#diaspora paragraph with

[kindlespark]

i get why ppl say that babel was too 'telling not showing' with the cohorts' friendship; robin's internal monologue says his cohort were all in love with each other, but we mostly get dialogue of them fighting *cough* and letty being racist *cough*. i just think that that was kind of the point!

robin is a great flawed protagonist and most importantly an unreliable narrator, and the disparity between what he tells you and the dialogue scenes we actually get feels intentional to me, because you can feel the disconnect between what robin wanted and his reality. when he was still in love with babel, he wanted their cohort to be a perfect romantic ideal, wanted to think their fights were overcomeable, that ramy and victoire felt the same that he did. but the cracks were there from the beginning; their relationships were always fucked up. the effects of colonialism/imperialism robin wanted so badly to ignore had doomed them from the beginning. babel in ramy or victoire's perspective would be wildly wildly different because it's clear they did not have robin's privilege

i just love that robin is like truly such a damn liberal for half the book, never truly committing to hermes, holding onto his whiteness and desire to belong, and that this flaw is what dooms his relationship with ramy. people celebrate babel for its scathing critique of white feminism, and they should, but it's also so damning of liberal activism too imo. robin as a protagonist exemplifies the way fellow poc will often uphold racist structures for their own benefit and to avoid complicating themselves--and that this will always be a futile selfish endeavour. robin must, like all of us, come to the conclusion that he will never belong while this system remains intact, that his privilege isn't worth the suffering of those alike him, and that resisting it however he can is the only moral and just thing to do. wow i got sidetracked but robin swift wasian character of all time fr

[geges]

did someone just tag my post as sinophobia...???$??÷?#*÷,,÷=&= do i need to post a video of my chinese ass speaking lanyin mandarin for yall to get it through you heads that not everyone who disagrees with you is white?

[friendtechbd]

A diaspora paragraph 8-10, SSC, HSC and all students 100-500 words

A diaspora paragraph 8-10, SSC, HSC and all students 100-500 words. Go through the below written paragraph carefully, hope you will be able to appear in any exam by reading it. A diaspora paragraph 120 keywords Diaspora refers to the dispersion of a community of people from their homeland, often across different regions or countries. It is a term that encompasses the rich tapestry of cultures,…

[buggywiththefolkmagic]

Buggy's Book Reviews: The Old Mountain Spellbook

Well well well, look who has returned after a long hiatus while life kicked my ass from here to Sunday. Let's get started with a bang shall we? TW: Slavery mentions, appropriation, generalized frustration at the writing space currently with the rise of ghost writers and AI.

This is: The Old Mountain Spellbook by Alda Dagny

Rating: 1/10 

Buckle up. This is gonna be a bumpy ride. Prepare to be shocked, horrified, and gobsmacked.

For context the cover art of this book caught my eye and then I read the small blurb of a subtitle for it and cringed so incredibly hard that the moment it showed up in my Spotify audio book list, I had to give it a listen for a measly 3 and a half hours of my life while at work. 

I regret this decision so very hard.

For further context:

This “author” Alda Dagny has also written books on…”The Secrets of the Nile” a three part series called “The Old Norse Spellbook:”, and “Secrets of Mesoamerica”. 

My head hurts from thinking about the gall to “write” on such a wide variety of topics in a seniority form. But before I get ahead of myself let me go back into my proper format for these reviews.

Pros: SOME of the information is right. The mentions of planting by the signs and how the signs works was very accurate. The generalized description of grannies, while very surface level and focused far too heavily on the midwife aspect, which don’t get me wrong is super mega ulta important! Was right if not very generalized. That’s about all I’ve got. 

It does mention that Hoodoo is a closed practice that stems from African Dispora/the Trans-Atlantic slave trade which good for this “author”. You will understand why that term is in parenthesis later! 

This book also included a Bell Witch mention twice which made my Tennessee heart hopeful for like two seconds.

Cons: Gods help me. For starters, I know this was likely not a choice this “author” made, but why in the seven hells did the publisher pick an AUSTRALIAN PERSON to do the narration for this book? The mispronunciation of Appalachia and Asfidy are now burned into my brain for life. I do not appreciate it. The MINIMUM a narrator should do is glance through for proper pronunciations. 

My gripes with the audiobook out of the way let’s get into the meat of this review: The book’s contents and why I believe this was ghost written/stolen from other places and put forward by an ai generated “author”. 

The second entire chapter of this book, a whopping 40 minutes of the audiobook, is all about Hoodoo. The real thing that got me was it SAYS that Hoodoo is a CLOSED PRACTICE stemming from Africa Diaspora. And what does this book do anyway? Break Hoodoo down into stupid candle magic and mojo bags and tell you how to do “it”. I was surprised it got the origin of Hoodoo right! It was RIGHT! And then it shits on itself. 

Examples: Hoodoo shares similarities with wicca. Tarot is incredibly important to the practice. And it is a religion and not a practice. The practice is “rootwork”. Did I mention that Hoodoo focuses on “doing no harm”? Oh and the third eye is important too, especially to Hoodoo despite it being a Hindu concept. I cannot make this up.

The wording of this book is also incredibly strange. I don’t have a ebook version to double check but I am positive the words Furthermore and However are included at least 50 times. EACH. The book also repeats itself numerous times. A good example is with the Furnace Ghost story it tells in the 4th chapter I believe? Where it repeats the same end of sentence with just slightly different beginnings within the same paragraph. There’s also other phrases used at the end of chapters to usher in the next that just read…weirdly? Examples: “Let me set the stage” “You are not going to want to miss this.” What are you writing a script or a book? 

Now for the proper “Appalachian Magic” side of the book. It consistently uses the term Granny Witch, and states numerous times that witchcraft was just fine! Appalachia did not care and the “fear” of witches never penetrated the mountains. But yet a “granny witch” would use faith not as a proper form of healing, oh no! It was “to keep doubters at bay”. So faith healing was a cover up and not the actual practice itself. 

This book also has two whole chapters on legends and myths, which is fine, if it didn’t focus on the ones everyone knows like Bigfoot and Mothman only. Like it doesn’t cover any of the smaller localized things or spirits at all. Just the things you could easily find if you googled “appalachia spooky”. Hmmmmmm. Strange isn’t it? 

This book also stated that tarot and black tourmaline was ULTRA important to Appalachian magic. Like where does that come from? There’s another chapter dedicated to the phases of the moon and “spells”  which they mean in a modern new-age witchcraft way and definitely not Appalachian, although I will give it props for saying the moon phases and astrology are different here. Because they are.

Tiktok was mentioned twice; it appropriates dreamcatchers and other Hoodoo items in the “non-Hoodoo” sections of the book. Hell, it even said, accurately mind you, that Mothman has even “spawned fanfiction”. It even got the information on where Roanoke was…wrong.  Roanoke is in Virginia. This book claims it is in North Carolina. 

The most damning thing however, and I use that however in a very sarcastic tone, is the “author” herself. I painstakingly typed in some text from the book and was surprised to see it come back as “human written”. I don’t think that’s quite true, if it is then they text portions must be stolen from other sources and shoved into a book form. Because this author? A bot.

Her profile image used on Amazon, which is the ONLY SOURCE of information on her, no socials, no google, nothing. Is AI generated. Proof is here: 

And a blurb from the book I wanted to include as well. The first of many furthermores used.

The author's Biography, which again is the ONLY SOURCE OF INFORMATION on this supposed person, says as follows: "Alda Dagny has always been drawn to history. Growing up in Scandinavia, history has always been all around her, gods and goddesses, pagan rituals and spells. Ancient ruins that dot her homeland captivated her from an early age, giving her a lifelong love of all things history. " That's all I can find. That's it. Just AI and or ghost writing/theft has officially found itself in the AFM space. I hate this society.

[batsarebetterthanpeople]

I tried so hard not to be parasocial about it but this letter thing is fucking me up, man. I've written a few overly flattering letters to evil government officials before myself. but how did someone convince all these reasonable-seeming people (strangers that I do not know) to publicly sign this centrist-ass letter? I understand they probably got Taika Waititi and Jack Black with the everyone can share, peace and love on the planet earth wording, but Jordan Peele? what. how did that happen. it makes no sense to me.

Ok I'm gonna front load my position on the Israel-Palestine conflict before I answer this ask so that no one can accuse me of shit I didn't say. If you want to see what I have to say on the letter itself, scroll to the big font. I'm as anti-zionist as they come I don't think that governments should even exist at all, I consider Israel to be an illegitimate state the same way I consider the country I live in (USA) to be an illegitimate state. I think that if we're going to have countries at all, which we shouldn't, that country should be Palestine and individual Jewish people certainly should be welcome to move there for whatever reason they want, including religious, but that the people who already lived there shouldn't be displaced because of it. And if they wanted me to support Israel on the basis of Jewish people needing somewhere to go after the Holocaust, they should have put Israel in Europe in 1945 instead of in the Arabian Peninsula in 1918. I tend to think the hard core zionists who aren't Jewish are trying to deport diaspora Jewish people somewhere based on the way I have heard other goyim speak about Israel. I am sympathetic to Jewish people who believe this has nuance but ultimately I cannot condone the displacement of Palestinians. That position might lose me followers but really I don't care.

Now that I have gotten that out of the way

(This first paragraph is for everyone who's out of the loop and has only seen the Tumblr posts about this issue, Anon does seem to know what I'm about to say) I do also think this whole thing with the letter is being blown out of proportion a little bit? That's not to say it's a good letter, it does contain language which blames Hamas for the conflict which is the western propaganda line so that countries like the United States and Britain don't have to admit that they caused and are funding this whole operation because they hate brown people. However celebrities are rubes who fall for government propaganda all the fucking time. What the letter itself actually calls for is Biden to facilitate the release of Israeli hostages. I consider this letter to be the vaguely Zionist equivalent of that time all those celebrities got on zoom and sang imagine because COVID was happening. I certainly doubt that the man who produced Get Out and Us supports the genocide and I also question whether the man who directed Reservation Dogs does either. Most likely they were asked "will you sign a letter calling for the release of Israeli hostages?" And they said "well releasing hostages sounds nice."

(this paragraph is for anon) Despite the fact that I think "these 70 celebrities condone Palestinian genocide" is incredibly reductive I would encourage you to see these people as human beings, and more specifically idiot millionaires who are out of touch. I believe that Taika Waititi understands the Maori struggle and generally tries to be a nice liberal but ultimately he is a man who grew up in the 80s with a lot of money who has an interest in keeping that money. His gaff transphobia tweets (which I didn't think were that bad considering he made it in 2013 and wasn't even talking about trans women, but they were still transphobic) and his pearl clutching during the BLM riots made this abundantly clear (both of these incidents are Taika Twitter originals that people have sent me trying to get me to hate him and I saw both of them and was like "that's what I thought you'd say old man"), and the fact that he married Rita "blackfish" Ora. I'm way less plugged in to what Jordan Peele is doing because I've never had an anon send me his call out post but I'm going to assume that the same thing is true of him: he understands the struggle of black people in the United States, despite this moment of basedness I probably politically disagree with him on many many counts. As for Jack Black he donates to autism speaks so he's coming for me and the Palestinians. Although that said so does Gaga and I'm still very much a fan of her.

I've basically had to come to terms with the fact that no celeb that I like the work of agrees with me about politics because all of them are rich and I am a communist. That's not going to stop me from liking their work, it's not going to stop me from bothering some of them at cons when I get the chance. Because again they're just guys. And most guys are idiots. I am an idiot about a lot of things. We don't expect Taika Waititi or Jordan Peele to know about every conflict in the world we expect them to make entertaining and perhaps insightful movies. I am not here because I think Taika agrees with me on all things. I am here because I want to watch a rom com about gay men who murder people, one of whom is just like me for real.

Anyway do your research

[kitchen-light]

As a Palestinian in diaspora, nothing builds my connection to the land more than literature. It is not just the scenes detailed by our great poets that makes the ground feel realer under my feet, but the gravitational pull towards each other that gives me belief in that liberated homeland. In my work as a critic, I’ve often played it safe; devoted my time to works I loved or could situate as a positive contribution to the culture, shying away from being public in my negative critiques. As I read and re-read Ghassan Kanafani’s On Zionist Literature, I am reminded that this work is, in fact, a matter of life-or-death; literatures can set the stage for the attempted annihilation of a people, and it is our responsibility to point to it. How often have I chosen a slow death in service of comfort? The truth is, I have never been able to look around a room and not see the genocidal escalation to come—if the vitriolic disregard for human life, for Palestinian life, did not permeate through to our most mundane of activities, over 18,000 Palestinians would not have been killed in the past 67 days, over 1.5 million would not be displaced from Gaza. As Gaza’s poets are assassinated, as the libraries are destroyed, as Palestinians across historic Palestine (and all over the world) are arrested for dissent, as writers face censorship globally for speaking the truth of the genocide that is occurring, we must consider: if literature is your corner, what will you do to rid it of these violences? 

Summer Farah, from the opening paragraphs of "Palestinian Poets on the Role of Literature in Fighting Genocide | Summer Farah, Samah Fadil, Priscilla Wathington, and Rasha Abdulhadi discuss countering Zionist propaganda and mobilizing art into action", published in Lit Hub, December 14, 2023. You can read the full discussion here

[reasonandempathy]

how can you reblog a Zionist post criticizing people who support Palestine for allowing themselves to be harmed in an effort to support Palestine (https://www.tumblr.com/reasonandempathy/743584944850354176/politics-is-fucking-soul-churning-it-really-is) while also seeming to respect Aaron Bushnell, who made the ultimate sacrifice in an effort to support Palestine? is it so unthinkable that people would be willing to act against their own interest to stop a genocide?

TLDR; that post isn't denying people can self-sacrifice to stop a genocide. That post is about taking the broader context into perspective, and remembering that Trump Is Still So Much Worse, so you should vote against him.

-------------------------------------

Was thinking about this one, actually.

Didn't know the person's broader political views until checking them out, and while it's important context for that person individually, but the post at large still, broadly, stands.

There is, undoubtedly, an aspect of political discourse that promotes people who would vote for Biden to stay home or vote for someone not Biden and not Trump, rooted in (to a much lesser extent than Bushnell, who was being compelled to be an active participant) not wanting to be complicit in that genocide.

What I took to be the main thrust of that post was to point out the unfortunately very, very real dynamic of not helping Biden win would, objectively, be worse for everyone including Palestinians if Trump wins. And in a truly, honestly Binary choice between D or R, there is a correct choice to make. It's Biden.

The first few paragraphs of that post are basic "don't be selective with your care." Which is true.

The rape of Israeli women, the Jewish Diaspora, The various tortures and war crimes inflicted by Hamas and the Houthis are not things to be forgotten nor supported. The world is fucking complicated and "Good Guys" are in incredibly short supply, but "Hooray Huthis" is what I'd call an incredibly fraught tightrope to walk.

----------

The main thrust of that post, though, is referring to people who know Trump is worse and have done extensive work broadcasting that Trump is, objectively, Worse for Palestinians. Worse for Women. Worse for the LGBTQ community. Worse for Non-Christians. Worse for BIPOC. It's pretty simple and reasonable to think that if Trump was in the White House he would find some way to be even worse right now than Biden is being.

But they still can't endorse or support Biden. Who is definitely horrible, but also objectively the better of the 2 options we have.

Which is why I said Politics is soul-churning. Because it is. Because, outside of any actual plan to get anyone else into the White House, it is objectively Better for the people I care about.

My fiance.

My friends.

My extended family.

My Neighbors.

My trade union (though I haven't been in it for a few years).

My city.

My values.

It is objectively Better for Biden to be in power than Trump, which, again, is the only realistic alternative to Trump. But it does mean voting for the guy. And, yeah, I'm in NY (not a secret). Maybe I could vote for the Justice Party or the Green Party or something else.

But I can't assume nobody else will do that, and ceding what small influence I have (.000008% of Biden's popular vote in 2020) to actually help people to instead assuage my personal beliefs is putting my comfort over that small, minuscule, but very Real influence in being able to help people.

I...have blood on my hands. (broadly) We all do. I just want to add less to it.

[alexanderwales]

I'm reading a book which capitalizes Black for black characters, and it's one of those things that I had seen a lot before but never really paid that much attention to (not paying attention to things is underrated). So I figured this was a good enough time to go do some research, especially since it rubs me the wrong way.

The argument is, essentially, that names of ethnic and national groups ought to be capitalized, and that Black is especially important because ethnic identity was forcibly stripped away. Black people have something of a shared identity, and it's "orthographic injustice" to use a lower case b.

I personally think this gets awkward very fast, but that might be because I'm a fan of science fiction and fantasy. Took me about three seconds to find an example:

The members of House Velaryon, pale-skinned and purple-eyed in George R.R. Martin's hallowed texts, are wealthy Black seafarers in the HBO series — their race having been the subject of a number of think pieces, rants, and general internet weighings-in.

See, but they're not Black. They in fact have no connection to Africa or the African diaspora. The blood of old Valyria runs through their veins. What they're trying to refer to is skin color, but instead they use an ethnic identifier for an ethnicity that, again, does not exist in Westeros.

There are a lot of times and places that I think it would be appropriate to refer to a shared identity, but there are other times when I just want to refer to the color of someone's skin: when skin color is the thing that I'm talking about, rather than questions of identity.

Maybe it just feels New and I'll get used to it.

In the particular book I'm reading, a character is referred to as Black on first introduction, before we know a single thing about her, and it felt very loaded to me, like it was assuming things about the character that couldn't logically be assumed, particularly because another character introduced in the next paragraph was a princess from a Faerie realm (or something, I'm still reading).

I'm curious whether this is a uniquely American thing, because at first blush I would guess that it is, though American things have a way of spreading out into the rest of the world. I did my research duty and went to check whether e.g. the BBC uses "Black", which the AI overview assured me they do and which the actual website informed me they don't. Similarly, the AI overview told me that The Guardian uses "Black" and the actual style guide that was linked told me that it doesn't (unless a writer or editor prefers it).

I will grudgingly defer to whatever everyone else is doing, since I'm not a crusader on things that don't affect me.

(Note: In This Used to be About Dungeons, Alfric and his family are always described as "dark-skinned" specifically because "black" has a bunch of cultural connotations in America. I think this was slightly clunky, not sure that I would do it again, but also not sure how I would do it differently.)

[the-garbanzo-annex-jr]

by Adam Levick

Jay Rayner, in a restaurant review for The Observer (sister site of The Guardian), sampled the salt beef sandwich, matzah ball soup, chopped liver, bagels, and pickles at a new Jewish deli in London called Freddie’s. (Freddie’s, London: “Over salt beef, I brood on the need to review this Jewish deli” — restaurant review, March 31).

The review was mixed. The Jewish journalist loved the salt beef sandwich, but it “pained” him to criticize the chicken soup as “desperately under-seasoned.” Something else that clearly pained him actually isn’t on the menu. Nor does it have anything whatsoever to do with the review. Though, as you’ll see in the paragraphs below, he tries desperately to imagine one:

And now I should warn you that it’s going to take a dark turn. When I first came across Freddie’s I was excited. For all my lack of faith or observance these dishes, kept alive by a vestigial memory of the shtetl, root me. Then I hesitated. Could I really write about a Jewish restaurant given the current political turmoil? Would I get abuse for doing so? Surely better to keep shtum.

At which point I knew I had no choice: I had to write about it. The horrendous campaign of the government and armed forces of Israel in Gaza cannot be allowed to make being Jewish a source of shame.

When Hamas mounted their 7 October attack on Israel, they committed both an atrocity and a provocation. With so many hostages taken, there were no good options for the Israeli government. Nevertheless, they managed to choose the very worst one. They have killed thousands, starved many more, destroyed homes and turned their country into a pariah. As it happens, they have also made life for Jews who live outside Israel and have no responsibility for the decisions its government takes, so very much harder. I deplore what Israel is doing. But that doesn’t mean I can “refute” my Jewishness. That is a surrender to antisemitism. And so I sit here with my terrific salt beef sandwich and my chocolate mousse, indulging that bit of my Jewish identity which makes sense to me. It’s not much, but it’s all I have. [emphasis added]

Life for the British Jewish community has indeed been much, much harder since Oct. 7.

The CST reported 4,103 instances of anti-Jewish hate in 2023, 2,699 (66%) of which occurred on or after October 7. This figure alone, they note, “exceeds any previous annual antisemitic incident total recorded by CST, and marks an increase of 589% from the 392 instances of antisemitism reported to CST over the same time period in 2022″ [emphasis added].

However, Rayner’s suggestion that the decisions of Israel’s government has made life for Jews “so very much harder” is itself a classic (and codified) trope that has been used by antisemites — blaming Jews in Israel for the racist actions of non-Jews in the UK.

It’s amazing that this even needs to be stated, but the only ones responsible for increased antisemitism — in the UK or anywhere else — are those committing antisemitic acts. Even if you buy into the author’s argument that Jerusalem’s military decisions since the barbarism of Oct. 7 have been the “worst” ones possible, or subscribe to the specific lie that Israel has intentionally “starved” Gazans, what people — other than those who are already predisposed to hating Jews — would take their anti-Israel fury out on diaspora Jews?

Only at The Guardian, would a Jewish restaurant critic writing a review about salt beef, bagels, and shmears feel the need to condemn and distance himself from the Jewish State.

[spyderslut]

"No one deserves a state. Creating a state for a people, regardless of where you choose to put it, implies the displacement of the people already there. It implies, and necessitates, genocide. And it is evil." This paragraph contains 4 statements. 3 are false and 1 would only be true if the prior 3 were.

"No one deserves a state" - false. Everyone has a right to self-determination; in some cases groups of people may express that right through the creation of a political entity (i.e. a state)

"Creating a state for a people, [...] implies the displacement of the people already there" No it doesn't. That is a hell of a leap.

"It implies, and necessitates, genocide." Again, that is a hell of a leap.

"And it is evil" If the previous statements weren't so nonsensical, it would be

Also, the movement for a free Palestine generally seeks Palestinian statehood. Even if one were to believe your arguments, they'd have to apply them to Palestine as well, and if you were to do that you'd get something that sounds like hardline Revisionist Zionist propaganda fairly quickly.

the existence of state power implies the violence needed to create and maintain it. If a group of people "create a homeland for" a diaspora, then that means they are going to have to choose somewhere to put that homeland. As much as early zionists described Palestine as an empty land without culture "a land without a people for a people without a land", there were people there. And it would never have been possible to do what they did peacefully as some did acknowledge, openly calling it colonialism. The state is an inherently unjust and violent institution. As much as tyrants would like to convince you its the only way to do things, it quite simply is not. People do not need commisars kings or presidents to rule over them. We simply need eachother, working in mutual cooperation for the benefit of all, no man above and no man bellow another. And yes, no one deserves a state. Not even palestinians. For the time being, however, the prescient matter is the removal of the genocidal colonialist government. The rest will be figured out once israel is gone.

[sissa-arrows]

Me waiting for the ECOWAS to threaten Gabon the way they did for Niger to prove they are not France’s lapdog and that their threats to declare war to Niger were really about democracy and human rights and not about serving France’s interests in the region.

Edit: This post is sarcastic. A comment from @zvaigzdelasas (thank you) made me realize that for people who know nothing about the situation my post could seem very serious. So to clarify…

While the ECOWAS could say something about the situation them not saying anything wouldn’t be surprising either. Not because they are sell outs (even if they are) but simply because Niger was part of the ECOWAS and Gabon is not. On top of it a potential intervention in Gabon would require the support of Cameroon at the very least they would need to be allowed to fly over Cameroon. Cameroon was (still is) against a military intervention in Niger so it’s safe to assume they would be against a military intervention in Gabon too. Also while I talk about French imperialism and hypocrisy, the US also have a big influence in central Africa which is to take into account. France doesn’t have to deal just with African countries the US are involved too and that changes the range of what France can say and do while expecting no real consequences.

Lastly given how important Gabon is for France and what happened during the last election, added to the fact that the coup is not anti western imperialism at all and that the French medias are oddly supporting it, it wouldn’t be surprising if this was a fake coup supported by France to avoid a real coup that would hurt France’s interests in Gabon.

(This last paragraph is pure speculation and my opinion only. I mean you’ll find other Africans in the continent and in the diaspora who think the same but that’s not something backed by anything except this happening in the past and the fact that any coup in Africa that doesn’t ask for the end of Weatern imperialism is suspicious as fuck.)

[metamatar]

Has it occurred to you that op of that post is Black and thus may just. Be talking from a different context than you think? Also not all diaspora lives in the west (although you have a point about proximity to whiteness)

That was not a post claiming to be specific to any one kind of diaspora. I don't think that changes much about my first paragraph though? I reblogged it from someone who is Indian diaspora, so I thought the context in the second paragraph was useful to add.

Even if the context is the relationship between black diaspora and countries in the african subcontinent which is complicated by legacies of slavery... Thomas Sankara was a black, Pan Africanist revolutionary key to the foundation of Burkina Faso. To claim people in the mainland that have historically launched revolutions due to the material reality of the destruction of their homelands by white colonisers are idiots who believe in reverse racism is divorced from reality. I mean South African blacks are leading out rallies this month calling to kill all Boers you cannot seriously be claiming black people in the mainland love whites. There are ongoing coups in Francophone Africa invoking discourses of decolonisation right now! This is happening in Niger. Claiming all people in Africa are 'mentally colonised' and love white tourists is just reinvoking colonial tropes about servility wrt your own people.

[fragile-in-pink]

The Rise and Fall of Romania at Eurovision: How Did it Come to This?

An analysis by David Popescu - read it HERE I want to share the paragraph concerning Theodor's participation. I'm so glad that the truth is being spoken.

Theodor Andrei became our representative, a young and talented boy who had so many ideas and visions for his time in Liverpool. All of it, just scrapped. We even had a chat with him in Chișinău, ahead of the Moldovan national final, where he explained in deep details about everything he had envisioned. From the meaning of his entire national final performance to his expectations in Liverpool… none of it was seen. Shortly after the 2023 final, it was revealed that Theodor had scored… nothing! Literally zero points! The Romanian diaspora is very strong across Europe, but the Eurovision Song Contest just doesn’t get the Romanian attention anymore. I personally met some Romanians as well while in Liverpool, some casual viewers even, who were just there to enjoy the festivities. But when asked about this failure, they all said the same thing: this was TVR‘s zero points, not Theodor‘s.

💙💛❤️

[belovedgamers]

asks for you on your birthday! any combination of [ 🍄, ❄️, 🦋, 🪲] :D?

Hiii I answered this and it didn't save and I was devastatedddd and needed time to recover lmao. Anyway, take two :D

🍄 ⇢ share a head canon for one of your favourite ships or pairings

While running her experiments, Lizzie definitely forgot an appointment or two with Joel, but it all evens out because sometimes he forgets about the day it is because of his sculpting or building or--

This continues to today. There are things they definitely hold very dear and try to schedule around, but most of the time if Lizzie is like "we booked an ocean tour around evening and it's FULL of rich people sorry", Joel's reply is something like "ooooh, more time to work out the floor's tiling". They lead very chaotic and busy lives <3

❄️ ⇢ what's your dream theme/plot for a fic, and who would write it best?

I really want to read a fic exploring what Mythland's citizens were going through during the corruption arc, and how many likely left their homes behind. Could be a single family or even just a person, or many, really. I'd be especially interested in seeing these runaways flee to the Cod Empire (Mythland is vast, for some Helianthia would be too far, and Pearl has her own relationship with the demon that may not be super comforting to run towards). How do you choose to run to your enemy? Why should they take you? Where do you go? Is there already an established Mythic diaspora there? There probably should be! And how do these cultures connect or clash? What prejudices do they all have to unlearn?

As to for who'd write it, peradi or prolix, who each wrote one of my favorite Star Wars fics (have you heard and things we know by heart, both about storm troopers rebelling). Neither of them writes for mcyt though, which means I'll have to roll up my sleeves and figure out some more geography. Heh.

🦋 ⇢ share something that has been on your heart and mind lately

I had a completely different thing here, but it got sent into the aether, so a new topic it is.

A while ago I saw a post with someone very disappointed/frustrated with George R. R. Martin's response to "what's the solar system that causes superseasons?" The response was "it's magic". The poster said you need to have an idea of why your planet works the way it works in mechanical terms, not something that handwaves and dismisses it.

I've been thinking about that lately, with Empires. Do I agree with the poster? I'm not sure. This isn't a defense of Martin, I dislike the guy, but I do think if you're reading a fantasy series with prophecies and dragons and curses and sorcerers... you do have to, at some point, accept "it's magic" for an answer?

The way I see it in Empires, where there are dragons and prophecies and curses and wizards, monsters and gods and immortals, I think of magic as a force that affects the environment, sometimes in unquantifiable ways. If you're one of the people who loves playing around with the idea presented in the end poem that the universe loves you, and I am, then that's another alive force to consider. I would even say that relying on magic is useful when translating game mechanics into a world, and then you can figure out who has access to what kind of magic or how these spell castings differ.

But maybe I am alone in this? I don't know. I'm a "politics, language, textiles and food" kinda guy. If I'm asked to figure out a solar system or complex biological underground networks, I will start weeping.

🪲 ⇢ add 50 words to your current wip and share the paragraph here

This will only make sense to you, or I hope it does. 53 words! Look at me go.

Umbra’s hands were warm. The memory is a punishment, these days. She used to reach out to him, his rough cheek held by her rougher palm, and smile. No, not smile, relax. She didn’t smile much, towards the end. A lot of details have faded, but not that one. He remembers that one.

It's no longer my birthday! Writer's truth or dare!

[fatehbaz]

[T]he lands that they reside on [...] are currently under siege from these different extractivist development initiatives.

There are about 46 Garifuna communities along the Caribbean coast of Honduras and on the island of Roatán, and because these are coastal communities located on lands that are highly coveted now for their touristic potential, tourism investors have taken an interest. There’s a lot of land speculation and land-grabbing taking place related to tourism, but also related to agro-industry and agricultural development, specifically African palm. [...]

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Garifuna have this really complicated history. They are a Black Indigenous people of African, Arawak, and Carib ancestry. They arrived in Honduras in 1797, initially in Roatán, after they were exiled from the island of Saint Vincent. And then from there, they established all these communities along the Caribbean coast of Honduras.

They have been in Honduras since before Honduras gained its independence from Spain in 1823. And I think that’s really significant, because what we see happening is that Garifuna are often positioned as outsiders to Honduras or as recent arrivants. [...]

What is so fundamentally problematic about Garifuna identity [...] for the Honduran state? [...]

There are Garifuna communities in Belize and Nicaragua and Guatemala, and of course, a large Garifuna diaspora in the U.S. [...]

The other point that’s important to mention here is that this sort of exteriorization of Blackness is very much related to Honduran history. So after Honduras gains independence from Spain, like many other countries in Latin America, it is attempting to carve out a unique national identity [...]. It is exclusive of Blackness. Of course, that has all sorts of political and material consequences for Black Hondurans, including the Garifuna, the English-speaking Black population or the Creole population, and even the Miskito population, which also has African ancestry. [...]

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The development projects that are underway on the Caribbean coast, and that are leading to land dispossession, are projects promoted not just by the state but multilateral institutions like the World Bank and the Inter-American Development Bank. They’re promoted as projects that will create development, that will bring progress and prosperity to Honduras, but often at the expense of Indigenous and Black peoples’ rights. Lands with the largest concentrations of forests, water, white sand beaches, fertile soil — those are largely concentrated in Indigenous and Black territories. So that development or that promise for a more prosperous future is contingent on the extraction of those resources from those communities.

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Words of Christopher Loperena. As interviewed by the Graduate Center at CUNY. “’The Ends of Paradise’ Explores the Struggles of Honduras’ Black and Indigenous Peoples.” Published by the Office of Communications and Marketing, online in the News section of CUNY’s Graduate Center. 16 March 2023. [Some paragraph breaks and contractions added by me, for accessibility/readability.]