#that did not come from or is not inspired by other cultures from colonies

[xceanlynx]

Genuine question (no sarcasm) that I probably should google: what did Europeans, particularly people from the British Isles, eat before colonization? Like, what was the base of their cuisine before the advent of tomatoes and potatoes? Was it just wheat? Is wheat even European?

[hadesoftheladies]

Greed is Male Culture

This isn't a misandry post (sorry to disappoint). Neither is it an essay (yet). It's a deep reflection on what I think is the beginning of humanity's most evil systems, like the actual beginning. These are just my thoughts based on what I know, and I'm sure other people have said what I am about to. This is not a research paper (yet), but it is based on my readings regarding marxism, feminism, and industrial/colonial history (and some marginal knowledge of animal species). This is an opinion/think-piece, the beginning of some of my broader ideas.

I consider greed to be largely irrational and even (mostly) unnatural. Greed is not like hunger or fear. Greed, right now, is about excess. And I think excess is unnatural, and the desire for it even more so. Sort of like how plastic is from nature, but cannot decompose like organic matter. I think greed is a synthetic desire. Mimicking organic feelings like hunger or fear. In a world of safety, community and fulfilment, the desire for power over another is foreign. Unnatural. There are no threats. There is nothing to inspire the thought or desire of greed (especially coming from a materialist perspective). So how did the quest for power for the sake of power (and not safety, survival, or protection) come to be in human beings?

I posit that it could only (and did) arise from male-to-male peer relations.

In most animal (at least mammalian and some other) species, males do not need to be as populous as females. If you want a robust chance at a second generation of animals, you need only one male for twenty or so females. A handful of males of which females would select the best and breed with. The handful of males would have more than enough chances at partnering, and the females would have no shortage of seed if they so wanted to be pregnant.

But that's not the case. Males and females are 1:1, and sometimes, males are slightly more than females in most sexually dimorphic animal species.

So now we have some complications. Something that had been good in a previous context (males for seed) now became problematic. Now, imagine there are slightly more males than females in society. Up until this point, the value for the human male has been two things: seed and manual labor. This is the basis of his relevance to society and identity. These are the only two avenues for him to find any value as a man (not an individual). But now, he senses that he is in jeopardy. He is exceedingly replaceable! There are many men, so not only are the chances for his seed being chosen reduced, but the amount of seed he could spread is also reduced! He doesn't want to share, and he cannot stomach being replaceable or losing access to females, who are the ones who dictate whether he has a legacy or not. Whether he has offspring or not.

So now the many males have to compete. They have to be more flamboyant, robust, more beautiful than the other males so they can get picked by a female (note, they are not concerned with picking a female because any female will do). But the competition gets steeper and keeps escalating for different reasons (environmental or evolutionary) as time goes on. So now, violence, aggression, and killing have become parts of the competition. Like any sport, the rules and stakes evolve as time goes.

The choice of females is now diminished in this first stage. This is the beginning of the loss of their freedom. It is not that they are simply mating with the "prettiest" male, per se, but that they are also left with the male that survives the battle between males.

And thus the concept of "territory" arrives. Man has come to see other men as his greatest threat. Other men can annihilate him by annihilating his chances at offspring. This is not something women experience because every offspring is theirs, regardless of what seed it came from. Women can never be "erased" on a biological level, because their DNA is the blueprint of all humanity. It started with women and it will end when women end. But this is a big existential fear to men. They can be replaced. They were not the beginning. He (singular) can be erased. There are other men ready and willing to replace him.

So now man needs assurances. He needs to assert himself to other men so that the threat is mitigated. He knows other men are out to get him, because all men are now at war with each other. They evolved strength, not to protect women and children (because females in nearly every species have been the main if not sole providers and protectors), but to protect himself from other men. Really, it couldn't be to protect women and children, because female animals are able to wield similar weapons (claws, spears, stones, beaks) against threats to themselves or their young. No, men need strength to defend themselves from other men, who are out to propagate themselves. Men have become the special targets of other men.

And so, in this struggle, the competition evolves again. The stakes heighten. Man needs to assert himself to other men or he's dead meat, and he finds new ways to do so. At this point, he also realizes that women pose no threat to him in this sense. They do not seek to dominate him. He is not that relevant to her. He is replaceable. So women seize to be as important (in terms of threat) and become relegated to assets. Women do not need to assert themselves, so because they do not, man sees them as different to him. Not the same kind of animal. Not human. Women do not need to establish themselves using violence, and he equates that to women not having agency or ambition. Women now become assets. But he needs them as assurance. Remember, they are the only way he has legacy. So he must find a way to control them. To make them permanently his somehow. He asserts himself using violence, even reproductive violence and it works. Women are now part of the territory. Conquests and wars ensue. Men now view acquiring women and land as the same thing. Now in order to ensure their legacy, men know that it will not just take killing other men, but policing women. Even killing (but mainly stealing and raping) the women of other men since women are now resources and not people. Women cannot assert themselves physically the way men can. They cannot impregnate themselves. This is convenient for him to exploit.

Factions start to form. Kings, chiefs, and dictators rise up as territory and assets expand. Women die in in the crossfire, and policing them becomes more brutal. Their mistreatment from their own offspring and species has now become their biggest threat. Men are now the plunderers and predators of women. Women's resistance is a threat to his precious resources and assurances against other men and his annihilation. The increase of brutality towards women means that more women die, and there are more men than women, making competition even steeper. Now, man moves in packs. He hunts in packs. He covers more ground and acquires more territory, and so long as he is top of the hierarchy, the men beneath him pose no threat. If anything, he makes sure they benefit, for they help him better maintain that hierarchy. More men are required to fight other men and plunder their resources. Armies form. Nations form. Territory.

Now we come to the modern world. After a history of colonialism, capitalism, slavery, genocides, grotesque war. The underpinnings of all these systems are the same. Competition between males. For what? Hierarchy. Why? To assert himself to other males. To what end? His humanity.

Man, the animal, has now come to equate his personhood with supremacy. To men, dominance is a virtue, because to assert yourself, to impose your will, is to be human. Man needs something to be dominant over or he seizes to be relevant. Man needs something to subjugate, or he becomes meat to be devoured by other men. There are more men now than there ever was. The world suffers because ALL these men "need" to assert themselves, to become human to other men.

This is probably part of the reason why women aren't seen as human. Not simply because they are regarded as assets instead of persons, but because to be subjugated is to be inhuman. To be subjugated is how you become an asset. Or at least, dehumanizing you as an asset makes it easier to christen your subjugation as morally right and economically necessary. This idea is especially prevalent in politics since the 18th century. Man sees living things in two castes: dominant and submissive. Because that is how he sees himself in comparison to other men. Cattle, sheep, nature, men who take it from the back, women . . . submissive and thus inhuman. If a man can subject you, you are no longer human to him because you cannot or do not assert yourself in the way he does. You are now an asset that he can use to assert himself to other men. You are not a relevant threat. This is also possibly why pacifism is largely regarded as feminine or "pussification." Even unnatural. Men equate violence to agency since violence is when they start to become their own people.

This becomes even more plain when you look at the underpinings of man's existential thoughts throughout religion, art, and philosophy. What makes a man a man? What makes a man useful? What makes life meaningful to a man? What traits do they worship about god? Omnipotence. Omniscience. Being the owner of all things. The capacity to impose yourself and image on the world and to be able to do so forever via offspring. Ownership and property only became relevant to man when another man competed with him. Excess is useful now because it is a grand way of asserting yourself. Fame and excess are equated to legacy. Now, they are all that is worth striving for. As a boast to other men. A synthetic desire (greed) from an organic feeling (fear of threat).

Man's purpose is now to win the competition, no matter how silly the sport gets. To assert himself and be a threat. And if he is not a threat, he is irrelevant and unspectacular (to humanity). And if he is not relevant, as his ancestors once feared, . . . then what is he? He cannot become a woman who is eternally necessary and relevant to human society and history.

So what else can he be? There are only two options in the male world.

Both these options cannot do anything but ultimately destroy what humanity is left in him.

Greed only makes sense if the satisfaction (mimicking hunger) is found in other people's perception of you. Men need men to perceive them as successful, because that has been how they protected themselves from other men. And now that competition exists in all forms of society, whether economic or social, we all participate on some level with it. It's not that greed is natural to the human heart, but that it has become increasingly relevant to our societies, from how we consume to how we relate. Now, every fraction of society has to have its own model of dominant/submissive, superior/inferior, etc. Because men hate themselves, hate each other, and hate everyone else.

Anyways . . . nighty, night!

PS: This is kind of like conflict theory meets feminist analysis, and it's more of a collection of my ideas than anything else. I find it interesting to look at modern human politics and arts, at least between the 20th century and now, in this lens. If you don't like what I have to say, at least let your criticisms be constructive. I do not mind reasonable disagreement.

[spiralizera]

Mistranslations

Pair: Namjoon/reader (English/anglophone)

Summary: You get into a fight with Yoongi over speaking English and not Korean.

Tags: Hurt/comfort; angst; protective Namjoon; angry Namjoon; soft so soft Namjoon; besties Namjoon and Yoongi

Warnings: xenophobia, mentions of racism [writer is white take that as you will], severe panic attacks, depression, non verbal coping mechanisms, use of the word ‘waegukin’ [I know it’s not a racial slur in the same way we understand racial slurs in the west, I mention that in the fic], chats about eurocentrism and colonialism [lol]

Notes: this is the first fanfic I’ve ever written, v spontaneous, possibly due to sun exposure, it’s like 29C rn, inspired by the gorgeous work of @dreamescapeswriting

You were waiting in the dressing room for the boys to finish their set. You’d been working in Gwanju and Namjoon had insisted that you come see him in Busan. The crowd had been insane and quite quickly you’d retreated backstage, overwhelmed. The English translator, now almost permanently on staff for unexpected interviews or even just preliminary prep on translation before content was churned out for online consumption, came and sat with you. She’d been working on her cultural knowledge of English recently and you quite quickly descended into a deep conversation about the politics of Eurovision. You were happy to help, she’d been a saint over these last few months, helping you with Korean.

Just as you were explaining the running joke that is the U.K. and the ‘nil point’ streak, Yoongi and Jungkook burst into the room on a performance high. Jungkook was giggly and jokingly collapsed into your back while Yoongi grabbed some water. They were mid conversation, their breath labouring, rushed and hard to hear. JK turned around and asked you something and since you were just talking to Seo in English, your brain couldn’t quite register what Jungkook was asking. He asked again, gesturing his hands towards the table, too tired to form full sentences. You turned to where he gestured and before you could fully kick your brain back into Korean and ask him to repeat it again, Yoongi scoffed something under his breath.

You paused, unsure if you’d misheard.

‘Sorry?’ You turned to Yoongi, asking in Korean as your brain played catch up with the chaos slowly pouring in from the stage.

Yoongi ignored you and started speaking to Jungkook. Jungkook laughed and pushed lightly off you, grabbing a bottle of water. You were close with the guys, it was easy. They had such a close and intense bond, it was impossible to be intimate with one without becoming close with the others. The only one who’d always remained at a distance from you was Yoongi. He sometimes pretended to exchange pleasantries, but largely kept himself a distance from you. He never spoke in English to you, he never tried to include you. You knew he spoke far better English than most of the boys, except for Namjoon of course. But he only spoke Korean around you. ‘Around’ was the correct word, never at you or with you, just around you, like you were an unfortunately placed pillar obstructing conversation. You largely ignored him, ignored the sick feeling in your stomach whenever he was in the room. It was natural to not click with everybody. Healthy in fact. These were Namjoon’s friends, not yours after all.

You heard the word again. You’d definitely not misheard this time.

‘Hey,’ you stood up, walking over to Yoongi. The boys turned around, jungkook slightly startled by the raise in your voice. ‘What did you call me?’

Yoongi looked at you deadpan. You were the same height and his eyes bore unflinchingly into yours. ‘I said,’ his English was slow like he was speaking to a child, ‘fucking waegukin.’

You stepped back, slightly stunned. It wasn’t a bad word, you knew that, it was a fact, you knew that. People referred to you as one all the time, it was fine, it was-

‘Everywhere we go it’s ‘speak English this’, ‘speak English that’, why don’t you fucking speak Korean? Why do we have to always accommodate you monolingual fucks? The level of entitlement, you come here expecting everything to be handed to you on a fucking plate. We just gave everything out there, Namjoon killed it and you’re in here demanding everyone speak to you in English, wasting the time of our translator, and not even come out and watch us. Namjoon gives you everything, what do you give him? That’s all westerners do, they take and take and demand we meet their standards, demand we make them comfortable. Would you even like Namjoon if he wasn’t an idol? Would you even like him if he couldn’t speak English? He gives so much of himself, so much energy translating and managing interviews and making sure we come across the right way to you westerners. Now he has to come home to you and your English face and your English language. Give him a fucking break. What can you give him, fucking waegukin?’

Yoongi had been getting closer and closer to you, Jungkook had tried grab his shoulder, to interrupt him but he’d shrugged him off. He’d seen red and couldn’t stop. You were just as stunned. You’d almost zoned out after a minute, watching the scene from another corner, alongside the stunned crew. In theory you knew that Yoongi was tired, that this was about something else, something bigger than you. He was right you hadn’t seen the majority of the concert, maybe something had happened onstage. There’d be a simple explanation, you knew that. You knew that. But your heart was in your throat, you couldn’t speak, you couldn’t breathe. Every insecurity, every worry that had been simmering underneath your skin since you started dating Joon, that Joon had always dismissed and told you not to worry about, was now echoing about the room in one awful silence.

It felt like an eternity had passed.

‘Y/N-‘ Jungkook broke the spell, but you were faster. You didn’t even grab your things, you just needed to leave as quickly as humanly possible. You ran out the room, heading towards the cars, asking the nearest taxi to please drive, before you could see the way Yoongi’s eyes slowly cleared, the realisation that he’d truly fucked up dawning on his face.

——————————————-———————-

14 missed calls. 8 from Joon. 4 from Jungkook. 2 from Seo. You didn’t dare look at the messages that had been solidly lighting up your phone for the past hour. You just needed to get out. You needed to get out right now. You were shoving clothes into your suitcase. You’d catch a train to Gwanju, or maybe a plane would be easier, would there be any planes this late at night? Maybe the train then, or a hire car, but you weren’t really in any state to drive- Maybe you should just cut out the middle man and go straight to Seoul. You had friends there, friends from home who’d grown up split between Korea and Europe. But you didn’t want to worry then. You didn’t want them to know that this kind of relationship couldn’t work. That you were repeating the same mistakes that their parents had made, that maybe the cultural gap was too big. You didn’t want to cause them pain, you were causing everyone so much-

There was a knock at the door. You froze. Shit. You briefly debated scaling the fire escape, but thankfully dropped that idea. Maybe if you just stayed quiet, whoever it was, would go away. Maybe they’d leave you alone. Maybe you’d still be able to escape. You couldn’t be here. You couldn’t do this. You needed to leave right now. Right fucking now.

‘Y/N please,’ it was Namjoon. ‘Please open the door. It’s just me. Please I need to know that you’re ok.’

You softened slightly, your body couldn’t help but respond to his voice. But then your brain kicked into gear again. English, he was speaking in English. He was accommodating you, yet again, he had just finished a concert and he was probably exhausted and he had to deal with you, Yoongi’s words bouncing around your head. You couldn’t move. You couldn’t breath. You couldn’t-

You heard some soft swearing behind the door. ‘Ok I’m coming in Y/N,’ Namjoon slowly entered the room. He had an idea about what had happened, he’d seen you react like this before, he was just glad you were still at the hotel. He walked slowly towards you, arms outstretched like he was approaching a stray. He’d made sure to get rid of every single bit of his anger before coming to find you. He’d ripped into Yoongi and Yoongi had taken it, stood there limply and said nothing. Still high from the stage, he would’ve punched him if it hadn’t been for Jin and Jungkook holding him back. He’d forced himself to calm down before going to find you, he knew he it couldn’t come near you in this state.

He’d phoned the hotel to check you were there before sending Hobi ahead with explicit instructions to not to knock but just make sure that your hotel room light was still on and let him know if you left.

‘It’s ok baby,’ he almost whispered. ‘It’s ok, it’s ok,’ he softly repeated until he was close enough to envelop you in a hug. You initially resisted before allowing yourself to break down and cry. Namjoon held the back of your head to the crook of his neck, kissing the top of your head as he continued to repeat the mantra. Your legs started to go and he swiftly carried you to the bed. He didn’t let you go. He wouldn’t let you go. He controlled his own breathing, holding down the anger that bubbled just below his skin. He took your shaking hand and kissed each finger tip with such care and love before placing it flat against his chest You focussed on his heart, it’s even beats, strong and steady. You matched it’s rhythm with your fingers and eventually your breath followed.

‘It’s ok. You’re ok. I love you. I love you so much,’ Namjoon whispered sweet nothings into your hair and you focussed more on the feeling of his lips than his actual words. Eventually your eyes became heavy and you thankfully slipped away from this awful evening.

Morning came and Namjoon was still holding you. He was reluctant to let you go. Your head was heavy and you felt like were moving underwater. This was often the way after a bad night. You’d finally learnt to recognise the signs, learnt to treat them as something external, symptoms, side affects, not personal failings, character flaws.

Namjoon had learnt too. Just as you had so quickly become attuned to his bad days, the days he couldn’t leave the bed, the days he communicated solely through text messages and grunts, the days he was tired of fronting, tired of masking. It’d been hard, so hard. But you’d eventually let him in too. Let him take care of you. Stopped being so vigilant to everyone else’s needs and let him catch you.

You both stayed in bed for a long time, waking up slowly before letting yourselves fall back asleep again. Joon ordered room service and made you tea, forcing you to drink something and nibble on toast. Wordlessly and easily you moved in time with the other, understanding each others signals. Only the occasional ‘come on’, ‘jagi’, or ‘baby,’ from Namjoon as he coached you into returning back to your body. He’d put the phones somewhere you both couldn’t see them, and while you read, he went and drew you a bath.

The sound of the crowds, thickly ringing the hotel, continued to echo into the afternoon. Ideally Namjoon had wanted to take you somewhere outside, go for a walk to a park or a convenience store, something easy and familiar. But that simply wasn’t possible.

‘Jagiya,’ he called softly to you, still lying in bed, reading your book and tracing the late afternoon sun spots. ‘I’m taking you home tomorrow, is that ok?’

You nodded softly, allowing Namjoon to drag you across the bed into his arms. You felt numb. You felt tired.

——————————————————————

‘Absolutely not.’

Namjoon was trying to find his current reading book before heading to the studio. He’d reluctantly returned to work a couple days after you’d both come back to Seoul. You’d insisted, insisted that you were ok now. Maybe he’d jumped the gun.

‘You are not going anywhere near him, especially not alone.’ He came and stood in the doorway of your study, like he could physically stop you from leaving.

‘Jin is leaving in a couple of days, I’m not going to be the cause of any tension or awkwardness that’ll ruin his send off. You guys need each other more than ever now.’

You get up, matching his stance.

‘You haven’t done anything,’ he punctuated the ‘you’. ‘If anyone’s ruined anything it’s him. He crossed the fucking line.’

You sigh. Your fingers graze his arms, you can feel the anger vibrating just under there. He pretends it’s not there, he pretends you don’t know. He thinks he’s protecting you. You don’t say anything, just gently need the tension from his arms.

His hands eventually fall to your hips before travelling up your back and neck. He leans down and kisses you, your face between his hands like an offering. Its not horny. Its gentle. It’s protective. It’s like you’re the most precious thing in the word. ‘I won’t let him hurt you again.’ He whispers, refusing to even let your eyes slip from his grasp.

‘I know’, you whisper back. ‘I know Joonie. you’re good jooni, so good.’

——————————————————————

Yoongi hadn’t attempted to reach out to you since the night of the concert. Not that he would usually text you, it’d be more disturbing if he had.

As soon as Joon had left for the studio, you texted Jungkook to let him know phase 1 was complete. Jungkook’s job was to keep Joon distracted just long enough to execute phase 2. Before you could think about it too much, you picked up your phone and dialled.

‘Meet me at the convenience store in Dosan. I want to talk.’

——————————————————————

Mid afternoon the streets were almost deserted in Gangnam. Everyone was working or at least trying to avoid the mid afternoon heat. You sat at a plastic picnic table, your back against the shop’s glass windows and your feet up on the bench. You sipped on your coffee - hot drinks in hot weather, you’d learnt that working service - and watched the fruit cellar obnoxiously ring his bell, hopping from one dappled island of shade to another. If the coward didn’t show then at least you’d had a pleasant afternoon.

Two bottles of beer were carefully placed on the table, the clink of glass bringing you back to reality. ‘I thought you might like something stronger than coffee.’

Yoongi’s face was almost completely covered - the classic idol combo of bucket hat, sunnies and face mask - but he still radiated sheepishness.

You say nothing, and watch him eventually open the bottle and pour you a glass. It was unnecessarily formal for a convenience store. But you thought, let him play host. Let him show the foreigner good korean table etiquette.

You take a swig and return to watching the fruit seller. He has some customers now. It’s quite busy. They’ll need to form a line.

You’re both silent for a long time. Neither one of you are great conversationalists and Yoongi seems to be on the brink of an aneurysm. Eventually you relent.

‘Listen,’ your Korean is tense but you know it’s correct, you’ve made sure it’s correct, you refuse to give him an inch. ‘You were right the other night. It’s fucked up how the west and Europe looks at Asia, especially relatively new democracies like Korea. We hold them to,’ you gesture with your hand as you look for the word, ‘unbelievably high standards and then judge them for it. we judge you from democracies that are far far from perfect, democracies that are always on the edge of fascism, democracies that are built off the blood and backs of slavery, colonialism and ecological devastation. We forced you all to speak English and now English is the lingua Munda. You’re right to be angry, you’re right to be upset, especially considering the awful things this country has had to deal with from the likes of the USA. It must be incredibly frustrating and patronising to have to learn English, conduct interviews in English and be constantly asked for everything to be in English, to be considered worthy of international recognition. If anything you guys are proof that you don’t need English at all to dominate the global stage.’

Yoongi went to open his mouth then, but you waved him away.

‘But that doesn’t mean that you get to talk to me like that. Not you. Not anyone. Everything that you said, I’ve thought about myself ten times over and ten times worse. Namjoon and I have had so many conversations about this; before I came to Korea I had some understanding of the history of violence and colonialism this country had been subjected to for centuries, from the Japanese, from the US. But I still came to it from s western, trans-Atlantic understanding of colonialism and I’ve been working and researching to understand these different histories and thoughts and ways of speaking so I can fully understand. It’s a huge part of my job Yoongi, working in Gwanju.’

You could feel yourself getting off track. You took another swig of beer and tried to rain it back. Yoongi wasn’t looking at you, he was staring out into the street. You weren’t sure if your Korean was making any sense.

‘White guilt, western guilt, it’s boring and fruitless. It puts the onus on those who’ve been subjected to these systems of systemic violence. I know this. But in that moment Yoongi what you said was cruel and hurtful and i panicked and I needed to get the fuck out of there. You were right I missed half the show, I don’t know what happened out there, but whatever it was, whatever all of,’ again you gesture wildly, ‘whatever all of this fucked up fuckery we live in is, you don’t get to use me as a…a punching bag.’

Your Korean had become shaky at the end and you’d stumbled into English just so you could finish your point. You weren’t used to defending yourself, it still went against your instincts. Your heart was racing.

For a couple minutes, the sound of your breath was all you could hear, blood rushing to your ear drums.

‘It’s not true.’

‘What?’ You look up, Yoongi was now looking directly at you.

‘You said that what I’d said had been true. It wasn’t true. None of it was true. It was xenophobic and racist. You’re right, we’re subjected to these fucked up systems but that doesn’t mean that we can weaponise them and manipulate them to hurt each other, that’s not how they will end.’

You look at him, unconsciously mouthing some of his words as you try to process them in your head.

‘I’m sorry Y/N. I’m really sorry that I hurt you. I knew about your panic attacks. I knew what I was doing. It was completely and utterly fucked up, I’m so so sorry. You’re so great with Joon and I-

‘You don’t think that.’

He faltered. ‘What?’

‘You don’t think that I’m good with Namjoon,’ you repeated. ‘Ever since we started dating, you’ve avoided me, you never talk to me.’

‘I-‘

‘In fact you often leave the room if im in it. I think the other night was perhaps the longest conversation we’ve ever had, if you can call it that.’

Yoongi seemed to close then. He drew back. You sighed, you were tired of this. ‘Namjoon acts like it doesn’t matter but you’re his best friend Yoongi. I know he’s used to telling you everything. He’s so angry right now. I don’t want to come between you two, I don’t want him to lose you. He needs you.’

Yoongi looked up suddenly at that. His eyes were bright. ‘I don’t want to lose him either.’ He whispered, quickly ducking his head and raking his hands through his hair. You were worried he might try pull it out.

‘I’m sorry i treated you the way that I did. It was cruel and unnecessary, to you and Namjoon.’

You folded your arms and cocked your head.

‘I was weary. And it wasn’t because you weren’t Korean, I’ve close friends who’ve married people not from Korea, who’ve moved abroad-‘

‘Careful,’ you interjected, smiling. ‘You’re starting to sound like those people who insist that they aren’t racist because they have black friends.’

‘-but I was worried about how it’d affect the music,’ he persisted. ‘I was worried about how Namjoon’s priorities would not only shift towards love but also across continents and languages. I was worried he’d be stretched too thin and that the music would suffer.’ He looked at you then, before voicing your deepest fears. ‘That he would suffer.’

‘I’ve known him since he was young and he wasn’t like the rest of us. He’d never allowed himself to get distracted by girls or love. He’d been 100% on the music and the group, nothing else. Part of me worried about the music, but a big part of me worried that he wouldn’t be able to handle it.’ He grabbed your hand then, he could see the guilt and panic start to fester behind your eyes. ‘Because he was falling hard for you Y/N, so hard, harder I think than any of us have fallen before.’

You nodded, unable to speak.

‘I love him Yoongi,’ you breathed, not daring to look away.

Yoongi let go of your hand, he leaned back and took a swig of beer. He fiddled with the label, tearing it into tiny pieces.

‘The truth is Y/N that I’ve never seen him so happy.’ Yoongi rolled the shreds of bottle label into tiny cigarettes and laid them in a row on the table. ‘His songwriting is on s different level and, and he’s calmer,’ your breath catches in your throat at that one. ‘He’s calmer and you can see behind his eyes, you know, he’s not…always putting up a front.’

Yoongi stopped talking then. But you didn’t dare start. You didn’t want to break the spell.

‘I said some fucked up shit the other night. One thing I said was that he must be so tired coming home to you and having to speak English, but it’s not true. I’ve never seen him so healthy, so full of energy. I don’t know your relationship, and that’s my fault, but I don’t think you drain him at all. Not in the slightest. I think you do the opposite, Y/N. Im sorry.’

Yoongi leaned back then, pretended to watch the people walking past. His shoulders slumped forward.

‘I want to be friends Yoongi.’

His head whipped around. He must have misheard you. ‘Excuse me?’

‘I want to be friends Yoongi.’ You repeat again, smiling at him.

He blinks at you. ‘What is this? Primary school? You want to be my friend? Is it that easy?’

‘It can be. If you want it to be.’

Yoongi leaned back before suddenly smiling and getting up from the table with outstretched arms. ‘Come here, noona.’

You laugh and meet him in the hug.

‘You’re older than me!’

He grips you in a bare hug and shakes you from side to side. ‘Doesn’t matter, you’re far wiser than I will ever be.’

Suddenly a car pulls up and Jungkook is apologetically staring at you both from the driver’s seat. Before any of you can register what’s going on, Namjoon has vaulted out of the passenger side, across the car and scooped you into his arms.

‘Oh my god, I was so worried.’ His hands moved across your face and hair as if to make sure everything was where he’d last left it. ‘I’ve been trying to call you for the last hour but you haven’t been answering. I was freaking out and then Jimin said that Yoongi had also gone awol and hadn’t been in his studio for at least an hour and we put two and two together-‘

It was at that moment that Namjoon remembered Yoongi standing there, his arms swinging from where you’d been ripped from them. Namjoon instinctively put himself between you and him.

‘What do you want? What did you say to her? You’ve got some fucking nerve coming anywhere near her.’

Jungkook was out the car now and fruitlessly had his hands between the two, unsure who he was going to have to hold back.

You scoffed and pushed past Joon. ‘It’s ok Joon. It’s fine.’ You kept a steady hand on his arm.

‘We talked it out. It’s ok. It’s sorted, Yoongi apologised, all is forgiven, I promise.’

Namjoon’s eyes flitted between yours and Yoongi’s, the pain in them at having to fight his best friend over his girlfriend starting to seep through.

Yoongi must’ve seen it as well because he stepped forward. ‘Joon it’s true. She called me. I apologised, atoned for my sins, we solved neo-colonialism and late capitalism, we’re good.’ Namjoon’s eyes were still tight, he wasn’t moving. Yoongi sighed and grabbed his neck before Jungkook could intervene, leaning his forehead against Joon’s. ‘She’s incredible bro. You’re lucky to have her. I’m so fucking grateful she forgave me. I can’t wait to get to know her better. Can you forgive me?’

There was an intense few seconds. Before some silent communication took place because suddenly Namjoon and Yoongi were in the deepest of hugs. The kind of bear hug guys will do, slapping each other on the back and sort of rocking back and forth. You joined Jungkook on the sidelines, leaning against the car and trying not to laugh at the greatest romance in history unfolding before your eyes.

‘I missed you bro.’

‘I missed you too.’

‘Uughh!’ Jungkook loudly groaned, ribbing you. ‘Hyung can we go get tonkatsu now or what?’

[aeonianlunartine]

No joke when I first saw this design in a video with Natlan lore, I legitimately thought the video creator was using some random game to represent Natlan.

To say I’m surprised would be a lie considering how I saw this coming even before Sumeru came out; the moment I read in the wiki that Natlan was inspired from precolonial Latin American and some tribes in Africa, I stopped playing Genshin for around a year.

Often, the moment authors start meshing together countries and regions together, it starts to become… murky and harder to execute with proper acknowledgment to the sources of inspiration. Especially since the thing is… these are two continents oceans apart which did not have significant/apparent enough interaction between each other prior to colonialism.

As a mestizo (mixed) Latino, I cannot speak entirely for the various indigenous populations/groups represented within this one region, but the lack of care for skin tone and respect for the cultures it is based off—it’s sad. It’s depressing for me.

This company and many others are using less represented cultures as exotic and fun cosplay.

A fantasy costume party for their pale-skinned, idealized white characters—parading around names which erases real life deities from people’s immediate knowledge and now are replaced with some gacha-ass looking dude with barely a drop of melanin. Now when I search up Ororon, all I get is that dude, which is not fucking good since the name is of a Yoruba deity.

I want people to actually commit to not playing Genshin and other Hoyo games if they really care to boycott. I’ve been discovering the extent of how the other games are just as disgusting as Genshin; it’s not enough to just boycott one game, if you want to get your message across to a company, do it to all their products.

I’ve seen people say to do it, yet go on and still play.

Do it.

Fucking do it if you actually are enraged by the blatant racism in this game and in this fandom.

Those who are bystanders are just as culpable as the ones who perpetuate it.

I will now be changing all my socials if they involve Hoyoverse content; I will no longer interact with Hoyoverse content, whether that be fan-made or official, unless it is discussing this matter or redesigning characters whether that be from Natlan or Sumeru.

I know likely many others won’t do the same; it’s an interest, it’s many people’s favorite game, a comfort. And many people are comfortable—fine—with racism in their interests, as long as it can be sugarcoated and excused, y’know… “it’s not bad because there’s some white people there too in real life!” Yes! But it’s majority brown.

Especially before colonization happened.

[fcble]

Post format inspired by Dulce @almostyours and JJ @chcrryade. Thank you to everyone who let me mention their OCs!

"I stopped my pace and wanted to shout. / Wings, spread out again! / Fly. Fly. Fly. Let me fly once more. / Let me fly just once more." — The Wings by Yi Sang, translated by Ahn Jung-hyo

깃털 (FEATHER) is the debut mixtape of INTAK, of fictional boy group FABLE. It was released digitally through streaming services and SoundCloud on August 16, 2024, seventy-nine years and one day after the liberation of Korea from Japan's colonial rule. Unlike his work as a member of Fable, he released it under his previous SoundCloud username WND3QUD, from the phrase 중3병 typed out on the Korean keyboard. Deriving from the somewhat derogatory Japanese term "chuunibyou," his recent usage of the name is meant to be an acknowledgement and greater understanding of the person he was at fourteen when he identified strongly with it. With the album's themes of the self and the meaning of money, it is also loosely inspired by Yi Sang's 1936 novel The Wings.

The record boasts an impressive array of features from other idol groups, surprising fans who were previously unaware that Intak "knew people like that." In line with Fable's concept and what Intak sees as his due diligence as member of the group, a few of the songs contain Fable's signature traditional instrumental sound. This was a decision that went over well with the majority of the group's fans. The vocal minority are a few Haksu solo stans, who realized that the teased solo debut of this year went to Intak, and not Haksu.

There was little promotion prior to the album's release, aside from a few social media posts with the title and release date, and one Weverse post from Andrew almost two months in advance spoiling the eventual release.

▶ PRESS PLAY

YOU SEARCHED FOR...

TRACK 001. 한국 (KOREA)

"@1:32 ik he was mad as hell in the recording studio. andrew count your days?" ─── A comment on the official music video, August 16, 2024

"Intak released his mixtape a couple of days ago and to say I'm obsessed is an understatement. For everyone else who missed their old sound, this is for you. KOREA is obviously the most Fable song of them all. Between the lyrics and the instrumental, the song posits Intak, Fable, and their music as representatives of Korea. I was under the impression that was their goal from the beginning. These past couple of years haven't shown that, but Intak is bringing it back." ─── 'Old Fable is back and I'm living for it' by bangchanslefttoe on r/kpopthoughts, August 18, 2024

"Ah… isn't it too much? How can he call the song KOREA and then release it under a Japanese name? He should know better. Really, it's disappointing. He said the album was inspired by Yi Sang too. Doesn't that just make it more embarrassing? F*ck I want Haksu's solo album instead." ─── '[enter-talk] WHAT CULTURE IS FABLE REPRESENTING, ANYWAY?' by pannchoa on pannchoa.com, August 19, 2024

TRACK 002. 꼴통 (BASTARD) ft. NOAH of DEEPDIVE @bluwavez

"[checking calendar] ya we still have time for BASTARD summer" ─── @kcdjification on Twitter, August 16, 2024

"I think BASTARD had a lot of potential. I wish there was a little more in the lyrics. One Yi Sang pun in this song and it's in Noah's verse? Come on, Intak, you're better than that." ─── A comment on the album's official discussion post on r/kpop, August 18, 2024

"I know Intak's 'Feather' flew under a lot of people's radars, but I tuned in. 7/10 if I'm being generous. My favorite song is definitely BASTARD. Is it because Noah is there? Um. No comment." ─── 'ranking every kpop comeback (august 2024),' shineesback on YouTube, September 1, 2024

TRACK 003. CASH

"just listened to CASH. close enough welcome back karl marx!" ─── @h4nd__dr4wn on Twitter, August 17, 2024

"What did I write? Nothing. This is Intak's solo album. He's always written our music. [pause] If he asked, I would have. If not, it's patronizing. If I wanted to release a solo album, would you expect Intak to write one of the songs? [pause] Rhetorical question. Let's listen to CASH." ─── Andrew via Weverse Live, August 17, 2024

"For my solo album, I want Andrew-hyung and Intak-hyung to both write it. They're both important to Fable, and I can't image what we'd be like without them." ─── Haksu via Weverse live (immediately after Andrew's comments), August 17, 2024

TRACK 004. GOAT ft. CYRUS of XPLOIT @ripsoff, JC of LITTLE HOUSE @okmgi

"did anyone else have flashbacks to 2013 goat remixes or was that just me" ─── @yjuntual on Tumblr, August 17, 2024

"Let's talk about the worst song by far. GOAT was certainly a choice. It's the most generic track on the album. Any rapper can call themselves the goat. It's a jarring disappointment right in the middle of an otherwise decent album. And of course I can't forget the worst part. What on earth possessed Intak to make him think it would be fun to make goat noises on the track? Easiest 0/10 I've ever given." ─── A Rate Your Music review, August 19, 2024

"i know it says ft jc in the title but tell me why i still jumped when i finally heard his voice at the end 😭😭" ─── @GOLDFlNCHS on Twitter, August 20, 2024

TRACK 005. 태권도 (TAEKWONDO) ft. ANGEL of LUCKY @lvcky0ne

"Did everyone listen to 'Feather' yet? If you didn't, go listen to it now and then come back and tell me what your favorite song is. I like TAEKWONDO. Eolssu~~~~" ─── Byeonghwi via Weverse, August 16, 2024

"not to be overly parasocial or anything but intak and andrew's arguments in the fable dorms must go crazy bc andrew would never write a song like this. open discussion does andrew even know what TAEKWONDO is." ─── @kkotcheoreoms on Twitter, August 17, 2024

"promotions for this album are literally so bad if i wasn't locked in to literally everything lucky does i would've missed out on angel content 😔" ─── @.cheonsarang on Twitter, August 19, 2024

TRACK 006. BUCK ft. HERO @anqelblccm

"🔥🔥🔥" ─── Mingeun via Instagram stories, August 16, 2024

"you guys don't understand how badly i need a live performance of BUCK hero would eat that shit UP please please please please please" ─── @hrts4hero on Twitter, August 17, 2024

"Ever since Fable's Intak released his mixtape earlier this month, I've been hooked on a handful of the songs. I know everyone likes Fable for their traditional concept, but they have some extremely solid b-sides in their discography. Enter BUCK. Went platinum on my Spotify last week." ─── 'recent underrated bg b-sides you should listen to,' evvnemoon on YouTube, August 27, 2024

TRACK 007. 무리야 (FLAKER)

"3. FLAKER. Introverted king. He's so me. #intakforpresident2k24." ─── 'ranking every feather song! (nothing to do with sabrina carpenter lol),' @flwrble on TikTok, August 17, 2024

"everyone is clowning intak for putting a song about introversion on an otherwise deep album but i think there's a deeper meaning here where he's trying to be a different person except this is his nature and he can't escape that and anyway it ties back to the wings bc that protagonist is in a pit of self-deception so deep he might as well be six feet under and intak's interpretation moves past that to the slightest glimmer of self-realization like bro looked in the mirror so yes i've connected the dots" ─── @cyb3rn1ghts on Threads, August 18, 2024

"'You're Intak's token extrovert.' I see everyone's listened to FLAKER. You mean his friend. That's how friendship works." ─── Kiyoung via Instagram live, August 20, 2024

TRACK 008. 날개 (FLY) ft DIAZ of VARSITY @ncrdyboyz and EUNJUN of ARM CANDY @hearthr0b

"idk why but this part of the song always makes me tear up 🥹🥹 fable ur sooo important to me" ─── @berryseop at 1:42 on SoundCloud, August 17, 2024

"Another Feather factoid: The Korean title of FLY is the same as the original title of Yi Sang's novel that inspired the album." ─── @prodbyfable on Twitter, August 17, 2024

"FLY is a dreamy collaboration between Fable's Intak, Varsity's Diaz, and Arm Candy's Eunjun. The trio delighted us with the back-and-forth narrative between Intak and Diaz, paired with Eunjun's smooth vocals. Although a b-side, it definitely has title track potential." ─── '10 of Our Favorite Recent Kpop Collabs' by S Kim for Soompi, August 31, 2024

TRACK 009. 풍각쟁이 (PUNGGAKJAENGI) ft. JAESEOP and EUNSU of FABLE, ???

"he credited eunsu as eunsu of fable. brb i'm gonna break down NO ONE TALK TO MEEEE 😭😭😭😭" ─── @twosuluvr on Twitter, August 16, 2024

"PUNGGAKJAENGI is a really fun song because every verse is in a different dialect. Jaeseop's uses the Gyeongsang dialect. Although he was raised in Seoul, he was born in Gyeongsan, in North Gyeongsang. Intak's is Jeolla's dialect, given that he considers the South Jeolla province home. Eunsu's uses his Gangwon dialect. As a side note, this might be the first time Eunsu has so openly spoken satoori. If I didn't know he was from Taebaek, I would have thought he was born and raised in Seoul." ─── @prodbyfable on Twitter, August 17, 2024

"crediting the pansori singer as a bunch of question marks is certainly a decision! not sure what they were thinking there" ─── @haksubak on Twitter, August 17, 2024

[therealvinelle]

What are your thoughts on the titanic movie?

Oh I wanted to watch it, tried once as a child, didn't make it through, then again with @theoriginalcarnivorousmuffin, at which point I also didn't make it through.

I'm here for the ship, literally only the ship. Rose and Jack would not get off the screen and let me look at ship, and so even though I made it to the part where they impact the iceberg, I realized I couldn't sit through Jack and Rose running around the decks, no matter how true to life the models were. Watch party ended, and some time later we tried Raise the Titanic with Alec Guinness instead (a deeply silly movie where a dangerous weapon was on board the Titanic when it sank, and the Americans must find it before the Soviets do).

James Cameron's movies have a very consistent problem where he is in love with a concept, or an idea or a new bit of technology, so he makes a movie to show it off and has to put a story in there somewhere so we're watching something happened. This worked incredibly well in the two first Terminator movies, it gave us a deeply funny Aliens movie, but it did not work out for Titanic as his worst tendencies all came out to play.

I like him, as a director, I just don't like the majority of his movies, if that makes sense.

His characters are plainly good or bad with one note motivations and no nuance, and they are all consistently and painfully American, to the point where they feel like caricatures. Jake Sullivan, who is such a staple army vet that he has no personality whatsoever other than being a protagonist with the assigned traits that would make him sympathetic to as wide an audience as possible, is a terrific example of this, as are the gun-toting military crew heading to the colony in Aliens, but so too are the characters of the Titanic, only in a different way. Rose's mother and peers are what I can only describe as Victoria's parents in Corpse Bride without the satire - they are not real people, but old world aristocrats seen through the eyes of filmmakers who fundamentally don't understand class. Rose becoming infatuated with a working class boy is a very simple and straightforward matter where there is no actual reason for them not to be together, it's just that Jack gets made fun of for not knowing the right forks to use. It's just shallow.

I have more complaints, but much of the movie is luckily forgotten so I'll stick to the big one: I wish Cameron had either made this a purely fictional story that was inspired by the Titanic but without actual victims, or else gone out of his way to be respectful of the fact. Going of the wikipedia page for how historical characters were treated, Bruce Ismay being depicted as boorish and attributed decisions he never made in life so he can be at least partly blamed for the sinking. The man's life and mental health was ruined after the real sinking as the act of surviving made him a media target, Cameron could have chosen to leave his memory be and I side-eye his decision not to. The movie has First Officer Murdoch shooting passengers and then himself, I struggle to see what this added to the movie besides upsetting his surviving family.

Perhaps I'm overly strict, but even fictionalized retellings have historical import because they play a much larger role in how people remember the past than history books or documentaries do because more people see them. The film industry has immense power over how we view the past, and in turn over how history is remembered. This comes with a responsibility, and a plea for consciousness of the fact. Set your stories to whichever periods and cultures you may like: but do so knowing that no matter how much media and recorded history already exists on your chosen subject, there will be people walking away from your product whose view is now affected by your depiction.

In other words, Raise the Titanic is somehow more respectul in my eyes because while it was a very silly movie, it insulted no one's memory. And I'll be sticking to documentaries and animations when it comes to RMS Titanic-related media.

[toxictoxicities]

Finally did concepts for the whole of Links local group! (Valiant Local Group) Not just head shots XD

Too bad we hardly see from em but I'll give a brief description to what happens. (Valiant Local Group Spoilers Bellow <3)

Pollen- The youngest Iterator in the local group, possibly one of the youngest iterators in general, was built last minute just as the topic of mass ascension was coming along. Therefore she's more curious and not under the conditioning of traditions and customs. The flake on her puppet is a symptom of something~

Watching Skies- Had asked one too many questions and tried researching about how to break the self destruction taboo and get rid of things that bind them as a whole, this information was first explored by Roses who wasn't around at the time. They got dealt with.

Sunken Thaw- Close connection to Burried Spirals and shared similar views with the local group- well what is remaining of it. Researched karma symbols on the side and was very very spoiled by her ancients

Burried Spirals- The "big brother" even though Link is older, his ancients had a lot of festivals and very cultured in which the whole starving oneself and bitter tea, same with most of the other iterator colonies in the local group. One of two who can harass Link and get away with it. However unlike Link he doesn't mind if his ancients blur the lines between breaking taboos and not, as they're solving the problem to ascend them anyways without needing to starve oneself.

Shiver and Fall- One who asked too many questions, wanted to explore other things than the great problem. He tried to research about the iterator output of water vapor and how to decrease it so the ancients didn't have to live on top of them. Similar outcome to Watching Skies

Roses Upon Seas- She was Watching Skies inspiration who had similar ideas to them. Roses was dealt with prior to Skies and so they never got to meet, but Roses laid the path for Skies to follow which gave them the same fate.

Expanded Uniform Poem- The other iterator who Link tolerates, she is control of assisting new iterators in the local group and establishing traditions and cultures upon them and what is expected. Usually the iterators of the local group would go to her if they were wanting to speak to Link and she would pass it on. Tried mentoring Pollen to prevent what happened to everyone else to happen to her. Didn't work though.

[aphverse-confessions]

fantasy racism anon, i want to start to say that i did commit an error on my part, that part being me not specifying who exactly that message was targeted towards, which was white people mainly. this post is also in no way a hate towards you, as i understand many of your points in the tags. the original post came from the fact that i am a queer, person of color, who suffers discrimination everyday and cannot turn it off the moment i decide that i an bored or tired of experiencing it. it truly frustrates me when white people include these things simply for added conflict because most of the time fantasy racism comes from real life racism, and furthur discriminates and harms real life minority groups.

the best examples i can think of in the context of mcd and mystreet as a whole is meif’was being extremely based on japanese & asian culture as a whole, being seen as only these cute kitty cats who are silly and cute (kc is an example of this) or werewolfs, who are viewed as agressive and monstrous, who live in tribes and attack people for no reason other than being hostile, all things that indigenous people are linked to being due to years of colonialism and racism. but this exists outside of aphmaus roleplay series too. think of orcs from dungeons and dragons, who are agressive and evil and are often depicted having black features and black hairstyles. think of goblins in fiction, who are described as having hooked noses and being greedy, a common negative stereotypes of jewish people.

fantasy racism isnt just fantasy. it is inherently inspired by the real world, and tends to only furthur stereotypes and negative connotations. that is why is truly frustrates me when i see white people incorporate it into their retelling of these stories and in general, because to them it is just conflict that they can walk away from by simply just shutting the book or closing their computer, while me and countless other people of color have to sit and watch as we see characters go through what we go through, instead of being able to have a moment of peace from the real world like white people do.

.

[paragonrobits]

i have to admit one of the most genuinely unsettling developments in fandom recently has been fans reading a book where Gyatso muses about spreading their teachings to other nations and immediately assuming they mean in exactly the same way as colonial proselyting rather than simply... well, spreading their teachings without it being the same thing as imposing their culture on others

and, for that matter, saying that Gyatso is as bad as Sozin for thinking that inspiring others to embrace pacifism would be a good idea.

That Gyatso is as bad as Sozin.

That a wise monk is as bad as the genocidal warmonger and conquering imperialist who wiped out Gyatso's people and began a hundred year war of conquest and cultural destruction.

That Gyatso was as bad as the person who outright genocided Gyatso's people. And the worst part about it is that this seems to be largely a negative response from people in fandom who are getting very quick to excuse the Fire Nation as not 'really' being fascist or colonizing or demonize the Air Nomads (again, the civilization of pacifist monks that were genocided to such a degree that its the whole reason the original series is called 'The Last Airbender', because the others are all dead) or accuse the Air Nomads as deserving to be wiped out, or conclude that teaching others if they are receptive to it is the same thing as explicitly stamping out cultural practices and ways of life (which, again, the Fire Nation is explicitly doing), or insisting that the Air Nomads are outright racist while claiming the Fire Nation is neither racist or classist (despite a standard insult from Zuko and Azula at their most antagonistic is constantly demeaning Katara or Sokka as 'peasants', or other Fire Nation characters referring to the Water Tribes as 'barbarians' and 'savages', or referring to Earthbending in equally demeaning terms)

Its largely from parts of fandom that has been increasingly growing more insular and saying things like this for a while, growing defensive of the Fire Nation (my guess is because they're often based in shipping arguments that have increasingly come to focus on their cultures and were already favoring the Fire Nation for its sense of power and luxury, which is constantly emphasized in the most common ship dynamics by some groups), and I think that its just kept escalating until we're now at the position where you're getting people saying "the Fire Nation was right to genocide the Air Nomads' and its horrifying to hear, but also unsurprising. Some of these particularly extreme aspects of fandom have already been in this base for a while.

It's unsettling to see them mask off so violently, but its not surprising. Acting like Gyatso is more evil than the genocidal warmonger who winds up killing him because of his dislike for the Fire Nation's racist views (established in other stuff as far predating the Hundred Year War, and leading up to it) and contemplating teaching people in other nations is exactly the same thing as coercive missionaries with colonial intentions.

It's honestly come full circle from the canon of the series being that the Air Nomads were a tragic first victim of the Fire Nation's war and Aang, their last survivor, must end that war, to these outspoken fandom people insisting the Fire Nation did nothing wrong, that they were justified in burning all the Air Nomads alive, and that Aang is the true villain of the setting, largely because of dislike of him from shipping purposes or being angry that the series didn't abruptly detour at the last second into a 'killing everyone who gets in your way is moral and never has long-term consequences' story that is antithetical to the series' big emphasis on harmony, long-term consequences, and that doing things spiritually is more important than getting them done quicker.

[natlacentral]

How the Costume Designer Behind Netflix’s ‘Avatar: The Last Airbender’ Brought the Iconic Animated Looks to Life

Farnaz Khaki-Sadigh explains why Aang's outfit was so hard to perfect and shares the easter eggs hiding in the show's fashion.

2005’s Avatar: The Last Airbender is one of the best examples of world-building put to screen in television history—thanks in large part to the show's fashion. The Nickelodeon animated series pulled its viewers into the magical universe of “benders,” by giving each of the world’s four nations—the Fire Nation, the Earth Kingdom, the Water Tribe, and the Air Nomads—a distinct, recognizable aesthetic inspired by Asian and Indigenous cultures. The original ATLA also handled intricate character arcs and heavy themes around war and colonialism with a nuance that both kids and adults could appreciate, and the gorgeous 2D animation sucked every viewer deeply into the fantasy world. So Netflix’s new live-action adaptation had a tall order to meet when it came to bringing the beloved cartoon to life.

The streamer met the challenge with an impressive, charming flair by gathering a talented cast and crew filled with fans of the original cartoon, including costume designer Farnaz Khaki-Sadigh. While speaking with Marie Claire over Zoom, the Emmy winner—who previously worked on sci-fi/fantasy shows like The 100 and R.L. Stine’s The Haunting Hour— shared how she was able to successfully infuse real-world cultural inspirations into all of the outfits. It's something she hopes has lasting effects outside of Hollywood: “I hope that it inspires [viewers] to learn about other cultures and different parts of the world, to want to go visit them and understand them,” she says of the new series. 

Here, Khaki-Sadigh chats about her favorite costumes from the original series, her months-long research process, and the practicalities she considered while designing real-life versions of Team Avatar’s looks.

Marie Claire: How familiar were you with the original animated series when you got the opportunity to work on the Netflix show? 

Farnaz Khaki-Sadigh: I watched it a dozen times before I even got the job. When it was first announced that they were going to do a live-action series, I was like, ‘I want to work on this.’ This is a dream job.

Now knowing you're a fan, how did you approach honoring the original show while putting your own spin on the live-action clothes?

FKS: I definitely wanted to pay homage to the original. I think a lot of that comes through with the color palettes that we've chosen. [Also] keeping the silhouettes of the original animation and then breathing life into it with real-world materials and inspirations from the various cultures. The animation is more of a broader reference of the Asian and Indigenous cultures, so we went in and did a bit more specification—to give it a more dimension and narrow each culture in the show down to a specific group.

With the Southern Water Tribe, for example, we did take a lot from the Inuit culture. But I also learned that they did a lot of trades with certain other Indigenous groups and Northern Vikings, so we have a lot of those influences coming into [their clothing] as well. With the Northern Water tribe, we went a little bit more towards the Siberian Indigenous groups, such as the Yupiks and the Turkic tribes, to give it more variety and differentiation between the two fictional tribal nations. Then with the earth-benders, we see other cultures referenced. Omashu is very much based on Southeast Asian and Indian cultures. Whereas, there are smaller towns that we see in certain episodes that are based on other Asian cultures and Asian countries. So we brought in some Korean influences and some Vietnamese influences [for those]. We wanted to give [each nation’s aesthetic] a broader spectrum as opposed to just unifying everything under the one umbrella.

What were some of the challenges you faced in bringing these animated looks to life? 

FKS: It was definitely a lot of trial and error. You want to be authentic, but then you also have to take into consideration the fact that it is a show, and it is present-day as opposed to the mid-1800s, when the show is technically based on. They used a lot of materials back then that we don't use in the present-day. So it's just finding a balance of making the costumes look like they belong in that time period, but they're still comfortable enough for actors to wear today, and that they can move in it and fight and do all of their actions. We tested a lot of things. We built mockups and had stunt performers try to do fight moves in them to see what we had to change. Like if the weight of the armors were too heavy, or if they didn't sit properly, and [the actors] couldn't move their arms a certain way to do the bending that they needed to do. And we adjusted accordingly. We had a good enough chunk of time to do these trial-and-error runs to make sure that, once the garments were actually put on the performer, they were actually functional for them, and they could move and perform in them.

Is there a character who you really loved designing for, or one of the costumes that you're really proud of?

FKS: I cannot pick a favorite, to be honest. Every time a costume was done, and we would see it for the first time on camera, I think I cried a little bit because it felt so good. It felt surreal as a fan too, just to see everything come to life. 

Aang has the most recognizable look out of all of the characters. What was the process of figuring out his costume?

FKS: That one was the hardest one because it is one of the simpler ones out of all of them. Just because it's simple, it doesn't make it easy. We had to go through so many different materials to make sure that it flowed and moved with the air-bending. Then we had to make sure that the colors worked with the animation, but were also realistic at the same time. They had to work within our Air Nomad world, especially since the Southern Air Temple was based on Tibetan monks and their aesthetic [on the show] was pulled from that culture and their color palettes. We decided that, within the Air Nomads, we couldn't use any synthetic materials or anything that came from animals, just because of what that culture is based on. Everything had to be natural fibers. For the color of the Cape, I think we went through anywhere between like six and 10 different fabrics. We made so many different capes for him because the color kept shifting under the lights. So we had to find the perfect material and the perfect color, that moved, looked great, and didn't change color under the camera lights. One of the simplest costumes took us the longest time to figure out, but it was worth it.

The show also has so many great accessories from Katara’s necklace and Sokka’s bone choker to the Fire Nation crowns and helmets. What was the process of figuring out which accessories from the cartoon would be brought into live action?

FKS: We wanted to feature anything that was really iconic to the characters. Katara's necklace is a very big part of her character. It's a memento from her mother that sort of brings the North and the South together. It's all those little things that really made the characters in the animation. You look at that piece and you know exactly who that person is without them actually having it on. So those are the elements that we wanted to include.

Did it ever get overwhelming to handle something on this scale of world-building?

FKS: Absolutely, all the time. I did so much research and so much reading and talking to people from those cultures and learning from them. I probably spent like three or four months before I started the project—just between prepping for my interviews and then prepping to start conceptualizing once I had the job. I was constantly trying to learn more about the materials that were used and why they were used, and why certain cultures used certain colors and what it represented. There's how the materials moved; how the garments moved; how different ranks and social status affected and influenced the garments in that time period; the wars, the trade routes, and what was and wasn't traded, what was traded for what...all of those things. It really was a historical study of the cultures within the story as well as in real life. For example, Kyoshi is very much based on Japanese culture, and specifically Samurai culture. There's actually a group of female warriors in Japan called Onna-bu Geisha. A lot of the inspiration for the Kyoshi Warriors comes from those female samurai warriors.

Are there any looks you're looking forward to bringing to life in future seasons? 

I'd really love to do Ba Sing Se. That would be a world that I really would love to create, because I think there's just so much there that we can play on. I would love to do Ember Island. That was a really fun storyline in Book Three, and I think it would be really fun to realize that.

[ae-neon]

the Viper Queen and the Meat Market

I wanna mention all the problems I picked up (so far) mind you these are just mental connections I have made from my own knowledge, I am not an expert nor have I gotten the chance to do any serious research

This is not in depth mostly because it would be a hassle getting all sources, texts and pictures together with my current setup (so please look up it up for yourself if you want to understand/know more)

This is not that long I just put a cut for scrolling convenience

First and foremost is the racist Dragon Lady stereotype. Sjm has already used this stereotype for three of her east Asian characters: Amren, Manon and now this Viper Queen

Second is the idea of the Meat Market itself, being this cramped, lawless place. This plays into stereotypes about spaces of certain ethnicities as lawless zones outside of the order and normalcy of the rest of the surrounding area. In particular this reminds me of Chinatowns - places that were intentionally set up and segregated by white people so that they would not have to live and work beside Asian populations. Sjm makes the mention that "even Micah and the angels had no jurisdiction there" 🙄 like please 😒 the racism is actually detrimental to her world building cause now I know all the human rebels have to do to scare the angels is be "foreign"

Second is the introduction to the Meat Market. It's first mentioned early on as a sort of red light district. Harkoning back to real life sex tourism popular among western men and targeted at poc, but especially Asian women. Things like this have its roots in colonialism and the vulnerability of women and children in wartime.

The first glimpse we have of the Meat Market Bryce stops to observe food being delivered and remarks on strange food and feeling sympathy for the seemingly sad crustaceans who are to be eaten. Rich coming from someone who owns a sentient pet she cannot communicate with despite knowing it does speak. This again plays into some orientalism and the discrimination some western people have towards traditional food from other cultures. Eg the stigma against eating things like dogs because they find it cruel but are okay with intelligent animals like pigs and octopi getting eaten. I'm not saying eat dogs but did you stop to learn that the practice started after colonial forces starved the native population? Would it really matter even if it didn't? Why should food be understood by the west to be deemed acceptable?

The general state of the Meat Market being a place of vice also leans into the history of opium dens. Long story short the British wanted to take advantage of the Chinese so they got them addicted to drugs and it was horrible. Please look more into this. No doubt it was a bit of the inspiration for how white America introduced crack into African American communities to tear them apart from the inside.

This is all for now as I basically stopped in the beginning of chapter 18.

[viktoriakomova]

i want to make this a separate post instead of tacking it onto the last post i reblogged, because a) i feel like its getting way too far away from the point of the OP and as someone who has been in that position several times on my main blog its annoying as shit, and b) i dont want it to feel like anybody is ganging up on OP or "dragging" them or whatever, i dont think what they said was mean spirited or came from a place of bad faith etc etc etc. (if i did i would have been a whole fucking lot meaner in replying lmfao) and i also dont think anything it said was Wrong tbh.

okay all that being said!

i will put my tags of my last reblog in the main text here, because this is something i want to expand on:

not to get too Deep about it but. the colonizing countries literally have more wealth and resources and opportunity *because* th#*they stole so much from the global south. they have the $ and the stability to develop ‘frivolous’ things like gym#at the direct expense of the colonies who are left penniless and in perpetual chaos and upheaval

(for context this is re: children of immigrants in diaspora and their connections to their parents'/grandparents' homelands and culture, and maintaining those ties when the reason they came to the global north are for increased opportunity for success and upward mobility etc.)

i wont turn this into a treatise on economic exploitation and its consequences like i alluded to in the tags (i would if i had like 3 glasses of wine tho lol) but the following is something i really do want to underscore:

i love nemour for a lot of reasons. the gymnastics itself, yes of course. i know i snark and make jokes all the time about her shitting on the FFG every time she does anything great under the 🇩🇿 flag. but sincerely, what she is doing for gymnastics in algeria, in north africa in general (hell even in africa overall given the attention that african champs got because of her), is truly something special. i will admit that i dont stay on top of algerian sports media lol but i do speak french and what ive seen, just what has come across my radar, in the francophone algerian press (both in france and in algeria) is drumming up major excitement about her. this is the kind of attention that gets people who otherwise wouldnt give a shit emotionally invested in the sport. the social and historical baggage of the treatment of algeria and algerians in france, and the olympics being in paris, is just the icing on the cake.

its not exactly the same dynamic, especially not in terms of the Discourse about resources and access in diaspora, but i cant help but to be reminded of daiane dos santos, who famously started the sport at the age of 12. and only 8 years later she became a world champion on floor. she was the first world champion in WAG from brazil, south america entirely in fact, ever!!!! rebeca andrade mentions her all the time as an inspiration for her as a little girl. rebe went out of her way (i mean that figuratively as well as very literally, we all know the story about her brothers escorting her through the favela to the gym and back) to do the sport, because she saw dos santos do great things and looked up to her. and now shes REBECA FUCKING ANDRADE. would we have Rebe™ if it hadnt been for daiane? no probably not!

i guess it just..... not "upsets" me, thats not the word im looking for, but maybe gives me pause when i see anybody say (about any of the aforementioned US-born gymnasts representing other countries, not just in this case with nemour) that its opportunistic or undeserved to be competing under the flag of a country your parent(s) came from but you've never properly lived in. because...... isnt that the whole purpose of the multi-generational Narrative Arc? dont they pick up their whole lives and move to "wealthy" countries to pursue better lives for themselves, and more importantly, for their children? and then their children do take advantage of those opportunities they would not have gotten back "home" and reach the highest levels of a (very expensive and, until very recently, highly "inaccessible") sport. and then there's a chorus of "well it isn't like she's FROM from there and came up from the ranks within that country." i mean you're not wrong but thats.... kinda the point!!! she couldnt have done it at "home," shes a clear example of how much talent there is in places that are torn apart and dirt fucking poor and how if you give those people the opportunity, they can be really fucking good at this! world class, even!

she is, in a very REAL sense, "representing" algeria. if she does well in paris (🧿🧿🧿🧿 *furiously knocking on every wooden surface in my apt*) she will become an emblematic iconic sports star for algeria. she will be the reason a ton of little girls in algeria (and even franco-algériennes in france) will want to sign up for gymnastics! she will have (and has already had, by the looks of it) a tangible impact on the popularity and the future of the sport in algeria. it cannot be overstated how fucking much that means.

[thevampirearchive]

To the world, sincerely, a tired black artists and my fellow creatives

A lot of the weird demonization of Rema’s visuals really made me sad. I’m not surprised at the lack of cultural knowledge about Edo people and Benin City, Nigeria — virtually everywhere outside of the continent, African history, culture and traditions aren’t taught unless you are in special programs or majors. But to call something demonic and satanic because you don’t understand? The blatant xenophobia and racism has me so furious. I know we have a lot of unlearning to do, but I had imagined that the colonial ways of viewing black Africans was not alive and thriving amongst the diaspora. To see so many black Christian’s come together in the name of their white gods and forced religion to call something so sentimental, historically important and significant for Rema and many others demonic is like having a weird ‘dejavu’.

Everyday I think about how I see too many people complain about lack of representation of black people from all around the world in media; wether it be movies, tv, fiction, music genre and other industries predominantly white — and now, given visuals and such cool performance, we do as our oppressors once did. Word for word. It’s disgusting and I hope everybody who partook educated themselves and do better.

When will my people know peace when it comes to trying to share, showcase and be proud of what we’ve created? I never forgot how Fufu became a laughing stock, how so many still mock their parents pronunciations knowing that’s their third of even fourth language. And don’t let me start on Nollywood or the diasporic movie industries — why must you laugh when you don’t understand? Question things, yes, be curious and explore. But mocking?

To all my fellow Africans and black people of the diaspora— one day, we will be in a world where we’re known for more then our struggles. Where were not mocked for our ‘incorrect’ speech of languages violently forced upon us, that we adapted to fit who we are and our origins. One day we will have peace; no more silent genocides, or loud ones. No more having to hide our roots, traditions, practices, art/creations. Be ashamed of any aspects of our culture that does not warrant shame.

I ask that if you want representation, you seek it out because trust me it is out there. The continent has so many creations — sure some harder to find or consume due to language barriers but we all witnessed K-drama’s boom. You can watch French, Spanish and English films — so why are subtitles not good enough when it’s in Igbo? Xhosa? Wolof? Zulu? Bafang?

I ask that everybody, including myself, start to give africa it’s flowers. The more we pour into the good — art, creations, industries etc that inspire more to create and expand, the more we will see the uprise of what has always been within the continent but never given much thought by most of the world because it is African and the quality is regarded as ‘lesser’.

And I hope I get to witness more great artist come from all around the motherland, and be part amongst them when I eventually complete my African/Black centered work ✌🏾

[the-real-zhora-salome]

It’s an Oscar tradition: a serious political speech pierces the bubble of glamour and self-congratulation. Warring responses ensue. Some proclaim the speech an example of artists at their culture-shifting best; others an egotistical usurpation of an otherwise celebratory night. Then everyone moves on.

Yet I suspect that the impact of Jonathan Glazer’s time-stopping speech at last Sunday’s Academy Awards will be significantly more lasting, with its meaning and import analyzed for many years to come.

Glazer was accepting the award for best international film for The Zone of Interest, which is inspired by the real life of Rudolf Höss, commandant of the Auschwitz concentration camp. The film follows Höss’s idyllic domestic life with his wife and children, which unfolds in a stately home and garden immediately adjacent to the concentration camp. Glazer has described his characters not as monsters but as “non-thinking, bourgeois, aspirational-careerist horrors”, people who manage to turn profound evil into white noise.

Before Sunday’s ceremony, Zone had already been heralded by several deities of the film world. Alfonso Cuarón, the Oscar-winning director of Roma, called it “probably the most important film of this century”. Steven Spielberg declared it “the best Holocaust movie I’ve witnessed since my own” – a reference to Schindler’s List, which swept the Oscars 30 years ago.

But while Schindler List’s triumph represented a moment of profound validation and unity for the mainstream Jewish community, Zone arrives at a very different juncture. Debates are raging about how the Nazi atrocities should be remembered: should the Holocaust be seen exclusively as a Jewish catastrophe, or something more universal, with greater recognition for all the groups targeted for extermination? Was the Holocaust a unique rupture in European history, or a homecoming of earlier colonial genocides, along with a return of the techniques, logics and bogus race theories they developed and deployed? Does “never again” mean never again to anyone, or never again to the Jews, a pledge for which Israel is imagined as a kind of untouchable guarantee?

These wars over universalism, proprietary trauma, exceptionalism and comparison are at the heart of South Africa’s landmark genocide case against Israel at the international court of justice, and they are also ripping through Jewish communities, congregations and families around the world. In one action-packed minute, and in our moment of stifling self-censorship, Glazer fearlessly took clear positions on each of these controversies.

“All our choices were made to reflect and confront us in the present – not to say, ‘Look what they did then’; rather, ‘Look what we do now,’” Glazer said, quickly dispatching with the notion that comparing present-day horrors to Nazi crimes is inherently minimizing or relativizing, and leaving no doubt that his explicit intention was to draw out continuities between the monstrous past and our monstrous present.

And he went further: “We stand here as men who refute their Jewishness and the Holocaust being hijacked by an occupation which has led to conflict for so many innocent people, whether the victims of 7 October in Israel or the ongoing attack on Gaza.” For Glazer, Israel does not get a pass, nor is it ethical to use intergenerational Jewish trauma from the Holocaust as justification or cover for atrocities committed by the Israeli state today.

Others have made these points before, of course, and many have paid dearly, particularly if they are Palestinian, Arab, or Muslim. Glazer, interestingly, dropped his rhetorical bombs protected by the identity-equivalent of a suit of armor, standing before the glittering crowd as a successful white Jewish man – flanked by two other successful white Jewish men – who had, together, just made a film about the Holocaust. And that phalanx of privilege still didn’t save him from the flood of smears and distortions that misrepresented his words to wrongly claim that he had repudiated his Jewishness, which only served to underline Glazer’s point about those who turn victimhood into a weapon.

Equally significant was what we might think of as the speech’s meta-context: what preceded it and immediately followed. Those who only watched clips online missed this part of the experience, and that’s too bad. Because as soon as Glazer wrapped up his speech – dedicating the award to Aleksandra Bystroń-Kołodziejczyk, a Polish woman who secretly fed Auschwitz prisoners and fought the Nazis as a member of the Polish underground army – out came actors Ryan Gosling and Emily Blunt. Without so much as a commercial break to allow us to emotionally recover, we were instantly jettisoned into a “Barbenheimer” bit, with Gosling telling Blunt that her film about the invention of a weapon of mass destruction had ridden Barbie’s pink coat tails to box-office success, and Blunt accusing Gosling of painting on his abs.

At first, I feared that this impossible juxtaposition would undercut Glazer’s intervention: how could the mournful and wrenching realities he had just invoked coexist with that kind of California high-school prom energy? Then it hit me: like the fuming defenders of Israel’s “right to defend itself”, the sparkly artifice that encased the speech was also helping to make his point.

“Genocide becomes ambient to their lives”: that is how Glazer has described the atmosphere he attempted to capture in his film, in which his characters attend to their daily dramas – sleepless kids, a hard-to-please mother, casual infidelities – in the shadow of smokestacks belching out human remains. It’s not that these people don’t know that an industrial-scale killing machine whirs just beyond their garden wall. They have simply learned to lead contented lives with ambient genocide.

It is this that feels most contemporary, most of this terrible moment, about Glazer’s staggering film. More than five months into the daily slaughter in Gaza, and with Israel brazenly ignoring the orders of the international court of justice, and western governments gently scolding Israel while shipping it more arms, genocide is becoming ambient once more – at least for those of us fortunate enough to live on the safe sides of the many walls that carve up our world. We face the risk of it grinding on, becoming the soundtrack of modern life. Not even the main event.

Glazer has repeatedly stressed that his film’s subject is not the Holocaust, with its well-known horrors and historical particularities, but something more enduring and pervasive: the human capacity to live with holocausts and other atrocities, to make peace with them, draw benefit from them.

When the film premiered last May, before Hamas’s 7 October attack and before Israel’s unending assault on Gaza, this was a thought experiment that could be contemplated with a degree of intellectual distance. The audience members at the Cannes film festival who gave The Zone of Interest a rapturous six-minute standing ovation likely felt safe toying with Glazer’s challenge. Perhaps some looked out at the azure Mediterranean and considered how they had themselves gotten comfortable with, even uninterested in, news of boats packed with desperate people being left to drown just down the coast. Or maybe they thought about the private jets they had taken to France, and the way flight emissions are entangled in the disappearance of food sources for impoverished people far away, or the extinction of species, or the potential disappearance of entire nations.

Glazer wanted his film to provoke these kinds of uneasy thoughts. He has said that he saw “the darkening world around us, and I had a feeling I had to do something about our similarities to the perpetrators rather than the victims.” He wanted to remind us that annihilation is never as far away as we might think.

But by the time Zone made it into theatres in December, Glazer’s subtle challenge for audiences to contemplate their inner Hösses cut a lot closer to the bone. Most artists try desperately to tap into the zeitgeist, but Zone, whose theatrical release has been muted given the initial response, may well have suffered from something rare in the history of cinema: a surplus of relevance, an oversupply of up-to-the-minuteness.

One of the film’s most memorable scenes comes when a package filled with clothing and lingerie stolen from the camp’s prisoners arrives at the Höss home. The commandant’s wife, Hedwig (played almost too convincingly by Sandra Hüller), decrees that everyone, including the servants, can choose one item. She keeps a fur coat for herself, even trying on the lipstick she finds in a pocket.

It is the intimacy of the entanglements with the dead that are so chilling. And I have no idea how anyone can watch that scene and not think of the Israeli soldiers who have filmed themselves rifling through the lingerie of Palestinians whose homes they are occupying in Gaza, or boasting of stealing shoes and jewelry for their fiances and girlfriends, or taking group selfies with Gaza’s rubble as the backdrop. (One such photo went viral after the writer Benjamin Kunkel added the caption “The Zone of Pinterest”.)

There are so many such echoes that, today, Glazer’s masterpiece feels more like a documentary than a metaphor. It’s almost as if, by filming Zone in the style of a reality show, with hidden cameras throughout the house and garden (Glazer has referred to it as “Big Brother in the Nazi House”), the movie anticipated the first live-streamed genocide, the version filmed by its perpetrators.

Zone offers an extreme portrait of a family whose placid and pretty life flows directly from the machinery devouring human life next door. This is most emphatically not a portrait of people in denial: they know what is happening on the other side of the wall, and even the kids play with scavenged human teeth. The concentration camp and the family home are not separate entities; they are conjoined. The wall of the family’s garden – creating an enclosed space for the children to play, and shade for the pool – is the same wall that, on the other side, encloses the camp.

Everyone I know who has seen the film can think of little but Gaza. To say this is not to claim a one-to-one equation or comparison with Auschwitz. No two genocides are identical: Gaza is not a factory deliberately designed for mass murder, nor are we close to the scale of the Nazi death toll. But the whole reason the postwar edifice of international humanitarian law was erected was so that we would have the tools to collectively identify patterns before history repeats at scale. And some of the patterns – the wall, the ghetto, the mass killing, the repeatedly stated eliminationist intent, the mass starvation, the pillaging, the joyful dehumanization, and the deliberate humiliation – are repeating.

So, too, are the ways that genocide becomes ambient, the way those of us a little further away from the walls can block the images, and tune out the cries, and just … carry on. That’s why the Academy made Glazer’s point for him when it hard-cut to Barbenheimer – itself a trivialization of mass slaughter – without missing a beat. Atrocity is once again becoming ambient. (One might see the entire Oscar spectacle as a kind of live-action extension of The Zone of Interest, a sort of Denialism on Ice.)

What do we do to interrupt the momentum of trivialization and normalization? That is the question so many of us are struggling with right now. My students ask me. I ask my friends and comrades. So many are offering their responses with relentless protests, civil disobedience, “uncommitted” votes, event interruptions, aid convoys to Gaza, fundraising for refugees, works of radical art. But it’s not enough.

And as genocide fades further into the background of our culture, some people grow too desperate for any of these efforts. Watching the Oscars on Sunday, where Glazer was alone among the parade of wealthy and powerful speakers across the podium to so much as mention Gaza, I remembered that exactly two weeks had passed since Aaron Bushnell, a 25-year-old member of the US air force, self-immolated outside the Israeli embassy in Washington.

I don’t want anyone else to deploy that horrifying protest tactic; there has already been far too much death. But we should spend some time sitting with the statement that Bushnell left, words I have come to view as a haunting, contemporary coda to Glazer’s film:

“Many of us like to ask ourselves, ‘What would I do if I was alive during slavery? Or the Jim Crow south? Or apartheid? What would I do if my country was committing genocide?’ The answer is, you’re doing it. Right now.”

[fantasyfantasygames]

Tomb Builder

Tomb Builder, Gnomekin Games, 2008

It's like Tomb Raider, but in reverse. I figured since a Tomb Raider TTRPG just got announced recently, it would be good to review a different game inspired by it.

Tomb Builder takes the "subtext is for cowards" approach and puts the clash between monstrous but human invaders and humane but monstrous defenders right at the front of the game. Your group is building an impenetrable series of death traps and summoning circles to keep "heroes" and "archaeologists", by which we mean "thieves", out of your ancestors' burial grounds, by which we mean "a dungeon". Your characters are chimerical monsters of all types, making you inherently more diverse than the thieves, but the game also describes eight different cultures that you can come from and encourages the group to play just one monster from each culture. Each group of invaders is from a single culture, with five of them described. The art reflects this: a slime in one drawing might be wearing rank emblems from the more military culture, while one in another drawing might have a pair of hair sticks holding their... um... ok, they gave a slime a bun like it had hair, and visually it works, and you might just have to trust me on that.

Chargen is fairly freeform, using what is essentially a Fate variant with aspects and skills. The skills are Builder, Defender, Genius, and Schemer. There are two main phases of the game, Downtime and Encounter. The phases themselves have their own Aspects, with the GM choosing from a list of 5 (10 total). Examples include "No time to lose", "Unexpected allies", and "Treachery is everywhere".

One of the neat things is that you don't need to plan out every step of your defensive plan beforehand. Instead, you get to narrate your past preparations as the thieves invade, effectively as a quick flashback, describing it as it was when you were setting up in the first place. You use Builder to generate rooms, Defender to repel the invaders physically or through intimidation, Genius to create advantages for others, and Schemer to spring traps. They map to the standard Fate actions fairly well, with a little extra flexibility allowed. For those who enjoy the planning phase, you can build up a stash of up to two Fate points per player by planning things out. When you do, the GM gets a "scouting" roll to see if the invaders get an Aspect related to preparation, so it's a little bit of a gamble but typically pays off overall.

So, does Tomb Builder manage to avoid the more problematic elements of Tomb Raider? Well.... not quite. It does a lot of reversals and subversion, but colonialism is still so embedded in the basic scenario of invaders/natives that it's impossible to shed it entirely. I'm of mixed opinions on the monstrous humans / humane monsters split - it averts one thing by falling into another. It's a fun game but I feel like it could have used a "pre-game discussion" section.

The writer of the upcoming TR:SoT:TTRPG did have some sage things to say about the inherent assholery of defiling someone's burial grounds to take things out of their literal graves. It's good to know that they're not going the "no politics" route. That game will get more eyes on it than Tomb Builder ever did.

Tomb Builder was initially discussed and hashed out on StoryGames.com (which is gone) and then published on 1km1kt (which is gone) with physical copies available via you know what you can probably guess where this is going.

[meirimerens]

god thank you for your response to that person I'm so tired of seeing takes that are like "the kin/the town are a 1:1 representation of the buryats" cuz... they're not... and honestly trying to hammer that point down comes off as quite insulting to the real and actual people they're supposedly represent.

the kin differs from the buryats by their economical system, faith and even medicine methods. the closest thing is the language cuz surprise, unless you're tolkien, coming up with a whole fictional language is hard

well, thank you, i'll guess. i'm not trying to start beef with nobody so everybody behave otherwise daddy's gonna get rude.

i also truly fully whole-heartedly believe the replier has no ill-intention, and probably has great love for the Kin (hence why they entered the discussion). it is also from great love for the Kin that i made the original post, AND from great love that i made my reply to the reply, which i felt ignored some issues that have for years been brought up + decided to seek the opinions of others who have more #knowledge than me.

wrt the kin i'm trying to like, be as... wide in my scope of it as i can and understand that yes, imaginary, bunch of shit not real, but also, very much real inspirations, and in these blurred lines of inspirations/imagination lies..... won't lie some racist biases, and perhaps what we could call intellectual colonialism: taking bits and pieces of real-life cultures for your Storey, while maybe not...... handling it.... the best........ again, i'm not like. The Best Person For The Job because. my sibling on this green earth i'm franco-french. but i try my best to read and listen what is said about the Kin by people for who their (mis)treatment matters most, and most of what i'm reading is. like Not Praise. ykwim..... i have no way of knowing if you, personally, are buryat or mongol or [...] & it's none my business, so i don't know how much of a horse you got in this race, but i'm trying to like. see things. a topic that demands careful examination and multiple perspectives? in the Multiple Perspectives video games? that's crazy.

there's also to me [as a storytellah] the fact that if patho wanted to fully represent all the peoples it is inspired by 1) it would be even more of a hodgepodge, and somewhat even more disrespectful, because the buryat and the mongols, while both Mongolic, are... not the same... they have different names for gods, places, different cosmogonies, [...]. the fact is, patho has multiple inspirations, and like. they're not... interchangeable... because central asian cultures are not interchangeable...... not monolithic......... and 2) it would make it so they can't go as quirky with the story as they did. the religion, the practices, the cosmogonies are invented (if inspired), and are not 1:1 to actual cultures. making it 1:1 to actual cultures would be disrespectful because you'd just... shove a new, fake religion upon these actually-existing peoples. or, you would have to write within the religious traditions of these peoples, which make it so. well. no living beating heart under the town, no albinos, no herb brides, no worms. you can make documentary-like games (i'd argue you should), but i think another thing that can/should be done is games by indigenous people about indigenous people and myths/stories, in the vein of "Never Alone (Kisima Ingitchuna)", by Iñupiat people, with an Iñupiaq main character, about Iñupiat stories/myths. we've discussed it in the big guy but lead writer D., being 1/16 Chinese, perhapssss doesn't really have the same relationship to the Central Asian cultures the Kin is inspired by as someone who is Buryat, or white/Buryat (like artemy), would have.

but at this core, i don't think patho wants to full represent the people it's inspired by. it's a story. it's interested in making a story. to me it appears it's interested in making associations and parallels, maybe even homages?, but never actual direct correlations or representation (which itself can be another discussion. the kin is obviously central asian, from central-asian inspirations: how much of it can be seen as representation? how much of it as appropriation?) it makes up fake people for its fake town dealing with its fake illness. all of those have foundations, have obvious, legible roots, but they're not the same, and i'd argue it's... more disrespectful pretending the kin is 100% [ethnicity] (because. uh. [70 pages document about the mistreatment of the Kin])

(i also think this... """blurred line"""... allows for a... in-game and out-of-game [esp. fandom] a certain like. distance. or maybe suspension of disbelief. about the racism. like "oh, they're not a real culture, therefore i'm not showing Actually Racist(tm) biases when i depict members of the Kin as engaging in ritualistic sexual abuse, as being sexually violating or violent,..., because they're Not Real, so it's okay" which is. methinks somewhat braindead take. seen with my two eyes against my will to be fair)

tldr

An Imaginary People that's Not Real while taking from obvious inspirations because that's what you do when you write a story; you make shit up, especially if you plan on getting quirky wit it in ways no Actual Culture is because you're putting. Worms and the living beating Heart under the town and a Tower that defies the laws of physics (fake and gay?) and nobody.. has those. + it'd be way weirder if those women you're killing and making sexualize themselves were meant to be Real Ethnicity. i'd argue that'd be worse. so yeah. imagined. HOWEVERRRRRR[1][2][3][4][5]