned by the federal government, and 20% privately. This impedes the ability of tribal members to own businesses and enrich their communities. Additionally, the federal government makes it bureaucratically difficult to make economic developments on tribal land.

·       Lack of access to education – reservation schools are funded by the federal government, so they do not benefit from state taxes designated for education. The Trump administration has been consistent in their desire to cut federal funding for education.

·       Federal programs fund housing for sovereign tribes, programs the Trump administration has cut funding for.

The federal government’s historic and current meddling and abuse of tribal land has culminated in an environment where it is hard to reduce poverty in these communities. We as a society love to say it’s the responsibility of tribes to “pull themselves up by the bootstraps” and invest in their own communities, while at the same time electing leaders that make that almost impossible.

We know that homeless persons are uniquely vulnerable to violence and disenfranchisement. We know that homeless women are especially vulnerable. It is terrifying to be homeless.

We wonder if Stevens also lived at the “Compound.” Did he terrorize people there? It certainly sounds like it. When we ignore Native American communities and reservations, we create an environment where men and women can hurt others almost without consequence. We don’t know that Alillia’s housing status played into her murder, but it likely made her more vulnerable.

What Can We Do?

Learn more about the tribal communities in your state. Get to know the policies and programs that hurt or assist those communities and stop seeing your relationship with tribal communities as “us versus them.” Donate to programs that need it! Reach out to organizations that serve tribal communities in your state to see what assistance they need. Read, learn, and educate yourself. Put pressure on your law enforcement agencies to follow up on these homicides and ask your local media to report on them. Be a voice for change! Learn some facts and dismantle ignorant arguments and statements made by your friends, family, and community. We cannot keep watching this violence unfold and turn a blind eye. After decades of genocidal policies, we need to do much, much better.

 To learn more about the Yakama Nation: http://www.yakamanation-nsn.gov/

To Learn More About Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women:

·       National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls (Canada) https://www.mmiwg-ffada.ca/

·       Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women USA https://mmiwusa.org/

·       CBC’s database on MMIWG (Canada) https://www.cbc.ca/missingandmurdered/

·       Justice for Native Women (USA and Canada) http://www.justicefornativewomen.com/

·       The REDress Project (Canada) http://www.redressproject.org/?page_id=43

·       Melanie Bartel, an indigenous artist in Canada. Check out her work! https://www.melaniebartelart.com/justine-cochrane.html

·       Missing and Murdered (Canadian Podcast)  https://www.cbc.ca/mediacentre/program/missing-and-murdered

Desi Rodriguez-Lonebear (American activist based out of Montana, United States) https://twitter.com/native4data

 *Article here: https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/crime/if-i-dont-make-it-back-come-look-for-me-yakama-woman-told-her-sister-before-she-was-killed/

[script-a-world]

hi! im having some trouble figuring out some things about my world. The main country of the story like a post calamity old west, filled with cowboy gangs that occupy turf. But there are also people in towns within the country that have nothing to do with the gangs. My issue is im having trouble figuring out how the two sides would interact, and how the people in the towns would avoid getting raided every day.

Tex: Ah. Well, cowboys... don't do the raiding thing, traditionally - it's actually a job as a cattle herder and sometimes horse wrangler that worked on a ranch. The original cowboys were vaqueros of the Iberian Peninsula. It's a very old cultural tradition, which is typified by doing cattle - and other animals as necessary - herding on horseback. Technically speaking, the Iberian roots refer to a dressage style of the region, known as doma vaquera (aka "Western dressage" or "cowherd style", DressageToday, which is different from the horsemanship style of doma clásica (aka haute école, Wikipedia in Spanish).

I find the phrase "post calamity old west" very interesting; what about the Old West drew you toward it for a post-calamity setting? It may not have looked like the US east of the Mississippi, but for the most part the frontier was highly oriented around entrepreneurialism, egalitarianism, and self-sufficiency - Manifest Destiny's impact on westward expansion is popularly said to have shaped the roots of American culture, distinct from European. Society in the frontier wasn't highly stratified like in the original colonies, but it was quick to develop in something that reflected the friction with the Native Americans, the aggressive politicking that was the developing legislative landscape, and the shift from financial modesty to the dream of wealth.

Cowboys were incredibly important to frontier culture, as cattleherding [and horse... everything ( 1  2  3  4  5 ) were a core component of the frontier economy. Settlers made up another core component, and between the two of them - under Manifest Destiny's set of goals - American law and government was further developed. The building of the railroads to connect east and west coasts had major help from cowboys and their ability to wrangle horses for use in railroad construction, something that helped put the US higher on the international stage in terms of their trading power. Being able to negotiate literally new trade routes, as well as govern them, is a potent draw for any society as it enables them to have a steady source of income to develop themselves further. Since cowboys were an integral part of this, the culture surrounding them was built up accordingly.

It's important to highlight that the Old West was planned, inasmuch as territorial expansion on other people's property can be. As the population of an area grew, and went through the formal procedures of becoming towns, cities, and states (there were some hiccups, as evidenced by the Kansas-Nebraska Act), the amount of law enforcers grew accordingly. In the beginning sheriffs and others were sparse compared to their big city relatives in the more developed regions of the US, and as such they were spread thin.

What was... maybe not unique to the era and region, but perhaps distinctive, is the fine line between "law-abiding" and "not law-abiding". Since the US was galloping toward expanding its territory and defending it (pun wholly intended), picking up the slack as a representative of the US government could be financially beneficial. Bounties could be put out on criminals - whose crimes were frequently theft of cattle and horses when not cash and other goods - and deals were frequently struck with not only cowboys but whichever criminal was currently in the good graces of the local sheriff/town as a whole.

Outlaws, also known as lawmen (sometimes law-abiding!), badmen, pistoleers, pistoleros, rustlers (a particular occupation), and gunslingers (the last one a post-era name suited for Hollywood), are the byproduct of westward expansion in the US. Like cowboys and law enforcement, they had a spot in their society as, literally, a criminal occupation that varied in how far from the law they operated (entrepreneurship, if technically of a different tone than homesteaders and other settlers). Because of the contemporary in situ development of law, criminals could be sheriffs and sheriffs could be criminals.

This lack of stratification that would typically define respectability is what made the American frontier the "Wild" West, not necessarily the lack of physical infrastructure. The US is big, and matching the technology of the East Coast and Europe took a lot of resources, both physical and financial, and many routes were taken to achieve the singular goal of fulfilling the US' vision of becoming a power player in the world stage.

Such an apparent lawlessness was dealt with by using a form of equality, something best said by the adage "if catapults are outlawed, then only outlaws shall have catapults". The multiple layers of politics - from Native Americans to war with other nations and neighbors to quite simply the wildlife - meant that firearms were a staple of settlers, ranchers, Pony Express riders, and stagecoach travelers that had to deal with "the wild" (something that notably wasn't allowed within town limits as a demarcation of civilization). If you want to talk about raiding, the Bleeding Kansas crisis is your best bet to see how the Old West handled such things.

Combining those two above aspects should give you greater perspective on social dynamics of law vs lawless, as well as how the social circles overlapped. The closest I could find to the modern gang war analogue would be range wars, with notable examples including the Johnson County War, Stuart's Stranglers, and Sheep Wars that fit the parameters of cowboys in territorial disputes during the Old West era and region.

I think you might be particularly interested in the Cochise County Cowboys, as a very early form of American crime syndicate during the time when "cowboy" and "rustler" were mostly interchangeable. They're a part of the family feuds in the United States, many of which occur during the time period and in the region of the Old West.

Below (Mod Miri Note: at the end of the post) is a list gives details of the minutiae I haven't covered, which round out the setting of the Old West, up to the completion of the First Transcontinental Railroad which effectively ended the era - but not quite to the American Civil War. 

Feral: Everything Tex said. Also...

Something else to consider about the real Old West and the sociopolitical dynamics that came with it is that the Old West was happening during a time of class warfare. And I do mean warfare. An incredible amount of the land was not owned by the people living there. It was owned by the railroad companies, banks, and absentee speculators. Most farmers in the 19th century were tenant farmers, who could be evicted for crop failure - evictions to be carried by the local sheriff. Over a thousand people died constructing the transcontinental railroads, and running the railroads was also a very dangerous occupation. Strikes were happening a lot and the Pinkertons were known to actually battle striking workers. The point of this is to say that the common people might not have had as much of an issue with bandits who targeted banks or trains or fought with sheriffs and security agents. Jesse James was a folk hero who is given attributes of a Robin Hood figure, even though there's no evidence he gave away any of his loot - he did, however, steal from the rich and that might have been good enough for some.

Now you ask how the bandits (or cowboys - is that meant as a reference to the Gunfight at OK Corral? if so, it's a proper noun - Cowboys was the name of the specific gang) would interact with the townspeople. I see 2 general models of this.

Model 1: the towns are part of the territories which are "protected" by the gangs that control the territories. So, gangs wouldn't be attacking their own towns; they'd be attacking each others. And likely trading with their own.

Model 2: the towns are no-man's land on the border of territories and trade equally with the bandits (this model would probably require a very strong law enforcement presence). And trade is a really important thing to consider - you can't eat money. Whatever the bandits steal from banks, train cars, etc, they need to get food with it. And given the very real poverty in the Old West, stealing food outright off farms was a very good way to get a huge posse out for your blood.

If you're not already familiar with Westerns, try some out. Tombstone is a favorite of mine (though it is absolutely completely historically inaccurate). Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid is a classic. For a more "modern" option, Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy is a must-read. Even when they're inaccurate, they capture the feeling that draws people to the mythology of the Old West, even when reimagined as post-apocalyptic.

And speaking of the post-apocalyptic West, you're probably very familiar with the Joss Whedon show Firefly and Stephen King's Gunslinger, but if you haven't taken the time, really study them. Because the world building, especially in terms of the balance of chaos and order, are wonderful, and again, they capture that feeling of Westerns that keep people coming back. "Train Job," "Bushwacked," and "Heart of Gold" may be particularly helpful episodes for you.

Tex’s Further Reading

American frontier  - Wikipedia Timeline of the American Old West  - Wikipedia Territorial evolution of the United States - WikipediaWestern wear  - WikipediaThe Evolution of Western Wear  - True West Magazine Western Economic Expansion: Railroads and Cattle  - US History II (American Yawp) by Lumen LearningHoofs and Wheels: Transportation in the West  - National Cowboy & Western Heritage MuseumLost Skills of Old West Stagecoach Travel  - American CowboyThe Pony Express  - Cowboy ShowcaseWild West Outlaws and Lawmen - The Wild WestJesse James - WikipediaJames Kirker, the King of New Mexico - "American Studies" of the University of VirginiaDunn Brothers (bounty hunters) - WikipediaKansas Gunfighters, KS Outlaws and KS LawmenList of Old West gunfighters - WikipediaCategory:Gunslingers of the American Old West - WikipediaList of Old West gunfighters - WikipediaCategory:Outlaws of the American Old West - WikipediaCattle raiding - WikipediaList of Old West gunfights - WikipediaCategory:Range wars and feuds of the American Old West - WikipediaThe Missouri Crisis   - Digital History from the University of HoustonCalifornia Gold Rush - WikipediaCalifornia Dream - WikipediaSutter's Mill - WikipediaFirst Transcontinental Railroad - Wikipedia

[chimcharstar]

1-50 ho

you got it ho

1. What’s your favorite candle scent?

I AM SO GLAD YOU ASKED. ive been Purchasing various smelly candles for my gay divination activities, and i have a few nominees. i first thought of the candle i have now, a pink one with a very sweet vanilla smell, i love very sweet smells because it makes me think of candy which i tend to try to fill my inner void with. however im going to go with the first candle i bought, a dark orange one with a citrus smell. citrus scents are my next favourite and specifically this one reminded me of curiously smelling candles at my piano teachers apartment when i was very young. 

2. What female celebrity do you wish was your sister?

idk. ive been listening to her lion king stuff lately. dont judge me i needed to hear remixes of lion king music i was lost in that sauce in high school. and i just think shes neat. i dont think she would aggressively make me feel bad about everything, UNLIKE SOME PEOPLE

3. What male celebrity do you wish was your brother?

Look……. i really don’t know???? what is the criteria?? do they need to be like my siblings? dare i criticize my arguably criticizable siblings by picking out my ideal siblings? if i pick an ideal sibling, what does that say about what im lacking in my life? do i pick celebrities i hate so theoretically my family shames them into becoming silent and self-defeating

4. How old do you think you’ll be when you get married?

50. i think im going to have to figure myself out for a long time, and achieve some personal goals first. thats my excessively confident prediction and PERHAPS educated guess

5. Do you know a hoarder?

nnnnnoooooooo????? not a real, cant function because of hoarding hoarder. i can see in a few family members, including myself, liking to hang onto things that maybe become sentimental/unnecessary clutter but that sounds like something many non-hoarders experience?

6. Can you do a split?

lemme try one sec

NO

7. How old were you when you learned how to ride a bike?

Idk maybe 7? Or 11? i think my parents taught me at a children age and then i started biking for fun like, later, like pre middle school?

8. How many oceans have you swam in?

1. i dont really remember swimming in an ocean but i may have faded childhood memories of salty water and seaweed

9. How many countries have you been to?

2… i went to idaho for a band trip… my dad really doesnt like travelling

10. Is anyone in your family in the army?

HAHAHA

NO. ACTUALLY YES. but its funny because the specific brand of christianity we are supposed to be is super pacifist so ive heard. but then i remembered one dude apparently who joined the us military?????? it seemed like it was… an unusual choice. i dont really know anything else about this guy, not even his name

11. What would you name your daughter if you had one?

🙏 *inhale* buddy. oooooohhffffff i want to say something gender neutral honestly. i dont want to rock the boat being unconventional or something but im just thinking of all those years trying to live up to a feminine name

12. What would you name your son if you had one?

same i guess… why have i never thought about this????? was i preoccupied naming myself.

13. What’s the worst grade you got on a test?

hmmmmm hmmmmm trying to unlock the vault. i think i remember a 1 or a 0 on a math quiz. i think i got 30% or something very very bad (i dont even want to know) on my last english exam, but to be fair, i was having such a bad mental breakdown my professor did an intervention

14. What was your favorite TV show when you were a child?

like a very very small child? i was obsessed with the save-ums (?!?!?) for some reason. i would sing the anthem… no. theme song? i dont know. i guess it was catchy and there were lots of fun characters. OHHHH I SEE WHATS WRONG

ITS BECAUSE WE ONLY HAD A TV TILL I WAS LIKE 5 OR SOMETHING. what are you cultured people watching as children? what are the shows? 

15. What did you dress up as on Halloween when you were eight?

>:(

My Halloween experience:

i dont even remember i probably had some kind of fairy wings? i think i remember fairy wings. we went to one (1) house. later on, since we werent allowed to go trick-or-treating, we were each allotted a certain amount of candy, and if we ate more than a designated amount per day, we were in trouble and wouldnt be allowed anymore. i do remember getting in trouble for this. i think i stole someones candy. sibling against sibling. finally we were allowed to go trick or treating, i went with my younger brothers and by then, was a teenager and felt too tall and really uncomfortable

LMAO I JUST REMEMBERED THAT LAST TIME WE WENT TRICK-OR-TREATING NOT IN A RURAL AREA, my dad drove us around in a van and watched us like a hawk i believe. it was very tense and methodical.

16. Have you read any of the Harry Potter, Hunger Games or Twilight series?

i read the harry potter series (I WROTE SIBLIGS LOL) more times than i could count while growing up. i read the first hunger games book and didnt fancy it for whatever reason, and i had an obnoxious twilight-hating phase.

17. Would you rather have an American accent or a British accent?

no

sometimes, though, im really genuinely worried about what accent i do have. im worried i read so much harry potter growing up, it rubbed off on me. when i was a server, people would ask about an unusual accent i apparently had, and once, when i was talking to a super british guy who called me luv at walmart, he was like STOP. WAIT. YOU HAVE A BRITISH ACCENT. and i was like WHAT UHHH BYEBYE AND HE WAS LIKE NO. I HEARD YOU. STOP and i was like that michael jackson meme where he covers his face running away and everyone else in the line was staring

18. Did your mother go to college?

i believe she went to a bible college where people put a grand piano on top of the roof. 

19. Are your grandparents still married?

all of my grandparents are dead.

…. hmmMMMM yow. ok. my grandparents who werent estranged stayed married for as long as either of them were living… however, my OTHER grandparents, i mean the fucking kidnappers, my abuser grandpa… remarried? when he was… really really aging. im judging him for it because i know what kind of person he was.

20. Have you ever taken karate lessons?

I WISH. my parents didnt seem to like that sort of thing (surprise). im interested in it now but… as usual… i feel like its too late, im too old.

21. Do you know who Kermit the frog is?

….. i… i thought i did… hes blessed… thats all.

22. What’s the first amusement park you’ve been to?

ಠ_ಠ 

*crickets*

how could you ask me this?

no wait! i went to the waterslides. then, later on, i was never allowed to go to the waterslides.

23. What language, besides your native language, would you like to be fluent in?

Spanish. ive been “intending” to learn for a long time, and a lot of people who have been really good influences on me and been genuinely kind to me speak it, id like to learn it

24. Do you spell the color as grey or gray?

grey

one sec

yup thats canadian!

25. Is your father bald?

on the top of his head, yes >:(

26. Do you know triplets?

no?

27. Do you prefer Titanic or The Notebook?

no? what is this straight stuff? i listened to the dramatic titanic song and felt nothing.

28. Have you ever had Indian food?

i guess so, at a friends house! i dont think otherwise ive gone to a restaurant and actually had indian food

29. What’s the name of your favorite restaurant?

*gazes tearily at my OWN FUCKING OLD WORKPLACE

the food was sO GOOD MAN. IT WAS SO GOOD. im just not saying because despite how stalkable i probably am already, i dont want to be specific

30. Have you ever been to Olive Garden?

no whats that

31. Do you belong to any warehouse stores (Costco, BJ’s, etc.)?

w

belong? whats bjs? whats a warehouse for?

32. What would your parents have named you if you were the opposite gender?

i decided at one point they would never tell me this and it was no use asking. i do know they almost named my brother a very fusty old fashioned name fitting in with the thomas the tank engine theme 

33. If you have a nickname, what is it?

G is the ONLY one i will accept so far.

34. Who’s your favorite person in the world?

:)

i……… hmmmm…. i really dont like picking favourites. each person in my life has a unique relationship with me (even though a lot of them arent very warm, trusting or close). because of unhealthy middle school friendships ive grown an aversion to ranking relationships as if they have material value.

35. Would you rather live in a rural area or in the suburbs?

rural, i think. i need nature in my life!!! but i also need to be able to have connections to people.

36. Can you whistle?

yes, but not very loudly or accurately

37. Do you sleep with a nightlight?

no, but ive always wanted a nightlight

38. Do you eat breakfast every morning?

ive started to, yeah! this morning i made a whole thing with bread and mushrooms and eggs, and coffee, and i ate it outside watching the traffic. im really trying to treat myself nicely you see. its what id do for someone else.

39. Do you take any pills or medication daily?

THAT

BOY

JUICE!

WELCOME TO MY BUILD A BOY WORKSHOP!

SHOTS!SHOTS!SHOTS!

and im really fortunate to be in pretty good health, and have access to things i do need

40. What medical conditions do you have?

I dont think… i actually have any. id say gender dysphoria but i think it was informed consent. (im VERY lucky)

im pretty sure there are SOME mental conditions running around undiagnosed. MY BRAIN IS NOT WORKING PROPERLY

41. How many times have you been to the hospital?

for myself? once… when i got hives and started swelling up all over, but otherwise was fine. i really wonder what that was. other times was visiting sick/dying relatives which has made me feel sad and apprehensive whenever i enter a hospital or smell the food

42. Have you ever seen Finding Nemo?

yes! i had a gerbil named nemo! 

43. Where do you buy your jeans?

D:

i dont … remember … really nowhere special i actually have yet to find some jeans i LOVE. sometimes there is a pair of jeans that sparks joy. i do not have such a pair

44. What’s the last compliment you got?

my sister said my pants looked good on me. they are actually their pants, which they left on the floor in my room for an unknown reason, and they want them back. of course.

but because im excited about it and want to brag, the real compliment was when i made borscht and my sister not only ate it faster than me, but wanted a second helping. and my roommate stuck his face in the steam and said it smelled good. hell yes. i put fucking cilantro in it. fcking beast mode.

45. Do you usually remember your dreams in the morning?

yes. theyre usually really emotional and symbolic. if ive been talking to my parents, theyre usually nightmares. ive been reading about dream interpretation for a long time to deal with some of the ominous images that can come up

46. What flavor tea do you enjoy?

red rose reminds me of wheni was little my mom would make really sweet sweet red rose tea for me (thats the kind she drinks all the time) and it brings me those good feelings. otherwise licorice spice really appeald to me for some reason.

47. How many pairs of shoes do you currently own?

LMAO UHHH…brb

six. because of social pressure.

48. What religion will you raise your children to practice?

i never thought about this kind of thing…. i really don’t know….. id just want them to know how to be kind to others and themselves and thats literally it. 

49. How old were you when you found out that Santa wasn’t real?

i was one of those edgy kids trying to spoil it for everyone. guess what other common fun thing my parents didnt do

50. Why do you have a youtube? 

i dont! so i dont know what this question means! :)

HOLY SHIT I MADE IT THRU HIGH FIVE 

[nebris]

The Harm Done for White Men

The new attacks on Roe v. Wade are about protecting men, not women

Part of President Trump’s new immigration proposal is something called “patriotic assimilation.” It’s a euphemism for an immigrant entry exam that evokes the Jim Crow literacy tests used to disenfranchise black voters. One administration official told the Washington Post that green-card applicants would be required to pass an exam based on such everyday American household dinner topics as Thomas Jefferson’s letter to the Danbury Baptist Association.

That is a perplexing choice for the administration, given the timing. That letter, dated January 1, 1802, is the foundation of many understandings of the First Amendment when it comes to the separation of church and state. That is anything but what we saw this week, as their Republican allies in statehouses throughout the Midwest and South pushed through unconstitutional, misogynist and pseudoscientific restrictions on abortion.

In my native Ohio, a child who is raped might not even know she is pregnant before she runs out of time to abort her rapist’s fetus. Missouri sent its eight-week restriction to its eager Republican governor for signature on Friday. And Alabama’s law, arguably the most barbaric of them all, criminalizes the procedure from the moment of conception and carries a prison sentence for doctors of up to 99 years. That is a much longer bid than the maximum any rapist in the state could get, all while his victim is forced to bear his child. Each law, in its own way, subjugates women and girls — and since white women statistically have greater access to the procedure, signals a specific attack on women of color. This is a particular issue in Georgia, where noted vote suppressor Brian Kemp is governor. Under the law scheduled to go into effect on January 1st, women who self-terminate their pregnancies can be imprisoned for life or executed, thereby accomplishing two goals: subduing them for their gender, and taking away their ballot. (Men who impregnated them, per the law, suffer no consequence.)

It has been plain for a while now that the anti-abortion cause has nothing to do with actual deities or morality. If it did, it wouldn’t put the lives of doctors, patients and clinic employees in jeopardy to make its argument. States would be more concerned with their terrible infant mortality rates than they would about saving fetuses. Ending reproductive rights in America has never been about anything holy. Anti-abortionists like to remind us of Planned Parenthood founder Margaret Sanger’s statements about eugenics or claim they’re trying to stop a “black genocide,” but their movement was born to keep white patriarchy alive. And it is white men who are the primary beneficiaries of such policies.

As Politico Magazine detailed in 2014, the forced-birth movement, as I term it, got its primary motivation from a ruling three years before Roe v. Wade. A 1970 D.C. District Court decision denied tax-exempt status to “segregation academies” formed to escape the consequences of the landmark 1954 Brown v. Board of Education precedent. These academies were connected to churches, and soon the IRS wanted to know whether their institutions too discriminated upon the basis of race. Heritage Foundation founder Paul Weyrich and evangelist Jerry Falwell Sr., over the course of the 1970s, seized upon the opportunity to mobilize a powerful voting bloc out of the disgruntled religious conservatives thwarted in their efforts to discriminate. But even back then, it was impolitic to promote themselves as “the racist caucus,” so they went hunting for an issue. Abortion was it — a political bogeyman ginned up out of a mix of opportunism, misogyny, and a rising religious unease with a spike in abortions after legalization. No scientific expertise in women’s physiology was required. White supremacy had all it needed, its natural symbiote: patriarchy.

The Republican movement behind forced-birth bills is truly ignorance allied with power, as James Baldwin once warned us about. The rhetoric may be more vociferous and reckless now than it was when the religious right was first revving up, but it is no less cynical. Even if it escapes the lips or is written or signed into law by women like Governor Kay Ivey of Alabama, the primary goal of that revanchist talk has always been to take America back to a time when the word of white men went all but unquestioned.

This is a particularly intoxicating prospect for men like Trump, who have grown up with this palatial reality all of their lives. What he sold in all those books and buildings and casinos and steaks was not just wealth, but his brand of white manhood. It is one reason why, despite the fact that his brash trade wars with China and Canada have made life harder for farmers and other American low-wage workers, some of them insist that they won’t leave his side.

Not wealthy enough to benefit the most from GOP tax cuts? Your local hospital going under? Your kids stuck in endless wars? It’s OK: hang with the GOP for the potential benefits of increased race-based stratification. Even if Trump’s policies are making your farm go under or depriving you of the steel you need, the benefits of whiteness await you. Because if something bad happens to you, it’s someone else’s fault. And that someone else is probably black. Or perhaps an immigrant from Mexico.

This is the investment that the Republicans have made in the intoxication of whiteness. It applies to these abhorrent attempts to end abortion as well. Legislation like these bills in Alabama, Georgia, Ohio, and Missouri isn’t merely about trying to get the Supreme Court’s conservatives to overturn Roe. These states, and the (mostly) men behind the bills, are making a point about where women stand in relation to men, and moreover, where white men stand in relation to everyone else. This isn’t about who voted for what, or who signed what bill. It is about what message is sent, and who benefits.

When women are told that their bodies belong to the state at a time when access to health care remains drastically unequal by race and class, it means that rich white men win when abortion restrictions become law. They will all be challenged in court, wasting a lot of taxpayer money that could have been better used improving those health care systems or even educating the children that Republicans claim to care so much about. Then it will come time for those five Justices to decide the future for anyone who will ever possibly carry a fetus to term, or choose not to do so.

It is a mistake to get lost in religious debate around this. Remember, always, that Jesus was the hustle used to get us here. The fight to keep women from getting abortions is really about reinforcing a belief that white men should maintain dominion over this country and the people in it. The only God that matters most to these guys is themselves.

Jamil Smith is a Senior Writer at Rolling Stone, where he covers national affairs and culture. Throughout his career as a journalist and Emmy Award-winning television producer, he has explored the intersection of politics and identity. Follow him on Twitter @JamilSmith.

Originally published at www.rollingstone.com on May 17, 2019.

[mysilentmemory]

KOREAN SUPERSTAR SIWON CHOI COVERS PRESTIGE HONG KONG JULY 2018

Can one of Asia’s biggest singing and acting exports really be that nice? We find out.

JULY 1, 2018 , 

odestars change. An exaggeration? Maybe, but it’s a close call.

A room bustling with the click-clacks and chatter of people hanging clothes, setting up lights and taking pictures of the Hong Kong skyline from our set suddenly pauses. Choi is here. One by one, faces light up and the voices of those who are meeting the star for the first time rise in pitch. He takes it all in his stride, strolling around the suite greeting those he already knows by name and others he doesn’t with a smile and a firm handshake.

It’s convincingly sincere. First there’s the running quip – “Sum sum is our passcode today guys, OK?” he jokes with the crew. “Sum sum,” the Cantonese translation of the little finger-heart symbol Koreans have coined is now a running trend in most Asian countries. I ask him what it means. “I don’t know actually,” he says with a shrug. “I think other gestures are big displays of affection but this is a small gesture that carries sincerity? I didn’t actually like doing it that much at first but now it’s fun because it makes people happy – so I do it.”

His candour is refreshingly different from the hauteur one expects from someone who’s been in the industry for 13 years. Choi and Super Junior, the 10-piece boy band of which he’s a member, were instrumental figures in the Hallyu wave that swept across the globe. It’s no wonder, then, that the man has 4.7 million followers on Instagram, 6.37 million on Twitter and a staggering 16.4 million on Weibo (that last figure is more than double the population of Hong Kong). To many, he’s a god, with legions of Super Junior fans – self-named “Elfs”, a tribe unto themselves – and his own subdivision of fandom known as “Siwonests”.

Choi’s mix of friendliness and consummate professionalism becomes apparent as the shoot gets under way. He hits all the right angles, checking the screen to see if each shot passes muster and offering to shoot more. “Are you happy with it?” he asks those of us huddled around the display monitor. “I can shoot more if you’d like me to!” After an hour and a half or so, maintaining the pensive smoulder that celebrity features often require, he asks mid-pose, “Can I smile? I’m better at that, I think.” Immediately his crew remarks, “Ippo [pretty],” and it’s clear that those of us who don’t speak Korean are wont to agree.

Listening to snatches of conversation with his Korean team, the occasional oppa is dropped into the mix – Korea’s equivalent of the Japanese kawaii. Made popular by the country’s television shows and adopted by hordes of screaming tween and teenage fans at the sight of their favourite boy-band members, it means “big brother” and is used to refer to an actual older brother as well as to address all close older male friends. When I bring this up, I’m met with a sheepish grin.

“My team and I have been working together now for almost six years. We’re very close, so it’s OK,” he says. “When we work in Korea, they say Mr Choi but today, because I think they think you guys won’t understand, they can be casual and call me oppa.”

Line Choi’s amiability up against his accomplishments and you’ll understand why it seems so extraordinary. Even before his debut in 2005, he was the first person in Korea to be awarded the fourth row in the black belt for Taekwondo at the age of 14, changing the pre-existing rule that only people aged 18 could be awarded for the achievement. Before being invited to join Super Junior, he was already acting alongside Hong Kong’s Andy Lau.

“I wanted to be an actor first,” he says. His is a well-known story, auditioning without his parents’ knowledge and being accepted. The band was created as a collection of the best (hence “Super”) trainees (hence “Junior”) in SM Entertainment’s cohort. “They convinced me to be a singer and I said yes, but I definitely wanted to be an actor,” he says.

An actor he definitely has been. Although the group remains a fundamental part of Choi’s career – it’s the reason he’s in Hong Kong this time round, as part of its comeback world tour Super Show 7, performing the band’s first album since 2015 – Choi has always kept a firm foot in acting.

Inspired by his initial experience filming with Lau, Choi has gone on to act in hits such as Helios and To the Fore, as well as the international blockbuster Dragon Blade, in which he starred alongside Jackie Chan, Adrien Brody and John Cusack. “It’s an incredible environment for an actor,” he says. “They’re incredibly professional and very caring. I was really impressed with how they cared about the Korean actor.”

It doesn’t come without hard work, though, “When I shot To the Fore, I had to use three languages, English, Mandarin and Korean,” he says. “When they changed my dialogue on set, all the other actors and actresses were fine, because it was their mother language, but in my case it was really hard because it wasn’t my mother language – and even if they had changed the Korean dialogue, I might’ve gotten into some trouble because I want to perform the best that I can, and to do so I need to prepare.

“I’m the only Korean actor in that movie. If I’m not good, I’m not good as a Korean so I have to take responsibility for my country and I really need to do my best.”

Thanks to his determination to achieve fluency in English and Chinese, along with his native Korean, Choi is poised to become the next Asian superstar to make it big in the US. Choi’s mentor is Jackie Chan, who told him that “an actor’s character always comes first – manners and respect”, he says. “But that I should also always be very careful choosing each and every single role I undertake.”

It’s a lesson he’s taken to heart and it paid off when he chose to play Kim Shin Hyuk, a happy-go-lucky senior magazine editor, the supporting lead in 2015 hit Korean series She Was Pretty, right before Choi enlisted in the army. He didn’t end up getting the girl in the show’s 16 episodes, but he did leave an untold number of women swooning from what Korean drama discussion boards call “second-lead syndrome” and waiting for his return with bated breath.

After being discharged from the military in August last year, he picked up the lead role of Byun Hyuk in Revolutionary Love, reprising elements of his character in She Was Pretty – and this time he definitely gets the girl. So how does he pick them? “When I choose my roles, I only think about three things” he says. “First, what I can do well now. Second, what people want me to do. The third is what I should do now.”

“Military service is almost two years, and it’s quite a long time for my supporters and fans to wait for me. I wanted to show them my gratitude, so I was thinking about how I could do this. Revolutionary Love came along and it contained all three elements, as well as a little comedy, a little romance and a little bit of dynamism, so I chose it.”

What is success for Choi? It’s not money, fame or power, I learn, despite the fact that his fans can look forward to a new Super Junior album this year, more concerts, the possibility of more Asian and American projects and a mission with Unicef in the works. To Choi it’s happiness and contentment.

“I think happiness is the first thing that comes to mind,” he says. “If you’re not happy and you let that stuff get to your head, you might get ill. Does success actually equate to happiness? Maybe not to everybody, but I don’t think happiness is non-success either.”

His industry is not particularly predisposed to contentment and happiness, I counter, so how does he balance it? “Part of my job is to achieve balance. Alongside being able to face God at the very end, to know I have made him happy and to have helped those in need, I think it’s to be positive.

“I don’t want to show people when I’m mad or when I’m sad, because I don’t want people to worry about me. Part of my job is to achieve balance between the human Siwon Choi and the celebrity. As a celebrity it’s my responsibility to be a role model, to create a good environment. If I’m calm, focused on work and smiling, then everybody else will be smiling and having a good time. So I believe in always being positive.”

It’s perhaps this warmth that draws those around him to him. “I stay in the same hotel whenever I come to Hong Kong” he says. “I know the manager and the employees so well and I say hi to everyone. It’s been two years since I’ve been here, but when I came back this time they prepared a surprise for my birthday with balloons and a cake. They wrote ‘Welcome Home’ on the card and it touched me.”

How so? “Well, it made me grateful for what I have because, you know, if we give in to the negative thoughts in this job, it can become tough, very tough. So we always have to think positive, stay positive. That moment was the happiest moment of my year so far. It made me think, well, my life might not be so lonely in the future. It might be quite full.”

PHOTOGRAPHY | RICKY LO | prestigeonline

[rrcooperwrites]

Opus 2

Prompt

You think your new home might be haunted...by a very helpful ghost. Every time you start looking for something you've misplaced, you turn around to find it right beside you.📷

Original Link: https://www.reddit.com/r/WritingPrompts/comments/pdyor9/wp_you_think_your_new_home_might_be_hauntedby_a/

Recommended Soundtrack: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/09VVhP7IWabP5mZwiP7RhS?si=5afe118203a74645

Start Here

I’m writing down the following lines in the hope that someone will one day read this and pick up on my research. My hope is that whoever reads this, is in a dark place, because the following will convince you that there are some wonders left in this world.

I arrived to my new home, at least for the following year, during a torrential downpour. Cusco’s weather is rather odd. During the summer it rains prodigiously, so not only is everything hot, it is also wet. Walking feels like wadding through a dog’s fat folds. This failed to sit well with my middle-class Lima bred ass, who had never been in this kind of wet hotness.

The weather actually didn’t bother me that much really, it’s just now that I think about it, I hate it. At that moment I could not have cared less if there were sardines raining down. I was about to visit Qenko, a sacred site in Willka Qhichwa, the Sacred Valley of the Incas.

I had busted my absolute arse off trying to get the funding. Ended up getting it from a Canadian university. There, I had come across a rather stuffy old-boor of a man who headed the Archeology department at a small campus somewhere in Montreal. Luckily for me, the stuffy old-boor had a rather delightful French-Canadian assistant called Marie-Claire. To whom I owe a posh dinner and a my-best-effort shag, by the way.

But all my thoughts about money, poutine, shagging, and the pressure of not fucking this up flew away the moment I laid eyes on Qenko.

The monoliths, the object of my study, stood particularly out, they were absolutely gorgeous. Marie-Claire had joked that a lot of them had a peculiar build and teased me that perhaps it was a fertility site. And as adorable as she is, she was also very wrong. Qenko is a sacrificial and mummification centre. My specialty, and also where I would find proof for my theory.

“The Non-Euclidean Geometrics of Monoliths and Their Relationship to Death Magic by Azucena Matias”

It would be my bloody masterpiece. I had all the measurements I needed from satellites, but I wanted to confirm them myself. If that went well, and the measurements confirmed what I suspected, they would converge in a place where I could excavate for items related to death magic and rituals.

On only my third week there, it happened. We found a massive cache of items including a small statue depicting Supay, the god of death. One of our team, an American intern, freaked out and started shouting nonsense about curses upon whomever disturbs a death site, and how those courses target mostly people like him, as in not natives. Which is of course ridiculous. If the site was booby trapped, it would kill everyone equally. And if there was a curse, he was the only foreigner in the expedition, and after all only an American. There’s plenty more where he came from. Although I’d definitely miss his BBQ’s, bloody smoked goodies will kill me one day.

Anyhow, we found the site, cheered, calmed down Paul(the intern), started drinking, convinced Paul to BBQ, got Paul drunk, Paul BBQd, we drank, and drank, I got my hand down a particularly cute lassie’s blouse and a promise to go out next week. So when I collapsed unto my bed at 5 am with Supay’s statue carefully placed on my kitchen counter, I was rather content. This contentment did not last.

I woke up around 2pm, made breakfast, collapsed on my couch, started to pack a bowl(it was Sunday after all) and prepared to have a very relaxed day when I suddenly noticed something. Or rather didn’t notice something, since the thing itself was missing.

My laptop, my stupid expensive rugged laptop with Linux installed and all my fucking documents was still at the dig site. Unguarded. In a third-world country. Pretty close to the jungle. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuuuuuuuuuuck.

I jumped from my couch and bolted to the door, tears were already streaming down my face as I grabbed my keys and put my hand on the door handle.

“Wait!” said a voice. Not an unpleasant voice. But clearly a voice not coming from a human mouth. Also a voice speaking Classical Quechua, which made it rather special. I knew about one-hundred percent of all Classical Quechua speakers, I should anyway, I’m twenty-five percent of them.

My emotions fought each other for supremacy when I turned around. None won. So my face probably looked liked someone who was absolutely terrified but meekly thankful.

A small figure that looked like a tiny beer barrel with bat wings was hovering in the middle of my condo. In his rather large claws was my laptop, looking pretty unharmed.

“Here you go maiden,” it said, “I have brought your annoying magic book over.”

I can’t remember how it happened, but somehow I managed to walk towards the thing, take my laptop and sit down on my couch. I eyed my bowl and noticed that it was full and unlit. This both calmed and terrified me. See what I meant with the mixing of emotions?

“Thank you,” I said.

“You’ve got a peasant’s accent,” the little creature answered, “but no bother, we can fix it. I’ll teach you how to posses the diction dictated by your blood.”

“My blood?” I stuttered, “What do you want my blood for?”

“Want it? I don’t want it,” it said, “What I would like is a glass of beer. which I have noticed you have failed to provide? Hmmmmm, yes, so could you get to it?”

That snapped me. If there is one thing I can’t handle is a proud male voice with a stupid demand. I mean, I listen to my father of course, but that’s because the man doesn’t need to raise his voice to make a point. He just walks you through his arguments like he was on a debate team at Oxbridge, which coincidentally he was once in. And you just either became convinced and it ended or you found faults in his arguments and counter-argued, eventually reaching a compromise. Easy-peazy lemon squeezy stuff.

But someone just barking orders at me, pissed me the fuck off. And something else! Who did this Wish.com Digimon think he is? This was my bloody house, I paid the rent, took care of it, including preserving the colonial details of the house, even if they were an absolute pain.

“Ask me nicely,” slid icily from my mouth.

“What?” said the muppet.

“Ask me nicely to get you a beer.”

“Ask nicely? I don’t have to! I’m a demon! Underling for Supay, the Lord of Death. And you are just a noble girl.”

“Noble…” my ire diminished, “girl?”

“Uhhmmm, yes, didn’t you know? You’ve got noble blood. Which just means you get some extra responsibilities, no extra privileges!”

I reached and daintily put my hands around the creature not letting it get away.

“What is the meaning of this!?” it cried, but I just kept getting closer. Until I had it comfortably trapped in my hands. It had the head sort of like a bat, very similar to a Peropteryx macrotis or lesser dog-like bat. It was just quite bigger, about chihuahua size. It also had some rather big claws but it looked like he didn’t know what to do with them. He also had two small green horns sprouting on top of his ears. All in all, he was pretty cute looking.

I squeezed.

“OH NO! OH Viracocha*! Hold your fucking llamas!” it wheezed.

“Are you going to behave now and be polite, and address me by my fucking name?” I asked.

“Yes,” it answered.

“Do you promise not to harm me?”

“I wasn’t planning to, all I wanted was a beer!”

“Do you promise?”

“I do”

“Do you promise to answer all my questions?”

“I promise”

“Swear it”

“I swear”

“Not enough conviction. Swear by Pachamama *.”

“By Pachamama? But she’s one of my favourites, she used to feed me the choice guavas from her garden.”

“Then it will mean all the most.”

“Hmmm….”

“Do you want me to squeeze more?

“No! I swear… I swear by Pachamama and her delicious guavas.”

I released the little creature and after a few tense moments, I walked over to the refrigerator, opened it up and poured us both a glass of beer. A good hearty lager that I bought from a restaurant in Lima, one of the few comforts I allowed myself.

I put the beer in front of the creature who had now found a spot on my Turkish ottoman and sat itself.

“If you stain my furniture it’s ok, but you’ll have to clean it,” I said while sitting down on my couch.

“Yes mistress,” it answered meekly.

“Don’t call me mistress. Call me Azucena or Zuzu, which is what my friends call me.”

“Yes mistress Zuzu,” it answered while a row of needles that I guessed was a grin spread across its face.

“What should I call you?”

“I’m too low to deserve a name.”

“That’s bollocks. What’s your favourite thing in this world?”

“Beer”

“Really?”

“Yes. Beer. Without a doubt.”

“How about the name Guinness?”

“Guinness, sounds peasant-y”

“On the contrary, it’s a name known around the world in relation to beer. Just carrying that name practically guarantees to be associated around the world over with beer.”

“I like it then!” Guinness said as he puffed his barrel everything outward.

“Although of course,” he continued, “mortal beer can never be as good as The Underworld’s beer.”

As I scoffed, Guinness then took a dainty sip of the beer I had poured him.

We drank all night long.

I showed him Fail Videos.

Guinness explained the mummification ritual to Azucena.

I ordered pepperoni pizza.

Guinness corrected Azucena on her pronunciation of certain things.

By the next day, Zuzu and Gwin(Guinness’s short form name as he called it) were firm friends and we started planning a whole set of adventures in search of the best artifacts, the best girls(and girl bats), and the best beer.

NOTES

* One of the names for the principal deity(disputed) in Incan Religion

Hold your fucking llamas

* Pachamama is an earth-goddess and fertility figure.